Boston Police Department Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli and her partner Barry Frost climbed wearily out of their squad car and tried to shake off the bone-chilling cold air that met them. Jane had lived in Boston her whole life and just as she began to think she was used to its normally frigid winters, Mother Nature made her think again. She shivered against her long wool coat and gripped a large cup of steaming coffee in both hands for warmth, as she sought out the Medical Examiner, her friend Dr. Maura Isles, who, as usual, not only was dressed like a million bucks, but seemed impervious to the cold. At least it looked that way. As Frost conferred with some uniformed cops, Maura caught Jane's eye and signaled her over to where the body lay.
"Morning, Jane," Maura cheerfully greeted her friend. While the two had built a good friendship despite being opposites in many ways, she also knew Jane had a prickly personality, especially when awakened early in the morning, so she tried to be gentle. "How are you?"
"It's cold as the Arctic out here, I'm running on five hours sleep and this coffee tastes like crap," Jane spat back.
"Ah. So, you're pretty good then?" Maura answered sarcastically.
Jane figured out what Maura was doing and turned apologetic while simultaneously shivering. They'd gotten to know each other so well that frequently they only needed to exchange looks instead of talking. "I'm sorry for biting your head off, but it's really cold out here, so can we please get on with it?"
"Got it," Maura retreated and turned back to the body of a young blonde woman who was neatly laid out in an alley. But a thought struck her first.
"You miss him don't you?" She inquired.
"Excuse me?" Jane was incredulous and highly annoyed at Maura's persistence.
"Oh, Jane, please. We both know who I'm talking about."
"Maura, did I not just tell you how NOT in the mood for games I am, so can you please tell me what in the hell you're talking about?"
When the chief medical examiner merely titled her head and fixed Jane with the earnest stare she reserved only for their romantic talks, Jane suddenly realized what she was getting at. And it was the last thing she wanted to discuss. She exhaled sharply in frustration. "I do not miss him."
"Ok," Maura responded flatly.
"I do not miss Gabriel Dean!" Jane insisted. "In the last year, we've worked only a few cases together. We work them, we solve them, we go back to our lives. End of story."
"Then why are you twirling your hair?" Maura said confidently.
Unconsciously, Jane had wrapped a few strands of her dark wavy locks around her gloved index finger and had been twisting them. She stopped instantaneously and grew more agitated at the fact that Maura had seen right through her. "I'm cold and, as you have never missed the opportunity to point out in the past, I fidget."
"I seem to remember also pointing out in the past that hair twirling is a sign of-"
"Maura!" Jane interrupted. On one case they had worked together, Jane's first after being wounded trying to stop a hostage standoff at the station, Maura had rather indelicately made Jane aware of how hair twirling was a sign of sexual frustration. "Can we please drop all talk about my lack of a sex life and get back to the dead woman in the alley?"
Sensing she had gotten her point across sufficiently, Maura retreated, but couldn't resist a last jab.
"Whatever you want. Just don't blame me when the ulcerative colitis hits you."
Jane shot her friend a stare even icier than the air surrounding them that even shivered Frost, who had rejoined them in time to catch Jane's death look and who was used to being on the receiving end of such looks. He backed off slightly and buttoned his mouth.
"Don't you ever get cold out here, especially wearing that outfit?" Jane continued to bellyache, in an effort to change the subject, and referencing Maura's three-inch stilettos, quintessential "little black dress," and stylish white wool coat that barely reached her knees.
"I used to. Then I just trained my mind to imagine that I'm someplace warmer. Behavioral conditioning. You should try it. Plus, just because it's cold doesn't mean I need to look like I just rolled out of bed," Maura answered, being careful to keep the edge off her voice. Jane was also touchy about her outward appearance. She was, no doubt, an attractive woman, but being a woman in a largely man's world, she tamped down her looks to let her work speak for itself. "Besides, I'm comfortable in this kind of outfit," Maura finished.
"You're probably the only one," Jane mumbled under her breath and crouched over the dead young woman who was the reason for everyone's sojourn into the cold Boston night.
"Are you two done?" Frost asked nervously. He knew not to cross Jane when she was in a mood, but the cold weather overruled the side of his mind that told him to use caution. "'Cause it's not getting any warmer, you know."
