Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

So if you could keep it short.”
    “He was away on business?” said Frost.
    “Yes. It was arranged over a month ago, in case you’re wondering.”
    Which didn’t mean a thing, thought Rizzoli, except that Cassell was capable of planning his moves ahead of time.
    Paul led them through a living room decorated in black and white, with only a single scarlet vase to shock the eye. A flat-screen TV dominated one wall, and a smoked-glass cabinet contained a dazzling array of electronics. A bachelor’s dream pad, thought Rizzoli. Not a single feminine touch, just guy stuff. She could hear music and she assumed it was a CD playing. Jazz piano chords melted together in a mournful walk down the keys. There was no melody, no song, just notes blending in wordless lament. The music grew louder as Paul led them toward a set of sliding doors. He opened them, and announced:
    “The police are here, Dr. Cassell.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Would you like me to stay?”
    “No, Paul, you can leave us.”
    Rizzoli and Frost stepped into the room, and Paul slid the doors shut behind them. They found themselves in a space so gloomy that they could barely make out the man seated at the grand piano. So it had been live music, not a CD playing. Heavy curtains were drawn over the window, blocking out all but a sliver of daylight. Cassell reached toward a lamp and switched it on. It was only a dim globe shaded by Japanese rice paper, but it made him squint. A glass of what looked like whiskey sat on the piano beside him. He was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot—not the face of a cold corporate shark, but of a man too distraught to care what he looked like. Even so, it was an arrestingly handsome face, with a gaze so intense it seemed to burn its way into Rizzoli’s brain. He was younger than she had expected a self-made mogul to be, perhaps in his late forties. Still young enough to believe in his own invincibility.
    “Dr. Cassell,” she said, “I’m Detective Rizzoli, Boston PD. And this is Detective Frost. You do understand why we’re here?”
    “Because he sicced you on me. Didn’t he?”
    “Who?”
    “That Detective Ballard. He’s like a goddamn pit bull.”
    “We’re here because you knew Anna Leoni. The victim.”
    He reached for his glass of whiskey. Judging by his haggard appearance, it was not his first drink of the day. “Let me tell you something about Detective Ballard, before you go believing everything he says. The man is a genuine, class-A asshole.” He downed the rest of his drink in a single gulp.
    She thought of Anna Leoni, her eye swollen shut, her cheek bruised purple.
I think we know who the real asshole is.
    Cassell set the empty glass down. “Tell me how it happened,” he said. “I need to know.”
    “We have a few questions, Dr. Cassell.”
    “First tell me what happened.”
    This is why he agreed to see us, she thought. He wants information. He wants to gauge how much we know.
    “I understand it was a gunshot wound to the head,” he said. “And she was found in a car?”
    “That’s right.”
    “That much I already learned from
The Boston Globe.
What kind of weapon was used? What caliber bullet?”
    “You know I can’t reveal that.”
    “And it happened in Brookline? What the hell was she doing there?”
    “That I can’t tell you, either.”
    “Can’t tell me?” He looked at her. “Or you don’t know?”
    “We don’t know.”
    “Was anyone with her when it happened?”
    “There were no other victims.”
    “So who are your suspects? Aside from me?”
    “We’re here to ask
you
the questions, Dr. Cassell.”
    He rose unsteadily to his feet and crossed to a cabinet. Took out a bottle of whiskey and refreshed his glass. Pointedly he did not offer his visitors a drink.
    “Why don’t I just answer the one question you came to ask,” he said, settling back onto the piano bench. “No, I did not kill her. I haven’t even seen her in months.”
    Frost asked: “When was the last time you saw Ms. Leoni?”
    “It would have been sometime in March, I think. I drove by her house one afternoon. She was out on the sidewalk, getting her mail.”
    “Wasn’t that after she took out the restraining order against you?”
    “I didn’t get out of my car, okay? I didn’t even speak to her. She saw me and went right into the house without saying a word.”
    “So what was the point of that drive-by?” said Rizzoli. “Intimidation?”
    “No.”
    “Then what?”
    “I just wanted to see