Body Double

SIX

MAURA STEPPED FROM THE AFTERNOON SUNSHINE into the cool gloom of the Church of Our Lady of Divine Light. For a moment she could see only shadows, the vague outlines of pews, and the silhouette of a lone woman parishioner seated at the front, her head bowed. Maura slipped into a pew and sat down. She let the silence envelop her as her eyes adjusted to the dim interior. In the stained glass windows above, glowing with richly somber hues, a woman with swirling hair gazed adoringly at a tree from which hung a bloodred apple. Eve in the Garden of Eden. Woman as temptress, seducer. Destroyer. Staring up at the window, she felt a sense of disquiet, and her gaze moved to another. Though she had been raised by Catholic parents, she did not feel at home in the church. She gazed at the jewel-toned images of holy martyrs framed in these windows, and though they might now be enshrined as saints, she knew that, as living flesh and blood, they could not have been flawless. That their time on earth was surely marred by sins and bad choices and petty desires. She knew, better than most, that perfection was not human.

She rose to her feet, turned toward the aisle, and paused. Father Brophy was standing there, the light from the stained glass casting a mosaic of colors on his face. He had approached so quietly that she hadn’t heard him, and now they faced each other, neither one daring to break the silence.

“I hope you’re not leaving already,” he finally said.

“I just came to meditate for a few minutes.”

“Then I’m glad I caught you before you left. Would you like to talk?”

She glanced toward the rear doors, as though contemplating escape. Then she released a sigh. “Yes. I think I would.”

The woman in the front pew had turned and was watching them. And what does she see? Maura wondered. The handsome young priest. An attractive woman. Intent whispers exchanged beneath the gazes of saints.

Father Brophy seemed to share Maura’s uneasiness. He glanced at the other parishioner, and he said: “It doesn’t have to be here.”

They walked in Jamaica Riverway Park, following the tree-shaded path that led alongside the water. On this warm afternoon, they shared the park with joggers and cyclists and mothers pushing baby strollers. In such a public place, a priest walking with a troubled parishioner could hardly stir gossip. This is how it always has to be between us, she thought as they ducked beneath the drooping branches of a willow. No hint of scandal, no whiff of sin. What I want most from him is what he can’t give me. Yet here I am.

Here we both are.

“I wondered when you’d come by to see me,” he said.

“I’ve wanted to. It’s been a rough week.” She stopped and gazed at the river. The whish of traffic from the nearby road obscured the sound of the rushing water. “I’m feeling my own mortality these days.”

“You haven’t before?”

“Not like this. When I watched that autopsy last week-”

“You watch so many of them.”

“Not just watch them, Daniel. I perform them. I hold the scalpel in my hand and I cut. I do it almost every day at work, and it never bothered me. Maybe it means I’ve lost touch with humanity. I’ve grown so detached that I don’t even register it’s human flesh I’m slicing. But that day, watching it, it all became personal. I looked at her and I saw myself on the table. Now I can’t pick up a scalpel without thinking about her. About what her life might have been like, what she felt, what she was thinking when…” Maura stopped and sighed. “It’s been hard going back to work. That’s all.”

“Do you really have to?”

Perplexed by the question, she looked at him. “Do I have a choice?”

“You make it sound like indentured servitude.”

“It’s my job. It’s what I’m good at.”

“Not, in itself, a reason to do it. So why do you?”

“Why are you a priest?”

Now it was his turn to look perplexed. He thought about it for a moment, standing very still beside her, the blueness of his eyes muted in the shadows cast by the willow trees. “I made that choice so long ago,” he said, “I don’t think about it much anymore. Or question it.”

“You must have believed.”

“I still believe.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Do you really think that faith is all that’s required?”

“No, of course not.” She turned and began walking again, along a path dappled with sunlight and shade. Afraid to meet his gaze, afraid that he’d see too much in hers.

“Sometimes it’s good to come face-to-face with your own mortality,” he said. “It makes us reconsider our lives.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“I’m not big on introspection. I grew so impatient with philosophy classes. All those questions without answers. But physics and chemistry, I could understand. They were comforting to me because they taught principles that are reproducible and orderly.” She paused to watch a young woman on Rollerblades skate past, pushing a baby in a stroller. “I don’t like the unexplainable.”

