Such words were never needed when a child lay on the table.
She looked across at the two detectives. Barry Frost, as usual, had a sickly pallor to his face, and he stood slightly back from the table, as though poised to make an escape. Today, it was not foul smells that would make this postmortem difficult; it was the age of the victim. Rizzoli stood beside him, her expression resolute, her petite frame almost lost in a surgical gown that was several sizes too large. She stood right up against the table, a position that announced: I’m ready. I can deal with anything. The same attitude Maura had seen among women surgical residents. Men might call them bitches, but she recognized them for what they were: embattled women who’d worked so hard to prove themselves in a man’s profession that they actually take on a masculine swagger. Rizzoli had the swagger down pat, but her face did not quite match the fearless posture. It was white and tense, the skin beneath her eyes smudged with fatigue.
Yoshima had angled the light onto the bundle, and stood waiting by the instrument tray.
The blanket was soaked, and icy pond water trickled off as she gently peeled it away, revealing another layer of wrapping. The tiny foot that she’d seen earlier now lay exposed, poking out from beneath wet linen. Clinging to the infant’s form like a shroud was a white pillowcase, closed with safety pins. Flecks of pink adhered to the fabric.
Maura reached for the tweezers, picked off the bits of pink, and dropped them onto a small tray.
“What is that stuff?” asked Frost.
“It looks like confetti,” said Rizzoli.
Maura slipped the tweezers deep into a wet fold and came up with a twig. “It’s not confetti,” she said. “These are dried flowers.”
The significance of this finding brought another silence to the room. A symbol of love, she thought. Of mourning. She remembered how moved she had been, years ago, when she’d learned that Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers. It was evidence of their grief, and therefore, their humanity. This child, she thought, was mourned. Wrapped in linen, sprinkled with dried flower petals, and swaddled in a wool blanket. Not a disposal, but a burial. A farewell.
She focused on the foot, poking out doll-like from its shroud. The skin of the sole was wrinkled from immersion in fresh water, but there was no obvious decomposition, no marbling of veins. The pond had been near freezing temperatures, and the body could have remained in a state of near-preservation for weeks. Time of death, she thought, would be difficult, if not impossible, to determine.
She set aside the tweezers and removed the four safety pins closing the bottom of the pillowcase. They made soft musical ticks as she dropped them onto a tray. Lifting the fabric, she gently peeled it upwards, and both legs appeared, knees bent, thighs apart like a small frog.
The size was consistent with a full-term fetus.
She exposed the genitals, and then a swollen length of umbilical cord, tied off with red satin ribbon. She suddenly remembered the nuns sitting at the dining table, their gnarled hands reaching for dried flowers and ribbons to make into sachets. A sachet-baby, she thought. Sprinkled with flowers and tied with ribbon.
“It’s a boy,” Rizzoli said, and her voice suddenly cracked.
Maura looked up and saw that Rizzoli had paled even more, that she was now leaning against the table, as though to steady herself.
“Do you need to step out?”
Rizzoli swallowed. “It’s just …”
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“These are hard to take, I know. Kids are always hard. If you want to sit down—”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
The worst was yet to come.
Maura eased the pillowcase up over the chest, gently extending first one arm and then the other so they would not be snagged by the wet fabric. The hands were perfectly formed, tiny fingers designed to reach for a mother’s face, to grasp a mother’s lock of hair. Next to the face, it is the hands that are most recognizably human, and it was almost painful to look at them.
Maura reached inside the pillowcase to support the back of the head as she pulled off the last of the fabric.
Instantly, she knew something was wrong.
Her hand was cradling a skull that did not feel normal, did not feel human. She paused, her throat suddenly dry. With a sense of dread, she peeled off the fabric, and the infant’s head emerged.
Rizzoli gasped and jerked away from the table.
“Jesus,” said Frost. “What the hell happened to it?”
Too stunned to speak, Maura could only gaze down in horror at the skull, gaping open, the brain exposed. At the face, folded in like a squashed rubber mask.
A metal tray suddenly toppled and crashed.
Maura looked up just in time to see Jane Rizzoli, her face drained white, slowly crumple to the floor.
TEN
“I don’t want to go to the ER”
Maura wiped away the last of the blood and frowned at the inch-long laceration on Rizzoli’s forehead. “I’m not a plastic surgeon. I can stitch this up, but I can’t guarantee there won’t be a scar.”
“Just do it, okay? I don’t want to sit for hours in some hospital waiting room. They’d probably just sic a medical student on me, anyway.”
Maura wiped the skin with Betadine, then reached for a vial of Xylocaine and a syringe. “I’m going to numb your skin first. It’ll sting a little bit, but after that, you shouldn’t feel a thing.”
Rizzoli lay perfectly still on the couch, her eyes focused on the ceiling. Though she didn’t flinch as the needle pierced her skin, she closed her hand into a fist and kept it tightly balled as the local anesthetic was injected. Not a word of complaint, not a whimper escaped her lips. Already she’d been humiliated by the fall in the lab. Humiliated even further when she’d been too dizzy to walk, and Frost had carried her like a bride into Maura’s office. Now she lay with her jaw squared, grimly determined not to show any weakness.
