“If I weren’t an officer of the law, and I came here with a caddis fly hook stuck in my thumb, what would you do?”
The man considered this. “Well, seeing as only locals ever come by here, I’d extract the hook, stitch the thumb up if necessary, apply some Betadine, and — since my surgical license expired fifteen years ago — tell the patient to be more careful with his fly fishing.”
He laughed, and Pendergast gave a slight smile in return. “That’s a shrewd answer, Doctor, and I didn’t hear a word of it. Besides, my interest lies more in your memories than it does in the present.”
“Is that a fact?” said the old man. “And why would two FBI agents have any interest in my memories?”
“Because we have a lot of threads, and we’re hoping you could help us braid them together. Now, I do know something of your background — please tell me if I’m mistaken about anything. Fifty years or so ago, you were enrolled at the University of Washington School of Medicine — the only medical school in the state at that time.”
The man nodded silently.
“Your family ran the farm here: raspberries, dairy products, apples, and turkeys. Your mother had died while you were in college and, with you as the only child, your father looked after the farm while you went to medical school. Correct so far?”
“If it’s my biography you’re writing, add a heroic war record and a moon landing while you’re at it,” the old man said. But, Coldmoon noticed, the humor did not dispel the fact that when Pendergast began asking questions, the doctor had become guarded.
“Heroic isn’t actually too far from the truth,” Pendergast continued. “Because when your father was injured in a farming accident and could no longer do the work, you came home. The farm was heavily mortgaged, and with your medical school bills on top of that, it was impossible for you to continue your studies.”
Dr. Quincy said nothing.
“You did all you could. But your father’s injury meant that you had to give up medicine to manage the farm.” Pendergast paused. “Everything still accurate?”
“You’re telling more than you’re asking,” the doctor said, “and that’s more than a ‘couple of questions’ already. Get to the point.”
“What I’m curious about, Doctor, is how you went from such dire straits — dropping out of med school, managing the farm alone, trying to keep it all afloat — to finishing your medical degree and residency in orthopedic surgery, hiring someone to help around the farm, paying off the mortgage, and turning this place into a going enterprise for almost forty years, even while maintaining a successful surgical practice in Tacoma.”
“You’re the biographer,” the doctor said. “I guess you’ll just have to figure it out.”
“Biographers can’t work without sources. I can give you a few more specifics, if that will help. We’re not interested, precisely, in your good fortune. But we are interested in someone you were acquainted with many years ago. Someone who, like you, appreciated poetry. Someone whose initials are, or should I say were, A.R.”
The old man abruptly twitched, as if administered a galvanic shock. Coldmoon could only admire how quickly he mastered it.
“We’re not here to arrest you — or the woman in question. What I propose is a simple exchange of information. I imagine you can guess what I want to know. And I know you must be eager — despite yourself — to hear the information I can offer about A.R. in return.”
The old man remained silent, but Coldmoon could see the wheels turning in his head.
“Information,” the doctor finally repeated.
“Precisely.”
The doctor went silent again for several moments. Then: “What do you want to know, exactly, about this person?”
“The more light you can shed, the better.”
“I’m not going to do that,” Quincy said, his voice low and harsh. “I made a promise, and I won’t go back on it — no matter how many years have passed.”
This time, it was Pendergast who remained silent.
Finally, the doctor shifted in his chair. “This person you mention. Is she... still alive?”
Pendergast bowed his head in assent.
Coldmoon could see a succession of conflicting emotions cross the doctor’s face before he again mastered himself.
“And where might she be?”
At this, Pendergast smiled. “How about that exchange of information?”
After a long silence, the doctor said: “I made a promise.”
Pendergast rose. “Well then, I fear we have nothing more to speak about. Agent Coldmoon? Let us go.”
“Hold on!”
Pendergast paused and turned. In a softer, kinder voice, he said, “Doctor, I truly appreciate the promise you made. But we’re speaking of events that happened half a century ago. You — and the lady — are, quite frankly, nearing the close of life. If there’s any hope of your ever learning who she is now, or where she is — this is it.”
The doctor said, “You first.”
Pendergast gazed at him steadily, then said: “She owns a hotel in Savannah, Georgia. And she has no possession she treasures more than the book you gave her.”
At this the doctor flushed and passed a trembling hand over his white hair.
Pendergast quoted, “To me, you’ll always be ‘that great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order.’”
The effect of this was even more profound. The doctor struggled to maintain his composure. “She showed it to you?”
“Not intentionally.” Then, very gently, Pendergast said, “And now, Doctor, it’s your turn.”
The doctor removed a cotton handkerchief, mopped his face and tucked it back into his pocket.
“I found her by the side of the lake. She had had... a terrible fall.”
“You saved her life?”
He nodded. “I took her in, fixed her up, nursed her back to health.”
“What kind of injury?”
“A compound displaced fracture of the right femur.”
“The lady still has a limp.”
“I fixed her up as well as anyone could under the, ah, circumstances.”
“You were in love with her?”
Coming out of the blue, this question surprised Coldmoon almost as much as it did the doctor. But it had the desired effect; on the heels of a sustained assault, the old man’s defenses cracked under this unexpected blow. He sank back in his chair with an almost indistinct nod. “We loved each other. Very much.”
“But she left. Why?”
He shook his head.
“Let me help you: She was in trouble, she was an outlaw, she had committed a serious crime. To protect you and herself, she had to leave, establish a new identity. And so she disappeared from your life.”
He nodded.
“What was her crime?”
A long silence ensued. “She’d stolen something.”
“It must have been quite valuable.”
“I suppose. But the big crime was not stealing it, but how she stole it.”
“What was it?”
“Some sort of computer, or device, in a briefcase. She said it was going to make her fortune.”
“What did it do?”
“She never explained, except in veiled hints. Something about time.”
“Time?”
“She made an odd comment about the flow of time. That’s all I know.”
“How did she steal this item?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the question I’m not going to answer — the one at the heart of my promise. If I told you, the FBI would come down on both of us like a ton of bricks. We’d go to prison for sure.”
Pendergast sighed. “In that case, I have nothing further to ask.” And he signaled to Coldmoon that it was time to leave.
“Hold on!” the doctor said again as Pendergast prepared to rise. “You haven’t told me her new name.”