Abe nodded. “The perp probably pointed right through the driver’s window. And the window was open, so there was no glass to distort the trajectory.”
“So she’s just sitting there,” said Rizzoli. “Warm night. Window down. Eight o’clock, it’s getting dark. And he walks up to her car. Just points the gun and fires.” Rizzoli shook her head. “Why?”
“Didn’t take the purse,” said Abe.
“So not a robbery,” said Frost.
“Which leaves us with a crime of passion. Or a hit.” Rizzoli glanced at Maura. There it was again-that possibility of a targeted killing.
Abe suspended the brain in a bucket of formalin. “No surprises so far,” he said, as he turned to perform the neck dissection.
“You’ll be running tox screens?” asked Rizzoli.
Abe shrugged. “We can send one off, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. The cause of death is right up there.” He nodded toward the light box, where the bullet stood out against the cranial shadow. “You have any reason to want a tox screen? Did CST find any drugs or paraphernalia in the car?”
“Nothing. The car was pretty tidy. I mean, except for the blood.”
“And all of it is from the victim?”
“It’s all B positive, anyway.”
Abe glanced at Yoshima. “You typed our gal yet?”
Yoshima nodded. “It matches. She’s B positive.”
No one was looking at Maura. No one saw her chin snap up, or heard her sharp intake of breath. Abruptly she turned so they could not see her face, and she untied her mask, pulling it off with a brisk tug.
As she crossed to the trash can, Abe called out: “You bored with us already, Maura?”
“This jet lag is getting to me,” she said, shrugging off the gown. “I think I’m going to go home early. I’ll see you tomorrow, Abe.”
She fled the lab without a backward glance.
The drive home went by in a blur. Only as she reached the outskirts of Brookline did her brain suddenly unlock. Only then did she break out of the obsessive loop of thoughts that kept playing in her head.
She stopped at the grocery store. Her refrigerator was empty, and unless she wanted to eat tuna and frozen peas tonight, she needed to shop. It was a relief to focus on something else. She threw items into her cart with manic urgency. Far safer to think about food, about what she would cook for the rest of the week.
At home she changed into shorts and a T-shirt and threw herself into preparing dinner. Sipped chilled white Bordeaux as she sliced chicken and onions and garlic. The steamy fragrance of jasmine rice filled the kitchen. No time to think of B positive blood and black-haired women; the oil’s smoking in the pot. Time to saute the chicken, add the curry paste. Pour in the can of coconut milk. She covered the pot to let it simmer. Looked up at the kitchen window and suddenly caught a reflection of herself in the glass.
A chill swept through her, as though the face in the window was not a reflection, but a phantom staring back. The lid on the pot rattled from the rising steam. Ghosts trying to get out. Desperate to get her attention.
She turned off the burner, crossed to the telephone, and dialed a pager number she knew by heart.
A moment later, Jane Rizzoli called. In the background, Maura could hear a phone ringing. So Rizzoli was not at home yet, but probably sitting at her desk in Schroeder Plaza.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Maura. “But I need to ask you something.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just want to know one more thing about her.”
“Anna Jessop?”
“Yes. You said she had a Massachusetts driver’s license.”
“That’s right.”
“What’s the birth date on her license?”
“What?”
“Today, in the autopsy lab, you said she was forty years old. What day was she born?”
“Why?”
“Please. I just need to know.”
“Okay. Hold on.”
Maura heard the shuffling of pages, then Rizzoli came back on the line. “According to that license, her birthday’s November twenty-fifth.”
For a moment, Maura did not say anything.
“You still there?” asked Rizzoli.
“Yes.”
“What’s the problem, Doc? What’s going on?”
Maura swallowed. “I need you to do something for me, Jane. It’s going to sound crazy.”
“Try me.”
“I want the crime lab to run my DNA against hers.”
Over the line, Maura heard the other telephone finally stop ringing. Rizzoli said, “Tell me that again. Because I don’t think I heard you right.”
“I want to know if my DNA matches Anna Jessop’s.”
“Look, I agree there’s a strong resemblance-”
“There’s more.”
“What else are you talking about?”
“We both have the same blood type. B positive.”
Rizzoli said, reasonably: “How many other people have B positive? It’s like, what? Ten percent of the population?”
“And her birthday. You said her birthday’s November twenty-fifth. Jane, so is mine.”
That news brought dead silence. Rizzoli said softly: “Okay, you just made the hairs on the back of my arms stand up.”
“You see why I want it, now? Everything about her-from the way she looks, to her blood type, to her date of birth…” Maura paused. “She’s
A long pause. Then Rizzoli said, “Answering that question is turning out to be a lot harder than we thought.”
“Why?”
“We got back a credit report on her this afternoon. Found out that her MasterCard account is only six months old.”
“So?”
“Her driver’s license is four months old. The plates on her car were issued only three months ago.”
“What about her residence? She had an address in Brighton, right? You must have spoken to her neighbors.”
“We finally got hold of the landlady late last night. She says she rented it out to Anna Jessop three months ago. She let us into the apartment.”
“And?”
“It’s empty, Doc. Not a stick of furniture, not a frying pan, not a toothbrush. Someone had paid for cable TV and a phone line, but no one was there.”
