He resumed his search pattern, continuing for almost an hour in silence. And then, toward the center of the marsh island, Pendergast found, poking from the edge of the mud, a flat rock. He pulled it out and examined it: a worn piece of schist. Rocks did not occur naturally in mudflats. Putting it back in place, he marked its location on a handheld GPS. At that point he began moving in tighter circles, finding, here and there, additional stones. He continued punching the location of each into the GPS device. He worked as long as he dared, and then, knowing that time was running out as the tide came in, he tucked the GPS and map away and made a beeline back toward his starting point.
He had gotten no more than ten feet when he heard a noise: an unholy, ghastly, drawn-out wail that echoed over the vast marshes from a distance. Pendergast had heard that kind of scream before. It was a distinct, unique, human scream, one full of surprise and disbelief, then pain, and finally existential horror.
It was the scream of a man being killed.
20
The scream died away into a gibbering moan, which seemed to dissolve in the sighing of the night wind through the salt grass. Pendergast stood stock-still for a moment. And then he tested the wind again, knelt, removed the map, quickly unrolled it, and drew a narrow cone on it, indicating the approximate direction from where the sound had come. It seemed to be in the middle distance, carried on the wind and yet not from afar: perhaps half a mile, at most. This would put the murder—he had no doubt that was what it was—in the middle of the most inaccessible area of the entire Exmouth marshes: a riddle of channels, mudflats, and stagnant cattail swamps.
This also happened to be the area from which the scent of smoke had come.
He moved fast, like a snake, parting the grass with his arms as he went along, moving as swiftly as was consistent with silence and safety. He came across another trail, a tunnel through the grass, narrower but also human-like in origin, and shortly thereafter found himself at the edge of another mudflat. But now the tide was rising swiftly. Black water flowed inland, the trickle in what had previously been a tiny channel now a surging river twenty feet wide and still growing, carrying along foam and leaves and flotsam swept up on its rise. Clouds scudded across the gibbous moon.
He paused, considering the situation. The tide was rising swiftly, and many channels and streams still lay between him and the approximate area of the crime. Even if he could reach the spot, it would take at least an hour, and by then he would be trapped, unable to return until the far ebb of the tide—six hours at least. He lacked critical information about the victim, the killer, the local geography, and the circumstances. He was at a fatal disadvantage; it would be imprudent, even reckless, to rush blindly toward the sound.
Pendergast turned back into the sheltering grass and checked his cell phone, on the off chance that he had come into a stray field of reception. No good. He examined his map. It was imperative that he get out and report the murder as quickly as possible. In his present location, he was more than halfway across the marsh. The quickest way out would not involve retracing his steps, but would instead take him in the opposite direction, inland to a wood called the King’s Mark State Forest. Through this forest, according to the map, ran a country lane that was the back road from Dill Town to Newburyport.
That would be the quickest way out—and to a phone.
Pendergast put away the map, took his bearing, and then set off, breaking from a swift walk into a steady, even jog. After a quarter mile he struck another mudflat, swiftly filling with incoming tide, and waded into it, struggling through frigid water that was now four feet deep—and would soon be double that—with steadily increasing currents. He continued in this manner, navigating by the light of the moon, until he could see—at the far end of the lighter-colored marshlands—a black line of trees. At last, he reached the final tidal channel, the water now churning through it. He ventured into it and quickly found it was too deep for wading; he would have to swim.