Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

Julian, “They were
together
, at the same party. And you know who else was there?”
    “Him,” said Claire. She pointed to the blond man photographed in conversation with Erskine Ward. Captured in profile, he was taller than Ward, broad-shouldered and powerfully built. In a room filled with people drinking wine, he was the only one holding a can of beer.
    “It’s my father,” said Teddy.
    “
There’s
the connection,” said Julian. “It still doesn’t tell us why they were killed, or why someone wants to hurt their children all these years later. But this is the evidence you were looking for. Claire’s dad. Teddy’s dad. Will’s mom. They
knew
each other.”
    T HE SCANNED IMAGE GLOWED on Frost’s computer screen, a photo of guests dressed in party clothes, some seated, some standing, most with a drink in hand. The central figures in the tableau were Erskine Ward and Nicholas Clock, who stood facing each other, but with their faces partly turned to the camera, as though someone had just called out: “Smile, gentlemen!” Will’s mother, Olivia, stood in the periphery beside another woman, but her gaze was turned toward Erskine Ward. Jane scanned the other faces, searching for the spouses of these three, but did not spot them amid the well-heeled and clearly well-lubricated gathering.
    “That,” said Frost, pointing to Olivia, “is the expression of a woman who has the hots for Ward.”
    “That’s what you see in her face?”
    “Not that anyone ever looks at me like that.”
    “It could be just the look of an old friend. Someone who knows him well.”
    “Then it’s funny we can’t find anything else to tie Olivia and Erskine together. If they knew each other that well.”
    Jane leaned back in her chair and stretched the kinks from her neck. It was nearly midnight, and everyone else in the homicide unit had left the building for the night. So should we, she thought, butthese scanned photos, which Maura emailed to Boston PD, had kept Jane and Frost at their desks for the last hour. Maura had sent eight photos from the Ward family album, images of barbecues and blacktie parties, of gatherings indoors and outdoors. In none of the other photos had Jane spotted either Olivia Yablonski or Nicholas Clock; this was the only image where the two appeared along with Erskine Ward. A Fourth of July party, year unspecified, in a room with at least a dozen other people visible in the shot.
    Where and when had this photo been taken?
    Frost clicked through the other seven images and stopped at a photo of the Ward family, seated on a white sofa. Claire looked about eight years old. They were dressed in their best, Erskine in a gray suit, Isabel in a well-cut dress and blazer. Behind them was an elaborately decorated Christmas tree.
    “This is the same room as the cocktail party,” said Frost. “See the hearth there, on the right? It’s in the other photo as well. And here …” He zoomed in on a corner of the room. “Does that look like the same crown molding?”
    “Yeah, it does,” said Jane. She squinted to read the handwritten caption from the album: OUR LAST CHRISTMAS IN GEORGETOWN. LONDON, HERE WE COME! She looked at Frost. “This was taken in DC.”
    “So that’s where the cocktail party was. The question is, why did Nicholas Clock and Olivia Yablonski get invited to a diplomat’s party? Nicholas was in finance. Olivia was a medical equipment sales rep. How and where did these three people meet?”
    “Go back to the other photo,” she said.
    Frost pulled up the image of the cocktail party, which they now knew was in Washington.
    “They look younger here,” said Jane. She swiveled around to grab the Ward family’s file from her desk and flipped it open to Erskine Ward’s curriculum vitae. “Foreign service officer, served in Rome for fourteen years, Washington for five. Then stationed in London, where he was killed a year later.”
    “So this cocktail party was held sometime during the Wards’ five-year stay in DC.”
    “Right.” She closed the file. “How did these three meet? It must have been in Washington. Or …” She looked at Frost just as the same thought seemed to spring into his head.
    “Rome,” said Frost, and he sat up straight in excitement. “Remember what that guy at NASA told us? Neil and Olivia were looking forward to their trip to Rome—where they first met each other.”
    Jane swiveled around to grab her file on the Yablonskis. “All this time, we’ve