Fever Dream

She straightened up and was embarrassed to see a man standing across the parking lot, fedora pushed back on his head, mopping his brow, looking in her direction.

In that very moment his hat flew into the air and the entire side of his head went blurry, coalescing into a jet of dark fluid. At the same time a sharp crack! rolled through the spreading oaks. The man slowly toppled to the ground, straight as a tree, landing so heavily his body rolled like a log before coming to rest, arms wrapped around in a crazy self-hug. The hat hit the ground at the same time, rolling a few yards and then, with a wobble, coming to rest on its crown.

For a moment, the woman just stood beside her car, frozen. Then she took out her cell phone and dialed 911 with numb fingers. "A man," she said, surprised by the calmness of her voice, "has just been shot in the parking lot of the Vital Records Building, Louisiana Avenue."

In answer to a question she replied, "Yes, he is most certainly dead."

53

THE PARKING LOT AND PART OF THE NEARBY street had been marked off with crime-scene tape. A crowd of reporters, news teams, and cameras seethed behind blue police barricades, along with a smattering of rubberneckers and disgruntled people who couldn't get their cars out of the lot.

Hayward stood next to Pendergast behind the barriers, watching the investigators do their work. Pendergast had persuaded her, against her will, that they should remain civilians and not involve themselves in the investigation. Nor should they reveal that the PI had been working for them. Hayward reluctantly agreed: to admit their co

"I don't get it," Hayward said. "Why go after Hudson? Here we are, interviewing everyone, blundering about, stirring the pot--and all he was doing was pulling some public files on June Brodie."

Pendergast squinted into the sun, his eyes narrowed, and said nothing.

Hayward tightened her lips and watched the forensic team do their work, crouching over the hot asphalt. They looked like crabs moving slowly over the bottom of the sea. So far they had done everything right. Meticulous, by the book, not a single misstep that she could identify. They were professionals. And perhaps that was no surprise; the very public assassination of a man in broad daylight in front of a government building was not an everyday event in Baton Rouge.

"Let us stroll over this way," Pendergast murmured. She followed him as he slipped through the crowd, moving across the large lawn, circling the parking lot, heading toward the far corner of the Vital Records Building. They stopped before a cluster of yews, severely clipped into oblong shapes, like squashed bowling pins.

Hayward, suddenly suspicious, watched Pendergast approach the bushes.

"This is where the shooter fired from," he said.

"How do you know?"

He pointed to the tilled ground around the yews, covered with raked bark chips. "He lay down here, and the marks of his bipod are there."

Hayward peered without getting too close and, with some effort, finally made out the two almost invisible indents in the ground where the bark had been pushed aside.

"Pendergast, you've got an admirable imagination. How do you know he shot from over here in the first place? The police seem to think it came from another direction." Most of the police activity had been focusing along the street.

"By the position of the fedora. The force of the round kicked the victim's head to one side, but it was the rebound of the neck muscles that jerked the hat off."

Hayward rolled her eyes. "That's pretty thin."

But Pendergast wasn't listening. Once again he was moving across the lawn, this time more rapidly. Hayward took off, struggling to catch up.

He crossed the four hundred yards of open ground, closing in on the parking lot. Expertly slipping his way through the crowd, he came up to the barricades. Again his silver eyes, squinting against the bright sun, peered into the sea of parked cars. A small pair of binoculars made their appearance, and he looked around.

He slipped the binoculars back into his suit. "Excuse me--Officers?" He leaned over the barricade, trying to get the attention of two detectives conferring over a clipboard.

They studiously ignored him.

"Officers? Hello, excuse me."

One of the detectives looked over with obvious reluctance. "Yes?"

"Come here, please." Pendergast gestured with a white hand.

"Sir, we're very busy here."

"Please. It's important. I have information."

Hayward was surprised and irritated by Pendergast's whining, which seemed almost calculated to provoke skepticism. She'd taken pains to curry favor with the local cops--the last thing she wanted was for Pendergast to queer that now.

The detective approached. "Did you see it happen?"

"No. But I see that." Pendergast pointed into the parking lot.

"What?" The detective followed his pointing finger.

"That white Subaru. In the front right door, just below the window trim, is a bullet hole."

The detective squinted, and then shuffled off, threaded his way among the cars to the Subaru. He bent over. A moment later his head shot back up. He shouted at the team and waved.

"George? George! Get the team over here. There's a round in this door panel!"

The forensic team hustled to the car, while the detective came striding back to Pendergast, suddenly interested, his eyes narrowed. "How'd you see that?"

Pendergast smiled. "I have excellent eyesight." He leaned in. "And if you'll excuse the speculation of an ignorant bystander, I would say that--given the position of the bullet hole and the placement of the victim--it might be worth examining the shrubbery at the southeast corner of the building as a likely place from which the shot originated."

The detective's eyes flickered to the building and along the trajectory, immediately comprehending the geometry of the situation. "Right." He waved two detectives over and spoke to them in a low voice.

Immediately Pendergast began moving away.

"Sir? Just a minute, sir."

But Pendergast was already out of hearing, mingling with the general hubbub of the crowd. He drifted toward the building, Hayward in tow, keeping with the moving masses of people. But instead of heading toward their parked car, he turned and entered the Vital Records Building.

"That was an interesting exchange," Hayward said.

"It seemed prudent to furnish them with any available assistance. We need every possible edge we can obtain in this case. However, I believe"--Pendergast continued as they approached the receptionist--"that our adversary might just have made his second false move."

"Which is?"

Instead of answering, Pendergast turned to the clerk. "We're interested in seeing your files on a June Brodie. They may still be out of the stacks--a gentleman, I believe, was looking at them earlier today."

As the woman was retrieving the file from a sorting cart, Hayward turned to Pendergast. "Okay. I'll bite this one time. What was the first false move?"