Crimson Shore Page 21

  “So what does it taste like to you?”

  “I would say this wine enters the palate like silk wrapped in a velvet texture. That is because of its age—almost all the fruit and tannins have been transformed.” He sipped again. “I note spice, cigar-box, truffles, faded flowers, autumn leaves, earth, and leather flavors.”

  Constance sipped once again, but couldn’t even begin to find those tastes in the wine.

  “This wine is austere, structured, with great finesse, and a long, lingering finish.”

  “What, exactly, makes it so good?”

  “Everything. Each sip brings out another flavor, another characteristic.” He sipped again. “It is just so marvelously complex, so balanced, with each flavor coming forward in its turn. Most important, it has that goût de terroir, the special taste of the earth from which the grapes emerged. It contains the very soul of that famous and long-gone two-acre hillside, ruined by mustard gas during World War I.”

  Pendergast poured them each a second glass and Constance tasted it carefully. It was softer than most wines she remembered drinking, and it had a perfumed delicacy to it that was pleasing. Perhaps she could learn to enjoy wine in the way Pendergast did. As she sipped, she was aware of the slightest numbness of her lips and a pleasant, tingling warmth that seemed to radiate from her very core. She thought she might be detecting notes of truffles and leather in the wine, after all.

  Pendergast rose from his seat beside her on the bed and began to stroll about the room thoughtfully, glass in hand. Obtaining, and drinking, the exquisite wine had put him in rare spirits, and he was uncharacteristically voluble. “Even more than with most criminal investigations, Constance, this one is heavy with irony. We have the historian, McCool, arriving with knowledge of the jewels, but not the location of the Pembroke Castle’s destruction—while at the same time we have the Dunwoody brothers, knowing exactly where the ship ran aground but ignorant of the existence of the jewels. When the two came together, voilà! The crime was born. The brothers needed time to stage their sham wine theft, which explains the several weeks gap after the historian left. The brothers also knew there was a good chance the historian might return, and they wanted to be ready for him—hence Dana Dunwoody’s idea of looking up the Tybane symbols. After the killing, Joe, the bartender, was in an excellent position to spread rumors of the inscriptions carved into McCool’s body, and the implication that witches were involved—something that Exmouth natives, who had all grown up hearing such legends, would enthusiastically adopt. A perfect red herring, really.”

  “But how did you know of the third brother? Your explanation to Lake this morning seemed intentionally vague.”

  “It was. It was clear, from my investigations, that somebody was living in the marshlands. The missing food, the trails I had come across, the smell of a campfire, the sense I had of being shadowed in my excursions into the salt grass, pointed to only one thing. And they also suggested Joe Dunwoody as a suspect. The thread of cloth I found from Dana Dunwoody’s clothing, and his visit to the Salem library to look at the inscriptions, made the brotherly angle even more likely. But it was my visit to the medical examiner that clinched it. Dana’s killing was a sudden, unexpected act of rage—not like the premeditated murder of McCool.” He seated himself once again on the bed next to Constance. “And while Dunkan tried to cover his tracks by carving up his brother as he’d carved up the historian, he didn’t have much stomach for the task—hence the hesitant nature of the cuts.”

  Constance took another sip of wine. The howl of the wind and drumming of rain was pleasant here in this cozy room, with its dim lighting and its crackling fire. She could feel the warmth of Pendergast’s body next to hers.

  She noticed that Pendergast was looking at her. Was that look quizzical—or was it expectant?

  “Yes, Constance?” he asked mildly. “I sense you have other questions about the case.”

  “It’s just…” she began after a long moment, trying to marshal her distracted thoughts. “It’s just that something seems to be missing.” She said this more to fill an increasingly dangerous silence than anything else.

  “How so?”

  “Those tracts I read in the Salem library. About the ‘wandering place,’ the ‘dark pilgrimage to a southern shore.’ We proved that the witches did not die out, as everyone had thought, but that they had moved—to the south.”

