The Apprentice: A Novel

by Tess Gerritsen

  “So I don’t have any choice?” she said. “I have to cooperate with Agent Dean.”

  “I assured OPC we would.”

  “What’s the Bureau’s interest in this case?”

  “Did you ask Dean?”

  “It’s like talking to that tree over there. You get nothing back. I’m not thrilled about this. We have to give him everything, but he doesn’t have to tell us squat.”

  “Maybe you didn’t approach him the right way.”

  Anger shot like a poison dart into her bloodstream. She understood the unspoken meaning of his statement: You’ve got an attitude, Rizzoli. You always tick off men.

  “You ever meet Agent Dean?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She gave a laugh laced with sarcasm. “Lucky you.”

  “Look, I’ll find out what I can. Just try to work with him, okay?”

  “Does someone say I haven’t?”

  “Phone call says. I hear you chased him off the site. That’s not exactly a cooperative relationship.”

  “He challenged my authority. I need to establish something right off the bat here. Am I in charge? Or am I not?”

  A pause. “You’re in charge.”

  “I trust Agent Dean will get that message, too.”

  “I’ll see he does.” Marquette turned and stared at the woods. “So now we’ve got two sets of remains. Both female?”

  “Judging by the skeletal size, and the clumps of hair, the second one looks like another female. There’s almost no soft tissue left. Postmortem scavenger damage, but no obvious cause of death.”

  “Are we sure there aren’t more of them out here?”

  “Cadaver dogs didn’t find any.”

  Marquette gave a sigh. “Thank god.”

  Her pager vibrated. She glanced down at her belt and recognized the phone number on the digital readout. The M.E.’s office.

  “It’s just like last summer,” murmured Marquette, still staring at the trees. “The Surgeon started killing around this time, too.”

  “It’s the heat,” said Rizzoli as she reached for her cell phone. “It brings the monsters out.”

  six

  I hold freedom in the palm of my hand.

  It comes in the shape of a tiny white pentagon with MSD 97 stamped on one side. Decadron, four milligrams. Such a pretty shape for a pill, not just another boring disk or torpedo-shaped caplet like so many other medicines. This design took a leap of imagination, a spark of whimsy. I picture the marketing folks at Merck Pharmaceuticals, sitting around a conference table, asking each other: “How can we make this tablet instantly recognizable?” And the result is this five-sided pill, which rests like a tiny jewel in my hand. I have been saving it, hiding it away in a small tear in my mattress, waiting for just the right time to use its magic.

  Waiting for a sign.

  I sit curled up on the cot in my cell, a book propped up on my knees. The surveillance camera sees only a studious prisoner reading The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. It cannot see through the cover of the book. It cannot see what I hold in my hand.

  Downstairs, in the well of the dayroom, a commercial blares on the TV and a Ping-Pong ball clacks back and forth on the table. Yet another exciting evening in Cell Block C. In an hour, the intercom will announce lights-out, and the men will climb the stairs to their cells, shoes clanging on metal steps. They will each walk into their cages, obedient rats minding their master in the squawk box. In the guard booth, the command will be typed into the computer, and all cell doors will simultaneously close, locking the rats in for the night.

  I curl forward, bending my head to the page, as though the print is too small. I stare with fierce concentration at “Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene Three: A street. Antonio and Sebastian approach . . .”

  Nothing to watch here, my friends. Just a man on his cot, reading. A man who suddenly coughs and reflexively puts his hand to his mouth. The camera is blind to the small tablet in my palm. It does not see the flick of my tongue, or the pill clinging to it like a bitter wafer as it’s drawn into my mouth. I swallow the tablet dry, needing no water. It is small enough to go down easily.

  Even before it dissolves in my stomach, I imagine I can feel its power swirling through my bloodstream. Decadron is the brand name for dexamethasone, an adrenocortical steroid with profound effects on every organ in the human body. Glucocorticoids such as Decadron affect everything from blood sugar, to fluid retention, to DNA synthesis. Without them, the body collapses. They help us maintain our blood pressure and stave off the shock of injury and infection. They affect our bone growth and fertility, muscle development and immunity.

