“My sister Anna came to see you,” Maura said. “She looked just like me. Do you remember her?”
Amalthea’s jaw was moving now, as though chewing food. An imaginary meal that only she could taste.
No, of course she doesn’t remember, thought Maura, gazing in frustration at Amalthea’s blank expression. She doesn’t register me, or who I am, or why I’m here. I’m shouting into an empty cave, and only my own voice is echoing back.
Determined to dredge up a reaction, any reaction, Maura said with what was almost deliberate cruelty: “Anna’s dead. Your other daughter is dead. Did you know that?”
No answer.
Why the hell do I keep trying? There’s nobody home in there. There’s no light in those eyes.
“Well,” said Maura. “I’ll come back another time. Maybe you’ll talk to me then.” With a sigh, Maura stood and looked around for the guard. She spotted her at the other end of the room. Maura had just raised her hand in a wave when she heard the voice. A whisper so soft she might have imagined it:
“Go away.”
Startled, Maura looked down at Amalthea, who was sitting in exactly the same position, lips twitching, gaze still unfocused.
Slowly, Maura sat back down. “What did you say?”
Amalthea’s gaze lifted to hers. And just for an instant, Maura saw awareness there. A gleam of intelligence. “Go away. Before he sees you.”
Maura stared. A chill clambered up her spine, made the hairs on the back of her neck bristle.
At the next table, the dishwater blonde was still crying. Her male visitor stood up and said, “I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to accept it. That’s the way it is.” He walked away, back to his life on the outside where women wore pretty blouses, not blue denim. Where doors that locked could be unlocked.
“Who?” Maura asked softly. Amalthea didn’t answer. “Who’s going to see me, Amalthea?” Maura pressed her. “What do you mean?”
But Amalthea’s gaze had clouded over. That brief flash of awareness was gone, and Maura was staring, once more, into a void.
“So, are we all done with the visit?” the guard asked cheerfully.
“Is she always like this?” asked Maura, watching Amalthea’s lips form soundless words.
“Pretty much. She has good days and bad days.”
“She hardly spoke to me at all.”
“She will, if she gets to know you better. Mostly keeps to herself, but sometimes she’ll come out of it. Writes letters, even uses the phone.”
“Whom does she call?”
“I don’t know. Her shrink, I guess.”
“Dr. O’Donnell?”
“The blond lady. She’s been in a few times, so Amalthea’s pretty comfortable with her. Aren’t you, honey?” Reaching for the prisoner’s arm, the guard said: “Come on, upsy daisy. Let’s walk you back.”
Obediently Amalthea rose to her feet and allowed the guard to guide her away from the table. She moved only a few steps, then stopped.
“Amalthea, let’s go.”
But the prisoner did not move. She stood as though her muscles had suddenly solidified.
“Honey, I can’t wait all day for you. Let’s go.”
Slowly Amalthea turned. Her eyes were still vacant. The words she said next came out in a voice that was not quite human, but mechanical. A foreign entity, channeled through a machine. She looked at Maura.
“Now you’re going to die, too,” she said. Then she turned and shuffled away, back to her cell.
“She has tardive dyskinesia,” said Maura. “That’s why Superintendent Gurley tried to discourage me from visiting her. She didn’t want me to see Amalthea’s condition. She didn’t want me to find out what they’ve done to her.”
“What exactly did they do to her?” said Rizzoli. She was once again behind the wheel, guiding them fearlessly past trucks that made the road shake, that rattled the little Subaru with turbulence. “Are you saying they turned her into some kind of zombie?”
“You saw her psychiatric record. Her first doctors treated her with phenothiazines. That’s a class of antipsychotic drugs. In older women, those drugs can have devastating side effects. One of them is called tardive dyskinesia—involuntary movements of the mouth and the face. The patient can’t stop chewing or puffing her cheeks or sticking out her tongue. She can’t control any of it. Think about what that’s like. Everyone staring at you as you make weird faces. You’re a freak.”
“How do you stop the movements?”
