The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen Read Free Book Online

glance, it does appear that way.”
    Rizzoli looked up and met Isles’s quietly challenging gaze. “But it’s not?”
    “The cutting edge itself is not serrated, because the other edge of the incision is absolutely smooth. And notice how these parallel scratches appear along only one-third of the incision? Not the entire length. Those scratch marks were made as the blade was being withdrawn. The killer started his incision under the left jaw, and sliced toward the front of the throat, ending the incision just on the far side of the tracheal ring. The scratch marks appear as he’s ending his cut, and slightly twisting the blade as he withdraws.”
    “So what made those scratches?”
    “It’s not from the cutting edge. This weapon has serrations on the back edge, and they made the parallel scratches as the weapon was pulled out.” Isles looked at Rizzoli. “This is typical of a Rambo or survival-type knife. Something a hunter might use.”
    A hunter
. Rizzoli looked at the thickly muscled shoulders of Richard Yeager and thought: This was not a man who’d meekly assume the role of prey.
    “Okay, so let me get this straight,” said Korsak. “This vic, Dr. Weight Lifter here, watches our perp pull out a big friggin‘ Rambo knife. And he just sits there and lets him cut his throat?”
    “His wrists and ankles were bound,” said Isles.
    “I don’t care if he’s trussed up like Tutankhamen. Any redblooded man’s gonna squirm like hell.”
    Rizzoli said, “He’s right. Even with your wrists and ankles bound, you can still kick. You can even headbutt. But he was just sitting there, against the wall.”
    Dr. Isles straightened. For a moment, she didn’t say anything, just stood as regally as though her surgical gown were a priestess’s robe. She looked at Yoshima. “Hand me a wet towel. Direct that light over here. Let’s really wipe him down and go over his skin. Inch by inch.”
    “What’re we looking for?” asked Korsak.
    “I’ll tell you when I see it.”
    Moments later, when Isles lifted the right arm, she spotted the marks on the side of the chest. Beneath the magnifying lens, two faint red bumps stood out. Isles ran her gloved finger over the skin. “Wheals,” she said. “It’s a Lewis Triple Response.”
    “Lewis what?” asked Rizzoli.
    “Lewis Triple Response. It’s a signature effect on the skin. First you see erythema—red spots—and then a flare caused by cutaneous arteriolar dilatation. And finally, in the third stage, wheals pop up due to increased vascular permeability.”
    “It looks to me like a Taser mark,” said Rizzoli.
    Isles nodded. “Exactly. This is the classic skin response to an electrical shock from a Taser-like device. It would certainly incapacitate him. Zap, and he loses all neuro-muscular control. Certainly long enough for someone to bind his wrists and ankles.”
    “How long do these wheals usually last?”
    “On a living subject, they normally fade after two hours.”
    “And on a dead subject?”
    “Death arrests the skin process. That’s why we can still see it. Although it’s very faint.”
    “So he died within two hours of receiving this shock?”
    “Correct.”
    “But a Taser only brings you down for a few minutes,” said Korsak. “Five, ten at the most. To keep him down, he’d have to be shocked again.”
    “And that’s why we’re going to keep looking for more,” said Isles. She shifted the light farther down the torso.
    The beam mercilessly spotlighted Richard Yeager’s genitals. Up till that moment, Rizzoli had avoided looking at that region of his anatomy. To stare at a corpse’s sexual organs always struck her as a cruel invasion, yet one more outrage, one more humiliation visited upon the victim’s body. Now the light was focused on the limp penis and scrotum, and the violation of Richard Yeager seemed complete.
    “There are more wheals,” said Isles, wiping away a smear of blood to reveal the skin. “Here, on the lower