Линкольн Чайлд - Verses for the Dead

“I’d phrase it differently, Commander. It’s quite possible Agent Coldmoon has the perfect Lakota aphorism for this situation, but I hope he’ll permit me to quote a Latin one instead: exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis . The exception that proves the rule. This last of the old murders is different from the others — but it’s that very difference I find most telling.” He clasped his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Consider: It takes place out of sequence — four months after Baxter’s death. All the other strangulations were two months apart. The MO is different. Even though Flayley was strangled, it was done with less force — so much less that she was still alive when she was thrown from the bridge. That, too, is different. The others were all hanged in bedrooms or bathrooms, but Flayley was thrown off a bridge, in a public place.”

He paused, and then said: “In the other killings, greater force was brought to bear on the right horn of the hyoid bone, suggesting a right-handed individual. In the Flayley case, the left wing of the hyoid was slightly fractured.” He paused. “A slightly weaker, left-handed individual, perhaps?” Now Pendergast let his chin rest lightly on his tented fingers as he looked from Coldmoon, to Grove, to Fauchet, almost impishly. When his gaze met Fauchet’s, he winked.

“A partner!” Fauchet and Coldmoon said simultaneously.

“Indeed,” Pendergast said. “Although I think the word apprentice might be more apt.”

“That handwriting guy, Ianetti, said the person who wrote the notes was left-handed,” Coldmoon added.

“Yes... yes, he did.” Grove, who’d seemed lost in thought during this exchange, suddenly straightened up. “Same with the throat slashings. It all fits.”

“It might explain not only why this killing was different — but why it was the last of its kind.”

“How do you figure that?” Coldmoon asked. Fascinating or not, he was a little annoyed at this Yoda-like line of questioning. Why hadn’t Pendergast shared these revelations with him earlier?

“Up until Ithaca, the murders had been growing increasingly efficient. The killer was gaining experience, perfecting his technique. But Flayley was different: her strangling was botched, a kind of homicidus interruptus , and the act of throwing her off a bridge — with the potential for witnesses — hints almost of desperation. And it suggests other things as well: youthful impulsiveness, drama, the desire to impress.”

“So this apprentice had been an onlooker, so to speak,” Grove said. “And Flayley was a chance for him to ‘make his bones.’ But not having the experience or stomach for the job, he made a hash of it.”

Pendergast raised his chin from his fingertips. “The mixed metaphor notwithstanding, that seems likely. But there are still other points of interest about this particular killing.”

“It’s nowhere near I-95,” Fauchet said.

“Correct. In other words, we have a second killer — a squeamish apprentice — who takes his first killing in a new direction and almost botches it. Still, there’s a similarity: he also does his one and only killing near a major traffic artery.”

Coldmoon looked once more at the map. “I-81.”

Pendergast nodded.

“So they were swinging back south again?” Fauchet asked.

“It seems so. And now that we know the route the killers took, let us traverse it one more time — in reverse .”

Coldmoon turned back to the map, and — suddenly — saw where Pendergast was going with all this; how everything fell neatly into place. “Florida,” he said in a low voice. “They must have started in Florida.”

“I’m sorry,” Fauchet said. “I don’t get it. We haven’t found a killing with this MO in Florida.”

“My dear Dr. Fauchet, that’s because we haven’t looked in Florida. Commander Grove was asked to search for possible suicide-killings outside Florida. Perhaps the first homicide — victim zero, if you will — happened right here in Miami, two months before the one in Savannah. The distance fits. And if the time fits as well, it would have happened twelve years ago almost to the day.”

Coldmoon was thinking fast. “The killer — killers — headed north from Florida,” he said. “Following a precise schedule. They looped around after reaching Maine, killed again in Ithaca — then the killings stopped. Why?”

“An excellent question. Why do you think?” Pendergast asked.

“Well, a few possibilities. One: they were caught and imprisoned on some other charge. Two: one or both were killed or incapacitated. Or three: the apprentice refused to continue.” He paused.

“Refused to continue,” Pendergast murmured. “Was he, perhaps, horrified at what he’d done — or been forced to do? Could he escape his guilt? Did he, perhaps, grow up to become—”

“Brokenhearts!” Coldmoon snapped his fingers. “ Brokenhearts was the apprentice.” Then another idea occurred to him — a horrifying one. “If that Mars profile of the killer is correct, and he can’t be more than twenty-five, then he must’ve been little more than a kid when he was forced to take this road trip. Maybe the killing stopped because... because the apprentice killed his master .”

There was a silence.

“But we’re still left with the question of motive,” Pendergast said. “What precipitated the original killing spree? I believe the answer lies right here in Miami — that is, if we can identify victim zero; the one that started them all.” He turned to Grove. “I am hoping you, Commander, will deploy your teams to find that first murder for us. In that homicide lie the answers we seek — what started this murderous journey and who were the two killers? That will lead us to Brokenhearts.”

“I’m on it,” Grove said. “We’ll put the entire division on this one. I promise you an answer in twenty-four hours or less. Dr. Fauchet? If we get any potential hits, I may need your help with the forensics.”

“Call anytime. As I said, I’m taking some vacation days but I’m always on call.”

Even as she spoke, Grove was rising from his chair and walking halfway to the door. For a gracefully aging man, he could move with remarkable speed. And with one quick glance at Pendergast, Fauchet disappeared out the door after Grove.

Once the echo of their footsteps died away, relative silence settled over the loft. Then Coldmoon looked at Pendergast. “You figured all this out... and didn’t tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure. In fact, I’m still not. It is a lovely theory, I admit, but it’s still just that: a theory. We need to find that first killing in Miami.”

“I’ll bet you’ve been suspecting something like this for a while. How long — as far back as Ithaca?”

“Agent Coldmoon, these realizations don’t switch on like a lightbulb. That’s for mystery novels. Rather, they develop slowly, beneath the surface — like a subcutaneous abscess.”

“Nice metaphor.” Coldmoon heaved a sigh and shook his head in bemusement. Then he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his thermos. “ Atanikili ,” he said.

The agent bowed slightly. “ Philámayaye .”

Coldmoon raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You’ve been boning up.”

“It seemed a good idea, under the circumstances.”

“Never hurts to learn new things.”

“True.”

“Or try new things.”

There was a pause while Pendergast peered at the thermos. “Perhaps.”

Coldmoon pried off the top, unscrewed the inner lid, and poured a generous measure of tarry black liquid into the red cup. A smell like burnt rubber — one he loved more than almost anything else — filled the room. He held the cup out to Pendergast. “Coffee, partner?”