Chapter 2
Twenty minutes later, Jane pulled up the cobbled mews in Beacon Hill, already being taped off by police and traffic diverted. She caught a glimpse of Korsak and Frost on the steps of a brownstone across the street and nodded, shutting off the car.
"Number fifty-seven. You good?" Jane turned to Maura who was already sliding out of the car, medical bag in hand. It had taken Maura no time at all to quickly shower, change and emerge looking like Grace Kelly on a good day. How she got her hair to curl perfectly like that after a run and getting rained on boggled the detective. Then again, Jane's morning routine consisted of a Marine shower, chap-stick and air-drying her hair before throwing on a suit and pounding a cup of coffee. Breakfast of champions.
"Yep, let's go," Maura said as she and Jane trotted across the street and under the yellow tape. A quick ID at the perimeter and they were allowed inside.
Korsak and Frost stood just inside the foyer and greeted the two with a stifled hello. Frost's tolerance to the crime scenes had improved dramatically since his first day on homicide, but something he'd just seen had suddenly brought it back to zero.
"That bad, huh?" Jane asked as she pulled on two purple surgical gloves.
"Just need to take a knee. Be with you in a minute."
"Dr. Isles," a voice called from inside the room. Maura pushed by Frost and Jane and was gone. Jane was about to follow but Frost grabbed her coat.
"Jane."
"Hey, Frost if you need more time—"
"No, Jane, listen. Be careful on this one. It hits a little close to home. Dr Isles –"
"What about Dr. Isles?" Jane turned her body toward Frost and Korsak and lowered her voice, concerned etched across her face to match theirs.
"Barry, what?"
Korsak cleared his throat and Frost's phone rang. Korsak nodded and Frost handed Korsak an iPad he was carrying and walked out onto the front porch.
"Vince, you want to tell me what's going on?"
Korsak pulled Jane into the corner of the foyer.
"Do you know who lives here, Jane? Dana and Roger Green." Korsak showed Jane a famous photo of the couple on Forbes magazine.
"Dotcom millionaire turned mayoral wannabe and his artist wife, yah I know the story. The American dream. Are you saying our vics are them? Why isn't the place crawling with lawyers and press?"
"We're trying to keep a lid on it, working as fast as we can."
"Korsak, I hate to tell you but it's only a matter of time before the press gets wind of this. The yellow tape and diverted traffic aren't exactly discrete. What happened?"
Korsak blinked, he may as well tell her.
"Look, we know cause of death in there is pretty straightforward. Multiple fatal gunshot wounds to victims of what's likely a home robbery gone bad. Still don't know what they were after, but considering Roger Green's resume." Korsak took a breath and tapped the screen of the iPad, used his fingers to expand an image, what looked like an official certificate. "Original data showed two residents at fifty-seven Beacon, but we found a child's room upstairs so I had Frost cross-check." Korsak enlarged the image further to show an official adoption certificate dated one month prior. "Jane, they'd just adopted a little girl. Paperwork hasn't even been through the system which is why we missed it at first."
Jane looked at the screen, scrolled down. "Amy. Eight years old. Where is she?"
Korsak stared back at the detective. This he didn't need to spell out.
"Christ."
"We're looking to see if the gas station down the street picked up anything on their cameras, see if we can get some plates, put out a BOLO. Doing everything we can Jane. We'll get her back."
Jane turned to walk into the threshold, but stopped. Korsak licked his lips and cleared his throat. Jane knew every idiosyncrasy of her ex-partner to know there was something he hadn't told her. She looked at him. Busted.
"That's not the only bit, Jane. She lost her first set of adopted parents in a car accident when she was five."
"You're telling me this kid has lost two sets of adopted parents?"
Damn, Jane thought and turned to look at the path Maura just made only seconds ago.
"So who is her next of kin at this point?"
"Don't know," Frost said trotting up, this time looking a bit brighter. "Looks like the family was trying to keep this adoption pretty quiet. Turns out the Greens had been trying to conceive for years. Nothing was successful, so they got lucky with adoption. We're not entirely sure how much the extended family knows. Green has a younger brother, Ethan. Trying to get a hold of him now."
Korsak's phone rang and he walked outside to answer it.
"Thanks, Vince. Keep me posted."
Jane ran her hand through her hair and took a deep breath. She didn't like child cases. Adult homicides she could deal with, but anything involving a child plagued Jane for months even after a case had been closed. And ever since Maura, she'd had a difficult time shaking adoptions. She knew the ME couldn't help but get somewhat emotionally involved simply because of parallels in her own life. It was only a matter of time before Maura learned the full background of the case and Jane wasn't looking forward to telling her.
Jane stepped over the threshold and couldn't help but sadly smile. Maura was in her element, inches away from Roger Green, chirping off observations which an assistant quickly jotted into a notepad. Jane could see Maura move Dana Green, point at her hands and the assistant jotted down some more notes. Maura made forensics an art and had gathered a small audience. Typical. The spell was broken briefly when the assistant dropped his pen and cursed. Maura promptly handed over her own pen from her kit with a smile. The assistant smiled back and continued jotting down her last notation before sealing a bag and trotting past Jane to the forensics van.
As if she could feel Jane staring at her, Maura turned and looked at the detective and slowly rose.
Damn, am I that obvious?
Jane walked over and looked at the two victims, hand on her badge and one on Maura's shoulder.
"What do we got?"
"What have we got, Jane," said Maura as she removed her gloves and stepped toward one of the walls to place several tools back in her kit.
"Multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body caused both victims to bleed out within a matter of minutes. Pretty straightforward. However, I'm perplexed. Pattern of blood and various material under the finger nails show massive signs of struggle. It's like something happened in here that set them off before they were killed. Many freeze in fear. But the Greens. They were fighting for something."
"Or someone."
Korsak, Maura and Jane all turned to see Lieutenant Cavanaugh descending the stairs holding a Dora the Explorer Doll.
"Nothing upstairs," Cavanaugh said as he handed the doll to a policeman who bagged it and walked off. "No ransom note, nothing."
Jane couldn't help but watch Maura solve the equation.
"A child."
Jane didn't have the heart for Cavanaugh to break the news and cut him off mid-stride.
"They'd just adopted an eight year old girl, Amy. It's so new that the paperwork isn't through the system yet. Kid's room upstairs was the tipoff."
Maura's gaze dropped for a nano-second. Then, "That's what they were fighting for. They took her?"
"We think so. Frost is already canvassing, checking surveillance, everything. We're doing everything we can."
"Take me to the lab?" was all Maura could reply as she clicked her bag closed and walked out of the crime scene.
