Last to Die (19 page)

Maura watched as six boys took their seats in the chemistry classroom. Because they sat together at Julian’s table in the dining hall, Maura had come to know all their names. In the second row there was Bruno Chinn, who never seemed to sit still for a minute, and even now was fidgeting and twitching in his chair. Beside him, Arthur Toombs sat perfectly still, his burn-scarred hands clasped together on the desk. Those scars, she’d been told, were the ugly souvenirs of a fire set by his own father. Near the door sat Lester Grimmett, a boy obsessed with quick escape routes. A quick escape out a window had once saved his life, and he always, always chose a seat near the exit. And in the front row sat the two newest members of the Jackals, Will Yablonski and Teddy Clock. Their stories, Maura knew all too well.

Six boys, six tragedies, Maura thought. But life went on and here they were, some of them scarred, all of them survivors. This club was their way of dealing with the losses, the bad memories, a way for even these powerless children to feel like warriors.

But as crime fighters, they seemed a rather unimpressive lot.

Only Julian stood out, tall and commanding, a club president who looked the part. Although Jane had dismissed the Jackals as nothing more than
CSI High School
, it was clear that Julian took his role as club president seriously. And the other boys in the room looked every bit as serious.

“Today, Jackals, we have a
real
forensic investigator joining us,” said Julian. “Dr. Isles works at the medical examiner’s office in Boston, where she performs autopsies. She’s a medical doctor. A forensic pathologist. A scientist. And …” He looked at her with pride. “She’s my friend.”

My friend
. Two such simple words, yet the way he’d said them held a far deeper meaning for both of them. She stood up, smiling, and addressed the club with the same respect that they regarded her.

“Thank you for the introduction, Julian. As he told you, I’m a pathologist. I work with the dead. I examine human remains on the autopsy table, and I look at tissues under the microscope, to understand why people die. Whether it was the natural result of a disease process. Or whether it was caused by trauma or toxins. Poisons. Since my scientific background is medicine, I can advise you on …” She paused, glimpsing movement in the hallway. A flash of blond hair. “Claire?” she called out. “Would you like to join us?”

All the boys turned at once to look at the doorway. Claire could hardly slip away unnoticed, so she gave a shrug, as if she had nothing better to do anyway. She walked straight to the front row and dropped indifferently into the chair next to Will. All the boys were still staring at this exotic creature who’d just wandered into their midst. Indeed, thought Maura, Claire Ward
was
a strange girl. With her white-blond hair and pale eyelashes, she looked otherworldly, like some forest nymph. But her bored expression and slouched shoulders radiated pure American teenager.

Claire looked around at the speechless boys. “Do you guys actually
do
something at these meetings, or do you just stare?”

Julian said, “We’re about to discuss what we found in the willow tree.”

“Which I had nothing to do with. No matter what anyone says.”

“We just follow the evidence, Claire. Wherever it leads us.” He looked at Maura. “I thought, since you’re the medical expert, you could start by telling us the cause of death.”

Maura frowned. “Cause of death?”

“The rooster’s,” called out Bruno. “We already know the manner of his death was homicide. Or chicken-cide, I guess you’d call it. But
how
did he die?”

Maura looked around at the faces watching her. They’re serious, she thought. They’re actually treating this as a death investigation.

“You did examine him,” said Arthur. “Didn’t you?”

“Only briefly,” Maura admitted. “Before Mr. Roman discarded the remains. And based on the angle of his neck, I’d say it was clearly broken.”

“So would that be death from strangulation or spinal cord trauma?”

“She just said the neck was snapped,” said Bruno. “I’d call that neurologic, not vascular.”

“And what about the time of death estimate?” said Lester. “Do you know what the postmortem interval was?”

Maura looked from face to face, startled by the rush of questions. “Time of death is always tricky, if there are no witnesses. In humans, we look at a number of indicators. Body temperature, rigor mortis, livor mortis—”

“Have you ever tried doing vitreous potassium on a bird?” asked Bruno.

She stared at him. “No. No, I can’t say that I have. I admit, I don’t know much about chicken pathology.”

“Well, at least we have a cause of death, then. But what was the point of cutting him open? Why pull out his guts and hang him in the tree?”

Precisely the question I asked in the clearing
.

“That issue gets into profiling,” said Julian. “For now, we’ll stick to the physical evidence. I went back into the woods to try and find the body, but I think some scavenger made off with it, so we don’t have the remains to examine. I also searched for footwear impressions around the chicken coop, but I’m sorry to say the rain pretty much wiped those out. So I guess we’ll move on to what you guys found.” He looked at Bruno. “Do you want to go next?”

As Bruno moved to the front of the class, Maura sat down, feeling like the student who hadn’t done her homework. She had no idea what the bouncy, twitchy little Bruno would have to share. He pulled on latex gloves and reached into a brown paper sack. Out came the three twig dolls, still attached to their twine nooses, and he laid them on the stainless-steel lab counter. Such trivial things, she thought, looking at them now. Under the classroom’s bright fluorescent lights, the reddish brown splatters looked like mud stains, not blood at all. Dangling from the willow tree and twisting in the wind, they’d seemed unholy. Now they had lost their power, reduced to nothing more than what they were: bundles of twigs.

“Here we have exhibits A, B, and C,” said Bruno. “Human figurines that appear to represent two males and one female. They’re made up of various twigs and bark, tied together with twine. It’s the twine I looked at. I determined that it’s made of jute. I also found samples of the same kind of twine in the barn, where it’s used to tie up bales of hay for the horses.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a sample of string. “See? Identical. From our own barn!” He sat back down.

“Arthur, you want to go next?” said Julian.

