Verses for the Dead

by Douglas Preston

  The next silence was even longer. “You’ll leave first thing in the morning,” Pickett said crisply. “And you’ll use commercial transportation. But before you leave, you are to interview the Montera family, in person.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “And Agent Coldmoon? I don’t want boots on the ground in Maine any longer than twenty-four hours before you head back to Florida.” There was a click and the phone went still.

  Slowly, Pendergast looked over at Coldmoon. “I didn’t think you agreed with my suggestion.”

  “Who says I do?”

  “Then why—?”

  “I go with my partner.”

  “Agent Coldmoon, I do believe you have unexpected depth.”

  The agent shrugged. Then he put his hand out to stop a passing waiter. “Bring me a bottle of Grain Belt, please. Room temperature, not chilled.” And he sat back in the deck chair and laced his fingers together. “Since we’re supposedly off duty, I guess I’m thirsty, after all.”

  8

  NO PUEDO DORMIR,” Mrs. Montera said, dabbing at her eyes with a ragged handkerchief. She had been dabbing, virtually nonstop, since Coldmoon arrived at the little apartment on Southwest Eleventh Terrace an hour before, as the sun was sinking into a pink atmosphere. Now everyone was sitting around the well-used kitchen table: Coldmoon, heavyset Mrs. Montera, and her two surviving children, Nicolás and Aracela.

  Although Coldmoon had been mistaken for Hispanic on a few occasions, he knew no Spanish and even less about Miami’s Cuban culture. He was relieved when, despite the stream of detectives that had come through the apartment earlier in the day, the Monteras had welcomed him in, patiently answered his questions, and offered him dinner. He’d refused once, twice, then finally allowed himself to be served congri and tamales.

  He had never been in a residence painted so many bright colors, or with so many crucifixes and statuettes in evidence. It made his own childhood home seem monochromatic by comparison. The place was compact but neat, and he sensed pride in the smallest details: the way the frying pans were carefully stacked on a shelf above the counter, the spotless collection of faded photographs of family now long dead. Mrs. Montera’s parents, old and frail, were both asleep in a back bedroom, exhausted from grief, and Coldmoon had not asked to speak with them: he’d grown up with the Oglala tradition of tiospaye and did not wish to intrude himself on Felice Montera’s extended family. He knew there was nothing they could tell him, anyway.

  Unfortunately, there was little anyone could tell him. The family had already answered the same questions for the Miami PD, but they patiently went over the facts again. Nicolás worked as a mechanic in a nearby auto shop, and Aracela, who had lost her bookkeeping job when a neighborhood bodega closed, supplemented the family income by babysitting. Felice, the most ambitious of the children, had been an LPN, already well into the coursework necessary to become a registered nurse. While she had friends both here in Miami and back in Cuba, most of her time was taken up either at the hospital or with coursework. The few free hours she had were spent with family or, until they broke up, with her boyfriend, Lance.

  When the subject of Lance came up, the atmosphere around the table darkened. Nicolás muttered something in Spanish under his breath.

  Despite the family’s obvious animosity toward Lance, they knew little about him. Apparently, Felice had been guarded about the details of their relationship and had brought him to the apartment only once: the chemistry had been bad enough that she hadn’t tried a second time. She’d met Lance six months earlier, not far from Mount Sinai, at a club where he’d worked as “door staff”—in other words, a bouncer. He’d been fired from the club two months ago, and Felice broke up with him a couple of weeks after that. Again, she’d been vague with specifics—she’d mentioned money problems, but Nicolás believed it was Lance’s temper that ultimately scared her off.

  “He would call,” Nicolás said as he washed dishes. “Money—always money. Sometimes he wanted to borrow some. Other times, he wanted some back. Even after they broke up, this comemierda would call.” He spat into the sink.

  “Do you know when they last met?” Coldmoon asked.

  “She told me, maybe three, four weeks ago. He stopped her outside the hospital.”

  “Why?”

  “Same thing. Claimed she owed him money. They argued, she threatened to call the cops.” Nicolás shook his head.

  “What’s his last name?”

  “Corbin.”