  They alter the composition of our blood.

  When at last the cage doors slide shut and the lights go out, I lie on my cot, feeling my blood pulse through me. Imagining the cells as they tumble through my veins and arteries.

  I have seen blood cells numerous times through the microscope. I know the shape and function of each one, and with just a glance through the lens I can tell you if a blood smear is normal. I can scan a field and immediately estimate the percentages of different leukocytes—the white blood cells that defend us from infection. The test is called a white blood cell differential, and I have performed it countless times as a medical technician.

  I think of my own leukocytes circulating in my veins. At this very moment, my differential white count is changing. The tablet of Decadron, which I swallowed two hours ago, has by now dissolved in my stomach and the hormone is swirling through my system, performing its magic. A blood sample, drawn from my vein, will reveal a startling abnormality: an overwhelming host of white blood cells with multilobed nuclei and granular stippling. These are neutrophils, which automatically swarm into action when faced with the threat of overwhelming infection.

  When one hears hoofbeats, medical students are taught, one must think of horses, not zebras. But the doctor who sees my blood count will surely think of horses. He will arrive at a perfectly logical conclusion. It will not occur to him that, this time, it is truly a zebra galloping by.

  Rizzoli suited up in the autopsy suite’s changing room, donning gown and shoe covers, gloves, and a paper cap. She’d had no time to shower since tramping around Stony Brook Reservation, and in this overcooled room sweat chilled like rime on her skin. Nor had she eaten dinner, and she was light-headed with hunger. For the first time in her career, she considered using a dab of Vicks under her nose to block out the smells of the autopsy, but she resisted the temptation. Never before had she resorted to its use, because she’d thought it a sign of weakness. A homicide cop should be able to deal with every aspect of the job, however unpleasant, and while her colleagues might retreat behind a menthol shield, she had stubbornly endured the undisguised odors of the autopsy suite.

  She took a deep breath, inhaling a last gulp of unfouled air, and pushed through the door into the next room.

  She had expected to find Dr. Isles and Korsak waiting for her; what she had not expected was to find Gabriel Dean in the room as well. He stood across the table from her, a surgical gown covering his shirt and tie. While exhaustion showed plainly on Korsak’s face and in the weary slump of his shoulders, Agent Dean looked neither tired nor bowed by the day’s events. Only the five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw marred his crisp good looks. He regarded her with the unabashed gaze of one who knows he has every right to be there.

  Under the bright exam lights, the body looked in far worse shape than when she had seen it, just hours ago. Purge fluid had continued to leak from the nose and mouth, trailing bloody streaks on the face. The abdomen was so bloated, it appeared to be in the advanced stages of pregnancy. Fluid-filled blisters ballooned beneath the skin, lifting it from the dermis in papery sheets. Skin was peeling away entirely from areas of the torso and had bunched like wrinkled parchment under the breasts.

  Rizzoli noted that the fingerpads had been inked. “You’ve already taken prints.”

  “Just before you got here,” sa
id Dr. Isles, her attention focused on the tray of instruments that Yoshima had just wheeled to the table. The dead interested Isles more than the living did, and she was oblivious, as usual, to the emotional tensions vibrating in the room.

  “What about the hands? Before you inked them?”

  Agent Dean said, “We’ve completed the external exam. The skin’s been sticky-taped for fibers, and the nail clippings have been collected.”

  “And when did you get here, Agent Dean?”

  “He was here before me, too,” said Korsak. “I guess some of us rate higher on the food chain.”

  If Korsak’s comment was meant to feed her irritation, it worked. A victim’s fingernails may harbor bits of skin clawed from the attacker. Hair or fibers may be clutched in a closed fist. The examination of the victim’s hands was a crucial step in the autopsy, and she had missed it.

  But Dean had not.

  “We already have a positive I.D.,” said Isles. “Gail Yeager’s dental X rays are up on the light box.”

  Rizzoli crossed to the light box and studied the series of small films clipped there. Teeth glowed like a row of ghostly headstones on the film’s black background.

