Verses for the Dead

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, never 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.”

“What does it say?”

“Nothing new. Vance was still insisting it was murder, but offered no new evidence. The officer states that his health was deteriorating and he was barely ambulatory.” He passed these last sheets to Coldmoon. “It seems this last interview was an attempt to get the man to shut up. Apparently it worked, as that’s the latest document in the file.”

“Two years ago,” Coldmoon repeated. “And he still believed she was murdered.”

Pendergast nodded.

“Hanged with a knotted bedsheet. No suicide note. The location’s right. The time frame is right. MP husband felt sure she was murdered. You know, I think there’s a chance she might be our victim zero.”

“May I point out this is not the first person we’ve encountered who believed their loved one did not commit suicide?”

“You mean the Baxters. And we proved them right.”

“True. But in this case, unless I’m missing something, there’s absolutely no X-ray evidence she was killed by a choke hold.”

Coldmoon paged through the most recent report. “If there’s even a chance this is victim zero, maybe we should follow it up. Ask this guy Vance why he’s still so convinced she was murdered.”

“What will he say to us that he didn’t already say to the police?”

“Take a look at this interview,” Coldmoon said, holding up the sheet and then tossing it back to Pendergast. “It’s all pro forma. The cops just asked a few dumb questions. I think we ought to go talk to the old coot. We have time to kill. Grove’s not going to bring over any more files until late in the afternoon.”

Pendergast looked at him.

“Do you disagree?”

“Not at all. I have little interest in waiting around for news that Brokenhearts has killed again. I merely ask these rhetorical questions because — without our friend Axel at hand — you’ll have to drive.”

“Oh. Shit.” Coldmoon had forgotten about that. “What was that place again?”

“A small town with the charming name of Canepatch. About sixty miles west of here.”

“Canepatch. Figures.” Coldmoon stood up. “We can get there and back in three hours, tops. No point in sitting here waiting. After all, it can’t be any hotter there than it is here.”

“That remains to be seen,” said Pendergast, who — returning the scattered sheets to the folder and picking it up — rose and walked toward the door.