The Apprentice: A Novel

by Tess Gerritsen

  But one of them had gone beyond just writing to Hoyt. One had actually joined Hoyt’s exclusive club. She stared at the bundle of mail, enraged by this tangible evidence of the Surgeon’s fame. Killer as rock star. She thought of the scars he had carved in her hands, and each of the fan letters was like another stab of his scalpel.

  “What about privileged mail?” said Dean. “You said it’s not read or censored. What classifies a letter as privileged?”

  “It’s confidential mail that comes from certain state or federal officials. An officer of the court, for instance, or the attorney general. Mail from the president, the governor, or law enforcement agencies.”

  “Did Hoyt receive such mail?”

  “He may have. We don’t keep records of every item of mail that comes in.”

  “How do you know when a letter’s really privileged?” said Rizzoli.

  Oxton looked at her with impatience. “I just told you. If it’s from a federal or state official—”

  “No. I mean, how do you know it’s not fake or stolen stationery? I could write escape plans to one of your prisoners and mail it in an envelope from, say, Senator Conway’s office.” The example she’d chosen had not been random. She watched Dean and saw his chin snap up at the mention of Conway’s name.

  Oxton hesitated. “It’s not impossible. But there are penalties—”

  “So it’s happened before.”

  Reluctantly, Oxton nodded. “There’ve been several cases. Criminal information’s been sent under the guise of official business. We try to stay alert to it, but occasionally, something slips through.”

  “And what about outgoing mail? The letters Hoyt sent? Did you screen those?”

  “No.”

  “None of it?”

  “We had no reason to. He was never considered a problem inmate. He was always cooperative. Very quiet and polite.”

  “A model prisoner,” said Rizzoli. “Right.”

  Oxton fixed her with an icy glare. “We have men in here who’d rip your arms off and laugh about it, Detective. Men who’d snap a guard’s neck just because a meal didn’t suit them. A prisoner like Hoyt was not high on our list of concerns.”

  Dean calmly redirected the conversation back to the issue at hand. “So we don’t know who he may have written to?”

  That matter-of-fact question seemed to douse the warden’s rising irritation. Oxton turned from Rizzoli and focused instead on Dean, one man to another. “No, we don’t,” he said. “Prisoner Hoyt could have written to anyone.”

  In a conference room down the hall from Oxton’s office, Rizzoli and Dean pulled on latex gloves and spread the envelopes addressed to Warren Hoyt on the table. She saw a variety of stationery, a few pastels and florals, and one imprinted with Jesus saves. Most absurd of all was the stationery decorated with images of frolicking kittens. Yes, just the thing to send to the Surgeon. How amused he must have been to receive that.

  She opened the envelope with the kittens and found a photo inside, of a smiling woman with hopeful eyes. Also enclosed was a letter, written in a girlish hand, the is dotted with cheery little circles:

  To: Mr. Warren Hoyt, Prisoner

  Massachusetts Correctional Institute

  Dear Mr. Hoyt,

  I saw you on TV today, as they were walking you to the courthouse. I believe I am an excellent judge of character, and when I looked at your face, I could see so much sadness and pain. Oh, such a great deal of pain! There is goodness in you; I know there is. If only you had someone to help you find it within yourself . . .

  Rizzoli suddenly realized she was clenching the letter in rage. She wanted to reach out and shake the stupid woman who had written those words. Wanted to force the woman to look at the autopsy photos of Hoyt’s victims, to read the M.E.’s account of the agony they had suffered before death mercifully ended their ordeals. She had to make herself read the rest of the letter, a saccharine appeal to Hoyt’s humanity and the “goodness that’s inside us all.”

  She reached for the next envelope. No kittens on this stationery, just a plain white envelope containing a letter written on lined paper. Once again, it was from a woman who had enclosed her photo, an overexposed snapshot of a squinting bleached blonde.

