Fever Dream

"Landscape painter," D'Agosta repeated. "How about birds?"

"Not that I could find out. Nor did they appear to have any particular interest in Audubon or natural history art. Then, a few months after Helen's visit, the steady stream of approving stories began to cease."

"Maybe the family got tired of the attention."

"I think not. There was one more article about the Doane family--one final article," he went on. "Half a year after that. It stated that William, the Doane son, had been captured by the police after an extended manhunt through the national forest, and that he was now in solitary confinement in the county jail, charged with two ax murders."

"The star student?" D'Agosta asked incredulously.

Pendergast nodded. "After reading this, I began asking around Kemp about the Doane family. The townspeople there felt none of the restraint I noticed here. I heard a veritable outpouring of rumor and i

"All of them?"

"The mother was a suicide. The son died on death row while awaiting execution for the ax murders I spoke of. The daughter died in an insane asylum after refusing to sleep for two weeks. The last to die was the father, shot by the town sheriff of Sunflower."

"What happened?"

"He apparently took to wandering into town, accosting young women, threatening the townsfolk. There were reports of vandalism, destruction, babies gone missing. The people I spoke to hinted it might have been less of a killing and more of an execution--with the tacit approval of the Sunflower town fathers. The sheriff and his deputies shotgu

"Jesus," D'Agosta replied. "That would explain the waitress's reaction. As well as all the hostility around here."

"Precisely."

"What the hell do you think happened to them? Something in the water?"

"I have no idea. But I will tell you this: I'm convinced they were the object of Helen's visit."

"That's a pretty big leap."

Pendergast nodded. "Consider this: they are the only unique element in an otherwise unremarkable town. There's nothing else here of interest. Somehow, they're the link we're searching for."

The waitress hustled up to their table, took away their plates, and went off, even as D'Agosta began to order coffee. "I wonder what it takes to get a cup of java around here," D'Agosta said, trying to attract her attention.

"Somehow, Vincent, I doubt you'll be getting your 'java' or anything more in this establishment."

D'Agosta sighed. "So who lives in the house now?"

"Nobody. It was abandoned and shut up since the shooting of Mr. Doane."

"We're going there," D'Agosta said, more as a statement than a question.

"Exactly."

"When?"

Pendergast raised his finger for the waitress. "As soon as we can get the check from our reticent but nevertheless most eloquent waitress."

25

THE WAITRESS DID NOT ARRIVE WITH THE check. Instead, it was the manager of the hotel. He placed the check on the table and then, without even a show of apology, informed them they would not be able to stay the night after all.

"What do you mean?" D'Agosta said. "We booked the room; you took our credit card numbers."

"There's a large party coming in," the man replied. "They had prior reservations the front desk overlooked--and as you can see, this is a small hotel."

"Too bad for them," D'Agosta said. "We're already here."

"You haven't unpacked yet," the manager replied. "In fact, I'm told your luggage isn't even in your rooms yet. I've already torn up your credit card voucher. I'm sorry."

But he didn't sound sorry, and D'Agosta was about to rake the man over the coals when Pendergast laid a hand on his arm. "Very well," Pendergast said, reaching into his wallet and paying the di

The manager walked away, and D'Agosta turned to Pendergast. "You're go

In response, Pendergast nodded out the window. Glancing through it, D'Agosta saw the hotel manager now crossing the street. As D'Agosta watched, the man walked past several store buildings, shuttered for the night, and then vanished into the sheriff's office.

"What the hell kind of town is this?" D'Agosta said. "Next thing you know, it'll be villagers with pitchforks."

"Our interest doesn't lie with the town," Pendergast said. "There's no point in complicating things. I suggest that we leave at once--before the local sheriff finds an excuse to run us out."

They exited the restaurant and made their way to the back parking lot of the hotel. The storm that had been threatening was fast approaching: the wind raked the treetops, and thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance. Pendergast put up the Porsche's top as D'Agosta climbed in. Pendergast slipped in himself, turned on the engine, nosed the car into a back alley, then made his way through town via back streets, avoiding main thoroughfares.

The Doane house was located about two miles past town, up an unpaved drive that had once been well tended but was now little more than a rutted track. He drove cautiously, careful not to bottom out the Spyder in the hard-packed dirt. Dense stands of trees crowded in on both sides of the road, their skeletal branches lacing the night sky above their heads. D'Agosta, flung around in his seat until his teeth rattled, decided that even the Zambian Land Rover would have been preferable in these conditions.

Pendergast rounded a final bend and the house itself came into view in the headlights, the sky roiling with clouds above. D'Agosta stared at it in surprise. He had expected a large, elegant structure, as ornate as the rest of the town was plain. What he saw was large, all right, but it was hardly elegant. In fact, it looked more like a fort left over from the days of the Louisiana Purchase. Built out of huge, rough-edged beams, it sported tall towers at either end and a long, squat central facade with i

"Looks like somebody tried to cross a castle with a log cabin," he said.

"The original owner was a timber baron, after all." Pendergast nodded at the widow's walk. "No doubt he used that to survey his domain. I read that he personally owned sixty thousand acres of land--including much of the cypress forests in the Black Brake--before the government acquired it for the national forest and a wilderness area."

He pulled up to the house and stopped. The agent glanced briefly in the rearview mirror before maneuvering the car around to the back and killing the engine.