“Can you ask Stella to look it up? See if that case got closed. Bullet’s unusual enough to make you wonder about any linkage.”
Yoshima stripped off his gloves and went to the intercom to buzz Abe’s secretary. “Hello, Stella? Dr. Bristol would like a search for the last case involving a Black Talon bullet. It would have been Dr. Tierney’s . . .”
“I’ve heard of them,” said Frost, who’d moved to the light box for a closer look at the X-ray. “First time I’ve had a vic with one.”
“It’s a hollow point, manufactured by Winchester,” said Abe. “Designed to expand and cut through soft tissue. When it penetrates flesh, the copper jacket peels open to form a six-pointed star. Each tip’s as sharp as a claw.” He moved to the corpse’s head. “They were taken off the market in ’93, after some nut out in San Francisco used them to kill nine people in a mass shooting. Winchester got such bad publicity, they decided to stop production. But there are still a few out there in circulation. Every so often, one’ll turn up in a vic, but they’re getting pretty rare.”
Maura’s gaze was still on the X-ray, on that lethal white star. She thought of what Abe had just said: Each tip’s as sharp as a claw. And she remembered the scratch marks left on the victim’s car. Like the claw mark of a raptor’s talon.
She turned back to the table, just as Abe completed his scalp incision. In that brief instant, before he peeled the skin flap forward, Maura found herself unavoidably staring at the dead woman’s face. Death had mottled the lips to a dusky blue. The eyes were open, the exposed corneas dry and clouded by exposure to air. The eye’s bright gleam during life is merely the light’s reflection off moist corneas; when the lids no longer blink, when the cornea is no longer bathed in fluid, the eyes turn dry and dull. It’s not the departure of the soul that drains the appearance of life from one’s eyes; it’s simply the cessation of the blink reflex. Maura gazed down at the two clouded bands across the cornea, and for an instant she imagined the eyes as they must have looked while alive. It was a startling glimpse into the mirror. She had the sudden, vertiginous thought that in fact she was the one lying on the table. That she was watching her own corpse being autopsied. Didn’t ghosts linger in the same places they frequented while alive? This is my haunt, she thought. The autopsy lab. This is where I’m doomed to spend eternity.
Abe peeled the scalp forward and the face collapsed like a rubber mask.
Maura shuddered. Looking away, she noticed that Rizzoli was once again watching her. Is she looking at me? Or at my ghost?
The whir of the Stryker saw seemed to drill straight into her marrow. Abe cut through the dome of exposed skull, preserving the segment where the bullet had punched through. Gently, he pried off and removed the cap of bone. The Black Talon tumbled out of the open cranium and clattered into the basin Yoshima was holding beneath it. It gleamed there, its metal points splayed open like the petals of a lethal blossom.
The brain was mottled with dark blood.
“Extensive hemorrhage, both hemispheres. Just what you’d expect from the X-rays,” Abe said. “The bullet entered here, left temporal bone. But it didn’t exit. You can see it there, in the films.” He pointed to the light box, where the bullet stood out as a bright starburst, resting against the inner curve of the left occipital bone.
Frost said, “Funny how it ended up on the same side of the skull it entered.”
“There was probably ricochet. The bullet punched into the cranium and bounced back and forth, slicing through brain. Expending all its energy on the soft tissue. Like spinning the blades of a blender.”
“Dr. Bristol?” It was his secretary, Stella, on the intercom.
“Yeah?”
“I found that case with the Black Talon. Victim’s name was Vassily Titov. Dr. Tierney did the autopsy.”
“Who was the detective on that case?”
“Um . . . here it is. Detectives Vann and Dunleavy.”
“I’ll check with them,” said Rizzoli. “See what they remember about it.”
“Thanks, Stella,” called Bristol. He looked at Yoshima, who had the camera ready. “Okay, snap away.”