“You can’t. They should have discontinued the drugs immediately, as soon as she had the first symptoms. But they waited too long. Then Dr. O’Donnell came on the case. She was the one who finally stopped the drugs. Recognized what was happening.” Maura gave an angry sigh. “The tardive dyskinesia is probably permanent.” She looked out the window at the tightening traffic. This time she felt no anxiety, seeing tons of steel hurtling past. She was thinking instead of Amalthea Lank, her lips ceaselessly moving, as though whispering secrets.
“Are you saying she didn’t need those drugs in the first place?”
“No. I’m saying they should have been stopped sooner.”
“So is she crazy? Or isn’t she?”
“That was their initial diagnosis. Schizophrenia.”
“And what’s your diagnosis?”
Maura thought about Amalthea’s blank stare, her cryptic words. Words that made no sense except as a paranoid’s delusion. “I would have to agree,” she said. With a sigh, she leaned back. “I don’t see myself in her, Jane. I don’t see any part of me in that woman.”
“Well, that’s got to be a relief. Considering.”
“But it’s still there, that link between us. You can’t deny your own DNA.”
“You know the old saying, blood is thicker than water? It’s bullshit, Doc. You don’t have anything in common with that woman. She had you, and she gave you up at birth. That’s that. Relationship over.”
“She knows so many answers. Who my father is. Who I am.”
Rizzoli shot her a sharp glance, then turned back to the road. “I’m going to give you some advice. I know you’ll wonder where I’m coming from on this. Believe me, I’m not pulling this out of thin air. But that woman, Amalthea Lank, is someone you need to stay away from. Don’t see her, don’t talk to her. Don’t even think about her. She’s dangerous.”
“She’s nothing but a burned-out schizophrenic.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Maura looked at Rizzoli. “What do you know about her that I don’t?”
For a moment Rizzoli drove without speaking. It was not the traffic that preoccupied her; she seemed to be weighing her response, considering how best to phrase her answer. “Do you remember Warren Hoyt?” she finally asked. Though she said the name without discernible emotion, her jaw had squared, and her hands had tightened around the steering wheel.
Warren Hoyt, thought Maura. The Surgeon.
That was what the police had dubbed him. He had earned that nickname because of the atrocities he’d inflicted on his victims. His instruments were duct tape and a scalpel; his prey were women asleep in their beds, unaware of the intruder who stood beside them in the darkness, anticipating the pleasure of making the first cut. Jane Rizzoli had been his final target, his opponent in a game of wits he’d never expected to lose.
But it was Rizzoli who brought him down with a single shot, her bullet piercing his spinal cord. Now quadriplegic, his limbs paralyzed and useless, Warren Hoyt’s universe had shrunk to a hospital room, where the few pleasures left to him were those of the mind—a mind that remained as brilliant and dangerous as ever.
“Of course I remember him,” said Maura. She had seen the result of his work, the terrible mutilation his scalpel had wrought in the flesh of one of his victims.
“I’ve been keeping tabs on him,” said Rizzoli. “You know, just to reassure myself that the monster’s still in his cage. He’s still there, all right, on the spinal cord uni
t. And every Wednesday afternoon, for the last eight months, he’s been getting a visitor. Dr. Joyce O’Donnell.”
Maura frowned. “Why?”
“She claims it’s part of her research in violent behavior. Her theory is that killers aren’t responsible for their actions. That some bump on the noggin when they’re kids makes them prone to violence. Naturally, defense attorneys have her on speed dial. She’d probably tell you that Jeffrey Dahmer was just misunderstood, that John Wayne Gacy just got his head knocked a few too many times. She’ll defend anyone.”
“People do what they’re paid to do.”
“I don’t think she does it for the money.”
“Then for what?”
“For the chance to get up close and personal to people who kill. She says it’s her field of study, that she does it for science. Yeah, well, Josef Mengele did it for science, too. That’s just the excuse, a way to make what she does respectable.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a thrill seeker. She gets a kick out of hearing a killer’s fantasies. She likes stepping into his head, taking a look around, seeing what he sees. Knowing what it feels like to be a monster.”
