Allie pinned the photo of the woman that was previously a Jane Doe in the morgue onto the white board, "We've got an ID, Sophie Maine, 28— signs of strangulation, ligature marks, she was naked when a jogger spotted the body called it in Sunday morning." The rest of the team filed in and took their usual spots around the table.
"Signs of sexual assault?" Matt inquired trying to get himself up to speed, he hadn't paid much attention to the Jane Doe report when it came in a few days ago. He was too far behind on other things to give his full focus to anything that wasn't an immediate crisis.
"Autopsy showed she'd had sex before she died, it doesn't appear to be an assault, but we can't completely rule it out," Nick checked the file folder with Ronnie's notes to be sure he had all the facts.
"Well she was at a swinger's party," Rhys quipped in a bit to enthusatically.
Jen looked up from her place at the table at Matt, she knew he was still struggling at the job and wanted to do what she could to help him succeed, they all did really. "Dunny is gathering her details, address, place of work."
"Good," Matt nodded back and attempted to take charge of the team, "Let's build a list of friends, family, co-workers that knew her—"
"Fellow swingers," Rhys once again pointed out.
Allie gave him a bit of a stare, annoyed with Rhys for constantly pointing out an obvious line of inquiry. They'd follow up on the swingers, but there was still a lot of other details they didn't know about their victim yet, "Including a regular threesome with this man, Drew Preston." In her mind it was more likely that Drew had something to do with Sophie's death and the disappearance of his wife.
"According to Mr. Preston, Sophie had a car, a red VW bug, it's gone missing," Nick handed the file with his notes on the KLOF that Dunny was posting to Matt.
"Threesomes do have a habit of turning nasty," Rhys said to the group but focusing on Allie, it was as if he hadn't heard Nick changing the subject at all, "Not everyone ends up happy, getting what they want."
"Speaking from experience?" Allie tossed back, challenging Rhys to cough up the details on whatever this perversion with swingers and threesomes was.
The rest of the team ignored the tit for tat that Rhys and Allie were after, Jen stared at the board for a moment, "Drew Preston. If you did just kill your lover, it wouldn't make sense to me that you'd make a big stir about it, looking for them."
"Maybe he thought that Rebecca and Sophie were swinging a bit too hard, and Drew didn't like that so he kills them both."
Matt glanced around the room, it was time to break this up and get a move on. He had stacks of paperwork to get back to and they had an investigation to follow up, "Alright, Allie and Rhys," he gestured to the pair sitting across from each other, "you go talk to the couple. I'm going to run down that missing VW and check into any predators that are hanging around the local swingers scene. Nick and Jen that leaves you — go to Sophie's flat and see if we can get any more details on this trio." He tried to keep back the gleeful smile for pairing Allie and Rhys together. It was no secret that they'd been together, and then broke up, but in his mind that's what happens when you screw the crew. No one better to keep Rhys on his leash with the swinging couple than Allie he snickered as he watched the team file out.
Jen waited for Nick by the elevators while he went to retrieve his coat, when she noticed a young woman get off the lift with a patrolman, "There he is," the woman said pointing towards Nick. Jen kept her distance, but watched with some interest at the exchange as Nick approached the pair.
"Sir, she asked to come up and speak with you, said it was important," the patrolman stated.
"No problem, I've got it from here," Nick replied sending the patrolman away. Once he was out of ear shot he turned his attention to the woman before him, not unaware that Jen was still waiting he held up a palm asking her to give him a minute. "What can I do for you?"
"Well, after I left last night. You know the call I got—"
"A tip off, yeah?"
"Well I met up with a source, he wants to remain anonymous, anyway he gave me some interesting files about the Dane Majors case—" she was about to continue when Nick began guiding her to a nearby conference room. He held the door open and ushered her in, "Wait here a sec."
He walked down the hall towards Jen, "This is just going to take another minute. You wanna get the car out of the garage and I'll meet you outside."
She looked over his shoulder at the brunette in the conference room, Jen wanted to ask him for more details, but thought better of it. She nodded, "Sure, I'll meet you out front."
"Thanks Jen," he squeezed her bicep and turned back towards the conference room. Nick gave a quick look around before entering and closing the door behind him, "So you got some papers from a guy who wants to keep his name out of it, what does it have to do with Dane Majors?"
"Well, I can't share any specifics yet, but it looks like some evidence may have been planted by police in order to frame Majors and then cover it up," her voice was low but full of excitement, "The thing is I'm not sure if it's credible enough to print."
"And what do you want from me?" Nick was getting annoyed at where this conversation was going.
"I'm hoping that once I've gone through this I could talk to you, off the record of course, about it, see if there's something there," she shrugged her shoulders.
Nick wondered why she hadn't already done that before coming straight to him with some veiled information that may or may not be true, but she had piqued his curiosity, "Ok."
"Great, tonight then?"
"I'm in the middle of a case at the moment. How 'bout I text you when I'm free and we can meet over coffee," He started to get up and move towards the door opening it. He could tell Juliette was disappointed, part of him was too. They'd had a nice evening and while it didn't get too carried away it did have a hot and heavy feeling that made him feel alive again. But now he wondered if she was using him and he needed a little distance to get his control back in place.
"Oh, yeah, sure, not a problem," she stammered as she gathered her things and stepped out the door with him. He walked them both to the elevators before gesturing for her to get in. He tapped the Lobby floor and stood back watching the doors close. He needed to go down too and meet Jen, but he needed a ride down on his own to switch gears.
Jen tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, glancing towards the lobby doors every few seconds waiting to see Nick and possibly his mystery woman exit. Finally, she saw the brunette push the glass doors open, stepping out and getting straight onto her cell. She seemed a bit upset and to Jen's surprise Nick was not right behind her. The woman loitered for another minute in the courtyard before seemingly giving up and moving on, moments later Jen spotted Nick and gave a wave to him.
Nick gave a small jog over to the car not wanting to keep Jen waiting any longer than he already had, "Sorry about that," he said sliding into the seat next to her.
She smiled at him, "Anything important?"
"Maybe," he said cryptically and didn't offer to elaborate. Jen let it be and turned the car towards the victim's flat.
