The Apprentice: A Novel

by Tess Gerritsen

  I do not move. I stand in front of the screen, touching her face, remembering how her coal-dark eyes once stared up at me in submission. Remembering the slickness of her skin. Perfect skin, unadorned by even the lightest stroke of the makeup brush.

  “Asshole, move!”

  Suddenly she is gone, vanished from the screen. The female newscaster in the jade-green jacket is back. Only a moment ago, I had been content to settle for this well-groomed mannequin in my fantasies. Now she strikes me as vapid, just another pretty face, another slender throat. It took only one glimpse of Jane Rizzoli to remind me of what is truly worthy prey.

  I return to the couch and sit through a commercial for Lexus automobiles. But I am no longer watching the TV. Instead, I am remembering what it was like to walk in freedom. To wander city streets, inhaling the scents of women who pass by me. Not the chemist’s busy florals that come from bottles, but the real perfume of a woman’s sweat, or a woman’s hair warmed by the sun. On summer days, I would join the other pedestrians waiting for the crosswalk light to turn green. In the press of a crowded street corner, who would notice that the man behind you has leaned close to sniff your hair? Who would notice that the man beside you is staring at your neck, marking your pulse points, where he knows your skin smells sweetest?

  But they don’t notice. The crosswalk light turns green. The crowd begins to move. And the woman walks on, never knowing, never suspecting, that the hunter has caught her scent.

  “The folding of the nightgown does not in itself mean you’re dealing with a copycat,” said Dr. Lawrence Zucker. “This is merely a demonstration of control. The killer displaying his mastery over the victims. Over the crime scene.”

  “The way Warren Hoyt used to do,” said Rizzoli.

  “Other killers have done this as well. It’s not unique to the Surgeon.”

  Dr. Zucker was watching her with a strange, almost feral glint in his eye. He was a criminal psychologist at Northeastern University and he frequently consulted for the Boston Police Department. He had worked with the homicide unit during the Surgeon investigation a year ago, and the criminal profile he’d compiled of the unknown subject at that time had turned out to be eerily accurate. Sometimes, Rizzoli wondered how normal Zucker himself could be. Only a man intimately familiar with the territory of evil could have insinuated himself so deeply into the mind of a man like Warren Hoyt. She had never been comfortable with this man, whose sly, whispery voice and intense stares made her feel invaded and vulnerable. But he was one of the few who had truly understood Hoyt; perhaps he would understand a copycat as well.

  Rizzoli said, “It’s not just the folded nightclothes. There are other similarities. Duct tape was used to bind this victim.”

  “Again, not unique. Did you ever watch the TV show MacGyver? He showed us a thousand and one uses for duct tape.”

  “Nocturnal entry through a window. The victims surprised in bed—”

  “When they’re most vulnerable. It’s a logical time to attack.”

  “And the single slash, across the neck.”

  Zucker shrugged. “A quiet and efficient way to kill.”

  “But add it all together. The folded nightgown. The duct tape. The method of entry. The coup de grâce—”

  “And what you get is an unknown subject who is choosing rather common strategies. Even the teacup on the victim’s lap—it’s a variation on what’s been done before, by serial rapists. They set a plate or other dishes on the husband. If he moves, the falling chinaware alerts the perp. These are common strategies because they work.”

  In frustration, Rizzoli pulled out the Newton crime scene photos and laid them across his desk. “We’re trying to find a missing woman, Dr. Zucker. So far we have no leads. I don’t even want to think about what she’s going through right now—if she’s still alive. So you take a good long look at these. Tell me about this unsub. Tell me how we can find him. How we can find her.”

  Dr. Zucker slipped on his glasses and picked up the first photo. He said nothing, just stared for a moment, then reached for the next in the series of images. The only sounds were the creak of his leather chair and his occasional murmur of interest. Through his office window Rizzoli could see the campus of Northeastern University, nearly deserted on this summer’s day. Only a few students were lolling on the grass outside, backpacks and books spread around them. She envied those students, envied their carefree days and their innocence. Their blind faith in the future. And their nights, uninterrupted by dark dreams.