“Yes, I know. You always want your mathematical equations solved. That’s why you’re having such a hard time with that woman’s murder.”

“It’s a question without an answer. The sort of thing I hate.”

She sank onto a wooden bench facing the river. Daylight was fading, and the water flowed black in the thickening shadows. He too sat down, and although they didn’t touch, she was so aware of him, sitting close beside her, that she could almost feel his heat against her bare arm.

“Have you heard any more about the case from Detective Rizzoli?”

“She hasn’t exactly been keeping me in the loop.”

“Would you expect her to?”

“As a cop, no. She wouldn’t.”

“And as a friend?”

“That’s just it, I thought we were friends. But she’s told me so little.”

“You can’t blame her. The victim was found outside your house. She has to wonder-”

“What, that I’m a suspect?”

“Or that you were the intended target. It’s what we all thought that night. That it was you in that car.” He stared across the river. “You said you can’t stop thinking about the autopsy. Well, I can’t stop thinking about that night, standing in your street with all those police cars. I couldn’t believe any of it was happening. I refused to believe.”

They both fell silent. Before them flowed a river of dark water, and behind them, a river of cars.

She asked, suddenly: “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, and his hesitation made her flush with embarrassment. What a foolish question. She wanted to take it back, to replay the last sixty seconds. How much better to have just said good-bye and walked away. Instead, she’d blurted out that ill-considered invitation, one that they both knew he shouldn’t accept.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I guess it’s not such a good-”

”Yes,” he said. “I’d like to very much.”

She stood in her kitchen dicing tomatoes for the salad, her hand jittery as it gripped the knife. On the stove simmered a pot of coq au vin, wafting out steam fragrant with the scents of red wine and chicken. An easy, familiar meal that she could cook without consulting a recipe, without having to stop and think about it. She could not cope with any meal more complicated. Her mind was completely focused on the man who was now pouring two glasses of pinot noir.

He placed one glass beside her on the counter. “What else can I do?”

“Not a thing.”

“Make the salad dressing? Wash lettuce?”

“I didn’t invite you here to make you work. I just thought you’d prefer this to a restaurant, where it’s so public.”

“You must be tired of always being in the public’s eye,” he said.

“I was thinking more about you.”

“Even priests eat out at restaurants, Maura.”

“No, I meant…” She felt herself flush and renewed her efforts with the tomato.

“I guess it would make people wonder,” he said. “If they saw us out together.” He watched her for a moment, and the only sound was her knife blade rapping against the cutting board. What does one do with a priest in the kitchen? she wondered. Ask him to bless the food? No other man could make her feel so uneasy, so human and flawed. And what are your flaws, Daniel? she wondered as she slid the diced tomatoes into a salad bowl, as she tossed them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Does that white collar give you immunity to temptation?

“At least let me slice that cucumber,” he said.

“You really can’t relax, can you?”

“I’m not good at sitting idle while others work.”

She laughed. “Join the club.”

“Would that be the club for hopeless workaholics? Because I’m a charter member.” He pulled a knife from the wooden block and began to slice the cucumber, releasing its fresh, summery fragrance. “It comes from having to help out with five brothers and a sister.”

“Seven of you in the family? My god.”

“I’m sure that’s what my dad said every time he heard there was another one on the way.”

“So where were you in that seven?”

“Number four. Smack in the middle. Which, according to psychologists, makes me a natural born mediator. The one always trying to keep the peace.” He glanced up at her with a smile. “It also means I know how to get in and out of the shower really fast.”

“And how do you go from sibling number four to being a priest?”

He looked back down at the cutting board. “As you might expect, a long story.”

“One you don’t want to talk about?”

“My reasons will probably strike you as illogical.”

“Well, it’s funny how our biggest decisions in life are usually the least logical. The person we choose to marry, for instance.” She took a sip of wine and set the glass back down. “I certainly couldn’t defend my own marriage on the basis of logic.”

He glanced up. “Lust?”

“That would be the operative word. That’s how I made the biggest mistake of my life. So far, that is.” She took another sip of wine. And you could be my next big mistake. If God wanted us to behave, He shouldn’t have created temptation.

