Last to Die (33 page)

Dr. Owen patted the victim’s jacket and cargo pants. “There’s something here,” she said, and withdrew a thin billfold from the cargo pocket. “And we have ID. Virginia driver’s license. Russell Remsen, six foot one, a hundred ninety pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes, thirty-seven years old.” She eyed the cadaver. “Could be. Let’s hope he has dental X-rays on file.”

Maura stared at the victim’s face, half of it gnawed away, the other half swollen and streaked with purge fluid. A postmortem bulla had ballooned the intact eyelid into a bulging sac. On the right
side
, scavengers had stripped the neck of skin and muscle; the damage extended all the way down to the neckline of his clothing, where sharp teeth had already punctured and frayed the fabric, trying to tear into the thoracic outlet. Evisceration would have been next, heart and lungs, liver and spleen dragged out and feasted on. Limbs would be ripped from joints, portable prizes to be carried off to dens and pups. The forest would do its part as well, vines twisting around ribs, insects delving, devouring. In a year, she thought, Russell Remsen would be little more than bone fragments, scattered among the trees.

“This guy wasn’t carrying your usual hunting rifle,” the state police detective said, examining the weapon perched on the boulder. With gloved hands, he brought it over to show Dr. Owen, turning it to reveal the manufacturer’s stamp on the lower receiver.

“What kind of rifle is that?” asked Maura.

“An M one ten. Knight’s Armament, semiautomatic with a bipod.” He looked at her, clearly impressed. “This one’s got excellent optics, twenty-round box magazine. Fires a three oh eight or a seven six two, NATO. Effective range of eight hundred meters.”

“Holy cow,” said Dr. Owen. “You could shoot a deer in the next county.”

“Wasn’t designed for hunting deer. It’s military issue. A very nice and very expensive sniper rifle.”

Maura frowned at the dead man. At the camouflage pants. “What was he doing up here with a sniper rifle?”

“Well, a deer hunter
might
use one of these. It’s a pretty handy weapon if you want to drop a deer at long range. But it’s kind of like using a Rolls-Royce to make a run to the grocery store.” He shook his head. “I guess this is what you’d call irony. Here he was, equipped with top-of-the-line gear, and he’s taken down by something as primitive as an arrow.” He glanced at Dr. Owen. “I take it that’s going to be the cause of death?”

“I know cause of death seems obvious, Ken, but let’s wait until the autopsy.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

Dr. Owen turned to Maura. “You’re welcome to join me in the morgue tomorrow.”

Maura thought of slicing into that belly, ripe with decay and foul gases. “I think I’ll pass on this autopsy,” she said and stood up. “I’m supposed to be on a holiday from Death. But He keeps finding me.”

Dr. Owen rose to her feet as well, and her thoughtful gaze made Maura uncomfortable. “What’s going on here, Dr. Isles?”

“I wish I knew.”

“First a suicide. Now this. And I can’t even tell you what
this
is. Accident? Homicide?”

Maura focused on the arrow protruding from the dead man’s eye. “This would take an expert marksman.”

“Not really,” said the state detective. “The bull’s-eye on an archery target is smaller than an eye socket. A decent archer could hit that from a hundred, two hundred feet, especially with a crossbow.” He paused. “Assuming he
meant
to hit this target.”

“You’re saying this might have been an accident,” said Dr. Owen.

“I’m just throwing out scenarios here,” said the cop. “Say two buddies come hunting on this land without permission. The guy with the bow spots a deer, gets excited, and lets an arrow fly. Oops, down goes his buddy. Guy with the bow freaks out and runs. Doesn’t tell anyone, ’cause he knows they were trespassing. Or he’s on probation. Or he just doesn’t want the trouble.” He shrugged. “I could see it happening.”

“Let’s hope that
is
the story,” said Maura. “Because I don’t like the alternative.”

“That there’s a homicidal archer running around these woods?” said Dr. Owen. “That is not a comforting thought, so close to a school.”

“And here’s another disturbing thought. If this man wasn’t hunting for deer, what was he doing up here with a sniper rifle?”

