Fever Dream (55 page)

At that moment, a handgun fired, a single shot, the muffled boom shuddering the room. Hayward raised her weapon, and with
a cry June Brodie ran to the doorway.

“Wait!” Hayward said. “Stay where you are.”

There was no further sound. A minute passed, then two. And then—quiet, but distinct—came the sound of a closing door. A moment
later the faintest of treads sounded in the carpeted hallway. Hayward sat up straight on the gurney, heart racing.

Agent Pendergast stepped through the doorway.

Hayward stared at him. Under the thick encrustation of mud he was paler than usual, but otherwise he appeared unhurt. He glanced
at the three of them in turn.

“Slade—?” Hayward asked.

“Dead,” came the reply.

“You killed him!” June Brodie shrieked, running past Pendergast and into the corridor. He did nothing to stop her.

Hayward slid off the gurney, ignoring the pain shooting through her leg. “You son of a bitch, you promised—”

“He died by his own hand,” Pendergast said.

Hayward stopped.

“Suicide?” Mr. Brodie said, speaking for the first time. “That’s not possible.”

Hayward stared at Pendergast. “I don’t believe it. You told Vinnie you would kill him—and you did.”

“Correct,” Pendergast replied. “I did vow to do that. Nevertheless, all I did was talk to him. He committed the deed.”

Hayward opened her mouth to continue, then shut it again. Suddenly she didn’t want to know any more. What did that mean—
talk
to him? She shuddered.

Pendergast was watching her closely. “Recall, Captain, that Slade
ordered
the killing. He did not carry it out. There is still work to be done.”

A moment later June Brodie reappeared. She was sobbing quietly. Her husband walked over and tried to put a comforting arm
over her shoulder. She shrugged it away.

“There’s nothing to keep us here any longer,” Pendergast told Hayward. He turned to June. “I’m afraid we’ll have to borrow
your utility boat. We’ll see it’s returned to you tomorrow.”

“By a dozen cops armed to the teeth, I suppose?” the woman replied bitterly.

Pendergast shook his head. “There’s no reason anyone else need know about this. In fact, I think it’s in all of our best interests
that no one ever does. I suggest you burn this place to the ground and then leave it, never to return. You tended a madman
in his final sufferings—and as far as I’m concerned, that’s where the story begins and ends. No need to report the suicide
of a man who is already officially dead. You and your husband will want to work out an appropriate cover story to minimize
any official interest in yourselves—or in Spanish Island—”

“
Madman
,” June Brodie interrupted. She almost spat out the word. “That’s what you call him. But he was more than that—
much
more. He was a good man. He did good work—wonderful work. If I could have cured him, he would have done it again. I tried
to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen.
You wouldn’t listen
…” Her voice broke, and she struggled to master herself.

“His condition was incurable,” Pendergast said, not unkindly. “And I’m afraid there’s no way his experimental putterings could
make up for cold-blooded murder.”

“Putterings!
Putterings?
He did
this
!” And she stabbed her own breast with a finger.

“This?” Pendergast said. A look of surprise came over his mud-smeared face. Then, suddenly, the surprise disappeared.

“If you know so much about me, you must have known of my condition,” she said.

Pendergast nodded. “Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Now I understand. That clarifies the last question in my mind—why you moved
into the swamp
before
Slade went mad.”

“I don’t understand,” said Hayward.

“Lou Gehrig’s disease.” Pendergast turned toward Mrs. Brodie. “You don’t appear to be suffering any symptoms at present.”

“I have no symptoms because I no longer have the disease. After his recovery, Charles had a period of… genius. Amazing genius.
That’s what it does to you, the avian flu. He had ideas… wonderful ideas. Ideas to help me… and others, as well. He created
a treatment for ALS, utilizing complex proteins grown in vats of living cells. The first of the so-called biologics. Charles
developed them first,
by
himself
, ten years ahead of his time. He had to retreat from the world to do his work. He did it—
all
of it—right here.”