He slid the sliced cucumbers into the salad bowl and rinsed the knife. She watched him standing at the sink, his back to her. He had the tall, lean build of a long-distance runner. Why do I put myself through this? she wondered. Of all the men I could be attracted to, why does it have to be this one?

“You asked why I chose the priesthood,” he said.

“Why did you?”

He turned to look at her. “My sister had leukemia.”

Startled, she didn’t know what to say. Nothing seemed appropriate.

“Sophie was six years old,” he said. “The youngest one in the family, and the only girl.” He reached for a dish towel to dry his hands, and neatly hung it back on the rack, taking his time, as though he needed to measure his next words. “It was acute lymphocytic leukemia. I suppose you could call it the good kind, if there’s any such thing as a good leukemia.”

“It’s the one with the best prognosis in children. An eighty percent survival rate.” A true statement, but she was sorry the instant after she’d said it. The logical Dr. Isles, responding to tragedy with her usual helpful facts and heartless statistics. It was the way she’d always coped with the messy emotions of those around her, by retreating into her scientist’s role. A friend just died of lung cancer? A relative left quadriplegic from a car accident? For every tragedy she could cite a statistic, drawing reassurance in the crisp certainty of numbers. In the belief that behind every horror, there is an explanation.

She wondered if Daniel thought her detached, even callous, for her response. But he did not seem to take offense. He simply nodded, accepting her statistic in the spirit she had offered it, as a simple fact.

“The five-year survival rates weren’t quite so good back then,” he said. “By the time she was diagnosed, she was pretty sick. I can’t tell you how devastating it was, to all of us. To my mother, especially. Her only girl. Her baby. I was fourteen then, and I was the one who kind of took over keeping an eye on Sophie. Even with all the attention she got, all the coddling, she never acted spoiled. Never stopped being the sweetest kid you could imagine.” He still wasn’t looking at Maura; he was gazing at the floor, as though unwilling to reveal the depth of his pain.

“Daniel?” she said.

He took a deep breath, straightened. “I’m not sure how to tell this story to a seasoned skeptic like you.”

“What happened?”

“Her doctor informed us that she was terminal. In those days, when a doctor renders his opinion, you accept it as gospel. That night, my parents and brothers went off to church. To pray for a miracle, I guess. I stayed behind in the hospital, so Sophie wouldn’t be alone. She was bald by then. Lost it all with the chemotherapy. I remember her falling asleep in my lap. And me praying. I prayed for hours, made all sorts of crazy promises to God. If she had died, I don’t think I would have set foot in church again.”

“But she lived,” said Maura softly.

He looked at her and smiled. “Yes, she did. And I kept all those promises I made. Every single one. Because that day, He was listening to me. I don’t doubt it.”

“Where is Sophie now?”

“Happily married, living in Manchester. Two adopted kids.” He sat down facing her across the kitchen table. “So here I am.”

“Father Brophy.”

“Now you know why I made the choice.”

And was it the right one? she wanted to ask, but didn’t.

They refilled their wineglasses. She sliced crusty French bread and tossed the salad. Ladled steaming coq au vin into serving bowls. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach; was that what she was trying to reach, what she really wanted? Daniel Brophy’s heart?

Maybe it’s because I can’t have him that I feel safe wanting him. He’s beyond my reach, so he can’t hurt me, the way Victor did.

But when she’d married Victor, she’d thought he could never hurt her either.

We’re never as impervious as we think.

They had just finished their meal when the ringing of the doorbell made them both stiffen. Innocent though the evening had been, they exchanged uneasy glances, like two guilty lovers caught in the act.

Jane Rizzoli was standing on Maura’s front porch, black hair frizzed to an unruly mass of curls in the humid summer air. Though the night was warm, she was dressed in one of the dark business pantsuits she always wore to work. This was not a social call, thought Maura, as she met Rizzoli’s somber gaze. Glancing down, she saw that Rizzoli was carrying a briefcase.

“I’m sorry to bother you at home, Doc. But we need to talk. I thought it’d be better to see you here, and not at your office.”

“Is this about the case?”

