The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

matched his newly minted uniform. His name tag said: RIDGE.
    “This is a crime scene, ma’am.”
    “I’m Detective Rizzoli, Boston P.D. Here to see Detective Korsak.”
    “I.D., please.”
    She hadn’t expected such a request, and she had to dig in her purse for her badge. In the city of Boston, just about every patrolman knew exactly who she was. One short drive out of her territory, into this well-heeled suburb, and suddenly she was reduced to fumbling for her badge. She held it right up to his nose.
    He took one look and flushed. “I’m really sorry, ma’am. See, there was this asshole reporter who talked her way past me just a few minutes ago. I wasn’t gonna let that happen again.”
    “Is Korsak inside?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    She eyed the jumble of vehicles parked on the street, among them a white van with COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER stenciled on the side.
    “How many victims?” she asked.
    “One. They’re getting ready to move him out now.”
    The patrolman lifted the tape to let her pass into the front yard. Birds chirped and the air smelled like sweet grass. You’re not in South Boston anymore, she thought. The landscaping was immaculate, with clipped boxwood hedges and a lawn that was bright AstroTurf green. She paused on the brick walkway and stared up at the roofline with its Tudor accents.
Lord of the fake English manor
was what came to mind. This was not a house, nor a neighborhood, that an honest cop could ever afford.
    “Some digs, huh?” Patrolman Ridge called out to her.
    “What did this guy do for a living?”
    “I hear he was some kind of surgeon.”
    Surgeon.
For her, the word had special meaning, and the sound of it pierced her like an icy needle, chilling her even on this warm day. She looked at the front door and saw that the knob was sooty with fingerprint powder. She took a deep breath, pulled on latex gloves, and slipped paper booties over her shoes.
    Inside, she saw polished oak floors and a stairwell that rose to cathedral heights. A stained-glass window let in glowing lozenges of color.
    She heard the
whish-whish
of paper shoe covers, and a bear of a man lumbered into the hallway. Though he was dressed in businesslike attire, with a neatly knotted tie, the effect was ruined by the twin continents of sweat staining his underarms. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing beefy arms bristling with dark hair. “Rizzoli?” he asked.
    “One and the same.”
    He came toward her, arm outstretched, then remembered he was wearing gloves and let his hand fall again. “Vince Korsak. Sorry I couldn’t say more over the phone, but everyone’s got a scanner these days. Already had one reporter worm her way in here. What a bitch.”
    “So I heard.”
    “Look, I know you’re probably wondering what the hell you’re doing way out here. But I followed your work last year. You know, the Surgeon killings. I thought you’d want to see this.”
    Her mouth had gone dry. “What’ve you got?”
    “Vic’s in the family room. Dr. Richard Yeager, age thirty-six. Orthopedic surgeon. This is his residence.”
    She glanced up at the stained-glass window. “You Newton boys get the upscale homicides.”
    “Hey, Boston P.D. can have ’em all. This isn’t supposed to happen out here. Especially weird shit like this.”
    Korsak led the way down the hall, into the family room. Rizzoli’s first view was of brilliant sunlight flooding through a two-story wall of ground-to-ceiling windows. Despite the number of crime scene techs at work here, the room felt spacious and stark, all white walls and gleaming wood floor.
    And blood. No matter how many crime scenes she walked into, that first sight of blood always shocked her. A comet’s tail of arterial splatter had shot across the wall and trickled down in streamers. The source of that blood, Dr. Richard Yeager, sat with his back propped up against the wall, his wrists bound behind him. He was wearing only boxer shorts, and his legs were stretched out in front of him, the ankles bound with duct tape. His head lolled forward, obscuring her view of the wound that had released the fatal hemorrhage, but she did not need to see the slash to know that it had gone deep, to the carotid and the windpipe. She was already too familiar with the aftermath of such a wound, and she could read his final moments in the pattern of blood: the artery spurting, the lungs filling up, the victim aspirating through his severed