Tess Gerritsen - Die Again

“Do you want to hear about Jane Doe’s remains, Detective? Or would you prefer to wait for my written report?” she asked, hoping he’d opt for the latter and leave her in peace.

He shoved the cell phone in his pocket. “Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. What’ve we got?”

“Fortunately, we have a complete skeleton, so we shouldn’t have to extrapolate. This is a female between eighteen and thirty-five years of age. I estimate her height, based on the length of her femur, to be about five foot three or four. Facial modeling will give us an idea of her appearance, but if you look at her skull …” Maura picked up the cranium and examined the nasal bones. Turned the skull upside down to look at the upper teeth. “Narrow nasal cavity, high nasal root. Smooth maxillary incisors. These are all consistent with Caucasoid features.”

“White girl.”

“Yes, with good dentition. All four wisdom teeth have been extracted and she has no dental caries. Her teeth are in perfect alignment.”

“Rich white girl. Not from England.”

“Trust me, the English have discovered orthodontics.” Trying to ignore his annoying comments, she turned her attention to the rib cage. Once again her gaze went straight to the cut mark in the xiphoid process. She tried to think of other ways the nick could have been carved into the breastbone, but only a knife blade made sense to her. Slice a line up the abdomen, and that was where your blade would strike, against the bony shield that guards the heart and lungs.

“Maybe it’s a stab wound,” said Crowe. “Maybe he was going for the heart.”

“I suppose that’s possible.”

“You still think she was gutted. Like Leon Gott.”

“I think all theories are still on the table.”

“Can you give me a better time of death?”

“There is no better time of death. Just a more accurate one.”

“Whatever.”

“As I told you at the burial site, complete skeletonization can take months or years, depending on burial depth. Any estimate would be imprecise, but the fact there’s significant disarticulation here tells me …” She paused, suddenly focusing on one of the thoracic ribs. At the burial site, she had missed seeing this detail, and even now, under bright morgue lights, the marks were barely visible. Three equidistant nicks, in the back of the rib. Just like the nicks in this woman’s skull. The same tool did this .

The morgue door swung open and Detective Tam walked in.

“Forty-five minutes late,” snapped Crowe. “Why do you even bother to show up?”

Tam gave his partner barely a glance; his attention was on Maura. “I’ve got your answer, Dr. Isles,” he said and handed her a file folder.

“What, are you working for the ME now?” said Crowe.

“Dr. Isles asked me to do her a favor.”

“Funny you didn’t bother to tell me.”

Maura opened the folder and stared at the first page. Flipped to the next page, and the next.

“I don’t like secrets, Tam,” said Crowe. “And I really don’t like partners who keep things from me.”

“Have you told Detective Rizzoli about this?” Maura abruptly cut in, looking at Tam.

“Not yet.”

“We’d better call her now.”

“Why are you bringing Rizzoli into this?” said Crowe.

She looked at the bones on the table. “Because you and Detective Rizzoli are going to be working this case together.”

FOR A COP WHO’D joined the homicide unit only a month ago, Johnny Tam was already lightning-quick at navigating the FBI’s online Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, otherwise known as VICAP. With a few rapid keystrokes, Tam logged onto the Law Enforcement Enterprise portal, giving him access to the FBI database of over 150,000 violent cases around the country.

“It’s a pain to file these crime analysis reports,” said Tam. “No one wants to answer two hundred questions and write an essay just to add your case to the data bank. So I’m sure this is just a partial list. But what does turn up on VICAP is fairly disturbing.” He turned his laptop around so that the others seated at the conference table could see his screen. “Here’s the result of my preliminary search, based on my initial set of criteria. All these cases occurred within the last decade. You’ll find a summary in those folders I gave you.”

Sitting at one end of the conference table, Maura watched Jane, Frost, and Crowe page through the stack of papers that Tam had distributed. Through the closed door she heard laughter in the hall and the ding of the elevator, but in this room there was only the sound of shuffling pages and skeptical grunts. Only rarely did she join the detectives at a case conference, but this morning Tam had asked her to sit in as consultant. Her place was in the morgue, where the dead didn’t argue with you, and she felt uneasy in this room of cops, where disagreement was always on the tip of someone’s tongue.

Crowe tossed a page down on his stack of papers. “So you think there’s one perp running around the country doing all these victims? And you’re going to track him down while sitting at your desk, playing VICAP bingo?”

“The first list was just a starting point,” said Tam. “It gave me a preliminary database to work with.”

“You’ve got murders in eight states! Three females, eight males. Nine whites, one Hispanic, one black. Ages all over the place, from twenty to sixty-four. What kind of a screwy pattern is that for a killer?”

“You know how much I hate to agree with Crowe,” said Jane, “but he’s got a point. There’s too much variability in these victims. If it is a single perp, why did he choose these particular victims? They have nothing in common, as far as I can see.”

“Because the common factor we started with was what Dr. Isles first focused on when she saw Jane Doe: the orange nylon cord around the ankles. Same as Gott.”

“She and I have already discussed that,” said Jane. “I didn’t think it was enough of a link.”

Maura noticed that Jane didn’t look at her as she spoke. Because she’s annoyed with me? she wondered. Because she thinks I shouldn’t play cop when my job is in the morgue, holding a scalpel?

“That’s all you have linking these dozen homicides? Tied by cord? ” said Crowe.

“For both victims, orange solid-braid three-sixteenth-inch nylon was used,” said Tam.

“Available at every hardware store in the country.” Crowe snorted. “Hell, I might have some in my garage right now.”

“Nylon cord was not my only search term,” said Tam. “These dozen victims were all found suspended upside down. Some from trees, others from rafters.”

“It’s still not enough to make it a killer’s signature,” said Crowe.

“Let him finish, Detective Crowe,” said Maura. Up till now she’d hardly said a word, but she could hold her tongue no longer. “Maybe you’ll see what we’re getting at. There really may be a connection between our two cases and others around the country.”

“And you and Tam are going to pull the rabbit out of the hat.” Crowe took a handful of pages from the folder and spread them across the table. “Okay, let’s look at what you came up with. Victim number one, fifty-year-old white attorney in Sacramento. Six years ago, found hanging upside down in garage, hands and ankles bound, throat slashed.

“Victim number two, twenty-two-year-old Hispanic male truck driver, found hanging upside down in Phoenix, Arizona. Hands and feet bound, burn and cut marks all over his torso, genitals removed. Huh. Nice. Let me guess: drug cartel.

“Victim number three, thirty-two-year-old white male, record of petty theft, found dangling upside down from a tree in Maine, abdomen sliced open, internal organs scavenged. Oops, we already know the perp on that one. An arrest warrant’s been issued for his former buddy. So scratch that one from the list.” He looked up. “Need I go on, Dr. Isles?”