“Someone drove you here. Someone unlocked your front door and got you to the sofa.”
The same someone who drugged my champagne? Who’s now dead from stab wounds?
Jane placed a comforting hand on Maura’s shoulder. “I’ll drive you to the ER now, okay? And I’ll need your clothes. What you wore last night.”
“On the floor, in my bathroom. Everything’s there, my underwear, my stockings.” Maura sighed. “I know the drill.”
“You also know that I’ve got a problem, Maura. The guy you just happened to meet last night turns up murdered. And you can’t remember how the evening ended.”
Maura looked up at her. “I guess we’ve both got a problem.”
CHAPTER TWO
Jane was accustomed to seeing Maura poised and in control, the Queen of the Dead unruffled even by the horrors that landed on her autopsy table. So it was a shock to see how vulnerable Maura looked, sitting on the ER exam table, dressed in a hospital paper gown. Maura flinched as a needle pierced her vein and dark blood streamed into the specimen tube.
“That’s for the drug screen?” asked Jane.
“Dr. Murata ordered a number of blood and urine tests” was all the nurse would say as she unsnapped the tourniquet, taped gauze to the puncture site. “And that should do it. As soon as you sign the discharge form, you’re free to go, Dr. Isles. We’ll call you when the lab results come in.” She walked out with the blood tubes, sliding the privacy curtain closed.
“Thank you, Jane,” Maura whispered. “For staying with me.”
“Feel better?”
“Yes. Now that it looks like I wasn’t …” Maura’s voice trailed off before she could say the word. “I just wanted to be certain.”
“Nevertheless,” said Jane, “we’ll need to hang on to your evening clothes, as well as all the collected trace evidence.”
Maura frowned. “You’re keeping my fingernail scrapings?”
Before Jane could answer, her cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” she said, and walked out. Kept walking until she was well down the hall, where Maura couldn’t hear her. “Rizzoli,” she answered.
“You know that name you gave me, Eli Kilgour?” said her partner, Detective Barry Frost.
“You reach his next of kin?”
“Even better. I reached him. Mr. Kilgour’s alive and well and living with his male partner on Beacon Street.”
“Male partner?”
“You got it. He said he is a donor to the Museum of Science, but he couldn’t make it to the benefit because he had another engagement. The man Dr. Isles met last night must have picked up a badge from the ones remaining on the table.”
“Classic way to crash a party. But in that crowd, it carries risks. You’d think folks in their circle would know each other.”
“I called the museum, and they’ve pulled the security tapes for me. They had four hundred guests last night, so it’d be easy to slip in among so many people. He must be an old hand at this, if he comes dressed in a tuxedo. Hell, I don’t even own a tuxedo.”
“So we’re back to square one. Who is our dead John Doe?”
“Dr. Isles was with him last night, and she has no idea?”
“She says she can’t remember what happened. What about Maura’s car. Did you find it?”
“Yeah. It’s still in the museum garage, where she says she parked it last night. It was locked, nothing unusual about it.”
“If her car was left at the museum, he must have driven her home.”
“So where’s his car? There wasn’t any vehicle near the body,” Frost pointed out.
She thought about the geography of Boston, and realized that if she drove directly from the Museum of Science to Maura’s house in Brookline, the death scene would be right along the way. She didn’t like where that line of reasoning took her. It led to the possibility that John Doe was killed and dumped en route to Maura’s home. It meant she was with the killer when it happened.
Or she was the killer.
“Check the cars in Maura’s neighborhood,” Jane said. “Any vehicle that doesn’t belong.”
“You’re not thinking that …”
“We have to, Frost. We have no choice.” She glanced up as Maura emerged, now dressed, from the exam room. “Right now, she’s our only suspect.”
The vehicle was parked across the street from Maura’s residence, a black Buick LaCrosse with Massachusetts plates, registered to Christopher Scanlon of Braintree. None of the nearby neighbors knew anything about the car, only that it was already parked there when they woke up that morning.
