The Silent Girl

by Tess Gerritsen

  He led the group down Knapp Street. It was scarcely more than an alley, poorly lit and little traveled. As they left behind the lights and traffic of Beach Street, the temperature suddenly seemed to plummet. Shivering, Billy wrapped his mandarin robe tighter. He had noticed this disturbing phenomenon before, whenever he ventured down this section of Knapp. Even on warm summer nights, he always felt cold here, as if a chill had long ago settled into the alley, never to dissipate. His tour group seemed to notice it as well and he heard jackets zip up, saw gloves emerge from pockets. They fell silent, their footsteps echoing off the buildings that loomed on either side. Even the two brats were quiet, as if they sensed that the air was different. That something lingered here, something that devoured all laughter and joy.

  Billy came to a halt outside the abandoned building, where a locked gate covered the door and steel bars secured the ground-floor windows. A rusting fire escape clambered up to the third and fourth floors, where every window was boarded up tight, as if to hold prisoner something that lurked inside. His group huddled closer together, seeking escape from the chill. Or was it something else they sensed in this alley, something that made them draw into a tight circle as if for protection?

  “Welcome to the setting of one of Chinatown’s most grisly crimes,” said Billy. “The sign on the building is now gone, but nineteen years ago, behind these barred windows, was a little Chinese seafood restaurant called the Red Phoenix. It was a modest establishment, just eight tables inside, but known for its fresh shellfish. It was late on March thirtieth, a damp and cold night. A night like this one, when the normally bustling streets of Chinatown were strangely quiet. Inside the Red Phoenix, only two employees were at work: the waiter, Jimmy Fang. And the cook, an illegal immigrant from China named Wu Weimin. Three customers came to eat that night—a night that would be their last. Because in the kitchen, something was very wrong. We’ll never know what made the cook snap and go berserk. Maybe it was the long, hard hours he worked. Or the heartbreak of living as a stranger in a strange land.”

  Billy paused. His voice dropped to a chilling whisper. “Or maybe it was some alien force that took hold of him, some evil that possessed him. An evil that made him pull out a gun. Made him storm into the dining room. An evil that still lingers here, on this dark street. All we know is that he pointed his gun and he …” Billy stopped.

  “And he what?” someone prompted anxiously.

  But Billy’s attention was fixed overhead, his gaze riveted to the roof, where he swore something had just moved. It was merely a flutter of black on black, like the wing of a giant bird flapping against the sky. He strained to catch another glimpse of it, but all he saw now was the skeletal outline of the fire escape hugging the wall.

  “Then what happened?” one of the brats demanded.

  Billy looked at the thirteen faces staring at him expectantly and tried to remember where he’d left off. But he was still rattled by whatever had flitted against the sky. All at once, he was desperate to get out of that dark alley and flee this building. So desperate that it took every ounce of willpower not to run back toward Beach Street. Toward the lights. He took a deep breath and blurted: “The cook shot them. He shot them all. And then he killed himself.”

  With that, Billy turned and quickly waved them on, leading them away from that blighted building with its ghosts and its echoes of horror. Harrison Avenue was a block ahead, its lights and traffic beckoning warmly. A place for the living, not the dead. He was walking so quickly that his group fell behind, but he could not shake off the sense of menace that seemed to coil ever tighter around them. A sense that something was watching them. Watching him.

  A woman’s loud shriek made him spin around, heart hammering. Then the group suddenly erupted in noisy laughter, and one of the men said, “Hey, nice prop! Do you use it on all your tours?”

  “What?” said Billy.

  “Scared the crap out of us! Looks pretty damn realistic.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Billy.

  The man pointed at what he assumed was part of the performance. “Hey, kid, show him what you found.”

  “I found it over there, by the trash bin,” said one of the brats, holding up his discovery. “Ewww. It even feels real. Gross!”

  Billy took a few steps closer and suddenly found he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He froze, staring at the object the boy was holding. He saw inky droplets trickle down and spatter the boy’s jacket, but the boy didn’t seem to notice it.

