Exhausted from the night’s events, Chambers wants to rest, but Pendergast insists on planning their next steps. They stop at a roadside Cajun BBQ joint overlooking a bayou inhabited by a massive alligator named Sir Chompers. Chambers argues that since Wickman is dead, understanding his motives is irrelevant—the priority should be investigating his murder, which Chambers believes was a simple revenge killing. Pendergast disagrees, arguing that the double murder and crime scene evidence point to a complex conspiracy involving men who were “involved with Wickman in some deep and important way” (191). Chambers deduces that Wickman must have been blackmailing them. Pendergast agrees and convinces Chambers that investigating Wickman’s past will reveal the killers’ identities. Chambers grants him three days to pursue this theory.

At the FBI morgue, Chambers and Pendergast observe Dr. Bloom and his assistant, Molly, performing autopsies on the two bodies. Pendergast instructs Bloom via intercom to note the pinpricks and examine the surgical incisions carefully. Chambers observes that Wickman was killed using his own MO. Pendergast corrects him, noting that Wickman’s arm lacked the pinprick signature and suggesting the dismemberment was a “morbid joke.” He explains his deductions from evidence collected in the ruins: A charred surgical mask, nitrile glove, a piece of hair, and cigar ash indicate that the fire was set by a short surgeon over 50, assisted by an observer who smoked during the procedure, which Pendergast views as a sign of an “arrogant” and “whimsical” personality. The unidentified victim was alive when his arm was removed, while Wickman was dead. Both arms were expertly removed by the same skilled surgeon. Pendergast concludes that Wickman had hired the surgeons to amputate his right arm and transplant the victim’s arm in its place. He theorizes that Wickman’s killings were an effort to secure the “perfect preplacement” and that the surgeons’ identities lie somewhere in Wickman’s past.

Pendergast and Chambers arrive at a hospital where Proctor is recovering under military guard. Pendergast enters alone, turns on a loud radio for privacy, and rouses Proctor, who addresses him as “colonel.” Pendergast asks about the captivity. Proctor describes being ambushed by a man disguised as a utility worker and held in a well-fortified padded cell. His captor was meticulous, professional, and obsessed with Proctor’s right arm. Proctor explains that he slashed his own arm as a last resort to frustrate his captor’s plan, which caused the man to become “unhinged.” When Pendergast asks about Proctor’s civilian life, he learns that Proctor was working for an armored car service. Pendergast assures Proctor that he will recover quickly and promises to speak with Decker about his situation.

Pendergast and Chambers interview Wickman’s former nanny in Winter Park, Florida. She describes Wickman as a “sensitive child” who loved reading and drawing boat plans like his father, a nautical engineer. She recounts how bookkeeper Randall Fortnum ruined the family business by selling industrial secrets before patents could be filed. Soon after, Wickman’s parents died when their Cessna pontoon plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. The nanny refutes rumors of a suicide for insurance money, noting that Fortnum had ensured no insurance remained.

They next visit White Kitchen Preparatory School and meet James Aiken, Wickman’s former English teacher. Aiken recalls Wickman arriving around 1975 to live with his grandmother, Esther Wickman, at Pearl View Estates, a mansion she ran as a rest home. He describes Wickman as intelligent, well-adjusted, and popular, nicknamed “Atlas” after a growth spurt and so gentle that he disliked seeing insects harmed. The strictly religious grandmother had built a chapel where Wickman attended daily services. Hearing about the chapel, Chambers recalls the V-shaped candelabra in Wickman’s burning mansion. Aiken says that Wickman attended Tulane on a full scholarship.

Pendergast and Chambers fly to Sedona, Arizona, to interview Sophie Petruska, Wickman’s former girlfriend. After speaking with a Tulane dorm adviser and roommate, they have learned nothing to explain Wickman’s later behavior. At Petruska Jewelry, they watch Petruska casting molten gold. Pendergast displays knowledge of gold-working and Latin; she responds with the original Greek.

When Chambers reveals that Wickman was murdered, Petruska agrees to talk. She met him at Tulane in fall 1983 and describes him as “brilliant,” funny, and a lovable “nerd” who played practical jokes. A chemistry major interested in parapsychology, she drew Wickman into the subject; he wrote his senior thesis on precognition in dreams. They dated for a year, and he entered Tulane’s parapsychology graduate program.

Around 1988, she ran into him at a New Orleans car wash and was shocked by his transformation: “flat” in speech and “wound up.” He had left graduate school and was working with cadavers. She confirms that the change occurred during his two graduate-school years—and that he was driving a large white panel truck.

At Tulane, Chambers and Pendergast search for course catalogs for 1985 and 1986 and discover those volumes—and several preceding years—missing. A librarian confirms that the materials from the defunct parapsychology program were purged because it became an embarrassment. He notes that Dr. Telligren is the only faculty member from that department still at Tulane. Pendergast concludes that the catalogs were deliberately stolen rather than misfiled.

At the humanities library, the same catalogs are missing. Pendergast and Chambers proceed to the registrar’s office. While waiting, Chambers mocks Pendergast’s pocket watch. Pendergast explains that the Patek Philippe rattrapante was assembled in 1916 and presented to his great-grandfather by Switzerland after the Armistice for services rendered.

