Still Life With Crows (4 page)

The man had paused at the spot where her rutted and dusty drive met the macadam of the road. He looked up at the house, right at the parlor it seemed, and Winifred automatically laid aside her cross-stitch. Now he was stepping into her lane. He was coming to the house. He was actually coming to the house. And his hair was so white, his skin so pale, his suit so black . . .

There was the low rap of the doorknocker. Winifred’s hand flew to her mouth. Should she answer it? Should she wait for him to go away?
Would
he go away?

She waited.

The knock came again, more insistent.

Winifred frowned. She was being an old silly. Taking a deep breath, she rose from the chair, walked across the parlor into the foyer, unlocked the door, and opened it a crack.

“Miss Kraus?”

“Yes?”

The man actually bowed. “You aren’t by chance the Miss Winifred Kraus who offers lodging to travelers? And, I’m given to understand, some of the most excellent home cooking in Cry County, Kansas?”

“Why, yes.” Winifred Kraus opened the door a little wider, delighted to find a polite gentleman instead of Death.

“My name is Pendergast.” He offered his hand, and after a moment Winifred took it. It was surprisingly cool and dry.

“You gave me quite a start, walking up the road like that. Nobody walks anymore.”

“I came by bus.”

Abruptly remembering her manners, Winifred opened the door wider and stepped aside. “I’m sorry, do come in. Would you like some iced tea? You must be dreadfully hot in that suit. Oh, forgive me, there hasn’t been a death in your family—?”

“Iced tea would be lovely, thank you.”

Winifred, feeling a strangely pleasant confusion, bustled back into the pantry, poured a glass over ice, added a fresh sprig of mint from the planter in her windowsill, placed the glass on a silver tray, and returned.

“There you are, Mr. Pendergast.”

“You are too kind.”

“Won’t you sit down?”

They sat in the parlor. The polite man crossed his legs and sipped his tea. Close up, Winifred could see he was younger than she’d first thought: what she had taken to be white hair was instead remarkably blond. He was quite handsome and elegant, too, if one didn’t mind such pale eyes and skin.

“I rent three rooms upstairs,” she explained. “You have to share the bath, I’m afraid, but there’s nobody presently—”

“I’ll take the entire floor. Would five hundred dollars a week be acceptable?”

“Oh, my.”

“I will pay extra, naturally, for my board. I’ll only be requiring a light breakfast and the occasional afternoon tea and dinner.”

“That’s rather more money than I usually ask. I wouldn’t feel right—”

The man smiled. “I fear you may find me a difficult boarder.”

“Well, then—”

He sipped his tea, placed it on the coaster, and leaned forward. “I don’t want to shock you, Miss Kraus, but I do need to tell you who I am and why I’m here. You asked me if there has been a death. In fact, as you probably know, there has. I am a special agent for the FBI investigating the murder in Medicine Creek.” He flashed his badge, as a courtesy.

“A murder!”

“You haven’t heard? On the far side of town, discovered last night. You will no doubt read all about it in tomorrow morning’s paper.”

“Oh, dear me.” Winifred Kraus felt dazed. “A murder? In Medicine Creek?”

“I’m sorry. Does that change your mind about taking me in as a lodger? I’ll understand if it does.”

“Oh no, Mr. Pendergast. Not at all. I’d feel much safer, really, having you here. A murder, how very dreadful . . .” She shuddered. “Who on earth—?”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you as a source of information on the case. And now, may I examine my rooms? There’s no need to show me upstairs.”

“Of course.” Winifred Kraus smiled a little breathlessly as she watched the man climb the stairs. Such a polite young gentleman, and so . . . Then she remembered the murder. She rose and went to the telephone. Perhaps Jenny Parker would know more. She picked up and dialed the number, shaking her head.

