Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

right, on the spinal cord unit. And every Wednesday afternoon, for the last eight months, he’s been getting a visitor. Dr. Joyce O’Donnell.”
    Maura frowned. “Why?”
    “She claims it’s part of her research in violent behavior. Her theory is that killers aren’t responsible for their actions. That some bump on the noggin when they’re kids makes them prone to violence. Naturally, defense attorneys have her on speed dial. She’d probably tell you that Jeffrey Dahmer was just misunderstood, that John Wayne Gacy just got his head knocked a few too many times. She’ll defend anyone.”
    “People do what they’re paid to do.”
    “I don’t think she does it for the money.”
    “Then for what?”
    “For the chance to get up close and personal to people who kill. She says it’s her field of study, that she does it for science. Yeah, well, Josef Mengele did it for science, too. That’s just the excuse, a way to make what she does respectable.”
    “What does she do?”
    “She’s a thrill seeker. She gets a kick out of hearing a killer’s fantasies. She likes stepping into his head, taking a look around, seeing what he sees. Knowing what it feels like to be a monster.”
    “You make it sound like she’s one of them.”
    “Maybe she’d like to be. I’ve seen letters she wrote to Hoyt while he was in prison. Urging him to tell her all the details about his kills. Oh yeah, she loves the details.”
    “A lot of people are curious about the macabre.”
    “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.” Rizzoli paused. Gave a startled laugh. “You know, I just realized something. That’s exactly what she is, a vampire. She and Hoyt feed off each other. He tells her his fantasies, she tells him it’s okay to enjoy them. It’s okay to get turned on by the thought of cutting someone’s throat.”
    “And now she’s visiting my mother.”
    “Yeah.” Rizzoli looked at her. “I wonder what fantasies
they’re
sharing.”
    Maura thought of the crimes Amalthea Lank had been convicted of. She wondered what had gone through her mind when she’d picked up the two sisters at the side of the road. Did she feel an anticipatory thrill, a heady shot of power?
    “Just the fact O’Donnell finds Amalthea worth visiting should tell you something,” said Rizzoli.
    “What should it tell me?”
    “O’Donnell doesn’t waste her time on your everyday murderers. She doesn’t care about the guy who shoots some 7-Eleven clerk during a robbery. Or the husband who gets pissed at his wife and shoves her down the stairs. No, she spends her time with the creeps who kill because they enjoy it. The ones who give that knife the extra twist, because they like the way it feels scraping against bone. She spends her time with the special ones. The monsters.”
    My mother, thought Maura. Is she a monster, too?

SEVENTEEN
    D R . J OYCE O’D ONNELL’S HOUSE in Cambridge was a large white colonial in a neighborhood of distinguished homes on Brattle Street. A wrought-iron fence enclosed a front yard with a perfect lawn and bark-mulched flower beds where landscape roses obediently bloomed. This was a disciplined garden, no disorder allowed, and as Maura walked up the path of granite pavers to the front door, she could already envision the house’s occupant. Well groomed, neatly dressed. A mind as organized as her garden.
    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