The Keepsake (21 page)

If he’d intended to wound her, he couldn’t have done a better job. She felt her stomach clench as she stood gripping the file, as though that bundle of papers could salve her guilty conscience about Josephine’s abduction.

“But you know that,” he said quietly.

“Yes. I know that,” she said.
And that mistake will haunt me until the day I die.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The house where Nicholas Robinson lived was in Chelsea, not far from the blue-collar Revere neighborhood, where Jane had grown up. Like Jane’s childhood home, Robinson’s was a modest house with a covered front porch and a tiny patch of a yard. In the front garden grew the biggest tomato plants that Jane had ever seen, but the recent heavy rains had cracked the fruit, and a number of overripe globes hung rotting on the vines. The neglected plants should have warned her about Robinson’s state of mind. When he opened the door, she was startled by how drained and haggard he looked, his hair uncombed, his shirt wrinkled as though he’d been sleeping in it for days.

“Is there any news?” he asked, anxiously searching her face.

“I’m sorry, but there isn’t. May I come in, Dr. Robinson?”

He gave a weary nod. “Of course.”

In her parents’ Revere home, the TV was the centerpiece of the living room, and the coffee table was littered with various remotes that had cloned themselves over the years. But in Robinson’s living room she saw no television at all, no entertainment center, and not a remote device in sight. Instead there were shelves filled with books and figurines and bits of pottery, and on the wall hung framed maps of the ancient world. It was every inch an impoverished academic’s house, but there was an orderliness to the clutter, as though every knickknack was precisely where it should be.

He glanced around the room as though uncertain what to do next, then helplessly waved his hands. “I’m sorry. I should offer you something to drink, shouldn’t I? I’m afraid I’m not a very good host.”

“I’m fine, thank you. Why don’t we just sit down and talk?”

They sank onto comfortable but well-worn chairs. Outside a motorcycle roared past, but inside the house, with its shell-shocked owner, there was silence. He said softly: “I don’t know what I should do.”

“I’ve heard the museum may be closed permanently.”

“I wasn’t talking about the museum. I meant Josephine. I’d do anything to help you find her, but what can I do?” He gestured to his books, his maps. “
This
is what I’m good at. Collecting and cataloging! Interpreting useless details from the past. What purpose does it serve her, I ask you? It doesn’t help Josephine.” He looked down in defeat. “It didn’t save Simon.”

“Maybe you
can
help us.”

He looked at her with exhaustion-hollowed eyes. “Ask me. Tell me what you need.”

“I’ll start with this question. What was your relationship with Josephine?”

He frowned. “Relationship?”

“She was more than a colleague, I think.” A lot more, judging by what she saw in his face.

He shook his head. “Look at me, Detective. I’m fourteen years older than she is. I’m hopelessly myopic, I barely make a living, and I’m starting to go bald. Why would someone like her want someone like me?”

“So she wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship.”

“I can’t imagine she would be.”

“You mean you don’t actually know? You never asked?”

He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I didn’t have the nerve to actually get the words out. And I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. It might have ruined what we
did
have.”

“What was that?”

He smiled. “She’s like me—she’s
so
much like me. Hand us an old bone fragment or a rusted blade, and we can both feel the heat of history in it. That’s what we had in common, a passion for what came before us. That would have been enough, just being able to share that much.” His head drooped and he admitted: “I was afraid to ask for more than that.”

“Why?”

“Because of how beautiful she is,” he said, his words soft as a prayer.

“Was that one of the reasons you hired her?”

She could see that her question instantly offended him. His face tightened and he straightened. “I would never hire on the basis of physical appearance. My only standards are competence and experience.”

“Yet Josephine had almost no experience on her résumé. She was fresh from a doctoral program. You took her on as consultant, yet she was far less qualified than you are.”

“But I’m not an Egyptologist. That’s why Simon told me he was bringing in a consultant. I suppose I should have felt a bit insulted, but to be honest, I knew I wasn’t qualified to evaluate Madam X. I do acknowledge my own limits.”

“There must have been Egyptologists more qualified than Josephine to choose from.”

“I’m sure there were.”

“You don’t know?”

“Simon made the decision. After I advertised the job opening, we received dozens of résumés. I was in the process of narrowing down the choices when Simon told me he’d already made the decision. Josephine wouldn’t have made even my first cut, but he insisted she had to be the one. And somehow, he found the extra funds to hire her full-time.”

“What do you mean, he found the extra funds?”

“A substantial donation came in. Mummies have that effect, you know. They get donors excited, make them more willing to open their wallets. When you’ve worked in archaeological circles as long as Simon did, you learn who has the deep pockets. You know whom to ask for money.”

“But why did he choose Josephine? That’s the question I keep coming back to. Of all the Egyptologists he could have hired, all the freshly minted PhDs who must have applied, why was
she
hired?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t enthusiastic about the choice, but I saw no point in arguing because I had the impression that he’d already made up his mind, and there was nothing I could do to change it.” Robinson sighed and looked out the window. “And then I met her,” he said softly. “And I realized there was no one else I’d rather work with. No one else I’d rather…” He fell silent.

