Линкольн Чайлд - Verses for the Dead

“There are other ways to ensure that without resorting to the extra work, and risk, involved in using two weapons. Might it not be that the killer — who, as I think we agree, is more interested in obtaining the heart itself than in committing a murder — is trying to cause the victim as little suffering as possible?”

“That... that would not fit the standard profile.”

“But you would agree it is possible?”

Dr. Mars frowned. “Yes. Now, if there’s nothing else—”

“Just one other question,” Pendergast interrupted smoothly. “Earlier, ADC Pickett mentioned the killer’s self-ascribed moniker: Mister Brokenhearts. This seems to imply a connection to the novel by Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts , or perhaps to the agony columns of newspapers. Have you explored that connection?”

“Er, I’m not familiar with the novel.”

“You would be wise to acquaint yourself with it. It’s a novel about alienation from the modern world... and murder. The Miss Lonelyhearts character in the novel — who, by the way, is a man — is plagued by a suffering he’s all too aware of, but cannot seem to ameliorate.”

“That novel isn’t in our database,” said the man.

Pendergast evidently did not like this answer, and he fixed Mars with a glittering stare. “There are many things in heaven and earth that are not in your database, Dr. Mars.”

“I doubt our killer is much of a reader,” said Pickett, with irritation.

“On the contrary, he quoted T. S. Eliot in his first note and paraphrased the Bard in his second.”

“All right, all right, the BAU will look into that angle. Are there any other questions or comments?”

The discussion went on for a while. Coldmoon kept quiet. He hated meetings like this, where people spoke not to exchange information but to impress their superiors or hear themselves talk.

At last Pickett rose. “If there’s nothing else—?” he said, finality in his voice.

“One small matter,” said Pendergast, raising a white finger.

Coldmoon felt a spike of adrenaline. There was something he was starting to recognize in Pendergast’s smooth tones — an occasional, secret undercurrent of pugnaciousness.

“Yes?”

“I request authorization to exhume the Flayley corpse.”

“We already discussed this in relation to Baxter,” said Pickett. “What purpose could it possibly serve? It was an open-and-shut suicide that took place eleven years ago... and as many states away.”

“And yet, I should still like an autopsy.”

“Might I remind you the body was already subjected to an autopsy — as is common with suicides?”

“I’m aware of that. I just saw the coroner’s report on Ms. Flayley. And it was as vague and unhelpful as the autopsy on Elise Baxter.”

Pickett sighed. “What, exactly, do you hope to find?”

“I’m not certain. That’s precisely why I want to look. The remains are easily accessible. And this time, there appears to be no family in a position to object.”

Pickett looked at Coldmoon, and for an uncomfortable moment the agent thought he might ask his opinion. But that would obviously be improper, and Pickett finally said: “Very well, Agent Pendergast — if you feel that strongly about it, and as you are the agent of record in the case, I’ll put through the authorization.”

“I am much obliged,” said Pendergast. “And I would be even further obliged if it could be done at the earliest opportunity.”

P​ickett was as good as his word. “ At the earliest opportunity ,” to Coldmoon’s amusement, turned out to be in the middle of that very night. Coldmoon was pretty sure Pickett had arranged things that way to make it as inconvenient as possible. But if Pendergast was annoyed, he did not show it. In fact, just the opposite: he appeared pleased, if you could call a man as sphinx-like as Pendergast “pleased.” On the other hand, the cemetery staff were deeply put out, and as they gathered at the mausoleum Coldmoon could feel a chill that had little to do with the night air.

“A lovely evening,” said Pendergast. “What an impressive array of stars. This is not the first time I’ve noticed that the empyrean seems closer here than it does in New York.”

This rapture-in-miniature surprised Coldmoon. The sky had cleared and, despite the moon and the city that surrounded them, a vast river of midnight stars did in fact arch overhead. Even as Coldmoon glanced at them, a shooting star flashed across the darkness. When he was a boy, his grandmother had explained that at birth a person received the life-breath from Wakan Tanka, which at death flew back to the spirit world in a flash of light. Perhaps this wichahpi streaking across the heavens was Jennifer Rosen, her breath of life returning to the eternal.

The cemetery director himself was on hand to supervise, a roly-poly man with dimpled cheeks and pursed lips framed by jowls. His name Coldmoon hadn’t quite caught, but it sounded something like Fatterhead. A machine for transporting coffins had been driven to the door of the mausoleum, but because of the granite steps it couldn’t enter. A total of four laborers with canvas slings would extract the coffin from the niche, carry it out, and slide it onto the transport cart. An ambulance waited in the lane to take the remains to the morgue in the medical examiner’s building. The vehicle’s headlights threw long shadows among the burial niches.

“All right,” said Fatterhead, “let’s get going.”

The workmen crowded into the mausoleum, arranging themselves around the dark slot, while Coldmoon and Pendergast stood outside. The pendulum heart had been removed. The brass handle of the coffin, visible on the end, was not used; instead, they employed a long pole to arrange one of the canvas straps around the end of the coffin. The men gave a gentle heave, and the coffin slid partway out. A second canvas strap was slung beneath it, the coffin edged out another few feet, another strap added, and so on until only the far end of the coffin remained in the niche.

“Looks like these guys have done this before,” murmured Coldmoon.

As the far end of the coffin slid out, all four laborers, two on each side, strained under the weight, muscles popping beneath their T-shirts. Now that it was fully in view, Coldmoon could see that the coffin, despite being relatively new, was nevertheless a wreck — the leaking roof had evidently dripped on it continuously and the wood had expanded, popping off the hinges and brass fittings and causing significant rot along the rear side.

In a practiced motion, the four men swung the coffin around. After a pause, all took a step at once, and then another, slow-marching the coffin toward the door as if participating in a funeral cortege.

As the coffin passed through the door, the workers prepared to descend the stone steps to ground level. When the lead men took the first step, there was a sound like paper being crumpled, and a vertical crack suddenly appeared in the coffin’s rotten section. It began to sag in the middle.

“Easy now!” the director shouted. “Hold on!”

The men halted, faces covered with sweat. But ominously, with a crumbling sound, the crack continued to work its way along the bottom and up around the other side.

“Quickly! Another sling around the middle!” the man cried as more workmen came rushing up. But it was too late: the two halves of the coffin separated down the center, and then something inside began peeping out through the widening gap — the midsection of a corpse.

“ Close up the gap! ” Fatterhead screamed.

But the two halves of the coffin appeared to have taken on lives of their own. They now swung open sideways, like a candy bar broken in half — and the body, itself cracking into two pieces, slid out in a cloud of rotten silk and decayed clothing, landing on the damp ground with a hollow sound. The corpse, pickled from a decade of water leaks, belonged to a woman with a mass of brown hair, wearing what might have been a black dress and pearls.