The Silent Girl (6 page)

M
AURA DID NOT SLEEP WELL THAT NIGHT. AFTER A HEAVY MEAL
of lasagna, washed down with three glasses of wine, she climbed into bed exhausted. She awakened a few hours later, painfully aware of the empty space beside her. Reaching out, she touched cold sheets and wondered, as she had on so many other nights over these past four months, if Daniel Brophy was also lying awake, also lonely. If he, too, was desperate to pick up the telephone and break this silence between them. Or did he sleep soundly, without regrets, relieved their affair had finally ended? While she might be her own woman again, freedom came with a price. An empty bed, sleepless nights, and the unanswerable question:
Am I better with him or without him?

The next morning, she arrived at work groggy and nauseated from all the coffee she’d consumed to make herself alert. As she stood in the morgue anteroom donning mask and paper cap and shoe covers, she looked through the viewing window and saw that Jane was already standing by the table, waiting for her. Yesterday they had not parted on the most congenial of terms, and Maura still felt stung by Jane’s sarcastic retort:
You’re all about the facts, aren’t you?
Yes, facts mattered to her. They were immutable things that could not be
denied, even when they threatened a friendship. The trial of Officer Graff had driven a wedge between her and Jane, reminding Maura how unlikely their friendship had been from the start. As she tied on her gown, it was not the corpse she dreaded confronting, but Jane.

With a deep breath, she pushed through the door.

Her assistant, Yoshima, had already transferred the body bag onto the table. On a tray beside it was the severed hand, covered by a drape. Acutely aware that Yoshima was listening to their conversation, Maura gave Jane a businesslike nod and said, “Isn’t Frost joining us?”

“He’s going to miss this one, but Johnny Tam’s on his way here. In fact, I think he can’t wait to watch you start slicing.”

“Detective Tam seems eager to prove himself.”

“I think he’s got his eye on joining homicide. From what I’ve seen so far, he may have what it takes.” She glanced up. “Speak of the devil.”

Through the viewing window, Maura saw that Tam had arrived and was tying on a surgical gown. A moment later he entered, jet-black hair hidden beneath a paper cap. He approached the table, his gaze calm and impassive as he focused on the draped body.

“Before we start, Tam,” said Jane, “I just want to point out to you that the barf sink is right over there.”

He shrugged. “I won’t need it.”

“You say that now.”

“We’ll start with the easy part,” said Maura, and she uncovered the tray with the severed hand. It looked plastic. No wonder the Chinatown tour group had mistaken it for a Halloween prop with fake blood. It had already been swabbed and found positive for gunshot residue. Fingerprints from this hand were found on the grip of the Heckler & Koch, leaving no doubt that the victim had fired the bullets, scattering five casings on the rooftop. Maura swung the magnifier over the hand and examined the severed wrist.

“The cut sliced right between the distal radius and the lunate bone,” she said. “But I can see a good chunk of the triquetral here.”

“And that would mean?” asked Jane.

“Whatever made this cut divided a carpal bone. And these bones are very dense.”

“So it had to be a sharp blade.”

“Sharp enough to amputate with a single slice.” Maura looked up. “I don’t see any secondary cut marks.”

“Just tell me this hand matches that body.”

Maura turned to the table and unzipped the body bag. The plastic parted, releasing the stomach-turning smell of refrigerated meat and stale blood. The cadaver inside was still fully clothed, the head tipped backward, exposing the gaping wound in her neck. As Yoshima took photos, Maura’s gaze was drawn to the woman’s auburn hair, caked in blood. Beautiful hair, she thought, and a beautiful woman. A woman who was armed and shooting at someone on that rooftop.

“Dr. Isles, we’ve got some hair and fiber evidence staring at us,” said Yoshima. He was bending over the corpse’s black sweatshirt, peering at a single pale strand that clung to the sleeve.

With a pair of tweezers, Maura plucked up the hair and examined it under the light. It was about two inches long, silvery gray and slightly curved. She glanced at the cadaver. “This obviously is not her hair.”

“Look, there’s another one,” said Jane, pointing to a second strand clinging to the victim’s black leggings.

“Maybe animal hairs,” said Yoshima. “Could be a golden retriever.”

“Or maybe she got whacked by a gray-haired grandpa.”

