“I’m afraid it’s a homicide.”
“You’re certain? Absolutely?”
Oh yes. Absolutely. “Mrs. Bazarian, if you could think back to Sunday night—”
“My husband isn’t coming home until Monday, and I’m alone here with the kids. Are we safe?”
“Tell me about Sunday night.”
“Are my children safe?”
It was the first question any mother would ask. Jane thought about her own three-year-old daughter, Regina. Thought about how she would feel in Nora Bazarian’s position, with two young children, living so close to a place of violence. Would she prefer reassurance, or the truth, which was that Jane didn’t know the answer. She couldn’t promise that anyone was ever safe.
“Until we know more,” said Jane, “it would be a good idea to take precautions.”
“What do you know?”
“We believe it happened sometime Sunday night.”
“He’s been dead all this time,” Nora murmured. “Right next door, and I had no idea.”
“You didn’t see or hear anything unusual Sunday night?”
“You can see for yourself, he has a tall fence all around his yard, so we never knew what was going on there. Except when he was making that god-awful racket in his backyard workshop.”
“What kind of noise?”
“This horrible whine, like a power saw. To think he had the nerve to complain about a crying baby!”
Jane remembered seeing Gott’s hearing aids on the bathroom counter. If he’d been working with noisy machinery Sunday night, he’d certainly leave out those hearing aids. It was yet one more reason he would not have heard an intruder.
“You said you got home late Sunday night. Were Mr. Gott’s lights on?”
Nora didn’t even need to think about it. “Yes, they were,” she said. “I remember being annoyed because the light on his backyard shed shines directly into my bedroom. But when I went to bed, around ten thirty, the light was finally off.”
“What about the dog? Was he barking?”
“Oh, Bruno. He’s always barking, that’s the problem. He probably barks at houseflies.”
Of which there were now plenty, thought Jane. Bruno was barking at that moment, in fact. Not in alarm, but with doggy excitement about the many strangers in his front yard.
Nora turned toward the sound. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to find someone to take him. And the cats as well.”
“I’m not crazy about cats, but I wouldn’t mind keeping the dog here. Bruno knows us, and he’s always been friendly with my boys. I’d feel safer, having a dog here.”
She might not feel the same way if she knew Bruno was even now digesting morsels of his dead owner’s flesh.
“Do you know if Mr. Gott had any next of kin?” asked Jane.
“He had a son, but he died some years ago, on a foreign trip. His ex-wife’s dead, too, and I’ve never seen any woman there.” Nora shook her head. “It’s an awful thing to think about. Dead for four days and no one even notices. That’s how unconnected he seemed to be.”
Through the kitchen window, Jane caught a glimpse of Maura, who’d just emerged from Gott’s house and now stood on the sidewalk, checking messages on her cell phone. Like Gott, Maura lived alone, and even now she seemed an isolated figure, standing off by herself. Left to her solitary nature, might Maura one day evolve into another Leon Gott?
The morgue van had arrived, and the first TV crews were scrambling into position outside the police tape. But tonight, after all these cops and criminalists and reporters departed, the crime scene tape would remain, marking the home where a killer had visited. And here, right next door, was a mother alone with her two children.
“It wasn’t just random, was it?” said Nora. “Was it someone he knew? What do you think you’re dealing with?”
A monster was what Jane thought as she slipped her pen and notebook into her purse and stood up. “I notice you have a security system, ma’am,” she said. “Use it.”
Four
Maura carried the cardboard box from her car into the house and set it down on the kitchen floor. The gray tabby was mewing pitifully, begging to be released, but Maura kept him contained in the box as she hunted in her pantry for a cat-appropriate meal. She’d had no chance to stop at the grocery store for cat food, had impulsively taken on the tabby because no one else would, and the only alternative was the animal shelter.
And because the cat, by practically grafting himself to her leg, had clearly adopted her.
In the pantry Maura found a bag of dry dog food, left over from Julian’s last visit with his dog Bear. Would a cat eat dog food? She wasn’t sure. She reached for a can of sardines instead.
