Body Double (22 page)

The woman who answered the door was just as Maura had imagined.

Dr. O’Donnell was an ash blonde with pale, flawless skin. Her blue Oxford shirt, tucked into pressed white slacks, was tailored to emphasize a trim waist. She regarded Maura with little warmth. Rather, what Maura saw in the other woman’s eyes was the hard-edged gleam of curiosity. The gaze of a scientist regarding some new specimen.

“Dr. O’Donnell? I’m Maura Isles.”

O’Donnell responded with a crisp handshake. “Come in.”

Maura stepped into a house as coolly elegant as its owner. The only touches of warmth were the Oriental carpets covering dark teak floors. O’Donnell led the way from the foyer, into a formal sitting room where Maura settled uneasily on a couch upholstered in white silk. O’Donnell chose the armchair facing her. On the rosewood coffee table between them was a stack of files and a digital recorder. Though not turned on, the threat of that recorder was yet another detail that added to Maura’s unease.

“Thank you for seeing me,” said Maura.

“I was curious. I wondered what Amalthea’s daughter might be like. I do know
of
you, Dr. Isles, but only what I read in the newspapers.” She leaned back in the easy chair, looking perfectly comfortable. Home advantage. She was the one with the favors to grant; Maura was merely a supplicant. “I know nothing about you personally. But I’d like to.”

“Why?”

“I’m well acquainted with Amalthea. I can’t help wondering if . . .”

“Like mother, like daughter?”

O’Donnell lifted one elegant eyebrow. “You said it, I didn’t.”

“That’s the reason for your curiosity about me. Isn’t it?”

“And what’s the reason for yours? Why are you here?”

Maura’s gaze shifted to a painting over the fireplace. A starkly modern oil streaked with black and red. She said: “I want to know who that woman really is.”

“You know who she is. You just don’t want to believe it. Your sister didn’t, either.”

Maura frowned. “You met Anna?”

“No, actually, I never did. But I got a call about four months ago, from a woman identifying herself as Amalthea’s daughter. I was about to leave for a two-week trial in Oklahoma, so I couldn’t meet with her. We simply talked on the phone. She’d been to visit her mother at MCI–Framingham, so she knew I was Amalthea’s psychiatrist. She wanted to know more about her. Amalthea’s childhood, her family.”

“And you know all that?”

“Some of it is from her school records. Some from what she could tell me, when she was lucid. I know she was born in Lowell. When she was about nine, her mother died, and she went to live with her uncle and a cousin, in Maine.”

Maura glanced up. “Maine?”

“Yes. She graduated from high school in a town called Fox Harbor.”

Now I understand why Anna chose that town. I was following in Anna’s footsteps; she was following our mother’s.

“After high school, the records peter out,” said O’Donnell. “We don’t know where she moved from there, or how she supported herself. That’s most likely when the schizophrenia set in. It usually manifests itself in early adulthood. She probably drifted around for years, and ended up the way you see her today. Burned out and delusional.” O’Donnell looked at Maura. “It’s a pretty grim picture. Your sister had a hard time accepting that was really her mother.”

“I look at her and I see nothing familiar. Nothing of myself.”

“But I see the resemblance. I see the same hair color. The same jaw.”

“We look nothing alike.”

“You really don’t see it?” O’Donnell leaned forward, her gaze intent on Maura. “Tell me something, Dr. Isles. Why did you choose pathology?”

Perplexed by the question, Maura only stared at her.

“You could have gone into any field of medicine. Obstetrics, pediatrics. You could be working with live patients, but you chose pathology. Specifically, forensic pathology.”

“What’s the point of your question?”

“The point is, you’re somehow attracted to the dead.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Then why did you choose your field?”

“Because I like definitive answers. I don’t like guessing games. I like to
see
the diagnosis under my microscope lens.”

“You don’t like uncertainty.”

“Does anyone?”

“Then you could have chosen mathematics or engineering. So many other fields involve precision. Definitive answers. But there you are in the M.E.’s office, communing with corpses.” O’Donnell paused. Asked, quietly: “Do you ever enjoy it?”

Maura met her gaze head-on. “No.”

“You chose an occupation you don’t enjoy?”

“I chose the challenge. There’s satisfaction in that. Even if the task itself isn’t pleasant.”

“But don’t you see what I’m getting at? You tell me you don’t see anything familiar about Amalthea Lank. You look at her, and probably see someone horrifying. Or at least a woman who committed horrifying acts. There are people who look at you, Dr. Isles, and probably think the same thing.”

“You can’t possibly compare us.”

“Do you know what your mother was convicted of?”

“Yes, I’ve been told.”

“But have you seen the autopsy reports?”

“Not yet.”

“I have. During the trial, the defense team asked me to consult on your mother’s mental status. I’ve seen the photos, reviewed the evidence. You do know that the victims were two sisters? Young women stranded at the side of the road.”

“Yes.”

“And the younger one was nine months pregnant.”

“I know all this.”

“So you know that your mother picked up those two women on the highway. She drives them thirty miles away, to a shed in the woods. Crushes their skulls with a tire iron. And then she does something surprisingly—weirdly—logical. She drives to a service station and fills a can with gas. Returns to the shed and sets it on fire, with the two bodies inside.” O’Donnell cocked her head. “Don’t you find that interesting?”

“I find it sickening.”

“Yes, but on some level, maybe you’re feeling something else, something you don’t even want to acknowledge. That you’re intrigued by these actions, not just as an intellectual puzzle. There’s something about it that fascinates you, even excites you.”

“The way it obviously excites you?”

O’Donnell took no offense at that retort. Instead she smiled, easily acknowledging Maura’s remark. “My interest is professional. It’s my job to study acts of murder. I’m just wondering about the reasons for
your
interest in Amalthea Lank.”

“Two days ago, I didn’t know who my mother was. Now I’m trying to come to grips with the truth. I’m trying to understand—”

“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 which Louise had written:
The files you requested
. She sat down at her desk, took a deep breath, and opened the first folder.