Die Again: A Rizzoli And Isles Novel Part 11

I shake my head. "This is ridiculous."

"Of course that's what she'd say," Vivian mutters. "I told you she would."

"Meaning what?"

"It's obvious to everyone that you're Johnny's favorite. I knew you'd stand up for him."

"He doesn't need anyone to stand up for him. He's the one keeping us alive."

"Is he?" Vivian glances warily in Johnny's direction. He's too far away to hear us, but she drops her voice anyway. "Are you sure of that?"

This is absurd. I search their faces, wondering who started this whispering campaign. "You're going to tell me Johnny killed Isao and dragged him up that tree? Or maybe he just delivered him to the leopard and let her take it from there?"

"What do we really know about him, Millie?" Elliot asks.

"Oh G.o.d. Not you, too."

"I gotta tell you, the things they're saying ..." Elliot looks over his shoulder and even though he whispers, I can hear his panic. "It's freaking me out."

"Think about it," says Richard. "How did we all end up on this safari?"

I glare at him. "The only reason I'm here is because of you. You wanted your African adventure, and now you've got it. Is it not measuring up? Or has it gotten too adventurous even for you?"

"We found him on the Internet," says Sylvia, who has been silent up till now. I notice that her hands tremble around her coffee cup. Her grip is so unsteady she has to set the cup down to keep it from spilling. "Vivian and I, we wanted to do a camping trip in the bush, but we couldn't afford to spend a lot. We found his website, Lost in Botswana." She gives a half-hysterical laugh. "And so we are."

"I tagged along with them," Elliot says. "Sylvia and Viv and I, we're sitting in a bar together in Cape Town. And they tell me about this fabulous safari they're going on."

"I'm so sorry, Elliot," Sylvia says. "I'm sorry you ever met us in that bar. I'm sorry we talked you into coming." She takes a shaky breath and her voice breaks. "G.o.d, I just want to go home."

"The Matsunagas found this tour through the website, too," says Vivian. "Isao told me he was looking for a true African experience. Not some tourist lodge, but a chance to really explore the bush."

"That's also how we ended up here," Richard says. "That same f.u.c.king website. Lost in Botswana."

I remember the night Richard showed it to me on his computer. For days he'd been surfing the Web, drooling over images of safari lodges and tented camps and feasts spread across candlelit tables. I don't remember why Lost in Botswana was the site he finally settled on. Perhaps it was the promise of an authentic experience. True wilderness, the way Hemingway would have lived it, although Hemingway was more likely just a convincing bulls.h.i.+tter. I had no part in planning this holiday; it was Richard's choice, Richard's dream. Now a nightmare.

"What are you all saying, that his website's a fake?" I ask. "That he used it to lure us out here? Do you people even hear yourselves?"

"People come here from all around the world to hunt big game," says Richard. "What if this time, we're the game?"

If he's angling for a reaction, he certainly gets one. Elliot looks as if he might throw up. Sylvia claps her hand over her mouth, as though to stifle a sob.

But I respond with a snort of derision. "You think Johnny Posthumus is hunting us? G.o.d, Richard, don't turn this into one of your thrillers."

"Johnny's the one with the gun," Richard says. "He holds all the power. If we don't stick together, every single one of us, then we're all dead."

There it is. I hear it in his bitter voice. I see it in the wary looks they all give me. I'm the Judas in their midst, the one who'll run to Johnny and tattletale. It's all so ridiculous I should laugh, but I'm too f.u.c.king angry. As I rise to my feet, I can scarcely keep my voice steady. "When this is over, when we're all on that plane back to Maun next week, I'm going to remind you of this. And you're all going to feel like idiots."

"I hope you're right," Vivian whispers. "I hope to G.o.d we are idiots. I hope we are on that plane, and not just a pile of b.l.o.o.d.y bones in the ..." Her voice cuts off as a shadow suddenly looms over her.

Johnny has moved so quietly that they didn't hear his approach, and now he stands just behind Vivian and looks around at our gathering. "We need water and firewood," he says. "Richard, Elliot, come down to the river with me."

As both men stand up, I see fear in Elliot's eyes. The same fear that gleams in the eyes of the blondes. Johnny calmly cradles the gun across his body, the pose of a rifleman at ease, but just the presence of that gun in his arms tilts the balance of power.

"What about-what about the girls?" Elliot asks, nervously glancing at the blondes. "Shouldn't I, uh, stay and keep an eye on them?"

"They can wait in the truck. Right now, I need muscle."

"If you give me the gun," suggests Richard, "Elliot and I can get the firewood and water."