After a swift inspection, Pendergast chose the smallest room—the one in the rear—and laid his valise on its princess bed. On the bureau stood a swivel mirror, in front of which was set a china washbasin and pitcher. He pulled open the top drawer, releasing the faint scent of rosewater and oak. The drawer was lined with shellacked newspapers from the early 1900s, advertising farming equipment. In a corner stood a chamber pot, the lid placed upside down in the old-fashioned way. The walls were papered in a Victorian flowered print, much faded; the moldings were painted green and the ceiling was beadboard. The curtains were hand-embroidered lace.

He returned to the bed, laid one hand lightly upon the bedspread. It had been needlepointed in a pattern of roses and peonies. He examined the stitching closely. Hand done. It had taken someone—no doubt Miss Kraus herself—at least a year.

Pendergast remained motionless, staring at the needlepoint, breathing the antique air of the bedroom. Then, straightening, he walked across the creaking floorboards to the old rippled window and looked out.

To his right and down, set back from the house, Pendergast could see the shabby low metal roof of the gift shop. Behind, a cracked cement walkway ran down to a depression leading to a rupture in the earth, where it disappeared into darkness. Beside the gift shop, a peeling sign read:

KRAUS’S KAVERNS

T
HE
B
IGGEST
C
AVE IN
C
RY
C
OUNTY
, K
ANSAS

M
AKE A
W
ISH IN THE
I
NFINITY
P
OOL

P
LAY THE
K
RYSTAL
C
HIMES

S
EE THE
B
OTTOMLESS
P
IT

T
OURS AT
10:00
AND
2:00 D
AILY

T
OUR
G
ROUPS
, B
USES
W
ELCOME

He tried the window, found it opened with surprising ease. A muggy flow of air came into the room, carrying with it the smell of dust and crops. The lace curtains bellied. Outside, the great sea of yellow corn stretched to the horizon, broken only by distant lines of trees along the bottomlands of Medicine Creek. A flock of crows rose out of the endless corn and fell back in, feasting on the ripe ears. Thunderheads piled up to the west. The silence was as unending as the landscape.

In the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, Winifred Kraus replaced the telephone in its cradle. Jenny Parker wasn’t in. Perhaps she was in town, getting news. She’d try calling again after lunch.

She wondered if she should bring the nice man, Mr. Pendergast, a second glass of tea. Southerners were so well-bred; she believed they drank a lot of iced tea on big shady verandas and such. It was such a hot day and he’d walked from town. She went into the kitchen, poured a fresh glass, began mounting the stairs. But no—she should let him unpack, have his privacy. What was she thinking? News of the murder had her all in a tizzy.

She turned to descend the staircase. But then she stopped again. A voice had sounded from upstairs: Pendergast had said something. Was he speaking to her?

Winifred cocked her head, listening. For a moment, the house was still. Then Pendergast spoke again, and this time, she made out what he was saying.

“Excellent,” came the dulcet voice. “Most excellent.”

Six

T
he road was as straight as the nineteenth-century surveyor’s original line of sight, and it was flanked by two unmoving walls of corn. Special Agent Pendergast walked down the shimmering road, his polished black oxfords—handmade by John Lobb of St. James’s Street, London—leaving a row of faint impressions in the sticky asphalt.

Ahead, he could see where heavy vehicles had come in and out of the cornfield, leaving brown tracks and clots of dirt on the road. Approaching, he turned to make his way along the crude access road that had been bulldozed into the cornfield to the murder site. His feet sank into the powdery earth.

Where the access widened into a makeshift parking lot a state trooper cruiser sat, motor running, water dripping into the dirt from the AC. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked off the site, wound around tall stakes hammered into the earth. Inside the cruiser a trooper sat, reading a paperback.

Pendergast approached and rapped on the window. The man gave a start, then quickly recovered. Hastily putting the paperback aside, he got out and faced Pendergast, squinting in the hot sun, hooking his arms into his belt loops. A river of cool air flowed out.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. The trooper’s arms were covered with fine red hair and the leather of his boots creaked as he moved.

Pendergast displayed his shield.

“Oh. FBI. Sorry.” The trooper looked around. “Where’s your car?”

“I’d like to take a look at the scene,” Pendergast replied.

“Be my guest. There’s nothing left, though. It’s all been carted away.”

