Die Again (38 page)

“A lot of circumstantials.” Crowe waved his arm at the sterile-looking living room. “I gotta say, I don’t see anything here that screams
Leopard Man
.”

“Maybe that’s significant. There’s not a whole lot here, period. There are no photos, no pictures, not even a DVD or a CD to tell us about his personal tastes. The books and magazines are all related to his work. The only medicine in his bathroom is aspirin. And you know what’s missing?”

“What?”

“Mirrors. There’s only one small shaving mirror in the upstairs bathroom.”

“Maybe he doesn’t care how he looks. Or are you going to tell me he’s a vampire?”

She turned away at his laughter. “A giant blank, that’s what this house is. It’s like he tried to keep it a sterile zone, a place just for show.”

“Or this is exactly who he is. A totally dull guy with nothing to hide.”

“There’s
got
to be something here. We just haven’t found it yet.”

“And if you don’t?”

She refused to consider the possibility, because she knew she was right. She
had
to be right.

But as the afternoon slid into evening and a team of criminalists scoured the house for evidence, her stomach knotted tighter and tighter with uncertainty. She could not believe she’d made a mistake, but it was beginning to look like one. They’d invaded the home of a man with no known criminal past. They’d broken a window, pulled apart his house, and found nothing to tie him to the murders, not even a fragment of nylon cord. They’d also attracted the attention of keenly curious neighbors, and those neighbors had nothing bad to say about Alan Rhodes, although no one admitted to knowing him well.
He was quiet and polite. Never seemed to have any girlfriends. Liked to garden, always hauling home bags of mulch
.

That last remark sent Jane out to take another look at Rhodes’s
backyard. She had already walked the entire property, which was nearly three-quarters of an acre and abutted a wooded conservation easement. In the darkness she scanned the ground by flashlight, her beam moving across shrubs and grass. She tramped to the far edge of the lot, where a fence marked the property line. Here a sharply sloping hillock had been planted with rosebushes, their canes now spindly and bare. She stood frowning at that odd landscaping feature, wondering about that hillock. In a yard that was otherwise level, it stood out like a volcano thrust up from a plain. She was so focused on that peculiar mound that she didn’t notice Maura crossing toward her until the flashlight beam flared in her eyes.

“Have you found anything?” said Maura.

“No dead bodies for you to look at, anyway.” She frowned at Maura. “So what brings you here?”

“I couldn’t stay away.”

“You have got to get yourself a better social life.”

“This
is
my social life.” Maura paused. “Which is pathetic.”

“Well, nothing’s happening here,” Jane said in disgust. “As Crowe keeps pointing out to me.”

“It’s got to be Rhodes, Jane. I know he’s the one.”

“Based on what? Are you talking gestalt again? Because I don’t have a damn thing to use in court.”

“He would have been only twenty when he killed Natalie Toombs. She may have been his only Boston victim until he killed Gott. The reason we had trouble seeing the pattern is because he’s too intelligent to hunt in the same place. Instead he expanded his territory, to Maine. To Nevada and Montana. It made his signature almost impossible to spot.”

“How do we explain Leon Gott and Jodi Underwood? Those were reckless killings, both in the same day. Within ten miles of each other.”

“Maybe he’s accelerating. Losing control.”

“I don’t see any sign of that in this house. Did you look around inside? Everything’s in perfect order. There’s no hint of the monster.”

“Then he has another place. A lair, where that monster lives.”

“This is the only property Rhodes owns, and we can’t even find a piece of rope here.” In frustration, Jane kicked at the mulch and frowned at the rosebush that she’d just knocked askew. She gave the bare bush a tug, and felt only minimal resistance from the roots. “This was planted recently.”

“It’s odd, this mound of dirt.” Maura swept her flashlight around the yard, across grass and shrubs and a gravel walkway. “There don’t seem to be any other recent plantings. Just here.”

Jane stared at the hillock and suddenly felt a chill when she realized what it represented.
Dirt. Where did all this dirt come from?
“It’s here, under our feet,” she said. “His lair.” She moved onto the lawn, searching for an opening, a seam, anything that might indicate a hatchway leading underground, but the yard was obscured by shadow. It could take them days to dig it all up, and what if they found nothing? She could imagine the ridicule from Crowe about
that
.

“Ground-penetrating radar,” said Maura. “If there’s a chamber under here, that would be the quickest way to locate it.”

“Let me check with CSU. See if we can get a GPR unit here in the morning.” Jane walked back to the house and had just stepped inside when she heard the chime announcing a text message on her phone.

It was from Gabriel, who was in DC and wouldn’t be home till tomorrow.
CHECK YOUR EMAIL. INTERPOL REPORT
.

She’d been so focused on searching Rhodes’s house, she hadn’t read her email all afternoon. Now she scrolled through an inbox stuffed with the trivial and annoying before she found the message. It had arrived three hours earlier, sent by Henk Andriessen.

She squinted at a screen filled with dense text. As she scanned the document, words leaped out at her.
Skeletonized remains found, outskirts of Cape Town. White male, multiple skull fractures. DNA match
.

She stared at the newly identified name of the deceased. This makes no sense, she thought. This cannot be true.

Her phone rang. Gabriel again.

“Did you read it?” he asked.

“I don’t understand this report. It’s
got
to be a mistake.”