The tabby’s cries turned frantic as Maura opened the can, releasing its fishy fragrance. She emptied the sardines into a bowl and opened the cardboard box. The cat shot out and attacked the fish so ravenously that the bowl skittered across the kitchen tiles.
“Guess sardines taste better than human, huh?” She stroked the tabby’s back, and his tail arched up in pleasure. She had never owned a cat. She’d never had the time or the inclination to adopt any pet, unless she counted the brief and ultimately tragic experience with the Siamese fighting fish. She wasn’t certain she wanted this pet, either, but here he was, purring like an outboard motor as his tongue licked the china bowl—the same bowl she used for her breakfast cereal. That was a disturbing thing to consider. Man-eating cat. Cross-contamination. She thought of all the diseases that felines were known to harbor: Cat scratch fever. Toxoplasma gondii. Feline leukemia. Rabies and roundworms and salmonella. Cats were veritable cesspools of infection, and one was now eating out of her cereal bowl.
The tabby lapped up the last fragment of sardine and looked up at Maura with crystal-green eyes, his gaze so intent that he seemed to be reading her mind, recognizing a kindred spirit. This is how crazy cat ladies are created, she thought. They look into an animal’s eyes and think they see a soul looking back. And what did this cat see when he looked at Maura? The human with the can opener.
“If only you could talk,” she said. “If only you could tell us what you saw.”
But this tabby was keeping his secrets. He allowed her to give him a few more strokes, then he sauntered away into a corner, where he proceeded to wash himself. So much for feline affection. It was Feed me, now leave me alone. Maybe he truly was the perfect pet for her, both of them loners, unsuited for long-term companionship.
Since he was ignoring her, she ignored him and attended to her own dinner. She slid a leftover casserole of eggplant Parmesan into the oven, poured a glass of Pinot Noir, and sat down at her laptop to upload the photos from the Gott crime scene. On screen she saw once again the gutted body, the face stripped to bone, the blowfly larvae gorged on flesh, and she remembered all too vividly the smells of that house, the hum of the flies. It would not be a pleasant autopsy tomorrow. Slowly she clicked through the images, searching for details that she might have overlooked while at the scene, where the presence of cops and criminalists was a noisy distraction. She saw nothing that was inconsistent with her postmortem interval estimate of four to five days. The extensive injuries to the face, neck, and upper limbs could be attributed to scavenger damage. And that means you, she thought, glancing at the tabby, who was serenely licking his paws. What was his name? She had no idea, but she couldn’t just keep calling him Cat.
The next photo was of the mound of viscera inside the trash can, a congealed mass that she would need to soak and peel apart before she could adequately examine the individual organs. It would be the most repellent part of the autopsy, because it was in the viscera where putrefaction started, where bacteria thrived and multiplied. She clicked through the next few images, then stopped, focusing on yet another view of the viscera in the trash can. The lighting was different in this image because the flash had not gone off, and in the slanting light, new curves and fissures
were revealed on the surface.
The doorbell rang.
She wasn’t expecting visitors. Certainly she didn’t expect to find Jane Rizzoli standing on her front porch.
“Thought you might need this,” said Jane, holding out a shopping bag.
“Need what?”
“Kitty litter, and a box of Friskies. Frost feels guilty that you’re the one who got stuck with the cat, so I told him I’d drop this off. Has he torn up your furniture yet?”
“Demolished a can of sardines, that’s about it. Come in, you can see for yourself how he’s doing.”
“Probably a lot better than the other one.”
“Gott’s white cat? What did you do with it?”
“No one can catch it. It’s still hiding somewhere in that house.”
“I hope you gave it some fresh food and water.”
“Frost has taken charge, of course. Claims he can’t stand cats, but you should’ve seen him down on his hands and knees, begging kitty, pretty please! to come out from under the bed. He’ll go back tomorrow and change the litter box.”