“Unlocked. Keys still in the ignition,” said Frost. “And look what’s down there.” He pointed to the floor beneath the passenger seat, and Jane’s heart dropped when she saw the woman’s high-heeled shoe. It was the mate to the shoe she’d seen under Maura’s coffee table.
“Tow truck’s on the way now,” said Frost. “Once they get it back to the lab, I’m gonna bet CSU finds her fingerprints in there as well.”
“Oh man. This gets worse and worse.”
“If this were anyone else, we’d be reading her her rights.”
“But it’s not anyone else,” said Jane. “This is Maura.”
“And we both know a few cops who’d like to see her take a perp walk.” Maura’s recent testimony against a Boston PD officer had sent him to prison—something plenty of cops viewed as a betrayal of the thin blue line.
“What do we have on this guy, Christopher Scanlon?” she asked.
Frost pulled up the data on his smartphone. “Age forty-one, six foot two, hundred eighty pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes.” He showed her the driver’s license photo. “Looks like our victim.”
“Who’s no longer a John Doe.”
“And get this. ME’s office sent the victim’s fingerprints to AFIS. Scanlon’s in their database. Two arrests, both for indecent assault and battery.”
“He’s a rapist? Any convictions?”
“None. It seems our victim was a very bad boy. Who kept getting away with it.”
But not this time, thought Jane as she crossed the street back to Maura’s house.
She found Maura still sitting in the kitchen where she’d left her moments ago. Her cup of coffee appeared untouched, and she barely looked up as Jane walked in the room.
“Is the car his?” Maura asked.
“It appears so. His real name is Christopher Scanlon. Lives—lived—in Braintree. That ring any bells?”
“I told you, I never met the man before last night.”
Jane couldn’t help studying the wooden block of kitchen knives on the countertop. Couldn’t help noticing that one slot was empty.
“Was it a Wüsthof blade?” Maura asked softly.
“What?”
“The knife that killed him. That’s the brand of knives I own. It’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it?”
“The murder weapon hasn’t been found.”
“Then you’ll want to collect mine for a wound match. Fingerprints, blood. And don’t forget the knife in the dishwasher.” She raised her head and looked at Jane. “You have a job to do, I understand that.”
Jane sat down at the table. “Then you also understand—”
“I’m a suspect.” Maura gave an ironic laugh. “Which will please more than a few Boston PD officers. The high-and-mighty ME everyone loves to hate.”
“Not true.”
“They’ll blithely point out that murder runs in my family. Like mother, like daughter.”
“Your mother is not you.”
“My mother is a monster. Do you think we’ll be granted the privilege of adjoining prison cells?”
“Stop it, Maura. For God’s sake.”
“I’m just telling it like it is.”
“That’s the drug talking. Whatever he gave you, it’s kicked you down and out and made you give up.” Jane leaned forward and said fiercely: “I won’t allow it.”
They stared at each other for a moment.
; Maura leaned back with a smile. “Everyone should have their own Jane Rizzoli.”
Jane stood up and slid the chair against the table. “Well, this Jane Rizzoli has a job to do.”
Christopher Scanlon’s residence was a rented two-bedroom town house on a leafy street in Braintree. Mr. Siegel, the rental agent who met them at the address, kept shaking his head and murmuring “Awful, just awful,” as they climbed the steps to the front door. “He was a dream tenant. Kept the property in immaculate shape.” He waved at the manicured lawn. “You can see how neat the front yard is.”
“He never gave you any problems?” Frost asked.
“Never. He moved in about nine, ten months ago. Passed the financial screen with flying colors. Excellent credit rating. Hundred thousand in his bank account. Paid me three months’ rent in advance.” Siegel unlocked the door. “The kind of tenant every rental agent hopes for.”
Until you find out that perfect tenant is a rapist.
Jane and Frost stepped into the residence and saw a black leather couch, a big-screen TV, a chrome-and-glass coffee table. A manpad, Jane thought, with no soft touches. If any woman had ever lived here, there was no trace of her in this room with its cold and polished décor.