"No one leaves camp without me. And I don't leave the perimeter without this rifle." Johnny's face is grim. "If you want to stay alive, you'll just have to trust me."

BOSTON.

GABRIEL'S STEAK WAS COOKED A PERFECT MEDIUM RARE, THE WAY HE always ordered it when they dined out at Matteo's. But tonight, as they sat at their favorite table in the restaurant, Jane could scarcely stomach the sight of blood oozing out when her husband sliced into the filet. It made her think of Debra Gomez's blood, dripping down the boulder. Of Gott's body, hanging like a side of beef. Whether it comes from cow or human, we are all fresh meat.

Gabriel noticed she'd scarcely touched her pork chop, and he gave her a searching look. "You're still thinking about it, aren't you?"

"I can't help it. Doesn't it happen to you? Scenes you can't get out of your head, no matter how hard you try?"

"Try harder, Jane." He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "It's been far too long since our last dinner out together."

"I am trying, but this case ..." She looked at his steak and shuddered. "It just might turn me into a vegetarian."

"As bad as that?"

"We've both seen some awful things. Spent too much time in autopsy rooms. But this one, it freaks me out on some deeper level. Gutted and left hanging. Eaten by your own d.a.m.n pets."

"That's why we shouldn't get a puppy."

"Gabriel, this isn't funny."

He reached for his gla.s.s of wine. "I'm just trying to lighten up date night. We don't get many of them, and this one is turning into another case review. As usual."

"It's the work we both do. What else are we supposed to talk about?"

"Our daughter, maybe? Where we should go on our next vacation?" He set down his wine and looked at her. "There's more to life than murder."

"It's what brought us together."

"It's not the only thing."

No, she thought as her husband again picked up his knife, wielding it with the cool, calm skill of a surgeon. The day they'd met, at a crime scene in Stony Brook Reservation, she'd found his unflappability intimidating. In the chaos of that afternoon, as cops and criminalists coalesced around the decomposing body, Gabriel had been a quietly commanding presence, the aloof observer taking it all in. She hadn't been surprised to learn he was FBI; she'd known at a glance that he was an outsider, and that he was there to challenge her authority. But what first pitted them against each other was also what later drew them together. Push and pull, the attraction of opposites. Even now, as she watched her maddeningly imperturbable husband, she knew exactly why she'd fallen for him.

He looked at her and gave a resigned sigh. "Okay, whether I like it or not, it seems we're going to talk about murder. So." He set down his knife and fork. "You really think Big Mouth O'Brien is the key to this?"

"Those nasty calls to his radio show were so eerily similar to the comments left on that article about Leon Gott. They talked about hanging and gutting."

"There's nothing particularly unique about that imagery. It's simply what hunters do. I've done it myself after bringing down a deer."

"The caller Suzy identifies herself as a member of the Vegan Action Army. According to their website, they claim to have fifty members in Ma.s.sachusetts."

Gabriel shook his head. "That organization's not ringing any bells for me. I don't recall it popping up on any federal watchlists."

"Or Boston PD lists, either. But maybe they're smart enough to stay quiet. Not take credit for what they do."

"Hanging and gutting hunters? Does that sound like vegans?"

"Think of the Earth Liberation Front. They plant firebombs."

"But ELF tries its best to avoid killing anyone."

"Still, look at the symbolism. Leon Gott was a big-game hunter and taxidermist. Hub Magazine runs an article about him called 'The Trophy Master.' Months later, he's found hanging by his ankles, slashed from stem to stern and gutted. Suspended at just the right height to be eaten by his pets. What more fitting way to dispose of a hunter's body than to have it ripped apart by Fluffy and Fido?" She paused, suddenly aware that the restaurant had gone quiet. Glancing sideways, she saw the couple at the next table staring at her.

"Not the time or place, Jane," Gabriel said.

She stared down at her pork chop. "Nice weather we're having."

Only when the buzz of conversation around them had resumed did she say, more quietly: "I think the symbolism is obvious."

"Or it may have nothing to do with the fact he was a hunter. There's also theft as a motive."

"If it was theft, it was pretty specific. His wallet and cash were still in the bedroom, untouched. As far as we know, the only thing missing from his house is the snow leopard pelt."

"And you told me it was worth a lot."

"But a pelt that rare would be hard as h.e.l.l to unload. It'd have to be for someone's private collection. And if robbery was the only motive, why go through the b.l.o.o.d.y ritual of gutting the victim?"