“I identified the twigs,” said Arthur, rising to his feet. “The bark skirt was easy. It’s
Betula papyrifera
, the American white birch. The twigs weren’t as easy to figure out, and there are two different kinds. Based on the smooth green bark and the pointed buds, I think some of them are
Fraxinus nigra
, the black ash. The other twigs I was able to identify because of their star-shaped pith. I think they’re balsam poplar. You can find all these trees down by the stream.”

“Good work,” said Julian.

Maura stared at Arthur as he sat down and she thought: That fifteen-year-old knows more about trees than I ever will.
CSI High School
was turning out to be far more impressive than she’d imagined.

Lester rose from his chair, but he didn’t move to the front of the classroom. He stayed right by the exit, where he felt safe. “I looked at the rope that was used to hang the victim from that high branch. I had to go back and climb the tree to get the sample, since we couldn’t find Herman—the victim—in the woods.”

“And what did you find out about the rope?” said Julian.

“It’s quarter-inch white nylon, diamond braid. All-purpose, good tensile strength. Resists rot and mildew.” Lester paused. “I searched all over the place, to see if I could find the source. And I found a whole roll of it in the toolshed.” He sat down.

“We’ve established that all the materials needed to make these dolls can be found right here, on the school grounds. The twigs. The twine. The rope.” Julian looked around the room. “So now comes the hard part, answering the question that Lester asked earlier: Why? Why would someone kill a rooster, slice him open, and gut him? Why hang him up along a trail that we walk almost every day? A place where we’d be sure to come across it?” He waited for an answer.

Arthur said, “Someone wants attention.”

“Or hates roosters,” said Bruno, looking pointedly at Claire.

“A religious rite,” suggested Will. “Like Santería. They kill chickens, don’t they?”

“A psychopath kills animals for fun,” said Lester. “Maybe he enjoyed it. Maybe he got a thrill, which means he’ll do it again.” Lester paused. “Next time, it might not be a chicken.”

That made the room fall silent.

It was Teddy who broke the hush. “I think it’s a message,” he said.

“What kind of message?” asked Julian.

“He’s trying to tell us something. Trying to warn us.” Teddy’s voice faded to a whisper. “Does anyone else wonder why there are three dolls?”

Maura looked at the twig dolls. Then she looked at Claire, sitting in the front row, flanked by Will and Teddy.

Two males. One female
.

“I’M A LITTLE
hazy on my geography, Rizzoli, so help me out here,” said Detective Crowe. “The last time I checked, New Hampshire was not in our jurisdiction.”

Jane looked around the table at the detectives who’d gathered for the team conference. Frost and Moore sat facing her, but neither one seemed eager to butt heads with Crowe this morning. The whole team, in fact, looked weary of conflict. Crowe had beaten them all down, and she was the only one prepared to challenge him. The only one who actually relished a knock-down, drag-out battle.

“I just listed all the parallels to the Ackerman case,” she said. “Two years ago, the Yablonskis die when a bomb takes down their private plane.”

“Which crashed in Maryland,” pointed out Crowe.

“Also two years ago, Claire Ward’s parents are shot to death—”

“In London.” Crowe laughed. “A different
country
, for Chrissakes.”

“—and both events take place the
very same week
that Teddy
Clock
’s family is attacked in Saint Thomas. Three families, Crowe. All killed within days of each other. Now it’s two years later, and the sole survivors of those families are all attacked again. It’s like someone’s determined to wipe out the bloodlines. And these three kids will be the last to die.”

“What do you propose, Rizzoli? You want to fly to Maryland and run their investigation for them?”

“Flying to Maryland would be a start.”

“What’s next, London? Boston PD will be
thrilled
to foot that bill. Oh, and let’s not forget Saint Thomas. Someone needs to check out
that
incident.”

Frost raised a hand. “I volunteer for Saint Thomas.”

“I’m not asking for junkets to London and Saint Thomas,” said Jane. “I’d just like to spend some time on this. I think there are connections that we just aren’t seeing. Something that ties together the Wards, the Yablonskis, and the Clocks.”

“A vast international conspiracy,” said Crowe. “Right.”

“It warrants a deeper look.”

“No. We stay focused on Andres Zapata. Suddenly he’s nowhere to be seen, which sounds like a guilty man to me.” Crowe looked at Frost. “What do we have on his phone calls?”

Frost shook his head. “Hasn’t used his cell phone since the Ackermans were killed. I’m guessing he tossed it, or he’s already back in Colombia. Maria’s phone calls don’t trip any alarms for me.”

“Then she has some other way she contacts him. Email. A go-between. So we move on to friends of friends. Any new tips since this morning’s broadcast?”

Moore nodded. “We’re trying to keep up with all of them.”

“You know what Master Yoda says.
There’s no try, only do
.” Crowe glanced at his watch and abruptly stood up, straightening his tie. “Got a reporter waiting for me,” he said and walked out of the room.

“Do you think we should widen that doorway now?” said Jane. “Before his head gets too big to fit through?”

“I think it’s too late,” said Moore. Legendary for his patience, even he looked disgusted as he gathered his papers and stuffed them into his briefcase. Lately he’d been talking a lot about retirement; this might be the case that finally pushed him out the door.

“What do you think about Zapata?” Jane asked him.

“Andres Zapata has everything that Crowe loves in a suspect. Access, opportunity, a rap sheet. And no green card.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Neither do I have a convincing argument to rebut it. For now, Zapata’s our man.” Moore snapped the briefcase shut and trudged out the door like a weary bureaucrat.

“Geez,” she said to Frost. “What happened to
him
?”

“You don’t know what it’s been like around here the past few days,” said Frost. “You haven’t had the pleasure of Crowe’s company.”

She sat tapping her pen on the files she’d brought into the meeting. Thought about all the hours she’d devoted to researching the Wards and Yablonskis. “Tell me I’ve got a point, Frost. Tell me there’s something weird about it all.”