Rizzoli nodded. Neither one of them had to specify which case they were talking about; they both knew. Though she and Rizzoli respected each other as professionals, they had not yet crossed that line into a comfortable friendship, and tonight, they regarded each other with a measure of uneasiness. Something has happened, Maura thought. Something that has made her wary of me.

“Please come in.”

Rizzoli stepped into the house and paused, sniffing the scent of food. “Am I interrupting your dinner?”

“No, we just finished.”

The we did not escape Rizzoli’s notice. She gave Maura an inquiring look. Heard footsteps and turned to see Daniel in the hallway, carrying wineglasses back to the kitchen.

“Evening, Detective!” he called.

Rizzoli blinked in surprise. “Father Brophy.”

He continued into the kitchen, and Rizzoli turned back to Maura. Though she didn’t say anything, it was clear what she was thinking. The same thing that woman parishioner had been thinking. Yes, it looks bad, but nothing has happened. Nothing except dinner and conversation. Why the hell must you look at me like that?

“Well,” said Rizzoli. A lot of meaning was crammed into that one word. They heard the sound of clattering china and silverware. Daniel was loading the dishwasher. A priest at home in her kitchen.

“I’d like to talk to you in private, if I could,” said Rizzoli.

“Is that really necessary? Father Brophy is my friend.”

“This is going to be tough enough to talk about as it is, Doc.”

“I can’t just tell him to leave.” She stopped at the sound of Daniel’s footsteps emerging from the kitchen.

“But I really should go,” he said. He glanced at Rizzoli’s briefcase. “Since you obviously have business to discuss.”

“Actually, we do,” said Rizzoli.

He smiled at Maura. “Thank you for dinner.”

“Wait,” said Maura. “Daniel.” She stepped outside with him, onto the front porch, and closed the door behind her. “You don’t have to leave,” she said.

“She needs to talk to you in private.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Why? It was a wonderful evening.”

“I feel as if you’re being chased out of my house.”

He reached out and grasped her arm in a warm and reassuring squeeze. “Call me whenever you need to talk again,” he said. “No matter what the hour.”

She watched him walk toward his car, his black clothes blending into the summer night. When he turned to wave good-bye, she caught a glimpse of his collar, one last glimmer of white in the darkness.

She stepped back into the house and found Rizzoli still standing in the hallway, watching her. Wondering about Daniel, of course. She wasn’t blind; she could see that something more than friendship was growing between them.

“So can I offer you a drink?” asked Maura.

“That’d be great. Nothing alcoholic.” Rizzoli patted her belly. “Junior’s too young for booze yet.”

“Of course.”

Maura led the way down the hall, forcing herself to play the proper hostess. In the kitchen she dropped ice cubes into two glasses and poured orange juice. Added a splash of vodka to hers. Turning to set the drinks on the kitchen table, she saw Rizzoli take a file folder from her briefcase and set it on the kitchen table.

“What’s that?” asked Maura.

“Why don’t we both sit down first, Doc? Because what I’m gonna tell you may be kind of upsetting.”

Maura sank into a chair at the kitchen table; so did Rizzoli. They sat facing each other, the folder lying between them. A Pandora’s box of secrets, thought Maura, staring at the file. Maybe I don’t really want to know what’s inside.

“Do you remember what I told you last week, about Anna Jessop? That we could find almost no records on her that went back more than six months? And the only residence we had for her was an empty apartment?”

“You called her a phantom.”

“In a sense, that’s true. Anna Jessop didn’t really exist.”

“How is that possible?”

“Because there was no Anna Jessop. It was an alias. Her real name was Anna Leoni. About six months ago, she took on an entirely new identity. Started closing her accounts, and finally moved out of her house. Under the new name, she rented an apartment in Brighton that she never intended to move into. It was just a blind alley, in case anyone managed to learn her new name. Then she packed up and moved to Maine. A small town, halfway up the coast. That’s where she’s been living for the last two months.”

“How did you learn all this?”

“I spoke to the cop who helped her do it.”

“A cop?”

“A Detective Ballard, out in Newton.”

“So the alias-it wasn’t because she was running from the law?”

“No. You can probably guess what she was running from. It’s an old story.”

