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  “Hey, lucky you,” said Curtis as she stepped through. “You just missed being the patdown search of the day.”

  “What?”

  “Every day, our shift commander sets a random number for which visitor gets patted down. You just missed it. Next person who comes through’s gonna be it.”

  Rizzoli said, dryly, “Getting felt up would’ve been the highlight of my day.”

  “You can put everything back on now. And you two get to keep your watches on.”

  “You say that like it’s a privilege.”

  “Only attorneys and officers of the law can wear watches beyond this point. Everyone else has to check in all their jewelry. Now I gotta stamp your left wrists, and you can go into the pods.”

  “We have an appointment to see Superintendent Oxton at nine,” said Dean.

  “He’s running behind schedule. Asked me to take you to see the prisoner’s cell first. Then I’ll bring you over to Oxton’s office.”

  Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center was MCI’s newest facility, with a state-of-the-art keyless security system operated by forty-two graphic-interfaced computer terminals, Officer Curtis explained. He pointed out numerous surveillance cameras.

  “They’re recording live twenty-four hours a day. Most visitors never even see a live guard. They just hear the intercom telling them what to do next.”

  As they walked through a steel door, down a long hallway, and through another series of barred gates, Rizzoli was fully aware that every move she made was being monitored. With just a few taps on a computer keyboard, guards could lock down every passage, every cell, without leaving their control room.

  At the entrance to Cell Block C, a voice on the intercom instructed them to hold up their passes against the window for inspection. They restated their names, and Officer Curtis said: “Two visitors here to inspect Prisoner Hoyt’s cell.”

  The steel gate slid open and they entered Cell Block C’s dayroom, the common area for prisoners. It was painted a depressing shade of hospital green. Rizzoli saw a wall-mounted TV set, couch and chairs, and a Ping-Pong table where two men were clacking a ball back and forth. All the furniture was bolted down. A dozen men dressed in prisoners’ blue denim simultaneously turned and stared.

  In particular, they stared at Rizzoli, the only woman in the room.

  The two men playing Ping-Pong abruptly halted their game. For a moment, the only sound was the TV, tuned to CNN. She gazed straight back at the prisoners, refusing to be intimidated, even though she could guess what each man was surely thinking. Imagining. She did not notice that Dean had moved closer until she felt his arm brush hers and she realized he was standing right beside her.

  A voice from the intercom said: “Visitors, you may proceed to Cell C-8.”

  “It’s this way,” said Officer Curtis. “Up one level.”

  They ascended the stairway, their shoes setting off clangs against the metal steps. From the upper gallery, which led past individual cells, they could look down into the well of the dayroom. Curtis led them along the walkway until he came to #8.

  “This is the one. Prisoner Hoyt’s cell.”

  Rizzoli stood at the threshold and stared into the cage. She saw nothing that distinguished this cell from any other—no photographs, no personal possessions that told her Warren Hoyt had once inhabited this space—yet her scalp crawled. Though he was gone, his presence had imprinted the very air. If it was possible for malevolence to linger, then surely this place was now contaminated.

  “You can step in if you want,” said Curtis.

  She entered the cell. She saw three bare walls, a sleeping platform and mattress, a sink, and a toilet. A stark cube. This was how Warren would have liked it. He was a neat man, a precise man, who had once worked in the sterile world of a medical laboratory, a world where the only splashes of color came from the tubes of blood he handled every day. He did not need to surround himself with lurid images; the ones he carried in his mind were horrifying enough.

  “This cell hasn’t been reassigned?” said Dean.

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “And no other prisoner’s been in here since Hoyt left?”

  “That’s right.”

  Rizzoli went to the mattress and lifted up one corner. Dean grasped the other corner, and together they hoisted up the mattress and looked beneath it. They found nothing. They rolled the mattress completely over, then searched the ticking for any tears in the fabric, any hiding places where he might have stashed contraband. They found only a small rip on the side barely an inch long. Rizzoli probed it with her finger and found nothing inside.

  She straightened and scanned the cell, taking in the same surroundings that Hoyt had once stared at. Imagined him lying on that mattress, eyes focused on the bare ceiling as he spun fantasies that would appall any normal human being. But Hoyt would be excited by them. He would lie sweating, aroused by the shrieks of women echoing in his head.

  She turned to Officer Curtis. “Where are his possessions? His personal items? Correspondence?”

  “In the superintendent’s office. We’ll go there next.”

  “Right after you called this morning, I had the prisoner’s belongings brought up here for your inspection,” said Superintendent Oxton, gesturing to a large cardboard box on his desk. “We’ve already gone through it all. We found absolutely no contraband.” He emphasized this last point as though it absolved him of all responsibility for what had gone wrong. Oxton struck Rizzoli as a man who did not tolerate infractions, who’d be ruthless at enforcing rules and regulations. He would certainly ferret out all contraband, isolate all troublemakers, demand that lights-out was on the dot every night. Just a glance around his office, with photos showing a fierce-looking young Oxton in an army uniform, told her this was the domain of someone who needed to be in control. Yet for all his efforts, a prisoner had escaped, and Oxton was now on the defensive. He had greeted them with a stiff handshake and barely a smile in his remote blue eyes.

