Tess Gerritsen - John Doe

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t remember!” Maura dropped her head into her hands. “I don’t remember how I got home. I don’t remember falling asleep on the sofa.”

“What do you remember?”

“The reception. Meeting him. We left the museum and I was feeling dizzy. I remember we were in the parking garage, and then…” She shook her head. “After that, I’m not sure.”

“Somehow you did manage to get home. Is your car here?”

“I haven’t looked.”

Jane walked out of the living room; seconds later, she was back. “Your car’s not in the garage.”

“But my keys are right there.” She pointed to the floor.

“Someone drove you here. Someone unlocked your front door and got you to the sofa.”

The same someone who drugged my champagne? Who’s now dead from stab wounds?

Jane placed a comforting hand on Maura’s shoulder. “I’ll drive you to the ER now, okay? And I’ll need your clothes. What you wore last night.”

“On the floor, in my bathroom. Everything’s there, my underwear, my stockings.” Maura sighed. “I know the drill.”

“You also know that I’ve got a problem, Maura. The guy you just happened to meet last night turns up murdered. And you can’t remember how the evening ended.”

Maura looked up at her. “I guess we’ve both got a problem.”

Jane was accustomed to seeing Maura poised and in control, the Queen of the Dead unruffled even by the horrors that landed on her autopsy table. So it was a shock to see how vulnerable Maura looked, sitting on the ER exam table, dressed in a hospital paper gown. Maura flinched as a needle pierced her vein and dark blood streamed into the specimen tube.

“That’s for the drug screen?” asked Jane.

“Dr. Murata ordered a number of blood and urine tests” was all the nurse would say as she unsnapped the tourniquet, taped gauze to the puncture site. “And that should do it. As soon as you sign the discharge form, you’re free to go, Dr. Isles. We’ll call you when the lab results come in.” She walked out with the blood tubes, sliding the privacy curtain closed.

“Thank you, Jane,” Maura whispered. “For staying with me.”

“Feel better?”

“Yes. Now that it looks like I wasn’t…” Maura’s voice trailed off before she could say the word. “I just wanted to be certain.”

“Nevertheless,” said Jane, “we’ll need to hang on to your evening clothes, as well as all the collected trace evidence.”

Maura frowned. “You’re keeping my fingernail scrapings?”

Before Jane could answer, her cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” she said, and walked out. Kept walking until she was well down the hall, where Maura couldn’t hear her. “Rizzoli,” she answered.

“You know that name you gave me, Eli Kilgour?” said her partner, Detective Barry Frost.

“You reach his next of kin?”

“Even better. I reached him. Mr. Kilgour’s alive and well and living with his male partner on Beacon Street.”

“Male partner?”

“You got it. He said he is a donor to the Museum of Science, but he couldn’t make it to the benefit because he had another engagement. The man Dr. Isles met last night must have picked up a badge from the ones remaining on the table.”

“Classic way to crash a party. But in that crowd, it carries risks. You’d think folks in their circle would know each other.”

“I called the museum, and they’ve pulled the security tapes for me. They had four hundred guests last night, so it’d be easy to slip in among so many people. He must be an old hand at this, if he comes dressed in a tuxedo. Hell, I don’t even own a tuxedo.”

“So we’re back to square one. Who is our dead John Doe?”

“Dr. Isles was with him last night, and she has no idea?”

“She says she can’t remember what happened. What about Maura’s car. Did you find it?”

“Yeah. It’s still in the museum garage, where she says she parked it last night. It was locked, nothing unusual about it.”

“If her car was left at the museum, he must have driven her home.”

“So where’s his car? There wasn’t any vehicle near the body,” Frost pointed out.

She thought about the geography of Boston, and realized that if she drove directly from the Museum of Science to Maura’s house in Brookline, the death scene would be right along the way. She didn’t like where that line of reasoning took her. It led to the possibility that John Doe was killed and dumped en route to Maura’s home. It meant she was with the killer when it happened.

Or she was the killer.

“Check the cars in Maura’s neighborhood,” Jane said. “Any vehicle that doesn’t belong.”

“You’re not thinking that…”

“We have to, Frost. We have no choice.” She glanced up as Maura emerged, now dressed, from the exam room. “Right now, she’s our only suspect.”

The vehicle was parked across the street from Maura’s residence, a black Buick LaCrosse with Massachusetts plates, registered to Christopher Scanlon of Braintree. None of the nearby neighbors knew anything about the car, only that it was already parked there when they woke up that morning.

“Unlocked. Keys still in the ignition,” said Frost. “And look what’s down there.” He pointed to the floor beneath the passenger seat, and Jane’s heart dropped when she saw the woman’s high-heeled shoe. It was the mate to the shoe she’d seen under Maura’s coffee table.

“Tow truck’s on the way now,” said Frost. “Once they get it back to the lab, I’m gonna bet CSU finds her fingerprints in there as well.”

“Oh man. This gets worse and worse.”

“If this were anyone else, we’d be reading her her rights.”

“But it’s not anyone else,” said Jane. “This is Maura.”

“And we both know a few cops who’d like to see her take a perp walk.” Maura’s recent testimony against a Boston PD officer had sent him to prison-something plenty of cops viewed as a betrayal of the thin blue line.

“What do we have on this guy, Christopher Scanlon?” she asked.

Frost pulled up the data on his smartphone. “Age forty-one, six foot two, hundred eighty pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes.” He showed her the driver’s license photo. “Looks like our victim.”

“Who’s no longer a John Doe.”

“And get this. ME’s office sent the victim’s fingerprints to AFIS. Scanlon’s in their database. Two arrests, both for indecent assault and battery.”

“He’s a rapist? Any convictions?”

“None. It seems our victim was a very bad boy. Who kept getting away with it.”

But not this time, thought Jane as she crossed the street back to Maura’s house.

She found Maura still sitting in the kitchen where she’d left her moments ago. Her cup of coffee appeared untouched, and she barely looked up as Jane walked in the room.

“Is the car his?” Maura asked.

“It appears so. His real name is Christopher Scanlon. Lives-lived-in Braintree. That ring any bells?”

“I told you, I never met the man before last night.”

Jane couldn’t help studying the wooden block of kitchen knives on the countertop. Couldn’t help noticing that one slot was empty.

“Was it a Wusthof blade?” Maura asked softly.

“What?”

“The knife that killed him. That’s the brand of knives I own. It’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it?”

“The murder weapon hasn’t been found.”

“Then you’ll want to collect mine for a wound match. Fingerprints, blood. And don’t forget the knife in the dishwasher.” She raised her head and looked at Jane. “You have a job to do, I understand that.”

Jane sat down at the table. “Then you also understand-”