Author's Note: My thanks to those of you who have read this story & placed it on your favorite/follow lists, with special thanks to those of you who have taken the time to share your thoughts and reactions!

Was watching 4x05 as I was finishing this up, and dear lord, I hate it when people who are undoubtedly getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to write scripts can't bother to write plausibly. Bad enough in the last episode, with the Chief Medical Examiner being tossed into general population (never happen) and the absolute WTF moment with Angela and the video (I'm considering a one-shot to explain it semi-plausibly, because they sure as hell didn't). But seriously? Does anyone really think that Maura would be allowed within a mile of any case involving Paddy Doyle? And what the hell was he doing that close to the basement after enough time had passed for a major gas explosion?

And yes, the chipper, joking finale after we've put Maura's father on death row for burning Cavanaugh's wife and son to death. God forbid we actually let the cast do what they're capable of. I do enjoy the humor, but they fall back on it way too much.

OK, end of rant, on with the show.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"DIOS just sent up an alert for Boston."

"What is it?"

"Unidentified murder victim, but algorithms indicate better than 95% probability that it is Daniel Murtaugh."

"The priest?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Assemble a team. I'll give Washington the heads-up."

"Yes, sir."

Maura stepped away from the autopsy table, feeling the tension radiating through her trapezius muscles down her neck and across her shoulders. The autopsy had taken hours of painstaking work; the bruises, broken bones, contusions and lacerations had to be examined, photographed, x-rayed, fluoroscoped. Urine, blood, stomach contents and vitreous fluid collected for drug and toxin analysis. Skin, fingernails, mouth and genitalia searched for trace evidence that the perpetrator might have left behind. Each finding meticulously documented, the chain of evidence maintained to preserve its admissibility in a court of law. In many ways, this autopsy was no different from the hundreds of others she had done in her career; the routine that she followed was one that she had developed years earlier and followed on every case. She could not recall another autopsy where her attention had been so fragmented, however, and she clung to the stability of the established protocol with a grim desperation, well aware that Tommy's freedom could hinge upon the validity of her findings.

She'd been terrified that she would find something that would implicate him, equally terrified that if she stepped aside for another ME, they might miss something that could exculpate him. She'd forced herself to focus, pushing aside worries of where Jane could be, how she could even begin to atone for what she had said, what she would do if atonement was not possible. When she was finished, she felt reasonably confident that the evidence did not indicate Tommy as a likely suspect, but while initially the injuries had pointed to a crime of passion and extreme rage, she was no longer quite as sure.

"Susie, can you close?" The question was apologetic. Closing up after an autopsy was not part of the job description of a Senior Criminalist. While morgue technicians could perform the task, Maura usually saw to it herself as the final step of her routine: a solemn ritual of respect, reversing the invasion that she had made of the victim's most private places and making them fit to be viewed by their loved ones. She felt no such sense of obligation to this particular victim, however, and the need to find out where Jane was provided the final push.

It was well after midnight, however, and while she had needed to call Susie back in to assist in collection and processing of specimens from the victim, she had not summoned any of the other other staff. The press would be hungry for details on this murder, willing to resort to bribes, deceit and nearly any other means to secure an exclusive, heedless of the possibility that publication of their scoop could compromise the investigation. Not that Maura didn't trust her staff; most had been thoroughly vetted and knew the consequences of unauthorized releases of information, but even the most circumspect among them had spouses, lovers, families that they trusted, that they talked to as a way to deal with the grisly details of their daily work. Those people were frequently less circumspect; what her people didn't know, they couldn't reveal, inadvertently or otherwise.

"Of course, Dr. Isles," Susie said at once, showing no hint of displeasure at the request. She was a consummate professional, maneuvering deftly through the minefields of the last few weeks, stepping up to become the primary liaison between homicide and the morgue without ever indicating that she held any opinion regarding the conflict that had made it necessary.

