The Apprentice. "An Adrenaline Rush from Start to Finish" - Softcover

Buch 2 von 13: Rizzoli & Isles

Gerritsen, Tess

 
9780345447869: The Apprentice. "An Adrenaline Rush from Start to Finish"
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345447867 ISBN 13: 9780345447869
Verlag: Ballantine Books, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

Although serial killer Warren Hoyt is behind bars, a copycat acolyte continues his diabolical legacy of murders performed with twisted medical techniques, and Detective Jane Rizzoli races against time to stop the vicious crime spree. By the author of The Surgeon. Reprint.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen earned international acclaim for her first novel of suspense,Harvest. She introduced Detective Jane Rizzoli in The Surgeon (2001) and Dr. Maura Isles inThe Apprentice (2002) and has gone on to write numerous other titles in the celebrated Rizzoli & Isles series, most recentlyThe Mephisto Club, The Keepsake, Ice Cold, The Silent Girl, Last to Die, and Die Again. Her latest novel is the standalone thrillerPlaying with Fire. A physician, Tess Gerritsen lives in Maine.


From the Hardcover edition.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Already the flies were swarming. Four hours on the hot pavement of South Boston had baked the pulverized flesh, releasing the chemical equivalent of a dinner bell, and the air was alive with buzzing flies. Though what remained of the torso was now covered with a sheet, there was still much exposed tissue for scavengers to feast on. Bits of gray matter and other unidentifiable parts were dispersed in a radius of thirty feet along the street. A skull fragment had landed in a second-story flower box, and clumps of tissue adhered to parked cars.


Detective Jane Rizzoli had always possessed a strong stomach,
but even she had to pause, eyes closed, fists clenched, angry
at herself for this moment of weakness. Don't lose it. Don't
lose it. She was the only female detective in the Boston P.D.
homicide unit, and she knew that the pitiless spotlight was always
trained on her. Every mistake, every triumph, would be
noted by all. Her partner, Barry Frost, had already tossed up his
breakfast in humiliatingly public view, and he was now sitting
with his head on his knees in their air-conditioned vehicle, waiting
for his stomach to settle. She could not afford to fall victim
to nausea. She was the most visible law enforcement officer on
the scene, and from the other side of the police tape the public
stood watching, registering every move she made, every detail of
her appearance. She knew she looked younger than her age of
thirty-four, and she was self-conscious about maintaining an air
of authority. What she lacked in height she compensated for
with her direct gaze, her squared shoulders. She had learned the
art of dominating a scene, if only through sheer intensity.

But this heat was sapping her resolve. She had started off
dressed in her usual blazer and slacks and with her hair neatly
combed. Now the blazer was off, her blouse was wrinkled, and
the humidity had frizzed her dark hair into unruly coils. She felt
assaulted on all fronts by the smells, the flies, and the piercing
sunlight. There was too much to focus on all at once. And all
those eyes were watching her.

Loud voices drew her attention. A man in a dress shirt and
tie was trying to argue his way past a patrolman.

"Look, I gotta get to a sales conference, okay? I'm an hour
late as it is. But you've got your goddamn police tape wrapped
around my car, and now you're saying I can't drive it? It's my
own friggin' car!"

"It's a crime scene, sir."

"It's an accident!"

"We haven't determined that yet."

"Does it take you guys all day to figure it out? Why don't
you listen to us? The whole neighborhood heard it happen!"

Rizzoli approached the man, whose face was glazed with
sweat. It was eleven-thirty and the sun, near its zenith, shone
down like a glaring eye.

"What, exactly, did you hear, sir?" she asked.

He snorted. "Same thing everyone else did."

"A loud bang."

"Yeah. Around seven-thirty. I was just getting outta the
shower. Looked out my window, and there he was, lying on the
sidewalk. You can see it's a bad corner. Asshole drivers come flying
around it like bats outta hell. Must've been a truck hit him."

"Did you see a truck?"

"Naw."

"Hear a truck?"

"Naw."

"And you didn't see a car, either?"

"Car, truck." He shrugged. "It's still a hit-and-run."

It was the same story, repeated half a dozen times by the
man's neighbors. Sometime between seven-fifteen and seven-thirty
A.M., there'd been a loud bang in the street. No one actually
saw the event. They had simply heard the noise and found
the man's body. Rizzoli had already considered, and rejected,
the possibility that he was a jumper. This was a neighborhood of
two-story buildings, nothing tall enough to explain such catastrophic
damage to a jumper's body. Nor did she see any evidence
of an explosion as the cause of this much anatomical
disintegration.

"Hey, can I get my car out now?" the man said. "It's that
green Ford."

"That one with the brains splattered on the trunk?"

"Yeah."

"What do you think?" she snapped, and walked away to join
the medical examiner, who was crouched in the middle of the
road, studying the asphalt. "People on this street are jerks," said
Rizzoli. "No one gives a damn about the victim. No one knows
who he is, either."

Dr. Ashford Tierney didn't look up at her but just kept staring
at the road. Beneath sparse strands of silver hair, his scalp
glistened with sweat. Dr. Tierney seemed older and more weary
than she had ever seen him. Now, as he tried to rise, he reached
out in a silent request for assistance. She took his hand and she
could feel, transmitted through that hand, the creak of tired
bones and arthritic joints. He was an old southern gentleman, a
native of Georgia, and he'd never warmed to Rizzoli's Boston
bluntness, just as she had never warmed to his formality. The
only thing they had in common was the human remains that
passed across Dr. Tierney's autopsy table. But as she helped him
to his feet, she was saddened by his frailty and reminded of her
own grandfather, whose favorite grandchild she had been, perhaps
because he'd recognized himself in her pride, her tenaciousness.
She remembered helping him out of his easy chair,
how his stroke-numbed hand had rested like a claw on her arm.
Even men as fierce as Aldo Rizzoli are ground down by time to
brittle bones and joints. She could see its effect in Dr. Tierney,
who wobbled in the heat as he took out his handkerchief and
dabbed the sweat from his forehead.

"This is one doozy of a case to close out my career," he said.
"So tell me, are you coming to my retirement party, Detective?"

"Uh . . . what party?" said Rizzoli.

"The one you all are planning to surprise me with."

She sighed. Admitted, "Yeah, I'm coming."

"Ha. I always could get a straight answer from you. Is it next
week?"

"Two weeks. And I didn't tell you, okay?"

"I'm glad you did." He looked down at the asphalt. "I don't
much like surprises."

"So what do we have here, Doc? Hit-and-run?"

"This seems to be the point of impact."

Rizzoli looked down at the large splash of blood. Then she
looked at the sheet-draped corpse, which was lying a good
twelve feet away, on the sidewalk.

"You're saying he first hit the ground here, and then bounced
way over there?" said Rizzoli.

"It would appear so."

"That's got to be a pretty big truck to cause this much splatter."

"Not a truck," was Tierney's enigmatic answer. He started
walking along the road, eyes focused downward.

Rizzoli followed him, batting at swarms of flies. Tierney
came to a stop about thirty feet away and pointed to a grayish
clump on the curb.

"More brain matter," he noted.

"A truck didn't do this?" said Rizzoli.

"No. Or a car, either."

"What about the tire marks on the vic's shirt?"

Tierney straightened, his eyes scanning the street, the sidewalks,
the buildings. "Do you notice something quite interesting
about this scene, Detective?"

"Apart from the fact there's a dead guy over there who's
missing his brain?"

"Look at the point of impact." Tierney gestured...

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Verlag
Ballantine Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345447867
ISBN 13 
9780345447869
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
366
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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