“See how orderly everything is?” said Mr. Siegel. “Kept it in perfect shape.”
“He certainly did,” said Jane, focusing on the huge framed photo that dominated one wall. It was a leopard, staring from the grass, eyes agleam, powerful muscles tensed to leap. The consummate predator.
“I guess you folks are looking for leads, huh?” asked Mr. Siegel as Jane and Frost continued their inspection of the residence, moving from kitchen to study to master bedroom, all of it furnished in stark black and white.
“You have any info on next of kin?” asked Frost.
“Never mentioned any. And he was single.”
“Friends? Contacts?”
“I’m just the rental agent. Not my job to get chummy with the tenants.” He frowned as Jane opened dresser drawers, revealing neatly folded socks and underwear and sweaters. “What’s the story with his death, anyway? Was it a mugging or something?”
“It’s under investigation,” she said.
“Was he shot? Stabbed? What?”
She ignored his questions and focused on the laptop computer on the nightstand. Turning it on, she saw it was password-protected.
“I’m getting the feeling it wasn’t just a mugging,” Mr. Siegel said. “Is there something I should be worried about here? Like, was he into something illegal?” He frowned at Jane’s stony expression and groaned. “Oh Jesus. I thought he was too good to be true! All that rent in advance. Was he a drug dealer or what?”
“Rizzoli!” Frost called out from the bathroom.
She found him kneeling by the under-sink cabinet. He rose to his feet, holding a ziplock bag. “Look what I found. It was hidden way in the back, behind the cleaning stuff.”
Through clear plastic, she saw blister packs of white tablets stamped with the pharmaceutical company’s name: Roche. She looked at Frost. “Rohypnol.”
“What? Roofies?” Mr. Siegel said. “Why the hell would he have something like that?”
“I can think of one reason,” said Jane, turning to the rental agent. “Tell me everything about Christopher Scanlon.”
“I did tell you. He was a good tenant.”
“Yeah, yeah. Paid his rent, kept the lawn mowed. Did he ever bring women here? Did neighbors complain of any disturbances?”
“No, never. No parties, no loud music. In fact, he was hardly here at night. I thought he was over at some girlfriend’s house, but he told me he didn’t have a girlfriend.”
Frost’s cell phone rang, and he stepped out of the bathroom to answer the call.
“What about his job? You said he was a software developer.”
“Self-employed, told me he worked from home. I figured I didn’t need to see his federal tax return, ’cause he had so much in his bank account. You think that wasn’t true? That he worked in software?”
“I can’t be sure what’s true about Mr. Scanlon.” Except that he was supplied with enough roofies to knock out a few dozen women.
Frost reappeared in the doorway. “You wanna step outside with me?” he said to her. “We gotta talk.”
Seeing the grim expression on his face, she immediately followed him out of the town house. They stood on the front walk, where Mr. Siegel couldn’t overhear their conversation.
“I just got the details on Scanlon’s two arrests,” said Frost.
“Why was he never convicted?”
“The first case, he was seen on a bar’s security camera driving away with the victim, Kitty O’Brien, age twenty-six. Unfortunately, she waited a week to report the crime. The charges were dropped because Kitty couldn’t remember what happened. She was also pretty intoxicated that night, which made it a tough case to try. A few months later, she committed suicide. Got hold of her father’s gun and shot herself in the head.”
“Scanlon fucks up that poor girl’s life, and he walks away scot-free?”
“Left her father devastated. Harry O’Brien publicly threatened to kill Scanlon. Which led to poor O’Brien getting charged.”
“So Harry O’Brien’s a definite suspect. If he did it, I’m gonna pat him on the back before I arrest him.”
“You and me both.”
“What about Scanlon’s second arrest? How did he get off that time?”
Frost sighed. “It gets complicated.”
“Don’t tell me it ends with a second suicide.”