  “Mrs. Yeager’s dentist did some crown work on her last year. You can see it there. The gold crown is number twenty on the periapical series. Also, she had silver amalgam fillings in numbers three, fourteen, and twenty-nine.”

  “It’s a match?”

  Dr. Isles nodded. “I have no doubt these are the remains of Gail Yeager.”

  Rizzoli turned back to the body on the table, her gaze falling on the ring of bruises around the throat. “Did you X-ray the neck?”

  “Yes. There are bilateral thyroid horn fractures. Consistent with manual strangulation.” Isles turned to Yoshima, whose silent and ghostly efficiency sometimes made one forget he was even in the room. “Let’s get her into position for the vaginal swabs.”

  What followed next struck Rizzoli as the worst indignity that could befall a woman’s mortal remains. It was worse than the gutting open of the belly, worse than the resection of heart and lungs. Yoshima maneuvered the flaccid legs into a froglike position, spreading the thighs wide for the pelvic exam.

  “Excuse me, Detective?” Yoshima said to Korsak, who was standing closest to Gail Yeager’s left thigh. “Could you hold that leg in position?”

  Korsak stared at him in horror. “Me?”

  “Just keep the knee flexed like that, so we can collect the swabs.”

  Reluctantly Korsak reached for the corpse’s thigh, then jerked back as a layer of skin peeled off in his gloved hand. “Christ. Aw, Christ.”

  “The skin’s going to slip, no matter what you do. If you could just hold the leg open, okay?”

  Korsak let out a sharp breath. Through the stench of the room, Rizzoli caught a whiff of Vicks menthol. Korsak, at least, had not been too proud to dab it on his upper lip. Grimacing, he grabbed the thigh and rotated it sideways, exposing Gail Yeager’s genitalia. “Like this is gonna make sex real appealing from now on,” he muttered.

  Dr. Isles directed the exam light onto the perineum. Gently she spread apart the swollen labia to reveal the introitus. Rizzoli, stoic as she was, could not bear to watch this grotesque invasion, and she turned away.

  Her gaze met Gabriel Dean’s.

  Up till that moment, he had been observing the proceedings with quiet detachment. But at that instant, she saw anger in his eyes. It was the same rage she now felt toward the man who had brought Gail Yeager to this ultimate degradation. Staring at each other in shared outrage, their rivalry was temporarily forgotten.

  Dr. Isles inserted a cotton swab into the vagina, smeared it across a microscope slide, and set the slide on a tray. Next she took a rectal swab, which would also be analyzed for the presence of sperm. When she’d completed the collection and Gail Yeager’s legs were once again lying straight on the table, Rizzoli felt as though the worst was over. Even as Isles started the Y incision, cutting diagonally from the right shoulder down to the lower end of the sternum, Rizzoli thought that nothing could surpass the indignity of what had already been done to this victim.

  Isles was just about to cut a matching incision from the left shoulder when Dean said, “What about the vaginal smear?”

  “The slides will go to the crime lab,” said Dr. Isles.

  “Aren’t you going to do a wet prep?”

  “The lab can identify sperm perfectly well on a dry slide.”

  “This is your only chance to examine the fresh specimen.”

  Dr. Isles paused, scalpel tip poised over the skin, and gave Dean a puzzled look. Then she said to Yoshima, “Put a few drops of saline on that slide and slip it under the microscope. I’ll take a look in just a second.”

  The abdominal incision came next, Dr. Isles’s scalpel slicing into the bloated belly. The stench of decomposing organs was suddenly more than Rizzoli could bear. She lurched away and stood gagging over the sink, regretting that she had so foolishly tried to prove her own fortitude. She wondered if Agent Dean was watching her now and feeling any sense of superiority. She had not seen Vicks glistening on his upper lip. She kept her back turned to the table and listened, rather than watched, as the autopsy proceeded behind her. She heard the air blowing steadily through the ventilation system and water gurgling and the clang of metal instruments.