Yoshima began to take photos of the exposed brain, capturing a permanent record of its appearance before Abe removed it from its bony house. Here is where a lifetime’s worth of memories were laid down, Maura thought, as she gazed at the glistening folds of gray matter. The ABC’s of childhood. Four times four is sixteen. The first kiss, the first lover, the first heartbreak. All are deposited, as packets of messenger RNA, into this complex collection of neurons. Memory was merely biochemistry, yet it defined each human being as an individual.
With a few nicks of the scalpel, Abe freed the brain and carried it in both hands, as though bearing treasure, to the countertop. He would not dissect it today; instead he would let it soak in a basin of fixative, to be sectioned later. But he needed no microscopic examination to see the evidence of trauma; it was there, in the bloody discoloration on the surface.
“So we’ve got the entrance wound here, in the left temple,” said Rizzoli.
“Yes, and the skin hole and cranial hole line up perfectly,” said Abe.
“That’s consistent with a straight shot into the side of the head.”
Abe nodded. “The perp probably pointed right through the driver’s window. And the window was open, so there was no glass to distort the trajectory.”
“So she’s just sitting there,” said Rizzoli. “Warm night. Window down. Eight o’clock, it’s getting dark. And he walks up to her car. Just points the gun and fires.” Rizzoli shook her head. “Why?”
“Didn’t take the purse,” said Abe.
“So not a robbery,” said Frost.
“Which leaves us with a crime of passion. Or a hit.” Rizzoli glanced at Maura. There it was again—that possibility of a targeted killing.
Did he hit the right target?
Abe suspended the brain in a bucket of formalin. “No surprises so far,” he said, as he turned to perform the neck dissection.
“You’ll be running tox screens?” asked Rizzoli.
Abe shrugged. “We can send one off, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. The cause of death is right up there.” He nodded toward the light box, where the bullet stood out against the cranial shadow. “You have any reason to want a tox screen? Did CST find any drugs or paraphernalia in the car?”
“Nothing. The car was pretty tidy. I mean, except for the blood.”
“And all of it is from the victim?”
“It’s all B positive, anyway.”
Abe glanced at Yoshima. “You typed our gal yet?”
Yoshima nodded. “It matches. She’s B positive.”
No one was looking at Maura. No one saw her chin snap up, or heard her sharp intake of breath. Abruptly she turned so they could not see her face, and she untied her mask, pulling it off with a brisk tug.
As she crossed to the trash can, Abe called out: “You bored with us already, Maura?”
“This jet lag is getting to me,” she said, shrugging off the gown. “I think I’m going to go home early. I’ll see you tomorrow, Abe.”
She fled the lab without a backward glance.
The drive home went by in a blur. Only as she reached the outskirts of Brookline did her brain suddenly unlock. Only then did she break out of the obsessive loop of thoughts that kept playing in her head. Don’t think about the autopsy. Put it out of your mind. Think about dinner, about anything but what you saw today.
She stopped at the grocery store. Her refrigerator was empty, and unless she wanted to eat tuna and frozen peas tonight, she needed to shop. It was a relief to focus on something else. She threw items into her cart with manic urgency. Far safer to think about food, about what she would cook for the rest of the week. Stop thinking about blood spatters and women’s organs in steel basins. I need grapefruits and apples. And don’t those eggplants look good? She picked up a bundle of fresh basil and greedily inhaled its scent, grateful that its pungency swe
pt away, if only for the moment, all the remembered smells of the autopsy lab. A week of bland French meals had left her starved for spices; tonight, she thought, I’ll cook a Thai green curry so hot it will burn my mouth.
At home she changed into shorts and a T-shirt and threw herself into preparing dinner. Sipped chilled white Bordeaux as she sliced chicken and onions and garlic. The steamy fragrance of jasmine rice filled the kitchen. No time to think of B positive blood and black-haired women; the oil’s smoking in the pot. Time to sauté the chicken, add the curry paste. Pour in the can of coconut milk. She covered the pot to let it simmer. Looked up at the kitchen window and suddenly caught a reflection of herself in the glass.
I look like her. Exactly like her.
A chill swept through her, as though the face in the window was not a reflection, but a phantom staring back. The lid on the pot rattled from the rising steam. Ghosts trying to get out. Desperate to get her attention.
