Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [113]
“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?”
“Missing me at Penumbra and hitting Vincent instead.”
54
New York City
DR. JOHN FELDER STEPPED DOWN FROM THE witness stand at the involuntary-commitment hearing and took his seat. He avoided looking in the direction of Constance Greene, the