Verses for the Dead

36

The letters arriving for Smithback had now swelled to three crates, stacked up in his cubicle. This epistolary flood had proved an unexpected boon. Of course, virtually all of them so far — aside from the genuine one from Brokenhearts himself — were from cranks, psychics, crazies, poisonous neighbors, clairvoyants, estranged husbands and wives, and other messed-up people... but they were nevertheless a gold mine of stories. Smithback had been writing nonstop on the case since the story he’d broken roughly a week before.

There was, for example, the piece about the psychic who broke into the Flayley mausoleum with a spirit pendulum and Ouija board, claiming to be in communication with the dead. And there was the Iron John Men’s poetry group meeting that was “swatted” by a radical feminist. And the luckless heart surgeon who, subjected to a conspiracy theory that went viral, had arrived at his hospital the previous morning to find a mob awaiting him.

On top of that, Pendergast’s surprise appearance on television the night before, instead of calming things down, had electrified the city. Half of Miami was furious at the apparently sympathetic tone the agent had expressed in his impromptu appeal, while the other half was enraged at the authorities for not having caught Mister Brokenhearts. It was all anyone could talk about.

Amid this cacophony, the only one who had suddenly gone quiet was Brokenhearts himself. There had been no more killings, no more letters — nothing.

Smithback was riding high. Except for the damn Bronner lead. What seemed so promising had gone nowhere. Baxter and Flayley had been his patients — but not Adler, the other suicide victim. After his article, the police had launched an investigation, but Smithback learned from his cop informant that Bronner had ironclad alibis for the nights in question. It appeared to be coincidence: Bronner was simply a wife-beating alcoholic asshole with anger management problems, not a serial killer.

But despite that setback, the rest was gravy. Smithback still had hundreds of letters to open, and God alone knew what juicy stuff and bizarre confessions might surface. He was delivering the goods and Kraski was leaving him alone. It was indeed a gold mine of entertaining stories — and Smithback was going to mine it for all it was worth.