Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

for an instant, Maura had the unsettling impression that she was staring at the same head, before and after. Josephine alive, Josephine dead. Was that why the young woman was so reluctant to touch it? Did she see herself in those shriveled features?
    “It’s the lips,” said Josephine.
    Maura shook her head. “I don’t see any difference. All three have their lips sewn shut with cotton thread.”
    “It has to do with Jivaro ritual. What Nicholas just said.”
    “Which part?”
    “That the wooden pegs are eventually removed from the lips and cotton string is threaded through the holes.”
    “All three of these have cotton thread.”
    “Yes, but it doesn’t happen until the
third
feast. Over a year after the kill.”
    “She’s absolutely right,” said Robinson, looking pleased that his young colleague had picked up on precisely the detail he’d wanted her to notice. “The lip pegs, Dr. Isles! When they’re left in for a whole year, they leave gaping holes behind.”
    Maura studied the heads on the table. Two of the
tsantsas
had large holes punched through the lips. The third did not.
    “No pegs were used in this one,” said Robinson. “The lips were simply stitched together, right after the head was removed. This one isn’t Jivaro. Whoever made it took a few shortcuts. Maybe he didn’t know exactly how it should be done. Or this was merely meant to be sold to tourists, or bartered as trade goods. But it’s not a ceremonial specimen.”
    “Then what are its origins?” asked Maura.
    Robinson paused. “I really can’t tell you. I can only say that it is not authentic Jivaro.”
    With gloved hands, Maura lifted the
tsantsa
from the table. She had held severed human heads in her palms before, and this one, minus its skull, was startlingly light, a mere husk of dried skin and hair.
    “We can’t even be certain of its sex,” said Robinson. “Although its features, distorted though they are, seem feminine to me. Too delicate to be a man’s.”
    “I agree,” said Maura.
    “What about the skin color?” asked Jane. “Does that tell us its race?”
    “No,” said Robinson. “The process of shrinking darkens the skin. This could even be a Caucasian. And without a skull, without any teeth to x-ray, I can’t tell you how old this specimen is.”
    Maura turned the
tsantsa
upside down and stared into the neck opening. It was startling to see merely a hollow space rather than cartilage and muscle, trachea and esophagus. The neck was half collapsed, the dark cavity hidden from view. Suddenly she flashed back to the autopsy she’d performed on Madam X. She remembered the dry cave of a mouth, the glint of metal in the throat. And she remembered the shock she’d felt at her first glimpse of the souvenir cartouche. Had the killer left a similar clue tucked into this victim’s remains?
    “Could I have more light?” she said.
    Josephine swung a magnifying lamp toward her, and Maura aimed the beam into the neck cavity. Through the narrow opening, she could just make out a pale mass balled up within. “It looks like paper,” she said.
    “That wouldn’t be unusual,” said Robinson. “Sometimes you find crumpled newspapers stuffed inside, to help maintain the shape of the head for shipping. If it’s a South American newspaper, then at least we’ll know something about its origins.”
    “Do you have forceps?”
    Josephine retrieved a pair from the workroom drawer and handed them to her. Maura introduced the forceps into the neck opening and grasped what was inside. Gingerly she tugged, and crumpled newspaper emerged. Smoothing out the page, she saw it was printed in neither Spanish nor Portuguese, but English.
    “The
Indio Daily News
?” Jane gave a startled laugh. “It’s from California.”
    “And look at the date.” Maura pointed to the top of the page.
    “It’s only twenty-six years old.”
    “Still, the head could be much older,” said Robinson. “That newspaper could have been stuffed in there later, just for shipping.”
    “But it does confirm one thing.” Maura looked up. “This head wasn’t part of the museum’s original collection. She could be another victim, added as recently as…” She paused, her gaze suddenly focused on Josephine.
    The young woman had gone pale. Maura had seen that sickly color before, on the faces of young cops observing their first autopsies, and she knew that it usually heralded a nauseated dash to the sink or a stagger toward the nearest