He doesn’t hear me coming. One moment he’s unzipping his fly. The next, he’s on the floor, his jaw shattered, loose teeth spilling from his mouth.
The second man barely has time to release the girl’s hands and jump up, but he’s not quick enough. I am the tiger and he is only a lumbering buffalo, stupid and helpless against my strike. With a shriek he drops to the ground, and judging by the grotesque angle of his arm, his bone has been snapped in two.
I grab the girl and yank her to her feet. “Are you unhurt?”
She zips up her jeans and stares at me. “Who the hell are you?”
“That’s for later. Now we go!” I bark.
“How did you do that? How did you bring them down so fast?”
“Do you want to learn?”
“Yes!”
I look at the two men groaning and writhing at our feet. “Then here is the first lesson: Know when to run.” I give her a shove toward the door. “That time would be now.”
I watch her eat. For such a small girl, she has the appetite of a wolf, and she devours three chicken tacos, a lake of refried beans, and a large glass of Coca-Cola. Mexican food was what she wanted, so we sit in a cafe where mariachi music plays and the walls are adorned with gaudy paintings of dancing señoritas. Though the girl’s features are Chinese, she is clearly American, from her cropped hair to her tattered jeans. A crude and feral creature who noisily slurps up the last of her Coke and crunches loudly on the ice cubes.
I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of this venture. She is already too old to be taught, too wild to learn discipline. I should simply release her back to the streets, if that’s where she wants to go, and find another way. But then I notice the scars on her knuckles and remember how close she came to single-handedly taking down the two men. She has talent and she is fearless, and those are things that cannot be taught.
“Do you remember me?” I ask.
The girl sets down her glass and frowns. For an instant I think I see a flash of recognition, but then it’s gone, and she shakes her head.
“It was a long time ago,” I say. “Twelve years.” An eternity for a girl so young. “You were small.”
She shrugs. “Then no wonder I don’t remember you.” She reaches in her jacket, pulls out a cigarette, and starts to light it.
“You’re polluting your body.”
“It’s my body,” she retorts.
“Not if you wish to train.” I reach across the table and snatch the cigarette from her lips. “If you want to learn, your attitude must change. You must show respect.”
She snorts. “You sound like my mother.”
“I knew your mother. In Boston.”
“Well, she’s dead.”
“I know. She wrote me last month. She told me she was ill and had very little time left. That’s why I’m here.”
I’m surprised to see tears glisten in the girl’s eyes, and she quickly turns away, as though ashamed to reveal weakness. But in that vulnerable instant, before she hides her eyes, she makes me think of my own daughter, who was younger than this girl’s age when I lost her. I feel my own eyes sting with tears, but I don’t try to hide them, because sorrow has made me who I am. It has been the refining fire that has honed my resolve and sharpened my purpose.
I need this girl. Clearly, she also needs me.
“It’s taken me weeks to find you,” I tell her.
“Foster home sucked. I’m better off on my own.”
“If your mother saw you now, her heart would break.”
“My mother never had time for me.”
“Maybe because she was working two jobs, trying to keep you fed? Because she couldn’t count on anyone but herself to do it?”
“She let the world walk all over her. Not once did I see her stand up for anything. Not even me.”
“She was afraid.”
“She was spineless.”
I lean forward, suddenly enraged by this ungrateful brat. “Your poor mother suffered in ways you can’t possibly imagine. Everything she did was for you.” In disgust, I toss her cigarette back at her. She is not the girl I’d hoped to find. She may be strong and fearless, but no sense of filial duty binds her to her dead mother and father, no sense of family honor. Without those ties to our ancestors, we are lonely specks of dust, adrift and floating, attached to nothing and no one.
I pay the bill for her meal and stand. “Someday, I hope you find the wisdom to understand what your mother sacrificed for you.”
“You’re already leaving?”
“There’s nothing I can teach you.”
“Why would you want to, anyway? Why did you even come looking for me?”
“I thought I would find someone different. Someone I could teach. Someone who would help me.”
“To do what?”
I don’t know how to answer her question, and for a moment the only sound is the tinny mariachi music spilling from the restaurant speakers.
“Do you remember your father?” I ask. “Do you remember what happened to him?”
She stares back at me. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? That’s why you came looking for me. Because my mother wrote you about him.”
“I knew your father, too. He was a good man. He loved you, and you dishonor him. You dishonor both of them.” I place a bundle of cash in front of her. “This is in their memory. Get off the street and go back to school. At least there, you won’t have to fight off strange men.” I turn and walk out of the restaurant.
In seconds she’s out the door and running after me. “Wait,” she calls. “Where are you going?”
“Back home to Boston.”
“I do remember you. I think I know what you want.”
I stop and face her. “It’s what you should want, too.”
“What do I have to do?”
I look her up and down. See scrawny shoulders and hips so narrow they barely hold up her blue jeans. “It’s not what you need to do,” I reply. “It’s what you need to be.”
