Tess Gerritsen: The Apprentice

She straightened and looked at the road. She saw no bloody tire marks, no auto debris. No pieces of glass or plastic that would have shattered on impact with a human body.

For a moment, no one spoke. They just looked at one another, as the only possible explanation suddenly clicked into place. As if to confirm the theory, a jet roared overhead. Rizzoli squinted upward, to see a 747 glide past, on its landing approach to Logan International Airport, five miles to the northeast.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Frost, shading his eyes against the sun. “What a way to go. Please tell me he was already dead when he fell.”

“There’s a good chance of it,” said Tierney. “I would guess his body slipped out as the wheels came down, on landing approach. That’s assuming it was an inbound flight.”

“Well, yeah,” said Rizzoli. “How many stowaways are trying to get out of the country?” She looked at the dead man’s olive complexion. “So he’s coming in on a plane, say, from South America-”

“It would’ve been flying at an altitude of at least thirty thousand feet,” said Tierney. “Wheel wells aren’t pressurized. A stowaway would be dealing with rapid decompression. Frostbite. Even in high summer, the temperatures at those altitudes are freezing. A few hours under those conditions, he’d be hypothermic and unconscious from lack of oxygen. Or already crushed when the landing gear retracted on takeoff. A prolonged ride in the wheel well would probably finish him off.”

Rizzoli’s pager cut into the lecture. And a lecture it would surely turn into; Dr. Tierney was just beginning to hit his professorial stride. She glanced at the number on her beeper but did not recognize it. A Newton prefix. She reached for her cell phone and dialed.

“Detective Korsak,” a man answered.

“This is Rizzoli. Did you page me?”

“You on a cell phone, Detective?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get to a landline?”

“Not at the moment, no.” She did not know who Detective Korsak was, and she was anxious to cut this call short. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about?”

A pause. She heard voices in the background and the crackle of a cop’s walkie-talkie. “I’m at a scene out here in Newton,” he said. “I think you should come out and see this.”

“Are you requesting Boston P.D. assistance? Because I can refer you to someone else in our unit.”

“I tried reaching Detective Moore, but they said he’s on leave. That’s why I’m calling you.” Again he paused. And added, with quiet significance: “It’s about that case you and Moore headed up last summer. You know the one.”

She fell silent. She knew exactly what he was referring to. The memories of that investigation still haunted her, still surfaced in her nightmares.

“Go on,” she said softly.

“You want the address?” he asked.

She took out her notepad.

A moment later, she hung up and turned her attention back to Dr. Tierney.

“I’ve seen similar injuries in sky divers whose parachutes fail to open,” he said. “From that height, a falling body would reach terminal velocity. That’s nearly two hundred feet per second. It’s enough to cause the disintegration we see here.”

“It’s a hell of a price to pay to get to this country,” said Frost.

Another jet roared overhead, its shadow swooping past like an eagle’s.

Rizzoli gazed up at the sky. Imagined a body falling, tumbling a thousand feet. Thought of the cold air whistling past. And then warmer air, as the ground spins ever closer.

She looked at the sheet-draped remains of a man who had dared to dream of a new world, a brighter future.

Welcome to America.

The Newton patrolman posted in front of the house was just a rookie, and he did not recognize Rizzoli. He stopped her at the perimeter of the police tape and addressed her with a brusque tone that matched his newly minted uniform. His name tag said: RIDGE.

“This is a crime scene, ma’am.”

“I’m Detective Rizzoli, Boston P.D. Here to see Detective Korsak.”

“I.D., please.”

She hadn’t expected such a request, and she had to dig in her purse for her badge. In the city of Boston, just about every patrolman knew exactly who she was. One short drive out of her territory, into this well-heeled suburb, and suddenly she was reduced to fumbling for her badge. She held it right up to his nose.

He took one look and flushed. “I’m really sorry, ma’am. See, there was this asshole reporter who talked her way past me just a few minutes ago. I wasn’t gonna let that happen again.”

“Is Korsak inside?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She eyed the jumble of vehicles parked on the street, among them a white van with COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER stenciled on the side.

“How many victims?” she asked.

“One. They’re getting ready to move him out now.”

The patrolman lifted the tape to let her pass into the front yard. Birds chirped and the air smelled like sweet grass. You’re not in South Boston anymore, she thought. The landscaping was immaculate, with clipped boxwood hedges and a lawn that was bright AstroTurf green. She paused on the brick walkway and stared up at the roofline with its Tudor accents. Lord of the fake English manor was what came to mind. This was not a house, nor a neighborhood, that an honest cop could ever afford.

“Some digs, huh?” Patrolman Ridge called out to her.

“What did this guy do for a living?”

“I hear he was some kind of surgeon.”

Surgeon . For her, the word had special meaning, and the sound of it pierced her like an icy needle, chilling her even on this warm day. She looked at the front door and saw that the knob was sooty with fingerprint powder. She took a deep breath, pulled on latex gloves, and slipped paper booties over her shoes.

Inside, she saw polished oak floors and a stairwell that rose to cathedral heights. A stained-glass window let in glowing lozenges of color.

She heard the whish-whish of paper shoe covers, and a bear of a man lumbered into the hallway. Though he was dressed in businesslike attire, with a neatly knotted tie, the effect was ruined by the twin continents of sweat staining his underarms. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing beefy arms bristling with dark hair. “Rizzoli?” he asked.

“One and the same.”

He came toward her, arm outstretched, then remembered he was wearing gloves and let his hand fall again. “Vince Korsak. Sorry I couldn’t say more over the phone, but everyone’s got a scanner these days. Already had one reporter worm her way in here. What a bitch.”

“So I heard.”

“Look, I know you’re probably wondering what the hell you’re doing way out here. But I followed your work last year. You know, the Surgeon killings. I thought you’d want to see this.”

Her mouth had gone dry. “What’ve you got?”

“Vic’s in the family room. Dr. Richard Yeager, age thirty-six. Orthopedic surgeon. This is his residence.”

She glanced up at the stained-glass window. “You Newton boys get the upscale homicides.”

“Hey, Boston P.D. can have ‘ em all. This isn’t supposed to happen out here. Especially weird shit like this.”

Korsak led the way down the hall, into the family room. Rizzoli’s first view was of brilliant sunlight flooding through a two-story wall of ground-to-ceiling windows. Despite the number of crime scene techs at work here, the room felt spacious and stark, all white walls and gleaming wood floor.

And blood. No matter how many crime scenes she walked into, that first sight of blood always shocked her. A comet’s tail of arterial splatter had shot across the wall and trickled down in streamers. The source of that blood, Dr. Richard Yeager, sat with his back propped up against the wall, his wrists bound behind him. He was wearing only boxer shorts, and his legs were stretched out in front of him, the ankles bound with duct tape. His head lolled forward, obscuring her view of the wound that had released the fatal hemorrhage, but she did not need to see the slash to know that it had gone deep, to the carotid and the windpipe. She was already too familiar with the aftermath of such a wound, and she could read his final moments in the pattern of blood: the artery spurting, the lungs filling up, the victim aspirating through his severed windpipe. Drowning in his own blood. Exhaled tracheal spray had dried on his bare chest. Judging by his broad shoulders and his musculature, he had been physically fit-surely capable of fighting back against an attacker. Yet he had died with head bowed, in a posture of obeisance.