As Maura pierced the edges of the laceration with the curved suture needle, Rizzoli asked, in a perfectly calm voice: “Are you going to tell me what happened to that baby?”
“Nothing happened to it.”
“It’s not exactly normal. Jesus, it’s missing half its head.”
“It was born that way,” Maura said, snipping off suture and tying a knot. Sewing skin was like stitching a living fabric, and she was simply a tailor, bringing the edges together, knotting the thread. “The baby is anencephalic.”
“What does that mean?”
“Its brain never developed.”
“There’s more wrong with it than just a missing brain. It looked like the whole top of his head was chopped off.” Rizzoli swallowed. “And the face …”
“It’s all part of the same birth defect. The brain develops from a sheath of cells called the neural tube. If the top of the tube fails to close the way it’s supposed to, the baby will be born missing a major part of the brain, the skull, even the scalp. That’s what anencephalic means. Without a head.”
“You ever seen one like that before?”
“Only in a medical museum. But it’s not that rare. It happens in about one in a thousand births.”
“Why?”
“No one knows.”
“Then it could—it could happen to any baby?”
“That’s right.” Maura tied off the last stitch and snipped the excess suture. “This child was born gravely malformed. If it wasn’t already dead at birth, then it almost certainly died soon after.”
“So Camille didn’t drown it.”
“I’ll check the kidneys for diatoms. That would tell us if the child died by drowning. But I don’t think this is a case of infanticide. I think the baby died a natural death.”
“Thank god,” Rizzoli said softly. “If that thing had lived …”
“It wouldn’t have.” Maura finished taping a bandage to the wound and stripped off her gloves. “All done, Detective. The stitches need to come out in five days. You ca
n drop by here and I’ll snip them for you. But I still think you need to see a doctor.”
“You are a doctor.”
“I work on dead people. Remember?”
“You just sewed me up fine.”
“I’m not talking about putting in a few stitches. I’m concerned about what else is going on.”
“What do you mean?”
Maura leaned forward, her gaze tight on Rizzoli’s. “You fainted, remember?”
“I didn’t eat lunch. And that thing—the baby—it shocked me.”
“It shocked us all. But you’re the one who keeled over.”
“I’ve just never seen anything like it.”
“Jane, you’ve seen all sorts of terrible things in that autopsy room. We’ve seen them together, smelled them together. You’ve always had a strong stomach. The boy cops, I have to keep an eye on them, because they’ll drop like rocks. But you’ve always managed to hang in there. Until now.”
“Maybe I’m not as tough as you thought.”
“No, I think there’s something wrong. Isn’t there?”
“Like what?”
“You got light-headed a few days ago.”
Rizzoli shrugged. “I’ve gotta start eating breakfast.”
“Why haven’t you? Is it nausea? And I’ve noticed you’re in the bathroom practically every ten minutes. You went in there twice, just while I was setting up the lab.”
“What the hell is this, anyway? An interrogation?”
“You need to see a doctor. You need a complete physical and a blood count to rule out anemia, at the very least.”
“I just need to get some fresh air.” Rizzoli sat up, then quickly dropped her head in her hands. “God, this is some friggin’ headache.”
“You whacked your head pretty hard on the floor.”
“It’s been whacked before.”
“But I’m more concerned about why you fainted. Why you’ve been so tired.”
Rizzoli lifted her head and looked at her. In that instant, Maura had her answer. She had already suspected it, and now she saw it confirmed in the other woman’s eyes.
“My life is so fucked up,” Rizzoli whispered.
The tears startled Maura. She had never seen Rizzoli cry, had thought this woman was too strong, too stubborn, to ever break down, yet tears were now trickling down her cheeks, and Maura was so taken aback she could only watch in silence.
The knock on the door startled them both.
Frost stuck his head into the office. “How’re we doing in here …” His voice trailed off when he saw his partner’s damp face. “Hey. Hey, are you okay?”
Rizzoli gave an angry swipe at her tears. “I’m fine.”
“What’s going on?”
“I said I’m fine!”
“Detective Frost,” said Maura, “We need time alone. Could you give us some privacy, please?”
Frost flushed. “Sorry,” he murmured, and withdrew, softly closing the door.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at him,” said Rizzoli. “But sometimes, he’s so goddamn dense.”
“He’s just concerned about you.”
“Yeah, I know. I know. At least he’s one of the good guys.” Her voice broke. Fighting not to cry, she balled her hands into fists, but the tears came anyway, and then the sobs. Choked, embarrassed sobs that she could not hold back. It disturbed Maura to witness the disintegration of a woman whose strength had always impressed her. If Jane Rizzoli could fall apart, then anyone could.
Rizzoli suddenly slapped her fists on her knees and took a few deep breaths. When at last she raised her head, the tears were still there, but pride had set her face in a rigid mask.
