Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [73]
He set off at a brisk pace, and D’Agosta followed in his wake, trying to keep up. He was exhausted and wondered how Pendergast maintained his energy after a week of nonstop traveling by car and plane, charging from one place to the next, rolling into bed at midnight and waking at dawn. Port Allen felt like one place too many.
First they had gone to see Dr. Torgensson’s penultimate dwelling: an attractive old brick residence west of town, now a funeral home. They had rushed to the town hall where Pendergast had charmed a secretary, who allowed him to paw through some old plans and books. And now they were here, on the banks of the Mississippi itself, where Blast claimed Dr. Torgensson had spent his final unpleasant months in a shotgun shack, ruined, in a syphilitic and alcoholic stupor.
The riverfront promenade was broad and grand, and the view from the levee was spectacular: Baton Rouge spread out across the far bank, barges and tugs working their way up the wide flow of chocolate-colored water.
“That’s the Port Allen Lock,” Pendergast said, waving his hand toward a large break in the levee, ending in two huge yellow gates. “Largest free-floating structure of its kind. It connects the river to the Intracoastal Waterway.”
They walked a few blocks along the promenade. D’Agosta felt himself reviving under the influence of the fresh breeze coming off the river. They stopped at an information booth, where Pendergast scanned the advertisements and notice boards. “How tragic—we’ve missed the Lagniappe Dulcimer Fête,” he said.
D’Agosta shot a private glance toward Pendergast. Given how hard he’d taken the shock of his wife’s murder, the agent had taken the news about Constance Greene—which Hayward had given them yesterday—with remarkably little emotion. No matter how long D’Agosta knew Pendergast, it seemed he never really knew him. The man obviously cared for Constance—and yet he seemed almost indifferent to the fact that she was now in custody, charged with infanticide.
Pendergast strolled back out of the booth and walked across the greensward toward the river itself, pausing at the remains of a ruined sluice gate, now half underwater. “In the early nineteenth century, the business district would have been two or three blocks out there,” he said, pointing into the roiling mass of water. “Now it belongs to the river.”
He led the way back across the promenade and Commerce Avenue, made a left on Court Street and a right on Atchafalaya. “By the time Dr. Torgensson was forced to move into his final dwelling,” he said, “St. Michel had become West Baton Rouge. At the time, this neighborhood was a seedy, working-class community between the railroad depot and the ferry landing.”
He turned down another street; consulted the map again; walked a little farther and halted. “I do believe,” he drawled, “that we have arrived.”
They had arrived at a small commercial mini-mall. Three buildings sat side by side: a McDonald’s; a mobile phone store; and a squat, garishly colored structure named Pappy’s Donette Hole—a crusty local chain D’Agosta had seen elsewhere. Two cars were parked in front of Pappy’s, and the McDonald’s drive-through was doing a brisk business.
“This is it?” he exclaimed.
Pendergast nodded, pointing at the cell phone store. “That is the precise location of Torgensson’s shotgun shack.”
D’Agosta looked at each of the buildings in turn. His spirits, which had begun to rise during the brief walk, fell again. “It’s like Blast said,” he muttered. “Totally hopeless.”
Pendergast put his hands in his pockets and strolled up to the mini-mall. He ducked into each of the buildings in turn. D’Agosta, who could not summon the energy to follow, merely stood in the adjoining parking lot and watched. Within five minutes the agent had returned. Saying nothing, he did a slow scan of the horizon, turning almost imperceptibly, until he had carefully scrutinized