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.”