On that street of modest homes, the sound of traffic was constant, yet this living room seemed to be a trapped in a different and more genteel era, a time when a rumpled eccentric like Nicholas Robinson might contentedly grow old while surrounded by his books and maps. But he had fallen in love, and there was no contentment in his face, only anguish.

“She’s alive,” he said. “I need to believe that.” He looked at Jane. “
You
believe it, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” she said. She looked away before he could read the rest of the answer in her eyes.
But I don’t know if we can save her.

TWENTY-EIGHT

That evening, Maura dined alone.

She had planned a romantic dinner for two, and a day earlier she had cruised the grocery store aisles gathering Meyer lemons and parsley, veal shanks and garlic, all the ingredients she needed to make Daniel’s favorite, osso buco. But the best-laid plans of illicit lovers can crumble in an instant with a single phone call. Only hours ago, Daniel had apologetically delivered the news that he was expected to dine that night with visiting bishops from New York. The call had ended as it so often did.
I’m sorry, Maura. I love you, Maura. I wish I could get out of this.

But he never could.

Now those veal shanks were stored in her freezer, and instead of osso buco, she was resigned to dining alone on a grilled cheese sandwich and a stiff gin and tonic.

She imagined where Daniel was at that moment. She pictured a table with men dressed in somber black, the preliminary bowing of heads, the murmured blessing over the food. The subdued clink of silverware and china as they discussed matters of importance to the church: declining seminary enrollments, the graying of the priesthood. Every profession conducted its own business dinners, yet when theirs was finished, these men would not go home to wives and families, but to their lonely beds. She wondered: As you sip your wine, as you look around the table at your colleagues, are you troubled at all by the absence of women’s faces, women’s voices?

Are you thinking at all of me?

She pressed the cheese sandwich onto the hot skillet and watched as butter sizzled, as the bread crisped. Like scrambled eggs, a grilled cheese sandwich was one of her meals of last resort, and the scent of browning butter brought back all the exhausted nights she’d known as a medical student. It was also the scent of those wounded evenings after her divorce, when planning a meal took more effort than she could muster. The smell of a grilled cheese sandwich was the scent of defeat.

Outside, darkness was falling, mercifully cloaking the neglected vegetable garden that she had planted so optimistically in the spring. Now it was a jungle of weeds and bolting lettuce and unpicked peapods that hung dry and leathery on tangled vines. Someday, she thought, I’ll follow through. I’ll keep it weeded and neat. But this summer’s garden was a waste, yet another victim of too many demands and too many distractions.

Daniel, most of all.

In the window, she saw herself reflected in the glass, her lips downturned, her eyes tired and pinched. That unhappy image was as startling as a stranger’s face. In ten years, twenty years, would the same woman still be staring back at her?

The pan was smoking, the bread starting to burn black. She turned off the burner and opened the window to air out the smoke, then carried her sandwich to the kitchen table. Gin and cheese, she thought as she refilled her drink. All the necessary food groups for a melancholy woman. As she sipped, she sorted through the mail she’d brought in that evening, setting aside unwanted catalogs for the recycling bin and stacking together the bills that she’d pay this weekend.

She paused at an envelope with her typewritten name and address. It had no return address. She slit it open and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Instantly she dropped the page as though scalded.

Printed in ink were the same two words she had seen painted in blood on the door in the Crispin Museum.

FIND ME

She shot to her feet, knocking over the glass of gin and tonic. Ice cubes clattered onto the floor but she ignored them and crossed straight to the phone.

Within three rings, her call was answered by a brisk voice. “Rizzoli.”

“Jane, I think he wrote me!”

“What?”

“It just came in my mail. It’s a single sheet of paper—”

“Slow down. I’m having trouble hearing you in this traffic.”

Maura paused to collect her nerves and managed to say, more calmly: “The envelope is addressed to me. Inside there’s a sheet of paper with only two words:
Find me.
” She drew a breath and said, quietly: “It has to be him.”

“Is there anything else written on that page? Anything at all?”

Maura turned the page over and frowned. “There are two numbers on the other side.”

Over the phone, she heard a car honk, and Jane muttered an oath. “Look, I’m stuck on Columbus Avenue right now. You’re at home?”

“Yes.”

“I’m heading right there. Is your computer on?”

“No. Why?”

“Turn it on. I need you to check something for me. I think I know what those numbers are.”

“Hold on.” Carrying the phone and the note, Maura hurried down the hall to her office. “I’m booting up right now,” she said as the monitor flickered on and the hard drive hummed to life. “Tell me about these numbers,” she said. “What are they?”

“I’m guessing they’re geographic coordinates.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because Josephine told us she got a note just like yours with numbers that turned out to be the coordinates for Blue Hills Reservation.”

“That’s why she went hiking there that day?”

“The killer sent her there.”

The hard drive had stopped spinning. “Okay. I’m booted up. What do you want me to do?”

“Go to Google Earth. Type in those numbers for latitude and longitude.”

Maura looked at the note again, suddenly struck by the significance of the words
Find me.
“Oh God,” she murmured. “He’s telling us where to find her body.”

“I hope to hell you’re wrong. Have you typed in those numbers?”

