Die Again (Rizzoli & Isles, #11)(90)

“I did what you asked. I don’t know what else I can do for you!” said Millie. “Now I want to go home.”

Jane sighed. “Okay. I know it’s been a rough day for you. We’ll have a patrolman drive you back to Maura’s.”

“No, I mean home. To Touws River.”

“Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. Tomorrow, we’ll review everything again. Maybe there’s something—”

“I’m done with this. I miss my family. I’m going home.” Millie shoved back the chair and stood, eyes bright with a fierceness Jane hadn’t seen in her before. This was the woman who’d survived against all odds in the bush, the woman who’d refused to kneel down and die. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Jane’s cell phone rang. “We can talk about it later.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. If you won’t get me a flight, I’ll do it myself. I’m done with this.” She walked out of the room.

“Millie, wait,” Frost said, following her into the hallway. “Let me get someone to drive you back.”

Jane reached for her ringing cell phone and snapped: “Rizzoli.”

“Sounds like this is not a good time,” said criminalist Erin Volchko.

“As a matter of fact, it’s a lousy time. But go ahead. What’s up?”

“This may or may not improve your mood. It’s about those hair samples you collected from the mounted Bengal tiger. The one in the Gott residence.”

“What about them?”

“They’re brittle and degraded, with thinning and fusion of the surface cuticle. I suspect that tiger was killed and mounted decades ago, because these hairs show changes due to age and UV radiation. That’s a problem.”

“Why?”

“The tiger hair pulled from Jodi Underwood’s bathrobe showed no signs of degradation. It’s fresh.”

“You mean, like from a live tiger?” Jane sighed. “Too bad. We just crossed the zoo veterinarian off our list.”

“You told me there were two other zoo employees in the Gott residence earlier that day, delivering the snow leopard carcass. Their clothes are probably covered with all sorts of animal hairs. Maybe they shed hairs in the house, and the killer picked it up on his clothes. Tertiary transfer could explain how tiger hair got onto Jodi’s bathrobe.”

“So we could still be talking about the same killer, both murders.”

“Yes. Is that good news or bad?”

“I don’t know.” Jane hung up with a sigh. I don’t have a freaking clue how it all fits together. In frustration she unplugged the video camera from the monitor, coiled up the cables, and shoved everything into the carrying case. She thought about the questions she’d face at tomorrow’s case conference, and how to defend her decisions, not to mention her expenses. Crowe would pick at her bones like the vulture he was, and what was she going to say?

At least I got a trip to Cape Town out of it.

She rolled the media cart back to the side of the room where she’d found it and shoved it against the wall. Paused as something on that wall caught her eye. Hanging there were the names and qualifications of the Suffolk Zoo’s staff. Dr. Mikovitz, the veterinarians, and the various experts in birds, primates, amphibians, and large mammals. It was Alan Rhodes’s curriculum vitae that she focused on.

DR. ALAN T. RHODES.

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE, CURRY COLLEGE. PHD, TUFTS UNIVERSITY.

Natalie Toombs had also attended Curry College.

Alan Rhodes would have been a senior student the year Natalie vanished. She’d left her house to go on a study date with a man named Ted, and was never seen again. Until fourteen years later, when her bones turned up wrapped in a tarp, the ankles bound with orange nylon cord.

Jane dashed out of the conference room and bounded up the stairs to the zoo’s administrative offices.

The secretary glanced up with an arched eyebrow as Jane burst into the room. “If you’re looking for Dr. Mikovitz, he left for the afternoon.”

“Where’s Dr. Rhodes?” Jane asked.

“I can give you his cell phone number.” The secretary opened her drawer and pulled out the zoo directory. “Just let me look it up.”

“No, I want to know where he is. Is he still here at work?”

“Yes. He’s probably over at the tiger enclosure. That’s where they arranged to meet.”

“Meet?”

“That woman from the medical examiner’s office. She wanted tiger hair for some study she’s doing.”

“Oh God,” said Jane. Maura.





“HE’S SUCH A BEAUTY,” SAID MAURA, STARING INTO THE ENCLOSURE.

From the other side of the bars, the Bengal tiger stared back, his tail flicking. Camouflaged perfectly, he was almost invisible except for those alert eyes peering through the grass, and the sinuously waving tail.

“Now, this is a true man-eater,” said Alan Rhodes. “There are only a few thousand of them left in the world. We’ve encroached so deeply into their habitat, it’s inevitable they sometimes take a few people down. When you look at this cat, you can see why hunters prize them so much. Not just for the pelt, but for the challenge of defeating such a formidable predator. It’s perverse, isn’t it? How we humans want to kill the animals we most admire?”