Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Bundle Page 35

  Korsak flipped the switch, and the room dropped into darkness. Starlight shone in faintly through the large uncurtained windows, but there was no moon and the backyard’s thick trees blocked out the lights of neighboring houses.

  “Not bad,” said Mick. “I can work with this. Better than some crime scenes, where I’ve had to crawl around under a blanket. You know, they’re developing imaging systems that can be used in daylight. One of these days, we won’t have to stumble around like blind men in the dark.”

  “Can we cut to the chase and get started?” Korsak snapped.

  “I just thought you’d be interested in some of this technology.”

  “Some other time, okay?”

  “Whatever,” said Mick, unruffled.

  Rizzoli slipped on her goggles as the Crimescope’s blue light came on. The eerie glow of fluorescing shapes appeared like ghosts in the dark room, the rug and the couch bouncing back light as Mick had predicted. The blue light moved toward the opposite wall, where Dr. Yeager’s corpse had been sitting, and bright slivers glowed on the wall.

  “Kind of pretty, isn’t it?” said Mick.

  “What is that?” asked Korsak.

  “Strands of hair, adhering to the blood.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s real pretty.”

  “Shine it on the floor,” said Rizzoli. “That’s where it’ll be.”

  Mick aimed the UV lens downward, and a new universe of revealed fibers and hairs glowed at their feet. Trace evidence that the initial vacuuming by the CSU had left behind.

  “The more intense the light source, the more intense the fluorescence,” said Mick as he scanned the floor. “That’s why this unit is so great. At four hundred watts, it’s bright enough to pick up everything. The FBI bought seventy-one of these babies. It’s so compact, you can bring it on a plane as a carry-on.”

  “What are you, some techno freak?” said Korsak.

  “I like cool gadgets. I was an engineering major.”

  “You were?”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “I didn’t think guys like you were into that stuff.”

  “Guys like me?”

  “I mean, the earring and all. You know.”

  Rizzoli sighed. “Open mouth, insert foot.”

  “What?” said Korsak. “I’m not putting them down or anything. I just happen to notice that not many of them go into engineering. More like theater and the arts and stuff. I mean, that’s good. We need artists.”

  “I went to U. Mass,” said Mick, refusing to take offense. He continued to scan the floor. “Electrical engineering.”

  “Hey, electricians make good money.”

  “Um, that’s not quite the same career.”

  They were moving in an ever-widening circle, the UV light continuing to pick up the occasional fleck of hair, fibers, and other unidentifiable particles. Suddenly they moved into a startlingly bright field.

  “The rug,” said Mick. “Whatever these fibers are, they’re fluorescing like crazy. Won’t be able to see much against this background.”

  “Scan it anyway,” said Rizzoli.

  “Coffee table’s in the way. Could you move it?”

  Rizzoli reached down toward what appeared to her as only a geometric shadow against a fluorescing background of white. “Korsak, get the other end,” she said.

  With the coffee table moved aside, the area rug was a bright oval pool that glowed bluish-white.

  “How we gonna spot anything on that background?” said Korsak. “It’s like trying to see glass floating in water.”

  “Glass doesn’t float,” said Mick.

  “Oh, right. You’re the engineer. So what’s Mick short for, anyway? Mickey?”

  “Let’s do the couch,” Rizzoli cut in.

  Mick redirected the lens. The couch fabric also glowed under UV, but it was a softer fluorescence, like snow under moonlight. Slowly he scanned the padded frame, then the cushions, but spotted no suspicious smears, only a few long stray hairs and dust particles.

  “These were tidy people,” said Mick. “No stains, not even much dust. I’ll bet this couch is brand-new.”

  Korsak grunted. “Must be nice. Last new couch I bought was when I got married.”

  “Okay, there’s some more floor space back there. Let’s move that way.”

  Rizzoli felt Korsak bump into her, and she smelled his doughy odor of sweat. His breathing was noisy, as though he had sinus problems, and the darkness seemed to amplify his snuffling. Annoyed, she stepped away from him and slammed her shin against the coffee table.

