A/N: Wow, real life seems to be very rudely interfering in my me time at the moment, so I apologise if any of this story suffers because of that. Hope you guys stick with me. Xx
Everything and Nothing Ch 10
Detective Allen paced back and forth across the room, arms folded, glaring at the suspect with a nauseating sense of repulsion at the sniveling state he presented.
Frost sat at the table, seemingly indifferent. "So you admit that you were at the scene?" He clarified.
"I told you." He whined. "I was there...I shouldn't have been...but I just wanted to see that she was alright...she didn't know I was there...I didn't want to scare her again."
"So you were there...and she did see you right?" Allen demanded.
"No...no.. I don't think she saw me...not until...I couldn't get to her...It was so quick and I couldn't get to her." He dropped his face into his hands and wept.
Allen shook her head repeatedly, despising the man and this display.
"What? Are we supposed to feel sorry for you now?" Allen stepped to the table and lent over it to look this man in the eye's as he peeped out over his large cupped hands. "You terrorized this woman, you made her life a living hell and then when she tried to get her life back you murdered her."
Frost sat back and let Allen continue.
"You killed her because she didn't want you. Is that your idea of love?" Allen spat.
"I loved her." He said, rising up a little in defiance.
"You didn't even know her!" Allen said loudly, anger dripping through her every word.
As Maura watched from the opposite side of the glass it crossed her mind that the only other person she had seen so passionate when questioning someone was Jane Rizzoli and that if she were here now she would be asking all the right questions.
Maura knocked at the door and slipped quietly into the room, feeling three sets of eyes turning to her. As Allen was still standing, Maura approached her and avoided looking at the suspect.
"We have some new results." Maura spoke, trying to convey more of her meaning with her eyes.
Frost watched the man at the table as he listened in to the exchange between the two women just behind him. Both Detectives followed Maura out of the small room.
"So?" Allen asked, obviously anxious to get back to the questioning.
"The dog lead which was recovered at the scene has a section of chain that matches exactly the pattern on Sophie's neck." Maura explained.
"So we have the murder weapon? We figured he probably strangled her with her dog's lead." Allen concluded, failing to see why Maura had dragged them out of an interview for this news.
"It has been confirmed." Maura nodded, clutching a handful of lab results and statistical analysis, which she glanced at now.
"What else did you find Doc?" Frost asked more kindly.
"There were some traces of blood and skin tissue."Maura told them, trying to keep this as straight forward as possible for the edgy Detective.
"The victims?" Frost asked, hoping for more.
"Some belonging to the victim and some samples from another source."
"So we got him!" Allen said, clenching her fist and pulling it into her body. "His DNA on the murder weapon."
Frost looked pleased and stood up a little straighter, squaring his shoulders, suddenly as enthusiastic as Allen to get back into the interview room.
"No!" Maura said firmly. "The sample does not belong to the suspect."
"What? It has too. Are you sure?" Allen asked.
Maura looked appalled at the suggestion that she would dispense inaccurate information and she held up her papers in defense.
"I found blood and a sample of skin present on the murder weapon that does not belong to either the victim or to the man in that room." Maura said assuredly.
Allen frowned at Maura as if she herself was responsible for the evidence.
Frost's shoulders slumped as quickly as they had risen. "So someone else was at the scene. Someone else killed her?"
"An accomplice?" Allen said doubtfully. "Are you sure about the results Doctor Isles?"
Frost raised his brows high at his fellow Detective.
"I am not sharing an opinion with you Detective Allen, this is indisputable fact, multiple tests are performed and the science does not lie." Maura began.
Allen nodded impatiently. "Fine, but he has admitted to being there."
"Yes, the evidence places him at the scene." Maura agreed.
"So, he knows what happened, maybe someone helped him kill her, but he knows exactly what happened" Allen said as she slipped back into the room.
Xxx
"Jane?" A muffled voice asked.
Jane pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at the clock that stood on the bedside table, in what she remembered suddenly was her own bedroom. 2:13 am. She must have just nodded off.
"Jane? I'm sorry to call you at this time...but you said you didn't sleep much...that you wouldn't mind..."
Jane took a moment to identify the caller from her words, the voice sounded unfamiliar. "Jennifer?"
"Were you sleeping? I can go..."
"No, no, I was just watching TV." Jane lied. "It's fine."
Jane's next question was about to be whether or not the woman on the other end of the line was alright, but she realised that she knew the answer to that. This woman would hardly be calling Jane if she was alright.