  Dear Mr. Hoit,

  Can I have you’re autograph? I have collect many signitures from people like you. I even have Jeffry Dahmer’s. If you like to keep writing to me, that would be cool. Your friend, Gloria.

  Rizzoli stared at words she could not believe any sane human being would write. That would be cool. Your friend. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “These people are nuts.”

  “It’s the lure of fame,” said Dean. “They have no lives of their own. They feel worthless, nameless. So they try to get close to someone who does have a name. They want the magic to rub off on them, too.”

  “Magic?” She looked at Dean. “Is that what you call it?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t get any of it. I don’t get why women write to monsters. Are they looking for romance? A hot time with a guy who’d turn around and gut them? Is that supposed to bring excitement into their pathetic lives?” She shoved back her chair, stood up, and paced over to the wall of slit-shaped windows. There she stood with arms tightly crossed, staring out at a narrow strip of sunlight, a blue bar of sky. Any view, even this meager one, was preferable to gazing at Warren Hoyt’s fan mail. Surely Hoyt had enjoyed the attention. He would have considered each letter fresh proof that he still held power over women, that even here, locked away, he could twist minds, manipulate them. Turn them into his possessions.

  “It’s a waste of time,” she said bitterly as she watched a bird flit past buildings where men were the ones in cages, where bars held monsters, not birdsong. “He isn’t stupid. He would have destroyed anything linking him to the Dominator. He’d protect his new partner. He certainly wouldn’t leave behind anything useful for us to track.”

  “Maybe not useful,” said Dean, rustling papers behind her. “But definitely illuminating.”

  “Oh yeah. Like I want to read what these nutty women have written to him? It makes me sick.”

  “Could that be the point?”

  She turned and looked at him. A bar of light through the slit window slashed down his face, illuminating one bright blue eye. She had always thought his features striking, but never more so than at that moment, facing him across the table. “What do you mean?”

  “It upsets you, reading his fan mail.”

  “It ticks me off. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “To him, as well.” Dean nodded to the stack of letters. “He knew it would upset you.”

  “You think this is all to screw around with my head? These letters?”

  “It’s a mind game, Jane. He left these behind for you. This nice collection of mail from his most ardent admirers. He knew that eventually you’d be right here, where you are now, reading what they had to say to him. Maybe he wanted to show you that he does have admirers. That even though you despise him, there are women who don’t, women who are drawn to him. He’s like a spurned lover, trying to make you jealous. Trying to throw you off balance.”

  “Don’t mind-fuck me.”

  “And it’s working, isn’t it? Look at you. He’s got you wound up so tight you can’t even sit still. He knows how to manipulate you, how to mess around with your head.”

  “You’re giving him too much credit.”

  “Am I?”

  She waved at the letters. “This is all supposed to be for my benefit? What, I’m the center of his universe?”

  “Isn’t he the center of yours?” Dean said quietly.

  She stared at him, unable to come up with a retort because what he had said struck her, at that instant, as the unassailable truth. Warren Hoyt was the center of her universe. He reigned as dark lord over her nightmares and dominated her waking hours as well, always poised to step out of his closet, back into her thoughts. In that cellar, she had been marked as his, t
he way every victim is marked by an assailant, and she could not obliterate his stamp of ownership. It was carved into her hands, seared into her soul.

  She returned to the table and sat down. Steeled herself for the remainder of the task.

  The next envelope had a typed return address: Dr. J. P. O’Donnell, 1634 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Near Harvard University, Brattle Street was a neighborhood of fine homes and the educated elite, where university professors and retired industrialists jogged the same sidewalks and waved to each other across manicured hedges. It was not the sort of neighborhood where one expected to find a monster’s acolyte.

  She unfolded the letter inside. It was dated six weeks ago.

  Dear Warren,

  Thank you for your last letter, and for signing the two release forms. The details you’ve provided go a long way toward helping me understand the difficulties you’ve faced. I have so many other questions to ask you, and I’m glad you’re still willing to meet with me as planned. If you have no objections, I would like to videotape the interview. You know, of course, that your help is absolutely essential to my project.

