Fever Dream (37 page)

“A variant of the Stockholm syndrome. First you threaten his life, then with great magnanimity you spare him. The poor fellow
made the mistake of hiding in my garage with a loaded gun, in a rather ill-considered blackmail attempt.”

Hayward shuddered, remembering afresh why she found Pendergast’s methods so distasteful.

“Anyway, he’s working for us now. And the first assignment I gave him was to compile a list of all the pharmaceutical companies
within fifty miles of the Doane house—reasoning fifty miles to be the outside limit of how far an escaped parrot would fly.
All that remains is to compare it to your list of the companies Blackletter consulted for.” Pendergast held up the two sheets
of paper, glancing back and forth between them. His face suddenly hardened. He lowered the sheets and his eyes met hers.

“We have a match,” he said. “Longitude Pharmaceuticals.”

Baton Rouge

T
HE HOUSE, OF CHEERFUL YELLOW STUCCO
with white trim, stood in a gentrified neighborhood at the fringes of Spanish Town in Baton Rouge, with a tiny front garden
overflowing with tulips. Laura Hayward followed Pendergast up the brick walk to the front door. She eyed the large sign that
read
NO SOLICITING
. That did not seem like a good omen, and she was miffed that Pendergast had turned down her suggestion they call ahead to
set up an appointment.

A small man with wispy hair opened the door, peering at them through round glasses. “May I help you?”

“Is Mary Ann Roblet at home?” Pendergast asked in his most mellifluous southern accent, irritating Hayward further. She reminded
herself again that she was doing this not for him, but for Vinnie.

The man hesitated. “Whom may I say is calling?”

“Aloysius Pendergast and Laura Hayward.”

Another hesitation. “Are you, ah, religious folk?”

“No, sir,” said Pendergast. “Nor are we selling anything.” He waited, with a pleasant smile on his face.

The man, after a moment of further hesitation, called over his shoulder. “Mary Ann? Two people to see you.” He waited at the
door, not inviting them in.

A moment later a vivacious woman bustled to the door, plump, ample-breasted, her silver hair coiffed, makeup tastefully applied.
“Yes?”

Pendergast introduced themselves once again while at the same time removing the FBI shield from his suit, opening it in front
of her with a smooth motion, and then closing it and restoring it somewhere inside the black material. Hayward noticed with
a start that tucked inside the shield was the snapshot she had retrieved in Blackletter’s house.

A blush crept up on Mary Ann Roblet’s face.

“May we speak with you in private, Mrs. Roblet?”

She was flustered, unable to reply, her blush growing deeper.

The man, evidently her husband, hovered suspiciously in the background. “What is it?” he asked. “Who are these people?”

“They’re FBI.”

“FBI?
FBI?
What the heck is this about?” He turned to them. “What do you want?”

Pendergast spoke up. “Mr. Roblet, it’s purely routine, nothing to be concerned about. But it is confidential. We need to speak
with your wife for a few minutes, that’s all. Now, Mrs. Roblet, may we come in?”

She backed away from the door, her face now entirely red.

“Is there a place inside where we can talk in private?” asked Pendergast. “If you don’t mind.”

Mrs. Roblet recovered her voice. “We can go into the den.”

They followed Mrs. Roblet into a small television room, with two overstuffed chairs and a sofa, white wall-to-wall carpeting,
and a huge plasma television at one end. Pendergast firmly shut the door as Mr. Roblet hung about in the hall, frowning. Mrs.
Roblet seated herself primly on the sofa, adjusting the hem of her dress. Instead of taking one of the chairs, Pendergast
sat down beside her on the sofa.

“My apologies for disturbing you,” said Pendergast in a low, pleasant voice. “We hope to take up only a few minutes of your
time.”

After a silence, Mrs. Roblet said, “I assume you’re looking into the… death of Morris Blackletter.”

“That’s correct. How did you know?”

“I read about it in the papers.” Her carefully constructed face already looked like it was beginning to fall apart.

“I’m very sorry,” said Pendergast, extracting a small packet of
tissues from his suit and offering her one. She took one,
dabbed her eyes. She was making a heroic effort to hold herself together.

“We’re not here to pry into your past life or disturb your marriage,” Pendergast went on in a kindly voice. “I imagine it
must be difficult to grieve secretly for someone you once cared about a great deal. Nothing we say in here will get back to
your husband.”

She nodded, dabbing again. “Yes. Morris was… was a wonderful man,” she said quietly, then her voice changed, hardened. “Let’s
just get this over with.”

Hayward shifted uncomfortably.
Damn Pendergast and his methods
, she thought. This kind of an interview should take place in a formal setting: a police station with recording devices.

“Of course. You met Dr. Blackletter in Africa?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Under what circumstances?”

“I was a nurse with the Libreville Baptist Mission in Gabon. That’s in West Africa.”

“And your husband?”

“He was the mission’s senior pastor,” she said in a low voice.

“How did you meet Dr. Blackletter?”

“Is this really necessary?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“He ran a small clinic next to the mission for Doctors With Wings. Whenever there was an outbreak of disease in the western
part of the country, he used to fly into the bush to inoculate the villagers. It was very, very dangerous work, and when he
needed help, sometimes I would go with him.”

Pendergast laid a kindly hand on hers. “When did your relationship with him begin?”

“Around the middle of our first year there. That would be twenty-two years ago.”

“And when did it end?”

A long silence. “It didn’t.” Her voice faltered.

“Tell us about his work back here in the States, after he left Doctors With Wings.”

“Morris was an epidemiologist. A very good one. He worked for a number of pharmaceutical companies as a consultant, helping
them design and develop vaccines and other drugs.”