Leaving Susie to her task, Maura headed for the elevators. She needed to speak with Korsak and Frost anyway, to go over her preliminary autopsy findings and correlate with what they had discovered at the scene, because what she had found could very well change the direction of the investigation.

She was brought up short in the doorway by the raised voices coming from Lieutenant Cavanaugh's closed office. "Why didn't you tell me she was back?"

Korsak glanced at her wearily. "We just got back ourselves. Went over that place with a fine-toothed comb, found even more pictures the bastard had hidden. Found the team rosters, too, started matching up names and faces. Gotta start contacting the known victims tomorrow, but first, we gotta get all this shit -" he waved at the boxes stacked on the desks, "-logged into Evidence." Frost was already at his desk, filling out forms, but his eyes kept cutting to Cavanaugh's office.

"What happened?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"No idea," Vince replied grimly. "They were in there when we got back, twenty minutes ago."

"Yeah, whatever the hell you said to her sure did the trick," Frankie spoke up bitterly from where he sat beside Frost, assisting with the paperwork.

"Enough, Frankie," Korsak said, shaking his head, and the younger man scowled and went back to work. They were all exhausted and worried, running on coffee and adrenaline. Tempers were always short at times like this, but his words had been true, and Maura ducked her head, swallowing back the tears. Her best friend had come to her for help, teetering on a ledge, and Maura had all but shoved her over.

Cavanaugh's door flew open abruptly, the heated voices growing suddenly louder. "I mean it, Rizzoli! You are not to go near the man!"

"So he just walks?" Jane stalked into the bullpen. "I caught him picking up a twelve year old kid in the Black Light!"

"As part of his church outreach, according to him!" Cavanaugh clearly wasn't buying it any more than Jane did. "The kid backed him up. And you damn near broke his nose slamming him over the hood of your car and almost dislocated his shoulder cuffing him! He's not going to press charges or file a complaint -"

"Don't do me any favors!" Jane snarled. Her hair had lost any semblance of order, falling in a mass of tangled curls, and her face was taut with anger...until she caught sight of Maura standing in the doorway. She spun away, but not before the doctor saw the pain and guilt wash across her features. The whisper of spiteful satisfaction that had accompanied other such moments in the past three weeks was nowhere to be found now; there was only cringing horror and guilt at the memory of what she'd said.

"Oh, I'm done doing you favors, Rizzoli," the lieutenant shot back. "First thing tomorrow, you're back on the Kapersky homicide."

"What?" Jane twisted back to face him, disbelief and anger supplanting pain and guilt. "Why? That bust didn't have anything to do with the Murtaugh homicide!"

"The hell it didn't!" Cavanaugh replied. "Go home, get some rest and cool off, because if you pull another stunt like you did tonight, I'll suspend your ass, charges or no charges!"

"But -"

"No buts!" The lieutenant's temper flared, his face reddening. "You're off the case, Rizzoli!"

"Actually, you're all off the case."

Maura jumped in surprise at the voice that came from right behind her. She hadn't heard anyone approach, but when she turned, three men were already brushing past her into the bullpen.

"Rod Fletcher, Supervisory Deputy United States Marshal," the one in the lead announced, withdrawing a badge from his pocket and displaying it as he spoke. He was a black man, in his late forties and fit, moving and speaking with the easy confidence of one accustomed to controlling whatever situation he found himself in. "My colleagues, Deputy Marshals Charles Haskell and Robert Drake." His introductions were met with flat stares from all sides. Unaffected, he went on. "The murder of Daniel Murtaugh is now under federal jurisdiction. I want all evidence and any notes made to date in your investigation pulled together and turned over immediately. Everything, including all copies."

"Like hell!" Jane glared defiantly at Fletcher. "What was he...a federal witness? He got a free pass for raping kids because he knew some important names, and now it all gets swept back under the rug?"

"I'm not at liberty to disclose any details," the marshal replied without a hint of apology in his voice. He glanced at Cavanaugh. "Nor am I required to. You are bound by law to release all evidence pertinent to the investigation and to cease all investigative actions of your own."

