Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

hundred feet, especially with a crossbow.” He paused. “Assuming he
meant
to hit this target.”
    “You’re saying this might have been an accident,” said Dr. Owen.
    “I’m just throwing out scenarios here,” said the cop. “Say two buddies come hunting on this land without permission. The guy with the bow spots a deer, gets excited, and lets an arrow fly. Oops, down goes his buddy. Guy with the bow freaks out and runs. Doesn’t tell anyone, ’cause he knows they were trespassing. Or he’s on probation. Or he just doesn’t want the trouble.” He shrugged. “I could see it happening.”
    “Let’s hope that
is
the story,” said Maura. “Because I don’t like the alternative.”
    “That there’s a homicidal archer running around these woods?” said Dr. Owen. “That is not a comforting thought, so close to a school.”
    “And here’s another disturbing thought. If this man wasn’t hunting for deer, what was he doing up here with a sniper rifle?”
    No one responded, but the answer seemed obvious when Mauragazed down at the valley below. If I were a sniper, she thought, this is where I would wait. Where I’d be camouflaged by this underbrush, with a clear view of the castle, the courtyard, the road.
    But who was the target?
    That question dogged her as she scrambled down the trail an hour later, across bare boulders, through sun and shade and sun again. She thought of a marksman poised on the hill above her. Imagined a target hatch mark trained on her back. A rifle with an eight-hundred-meter range. Half a mile. She would never realize anyone was watching her, aiming at her. Until she felt the bullet.
    At last she stumbled out of a tangle of vines onto the school’s back lawn. As she stood brushing twigs and leaves from her clothes, she heard men’s voices, raised in argument. They came from the forester’s cottage at the edge of the woods. She approached the cottage, and through the open doorway she saw one of the detectives she’d met earlier up on the ridge. He was standing inside with Sansone and Mr. Roman. None of them acknowledged her as she stepped inside, where she saw an array of outdoorsmen’s tools. Axes and rope and snowshoes. And hanging on one wall were at least a dozen bows, as well as quivers filled with arrows.
    “There’s nothing special about these arrows,” Roman said. “You can find ’em in any sporting goods store.”
    “Who has access to all this equipment, Mr. Roman?”
    “All the students do. It’s a school, or haven’t you noticed?”
    “He’s been our archery instructor for decades,” said Sansone. “It’s a skill that teaches them discipline and focus. Valuable skills relevant to all their subjects.”
    “And all the students take archery?”
    “All those who choose to,” Roman said.
    “If you’ve been teaching for decades, you must be pretty good with a bow,” the detective said to Roman.
    The forester grunted. “Fair enough.”
    “Meaning?”
    “I hunt.”
    “Deer? Squirrels?”
    “Not enough meat on a squirrel to make ’em worth the trouble.”
    “The point is, you could hit one?”
    “I can also hit your eye at a hundred yards. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? Whether I took down that fella up on the ridge.”
    “You had a chance to examine the body, did you?”
    “Dog took us straight to him. Didn’t have to examine the body. Clear as day what killed him.”
    “That can’t be an easy shot to make, an arrow through the eye. Anyone else at this school able to do it?”
    “Depends on the distance, doesn’t it?”
    “A hundred yards,”
    Roman snorted. “No one here but me.”
    “None of the students?”
    “No one’s put in enough time. Or had the training.”
    “How did you get your training?”
    “Taught myself.”
    “And you hunt with only a bow? Never a rifle?”
    “Don’t like rifles.”
    “Why not? Seems like a rifle would be a lot easier when you’re hunting deer.”
    Sansone cut in: “I think Mr. Roman’s told you what you wanted to know.”
    “It’s a simple question. Why won’t he use a rifle?” The detective stared at Roman, waiting for a response.
    “You don’t need to answer any more questions, Roman,” said Sansone. “Not without a lawyer.”
    Roman sighed. “No, I’ll answer it. Seems to me he already knows about me, anyway.” He met the cop’s gaze head-on. “Twenty-five years ago, I killed a man.”
    In that silence, Maura’s sharp intake of breath made the cop finally