Freaks: A Rizzoli & Isles Short Story

Chapter Six

“If someone killed your kid,” said Tony Rayner, “you’d want to rip him apart, too!”

The father of Kimberly Rayner was a powerfully built man, and it had taken the efforts of all three detectives to pull him off the boy, who was now cowering in the corner.

“Mr. Rayner, we haven’t established that this boy did it,” said Jane.

“Look at him!” said Rayner, glaring at Lucas. “Of course he did it!”

Jane turned to Frost. “Could you get Lucas out of here? Have him wait in the other room.”

“I should’ve beaten the hell out of you months ago,” said Rayner. “Back when you were sniffing around her. Maybe she’d still be alive now.”

“You’re the reason she ran away,” Lucas shot back. “To get away from you.”

“Oh, I had you spotted months ago, you sick—”

“I was her only friend!”

“Freak.”

“She hated you!” Lucas yelled as Frost pulled him toward the door. “Her mom hated you, too!”

Jane took one look at Rayner’s face and thought: Uh-oh. Lunging protectively between Rayner and the boy, she felt her blouse rip, heard the boy give a yelp of terror as Frost hustled him out of the room. Jane and Crowe shoved Rayner back against the table, pinning him there until Jane could snap on the handcuffs.

“Well, that was fun,” said Crowe as he pushed Rayner into a chair. “Not cool, man. And look what you did to Detective Rizzoli’s shirt.”

Jane looked down at the gaping rip that exposed the top of her bra. In cold fury, she grabbed her blazer from the chair where she’d draped it. As she buttoned up, she saw Crowe smirk as he pointedly turned away.

“You are in trouble,” she said to Rayner through clenched teeth.

“I’m the one who’s grieving, and you handcuff me? That freak’s the one who belongs in jail!”

“We haven’t proved he’s guilty.”

“For God’s sake, he believes he’s a vampire.”

“It doesn’t mean he killed her.”

Rayner heaved out a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry I tore your blouse. Can you take these handcuffs off?”

Jane and Crowe glanced at each other. She thought of the headache of booking the man. Thought of what she’d say in court. Yes, Your Honor, I know he just lost his daughter and he was emotionally distraught. But I paid a hundred dollars for that blouse.

With a sigh she unlocked the cuffs.

“What about him?” Rayner asked, rubbing his wrists. “Is that kid under arrest?”

“That’s for us to decide.”

He looked at her. “We’ll see about that.”

Chapter Seven

“It sounds like a classic case of folie a deux,” said Maura. “That’s my diagnosis.”

Of course Maura would come up with a diagnosis, thought Jane. From the instant Maura meets someone, she’s diagnosing him, like a scientist mentally dissecting a lab rat. As Jane tossed aside her torn blouse and buttoned on a new one, she saw Maura eyeing the ruined garment, no doubt analyzing the tensile strength of the threads and the force needed to initiate a rip.

“A pity,” said Maura. “That looks like dupioni silk.”

“I got it on sale, too.”

“Even sadder.” Maura turned toward Jane’s kitchen. “I brought us take-out Chinese. Shall I put it on the plates?”

“What’s wrong with eating out of the cartons?”

“Jane. Really.” Maura opened up cupboards and pulled out dishware.

“So tell me about this folie a deux thing.”

“It’s a delusion shared by two people,” said Maura. “In this case, their delusion was that they’re vampires. And it sounds like they carried it to extremes. Avoiding daylight. Sleeping in a coffin.”

“Which is where he’ll probably slink back to, since we didn’t have enough evidence to hold him.” Jane shook her head. “He swears they were living only on air and blood. Is that possible?”

Maura considered this as she dished out spoonfuls of kung pao chicken and stir-fried pea shoots. “Blood has plenty of iron, but it lacks essential vitamins. And since it’s seven hundred calories per liter, you’d have to drink three liters of blood a day.” She set a plate of food in front of Jane. “Bon appetit.”

“You know, I really didn’t need to know that.”

“It does explain why Kimberly Rayner was so malnourished. I’ve seen dead anorexics with more body fat. If she’s been eating only blood, she could hardly fight off a strangler.”

“Heck, she couldn’t fight off the common cold virus.”

Expertly wielding chopsticks, Maura delicately plucked up a morsel of chicken. “Scientifically speaking, the common cold isn’t caused by one particular virus. It’s a constellation of symptoms that …” She suddenly stopped, frowning.

“What?”

“Jane, you just raised a very good point.”

“I did?”

“About her lack of resistance to disease processes.”

“How is that relevant? She was strangled.”

“It looked like strangulation.” Maura set down her chopsticks. “But the autopsy just might reveal something else entirely.”

Chapter Eight

Through the viewing window, Jane and Frost could see the dead girl lying on the table in the next room. The naked body looked even more wasted than Jane remembered, the hipbones jutting out, every rib shockingly visible. But above the neck, in grotesque contrast with the skeletally thin body, the face was bloated, the eyelids swollen almost shut.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Jane asked Frost.

“I’m fine. I’m okay,” he insisted.

“That’s what you said the last time,” Jane muttered as she pushed into the autopsy room, where Maura and her assistant had already assembled their knives and scalpels, bone-cutters and tweezers. Jane avoided looking at that frightening array of instruments and focused instead on Kimberly Rayner. Once she might have been a pretty blue-eyed blonde who’d turned boys’ heads. Now with so much fat and muscle stripped away, she was a skeletal husk. Had months on a self-imposed diet of “air and blood” caused this?

“No surprises in her X-rays,” said Maura as she flipped on bright lights. “Let’s take a closer look at the neck.”

“Still looks like strangulation bruises to me.” Jane glanced at Frost, who was standing yards away from the table, strategically placing himself near the sink. “You should get a closer look at this.”

“I can see it fine from here,” he said.

“And see how her face is swollen,” Jane added. “That happens when you constrict the neck, right?”