  “Shit.”

  “Hey, watch where you’re going,” said Korsak.

  She bit back a retort; things were already tense enough in this room. She bent down to rub her leg. The darkness and the abrupt change in position made her dizzy and disoriented. She had to squat down so she wouldn’t lose her balance. For a few seconds she crouched in the blackness, hoping Korsak wouldn’t trip over her, since he was heavy enough to squash her flat. She could hear the two men moving about a few feet away.

  “The cord’s tangled,” said Mick. The Crimescope light suddenly shifted in Rizzoli’s direction as he turned to free up the power cord.

  The beam washed across the rug where Rizzoli was crouched. She stared. Framed by the background fluorescence of the rug fibers was a dark irregular spot, smaller than a dime.

  “Mick,” she said.

  “Can you lift that end of the coffee table? I think the cord’s wrapped around the leg.”

  “Mick.”

  “What?”

  “Bring the scope over here. Focus on the rug. Right where I am.”

  Mick came toward her. Korsak did, too; she could hear his adenoidal breathing moving closer.

  “Aim at my hand,” she said. “I’ve got my finger near the spot.”

  Bluish light suddenly bathed the rug, and her hand was a black silhouette against the fluorescing background.

  “There,” she said. “What is it?”

  Mick crouched beside her. “A stain of some kind. I should get a photo of that.”

  “But it’s a dark spot,” said Korsak. “I thought we were looking for something that fluoresces.”

  “When the background’s highly fluorescent, like these carpet fibers, body fluids may actually look dark, because they don’t fluoresce as brightly. This stain could be anything. The lab will have to confirm it.”

  “So what, are we gonna cut a piece out of this nice rug, just because we’ve found an old coffee stain or something?”

  Mick paused. “There’s one more trick we can try.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to change the wavelength on this scope. Bring it down to UV shortwave.”

  “What does that do?”

  “It’s real cool if it happens.”

  Mick adjusted the settings, then focused the light on the area of rug containing the dark blot. “Watch,” he said, and flipped off the power to the Crimescope.

  The room went pitch-black. All except for one bright spot glowing at their feet.

  “What the hell is that?” said Korsak.

  Rizzoli felt as though she were hallucinating. She stared at the ghostly image, which seemed to burn with green fire. Even as she watched, the spectral glow began to fade. Seconds later, they were in complete blackness.

  “Phosphorescence,” said Mick. “It’s delayed fluorescence. It happens when UV light excites electrons in certain substances. The electrons take a little extra time to return to their baseline energy state. As they do, they release photons of light. That’s what we were seeing. We’ve got a stain here that phosphoresces bright green after exposure to short-wavelength UV light. That’s very suggestive.” He rose and switched on the room lights.

  In the sudden brightness, the rug they had been staring at with such fascination appeared utterly ordinary. But she could not look at it now without feeling a sense of revulsion, because she knew what had taken place there; the evidence of Gail
Yeager’s ordeal still clung to those beige fibers.

  “It’s semen,” she said.

  “It very well could be,” said Mick as he set up the camera tripod and attached the Kodak Wratten filter for UV photography. “After I get a shot of this, we’ll cut out this section of the rug. The lab will have to confirm with acid phosphatase and microscopic.”

  But Rizzoli needed no confirmation. She turned toward the blood-spattered wall. She remembered the position of Dr. Yeager’s body, and she remembered the teacup that had fallen from his lap and shattered on the wood floor. The spot of phosphorescing green on the rug confirmed what she had feared. She understood what had happened, as surely as if the scene were playing out before her eyes.

  You dragged them from their beds to this room, with its wood floor. Bound the doctor’s wrists and ankles and taped over his mouth so he could not cry out, could not distract you. You sat him there, against that wall, making him your mute audience of one. Richard Yeager is still alive, and fully aware of what you are about to do. But he cannot fight back. He cannot protect his wife. And to alert you to his movements, his struggles, you place a teacup and saucer on his lap, as an early-warning system. It will clatter on this hard floor should he manage to rise to his feet. In the throes of your own pleasure, you cannot keep an eye on what Dr. Yeager is doing, and you do not want to be taken by surprise.