“No matter. Please don’t allow me to disturb you further.”

“Quite all right, sir.” The trooper, with no little relief, climbed back into his cruiser and closed the door.

Pendergast moved past the car and gingerly ducked beneath the yellow tape. He advanced the last twenty yards to the original clearing. Here he paused, surveying the site. As the trooper had said, it was empty: nothing but dirt, crushed corn stubble, and thousands of footprints. There was a stain in the very center of the clearing, not particularly large.

For several minutes, Pendergast remained motionless beneath the merciless sun. Only his eyes moved as they took in the clearing. Then he reached into his suit jacket and removed a photograph of the body in situ, from close up. Another photograph showed the overall site, the spitted birds and the forest of sticks. Pendergast rapidly reconstructed the original scene in his mind and held it there, examining it.

He remained motionless for a quarter of an hour. Then at last he returned the photographs to his jacket and took a step forward, examining the stub of a cornstalk that lay at his feet. It had been broken, not cut. Moving forward, he picked up a second stub, then a third and a fourth. All broken. Pendergast returned to the edge of the clearing, selected a cornstalk that still stood. He knelt down and grasped it at the bottom, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not break it.

He ventured farther into the clearing itself. It hardly mattered where he put his feet—it could not be more disturbed. He moved slowly, crouching now and then to examine something in the riot of corn and dust. Once in a while he would pick up something with a pair of tweezers he’d removed from a suit pocket, look at it, and release it. For almost an hour he moved across the clearing in this fashion, bent over in the baking sun.

He kept nothing.

At last, he reached the far end of the clearing and moved into the dense corn rows themselves. There had been a few pieces of torn fabric found clinging to some of the cornstalks, and it wasn’t difficult to find the tags marking their locations.

Pendergast moved down the row, but there were so many footprints and dog prints that it was hopeless to try to follow anything. The report said that two different sets of bloodhounds had been put on the track but had refused to follow it.

He paused in the forest of corn to slip a tube of glossy paper from his pocket and unroll it. It was a photograph, taken at some unidentified point before the crime, showing the field from the air. The corn rows did not go in straight lines, as it seemed at ground level, but rather curved to follow the topography of the landscape, creating elliptical, mazelike paths. He located the row in which he stood and carefully traced its curve. Then, with difficulty, he forced his way into the next corn row, then the next. Once again he examined the aerial photograph, tracing the path of the current row. Much better: it went for a long distance across flat ground and then dropped down toward the bottomland near Medicine Creek, at a point where the creek looped back toward the town.

It was, in fact, the only row that actually opened onto the creek.

Pendergast walked down the row, heading away from the murder site. The heat had settled into the corn and, in the absence of wind, was baking everything into place. As the land gradually declined toward the creek, a monotonous landscape of corn revealed itself, stretching to an ever more remote horizon, oppressive in its landlocked vastness. The distant creek, with its clumps of scraggly, half-dead cottonwoods, only added to the sense of desolation. As Pendergast walked he would stop occasionally to examine a cornstalk or a piece of ground. Once in a while his tweezers would pluck something up, only to drop it again.

At long last, the corn row opened onto the bottomland along the creek. Where the cornstalks and field dirt gave way to sandy embankments, Pendergast stopped and glanced downward.

There were footprints, here in the firm sand: they were bare, and deeply impressed. Pendergast knelt, touched one print. It was from a size eleven foot. The killer had been carrying a heavy body.

Pendergast rose and followed the tracks to where they entered the creek. There were no corresponding tracks exiting on the far side. He walked up and down the creek, looking for a point of emergence, and found nothing.

The killer had walked for a long distance in the creek bed itself.

Pendergast returned to the corn row and began making his way back to the clearing. The town of Medicine Creek was like an island in a sea: it would be difficult to come or go without being seen. Everyone knew everybody and a hundred pairs of keen old eyes, staring from porches and windows, watched the comings and goings of cars. The only way an outsider could arrive at the town unseen was through this sea of corn—twenty miles from the next town.