Tess Gerritsen - The Silent Girl

“Were there reports of gunshots? Do we have an approximate time?”

“Gun had a suppressor, so no one heard a thing.” Jane turned. “Victim’s over here.”

Maura pulled on shoe covers and gloves and followed Jane to the shrouded body lying near the roof’s edge. Bending down, she lifted the plastic sheet and stared, unable to speak for a moment.

“Yeah. It kind of took our breath away, too,” said Jane.

The woman was a Caucasian in her early thirties, slim and athletic, dressed all in black in a hoodie sweatshirt and leggings. The body was in full rigor mortis. She lay on her back, face staring up at the sky, as though she’d stretched out to admire the stars. Her hair, a rich auburn, was gathered at the nape of her neck in a simple ponytail. Her skin was pale and flawless and she had a model’s jutting cheekbones, faintly Slavic. But it was the wound that Maura focused on, a slash so deep that it divided skin and muscle and cartilage, severing the lumen of the trachea and exposing the pearly surface of the cervical spine. The arterial gush that had resulted was powerful enough to spray blood in a shockingly wide radius that left splatters across the curtain of sheets hanging on a nearby clothesline.

“The amputated hand fell in the alley right below,” said Jane. “So did the Heckler and Koch. My guess is, her fingerprints are on the grip. And we’re gonna find gunshot residue on that hand.”

Maura tore her gaze away from the neck and focused on the right wrist, which had been cleanly divided, and she tried to picture what sort of instrument could have so efficiently slashed through cartilage and bone. It had to be appallingly sharp, wielded without hesitation. She imagined the slash of the blade and the hand falling away, tumbling over the roof’s edge. Imagined that same blade slicing across that slender neck.

Shuddering, she rose to her feet and stared down from the roof at the police officers standing at the far end of Knapp Street, holding back onlookers. The crowd looked twice as large as it had only moments before, and the day was still early. The curious, ever relentless, can always smell blood.

“Are you sure you really want to be here, Maura?” Jane asked quietly.

Maura turned to her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m just wondering if it’s too soon for you to be back in rotation. I know it’s been a tough week for you, with the trial and all.” Jane paused. “It’s not looking too good for Graff right now.”

“It shouldn’t look good. He killed a man.”

“And that man killed a cop. A good cop, who had a wife and kids. I have to admit, I might’ve lost it, too.”

“Please, Jane. Don’t tell me you’re defending Officer Graff.”

“I worked with Graff, and you couldn’t ask for a better man to watch your back. You do know what happens to cops who end up in prison, don’t you?”

“I shouldn’t have to defend myself on this. I’ve gotten enough hate mail about it. Don’t you join in the chorus.”

“I’m just saying, it’s a sensitive time right now. We all respect Graff, and we can understand how he lost it that night. A cop killer’s dead, and maybe that’s a kind of justice all its own.”

“It’s not my job to deliver justice. I just deliver the facts.”

Jane’s laugh was biting. “Yeah, you’re all about the facts, aren’t you?”

Maura turned and looked across the rooftop at the criminalists scouring the scene. Let it roll off and focus on your job. You’re here to speak for this dead woman, and no one else . “What was she doing on this roof?” she asked.

Jane looked down at the body. “No idea.”

“Do we know how she gained access?”

“Could’ve been a fire escape or a stairwell. Once you’re on one roof, you can access all the roofs on this block, from Harrison Avenue to Knapp Street. She could have entered any of these buildings. Or been dropped from a helicopter, for that matter. No one we’ve spoken to remembers seeing her last night. And we know it happened last night. When we found her, rigor mortis was just starting to set in.”

Maura focused on the victim again, and frowned at her clothes. “It’s strange, how she’s dressed all in black.”

“Goes with everything, as they say.”

“ID?”

“No ID. All we found in her pockets was three hundred bucks and a Honda car key. We’re searching the area for the vehicle.” Jane shook her head. “Too bad she didn’t drive a Yugo. This is like looking for a needle in a whole damn haystack of Hondas.”

Maura replaced the sheet, and the gaping wound vanished once more beneath plastic. “Where is the hand?”

“It’s already bagged.”

“Are you sure it belongs to this body?”

Jane gave a startled laugh. “What are the odds it doesn’t?”

“I never make assumptions. You know that.” She turned.

“Maura?”

Once again, she looked at Jane. They stood face-to-face in that blinding sunshine, where it felt as if all of Boston PD could see them, hear them.

“About the trial. I do understand where you’re coming from,” said Jane. “You know that.”

“And you don’t approve.”

“But I understand. Just as I hope you understand that it’s guys like Graff who have to deal with the real world. They’re the ones on the front lines. Justice isn’t as clean as a science experiment. Sometimes it’s pretty damn messy and the facts just make things messier.”

“So I should have lied instead?”

“Just don’t forget who the real bad guys are.”

“That’s not in my job description,” said Maura. She left the rooftop and retreated into the stairwell, relieved to escape the sharp glare of the sun and the eyes of Boston PD personnel. But when she emerged on the ground floor, she came face-to-face once again with Detective Tam.

“It’s pretty bloody up there, isn’t it?” he said.

“Bloodier than most.”

“So when’s the autopsy?”

“I’ll do it tomorrow morning.”

“May I observe?”

“You’re welcome to be there, if you have the stomach for it.”

“I watched a few while I was at the academy. Managed not to keel over.”

She paused to regard him for a moment. Saw humorless dark eyes and sharply handsome features, but no hostility. On a morning when all of Boston PD seemed to regard her as the enemy, Detective Johnny Tam was the only cop who didn’t seem to stand in judgment of her.

“Eight AM,” she said. “I’ll see you there.”

MAURA DID NOT SLEEP WELL THAT NIGHT. AFTER A HEAVY MEAL of lasagna, washed down with three glasses of wine, she climbed into bed exhausted. She awakened a few hours later, painfully aware of the empty space beside her. Reaching out, she touched cold sheets and wondered, as she had on so many other nights over these past four months, if Daniel Brophy was also lying awake, also lonely. If he, too, was desperate to pick up the telephone and break this silence between them. Or did he sleep soundly, without regrets, relieved their affair had finally ended? While she might be her own woman again, freedom came with a price. An empty bed, sleepless nights, and the unanswerable question: Am I better with him or without him?

The next morning, she arrived at work groggy and nauseated from all the coffee she’d consumed to make herself alert. As she stood in the morgue anteroom donning mask and paper cap and shoe covers, she looked through the viewing window and saw that Jane was already standing by the table, waiting for her. Yesterday they had not parted on the most congenial of terms, and Maura still felt stung by Jane’s sarcastic retort: You’re all about the facts, aren’t you? Yes, facts mattered to her. They were immutable things that could not be denied, even when they threatened a friendship. The trial of Officer Graff had driven a wedge between her and Jane, reminding Maura how unlikely their friendship had been from the start. As she tied on her gown, it was not the corpse she dreaded confronting, but Jane.