  But you want him to watch.

  She stared down at the spot that had glowed bright green. Had they not moved the coffee table, had they not been searching specifically for those trace leavings, they might have missed it.

  You claimed her, here on this rug. Took her in full view of her husband, who could do nothing to save her, who could not even save himself. And when it was done, when you had taken your spoils, one small drop of semen was left on these fibers, drying to an invisible film.

  Was killing the husband part of the pleasure? Did the unsub pause, his hand gripping the knife, to savor the moment? Or was it merely a practical conclusion to the events that preceded it? Did he feel anything at all as he grasped Richard Yeager by the hair and pressed the blade to his throat?

  The room lights went off. Mick’s camera shutter clacked again and again, capturing the dark smear, surrounded by the fluorescent glow of the rug.

  And when the task is done, and Dr. Yeager sits with head bowed, his blood dripping on the wall behind him, you perform a ritual borrowed from another killer’s bag of tricks. You fold Mrs. Yeager’s spattered nightgown and place it on display in the bedroom, just as Warren Hoyt used to do.

  But you are not finished yet. This was just the first act. More pleasures, terrible pleasures, lie ahead.

  For that, you take the woman.

  The room lights came back on, and the glare was like a stab to her eyes. She was stunned and shaking, rocked by terrors that she had not felt in months. And humiliated that these two men must surely see it in her white face, her unsteady hands. Suddenly she could not breathe.

  She walked out of the room, out of the house. Stood in the front yard, drawing in desperate breaths of air. Footsteps followed her out, but she did not turn to see who it was. Only when he spoke did she know it was Korsak.

  “You okay, Rizzoli?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You didn’t look fine.”

  “I was just feeling a little dizzy.”

  “It’s a flashback to the Hoyt case, isn’t it? Seeing this, it’s gotta shake you up.”

  “How would you know?”

  A pause. Then, with a snort: “Yeah, you’re right. How the hell would I know?” He started back to the house.

  She turned and called out: “Korsak?”

  “What?”

  They stared at each other for a moment. The night air was not unpleasant, and the grass smelled cool and sweet. But dread was thick as nausea in her stomach.

  “I know what she’s feeling,” she said softly. “I know what she’s going through.”

  “Mrs. Yeager?”

  “You have to find her. You have to pull out all the stops.”

  “Her face is all over the news. We’re following up every phone tip, every sighting.” Korsak shook his head and sighed. “But you know, at this point, I gotta wonder if he’s kept her alive.”

  “He has. I know he has.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  She hugged herself to quell the trembling and looked at the house. “It’s what Warren Hoyt would have done.”

  three

  Of all her duties as a detective in Boston’s homicide unit, it was the visits to the unobtrusive brick building on Albany Street that Rizzoli disliked most. Though she suspected she was no more squeamish than her male colleagues, she in particular could not afford to reveal any vulnerability. Men were too good at spotting weaknesses, and they would inevitably aim for those tender places with their barbs and their practical jokes. She had learned to maintain a stoic front, to gaze without flinching upon the worst the autopsy table had to offer. No one suspected how much sheer nerve it took for her to walk so matter-of-factly into that building. She knew the men thought of her as the fearless Jane Rizzoli, the bitch with the brass balls. But sitting in her car in the parking lot behind the M.E.’s office, she felt neither fearless nor brassy.

  Last night, she had not slept well. For the first time in weeks, Warren Hoyt had crept back into her dreams, and she had awakened drenched in sweat, her hands aching from the old wounds.

  She looked down at her scarred palms and suddenly wanted to start the car and drive away, anything to avoid the ordeal that awaited her inside the building. She did not have to be here; this was, after all, a Newton homicide—not her responsibility. But Jane Rizzoli had never been a coward, and she was too proud to back down now.

  She stepped out of the car, slammed the door shut with a fierce bang, and walked into the building.