"What about you? Have you managed any sleep since yesterday?" Jane asked.
"No...I can't sleep here, all his things, I keep searching, looking for a reason. Paul's parents are coming into town tomorrow and I don't want them to see me like this. I thought a drink might help ..."
"It made you feel worse." Jane stated. "I'll come pick you up. You can crash here for a few hours or I can take you to a hotel, whatever ..."
"No, that wasn't what I meant, I just called to thank you...to hear someone else's voice and know I'm not crazy." Jennifer admitted in a shaky voice.
"It's not far, I'll come by and get you, I don't mind." Jane insisted. "I have to take out my dog anyway." Jane added, getting out of her bed and pulling on the jeans that lay in a crumpled heap by the bed.
As if she had understood the statement, Jo Friday sprang to attention, bounding off the foot of the bed and racing around the room at Jane's heels.
Xxx
The apartment that Jane had delivered Jennifer too yesterday, was not quite what Jane had been expecting. She had expected one of the more modern, brightly lit, glass walled, blocks of boxes, typical of Downtown Boston, they were popular with young people working in the busiest parts of the city. What she had found was a place, not that dissimilar to her own. Admittedly it was twice the size of Jane's apartment and incredibly neat and yet you did get a sense of the people who lived here.
Jennifer opened the door as soon as Jane began to knock, as if she had been waiting on the other side of the door.
"Hey." Jane greeted the woman before her. Jane would hardly have recognised her from the smartly dressed, well put together woman she had met only hours before. Jennifer was wearing what was clearly one of her late Fiance's baggy sweatshirts with a pair of simple black leggings beneath them. Her face was blotchy, her eyes red rimmed and her hair hung around her shoulders in disarray.
"Come in." Jennifer said quietly and more calmly than she felt, before she dissolved into tears.
Jane watched the younger woman hold a well used ball of tissue up to her face and she stepped into the apartment, opening her arms out for Jennifer to move into. It should have felt strange, Jane had only met this woman a day ago and yet the circumstances meant that an instant intimacy had been laid out. It wasn't all a selfless act on Jane's part, it fed that part of her ego that yearned to be needed, to be the hero of the hour. Jane had not yet let this woman down, Jennifer knew nothing and cared nothing for Jane's past, it worked well for each of them.
Jane let her cry, she didn't move them, she didn't once try and tell her that everything would be alright, she was silent, she let her be. Several minutes passed and Jane looked over Jennifer's head around the apartment. What had been immaculate yesterday now looked like it had been ransacked. There were photograph albums strewn across the floor and the neat rows of books had been swept off the shelves. It looked like the bins had been upturned in the kitchen, scraps of balled up paper had been unfurled and lain flat on the kitchen counter and three dusty looking boxes sat on the couch where a blanket and a half empty bottle of wine showed signs of Jennifer's recent occupation.
"You looking for something?" Jane asked eventually as she sized up the chaos.
Jennifer quickly glanced around the room as if seeing it's state for the first time. "Oh, I was, I suppose. I don't know what, something, a clue, you know? An explanation. Like did he owe someone money? Was he taking drugs? Did he have a whole other life that I knew nothing about?"
Jane nodded following Jennifer back to the couch. Jennifer began to stuff some of the contents that had spilled out over the couch back into the boxes. Jane spotted a school year book, a couple of golf trophies and an old drawing of a dog. The kind of sentimental recordings of a persons life that we all have in a closet someplace.
"Do you want me to help you move some of this stuff? You said his folks are coming by tomorrow." Jane reminded.
Jennifer frowned as if this was news to her. "Yes, I guess that would be good, I should straighten things up a little." Jennifer crossed quickly to the kitchen and righted the bin, picking up bits and pieces of garbage and plopping them back inside.
Jane lifted one of the boxes on the couch and headed for the bedroom with it. Jennifer paid her no attention. As Jane returned and lifted the second box, a pile of opened up mail slid from the couch to the floor and Jane set the box down to retrieve it. Letters were out of envelopes and Jane realised as she flicked through the pile that it was all from the same sender. This was hate mail, sent to Paul Adler from a group called "Fair Fight!"