“A man?”

“Unfortunately, a very wealthy man. Dr. Charles Cassell.”

“I don’t know the name.”

“Castle Pharmaceuticals. He founded it. Anna was a researcher in his company. They became involved, but three years later, she tried to leave him.”

“And he wouldn’t let her.”

“Dr. Cassell sounds like the kind of guy you don’t just walk out on. She ended up in a Newton ER one night with a black eye. From there, it got seriously scary. Stalking. Death threats. Even a dead canary in her mailbox.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, that’s true love for you. Sometimes, the only way you can stop a man from hurting you is to shoot him-or to hide. Maybe she’d still be alive if she’d chosen the first option.”

“He found her.”

“All we have to do is prove it.”

“Can you?”

“We haven’t been able to talk to Dr. Cassell yet. Quite conveniently, he left Boston the morning after the shooting. He’s been traveling on business for the past week, and isn’t expected home till tomorrow.” Rizzoli lifted the glass of orange juice to her lips, and the clatter of ice cubes jarred Maura’s nerves. Rizzoli set the drink back down and was silent for a moment. She seemed to be buying time, but for what? Maura wondered.

“There’s something else about Anna Leoni you need to know,” Rizzoli said. She pointed to the file on the table. “I brought that for you.”

Maura opened the folder and felt a jolt of recognition. It was a color photocopy of a wallet-sized photo. A young girl with black hair and a serious gaze was standing between an older couple whose arms enfolded her in a protective embrace. She said, softly: “That girl could be me.”

“She was carrying that in her wallet. We believe that’s Anna at around ten years old, with her parents, Ruth and William Leoni. They’re both dead now.”

“These are her parents?”

“Yes.”

“But… they’re so old.”

“Yes, they were. The mother, Ruth, was sixty-two years old when that photo was taken.” Rizzoli paused. “Anna was their only child.”

An only child. Older parents. I know where this is going, thought Maura, and I’m afraid of what she’s about to tell me. This is why she really came tonight. It’s not just about Anna Leoni and her abusive lover; it’s about something far more startling.

Maura looked up at Rizzoli. “She was adopted?”

Rizzoli nodded. “Mrs. Leoni was fifty-two the year Anna was born.”

“Too old for most agencies.”

“Which is why they probably had to arrange a private adoption, through an attorney.”

Maura thought of her own parents, now both dead. They too had been older, in their forties.

“What do you know about your own adoption, Doc?”

Maura took a deep breath. “After my father died, I found my adoption papers. It was all done through an attorney here in Boston. I called him a few years ago, to see if he would tell me my birth mother’s name.”

“Did he?”

“He said my records were sealed. He refused to release any information.”

“And you didn’t pursue it?”

“I haven’t, no.”

“Was the attorney’s name Terence Van Gates?”

Maura went dead silent. She didn’t have to answer the question; she knew Rizzoli could read it in her stunned gaze. “How did you know?” Maura asked.

“Two days before her death, Anna checked into the Tremont Hotel, here in Boston. From her hotel room, she made two phone calls. One was to Detective Ballard, who was out of town at the time. The other was to Van Gates’s law office. We don’t know why she contacted him-he hasn’t returned my calls yet.”

Now the revelation is coming, thought Maura. The real reason she’s here tonight, in my kitchen.

“We know Anna Leoni was adopted. She had your blood type and your birth date. And just before she died, she was talking to Van Gates-the attorney who handled your adoption. An amazing set of coincidences.”

“How long have you known all this?”

“A few days.”

“And you didn’t tell me? You kept it from me.”

“I didn’t want to upset you if it wasn’t necessary.”

“Well, I am upset that you waited this long.”

“I had to, because there was one more thing I needed to find out.” Rizzoli took a deep breath. “This afternoon, I had a talk with Walt DeGroot in the DNA lab. Earlier this week, I asked him to expedite that test you requested. This afternoon, he showed me the autorads he’d developed. He did two separate VNTR profiles. One was Anna Leoni’s. The other was yours.”

Maura sat frozen, braced for the blow she knew was about to fall.

“They’re a match,” said Rizzoli. “The two genetic profiles are identical. ”