Verses for the Dead

by Douglas Preston

  He paused, and then said: “In the other killings, greater force was brought to bear on the right horn of the hyoid bone, suggesting a right-handed individual. In the Flayley case, the left wing of the hyoid was slightly fractured.” He paused. “A slightly weaker, left-handed individual, perhaps?” Now Pendergast let his chin rest lightly on his tented fingers as he looked from Coldmoon, to Grove, to Fauchet, almost impishly. When his gaze met Fauchet’s, he winked.

  “A partner!” Fauchet and Coldmoon said simultaneously.

  “Indeed,” Pendergast said. “Although I think the word apprentice might be more apt.”

  “That handwriting guy, Ianetti, said the person who wrote the notes was left-handed,” Coldmoon added.

  “Yes—yes, he did.” Grove, who’d seemed lost in thought during this exchange, suddenly straightened up. “Same with the throat slashings. It all fits.”

  “It might explain not only why this killing was different—but why it was the last of its kind.”

  “How do you figure that?” Coldmoon asked. Fascinating or not, he was a little annoyed at this Yoda-like line of questioning. Why hadn’t Pendergast shared these revelations with him earlier?

  “Up until Ithaca, the murders had been growing increasingly efficient. The killer was gaining experience, perfecting his technique. But Flayley was different: her strangling was botched, a kind of homicidus interruptus, and the act of throwing her off a bridge—with the potential for witnesses—hints almost of desperation. And it suggests other things as well: youthful impulsiveness, drama, the desire to impress.”

  “So this apprentice had been an onlooker, so to speak,” Grove said. “And Flayley was a chance for him to ‘make his bones.’ But not having the experience or stomach for the job, he made a hash of it.”

  Pendergast raised his chin from his fingertips. “The mixed metaphor notwithstanding, that seems likely. But there are still other points of interest about this particular killing.”

  “It’s nowhere near I-95,” Fauchet said.

  “Correct. In other words, we have a second killer—a squeamish apprentice—who takes his first killing in a new direction and almost botches it. Still, there’s a similarity: he also does his one and only killing near a major traffic artery.”

  Coldmoon looked once more at the map. “I-81.”

  Pendergast nodded.

  “So they were swinging back south again?” Fauchet asked.

  “It seems so. And now that we know the route the killers took, let us traverse it one more time—in reverse.”

  Coldmoon turned back to the map, and—suddenly—saw where Pendergast was going with all this; how everything fell neatly into place. “Florida,” he said in a low voice. “They must have started in Florida.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fauchet said. “I don’t get it. We haven’t found a killing with this MO in Florida.”

  “My dear Dr. Fauchet, that’s because we haven’t looked in Florida. Commander Grove was asked to search for possible suicide-killings outside Florida. Perhaps the first homicide—victim zero, if you will—happened right here in Miami, two months before the one in Savannah. The distance fits. And if the time fits as well, it would have happened twelve years ago almost to the day.”

  Coldmoon was thinking fast. “The killer—killers—headed north from Florida,” he said. “Following a precise schedule. They looped around after reaching Maine, killed again in Ithaca—then the killings stopped. Why?”

  “An excellent question. Why do you think?” Pendergast asked.

  “Well, a few possibilities. One: they were caught and imprisoned on some other charge. Two: one or both were killed or incapacitated. Or three: the apprentice refused to continue.” He paused.

  “Refused to continue,” Pendergast murmured. “Was he, perhaps, horrified at what he’d done—or been forced to do? Could he escape his guilt? Did he, perhaps, grow up to become—”

  “Brokenhearts!” Coldmoon snapped his fingers. “Brokenhearts was the apprentice.” Then another idea occurred to him—a horrifying one. “If that Mars profile of the killer is correct, and he can’t be more than twenty-five, then he must’ve been little more than a kid when he was forced to take this road trip. Maybe the killing stopped because…because the apprentice killed his master.”

  There was a silence.

