The Keepsake: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

wasn’t recorded.” He looked at Simon. “Do you remember?”
    Wearily, Simon shook his head. He appeared drained, as if he’d aged ten years in the last half hour. “I don’t know where that head came from,” he said. “I don’t know who put it behind that wall or why.”
    Maura stared at the shrunken head, its eyes and lips sewn shut for eternity. And she said softly: “It looks like someone has been compiling a collection all his own.”

NINE
     
    Josephine was desperate to be left alone, but she could think of no graceful way to brush off Detective Frost. He’d followed her upstairs to her office and was now standing in her doorway, watching her with a look of concern. He had mild eyes and a kind face, and his shaggy blond hair made her think of the towheaded twin boys she often saw whooshing down the slide in the neighborhood playground. Nevertheless, he was a policeman, and policemen frightened her. She shouldn’t have left the room so abruptly. She shouldn’t have called attention to herself. But a glimpse of that newspaper had hit her like a fist, stealing her breath, rocking her off her feet.
    Indio, California. Twenty-six years ago.
    The town where I was born. The year that I was born.
    It was yet another eerie connection to her past, and she didn’t understand how it could be possible. She needed time to think about this, to figure out why so many old and secret ties to her own life should be hidden in the basement of the obscure museum where she had taken a job.
It’s as if my own life, my own past, has been preserved in this collection.
Even as she mentally struggled for an explanation, she was forced to smile and keep up the small talk with Detective Frost, who refused to leave her doorway.
    “Are you feeling better?” he asked.
    “I got a little light-headed in there. Probably low blood sugar.” She sank into her chair. “I shouldn’t have skipped breakfast this morning.”
    “Do you need a cup of coffee or something? Can I get one for you?”
    “No, thank you.” She managed a smile, hoping it would be enough to send him on his way. Instead, he stepped into her office.
    “Did that newspaper have some special significance to you?” Frost asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s just that I noticed you looked really startled when Dr. Isles opened it up and we saw it was from California.”
    He was watching me. He’s still watching me.
    Now was not the time to let him see how close she was to panic. As long as she kept her head down, as long as she stayed on the periphery and played the role of the quiet museum employee, the police would have no reason to glance her way.
    “It’s not just the newspaper,” she said. “It’s this whole creepy situation. Finding bodies—and body parts—in this building. I think of museums as sanctuaries. Places of study and contemplation. Now I feel like I’m working in a house of horrors and I’m just wondering when the next body part’s going to pop up.”
    He gave a sympathetic smile, and his boyishness made him look like anything but a policeman. She judged him to be in his midthirties, yet there was something about him that made him seem much younger, and even callow. She saw his wedding ring and thought: There’s yet another reason to keep this man at arm’s length.
    “To be honest, I think this place is already pretty creepy,” said Frost. “You’ve got all those bones displayed on the third floor.”
    “Those bones are two thousand years old.”
    “Does that make them less disturbing?”
    “It makes them historically significant. I know it doesn’t seem like much of a difference. But something about the passage of time gives death a sense of distance, doesn’t it? As opposed to Madam X, who could be someone we might actually have known.” She paused, feeling a chill. And said, softly: “Ancient remains are easier to deal with.”
    “They’re more like pottery and statues, I guess.”
    “In a way.” She smiled. “The dustier the better.”
    “And that appeals to you?”
    “You sound like you can’t understand it.”
    “I’m just wondering what kind of person chooses to spend a lifetime studying old bones and pottery.”
    “
What’s a girl like you doing in a job like this?
Is that the question?”
    He laughed. “You’re the youngest thing in this whole building.”
    Now she, too, smiled, because it was true. “It’s the connection with the past. I love to pick up a pottery shard and imagine the man