“Was one of them Longitude Pharmaceuticals?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever tell you anything about his work with them?”

“He kept quiet about most of his consulting work. It was pretty hush-hush, industrial secrets and all that. But it’s funny
you should mention that company, because he did talk about it a few times. More than most of them.”

“And?”

“He worked there for about a year.”

“When was that?”

“Maybe eleven years ago. He quit abruptly. Something happened there he didn’t like. He was angry and frightened—and believe
me, Morris was not an easily frightened man. I remember one evening he talked about the company CEO. Slade was his name. Charles
J. Slade. I remember him saying the man was evil, and that the sign of a truly evil man was his ability to draw good people
into his maelstrom. That was the word he used,
maelstrom.
I remember having to look it up. Morris abruptly stopped talking about Longitude shortly after he quit, and I never heard
him speak of it again.”

“He never worked for them again?”

“Never. The company went into bankruptcy almost immediately after Morris left. Fortunately, he had been paid by then.”

Hayward leaned forward. “Excuse me for interrupting, but how do you know he was paid?”

Mary Ann Roblet turned gray eyes on her, damp and red. “He loved fine silverwork. Antiques. He went out and spent a fortune
on a private collection, and when I asked him how he afforded it he told me he’d received a large bonus from Longitude.”

“A large bonus. After a year of work.”
Pendergast thought a moment. “What else did he say about this man, Slade?”

She thought for a moment. “He said he’d brought down a good company. Wrecked it with his own thoughtlessness and arrogance.”

“Did you ever meet Slade?”

“Oh, no. Never. Morris and I never had any kind of public relationship. It was always… private. I did hear that everyone was
in deathly fear of Slade. Except for June, that is.”

“June?”

“June Brodie. Slade’s executive secretary.”

Pendergast thought about this for a moment. Then he turned to Hayward. “Do you have any further questions?”

“Did Dr. Blackletter ever indicate what he was working on at Longitude or whom he worked with?”

“He never talked about the confidential research. But from time to time he did mention a few of the people he worked with.
He liked to tell funny stories about people. Let’s see… My memory isn’t what it used to be. There was June, of course.”

“Why ‘of course’?” Pendergast asked.

“Because June was so important to Slade.” She paused, opened her mouth to speak again, then colored slightly.

“Yes?” Pendergast pressed.

Roblet shook her head.

After a brief silence, Hayward continued. “Who else did Dr. Blackletter work with at Longitude?”

“Let me think. The senior VP of science, Dr. Gordon Groebel, whom Morris reported to directly.”

Hayward quickly jotted down the name. “Anything about this Dr. Groebel in particular?”

“Let me think… Morris called him misguided a few times. Misguided and greedy, if I remember.” She paused. “There was someone
else. A Mr. Phillips. Denison Phillips, I believe. He was the firm’s general counsel.”

A silence fell in the little sitting room. Mary Ann Roblet dried her eyes, took out a compact case and touched up her face,
plumped her hair, and added a touch of lipstick.

“Life goes on, as they say,” she said. “Will that be all?”

“Yes,” said Pendergast, rising. “Thank you, Mrs. Roblet.”

She didn’t answer. They followed her out the door and into the hall. Her husband was in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He jumped
up and came to the front hall as they prepared to leave.

“Are you all right, dear?” he asked, looking at her with concern.

“Quite all right. You remember that nice Dr. Blackletter who used to work at the mission years ago?”

“Blackletter, the flying doctor? Of course I remember him. Fine fellow.”

“He was killed in St. Francisville in a burglary a few days ago. These FBI agents are investigating.”

“Good heavens,” said Roblet, looking more relieved than anything else. “That’s terrible. I didn’t even know he lived in Louisiana.
Hadn’t thought of him in years.”

“Neither had I.”

As they climbed into the Rolls, Hayward turned to Pendergast. “That was exceptionally well done,” she said.

Pendergast turned, inclined his head. “Coming from you, I accept that as a very great compliment, Captain Hayward.”

F
RANK HUDSON PAUSED IN THE SHADE OF A
tree on the walkway in front of the Vital Records Building. The air-conditioning inside had been cranked to Siberian temperatures,
and coming out into the unseasonable heat and humidity made him feel like an ice cube dropped into warm soup.

Setting down his briefcase, he pulled a handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his pin-striped suit and mopped his bald
crown.
Nothing like a Baton Rouge winter
, he thought irritably. Stuffing the hankie back into his pocket, patting it in place to leave a rakish corner exposed, he
squinted in the bright sunlight toward the parking lot and located his vintage Ford Falcon. Near it, a stout woman in plaid
was getting out of a beaten-to-hell Nova, all in a huff, and he watched her slam the door once, twice, trying to get it to
latch.

“Bastard,” he heard the woman mutter to the car, trying to slam the door again. “Son of a bitch.”

He mopped again, replaced the fedora on his head. He’d rest here a moment longer in the shade before getting into his car.
The assignment Pendergast had given him had been a piece of cake. June Brodie, thirty-five. Secretary, married, no kids, a
good looker. It was all there in the files. Husband a nurse-practitioner. She’d been trained as a nurse herself, but ended
up working for Longitude. Fast-forward
fourteen years. Longitude goes bankrupt, she loses her job, and a week after that she
climbs into her Tahoe. Drives to Archer Bridge a few miles out of town. Disappears. The handwritten suicide note left in the
car says,
Can’t take it anymore. All my fault. Forgive me
. They drag the river for a week, nothing. It’s a favorite spot for jumpers, the river is swift and deep, lots of bodies are
never found. End of story.