It was a speech designed to intimidate, but Sean Cavanaugh did not intimidate easily. "Not until I confirm your credentials," he said, waving off the card that Fletcher offered. "Keep it. I know how to use the directory."

It was a not so subtle jab, but Fletcher ignored it, waiting placidly as Cavanaugh returned to his office and closed the door. The one introduced as Charles Haskell smirked openly at the detectives.

"You might as well start getting shit together," he told them.

"We'll wait," Korsak said, leaning back quite deliberately in his chair. Haskell turned to regard him with a flat stare. He was a big man: tall and broad shouldered, with close-cropped blonde hair and an air of tightly coiled tension around him that contrasted sharply with Fletcher's calm.

"You don't want to fuck with us, old man," he rumbled. His eyes were odd: a startlingly light shade of green that combined with his barely restrained energy to give him a predatory aspect that made Maura uneasy.

"Enough, Haskell," the third of the group – Drake – spoke up, but Jane had already taken up the gauntlet.

"Yeah, Korsak," she said, eying Haskell with open disdain. "No telling where he's been sticking his dick. Assuming he can even get it up." Jane had always had a talent for finding the sensitive spots; it had borne fruit on more than one interrogation, and it hit home now. Haskell flushed an ugly shade of red and took a step toward Jane, who stood her ground, watching him fearlessly.

"Enough." It was Fletcher who spoke now, and the calm authority in his voice was touched with steel. Haskell glanced briefly at the man who was evidently his superior and controlled himself, turning away from Jane. Maura let out a silent sigh of relief, but Jane wasn't done yet.

"You know, if you neuter them, you can avoid a lot of these problems," she informed Fletcher in a conversational tone. The marshal made no response, but his unruffled mien suggested that he was confident that they would be getting what they had come for, so he could afford to ignore the efforts to provoke.

Maura caught Barry's eye. The detective mouthed a single word at her:

Go.

She didn't need to ask what he meant. The collection of evidence would undoubtedly include the body, all evidence collected from it and her notes from the autopsy. Solving the case would be a secondary consideration to whatever investigation Murtaugh had been involved in, and a swift conviction might be considered more important than a correct one. With his prison record, Tommy would make a perfect scapegoat, and without the body or the autopsy findings, Maura would have nothing to support the tentative conclusions that she had reached.

She edged away from the door and walked as calmly as she could to the stairs, then raced down them to the morgue.

"Susie, I need you to collect all evidence from this case and box it up. It's become a federal investigation."

The senior criminalist looked up in surprise, but obeyed, tying off the final stitches with swift but neat efficiency.

"I'll get the body ready for transport," Maura told her. "You pull together everything else." Susie nodded and left Maura alone with Murtaugh's body. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, switched on the camera. The marshals would be taking all the autopsy photos, but if she could just get a few clear images of the throat -

A hand closed around her wrist in a brutal grip, grinding bones together until her fingers flew open, the phone dropping to the tile floor.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Haskell growled, green eyes glowering at her.

"Let me go!" she cried out. She was angry, yes, and shocked at the manhandling, but this man frightened her, too. She hadn't heard him following, but he had to have been close behind her. She fought to keep the fear from her face, her voice, knowing that it would please him, perhaps even goad him to greater cruelty.

Instead of releasing her, he tightened his grip until tears sprang unbidden to her eyes, watching them trickle down her cheeks with obvious satisfaction. "Do you know the penalties for interfering in a federal investigation, doctor?" he asked softly, the crushing circle of his hand closing still tighter, until she was sure that the carpal bones would shatter under the pressure.

"Get your fucking hands off her!" Jane exploded across the room, slamming into Haskell with enough force to make him release his hold on Maura and send him stumbling back several steps into an empty autopsy table. His expression turned murderous; Jane looked scarcely less enraged.

"Bring it, big guy," Jane challenged him in a low voice, positioning herself between Haskell and Maura, her body tensed to respond. Haskell had six inches and close to a hundred pounds on the detective; Jane had taken down even larger suspects, but this was no ordinary criminal. Everything about him suggested an easy familiarity with violence and a willingness to use it.