  He opened the box and removed a large Ziploc bag, which he handed to Rizzoli. “The prisoner’s toiletries,” he said. “The usual personal care items.”

  Rizzoli saw a toothbrush, comb, washcloth, and soap. Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion. She quickly set the bag down, repulsed by the thought that Hoyt had used these items every day to groom himself. She could see light-brown hairs still clinging to the comb’s teeth.

  Oxton continued removing items from the box. Underwear. A stack of National Geographic magazines and several issues of the Boston Globe. Two Snickers bars, a pad of yellow legal paper, white envelopes, and three plastic rollerball pens. “And his correspondence,” said Oxton as he removed another Ziploc bag, this one containing a bundle of letters.

  “We’ve gone through every piece of his mail,” Oxton said. “The State Police have the names and addresses of all these correspondents.” He handed the bundle to Dean. “Of course, this is only the mail he kept. There was probably a certain amount he threw out.”

  Dean opened the Ziploc bag and removed the contents. There were about a dozen letters, still in their envelopes.

  “Does MCI censor prisoner mail?” Dean asked. “Do you screen it before you give it to them?”

  “We have the authority to do so. Depending on the type of mail.”

  “Type?”

  “If it’s classified privileged, the guards are only allowed to glance inside for contraband. But they’re not allowed to read it. The correspondence is private, between sender and prisoner.”

  “So you’d have no idea what was written to him.”

  “If it’s privileged mail.”

  “What’s the difference between privileged and unprivileged mail?” asked Rizzoli.

  Oxton responded to her interruption with a glint of annoyance in his eyes. “Nonprivileged mail is from friends and family or the general public. For instance, a number of our inmates have picked up pen pals from the outside who think they’re performing a charitable service.”

  �
�By corresponding with murderers? Are they crazy?”

  “Many of them are naive and lonely women. Susceptible to being used by a con artist. Those types of letters are nonprivileged and the guards have the authority to read and censor them. But we don’t always have time to read them all. We deal with a large volume of mail here. In Prisoner Hoyt’s case, there was a lot of mail to inspect.”

  “From whom? I’m not aware he had much family,” said Dean.

  “He got a lot of publicity last year. It caught the interest of the public. They all wanted to write to him.”

  Rizzoli was appalled. “Are you saying he got fan mail?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus. People are nuts.”

  “The public gets a thrill from talking to a killer. Something about being in touch with fame. Manson and Dahmer and Gacy, they all got fan mail. Our prisoners get marriage proposals. Women send them cash, or photos of themselves in bikinis. Men write wanting to know what it feels like to commit murder. The world is full of sick fucks, pardon my French, who get a charge out of knowing a real live killer.”

  But one of them had gone beyond just writing to Hoyt. One had actually joined Hoyt’s exclusive club. She stared at the bundle of mail, enraged by this tangible evidence of the Surgeon’s fame. Killer as rock star. She thought of the scars he had carved in her hands, and each of the fan letters was like another stab of his scalpel.

  “What about privileged mail?” said Dean. “You said it’s not read or censored. What classifies a letter as privileged?”

  “It’s confidential mail that comes from certain state or federal officials. An officer of the court, for instance, or the attorney general. Mail from the president, the governor, or law enforcement agencies.”

  “Did Hoyt receive such mail?”

  “He may have. We don’t keep records of every item of mail that comes in.”

  “How do you know when a letter’s really privileged?” said Rizzoli.

  Oxton looked at her with impatience. “I just told you. If it’s from a federal or state official—”

  “No. I mean, how do you know it’s not fake or stolen stationery? I could write escape plans to one of your prisoners and mail it in an envelope from, say, Senator Conway’s office.” The example she’d chosen had not been random. She watched Dean and saw his chin snap up at the mention of Conway’s name.

  Oxton hesitated. “It’s not impossible. But there are penalties—”

  “So it’s happened before.”

  Reluctantly, Oxton nodded. “There’ve been several cases. Criminal information’s been sent under the guise of official business. We try to stay alert to it, but occasionally, something slips through.”

  “And what about outgoing mail? The letters Hoyt sent? Did you screen those?”

  “No.”

  “None of it?”

  “We had no reason to. He was never considered a problem inmate. He was always cooperative. Very quiet and polite.”

  “A model prisoner,” said Rizzoli. “Right.”

  Oxton fixed her with an icy glare. “We have men in here who’d rip your arms off and laugh about it, Detective. Men who’d snap a guard’s neck just because a meal didn’t suit them. A prisoner like Hoyt was not high on our list of concerns.”

  Dean calmly redirected the conversation back to the issue at hand. “So we don’t know who he may have written to?”

  That matter-of-fact question seemed to douse the warden’s rising irritation. Oxton turned from Rizzoli and focused instead on Dean, one man to another. “No, we don’t,” he said. “Prisoner Hoyt could have written to anyone.”