  “But we’re still left with the question of motive,” Pendergast said. “What precipitated the original killing spree? I believe the answer lies right here in Miami—that is, if we can identify victim zero; the one that started them all.” He turned to Grove. “I am hoping you, Commander, will deploy your teams to find that first murder for us. In that homicide lie the answers we seek—what started this murderous journey and who were the two killers? That will lead us to Brokenhearts.”

  “I’m on it,” Grove said. “We’ll put the entire division on this one. I promise you an answer in twenty-four hours or less. Dr. Fauchet? If we get any potential hits, I may need your help with the forensics.”

  “Call anytime. As I said, I’m taking some vacation days but I’m always on call.”

  Even as she spoke, Grove was rising from his chair and walking halfway to the door. For a gracefully aging man, he could move with remarkable speed. And with one quick glance at Pendergast, Fauchet disappeared out the door after Grove.

  Once the echo of their footsteps died away, relative silence settled over the loft. Then Coldmoon looked at Pendergast. “You figured all this out…and didn’t tell me?”

  “I wasn’t sure. In fact, I’m still not. It is a lovely theory, I admit, but it’s still just that: a theory. We need to find that first killing in Miami.”

  “I’ll bet you’ve been suspecting something like this for a while. How long—as far back as Ithaca?”

  “Agent Coldmoon, these realizations don’t switch on like a lightbulb. That’s for mystery novels. Rather, they develop slowly, beneath the surface—like a subcutaneous abscess.”

  “Nice metaphor.” Coldmoon heaved a sigh and shook his head in bemusement. Then he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his thermos. “Atanikili,” he said.

  The agent bowed slightly. “Philámayaye.”

  Coldmoon raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You’ve been boning up.”

  “It seemed a good idea, under the circumstances.”

  “Never hurts to learn new things.”

  “True.”

  “Or try new things.”

  There was a pause while Pendergast peered at the thermos. “Perhaps.”

  Coldmoon pried off the top, unscrewed the inner lid, and poured a generous measure of tarry black liquid into the red cup. A smell like burnt rubber—one he loved more than almost anything else—filled the room. He held the cup out to Pendergast. “Coffee, partner?”

  Another, longer pause. Then Pendergast accepted the cup; took a small, tentative sip. “The floral bouquet of poison sumac blooms first on the palate,” he announced. “Followed by notes of diesel oil and a long finish of battery acid.” And he handed the cup back.

  “Exactly the way I like it,” said Coldmoon, closing his eyes contentedly and downing the lukewarm beverage in a single gulp.

  38

  THE NEXT MORNING at six thirty, Coldmoon woke from a sound sleep to the chirping of his phone. Grumbling to himself, he answered.

  “Agent Coldmoon? It’s Grove. I haven’t been able to reach Pendergast.”

  “What a shock,” said Coldmoon.

  “I’ve had teams working on the search since yesterday’s meeting,” Grove said. “They’ve been at it all night. We’re focusing on Miami-Dade, but just to be safe we’re not discounting any county in South Florida.”

  “Sounds good,” Coldmoon said, trying to keep the sleep out of his voice. “Got anything?”

  “They’re about two-thirds of the way through, and so far we’ve gotten three possible hits. Possible is the operative word, so I didn’t want to disturb Dr. Fauchet’s vacation at this hour. Still, I didn’t think I
should wait any longer, so I’m having a uniform bring them over to your partner’s, ah, makeshift office for you to look at. They should be there within the half hour. He’ll wait there until you arrive.”

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  “Sure thing,” Grove said with a laugh. “Feels kind of good to boss people around again. We should be finished by late afternoon, and I’ll bring over any more files myself—if we find any. Meanwhile, I’ll be out chasing down leads. Nothing like throwing around the title commander to cut through bureaucratic red tape in some backwater police department.”

  Although Coldmoon had been initially dismissive of the seemingly desk-bound Grove, he had to admit the man was capable of efficient work—and he wasn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves, either.

