Last to Die

a woman who might actually live in a mansion like this, surrounded by oil paintings and Persian carpets.
    They stood surrounded by books, displayed in floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves. Some of those volumes had tumbled onto the floor, where a silver-haired man lay facedown, one arm propped upright against the bookcase, as though reaching for a volume even in death. He was dressed in pajamas and slippers. The bullet had penetrated both his hand and his forehead, and on the shelf above the body a starburst of blood had splattered the leather-bound spines. The victim put up his hand to block the bullet, thought Jane. He saw it coming. He knew he was going to die.
    “My time of death estimate is consistent with what the witness told you,” Maura said to Marquette.
    “Early morning, then. Sometime after midnight.”
    “Yes.”
    Jane crouched down over the body and studied the entrance wound. “Nine millimeter?”
    “Or possibly a three fifty-seven,” said Maura.
    “You don’t know? We don’t have casings?”
    “Not a single one in the whole house.”
    Jane looked up in surprise. “Wow, he’s a tidy killer. Picks up after himself.”
    “Tidy in a number of ways,” said Maura, thoughtfully regarding the deceased Bernard Ackerman. “This was a quick and efficient kill. A minimum of disorder. Just like upstairs.”
    Upstairs, thought Jane. The children.
    “The rest of the family,” said Jane, sounding more matter-of-fact than she felt, “did they die around the same time as Mr. Ackerman? Was there any delay?”
    “My estimate is only approximate. To be more precise, we’ll need better information from the witness.”
    “Which Detective Rizzoli here is going to get for us,” said Crowe.
    “How do you know I’ll do any better with the boy?” said Jane. “I can’t work magic.”
    “We’re counting on you, because we don’t have much to work with. Just a few fingerprints on the kitchen doorknob. No sign of forced entry. And the security system was switched off.”
    “Off?” Jane looked down at the body. “It sounds like Mr. Ackerman admitted his own killer.”
    “Or maybe he just forgot to turn it on. Then he heard a noise and came downstairs to check.”
    “Robbery? Is anything missing?”
    “Mrs. Ackerman’s jewelry box upstairs looks untouched,” said Crowe. “His wallet and her purse are still on the bedroom dresser.”
    “Did the killer even go into their bedroom?”
    “Oh yeah. He went into the bedroom. He went into all the bedrooms.” She heard the ominous note in Crowe’s voice. Knew that what waited upstairs was far worse than this blood-splattered library.
    Maura said, quietly: “I can take you upstairs, Jane.”
    Jane followed her back into the foyer, neither one of them speaking, as if this was an ordeal best borne in silence. As they ascended the grand staircase, Jane glimpsed treasures everywhere she looked. An antique clock. A painting of a woman in red. These details she automatically registered even as she braced herself for what waited on the upper floors. In the bedrooms.
    At the top of the stairs, Maura turned right and walked to the room at the end of the hall. Through the open doorway, Jane glimpsed her partner Detective Barry Frost, his hands gloved in lurid purple latex. He stood with elbows hugging his sides, the position every cop instinctively assumes at a crime scene to avoid cross-contamination. He saw Jane and gave a sad shake of his head, a look that said:
This is not where I want to be on this beautiful day, either
.
    Jane stepped into the room and was momentarily dazzled by the sunlight streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows. This bedroom needed no curtains for privacy, as the windows looked out over a walled courtyard where a Japanese maple tree was leafed in brilliant burgundy, where blooming roses were in their full flush. But it was the woman’s body that demanded Jane’s attention. Cecilia Ackerman, clothed in a beige nightgown, lay on her back in bed, the covers pulled up to her shoulders. She appeared to be younger than her age of forty-eight, her hair artfully streaked with blond highlights. Her eyes were closed, and her face was eerily serene. The bullet had entered just above her left eyebrow, and the powder ring on her skin showed it was a contact wound, the barrel pressed to her forehead at the time the trigger was pulled. You were asleep when the killer pulled the trigger, thought Jane. You did not scream or resist, you posed no