“That’s it, right there,” said Maura, sliding the magnifier over the skin. “I don’t see any serration marks. Nothing that would tell me what kind of knife…” She paused.
“What?” asked Jane.
“This angle is strange. It’s not your usual slashed throat.”
“Yeah, those are so boring.”
“Consider for a moment how you’d go about cutting a throat,” said Maura. “To penetrate this deep, all the way to vertebrae, you’d approach it from behind. You’d grab the victim’s hair, pull the head back, and slice across the front, from ear to ear.”
“The commando method,” said Tam.
“The rear approach gives you control of the victim and maximizes exposure of the throat. And it usually results in a curved incision when the wound’s later approximated. But this slash is angled slightly upward, right to left. It was delivered with the head in a neutral position, not tilted back.”
“Maybe the killer was standing in front of her,” said Jane.
“Then why didn’t she resist? There’s no bruising to indicate a struggle. Why would she just stand there while someone practically slices off her head?”
Yoshima said: “I’ve put up the X-rays.”
They all turned to the viewing box where the radiographs were now displayed, bones glowing white on the backlit screen. She focused first on the films of the right wrist stump and the severed hand, mentally comparing the angles of the transected triquetral bone. They were a match.
“It’s definitely her hand,” Maura confirmed.
“Not that I ever doubted it,” said Jane.
Maura next focused on the neck X-rays, on the gap in the soft tissues where the flesh had been so cleanly divided. Her gaze instantly fixed on a bright sliver in the cervical vertebra. “Did you do a lateral on this C-spine?” she asked.
Yoshima had clearly anticipated her request, because he immediately pulled down the hand and wrist films and clipped up a new radiograph, this one a side view of the neck. “I saw that thing earlier. Thought you’d want to see more detail on it.”
Maura stared at the lateral view of the fifth cervical vertebra. The object, razor-thin, was visible on this X-ray as well.
“What is that?” asked Jane, moving close beside her.
“It’s something metallic, and it’s embedded in the anterior fifth vertebra.” She turned to the autopsy table. “I think part of the blade sheared off when the killer made his cut, and a chip is lodged in her neck bone.”
“Which means we might be able to analyze the metal,” said Jane. “Identify who manufactured the knife.”
“I don’t think it was a knife,” said Maura.
“An ax?”
“An ax would leave a cleft, and we’d see crush changes on the soft tissues. She has neither. This incision is fine and linear. It was made by a blade that’s razor-sharp, and long enough to practically transect the neck with one sweep.”
“Like a machete?” asked Jane.
“Or a sword.”
Jane looked at Tam. “We’re looking for Zorro.” Her laugh was interrupted by the sound of her ringing cell phone. She stripped off her gloves and reached for the phone clipped to her belt. “Rizzoli.”
“Have you seen any sword injuries before, Dr. Isles?” Tam asked, still studying the X-ray.
“One, in San Francisco. A man hacked his girlfriend to death with a samurai sword.”
“Would metal analysis tell you if this was a samurai sword?”
“They’re mass-produced these days, so it probably wouldn’t help us unless we could find the weapon itself. Still, you never know when trace evidence like this ends up being just the puzzle piece needed to convict.” She looked at Tam, whose face was bathed in the glow from the viewing box. Even though a bouffant paper cap covered his hair, she was once again struck by his intensity. And lack of humor. “You ask good questions,” she said.
“Just trying to learn.”
“Rizzoli’s a smart cop. Keep up with her, and you’ll do fine.”
“Tam,” said Jane, hanging up her phone. “You stay and finish up here. I have to go.”
“What’s happened?”
“That was Frost. We found the victim’s car.”
THE FOURTH FLOOR of the Tyler Street parking garage was nearly empty, but the blue Honda Civic sat all by itself in a remote corner space. It was a dim and isolated spot, the sort of place you would choose if you did not want anyone to see you walking to your car. As Jane and Frost inspected the vehicle, their only audience was a lone garage employee and the two Boston PD officers who’d spotted the car earlier that morning.
“The entry ticket on the dashboard has a time stamp of eight fifteen PM Wednesday,” said Frost. “I checked the security tape, and it shows the Honda driving in at that time. Five minutes later, a woman walks out of the garage. Her hoodie’s up, so you can’t see her face on the camera, but it looks like her. Car hasn’t left the garage since.”
As Frost spoke, Jane did a slow walk-around of the Honda. It was a three-year-old model with no major dings or scratches. The tires were in good condition. The trunk was open, the hatch lifted for her to inspect the interior.
“License plates were reported stolen five days ago in Springfield,” said Frost. “Vehicle was stolen a week ago, also in Springfield.”
Jane frowned into the trunk, which was empty except for the spare tire. “Geez, it’s a lot cleaner than mine.”
Frost laughed. “You could say that about a lot of cars.”
“Says the guy with OCD.”
“Looks like it’s been recently detailed. Glove compartment’s got the real owner’s registration and insurance card. And you’re gonna love what was left on the front seat.” He pulled on gloves and opened the driver’s door. “Handheld GPS.”
“Why do you always get to find the fun stuff?”
“I’m guessing it’s a brand-new unit, because she’d plugged in only two addresses. Both in Boston.”
“Where?”
“The first is a private residence in Roxbury Crossing, owned by a Louis Ingersoll.”
Jane glanced at him in surprise. “Would that be
“One and the same. It’s the address Boston PD has listed for him.”
“He retired from homicide, what? Sixteen, seventeen years ago?”
“Sixteen. Can’t get hold of him right now. I called his daughter, and she says Lou took off up north to go fishing for the week. There may not be cell coverage wherever he is. Or he turned off his phone and doesn’t want to be bothered.”
“What about the second address on the GPS?”
“It’s a business, right here in Chinatown. Someplace called the Dragon and Stars Martial Arts Academy. Their answering machine said they open at noon.” Frost glanced at his watch. “Which would be ten minutes ago.”
SEVEN
THE DRAGON AND STARS ACADEMY OF MARTIAL ARTS WAS LOCATED on the second floor of a tired brick building on Harrison Avenue, and as Jane and Frost climbed the narrow stairway, they could hear chants and grunts and thumping feet, and could already smell the sweaty locker-room odor. Inside the studio, a dozen students garbed in black pajama-like costumes moved with such total focus that not a single one seemed to notice the two detectives’ entrance. Except for a faded martial arts poster, it was a starkly empty room with bare walls and a
