Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [104]
Hudson understood. He heard the door open and voices in the hall; someone had arrived. “Yes. Thank you, sir.” This was even more money than Blast had been paying him—and for the simplest of assignments. Just so long as he didn’t have to go into the Black Brake swamp itself—he’d heard one too many rumors about that place as it was.
Pendergast saw him to the kitchen door. Hudson stepped out into the night, filled with a fierce gratitude and sense of loyalty toward the man who had spared his life.
49
St. Francisville, Louisiana
LAURA HAYWARD FOLLOWED THE SQUAD CAR out of town on a winding road that led south toward the Mississippi River. She felt conspicuous and more than a little awkward behind the wheel of Helen Pendergast’s vintage Porsche convertible, but the FBI agent had offered his wife’s car so courteously she simply hadn’t had the heart to refuse. As she drove along the sloping road, overleafed with oaks and walnut trees, her mind drifted back to her first job with the New Orleans Police Department. She’d only been a substitute dispatcher then, but the experience had confirmed her desire to become a cop. That was before she’d headed north to New York City, to attend the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and later take her first job as a Transit Authority cop. In the almost fifteen years since, she’d lost most of her southern accent—and become a die-hard New Yorker, to boot.
The sight of St. Francisville—whitewashed houses with long porches and tin roofs, the heavy air redolent of magnolias—seemed to melt right through her New York carapace. She mused that her experience with the local police had, so far, gone better than the bureaucratic run-around she’d gotten in Florida trying to get information on the Blast homicide. There was still something to be said for the gentility of the Old South.
The squad car turned into a driveway and Hayward followed, parking next to it. She stepped out to see a modest ranch house, with tidy flower beds framed by two magnolias.
The two cops who had escorted her to the Blackletter house, a sergeant in the homicide division and a regular officer, climbed out of their car, hiking up their belts and walking toward her. The white one, Officer Field, had carrot hair and a red face and was sweating copiously. The other, Sergeant Detective Cring, had an almost excessive earnestness about him, a man who did his duty, dotted every i and crossed every t with close attention.
The house was whitewashed like its neighbors, neat and clean. Crime-scene tape, detached by the wind, fluttered over the lawn and coiled around the porch columns. The front door latch was sealed with orange evidence tape.
“Captain,” said Cring, “do you want to examine the grounds or would you like to go inside?”
“Inside, please.”
She followed them onto the porch. Her arrival at the St. Francisville police station unannounced had been a big event and, initially, not a positive one. They were not happy to see an NYPD captain—and a woman no less—arriving in a flashy car to check up on a local homicide without warning or peace officer status, or even a courtesy call from up north. But Hayward had been able to turn around their suspicion with friendly chatter about her days on the job in New Orleans, and pretty soon they were old buddies. Or at least, she hoped so.
“We’ll do a walk-through,” Cring went on as he approached the door. He took out a penknife and slit through the tape. Freed, the door swung open, its lock broken.
“What about those?” Hayward asked, pointing to a bootie box sitting by the door.
“The crime scene’s already