Tess Gerritsen - The Apprentice

“The cutting edge itself is not serrated, because the other edge of the incision is absolutely smooth. And notice how these parallel scratches appear along only one-third of the incision? Not the entire length. Those scratch marks were made as the blade was being withdrawn. The killer started his incision under the left jaw, and sliced toward the front of the throat, ending the incision just on the far side of the tracheal ring. The scratch marks appear as he’s ending his cut, and slightly twisting the blade as he withdraws.”

“So what made those scratches?”

“It’s not from the cutting edge. This weapon has serrations on the back edge, and they made the parallel scratches as the weapon was pulled out.” Isles looked at Rizzoli. “This is typical of a Rambo or survival-type knife. Something a hunter might use.”

A hunter . Rizzoli looked at the thickly muscled shoulders of Richard Yeager and thought: This was not a man who’d meekly assume the role of prey.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” said Korsak. “This vic, Dr. Weight Lifter here, watches our perp pull out a big friggin‘ Rambo knife. And he just sits there and lets him cut his throat?”

“His wrists and ankles were bound,” said Isles.

“I don’t care if he’s trussed up like Tutankhamen. Any redblooded man’s gonna squirm like hell.”

Rizzoli said, “He’s right. Even with your wrists and ankles bound, you can still kick. You can even headbutt. But he was just sitting there, against the wall.”

Dr. Isles straightened. For a moment, she didn’t say anything, just stood as regally as though her surgical gown were a priestess’s robe. She looked at Yoshima. “Hand me a wet towel. Direct that light over here. Let’s really wipe him down and go over his skin. Inch by inch.”

“What’re we looking for?” asked Korsak.

“I’ll tell you when I see it.”

Moments later, when Isles lifted the right arm, she spotted the marks on the side of the chest. Beneath the magnifying lens, two faint red bumps stood out. Isles ran her gloved finger over the skin. “Wheals,” she said. “It’s a Lewis Triple Response.”

“Lewis what?” asked Rizzoli.

“Lewis Triple Response. It’s a signature effect on the skin. First you see erythema-red spots-and then a flare caused by cutaneous arteriolar dilatation. And finally, in the third stage, wheals pop up due to increased vascular permeability.”

“It looks to me like a Taser mark,” said Rizzoli.

Isles nodded. “Exactly. This is the classic skin response to an electrical shock from a Taser-like device. It would certainly incapacitate him. Zap, and he loses all neuro-muscular control. Certainly long enough for someone to bind his wrists and ankles.”

“How long do these wheals usually last?”

“On a living subject, they normally fade after two hours.”

“And on a dead subject?”

“Death arrests the skin process. That’s why we can still see it. Although it’s very faint.”

“So he died within two hours of receiving this shock?”

“Correct.”

“But a Taser only brings you down for a few minutes,” said Korsak. “Five, ten at the most. To keep him down, he’d have to be shocked again.”

“And that’s why we’re going to keep looking for more,” said Isles. She shifted the light farther down the torso.

The beam mercilessly spotlighted Richard Yeager’s genitals. Up till that moment, Rizzoli had avoided looking at that region of his anatomy. To stare at a corpse’s sexual organs always struck her as a cruel invasion, yet one more outrage, one more humiliation visited upon the victim’s body. Now the light was focused on the limp penis and scrotum, and the violation of Richard Yeager seemed complete.

“There are more wheals,” said Isles, wiping away a smear of blood to reveal the skin. “Here, on the lower abdomen.”

“And on his thigh,” Rizzoli said softly.

Isles glanced up. “Where?”

Rizzoli pointed to the telltale marks, just to the left of the victim’s scrotum. So these are Richard Yeager’s last terrible moments, she thought. Fully awake and alert, but he cannot move. He cannot defend himself. The bulging muscles, the hours at the gym, mean nothing in the end, because his body will not obey him. His limbs lie useless, short-circuited by the electrical storm that has sizzled through his nervous system. He is dragged from his bedroom, helpless as a stunned cow on the way to slaughter. Propped up against the wall, to witness what comes next.

But the Taser’s effect is brief. Soon his muscles twitch; his fingers clench into fists. He watches his wife’s ordeal, and rage floods his body with adrenaline. This time, when he moves, his muscles obey. He tries to rise, but the clatter of the teacup falling from his lap betrays him.

It takes only another burst of the Taser and he collapses, despairing, like Sisyphus tumbling back down the hill.

She looked at Richard Yeager’s face, at the eyelids slitted open, and thought of the last images his brain must have registered. His own legs, stretched useless in front of him. His wife, lying conquered on the beige rug. And a knife, gripped in the hunter’s hand, closing in for the kill.

It is noisy in the dayroom, where men pace like the caged beasts they are. The TV blares, and the metal stairs leading to the upper tier of cells clang with every footfall . We are never out of our watchers’ sights. Surveillance cameras are everywhere, in the shower room, even in the toilet area. From the windows of the guard station, our keepers look down on us as we mingle here in the well. They can see every move we make. Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center is a level-six facility, the newest in the Massachusetts Correctional Institute system, and it is a technical marvel. The locks are keyless, operated by computer terminals in the guard tower. Commands are issued to us by bodiless voices over intercoms. The doors to every cell in this pod can be opened or closed by remote access, without a human being ever appearing. There are days when I wonder if any of our guards are flesh and blood or if the silhouettes we see, standing behind glass, are merely animatronic robots, torsos swiveling, heads nodding. Whether by man or by machine, I am being watched, yet it does not bother me, as they cannot see into my mind; they cannot enter the dark landscape of my fantasies. That place belongs only to me. As I sit in the dayroom, watching the six o’clock news on the TV, I am wandering that very landscape. It is the woman newscaster, smiling from the screen, who makes the journey with me. I imagine her dark hair as a splash of black upon the pillow. I see sweat glistening on her skin. And in my world, she is not smiling; oh no, her eyes are wide, the dilated pupils like bottomless pools, the lips drawn back in a rictus of terror. All this I imagine as I gaze at the pretty newscaster in her jade-green suit. I see her smile, hear her well-modulated voice, and I wonder what her screams would sound like .

Then a new image comes on the TV, and all thoughts of the newscaster vanish. A male reporter stands in front of the Newton home of Dr. Richard Yeager. In a somber voice, he reveals that, two days after the doctor’s murder and the abduction of his wife, no arrests have been made. I am already acquainted with the case of Dr. Yeager and his wife. Now I lean forward, staring intently at the screen, waiting for a glimpse.

I finally see her.

The camera has swung toward the house, and it catches her in close-up as she walks out the front door. A heavyset man emerges right behind her. They stand talking in the front yard, unaware that at that moment the TV cameraman has zoomed in on them. The man looks coarse and piggish with his sagging jowls and sparse strands of hair combed over a bare scalp. Beside him, she looks small and insubstantial. It has been a long time since I last saw her, and much about her seems changed. Oh, her hair is still an unruly mane of black curls, and she wears yet another one of her navy-blue pantsuits, the jacket hanging too loose on her shoulders, the cut unflattering to her petite frame. But her face is different. Once it was square-jawed and confident, not particularly beautiful, but arresting nonetheless, because of the fierce intelligence of her eyes. Now she looks worn and troubled. She has lost weight. I see new shadows in her face, in the hollows of her cheeks .