  “You said you found semen,” said Dr. Zucker.

  Reluctantly she turned from the view of sunning students and looked at him. “Yes. On that oval rug in the photo. The lab confirms it’s a different blood type from the husband’s. The DNA’s been entered into the CODIS database.”

  “Somehow, I doubt this unsub is careless enough to be identified by a national database match. No, I’m betting his DNA isn’t in CODIS.” Zucker looked up from the photo. “And I’ll bet he left no fingerprints.”

  “Nothing that popped up on AFIS. Unfortunately, the Yeagers had at least fifty visitors at the house following the funeral for Mrs. Yeager’s mother. Which means we’re looking at a lot of unidentified prints.”

  Zucker gazed down at the photo of Dr. Yeager, slumped against the blood-splattered wall. “This homicide was in Newton.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not an investigation you’d normally take part in. Why are you involved?” He looked up again, his gaze holding hers with discomforting intensity.

  “I was asked by Detective Korsak—”

  “Who is nominally in charge. Right?”

  “Right. But—”

  “Aren’t there enough homicides in Boston to keep you busy, Detective? Why do you feel the need to take this on?”

  She stared back, feeling as though he had somehow crawled inside her brain, that he was poking around, searching for just the tender spot to torment. “I told you,” she said. “The woman may still be alive.”

  “And you want to save her.”

  “Don’t you?” she shot back.

  “I’m curious, Detective,” said Zucker, unruffled by her anger. “Have you talked to anyone about the Hoyt case? I mean, about its impact on you, personally?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “Have you received any counseling?”

  “Are you asking if I’ve seen a shrink?”

  “It must have been a pretty awful experience, what happened to you in that basement. Warren Hoyt did things to you that would haunt any cop. He left scars, both emotional and physical. Most people would have lingering trauma. Flashbacks, nightmares. Depression.”

  “The memories aren’t any fun. But I can deal with them.”

  “That’s always been your way, hasn’t it? To tough it out. Never complain.”

  “I bitch about things like everyone else.”

  “But never about anything that would make you look weak. Or vulnerable.”

  “I can’t stand whiners. I refuse to be one myself.”

  “I’m not talking about whining. I’m talking about being honest enough to acknowledge you’re having problems.”

  “What problems?”

  “You tell me, Detective.”

  “No, you tell me. Since you seem to think I’m all fucked up.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you think that.”

  “You’re the one who used the term fucked up. Is that how you feel?”

  “Look, I came about that.” She pointed to the Yeager crime scene photos. “Why are we talking about me?”

  “Because when you look at these photos, all you see is Warren Hoyt. I’m just wondering why.”

  “That case is closed. I’ve moved on.”

  “Have you? Really?”

  The question, asked so softly, made her fall silent. She resented his probing. Resented, most of all, that he’d recognized a truth she could not admit. Warren Hoyt had left scars. All she had
to do was look down at her hands to be reminded of the damage he’d inflicted. But the worst damage was not physical. What she had lost, in that dark basement last summer, was her sense of invincibility. Her sense of confidence. Warren Hoyt had taught her how vulnerable she really was.

  “I’m not here to talk about Warren Hoyt,” she said.

  “Yet he’s the reason you’re here.”

  “No. I’m here because I see parallels between these two killers. I’m not the only one who does. Detective Korsak sees it, too. So let’s stick to the subject, okay?”

  He regarded her with a bland smile. “Okay.”

  “So what about this unsub?” She tapped on the photos. “What can you tell me about him?”

  Once again, Zucker focused on the image of Dr. Yeager. “Your unknown subject is obviously organized. But you already know that. He came to the scene fully prepared. The glass cutter, the stun gun, the duct tape. He managed to subdue this couple so quickly, it makes you wonder . . .” He glanced at her. “No chance there’s a second perp? A partner?”

  “Only one set of footprints.”

  “Then your boy is very efficient. And meticulous.”

