Body Double

“Who you are?” O’Donnell asked softly.

Maura met her gaze. “I know who I am.”

“Are you sure?” O’Donnell leaned closer. “When you’re in that autopsy lab, examining a victim’s wounds, describing a killer’s knife thrusts, don’t you ever feel just a whisper of a thrill?”

“What makes you think I would?”

“You are Amalthea’s daughter.”

“I’m an accident of biology. She didn’t raise me.”

O’Donnell settled back in the chair and studied her with coldly appraising eyes. “You’re aware there’s a genetic component to violence? That some families carry it in their DNA?”

Maura remembered what Rizzoli had told her about Dr. O’Donnell: She’s beyond curious. She wants to know what it’s like to cut skin and watch a victim bleed. What it’s like to enjoy that ultimate power. She’s hungry for details, the way a vampire’s hungry for blood. Maura could now see that glint of hunger in O’Donnell’s eyes. This woman enjoys communing with monsters, thought Maura. And she’s hoping she’s found another one.

“I came to talk about Amalthea,” said Maura.

“Isn’t that who we’ve been discussing?”

“According to MCI-Framingham, you’ve been to see her at least a dozen times. Why so often? Surely not for her benefit.”

“As a researcher, I’m interested in Amalthea. I want to understand what drives people to kill. Why they take pleasure from it.”

“You’re saying she did it for pleasure?”

“Well, do you know why she killed?”

“She’s clearly psychotic.”

“The vast majority of psychotics don’t kill.”

“But you do agree that she is?”

O’Donnell hesitated. “She would appear to be.”

“You don’t sound sure. Even after all the visits you’ve made?”

“There’s more to your mother than just psychosis. And there’s more to her crime than meets the eye.”

“What do you mean?”

“You say you already know what she did. Or at least, what the prosecution claims she did.”

“The evidence was solid enough to convict her.”

“Oh, there was plenty of evidence. Her license plate caught on camera at the service station. The women’s blood on the tire iron. Their wallets in the trunk. But you probably haven’t heard about this.” O’Donnell reached for one of the files on the coffee table and handed it to Maura. “It’s from the crime lab in Virginia, where Amalthea was arrested.”

Maura opened the folder and saw a photo of a white sedan with a Massachusetts license plate.

“That’s the car Amalthea was driving,” said O’Donnell.

Maura turned to the next page. It was a summary of the fingerprint evidence.

“There were a number of prints found inside that car,” said O’Donnell. “Both victims, Nikki and Theresa Wells, left their prints on the rear seat belt buckles, indicating they climbed into the backseat and strapped themselves in. There were fingerprints left by Amalthea, of course, on the steering wheel and gearshift.” O’Donnell paused. “And then, there’s the fourth set of fingerprints.”

“A fourth set?”

“It’s right there, in that report. They were found on the glove compartment. On both doors, and on the steering wheel. Those prints were never identified.”

“It doesn’t mean anything. Maybe a mechanic worked on her car and left behind his fingerprints.”

“A possibility. Now look at the hair and fiber report.”

Maura turned to the next page and saw that blond hairs had been found on the back seat. The hairs matched Theresa and Nikki Wells. “I see nothing surprising about this. We know the victims were in the car.”

“But you’ll notice that none of their hairs appear in the front seat. Think about it. Two women stranded at the side of the road. Someone pulls over, offers to give them a lift. And what do the sisters do? They both climb into the backseat. It seems a little rude, doesn’t it? Leaving the driver all alone up in front. Unless…”

Maura looked up at her. “Unless someone else was already sitting in that front seat.”

O’Donnell sat back, a satisfied smile on her lips. “That’s the tantalizing question. A question that was never answered at trial. It’s the reason I keep going back, again and again, to see your mother. I want to learn what the police never bothered to find out: Who was sitting in the front seat with Amalthea?”

“She hasn’t told you?”

“Not his name.”

Maura stared at her. “His?”

“I’m only guessing the sex. But I do believe that someone was in the car with Amalthea at the moment she spotted those two women on the road. Someone helped her control those victims. Someone who was strong enough to help her stack those bodies in the shed and helped her set them on fire.” O’Donnell paused. “He’s the one I’m interested in, Dr. Isles. He’s the one I want to find.”

“All your visits to Amalthea-they weren’t even about her.”

“Insanity doesn’t interest me. Evil does.”

Maura stared at her, thinking: Yes, it would. You enjoy getting close enough to brush against it, sniff it. Amalthea isn’t what attracts you. She’s only the go-between, the one who can introduce you to the real object of your desire.

“A partner,” said Maura.

“We don’t know who he is, or what he looks like. But your mother knows.”

“Then why won’t she say his name?”

“That’s the question-why is she hiding him? Is she afraid of him? Is she protecting him?”

“You don’t know if this person even exists. All you have are some unidentified fingerprints. And a theory.”

“More than a theory. The Beast is real.” O’Donnell leaned forward and said, quietly, almost intimately: “That’s the name she used when she was arrested in Virginia. When the police there interrogated her. She said, quote: ‘The Beast told me to do it,’ unquote. He told her to kill those women.”

In the silence that followed, Maura heard the sound of her own heart, like the quickening beat of a drum. She swallowed. Said, “We’re talking about a schizophrenic. A woman who’s probably having auditory hallucinations.”

“Or she’s talking about someone real.”

“The Beast?” Maura managed a laugh. “A personal demon, maybe. A monster from her nightmares.”

“Who leaves behind fingerprints.”

“That didn’t seem to impress the jury.”

“They ignored that evidence. I was at that trial. I watched the prosecution build its case against a woman so psychotic, even the prosecution had to know she wasn’t responsible for her actions. But she was the easy target, the easy conviction.”

“Even though she was clearly insane.”

“Oh, no one doubted she was psychotic and hearing voices. Those voices might’ve screamed at you to crush a woman’s skull, to burn her body, but the jury still assumes you know right from wrong. Amalthea was a prosecutor’s slam dunk, so that’s what they did. They got it wrong. They missed him.” O’Donnell leaned back in her chair. “And your mother is the only one who knows who he is.”

It was almost six by the time Maura pulled up behind the medical examiner’s building. Two cars were still parked in the lot-Yoshima’s blue Honda and Dr. Costas’s black Saab. There must be a late autopsy, she thought, with a twinge of guilt; today would have been her day on call, but she had asked her colleagues to cover for her.

She unlocked the back door, walked into the building, and headed straight to her office, meeting no one on the way. On her desk she found what she’d come in to retrieve: two folders, with an attached yellow Post-it note, on