Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

accident. I’ve alreadylooked at the X-rays. The bodies have multiple fractures, which is what you’d expect. There are no bullet fragments, nothing to indicate anything other than what seems to have happened. The vehicle simply veered off a mountain road. It plunged fifty feet into a ravine, where it caught fire. I doubt any of the passengers survived the initial crash, so I think it’s safe to assume that your friend died on impact.”
    “There was a snowstorm last Saturday, wasn’t there?” asked Gabriel.
    “Yes. Why?”
    “If there’s heavy snow on the vehicle, it might tell us when this happened.”
    “I saw only a light dusting,” said Draper. “But then, the fire would have melted any snow cover.”
    “Or the accident happened more recently.”
    “But that still begs the question of where your friend has been for the last seven days. Time of death is going to be almost impossible to determine. I’m inclined to go by when the victims were last seen alive, which would make it Saturday.” He looked around the table at their troubled faces. “I realize this leaves many questions unanswered. But at least now you know what happened, and you can go home with a feeling of closure. You know her death was quick, and she probably didn’t suffer.” He sighed. “I’m so sorry it turned out this way.”
    Draper rose to his feet, looking older and wearier than he had just half an hour earlier, when they’d first walked in. Even when the grief is not your own, merely being in its vicinity can drain the soul, and Draper had probably seen many lifetimes’ worth of it. “Let me walk you out.”
    “May we view the remains?” asked Gabriel.
    Draper frowned at him. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”
    “But I think it needs to be done.”
    Jane almost hoped that Draper would refuse, would spare her from the ordeal. She knew what Maura had looked like alive; onceshe viewed what Maura had become, there’d be no erasing that image, no turning back the clock on the horror. Looking at her husband, she wondered how he could stay so calm.
    “Let me show you the X-rays,” said Draper. “Maybe that will be enough to convince you of my findings.”
    Gabriel said to Brophy: “It’s better if you wait here.”
    Daniel nodded and remained where he was, his head bowed, alone with his grief.
    As Jane and Gabriel followed Draper to the elevator, she felt dread bubbling like acid in her stomach. I don’t want to see this, she thought. I don’t need to see this. But Gabriel kept striding ahead purposefully, and she was too proud not to follow him. When they stepped into the morgue, she was relieved to see that the autopsy table was empty, the cadavers safely stored out of sight.
    Draper shuffled through a bundle of X-rays and clipped several films onto the viewing box. He flipped a switch, and skeletal images appeared against the glow.
    “As you can see, there’s ample evidence of trauma,” said Draper. “Fractures of the skull, multiple ribs. Impaction of the left femur into the hip joint. Because of the fire, the limbs have contracted into a pugilistic posture.” His voice assumed the matter-of-fact drone of a professional conveying data to colleagues. As if, by the act of entering this room and seeing the cool gleam of stainless steel, he had stepped into the uniform of a coroner. “I e-mailed these images to our forensic pathologist in Colorado. He concluded that this is a female between thirty and forty-five. Her estimated height is five foot five or five foot six. And judging by the sacroiliac joint, she was nulliparous. She never gave birth.” He paused and looked at Jane. “Would that describe your friend?”
    Numbly, Jane nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.
    “And she’s had very good dental care. There’s a crown here on the lower right molar. Several fillings.” Again, he looked at Jane, as though she was the one with all the answers.
    Jane stared at the jaw glowing on the light box.
How would I know?
She hadn’t studied Maura’s mouth, hadn’t counted her crowns and fillings. Maura was her colleague and her friend. Not a collection of teeth and bones.
    “I’m sorry,” said Draper. “That was probably too much information for you to deal with. I just wanted you to feel confident about the identification.”
    “Then there won’t be an autopsy,” said Jane softly.
    Draper shook his head. “There’s no reason for one. The pathologist in Colorado is satisfied with the ID. We have her