She stepped out of the car and the sudden blast of cold air blew the sleep from her brain. She walked through freshly fallen powder that whispered away like white feathers before her boots. Although it was one-thirty, lights were burning in several of the modest homes along the street, and through a window decorated with holiday stencils of flying reindeer and candy canes, she saw the silhouette of a curious neighbor peering out from his warm house, at a night that was no longer silent or holy.
“Hey, Dr. Isles?” called out a patrolman, an older cop whom she vaguely recognized. Clearly he knew exactly who she was. They all knew who she was. “How’d you get so lucky tonight, huh?”
“I could ask the same of you, Officer.”
“Guess we both drew the short straws.” He gave a laugh. “Merry goddamn Christmas.”
“Is Detective Rizzoli inside?”
“Yeah, she and Frost have been videotaping.” He pointed toward a residence where all the lights were shining, a boxy little house crammed into a row of tired older homes. “By now, they’re probably ready for you.”
The sound of violent retching made her glance toward the street, where a blond woman stood doubled over, clutching at her long coat to avoid soiling the hem as she threw up in the snowbank.
The patrolman gave a snort. Muttered to Maura, “That one’s gonna make a fine homicide detective. She came striding onto the scene right outta Cagney and Lacey. Ordered us all around. Yeah, a real tough one. Then she goes in the house, gets one look, and next thing you know, she’s out here puking in the snow.” He laughed.
“I haven’t seen her before. She’s from Homicide?”
“I hear she just transferred over from Narcotics and Vice. The commissioner’s bright idea to bring in more girls.” He shook his head. “She’s not gonna last long. That’s my prediction.”
The woman detective wiped her mouth and moved unsteadily toward the porch steps, where she sank down.
“Hey. Detective!” called out the patrolman. “You might wanna move away from the crime scene? If you’re gonna puke again, at least do it where they’re not collecting evidence.”
A younger cop, standing nearby, snickered.
The blond detective jerked back to her feet, and in bright strobe flashes the cruiser lights illuminated her mortified face. “I think I’ll go sit in my car for a minute,” she murmured.
“Yeah. You do that, ma’am.”
Maura watched the detective retreat to the shelter of her vehicle. What horrors was she about to face inside that house?
“Doc,” called out Detective Barry Frost. He had just emerged from the house and was standing on the porch, hunched in a Windbreaker. His blond hair stood up in tufts, as though he had just rolled out of bed. Though his face had always been sallow, the yellow glow cast by the porch light made him look sicklier than usual.
“I gather it’s pretty bad in there,” she said.
“Not the kind of thing you want to see on Christmas. Thought I’d better come out here and get some air.”
She paused at the bottom of the steps, noting the jumble of footprints that had been left on the snow-dusted porch. “Okay to walk in this way?”
“Yeah. Those prints are all Boston PD.”
“What about footwear evidence?”
“We didn’t find much out here.”
“What, did he fly in the window?”
“It looks like he swept up after himself. You can still see some of the whisk marks.”
She frowned. “This perp pays attention to detail.”
“Wait till you see what’s inside.”
She walked up the steps and pulled on shoe covers and gloves. Close up, Frost looked even worse, his face gaunt and drained of all color. But he took a breath and offered gamely: “I can walk you in.”
“No, you take your time out here. Rizzoli can show me around.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was staring off at the street with the fierce concentration of a man trying to hold on to his dinner. She left him to his battle and reached for the doorknob. Already she was braced for the worst. Only moments ago, she had arrived exhausted, trying to shake herself awake; now she could feel tension sizzling like static through her nerves.
She stepped into the house. Paused there, her pulse throbbing, and gazed at an utterly unalarming scene. The foyer had a scuffed oak floor. Through the doorway she could see into the living room, which was furnished with cheap mismatches: a sagging futon couch, a beanbag chair, a bookcase cobbled together from particle board planks and concrete blocks. Nothing so far that screamed crime scene. The horror was yet to come; she knew it was waiting in this house, because she had seen its reflection in Barry Frost’s eyes and in the ashen face of the woman detective.