Slowly I move toward her. Up till now she’s seen no reason to fear me, and why should she? I am just a woman, the same age as her mother was. But something she now sees in my eyes makes her take a step back. For the first time she understands that this could be the beginning of her worst nightmare.
“Are you afraid?” I ask her softly.
Her chin juts up, and she says with foolish bravado, “No. I’m not.”
“You should be.”
TWO
SEVEN YEARS LATER
MY NAME IS DR. MAURA ISLES, LAST NAME SPELLED I-S-L-E-S. I’m a forensic pathologist, employed by the medical examiner’s office in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
“Please describe for the court your education and background, Dr. Isles,” said the Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney, Carmela Aguilar.
Maura kept her gaze on the ADA as she answered the question. It was far easier to focus on Aguilar’s neutral face than to see the glares coming from the defendant and his supporters, at least two dozen of whom had gathered in the courtroom. Aguilar did not seem to notice or care that she was arguing her case before a hostile audience, but Maura was acutely aware of it; a large segment of that audience was law enforcement officers and their friends. They were not going to like what Maura had to say.
The defendant was Boston PD Officer Wayne Brian Graff, square-jawed and broad-shouldered, the vision of an all-American hero. The room’s sympathy was with Graff, not with the victim, a man who had ended up battered and broken on Maura’s autopsy table six months ago. A man who’d been buried unmourned and unclaimed. A man who had, two hours before his death, committed the fatal sin of shooting and killing a police officer.
Maura felt all those courtroom gazes burning into her face, hot as laser points, as she recited her curriculum vitae.
“I graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Anthropology,” she said. “I received my medical degree from the University of California in San Francisco, and went on to compl
ete a five-year pathology residency at that same institution. I am certified in both anatomical and clinical pathology. I then completed a two-year fellowship in the subspecialty of forensic pathology, at the University of California, Los Angeles.”
“And are you board certified in your field?”
“Yes, Ma’am. In both general and forensic pathology.”
“And where have you worked prior to joining the M.E.’s office here in Boston?”
“For seven years, I was a pathologist with the M.E.’s office in San Francisco. I also served as a clinical professor of pathology at the University of California. I hold medical licenses in both the states of Massachusetts and California.” It was more information than had been asked of her, and she could see Aguilar frown, because Maura had tripped up her planned sequence of questions. Maura had recited this information so many times before in court that she knew exactly what would be asked, and her responses were equally automatic. Where she’d trained, what her job required, and whether she was qualified to testify on this particular case.
Formalities completed, Aguilar finally got down to specifics. “Did you perform an autopsy on an individual named Fabian Dixon last October?”
“I did,” answered Maura. A matter-of-fact response, yet she could feel the tension instantly ratchet up in the courtroom.
“Tell us how Mr. Dixon came to be a medical examiner’s case.” Aguilar stood with her gaze fixed on Maura’s, as though to say: Ignore everyone else in the room. Just look at me and state the facts.
Maura straightened and began to speak, loudly enough for everyone in the courtroom to hear. “The decedent was a twenty-four-year-old man who was discovered unresponsive in the backseat of a Boston Police Department cruiser. This was approximately twenty minutes after his arrest. He was transported by ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival in the emergency room.”
“And that made him a medical examiner’s case?”
“Yes, it did. He was subsequently transferred to our morgue.”
“Describe for the court Mr. Dixon’s appearance when you first saw him.”
It didn’t escape Maura’s attention that Aguilar referred to the dead man by name. Not as the body or the deceased. It was her way of reminding the court that the victim had an identity. A name and a face and a life.
Maura responded likewise. “Mr. Dixon was a well-nourished man, of average height and weight, who arrived at our facility clothed only in cotton briefs and socks. His other clothing had been removed earlier during resuscitation attempts in the emergency room. EKG pads were still affixed to his chest, and an intravenous catheter remained in his left arm …” She paused. Here was where things got uncomfortable. Although she avoided looking at the audience and the defendant, she could feel their eyes on her.
“And the condition of his body? Would you describe it for us?” Aguilar prodded.
“There were multiple bruises over the chest, the left flank, and the upper abdomen. Both eyes were swollen shut, and there were lacerations of the lip and scalp. Two of his teeth—the upper front incisors—were missing.”
“Objection.” The defense attorney stood. “There’s no way of knowing when he lost those teeth. They could have been missing for years.”
“One tooth showed up on X-ray. In his stomach,” said Maura.
“The witness should refrain from commenting until I’ve ruled,” the judge cut in severely. He looked at the defense attorney. “Objection overruled. Ms. Aguilar, proceed.”
The ADA nodded, her lips twitching into a smile, and she refocused on Maura. “So Mr. Dixon was badly bruised, he had lacerations, and at least one of his teeth had recently been knocked out.”
“Yes,” said Maura. “As you’ll see from the morgue photographs.”
“If it please the court, we would like to show those morgue photos now,” said Aguilar. “I should warn the audience, these are not pleasant to look at. If any visitors in the courtroom would prefer not to see them, I suggest they leave at this point.” She paused and looked around.