"Right. Beth Ferguson, thirty-two years old, her driver's license address indicates she lives only a few blocks from here. Based on level of rigor and body temperature, I'd guess she's been dead about six hours." Maura ticked off.
"That means she died between 11p.m. and midnight. Who found her?"
"Garbage men."
"Nice to know she was missed," Jane mused sarcastically. "Judging by the marks on her neck I'm guessing she was strangled?"
"You guessed right. All indications are the killer came up behind her and wrapped a rope or cord around her neck." Maura finished making notations on a form attached to clipboard she held in her left hand and stood. "Then he laid her out like this."
Jane studied the corpse waiting for any little detail on the body to jump out at her. She was an attractive woman, blonde, petite-looking, dressed well so she must have had some kind of career. But something Maura had said was nagging at her.
"Could those markings on her neck have been made by a nylon cord?" Jane asked, hoping not to hear a lengthy exposition on the different markings left by varying kinds of materials that are useful for strangling someone.
"It's possible. But I won't know for sure until I get her back to the lab and test any fibers on her. You want me to look for anything in particular?" Maura asked, sensing Jane was on to something.
"Yeah, if you wouldn't mind. Check and see if the cord used was nylon and composed of two different colored fibers. Hey, Frost? Does this MO look familiar to you?" She was almost positive she knew the answer, but was hoping Frost could confirm it for her.
Her partner yellowed slightly, but persevered in studying the corpse. Telling himself that blood and guts were nowhere to be seen, he swallowed and steadied himself in an effort to relax. Barry Frost's propensity for getting sick at the sight of dead bodies while working as a homicide detective was almost legendary happy hour fodder amongst anyone working in the Boston PD.
"Young blonde woman, strangled, laid out as if she's in a casket," Frost thought out loud. Then realization hit him like a ton of bricks. "Holy crap. You don't think…"
"Yeah, I do." Jane answered.
"Castle, Beckett? A word?" Captain Van Buren leaned around the door jamb of her office and called for the 12th precinct's best homicide detective and her shadow.
Beckett peered around her computer monitor, but before she could answer, her petite but tough superior officer had ducked back into her office. Beckett shot Castle, who was sitting in his usual chair next to her desk and making a bouncy ball out of rubber bands while she did paperwork, a look of worry mixed with trepidation.
"Don't look at me," Castle defended himself. "I swear I haven't done anything wrong…that I'm aware of."
Ever since Anita Van Buren had taken over as Captain of the 12th precinct in the wake of Captain Roy Montgomery's death and Beckett's shooting by a hitman, Rick and Beckett had felt as if they were walking on egg shells. From the beginning, Van Buren had made it clear she wasn't thrilled about their partnership, but being a dedicated cop, she had promised to let their work continue because of their high case closure rate. It didn't hurt that the Mayor was still supportive of Rick Castle's shadowing Beckett and it brought the department, and in particular the 12th and Van Buren herself, continued good publicity, Beckett thought skeptically. The woman was tough and uncompromising, but outside the walls of the station, she fully supported her people. The problem was "her people" didn't technically include Castle, so she had informed him in the days after Montgomery's funeral, while Beckett lay in intensive care recovering from a high-powered rifle shot to the chest, that he had better be serious or else she'd waste no time kicking him to the curb. Castle had the distinct impression that she saw him as partially to blame for Montgomery's death and Beckett's wounding.
Beckett rolled her eyes and rose from her desk chair. Castle playfully balanced the rubber band ball he had created on one of Beckett's white elephants between its forehead and trunk and eagerly followed the detective. They entered Van Buren's office and were surprised to find Beckett's good friend, Medical Examiner Lanie Parrish sitting in one of the chairs facing the Captain's desk wearing a serious look.
"Lanie, what are you doing here?" Beckett asked, her concern deepening.
"We'll get to that, Detective," Van Buren said coolly. "Have a seat you both." They obeyed as Van Buren pulled a file folder from her desk and passed it over to Beckett.
"We got a call from the Boston PD this morning. Apparently they had a homicide fall into their lap with a familiar MO."
