The Keepsake: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

and the baseboards. That’s where Jimmy Otto was killed. In the girl’s bedroom.”
    “And this was twelve years ago?”
    “Josephine would have been about fourteen,” said Frost.
    Crowe nodded. “Except her name wasn’t Josephine back then. It was Susan Cook.” He gave a laugh. “And guess what? The real Susan Cook died as an infant. In Syracuse, New York.”
    “It was
another
co-opted ID?” said Jane.
    “Ditto on the mother, who also had a fake name: Lydia Newhouse. According to the San Diego PD report, mother and daughter rented the house for three years, but they kept to themselves. At the time of the killing, the girl had just finished the eighth grade at William Howard Taft Middle School. Very bright, according to her teachers, work way above her grade level.”
    “And the mother?”
    “Lydia Newhouse—or whatever her real name is—worked at the Museum of Man in Balboa Park.”
    “Doing what?”
    “She was a salesclerk in the gift shop. She also volunteered as a docent. What impressed everyone at the museum was how much she seemed to know about the field of archaeology. Even though she claimed she had no formal training.”
    Jane frowned. “We’re back to archaeology again.”
    “Yeah. We keep returning to that theme, don’t we?” said Crowe. “Archaeology runs in the family. The mother. The daughter.”
    “Are we sure they’re even involved with Jimmy Otto’s murder?” said Frost.
    “Well, they sure behaved as if they did it. They left town in a hurry—only after they’d mopped the floor, washed down the walls, and buried the guy behind their house. That sounds pretty damn guilty to me. Their only mistake was not burying him deep enough, because the neighborhood dog sniffed him out pretty quick.”
    Tripp said, “I say, good for them. The guy got the ending he deserved.”
    “What do you mean?” Frost asked.
    “Because Jimmy Otto was one sick fuck.”
    Crowe opened his notebook. “Detective Potrero will be sending us the file, but here’s what I got from him over the phone. At age thirteen, Jimmy Otto broke into a woman’s bedroom, raided her lingerie drawers, and sliced up her underwear with a knife. A few months later, he was found in another girl’s house, standing over her bed with a knife as she slept.”
    “Jesus,” said Jane. “Only thirteen? He got an early start as a creep.”
    “Age fourteen, he was expelled from his school in Connecticut. Detective Potrero couldn’t get the school to release all the details, but he gathered there was some sort of sexual assault involving a female classmate. And a broomstick. The girl ended up in the hospital.” Crowe looked up. “And those are just the things he got
caught
doing.”
    “He should have been thrown into juvenile detention after the second incident.”
    “Should have. But when your daddy’s rich, you have a few extra get-out-of-jail cards.”
    “Even after the broomstick thing?”
    “No, that was the wake-up call for his parents. They finally freaked out and realized their darling son needed therapy. Bad. Their high-priced lawyer got the charges reduced, but only on the condition that Jimmy go into specialized residential treatment.”
    “You mean a psych ward?” asked Frost.
    “Not exactly. It was a very expensive private school for boys with his, uh, impulses. A place out in the boonies with round-the-clock supervision. He stayed there for three years. His doting parents bought a house in the area, just so they could be near him. They were killed in a private plane crash flying up to see him. Jimmy and his sister ended up inheriting a fortune.”
    “Making Jimmy a very sick and very
rich
fuck,” said Tripp.
    Specialized residential treatment. A place out in the boonies.
    Jane suddenly thought about the conversation she’d had just the day before, with Kimball Rose. And she asked: “Did this private facility happen to be in Maine?”
    Crowe looked up in surprise. “How the hell did you guess that?”
    “Because we know about another rich sicko who ended up in a Maine treatment center. A place for boys with
issues.
”
    “Who are you talking about?”
    “Bradley Rose.”
    There was a long silence as Crowe and Tripp absorbed that startling news.
    “Holy shit,” said Tripp. “That
cannot
be a coincidence. If those two boys were there at the same time, they would have known each other.”
    “Tell us more about this school,” said Jane.
    Crowe nodded, his expression now grimly focused.