Verses for the Dead

5

The following morning, a white Nissan Altima pulled up in front of a house on Tigertail Avenue in the northeast section of Coconut Grove. It sat there idling at the curb for a minute while the driver fiddled with various knobs, buttons, and display screens. At last the engine died, the driver’s door opened, and Special Agent Pendergast emerged. He dusted himself off, gave the vehicle a baleful glance, then crossed onto the pavement and approached the house.

It was a well-maintained Mission-style dwelling of white stucco, perhaps fifty years old, and surrounded by the heavy “hammock” of trees the town was known for. Although it was located in a bustling residential neighborhood — Pendergast could hear the drone of lawn mowers and the chatter of children on their way to school — this particular house seemed to be asleep. He mounted the front steps, paused for a moment, then pressed the doorbell.

There was a sound of chimes within, and ten seconds later came the soft sound of approaching steps. The door opened and an elderly man appeared. He was almost as tall as Pendergast, dressed in a crisp polo shirt and Bermuda shorts. A thin covering of white hair was roughly combed across his sunburnt pate. He gazed at Pendergast in mute inquiry.

“Good morning,” Pendergast said. “Harold Baxter, I believe?”

“What can I do for you?”

“My name is Special Agent Pendergast, FBI.” He removed his shield and showed it to the man. “I’m very sorry to intrude on your privacy, but I wonder if I might have just a few minutes of your time.”

The man blinked. “The police were here yesterday afternoon.”

“Yes, I’m sure they were. I promise I won’t be here as long as they were.”

“Very well. Come in.” Baxter stood aside while Pendergast opened the screen door and slipped into the house.

The man led him through a living room and dining area — both spotless and smelling faintly of mothballs — out onto a tiled lanai at the rear of the house. Cushioned deck chairs were placed around a glass table, and Baxter motioned the agent toward one. As Pendergast was sitting down, a woman of similarly advanced age appeared at the sliding doors. She held a dish towel in one hand.

“Harold?” she asked, although her gaze was on Pendergast. “Is this another—?”

But Pendergast had already risen again and come forward. “Mrs. Baxter? My name is Pendergast, and I’m with the FBI. Would you mind if I spoke with you and your husband for just a moment?”

“Well... no, I guess not.” The woman walked toward one of the chairs, remembered the dish towel in her hand, then folded it neatly over the back of the chair and sat down.

Pendergast looked at the old man and woman in turn. “First, let me thank you. I know this is difficult, and I’m the last one who’d want to reopen old wounds. So perhaps the easiest thing would be for you to tell me how much you know about the business the detectives were here on yesterday.”

Baxter glanced at his wife. “They didn’t say much. Asked questions, mostly. It had to do with some... thing that was found on Elise’s grave.”

Pendergast nodded for him to continue.

“And they wanted to know if we had any knowledge of that woman who was murdered yesterday, Miss... Miss... ” He glanced again at his wife.

“Montera,” the woman said. “Felice Montera.”

“I see,” Pendergast said in his most sympathetic tone. “And may I ask what you told them in response?”

“We said that, as far as we know, Elise had never met or even heard of that poor girl. We certainly had not. I mean, Elise met a lot of people, but she always told us about them. Every night, over dinner, she’d tell us about her day... ” The old woman’s mouth twitched, and she reached unconsciously for the dish towel.

“So your daughter lived with you.”

The man nodded. “It was convenient for her. She worked close by, in Coral Gables. Elise was saving up for a place of her own, but she was very particular — not surprising, I suppose, in her line of work.”

“And what line was that?”

“She was a real estate agent. Very promising one, too, given how young she was. On the fast track.”

The mother dabbed at one eye with the dish towel. “The police asked us all these questions yesterday.”

“I’m sorry; I’ll try to be brief. I understand that your daughter died in Katahdin, Maine.”

A silence. Then Mr. Baxter nodded.

“Did she have relatives up there? Friends?”

“No,” the father said. “It was a conference for Sun and Shore — the realty company she worked for. Basically a getaway, a reward for the top-selling agents.”

“Sun and Shore Realty has offices all over the state,” the wife added as she refolded the dish towel.

“And did Elise have anybody she was close to at that time? A boyfriend, for example?”