Beckett studied the crime scene photos in which a young, attractive blonde woman, who had clearly been strangled, had been laid out in a funereal pose in an alley. Castle looked over Beckett's left shoulder and Lanie over her right. The ME gave a quiet gasp, while Castle's heart skipped a beat and Beckett's brow furrowed in concentration mixed with a hint of frustration.
She, Castle, and her squad members, Detectives Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito, had been terribly close to catching the serial killer known as 3XK a year and a few months ago. At the time going by the name Jerry Tyson, he had framed someone else as the killer and when Ryan and Castle figured out his deception, had held both as hostages, albeit after knocking Ryan unconscious. Castle had stared confidently into the eyes of evil that night and had come a hair trigger away from leaving his daughter Alexis without a father, his mother, Martha without a son, and Beckett without a partner. But to his surprise, Jerry had left him tied up and simply melted away into the New York City night with the promise of changing his name and his looks so as not to be found in the future. Beckett and Esposito had arrived literally minutes after his departure. It was the first time in many years that Beckett had left a case unsolved and as much as it ate at her, other cases with better leads began to command her attention, so the 3XK murders went back to cold case file storage.
"Do they have any leads?" Beckett asked.
"Not a one, but as you can imagine, they're eager to get rolling on this investigation and can use all the help they can get. That's where you all come in.
Castle and Beckett traded knowing looks, sensing what was coming. "Ryan and Esposito will hold down the fort here and keep working your open cases. Anything new that comes in, we'll deal with. Dr. Parrish, the Chief ME has agreed to give you a week's leave to help as well, since you're the one who most recently pulled all of 3XK's cases. It's all hands on deck here, so your insight could prove valuable."
Castle studied his Blackberry and began mentally to shift around any book-related commitments on his schedule. Fortunately, it was a rather light week. "When do you want us to leave?"
"Us? You're not going anywhere, Mr. Castle. You're shadowing Detective Beckett under the guise and protection of the New York Police Department. That protection does not extend to Boston. And even if you did get on a plane with Detective Beckett and Dr. Parrish, Boston PD would be fully within their rights to turn you around and send you back home."
Castle looked completely deflated, but Beckett quickly jumped to his defense. "With all due respect, Captain Van Buren, according to Ryan it was Castle who was the one who figured out Jerry Tyson was 3XK in the first place. He's the one who went toe-to-toe with him, got a good look at his face, guessed at what makes him tick. His insight would be invaluable in my opinion." Van Buren still remained unmoved. "I'll refer to him as a consultant with the department rather than as my shadow if I think it'll smooth things over."
"It's not like I just fell off the turnip truck in investigating murders either. And don't forget I'm well versed in psychopathic methodologies and…"
"Oh for God's sake, save it, Mister Mystery Author. I'm familiar with your bio."
"Really?" Castle's eyes brightened instantly, as if he was ten and had been shown a pile of birthday presents.
"Yes!" Van Buren cut him off. "You can go, Mr. Castle, but listen up you two. I've heard stories about what happens when you both wander off the reservation." They all knew she was talking about Castle's tagging along with Beckett when she hopped a plane to Los Angeles to investigate the murder of her former training officer and in the process broke into a suspect's house. "But this is different. You'll be working in concert with our colleagues from Boston, so if any funny business goes on, I will hear about it. I'm sure you can imagine what hell will break loose when the press down here gets wind of this, so I'll be checking in with you periodically on how the investigation is progressing. Are we clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," Beckett and Castle answered in unison.
Van Buren checked her watch. "It's noon now, so you guys have an hour or so to go home, get packed and be at the airport for your three o'clock flight. Boston PD's taken care of it."
Everyone's eyes shot up at the fact that a large municipal police department had so readily coughed up the money for three people to travel north for what could be only a few day's work. At least they all hoped it would be that short.
"Dr. Parrish, you've got your marching orders, from the ME I take it?"
"I do."
"Good. Do me a favor, if you would?" Van Buren leaned back in her desk chair and spoke as if Castle and Beckett were long gone. "Keep an additional eye on these two."
"I'll do my best, Captain," Lanie promised, a corner or her mouth ticking upward in a smirk. Oh this is gonna be fun, she thought.
"Thank you. Good luck you three." They made their way towards the exit of the office, but stopped when Van Buren piped up one last time. "Oh by the way, the Detective of record on the murder is named Jane Rizzoli."