Pendergast waits for Louise Ferragamo, the head registration clerk. To bypass confidentiality rules, he implies that Wickman is entangled in a deeply unsavory scandal and argues that providing the transcripts will let the FBI contain the matter quietly, protecting the university’s reputation. Convinced, Ferragamo retrieves Wickman’s graduate transcripts. Pendergast ushers Chambers out before she can reconsider or spot the holes in his story.

In the lobby of the university’s biomedical engineering center, Pendergast studies Wickman’s transcripts. The course list—grant writing, art history, and industrial hygiene mixed with pathology—strikes him as bizarre and likely manipulated.

The conversation is interrupted as they are ushered into Dr. Telligren’s elegant office. Pendergast questions him about Wickman and the parapsychology program. Telligren, a gray-haired, distinguished man, dismisses the program as a brief, failed inquiry and denies remembering Wickman. Pendergast presses, to Chambers’s embarrassment.

A third man enters and interrupts the questioning with a Shakespearean flourish: Dr. Dorion Magnus, a bioengineer who secured the interview. He is in his thirties, with blond curls and a quick intelligence. Chambers reveals that Wickman was murdered. Magnus, dismissive, says that he expected Wickman to fail and confirms that they were graduate school classmates. Telligren hastily ends the meeting. Magnus offers cigars from a gold case; Pendergast declines but compliments them. As Magnus ushers them out, he places a friendly hand on Pendergast’s shoulder.

Back at the FBI office, Pendergast declares that Telligren and Magnus are engaged in an “elaborate scheme of deception, including the counterfeiting of files and the removal of documents” (235). Chambers dismisses this. Pendergast connects Magnus’s cigar to fine ash found in Wickman’s surgical bay, suggesting that Magnus was taunting them during the interview.

They are summoned to Estevez’s office, where Estevez furiously berates Pendergast for his unauthorized investigation and turns on Chambers for failing to control his partner. Angered and humiliated, Chambers blames Pendergast’s theories for derailing the main investigation. Estevez orders Chambers back to the core case—identifying the other victim and finding Wickman’s killer—and warns Pendergast to follow Chambers’s lead or face consequences. He demands daily reports.

Dismissed, Chambers feels a brief pang of remorse for having ratted out his partner. Pendergast announces that he has a black-tie party to attend and leaves. Stunned, Chambers resolves that he will no longer “cover” for Pendergast.

Furious at Pendergast’s apparent abandonment, Chambers works late in a basement office with junior agent Ron Fleury, an archivist, and a technician running database searches. Chambers pursues his theory that Wickman was killed in revenge by a victim’s relative, with the amputated arm serving as a message. He reviews the case of Nicholas Mabley, who had a younger brother, Lucius, in Natchez. Chambers notes the timing: Wickman was murdered one day after the Mabley family was informed that Nicholas died at the hands of a serial killer rather than in a mob hit. The speed of this development makes Lucius a prime suspect. Chambers directs Fleury to arrange a voluntary interview with Lucius in Natchez for the following morning; Fleury eagerly agrees to accompany him if Pendergast cannot make it.

Pendergast arrives at the Elms Mansion in the Garden District for a gala honoring Dr. Dorion Magnus with the Huey P. Long Medal. Not on the guest list, he uses sleight of hand to lift and return another guest’s invitation, gaining entry. The opulent mansion unexpectedly recalls his childhood home, Rochenoire, burned by a mob that killed his parents. He suppresses the memories and refocuses.

He pressures a bartender into serving him a Sazerac from the mayor’s private absinthe stock and gathers information from Madame Pontalba, an older woman who calls Magnus charming, wealthy, and philanthropic. She also mentions that he is restoring a large riverboat, the Fantôme. Magnus arrives with an entourage, including Dr. Telligren, who wears a full Marine Corps colonel’s uniform with Vietnam decorations.

Pendergast recruits a woman named Olivia to create a distraction. When Magnus bends to retrieve her dropped glove, Pendergast approaches and warns him that he is in grave danger. Magnus leads him aside and, in a whisper, parades Pendergast’s family history—parents burned by a mob, a poisoner great-aunt, a “quack” grandfather, and a brother “on his way to becoming a monstrous criminal” (350). He ends with a threat, warning that he understands Pendergast and can destroy him.

With Pendergast absent, Chambers and Ron Fleury drive to Natchez, Mississippi, to interview Lucius Mabley. The trip makes Chambers melancholic; he and his late wife often visited the town.

They meet Mabley, who agrees to the interview but refuses recording. Chambers informs him that his brother Nicholas was murdered by serial killer Parker Wickman. Mabley says that he knew it was not a mob hit because the torture was superficial and theatrical. He doubts that a serial killer could have overpowered his tough, armed brother, noting that they typically target those who are vulnerable. Still, he admits that he initially wanted to kill Wickman when he heard the news.

Chambers reveals nonpublic details: Wickman was anesthetized, suffocated while unconscious, and his arm removed post-mortem. Mabley laughs, calling this proof of his innocence. If he had killed Wickman, he would have tortured him while he was awake.

