Chapter 66
THE QUIET RAP ON the door to his office roused Estevez from a stupor.
He’d been on his feet most of the last seventy-two hours.
What a perfect storm of insanity this case had abruptly turned into.
One of his senior agents sadistically poisoned.
New Orleans’s most respected doctor, exposed as a murderer and deviant—dead by suicide.
The famous Fant?me—blown up and sunk. Seven corpses, burned beyond recognition, fished out of the Delta.
And then, to top it off, the corpse of one of New Orleans’s young socialites, tragically struck down by premature cardiac death, suddenly exposed as murder, not peacefully reposing in the family tomb as everyone supposed, but in a pervert’s den of horror. All of New Orleans was in an uproar.
What had actually happened on board the Fant?me was still somewhat unclear, because no eyewitnesses had been left behind—except, of course, the one who’d just knocked on his door.
In his debriefing, which Estevez had observed but not participated in, Pendergast claimed to have been imprisoned in a coal bunker, emerging only after the boat’s explosion tore a hole in it that allowed him to escape—and for that reason he could shed no light on the events leading up to the explosion or the deaths of the crew.
However, he’d witnessed Chambers’s death and the suicide of Magnus: in his debriefing, he’d been careful to emphasize how Chambers himself had cracked the Wickman case; how he had saved Pendergast’s life in the burning house; how he’d identified the medical experiments led by Dr. Telligren, which had resulted in irreparable damage to a little-known part of the brain associated with both perception and psychosis; how he suspected Magnus, who along with Wickman had been one of Telligren’s students and a subject of the experiments, to be the doctor’s killer; and how, finally, Chambers had gone to the Fant?me to question Magnus, only to be murdered by him—cruelly and with premeditation.
“Enter,” Estevez said curtly.
Agent Pendergast walked in. Estevez purposely did not offer him a seat.
“Has the plaque for my partner on the Wall of Heroes been approved yet?” Pendergast asked.
“You don’t have to worry on that score, Pendergast,” said Estevez. “The recommendation has gone to the director, and I have no doubt, with your sworn affidavit, that Agent Chambers will be added to the DC memorial.”
Pendergast bowed his head in satisfaction.
“But let’s talk about you for a moment. In particular, your future.” Estevez was shrewd enough to know that Pendergast had said all he was going to say, even though Estevez suspected he knew a great deal more.
“Sir.”
“It’s a rather short agenda—two items, merely. First, I’d like to congratulate you. Your probationary period will expire in six months, and I’m pleased to let you know I’ve recommended you be given full status as a special agent.”
“I am glad to hear it. Thank you.”
“We are all grateful for your part in assisting Chambers in his courageous and successful efforts in bringing Wickman to justice and exposing Magnus as the deviant murderer he actually was.”
“I learned a great deal from Agent Chambers, and for that I will be forever grateful.”
“Agent Chambers was a hero, and I’m pleased to hear that you learned much from him. And now for the second item. With your promotion to full agent will come reassignment to a new FO.”
Pendergast raised one eyebrow in mute inquiry.
“To put it more bluntly—your tenure here is on a six-month timer, starting now.” Estevez paused; when Pendergast said nothing, he continued.
“I’ve already spoken to Executive Assistant Director Decker about it and secured his approval.
You will spend the remainder of your probationary period here, per regulations—but on light desk duty only.
You might wish to work on a cold case or two, just as you were doing when you first arrived—I understand one or two were of particular interest.”
“That’s true. One such case, although six years stale, struck my interest. In particular. It involved a freighter washing up in Bayou Grove, with—”
“Very good. I encourage you to spend as much time as possible in the basement archives looking into that as well as any other old cases that might interest you. Meanwhile, Decker is sending me a list of field offices for you to choose from. The decision is yours—just so it’s not in Louisiana.”
“I believe I understand.” And Pendergast nodded slowly.
“That makes everything easier. The fact is, we’ve had the benefit of your, ah, skill set long enough.
” Pendergast was a rogue agent and would never change, and Estevez couldn’t wait to get him out of his hair and let some other unfortunate FO deal with him.
The way Pendergast had willfully disobeyed almost every order Estevez had issued following the burning of the Wichman mansion had been outrageous—and his showing up in the Magnus mansion after being taken off the case was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Thank you, sir. And since we may see little of each other in the months to come, may I take a moment to observe that it’s been an honor working for you?”
“You may. Thank you, and dismissed.”
Estevez watched the slender figure, dressed in his signature black, leave his office, and only then did he dare breathe a huge sigh of relief.