Body Double

“She’s not going to make it,” said Frost.

“I know.” Rizzoli looked at him. “You’ve got blood on your mouth.”

“You should look at yourself in the mirror. I’d say we’ve both been fully exposed.”

She thought of blood and all the terrible things it might carry. HIV. Hepatitis. “She seemed pretty healthy,” was all she could say.

“Still,” said Frost. “You being pregnant and all.”

So what the hell was she doing here, steeped in a dead woman’s blood? I should be at home in front of the TV, she thought, with my swollen feet propped up. This is not the life for a mother. It’s not a life for anyone.

She tried to launch herself out of the chair. Frost held out his hand to her, and for the first time, she took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. Sometimes, she thought, you’ve got to accept a helping hand. Sometimes you’ve got to admit you can’t do it all by yourself. Her blouse was stiff, her hands caked brown. Crime scene perso

It was time to clean up and get to work.

Maura stepped out of her car, into a disorienting assault of camera lenses and thrusted microphones. Cruiser lights flashed blue and white, illuminating a crowd of bystanders gathered near the perimeter of police tape. She did not hesitate, did not give the media any chance to close in on her as she walked briskly toward the house and nodded at the cop guarding the scene.

He returned her nod with a puzzled look. “Uh-Dr. Costas is already here-”

“So am I,” she said, and ducked under the tape.

“Dr. Isles?”

“He’s inside?”

“Yeah, but-”

She kept walking, knowing that he would not challenge her. Her air of authority brought her access that few cops dared question. She paused in the front door to pull on gloves and shoe covers, necessary fashion accessories when blood is involved. Then she stepped inside, where crime scene techs gave her barely a glance. They all knew her; they had no reason to question her presence. She walked, unimpeded, from the foyer into the living room and saw bloodstained carpet and scattered medical debris from the ambulance team. Syringes, torn wrappings, and wads of soiled gauze littered the floor. No body.

She started down a hallway, where violence had left its record on the walls. On one side, bursts of arterial spray. On the other, more subtle, the cast-off droplets of the pursuer’s blade.

“Doc?” Rizzoli was standing at the other end of the hallway.

“Why didn’t you call me?” said Maura.

“Costas is taking this one.”

“So I just heard.”

“You don’t need to be here.”

“You could have told me, Jane. You could have let me know.”

“This one isn’t yours.”

“This involves my sister. It concerns me.”

“That’s why it’s not your case.” Rizzoli moved toward her, her gaze unwavering. “I don’t have to tell you this. You already know it.”

“I’m not asking to be M.E. on this one. What I resent is not being called about it.”

“I didn’t get the chance, okay?”

“That’s the excuse?”

“But it’s true, goddamn it!” Rizzoli waved at the blood on the walls. “We’ve got two vics here. I haven’t eaten di

“Jane.”

“Go home, Doc. Let me do my job.”

“Jane! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that.”

Rizzoli turned back to face her, and Maura saw what she had failed to register until that moment. The hollow eyes, the sagging shoulders. She is barely standing.

“I’m sorry, too.” Rizzoli looked at the blood-spattered wall. “We missed him by that much,” she said, bringing thumb and forefinger together. “We had a team on the street, watching the house. I don’t know how he spotted the car, but he drove right on by, and came in the back gate instead.” She shook her head. “Somehow he knew. He knew we were looking for him. That’s why Van Gates was a problem…”

“She warned him.”

“Who?”

“Amalthea. It had to be her. A phone call, a letter. Something passed out through one of the guards. She’s protecting her partner.”

“You think she’s rational enough to do that?”

“Yes, I do.” Maura hesitated. “I went to visit her today.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“She knows secrets about me. She has the answers.”

“She hears voices, for god’s sake.”

“No, she doesn’t. I’m convinced she’s perfectly sane, and she knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s protecting her partner, Jane. She’ll never give him up.”

Rizzoli regarded her for a moment in silence. “Maybe you’d better come see this. You need to know what we’re up against.”

Maura followed her to the kitchen and halted in the doorway, stu

“I didn’t realize you were coming in on this,” he said.

“I’m not. I just needed to see…” She stared at Terence Van Gates and swallowed hard.

Costas rose to his feet. “This one was bloody efficient. No defense wounds, no indication the victim had any chance to put up a fight. A single slash, just about ear to ear. Approached from behind. Incision starts higher on the left, crosses the trachea, and trails a little lower on the right side.”

“A right-handed attacker.”

“And strong, too.” Costas bent down and gently tilted the head backward, revealing an open ring of glistening cartilage. “We’re all the way to vertebral column here.” He released the head and it rolled forward, incised edges once again kissing together.

“An execution,” she murmured.

“Pretty much.”

“The second victim-in the living room-”

“The wife. She died in the ER an hour ago.”

“But that execution wasn’t so efficient,” said Rizzoli. “We think the killer took out the man first. Maybe Van Gates was expecting the visit. Maybe he even let him into his kitchen, thinking it was business. But he didn’t expect the attack. There were no defense wounds, no signs of a struggle. He turned his back on the killer, and went down like a slaughtered lamb.”

“And the wife?”

“Bo

Rizzoli turned to look at the doorway leading to the hall. Paused as though she saw the dead woman herself standing there.

“She sees the killer coming at her. But unlike her husband, she fights back. All she can do, as that knife comes at her, is grab it by the blade. It cuts right into the palm of her hand, through skin, tendons, all the way to bone. It slices so deep the artery’s severed.”

Rizzoli pointed through the doorway, at the hallway beyond. “She runs that way, her hand spurting blood. He’s right behind her, and corners her in the living room. Even then she fights back, tries to fend off the blade with her arms. But he makes one more cut, across her throat. Not as deep as the incision in her husband’s neck, but it’s deep enough.” Rizzoli looked at Maura. “She was alive when we found her. That’s how close we came.”

Maura stared down at Terence Van Gates, slumped against the cabinet. She thought of the little house in the woods where two cousins had formed their poisonous bond. A bond that endures even now.

“You remember what Amalthea said to you, the first day you went to visit her?” said Rizzoli.