Still Life With Crows Read Online Free PDF Page B

Medicine Creek. A flock of crows rose out of the endless corn and fell back in, feasting on the ripe ears. Thunderheads piled up to the west. The silence was as unending as the landscape.
     
    In the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, Winifred Kraus replaced the telephone in its cradle. Jenny Parker wasn’t in. Perhaps she was in town, getting news. She’d try calling again after lunch.
    She wondered if she should bring the nice man, Mr. Pendergast, a second glass of tea. Southerners were so well-bred; she believed they drank a lot of iced tea on big shady verandas and such. It was such a hot day and he’d walked from town. She went into the kitchen, poured a fresh glass, began mounting the stairs. But no—she should let him unpack, have his privacy. What was she thinking? News of the murder had her all in a tizzy.
    She turned to descend the staircase. But then she stopped again. A voice had sounded from upstairs: Pendergast had said something. Was he speaking to her?
    Winifred cocked her head, listening. For a moment, the house was still. Then Pendergast spoke again, and this time, she made out what he was saying.
    “Excellent,” came the dulcet voice. “Most excellent.”

Six
    T he road was as straight as the nineteenth-century surveyor’s original line of sight, and it was flanked by two unmoving walls of corn. Special Agent Pendergast walked down the shimmering road, his polished black oxfords—handmade by John Lobb of St. James’s Street, London—leaving a row of faint impressions in the sticky asphalt.
    Ahead, he could see where heavy vehicles had come in and out of the cornfield, leaving brown tracks and clots of dirt on the road. Approaching, he turned to make his way along the crude access road that had been bulldozed into the cornfield to the murder site. His feet sank into the powdery earth.
    Where the access widened into a makeshift parking lot a state trooper cruiser sat, motor running, water dripping into the dirt from the AC. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked off the site, wound around tall stakes hammered into the earth. Inside the cruiser a trooper sat, reading a paperback.
    Pendergast approached and rapped on the window. The man gave a start, then quickly recovered. Hastily putting the paperback aside, he got out and faced Pendergast, squinting in the hot sun, hooking his arms into his belt loops. A river of cool air flowed out.
    “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. The trooper’s arms were covered with fine red hair and the leather of his boots creaked as he moved.
    Pendergast displayed his shield.
    “Oh. FBI. Sorry.” The trooper looked around. “Where’s your car?”
    “I’d like to take a look at the scene,” Pendergast replied.
    “Be my guest. There’s nothing left, though. It’s all been carted away.”
    “No matter. Please don’t allow me to disturb you further.”
    “Quite all right, sir.” The trooper, with no little relief, climbed back into his cruiser and closed the door.
    Pendergast moved past the car and gingerly ducked beneath the yellow tape. He advanced the last twenty yards to the original clearing. Here he paused, surveying the site. As the trooper had said, it was empty: nothing but dirt, crushed corn stubble, and thousands of footprints. There was a stain in the very center of the clearing, not particularly large.
    For several minutes, Pendergast remained motionless beneath the merciless sun. Only his eyes moved as they took in the clearing. Then he reached into his suit jacket and removed a photograph of the body in situ, from close up. Another photograph showed the overall site, the spitted birds and the forest of sticks. Pendergast rapidly reconstructed the original scene in his mind and held it there, examining it.
    He remained motionless for a quarter of an hour. Then at last he returned the photographs to his jacket and took a step forward, examining the stub of a cornstalk that lay at his feet. It had been broken, not cut. Moving forward, he picked up