  It was the boy’s mother who started screaming first. Then the others joined in, shrieking, backing away. The baffled boy just stood there holding up his prize as blood dripped, dripped onto his sleeve.

  I HAD DINNER THERE JUST LAST SATURDAY,” SAID DETECTIVE BARRY Frost as they drove toward Chinatown. “I took Liz to see the ballet at the Wang Theater. She loves ballet, but man, I just don’t get it. I fell asleep halfway through. Afterward, we walked over to the Ocean City restaurant for dinner.”

  It was two AM, way too early in the morning for anyone to be so damn chatty, but Detective Jane Rizzoli let her partner babble on about his latest date as she focused on driving. To her tired eyes, every streetlamp seemed too bright, every passing headlight an assault on her retinas. An hour ago, she’d been warmly cocooned in bed with her husband; now she was trying to shake herself awake as she navigated traffic that had inexplicably slowed to a stall and crawl at an hour when sane citizens should be home sleeping.

  “You ever eat there?” Frost asked.

  “What?”

  “Ocean City restaurant. Liz ordered these great clams with garlic and black bean sauce. It’s making me hungry just thinking about it. I can’t wait to go back for more.”

  “Who’s Liz?” said Jane.

  “I told you about her last week. We met at the health club.”

  “I thought you were seeing someone named Muffy.”

  “Maggie.” He shrugged. “That didn’t work out.”

  “Neither did the one before her. Whatever her name was.”

  “Hey, I’m still trying to figure out what I want in a woman, you know? It’s been, like, forever since I was on the market. Man, I had no idea there were so many single girls around.”

  “Women.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Alice used to pound that into my head. You’re supposed to say women now.”

  Jane braked at a red light and glanced at him. “You and Alice talk very much these days?”

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “Ten years of marriage, maybe?”

  He looked out the window at nothing in particular. “There’s nothing else to say. She’s moved on.”

  But Frost hasn’t, thought Jane. Eight months ago, his wife, Alice, had moved out of their home. Ever since, Jane had been subjected to a chronicle of Frost’s frantic but joyless adventures with women. There’d been the buxom blonde who told him she was wearing no underwear. The frighteningly athletic librarian with the well-thumbed copy of the Kama Sutra. The fresh-faced Quaker who drank him under the table. He related all these tales with a mingling of bewilderment and wonder, but it was sadness, more than anything else, that she saw in his eyes these days. By no means was he a bad catch. He was lean and fit and good-looking in a bland sort of way, so dating should be easier for him than it had been.

  But he still misses Alice.

  They turned onto Beach Street, driving into the heart of Chinatown, and were nearly blinded by the flashing rack lights of a Boston PD cruiser. She pulled up behind the cruiser and they stepped out, into the bone-chilling dampness of a spring night. Despite the ungodly hour, there were several onlookers gathered on the sidewalk, and Jane heard murmurs in both Chinese and English, everyone no doubt posing the universal question: Does anyone know what’s going on?

  She and Frost walked down Knapp Street and ducked under the strand of police tape, where a patrolman stood guard. “Detectives Rizzoli and Frost, homicide,” she announced.

>   “It’s over there” was the cop’s terse response. He pointed down the alley at a dumpster, where another cop stood guard.

  As Jane and Frost approached, she realized that it wasn’t the dumpster the cop was guarding, but something lying on the pavement. She halted, staring down at a severed right hand.

  “Whoa,” said Frost.

  The cop laughed. “That was my reaction exactly.”

  “Who found it?”

  “Folks on the Chinatown Ghost Tour. Some kid in the group picked it up thinking it was fake. It was fresh enough to still be dripping blood. Soon as he realized it was real, he dropped it right where it is now. Guess they never expected that on the tour.”

  “Where are these tourists now?”

  “They were pretty freaked out. They all insisted on going back to their hotels, but I got names and contact info. The tour guide’s some local Chinese kid, says he’s happy to talk to you whenever you want. No one saw anything except the hand. They called nine one one, and dispatch thought it was a practical joke. It took us a while to respond ’cause we got held up dealing with some rowdies over in Charlestown.”