  In a conference room down the hall from Oxton’s office, Rizzoli and Dean pulled on latex gloves and spread the envelopes addressed to Warren Hoyt on the table. She saw a variety of stationery, a few pastels and florals, and one imprinted with Jesus saves. Most absurd of all was the stationery decorated with images of frolicking kittens. Yes, just the thing to send to the Surgeon. How amused he must have been to receive that.

  She opened the envelope with the kittens and found a photo inside, of a smiling woman with hopeful eyes. Also enclosed was a letter, written in a girlish hand, the is dotted with cheery little circles:

  To: Mr. Warren Hoyt,Prisoner

  Massachusetts Correctional Institute

  Dear Mr. Hoyt,

  I saw you on TV today, as they were walking you to the courthouse. I believe I am an excellent judge of character, and when I looked at your face, I could see so much sadness and pain. Oh, such a great deal of pain! There is goodness in you; I know there is. If only you had someone to help you find it within yourself …

  Rizzoli suddenly realized she was clenching the letter in rage. She wanted to reach out and shake the stupid woman who had written those words. Wanted to force the woman to look at the autopsy photos of Hoyt’s victims, to read the M.E.’s account of the agony they had suffered before death mercifully ended their ordeals. She had to make herself read the rest of the letter, a saccharine appeal to Hoyt’s humanity and the “goodness that’s inside us all.”

  She reached for the next envelope. No kittens on this stationery, just a plain white envelope containing a letter written on lined paper. Once again, it was from a woman who had enclosed her photo, an overexposed snapshot of a squinting bleached blonde.

  Dear Mr. Hoit,

  Can I have you’re autograph? I have collect many signitures from people like you. I even have Jeffry Dahmer’s. If you like to keep writing to me, that would be cool. Your friend, Gloria.

  Rizzoli stared at words she could not believe any sane human being would write. That would be cool. Your friend. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “These people are nuts.”

  “It’s the lure of fame,” said Dean. “They have no lives of their own. They feel worthless, nameless. So they try to get close to someone who does have a name. They want the magic to rub off on them, too.”

  “Magic?” She looked at Dean. “Is that what you call it?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t get any of it. I don’t get why women write to monsters. Are they looking for romance? A hot time with a guy who’d turn around and gut them? Is that supposed to bring excitement into their pathetic lives?” She shoved back her chair, stood up, and paced over to the wall of slit-shaped windows. There she stood with arms tightly crossed, staring out at a narrow strip of sunlight, a blue bar of sky. Any view, even this meager one, was preferable to gazing at Warren Hoyt’s fan mail. Surely Hoyt had enjoyed the attention. He would have considered each letter fresh proof that he still held power over women, that even here, locked away, he could twist minds, manipulate them. Turn them into his possessions.

  “It’s a waste of time,” she said bitterly as she watched a bird flit past buildings where men were the ones in cages, where bars held monsters, not birdsong. “He isn’t stupid. He would have destroyed anything linking him to the Dominator. He’d protect his new partner. He certainly wouldn’t leave behind anything useful for us to track.”

  “Maybe not useful,” said Dean, rustling papers behind her. “But definitely illuminating.”

  “Oh yeah. Like I want to read what these nutty women have written to him? It makes me sick.”

  “Could that be the point?”

  She turned and looked at him. A bar of light through the slit window slashed down his face, illuminating one bright blue eye. She had always thought his features striking, but never more so than at that moment, facing him across the table. “What do you mean?”

  “It upsets you, reading his fan mail.”

  “It ticks me off. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “To him, as well.” Dean nodded to the stack of letters. “He knew it would upset you.”

  “You think this is all to screw around with my head? These letters?”

  “It’s a mind game, Jane. He left these behind for you. This nice collection of mail from his most ardent admirers. He knew that eventually you’d be right here, where you are n
ow, reading what they had to say to him. Maybe he wanted to show you that he does have admirers. That even though you despise him, there are women who don’t, women who are drawn to him. He’s like a spurned lover, trying to make you jealous. Trying to throw you off balance.”

  “Don’t mind-fuck me.”

  “And it’s working, isn’t it? Look at you. He’s got you wound up so tight you can’t even sit still. He knows how to manipulate you, how to mess around with your head.”

  “You’re giving him too much credit.”

  “Am I?”

  She waved at the letters. “This is all supposed to be for my benefit? What, I’m the center of his universe?”

  “Isn’t he the center of yours?” Dean said quietly.

  She stared at him, unable to come up with a retort because what he had said struck her, at that instant, as the unassailable truth. Warren Hoyt was the center of her universe. He reigned as dark lord over her nightmares and dominated her waking hours as well, always poised to step out of his closet, back into her thoughts. In that cellar, she had been marked as his, the way every victim is marked by an assailant, and she could not obliterate his stamp of ownership. It was carved into her hands, seared into her soul.

  She returned to the table and sat down. Steeled herself for the remainder of the task.

  The next envelope had a typed return address: Dr. J. P. O’Donnell, 1634 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Near Harvard University, Brattle Street was a neighborhood of fine homes and the educated elite, where university professors and retired industrialists jogged the same sidewalks and waved to each other across manicured hedges. It was not the sort of neighborhood where one expected to find a monster’s acolyte.