She walked through the living room into the dining room, where she saw four chairs around a pine table. But it was not the furniture she focused on; it was the place settings that had been laid out on the table, as though for a family meal. Dinner for four.
One of the plates had a linen napkin draped over it, the fabric spattered with blood.
Gingerly she reached for the napkin. Lifting it up by the corner, she took one look at what lay underneath it, on the plate. Instantly she dropped the napkin and stumbled backward, gasping.
“I see you found the left hand,” a voice said.
Maura spun around. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“You want some seriously scary shit?” said Detective Jane Rizzoli. “Just follow me.” She turned and led Maura up a hallway. Like Frost, Jane looked as if she had just rolled out of bed. Her slacks were wrinkled, her dark hair a wiry tangle. Unlike Frost, she moved fearlessly, her paper-covered shoes whishing across the floor. Of all the detectives who regularly showed up in the autopsy room, Jane was the one most likely to push right up to the table, to lean in for a closer look, and she betrayed no hesitation now as she moved along the hall. It was Maura who lagged behind, her gaze drawn downward to the drips of blood on the floor.
“Stay along this side,” said Jane. “We’ve got some indistinct footprints here, going in both directions. Some kind of athletic shoe. They’re pretty much dry now, but I don’t want to smear anything.”
“Who called in the report?”
“It was a nine-one-one call. Came in just after midnight.”
“From where?”
“This residence.”
Maura frowned. “The victim? Did she try to get help?”
“No voice on the line. Someone just dialed the emergency operator and left the phone off the hook. First cruiser got here ten minutes after the call. Patrolman found the door unlocked, came into the bedroom, and freaked out.” Jane paused at a doorway and glanced over her shoulder at Maura. A warning look. “Here’s where it gets hairy.”
The severed hand was bad enough.
Jane moved aside to let Maura gaze into the bedroom. She did not see the victim; all she saw was the blood. The average human body contains perhaps five liters of it. The same volume of red paint, splashed around a small room, could splatter every surface. What her stunned eyes encountered, as she stared through the doorway, were just such extravagant splatters, like bright streamers flung by boisterous hands across white walls, across furniture and linen.
“Arterial,” said Rizzoli.
Maura could only nod, silent, as her gaze followed the arcs of spray, reading the horror story written in red on these walls. As a fourth-year medical student serving a clerkship rotation in the ER, she had once watched a gunshot victim exsanguinate on the trauma table. With the blood pressure crashing, the surgery resident in desperation had performed an emergency laparotomy, hoping to control the internal bleeding. He’d sliced open the belly, releasing a fountain of arterial blood that gushed out of the torn aorta, splashing doctors’ gowns and faces. In the final frantic seconds, as they’d suctioned and packed in sterile towels, all Maura could focus on was that blood. Its brilliant gloss, its meaty smell. She’d reached into the open abdomen to grab a retractor, a
nd the warmth that had soaked through the sleeves of her gown had felt as soothing as a bath. That day, in the operating room, Maura had seen the alarming spurt that even a weak arterial pressure can generate.
Now, as she gazed at the walls of the bedroom, it was once again the blood that held her focus, that recorded the story of the victim’s final seconds. When the first cut was made, the victim’s heart was still beating, still generating a blood pressure. There, above the bed, was where the first machine-gun splatter hit, arcing high onto the wall. After a few vigorous pulses, the arcs began to decay. The body would try to compensate for the falling pressure, the arteries clamping down, the pulse quickening. But with every heartbeat, it would drain itself, accelerating its own demise. When at last the pressure faded and the heart stopped, there would be no more spurts, just a quiet trickle as the last blood seeped out. This was the death Maura saw recorded on these walls, and on this bed.
Then her gaze halted, riveted on something she had almost missed among all the splatters. Something that made the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stand up. On one wall, drawn in blood, were three upside-down crosses. And beneath that, a series of cryptic symbols:
“What does that mean?” said Maura softly.
