“It’s a change; that’s all I’m saying.”
Crowe shrugged and turned away. “So he rewrote the script.”
“Pretty boy just knows it all, doesn’t he?”
The room fell silent. Even Dr. Isles, who was often ready with an ironic comment, said nothing, but just watched with a vaguely amused expression.
Crowe turned, his gaze like laser beams on Korsak. But his words were addressed to Rizzoli: “Detective, is there a reason this man is trespassing on our crime scene?”
Rizzoli grasped Korsak’s arm. It was doughy and moist, and she could smell his sour sweat. “We haven’t seen the bedroom yet. Come on.”
“Yeah,” Crowe laughed. “Don’t wanna miss the bedroom.”
Korsak yanked away from her and took an unsteady step toward Crowe. “I been working this perp way before you, asshole.”
“Come on, Korsak,” said Rizzoli.
“… chasing down every fucking lead there is. I’m the one shoulda been called here first, ‘cause I know him now. I can smell him.”
“Oh. Is that what I’m smelling?” said Crowe.
“Come on,” said Rizzoli, about to lose it. Afraid of all rage that might come roaring out if she did. Rage against both Korsak and Crowe for their stupid head butting.
It was Barry Frost who gracefully stepped in to defuse the tension. Rizzoli’s instinct was usually to leap into any argument with both feet first, but Frost’s was to play peacemaker. It’s the curse of growing up the middle child, he’d once told her, the kid who knows his face will otherwise catch the fists of all parties involved. He did not even try to calm down Korsak but instead said to Rizzoli, “You’ve got to see what we found in the bedroom. It ties these two cases together.” He walked across the living room and headed into another hallway, his matter-of-fact stride announcing: If you want to go where the action is, follow me.
After a moment, Korsak did.
In the bedroom, Frost, Korsak, and Rizzoli gazed at the rumpled sheets, the thrown-back covers. And at the twin swaths carved in the carpet.
“Dragged from their beds,” Frost said. “Like the Yeagers.”
But Alexander Ghent had been smaller and far less muscular than Dr. Yeager, and the unsub would have had an easier time moving him into the hallway and posing him against the wall. An easier time grasping his hair and baring his throat.
“It’s on the dresser,” said Frost.
It was a powder-blue teddy, size 4, neatly folded and speckled with blood. Something a young woman would wear to attract a lover, excite a husband. Surely Karenna Ghent had never imagined the violent theater in which this garment would serve as both costume and prop. Beside it were a pair of Delta Airline ticket envelopes. Rizzoli glanced inside them and saw the itinerary, which had been arranged through the Ghents’ talent agency.
“They were due to fly out tomorrow,” she said. “Next stop was Memphis.”
“Too bad,” said Korsak. “They never got to see Graceland.”
Outside, she and Korsak sat in his car with the windows open while he smoked a cigarette. He drew in deeply, then released a sigh of satisfaction as the smoke worked its poisonous magic in his lungs. He seemed calmer, more focused than when he’d arrived three hours ago. The blast of nicotine had sharpened his mind. Or perhaps the alcohol had finally worn off.
“You have any doubt this is our boy?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Crimescope didn’t pick up any semen.”
“Maybe he was neater this time.”
“Or he didn’t rape her,” said Korsak. “And that’s why he didn’t need the teacup.”
Annoyed by his smoke, she turned her face to the open window and waved her hand to clear the air. “Murder doesn’t follow a set script,” she said. “Every victim reacts differently. It’s a two-character play, Korsak. The killer and the victim. Either one can affect the outcome. Dr. Yeager was a much bigger man than Alex Ghent. Maybe our unsub felt less confident about controlling Yeager, so he used the chinaware as a warning signal. Something he didn’t feel he needed to do with Ghent.”
“I don’t know.” Korsak flicked an ash out the window. “It’s such a weird-ass thing to do, that teacup. Part of his signature. Something he wouldn’t leave out.”
“Everything else was identical,” she pointed out. “Well-to-do couple. The man bound and posed. The woman missing.”
They fell silent as the same grim thought surely occurred to them both: The woman. What has he done to Karenna Ghent?
Rizzoli already knew the answer. Though Karenna’s image would soon appear on TV screens across the city and a plea would go out for the public’s help, though Boston P.D. would scramble to follow up every phone tip, every sighting of a dark-haired woman, Rizzoli knew what the outcome would be. She could feel it, like a cold stone in her stomach. Karenna Ghent was dead.
“Gail Yeager’s body was dumped about two days after her abduction,” said Korsak. “It’s now been-what? Around twenty hours since this couple was attacked.”
“Stony Brook Reservation,” said Rizzoli. “That’s where he’ll bring her. I’ll reinforce the surveillance team.” She glanced at Korsak, “You see any way Joey Valentine fits into this one?”
“I’m working on it. He finally gave me a sample of his blood. DNA’s pending.”
“That doesn’t sound like a guilty man. You still watching him?”
“I was. Till he filed a complaint that I was harassing him.”
“Were you?”
Korsak laughed, snorting out a lungful of smoke. “Any grown man who gets off powder-puffing dead ladies is gonna squeal like a girl, no matter what I do.”
“How, exactly, do girls squeal?” she countered in irritation. “Kind of like boys do?”
“Aw, jeez. Don’t give me that bra-burning shit. My daughter’s always doing that. Then she runs out of money and comes whining to chauvinist-pig daddy for help.” Suddenly Korsak straightened. “Hey. Look who just showed up.”
A black Lincoln had pulled into a parking space across the street. Rizzoli saw Gabriel Dean emerge from the car, his trim, athletic figure pulled straight from the pages of GQ. He stood gazing up at the redbrick facade of the residence. Then he approached the patrolman manning the perimeter and showed his badge.
The patrolman let him through the tape.
“Get a load of that,” said Korsak. “Now that pisses me off. That same cop made me stand outside till you came out to get me. Like I’m just another bum off the street. But Dean, all he has to do is wave the magic badge and say ‘federal fucking agent’ and he’s golden. Why the hell does he get a pass?”
“Maybe because he bothered to tuck in his shirt.”
“Oh yeah, like a nice suit would do it for me. It’s all in the attitude. Look at him. Like he owns the goddamn world.”
She watched as Dean gracefully balanced on one leg to pull on a shoe cover. He thrust his long hands into gloves, like a surgeon preparing to operate. Yes, it was all in the attitude. Korsak was an angry pugilist who expected the world to kick him around. Naturally it did.
“Who called him here?” said Korsak.
“I didn’t.”
“Yet he just happens to show up.”
“He always does. Someone’s keeping him in the loop. It’s no one on my team. It goes higher.”
She stared at the front door again. Dean had stepped inside, and she imagined him standing in the living room, surveying the bloodstains. Reading them the way he reads a field report, the bright splatter detached from the humanity of its source.
“You know, I been thinking about it,” said Korsak. “Dean didn’t show up on the scene until nearly three days after the Yeagers were attacked. First time we see him is over at Stony Brook Reservation, when Mrs. Yeager’s body was found. Right?”
“Right.”
“So what took him so long? The other day, we were playing around with the idea it was an execution. Some trouble the Yeagers had gotten into. If they were already on the feds’ radar screen-under investigation, say, or being watched-you’d think the fibbies would be on the case the instant Dr. Yeager was whacked. But they waited three days to step in. What finally pulled them in? What got them interested?”