The briefest of pauses before Pendergast answered. “That will not be a problem.”
“Well, okay. But wear foul weather gear. And bring Dramamine.”
She heard Pendergast’s phone vibrate. He extracted it from his pocket and, excusing himself, stepped outside. She could hear his low voice speaking beyond the door.
“Agent Coldmoon, will you be coming, too?” she asked.
He backed away, a look of horror on his face. “No, thanks. Boats, water, and me, we don’t get along. I grew up two thousand miles from the ocean.”
She felt relieved. The only thing worse than a guy puking off the starboard rail was another one puking off the port rail.
Pendergast returned to the lab after his call. Coldmoon was surprised at the transformation: his face was full of eagerness. He bowed to the oceanographer, saying he would see her at the dock at five the next morning, and they left.
Pendergast walked swiftly away, Coldmoon struggling to keep up. “The M.E. was able to identify one of the victims,” he said, “or at least narrow it down to two people.”
“As in, identify by name?”
“Yes. A foot was shown to belong to one of two sisters: either Ramona Osorio Ixquiac, thirty-five years old, or her sister, Martina, thirty-three. Both were born in San Miguel—the same Guatemalan town that toe ring came from.”
“How in the world did they identify her?”
“Through a commercial genealogy website. The Ixquiac extended family has several relatives in the U.S. whose DNA is on record at a genetic testing database. Using the same techniques used to identify murderers in cold cases, Crossley was able to match the foot as belonging to one of two sisters. A brilliant piece of work.”
“The sisters—where are they now? Did they disappear?”
Pendergast continued through the relentless heat at his breakneck pace. “All we know is they were born in San Miguel—and we have one of their feet. We know nothing in between those two facts. You’ll be able to find out a great deal more when you’re actually in San Miguel.”
“Wait,” Coldmoon said, halting. “When I’m in San Miguel? What are you talking about?”
“You leave tomorrow morning.”
“Hold on here. I came to the Suncoast to work on this case with you. Not to go to Guatemala. No way—no way in hell!”
“According to your FBI jacket, you’re the ideal choice. You speak Spanish fluently. You’ve been to Guatemala before, and you’ve traveled all over Central America. You’re Native American.”
“Yeah. Lakota, not Mayan! Or do all Indians look alike to you?”
“I must admit, you don’t look Mayan.”
“No. Or like Pancho Villa.” Coldmoon paused. “Wait a minute. This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”
“I assure you, I—”
“Now it makes sense. Sooner or later in this investigation, somebody was going to have to go undercover in Central America—and when you realized that, my name just popped into your head. Like magic.”
“Agent Coldmoon, you wrong me! The feet we’re investigating are here, not in Guatemala. But the DNA evidence, the toe ring, and now the actual name—there are just too many commonalities for us to ignore.”
Coldmoon didn’t answer.
“I’d take your place if I could. But consider how I would stand out. You’re the logical one for this minor divagation.” He paused, and a faint smile appeared. “Or would you rather come out on the boat with me?”
Coldmoon swallowed. Yesterday’s taste of the high seas had been enough—more than enough.
Pendergast uncharacteristically placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “Thank you, partner. This is much appreciated.”
31
COLDMOON STOOD IN the main room of the “servants’ quarters” of the Mortlach House—he had to smile again at the term—eyeing the open bag and articles of clothing spread across the bed. God, it seemed like he’d just unpacked—and now he was packing again. Not only that, but he was headed for Guatemala, of all places. He’d been there before. It was a beautiful country with wonderful people, but a hard place, and he wasn’t particularly eager to go back, especially undercover, trying to figure out how a woman got from the streets of San Miguel Acatán to the waters off Florida’s Gulf Coast—or at least how one of her feet did. There was no telling what kind of hmunga was waiting for him down there.
He muttered a curse. And to think he could still be recuperating on Islamorada, drinking Coronas and watching the sun set over the rusting old fishery. But Pendergast had shown up, dangling precisely the kind of juicy case he knew Coldmoon couldn’t resist.
He picked up a T-shirt from the bed and threw it into the bag with disgust. In looking back on their conversation, he had the sneaking suspicion that Pendergast had known from the start that he’d insist on being a full partner in the investigation. He’d been manipulated. In retrospect, he should have remembered what his grandfather Joe had once told him: Keep your mouth shut and let the paleface do all the talking—and then say no. In this case “paleface” was a description so accurate it could hardly be considered insulting.
Then again, it was a juicy case—certainly the most inexplicable he’d ever handled. And high profile. Bagging this one successfully wouldn’t hurt his career…not at all.
He wondered idly where the “paleface” was. It was almost midnight and Pendergast didn’t seem to be the type to hang out in a bar or restaurant. Come to think of it, he had no idea where Constance was, either. She hadn’t been in the library when he went down to the kitchen at ten o’clock for a root beer, and no light had shown from beneath her door as he was going back up the stairs to the servants’ quarters. Maybe they were out together.
Only now did he realize he had, unconsciously but quite deliberately, looked for that light under her door.
Once again, he wondered what this “ward” business was all about. Was there something going on between those two? Coldmoon had seen some odd relationships in his day, but this one really took the cake. He didn’t think the two were together in any conventionally romantic sense—although Constance was smoking hot despite her prim clothing. And yet there was something electric between them. When Pendergast and Constance interacted, he could almost smell the ozone in the air, like the approach of a thunderstorm.
He had never met anyone like her: so poised, reserved, cynical, erudite, quick-witted—and yet, he sensed, broken at some fundamental level. But, broken or not, she was anything but fragile: he sensed a cold-bloodedness in her, a capacity for violence. She reminded him of a big cat, a panther or tiger, fangs smiling at you while the eyes never left your throat.
For some reason, the memory of his paternal grandmother came back to him. It was a cold winter night on the Pine Ridge Reservation, he was just six or seven, and she was mending a pair of beaded slippers by the stove, her chatter veering into talk of the unseen.
“There are spirits,” his grandmother told him. “Like Owl-Maker, who guards the Milky Way. And Keya, the turtle spirit. They are not of this world. But Wachiwi—Dancing Girl—she is mortal, as we are. Yet she is also different. She has lived hundreds of years and is very old and wise. No longer dancing, just watching and seeing.” The next fall, Coldmoon saw Wachiwi himself, from a distance. She was walking slowly at dusk through the frozen trees, a blanket wrapped around her corduroy dress. She looked toward him briefly, and even in that short glance he saw the wisdom in her eyes.