  Sincerely, Dr. O’Donnell

  “Who on earth is J. P. O’Donnell?” Rizzoli said.

  Dean glanced up in surprise. “Joyce O’Donnell?”

  “The envelope just says Dr. J. P. O’Donnell. Cambridge, Mass. She’s been interviewing Hoyt.”

  He frowned at the envelope. “I didn’t know she’d moved to Boston.”

  “You know her?”

  “She’s a neuropsychiatrist. Let’s just say we met under hostile circumstances, across the aisle of a courtroom. Defense attorneys love her.”

  “Don’t tell me. An expert witness. She goes to bat for the bad guys.”

  He nodded. “No matter what your client’s done, how many people he’s killed, O’Donnell is happy to provide mitigating testimony.”

  “I wonder why she’s writing to Hoyt.” She reread the letter. It had been written with the utmost respect, praising him for his cooperation. Already she disliked Dr. O’Donnell.

  The next envelope in the stack was also from O’Donnell, but it did not contain a letter. Instead she pulled out three Polaroids—strictly amateurish snapshots. Two of them had been taken outdoors in daylight; the third was an indoor scene. For a moment she just stared, the hairs on the back of her neck standing straight up, her eyes registering what her brain refused to accept. She jerked back, and the photos dropped from her hands like hot coals.

  “Jane? What is it?”

  “It’s me,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “She’s been following me. Taking photos of me. She sent them to him.”

  Dean rose from his chair and circled to her side of the table to look over her shoulder. “I don’t see you here—”

  “Look. Look.” She pointed to the photo of a dark-green Honda parked on the street. “It’s mine.”

  “You can’t see the license number.”

  “I can recognize my own car!”

  Dean flipped over the Polaroid. On the back, someone had drawn an absurd smiley face and had written in blue felt-tip ink: My car.

  Fear beat its drum in her chest. “Look at the next one,” she said.

  He picked up the second photo. This one, too, had been taken in daylight, and it showed the facade of a building. He didn’t need to be told which building it was; last night he had been inside it. He turned over the photo and saw the words: My home. Beneath the words was another smiley face.

  Dean picked up the third photo, which had been taken inside a restaurant.

  At first glance, it appeared to be just a poorly composed image of patrons seated at dining tables, a waitress blurred in action as she crossed the room carrying a coffeepot. It had taken Rizzoli a few seconds to zero in on the figure seated just to the left of center, a woman with dark hair, her face seen only in profile, her features obscured against the glare of the window. She waited for Dean to recognize who the woman was.

  He asked softly: “Do you know where this was taken?”

  “The Starfish Cafe.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Is it a place you visit often?”

  “On Sundays. For breakfast. It’s the one day of the week when I . . .” Her voice faded. She stared at the photo of her own profile, the shoulders relaxed, face tilted downward, gazing at an open newspaper. It would have been a Sunday paper. Sunday was when she treated herself to breakfast at the Starfish. A morning of French toast and bacon and the comics.

  And a stalker. She’d never known someone was watching her. Taking photos of her. Sending them to the very man who pursued her in her nightmares.

  Dean flipped over the Polaroid.

  On the back was drawn yet another smiley face. And beneath it, enclosed in a heart, was a single word:

  Me.

  sixteen

  M y car. My home. Me.

  Rizzoli rode back to Boston with her stomach knotted in anger. Although Dean sat right beside her, she didn’t look at him; she was too focused on nursing her rage, on feeling its flames consume her.

