Линкольн Чайлд - Verses for the Dead

“Yes, of course,” said Pickett hastily. “Agent Coldmoon, you’ll be hearing from me. Get back on your feet soon.”

Pendergast turned to follow him out. At the last moment, he glanced back. “Thank you,” he said. “ Armstrong. ”

“You owe me,” Coldmoon whispered as weariness overwhelmed him. “Big time.”

Roger Smithback sat at his desk, fingers motionless on the keyboard. His office had been cleared of the heavy crates full of letters — all pointless now, with the real Brokenhearts caught just a week ago, and Miami getting back to normal... or as normal as it ever got.

The thing was, Smithback ruminated, the murders didn’t feel solved to him. Oh, he’d heard the explanations — the police had doled them out to the press like a party line, which it probably was — but there were still questions that remained unanswered. In fact, there were whole pieces missing: exactly what triggered it all, why the hearts had been left on those particular graves... even who, precisely, was guilty of what. He’d asked these questions, of course, but had been stonewalled by the fact that Mister Brokenhearts, aka Ronald Vance, was a very sick individual who was under lockdown, being questioned by psychiatrists and psychologists, and that his motives could not now be revealed by the police — if he had any intelligible motives at all. The same went for this Commander Grove who’d died in an Everglades shootout: although his role in triggering the killings had been alluded to, the police tended to close ranks around their own, even the rotten apples, and nobody would answer his questions.

Which was bad news for him. He’d gotten some serious visibility on this story early on. In return, the whole damn city expected he would ultimately deliver the goods — and he couldn’t. He didn’t have any more information than the rest of the crime beat reporters. Interest in the crazy letters he’d been receiving had waned. The news cycle was moving on and the Brokenhearts case was on its way from the front burner to the back; the wounded FBI agent at the heart of the case would soon be released from the hospital; and Kraski, his editor at the Herald , wanted to shift him back to the vice beat. In fact, Kraski had only allowed him this final story on the murders — a kind of editorializing summing-up — after some serious pestering on Smithback’s part.

He stared at what he’d written thirty minutes ago, and hadn’t been able to add to since.

Until such time as the psychological specialists from the Miami PD and FBI are able to complete their evaluation of Brokenhearts, now revealed as Ronald Vance, we may never understand the motivations that led to his murderous rampage. We may never know what Vance was “atoning” for and why he felt such a burning need to do so.

What we do know is that Ronald’s father, John, led his son on a homicidal journey that spanned the East Coast 11 years ago. But that revelation leads only to more questions. What was the trigger that set them on this path of murder? What precisely was the relationship of this father-and-son killing team? Why did the murders staged as “suicides” stop when they did — and why did the son, Ronald, wait so long to start killing again? Why the hearts on the graves? In sum: What exactly is the link between the fake suicides 11 years ago and the Brokenhearts killings today? And exactly how did the death of Miami PD Commander Gordon Grove fit into this picture of violence?

Henry Miller wrote that “until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.” Perhaps all we can do, then, is accept the fact that this tragedy happened, and hope that — with such acceptance — understanding will eventually follow.

“Really, must you quote Henry Miller?” came a dulcet, languorous voice from over his shoulder. “You’re setting a bad literary example for the Herald — and these days, newspapers need all the help they can get.”

Smithback wheeled around to see Agent Pendergast standing over him. He’d come up behind the journalist so silently, Smithback had no idea how long he’d been standing there. “Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

“I frequently have that effect on people.” Pendergast looked around at the half-empty newsroom, then took a seat, folded one black-clad knee over the other, and regarded the journalist impassively. “Your brother would have finished that piece by now.”

“That’s probably true. But then, Bill wasn’t one to let facts stand in the way of a good story.”

“Of what facts, in particular, are you unsure?”

Smithback regarded the FBI agent through slightly narrowed eyes. He hadn’t seen Pendergast in maybe two weeks. What was he up to? “Are you kidding? I mean, where do I start? When is Brokenhearts going to explain just what the hell he was doing?”

“He’s already done all the explaining we can hope for. He’s confessed to having committed the three recent murders in Miami, as well as being involved in the old murder/suicides. He killed Commander Grove, too.”

“Why? What did Grove do to him?” He paused, thinking. “Did Grove... have something to do with his mother’s death?”

More silence.

“Wait, did Grove kill his mother, Lydia, twelve years ago? Right before the father returned from a tour of duty?”

Pendergast only smiled.

“I get it. The father was going to mess up their little love nest. Probably an argument escalated. Right?”

“You could call it a reasonable assumption.”

“Vance intuited that his wife’s death was murder, made to look like suicide. But the cops didn’t buy it. Grove must have done all he could to keep a lid on the investigation.”

“Keep going.”

“So: why then did Ronald’s father stage all these killings of women, dressed up like suicides?”

“Why, indeed? What did the murders have in common?”

“They were all killed the same way as Lydia Vance — murder made to look like suicide by hanging with a knotted cord.”

“What else?”

“They all came from Florida.”

Pendergast folded his arms and fixed Smithback with pale eyes, waiting.

“One thing the cops did say was that John Vance’s first tour in the Gulf was cut short by a TBI from a roadside bomb. That’s why he was an MP his second tour. When he came home and found his wife dead, and the cops ignored him, he went nuts. He started killing Miami women in other parts of the country, exactly the way his wife was killed. A murderous road trip, with his kid riding shotgun.”

A slow nod. “To what purpose?”

Smithback scratched one cheek thoughtfully. “Maybe... maybe he was planning to eventually confess what he’d done and humiliate the Miami PD by exposing their incompetence. But then why drive all over the damn place? Why not stage the killings here in Florida?”

“Give the man some credit. He may have felt a perverse, vengeful need to show up the Miami police, but he didn’t want to make it too easy — so easy that, say, he might get caught before he was finished.”

“That makes sense. Killing as catharsis. And when he was satisfied, he’d have found some suitably gratifying way to drag the Miami PD through the mud for not seeing the pattern. Except his plans were cut short by the fatal car accident.”

“Not bad. That might get you a C in journalism class. But you aren’t answering the questions you raise in your own article: what was the dynamic between father and son?”

Smithback paused. “The cops said the son, Mister Brokenhearts, confessed to the last murder, the one in Ithaca off the bridge. Apparently, his father had told him it was time to step up, be a man.”