  After he hung up with Grove, Coldmoon called Pendergast—who answered his call immediately—and told him the news. He then went into his kitchenette to make a desperately needed cup of coffee before he could function. He poured more grounds into a coffeepot that had spent two days on the warmer, then showered and dressed. Gulping one cup, he filled his thermos with the rest, got into the Mustang, and headed for the “office.” He arrived at the same time as the uniformed cop, grabbed the bulky envelope handed to him, and carried it inside. He found Pendergast already there in the shadowy interior, examining the wall of maps, face pale.

  He pivoted as he heard Coldmoon enter. “Ah,” he said, seeing the envelope with its Miami PD stamp in Coldmoon’s hand. “Let us see what the good commander’s teams have dug up.”

  Coldmoon tore open the envelope. Inside were three case files, battered, dog-eared, and smelling of dust and yellowing paper. He laid them out on the table.

  “Should we have Fauchet join us?” he asked.

  “Undoubtedly. But let’s go through these first and contact her when we actually require her expertise. She’s technically on vacation, after all. Grove promised you any more files by the end of the day—perhaps she can examine them all at once.”

  Coldmoon took a seat at the table, and Pendergast did the same. He took one of the files for himself, slid another toward Coldmoon, and put the third to one side.

  “Good hunting,” Pendergast told him. “Or, as a friend of mine in the NYPD might say: knock yourself out.”

  Coldmoon poured some coffee from the thermos, noticing as he did so that Pendergast edged away from him. He flipped open his file and began paging through the contents. They detailed the short, sad history of one Carmen Rosario, who’d been found hanging from a closet rod in her El Portal apartment. The CSU photos showed a scene he was now all too familiar with: a strangled victim, her once-attractive face mottled and bulging, eyes staring, tongue protruding like a fat cigar. She was thirty-two, divorced, no children, and had worked as a waitress until a few weeks before her death. She had a history of drug abuse and alcoholism. Her mother had died of cancer two months before.

  He next turned to the M.E.’s report and leafed through it. He glanced up to see Pendergast looking across the table at him. “Anything of note?”

  “Looks like a genuine suicide to me. Drugs, alcohol, dysfunction.”

  “Is there a toxicology report?” Pendergast asked.

  “Traces of alcohol and opioids in her system, but not enough to kill her.”

  “No—just enough for her to overcome her inhibitions and do something rash.”

  “The pattern of bruises is consistent with hanging by a knotted bedsheet. The M.E. noted the hyoid bone was fractured in the center. Conclusion: suicide by ligature strangulation. No evidence of a choke hold.”

  “And the X-rays?”

  Coldmoon detached them from the rest of the report and held them up to the light. “I only notice the one central fracture. But you know, these could just as well be X-rays of beaded saddle blankets for all I can see in them.”

  He slid them over and Pendergast picked them up and stared, then laid them down. “It seems unlikely she’s a candidate.”

  Coldmoon closed the file. “What about your file?”

  “I’m not quite sure why Grove’s team flagged it. Samantha Kazunov, a twenty-three-year-old woman from South Miami Heights. Found in bed, a knotted sheet around her neck fixed to one of the bedposts. The case was initially flagged as a possible homicide, because evidence indicated another person had been at the scene. That other person turned herself in to the police the next day. In her statement, she said she was the dead woman’s lover and that she had died of accidental autoerotic asphyxia. This was supported by the position of the body and other factors. The lover had been in the bedroom, acting as ‘spotter’ to make sure Kazunov didn’t take things too far—which she unfortunately did.”

  “Stroke ’n’ choke,” Coldmoon said. “The deceased was a gasper.”

  Pendergast closed his eyes. “Agent Coldmoon, there are certain expressions so vulgar one can only wish them unheard.”

  “Sorry.”