“No, the second rape victim’s alive. Year and a half ago, Sarah Shapiro, age thirty-two, met a guy at an art gallery reception. She woke up at home the next morning and realized she’d been raped. Someone at the gallery noticed Sarah wasn’t acting right as she got into the man’s car, so she wrote down Scanlon’s license number. That’s how they ID’d him.”
“How did that case not end in a conviction?”
“Scanlon claimed he only gave Sarah a lift home and left her there.”
“If she was raped, didn’t they have his DNA?”
“Here’s the part that’s weird. There was male DNA found inside Sarah. But it wasn’t Scanlon’s. And she didn’t have a boyfriend.”
Jane stared at him. “Someone else raped her?”
Frost nodded. “We’re dealing with a second man. His DNA profile was already in CODIS, for five different attacks in Massachusetts.”
“A serial rapist.”
“It’s worse. His most recent victim, last month, was strangled. This unknown man has now escalated to murder. And it seems like our Christopher Scanlon was delivering the victims to him.”
CHAPTER THREE
Harry O’Brien was sixty-two years old, but the man who gazed at them from the doorway appeared far older, his eyes hollow, his shoulders drooping as though under the weight of grief. “I knew the police would want to talk to me someday,” he said. “So Scanlon did it again. Didn’t he?”
“We believe so,” said Jane.
“A monster like that, he doesn’t just call it quits one day. He keeps going and going, cutting down lives.” Harry stepped aside to let them enter. “Come in, Detectives. Tell me how I can help you take the bastard down.”
It was an older home, and Jane could smell its age as she walked into the living room, the accumulated odors of dust and mildew and worn carpets. The first thing that caught her eye was the array of photographs on the wall, images of what looked like the same dark-haired girl through the years. As a child, sitting in a swing. As a teenager in her graduation cap and gown. As a young woman hugging a smiling man. Jane was startled to recognize Harry O’Brien in the face of that man in the photo—a younger, happier version of the bitter man now standing in the room with them.
“Kitty had so much to give to the world,” he said, staring at his daughter’s photo. “Not just her big heart and her big laugh. She was brilliant, the first in my family to go to college
. Worked nights, went to school during the day. She’d just earned her PhD in history. She went out to celebrate that night. Ended up at a bar and drank a little too much. That’s when he …” O’Brien swallowed and looked out the window. “She couldn’t admit what happened to her, until a week later. By the time she reported it, too much evidence was lost. She never stopped blaming herself. Such a smart girl, yet she felt so stupid.”
“She was hardly responsible for what happened,” said Frost.
“You think I didn’t tell her that a thousand times?” O’Brien shot back. His anger suddenly collapsed and he dropped his head. “She used my gun. So I blame myself, too. I could see how depressed she was and I should have gotten rid of it. I just didn’t think she’d ever …” He shook his head and sighed. “There’s plenty of guilt to go around. But Scanlon’s the one I blame. The one who destroyed my beautiful girl. My only child.”
“Christopher Scanlon is dead,” said Jane.
O’Brien’s head snapped up. “What?”
“His body was found in Olmsted Park.”
“Was it murder?”
“Yes. It was. It happened last night.”
O’Brien was silent for a moment, the news sinking in. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad someone got him, while I’m still alive.” He paused. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“You’ve threatened Mr. Scanlon in the past.”
“I sure as hell did. I just wish I’d killed him myself, but I didn’t have the guts.” He sounded disgusted with himself. “I couldn’t go through with it.”
“You probably know my next question,” said Jane.
“I assume it’s Where were you last night?”
“You want to answer that?”
“Yeah. I was visiting a woman friend up in Swampscott. Had dinner at her house, watched a few DVDs, drank a little too much. I got home sometime after midnight, I guess.”
Jane studied O’Brien’s wasted face and sunken eyes, and could not imagine him staying up late, partying with a woman. “What’s this friend’s name?” she asked.
“Monica Vargas. Her mother was there, too. Monica’s in the phone book, so you can call her and confirm it.”
John Doe: A Rizzoli & Isles Short Story Page 2