Maura slipped the strands into separate evidence envelopes and set them aside. “Okay, let’s undress her.”

First they removed the only item of jewelry she was wearing, a black Swiss Hanowa watch, from her left wrist. Next came the shoes, black Reeboks, followed by the hoodie sweatshirt and a long-sleeved T-shirt, leggings, cotton panties, and an athletic bra. What emerged was a well-toned body, slim but muscular. Maura had once heard a pathology professor assert that in his many years of performing
autopsies, he’d never come across an attractive corpse. This woman proved there could be exceptions to that rule. Despite the gaping wound and dependent mottling of her back and buttocks, despite the glassy eyes, she was still a stunningly beautiful woman.

With the corpse now fully stripped of clothing, Maura and the two detectives stepped out of the room so that Yoshima could take X-rays. In the anteroom, they watched through the viewing window as he donned a lead apron and positioned the film cartridges.

“A woman like that,” said Maura, “is going to be missed by someone.”

“You saying that because she’s good-looking?” Jane said.

“I’m saying it because she looks incredibly fit, she has perfect dentition, and those are Donna Karan leggings she was wearing.”

“Question, please, from an ignorant man,” said Tam. “Does that mean they’re expensive?”

Jane said, “I’ll bet Dr. Isles here can quote you the exact retail price.”

“The point is,” said Maura, “she’s not some penniless stray off the street. She was carrying a lot of cash, and she was armed with a Heckler and Koch, which I understand is not your usual street gun.”

“She also had no ID,” said Tam.

“It could have been stolen.”

“But the thief leaves behind three hundred bucks?” Tam shook his head. “That would be weird.”

Through the viewing window, Maura saw Yoshima give a wave. “He’s done,” she said, and pushed through the door back into the lab.

Maura examined the incised neck first. Like the cut that had amputated the hand, this wound appeared to be a single slice, delivered without hesitation. Inserting a ruler into the wound, Maura said: “It’s almost eight centimeters deep. Transects the trachea and penetrates all the way to the cervical spine.” She reoriented the ruler. “Wider than it is deep, around twelve centimeters side to side. Not a stab but a slash.” She paused, studying the exposed incision. “Odd how smooth it is. There’s no bread-knifing, no secondary cuts. No bruising
or crushing. It was done so quickly, the victim never had a chance to struggle.” She cradled the head and tilted it forward. “Can someone hold the cranium in position for me? I want to approximate the wound edges.”

Without any hesitation, Detective Tam stepped forward and cradled the head in his gloved hands. While a human torso can be viewed as merely impersonal skin and bone and muscle, a corpse’s face reveals more than most cops want to see. Johnny Tam, though, did not shy away from the view. He stared straight into the dead woman’s eyes, as though hoping they might provide answers to his many questions.

“That’s it, right there,” said Maura, sliding the magnifier over the skin. “I don’t see any serration marks. Nothing that would tell me what kind of knife …” She paused.

“What?” asked Jane.

“This angle is strange. It’s not your usual slashed throat.”

“Yeah, those are so boring.”

“Consider for a moment how you’d go about cutting a throat,” said Maura. “To penetrate this deep, all the way to vertebrae, you’d approach it from behind. You’d grab the victim’s hair, pull the head back, and slice across the front, from ear to ear.”

“The commando method,” said Tam.

“The rear approach gives you control of the victim and maximizes exposure of the throat. And it usually results in a curved incision when the wound’s later approximated. But this slash is angled slightly upward, right to left. It was delivered with the head in a neutral position, not tilted back.”

“Maybe the killer was standing in front of her,” said Jane.

“Then why didn’t she resist? There’s no bruising to indicate a struggle. Why would she just stand there while someone practically slices off her head?”

Yoshima said: “I’ve put up the X-rays.”

They all turned to the viewing box where the radiographs were now displayed, bones glowing white on the backlit screen. She focused first on the films of the right wrist stump and the severed hand,
mentally comparing the angles of the transected triquetral bone. They were a match.

“It’s definitely her hand,” Maura confirmed.

“Not that I ever doubted it,” said Jane.

Maura next focused on the neck X-rays, on the gap in the soft tissues where the flesh had been so cleanly divided. Her gaze instantly fixed on a bright sliver in the cervical vertebra. “Did you do a lateral on this C-spine?” she asked.