  Pendergast opened his eyes. “She evidently tried to save Kazunov. In any case: neither suicide nor homicide. Erotic asphyxia is more common among men than women; however, it is seen in both sexes. Since we know Mister Brokenhearts must be male, I think we can safely rule out Kazunov’s ex-lover as a suspect. We can turn both these files over to Dr. Fauchet for a closer look, but I sincerely doubt they are the victim zero we are looking for.” Pendergast closed the file and laid it on top of Carmen Rosario’s.

  Together, they looked at the lone unexamined file on the table.

  Pendergast gestured. “Shall we?”

  Coldmoon opened the slim, olive-colored file.

  “Lydia Vance,” Pendergast read off. He picked up the summary sheet. “Resident of Westchester. Thirty-one, married to John Vance, staff sergeant in the marines. It was he who found the body.” He scanned the pages. “She was found hanging from a showerhead with a knotted bedsheet around her neck almost exactly twelve years ago. No suicide note.”

  “Any other family?”

  Pendergast paged through the file. “No parents, siblings, or children listed.”

  Coldmoon was typing the name into the nearby computer. “John Vance…I get a whole lot of hits for John Vances in Florida, but none that match that address. Is there an autopsy in the file?”

  Pendergast pulled out an official-looking document with additional pages stapled to it. “According to the M.E., suicide by asphyxiation.” He glanced over the document, removed a single X-ray, and held it up to the light.

  Coldmoon leaned in closer and looked at it with Pendergast.

  “Simple fracture of the central hyoid body,” Pendergast said. “No evident damage to the horns or evidence of a push-choke.” He dropped the X-ray back on the file and scanned the next set of pages.

  “What about her husband, the marine?” Coldmoon asked. “The one who found her?”

  Pendergast flipped back through the pages. “The man had just completed two tours of duty. The first was in Iraq, which ended prematurely when he was injured by an IED. That resulted in his being transferred to Okinawa for the second tour, where he was assigned to law enforcement with the USMC military police. He returned via military transport to Miami, went straight to his apartment, only to find his wife dead. She’d strangled herself while he was over the Pacific.”

  A brief silence descended.

  Coldmoon exhaled. “Can you imagine? Just back from serving your country—not one, but two tours—and that’s your welcome home.” A pause. “What’s the rest?”

  Pendergast removed another set of pages and began glancing through them. “It would appear that the husband, John Vance, did not accept that his wife committed suicide. He’d spent some time in the criminal investigation division of the military police, and he insisted her death was murder, staged to look like suicide.”

  “No shit. Does it say why he thought that?”

  Pendergast read some more. “He was insistent about it, writing letters to the police, visiting Miami PD numerous times. His wife, he says, was not depressed, ne
ver showed suicidal tendencies, did not drink or take drugs, and was allegedly looking forward to his return. The case stayed open longer than usual—probably as a courtesy, given he was a returning vet. But Miami PD refused to change the determination of death, saying the autopsy and forensic evidence pointed overwhelmingly to suicide.”

  Coldmoon looked at the final set of pages Pendergast was holding: dog-eared, dirty at the edges, and covered with handwritten notes, sheet after sheet on Miami PD letterhead. The man’s wife killed herself just before he was expected home from his tour of duty. Why would she have done such a thing…unless she couldn’t bear the idea of living with him again? Or unless she was really murdered?

  “Vance didn’t have any hard evidence it was a homicide?”

  “Not that I can see. He was, however, MP.”

  “That gives him some cred.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “So what happened to him?” Coldmoon asked.

  “He continued to press the Miami PD. There’s quite a lot of activity in the file. It seems he grew embittered. There’s a note by a police psychologist here, saying Vance couldn’t accept the truth. He finally moved out of the city, to a hunting camp that had been in his family for decades.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Not quite.” Pendergast turned over a newer-looking piece of paper, clipped to the final set. “He continued to importune Miami PD, insisting he had new information about the ‘murder’ of his wife. Just two years ago, Miami finally sent somebody out to the camp for a follow-up interview.” He flipped up the sheet. “Here’s the report.”