No one left the room.
As the first slide went up, revealing Fabian Dixon’s battered body, there were audible intakes of breath. Maura had kept her description of Dixon’s bruises understated, because she knew the photos would tell the story better than she could. Photos couldn’t be accused of taking sides or lying. And the truth staring from that image was obvious to all: Fabian Dixon had been savagely battered before being placed in the backseat of the police cruiser.
Other slides appeared as Maura described what she had found on autopsy. Multiple broken ribs. A swallowed tooth in the stomach. Aspirated blood in the lungs. And the cause of death: a splenic rupture, which had led to massive intraperitoneal hemorrhage.
“And what was the manner of Mr. Dixon’s death, Dr. Isles?” Aguilar asked.
This was the key question, the one that she dreaded answering, because of the consequences that would follow.
“Homicide,” said Maura. It was not her job to point out the guilty party. She restricted her answer to that one word, but she couldn’t help glancing at Wayne Graff. The accused police officer sat motionless, his face as unreadable as granite. For more than a decade, he had served the city of Boston with distinction. A dozen character witnesses had stepped forward to tell the court how Officer Graff had courageously come to their aid. He was a hero, they said, and Maura believed them.
But on the night of October 31, the night that Fabian Dixon murdered a police officer, Wayne Graff and his partner had transformed into angels of vengeance. They’d made the arrest, and Dixon was in their custody when he died. Subject was agitated and violent, as if under the influence of PCP or crack, they wrote in their statement. They described Dixon’s crazed resistance, his superhuman strength. It had taken both officers to wrestle the prisoner into the cruiser. Controlling him required force, but he did not seem to notice pain. During this struggle, he was making grunts and animal sounds and trying to take off his clothes, even though it was forty degrees that night. They had described, almost too perfectly, the known medical condition of excited delirium, which had killed other cocaine-addled prisoners.
But months later, the toxicology report showed only alcohol in Dixon’s system. It left no doubt in Maura’s mind that the manner of death was homicide. And one of the killers now sat at the defense table, staring at Maura.
“I have no further questions,” said Aguilar and she sat down, looking confident that she had successfully made her case.
Morris Whaley, the defense attorney, rose for the cross-examination, and Maura felt her muscles tense. Whaley appeared cordial enough as he approached the witness stand, as if he intended only to have a friendly chat. Had they met at a cocktail party, she might have found him pleasant company, an attractive enough man in his Brooks Brothers suit.
“I think we’re all impressed by your credentials, Dr. Isles,” he said. “So I won’t take up any more of the court’s time reviewing your academic achievements.”
She said nothing, just stared at his smiling face, wondering from which direction the attack would come.
“I don’t think anyone in this room doubts that you’ve worked hard to get where you are today,” Whaley continued. “Especially taking into account some of the challenges you’ve faced in your personal life in the past few months.”
“Objection.” Aguilar heaved an exasperated sigh and stood. “This is not relevant.”
“It is, your honor. It goes to the witness’s judgment,” said Whaley.
“How so?” the judge countered.
“Past experiences can affect how a witness interprets the evidence.”
“What experiences are you referring to?”
“If you’ll allow me to explore that issue, it will become apparent.”
The judge stared hard at Whaley. “For the moment, I’ll allow this line of questioning. But only for the moment.”
Aguilar sat back down, scowling.
Whaley turned his attention back to Maura. “Dr. Isles, do you happen to recall the date that you examined the deceased?”
Maura paused, taken aback by the abrupt return to the topic of the autopsy. It did not slip past her that he’d avoided using the victim’s name.
“You are referring to Mr. Dixon?” she said, and saw irritation flicker in his eyes.
“Yes.”
“The date of the postmortem was November first of last year.”
“And on that date, did you determine the cause of death?”
“Yes. As I said earlier, he died of massive internal hemorrhage secondary to a ruptured spleen.”
“On that same date, did you also specify the manner of death?”
She hesitated. “No. At least, not a final—”
“Why not?”
She took a breath, aware of all the eyes watching her. “I wanted to wait for the results of the toxicology screen. To see whether Mr. Dixon was, in fact, under the influence of cocaine or other pharmaceuticals. I wanted to be cautious.”
“As well you should. When your decision could destroy the careers, even the lives, of two dedicated peace officers.”
“I don’t concern myself with consequences, Mr. Whaley. I only concern myself with the facts. Wherever they may lead.”
He didn’t like that answer; she could see it in the twitch of his jaw muscle. All semblance of cordiality had vanished; this was now a battle.
“So you performed the autopsy on November first,” he said.
“Yes.”
“What happened after that?”
“I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
“Did you take the weekend off? Did you spend the following week performing other autopsies?”
She stared at him, anxiety coiling like a serpent in her stomach. She didn’t know where he was taking this, but she didn’t like the direction. “I attended a pathology conference,” she said.