“I see now why this room appears to be far more than a clinic,” Pendergast said. “It’s an experimental laboratory.”

“It is. Or was. Before… before he changed.”

Hayward turned to her. “This is extraordinary. Why haven’t you shared this with the world?”

“Impossible,” Mrs. Brodie said, almost in a whisper. “It was all in his head. We begged him but he never wrote it down. He
grew worse, and then it was too late. That’s why I wanted to restore him to his old self. He loved me. He cured me. And now
the secret of that cure has died with him.”

Heavy clouds veiled the moon as they pulled away from Spanish Island. There was little light—either for a sniper, or for a
pilot—and Pendergast kept the boat to a crawl, the engine barely audible as they nosed through the thick vegetation. Hayward
sat in the bow, a pair of crutches appropriated from the lodge at her side. She was thinking quietly.

For perhaps half an hour, not a word was exchanged. Finally, Hayward roused herself and glanced back at Pendergast, piloting
from the rear console.

“Why did Slade do it?” she asked.

Pendergast’s eyes shone faintly as he glanced at her.

“Disappear, I mean,” she went on. “Hide himself away in this swamp.”

“He must have known he was infected,” Pendergast replied after a moment. “He’d seen what had happened to the others; he realized
he was going to go mad… or worse. He wanted to make sure he could exercise some kind of control over his care. Spanish Island
was the perfect choice. If it hadn’t been discovered yet, it never would be. And because it had been used as a lab, they already
had much of the equipment he’d need. No doubt he harbored hopes for a cure. Perhaps it was while trying to discover one that
he managed to cure June Brodie.”

“Yes, but why such an elaborate setup? Stage his own death, stage Mrs. Brodie’s death. I mean, he wasn’t on the run from the
law or anything like that.”

“No, not from the law. It does seem like an extreme reaction. But
then a man isn’t likely to be thinking clearly under those
circumstances.”

“Anyway, he’s dead now,” she went on. “So can you find some peace? Some resolution?”

For a moment, the agent did not respond. When at last he spoke, his voice was flat, uninflected. “No.”

“Why not? You’ve solved the mystery, avenged your wife’s murder.”

“Remember what Slade said: there’s a surprise in my future. He could only have meant the second shooter—the one who’s still
out there, somewhere. As long as he is loose, he remains a danger to you, to Vincent, and to me. And…” He paused a moment.
“There’s something else.”

“Go on.”

“As long as there is even one more person out there who bears responsibility for Helen’s death, I cannot rest.”

She looked at him, but his gaze had suddenly shifted. Pendergast appeared to be strangely transfixed by the full moon—which
had emerged from the clouds and was finally setting into the swamp. His face was briefly illuminated by slivers of light as
the orb sank through the dense vegetation, and then, as the moon finally disappeared below the horizon, the glow was snuffed
out, the swamp plunged again into darkness.

Malfourche, Mississippi

T
HE NAVY UTILITY BOAT, WITH PENDERGAST AT
the wheel, slid into an unoccupied boat slip across the inlet from the docks beyond Tiny’s Bait ’n’ Bar. The sun, rising
toward noon, was pouring unseasonable heat and humidity into every corner of the muddy waterfront.

Hopping out, Pendergast tied up and helped Hayward onto the dock, then handed her the pair of crutches.

Though it was only late morning, the twang of country-and-western music came from the ramshackle Bait ’n’ Bar on the far side
of the docks. Pendergast removed June Brodie’s 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and raised it over his head.

“What are you doing?” Hayward asked, balancing on the crutches.

“Getting everyone’s attention. As I alluded to before, we have unfinished business here.” An enormous boom sounded as Pendergast
fired the shotgun into the air. A moment later people came spilling out of the Bait ’n’ Bar like hornets from a hive, many
with beers in their hands. Tiny and Larry were nowhere to be seen, but the rest of the crew, Hayward noticed, were there in
force. Hayward remembered their leering, sweating faces with a trace of nausea. The large group stared silently at the two
figures. They had washed up before
leaving Spanish Island, and June Brodie had given Hayward a clean blouse, but she knew
they must both be muddy sights.

