Tess Gerritsen - Die Again

MAURA PAUSED ON THE DRIVEWAY AND LOOKED UP AT THE SOUND OF a cawing crow. Dozens of them sat perched like ominous fruit in the tree above, their black wings flicking against the gray sky. A murder of crows was the correct term for this gathering, and it seemed appropriate on this cold gray afternoon, with thunderclouds moving in and a grim task awaiting her. Crime scene tape had been strung across the pathway leading to the backyard. She ducked under the strand and as she moved across the freshly disturbed soil, she felt the crows watching her, marking every step as they noisily discussed this new intruder in their kingdom. In the backyard, Detectives Darren Crowe and Johnny Tam stood beside a parked backhoe and a damp mound of dirt. As she approached, Tam waved to her with a purple-gloved hand. He was new to the homicide unit, an intense and humorless young detective who’d recently transferred from the Chinatown beat. To his misfortune, he’d been paired with Crowe, who’d driven his former partner Thomas Moore into a much-deserved retirement. A match made in hell , Jane had dubbed it, and the unit was taking bets on how long it would be before the tightly wound Tam finally snapped and hauled off at Crowe. It would be a disastrous career move for Tam, to be sure, but everyone agreed it would be damn satisfying to watch.

Even here in the heavily wooded backyard, with no TV cameras in sight, Crowe was at his GQ best with his movie-star haircut and a suit well tailored to his broad shoulders. He was a man accustomed to sucking up all the attention in a room, and it would be easy to overlook the far quieter Tam. But Tam was the one Maura focused on because she knew she could count on him to deliver the facts, unfiltered and accurate.

Before Tam could speak, Crowe said with a laugh: “I don’t think the homeowners expected to find that in their new swimming pool.”

Maura looked down at a soil-stained skull and rib cage lying in a partially folded blue plastic tarp. One glance at the skull told her the bones were human.

She donned gloves. “What’s the story here?”

“Supposed to be a new swimming pool. Owners bought the house three years ago, hired Lorenzo Construction to do the excavation. Two feet down, they scooped that up. Backhoe driver opened the tarp, freaked out, and called nine one one. Luckily it doesn’t look like he caused much damage with his equipment.”

Maura saw no clothing, no items of jewelry, but she needed neither to determine the sex of the deceased. Crouching down, she studied the skull’s delicate supraorbital ridges. She peeled back the folded tarp, exposing a pelvis with widely flaring ilia. One glance at the femur told her the deceased was not tall, perhaps five foot three at the most.

“She’s been here awhile,” said Tam. He had not needed Maura’s help to recognize that the remains were female. “How long, do you think?”

“Fully skeletonized. Spine no longer articulated,” Maura observed. “These ligament attachments have already decayed.”

“Meaning months? Years?” said Crowe.

“Yes.”

Crowe gave a grunt of impatience. “That’s as specific as you’re gonna get?”

“I once saw full skeletonization in a shallow grave after only three months, so I can’t give you a more specific answer. My best estimate for postmortem interval is a minimum of six months. The fact she’s nude and the grave is pretty shallow would accelerate decay, but it was deep enough to protect her from scavenging carnivores.”

As if in response, there was a loud caw overhead. She glanced up to see three crows perched on branches, watching them. She’d seen the damage that corvids could cause to a human body, how those beaks could shred ligaments and pluck eyes from sockets. In unison the birds rose in a flurry of spiky wings.

“Creepy birds. Like little vultures,” said Tam, watching them flap away.

“And incredibly intelligent. If only they could talk to us.” She looked at him. “What’s the history of this property?”

“Belonged to some elderly lady for about forty years. She died fifteen years ago, it ended up in probate, and the house fell into disrepair. There were renters off and on, but it sat vacant for most of the time. Until this couple bought it around three years ago.”

Maura looked around the perimeter. “No fences. And it backs up to woods.”

“Yeah, it abuts Stony Brook Reservation. Easy access to anyone looking for a place to bury a body.”

“And the current owners?”

“Nice young couple. They’ve been slowly fixing up the house, renovated the bathroom and kitchen. This was the year they decided to add an in-ground pool. Before they started digging for the pool, they said this part of the yard was pretty thick with weeds.”

“So this burial probably predates their purchase of the house.”

“What about our girl here?” Crowe cut in. “You see a cause of death?”

“Have a little patience, Detective. I haven’t even finished unwrapping her.” Maura peeled away the last of the blue tarp, exposing tibias and fibulae, metatarsals and … She froze, staring at orange nylon cord, still looped around the anklebones. An image instantly snapped into her head. Another crime scene. Orange nylon cord. A body hanging from its ankles, eviscerated.

Without a word, she moved back to the rib cage. Knelt closer and stared at the xiphoid process, where the ribs came together to join at the breastbone. Even on that overcast day, in the gloom of the woods, she could see the distinct nick in the bone. She pictured the body, suspended upside down by its ankles. Pictured a blade slicing downward through the belly, from pubis to sternum. That nick was right where the blade would land.

Her hands suddenly felt chilled inside the gloves.

“Dr. Isles?” Tam said.

She ignored him and looked at the skull. There on the frontal bone, where the forehead sloped down to the brow, were three parallel scratches.

She rocked back on her knees, stunned. “We need to call Rizzoli.”

FIREWORKS AHEAD, THOUGHT JANE as she ducked under the bright strand of police tape. This was not her crime scene, not her turf, and she fully expected Darren Crowe to make that clear from the start. She thought of Leon Gott yelling Get off my lawn at the neighbor’s kid. Imagined Crowe thirty years from now, an equally cranky old man, yelling Get off my crime scene!

But it was Johnny Tam who greeted her in the side yard. “Rizzoli,” he said.

“How’s his mood?”

“The usual. All sunshine and brightness.”

“That good, huh?”

“He’s not too happy with Dr. Isles at the moment.”

“I’m not too happy, either.”

“She insisted on bringing you in. And when she talks, I listen.”

Jane eyed Tam, but as usual she couldn’t read his face; she’d never been able to. Though he was new to the homicide unit, he’d already built a reputation as a man who went about his work with quiet and unassuming doggedness. Unlike Crowe, Tam was no glory hound.

“You agree with her that there’s a link between these cases?” she asked.

“I know Dr. Isles isn’t one to rely on hunches. Which is why it kind of surprised me, that she called you about this. Considering the predictable blowback.”

They didn’t need to say the name to know they were both talking about Crowe.

“So how bad is it, working with him?” she asked as they moved down the flagstone path toward the backyard.

“Aside from the fact I’ve already ripped through three punching bags in the gym?”

“Trust me, it won’t get better. Working with him is like Chinese water tor—” She stopped. “You know what I mean.”