Pendergast’s face had grown opaque during this recitation. When Waintree finished, Pendergast let a lengthy silence build. Just as he was about to reply, Coldmoon — acting on some internal warning he didn’t quite understand — jumped in. “Speaking of that,” he said to the Youngs, “which rooms have you put aside for us?”
The couple exchanged glances. “Oh my,” said Carol Young. “But there’s none available. We’re closed.”
“No rooms? I thought the entire lodge is empty.”
“Sure it is,” said her husband. “Like everyplace around here. Population drops like a stone once the leaf-peepers are gone. Perfect time for renovations.”
“I thought you said this part of the hotel wasn’t being renovated.”
“This room isn’t being renovated. Like I told you, it already was. All the other rooms... ” Young gave a helpless shrug.
Coldmoon absorbed this. “Can you recommend anywhere in town?”
“Town’s boarded up tight, I’m afraid. All the skiers are over around Big Squaw. Won’t find a place within an hour’s drive that’s open this time of year.”
“No room at the inn,” Pendergast murmured as he exited the bathroom.
“There’s the Lowly Mackerel,” Sergeant Waintree offered.
“That’s right!” Young said. “They do keep a few rooms open year-round, don’t they? I’ve always wondered why.”
“It’s just this side of Millinocket,” Waintree said. He turned and headed for the door, then stopped. “As regards dinner, you might want to stop at the SaveMart on your way to the motel.”
“No restaurants open, either?” Coldmoon said. But Waintree had already followed the owners into the hall and out of sight.
“I’m not surprised there’s a local opioid problem,” Pendergast murmured. Then, rubbing his hands together, he undertook the most meticulous examination of the room Coldmoon could ever recall seeing: using a magnifying glass to inspect the edges of the carpet from one end of the bedroom to another; disassembling both the phone and the radio and examining their interiors; applying a tiny, fine-bristled comb to the mounting brackets of the bathroom shower rod. Now and then, small plastic envelopes would appear as if by magic from the innumerable pockets of his parka; he would pluck up an item from the scene with a pair of jeweler’s tweezers, then replace the envelope and continue.
Coldmoon watched with mounting amazement for a while before he spoke. “The owner said the room was redecorated. And Elise Baxter committed suicide here over eleven years ago. Hundreds of guests have used this room since then.”
As he spoke, Pendergast had produced a small multi-tool from the parka and was unscrewing a heating register at the base of the wall. “Very true,” he said. “Nevertheless—” he probed the ductwork he’d just exposed with a light, took up the tweezers again, and removed something stuck to a metal burr — “Elise Baxter was in this room. And it was here that she took her life.”
“What exactly do you hope to find? Hoping she’ll speak to you from the Wanagi Tacanku?”
“That’s one possibility.” Pendergast stood up and brushed himself off. “Agent Coldmoon, as I’m sure you’ve noted, the files we received were virtually useless. Without the hotel registers indicating who else stayed here the night of the suicide, we have precious little to go on. That is why I am anxious to glean what I can, if anything, from this room. No doubt you’d prefer to occupy your time in some other way. Shall we meet in the lobby?”
He shrugged. “Sure.” And without further ceremony he left the room.
Coldmoon was long accustomed to waiting: in BIA offices and tribal courts; on the Quantico parade grounds; in unmarked cars. He’d grown to like it. Besides, he’d been up most of the previous night and felt rather weary. Finding the lobby empty, he pulled the drop cloth from one of the sofas — despite the preparations, no workmen were on site — picked up a couple of magazines from a nearby table, and settled in to read.
Sometime later, he woke. The wall clock read ten to three. The lobby was as empty as when he’d first returned to it; there had been no sign of either Horace or Carol Young. He paused to listen. The lodge was still as a tomb. What the hell was Pendergast doing?
He replaced the magazines on the table, stood up, and began walking down the carpeted corridor, toward what had been Elise Baxter’s room. The door, which he’d left open, was shut and locked. Stepping up to it, he paused to listen. There was no sound from beyond.
The rooms in the lodge did not use magnetic passcards but old-fashioned keys. Making no noise, Coldmoon crouched to peer through the open keyhole.
At first, he saw nothing. Then he noticed Pendergast. The man was lying on the bed, still wrapped in the parka, hands folded across his chest. The photos Sergeant Waintree had brought were arranged on the bed around him, almost like offerings encircling an idol. Something was in one of his hands: a gold chain, attached to a medallion whose details Coldmoon could not make out.
For a moment, Coldmoon wondered if the senior agent of the investigation had suffered a heart attack or stroke. But then he saw that Pendergast’s chest was rising and falling in a faint but regular rhythm. He must be asleep, though even that seemed unlikely — not even sleepers lay that still.
Coldmoon watched through the keyhole for another moment. Then, rising, he turned and went back in the direction of the lobby.
10
Jenny Rosen followed her friends Beth and Megan around the corner of Seventh Street and onto Ocean Drive. Then she stopped. Stretching ahead of her, suddenly, was an endless Babylon. Encountering the boulevard was like mainlining a shot of adrenaline directly into the central cortex: an overwhelming and seemingly impenetrable wall of competing backbeats, billows of perfume mixed with the smell of grilled fish, car exhaust, and mojo-marinated meat, with the occasional whiff of weed. And the lights: candy-cane strings of white that wound up every palm trunk; garish neon signs in the windows of tattoo parlors and beachwear shops; and — blazing from every marquee and sign that ran ahead for at least a dozen blocks — a confusion of floodlamps and strobes and multicolored lasers, swinging about and vying madly for her attention.
“Come on,” Beth shouted over the calls and laughter of the crowd surging along the sidewalk. “It’s just up here.”
Jenny and Megan walked after Beth as she made her way — pushed her way, actually — through the throng. Most were young, Jenny’s age or a few years older, vaping and screaming at the top of their lungs to each other over the cacophony, half of them drunk and the other half high. Jenny had wandered through her share of trendy neighborhoods — the Lower East Side, the Mission, LA’s Venice and Silver Lake — but she’d never before experienced such a motley assortment of hipsters, punks, cybergoths, gang-bangers, surfers, losers, stoners, posers, and countless other subspecies, all mingled together into one volatile soup.
Jenny and Megan hurried past a hookah lounge, a narrow service alley, then a brilliantly lit store selling trendy sunglasses, trying their best to keep up with Beth. As usual, she had taken charge, acting the control freak. Just because Beth’s home was in nearby Georgia, and she’d spent “like, forever” in Miami two years ago — actually, just one night — she’d assumed the mantle of veteran clubber, taking her two friends under her wing and promising to show them a memorable night out.
Now the two of them caught up to Beth, who had stopped, hands on her hips, and was looking at one of the few shopfronts that was closed, its metal shutters down. “... The fuck?” she said. “This is the place I was telling you about. I can’t believe it’s closed. Maybe they just moved to a bigger space.” And she took out her phone and started tapping the screen, rocking obliviously this way and that as people shoved past her.