“Come on down, boys, and watch the action!” Pendergast called out, walking across the landing toward Tiny’s and the second
set of docks.

Haltingly, warily, the crowd worked its way down toward them. Finally one man, more courageous than the rest, stepped forward.
He was large and mean looking, with a small, ferret-like face atop a large amorphous body. He stared at them with squinty
blue eyes. “What the hell you want now?” he said, advancing while tossing his can of beer into the water. Hayward recognized
him as one of the ones cheering the loudest when her brassiere was cut in two.

“You said you were gonna leave us alone,” someone else called out.

“I said I wouldn’t
arrest
you. I didn’t say I wouldn’t come back to
bother
you.”

The man hitched up his pants. “You already bothering me.”

“Excellent!” Pendergast stepped onto the docks behind Tiny’s, crowded with boats of various descriptions. Hayward recognized
most of them from the previous day’s ambush. “And now: which of these fine vessels belongs to Larry?”

“None of your business.”

Pendergast casually tilted the shotgun down, pointing it into a nearby boat, and pulled the trigger. A massive boom echoed
across the lake, the boat shuddering with the discharge, a gout of water shooting up, leaving a twelve-inch hole ripped out
of its welded aluminum hull. Muddy water came swirling in, the nose of the boat tipping downward.

“What the
hell
?” a man in the crowd yelled. “That’s my boat!”

“Sorry, I thought it was Larry’s. Now, which is Larry’s? This one?” Pendergast aimed the gun at the next boat, discharged
it. Another geyser of water rose up, showering the crowd, and the boat jumped and began to settle immediately.

“Son of a bitch!” another man screamed. “Larry’s is the 2000 Legend! That one over there!” He gestured to a bass boat at the
far end of the slip.

Pendergast strolled over and inspected it. “Nice. Tell Larry this is
for tossing my badge into the swamp.” Another blast from
the shotgun, which punched through the outboard engine, the cover flying off. “And this one’s because he’s such a low fellow.”
A second shot holed the boat at the transom, kicking up a geyser. The stern filled with water, the boat tilted up by the nose,
the engine sinking.

“Christ! This bastard’s crazy!”

“Indeed.” Pendergast strolled down the dock, racked a fresh round into the shotgun, and casually aimed at the next boat. “This
one’s for giving us incorrect directions.”
Boom
.

Another casual step. “This is for the double punch to the solar plexus.”

Boom
.

“And this is for expectorating on me.”

Boom. Boom
. Two more boats went down.

Removing his .45, Pendergast handed it to Hayward. “Keep an eye on them while I reload.” He pulled a handful of shells from
his pocket and inserted them.

“And this is
most especially
for humiliating and exposing my esteemed colleague to your vulgar, lascivious gaze. As I said before, that was no way to
treat a lady.” As he strolled down the dock, he fired into the bottom of each remaining boat, one after the other, pausing
only to reload. The crowd stared, shocked into absolute silence.

Pendergast halted before the group of sweating, shaking, beery men. “Anybody else in the bar?”

Nobody spoke.

“You can’t do this,” a man said, his voice cracking. “This ain’t legal.”

“Perhaps somebody should call the FBI,” said Pendergast. He strolled toward the door into the Bait ’n’ Bar, cracked it open,
glanced inside. “Ma’am?” he said. “Please step out.”

A flustered woman with bleached-blond hair and enormous red fingernails came bustling out and broke into a run toward the
parking lot.

“You’ve lost a heel!” Pendergast called after her, but she kept going, hobbling like a lame horse.

Pendergast disappeared inside the bar. Hayward, pistol in hand, could hear him opening and closing doors and calling out.
He emerged. “Nobody home.” He walked around to the front and faced
the crowd. “Everyone, please withdraw to the parking lot
and take cover behind those parked cars.”