12
It was a dozen blocks from the Chandler House to the M.E.’s office, and Pendergast had insisted on walking. Humidity or not, Coldmoon didn’t mind. He’d spent a restless night with no more than four hours of sleep. His huge four-poster bed might have been impressive to look at, but it was soft as a marshmallow, and he was more accustomed to sleeping on the bare ground than on a mattress like a ’70s Eldorado. On top of that, he felt like those portraits and creepy black silhouettes hanging on the walls were watching him as he tried to sleep. The walk, and the heat, loosened his muscles and blew away last night’s cobwebs. Best of all, Montgomery Street was a broad commercial avenue, with a quiet cluster of sober-looking buildings ahead that had to be official. No ghoulish mansions, and not a wisp of Spanish moss in sight.
Pendergast strode along beside him, a silent figure in the trademark black suit, his only concession to the sun a pair of tortoiseshell Persol sunglasses with lenses dark as his clothes. If they’d been assigned a vehicle, Coldmoon hadn’t seen any sign of it. He wondered idly if Pickett would get them something, or if Pendergast would take it upon himself to go car shopping again.
Speaking of Pickett, Coldmoon hadn’t gotten so much as a glimpse of their boss since the previous day, when the ADC had dropped them at the Owens-Thomas House. Was it possible he’d really left town — that he’d gone back to New York? He’s signaling that he’s going to let us handle this investigation our way, Pendergast had said. It would be interesting to see if his partner was right.
As they approached the complex of county offices, Coldmoon noticed the scene wasn’t as quiet as it had seemed a moment earlier. Two unmarked vans and a large private bus with blacked-out windows were pulling up onto Montgomery Street. He glanced at his watch: 8:35. He wondered why Pendergast had been so insistent on leaving early.
“Appointment’s at nine,” he said. “Want to grab some coffee?”
“No,” said Pendergast, increasing his pace ever so slightly.
As they began cutting across the plaza in front of the office complex, doors in the vans and bus opened simultaneously and a motley assemblage began pouring out: young men and women with digital tablets and earpieces, one burly guy toting a portable light, and another unspooling what looked like an audio snake. From somewhere came the low growl of a generator starting up. And then a truly peculiar figure emerged from the bus: a man no taller than five feet, with round black glasses, a silk shirt of pale maroon, and an expensive-looking straw hat with an enormous brim. He took off the hat for a moment and looked around, and when he did Coldmoon saw a perfectly bald head that gleamed in the morning sun.
The man’s slow reconnaissance of the plaza stopped when he saw Pendergast and Coldmoon. Putting the hat back on his head, he started toward them, at an angle designed to cut them off before they reached the buildings. A tall, attractive woman stepped out of the bus after him, followed by three more men, one carrying a Steadicam, another a sound box and boom mic, and the third a big video camera. It was some kind of film crew, and they were closing in.
But instead of hurrying to get past, Pendergast corrected course and slowed, with the result being that the group caught up with him just as they reached the wide brick steps in front of a closed glass door that read COUNTY CORONER’S OFFICE.
“Excuse me!” the short man said, removing his hat once again. For his size, he had a remarkably deep voice. Something about him looked familiar.
Pendergast began to ascend the steps, stopping only when the man repeated: “Excuse me!” Then he turned.
“Yes?”
“Are you the coroner?” the man asked.
“I rather hope not.”
“Are you with the coroner’s office?” the man asked, unfazed.
“No.”
Coldmoon stepped forward to tell the man to go fuck himself, but a gentle, restraining hand from Pendergast stopped him. In the distance, he could see other cars and vans, some with network affiliations stenciled on their flanks, pulling up. The gaggle of people before them must have noticed this, too, because now they spread out, as if to form a protective cordon around their prey.
“Bring it in closer, darling,” the round person said to a cameraman behind him. Then he turned back. “My name is Barclay Betts.”
So that’s who he is! Coldmoon thought. He used to chair one of those weekly news-lite shows that ran on Sunday evenings, and Coldmoon had seen him from time to time hosting scandalous documentaries and celebrity takedowns.
The faintest look of irritation passed over Betts’s face when Pendergast had no reaction to his introduction. “I’m doing a docuseries on the city’s strange history. ‘Demon-Haunted Savannah.’ May I ask your role in the murder investigation?”
Expectation now hung in the air. Coldmoon wondered what amusing brush-off Pendergast would employ to rid himself of this pest. There were few things the man hated more, he knew, than interviews with the press.
“I’m Special Agent Pendergast of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and this is my partner, Special Agent Coldmoon.” In case anyone doubted his statement, Pendergast followed it by removing his ID and shield and displaying them to the camera.
Much to Coldmoon’s annoyance, Betts’s face turned into a mask of delight. His eyes sparkled behind the round glasses. “Is that so? An FBI agent? So the feds have taken an interest in the recent murders?”
Pendergast nodded with a combination of gravity and reserve. “Indeed we have.”
Coldmoon looked at his watch. What the hell was this? They’d arrived early, when the office was still locked, allowing themselves to be cornered, and now Pendergast was stopping to talk to this jackass. He began to step forward again, but once more he felt a restraining hand.
“Splendid!” Betts said, almost rubbing his hands together with glee. No doubt he’d come in hopes of catching the coroner — but in Pendergast, he’d found a prize at least as tasty. “May we ask you a few questions?”
“On the record?”
“Yes. Certainly. For the documentary.”
Coldmoon watched as Pendergast glanced in the direction of the camera, as if to see if it was on. It was. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms in front of his severe suit.
“I am at your disposal, Mr. Betts,” he said.
13
Wendy Gannon, director of photography, stood back slightly from the rest of the crew, monitoring their camera feeds, watching the FBI agent talk. This was an unexpected find — they’d been planning to beard the M.E., George McSomebodyorother, in his den. If she’d expected a premature encounter like this, she would have been on the lead camera herself. But she knew Craig could be trusted to get good footage, without a lot of amateurish panning and zooming. She looked at the sky, looked back at Betts and the FBI agent, mentally framing the shot. That black suit might throw off the white balance, and she murmured a few directions into her headset. Craig gave her a thumbs-up and zeroed in on the agent.
“Can you tell us what your investigations have uncovered so far?” Betts asked in his most ingratiating tone — the one he reserved for movie stars and high-ranking officials.
“Certainly,” the agent said. What was his name? Prendergrast? Gannon glanced at Marty, the production assistant, asking him through the headset to get all available background on this person, ASAP — to make sure they weren’t being pranked into interviewing someone masquerading as someone else. This guy looked about as far from an FBI agent as possible, but then she didn’t really know much about the FBI. With the undertaker’s garb, he was a strange-looking fellow, and unusually cooperative for law enforcement. But his ID had looked real enough. The younger, athletic man standing next to him, on the other hand, could have been a statue stamped right out of the Quantico mill.