Tess Gerritsen - The Apprentice

“After ejaculation, they can remain motile for one or two days. At least half of the sperm under that microscope are moving. This is fresh ejaculate. Probably no more than a day old.”

“And how long has the victim been dead?” asked Dean.

“Based on her vitreous potassium levels, which I drew about five hours ago, she’s been dead at least sixty hours.”

Another silence passed. Rizzoli saw the same conclusion register on everyone’s faces. She looked at Gail Yeager, who now lay with torso split open, organs bared. Hand clapped to her mouth, Rizzoli spun toward the sink. For the first time in her career as a cop, Jane Rizzoli was sick.

“He knew,” said Korsak. “That son of a bitch knew .”

They stood together in the parking lot behind the M.E.‘s building, the tip of Korsak’s cigarette glowing orange. After the chill air of the autopsy room, it almost felt good to be bathed in the steam of a summer night, to escape the harsh procedure lights and retreat into this cloak of darkness. She had been humiliated by her display of weakness, humiliated most of all that Agent Dean was there to see it. At least he’d been considerate enough to make no comment and had regarded her with neither sympathy nor ridicule, merely indifference.

“Dean’s the one who asked for that test on the sperm,” said Korsak. “Whatever he called it-”

“The wet prep.”

“Yeah, the wet prep thing. Isles wasn’t even gonna look at it fresh. She was gonna let it dry out first. So here’s this fibbie guy telling the doc what to do. Like he knows exactly what he’s looking for, exactly what we’ll find. How did he know? And what the hell’s the FBI doing on this case, anyway?”

“You did the background on the Yeagers. What’s there to attract the FBI?”

“Not a thing.”

“Were they into something they shouldn’t have been?”

“You make it sound like the Yeagers got themselves killed.”

“He was a doctor. Are we talking about drug deals here? A federal witness?”

“He was clean. His wife was clean.”

“That coup de grâce-like an execution. Maybe that’s the symbolism. A slice across the throat, to silence him.”

“Jesus, Rizzoli. You’ve made a hundred-eighty-degree turn here. First we’re thinking sex perp who kills for the thrill of it. Now you’re into conspiracies.”

“I’m trying to understand why Dean’s involved. The FBI never gives a shit about what we’re doing. They stay out of our way, we stay out of theirs, and that’s how everybody likes it. We didn’t ask for their help with the Surgeon. We handled it all in-house, used our own profiler. Their behavioral unit’s too busy kissing up to Hollywood to give us the time of day. So what’s different about this case? What makes the Yeagers special?”

“We didn’t find a thing on them,” said Korsak. “No debts, no financial red flags. No pending court cases. No one who’d say boo about either one of them.”

“Then why the FBI interest?”

Korsak thought it over. “Maybe the Yeagers had friends in high places. Someone who’s now screaming for justice.”

“Wouldn’t Dean just come out and tell us that?”

“Fibbies never like to tell you anything,” said Korsak.

She looked back at the building. It was nearly midnight, and they had not yet seen Maura Isles leave. When Rizzoli had walked out of the autopsy suite, Isles had been dictating her report and had scarcely even waved good night. The Queen of the Dead paid scant attention to the living.

Am I any different? When I lie in bed at night, it’s the faces of the murdered I see.

“This case is bigger than just the Yeagers,” said Korsak. “Now we’ve got that second set of remains.”

“I think this may let Joey Valentine off the hook,” said Rizzoli. “It explains how our unsub picked up that corpse hair-from an earlier victim.”

“I’m not done with Joey yet. One more twist of the screw.”

“You got anything on him?”

“I’m looking; I’m looking.”

“You’ll need more than an old charge of voyeurism.”

“But that Joey, he’s weird. You gotta be weird to enjoy putting lipstick on dead ladies.”

“Weirdness isn’t enough.” She stared at the building, thinking of Maura Isles. “In some ways, we’re all weird.”

“Yeah, but we’re normal weird. Joey’s got, like, no normal in his weirdness.”

She laughed. This conversation had meandered into the absurd, and she was too tired to make sense of it any longer.

“What the hell’d I say?” Korsak asked.

She turned to her car. “I’m getting punchy. I need to go home and get some sleep.”

“You gonna be here for the bone doctor?”

“I’ll be here.”

Tomorrow afternoon, a forensic anthropologist would be joining Isles to examine the skeletal remains of the second woman. Though she was not looking forward to another visit to this house of horrors, it was a duty Rizzoli could not avoid. She crossed to her car and unlocked the door.

“Hey, Rizzoli?” Korsak called out.

“Yeah?”

“Did you get dinner? Wanna go out for a burger or something?”

It was the sort of invitation any cop might extend to another. A hamburger, a beer, a few hours to unwind after a stressful day. Nothing unusual or untoward about it, yet it made her uncomfortable because she sensed the loneliness, the desperation, behind it. And she did not want to be entangled in this man’s sticky web of need.

“Maybe another time,” she said.

“Yeah. Okay,” he said. “Another time.” And with a quick wave, he turned and walked to his own car.

When she got home, she found a message from her brother Frankie on the answering machine. While she flipped through her mail, she listened to his voice boom out and could picture his swaggering stance, his bullying face.

“Hey, Janie? You there?” A long pause. “Aw, shit. Look, I forgot all ‘bout Mom’s birthday tomorrow. How ’bout us going in together on a present? Put my name on it, too. I’ll mail you a check. Just tell me how much I owe ya, okay? Bye. Oh, and hey, how ya doing?”

She threw her mail down on the table and muttered, “Yeah, Frankie. Like you paid me for the last gift.” It was too late, anyway. The gift had already been delivered-a box of peach bath towels, monogrammed with Angela’s initials. This year, Janie gets full credit. For all the difference it makes . Frankie was the man of a thousand excuses, all of them solid gold as far as Mom was concerned. He was a drill sergeant at Camp Pendleton, and Angela worried about him, obsessed over his safety, as though he faced enemy fire every day in that dangerous California scrub brush. She’d even wondered aloud if Frankie was getting enough to eat. Yeah, sure, Ma. The U.S. Marine Corps is gonna let your 220-pound baby starve to death. It was Jane who had not, in fact, eaten anything since noon. That embarrassing upchuck into the autopsy lab sink had emptied whatever was left in her stomach, and now she was ravenous.

She raided her cupboard and found the lazy woman’s treasure: Starkist Tuna, which she ate straight out of the can, along with a handful of saltine crackers. Still hungry, she returned to the cupboard for sliced peaches and polished those off as well, licking the syrup from her fork as she stared at the map of Boston tacked to her wall.

Stony Brook Reservation was a broad swath of green surrounded by suburbia-West Roxbury and Clarendon Hills to the north, Dedham and Readville to the south. On any summer day, the reservation would draw large numbers of families and joggers and picnickers. Who would notice a lone man in a car, driving along Enneking Parkway? Who would bother to watch as he pulled into one of the service parking areas and stared into the woods? A suburban park is irresistible to those weary of concrete and asphalt, jackhammers and blaring horns. Along with those seeking refuge in the coolness of woods and grass was one who came with an entirely different purpose in mind. A predator seeking a place to discard his prey. She saw it through his eyes: the dense trees, the carpet of dead leaves. A world where insects and forest animals would happily collaborate in the act of disposal.