  “Corvin,” the sister corrected.

  “Any idea what he’s doing now?”

  “Felice said he got a job at another club. Edge, I think it was called.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Nicolás thought a moment. “Cape Coral.”

  “I suppose you told all this to the Miami PD?”

  Both Nicolás and Aracela nodded.

  Coldmoon stood up. “Thanks for going through this with me again. I’m very sorry for your loss, and we’ll do all we can to bring the perpetrator to justice.”

  Mrs. Montera, still dabbing at her eyes, tried to wrap up some tamales for Coldmoon to take along, but he gently declined. “Encuentre al hombre que hizo esto,” she said, pressing his hand.

  Down on the pavement, Coldmoon looked up Edge on his cell phone. He called and asked for Lance Corvin.

  “He’s kind of busy right now,” a voice shouted back over the sound of throbbing music. “Try later.”

  “When do you close?”

  “Three.”

  Coldmoon glanced at his watch as he got into the Mustang. A few minutes past eight. As a suspect, this Lance Corvin sounded too good to be true…which meant he probably was. Cape Coral, he recalled, was pretty close. With any luck, he’d interview this Corvin, get a statement, and be back in his hotel room by nine.

  It was turning into another beautiful night. Only half paying attention, he punched the nightclub’s name into the traffic app of his phone, then dropped it on the passenger seat and pulled away from the curb. Although he hadn’t told Pendergast, not being on hand to examine the scene of Felice Montera’s homicide had irked him. This talk with her family had, if nothing else, helped create a human being from the victim—something that was very important to him, and which made the tragedy of her death that much greater.

  Guided by the soothing voice of the GPS, Coldmoon made his way out of the crowded side streets of Little Havana and onto a main thoroughfare, where after a few miles the traffic grew mercifully thin. In retrospect, he was pleased he’d agreed to divide the evening’s investigative responsibilities with Pendergast. The senior agent had remained in his suite at the Fontainebleau, tracking down by phone old acquaintances of Elise Baxter. Coldmoon knew how that worked; one acquaintance would lead to another, then another. Pendergast would be up calling half the night, long after Coldmoon had hit the sack.

  Lulled into tranquility by these thoughts, Coldmoon only became aware something was amiss when the GPS guided him onto the westbound ramp for I-75. What the hell? The freeway stretched ahead of him, a divided highway disappearing into utter darkness, with only the occasional pair of headlights to relieve the monotony.

  He quickly pulled onto the shoulder, consulted his cell phone, then let out a string of particularly graphic Lakota curses. Cape Coral wasn’t near Coral Gables, or Coral Springs, which he had confused it with—it was way the hell over on the west coast of the state, at the far end of an arrow-straight ribbon of freeway known as Alligator Alley.

  Alligator Alley. “Sweet mother of fuck,” Coldmoon murmured. A hundred and forty-five miles. Two and a half hours. Each way.

  Briefly, he considered pulling through a break in the highway meridian and heading back to his motel. But he immediately realized that would never work. The interview with the boyfriend was critical, even if it was ground already covered by Miami PD. He’d already promised Pendergast he’d interview the ex-boyfriend. No way could he give any possible suspect a pass—even if his conscience allow
ed it.

  With a sigh, he hit the gas, turned back onto the freeway, and headed west. Within minutes, even the other headlights had vanished, and there was nothing but high-mast lighting poles for company. Unrelieved blackness lay to his left and right. He let the speedometer drift up to eighty, then ninety, before inching above one hundred. If a state trooper stopped him, hopefully the fellow law officer would give him a pass. If not—well, it was turning into that kind of a night anyway.

  It was ten thirty when he pulled the Shelby into the empty valet spot directly in front of The Edge. To Coldmoon, the building looked like an abandoned processing plant that had been gussied up with a bit of neon. A line of people, dressed to party, were waiting behind a velvet rope leading to the entrance. Two burly men in jeans and leather vests flanked the door, through which came the muffled thump of dance music. His mood had not been improved by passing through Alligator Alley.

  A valet approached his window. “Keys?”

  “Where’s Lance Corvin?” Coldmoon asked.