“You make it sound like she’s one of them.”
“Maybe she’d like to be. I’ve seen letters she wrote to Hoyt while he was in prison. Urging him to tell her all the details about his kills. Oh yeah, she loves the details.”
“A lot of people are curious about the macabre.”
“She’s beyond curious. She wants to know what it’s like to cut skin and watch a victim bleed. What it’s like to enjoy that ultimate power. She’s hungry for details the way a vampire’s hungry for blood.” Rizzoli paused. Gave a startled laugh. “You know, I just realized something. That’s exactly what she is, a vampire. She and Hoyt feed off each other. He tells her his fantasies, she tells him it’s okay to enjoy them. It’s okay to get turned on by the thought of cutting someone’s throat.”
“And now she’s visiting my mother.”
“Yeah.” Rizzoli looked at her. “I wonder what fantasies they’re sharing.”
Maura thought of the crimes Amalthea Lank had been convicted of. She wondered what had gone through her mind when she’d picked up the two sisters at the side of the road. Did she feel an anticipatory thrill, a heady shot of power?
“Just the fact O’Donnell finds Amalthea worth visiting should tell you something,” said Rizzoli.
“What should it tell me?”
“O’Donnell doesn’t waste her time on your everyday murderers. She doesn’t care about the guy who shoots some 7-Eleven clerk during a robbery. Or the husband who gets pissed at his wife and shoves her down the stairs. No, she spends her time with the creeps who kill because they enjoy it. The ones who give that knife the extra twist, because they like the way it feels scraping against bone. She spends her time with the special ones. The monsters.”
My mother, thought Maura. Is she a monster, too?
SEVENTEEN
DR. JOYCE O’DONNELL’S HOUSE in Cambridge was a large white colonial in a neighborhood of distinguished homes on Brattle Street. A wrought-iron fence enclosed a front yard with a perfect lawn and bark-mulched flower beds where landscape roses obediently bloomed. This was a disciplined garden, no disorder allowed, and as Maura walked up the path of granite pavers to the front door, she could already envision the house’s occupant. Well groomed, neatly dressed. A mind as organized as her garden.
The woman who answered the door was just as Maura had imagined.
Dr. O’Donnell was an ash blonde with pale, flawless skin. Her blue Oxford shirt, tucked into pressed white slacks, was tailored to emphasize a trim waist. She regarded Maura with little warmth. Rather, what Maura saw in the other woman’s eyes was the hard-edged gleam of curiosity. The gaze of a scientist regarding some new specimen.
“Dr. O’Donnell? I’m Maura Isles.”
O’Donnell responded with a crisp handshake. “Come in.”
Maura stepped into a house as coolly elegant as its owner. The only touches of warmth were the Oriental carpets covering dark teak floors. O’Donnell led the way from the foyer, into a formal sitting room where Maura settled uneasily on a couch upholstered in white silk. O’Donnell chose the armchair facing her. On the rosewood coffee table between them was a stack of files and a digital recorder. Though not turned on, the threat of that recorder was yet another detail that added to Maura’s unease.
“Thank you for seeing me,” said Maura.
“I was curious. I wondered what Amalthea’s daughter might be like. I do know of you, Dr. Isles, but only what I read in the newspapers.” She leaned back in the easy chair, looking perfectly comfortable. Home advantage. She was the one with the favors to grant; Maura was merely a supplicant. “I know nothing about you personally. But I’d like to.”
“Why?”
“I’m well acquainted with Amalthea. I can’t help wondering if . . .”
“Like mother, like daughter?”
O’Donnell lifted one elegant eyebrow. “You said it, I didn’t.”
“That’s the reason for your curiosity about me. Isn’t it?”
“And what’s the reason for yours? Why are you here?”
Maura’s gaze shifted to a painting over the fireplace. A starkly modern oil streaked with black and red. She said: “I want to know who that woman really is.”
