Because the woman she grew into lived in a different world, where money bought straight teeth and gold crowns. Good luck or hard work or perhaps the attention of the right man had lifted her to far more comfortable circumstances. But the poverty of her childhood was still carved in her bones, in the bowing of her legs, and in the trough in her chest.
There was evidence of pain as well, a catastrophic event that had shattered her left leg and spine, leaving her with two fused vertebrae and a steel rod permanently embedded in her thighbone.
“Judging by her extensive dental work, and by her probable socioeconomic status, this is a woman whose absence would be noted,” said Dr. Isles. “She’s been dead at least two months. Chances are, she’s in the NCIC database.”
“Yeah, her and about a hundred thousand others,” said Korsak.
The FBI’s National Crime Information Center maintained a missing persons file, which could be cross-checked against unidentified remains to produce a list of possible matches.
“We have nothing local?” asked Pepe. “No open missing persons cases that might be a match?”
Rizzoli shook her head. “Not in the state of Massachusetts.”
Exhausted as she was that night, she could not sleep. She got out of bed once to recheck the locks on her door and the latch on the window leading to the fire escape. Then, an hour later, she heard a noise and imagined Warren Hoyt walking up the hallway toward her bedroom, a scalpel in his hand. She grabbed her weapon from the nightstand and dropped to a crouch in the darkness. Drenched in sweat, she waited, gun poised, for the shadow to materialize in her doorway.
She saw nothing, heard nothing, except the drumming of her own heart and the throb of music from a car passing on the street below.
At last she eased into the hallway and switched on the lights.
No intruder.
She moved into the living room, flipped on another light. In one quick glance she saw the door chain was in place, the fire escape window latched tight. She stood gazing at a room that was exactly as she’d left it and thought: I’m losing my mind.
She sank onto the couch, put down her gun, and dropped her head in her hands, wishing she could squeeze all thoughts of Warren Hoyt from her brain. But he was always there, like a tumor that could not be excised, metastasizing into every waking moment of her life. In bed, she had not been thinking of Gail Yeager or the unnamed woman whose bones she had just examined. Nor had she been thinking of Airplane Man, whose file remained on her desk at work, staring at her in silent reproach for her neglect. So many names and reports demanded her attention, but when she lay down at night and stared into the darkness, only Warren Hoyt’s face came to mind.
The phone rang. She snapped straight, her heart battering against her chest. It took her a few breaths to calm down enough to pick up the receiver.
“Rizzoli?” said Thomas Moore. It was not a voice she’d expected to hear, and she was caught off guard by a sudden sense of longing. Only a year ago, she and Moore had worked together as partners during the Surgeon investigation. Though their relationship had never gone beyond that of two colleagues, they had trusted each other with their lives, and in some ways that was a level of intimacy as deep as any marriage could be. Hearing his voice now reminded her how much she missed him. And how much his marriage to Catherine still stung her.
“Hey, Moore,” she said, her casual reply revealing none of these emotions. “What time is it over there?”
“It’s nearly five. I’m sorry for calling you at this hour. I didn’t want Catherine to hear this.”
“It’s okay. I’m still awake.”
A pause. “You’re having trouble sleeping, too.” Not a question but a statement. He knew the same ghost was haunting them both.
“Marquette called you?” she said.
“Yes. I was hoping that by now—”
“There’s nothing. It’s been nearly twenty-four hours, and there hasn’t been a single goddamn sighting.”
“So the trail’s gone cold.”
“The trail was never there to begin with. He kills three people in the O.R., turns into the invisible man, and walks out of the hospital. Fitchburg and State Police canvassed the whole neighborhood, set up roadblocks. His face is all over the evening news. Nothing.”
“There’s one place he’ll be drawn to. One person …”
“Your building’s already staked out. Hoyt goes anywhere near it, we’ve got him.”
There was a long silence. Then Moore said, quietly: “I can’t bring her home. I’m keeping her right here, where I know she’s safe.”
Rizzoli heard fear in his voice, not for himself but for his wife, and she wondered, with a twinge of envy: What would it be like to be loved so deeply?
“Does Catherine know he’s out?” she asked.
“Yes. I had to tell her.”
“How’s she taking it?”
“Better than I am. If anything, she’s trying to calm me down.”
“She’s already faced the worst, Moore. She’s beaten him twice. Proven she’s stronger than he is.”
“She thinks she’s stronger. That’s when things get dangerous.”
“Well, she has you now.” And I have only myself. The way it had always been and probably always would be.
He must have heard the note of weariness in her voice, for he said: “This has got to be hell on you, too.”
“I’m okay.”
“Then you’re handling it better than I am.”
She laughed, a sharp and startling sound that was all bluster. “Like I’ve got time to worry about Hoyt. I’m riding herd on a new task force. We found a body dump over at Stony Brook Reservation.”
“How many victims?”
“Two women, plus a man he killed during the abduction. It’s another bad one, Moore. You know it’s bad when Zucker gives him a nickname. We’re calling this unsub the Dominator.”
“Why the Dominator?”
“It’s what he seems to get off on. The power trip. The absolute control over the husband. Monsters and their sick rituals.”
