The rational cohomology of the mapping class group vanishes in its virtual cohomological dimension

Let Mod_g be the mapping class group of a genus g >= 2 surface. The group Mod_g has virtual cohomological dimension 4g-5. In this note we use a theorem of Broaddus and the combinatorics of chord diagrams to prove that H^{4g-5}(Mod_g; Q) = 0.