No one responded, but the answer seemed obvious when Maura gazed down at the valley below. If I were a sniper, she thought, this is where I would wait. Where I’d be camouflaged by this underbrush, with a clear view of the castle, the courtyard, the road.

But who was the target?

That question dogged her as she scrambled down the trail an hour later, across bare boulders, through sun and shade and sun again. She thought of a marksman poised on the hill above her. Imagined a target hatch mark trained on her back. A rifle with an eight-hundred-meter range. Half a mile. She would never realize anyone was watching her, aiming at her. Until she felt the bullet.

At last she stumbled out of a tangle of vines onto the school’s back lawn. As she stood brushing twigs and leaves from her clothes, she heard men’s voices, raised in argument. They came from the forester’s cottage at the edge of the woods. She approached the cottage, and through the open doorway she saw one of the detectives she’d met earlier up on the ridge. He was standing inside with Sansone and Mr. Roman. None of them acknowledged her as she stepped inside, where she saw an array of outdoorsmen’s tools. Axes and rope and snowshoes. And hanging on one wall were at least a dozen bows, as well as quivers filled with arrows.

“There’s nothing special about these arrows,” Roman said. “You can find ’em in any sporting goods store.”

“Who has access to all this equipment, Mr. Roman?”

“All the students do. It’s a school, or haven’t you noticed?”

“He’s been our archery instructor for decades,” said Sansone. “It’s a skill that teaches them discipline and focus. Valuable skills relevant to all their subjects.”

“And all the students take archery?”

“All those who choose to,” Roman said.

“If you’ve been teaching for decades, you must be pretty good with a bow,” the detective said to Roman.

The forester grunted. “Fair enough.”

“Meaning?”

“I hunt.”

“Deer? Squirrels?”

“Not enough meat on a squirrel to make ’em worth the trouble.”

“The point is, you could hit one?”

“I can also hit your eye at a hundred yards. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? Whether I took down that fella up on the ridge.”

“You had a chance to examine the body, did you?”

“Dog took us straight to him. Didn’t have to examine the body. Clear as day what killed him.”

“That can’t be an easy shot to make, an arrow through the eye. Anyone else at this school able to do it?”

“Depends on the distance, doesn’t it?”

“A hundred yards.”

Roman snorted. “No one here but me.”

“None of the students?”

“No one’s put in enough time. Or had the training.”

“How did you get your training?”

“Taught myself.”

“And you hunt with only a bow? Never a rifle?”

“Don’t like rifles.”

“Why not? Seems like a rifle would be a lot easier when you’re hunting deer.”

Sansone cut in: “I think Mr. Roman’s told you what you wanted to know.”

“It’s a simple question. Why won’t he use a rifle?” The detective stared at Roman, waiting for a response.

“You don’t need to answer any more questions, Roman,” said Sansone. “Not without a lawyer.”

Roman sighed. “No, I’ll answer it. Seems to me he already knows about me, anyway.” He met the cop’s gaze head-on. “Twenty-five years ago, I killed a man.”

In that silence, Maura’s sharp intake of breath made the cop
finally
look at her. “Dr. Isles, would you mind stepping outside? I’d like to continue this interview in private.”

“Let her stay, I don’t care,” said Roman. “Better to have it all out right now, so there’s no secrets. Never wanted to keep it a secret anyway.” He looked at Sansone. “Even though you thought it best.”

“You know about this, Mr. Sansone?” the cop asked. “And you employ him here anyway?”

“Let Roman tell you the circumstances,” said Sansone. “He deserves to be heard, in his own words.”

“Okay. Let’s hear it, Mr. Roman.”

The forester crossed to the window and pointed at the hills. “I grew up there, just a few miles past that ridge. My grandfather was the caretaker here, looked after the castle since way back, before it became a school. No one was living here then, just an empty building, waiting for a buyer. Naturally, there were trespassers. Some of ’em just come in to hunt and leave. They’d bag their deer and leave. But some of ’em, they came to make trouble. Smash windows, set the porch on fire. Or worse. You run into ’em, you didn’t know which kind you were dealing with …”

He took a breath. “I ran into him over there, coming out of the woods. There was no moon that night. He just suddenly appeared. Big fella, carrying a rifle. We saw each other and he raised his gun. I don’t know what he was thinking. I’ll never know. All I can tell you is, I reacted on pure instinct. Shot him in the chest.”

