“Is that why you vanished? To do some sightseeing?”
“Not at all. I was following our good Dr. Cobb.”
“That museum curator? Why?”
“I had a hunch that after our conversation, he might pay a visit to someone…in rather a hurry. And indeed, he left the museum and went straight to the house of a wealthy old dowager known as Lida Mae Culpepper. She was apparently a great beauty in her time, sadly faded despite heroic surgical efforts, but well adorned in sapphires, diamonds, and gold.”
Coldmoon couldn’t imagine where this was going.
“The dowager Culpepper, it seems, recently invested in real estate: an old desanctified church over on Bee Road.”
“And this has to do with what, exactly?”
“Random musings on the fund of secrets in this town, simply aching to be revealed. I know of a fellow calling himself an ‘enigmalogist’ who’d give his eyeteeth to work here.” He waved his hand around the parlor. “This hotel, for instance.”
“What about it?”
Pendergast looked almost hurt. “Don’t you find this an intriguing establishment? Especially considering it’s where the first victim was employed?”
Now Coldmoon, too, sat up. “You mean—”
“My dear Coldmoon, did you think Constance chose this place at random? The body that was found washed up on the banks of the Wilmington River had, before his death, been the manager of the Chandler. We have work to do here.”
As if on cue, Constance entered the room. She glanced around with her strange eyes, then took an empty seat near Pendergast.
“I trust you found the rooms to your liking,” she said to him.
“Perfect in every way. May I ask what you learned while you checked in?”
“The usual rumor and gossip. On the night the manager disappeared, he went out for a smoke, and a short time later, a distant cry was heard from the park. He never returned.”
Pendergast nodded. “An excellent beginning, Constance.”
“I understand the assistant manager, a Mr. Thurston Drinkman III, has taken his place.”
“A charming southern name. We will need to speak with him. And the proprietress.” He turned to Coldmoon. “That’s the woman who restored the hotel when it was about to be razed.”
Constance nodded. “Her name is Miss Felicity Winthrop Frost. She’s a recluse of advanced years who occupies the entire top floor of the hotel and never leaves her rooms. She takes no calls or meetings and does not indulge in email. She is said to be very rich and, despite her age and frailty, rather fearsome.”
“Constance, you are a marvel,” Pendergast said. “So she’s the Howard Hughes of Savannah.”
Coldmoon had noticed the top floor as they’d entered. It was smaller than the lower four floors, with a cupola at its center, the tall old windows blocked with cloth.
“Anything else we should know?” Pendergast asked. “Our friend Armstrong, here, seems to feel this case might not be worthy of our talents.”
Constance fixed him with her gaze. “Not worthy? Lakota belief embraces a pantheon of divinities, does it not? Han, spirit of darkness; Iktomi, the spider god who brought speech to humans; Tatankan Gnaskiyan, ‘Crazy Buffalo,’ the evil spirit who drives lovers to suicide and murder?”
She raised her eyebrows, as if to inquire whether this was correct, but Coldmoon was too surprised to answer.
“I would think,” she continued when he did not reply, “that someone with your appreciation for spirits will find Savannah to be the most shadow-haunted place in all America.”
9
WENDY GANNON TRIED TO tune out Betts’s voice echoing down the long hallway from the editing room to the studio. She continued inventorying the lighting equipment, making a list of things she wanted to add, while Betts, reviewing the dailies, issued a loud and steady stream of expostulations, snorts of disfavor, and other sounds of disgust. As the director of photography, Gannon had initially been concerned that Betts wasn’t pleased with her work, but she soon realized that most of the time he was just acting out. Even when the camera was not trained on him, Barclay Betts was stuck in performance mode.
The crew had arrived in Savannah several days ago to shoot an episode for their new, high-profile Netflix documentary mini-series, provisionally titled America’s Most Haunted Cities. It had sounded like an interesting project when she’d signed the contract, in a town she’d always wanted to visit. Betts had a reputation for being difficult to work with, but that was true with most directors, and Gannon prided herself on getting along with just about anyone. The town was indeed fabulous. It was one of the few places left in America that had retained a special local flavor, and had resisted the numbing effect of fast-food chains, gas stations, and big-box stores. It was a DP’s dream, a wonderful place to shoot, with mists rising in the early morning among the oaks draped in Spanish moss, the soft light in the evening gilding the grand old mansions, cobbled streets and charming squares—all on a bluff above a slow-moving river. The idea of the show was pretty intriguing, too. They were going to investigate the six most haunted places in Savannah with none other than Gerhard Moller, the famous medium, paranormal researcher, and founder of the Institute for Perceptual Studies. Moller was the inventor of the Percipience Camera—said to be able to capture pictures of ghosts or, as Moller called them, “spiritual turbulences”—as well as other spook-detecting devices. Each segment of the show would be devoted to investigating a single haunted locality to see if there really were ghosts and, if so, to document them using the Percipience Camera and other gadgets.