“We have no idea. We’ve been trying to figure it out.”
Maura could not tear her gaze from the writing. She swallowed. “What the hell are we dealing with here?”
“Wait till you see what comes next.” Jane circled around to the other side of the bed and pointed to the floor. “The victim’s right here. Most of her, anyway.”
Only as Maura rounded the bed did the woman come into view. She was lying unclothed and on her back. Exsanguination had drained the skin to the color of alabaster, and Maura suddenly remembered her visit to a room in the British Museum, where dozens of fragmented Roman statues were on display. The wear of centuries had chipped at the marble, cracking off heads, breaking off arms, until they were little more than anonymous torsos. That’s what she saw now, staring down at the body. A broken Venus. With no head.
“It looks like he killed her there, on the bed,” said Jane. “That would explain the splatters on that particular wall and all the blood on the mattress. Then he pulled her onto the floor, maybe because he needed a firm surface to finish cutting.” Jane took a breath and turned away, as though she had suddenly reached her limit, and could not look at the corpse any longer.
“You said the first cruiser took ten minutes to respond to that nine-one-one call,” said Maura.
“That’s right.”
“What was done here—these amputations, the removal of the head—that would have taken longer than ten minutes.”
“We realize that. I don’t think it was the victim who made that call.”
The creak of a footstep made them both turn, and they saw Barry Frost standing in the doorway, looking less than eager to enter the room.
“Crime Scene Unit’s here,” he said.
“Tell them to come on in.” Jane paused. “You don’t look so hot.”
“I think I’m doing pretty good. Considering.”
“How’s Kassovitz? She finished puking? We could use some help in here.”
Frost shook his head. “She’s still sitting in her car. I don’t think her stomach’s ready for this one. I’ll go get CSU.”
“Tell her to grow a spine, for God’s sake!” Jane called after him as he walked out of the room. “I hate it when a woman lets me down. Gives us all a bad name.”
Maura’s gaze returned to the torso on the floor. “Have you found—”
“The rest of her?” said Jane. “Yeah. You’ve already seen the left hand. The right arm’s sitting in the bathtub. And now I guess it’s time to show you the kitchen.”
“What’s in there?”
“More surprises.” Jane started across the room, toward the hallway.
Turning to follow her, Maura caught a sudden glimpse of herself in the bedroom mirror. Her reflection stared back at her with tired eyes, the black hair limp from melted snow. But it was not the image of her own face that made her freeze. “Jane,” she whispered. “Look at this.”
“What?”
“In the mirror. The symbols.” Maura turned and stared at the writing on the wall. “Do you see it? It’s a reverse image! Those aren’t symbols, those are letters, meant to be read in the mirror.”
Jane looked at the wall, then at the mirror. “That’s a word?”
“Yes. It spells out Peccavi.”
Jane shook her head. “Even in reverse, it doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“It’s Latin, Jane.”
“For what?”
“I have sinned.”
For a moment, the two women stared at each other. Then Jane gave a sudden laugh. “Well, that’s a doozy of a confession for you. You think a few Hail Marys will erase this particular sin?”
“Maybe this word doesn’t refer to the killer. Maybe it’s all about the victim.” She looked at Jane. “I have sinned.”
“Punishment,” said Jane. “Vengeance.”
“It’s a possible motive. She did something to anger the killer. She sinned against him. And this is his payback.”
Jane took a deep breath. “Let’s go into the kitchen.” She led Maura down the hallway. At the kitchen doorway she stopped and looked at Maura, who had halted on the threshold, too stunned by what she saw to say a word.
On the tiled floor, a large red circle had been drawn in what looked like red chalk. Spaced around its circumference were five black puddles of wax that had melted and congealed. Candles, thought Maura. In the center of that circle, positioned so that the eyes were staring at them, was a woman’s severed head.
A circle. Five black candles. It’s a ritual offering.