“You know who she is. You just don’t want to believe it. Your sister didn’t, either.”
Maura frowned. “You met Anna?”
“No, actually, I never did. But I got a call about four months ago, from a woman identifying herself as Amalthea’s daughter. I was about to leave for a two-week trial in Oklahoma, so I couldn’t meet with her. We simply talked on the phone. She’d been to visit her mother at MCI–Framingham, so she knew I was Amalthea’s psychiatrist. She wanted to know more about her. Amalthea’s childhood, her family.”
“And you know all that?”
“Some of it is from her school records. Some from what she could tell me, when she was lucid. I know she was born in Lowell. When she was about nine, her mother died, and she went to live with her uncle and a cousin, in Maine.”
Maura glanced up. “Maine?”
“Yes. She graduated from high school in a town called Fox Harbor.”
Now I understand why Anna chose that town. I was following in Anna’s footsteps; she was following our mother’s.
“After high school, the records peter out,” said O’Donnell. “We don’t know where she moved from there, or how she supported herself. That’s most likely when the schizophrenia set in. It usually manifests itself in early adulthood. She probably drifted around for years, and ended up the way you see her today. Burned out and delusional.” O’Donnell looked at Maura. “It’s a pretty grim picture. Your sister had a hard time accepting that was really her mother.”
“I look at her and I see nothing familiar. Nothing of myself.”
“But I see the resemblance. I see the same hair color. The same jaw.”
“We look nothing alike.”
“You really don’t see it?” O’Donnell leaned forward, her gaze intent on Maura. “Tell me something, Dr. Isles. Why did you choose pathology?”
Perplexed by the question, Maura only stared at her.
“You could have gone into any field of medicine. Obstetrics, pediatrics. You could be working with live patients, but you chose pathology. Specifically, forensic pathology.”
“What’s the point of your question?”
“The point is, you’re somehow attracted to the dead.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Then why did you choose your field?”
“Because I like definitive answers. I don’t like guessing games. I like to see the diagnosis under my microscope lens.”
“You don’t like uncertainty.”
“Does anyone?”
“Then you could have chosen mathematics or engineering. So many other fields involve precision.
Definitive answers. But there you are in the M.E.’s office, communing with corpses.” O’Donnell paused. Asked, quietly: “Do you ever enjoy it?”
Maura met her gaze head-on. “No.”
“You chose an occupation you don’t enjoy?”
“I chose the challenge. There’s satisfaction in that. Even if the task itself isn’t pleasant.”
“But don’t you see what I’m getting at? You tell me you don’t see anything familiar about Amalthea Lank. You look at her, and probably see someone horrifying. Or at least a woman who committed horrifying acts. There are people who look at you, Dr. Isles, and probably think the same thing.”
“You can’t possibly compare us.”
“Do you know what your mother was convicted of?”
“Yes, I’ve been told.”
“But have you seen the autopsy reports?”
“Not yet.”
“I have. During the trial, the defense team asked me to consult on your mother’s mental status. I’ve seen the photos, reviewed the evidence. You do know that the victims were two sisters? Young women stranded at the side of the road.”
“Yes.”
“And the younger one was nine months pregnant.”
“I know all this.”
“So you know that your mother picked up those two women on the highway. She drives them thirty miles away, to a shed in the woods. Crushes their skulls with a tire iron. And then she does something surprisingly—weirdly—logical. She drives to a service station and fills a can with gas. Returns to the shed and sets it on fire, with the two bodies inside.” O’Donnell cocked her head. “Don’t you find that interesting?”
“I find it sickening.”
“Yes, but on some level, maybe you’re feeling something else, something you don’t even want to acknowledge. That you’re intrigued by these actions, not just as an intellectual puzzle. There’s something about it that fascinates you, even excites you.”
“The way it obviously excites you?”
O’Donnell took no offense at that retort. Instead she smiled, easily acknowledging Maura’s remark. “My interest is professional. It’s my job to study acts of murder. I’m just wondering about the reasons for your interest in Amalthea Lank.”