“Do you keep a firearm, Doc?” asked Rizzoli.
Maura stiffened. “What kind of question is that?”
“No, I’m not accusing you of anything. I just wondered if you have a way to defend yourself.”
“I don’t have a gun. I’ve seen the damage they can do to a human body, and I won’t have one in my house.”
“Okay. Just asking.”
Maura took another sip of vodka, needing liquid courage before she asked the next question: “What do you know about the victim?”
Frost pulled out his notebook, flipping through it like some fussy clerk. In so many ways, Barry Frost reminded Maura of a mild-mannered bureaucrat with his pen always at the ready. “According to the driver’s license in her purse, her name is Anna Jessop, age forty, with an address in Brighton. Vehicle registration matches the same name.”
Maura’s head lifted. “That’s only a few miles from here.”
“The residence is an apartment building. Her neighbors don’t seem to know much about her. We’re still trying to reach the landlady, to let us into the unit.”
“Does the name Jessop ring any bells?” asked Rizzoli.
She shook her heard. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Do you know anyone in Maine?”
“Why do you ask?”
“There was a speeding ticket in her purse. Looks like she got pulled over two days ago, driving south on the Maine Turnpike.”
“I don’t know anyone in Maine.” Maura took a deep breath. Asked: “Who found her?”
“Your neighbor Mr. Telushkin made the call,” said Rizzoli. “He was out walking his dog when he noticed the Taurus parked at the curb.”
“When was that?”
“Around eight P.M.”
Of course, thought Maura. Mr. Telushkin walked his dog at precisely the same time every night. Engineers were like that, precise and predictable. But tonight he had encountered the unpredictable.
“He didn’t hear anything?” Maura asked.
“He said he’d heard what he thought was a car backfiring, maybe ten minutes before that. But no one saw it happen. After he found the Taurus, he called nine-one-one. Reported that someone had just shot his neighbor, Dr. Isles. Brookline Police responded first, along with Detective Eckert here. Frost and I arrived around nine.”
“Why?” Maura said, finally asking a question that had occurred to her when she’d first spotted Rizzoli standing on her front lawn. “Why are you in Brookline? This isn’t your beat.”
Rizzoli glanced at Detective Eckert.
He said, a little sheepishly, “You know, we only had one homicide last year in Brookline. We thought, under the circumstances, it made sense to call in Boston.”
Yes, it did make sense, Maura realized. Brookline was little more than a bedroom community trapped within the city of Boston. Last year, Boston PD had investigated sixty homicides. Practice made perfect, with murder investigations as well as anything else.
“We would have come in on this anyway,” said Rizzoli. “After we heard who the victim was. Who we thought it was.” She paused. “I have to admit, it never even occurred to me that it might
“We all did,” said Frost.
There was a silence.
“We knew you were due to fly home this evening from Paris,” said Rizzoli. “ That’s what your secretary told us. The only thing that didn’t make sense to us was the car. Why you’d be sitting in a car registered to another woman.”
Maura drained her glass and set it on the coffee table. One drink was all she could handle tonight. Already, her limbs were numb and she was having trouble focusing. The room had softened to a blur, the lamps casting everything in a warm glow. This is not real, she thought. I’m asleep in a jet somewhere over the Atlantic, and I’ll wake up to find the plane has landed. That none of this has happened.
“We don’t know anything yet about Anna Jessop,” said Rizzoli. “All we do know-what we’ve all seen with our own eyes-is that whoever she is, she’s a dead ringer for you, Doc. Maybe her hair’s a little longer. Maybe there’s a few differences here and there. But the point is, we were fooled. All of us. And we
Yes, Maura could, but she didn’t want to say it. She just sat staring at the glass on the coffee table. At the melting ice cubes.
“If we were fooled, anyone else could have been as well,” said Rizzoli. “Including whoever fired that bullet into her head. It was just before eight P.M. when your neighbor heard the backfire. Already getting dark. And there she was, sitting in a parked car just a few yards from your driveway. Anyone seeing her in that car would assume it’s you.”
“You think I was the target,” said Maura.
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Maura shook her head. “None of this makes sense.”
“You have a very public job. You testify at homicide trials. You’re in the newspaper. You’re our Queen of the Dead.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“It’s what all the cops call you. What the press calls you. You know that, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t mean I like that nickname. In fact, I can’t stand it.”
“But it does mean you’re noticed. Not just because of what you do, but also because of the way you look. You know the guys notice you, don’t you? You’d have to be blind not to see it. Nice-looking woman always gets their attention. Right, Frost?”
Frost gave a start, obviously not expecting to be put on the spot, and his cheeks reddened. Poor Frost, so easily caught in a blush. “It’s only human nature,” he admitted.
Maura looked at Father Brophy, who did not return her gaze. She wondered if he, too, was subject to the same laws of attraction. She wanted to think so; she wanted to believe that Daniel was not immune to the same thoughts that went through her head.
“Nice-looking woman in the public eye,” said Rizzoli. “Gets stalked, attacked in front of her own residence. It’s happened before. What was the name of that actress out in L.A.? The one who got murdered.”
“Rebecca Schaefer,” said Frost.
“Right. And then there’s the Lori Hwang case here. You remember her, Doc.”
Yes, Maura remembered it, because she had performed the autopsy on the Channel Six newscaster. Lori Hwang had been on the air only a year when she was shot to death in front of the studio. She’d never realized she was being stalked. The perp had been watching her on TV and had written a few fan letters. And then one day he had waited outside the studio doors. As Lori had stepped out and walked toward her car, he had fired a bullet into her head.
“That’s the hazard of living in the public eye,” said Rizzoli. “You never know who’s watching you on all those TV screens. You never know who’s in the car right behind yours when you drive home from work at night. It’s not something we even think about-that someone might be following us. Fantasizing about us.” Rizzoli paused. Said, quietly: “I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to be the focus of someone’s obsession. I’m not even that much to look at, but it happened to me.” She held out her hands, revealing the scars on her palms. The permanent souvenirs of her battle with the man who had twice almost taken her life. A man who still lived, though trapped in a quadriplegic’s body.
“That’s why I asked whether you’d received any strange letters,” said Rizzoli. “I was thinking about her. Lori Hwang.”
“Her killer was arrested,” said Father Brophy.
“Yes.”
“So you’re not implying it’s the same man.”