“So now I’m supposed to go home to my little girl,” said Jane. “In the morning, we’ll all sit around the tree and open presents and pretend there’s peace on earth. But I’ll be thinking of…that thing…staring back at me. Merry frigging Christmas.”
Maura swallowed. “Do we know who she is?”
“Well, I haven’t dragged in her friends and neighbors to make a positive ID. Hey, you recognize that head on the kitchen floor? But based on her driver’s license photo, I’d say this is Lori-Ann Tucker. Twenty-eight years old. Brown hair, brown eyes.” Abruptly, Jane laughed. “Put all the body parts together, and that’s about what you’d get.”
“What do you know about her?”
“We found a paycheck stub in her purse. She works over at the Science Museum. We don’t know in what capacity, but judging by the house, the furniture”—Jane glanced toward the dining room—“she’s not making a ton of money.”
They heard voices, and the creak of footsteps as CSU moved into the house. Jane at once straightened to greet them with some semblance of her usual aplomb. The unshrinking Detective Rizzoli that everyone knew.
“Hey guys,” she said as Frost and two male criminalists gingerly stepped into the kitchen. “We got ourselves a fun one.”
“Jesus,” one of the criminalists murmured. “Where’s the rest of the victim?”
“In several rooms. You might want to start with—” She stopped, her body suddenly snapping straight.
The phone on the kitchen counter was ringing.
Frost was standing closest to it. “What do you think?” he asked, glancing at Rizzoli.
“Answer it.”
Gingerly Frost picked up the receiver in his gloved hand. “Hello? Hello?” After a moment he set it down again. “They hung up.”
“What’s Caller ID say?”
Frost pressed the call history button. “It’s a Boston number.”
Jane took out her cell phone and looked at the number on the display. “I’ll try calling it back,” she said, and dialed. Stood listening as it rang. “No answer.”
“Let me see if that number’s called here before,” said Frost. He cycled back through the history, reviewing every call that had come in or gone
out on the line. “Okay, here’s that call to nine-one-one. Twelve-ten A.M.”
“Our perp, announcing his handiwork.”
“There’s another call, just before that one. A Cambridge number.” He looked up. “It was at twelve-oh-five.”
“Did our perp make two calls from this phone?”
“If it was our perp.”
Jane stared at the phone. “Let’s think about this. He’s standing here in the kitchen. He’s just killed her and cut her up. Sliced off her hand, her arm. Sets her head right here, on the floor. Why call someone? Does he want to brag about it? And who’s he gonna call?”
“Find out,” said Maura.
Jane once again used her cell phone, this time to call the Cambridge number. “It’s ringing. Okay, I’m getting an answering machine.” She paused, and her gaze suddenly whipped to Maura. “You’re not going to believe who this number belongs to.”
“Who?”
Jane hung up and dialed the number again. Handed Maura the cell phone.
Maura heard it ring four times. Then the answering machine picked up and a recording played. The voice was instantly, chillingly familiar.
You’ve reached Dr. Joyce P. O’Donnell. I do want to hear from you, so please leave a message, and I’ll return your call.
Maura disconnected and met Jane’s equally stunned gaze. “Why would the killer call Joyce O’Donnell?”
“You’re kidding,” said Frost. “It’s her number?”
“Who is she?” one of the criminalists asked.
Jane looked at him. “Joyce O’Donnell,” she said, “is a vampire.”
FOUR
This was not where Jane wanted to be on Christmas morning.
She and Frost sat in her parked Subaru on Brattle Street, gazing at the large white colonial residence. The last time Jane had visited this house, it had been summer, and the front garden had been impeccably groomed. Seeing it now, in a different season, she was once again impressed by how tasteful every detail was, from the slate-gray trim to the handsome wreath on the front door. The wrought-iron gate was decorated with pine boughs and red ribbon, and through the front window she could see the tree, glittering with ornaments. That was a surprise. Even bloodsuckers celebrated Christmas.
The Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Bundle Page 156
