Die Again: A Rizzoli And Isles Novel Part 3

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 ca.s.serole of eggplant Parmesan into the oven, poured a gla.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 pate."

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 you 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 ca.s.serole.

"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: b.i.t.c.h. 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 h.e.l.l out of Dodge." Jane paused. "Does he know you might leave Boston?"

He. Abruptly Maura turned away and refilled her winegla.s.s. 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 ca.s.serole 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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.

This liver has six lobes.

She reached for the phone.

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 gra.s.s. 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 s.n.a.t.c.h up one of Richard's shirts and I pull it over my nightdress as I wade into the gra.s.s, my boots still untied, a trapped pebble biting into my bare sole. I spot a b.l.o.o.d.y 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.

Vivian turns and throws up into the bushes.

I am too numb to move. Even as Sylvia whimpers and hyperventilates beside me, I am studying the various bones scattered in that flattened area of gra.s.s, feeling strangely remote, as if I am inhabiting someone else's body. A scientist's, perhaps. An anatomist, who looks at bones and feels compelled to fit them together, to announce: This is the right fibula and that is the ulna and that is from the fifth right toe. Yes, definitely the right toe. Although in truth I can identify almost nothing of what I'm looking at, because there is so little left, and it is all in pieces. All I can be sure of is that there is a rib, because it looks like ribs that I have eaten, slathered in sauce. But this is not a pork rib, oh no, this gnawed and splintered bone is human, and it belonged to someone I knew, someone I spoke to not nine hours ago.

"Oh Jesus," groans Elliot. "What happened? What the f.u.c.k happened?"

Johnny's voice booms out: "Get back. Everyone get back."

I turn to see Johnny pushing into our circle. We are all here now-Vivian and Sylvia, Elliot and Richard, the Matsunagas. Only one person is missing, but not really, because here is his rib and a clump of Clarence's hair. The smell of death is in the air, the smell of fear and fresh meat and Africa.

Johnny crouches down over the bones and for a moment does not speak. No one does. Even the birds are quiet, rattled by this human disturbance, and all I hear is the gra.s.s rustling in the wind and the faint rush of the river.

"Did any of you see anything last night? Hear anything?" Johnny asks. He looks up, and I notice that his shirt is unb.u.t.toned, his face unshaven. His eyes lock on mine. All I can do is shake my head.

"Anyone?" Johnny scans our faces.

"I slept like a rock," says Elliot. "I didn't hear-"

"We didn't, either," says Richard. Answering, in his usual annoying way, for both of us.

"Who found him?"

Vivian's answer comes out barely a whisper. "We did. Sylvia and I. We both had to use the toilet. It was already getting light, and we thought it would be safe to come out. Clarence usually has the fire started by now, and ..." She stops, looking sick that she has said his name. Clarence.

Johnny rises to his feet. I am standing closest to him, and I take in every detail, from his sleep-fluffed hair to the thickly knotted scar on his abdomen, a scar I'm seeing for the first time. He has no interest in us now, because we can't tell him anything. Instead his attention is focused on the ground, on the scattered remnants of the kill. He glances first toward the camp perimeter, where the wire is strung. "The bells didn't ring," he says. "I would have heard it. Clarence would have heard it."

"So it-whatever it was-didn't come into camp?" Richard says.

Johnny ignores him. He begins to pace an ever-expanding circle, impatiently pushing aside anyone who stands in his path. There is no bare earth, only gra.s.s, and no footprints or animal tracks to offer any clues. "He took over watch at two A.M., and I went straight to sleep. The fire's almost dead, so no wood's been added for hours. Why would he leave it? Why would he step out of the perimeter?" He glances around. "And where's the rifle?"

"The rifle is there," says Mr. Matsunaga, and he points toward the ring of stones where the campfire has now gone out. "I saw it, lying on the ground."

"He just left it there?" says Richard. "He walks away from the fire and wanders into the dark without his gun? Why would Clarence do that?"