The Apprentice: A Novel

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Then he must have gotten careless,” said Canady. “Everyone in the E.R. was under the impression Hoyt was a very sick man, in too much pain to put up a fight. Obviously, they didn’t expect . . .”

  “Jesus,” she murmured. “He hasn’t lost his touch.” She looked at the anesthesia cart and saw that one drawer was open. Inside, vials of thiopental sparkled under the bright O.R. lights. An anesthetic. They were about to put him to sleep, she thought. He is lying on this table, with that I.V. in his arm. Moaning, pain contorting his face. They have no idea what is about to happen; they are busy doing their jobs. The nurse is thinking about which instruments to set up, what the doctor will need. The anesthetist is calculating the doses of drugs, while she watches the patient’s heart rate on the monitor. Maybe she sees his heart accelerate and assumes it’s due to pain. She doesn’t realize he is tensing for the lunge. For the kill.

  And then . . . what happened then?

  She looked at the instrument tray near the table. It was empty. “Did he use a scalpel?” she asked.

  “We haven’t found the weapon.”

  “It’s his favorite instrument. He always used a scalpel . . .” A thought suddenly raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She looked at Arlen. “Could he still be in this building?”

  Canady cut in, “He’s not in the building.”

  “He’s impersonated doctors before. He knows how to blend in with medical personnel. Have you searched this hospital?”

  “We don’t need to.”

  “Then how do you know he’s not here?”

  “Because we have proof he left the building. It’s on video.”

  Her pulse quickened. “You caught him on security cameras?”

  Canady nodded. “I suppose you’ll want to see it for yourself.”

  eight

  “It’s weird, what he does,” said Arlen. “We’ve watched this tape several times, and we still don’t get it.”

  They had moved downstairs, into the hospital conference room. In the corner was a rolling cabinet with a TV and VCR. Arlen let Canady turn on all the power switches and work the remote. Controlling the remote was an alpha male’s role, and Canady needed to be that male. Arlen was secure enough not to care.

  Canady shoved in the tape and said, “Okay. Let’s see if Boston P.D. can figure it out.” It was the verbal equivalent of tossing down the gauntlet. He pressed PLAY.

  A view of a closed door at the end of a corridor appeared on-screen.

  “This is a ceiling-mounted camera in a first-floor hallway,” said Arlen. “That door you see leads directly outside, to the staff parking lot, east of the building. It’s one of four exits. The recording time’s at the bottom.”

  “Five-ten,” she read.

  “According to the E.R. log, the prisoner was moved upstairs to the O.R. at around four forty-five, so this is twenty-five minutes later. Now watch. It happens around five-eleven.”

  On-screen, the seconds counted forward. Then, at 5:11:13, a figure suddenly walked into view, moving at a calm, unhurried pace toward the exit. His back was turned to the camera, and they saw trim brown hair above the collar of the white lab coat. He was wearing surgeon’s scrub pants and paper shoe covers. He made it all the way to the door and was pressing on the exit bar when he suddenly stopped.

  “Watch this,” said Arlen.

  Slowly the man turned. His gaze lifted to the camera.

  Rizzoli leaned forward, her throat dry, her eyes riveted on the face of Warren Hoyt. Even as she stared at him, he seemed to be staring directly at her. He walked toward the camera, and she saw he had something tucked under his left arm. A bundle of some kind. He kept walking until he was standing directly beneath the lens.

  “Here’s the weird part,” said Arlen.

  Still staring into the camera, Hoyt raised his right hand, palm facing forward, as though he were about to swear in court to tell the truth. With his left hand, he pointed to his open palm. And he smiled.

  “What the hell’s that all about?” said Canady.

  Rizzoli didn’t answer. In silence she watched as Hoyt turned, walked to the exit, and vanished out the door.

  “Play it again,” she said softly.

  “You have any idea what that hand thing was all about?”

  “Play it again.”

  Canady scowled and hit REWIND, then PLAY.

  Once again, Hoyt walked to the door. Turned. Walked back to the camera, his gaze focused on those who were now watching.

