Verses for the Dead

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.”

“Business has slacked off a bit, too,” the woman said. “Flights to Europe are so cheap these days.”

If Pendergast was disappointed by the meager showing, it was not obvious. “I understand,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “If it’s all right with you, then, may we start with your records?”

The Youngs exchanged glances. “Be our guest,” Mr. Young said. “Unfortunately, the registration ledgers and books were lost in a fire a few years ago. We’ve very little left but old computer files.” He tapped a pile of printouts.

Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “What sort of fire?”

“Grease fire that started in the kitchen. We quickly got it under control, but the old files were stored in a shed next to the kitchen vents and burned down.”

“And you?” Pendergast turned to the police officer.

He held out the folder. “Here’s the case file. Interviews, photographs, and the rest.”

Over the next half hour, Pendergast and Coldmoon looked through the hotel’s records, such as they were, for the two-month period surrounding Elise Baxter’s suicide. Pendergast used his phone camera to document every page. The Youngs waited nearby, answering questions when necessary. Their faces had expressions of curiosity mixed with a kind of embarrassment. Sergeant Waintree watched from a distance, arms folded, offering nothing. He seemed to Coldmoon a typical Mainer, insular by nature, independent, taciturn. On top of that, he was suspicious and a little defensive — as well he should be, given how thin the police file looked. Coldmoon knew that suicides often got scant attention, but even by that metric it seemed the bare minimum had been done here, even for a small, understaffed department.

Pendergast began asking questions of the owners themselves. Both remembered the night Elise Baxter died, but only vaguely, and only because of the suicide. The Sun and Shore real estate agents had gathered for a dinner party in the lodge’s small banquet room, at the tail end of the season. To the best of the Youngs’ recollection, they’d had an excellent time. Neither remembered anything out of the ordinary — no arguments, no voices raised except in laughter. Nobody seemed to get intoxicated. Neither remembered seeing Elise Baxter; but then, there was no reason for them to have noticed.

Carol Young, on the other hand, had a very clear recollection of the following morning. She had been the maid who discovered the body, hanging from the shower curtain rod in her bathroom. The woman was clearly dead, eyes open, tongue protruding. Carol uttered a shriek, then fainted. The shriek alerted nearby guests. Horace Young had sense enough — after seeing that Elise Baxter was deceased — to close the door and leave everything alone until police arrived.

At this point in the conversation, Sergeant Waintree took over. The first responders were a patrol cop — now retired and living in Arizona — and an ambulance driver, who’d died in a car wreck just a few months back. Next came a small Crime Scene Unit, who took down the body, performed an initial forensic evaluation, took samples and photographs — now in Coldmoon’s possession — and then handed the body off to the coroner. The coroner was still around, no longer practicing but living down the coast in a town called Bristol.

“Were you on the force at the time?” Coldmoon asked Waintree as he opened the police folder.

The cop nodded. “Ayuh.”

“Part of the investigation?”

“Wasn’t that much to investigate. Went through all the details, though.”

“Such as?” Pendergast asked, looking at the folder as Coldmoon paged through it.

“Nobody heard or saw anything out of the ordinary. Some of the guests in the surrounding rooms, and the staff on duty that evening, were interviewed. So were a few of the co-workers of the deceased.”

“Where are the transcriptions of the interviews?” Pendergast asked.

“These were just informal interviews, no reason to suspect anyone of anything. There are summaries in there.”

Pendergast pulled out a sheet of paper with two sentences on it. “Such as this?”

“Yep.”

Pendergast dropped the paper back into the folder. “Any security cameras or video feeds?”

“This is Maine, Agent Pendergast,” Mr. Young said, as if that explained everything.

“Were there reports of any strangers in town? Anything that seemed unusual or out of place?”

“There are always strangers — tourists — in town that time of year,” replied Waintree. “Right up to the last leaf falling. But no complaints, fights, incident reports during the week she hanged herself.”

“What about the scene of death itself? Any evidence of an unusual or suspicious nature?”

Both the manager and the policeman shook their heads.

“And no suicide note?” Coldmoon said.

“None,” said Waintree.

“What about the coroner’s report?”

“It’s there.”

“You mean, this three-page photocopy of typed notes?” said Coldmoon. “There aren’t even any X-rays.”