“It’s the goddamn hormones. They’re screwing around with my head.”
“How long have you known?”
“I don’t know. A while, I guess. I finally did a home pregnancy test this morning. But I’ve sort of known for weeks. I could feel the difference. And I didn’t get my period.”
“How late are you?”
Rizzoli shrugged. “At least a month.”
Maura leaned back in her chair. Now that Rizzoli had her emotions under control, Maura could retreat into her role of clinician. The cool-headed doctor, ready with practical advice. “You have plenty of time to decide.”
Rizzoli gave a snort and wiped her hand across her face. “There’s nothing to decide.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I can’t have it. You know I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Rizzoli gave her a look reserved for imbeciles. “What would I do with a baby?”
“What everyone else does.”
“Can you see me being a mother?” Rizzoli laughed. “I’d be lousy at it. The kid wouldn’t survive a month in my care.”
“Children are amazingly resilient.”
“Yeah, well, I’m no good with them.”
“You were very good with that little girl Noni.”
“Right.”
“You were, Jane. And she responded to you. She ignored me, and she shrinks from her own mother. But you two were like instant pals.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m the mommy type. Babies freak me out. I don’t know what to do with ’em, except to hand ’em over to someone else, quick.” She released a sharp breath, as though that was that. Issue settled. “I can’t do it. I just can’t.” She rose from the chair and crossed to the door.
“Have you told Agent Dean?”
Rizzoli halted, her hand on the knob.
“Jane?”
“No, I haven’t told him.”
“Why not?”
“It’s kind of hard to have a conversation when we hardly see each other.”
“Washington’s not the other end of the earth. It’s even in the same time zone. You could try picking up the phone. He’d want to know.”
“Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it’s just one of those complications he’d rather not hear about.”
Maura sighed. “Okay, I admit it, I don’t know him very well. But in the short time we all worked together, he struck me as someone who takes his responsibilities seriously.”
“Responsibilities?” Rizzoli finally turned and looked at her. “Oh, right. That’s what I am. That’s what this baby is. And he’s just enough of a Boy Scout to do his duty.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“But you’re absolutely right. Gabriel would do his duty. Well, to hell with that. I don’t want to be some man’s problem, some man’s responsibility. Besides, it’s not his decision. It’s mine. I’m the one who’d have to raise it.”
“You haven’t even given him a chance.”
“A chance to what? Get down on his knee and propose to me?” Rizzoli laughed.
“Why is that so far-fetched? I’ve seen you two together. I’ve seen how he looks at you. There’s more going on than just a one-night stand.”
“Yeah. It was a two-week stand.”
“That’s all it was to you?”
“What else could we manage? He’s in Washington and I’m here.” She shook her head in amazement. “Jesus, I can’t believe I got caught. This is only supposed to happen to dumb chicks.” She stopped. Laughed. “Right. So what does that make me?”
“Definitely not dumb.”
“Unlucky. And too goddamn fertile.”
“When was the last time you spoke to him?”
“Last week. He called me.”
“You didn’t think to tell him then?”
“I wasn’t sure then.”
“But you are now.”
“And I’m still not going to tell him. I have to choose what’s right for me, not for anyone else.”
“What are you afraid he’ll say?”
“That he’ll talk me into screwing up my life. That he’ll tell me to keep it.”
“Is that really what you’re afraid of? Or are you more afraid that he won’t want it? That he’ll reject you before you get the chance to reject him?”
Rizzoli looked at Maura. “You know what, Doc?”
“What?”
“Sometimes, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
And sometimes, thought Maura as she watched Rizzoli walk out of the office, I hit the bull’s-eye.
Rizzoli and Frost sat in the car, the heater blowing cold air, snowflakes fluttering onto the windshield. The gray skies matched her mood. She sat shivering in the claustrophobic gloom of the car, and every snowflake that fell on the window was another opaque chip cutting off her view. Closing her in, burying her.
Frost said, “You feeling better?”
“Got a headache. That’s all.”
“You sure you don’t want me to drive you to the ER?”
“I just need to pick up some Tylenol.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He put the car into gear, then changed his mind and shifted back into park. He looked at her. “Rizzoli?”
“What?”
“You ever want to talk about anything—anything at all, I don’t mind listening.”
She didn’t respond, just turned her gaze to the windshield. To the snowflakes forming a white filigree on the glass.
“We’ve been together what, two years now? Seems to me, you don’t tell me a lot about what’s going on in your life,” he said. “I think I probably talk your ear off about me and Alice. Every fight we have, you hear about it, whether you want to or not. You never tell me to shut up, so I figure you don’t mind. But you know, I just realized something. You do a lot of listening, but you hardly ever talk about yourself.”
“There’s nothing much to say.”
He thought this over for a moment. Then he said, sounding almost embarrassed: “I’ve never seen you cry before.”
She shrugged. “Okay. Now you have.”
“Look, we haven’t always gotten along great—”
“You don’t think so?”
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