Snip.
The whole belly flopped open, and a collection of things came tumbling out, spilling across the ground. A foul stink rose up. Corrie gasped and backed away, holding her hand over her mouth. It took her a moment to take in what it was that had slid steaming into the dirt: a crazy-quilt assortment of leaves, twigs, slugs, salamanders, frogs, mice, stones. And there, among the offal, a slimy circlet that appeared to be a dog’s collar. A wounded but still living snake uncoiled from the mass and sidewinded painfully into the grass.
“Son of a bitch,” said Hazen, backing up, his face slack with disgust.
“Sheriff?”
“What?”
“There’s your tail.”
Pendergast was pointing at something protruding from the mess.
“Tail? What are you talking about?”
“The tail ripped from the dog.”
“Oh, thattail. We’ll be sure to bag and analyze that one.” Hazen had recovered quickly and Corrie caught him winking at the M.E.
“And the dog collar.”
“Yup,” Hazen said.
“May I point out,” Pendergast continued, “that it appears the abdomen was cut open with the same crude implement previously used for the Swegg amputations, the cutting off of the dog’s tail, and the scalping of Gasparilla.”
“Right, right,” said the sheriff, not listening.
“And if I am not mistaken,” Pendergast said, “there is the crude implement itself. Broken and tossed aside.” He indicated something in the dirt to one side.
The sheriff glanced over, frowned, and nodded to the SOC man, who photographed it in situ, then picked the two pieces up with rubber tweezers and put them in evidence bags. It was a flint Indian knife, lashed to a wooden handle.
“From here I’d say it was a Southern Cheyenne protohistoric knife, hafted with rawhide to a willow-wood handle. Genuine, I might add, and in perfect condition until it was broken by clumsy use. A find of particular importance.”
Hazen grinned. “Yeah, important. As another prop in this whole bullshit drama.”
“I beg your pardon?”
There was a rustle behind them, and Corrie turned. A pair of glossy-booted state troopers were pushing their way out of the corn and into the clearing. One was carrying a fax. The sheriff turned toward the newcomers with a big smile. “Ah. Just what I’ve been waiting for.” He held out his hand, snatched the fax, and glanced at it, his smile broadening. Then he handed it to Pendergast.
“It’s a cease-and-desist, Pendergast, straight from the FBI’s Midwestern Divisional Office. You’re off the case.”
“Indeed?” Pendergast read the document carefully. Then he looked up. “May I keep this, Sheriff?”
“By all means,” Hazen said. “Keep it, frame it, hang it in your den.” All of a sudden, his voice grew less affable. “And now, Mr. Pendergast, with all due respect, this is a crime scene and unauthorized personnel are not allowed.” His red eyes swiveled toward Corrie. “That means you and your sidekick.”
Corrie stared back at him.
Pendergast folded the sheet carefully and slipped it into his suit coat. He turned to Corrie. “Shall we?”
She stared at him in outrage. “Agent Pendergast,” she began, “you aren’t just going to let him get away with that—?”
“Now is not the time, Corrie,” he said softly.
“But you just can’t—!”
Pendergast took her arm and steered her gently but firmly away, and before she could recover they were out of the corn and on the narrow dirt service road beside her Gremlin. Wordlessly, she slid behind the wheel, Pendergast settling in beside her as she started up the engine. She was almost blind with rage as she maneuvered through the thicket of parked official vehicles. Pendergast had let the sheriff walk all over him, insult her—and he’d done nothing. She felt like crying.
“Miss Swanson, I must say the tapwater in Medicine Creek is exceptionally good. As you know, I am a drinker of green tea, and I don’t believe I’ve ever found better water for making the perfect cup.”
There was no answer she could make to this non sequitur. She merely braked the Gremlin at the paved road and stared at him. “Where are we going?”
“You are going to drop me at the Kraus place. And then I’d suggest you return to your trailer and seal all the windows. I understand that a dust storm is coming.”
Corrie snorted. “I’ve seen dust storms before.”
“Not one of this magnitude. Dust storms can be among the most frightful of meteorological events. In Central Asia, they are so severe the natives have given names to the winds that bear them. Even here, during the dust bowl, they were known as ‘black blizzards.’ People caught outside were known to suffocate.”
Corrie accelerated onto the paved road with a screech of rubber. The whole scene had begun to take on a sense of unreality. Here Pendergast had just been humiliated, ordered peremptorily off a case he’d come all the way from New York to investigate . . . and all he could do was talk about tea and the weather?
A minute ticked away, then two. At last, she couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Look,” she blurted indignantly, “I can’t believe you just let that sack-of-shit sheriff dothat to you!”
“Do what?”
“What? Treat you that way! Kick you off the site!”
Pendergast smiled. “ Nisi paret imperat.‘If he does not obey, he commands.’ ”
“You mean you’re not going to obey the order?”
“Miss Swanson, I do not habitually talk about my future intentions, even with a trusted assistant.”
She blushed despite her anger. “So we’re just going to blow him off? Continue our investigation? To hell with the runty bastard?”
“What I do with regard to, as you so colorfully put it, ‘the runty bastard’ can no longer be your concern. The important thing is, I cannot have you defying the sheriff on my account. Ah, here we are. Pull up to the garages behind the house, if you please.”
Corrie pulled behind the Kraus mansion, where a rickety row of old wooden garages stood. Pendergast went to one that sported a fresh padlock and chain, unlocked it, and flung open the doors. Inside Corrie could see the gleam of a car—a big car. Pendergast disappeared into the gloom and she soon heard the roar of an engine, followed by a low purring. Slowly, the car nosed out of the garage. Corrie could hardly believe her eyes as a gleaming, polished vision of elegance emerged into the gray dust of Medicine Creek. She had never seen a car like it before, except maybe in the movies. It came to an idling stop and Pendergast got out.
“Where’d this come from?”
“I always knew there was a chance I might lose your services, and so I had my own car brought out.”
“This is yours?What is it?”
“A ’59 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith.”
It was only then that the full meaning of his prior sentence sunk in. “What do you mean, lose my services?”
Pendergast handed her an envelope. “Inside is your pay up to the end of the week.”
“What’s this for? Aren’t I going to stay on as your assistant?”
“Not after the cease-and-desist. I can’t protect you from it, and I could not ask you to put yourself in legal jeopardy. Regrettably, as of this moment, you are discharged. I would suggest you go home and resume your normal life.”
“What normal life? My normal life sucks.There must be somethingI can do!” She felt a rising tide of fury and helplessness: now that she was finally interested in the case, fascinated even; now that she felt she had finally met a person she could respect and trust—now that she finally had a reason to wake up in the morning—he was firing her. Despite her best efforts, she felt a tear escape. She angrily wiped it away.
Pendergast bowed. “You could help me one last time by satisfying my curiosity on the source of Medicine Creek’s excellent water.”
She stared in disbelief. He really was impossible.