The Apprentice: A Novel

by Tess Gerritsen

  “There’s an open kitchen window that leads to a little courtyard in back,” said Sleeper. “We found several footprints in the flower bed, but they’re not all the same size. Some of them may belong to a gardener. Or even the victims.”

  Rizzoli stared down at the duct tape binding Alex Ghent’s ankles. “And Mrs. Ghent?” she asked. Already knowing the answer.

  “Missing,” said Sleeper.

  Her gaze moved in an ever larger circle around the corpse, but she saw no broken teacup, no fragments of chinaware. Something is wrong, she thought.

  “Detective Rizzoli?”

  She turned and saw a crime scene tech standing in the hallway.

  “Patrolman says there’s some guy outside, claims to know you. He’s raising a holy stink, demanding access. You want to check him out?”

  “I know who it is,” she said. “I’ll go walk him in.”

  Korsak was smoking a cigarette as he paced the sidewalk, so furious about the indignity of being reduced to the status of civilian bystander that smoke seemed to be rising from his ears as well. He saw her and immediately threw down the butt and squashed it as though it were a disgusting bug.

  “You shutting me out or what?” he said.

  “Look, I’m sorry. The patrolman didn’t get the word.”

  “Goddamn rookie. Didn’t show any respect.”

  “He didn’t know, okay? It was my fault.” She lifted the crime scene tape and he ducked under it. “I want you to see this.”

  At the front door, she waited while he pulled on shoe covers and latex gloves. He stumbled as he tried to balance on one foot. Catching him, she was shocked to smell alcohol on his breath. She had called him from her car, had reached him at home on a night when he was off duty. Now she regretted having alerted him at all. He was already angry and belligerent, but she could not refuse him entry without precipitating a noisy and very public scene. She only hoped he was sober enough not to embarrass them both.

  “Okay,” he huffed. “Show me what we got.”

  In the living room he stared without comment at the corpse of Alexander Ghent, slumped in a pool of blood. Korsak’s shirt had come untucked, and he breathed with his usual adenoidal snuffle. She saw Crowe and Sleeper glance their way, saw Crowe roll his eyes, and suddenly she was furious at Korsak for showing up in this condition. She had called him because he’d been the first detective to walk the Yeager death scene, and she’d wanted his impression on this one as well. What she got instead was a drunk cop whose very presence was starting to humiliate her.

  “It could be our boy,” said Korsak.

  Crowe snorted. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  Korsak turned his bloodshot gaze on Crowe. “You’re one of those boy geniuses, huh? Know it all.”

  “Not like it takes a genius to see what we’ve got.”

  “What do you think we’ve got?”

  “A replay. Nocturnal home invasion. Couple surprised in bed. Wife abducted, husband gets the coup de grâce. It’s all here.”

  “So where’s the teacup?” Impaired though he was, Korsak had managed to zero in on precisely the detail that had bothered Rizzoli.

  “There isn’t one,” said Crowe.

  Korsak stared at the victim’s empty lap. “He’s got the vic posed. Got him sitting up against the wall to watch the show, like the last time. But he left out the warning system. The teacup. If he assaults the wife, how does he keep track of the husband?”

  “Ghent’s a skinny guy. Not much of a threat. Besides, he’s all trussed up. How’s he gonna get up and defend his wife?”

  “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 the 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.”

  The
y 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 one 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?”

  She looked at him. “Did you file a VICAP report?”

  “Yeah. Took me a whole friggin’ hour to finish it. A hundred eighty-nine questions. Weird shit like, ‘Was any body part bitten off? What objects got shoved into which orifices?’ Now I gotta file a supplementary report on Mrs. Yeager.”

  “Did you request a profile evaluation when you transmitted the form?”

  “No. I didn’t see the point of having some FBI profiler tell me what I already know. I just did my civic duty and sent in the VICAP form.”

  VICAP, or the Violent Criminals Apprehension Program, was the FBI’s database of violent crimes. Compiling that database required the cooperation of often-harried law enforcement officers who, when confronted with the long VICAP questionnaire, many times did not even bother.

  “When did you file the report?” she asked.

  “Right after the postmortem on Dr. Yeager.”

  “And that’s when Dean showed up. A day later.”

  “You think that’s it?” asked Korsak. “That’s what pulled him in?”

  “Maybe your report tripped an alarm.”

