Tess Gerritsen - The Apprentice

“Lieutenant,” she said.

He responded with a curt nod. “Rizzoli.”

“What’s with the Bureau? They had an agent here, expecting full access.”

He nodded. “Request came through OPC.”

So it had been approved at the top-the Office of the Police Commissioner.

She watched as the CSU crew packed up their kits and headed back toward the van. Though they were standing within Boston city limits, this dark corner of Stony Brook Reservation felt as isolated as the deep woods. The wind tossed leaves into the air and stirred the smell of decay. Through the trees she saw Barry Frost’s flashlight bobbing in the darkness as he untied the crime scene tape, removing all traces of police activity. Tonight, the stakeout would begin, for an unsub whose craving for a whiff of decay might draw him back to this lonely park, to this silent grove of trees.

“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.”

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.