"Jane, I'm fine," Maura said. She wanted to reach out and touch her arm, but didn't dare distract her, because Haskell was watching Jane with the hungry look of a tiger, just waiting for an opening to strike. His pupils were pinpoints: tiny dots of black in a sea of green, and Maura felt her fear jump another notch at that realization. "Jane -"

"Rizzoli!"

"Haskell!"

Cavanaugh and Fletcher barked their reprimands at nearly the same moment. Haskell's eyes shifted toward his commander, but Jane's gaze never wavered until Haskell stepped away.

"Good boy," she congratulated him mockingly. "Sit. Stay."

The hungry, predator's eyes pinned the detective. "Another time," he promised ominously.

"Any time," Jane shot back without hesitating, lifting her chin defiantly.

"Rizzoli, enough!" Cavanaugh snapped irritably. "They're legit. The investigation is theirs." He looked none too happy with the statement.

"And that gives them the right to assault the Chief Medical Examiner?" Jane inquired heatedly, turning back to Maura, who obligingly lifted her arm to display the bruises that were already visible on her wrist.

"She was using her phone to take pictures of the body," Haskell said in response to Fletcher's lifted eyebrows.

The senior agent nodded, seeming neither surprised nor angered. "We'll have to confiscate the phone," was all that he said. Maura nodded her acceptance. She'd taken a chance and gotten caught; technically, Fletcher could probably have charged her.

"It's broken anyway," she said quietly, hoping to settle the anger sparking in Jane's eyes before it could flare into another confrontation. She bent to retrieve the phone, tilting it to display the shattered screen before setting it aside.

"Really?" One dark eyebrow arched in feigned surprise. "Gee, I wonder how that happened. Gestapo tactics are usually so gentle."

"Just get the evidence together," Fletcher said, still as calm as if he were ordering a martini. "Haskell, go wait upstairs with Drake." Haskell departed, leaving Fletcher to settle himself in a corner of the morgue, quite plainly intending to ensure that no further unauthorized activities took place.

"Doc, I need to borrow your office." Cavanaugh was informing her, not asking. "Rizzoli, with me."

Jane sighed, but followed the lieutenant into Maura's office, closing the door behind her.

"I'm all right," Maura told Susie, who had watched the entire scene unfold in stunned silence. "Just finish packaging the evidence for transport, please." She glanced at Fletcher, trying not to listen to the rise and fall of voices from behind her closed door. "How will you transport the victim?"

"We brought a van and gurney," the marshal replied politely. "We'll assist with transferring the body when we're ready to go."

"Thank you," Maura replied, equally polite. She couldn't decide what unsettled her more: Haskell's barely-contained violence or his superior's unshakeable calm. Fletcher was clearly a man accustomed to having his orders obeyed, and the ease with which he'd brought Haskell to heel suggested that he could employ more than words to ensure obedience. Given what she suspected about Haskell, it was likely that Rod Fletcher was even more dangerous than his subordinate.

She turned her attention to preparing the body for transport: replacing the bags that the crime scene technicians had placed over the hands, pulling out a clean body bag, using the time to take one more look at the body.

"What were your findings, Doctor?" Fletcher's question sounded idle enough, but when she looked over at him, the interest in his eyes was a bit more than casual.

"My findings are in my notes, which will be included with the other evidence," she informed him crisply.

"Any conclusions? Speculations?"

"I am a scientist, Deputy," she replied. "I had only just completed the initial autopsy. Speculation at this point would be premature and unprofessional." No hives. She hadn't actually lied, after all. She simply had neglected to mention that, over the past three years, she had learned to indulge in a bit of speculation, as long as she kept firmly in mind that it was only speculation. She didn't include such speculations in her case notes, and there would be nothing but facts in the notes that were surrendered to the marshals; she wondered if they had anyone competent to interpret the significance of the findings she had recorded, or if they would even try. Fletcher seemed to accept her statement, going silent once more and leaving her to her work.