  Jane crouched down and shone her flashlight on the hand. It was a startlingly clean amputation, the severed end crusted over with dried blood. The hand appeared to be a woman’s, with pale and slender fingers and a disconcertingly elegant manicure. No ring, no watch. “It was just lying here on the ground?”

  “Yeah. Fresh meat like that, rats’d be at it pretty quick.”

  “No nibbles that I can see. Hasn’t been here long.”

  “Oh, I spotted something else.” The cop aimed his flashlight and the beam landed on a dull gray object lying a few yards away.

  Frost moved in for a closer inspection. “This is a Heckler and Koch. Expensive,” he said. He glanced at Jane. “It’s got a suppressor.”

  “Did any of the tourists touch the gun?” asked Jane.

  “No one touched the gun,” the cop said. “They never saw it.”

  “So we’ve got a silenced automatic and a freshly severed right hand,” said Jane. “Who wants to bet they go together?”

  “This is a really nice piece,” said Frost, still admiring the weapon. “Can’t imagine anyone tossing something like this.”

  Jane rose to her feet and looked at the dumpster. “Have you checked in there for the rest of the body?”

  “No, ma’am. I figured a severed hand was more than enough to call you folks straight in. Didn’t want to contaminate anything before you got here.”

  She pulled a pair of gloves out of her pocket. As she snapped them on, she felt her heart starting to thump hard, in anticipation of what she’d find. Together she and Frost lifted the lid, and the stench of rotting seafood rose up and smacked them in the face. Battling nausea, she stared down at crushed cardboard boxes and a bulging black garbage bag. She and Frost looked at each other.

  “You wanna do the honors?” he asked.

  She reached in, tugged on the bag, and immediately knew that it didn’t contain a corpse. It wasn’t heavy enough. Grimacing at the smell, she untied the bag and looked inside. Saw shrimp and crab shells.

  They both backed away, and the dumpster lid swung shut with a thunderous clang.

  “No one at home?” the cop asked.

  “Not in there.” Jane looked down at the severed hand. “So where’s the rest of her?”

  “Maybe someone’s scattering parts all over town,” said Frost.

  The cop laughed. “Or maybe one of these Chinese restaurants cooked her up and served her in a nice stew.”

  Jane looked at Frost. “Good thing you ordered the clams.”

  “We did a walk-around already,” the patrolman said. “Didn’t find anything.”

  “Still, I think we’ll take a stroll around the block ourselves,” said Jane.

  Together, she and Frost moved slowly along Knapp Street, their flashlights cutting through the shadows. They saw shards from broken bottles, scraps of paper, cigarette butts. No body parts. The buildings rising on either side had dark windows, but she wondered if eyes were watching from those unlit rooms above, tracking their progress down the silent passage. They would have to make this same inspection again by daylight, but she did not want to miss any time-sensitive clues. So she and Frost inched their way up the alley to another strand of police tape blocking off access from Harrison Avenue. Here were sidewalks and streetlights and traffic. Yet Jane and Frost continued their painstaking circle around the block, from Harrison to Beach Street, gazes sweeping the ground. By the time they’d finished their circuit and were back at the dumpster, the crime scene unit had arrived.

  “Guess you didn’t find the rest of her, either,” the cop said to Jane and Frost.

  Jane watched as the weapon and severed hand were bagged, wondering why a killer would dump a body part in such an exposed place where someone was sure to spot it. Was it a rush job? Was it meant to be found, a message of some kind? Then her gaze lifted to a fire escape that snaked up the four-story building facing the alley.

  “We need to check the roof,” she said.

  The bottom rung of the ladder was rusted, and they couldn’t pull it down; they’d have to reach the roof the conventional way, up a stairwell. They left the alley and returned to Beach Street, where they could access the front entrances to that block of buildings. Businesses occupied the first levels: a Chinese restaurant, a bakery, and an Asian grocery store—all closed at that hour. Above the businesses were apartments. Peering up, Jane saw that the windows on the upper floors were all dark.

