The Keepsake: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

imagining.
    “I’m sorry to say that she lived,” said Maura. “For at least several weeks.” She pointed to a ragged outline, like a puff of white smoke surrounding the fractured bone. “This is callus formation. It’s the bone healing itself, and this doesn’t happen overnight, or even over a few days. It takes weeks.”
    Weeks during which this woman had suffered. Weeks when it must have seemed far better to die. Jane thought of an earlier set of X-rays she’d seen hanging on this same light box. Another woman’s shattered leg, the fracture lines blurred by a fog of healing bone.
    “Just like Madam X,” she said.
    Maura nodded. “Neither of these victims was killed immediately. Both suffered crippling injuries to their lower extremities. Both lived for a while. Which means someone brought them food and water. Someone was keeping them alive, long enough for the first signs of healing to show up on these films.”
    “It’s the same killer.”
    “The patterns are too similar. This is part of his signature. First he maims them, maybe to ensure they can’t escape. Then as the days go by, he keeps them fed. And alive.”
    “What the hell is he doing during that time? Enjoying their company?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Jane stared at shattered bone and felt a twinge in her own legs, just a shadow of the agony this victim must have endured. “You know,” she said softly, “when you first called me that night about Madam X, I thought it would be an old murder. A cold case, with a perp who was long dead. But if he’s the one who put this body in Ms. Pulcillo’s car…”
    “He’s still alive, Jane. And he’s right here in Boston.”
    The door to the anteroom swung open, and a silver-haired gentleman stepped in, tying on a surgical gown.
    “Dr. Vandenbrink?” said Maura. “I’m Dr. Isles. I’m glad you could make it.”
    “I hope you haven’t started yet.”
    “We were waiting for you.”
    The man came forward to shake her hand. He was in his sixties, cadaverously thin, but his deeply tanned face and eager stride revealed not sickness but lean good health. As Maura made the introductions, the man gave scarcely a glance at Jane and Frost—his attention was riveted instead on the table where the victim lay, her twisted form mercifully concealed by a drape. Clearly it was the dead, not the living, that most interested him.
    “Dr. Vandenbrink is from the Drents Museum in Assen,” said Maura. “He flew in last night from the Netherlands, just for this autopsy.”
    “And this is her?” he said, his gaze still on the draped body.
    “Let’s take a look at her, then.”
    Maura handed him a pair of gloves, and they both snapped on latex. Maura reached for the drape, and Jane steeled herself against the view as the sheet was peeled back.
    Naked on stainless steel, exposed by bright lights, the contorted body looked like a charred and twisted branch. But it was the face that would forever haunt Jane, the features glossy as black carbon, frozen in a mortal scream.
    Far from horrified, Dr. Vandenbrink instead leaned closer with a look of fascination. “She’s beautiful,” he murmured. “Oh yes, I’m glad you called me. This was certainly worth the trip.”
    “You call that beautiful?” said Jane.
    “I refer to her state of preservation,” he said. “For the moment, it’s almost perfect. But I’m afraid the flesh may start to decay now that it’s exposed to air. This is the most impressive modern example I’ve encountered. It’s rare to find a recent human subject that’s undergone this process.”
    “Then you know how she got this way?”
    “Oh yes. She’s very much like the others.”
    “Others?”
    He looked at Jane, his eyes so deep-set that she had the disturbing impression a skull was gazing back at her. “Have you ever heard of the Yde Girl, Detective?”
    “No. Who is she?”
    “Yde is a place. A village in the northern Netherlands. In 1897, two men from Yde were cutting peat, something that was traditionally dried and burned as fuel. And in the bog, they found something that terrified them. It was a female with long blond hair who had clearly been strangled. A long band of fabric was still wrapped three times around her neck. At first, the people of Yde didn’t understand what they were dealing with. She was so small and shrunken, they thought she was an old woman. Or perhaps a demon. But over time, as scientists came to look at her, they were able to learn more