“I think he could really use a pet. He’s got to be pretty lonely these days.”
“Is that why you took one home?”
“Of course not. I took him home because …” Maura sighed. “I have no idea why. Because he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Yeah, he knows a patsy when he sees one,” Jane said with a laugh as she followed Maura to the kitchen. “There’s the lady who’ll feed me cream and pâté.”
In the kitchen Maura stared in dismay at the tabby, who was on top of the kitchen table, his front paws planted on her laptop keyboard. “Shoo,” she snapped. “Get off!”
The cat yawned and rolled onto his side.
Maura scooped him up and dropped him onto the floor. “And stay off.”
“You know, he can’t really hurt your computer,” said Jane.
“It’s not the computer, it’s the table. I eat at that table.” Maura grabbed a sponge, squirted it with spray cleaner, and began wiping the tabletop.
“I think you might have missed a microbe there.”
“Not funny. Think of where that cat’s been. What his feet have been walking through in the past four days. Would you want to eat at that table?”
“He’s probably cleaner than my three-year-old.”
“No disagreement there. Children are like fomites.”
“What?”
“Spreading infections everywhere they go.” Maura gave the table one last vigorous swipe and threw the sponge in the trash can.
“I’ll remember that when I get home. Come to Mommy, my sweet little fomite.” Jane opened the bag of kitty litter and poured it into the plastic litter box she’d also brought. “Where do want to put this?”
“I was hoping I could just let him out and he’d do his business in the yard.”
“Let him out and he might not come back.” Jane clapped litter dust from her hands and straightened. “Or maybe that’s a good thing?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing him home. Just because he attached himself to me. It’s not as if I wanted a cat.”
“You just said Frost needed a pet. Why not you?”
“Frost just got divorced. He’s not used to being alone.”
“And you are.”
“I have been for years, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.” Maura looked around at the spotless countertops, the scrubbed sink. “Unless some miracle man suddenly appears.”
“Hey, that’s what you should call him,” said Jane, pointing to the cat. “Miracle Man.”
“That is not going to be his name.” The kitchen timer beeped, and Maura opened the oven to check on the casserole.
“Smells good.”
“It’s eggplant Parmesan. I couldn’t stomach the thought of eating meat tonight. Are you hungry? There’s enough here for two of us.”
“I’m going to my mom’s for dinner. Gabriel’s still in DC, and Mom can’t stand the thought of me and Regina by ourselves.” Jane paused. “Maybe you want to join us, just for the company?”
“It’s nice of you to ask, but my dinner’s already heated up.”
“Not necessarily tonight, but in general. Anytime you need a family to hang out with.”
Maura gave her a long look. “Are you adopting me?”
Jane pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. “Look, I feel we still need to clear the air between us. We haven’t talked much since the Teddy Clock case, and I know the last few months have been tough on you. I should have asked you to dinner a long time ago.”
“I should have invited you, too. We’ve both been busy, that’s all.”
“You know, it really worried me, Maura, when you said you were thinking about leaving Boston.”
“Why would it worry you?”
“After all we’ve been through together, how can you just walk away? We’ve lived through things no one else could possibly understand. Like that.” Jane pointed to Maura’s computer, where the photo of entrails was still on screen. “Tell me, who else am I gonna talk to about guts in a trash can? It’s not something that normal people would do.”
“Meaning, I’m not normal.”
“You don’t honestly think that I am, do you?” Jane laughed. “We’re both sick and twisted. That’s the only explanation for why we’re in this business. And why we make such a good team.”
It was something Maura could not have predicted when she’d first met Jane.
She’d earlier heard of Jane’s reputation, muttered by the male cops: Bitch. Ballbuster. Always on the rag. The woman who strode onto the crime scene that day had certainly been blunt, focused, and relentless. She was also one of the best detectives Maura had ever encountered.
“You once told me you didn’t have anything keeping you here in Boston,” said Jane. “I’m just reminding you it’s not true. You and I, we’ve got a history together.”