“It’s like I told you on the phone yesterday,” the sergeant said. “There’s not a lot to learn from the file. You could have gotten it sent to Miami and stayed a lot warmer,” he added in a stolid voice.

Coldmoon and Pendergast glanced at the brief coroner’s report. “The usual ligature marks associated with a suspension hanging,” Coldmoon read aloud. “Death was caused by asphyxiation.”

“She hanged herself from the curtain rod,” Pendergast said. “In my experience, curtain rods — especially in hotels — are not the sturdiest of platforms. Frequently, they are attached by suction cups.”

“Not in the lodge, they’re not,” said Young. “Ours are fixed with mounting brackets. Three screws apiece, right into the studs.” He smiled proudly.

Pendergast took another glance around the lobby. “Well, then. Perhaps we should take a look at the room.”

Young nodded. “You’re in luck. That’s one spot we’re not renovating this winter.”

The place where Elise Baxter took her life looked like countless other motel rooms Coldmoon had seen. Dense carpeting, iron-hard and patterned in a design intended to hide stains. A double set of heavy curtains to ensure the morning sun wouldn’t disturb late sleepers. A duvet cover that probably hadn’t been washed since the start of the last season. Coldmoon had read somewhere the dirtiest thing in a motel room was the TV remote, sometimes covered with E. coli or even contagious, antibiotic-resistant MRSA. He looked around. There it was, lying on the table beside some flyers advertising local attractions.

The bathroom was small, with a porcelain tub and yellow floor tiles. The curtain rod — fixed securely, as Young had said, to mounting brackets — hung a few inches below the upper molding. Coldmoon eyed the distance from the floor to the faintly mildewed ceiling, guessed it was the standard eight feet. More than enough headroom to get the job done.

Pendergast turned to him. “May I see the photographs, please?”

Coldmoon opened the folder again and together they looked through the glossy, well-thumbed prints. At least the photographer had done a thorough job, getting all the right angles as well as a full sequence of the body. Elise Baxter hung from the shower rail by a knotted bedsheet. The woman was wearing a terry-cloth dressing gown that had come loose at the top, exposing one breast. She was much less attractive than she had been in the portrait in her parents’ living room: the dried, protruding tongue; staring eyes; and mottled petechiae spreading up from her neck like overripe blueberries — all indications of asphyxiation — were textbook in a suicide like this.

Pendergast pointed to a close-up of the dead woman’s legs. Despite the settling of blood in her lower extremities, Coldmoon could make out a sheen on her toes and ankles, as well as on the porcelain lip of the tub.

“She, um, soaped her feet,” Young said.

“So she couldn’t change her mind?” Coldmoon asked.

“It is not uncommon,” said Pendergast.

Young shook his head.

Pendergast looked around the room. “Mr. Young, the tiles here are different from the photographs. And the curtain rod appears to be of relatively recent vintage.”

“Yes,” the man replied. “I mean, we had to change everything. And not just the bathroom: new bed, wallpaper, carpet — the whole nine yards.” He paused. “Hotel workers are even more superstitious than hotel guests.”

“Very good,” Pendergast said, not looking as if it was good at all. He replaced the glossy photographs into the manila folder. “We’re going to look around the room for a bit, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” the Youngs said in unison.

“And Sergeant Waintree, we can go over the other aspects of the suicide back at the station once we’ve finished here.”

The cop’s expression became, if anything, more stolid. “I’m sorry, Agent Pendergast, but that won’t be possible.”

“Why not?”

“Well... ” Waintree hesitated a moment. “Chief Pelletier told me to convey his apologies, but we’re awfully busy at the moment.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir. See, we’ve had a real epidemic of opioid-related crimes and overdoses swamping our office. That, and the usual domestic stuff we always get around now, when the winter gets long. The case files you already have contain everything relevant, and I’m the only eyewitness to the suicide still on the force. There’s no point in going into the station.”

Pendergast’s face had grown opaque during this recitation. When Waintree finished, Pendergast let a lengthy silence build. Just as he was about to reply, Coldmoon — acting on some internal warning he didn’t quite understand — jumped in. “Speaking of that,” he said to the Youngs, “which rooms have you put aside for us?”

The couple exchanged glances. “Oh my,” said Carol Young. “But there’s none available. We’re closed.”

“No rooms? I thought the entire lodge is empty.”