She turned off the burner, crossed to the telephone, and dialed a pager number she knew by heart.
A moment later, Jane Rizzoli called. In the background, Maura could hear a phone ringing. So Rizzoli was not at home yet, but probably sitting at her desk in Schroeder Plaza.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Maura. “But I need to ask you something.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just want to know one more thing about her.”
“Anna Jessop?”
“Yes. You said she had a Massachusetts driver’s license.”
“That’s right.”
“What’s the birth date on her license?”
“What?”
“Today, in the autopsy lab, you said she was forty years old. What day was she born?”
“Why?”
“Please. I just need to know.”
“Okay. Hold on.”
Maura heard the shuffling of pages, then Rizzoli came back on the line. “According to that license, her birthday’s November twenty-fifth.”
For a moment, Maura did not say anything.
“You still there?” asked Rizzoli.
“Yes.”
“What’s the problem, Doc? What’s going on?”
Maura swallowed. “I need you to do something for me, Jane. It’s going to sound crazy.”
“Try me.”
“I want the crime lab to run my DNA against hers.”
Over the line, Maura heard the other telephone finally stop ringing. Rizzoli said, “Tell me that again. Because I don’t think I heard you right.”
“I want to know if my DNA matches Anna Jessop’s.”
“Look, I agree there’s a strong resemblance—”
“There’s more.”
“What else are you talking about?”
“We both have the same blood type. B positive.”
Rizzoli said, reasonably: “How many other people have B positive? It’s like, what? Ten percent of the population?”
“And her birthday. You said her birthday’s November twenty-fifth. Jane, so is mine.”
That news brought dead silence. Rizzoli said softly: “Okay, you just made the hairs on the back of my arms stand up.”
“You see why I want it, now? Everything about her—from the way she looks, to her blood type, to her date of birth . . .” Maura paused. “She’s me. I want to know where she comes from. I want to know who that woman is.”
A long pause. Then Rizzoli said, “Answering that question is turning out to be a lot harder than we thought.”
“Why?”
“We got back a credit report on her this afternoon. Found out that her MasterCard account is only six months old.”
“So?”
“Her driver’s license is four months old. The plates on her car were issued only three months ago.”
“What about her residence? She had an address in Brighton, right? You must have spoken to her neighbors.”
“We finally got hold of the landlady late last night. She says she rented it out to Anna Jessop three months ago. She let us into the apartment.”
“And?”
“It’s empty, Doc. Not a stick of furniture, not a frying pan, not a toothbrush. Someone had paid for cable TV and a phone line, but no one was there.”
“What about the neighbors?”
“Never saw her. They called her ‘the ghost.’”
“There must be some prior address. Another bank account—”
“We’ve looked. We can’t find anything on this woman that dates back earlier.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” said Rizzoli, “that until six months ago, Anna Jessop didn’t exist.”
FOUR
WHEN RIZZOLI WALKED INTO J. P. DOYLE’S, she found the usual suspects gathered around the bar. Cops, most of them, trading the day’s war stories over beer and peanuts. Located right down the street from Boston PD’s Jamaica Plain substation, Doyle’s was probably the safest watering hole in the city. Make one false move, and a dozen cops would be on you like a New England Patriots’ pile-on. She knew this crowd, and they all knew her. They parted to let the pregnant lady through, and she saw a few grins as she waddled in among them, her belly leading the way like a ship’s prow.
“Geez, Rizzoli,” someone called out. “You putting on weight or what?”
“Yeah.” She laughed. “But unlike you, I’ll be skinny by August.”
She made her way toward Detectives Vann and Dunleavy, who were waving at her from the bar. Sam and Frodo—that’s what everyone called the pair. The fat Hobbit and the skinny one, partners so long they acted like an old married couple, and probably spent more time with each other than they did with their wives. Rizzoli seldom saw the two apart, and she figured it was only a matter of time before they started dressing in matching outfits.
They grinned and saluted her with identical pints of Guinness.
“Hey, Rizzoli,” said Vann.
“—you’re late,” said Dunleavy.