“Right.” Maura snorted. “Of getting into trouble.”
“And getting ourselves out of it, together. What’s waiting for you in San Francisco?”
“I did get an offer from an old colleague there. A teaching position at UC.”
“What about Julian? You’re the closest thing to a mother that boy has. You go off to California, he’ll feel like you’re abandoning him here.”
“I hardly get a chance to see him as it is. Julian’s seventeen, and he’ll be applying for college. Who knows where he’ll end up, and there are some fine schools in California. I can’t hitch my life to a boy who’s just starting his own.”
“This job offer in San Francisco. Does it pay better? Is that it?”
“That’s not why I’d take it.”
“It’s about running away, isn’t it? Getting the hell out of Dodge.” Jane paused. “Does he know you might leave Boston?”
He. Abruptly Maura turned away and refilled her wineglass. Driven to drink, just by the mention of Daniel Brophy. “I haven’t spoken to Daniel in months.”
“But you see him.”
“Of course. When I walk onto a crime scene, I never know if he’ll be there. Comforting the family, praying for the victim. We move in the same circles, Jane. The circle of the dead.” She took a deep sip of wine. “It would be a relief to escape it.”
“So going to California is all about avoiding him.”
“And temptation,” Maura said softly.
“To go back to him?” Jane shook her head. “You made your decision. Stick with it and move on. That’s what I would do.”
And that’s what made them so different from each other. Jane was quick to act, and always certain about what needed to be done. She wasted no sleep second-guessing herself. But uncertainty was what kept Maura awake at night, mulling over choices, considering their consequences. If only life were like a mathematical formula, with just one answer.
Jane stood up. “Think about what I said, okay? It’d be way too much work for me to break in
another ME. So I’m counting on you to stay.” She touched Maura’s arm and added quietly: “I’m asking you to stay.” Then, in typical Jane Rizzoli fashion, she brusquely turned to leave. “See you tomorrow.”
“Autopsy’s in the morning,” said Maura as they walked to the front door.
“I’d rather skip it. I’ve seen more than enough maggots, thank you.”
“Surprises might turn up. You wouldn’t want to miss it.”
“The only surprise,” Jane said as she stepped outside, “will be if Frost shows up.”
Maura locked the door and returned to the kitchen, where the eggplant casserole had cooled. She slid it back into the oven to reheat. The cat had once again jumped onto the table and draped himself over the laptop keyboard, as if to say: No more work tonight. Maura snatched him up and dropped him to the floor. Someone had to exert authority in this house, and it most certainly was not going to be a cat. He’d reawakened the screen, which was now lit with the last image she’d been studying. It was the photo of the viscera, the undulated surface emphasized by shadows cast in the slanting light. She was about to close the laptop when she focused on the liver. Frowning, she zoomed in and stared at the surface curves and fissures. It was not just a trick of the light. Nor was it distortion caused by bacterial swelling.
Thi*s liver has six lobes.
She reached for the phone.
Five
Botswana
“Where is he?” Sylvia is screaming. “Where’s the rest of him?”
She and Vivian stand a few dozen yards away, under the trees. They are staring down at the ground, at something hidden from my view by knee-high grass. I step over the camp’s perimeter wire, where the bells still hang, bells that gave no warning clang in the night. Instead it is Sylvia who has given the alarm, her shrieks pulling us out of our tents in various states of undress. Mr. Matsunaga is still zipping up his trousers as he lurches out through his tent flap. Elliot doesn’t even bother to pull on pants, but stumbles out into the cold dawn wearing only boxer shorts and sandals. I’ve managed to snatch up one of Richard’s shirts and I pull it over my nightdress as I wade into the grass, my boots still untied, a trapped pebble biting into my bare sole. I spot a bloody shred of khaki, tangled like a snake around the branch of a bush. Another few steps closer, and I see more ripped cloth, and a clump of what looks like black wool. I take another few steps, and I see what the girls are staring at. Now I know why Sylvia is screaming.