The father nodded. “Matt. A good kid. In the submarine service — at least, he was at the time. Boomers.”

“Do you know if they had recently disagreed about anything?”

“They got along fine. Matt saw her whenever he rotated out. He was in the middle of a two-month tour when it happened.”

“And you say that she was happy in her work?”

“That job meant everything to her. Along with us, of course. And... and Matt.”

“Would you call her an optimistic person, in general?”

“You can stop right there,” Mr. Baxter said. “The cops wanted to know the same thing, so let me save you a little time. If our Lizzy was unhappy, she was an awful good actress. Job. Boyfriend. She’d even finished a course in personal safety the month before. You know: self-defense, intruder prevention, that kind of thing. Why would somebody planning to end their life take a course like that?” He shook his head. “It makes no sense.”

“I understand that’s how it must seem — and the senselessness must make it all the harder to bear.” Pendergast paused a moment. “Just one more question. You say Elise lived here at home. Is her room currently occupied?”

The elderly couple exchanged glances. Then the husband shook his head.

“Would you mind if I took a look?”

A short silence. Then Harold Baxter rose. “I’ll show you the way.”

As the three were climbing the stairs, there was a sudden burst of childish squealing and shouting from outside. “The neighborhood’s changing,” Baxter said. “Lots of young folk moving in. We’ve talked about it, but we just don’t have the heart to leave the Grove... and this house.”

He stopped partway along the upstairs hall, opened a door, and waved his hand. “We haven’t changed anything.”

Pendergast stepped into the room. It was a bright, friendly space, painted canary yellow, with a canopy bed and blond wood furniture. There were two watercolors of beach scenes on the walls and some framed photographs on the dresser. As he glanced around, he noticed that the mother of the dead girl was hovering in the doorway.

He turned toward them. “Thank you most kindly,” he said. “I’ll only be a minute.”

As her husband went downstairs, Mrs. Baxter pointed at a plastic evidence bag sitting on the bedside table. “Those are the personal effects they returned to us after Lizzy... from Maine. The police asked to take a look yesterday. I guess they left them on the nightstand.”

Pendergast walked over and picked up the bag. Inside were a small leather wallet, a ring of braided silver, and a gold chain with a medallion bearing the image of a saint with a wooden staff.

“That’s Saint Jude Thaddeus,” the woman said.

Pendergast turned it over in his hands. “The patron saint of lost causes.”

“She wore that necklace ever since her junior year of college. Never would tell us the reason.” Mrs. Baxter’s voice turned quiet and strange. “I ask myself why she ended her life every day. Every single day. But I never get an answer.” A sob. “She had so much to live for.”

Pendergast looked at her. “I know you still grieve,” he said quietly. “And you believe there must have been signs or clues you or your husband missed. But as difficult as it is, you should know: suicides that come without warning are the hardest to cope with — and with the only voice that can explain them gone, the ones that most defy comprehension. What you must not do is blame yourselves.”

As he spoke, the woman watched him closely. Then, as if on impulse, she stepped forward and, with both of her hands, closed his fingers around the medallion.

“Keep it,” she said.

Pendergast looked at her inquiringly. “Mrs. Baxter, I—”

She silenced him with a curt gesture. “Please. I think you’re someone who knows a little about lost causes.”

Then she turned away and followed her husband downstairs.

Pendergast remained motionless for a moment. Then he slipped the medallion into a suit pocket and, at the same time, pulled out a pair of latex gloves. He replaced the evidence bag, then began moving quickly around the room, examining knickknacks and toiletries and the volumes in the small bookcase. As Elise Baxter’s mother had said, the police had been up here already — he could see the confusing marks of their shoe prints on the floor and the disturbed dust on the bureau. This was vexing — even after all these years, he would have preferred the room as fresh as possible — but expected. Distantly, he heard the chimes of the doorbell from downstairs. Now he began opening various drawers — the dresser, the nightstand, the vanity — searching quickly through their contents, careful not to disturb anything.

Footsteps, quieter this time, sounded on the staircase once again. Pendergast removed the gloves and slipped them back into his pocket just before Agent Coldmoon — wearing a dark-gray suit — arrived in the doorway. He seemed a little out of breath, and beads of sweat had gathered on his temples. Arriving along with him was an odor foreign to Pendergast — something like singed cat hair mixed with butyric acid.