  “That’s him,” the valet said, pointing at one of the men in leather vests.

  “I want to talk to him.” He grabbed his phone, opened the car door, and got out.

  “Sir, you can’t leave your car—”

  “I said, tell him I want to talk to him.”

  But Corvin had picked up on the exchange and was already coming over. He pushed the valet aside—none too gently. “Yeah?”

  “Lance Corvin?”

  “What about it?”

  “I’m Agent Coldmoon of the FBI.” Coldmoon considered digging his shield out of his back pocket, but decided he wouldn’t bother. He leaned back on the car. “I have some questions about Felice Montera.”

  The bouncer’s expression hardened. “The cops have already asked me all about that.”

  “Good for them. Now I’m asking you.”

  “I was working here night before last. A million people must have seen me.”

  “Maybe. But the club closes at three. Ms. Montera wasn’t killed until four.”

  “Corvin!” the other bouncer said, gesturing at him. “Tell that jackass to move his car and get back here!”

  “That’s one hour to cross the state. You think I grew wings or something?” Corvin said.

  “Maybe you left work a little early that night.”

  Corvin crossed his heavily muscled arms. “Look,” he said, “I didn’t kill that bitch. Okay? Question answered. Now move your fucking car.”

  The events of the evening—the sense of loss in the Montera apartment; the inconsolable expression on the face of the victim’s mother; the wearisome drive through a trackless landscape—came together. The normally phlegmatic Coldmoon took a step toward Corvin, so close his chest was actually touching the bouncer’s crossed arms. He leaned into his face and spoke in a whisper.

  “Did you just say ‘fucking’ car? About my Shelby?”

  Although the bouncer was taller than Coldmoon and had at least fifty pounds on him, some instinct of self-preservation caused Corvin to slowly ease his arms down to his sides. But he did not step back. “It isn’t against the law to swear,” he said, his voice faltering.

  Still staring at Corvin, inches from his face, Coldmoon slid out his cell phone. “While we’re considering how the law applies to my eight-hundred-fifty-horsepower Super Snake, I’m going to call a magistrate judge and get a warrant. And then we’ll go back to Miami, where you and I will spend all night together in a little room with a very bright light.”

  “I, um, wait. I have proof.” Corvin finally took a step back and reached into the front pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a piece of paper, unfolded it, and held it out. “I got this driving home the night Felice was killed.”

  Coldmoon examined the paper. It was a traffic summons. Corvin had received a ticket from the Cape Coral police for speeding, two nights before. The time on the summons was 3:50 AM.

  He looked at it a moment longer, then used his cell phone to take a photo of the summons. Staring wordlessly into Corvin’s face, he relaxed his fingers and let the ticket fall, where it fluttered down onto the bouncer’s shoes. Then, getting back into the Shelby, he started the engine, pulled away from the curb, and mentally prepared himself for the long, dark, featureless drive back to Miami.

  9

  THE LODGE AT Katahdin was not actually near the mountain bearing the same name. It was many miles outside of Baxter State Park, on what looked like the edge of an endless forest, not far off the interstate. Coldmoon could imagine few places more different from Miami Beach. Maine had seen a lot of snow that winter, and though it was late March everything was still obscured by drifts of white: mailboxes, woodsheds, even cars and trailers were hardly more than protuberances in the snow cover. The only patches of color came from the sand on the plowed streets, which turned the snow an evil reddish color. The late-morning scene reminded him of the long winters he’d spent growing up in Porcupine, South Dakota.

  He pulled the car they’d rented at the airport into the parking lot of the lodge. It had been plowed halfheartedly, and a large signpost announcing the resort was half obscured by windblown snow. A total of three cars sat in the lot. One was a police cruiser.

  Agent Pendergast, sitting in the passenger seat, unbuckled his seat belt. “Shall we?”

  Coldmoon eased out into the frigid air: five below, not counting the windchill.

  They had spoken little on the flight up that morning, and even less in the drive from the airport. Coldmoon got Pendergast up to speed on his movements of the night before—a subject he didn’t particularly care to dwell on. In turn, Pendergast briefly described tracking down an additional half a dozen of Elise Baxter’s acquaintances and co-workers in the Miami area. All of the people he’d phoned remembered Elise Baxter as a quiet young woman whose suicide had come as a total surprise.