  Then she heard Yoshima call out, in a startled voice, “Dr. Isles?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got the slide under the scope, and . . .”

  “Is there sperm?”

  “You really need to see this for yourself.”

  Her nausea fading, Rizzoli turned to watch as Isles peeled off her gloves and sat down at the microscope. Yoshima hovered over her as she gazed into the eyepiece.

  “Do you see them?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she murmured. She sat back, looking stunned. She turned to Rizzoli. “The body was found around two P.M.?”

  “About then.”

  “And it’s now nine P.M.—”

  “Well, is there sperm or not?” cut in Korsak.

  “Yes, there’s sperm,” said Isles. “And it’s motile.”

  Korsak frowned. “Meaning what? Like it’s moving?”

  “Yes. It’s moving.”

  A silence dropped over the room. The significance of this finding had startled them all.

  “How long does sperm stay motile?” asked Rizzoli.

  “It depends on the environment.”

  “How long?”

  “After ejaculation, they can remain motile for one or two days. At least half of the sperm under that microscope are moving. This is fresh ejaculate. Probably no more than a day old.”

  “And how long has the victim been dead?” asked Dean.

  “Based on her vitreous potassium levels, which I drew about five hours ago, she’s been dead at least sixty hours.”

  Another silence passed. Rizzoli saw the same conclusion register on everyone’s faces. She looked at Gail Yeager, who now lay with torso split open, organs bared. Hand clapped to her mouth, Rizzoli spun toward the sink. For the first time in her career as a cop, Jane Rizzoli was sick.

  “He knew,” said Korsak. “That son of a bitch knew.”

  They stood together in the parking lot behind the M.E.’s building, the tip of Korsak’s cigarette glowing orange. After the chill air of the autopsy room, it almost felt good to be bathed in the steam of a summer night, to escape the harsh procedure lights and retreat into this cloak of darkness. She had been humiliated by her display of weakness, humiliated most of all that Agent Dean was there to see it. At least he’d been considerate enough to make no comment and had regarded her with neither sympathy nor ridicule, merely indifference.

  “Dean’s the one who asked for that test on the sperm,” said Korsak. “Whatever he called it—”

  “The wet prep.”

  “Yeah, the wet prep thing. Isles wasn’t even gonna look at it fresh. She was gonna let it dry out first. S
o here’s this fibbie guy telling the doc what to do. Like he knows exactly what he’s looking for, exactly what we’ll find. How did he know? And what the hell’s the FBI doing on this case, anyway?”

  “You did the background on the Yeagers. What’s there to attract the FBI?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Were they into something they shouldn’t have been?”

  “You make it sound like the Yeagers got themselves killed.”

  “He was a doctor. Are we talking about drug deals here? A federal witness?”

  “He was clean. His wife was clean.”

  “That coup de grâce—like an execution. Maybe that’s the symbolism. A slice across the throat, to silence him.”

  “Jesus, Rizzoli. You’ve made a hundred-eighty-degree turn here. First we’re thinking sex perp who kills for the thrill of it. Now you’re into conspiracies.”

  “I’m trying to understand why Dean’s involved. The FBI never gives a shit about what we’re doing. They stay out of our way, we stay out of theirs, and that’s how everybody likes it. We didn’t ask for their help with the Surgeon. We handled it all in-house, used our own profiler. Their behavioral unit’s too busy kissing up to Hollywood to give us the time of day. So what’s different about this case? What makes the Yeagers special?”

  “We didn’t find a thing on them,” said Korsak. “No debts, no financial red flags. No pending court cases. No one who’d say boo about either one of them.”

  “Then why the FBI interest?”

  Korsak thought it over. “Maybe the Yeagers had friends in high places. Someone who’s now screaming for justice.”

  “Wouldn’t Dean just come out and tell us that?”

  “Fibbies never like to tell you anything,” said Korsak.

  She looked back at the building. It was nearly midnight, and they had not yet seen Maura Isles leave. When Rizzoli had walked out of the autopsy suite, Isles had been dictating her report and had scarcely even waved good night. The Queen of the Dead paid scant attention to the living.