  “It’s a curious side story, without a doubt.” Pendergast took another sip of wine, then refilled both of their glasses. He once again sat down on the bed. The decanter was now almost empty.

  Constance put her glass on the table. “Then where did they go—and what happened to them? The only place south of the site you discovered in the marshes is Oldham.”

  “But Oldham wasn’t a witches’ settlement. It was a working fishing village—that was depopulated, I might add, some eighty years ago, following the hurricane of ’38. And it was not witches who carved those inscriptions into the bodies of McCool and Dana Dunwoody—we already have statements from the real ‘engraver,’ who is anything but a witch. And wasn’t it you who, not so long ago, was deriding any possible link to witchcraft in this case?” A pause. “You can’t take such things too literally, my dear Constance. I know of your penchant for the bizarre and unusual—all those years of reading outré books in the sub-basement of Eight Ninety-One Riverside Drive, after all, must have had their effect—but even if the story is true, ‘south’ could have meant anything or anyplace. It could have meant Gloucester or even Boston. And by now, those witches—assuming they were witches—are but a distant memory.”

  Constance fell silent. Pendergast put his hand over hers. “Trust me—you have to let it go. I have yet to work a case in which every strand braids together perfectly.”

  Still Constance said nothing; she was now hardly listening. She felt her heart accelerate and her chest grow tight. A tingling sensation spread over her body. Pendergast’s hand, still lying over hers, felt like a burning thing. The storm of emotions within her seemed to break. Almost without knowing what she was doing—as if someone else was controlling her actions—she slipped her hand out from beneath Pendergast’s, then placed it over his. Slowly, deliberately, she raised his hand from the quilt and placed it on her knee.

  Pendergast went rigid. His eyes looked into hers, the firelight reflecting in flashing, silvery shards.

  Equally slowly, equally deliberately, she began guiding his hand upward under her dress.

  There was a moment of stillness. And then, he turned toward her with such suddenness that his wineglass dashed against the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces. One hand tightened on the inside of her thigh, while the other hand grasped the front of her dress with nearly enough force to tear buttons away. His lips crushed hers…and then, just as abruptly, he drew back. Almost before she could comprehend what was happening, he had risen from the bed in a smooth motion. Now, inexplicably, he began retrieving the fragments of his wineglass and dropping them into the wastebasket with hands that shook ever so slightly. Constance simply watched him, not moving, stunned and unable to think.

  “I am terribly sorry, Constance,” she could hear him saying. “I believe I may have damaged your dress.”

  Still, she couldn’t find any words.

  “You must understand. I am a man, you are a woman…I have greater affection for you than for any other living soul…” He continued picking up the glass as he spoke.

  She found her voice. “Stop fussing.”

  He paused, standing between the table and the dying fire. His face was flushed. “I feel that the peculiar nature of our relationship precludes our acting on any feelings that we might…”

  “Do shut up.”

  He fell silent. He remained standing, looking at her.

  Constance rose. She felt confusion first, then embarrassment, and finally humiliation and anger. She stared at him, her body trembling.

  “Constance?”

  With a sudden, violent, backhand
ed movement, she dashed the other glass from the table, shattering it against the hearth. “Pick that up, too, why don’t you?”

  Then she turned, strode toward the door, and flung it wide.

  “Wait!” Pendergast cried after her. “Don’t leave—”

  But the rest of the sentence was cut off as she slammed the door and ran downstairs toward her own room.

  42

  Percival Lake returned from the window that looked out over the bluffs to the raging Atlantic below. It was turning out to be quite the storm. Every sweep of the lighthouse’s beam cast a fleeting radiance across the distant dunes and ocean, illuminating the line of white rollers marching in and thundering up the beach. The lights of the house were out, but the lighthouse had its own emergency generator, supplied by the Coast Guard, which kept it going no matter what the weather.