There was letter after letter, featuring horrific pictures of suffering children from the third world, some starving, some living in dirt, pictures of fields full of very young looking children picking coffee cherries, photographs of large barns, home to tens of men, women and children, living on top of each other with nothing more than wooden pallets and the rags they stood up in. Jane flicked through the handful of letters, they seemed to become progressively more abusive and disorganized, instead of professional looking pamphlets they turned into handwritten threats scrawled boldly across the page.
"Jennifer. What is all this?" Jane asked.
"Huh, oh that's nothing, crackpots, conspiracy theorists. They got it in to their heads that the company was exploiting it's farmers or something." Jennifer dismissed. "It's ridiculous. Paul visited a lot of those farms, they specialized in Fair Trade Coffee."
"Some of these look quite threatening." Jane told her.
Jennifer frowned and moved over to Jane. "Paul never took them seriously." She shrugged. "He always said they were uninformed hippies with too much time on their hands."
"You don't think that maybe you should have mentioned these to the police? Could be a line of inquiry." Jane suggested.
Jennifer shook her head. "No, they're nothing, really." Jennifer held out a hand for Jane to return the letters and snatched them back almost possessively.
"They look like they were getting more and more angry, more personal. Did these people ever do anything other than send letters?" Jane asked.
"No, not that I know of. Paul would have told me...wouldn't he?" Jennifer seemed to suddenly loose all her conviction. "You don't think this has anything to do with...it couldn't have, it's all nonsense..."
"You're probably right." Jane assured. "But, I'd mention it to the police all the same. If you really believe that Paul wouldn't do this, any information could be useful in keeping the cops on the case."
Jennifer nodded as she collected up the rest of the papers and dropped them back into the remaining box. "Alright." She agreed.
"Let's get this place sorted and get you out of here." Jane said, carrying her own load back toward the bedroom.
Xxxxxx
"Jesus Christ, what time is it!?" Jane barked into the phone, one eye barely opened, the other tightly closed against the invasion of light.
A quiet pause on the other end of the line and the brief clearing of a throat, told Jane that the caller was not her Mother as she had fully expected and her suspicion was confirmed by the clear and steady tone that she heard next.
"It is exactly 9.11am Eastern Daylight Time." Maura replied confidently.
"Great, my own personal "Time of Day " service." Jane remarked with a sigh.
"Jane, are you alright?" Maura asked, ignoring the last comment.
"Course, why wouldn't I be? Apart from the fact that I am awake before lunch." Jane complained.
"I apologise for waking you, your Mother was worried that you hadn't returned her calls, she asked me to see if I could reach you." Maura explained.
"So, you're calling because my Ma asked you too?" Jane wasn't sure why her tone had come off so combative, she was well acquainted with Maura's difficulties in judging social situations and the fact that the medium of the phone made things much more challenging for the Doctor, without body language and facial cues Maura was at even more of a disadvantage than usual.
"I am calling at the present moment because she asked me to, in fact she made me promise too, however, I would likely have called you today anyway. You haven't been around...you haven't contacted me since we last spoke... I have been thinking about you Jane." Maura admitted quietly.
"I would have thought you'd be far too busy for that Doc, with the big case and all, I take it you guys haven't solved that one yet?" Jane threw in snidely.
"Jane." Maura sighed deeply. "I don't understand why we are fighting, we are on the same side."
"Are we? Is that how it feels to you Maura?" Jane asked more softly.
"Yes." Maura said quickly. "I know you feel excluded right now, however...I do think of us that way, as a team, on the same side, no matter what."
"You and me against the world, right Doc?" Jane teased lightly, more to deflect from the overwhelming movement in her chest at Maura's words.
"You and I." Maura corrected.
"You and I." Jane remembered to breathe.
"Can I tell your Mother that you will call her today? Or that you're alright at least?" Maura asked practically.
"Sure, I'll call her later." Jane caved.
"I should warn you that she is going to ask you again, about dinner on Sunday."
"I don't think I'll make it Maur, I'll let Ma know. I'm a little busier than I thought."
"Oh. Do you have a new case?" Maura asked with interest.
"Not exactly." Jane replied, glancing at the body on the sofa as she entered the kitchen, in search of coffee. "Some new information I have to check out."
"Alright." Maura said, biting back her many questions.
"I'll call you in a couple of days." Jane said into the phone, turning her back to the sleeping form just a few feet away. There was more to say, Jane knew it, but the words were heavy in her mouth.
"Goodbye Jane." Maura said finally.
"Goodbye Maura."
xxxxx
A/N:Thoughts, feelings, reviews are very welcome xx