Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

it.
    “This is one postmortem I really don’t want to do,” said Bristol.
    “Someone has to look at this body. Someone has to give us a definitive answer.”
    “The problem is, I’m not sure the answer is going to be any more to our liking.”
    “You haven’t even looked at her yet.”
    “But I can see the X-rays.” He pointed to the films of the skull, spine, and pelvis that Yoshima had clipped onto the light box. “I can tell you they’re completely consistent with a woman of Maura’s height and age. And those fractures are exactly what you’d find from injuries sustained by an unrestrained passenger.”
    “Maura always wore her seat belt,” said Jane. “She was compulsive about it. You know how she was.”
Was. I can’t stop using the past tense. I can’t quite believe this exam will change anything
.
    “True,” Bristol said. “Not wearing a seat belt isn’t like her at all.” He pulled on gloves and reluctantly peeled back the sheet.
    Even before she saw the body, Jane flinched away, her hand lifted over her nose against the smell of burned flesh. Gagging, she turned and saw Gabriel’s face. He at least seemed to be holding his own, but there was no mistaking the appalled look in his eyes. She forced herself to turn back to the table. To see the body they had believed was Maura’s.
    It was not the first time Jane had seen charred remains. Once she had watched postmortems on three arson victims, two young children and their mother. She remembered those three cadavers lying on the tables, their limbs bent, their arms thrust forward like boxers spoiling for a fight. The woman she saw now was frozen in the same pugilistic pose, her tendons contracted by intense heat.
    Jane took another step closer and stared down at what should have been a face. She tried to see something—anything—familiar, but all she saw was an unrecognizable mask of charred flesh.
    Someone gave a startled gasp behind her, and she turned to see Maura’s secretary, Louise, standing in the doorway. Louise seldom ventured into the autopsy room, and Jane was surprised to see her here, and so late in the day. The woman was wearing her winter coat, and her windblown gray hair sparkled with melting snowflakes.
    “You probably don’t want to come any closer, Louise,” said Bristol.
    But it was too late. Louise had already glimpsed the corpse and she stood frozen, too horrified to take another step into the room. “Dr.—Dr. Bristol—”
    “What is it?”
    “You asked about her dentist. The one Dr. Isles went to. I suddenly remembered that she’d asked me to make an appointment for her, so I went back over the calendar. It was about six months ago.”
    “You found her dentist’s name?”
    “Even better.” Louise held out a brown envelope. “I have her X-rays. When I explained to him why we needed them, he told me I should drive right over and pick them up.”
    Bristol crossed the room in a few swift steps and snatched the envelope from Louise’s hand. Yoshima was already pulling down the skull X-rays from the light box, the unwieldy films twanging as he hastily yanked them from the clips to make room.
    Bristol pulled the dental films from the envelope. These were not morgue panograms, but small bitewing X-rays that lookeddwarfed by Bristol’s meaty hands. As he clipped them onto the box, Jane spotted the patient’s name on the label.
    ISLES, MAURA .
    “These films were all taken within the last three years,” Bristol noted. “And we’ve got plenty here for ID purposes. Gold crowns on the lower left and right molars. An old root canal here …”
    “I did panograms on this body,” said Yoshima. He shuffled through the X-rays he’d taken of the burned cadaver. “Here.” He slid the films onto the box, right beside Maura’s bitewing X-rays.
    Everyone crowded closer. For a moment no one said a word as gazes flicked back and forth between the sets of films.
    Then Bristol said: “I think it’s pretty clear.” He turned to Jane. “The body on that table isn’t Maura’s.”
    The breath whooshed out of Jane’s lungs. Yoshima sagged against a countertop, as though suddenly too weak to support himself.
    “If this body is Elaine Salinger’s,” said Gabriel, “then we’re still left with the same question we had before. Where’s Maura?”
    Jane took out her cell phone and dialed.
    After three rings, a voice answered: “Detective Queenan.”
    “Maura Isles is still missing,” she said. “We’re