“It sounds like a replay of last summer.”
Only this time you’re not here to watch my back. You’ve got other priorities.
“Any progress?” he asked.
“Slow. We’ve got multiple jurisdictions involved, multiple players. Newton P.D.’s on it, and—get this—the friggin’ Bureau’s stepped in.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Some fibbie named Gabriel Dean. Says he’s an adviser, but his hands are all over this case. You ever had that happen before?”
“Never.” A pause. “Something’s not right, Rizzoli.”
“I know.”
“What does Marquette say?”
“He’s rolled over and playing dead, ’cause OPC’s ordered us to cooperate.”
“What’s Dean’s story?”
“We’re talking tight-lipped here. You know, the if-I-tell-you-then-I’ll-have-to-kill-you kind of guy.” She paused, remembering Dean’s gaze, his eyes as piercing as shards of blue glass. Yes, she could imagine him pulling a trigger without even flinching. “Anyway,” she said, “Warren Hoyt’s not my number one concern right now.”
“But he’s mine,” said Moore.
“If there’s any news, you’ll be the first one I call.”
She hung up, and in the silence the bravado she’d felt, talking to Moore, instantly collapsed. Once again she was alone with her fears, sitting in an apartment with the door barred and the windows latched and only a gun to keep her company.
Maybe you’re the best friend I have, she thought. And she picked up the weapon and carried it back to her bedroom.
NINE
“Agent Dean came to see me this morning,” said Lieutenant Marquette. “He has doubts about you.”
“The feelings are mutual,” Rizzoli said.
“He’s not questioning your skills. He thinks you’re a fine cop.”
“But?”
“He wonders i
f you’re the right detective to be lead on this one.”
She said nothing for a moment, just sat calmly facing Marquette’s desk. When he’d called her into his office this morning, she had already guessed what the meeting was about. She had walked in determined to maintain ironclad control over her emotions, to offer him no glimpse of what he was waiting for: a sign that she was already over the edge, in need of being replaced.
When she spoke, it was in a quiet and reasonable voice. “What are his concerns?”
“That you’re distracted. That you have unresolved issues having to do with Warren Hoyt. That you’re not fully recovered from the Surgeon investigation.”
“What did he mean by not recovered?” she asked. Already knowing exactly what he’d meant.
Marquette hesitated. “Jesus, Rizzoli. This isn’t easy to say. You know it isn’t.”
“I’d just like you to come out and say it.”
“He thinks you’re unstable, okay?”
“What do you think, Lieutenant?”
“I think you’ve got a lot on your plate. I think Hoyt’s escape knocked the wind out of you.”
“Do you think I’m unstable?”
“Dr. Zucker has also expressed some concerns. You never went for counseling last fall.”
“I was never ordered to.”
“Is that the only way it works with you? You have to be ordered?”
“I didn’t feel I needed it.”
“Zucker thinks you haven’t let go of the Surgeon yet. That you see Warren Hoyt under every rock. How can you lead this investigation if you’re still reliving the last one?”
“I guess I’d like to hear it from you, Lieutenant. Do you think I’m unstable?”
Marquette sighed. “I don’t know. But when Agent Dean comes in here and lays out his concerns, I’ve got to take notice.”
“I don’t believe Agent Dean is an entirely reliable source.”
Marquette paused. Leaned forward with a frown. “That’s a serious charge.”
“No more serious than the charge he’s leveling at me.”
“You have anything to back it up?”
“I called the FBI’s Boston office this morning.”
“Yes?”
“They know nothing about Agent Gabriel Dean.”
Marquette sat back in his chair and regarded her for a moment, saying nothing.
“He came here straight from Washington,” she said. “The Boston office had nothing to do with it. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. If we ask them for a criminal profile, it always goes through their area field division coordinator. This didn’t go through their field division. It came straight from Washington. Why is the FBI mucking around in my investigation in the first place? And what does Washington have to do with it?”
Still, Marquette said nothing.
She pressed on, her frustration building, her control starting to crack. “You told me the order to cooperate came through the police commissioner.”
“Yes, it did.”
“Who in the FBI approached OPC? Which part of the Bureau are we dealing with?”
Marquette shook his head. “It wasn’t the Bureau.”
“What?”
“The request didn’t come from the FBI. I spoke to OPC last week, the day Dean showed up. I asked them that same question.”
“And?”
“I promised them I’d keep this confidential. I expect the same from you.” Only after she’d given a nod of assent did he continue. “The request came from Senator Conway’s office.”
She stared at him in bewilderment. “What does our senator have to do with all this?”
“I don’t know.”
“OPC wouldn’t tell you?”
“They may not know, either. But it’s not a request they’d brush off, not when it comes direct from Conway. And he’s not asking for the moon. Just interagency cooperation. We do it all the time.”
She leaned forward and said, quietly: “Something’s wrong, Lieutenant. You know it. Dean hasn’t been straight with us.”
“I didn’t call you in here to talk about Dean. We’re talking about you.”
“But it’s his word you’re relying on. Does the FBI now dictate orders to Boston P.D.?”
This seemed to take Marquette aback. Abruptly straightening, he eyed her across the desk. She had hit just the right nerve. The Bureau versus Us. Are you really in charge?