Yoshima had clearly anticipated her request, because he immediately pulled down the hand and wrist films and clipped up a new radiograph, this one a side view of the neck. “I saw that thing earlier. Thought you’d want to see more detail on it.”

Maura stared at the lateral view of the fifth cervical vertebra. The object, razor-thin, was visible on this X-ray as well.

“What is that?” asked Jane, moving close beside her.

“It’s something metallic, and it’s embedded in the anterior fifth vertebra.” She turned to the autopsy table. “I think part of the blade sheared off when the killer made his cut, and a chip is lodged in her neck bone.”

“Which means we might be able to analyze the metal,” said Jane. “Identify who manufactured the knife.”

“I don’t think it was a knife,” said Maura.

“An ax?”

“An ax would leave a cleft, and we’d see crush changes on the soft tissues. She has neither. This incision is fine and linear. It was made by a blade that’s razor-sharp, and long enough to practically transect the neck with one sweep.”

“Like a machete?” asked Jane.

“Or a sword.”

Jane looked at Tam. “We’re looking for Zorro.” Her laugh was interrupted by the sound of her ringing cell phone. She stripped off her gloves and reached for the phone clipped to her belt. “Rizzoli.”

“Have you seen any sword injuries before, Dr. Isles?” Tam asked, still studying the X-ray.

“One, in San Francisco. A man hacked his girlfriend to death with a samurai sword.”

“Would metal analysis tell you if this was a samurai sword?”

“They’re mass-produced these days, so it probably wouldn’t help us unless we could find the weapon itself. Still, you never know when trace evidence like this ends up being just the puzzle piece needed to convict.” She looked at Tam, whose face was bathed in the glow from the viewing box. Even though a bouffant paper cap covered his hair, she was once again struck by his intensity. And lack of humor. “You ask good questions,” she said.

“Just trying to learn.”

“Rizzoli’s a smart cop. Keep up with her, and you’ll do fine.”

“Tam,” said Jane, hanging up her phone. “You stay and finish up here. I have to go.”

“What’s happened?”

“That was Frost. We found the victim’s car.”

T
HE FOURTH FLOOR
of the Tyler Street parking garage was nearly empty, but the blue Honda Civic sat all by itself in a remote corner space. It was a dim and isolated spot, the sort of place you would choose if you did not want anyone to see you walking to your car. As Jane and Frost inspected the vehicle, their only audience was a lone garage employee and the two Boston PD officers who’d spotted the car earlier that morning.

“The entry ticket on the dashboard has a time stamp of eight fifteen
PM
Wednesday,” said Frost. “I checked the security tape, and it shows the Honda driving in at that time. Five minutes later, a woman walks out of the garage. Her hoodie’s up, so you can’t see her face on the camera, but it looks like her. Car hasn’t left the garage since.”

As Frost spoke, Jane did a slow walk-around of the Honda. It was a three-year-old model with no major dings or scratches. The tires were in good condition. The trunk was open, the hatch lifted for her to inspect the interior.

“License plates were reported stolen five days ago in Springfield,” said Frost. “Vehicle was stolen a week ago, also in Springfield.”

Jane frowned into the trunk, which was empty except for the spare tire. “Geez, it’s a lot cleaner than mine.”

Frost laughed. “You could say that about a lot of cars.”

“Says the guy with OCD.”

“Looks like it’s been recently detailed. Glove compartment’s got the real owner’s registration and insurance card. And you’re gonna love what was left on the front seat.” He pulled on gloves and opened the driver’s door. “Handheld GPS.”

“Why do you always get to find the fun stuff?”

“I’m guessing it’s a brand-new unit, because she’d plugged in only two addresses. Both in Boston.”

“Where?”

“The first is a private residence in Roxbury Crossing, owned by a Louis Ingersoll.”

Jane glanced at him in surprise. “Would that be
Detective
Lou Ingersoll?”

“One and the same. It’s the address Boston PD has listed for him.”

“He retired from homicide, what? Sixteen, seventeen years ago?”

“Sixteen. Can’t get hold of him right now. I called his daughter, and she says Lou took off up north to go fishing for the week. There may not be cell coverage wherever he is. Or he turned off his phone and doesn’t want to be bothered.”