  He turned from the window and watched Carole lighting the last of the candles, which flickered along the mantelpiece and on tables in the living room. That, combined with the warm glow from the fire in the massive stone fireplace, gave the room a delicious atmosphere. Blackouts were common out where they were, at the very end of the line. Lake enjoyed them…as long as they didn’t go on too long.

  Carole straightened up. She had seemed nervous and overwrought the last few days, but now was back to her splendid self. “I just love candlelight,” she said.

  Lake came over and put his arm around her. “I have an idea. A very special idea.”

  “I know what your ‘special ideas’ are all about,” she said, giving him an elbow.

  “Well, this one is different. Come with me.” He plucked up a candle in a holder and, leading her by the arm, went to the cellar door. “Come.”

  He led her down the narrow stairs. At the bottom, the sound of the storm was muffled, the creaking of the joists in the old house louder.

  “What do you have in mind?” she asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  He went down the basement corridor, past his sculpture studio, and into the oldest section of the basement. It was still a wreck from the theft, the shelves that had held the bottles lying on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and the smell of wine. The niche Pendergast had discovered still stood open, gaping, the rusted chains hanging within. To think that all those precious bottles were at the bottom of the ocean! He bypassed the empty shelves and went to the wooden case of Chateau Haute-Braquilanges.

  “Hold this.” He gave her the candle as he bent down and removed the top. The bottles were nestled in their wooden holders. One holder was empty: the bottle he had given to Pendergast. Reaching in, he grasped another and held it up.

  “Since I’ve broken the case, let’s drink another.”

  “Really? Isn’t it worth, like, ten thousand dollars?”

  “Much, much more. But we’re not getting any younger—and what is wine for if not to drink?”

  “Maybe you’re not getting any younger,” she said, laughing. “Anyway, even after all this time I don’t know a thing about wine. You’d be throwing it away on me.”

  He put his arm around her. “That’s where you’re wrong. My dear, you and I are going to rebuild this collection. We’re going to travel to Italy, France, and California, tasting and buying wine and shipping it back. You need to educate your palate. And what better way to do it than to begin with the greatest wine ever made?” He gave her a squeeze.

  “That sounds lovely. Okay, you’ve convinced me.”

  “That was easy.”

  They turned to go. As they passed the open niche, Lake paused. “To think a fortune in jewels was sitting right there, under our noses. Too bad we didn’t find it ourselves.”

  He felt Carole give a shudder. “I’m glad we didn’t. Think of all those mothers and babies, butchered. Talk about blood gemstones. Bad juju for sure.”

  “True.”

  Cradling the bottle, careful not to disturb its sediments, he brought it up the stairs and into the living room, setting it down with exquisite care on the table in front of the fire. He removed the lead capsule and wiped off the neck of the bottle with a damp cloth. The cork looked good, no signs of leakage or mold. Then, again with care, he inserted the tip of a corkscrew into the center of the cork and slowly twisted it in, hooked the edge of the lever against the side of the bottle, and—with bated breath—eased it out.

  This was the moment of truth. He hadn’t mentioned it to Carole, but the chances were good that a wine this old had already turned to vinegar, or at the very least had become corked. But as he inhaled the scent, he took in a rich variety of aromas that not only indicated the wine was fine, but were of staggering nuance and complexity. He took another sniff, marveling at the layering of characteristics.

  “Well, well,” he murmured.

  “Is it good?”

  He nodded, bringing over a decanter. As if handling a baby, he carefully decanted the wine, leaving an inch left around the punt. He then poured out two glasses. They both took a good drink. The wind shuddered the house, rattling the windows. The lighthouse beam swept across the sea, then swept again.

  In silence, they enjoyed the wine, without the usual wine chatter about this taste or that smell. Lake liked that. There was way too much talk about wine drinking. It was like those people who talked incessantly in museums; God forbid they should simply look, for a change.