“Already on our second round—”
“—You want one?”
Jesus, they even finished each other’s sentences. “It’s too noisy in here,” she said. “Let’s go in the other room.”
They headed into the dining area, toward her usual booth beneath the Irish flag. Dunleavy and Vann slid in opposite her, sitting cozily side by side. She thought of her own partner, Barry Frost, a nice guy, even a swell guy, but with whom she had absolutely nothing in common. At the end of the day, she went her way, Frost went his. They liked each other well enough, but she didn’t think she could stand much more togetherness than that. Certainly not as much as these two guys.
“So you’ve got yourself a Black Talon vic,” said Dunleavy.
“Last night, out in Brookline,” she said. “First Talon since your case. That was what, two years ago?”
“Yeah, about.”
“Closed?”
Dunleavy gave a laugh. “Nailed tight as a coffin.”
“Who was the shooter?”
“Guy named Antonin Leonov. Ukrainian immigrant, two-bit player, trying to go big league. Russian mob would’ve taken him out eventually, if we hadn’t arrested him first.”
“What a moron,” snorted Vann. “He had no idea we were watching him.”
“Why were you?” she asked.
“We got a tip he was expecting a delivery from Tajikistan,” said Dunleavy. “Heroin. Big one. We were on his tail for almost a week, and he never spotted us. So we follow him to his partner’s house. Vassily Titov. Titov must’ve pissed off Leonov or something. We watch as Leonov goes into Titov’s house. Then we hear gunshots, and Leonov comes back out.”
“And we’re waiting for him,” said Vann. “Like I said, a moron.”
Dunleavy raised his Guinness in a toast. “Open and shut. Perp’s caught with the weapon. We’re there to witness it. Don’t know why he even bothered to plead innocent. Took the jury less than an hour to come back with the verdict.”
“Did he ever tell you
how he got hold of those Black Talons?” she asked.
“You kidding?” said Vann. “He wouldn’t tell us anything. Hardly spoke any English, but he sure as hell knew the word Miranda.”
“We brought a team in to search his house and business,” said Dunleavy. “Found, like, eight boxes of Black Talons stored in his warehouse, can you believe it? Don’t know how he got his hands on so many, but he had quite a stash.” Dunleavy shrugged. “So that’s the scoop on Leonov. I don’t see how he connects with your shooting.”
“There’ve been only two Black Talon shootings here in five years,” she said. “Your case and mine.”
“Yeah, well, there’s probably a few bullets still floating around out there on the black market. Hell, check eBay. All I know is, we nailed Leonov, and good.” Dunleavy downed his pint. “You’ve got yourself a different shooter.”
Something she had already concluded. A feud between small-time Russian mobsters two years ago did not seem relevant to the murder of Anna Jessop. That Black Talon bullet was a dead link.
“You’ll lend me that file on Leonov?” she asked. “I still want to look it over.”
“On your desk tomorrow.”
“Thanks, guys.” She slid out of the booth and hauled herself to her feet.
“So when’re you popping?” asked Vann, nodding at her belly.
“Not soon enough.”
“The guys, they have a bet going, you know. On the baby’s sex.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I think we’re up to seventy bucks it’s a girl, forty bucks it’s a boy.”
Vann giggled. “And twenty bucks,” he said, “is on other.”
Rizzoli felt the baby give a kick as she let herself into her apartment. Settle down in there, Junior, she thought. It’s bad enough you treated me like a punching bag all day; now you’re going to keep it up all night as well? She didn’t know if she was carrying a boy, girl, or other; all she knew was that this kid was eager to be born.
Just stop trying to kung-fu your way out, okay?
She threw her purse and keys on the kitchen counter, kicked off her shoes by the door, and tossed her blazer over a dining room chair. Two days ago her husband, Gabriel, had left for Montana as part of an FBI team investigating a paramilitary weapons cache. Now the apartment was sliding back into the same comfortable anarchy that had reigned here before their marriage. Before Gabriel had moved in and instilled some semblance of discipline. Leave it to an ex-Marine to rearrange your pots and pans in order of size.