Vanish

“From Olena’s hospital room. After she shot that security guard, a single cartridge case was recovered from the scene.”

“He was killed with his own weapon.”

“And we’ve just found out that weapon has been used before.”

“Where? When?”

“January third. A multiple shooting in Ashburn, Virginia.”

She stood clutching the receiver, pressing it so hard against her ear that she could hear the pounding of her own heartbeat. Ashburn. Joe wanted to tell us about Ashburn.

Angela came back into the kitchen carrying the baby, whose black hair was now fluffed up like a crown of curls. Regina, the queen baby. The name suddenly seemed to fit.

“What do we know about that multiple shooting?” Jane asked.

“ Moore has the file right here.”

She looked at Angela. “Mom, I need to leave for a while. Is that okay?”

“You go ahead. We’re happy right where we are. Aren’t we, Regina?” Angela bent forward and rubbed noses with the baby. “And in a little while, we’re going to take a nice little bath.”

Jane said to Gabriel: “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll be there.”

“No. Let’s meet somewhere else.”

“Why?”

“We don’t want to talk about it here.”

“Gabriel, what the hell is going on?”

There was a pause, and she could hear Moore ’s voice speaking softly in the background. Then Gabriel came back on the line.

“JP Doyle’s. We’ll meet you there.”

TWENTY-FOUR

She did not take the time to shower, but simply got dressed in the first clothes she pulled out of her closet-baggy maternity slacks and the T-shirt her fellow detectives had given her at the baby shower with the words MOM COP embroidered over the belly. In the car she ate two slices of buttered toast as she drove toward the neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. That last conversation with Gabriel had put her on edge, and she found herself glancing in the rearview mirror as she waited at stoplights, taking note of the cars behind her. Had she seen that green Taurus four blocks earlier? And was that the same white van she’d noticed parked across the street from her apartment?

JP Doyle’s was a favorite Boston PD haunt, and on any evening, the bar was usually packed with off-duty cops. But at three P.M., only a lone woman was perched at the counter, sipping a glass of white wine as ESPN flickered on the overhead TV. Jane walked straight through the bar and headed into the adjoining dining area, where memorabilia of Boston ’s Irish heritage adorned the walls. Newspaper clippings about the Ke

She slipped in beside her husband and looked down at the file folder lying on the table. “What do you have to show me?”

Moore didn’t answer, but glanced up with an automatic smile as the waitress approached.

“Hey, Detective Rizzoli. You’re all ski

“Not as ski

“I heard you had a baby girl.”

“She’s keeping us up all night. This may be my only chance to eat in peace.”

The waitress laughed as she took out her order pad. “Then let’s feed you.”

“Actually, I’d just like some coffee and your apple crisp.”

“Good choice.” The waitress glanced at the men. “How ‘bout you fellas?”

“More coffee, that’s all,” said Moore. “We’re just going to sit here and watch her eat.”

They maintained their silence while their cups were refilled. Only after the waitress had delivered the apple crisp and walked away did Moore finally slide the folder across to Jane.

Inside was a sheet of digital photos. She immediately recognized them as micrographs of a spent cartridge case, showing the patterns left by the firing pin hitting the primer, and by the backward thrust of the cartridge against the breechblock.

“This is from the hospital shooting?”she asked.

Moore nodded. “That cartridge came from the weapon that John Doe carried into Olena’s room. The weapon she used to kill him. Ballistics ran it through the IBIS database, and they got back a hit, from ATF. A multiple shooting in Ashburn, Virginia.”

She turned to the next set of photos. It was another series of cartridge micrographs. “They’re a match?”

“Identical firing pin impressions. Two different cartridges found at two different death scenes. They were both ejected from the same weapon.”

“And now we have that weapon.”

“Actually, we don’t.”

She looked at Moore. “It should have been found with Olena’s body. She was the last one to have it.”

“It wasn’t at the takedown scene.”

“But we processed that room, didn’t we?”

“There were no weapons at all left at the scene. The federal takedown team confiscated all ballistics evidence when they left. The took the weapons, Joe’s knapsack, even the cartridges. By the time Boston PD got in there, it was all gone.”

“They cleaned up a death scene? What’s Boston PD going to do about this?”

“Apparently,” said Moore, “there’s not a thing we can do. The feds are calling it a matter of national security, and they don’t want information leaks.”

“They don’t trust Boston PD?”

“No one trusts anybody. We’re not the only ones being shut out. Agent Barsanti wanted that ballistics evidence as well, and he was none too happy when he found out the special ops team took it. This has turned into federal agency versus federal agency. Boston PD’s just a mouse watching two elephants battle it out.”

Jane’s gaze returned to the photomicrographs. “You said this matching cartridge came from a crime scene in Ashburn. Just before the takedown, Joseph Roke tried to tell us about something that happened in Ashburn.”

“Mr. Roke may very well have been talking about this.” Moore reached into his briefcase and pulled out another folder, which he set on the table. “I received it this morning, from Leesburg PD. Ashburn’s just a small town. It was Leesburg who worked the case.”

“It’s not pleasant viewing, Jane,” said Gabriel.

His warning was unexpected. Together they had witnessed the worst the autopsy room could offer, and she’d never seen him flinch. If this case has horrified even Gabriel, she thought, do I really want to see it? She gave herself no time to consider, but simply opened the folder and confronted the first crime scene photograph. This isn’t so bad, she thought. She had seen far worse. A slender brown-haired woman lay facedown on a stairway, as though she had dived from the top step. A river of her blood had streamed down, collecting in a pool at the bottom of the stairs.

“That’s Jane Doe number one,” said Moore.

“You don’t have ID on her?”

“We don’t have ID on any of the victims in that house.”

She turned to the next photograph. It was a young blonde this time, lying on a cot, the blanket pulled up to her neck, hands still clutching the fabric, as though it might protect her. A trickle of blood oozed from the bullet wound in her forehead. A swift kill, rendered with the stu

“That’s Jane Doe number two,” said Moore. At her troubled glance, he added: “There are still others.”

Jane heard the note of caution in his voice. Once again she was on edge as she turned to the next image. Staring at the third crime scene photo, she thought: This is getting harder, but I can still deal with it. It was a view through a closet doorway, into the blood-splattered interior. Two young women, both of them only partially clothed, sat slumped together in a tangle of arms and long hair, as though caught in a final embrace.