  He was delighted to see how much Carole was enjoying the wine. Yes, she could learn. They would travel and taste and buy. It would give them something to bond over, which, if truth be told, he’d found rather lacking in their relationship. It would be a wonderful experience…and it would help him finally accept the loss of his wife. This would be the way he would at long last overcome that hole in his heart, that seemingly permanent feeling of loss.

  They continued sipping.

  “What was that?” Carole asked.

  He paused. There had been a thump. A gust of rain lashed the windows as they listened. Then came a second, louder thump. It appeared to come from the porch.

  “I think the wind just blew over one of the rocking chairs.” He turned back to the wine.

  Another shuddering thump sounded on the porch, almost like a stamping foot.

  “That was no rocking chair,” Carole said.

  “Let me check.” He rose, picked up a flashlight from the table, and went out of the living room and into the front hall. As he reached the door he heard something strike it, like a clumsy knock. Suddenly uneasy, he went to the vertical row of sidelights beside the door and shone the light out onto the porch to see if someone was there.

  There were muddy, indistinct footprints leading across the rain-swept porch, but he couldn’t see who was at the door. Good God, he thought, who in the world would be out in that storm? But whoever it was, he was standing too close to the front door to be seen. The antique door had no peephole.

  “Who’s there?” Lake called out over the sound of the storm.

  This was answered with another fumbling knock, and then the rattle of the doorknob. The door, thank God, was locked.

  “Look, if you’re in trouble, I’ll help you—but you’ve got to talk to me first!”

  Carole appeared in the hallway. “What’s going on?”

  “Some crazy person at the door.” He turned back. “Who is it?”

  Now came the sound of a heavy body pressing itself against the door, which groaned with the pressure.

  “Who the hell’s there?” Lake yelled.

  This time the body slammed against the door, rattling the hardware. Carole gave a short scream and jumped back.

  “Carole, get me the baseball bat!”

  She disappeared into the darkness of the kitchen. A moment later, she returned with the birch Louisville Slugger they kept in the broom closet.

  Another body-slam against the door, more powerful this time. The wood cracked around the frame.

  “You son of a bitch, you come in here and I’ll kill you!” Lake cried. It was dark and he could hardly see. “Caro
le, shine this flashlight over here!”

  He stood back, cocking the bat, while she stood behind him, holding the flashlight with shaking hands.

  Another powerful slam, more cracking of wood. The lock plate jarred loose with a rattle.

  “Stop it!” he screamed. “I’ve got a gun! I’ll shoot you, God help me if I won’t!” He wished to hell he did have a gun.

  Another crash and the door flew open, splinters of wood scattering. A figure burst in and Lake swung the bat hard, but the figure, leaping over the shattered remains of the door, moved so fast that he got in only a glancing blow to its shoulder as it blew past him, filling his nostrils with a sudden overwhelming stench. He turned around and drew back the bat just as Carole let out a bloodcurdling scream, the flashlight dropping to the floor and plunging the room into gloom. At the same time there was a wet sound, like a water balloon bursting. In the dimness, Lake saw the dark shape drop down to its knees and hunch over Carole, lying splayed on the Persian rug. He could hear the sodden sounds of mastication. With a roar he rushed over and swung the bat at the shape, but it rotated upward, two blunt hands rising to catch the bat; it was twisted out of his hands with horrific force; and then he felt a gigantic ripping jerk to his midriff, heard the sound of something wet and heavy hitting the ground, before he himself fell backward, screaming, into a bottomless pit of pain and horror.

  43

  I told you we were out of candles,” Mark Lillie said, opening and slamming drawers, his voice raised over the banging of a loose shutter in the wind. “Two weeks ago when we had the last blackout, I told you we needed candles.”

  “You only imagine you told me that,” said Sarah. “What about the shutters I’ve been telling you to fix for the past year?”

  As if to underscore her comment, the shutter banged again. He pulled a flashlight out of a drawer, cursing.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Sarah asked.

  Mark turned it on, shining it in her face. “A flashlight doesn’t exactly light up a room.”