  She sat with every muscle tensed, her heart racing, as she waited for his next gesture. The one she already understood.

  He raised his palm.

  “Pause it,” she said. “Right here!”

  Canady hit PAUSE.

  On the screen, Hoyt stood frozen with a smile on his face, his left index finger pointing to the open palm of his right hand. The image left her stunned.

  It was Arlen who finally broke the silence. “What does it mean? Do you know?”

  She swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Well, what?” snapped Canady.

  She opened her hands, which had been closed into fists on her lap. On both her palms were the scars left from Hoyt’s attack a year ago, thick knots that had healed over the two holes torn by his scalpels.

  Arlen and Canady stared at her scars.

  “Hoyt did that to you?” said Arlen.

  She nodded. “That’s what it means. That’s why he raised his hand.” She looked at the TV, where Hoyt was still smiling, his palm open to the camera. “It’s a little joke, just between us. His way of saying hello. The Surgeon is talking to me.”

  “You must have pissed him off big-time,” said Canady. He waved the remote at the screen. “Look at that. It’s like he’s saying, ‘Up yours.’ ”

  “Or ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ ” Arlen said quietly.

  His words chilled her. Yes, I know I’ll be seeing you. I just don’t know when or where.

  Canady pressed PLAY, and the tape continued. They watched Hoyt lower his hand, and he turned once again toward the exit. As he walked away, Rizzoli focused on the bundle wedged under his arm.

  “Stop it again,” she said.

  Canady hit PAUSE.

  She leaned forward and touched the screen. “What is this thing he’s carrying? It looks like a rolled-up towel.”

  “It is,” said Canady.

  “Why would he walk out with that?”

  “It’s not the towel. It’s what he has inside it.”

  She frowned, thinking about what she had just seen upstairs in the O.R. Remembered the empty tray next to the table.

  She looked at Arlen. “Instruments,” she said. “He took surgical instruments.”

  Arlen nodded. “There’s a laparotomy set missing from the room.”

  “Laparotomy? What’s that?”

  “It’s medical-speak for cutting open the abdomen,” said Canady.

  On-screen, Hoyt had walked out the exit and they saw only an empty hallway, a closed door. Canady shut off the TV and turned to her. “Looks like your boy’s anxious to go back to work.”

  The chirp of her cell phone made her flinch. She could feel her heart hammering as she reached for her phone. The two men were watching her, so she stood and turned to the window before answering the call.

  It was Gabriel Dean. “You’re aware the forensic anthropologist is meeting us at three o’clock?” he said.

  She looked at her watch. “I’ll be there on time.” Barely.

  “Where are you?”

  “Look, I’ll be there, okay?” She hung up. Staring out the window, she drew in a deep breath. I can’t keep up, she thought. The monsters are stretching me too thin. . . .

  “Detective Rizzoli?” said Canady.

  She turned to him. “I’m sorry. I have to get back to the city. You’ll call me the instant you hear anything about Hoyt?”

  He nodded. Smiled. “We don’t think it’ll take long.”

  The last person she felt like speaking to wa
s Dean, but as she drove into the M.E.’s parking lot she saw him stepping out of his car. She quickly pulled into a space and turned off her engine, thinking that if she just waited a few minutes, he would walk into the building first, and she could avoid any unnecessary conversation with him. Unfortunately, he had already spotted her, and he stood waiting in the parking lot, an unavoidable obstacle. She had no choice but to deal with him.

  She stepped out into the wilting heat and walked toward him, at the pace of one with no time to waste.

  “You never came back to the meeting this morning,” he said.

  “Marquette called me into his office.”

  “He told me about it.”

  She stopped and looked at him. “Told you what?”

  “That one of your old perps is out.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that’s shaken you up.”

  “Marquette told you that, too?”

  “No. But since you didn’t come back to the meeting, I assumed you were upset.”

  “Other matters required my attention.” She started to walk toward the building.

  “You are the lead on this case, Detective Rizzoli,” he called after her.