"It seems to me you have two specific symbolic features here. First, the taking of a rare animal pelt. Second, the way the victim's body was displayed." Gabriel frowned at the table candle as he mulled it over. He'd finally been dragged into the puzzle and now he was fully engaged. Tonight might be date night, the one evening a month when they vowed not to talk about work, but it always came back to murder. How could it not, when this was what they both lived and breathed? She watched the candlelight flicker on his face as he quietly sifted through the facts. How lucky she was to be able to share these facts with him. She thought of what it would be like to sit here with a spouse who was not in law enforcement, to be bursting to talk about what was gnawing away at her and unable to say a thing about it. Not only did they share a home and a child, they also shared the same grim knowledge of how instantaneously a life can change. Or end.

"I'll see what info we have on the Vegan Action Army," he said. "But I'd be inclined to focus on that leopard pelt, since it's the one item of value you know was taken." He paused. "What did you think of Jerry O'Brien?"

"Aside from his being a chauvinist jerk?"

"I mean, as a suspect. Any possible motive to kill Gott?"

She shook her head. "They were hunting buddies. He could just as easily shoot him in the woods and call it an accident. But yeah, I thought about O'Brien. And his personal a.s.sistant. Gott was such a loner, there aren't a lot of suspects to choose from. At least, none that we know of." But dig deep into someone's life and surprises always turned up. She thought of other victims, other investigations that had turned up secret lovers or hidden bank accounts or countless illicit cravings that only come to light when one's life is laid bare by a violent end.

And she thought of her own father, who had secrets of his own, whose affair with another woman had fractured his marriage. Even the man she thought she knew, the man with whom she'd shared every Christmas, every birthday, had turned out to be a stranger.

Later that evening, she was forced to confront that same stranger when she and Gabriel pulled up in front of Angela's house to pick up their daughter. Jane spotted the familiar car parked in the driveway and said: "What's Dad doing here?"

"This is his house."

"Used to be his house." She stepped out and eyed the Chevy, parked in its usual spot, as if it had never left. As if Frank Rizzoli could just step back into his old life and everything would be exactly the way it always was. The Chevy had a new dent in the left front fender; she wondered if Frank's bimbo had put it there, and whether he'd yelled at her about it, the way he'd once yelled at Angela when she'd sc.r.a.ped the car door. If you hung around any man long enough, even a s.h.i.+ny new lover would start to show his flaws. When had the bimbo noticed that Frank had nose hairs and morning breath like every other man?

"Let's just pick up Regina and go home," whispered Gabriel as they climbed the front porch.

"What do you think I'm going to do?"

"Not engage in the usual family drama, I hope."

"A family without drama," she said, ringing the bell, "would not be mine."

Her mother opened the door. At least, she looked like Angela, but this was a flat zombie version who greeted them with a lifeless smile as they walked in. "She's sound asleep, no trouble at all. Did you two have a nice dinner?"

"Yeah. Why's Dad here?" asked Jane.

Frank called out: "I'm sitting in my own house, that's what I'm doing. What kind of question is that?"

Jane walked into the living room and saw her father planted in his old easy chair, the wandering king back to reclaim his throne. His hair was a weird shoe-polish black-when had he dyed it? There were other changes too: the open-necked silk s.h.i.+rt, the fancy wrist.w.a.tch. They made him seem like some Vegas version of Frank Rizzoli. Had she walked into the wrong house, entered an alternate universe with an android mom and a disco dad?

"I'll get Regina," said Gabriel, and he discreetly vanished down the hallway. Coward.

"Your mother and I have finally come to an understanding," Frank announced.

"Meaning?"

"We're going to patch things up. Go back to the way things were."

"Is that with or without Blondie?"

"What the h.e.l.l's the matter with you? You trying to ruin things?"

"You did a pretty good job of it on your own."

"Angela! Tell her."

Jane turned to her mother, who stood staring at the floor. "Is this what you want, Ma?"

"It's gonna be okay, Janie," Angela said quietly. "It's gonna work."

"Like that's the voice of enthusiasm."

"I love your mom," said Frank. "We're a family, we've made a home, and we stay together. That's what matters."

Jane looked back and forth at her parents. Her father glared back, ruddy and pugnacious. Her mother didn't meet her gaze. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she should say, but it was late, and Gabriel was already standing by the front door, holding their sleeping daughter.

"Thanks for babysitting, Ma," Jane said. "I'll call you."

They walked out of the house to the car. Just as Gabriel finished buckling Regina into her car seat, the front door opened and Angela came out of the house, carrying Regina's stuffed giraffe.

"She'll scream b.l.o.o.d.y murder if you forget Benny," she said, handing the giraffe to Jane.

"Are you okay, Mom?"

Angela hugged herself and glanced back at the house, as if waiting for someone else to answer the question.

"Mom?"