B C Forbes: Upon our children - how they are taught - rests the fate - or fortune - of tomorrow's world.
Jane and Maura sit in the car and collect themselves. Their momentary bout of frivolous banter ebbs away as the task ahead confronts them. Mrs. Boycott's car is in the driveway of her home. It's as if it's an invitation for guests to enter. Jane looks at Maura who has both hands still firmly gripped on the steering wheel. "You OK" she asks. Maura visibly swallows as she nods.
"I was just having a hypnogogic regression."
Jane looks at Maura, "I do not want to know what that is."
"A flashback… it was of Hope's face when she found out who I was." Maura smiles weakly at Jane.
"Maura this is different but if it's too much for you right now, it can wait" Jane offers.
"No, no, there is a little boy lying in my morgue and as your little friend said, it would be important to him for us to talk to his mother." Maura releases her hands from the steering wheel and opens her door. Jane follows suit and gets out as well.
"Maura let me handle the talking" Jane advises. "We're trained to give people bad news. I'll handle it respectfully, I promise." Maura nods at Jane but doesn't say anything.
Jane knocks and a man about their age answers. "Can I help you" he asks.
"Yes, I'm Detective Jane Rizzoli from Boston Homicide and this is Dr Maura Isles, the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We'd like to speak to Mrs. Judy Boycott please."
"Come in" the man's face has gone pale. "Is everything alright" he asks nervously.
"I don't know yet sir, but it is important we talk to Mrs. Boycott" Jane explains. He offers Jane and Maura a seat in a lounge room. They can hear noise coming from within the house. When Judy Boycott enters the room her expression is apprehensive. She has her youngest in her arms, another little girl is clinging to her leg and it looks like the oldest is peeping at what's going on from the doorway. Mr. Boycott re-enters.
"I'm Paul Boycott, this is my wife Judy and these are our daughters, Grace, Lisbeth and Susie." He's extremely nervous as he speaks.
Maura responds, which causes Jane to look at her with concern. "It's very nice to meet you all, we're so sorry to have disturbed your evening."
Jane takes over, "yes we are. Mrs. Boycott we'd like to speak to you in private if that's OK?"
Judy looks at her husband and her daughters. Fear has engulfed her. She hands the child she's nursing to her husband and nods her encouragement for him to leave and take care of the girls. When they're gone, she turns back to Jane and Maura and tentatively takes a seat on the edge of a chair across from her uninvited guests. "Is it my brother, he's the only family I have left; what's happened to him?"
"Mrs. Boycott I hate to have to ask you this, but do you have another child that you placed for adoption through the Sacred Heart's Orphanage nine and a half years ago?" Jane tries to be as gentle as possible.
"You're here about Stephen. What's happened; is he OK?" She asks; her voice has started to tremble with emotion.
"What do you know about Stephen Mrs. Boycott?" Jane asks.
"That he is with a good family who love him very much." Judy doesn't sound quite so convinced as she says what she believed, until about five minutes ago.
Sensing this woman loves her son very much; Maura gets up and moves beside her. Placing an arm around her, it's Maura who breaks the news to Judy. "I'm so sorry to have to tell you that Stephen is one of the eight boys who died in the fire at the Sacred Heart's Orphanage this week."
"No, that's not possible. Stephen's not at the orphanage, Sister Mary Joseph assured us he'd gone to a loving family and that he was very happy." The woman is shaking violently. Jane scans the room and finds a tissue box on a mantle. She gets them and brings them back for Judy. Jane's alarm bells are ringing; she's not a fan of Sister MJ and she has a bad feeling her incompetence is going to have played a role in this woman and her son's fate. Maura is holding Judy for support.
"What happened Judy, why did you put Stephen up for adoption" Jane asks carefully. She's now investigating Sister MJ.
"My first husband; Stephen's father, was serving in Iraq when he was killed. I was seven months along. I had no one. My brother was the only family I had, and he is not what you would call a model citizen. After Stephen was born I had a break down. I went to see Sister Mary Joseph because I wasn't coping. Sister Mary convinced me that Stephen would be better off with someone who could care for him properly. I was in such a bad place I genuinely believed her." Judy takes more tissues and shakes her head as she tries to stem the flow of tears.
"I'm sorry" she says as she looks from Jane to Maura. Maura pulls the distressed woman into a tighter embrace.
"What else can you tell us" Jane urges gently.
"I met Paul a year after I put Stephen up for adoption, when we decided to marry we went to see Sister Mary Joseph. Stephen would have been three. She advised us that Stephen was with a good and loving family. Paul and I labored over our decision for weeks and then decided that we would leave Stephen where he was and not upset this good family or Stephen. It was always our intention to get back into his life when he was older or if he ever came looking for us." Judy sobs and through broken sentences Jane and Maura learn that they asked Sister MJ to list on Stephen's file, that if he ever came back into the system to let them know. They very much wanted Stephen in their lives.
Jane and Maura stay with Judy as she tells Paul and then the girls that there brother Stephen has passed away. Paul talks to Jane quietly at one stage and explains his fury over not being notified the boy was back in the system. Paul's anger touches Jane, especially when he says. "The boy's father died serving our Country, he deserved better than this. What the hell happened to this good and loving family?" Jane promises to find out.
Maura explains to Judy the process for taking custody of Stephen's body. Maura's thrilled when the Boycott's advise they want to give Stephen a proper funeral. Jane and Maura leave promising to keep in touch.
As Maura and Jane drive away, neither speaks. The evening has clearly been emotionally draining on both. Eventually Maura breaks the silence. "They knew Stephen and they loved him and they'd never even met him."
Jane's dragged from her own thoughts. "What are you talking about?"
"Stephen's sisters. Those beautiful little girls all knew about their brother." Maura's quite emotional.