  “We’re going to have to wake someone to let us in,” said Frost.

  Jane approached a group of ancient Chinese men, who’d gathered on the sidewalk to watch the excitement. “Do any of you know the tenants in this building?” she asked. “We need to get inside.”

  They stared at her blankly.

  “This building,” she said again, pointing. “We need to go upstairs.”

  “You know, talking louder doesn’t help,” said Frost. “I don’t think they understand English.”

  Jane sighed. That’s Chinatown for you. “We need an interpreter.”

  “District A-1’s got a new detective. I think he’s Chinese.”

  “It’ll take too long to wait for him.” She climbed to the front entrance, scanned the tenant names, and pressed a button at random. Despite repeated buzzes, no one answered. She tried another button, and this time, a voice finally crackled over the intercom.

  “Wei?” a woman said.

  “It’s the police,” said Jane. “Can you let us into the building, please?”

  “Wei?”

  “Please open the door!”

  A few minutes passed, then a child’s voice answered: “My grandma wants to know who you are.”

  “Detective Jane Rizzoli, Boston PD,” said Jane. “We need to go up on the roof. Can you let us in the building?”

  At last the lock buzzed open.

  The building was at least a hundred years old, and the wooden steps groaned as Jane and Frost climbed the stairs. When they reached the second floor, a door swung open and Jane caught a glimpse into a cramped apartment, from which two girls stared out with curious eyes. The younger was about the same age as Jane’s daughter, Regina, and Jane paused to smile and murmur hello.

  Instantly the smaller girl was snatched up into a woman’s arms and the door slammed shut.

  “Guess we’re the big bad strangers,” said Frost.

  They kept climbing. Past the fourth-floor landing and up a narrow set of steps to the roof. The exit was unlocked, but the door gave off a piercing squeal as they swung it open.

  They stepped out into the predawn gloom, lit only by the diffuse glow of city lights. Shining her flashlight, Jane saw a plastic table and chairs, flowerpots of herbs. On a sagging clothesline, a full load of laundry danced like ghosts in the wind. Through the flapping sheets, she spotted something else, something that lay near the roof’s edge, beyond that curtain of linen.


  Without saying a word, both she and Frost automatically took paper shoe covers from their pockets and bent down to pull them on. Only then did they duck under the hanging sheets and cross toward what they had glimpsed, their booties crackling over the tar-paper surface.

  For a moment neither spoke. They stood together, flashlights trained on a congealed lake of blood. On what was lying in that lake.

  “I guess we found the rest of her,” said Frost.

  CHINATOWN SAT IN THE VERY HEART OF BOSTON, TUCKED UP against the financial district to the north and the green lawn of the Common to the west. But as Maura walked under the paifang gate, with its four carved lions, she felt as if she were entering a different city, a different world. She’d last visited Chinatown on a Saturday morning in October, when there had been groups of elderly men sitting beneath the gate, sipping tea and playing checkers as they gossiped in Chinese. On that cold day she’d met Daniel here for a dim sum breakfast. It was one of the last meals they would ever eat together, and the memory of that day now pierced like a dagger to the heart. Although this was a bright spring dawn, and the same checkers-playing men sat chattering in the morning chill, melancholy darkened everything she saw, turning sunshine to gloom.

  She walked past restaurants where seafood tanks teemed with silvery fish, past dusty import shops crammed with rosewood furniture and jade bracelets and fake ivory carvings, into a thickening crowd of bystanders. She spotted a uniformed Boston PD cop towering over the mostly Asian crowd and worked her way toward him.

  “Excuse me. I’m the ME,” she announced.

  The cold look he gave her left no doubt that the police officer knew exactly who she was. Dr. Maura Isles, who’d betrayed the brotherhood of those tasked to serve and protect. Whose testimony might send one of their own to prison. He didn’t say a word, just stared at her, as if he had no idea what she expected of him.

  She returned the stare, just as coldly. “Where is the deceased?” she asked.

  “You’d have to ask Detective Rizzoli.”