  She stopped, turned to look at him. “Why do you feel the need to remind me?”

  Slowly he walked toward her, until he was close enough to be intimidating. Perhaps that was his intention. They now stood face-to-face, and although she would never give ground, she couldn’t help flushing under his gaze. It was not just his physical superiority that made her feel threatened; it was her sudden realization that he was a desirable man—an utterly perverse reaction, in light of her anger. She tried to suppress the attraction, but it had already planted its claws and she could not shake it off.

  “This case is going to require your full attention,” he said. “Look, I do understand you’re upset about Warren Hoyt’s escape. It’s enough to rattle any cop. Enough to knock you off balance—”

  “You hardly know me. Don’t try to be my shrink.”

  “I just wonder if you’re feeling focused enough to head up this investigation. Or if you have other issues that will interfere.”

  She managed to hold her temper. To ask, quite calmly: “Do you know how many people Hoyt killed this morning? Three, Agent Dean. A man and two women. He slashed their throats, and he walked away, just like that. The way he always manages to do.” She raised her hands, and he stared at her scars. “These are the souvenirs he gave me last year, just before he was about to cut my throat.” She dropped her hands and laughed. “So yeah, you’re absolutely right. I do have issues with him.”

  “You also have a job to do. Right here.”

  “I’m doing it.”

  “You’re distracted by Hoyt. You’re letting him get in the way.”

  “The only issue that keeps getting in my way is you. I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”

  “Interagency cooperation. Isn’t that the party line?”

  “I’m the only one cooperating. What are you giving me in return?”

  “What is it you expect?”

  “You could start by telling me why the Bureau’s involved. It’s never stepped in on any of my cases before. What makes the Yeagers different? What do you know about them that I don’t?”

  “I know as much about them as you do,” he said.

  Was it the truth? She didn’t know. She couldn’t read this man. Now sexual attraction had added to her confusion, scrambling any and all messages between them.

  He looked at his watch. “It’s after three. They’re waiting for us.”

  He started toward the building, but she didn’t immediately follow him. For a moment she stood alone in the parking lot, shaken by her reaction to Dean. At last she took a breath and walked into the morgue, bracing herself for another visit with the dead.

  This one, at least, did not turn her stomach. The overpowering stench of putrefaction that had sickened her during the autopsy of Gail Yeager was largely absent from the second set of remains. Nevertheless, Korsak had taken his usual precautions and once again had smeared Vicks under his nose. Only a few bits of leathery connective tissue still adhered to the bones, and while the smell was certainly unpleasant, at least it did not send Rizzoli reeling for the sink. She was determined to avoid a repeat of last night’s embarrassing performance, especially with Gabriel Dean now standing directly across from her, able to watch every twitch on her face. She maintained a stoic front as Dr. Isles and the forensic anthropologist, Dr. Carlos Pepe, unsealed the box and carefully removed the skeletal remains, laying them on the sheet-draped morgue table.

  Sixty years old and bent like a gnome, Dr. Pepe was as excitable as a child as he lifted out the box’s contents, eyeing each item as though it were gold. While Rizzoli saw only a random collection of dirt-stained bones, as featureless as twigs from a tree, Dr. Pepe saw radii and ulnas and clavicles, which he efficiently identified and placed in anatomical position. Disarticulated ribs and breastbone clattered against the covered stainless steel. Vertebrae, two of them surgically fused together, formed a knobby chain down the center of the table to the hollow ring of the pelvis, shaped like a macabre crown for a king. Arm bones formed spindly limbs that ended in clusters of what looked like dirty pebbles but were in reality the tiny bones that give human hands such miraculous versatility. Immediately obvious was evidence of an old injury: steel surgical pins in the left thigh bone. At the head of the table Dr. Pepe placed the skull and disarticulated jawbone. Gold teeth gleamed through crusted dirt. All the bones now lay displayed.

  But the box was not yet empty.