“Sure it is,” said her husband. “Like everyplace around here. Population drops like a stone once the leaf-peepers are gone. Perfect time for renovations.”

“I thought you said this part of the hotel wasn’t being renovated.”

“This room isn’t being renovated. Like I told you, it already was. All the other rooms... ” Young gave a helpless shrug.

Coldmoon absorbed this. “Can you recommend anywhere in town?”

“Town’s boarded up tight, I’m afraid. All the skiers are over around Big Squaw. Won’t find a place within an hour’s drive that’s open this time of year.”

“No room at the inn,” Pendergast murmured as he exited the bathroom.

“There’s the Lowly Mackerel,” Sergeant Waintree offered.

“That’s right!” Young said. “They do keep a few rooms open year-round, don’t they? I’ve always wondered why.”

“It’s just this side of Millinocket,” Waintree said. He turned and headed for the door, then stopped. “As regards dinner, you might want to stop at the SaveMart on your way to the motel.”

“No restaurants open, either?” Coldmoon said. But Waintree had already followed the owners into the hall and out of sight.

“I’m not surprised there’s a local opioid problem,” Pendergast murmured. Then, rubbing his hands together, he undertook the most meticulous examination of the room Coldmoon could ever recall seeing: using a magnifying glass to inspect the edges of the carpet from one end of the bedroom to another; disassembling both the phone and the radio and examining their interiors; applying a tiny, fine-bristled comb to the mounting brackets of the bathroom shower rod. Now and then, small plastic envelopes would appear as if by magic from the innumerable pockets of his parka; he would pluck up an item from the scene with a pair of jeweler’s tweezers, then replace the envelope and continue.

Coldmoon watched with mounting amazement for a while before he spoke. “The owner said the room was redecorated. And Elise Baxter committed suicide here over eleven years ago. Hundreds of guests have used this room since then.”

As he spoke, Pendergast had produced a small multi-tool from the parka and was unscrewing a heating register at the base of the wall. “Very true,” he said. “Nevertheless—” he probed the ductwork he’d just exposed with a light, took up the tweezers again, and removed something stuck to a metal burr — “Elise Baxter was in this room. And it was here that she took her life.”

“What exactly do you hope to find? Hoping she’ll speak to you from the Wanagi Tacanku?”

“That’s one possibility.” Pendergast stood up and brushed himself off. “Agent Coldmoon, as I’m sure you’ve noted, the files we received were virtually useless. Without the hotel registers indicating who else stayed here the night of the suicide, we have precious little to go on. That is why I am anxious to glean what I can, if anything, from this room. No doubt you’d prefer to occupy your time in some other way. Shall we meet in the lobby?”

He shrugged. “Sure.” And without further ceremony he left the room.

Coldmoon was long accustomed to waiting: in BIA offices and tribal courts; on the Quantico parade grounds; in unmarked cars. He’d grown to like it. Besides, he’d been up most of the previous night and felt rather weary. Finding the lobby empty, he pulled the drop cloth from one of the sofas — despite the preparations, no workmen were on site — picked up a couple of magazines from a nearby table, and settled in to read.

Sometime later, he woke. The wall clock read ten to three. The lobby was as empty as when he’d first returned to it; there had been no sign of either Horace or Carol Young. He paused to listen. The lodge was still as a tomb. What the hell was Pendergast doing?

He replaced the magazines on the table, stood up, and began walking down the carpeted corridor, toward what had been Elise Baxter’s room. The door, which he’d left open, was shut and locked. Stepping up to it, he paused to listen. There was no sound from beyond.

The rooms in the lodge did not use magnetic passcards but old-fashioned keys. Making no noise, Coldmoon crouched to peer through the open keyhole.

At first, he saw nothing. Then he noticed Pendergast. The man was lying on the bed, still wrapped in the parka, hands folded across his chest. The photos Sergeant Waintree had brought were arranged on the bed around him, almost like offerings encircling an idol. Something was in one of his hands: a gold chain, attached to a medallion whose details Coldmoon could not make out.

For a moment, Coldmoon wondered if the senior agent of the investigation had suffered a heart attack or stroke. But then he saw that Pendergast’s chest was rising and falling in a faint but regular rhythm. He must be asleep, though even that seemed unlikely — not even sleepers lay that still.

Coldmoon watched through the keyhole for another moment. Then, rising, he turned and went back in the direction of the lobby.