  “But he left his semen on the rug. He’s handed us the key to his identity. That’s one hell of a mistake.”

  “Yes, it is. And he certainly knows it.”

  “So why assault her right there, in the house? Why not do it later, in a safe place? If he’s organized enough to pull off a home invasion and control the husband—”

  “Maybe that’s the real payoff.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. Dr. Yeager sits there, bound and helpless. Forced to watch while another man takes possession of his property.”

  “Property,” she repeated.

  “In this unsub’s mind, that’s what the woman is. Another man’s property. Most sexual predators wouldn’t risk attacking a couple. They’d choose the lone woman, the easy target. Having a man in the picture makes it dangerous. Yet this unsub had to know there was a husband in the picture. And he came prepared to deal with him. Could it be that was part of the pleasure, part of the excitement? That he had an audience?”

  An audience of one. She looked down at the photo of Richard Yeager, slumped against the wall. Yes, that had been her immediate impression when she’d walked into the family room.

  Zucker’s gaze shifted to the window. A moment passed. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and sleepy, as though the words were drifting up in a dream state.

  “It’s all about power. And control. About dominance over another human being. Not just the woman, but over the man as well. Maybe it’s really the man who excites him, who’s a vital part of this fantasy. Our unsub knows the risks, yet he’s compelled to carry out his impulses. His fantasies control him, and he, in turn, controls his victims. He’s all-powerful. The dominator. His enemy sits immobilized and helpless, and our unsub does what victorious armies have always done. He’s captured his prize. He rapes the woman. His pleasure is heightened by Dr. Yeager’s utter defeat. This attack is more than sexual aggression; it’s a display of masculine power. One man’s victory over another. The conqueror claiming his spoils.”

  Outside, the students on the lawn were gathering up their backpacks, brushing grass from their clothes. The afternoon sun washed everything in hazy gold. And what would the day hold next for those students? Rizzoli wondered. Perhaps an evening of leisure and conversation, pizza and beer. And a sound sleep, without nightmares. The sleep of the innocent.

  Something I’ll never again know.

  Her cell phone chirped. “Excuse me,” she said, and flipped open the phone.

  The call was from Erin Volchko, in the hair, fiber, and trace evidence lab. “I’ve examined those strips of duct tape taken off Dr. Yeager’s body,” said Erin. “I’ve already faxed the report to Detective Korsak. But I knew you’d want to know as well.”

  “What have we got?”

  “A number of short brown hairs caught in the adhesive. Limb hairs, pulled from the victim when the tape was peeled off.”

  “Fibers?”

  “Those as well. But here’s the really interesting thing. On the strip pulled from the victim’s ankles, there was a single dark-brown hair strand, twenty-one centimeters long.”

  “His wife is a blonde.”

  “I know. That’s what makes this particular strand interesting.”

  The unsub, thought Rizzoli. It’s from our killer. She asked, “Are there epithelial cells?”

  “Yes.”

  “So we might be able to get DNA off that hair strand. If it matches the semen—”

  “It won’t match the semen.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because there’s no way this strand came from the killer.” Erin paused. “Unless he’s a zombie.”

  four

  For detectives in Boston P.D.’s homicide unit, a visit to the crime lab required only a short walk down a pleasantly sun-washed hallway to the south wing of Schroeder Plaza. Rizzoli had strode down this hall countless times, her gaze often straying to the windows that overlooked the troubled neighborhood of Roxbury, where shops were barricaded at night behind bars and padlocks and every parked car came equipped with the Club. But today, she was in single-minded pursuit of answers, and she did not even glance sideways but headed in a beeline to Room S269, the hair, fiber, and trace evidence lab.

  In this windowless room, crammed tight with microscopes and a gammatech prism gas chromatograph, criminalist Erin Volchko reigned supreme. Cut off from sunlight and outdoor views, she focused her gaze, instead, on the world beneath her microscope lens, and she had the pinched eyes, the perpetual squint, of someone who has been staring too long into an eyepiece. As Rizzoli came into the room, Erin swiveled around to face her.

