Линкольн Чайлд - Verses for the Dead

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.

In her windowless office next to the morgue, feeling a little guilty for what she was about to do, Charlotte Fauchet once again opened the accordion file marked LAURIE WINTERS. She had already thoroughly reviewed the file, along with Jasmine Oriol’s: but then, of course, she’d had her medical examiner hat on. For a second time, she’d had trouble sleeping the night before. Certain items in the nonmedical part of the files had gotten her thinking. Maybe it was those sessions with Pendergast and Coldmoon in the “safe house,” which had given her firsthand insight into the investigative aspects of catching a killer. Maybe detective work was rubbing off on her. In any case, now that she was on vacation — and with no real plans to speak of — she’d decided to drop by the office in the morning to examine the files more thoroughly.

Fauchet began laying out photos of the autopsy. Winters had been found hanging from a rod in a closet at a roadside motel outside of Bethesda. The autopsy had been performed by the local medical examiner, who was also — for a change — an experienced forensic pathologist. As she looked over the photos one by one, she was impressed by the level of technique and clean workmanship.

The problem was, despite the M.E.’s credentials, he seemed to have approached the autopsy without the slightest doubt regarding the police conclusion — that it was an open-and-shut suicide. That lack of skepticism prevented him from asking a question: how did an incomplete hanging like this fracture a wing of the hyoid bone, but not the body of the bone? Funny how all the surgical precision in the world didn’t matter if the mind was already made up. It reminded her of the earlier cases, where the certitude of the police and the subtlety of the evidence had, it seemed, sometimes helped lead M.E.’s to predetermined conclusions.

Interesting.

She turned to the police report of the “suicide.” Winters, twenty-four, had been driving up I-95 on a freelance photography assignment — to photograph her cousin’s wedding in Massachusetts. She had reached the Wildwood Manor Motel off the 495 bypass and checked in around eight o’clock. A cleaning lady found the body the following day, hours after checkout time.