Тесс Герритсен - I Know a Secret

Not lying shirtless on a windswept pier with three arrows protruding from his chest.

Approaching headlights made Jane turn as a Lexus pulled up behind the parked police cruiser. Maura Isles stepped out, her long coat flaring like a cape in the wind. She was dressed all in winter black: boots, slacks, turtleneck. Appropriate attire for Boston’s Queen of the Dead.

“Merry Christmas,” said Jane. “Got you a special present.”

Maura didn’t answer; her attention was focused on the young man lying at their feet. She pulled off her wool gloves, stuffed them in her pocket. The purple latex gloves she donned instead would be no protection in this wind, and before frostbite could set in, she quickly crouched down and studied the arrows. All three had entered the front of the chest, two on the left side of the sternum, one on the right. All three had pierced so deeply that only half the shafts were visible.

“Looks like someone got a brand-new bow and arrow for Christmas,” said Jane. “And used this poor guy for target practice.”

“What’s the story here?” asked Maura.

“Security guard making his rounds found the victim. He swears the body wasn’t here three hours ago when he last came by. It’s a remote spot, so no security cameras in the area. I’m guessing witnesses are going to be hard to find, especially on Christmas Eve.”

“These look like standard aluminum arrows, all with the same orange fletchings. You can probably buy these in any sporting-goods store,” said Maura. “They entered at slightly different angles. I don’t see any other wounds...”

“And that seems weird to me,” said Frost.

Jane laughed. “That’s the only thing that seems weird to you?”

“The guy gets shot with three arrows, all in the front of his chest. It takes a second or two to nock an arrow in the bow. Meanwhile, wouldn’t you think this guy would turn and run? It’s like he just stood there and let someone shoot him three times in the chest.”

“I don’t think these arrows killed him,” said Maura.

“At least one of those arrows should have pierced a lung or something.”

“Certainly, based on their locations. But look how little blood there is from any of these wounds. Shine your lights here.” As Jane and Frost aimed their flashlights at the torso, Maura reached under the right armpit and pressed gloved fingers into the skin. “There’s already some faint lividity in the right axilla, and it appears fixed.” She stepped around to the other side of the body to examine the opposite armpit. “But there’s no lividity on the left. Help me roll him onto his side. I want to get a better look at his back.”

Jane and Frost both squatted beside the body. Careful not to dislodge any of the arrows, they logrolled the corpse onto its right side. Through Jane’s latex gloves, the flesh felt cold, like chilled meat pulled straight from the refrigerator. Eyes stinging in the wind, she squinted down at the exposed back, now illuminated by Maura’s flashlight.

“Has this body been repositioned since it was found?” asked Maura.

“Security guard says he didn’t even touch it. Why?”

“Do you see how the lividity is only on the right side of the torso? Gravity made the blood settle there because he was lying on his right side for at least a few hours after death. Yet here he’s lying supine.”

“So he was killed somewhere else. Maybe brought here in the trunk of a car.”

“The pattern of livor mortis would suggest that.” Maura reached down to flex the arm. “Rigor mortis is just starting in the limbs. I would estimate time of death somewhere between two and six hours ago.”

“Then he’s moved here and left on his back.” Jane stared down at the three arrows, the orange fletches quivering in the wind. “What’s the point of sticking him with arrows, if he was already dead? This is some weird symbolic shit.”

“It could be a rage killing,” said Maura. “The perp didn’t get enough of an emotional release when he killed this man. So he killed him again and again, by piercing him with arrows.”

“Or maybe the arrows mean something,” said Frost. “You know what this makes me think of? Robin Hood. Steal from the rich, give to the poor. His belt’s made of ostrich leather, and that’s not cheap. This guy looks well off.”

“Yet he ends up dead and shirtless on a pier,” said Jane. She turned to Maura. “If the arrows didn’t kill him, what did?”

At that moment, another jet lifted into the sky from Logan Airport. Maura stood silent, cruiser rack lights flaring blue and white on her face, as she waited for the jet’s roar to fade.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Maura could not remember a Christmas morning so cold. She stood at her kitchen window, a coffee mug cupped in her hands, looking out at the ice that glazed her backyard. The outdoor thermometer registered six degrees, not accounting for windchill, and the flagstone patio was now as slick as a skating rink. This morning when she’d stepped out to pick up her newspaper, she’d slipped on the front walkway and almost fallen, and her back muscles still ached from twisting around to catch herself. This was not a day to leave the house, and she was grateful she didn’t have to. Today her colleague Abe Bristol was on call for the ME’s office, and she could spend a lazy day catching up on her reading and tonight enjoy a quiet meal alone. Already, a lamb shank was defrosting in the sink and a bottle of amarone waited to be uncorked.

She refilled her coffee cup and sat down at the kitchen table to read The Boston Globe. The Christmas Day edition was so thin it was almost not worth paging through it, but this was her morning ritual whenever she had a day off: two cups of coffee, an English muffin, and the newspaper. A real newspaper, not pixels glaring from a laptop. She ignored the gray tabby, who kept mewing and rubbing against her ankles, demanding his second breakfast. A month ago, she’d adopted the greedy animal after finding it wandering at a crime scene, and not a day went by that she didn’t regret bringing the Beast home. Now it was too late; the cat belonged to her. Or she belonged to the cat. Sometimes it was hard to tell who owned whom.

She nudged the Beast away with her foot and turned to a new page of the Globe . Last night’s discovery of the body on the pier had not yet made it into the newspaper, but she saw an update on Cassandra Coyle’s murder.

The death of a young woman found last Tuesday has been called “suspicious” by investigators. Cassandra Coyle, age 26, was found at home by her father after she failed to show up at a luncheon date. An autopsy was performed on Wednesday, but the medical examiner’s office has not yet determined the cause of death...

The cat jumped onto the table and sat down on the newspaper, its rump planted squarely on the article.

“Thank you for your comment,” Maura said, and dropped the Beast back on the floor. It gave her a parting look of disdain and strutted out of the kitchen. So this is what it’s come to, she thought. I’m now talking to my cat. When had she turned into another lonely cat lady, ruled by a feline? She didn’t have to be alone on Christmas. She could have driven up to Maine and visited her seventeen-year-old ward, Julian, at his boarding school. She could have thrown a holiday party for her neighbors, or volunteered at a soup kitchen, or accepted any number of invitations to dinner.

I could have called Daniel .

She thought of the Christmas Eve when she had been so desperate to catch a glimpse of him, even from a distance, that she had slipped into a pew at the back of his church to hear him celebrate the holiday Mass. She, a nonbeliever, had listened to his words about God and love and hope, but their love for each other had led only to heartbreak for them both. On this Christmas morning, as Daniel stood before his congregation, did he scan the pews, hoping to see her again? Or would they grow old in parallel, their lives never again to intersect?