“The man’s remains were found two years ago. They were fully skeletonized, so the bones could have been lying there much longer. It took them a while to finally run the DNA and make the ID, but now there’s no doubt about who he is. Elliot Gott didn’t die on safari, Jane. He was murdered. In Cape Town.”

I
AM NO LONGER OF INTEREST TO THE POLICE. THE KILLER THEY’RE HUNTING
for isn’t Johnny, but a man named Alan Rhodes, who has always lived in Boston. This is what Dr. Isles told me just before she left the house this evening, to join Detective Rizzoli at a crime scene. What a different world these people inhabit, a twisted universe that we ordinary people aren’t aware of until we read about it in the newspapers, or see it on the TV news. While most of us go about our everyday lives, someone, somewhere, is committing an unspeakable act.

And that’s when Rizzoli and Isles go to work.

I’m relieved to be escaping their world. They needed something from me, but I couldn’t deliver, so tomorrow I go home. Back to my family and Touws River. Back to my nightmares.

I pack for the morning flight, tucking shoes into the corner of my suitcase, folding wool sweaters that I won’t need when I land in Cape Town. How I’ve missed the bright colors of home and the smell of flowers. My time here has felt like hibernation, bundled in sweaters and coats against the cold and the gloom. I lay a pair of pants on top of the sweaters and as I fold a second pair, the gray cat suddenly
jumps into my suitcase. During my entire stay, this cat has completely ignored me. Now here he is, purring and rolling around on my clothes, as if he wants me to bring him home. I pick him up and drop him on the floor. He climbs right back into the suitcase and begins meowing.

“Are you hungry? Is that what you want?” Of course it is. Dr. Isles was in and out of the house so quickly, she didn’t have a chance to feed him.

I head into the kitchen and he’s right beside me, rubbing against my leg as I open a can of cat food and empty it into his bowl. As he slurps up chunks of chicken in a savory sauce, I realize I’m hungry as well. Dr. Isles gave me full run of her house, so I go into her pantry and search the shelves for something quick and satisfying. I find a package of spaghetti, and I remember seeing bacon and eggs and a block of Parmesan cheese in the refrigerator. I’ll make spaghetti carbonara, the perfect meal for a cold night.

I’ve just pulled the package of spaghetti off the shelf when the cat suddenly gives a loud hiss. Through the partly open pantry door, I see him staring at something that I can’t see. His back is arched, his fur electric. I don’t know what has alarmed him; I only know that every hair on the back of my neck is suddenly standing up.

Glass cracks and clatters like hail across the floor. One bright shard glistens like a tear right outside the doorway.

Instantly I flick off the pantry light and stand trembling in the darkness.

The cat yowls and darts out of view. I want to flee with him, but I hear the door bang open, and heavy footsteps are crunching across broken glass.

Someone is in the kitchen. And I’m trapped.

J
ANE FELT THE ROOM SUDDENLY SPIN AROUND HER. SHE HADN’T EATEN
since noon, had been on her feet for hours, and this revelation was enough to make her sag against a wall for support. “This report can’t be right,” she insisted.

“DNA doesn’t lie,” said Gabriel. “The remains found near Cape Town were matched to DNA that was already in the Interpol database. DNA that Leon Gott submitted to them six years ago, after his son vanished. The bones are Elliot’s. Based on skeletal trauma, his death was classified a homicide.”

“And these were found two years ago?”

“In parkland on the city outskirts. They can’t be specific about date of death, so he could have been killed six years ago.”

“When we
know
he was alive. Millie was with him on safari in Botswana.”

“Are you absolutely certain about that?” Gabriel said quietly.

That made her go silent.
Are we absolutely certain Millie told the truth?
She pressed a hand to her temple as thoughts swirled like a windstorm in her head. Millie couldn’t be lying, because known facts
supported her. A pilot
did
deliver seven tourists to a landing strip in the Delta, among them a passenger with Elliot Gott’s ID. Weeks later, Millie
did
stumble out of the wild, with a horrifying tale of massacre in the bush. Animal scavenging had scattered the remains of the dead, and the bones of four of the victims were never found. Not Richard’s. Not Sylvia’s. Not Keiko’s. Not Elliot’s.

Because the real Elliot Gott was already dead. Murdered in Cape Town before the safari even began
.

“Jane?” said Gabriel.

“Millie wasn’t lying. She was
wrong
. She thought Johnny was the killer, but he was a victim, like the others. Killed by the man who used Elliot’s ID to book the safari. And after it was all over, after he’d enjoyed his ultimate bush hunt, he went home. Back to who he really was.”

“Alan Rhodes.”

“Since he traveled with Elliot’s ID, there’d be no record of him entering Botswana, nothing at all to connect him to the safari.” Jane focused on the living room where she was standing. On the blank walls, the impersonal collection of books. “He’s an empty shell, like his house,” she said softly. “He can’t afford to reveal the monster he really is, so he becomes other people. After he steals their identities.”

“And leaves no record of himself.”

“But in Botswana, he made a mistake. One of his victims escaped, and she can identify …” Jane suddenly turned to Maura, who had just stepped inside and was now watching her with questions in her eyes. “Millie’s all by herself,” Jane said to her.

“Yes. She’s packing to go home.”

“Oh God. We left her alone.”

“Why does that matter?” asked Maura. “Isn’t she now irrelevant to our case?”

“No, it turns out she’s the
key
to it. She’s the only one who can identify Alan Rhodes.”

Maura shook her head in bewilderment. “But she’s never met Rhodes.”