The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

enough of this stuff, some of that hair might migrate back up to my head.”
    She looked off toward the woods, where darkness hid rotting leaves and foraging animals. Animals with teeth. She remembered the gnawed remains of Rickets Lady and thought of raccoons chewing on ribs and dogs rolling skulls around like balls, and what she imagined, staring into the trees, was not Bambi.
    “I can’t even talk about Hoyt anymore,” she said. “Can’t mention him without people giving me that pitying
look.
Yesterday, I tried to point out the parallels between the Surgeon and our new boy, and I could see Dean thinking:
She’s still got the Surgeon on the brain.
He thinks I’m obsessed.” She sighed. “Maybe I am. Maybe that’s how it’ll always be. I’ll walk onto any crime scene and I’ll see his handiwork. Every perp will have his face.”
    They both glanced at the radio as Dispatch said, “We have a request for a premises check, Fairview Cemetery. Any units in the area?”
    No one responded.
    Dispatch repeated the request: “We have a call for a premises check, Fairview Cemetery. Possible unauthorized entry. Unit Twelve, are you still in the area?”
    “Unit Twelve. We’re on the ten-forty, River Street. It’s a code one. We’re unable to respond.”
    “Roger that. Unit Fifteen? What’s your ten-ten?”
    “Unit Fifteen. West Roxbury. Still on that Missile six. These folks are not calming down. Estimate at least a half hour, hour till we can get to Fairview.”
    “Any units?” said Dispatch, trolling the radio waves for an available patrol car. On a warm Saturday night, a routine premises check of a cemetery was not a high-priority call. The dead are beyond caring about frolicking couples or teenage vandals. It is the living who must command a cop’s first attention.
    Radio silence was broken by a member of Rizzoli’s stakeout team. “Uh, this is Watcher Five. We’re situated on Enneking Parkway. Fairview Cemetery’s in our immediate vicinity—”
    Rizzoli grabbed the mike and hit the transmit button. “Watcher Five, this is Watcher One,” she cut in. “Do not abandon your position. You copy?”
    “We have five vehicles on stakeout—”
    “The cemetery is
not
our priority.”
    “Watcher One,” said Dispatch. “All units are on calls right now. Any chance you could release one?”
    “Negative. I want my team to hold position. Copy, Watcher Five?”
    “Ten-four. We are holding. Dispatch, we can’t respond to that premises-check call.”
    Rizzoli huffed out a sigh. There might be complaints about this come morning, but she was not going to release a single vehicle from her surveillance team, not for a trivial call.
    “It’s not like we’re swamped with action,” said Korsak.
    “When it happens, it’ll be fast. I’m not going to let anything foul this up.”
    “You know that thing we were talking about earlier? About you being obsessed?”
    “Don’t start in now.”
    “No, I’m not gonna go there. You’ll bite off my head.” He shoved open his door.
    “Where you going?”
    “Take a leak. I need permission?”
    “Just asking.”
    “That coffee’s going right through me.”
    “No wonder. Your coffee’d burn a hole through cast iron.”
    He stepped out of the car and walked into the woods, his hands already fumbling at his fly. He didn’t bother to step behind any tree but just stood there, urinating into the bushes. This she didn’t need to see, and she averted her gaze. Every class has its gross-out kid, and Korsak was it, the boy who openly picked his nose and belched with gusto and wore his lunch on the front of his shirt. The kid whose moist and pudgy hands you avoided touching at all costs, because you were sure to catch his cooties. She felt both repelled by him and sorry for him. She looked down at the coffee he’d poured for her, and she tossed what was left out the window.
    Fresh chatter erupted over the radio, startling her.
    “We got a vehicle moving east on Dedham Parkway. Looks like a Yellow Cab.”
    Rizzoli responded, “A taxicab at three A.M. ?”
    “That’s what we got.”
    “Where’s he going?”
    “Just turned north onto Enneking.”
    “Watcher Two?” said Rizzoli, calling the next unit on the route.
    “Watcher Two,” said Frost. “Yeah, we see him. Just went past us. . . .” A silence. Then, with sudden tension: “He’s slowing down . . .”
    “Doing what?”
    “Braking. Looks like he’s about to pull over—”
    “Location?”