She looked up as the door to her office opened and Lieutenant Cavanaugh emerged. He met her eyes for a moment, and she flushed guiltily, wondering if Korsak or Jane had told him what she'd said, but he just gave her a weary nod and headed back upstairs. She waited a bit longer, but there was really nothing more to be done with the body until it was placed in the body bag and transferred to the gurney, and when Jane still hadn't appeared after two minutes, she gathered her courage and went in.

Jane was leaning on the back of the sofa, head down, the picture of weary dejection.

"Hey," Maura said quietly.

Jane lifted her head. "Hey," she echoed, her eyes dropping briefly to Maura's wrist before she looked away. "You all right?"

Maura felt the tightness returning to her chest and throat. "I'm fine," she managed to say, remembering something that Jane had said several months ago when Maura had wondered aloud how she could be so hard on Tommy but still almost come to blows when one of the detectives in Narcotics had made a snide remark about her "loser" of a brother.

"He's my brother. I can kick his ass, but nobody else had better try."

"Just some bruising," she added, opening and closing her hand to prove its functionality. "Thank you."

Jane nodded, still not looking directly at the doctor, but Maura could see her jaw clenched in anger. Anger at her? At Haskell? Both? Neither? "Jane, I -"

"Don't." Maura's heart sank, but when Jane turned to face her, the anger had faded. She looked weary, confused, sad and more than a little fearful, with a pronounced darkening of the nasojugal folds that meant she hadn't been getting enough sleep. "I don't -" She broke off, dropping her eyes. "I don't know why every time we try to talk we -" She shook her head slowly, her left thumb rubbing over her right palm. "I just don't want to do it any more," she said in a low voice. "I just -" She lifted her head just enough to meet Maura's eyes, her expression plaintive as she held out her arms. "Please?"

There was no thought, no hesitation. Clearly, Jane thought that her plea might be ignored, rebuffed, and Maura's heart broke a little at the realization. She stepped forward to embrace the detective, feeling Jane's arms go around her with the strength of one clinging to a lifeline in a storm.

"Shhh. I'm here." She stroked the tangled hair, smoothed the t-shirt over Jane's back, feeling the tension thrumming through the lanky frame, the startling prominence of the lines of the scapula and ribs. "I'm here," she repeated softly. She needed to apologize for all she had said and done, needed to tell Jane about the findings that pointed away from Tommy as a suspect, needed to warn her about how dangerous Haskell likely was, but there would be time for that later. Right now, this was what Jane needed...and she needed it, too. She'd missed the easy closeness between them even more than she had allowed herself to dwell upon.

Jane had lowered her head, resting her forehead against Maura's shoulder, and her embrace slowly lost some of its desperate strength, but neither of them moved until Jane's phone chirped a rising series of notes that Maura knew as well as she knew the tones on her own phone: an incoming text message.

Jane stepped away with an apologetic look, fishing her phone from her pocket. Her expression shifted in an instant to a mix of relief and dread. "It's Rondo. He's found Tommy."

"Did you get the name I sent?"

"Jane Clementine Rizzoli, age 38, detective in the Homicide Division of the Boston Police Department?"

"That's her."

"I've pulled together a file. DIOS is running an analysis now, should have results in a minute. She's got an interesting history."

"I can imagine. She tried to take on Haskell."

"Indeed? And what did he do to provoke her?"

"He...behaved inappropriately. I'd recommend not utilizing him on missions requiring contact with non-target individuals. Or adjusting his dosage. Possibly both. He's unstable."

"But good at what he does. I'll take your recommendation under consideration. And according to DIOS, your detective has better than ninety-nine percent probability that she will pursue an investigation, regardless of consequences to herself."

"She used excessive force on an arrest earlier this evening. We can likely get her suspended for a few weeks."

"Available data on her indicates that a more permanent solution will be required. Stand by for further instruction."

"Yes, sir."