  He turned it over, pouring the last of the contents onto a cloth-draped tray. A shower of dirt and leaves and clumps of matted brown hair spilled out. He directed the exam light onto the tray and, with a pair of tweezers, began picking through the dirt. Within seconds, he found what he was looking for: a tiny black nugget, shaped like a fat grain of rice.

  “Puparium,” he said. “Often mistaken as rat droppings.”

  “That’s what I would’ve said,” said Korsak. “Rat poop.”

  “There are lots of them in here. You just have to know what you’re looking for.” Dr. Pepe plucked out a few more black grains and set them aside in a small pile. “Calliphoridae species.”

  “What?” said Korsak.

  Gabriel Dean said, “Blowflies.”

  Dr. Pepe nodded. “These are the casings the blowfly larvae develop in. They’re like cocoons. It’s the exoskeleton for the third-stage larvae. They emerge from these as adult flies.” He moved the magnifier over the puparia. “These are all eclosed.”

  “What does that mean? Eclosed?” asked Rizzoli.

  “It means they’re empty. The flies have hatched.”

  Dean asked, “What’s the developmental time for Calliphoridae in this region?”

  “At this time of year, it’s about thirty-five days. But notice how these two puparia differ in color and weathering? They’re all from the same species, but this casing’s had longer exposure to the elements.”

  “Two different generations,” said Isles.

  “That would be my guess. I’ll be interested to hear what the entomologist has to say.”

  “If each generation takes thirty-five days to mature,” said Rizzoli, “does that mean we’re talking seventy days of exposure? Is that how long this victim has been lying there?”

  Dr. Pepe glanced at the bones on the table. “What I see here is not inconsistent with a postmortem interval of two summer months.”

  “You can’t get more specific than that?”

  “Not with skeletonized remains. This individual may have been lying in those woods for two months. Or six months.”

  Rizzoli saw Korsak roll his eyes, so far unimpressed by their bone expert.

  But Dr. Pepe was just getting started. He shifted his focus to the remains on the table. “A single individual, female,” he said, surveying the array of bones. “On the small side—not much taller tha
n five-foot-one. Healed fractures are obvious. We have an old comminuted femoral fracture, treated with a surgical screw.”

  “Looks like a Steinman pin,” said Isles. She pointed to the lumbar spine. “And she’s had a surgical fusion of L-2 and L-3.”

  “Multiple injuries?” asked Rizzoli.

  “This victim has had a major traumatic event.”

  Dr. Pepe continued his inventory. “Two left ribs are missing, as well as . . .” He shuffled through the collection of tiny hand bones. “. . . three carpals and most of the phalanges from the left hand. Some scavenger made off with a snack, I’d say.”

  “A hand sandwich,” said Korsak. No one laughed.

  “Long bones are all present. So are all the vertebrae. . . .” He paused, frowning at the neck bones. “The hyoid’s missing.”

  “We couldn’t find it,” said Isles.

  “You sifted?”

  “Yes. I went back to the site myself to look for it.”

  “It may have been scavenged,” said Dr. Pepe. He picked up a scapula—one of the wing bones that flare out behind the shoulder. “See the V-shaped punctures here? They were made by canine and carnissial teeth.” He looked up. “Was the head found separated from the body?”

  Rizzoli answered, “It was lying a few feet from the torso.”

  Pepe nodded. “Typical of dogs. For them, a head is like a big ball. A plaything. They’ll roll it around, but they can’t really sink their teeth into a head, the way they can a limb or a throat.”

  “Wait,” said Korsak. “Are we talking Fifi and Rover here?”

  “All canids, wild and domestic, behave in similar ways. Even coyotes and wolves like to play with balls, just like Fifi and Rover. Since these remains were in a suburban park, surrounded by residences, domestic dogs would almost certainly have frequented those woods. Like all canids, their instinct is to scavenge. They’ll gnaw on any areas they can get their jaws around. The margins of the sacrum, the spinous processes. The ribs and iliac crests. And of course, they’ll tear away any soft tissue that still remains.”

  Korsak looked appalled. “My wife has a little Highland terrier. That’s the last friggin’ time I let him lick me on the face.”