  The two walked down the treacherous sidewalk toward the entrance. Pendergast was encased in a gigantic parka that made him look like the Michelin Man. Coldmoon recognized it as a Canada Goose Snow Mantra, stuffed with down and sporting a tunnel hood lined in coyote fur. It was billed as the warmest coat on earth and sold for upward of fifteen hundred dollars. Coldmoon wondered where in Miami Pendergast had managed to acquire one so quickly. For his part, Coldmoon was comfortable in a twenty-year-old Walmart down jacket, shiny and faded with use, patched in places with duct tape.

  As if reading his thoughts, Pendergast turned back, face invisible within the snorkel-like hood. “You’re a man of cold climes, I assume?”

  Coldmoon shrugged.

  “You really should invest in one of these.” Pendergast patted his reflectorized chest. “A favorite of South Pole scientists. And even I couldn’t ask for more pockets.”

  He stepped forward and pulled the main door open, and a blast of warmth blew out from the interior. They entered a dark lobby in which every piece of furniture—even the front desk—was covered with drop cloths. The air was redolent of sawdust and mothballs. The lobby was expansive, Coldmoon noticed, but—judging by the scuffed frames of the landscapes on the walls and the slightly shabby carpet—the lodge had seen better days. A low drone of conversation could be heard from an open door behind the front desk.

  At the sound of the front door closing, the conversation abruptly ceased. A moment later, three people came out of the back room. The first was an overweight man in his late fifties, wearing a red button-front sweater and worn corduroys. The next was a woman about the same age, as bony as the man was fat, with wiry forearms. She wore a dress cut like a maid’s. The last to emerge was a uniformed policeman, bald and very short, with a manila folder in one hand.

  The man and woman smiled at the new arrivals a little uncertainly. The policeman simply nodded.

  “Horace Young?” Pendergast said, his voice muffled by the parka. “Carol Young?” He stepped forward, drawing off a massive mitten, hand extended. “I’m Special Agent Pendergast and this is my associate, Special Agent Coldmoon.”

 
; They shook the proffered hand. Then Pendergast unzipped his hood, pushed it back, and turned to the police officer. “And you are—?”

  “Sergeant Waintree,” the cop said. He glanced in Coldmoon’s direction. “I spoke with Agent, ah, Coldmoon on the phone yesterday afternoon.”

  “Thank you all for being so accommodating on short notice.” Pendergast glanced around the lobby. “I see you aren’t anticipating guests.”

  “We’re taking advantage of the winter to spruce up the lodge,” Horace explained.

  Despite the warmth of the lobby, Coldmoon noticed that Pendergast had not unzipped his parka.

  “Well, let us not waste more of your time than necessary. If you wouldn’t mind getting the others, we’ll get started right away.”

  “There are no others,” Horace said.

  Pendergast glanced toward Coldmoon.

  Sergeant Waintree answered the implied question. “Your partner here asked me to assemble everybody who was working at the lodge when the Baxter woman took her life.”

  “Just the Youngs?” Pendergast asked. “And the staff? The cooks and waiters?”

  The woman answered. “Bolton—he was our cook at the time—got a new job in a North Carolina resort years ago. Donna and Mattie—the waitresses, that is—they’re both retired. Moved in with their children somewhere, best I know.”

  “Maintenance?”

  Mr. Young shifted his girth from one foot to the other. “Willy died year before last. Cancer got him.”

  “Maids?”

  “I was the head maid,” the woman said. “Before I married Mr. Young.” She smiled coquettishly.

  Coldmoon found himself staring at her ropy neck. Somehow, it made him think of a seagull.

  “Our primary business is in the summer and fall,” Young told Pendergast. “Hikers, bird-watchers, nature lovers, leaf-peepers. We shut down for the winter and spring. Hard to keep full-time folk on a part-time job. We usually make do with students. They’re not bad once you train them up. Some stay just one summer, others for a couple.”