“Agent Coldmoon,” he said, stepping forward. “Dressed this time, I observe. How nice to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Coldmoon replied, shaking the proffered hand. “Although I’d expected to see you earlier.”

“You mean, on the six AM plane from LaGuardia? Yes. Well, given the nature of the case I thought it best to come down here without delay. I arranged for a flight late yesterday afternoon.” Pendergast sampled the air again. “Beg pardon, but would you consider it rude of me to ask what that unusual smell is?”

“What smell?”

“I don’t know. The smell that might linger on the clothes of someone who’d, say, just walked through a malodorous chemical refinery.”

Coldmoon said coldly, “I don’t smell anything. Now, do you think you could please get me up to speed?”

“Of course. Felice Montera, aged twenty-nine, was killed at roughly four AM yesterday, apparently while jogging before work — she was a nurse at Mount Sinai Medical Center, and her shift began at six. Her body was hidden beneath some shrubbery near the Miami Beach Boardwalk and found several hours later by a honeymooning couple. There was little good evidence at the crime scene. The local police have already interviewed numerous people — hotel workers, sanitation crews, nearby residents and vacationers — but no witnesses have come forward yet, and nobody heard anything: no scuffle, no cry. Ms. Montera had recently broken up with her boyfriend, but apparently he was not in Miami Beach at the time.”

“Have you seen the body?”

Pendergast nodded. “First thing this morning. It, too, afforded few clues. Apparently, the throat was cut by a knife, then the breastbone split with the single blow of a hatchet. There was no sign of rape or molestation — the killing was done quickly. Nothing appears to have been taken... except, of course, the heart. Beyond the note on Elise Baxter’s grave, and its mention of a gift, there seems to be no motive for Ms. Montera’s death. A few bloody sandal prints were found leading away from the scene, but given the preponderance of that style of footwear here, the police have little hope of it providing any useful evidence.”

“How expert was the knife or hatchet work?”

“The hatchet showed determination rather than any particular anatomical or surgical expertise. It struck slightly off center in the manubrium bone. On the other hand, the throat cut was either proficient or lucky — the right carotid was neatly severed, causing the victim to bleed out quickly.”

Coldmoon nodded slowly. “Any theories?”

“No.”

A silence gathered. Then Coldmoon began to speak again in his monotonic voice. “What about a link between the victim and the suicide whose grave it was?”

“None that I can find. No common acquaintances, interests, careers, or personal intersections. It’s possible the victim was chosen at random. And then there is the odd literary reference in the note.”

Pendergast paused, but Coldmoon did not ask the expected question.

Instead, he said, “The note also stated others were awaiting gifts.”

His eyes were not brown, but rather a golden green. Pendergast noticed they wandered about the room, like a bored schoolboy’s.

“Which suggests there’s a link somewhere.” Pendergast paused. “And it means we have a ticking clock — and a great deal of work to do. As a result, I’d suggest we pursue separate lines of inquiry.”

“Separate?”

“You, for example, could continue to look into the circumstances of Montera’s death — there is still much to go over, after all — while I investigate the Baxter suicide.”

“In other words, I should go over ground you’ve already covered.”

“Not at all. I only paid the briefest of visits to the crime scene. There is still a great deal to be learned about Ms. Montera’s life, her background, her acquaintances, an interview with the ex-boyfriend. With any luck, the Miami Beach PD will have already done some of the heavy lifting for you by now. Besides, I’d benefit from a second perspective.”

Coldmoon’s eyes stopped their transit of the room and came back into focus on Pendergast. “I’d prefer to stay with you.”

A look of professional surprise came over Pendergast’s features. “That would be a duplication of manpower.”

“We’re partners, and our orders are to work together. Speaking of orders, ADC Pickett asked me to give you this memorandum.” He pulled one hand from his pockets and held out a sealed envelope, folded and slightly travel-worn.

Wordlessly, Pendergast took the envelope, tore it open, and removed the single sheet within.

Pendergast carefully refolded the note, replaced it in the envelope, and slipped it into a pocket of his black suit, his face expressionless.