The sound of ragged breathing gradually filled the room.
With a sudden, violent movement of his arm, Pendergast swept the collection off the shelves, the heavy ceramics tumbling to the oak floor and shattering into hundreds of pieces, the fragments skittering and bouncing everywhere. Gasping with effort, possessed by an explosion of fury, he smashed the pieces underfoot into smaller and smaller ones, eventually grinding them into grit.
And then, except for the sound of heavy breathing, all was silent once more. Pendergast was still weak from his ordeal in Scotland, and it took some time for his breathing to return to normal. After a long while, he brushed some pottery dust off his suit and moved stiffly toward the basement door. Forcing it open, he descended and conducted a careful inspection of the cellar.
It was mostly empty save for a furnace and plumbing. But off in an alcove stood a door that, when forced, revealed a large wine cellar, lined in cork, with temperature and humidity controls mounted on one wall. He stepped inside and examined the bottles. Esterhazy had an exceptional cellar, mostly French, and favoring the Pauillacs. Pendergast ran his eye over the long columns of bottles: Lafite Rothschild, Lynch-Bages, Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Romanée-Conti. He noted that — while his own wine holdings at the Dakota and Penumbra were far more extensive — Esterhazy had a first-class collection of Château Latour, including several bottles from the very greatest vintages that were missing from his own cellars.
Pendergast frowned.
Selecting the best vintages — the 1892, 1923, 1934, the fabled 1945, 1955, 1961, half a dozen others — he pulled them from their niches and placed them carefully on the floor. He chose no wine younger than thirty years. It took four trips to gently carry them all up to the den.
Leaving them on a side table, he fetched a corkscrew, decanter, and oversize wineglass from the kitchen. Back in the den he opened each bottle of wine in turn, letting them air upon the sideboard while he rested from his exertions. It was dark outside now, a pale moon hanging over the palmetto trees of the square. He glanced at the moon for a moment, recalling — almost against his will — that other moon: the first moonrise he and Helen had shared. It had been only two weeks after they’d first met. It was the night on which their love for each other had been so passionately revealed. Fifteen years ago — and yet so vivid was the memory that it could have been yesterday.
Pendergast held the memory briefly, like a precious jewel, then let it fade away. Turning from the window, he let his eye roam around the room, taking in the African sculptures, the beautiful mahogany furniture, the jades, and the bookshelves laden with gold-stamped tomes. He did not know when Esterhazy would return, but he wished he could be there to appreciate the homecoming.
He let the wines rest for half an hour — a longer rest would be risky with the older vintages — and then began his tasting. Starting with the 1892, he poured no more than a mouthful into the decanter and swirled it slowly, examining the color in the light. Then he poured it into the glass, inhaled the aroma, and — eventually — took a generous sip. Placing the bottle on the windowsill, uncorked, he moved on to the next younger.
The entire process took another hour, and by the end his equanimity was fully restored.
At last, he put the decanter and glass aside and rose from the chair. He finally addressed his attention to the small safe he had earlier discovered behind one of the diplomas hanging on the wall. It resisted Pendergast’s advances quite valiantly, yielding only after ten minutes of delicate work.
Just as he was opening its door, Pendergast’s cell phone rang. He examined the incoming number before answering. “Yes?”
“Aloysius? It’s Peter Beaufort. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
A sudden silence, and then Pendergast said, “I was just enjoying a quiet glass of wine.”
“The results are in.”
“And?”
“I think I’d rather tell you in person.”
“I would like to know now.”
“I won’t tell you over the phone. Get here as quickly as you can.”
“I’m in Savannah. I’ll catch a late-night flight and meet you in your office tomorrow morning. At nine.”
Pendergast returned the phone to his pocket and returned his attention to the safe. It contained the usual items: jewelry, some stock certificates, the deed to the house, a last will and testament, and a variety of miscellaneous papers including what appeared to be some old bills from a nursing home in Camden, Maine, concerning a patient named Emma Grolier. Pendergast swept up the documents and put them in his pocket for later examination. Then he sat down at the roll-top desk, took a sheet of blank linen paper, and wrote a short note.
My dear Judson,
I thought you’d be interested in the results of my vertical wine tasting of your Latours. I found the 1918 sadly faded, and the 1949 was to my mind overrated: it ended worse than it started, with tannic overtones. The 1958 was, alas, corked. But the rest were quite delightful. And the ’45 was superlative — still rich and surpassingly elegant, with an aroma of currants and mushrooms and a long, sweet finish. Pity you only had a single bottle.
My apologies for what happened to your collection of old pots. I’ve left you a little something to compensate.
P.
Pendergast placed the letter on top of the desk. Reaching into his pocket, he extracted a five-dollar bill from his wallet and put it alongside.
He had reached the doorway before a thought struck him. Turning back, he walked over to the windowsill and picked up the 1945 bottle of Château Latour. Corking it carefully, he took it with him, making his way from the den to the kitchen and out into the fragrant night air.
CHAPTER 35
Armadillo Crossing, Mississippi
BETTERTON WAS OUT FOR AN EARLY-MORNING cup of coffee when the idea hit him. It was a long shot, but not so much that it wasn’t worth a ten-mile detour to check on.
He turned his Nissan around and headed once again in the direction of Malfourche, stopping a few miles short at the sorry-looking fork in the road known locally as Armadillo Crossing. The story was, someone had run over an armadillo here years ago, the smashed carcass remaining long enough to give the fork its name. The only house at the fork consisted of a tar-paper shack, the residence of one Billy B. “Grass” Hopper.
Betterton pulled up in front of the old Hopper place, almost indistinguishable beneath a thick covering of kudzu. His hand was throbbing like a son of a bitch. Grabbing a pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment, he got out of the car and walked toward the porch in the rising light. He could make out Billy B., rocking lazily. Despite the early hour, a Bud was in one gnarled hand. When a hurricane had blown down the sign indicating the Malfourche turnoff some years ago, Billy B., inevitably manning his rocking chair, would almost always be consulted by strangers as to which road led into town.
Betterton mounted the old, creaking steps. “Hiya, Grass,” he said.
The man peered at him out of sunken eyes. “Well, Ned. How are you, son?”
“Good, good. Mind if I take a load off?”
Billy B. pointed at the top step. “Suit yourself.”
“Thanks.” Betterton sat down gingerly, then raised the pack of cigarettes and shook one loose. “Coffin nail?”
Billy B. plucked the cigarette from the pack; Betterton lit it for him, then snugged the pack back into his shirt pocket. He did not smoke himself.
For the next few minutes, as Grass smoked his cigarette, the two chatted idly about local matters. Finally, Betterton worked around to the real purpose of his visit.
“Any strangers been around lately, Grass?” he asked casually.
Billy B. took a last deep drag on the cigarette, plucked it from his mouth, examined the filter, then mashed it out in a nearby kudzu vine. “Couple,” he said.