Last to Die

lived.

“TEDDY CLOCK,” SAID detective Thomas Moore, “Must be the unluckiest boy on the planet. When you consider all that’s happened to him, no wonder he’s displaying serious emotional problems.”
    “Not like he was normal to begin with,” Darren Crowe said. “The kid’s just plain strange.”
    “Strange in what way?”
    “He’s fourteen years old and he doesn’t do sports? Doesn’t watch TV? He spends every night and weekend hunched over his computer and a bunch of dusty old books.”
    “Some people wouldn’t consider that strange.”
    Crowe turned to Jane. “You’ve spent the most time with him, Rizzoli. You’ve gotta admit the kid’s not right.”
    “By
your
standards,” said Jane. “Teddy’s a lot smarter than that.”
    A chorus of
whoa
s went around the table as the other four detectives watched for Crowe’s reaction to that not-so-subtle insult.
    “There’s knowledge that’s useless,” Crowe retorted. “And then there’s street smarts.”
    “He’s only fourteen and he’s survived two massacres,” she said. “Don’t tell me this boy doesn’t have street smarts.”
    As the team lead in the Ackerman investigation, Crowe was acting more abrasive than usual. Their morning team meeting had been going for almost an hour now, and they were all on edge. In the thirty-some hours since the slaughter of the Ackerman family, the media frenzy had intensified, and this morning Jane had awakened to the tabloid headline HORROR ON BEACON HILL , accompanied by a photo of their prime suspect Andres Zapata, the missing boyfriend of the Ackermans’ housekeeper. It was an old mug shot from a drug arrest in Colombia, and he had a face that looked like a killer’s. He was an illegal immigrant, he had a burglary record, and his fingerprints were found on the Ackermans’ kitchen door, as well as on their kitchen counters. They had enough for an arrest warrant, but a conviction? Jane wasn’t sure.
    She said, “We can’t count on Teddy to help us build a case against Zapata.”
    “You’ve got plenty of time to prepare him,” said Crowe.
    “He didn’t see a face.”
    “He must have seen something that will help us in court.”
    “Teddy’s a lot more fragile than you realize. We can’t expect him to testify.”
    “He’s fourteen, for God’s sake,” Crowe snapped. “When I was fourteen—”
    “Don’t tell me. You were strangling pythons with your bare hands.”
    Crowe leaned forward. “I do not want this case to fall apart. We need to get our ducks lined up.”
    “Teddy is not a duck,” said Jane. “He’s a child.”
    “And a psychologically scarred one at that,” said Moore. He opened the folder he’d brought into the meeting. “I spoke again to Detective Edmonds, in the US Virgin Islands. He faxed me their file on the Clock family murders, and—”
    “They were killed two years ago,” interjected Crowe. “Different jurisdiction , even a different country. Where’s the connection to this case?”
    “Probably none,” admitted Moore. “But this information speaks to the boy’s emotional state. To why he’s so devastated. What happened to him in Saint Thomas was every bit as horrifying as what happened to him here.”
    “And that case was never solved?” said Frost.
    Moore shook his head. “But it generated a lot of press. I remember reading about it at the time. American family on a dream voyage around the world, murdered aboard their seventy-five-foot yacht. Granted, the US Virgin Islands has a homicide rate about ten times ours, but even there the massacre was shocking. It actually took place in the Capella Islands, which are off Saint Thomas. The Clock family—Nicholas and Annabelle and their three children—were living aboard their yacht,
Pantomime
. They anchored for the night in a quiet bay, no other yachts around. While the family was sleeping, the killer—or killers—boarded the boat. There was gunfire. Shouts, screams. And then an explosion. That, at least, is what Teddy later told the police.”
    “How did he manage to survive?” asked Frost.
    “The explosion made him black out, so there are holes in his memory. The last thing he remembers is his father’s voice, telling him to jump. When he woke up he was in the water, strapped into a life jacket. A dive boat found him the next morning, surrounded by debris from the
Pantomime
.”
    “And the family?”
    “There was an extensive search of the waters. They later found the bodies of