The Keepsake

ELEVEN

Whatever the hour, whatever the weather, Maura Isles always managed to arrive looking elegant. Jane stood shivering in damp slacks, her hair dripping with rain, and she felt a twinge of envy as she saw the medical examiner step out of the black Lexus. Maura’s hair was sleek and perfect as a helmet, and she managed to make even a rain parka look fashionable. But then, she hadn’t spent the last hour as Jane had, standing in this parking lot, rain pelting her hair.

As Maura moved through the police line, cops respectfully stepped aside for her, as though making way for royalty. And like royalty, Maura moved with aloof purpose and headed straight toward the parked Honda where Jane was now waiting.

“Isn’t Milton a little out of your jurisdiction?” asked Maura.

“When you see what we’ve got, you’ll understand why they called us.”

“This is the car?”

Jane nodded. “It belongs to Josephine Pulcillo. She says that a week ago she lost track of her keys and assumed she’d just misplaced them. Now it looks like they might have been stolen, and whoever had them also had access to her car. Which explains how this thing got into the trunk.” Jane turned to the Honda. “Hope you’re ready for this. Because this one is definitely going to give me nightmares.”

“I’ve heard you say that before.”

“Yeah, well, this time I really mean it.” With gloved hands, Jane lifted the hood of the trunk, releasing what smelled like rotting leather. Jane had been subjected before to the odors of a decaying body, but this was different; it did not smell of putrefaction. It did not even smell human. Certainly, she’d never seen any human being look like what now lay curled in the trunk of that Honda.

For a moment, Maura could not seem to muster a sound. She stared in silence at a mass of tangled black hair, at a face darkened to the color of tar. Every skin fold, every fine line of the nude body was perfectly preserved, as though frozen in bronze. Just as preserved was the woman’s dying expression, her face twisted and her mouth agape in an eternal shriek.

“At first, I thought it couldn’t be real,” said Jane. “I thought it was a rubber Halloween gag that you’d hang up to scare the trick-or-treaters. Not flesh, but some kind of fake zombie. I mean, how could you turn a woman into something like that?” Jane paused and took a breath. “Then I saw her teeth.”

Maura stared into the gaping mouth and said softly: “She has a dental filling.”

Jane turned away and looked instead at a TV news van that had just pulled up beyond the police line. “So tell me how a woman gets to look that way, Doc,” she said. “Tell me how you transform a body into a Halloween monster.”

“I don’t know.”

That answer surprised Jane. She’d come to think of Maura Isles as the authority on every ma

Maura looked at her. “Where is Dr. Pulcillo? What does she say about this?”

Jane pointed toward the road, where the lineup of parked cars was steadily growing larger. “She’s down there, sitting in the car with Frost. She says she has no idea how the body got into her trunk. The last time she used her car was a few days ago, when she bought groceries. If this body were in the trunk more than a day or two, it would probably smell worse. She would have noticed it inside her car.”

“Her keys went missing a week ago?”

“She has no idea how she lost them. All she remembers is getting home from work one day, and they weren’t in her purse.”

“What was she doing up here?”

“She came out for a hike.”

“On a day like this?”

Heavier raindrops began to plop onto their parkas, and Maura closed the trunk, shutting off their view of the monstrous thing lying inside. “Something is not right about this.”

Jane laughed. “You think?”

“I’m talking about the weather.”

“Well, I’m not happy about the weather, either, but what can you do?”

“Josephine Pulcillo came up here all alone, on a day like today, to take a hike?”

Jane nodded. “That bothered me, too. I asked her about it.”

“What did she say?”

“She needed to get outdoors. And she likes to hike alone.”

“And apparently during thunderstorms.” Maura turned to look at the car where Josephine was now sitting. “She’s a very attractive girl, don’t you think?”

“Attractive? More like drop-dead gorgeous. I’m going to have to put Frost on a leash, the way he’s panting after her.”

Maura was still gazing toward Josephine, her frown deepening. “There’s been a great deal of publicity about Madam X. That big article in the Globe back in March. More news reports these past few weeks, with photos.”

“You mean photos of Josephine.”

Maura nodded. “Maybe she’s picked up an admirer.”

One particular admirer, thought Jane. Someone who’d known all along what was hidden in the museum basement. The publicity about Madam X would certainly have drawn his attention. He would have read every article, perused every photo. He would have seen Josephine’s face.

She looked down at the trunk, grateful that it was now closed and she did not have to see the wretched occupant, its body twisted as though in the throes of agony. “I think our collector has just sent us a message. He’s telling us he’s still alive. And hunting for new specimens.”

“He’s also telling us he’s right here in Boston.” Once again, Maura turned to look in Josephine’s direction. “You said she lost her keys. Which keys?”

“To her car. And her apartment.”

Maura’s chin lifted in dismay. “That’s not good.”

“Her locks are being changed as we speak. We’ve already spoken to her building manager, and we’ll see that she gets home safely.”

Maura’s cell phone rang, and she glanced at the number. “Excuse me,” she said, turning away to take the call. Jane noted the furtive dip of Maura’s head, the way her shoulders curled forward, as though to block anyone’s view of her conversation.

“What about Saturday night, can you make it then? It’s been so long…”

It was the whispers that gave her away. She was talking to Daniel Brophy, but Jane heard no joy in the murmured conversation, only disappointment. What else but disappointment can you expect when you fall in love with an unattainable man?

Maura ended the conversation with a soft, “I’ll call you later.” She turned to face Jane but didn’t meet her gaze. Instead she focused her attention on the Honda. A dead body was a safer topic of conversation. Unlike a lover, a corpse would not break her heart or disappoint her or leave her lonely at night.

“I assume CSU will be examining the trunk?” Maura said, and she was all business now, once again snapping into the role of the coldly logical medical examiner.

“We’re impounding the vehicle. When will you do the autopsy?”

“I want to do some preliminary studies first. X-rays, tissue samples. I need to understand exactly what preservation process I’m dealing with before I start cutting her open.”

“So you won’t do the autopsy today?”

“It won’t be until after the weekend. By the looks of the body, she’s been dead a long time. A few extra days won’t change the postmortem results.” Maura glanced toward Josephine. “What about Dr. Pulcillo?”

“We’re still talking to her. After we get her home and into some dry clothes, maybe she’ll remember a few more details.”

Josephine Pulcillo is one odd duck, thought Jane as she and Frost stood in the young woman’s apartment, waiting for her to emerge from the bedroom. The living room was furnished in the décor of starving college student. The fabric of the sleeper sofa was ratty from the claws of some phantom cat, and the coffee table was stained with drink rings. There were textbooks and technical journals lining the bookshelves, but Jane saw no photographs, no personal mementos, nothing that gave any clues to the occupant’s personality. On the computer, screensaver images of Egyptian temples cycled in a continuous loop.