  “I’ve just put it under the microscope for you. Take a look.”

  Rizzoli sat down and peered into the teaching eyepiece. She saw a hair shaft stretched horizontally across the field.

  “This is that long brown strand I recovered from the strip of duct tape binding Dr. Yeager’s ankles,” said Erin. “It’s the only such strand trapped in the adhesive. The others were short hairs from the victim’s limbs, plus one of the vic’s head hairs, on the strip taken from his mouth. But this long one is an orphan strand. And it’s quite a puzzling one. It doesn’t match either the victim’s head hair or the hairs we got from the wife’s hairbrush.”

  Rizzoli moved the field, scanning the hair shaft. “It’s definitely human?”

  “Yes, it’s human.”

  “So why can’t it be our perp’s?”

  “Look at it. Tell me what you see.”

  Rizzoli paused, calling back to mind all that she had learned about forensic hair examination. She knew Erin must have a reason for taking her so systematically through the process; she could hear quiet excitement in her voice. “This strand is curved, degree of curl about point one or point two. And you said the shaft length was twenty-one centimeters.”

  “In the range of a woman’s hairstyle,” said Erin. “But rather long for a man.”

  “Is it the length that concerns you?”

  “No. Length doesn’t tell us gender.”

  “Then what am I supposed to focus on, anyway?”

  “The proximal end. The root. Do you notice anything strange?”

  “The root end looks a little ragged. Kind of like a brush.”

  “That’s exactly the word I would use. We call that a brushlike root end. It’s a collection of cortical fibrils. By examining the root, we can tell what stage of hair growth this strand was in. Care to venture a guess?”

  Rizzoli focused on the bulbous root end, with its gossamer-like sheath. “There’s something transparent clinging to the root.”

  “An epithelial cell,” said Erin.

  “That means it was in active growth.”

  “Yes. The root itself is slightly enlarged, so this hair was in late anagen. It was just ending its active
growth phase. And that epithelial cell might give us DNA.”

  Rizzoli raised her head and looked at Erin. “I don’t see what this has to do with zombies.”

  Erin gave a soft laugh. “I didn’t mean that literally.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “Look at the hair shaft again. Follow it as it leads away from the root.”

  Once again, Rizzoli gazed into the microscope and focused on a darker segment of the hair shaft. “The color’s not uniform,” she said.

  “Go on.”

  “There’s a black band on the shaft, a short way from the root. What is that?”

  “It’s called distal root banding,” said Erin. “That’s where the sebaceous gland duct enters the follicle. Sebaceous gland secretions include enzymes that actually break down cells, in a sort of digestive process. It causes this swelling and dark band formation near the root end of the hair. That’s what I wanted you to see. The distal banding. It rules out any possibility this hair is your unsub’s. It may have been shed from his clothes. But not his head.”

  “Why not?”

  “Distal banding and brushlike root ends are both postmortem changes.”

  Rizzoli’s head snapped up. She stared at Erin. “Postmortem?”

  “That’s right. It came from a decomposing scalp. The changes in that strand are classic, and they’re pretty specific for the decomposition process. Unless your killer has risen from the grave, this hair could not have come from his head.”

  It took a moment for Rizzoli to find her voice again. “How long would the person have to be dead? For the hair to show these changes?”

  “Unfortunately, banding changes aren’t helpful in determining the postmortem interval. It could have been pulled from the deceased’s scalp anywhere from eight hours to several weeks after death. Hair from corpses embalmed years ago could also look like this.”

  “What if you pull someone’s hair out while they’re still alive? Leave those hairs lying around for a while? Would the changes show up then?”

  “No. These decompositional changes only appear while the hair remains in the dead victim’s scalp. They have to be plucked out later, after death.” Erin met Rizzoli’s stunned gaze. “Your unknown subject has had contact with a corpse. He picked up that hair on his clothes, then shed it onto the tape, while he was binding Dr. Yeager’s ankles.”