The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

to Cell C-8.”
    “It’s this way,” said Officer Curtis. “Up one level.”
    They ascended the stairway, their shoes setting off clangs against the metal steps. From the upper gallery, which led past individual cells, they could look down into the well of the dayroom. Curtis led them along the walkway until he came to #8.
    “This is the one. Prisoner Hoyt’s cell.”
    Rizzoli stood at the threshold and stared into the cage. She saw nothing that distinguished this cell from any other—no photographs, no personal possessions that told her Warren Hoyt had once inhabited this space—yet her scalp crawled. Though he was gone, his presence had imprinted the very air. If it was possible for malevolence to linger, then surely this place was now contaminated.
    “You can step in if you want,” said Curtis.
    She entered the cell. She saw three bare walls, a sleeping platform and mattress, a sink, and a toilet. A stark cube. This was how Warren would have liked it. He was a neat man, a precise man, who had once worked in the sterile world of a medical laboratory, a world where the only splashes of color came from the tubes of blood he handled every day. He did not need to surround himself with lurid images; the ones he carried in his mind were horrifying enough.
    “This cell hasn’t been reassigned?” said Dean.
    “Not yet, sir.”
    “And no other prisoner’s been in here since Hoyt left?”
    “That’s right.”
    Rizzoli went to the mattress and lifted up one corner. Dean grasped the other corner, and together they hoisted up the mattress and looked beneath it. They found nothing. They rolled the mattress completely over, then searched the ticking for any tears in the fabric, any hiding places where he might have stashed contraband. They found only a small rip on the side barely an inch long. Rizzoli probed it with her finger and found nothing inside.
    She straightened and scanned the cell, taking in the same surroundings that Hoyt had once stared at. Imagined him lying on that mattress, eyes focused on the bare ceiling as he spun fantasies that would appall any normal human being. But Hoyt would be excited by them. He would lie sweating, aroused by the shrieks of women echoing in his head.
    She turned to Officer Curtis. “Where are his possessions? His personal items? Correspondence?”
    “In the superintendent’s office. We’ll go there next.”

    “Right after you called this morning, I had the prisoner’s belongings brought up here for your inspection,” said Superintendent Oxton, gesturing to a large cardboard box on his desk. “We’ve already gone through it all. We found absolutely no contraband.” He emphasized this last point as though it absolved him of all responsibility for what had gone wrong. Oxton struck Rizzoli as a man who did not tolerate infractions, who’d be ruthless at enforcing rules and regulations. He would certainly ferret out all contraband, isolate all troublemakers, demand that lights-out was on the dot every night. Just a glance around his office, with photos showing a fierce-looking young Oxton in an army uniform, told her this was the domain of someone who needed to be in control. Yet for all his efforts, a prisoner had escaped, and Oxton was now on the defensive. He had greeted them with a stiff handshake and barely a smile in his remote blue eyes.
    He opened the box and removed a large Ziploc bag, which he handed to Rizzoli. “The prisoner’s toiletries,” he said. “The usual personal care items.”
    Rizzoli saw a toothbrush, comb, washcloth, and soap. Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion. She quickly set the bag down, repulsed by the thought that Hoyt had used these items every day to groom himself. She could see light-brown hairs still clinging to the comb’s teeth.
    Oxton continued removing items from the box. Underwear. A stack of
National Geographic
magazines and several issues of the
Boston Globe.
Two Snickers bars, a pad of yellow legal paper, white envelopes, and three plastic rollerball pens. “And his correspondence,” said Oxton as he removed another Ziploc bag, this one containing a bundle of letters.
    “We’ve gone through every piece of his mail,” Oxton said. “The State Police have the names and addresses of all these correspondents.” He handed the bundle to Dean. “Of course, this is only the mail he kept. There was probably a certain amount he threw out.”
    Dean opened the Ziploc bag and removed the contents. There were about a dozen