  “What would get their attention?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked at the front door, through which Dean had vanished. “And it’s pretty clear he’s not going to tell us.”

  eleven

  Jane Rizzoli was not a symphony kind of gal. The extent of her exposure to music was her collection of easy-listening CDs and the two years she’d played trumpet in the middle school band, one of only two girls who’d chosen that instrument. She’d been drawn to it because it produced the loudest, brassiest sound of all, not like those tooty clarinets or the chirpy flutes the other girls played. No, Rizzoli wanted to be heard, and so she sat shoulder to shoulder with the boys in the trumpet section. She loved it when the notes came blasting out.

  Unfortunately, they were too often the wrong notes.

  After her father banished her to the backyard for her practice sessions and then the neighborhood dogs began to howl in protest, she finally put the trumpet away for good. Even she could recognize that raw enthusiasm and strong lungs were not enough to make up for a discouraging lack of talent.

  Since then, music had meant little more to her than white noise aboard elevators and thudding bass notes in passing cars. She had been inside the Symphony Hall on the corner of Huntington and Mass Ave only twice in her life, both times as a high school student attending field trips to hear BSO rehearsals. In 1990, the Cohen Wing had been added, a part of Symphony Hall that Rizzoli had never before visited. When she and Frost entered the new wing, she was surprised by how modern it looked—not the dark and creaky building that she remembered.

  They showed their badges to the elderly security guard, who snapped his kyphotic spine a little straighter when he saw the two visitors were from Homicide.

  “Is this about the Ghents?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” said Rizzoli.

  “Terrible. Just terrible. I saw them last week, right after they got into town. They dropped by to check out the hall.” He shook his head. “Seemed like such a nice young couple.”

  “Were you on duty the night they performed?”

  “No, ma’am. I just work here during the day. Have to leave at five to pick up my wife from day care. She needs twenty-four-hour supervision, you know. Forgets to turn off the stove . . .” He stopped, suddenly reddening. “But I guess you folks aren’t here to pass the time. You come to see Evelyn?”

  “Yes. Which way to her office?”

  “She’s not there. I saw her go into the concert hall a few minutes ago.”

  “Is there a rehearsal going on or something?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s our quiet season. Orchestra stays out in Tanglewood during the summer. This time of year, we just get a few visiting performers.”

  “So we can walk right into the hall?”

  “Ma’am, you got the badge. Far as I’m concerned, you can go anywhere.”

  They did not immediately spot Evelyn Petrakas. As Rizzoli stepped into the dim auditorium, all she saw at first was a vast sea of empty seats, sweeping down toward a spotlighted stage. Drawn toward the light, t
hey started down the aisle, wood floor creaking like the timbers of an old ship. They had already reached the stage when a voice called out, faintly:

  “Can I help you?”

  Squinting against the glare, Rizzoli turned to face the darkened rear of the auditorium. “Ms. Petrakas?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective Rizzoli. This is Detective Frost. Can we speak to you?”

  “I’m here. In the back row.”

  They walked up the aisle to join her. Evelyn did not rise from her seat but remained huddled where she was, as though hiding from the light. She gave the detectives a dull nod as they took the two seats beside her.

  “I’ve already spoken to a policeman. Last night,” Evelyn said.

  “Detective Sleeper?”

  “Yes. I think that was his name. An older man, quite nice. I know I was supposed to wait and talk to some other detectives, but I had to leave. I just couldn’t stay at that house any longer . . .” She looked toward the stage, as though mesmerized by a performance only she could see. Even in the gloom, Rizzoli could see it was a handsome face, perhaps forty, with premature streaks of silver in her dark hair. “I had responsibilities here,” Evelyn said. “All the ticket refunds. And then the press started showing up. I had to come back and deal with it.” She gave a tired laugh. “Always putting out fires. That’s my job.”

  “What is your job here exactly, Ms. Petrakas?” asked Frost.

  “My official title?” She gave a shrug. “‘Program coordinator for visiting artists.’ What it means is, I try to keep them happy and healthy while they’re in Boston. It’s amazing how helpless some of them can be. They spend their lives in rehearsal halls and studios. The real world’s a puzzle to them. So I recommend places for them to stay. Arrange for their pickup at the airport. Fruit basket in the room. Whatever extra comforts they need. I hold their hands.”

  “When did you first meet the Ghents?” asked Rizzoli.

  “The day after they arrived in town. I went to pick them up at the house. They couldn’t take a taxi because Alex’s cello case made it a tight squeeze. But I have an SUV with a backseat that folds down.”