Bloodless (Aloysius Pendergast #20)(63)
The voice was now directly outside the door. Wellstone yanked at the retaining rod, first gently, then violently. It wouldn’t give.
He heard the click of a lock disengaging, heard a rattling sound as the latch he’d partially set kept the door of the room from opening. Wellstone realized he had no choice. He couldn’t take the entire camera. He didn’t dare break it apart. Quickly, he reached for his phone, took a series of burst shots of the camera’s interior.
More rattling at the door. “Dieser verfluchte Schlüsseloch!” came the mutter from just outside.
Moving like lightning, Wellstone put the camera back into its foam nest; closed, latched, and zipped the case; placed it back on the floor; smoothed the end of the bed; put his phone in his pocket; made sure his tools—flashlight, mallet, chisel, drive cloner, and USB stick—were all accounted for; then walked backward until he felt the window curtains brush against him, all the while keeping an eye on the door.
“Gerhard!” he heard Betts call in an impatient travesty of a German accent. “Move your schweinehund ass!”
“Halt deine Fresse!” Moller snapped in response as he gave the door a mighty shove. This time, the privacy latch slipped out of position and the door flew open. But even as it did so, the window beyond the curtains was silently closing. And by the time Moller had snapped on the light, Wellstone was jogging through the darkened parking lot, away from State Street and heading for Broughton. Only he wasn’t as silent as he’d been when approaching Moller’s room. Now he was repeating something under his breath as he ran:
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit…
41
PENDERGAST SAT ON THE veranda of the Chandler House, a long balcony of ornate ironwork that ran along the second floor. Below him, groups of tourists passed by on the sidewalk. An undercurrent of traffic noise rose up from the busy streets, with the occasional honk or squeal of brakes. The round table at which he sat—made, like the veranda itself, of filigreed iron—held five items: a copy of the latest New England Journal of Medicine, a bottle of calvados, and three snifters, two of which were empty. The agent’s gaze, like that of a statue, was fixed on the middle distance. No one else was present and, to ensure his tranquility, he had secured a large enough block of rooms so that anybody who came out onto their own patch of veranda would not disturb him with an obnoxiously close presence.
Now the room door squeaked open, and Constance emerged from their suite onto the veranda. As she closed it, Pendergast said: “Bonsoir.”
“A sou for your thoughts?” she asked as she took a seat beside him.
“I was just observing the chiaroscuro the hotel’s lights throw across this balcony of ours.”
“The effect reminds me of the cut-paper doilies we used to make as children.”
Pendergast roused himself, poured her out a measure of calvados, and picked up his own snifter.
“No doubt you’re eager to hear the results of my second conversation with the grande dame upstairs,” Constance asked, cradling her snifter.
“Above all things.”
“I’ve spent many hours conversing with her, but I’m not sure how relevant the intelligence I’ve gathered is—except, perhaps, in filling in some missing corners of the triptych you’re painting.”
“You flatter me, my dear. My mental construct of Savannah and its crimes is a diptych at most.”
Constance took a sip of calvados. “As I mentioned, Frost is a most unusual woman—but she is not the blood-sucking parasite some of the staff believe her to be. She puts on a forbidding disposition in order to be left alone. In younger days, she must have appeared to staff and guests as nothing less than a force of nature. Even now, she’s not as frail as she wants people to believe, and her mind remains acute. She’s lost none of her memories. Her learning and intelligence are profound.” She paused a moment. “By our second meeting, in fact, she had somehow intuited that I…was rather older than my appearance would suggest.”
Pendergast’s eyebrows shot up. “And how did she deduce that?”
Constance hesitated. “Aloysius, she told me that—” Then she broke off, with a shake of her head sharp enough to disturb her bobbed hair. “It’s not germane, really. I shall tell you sometime when we’re at leisure.”
“Did you tell her your history?”
“The barest minimum, trying to draw her out. But she still refused to give me any details of her life before Savannah. What I can tell you is she’s read deeply in literature, philosophy, history, and science. She’s very upset by Ellerby’s death. She was angry at him for defying her somehow—yet she also seems to feel responsible.”
“In what way?” Pendergast murmured.
“That was obscure. All I have are my speculations.”
A large delivery truck rattled down the street beneath them, causing the iron veranda to tremble slightly. “By all means, speculate,” Pendergast said.
“Very well. But please don’t criticize my logic or ask me to provide supporting arguments.”
“I would never be so importunate.”
Constance suppressed a smile and looked out over the darkness of Chatham Square. “I have three thoughts in particular. One: Although she had plenty of money when she arrived in Savannah, she did not originally come from money. I believe her childhood was happy, but poor. Two: As much as she mourns Ellerby’s passing—we didn’t touch on just how close their relationship was—I sense that she had an even deeper emotional connection somewhere else, somewhere in her past. She may have lost someone, or left someone, long ago, and now in her old age she regrets it bitterly. And three: I sense that she carries a burden of guilt that manifests itself in grief—and fear.”