"For a potentially horrible situation this is the best outcome I could have hoped for Maura but I have to tell you, I'm furious." Jane's black eyes stare at Maura.
"Sister Mary Joseph?" is all Maura says.
"I need to know if there was ever a family and I need to know why he was in that orphanage when his mother had said she wanted him" Jane says through gritted teeth. She then adds "Where the hell are we going Maura?"
"To the hospital Jane… Your leg; remember?"
"Oh sorry, I'd forgotten all about it" Jane smiles.
"Well I know you well enough to know that when your anger wears off your leg is going to be killing you and I'm not in the mood to listen to you whining about it. So we're going to get it fixed properly." Maura smiles at Jane who has laid her head back on the rest in the car and closed her eyes.
Maura dropped Jane back at the station after she's had her leg seen to. Maura was able to pull some strings and Jane was attended to almost immediately. As Maura had suspected there was debris in the wound, once it was removed Jane's calf had needed extensive suturing. The doctor had suggested she stay off her leg for a couple of days. Maura knew he was wasting his breath.
Maura tidies up a few things in her office and then heads home. It's nearly ten when she gets there. Angela is sitting having a cup of tea, watching Television when she walks in. Angela stands and mutes the TV as she follows Maura into the kitchen. "Your home late this evening Dr. Isles, I thought Janey might be with you. I saved you both some dinner."
"Last I spoke to her there were some things about the case she wanted to go over" Maura explains. She looks at the meals Angela's prepared and decides she's hungry after all. Angela is pleased. She takes over and starts heating the dish and Maura pours herself a glass of wine.
"You look tired Maura; this case is obviously difficult for you." Angela is heartfelt.
"The death of a child is always difficult" Maura offers. Her chin starts to quiver. When she gets control she adds, "it's just these children were so alone."
"Oh Maura" Angela moves to embrace her.
"Please don't Angela, thank you but I'm better at dealing with these types of things on my own."
"Of course I'm sorry," Angela sits back down.
After another moment Angela speaks. "Jane's so angry, she must be to embarrass Sister Mary Joseph the way she did today." Angela shakes her head and has a sip of her tea.
"Angela, I think you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that Sister Mary Joseph may not come out this investigation in a good light."
"Jane has hated that Nun ever since her friend Douglas Smith passed away. It's like she's always believed it was Sister Mary Joseph's fault."
"Jane told me about Douglas after you left last night."
"Oh she was infatuated with him. He wasn't right for her Maura. I never liked him."
"Hmm" is all Maura says. Having witnessed her best friend so distressed the night before; a friend she's never seen show emotion like that. It was very clear to Maura this was a not a topic she would ever discuss with Angela.
Maura has a bit more of a nibble on the food Angela prepared for her and has another sip of her wine. Angela waits for more conversation and when it doesn't come, simply offers. "I think Sister Mary Joseph is a good woman who has done a lot of wonderful work for our community Maura."
Maura nods, "I hope you're right Angela."
Angela helps Maura clean up and then bids her a good night. Maura takes herself off to bed.
Maura wakes suddenly. She can hear alarms going off and girls screaming. She is over come with fear. She gets up and pulls on her dressing gown. Her dormitory supervisor is getting all the girls assembled into a line. Maura does as she's told but a few of the louder girls in her dorm push Maura to the back as they clamber to get out. Maura tries to follow the older girls who have started to march; it's then all the lights go out. Maura can smell smoke now and she realizes the building is on fire. She tries to keep up with the girls in front of her when she hears a crash and is knocked to the ground.
Maura screams in fright. It's dark and she's lost. She can hear screams and shouting over alarms that are ringing in her head. She's totally disoriented. Maura gets up and tries to find her way. She trips and feels stabbing pain shoot up her leg. She tries to stand and finds she can't put any weight on the leg in pain. The sound of the girls is getting further away and Maura is overcome with absolute terror.
It is getting harder to breathe. Maura is crawling trying to find some escape or someone to help her. She can feel the heat of fire and suddenly Maura believes she is going to die. She stops struggling. She curls up in a little ball; she prays it will be quick. Her huge brain already understands how fire works and what it can do. She thinks about her circumstances. She realizes no one will really care if she dies here; it's probably for the best she tells herself. It's the last thing Maura remembers as she passes out.
Maura wakes suddenly. Her bed is a mess; she's been tossing and turning. She has a lather of perspiration all over her and she's trembling at the impact of her nightmare. She gets up and pours herself a glass of water. She notices it's three in the morning. Maura tries going back to bed but sleep is elusive. By five am she gives up and gets herself ready for work. She's in the office by six.
Maura goes and checks on the eight children in her storage area. She takes an extra minute with Stephen. Finding his mother is the only bright spot she's found in these very dark couple of days. Within a couple of hours she has caught up on all her paperwork and emails. She decides to go and see how Jane's going upstairs.
Korsack is standing over Frost who is tapping away at his computer. They are looking for information on a Mr. and Mrs. Rossi. Maura walks up behind them and wishes them both a good morning.
"Who are Mr. and Mrs. Rossi" she asks.
"Jane found them last night. Apparently they adopted one of the children that died in the fire" Korsack explains.
"Really, she's found them already" Maura's impressed.
"She looked all night" Frost offers.
Korsack chuckles, "I just sent her home, I found her asleep at her desk this morning."
Maura shakes her head, seeing the funny side of it. Maura goes on to explain what she and Jane had done last night. She tells them about the Boycotts and how it seems Sister Mary Joseph may have miss-administered Stephen's care. Korsack explains he and Frost are following the trail starting with the Rossi family who originally adopted Stephen back in 2004.
As Maura's about leave Korsack pulls her aside. "How are you holding up Doctor Isles? You don't look very well" he adds.
Maura smiles kindly at Korsack. "I'll be a lot better when this over."