“Okay,” he said. “We talked. You listened. That’s good enough for me.”
“For me, too.” She stood up.
“But I’ll be watching, Rizzoli.”
She gave him a nod. “Aren’t you always?”
“I’ve found some interesting fibers,” Erin Volchko said. “They were lifted with sticky tape from the skin of Gail Yeager.”
“More navy-blue carpet?” asked Rizzoli.
“No. To be honest, I’m not sure what these are.”
Erin did not often admit that she was baffled. That alone piqued Rizzoli’s interest in the slide now under the microscope. Through the lens, she saw a single dark strand.
“We’re looking at a synthetic fiber, whose color I’d characterize as drab green. Based on its refractive indices, this is our old friend DuPont nylon, type six, six.”
“Just like the navy-blue carpet fibers.”
“Yes. Nylon six, six is a very popular fiber due to its strength and resilience. You’ll find it in a large variety of fabrics.”
“You said this was lifted off Gail Yeager’s skin?”
“These fibers were found clinging to her hips, her breasts, and a shoulder.”
Rizzoli frowned. “A sheet? Something he used to wrap her body?”
“Yes, but not a sheet. Nylon wouldn’t be appropriate for that use, due to its low moisture absorbency. Also, these particular threads are made up of extremely fine thirty-denier filaments, ten filaments to a thread. And the thread’s finer than a human hair. This kind of fiber would produce a finished product that’s very tight. Maybe weatherproof.”
“A tent? A tarp?”
“Possible. That’s the kind of fabric one might use to wrap a body.”
Rizzoli had a bizarre vision of packaged tarps hanging in Wal-Mart, the manufacturer’s suggested uses printed on the label: PERFECT FOR CAMPING, WEATHERPROOFING, AND WRAPPING DEAD BODIES.
“If it’s just a tarp, we’re dealing with a pretty generic piece of fabric,” said Rizzoli.
“C’mon, Detective. Would I drag you over here to look at a perfectly generic fiber?”
“It’s not?”
“It’s actually quite interesting.”
“What’s interesting about a nylon tarp?”
Erin reached for a folder on the lab countertop and pulled out a computer-generated graph, on which a line traced a silhouette of jagged peaks. “I ran an ATR analysis on these fibers. This is what popped out.”
“ATR?”
“Attenuated Total Reflection. It uses infrared microspectroscopy to examine single fibers. Infrared radiation is beamed at the fiber, and we read the spectra of light that bounces back. This graph shows the IR characteristics of the fiber itself. It simply confirms that it’s nylon six, six, as I told you earlier.”
“No surprise.”
“Not yet,” said Erin, a sly smile playing at her lips. She took a second graph from the folder, laid it beside the first. “Here we see the IR tracing of exactly the same fiber. Notice anything?”
Rizzoli gazed back and forth. “They’re different.”
“Yes, they are.”
“But if these are from the same fiber, the graphs should be identical.”
“For this second graph, I altered the image plane. This ATR is the reflection from the surface of the fiber. Not the core.”
“So the surface and the core are different.”
“Right.”
“Two different fibers twisted together?”
“No. It’s a single fiber. But the fabric has had a surface treatment. That’s
what the second ATR is picking up—the surface chemicals. I ran it through the chromatograph, and it seems to be silicone-based. After the fibers were woven and dyed, a silicone rub was applied to the finished fabric.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. Waterproofing? Tear resistance? It must be an expensive process. I think this fabric has some very specific purpose. I just don’t know what it is.”
Rizzoli leaned back on the lab stool. “Find this fabric,” she said, “and we’ll find our perp.”
“Yes. Unlike generic blue carpet, this fabric is unique.”
The monogrammed towels were draped over the coffee table for all the party guests to see, the letters AR, for Angela Rizzoli, entwined in baroque curlicues. Jane had chosen them in peach, her mother’s favorite color, and had paid extra for the deluxe birthday gift wrapping with apricot ribbons and a cluster of silk flowers. They’d been delivered specifically by Federal Express, because her mother associated those red, white, and blue trucks with surprise packages and happy events.
And Angela Rizzoli’s fifty-ninth birthday party should have qualified as a happy event. Birthdays were a very big deal in the Rizzoli family. Every December, when Angela bought a fresh calendar for the new year, the first thing she did was flip through the months, marking the family’s various birthdays. To forget a loved one’s special day was a serious transgression. To forget your mother’s birthday was an unforgivable sin, and Jane knew better than to ever let the day slip by uncelebrated. She’d been the one to buy ice cream and string up the decorations, the one who’d sent out invitations to the dozen neighbors who were now gathered in the Rizzoli living room. She was the one now slicing the cake and passing the paper plates to guests. She’d done her duty as always, but this year the party had fallen flat. And all because of Frankie.
“Something’s wrong,” Angela said. She sat flanked on the couch by her husband and younger son, Michael, and she stared without joy at the gifts displayed on her coffee table—enough bath oil beads and talcum powder to keep her smelling sweet into the next decade. “Maybe he’s sick. Maybe there’s been an accident and nobody’s called me yet.”
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 11-Book Bundle Page 44
