Tess Gerritsen: The Apprentice

The two morgue attendants had already brought in their stretcher and were standing by the body, considering how best to move a corpse that was frozen in rigor mortis.

“When the M.E. saw him at ten A.M.,” said Korsak, “livor mortis was fixed, and he was in full rigor. She estimated the time of death somewhere between midnight and three A.M.”

“Who found him?”

“His office nurse. When he didn’t show up at the clinic this morning and he didn’t answer his phone, she drove over to check on him. Found him around nine A.M. There’s no sign of his wife.”

Rizzoli looked at Korsak. “Wife?”

“Gail Yeager, age thirty-one. She’s missing.”

The chill Rizzoli had felt standing by the Yeagers’ front door was back again. “An abduction?”

“I’m just saying she’s missing.”

Rizzoli stared at Richard Yeager, whose muscle-bound body had proved no match for Death. “Tell me about these people. Their marriage.”

“Happy couple. That’s what everyone says.”

“That’s what they always say.”

“In this case, it does seem to be true. Only been married two years. Bought this house a year ago. She’s an O.R. nurse at his hospital, so they had the same circle of friends, same work schedule.”

“That’s a lot of togetherness.”

“Yeah, I know. It’d drive me bonkers if I had to hang around with my wife all day. But they seemed to get along fine. Last month, he took two whole weeks off, just to stay home with her after her mother died. How much you figure an orthopedic surgeon makes in two weeks, huh? Fifteen, twenty thousand bucks? That’s some expensive comfort he was giving her.”

“She must have needed it.”

Korsak shrugged. “Still.”

“So you found no reason why she’d walk out on him.”

“Much less whack him.”

Rizzoli glanced at the family room windows. Trees and shrubbery blocked any view of neighboring houses. “You said the time of death was between midnight and three.”

“Yeah.”

“Did the neighbors hear anything?”

“Folks to the left are in Paris. Ooh la la. Neighbors to the right slept soundly all night.”

“Forced entry?”

“Kitchen window. Screen pried off, used a glass cutter. Size eleven shoeprints in the flower bed. Same prints tracked blood in this room.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped his moist forehead. Korsak was one of those unlucky individuals for whom no antiperspirant was powerful enough. Just in the few minutes they’d been conversing, the sweat stains in his shirt had spread.

“Okay, let’s slide him away from the wall,” one of the morgue attendants said. “Tip him onto the sheet.”

“Watch the head! It’s slipping!”

“Aw, Jesus.”

Rizzoli and Korsak fell silent as Dr. Yeager was laid sideways on a disposable sheet. Rigor mortis had stiffened the corpse into a ninety-degree angle, and the attendants debated how to arrange him on the stretcher, given his grotesque posture.

Rizzoli suddenly focused on a chip of white lying on the floor, where the body had been sitting. She crouched down to retrieve what appeared to be a tiny shard of china.

“Broken teacup,” said Korsak.

“What?”

“There was a teacup and saucer next to the victim. Looked like it fell off his lap or something. We’ve already packed it up for prints.” He saw her puzzled look and he shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

“Symbolic artifact?”

“Yeah. Ritual tea party for the dead guy.”

She stared at the small chip of china lying in her gloved palm and considered what it meant. A knot had formed in her stomach. A terrible sense of familiarity. A slashed throat. Duct tape bindings. Nocturnal entry through a window. The victim or victims surprised while asleep .

And a missing woman.

“Where’s the bedroom?” she asked. Not wanting to see it. Afraid to see it.

“Okay. This is what I wanted you to look at.”

The hallway that led to the bedroom was hung with framed black-and-white photographs. Not the smiling-family poses that most houses displayed, but stark images of female nudes, the faces obscured or turned from the camera, the torsos anonymous. A woman embracing a tree, smooth skin pressed against rough bark. A seated woman bent forward, her long hair cascading down between her bare thighs. A woman reaching for the sky, torso glistening with the sweat of vigorous exercise. Rizzoli paused to study a photo that had been knocked askew.

“These are all the same woman,” she said.

“It’s her.”

“Mrs. Yeager?”

“Looks like they had a kinky thing going, huh?”

She stared at Gail Yeager’s finely toned body. “I don’t think it’s kinky at all. These are beautiful pictures.”

“Yeah, whatever. Bedroom’s in here.” He pointed through the doorway.

She stopped at the threshold. Inside was a king-size bed, its covers thrown back, as though its occupants had been abruptly roused from sleep. On the shell-pink carpet, the nylon pile had been flattened in two separate swaths leading from the bed to the doorway.

Rizzoli said, softly, “They were both dragged from the bed.”

Korsak nodded. “Our perp surprises them in bed. Somehow subdues them. Binds their wrists and ankles. Drags them across the carpet and into the hallway, where the wood floor begins.”

She was baffled by the killer’s actions. She imagined him standing where she was now, looking in at the sleeping couple. A window high over the bed, uncurtained, would have spilled enough light to see which was the man and which the woman. He would go to Dr. Yeager first. It was the logical thing to do, to control the man. Leave the woman for later. This much Rizzoli could envision. The approach, the initial attack. What she did not understand was what came next.

“Why move them?” she said. “Why not kill Dr. Yeager right here? What was the point of bringing them out of the bedroom?”

“I don’t know.” He pointed through the doorway. “It’s all been photographed. You can go in.”

Reluctantly she entered the room, avoiding the drag marks on the carpet, and crossed to the bed. She saw no blood on the sheets or the covers. On one pillow was a long blond strand-Mrs. Yeager’s side of the bed, she thought. She turned to the dresser, where a framed photograph of the couple confirmed that Gail Yeager was indeed a blonde. A pretty one, too, with light-blue eyes and a dusting of freckles on deeply tanned skin. Dr. Yeager had his arm draped around her shoulder and projected the brawny confidence of a man who knows he is physically imposing. Not a man who would one day end up dead in his underwear, his hands and feet bound.

“It’s on the chair,” said Korsak.

“What?”

“Look at the chair.”

She turned to face the corner of the room and saw an antique ladder-back chair. Lying on the seat was a folded nightgown. Moving closer, she saw bright spatters of red staining the cream satin.

The hairs on the back of her neck were suddenly bristling, and for a few seconds she forgot to breathe.

She reached down and lifted one corner of the garment. The underside of the fold was spattered as well.

“We don’t know whose blood it is,” said Korsak. “It could be Dr. Yeager’s; it could be the wife’s.”

“It was already stained before he folded it.”

“But there’s no other blood in this room. Which means it got splattered in the other room. Then he brought it into this bedroom. Folded it nice and neat. Placed it on that chair, like a little parting gift.” Korsak paused. “Does that remind you of someone?”

She swallowed. “You know it does.”

“This killer is copying your boy’s old signature.”

“No, this is different. This is all different. The Surgeon never attacked couples.”