Part 30 (1/2)
”It's Rhodes,” said Maura. ”He's letting the cats loose!”
Frantically Oberlin reloaded his tranquilizer gun. ”Get everyone out! We need to evacuate!”
The public didn't need to be coaxed. Already they were fleeing toward the exits in a stampede of hysterical parents and screaming children. The Bengal tiger was down, collapsed in a heap of fur, but the cougar-where was the cougar?
”Get to the exit, Maura,” Jane ordered.
”What about you?”
”I'm staying with Oberlin. We need to find that cat. Go.”
As Maura joined the exodus, she kept glancing over her shoulder. She remembered how intently the cougar had watched her on her last visit, and he could be tracking her now, tracking anyone. She almost stumbled over a toddler who lay screaming on the pavement. Scooping him up, she glanced around for his mother and spotted a young woman who was frantically scanning the crowd as she juggled an infant and a diaper bag.
”I've got him!” Maura called out.
”Oh my G.o.d, there you are! Oh my G.o.d ...”
”I'll carry him. Just keep moving!”
The exit was mobbed with people shoving through the turnstiles, vaulting across barriers. Then a zoo employee hauled open a gate and the crowd surged out, spilling like a tidal wave into the parking lot. Maura handed the toddler to his mother and stationed herself by the turnstiles to wait for news from Jane.
Half an hour later, her phone rang.
”You okay?” Jane asked.
”I'm standing at the exit. What about the cougar?”
”He's down. Oberlin had to hit him with two darts, but the cat's back in his cage. Jesus, what a disaster.” She paused. ”Rhodes got away. In all the chaos, he slipped out with the crowd.”
”How did you know it was him?”
”Fourteen years ago, he attended the same college that Natalie Toombs did. I don't have the proof yet, but I'm guessing Natalie was one of his early kills. Maybe his very first one. You were the one who saw it, Maura.”
”All I saw was-”
”The gestalt, as you called it. The big picture. It was all about the pattern of his kills. Leon Gott. Natalie Toombs. The backpackers, the hunters. G.o.d, I should have listened to you.”
Maura shook her head, confused. ”What about the Botswana murders? Rhodes doesn't look anything like Johnny Posthumus. How is that connected?”
”I don't think they are.”
”And Millie? Does she fit into the picture at all?”
Over the phone, she heard Jane sigh. ”Maybe she doesn't. Maybe I've been wrong about the whole thing.”
”BREAK IT,” JANE SAID TO FROST.
Gla.s.s shattered, shards flying into the house, spilling across the tiled floor. In seconds she and Frost were through the door and inside Alan Rhodes's kitchen. Weapon drawn, Jane caught rapid-fire glimpses of dishes stacked in the drying rack, a pristine countertop, a stainless-steel refrigerator. Everything looked orderly and clean-too clean.
She and Frost moved down the hallway, into the living room, Jane in the lead. She looked left, looked right, saw no movement, no signs of life. She saw bookshelves, a sofa and coffee table. Not a thing out of place, not even a stray magazine. The home of a bachelor with OCD.
From the foot of the stairway she peered up toward the second floor, trying to listen through the pounding of her own heart. It was quiet upstairs, as silent as the grave.
Frost took the lead as they moved up the stairs. Though the house was chilly, her blouse was already damp with sweat. The most dangerous animal is the one who's trapped, and by now Rhodes must realize this was the end game. They reached the second-floor landing. Three doorways ahead. Glancing through the first, she saw a bedroom, spa.r.s.ely furnished. No dust, no clutter. Did a real human actually live in this house? She eased toward the closet, yanked it open. Empty hangers swayed on the rod.
Back into the hallway, past a bathroom, to the last doorway.
Even before she stepped through, she already knew Rhodes wasn't there. He was probably never coming back. Standing in his bedroom, she looked around at blank walls. The queen bed had a stark white cover. The dresser was bare and dust-free. She thought of her own dresser at home, a magnet for keys and coins, socks and bras. You could tell a lot about people by looking at what migrated to their dressers and their countertops, and what she saw here, on Alan Rhodes's dresser, was a man without an ident.i.ty. Who are you?
From the bedroom window, she looked down at the street, where yet another Danvers PD patrol car had just pulled up. This neighborhood was outside Boston PD's jurisdiction, but in their rush to capture Rhodes she and Frost had not wasted time waiting for Danvers detectives to a.s.sist. Now there'd be bureaucratic h.e.l.l to pay.
”There's a trapdoor up here,” said Frost, standing in the closet.
She squeezed in beside him and looked up at the ceiling panel, where a pull rope dangled. It probably led to attic storage s.p.a.ce, where families stash boxes they never open, filled with items they couldn't bring themselves to throw out. Frost tugged on the rope and the panel swung open, revealing a drop-down ladder and a shadowy s.p.a.ce overhead. They shot a tense glance at each other, then Frost climbed the ladder.
”All clear!” he called down. ”Just a bunch of stuff.”
She followed him through the trapdoor and turned on her pocket flashlight. In the gloom she glimpsed a row of cardboard boxes. This could be anyone's attic, a depository for clutter, for the reams of tax doc.u.ments and financial papers you fear you might need someday when the IRS comes calling. She opened one box and saw bank statements and loan doc.u.ments. Moved on to the next and the next. Found copies of Biodiversity and Conservation. Old sheets and towels. Books and more books. There was nothing here to tie Rhodes to any crimes at all, much less murder.
Have we made another mistake?
She climbed back down the ladder, into the bedroom with its bare walls and spotless bedspread. Her uneasiness grew as another car pulled up outside. Detective Crowe climbed out, and she felt her blood pressure shoot up as he strutted toward the house. Seconds later, someone pounded on the front door. She went downstairs and found Crowe grinning at her from the front porch.
”So, Rizzoli, I hear the city of Boston's not big enough for you. You breaking down doors in the suburbs now?” He walked in and made a lazy stroll around the living room. ”What've you got on this guy Rhodes?”
”We're still looking.”
”Funny, 'cause he's got a clean record. No arrests, no convictions. You sure you tagged the right guy?”
”He ran, Crowe. He released two large cats to cover his escape, and he hasn't been seen since. It makes the death of Debra Lopez look less and less like an accident.”
”Murder by leopard?” Crowe shot her a skeptical look. ”Why would he kill a zookeeper?”
”I don't know.”
”Why did he kill Gott? And Jodi Underwood?”
”I don't know.”
”That's a lot of don't knows.”
”There's trace evidence linking him to Jodi Underwood. That tiger hair on her bathrobe. We also know he was a student at Curry College, the same year Natalie Toombs vanished, so there's a link to her as well. Remember how Natalie was last seen leaving for a study date with someone named Ted? Rhodes's middle name is Theodore. According to his bio at the zoo, before he started college, he spent a year in Tanzania. Maybe that's where he learned about the leopard cult.”
”A lot of circ.u.mstantials.” Crowe waved his arm at the sterile-looking living room. ”I gotta say, I don't see anything here that screams Leopard Man.”
”Maybe that's significant. There's not a whole lot here, period. There are no photos, no pictures, not even a DVD or a CD to tell us about his personal tastes. The books and magazines are all related to his work. The only medicine in his bathroom is aspirin. And you know what's missing?”
”What?”
”Mirrors. There's only one small shaving mirror in the upstairs bathroom.”