Late one evening, dressed entirely in black, a man later revealed to be Pendergast surveils the home of retired comparative literature professor Dr. Neil Slocombe. After Slocombe goes to bed, Pendergast uses a barking Belgian Malinois as cover to slip a window lock and enter through a living-room window, leaving it ajar. He lures the dog with a prepared snack and then subdues it, covering its eyes and chanting in an “old, half-forgotten language” until it falls asleep (258).

With roughly 15 minutes before the effect wears off, he searches the unused living room—valuable Dutch delftware lies dust-coated—and then moves to Slocombe’s study, which is crammed with thousands of books. He finds three old university course catalogs—the items he came for—and slips them into his bag. To simulate a simple burglary, he takes some “knickknacks.” Exiting through the window, he closes it and then breaks it with a large stone to complete the deception. As the dog revives and barks, rousing Slocombe, Pendergast vanishes into the night, discarding the stolen items in a drain.

Chambers works late at the FBI office, irritated by Pendergast’s absence and by having to cover for him in reports to Estevez. He reflects on a Pearlington police report that Pendergast left on his desk about a missing son, accompanied by a monogrammed page with a single question mark, but he does not pursue it.

Pendergast arrives late for their meeting, announcing that he has uncovered Telligren’s secrets. He produces the course catalogs taken from Slocombe’s house; these reveal a secret graduate program designed to enhance parapsychological abilities through surgical and electrical interventions. Chambers is enraged that Pendergast committed burglaries to obtain inadmissible evidence and throws the catalogs at him. Pendergast calmly catches them and highlights course descriptions on neurological stimulation, surgical interventions in temporal regions, and a notice signed by Telligren seeking volunteer experimental subjects. Chambers dismisses the material and warns Pendergast not to break into any more houses.

Pendergast confronts Dr. Telligren in his Tulane office, identifying Parker Wickman as the murdered serial killer who has recently been in the news. Telligren repeats that the parapsychology lab was a failed experiment and that he barely remembers Wickman.

Pendergast’s demeanor turns menacing. He looms over Telligren, speaking in a near whisper, and accuses him of performing experiments on Wickman that “turned a fine student into a serial killer” (267). Telligren furiously denies it and tells Pendergast that he won’t say more without a warrant. Pendergast agrees to leave but promises to return and to “break” Telligren.

At eleven o’clock that night, Dr. Dorion Magnus lets himself into Telligren’s house with a key and goes to the bedroom. Telligren, relieved, wants to discuss the threat posed by Pendergast. Magnus says that he has come to talk about Telligren instead: Pendergast’s grilling has made him their conspiracy’s weak link.

Magnus draws a pistol and says that Telligren will eventually betray him. He offers a choice: a quick, painless death by poison causing cardiac arrest, or a slow death dragged in a burlap sack behind Magnus’s steamship until he drowns—playing on Telligren’s phobia of water. After a silent interval, Telligren chooses the poison.

Magnus ensures that he swallows two tablets with sherry and then settles in with the newspaper to work the crossword, occasionally asking Telligren for help and getting only silence. Upon reaching the final clue, he pauses, makes a “careful mark,” and announces that he is finished as Telligren gasps and dies. Magnus confirms his death, tosses the newspaper onto the bed, and leaves.

The next morning, Pendergast arrives at Telligren’s home as the body is removed in a white bag on a stretcher. The death is ruled natural—cardiac arrest—and the bedroom is not treated as a crime scene. Dr. Magnus is present, playing the grieving protege, flanked by sympathizers, including the mayor and the district attorney.

Pendergast approaches with feigned sympathy. He notices a folded section of the Times-Picayune and a half-consumed glass of sherry on a side table. He observes the nearly completed crossword with a single clue left unanswered. Maintaining eye contact with Magnus, he casually folds the newspaper and slips it into his suit coat pocket. After final pleasantries, Pendergast departs to his waiting Rolls-Royce, his face “a mask of ice” (276).

Pendergast invites Chambers to dinner at Sous la Mer, an expensive seafood restaurant. Chambers takes it as a peace offering and an admission of defeat. He updates Pendergast on his investigation and suggests that they officially team up again. Pendergast flatly states that Magnus murdered Telligren. When he presents the crossword as evidence, Chambers snaps, lunges across the table, and tries to choke him. Pendergast effortlessly immobilizes him with a painful wrist-lock, forcing him to let go.

After they calm down, Pendergast apologizes and fully lays out his theory for the first time: Wickman developed a variant of body integrity disorder, induced by surgical parapsychological experiments, and was searching for a perfect replacement arm. He asserts that Telligren and Magnus were accomplices in Wickman’s crimes and then his murderers and argues that Magnus killed Telligren to ensure silence. Chambers remains unconvinced and demands evidence.

Pendergast points to the crossword: The clue for a four-letter word meaning “maneater” had the prefix crossed out, leaving “eater”; the answer, lion, was left blank. He calls it a taunt aimed at him personally, as his wife was killed and eaten by a lion in Africa—a tragedy that led him to join the FBI. Chambers still sees the theory as far-fetched and privately resolves to ask Estevez for a new partner.