  Her rage only deepened when Dean pulled up in front of O’Donnell’s address on Brattle Street. Rizzoli stared at the large Colonial, the clapboards painted a pristine white, accented by slate-gray shutters. A wrought-iron fence enclosed a front yard with a manicured lawn and a pathway of granite pavers. Even by the upscale standards of Brattle Street, this was a handsome house that a public servant could never dream of owning. Yet it’s the public servants like me who face down the Warren Hoyts of the world and who suffer the aftershocks of those battles, she thought. She was the one who bolted her doors and windows at night, who jerked awake to the echo of phantom footsteps moving toward her bed. She fought the monsters and suffered the consequences, while here, in this grand house, lived a woman who offered those same monsters a sympathetic ear, who walked into courts of law and defended the indefensible. It was a house built on the bones of victims.

  The ash-blond woman who answered the door was as meticulously groomed as her residence, her hair a gleaming helmet, her Brooks Brothers shirt and slacks crisply pressed. She was about forty, with a face as creamy as alabaster. Like real alabaster, that face revealed no warmth. The eyes projected only chilly intellect.

  “Dr. O’Donnell? I’m Detective Jane Rizzoli. And this is Agent Gabriel Dean.”

  The woman’s eyes locked on Dean’s. “Agent Dean and I have met.”

  And obviously made an impression on each other—not a favorable one, thought Rizzoli.

  Clearly not pleased about the visit, O’Donnell was mechanical and unsmiling as she ushered them through the large foyer and into a formal sitting room. The couch was white silk on a rosewood frame, and Oriental carpets in rich shades of red accented the teak floors. Rizzoli knew little about art, but even she recognized that the paintings hanging on the walls were originals, and probably quite valuable. More bones of victims, she thought. She and Dean sat on the couch, facing O’Donnell. No coffee or tea or even water had been offered to them, a not-so-subtle clue that their hostess wanted this to be a brief conversation.

  O’Donnell got right to the point and addressed Rizzoli. “You said this was about Warren Hoyt.”

  “You’ve corresponded with him.”

  “Yes. Is there a problem with that?”

  “What was the nature of that correspondence?”

  “Since you know about it, I assume you’ve read it.”

  “What was the nature of that correspondence?” Rizzoli repeated, her tone unyielding.

  O’Donnell stared at her a moment, silently gauging the opposition. By now she understood Rizzoli was the opposition, and she responded accordingly, her posture stiffening into a suit of armor.

  “First I should ask you a question, Detective,” countered O’Donnell. “Why is my correspondence with Mr. Hoyt of any concern to the police?”

  “You know that he’s escaped custody?
”

  “Yes. I saw it on the news, of course. And then, the State Police contacted me to ask if he had tried to reach me. They contacted everyone who corresponded with Warren.”

  Warren. They were on a first-name basis.

  Rizzoli opened the large manila envelope she’d brought with her and removed the three Polaroids, encased in Ziploc bags. These she handed to Dr. O’Donnell. “Did you send these photos to Mr. Hoyt?”

  O’Donnell merely glanced at the images. “No. Why?”

  “You hardly looked at them.”

  “I don’t need to. I never sent Mr. Hoyt any photos of any kind.”

  “These were found in his cell. In an envelope with your return address.”

  “Then he must have used my envelope to store them.” She handed the Polaroids back to Rizzoli.

  “What, exactly, did you send him?”

  “Letters. Release forms for him to sign and return.”

  “Release forms for what?”

  “His school records. Pediatric records. Any information that might help me evaluate his history.”

  “How many times did you write him?”

  “I believe it was four or five times.”

  “And he responded?”

  “Yes. I have his letters on file. You can have copies.”

  “Has he tried to reach you since his escape?”

  “Don’t you think I would tell the authorities if he had?”

  “I don’t know, Dr. O’Donnell. I don’t know the nature of your relationship with Mr. Hoyt.”

  “It was a correspondence. Not a relationship.”

  “Yet you wrote him. Four or five times.”

  “I visited him, as well. The interview’s on videotape, if you’d like to have it.”

  “Why did you talk to him?”

  “He has a story to tell. Lessons to teach us.”

  “Like how to butcher women?” The words were out of Rizzoli’s mouth before she could think about it, a dart of bitter emotion that failed to pierce the other woman’s armor.