  She was the last to arrive in the autopsy lab, and the other three people in the room gave her quick nods of greeting. Korsak was draped in an extra-large O.R. gown and wearing a bouffant paper cap. He looked like an overweight housewife in a hairnet.

  “What have I missed?” she asked as she, too, pulled on a gown to protect her clothes from unexpected splatter.

  “Not much. We’re just talking about the duct tape.”

  Dr. Maura Isles was performing the autopsy. The Queen of the Dead was what the homicide unit had dubbed her a year ago, when she’d first joined the Commonwealth of Massachusetts medical examiner’s office. Dr. Tierney himself had lured her to Boston from her plum faculty position at the U.C. San Francisco Medical School. It did not take long for the local press to start calling her by her Queen of the Dead nickname as well. At her first Boston court appearance, testifying for the M.E.’s office, she had arrived dressed in Goth black. The TV cameras had followed her regal figure as she strode up the courthouse steps, a strikingly pale woman with a slash of red lipstick, shoulder-length raven hair with blunt bangs, and an attitude of cool imperviousness. On the stand, nothing had rattled her. As the defense attorney flirted, cajoled, and finally resorted in desperation to outright bullying, Dr. Isles had answered his questions with unfailing logic, all the while maintaining her Mona Lisa smile. The press loved her. Defense attorneys dreaded her. And homicide cops were both spooked and fascinated by this woman who’d chosen to spend her days in communion with the dead.

  Dr. Isles presided over the autopsy with her usual dispassion. Her assistant, Yoshima, was equally matter-of-fact as he quietly set up instruments and angled lights. They both regarded the body of Richard Yeager with the cool gaze of scientists.

  Rigor mortis had faded since Rizzoli had seen the body yesterday, and Dr. Yeager now lay flaccid. The duct tape had been cut away, the boxer shorts removed, and most of the blood rinsed from his skin. He lay with arms limp at his sides, both hands swollen and purplish, like bruise-colored gloves, from the combination of tight bindings and livor mortis. But it was the slash wound across his neck that everyone now focused on.<
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  “Coup de grâce,” said Isles. With a ruler she measured the dimensions of the wound. “Fourteen centimeters.”

  “Weird, how it doesn’t seem all that deep,” said Korsak.

  “That’s because the cut was made along Langer’s Lines. Skin tension pulls the edges back together so it hardly gapes. It’s deeper than it looks.”

  “Tongue depressor?” said Yoshima.

  “Thanks.” Isles took it from him and gently slipped the rounded wooden edge into the wound, murmuring under her breath: “Say ah.…”

  “What the hell?” said Korsak.

  “I’m measuring wound depth. Nearly five centimeters.”

  Now Isles pulled a magnifier over the wound and peered into the meat-red slash. “The left carotid artery and the left jugular have both been transected. The trachea has also been incised. The level of tracheal penetration, just below the thyroid cartilage, suggests to me that the neck was extended first, before the slash was made.” She glanced up at the two detectives. “Your unknown subject pulled the victim’s head back, and then made a very deliberate incision.”

  “An execution,” said Korsak.

  Rizzoli remembered how the Crimescope had picked up the glow of hairs adhering to the blood-spattered wall. Dr. Yeager’s hairs, torn from his scalp as the blade cut into his skin.

  “What kind of blade?” she asked.

  Isles did not immediately respond to the question. Instead, she turned to Yoshima and said, “Sticky tape.”

  “I’ve already got the strips laid out here.”

  “I’ll approximate the margins. You apply the tape.”

  Korsak gave a startled laugh as he realized what they were doing. “You’re taping him back together?”

  Isles shot him a glance of dry amusement. “You prefer Super Glue?”

  “That supposed to hold his head on, or what?”

  “Come on, Detective. Sticky tape wouldn’t hold even your head on.” She looked down through the magnifier and nodded. “That’s fine, Yoshima. I can see it now.”

  “See what?” said Korsak.

  “The wonders of Scotch tape. Detective Rizzoli, you asked me what kind of blade he used.”