“With a gun.”

“Yes, sir. Shotgun. Took him right down. He was probably dead within five breaths.” Roman sat down, looking a decade older, his rough hands resting on his knees. “I’d just turned eighteen. But I guess you knew that.”

“I called in a background check.”

Roman nodded. “No secret around these parts. Thing is, he was no saint, even if he was a doctor’s kid. But I killed him, so I went to jail. Four years, manslaughter.” Roman looked down at his hands,
scarred
from years of outdoor labors. “I never picked up a shotgun again. That’s how I got so good with a bow.”

“Gottfried Baum hired him straight out of prison,” said Sansone. “There’s no better man.”

“He still has to come into town to sign a statement.” The cop turned to the forester. “Let’s go, Mr. Roman.”

“Headmaster Baum will make some calls, Roman,” said Sansone. “He’ll meet you in town. Don’t say a word, not until he gets there with an attorney.”

Roman followed the cop to the door and suddenly stopped to look at Sansone. “I don’t think I’ll be making it back here tonight. So I want to warn you that you’ve got a big problem here, Mr. Sansone. I know I didn’t kill that man. Which means you better find out who did.”

SUMMER FOG CLOAKED
the highway to providence, and jane craned forward, peering from behind the wheel at cars and trucks that glided ahead of them like ghosts in the mist. Today she and Frost were chasing yet another ghost, she thought, as the wiper swept the gray film from her windshield. The ghost of Nicholas Clock, Teddy’s father. Born in Virginia, graduate of West Point with a degree in economics, avid outdoorsman and sailor. Married with three children. Worked as a financial consultant at Jarvis and McCrane, a job that required frequent travel abroad. No arrests, no traffic tickets, no outstanding debts.

At least that was what Nicholas Clock looked like on paper. Solid citizen. Family man.

The mist swirled on the road ahead of them. There was nothing solid, nothing real. Nicholas Clock, like Olivia Yablonski, was a ghost, flitting quietly from country to country. And what did that mean, exactly,
financial consultant
? It was one of those vague job descriptions that conjured up businessmen in suits carrying briefcases, speaking the language of dollar signs. Ask a man what he does, and those two words,
financial consultant
, could make your eyes glaze over.

The same way
medical supply sales rep
could.

Beside her in the passenger seat, Frost answered his ringing cell phone. Jane glanced at him when he said, a moment later: “You’re kidding me. How the hell did
that
happen?”

“What?” she said.

He waved her off, kept his focus on the phone call. “So you never finished the analysis? There’s nothing else you can tell us?”

“Who is that?” she asked.

At last he hung up and turned to her, a stunned expression on his face. “You know that GPS tracker we pulled off the rental car? It’s vanished.”

“That was the lab calling?”

“They said it disappeared from the lab sometime last night. They got only a preliminary look at it. There was no manufacturer’s stamp, totally untraceable. State-of-the-art equipment.”

“Jesus. Obviously
too
state-of-the-art to stay in Boston PD’s hands.”

Frost shook his head. “Now I’m getting
seriously
freaked out.”

She stared at the spectral swirls of mist on the highway. “I’ll tell you who else is freaked out,” she said, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. “Gabriel. Last night he was ready to tie me up and throw me in the closet.” She paused. “I sent Regina to stay with my mom this week. Just to be safe.”

“Can I hide with your mom, too?”

She laughed. “That’s what I like about you. You’re not afraid to admit you’re afraid.”

“So you’re not scared? Is that what you’re saying?”

She drove for a moment without answering, the wipers sweeping back and forth as she peered at a highway as misty as the future. She thought about planes falling from the sky, bullets shattering skulls, and sharks feeding on bodies. “Even if we are freaked out,” she said, “what choice do we have? When you’re already in neck-deep, the way out is to forge ahead and get to the end of this.”