“I’ll do it now.” Maura set down the receiver and began tapping on the keyboard, entering the numbers for latitude and longitude. On the screen, the global map began to shift, moving toward the coordinates she’d specified. She picked up the receiver and said, “It’s starting to zoom in.”

“What’s it showing?”

“Northeastern U.S. It’s Massachusetts…”

“Boston?”

“It looks like—no, wait…” Maura stared as the details sharpened. Her throat suddenly went dry. “It’s in Newton,” she said softly.

“Where in Newton?”

Maura reached for the mouse. With each new click the image was magnified. She saw streets, trees. Individual rooftops. Suddenly she realized which neighborhood she was looking at, and a chill raised every hair on the back of her neck. “It’s my house,” she whispered.

“What?”

“These coordinates are for
my house.
”

“Jesus. Listen to me! I’m going to get a cruiser right over there. Is your house secure? I want you to check all your doors. Go, go!”

Maura sprang from her chair and ran to the front door. It was locked. She ran to the garage door—also locked. She turned toward the kitchen and suddenly froze.

I left the window open.

Slowly she moved up the hall, her palms slick, her heart hammering. Stepping into the kitchen, she saw that the window screen was intact, the room unviolated. Melted ice cubes had left a puddle of water glistening under the table. She went to the door and confirmed that it was secured. Of course it would be. Two years ago, an intruder had broken into her home, and ever since then, she’d been careful to lock her doors, to arm her security system. She closed and latched the kitchen window and took calming breaths as her pulse gradually slowed. It was just a piece of mail, she thought. A taunt delivered through the U.S. Postal Service. Turning, she looked at the envelope that the note had arrived in. Only then did she notice that it had no postmark, that the stamp was pristine.

He delivered it himself. He came to my street and slipped it in my mailbox.

What else did he leave for me?

Looking through the window, she wondered what secrets the darkness concealed. Her hands were clammy again as she crossed to the switch for the outside lamps. She was almost afraid of what the light might reveal, afraid that Bradley Rose himself would be standing right outside her window, staring back at her. But when she flipped the switch, the glare revealed no monsters. She saw the gas barbecue grill and the teak patio furniture that she’d bought only last month, but had yet to enjoy. And beyond the patio, at the periphery of the light, she could just make out the shadowy edge of her garden. Nothing alarming, nothing amiss.

Then a pale ripple caught her eye, a faint white fluttering in the darkness. She strained to make out what it was, but it refused to take shape, refused to reveal itself. She pulled the flashlight from her kitchen drawer and shone it into the night. The beam landed on the Japanese pear tree that she’d planted two summers ago at the far corner of the yard. Suspended from one of its branches was something white and pendulous, something that was now swaying languorously in the wind.

Her doorbell rang.

She spun around, lungs heaving in fright. Hurrying into the hallway, she saw the electric blue of a cruiser’s rack lights pulsing through her living room window. She opened the front door to see two Newton patrolmen.

“Everything okay, Dr. Isles?” one of the officers asked. “We got a report of a possible intruder at this address.”

“I’m fine.” She released a deep breath. “But I need you to come with me. To check something.”

“What?”

“It’s in my backyard.”

The patrolmen followed her up the hall and into her kitchen. There she paused, suddenly wondering if she was about to make herself look ridiculous. The hysterical single woman, imagining ghosts dangling from pear trees. Now that she had two cops standing beside her, her fear had faded and more practical concerns came to mind. If the killer really had left something in her backyard, she had to approach the object as a professional.

“Wait here just a minute,” she said, and ran back to the hall closet, where she kept the box of latex gloves.

“Do you mind telling us what’s going on?” the officer called out.

She returned to the kitchen carrying the box of gloves and handed gloves to both of them. “Just in case,” she said.

“What are these for?”

“Evidence.” She grabbed the flashlight and opened the kitchen door. Outside, the summer night was fragrant with the scent of pine bark mulch and damp grass. Slowly, she walked across the yard, her flashlight beam sweeping the patio, the vegetable plot, the lawn, searching for any other surprises she’d been meant to find. The only thing that did not belong was what now hung fluttering in the shadows ahead. She came to a halt in front of the pear tree and aimed her flashlight at the object dangling from the branch.

“This thing?” said the cop. “It’s just a grocery sack.”

With something inside it.
She thought of all the horrors that might fit inside that plastic sack, all the gruesome keepsakes that a killer might harvest from a victim, and suddenly she did not want to look inside it. Leave it for Jane, she thought. Let someone else be the first to see it.

“Is that what’s bothering you?” the cop said.

“He left it here. He came into my yard and hung it on that tree.”

The cop pulled on the gloves. “Well geez, let’s just see what it is.”

“No. Wait—”

But he’d already pulled the sack off the branch. He shone his flashlight at the contents, and even in the darkness she saw him grimace.

“What?” she asked.

“Looks like some kind of animal.” He held the sack open for her to look inside.

At first glimpse, what she saw did indeed appear to be a mass of dark fur. But when she realized what it really was, her hands chilled to ice inside the latex gloves.

She looked up at the cop. “It’s hair,” she said softly. “I think it’s human.”