A/N - For the first time, I'm enjoying writing the case stuff. Thank you all, again, for how much love y'all are showing for this.
A week. They'd been chasing their tails on this for a week. Frost and Korsak's canvas had turned up nothing, neither did the books of any of the KLW subsidiaries or even the parent company, or the contractors. So far all they had was a dead electrician who just happened to have an investigators license. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she stared at yet another cold lead, another dead trail.
She was halfway through her third cup of coffee of the morning before she found her thoughts interrupted by someone else. "You look like shit, Rizzoli." She gave a halfhearted glare to Korsak, but not failing to pluck one of the donuts out of the box he carried with him as he walked past.
"And you're the face of the next Calvin Klein campaign." She muttered, still trying to figure out who on earth would have motive to kill their vic, and why they would do it in such a way. She knew there was a message trying to be sent, but to whom, well, she couldn't figure it out. She rolled her eyes before settling on the soothing calm of the desktop widget that ticked away dispatch notices across her PC. EMS call, no sirens necessary – a broken bone, a minor problem, something not important. A traffic stop. A mugging. The normal wear and tear of life in a city.
"Naw, Calvin Klein briefs are cut funny, dig into my thighs." She attempted to glare at her former partner, her hands going up in the air in exasperation.
"More than I ever wanted to know."
"He's right though." She gave a fully hearted glare at Riley, even though she was too tired to really put the full force of Rizzoli scorn behind it. "You look exhausted."
"The kid acting up?" She nodded quirking an eyebrow at Frost who shrugged. "An ex of mine had a kid. It stops after a few months." There was a hint of a wistful tone in the baritone voice, and the part of her that liked knowing everything couldn't help but perk up.
"Ex?" She inquired. Her partner never really gave up much information on his personal life, much less anything about past relationships.
"Yeah, the baby daddy grew a pair and came back. Kinda hard to compete with that." She gave a sympathetic smile to her partner, an unexpected feeling welling up inside of her. What if her father came back? What if this kid was the one in a million kid that had inherited enough of her father's genes to make the DNA taste inconclusive? What if her father decided he wanted into this kid's life? What if Tommy got off early for good behavior in another month, and decided he was mature enough for this kid? What if Lydia decided to do the grown up thing and take responsibility? She was the one that just spent the last week with a kid that hadn't shut up for more than an hour or two at a time.
She was the one that listened to her mother's reassurances when she swore that she broke the damn thing that she had done the same thing at a month old, and that it was nothing that they were doing wrong. Some kids just were colicky, some kids just decided to wail their hearts out for five hours a day. She was the one that had given up the past month of her life to look after someone else's child. Screw Marino, this was what she deserved a medal of commendation for. She sighed, realizing that the pencil in her had was bowing dangerously close to its snapping point.
Luckily her train of thought was interrupted by an still-not-familiar ringtone bleated out on the far end of the bullpen, and watched as Cooper answered it, trying to commit the ringtone to memory the same way she had Frost's and Korsak's. There was a long pause before the other detective grinned, and thanked whoever was speaking. "That was Watson over in the drug unit. They just popped a dealer who had a gun on him. A gun registered to one Mike Davison."
"Great, where they holding him?"
"Interrogation two." She was on her feet and in the interrogation room before Cooper could even open her mouth again. She paused for a second, looking through the window in the viewing room, sizing up the man on the other side of the glass. Tall, built, dressed in ghetto couture. She knew the oversized jeans were designer and that the outfit on the man had to rival something in Maura's closet in terms of price. Definitely not some low-level thug.
"Where'd you get the gun?" She asked, striding in and slamming the door behind her, watching the man jump ever so slightly.
"Bought it."
"From who?" She was met with an icy smile. "That gun was involved in a homicide, you know that? I know your type. You're smart. You're going to get off with some minor charge and do a token amount of time, and go right back to your high class lifestyle. But you rope a homicide into this? That's a whole lot more serious than possession with intent." There was a long pause.
"One of my customers. He owed me money, came to me, said he'd give it to me if I lowered his tab. Said it was clean, came from some rich white guy." She frowned.
"You got a name?"
"Yeah, junkie, same as all my clients." She rolled her eyes. "He's a white guy, shorter than you, long brown hair, looks like he wants to be Nirvana." She frowned. That was a fairly accurate description of the young man who'd robbed the corpse. Who didn't have a phone, a permanent address, nothing. The gun had obviously been on the corpse at the time, which raised even more questions.
She turned, walking back out to the bullpen. "Our victim had his gun on him when the body was dumped. But there wasn't any sign of a struggle, no defensive wounds."
"Maybe they surprised him?"
"With an ice pick?" She couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice. She clenched her jaw for a moment, before striding down to the morgue. She smiled slightly to herself at the sight of Maura looking every bit as exhausted as she felt. They made for a sorry sight. Although perfectly composed, as always, Jane could see the dark circles under Maura's eyes peeping through foundation and the tired slump to the ME's shoulders. "Hey, what was the angle of entry for the two stab wounds on our vic?" She questioned, feeling slightly guilty when she saw Maura jump. She knew that startled look – Maura had been doing her best to catch up on rest without actually sleeping.
There was a pause as Maura opened the file folder. "Angle of entry indicates that whoever killed him had been facing him, standing slightly to the right, and was shorter than our victim." She frowned, her mind going into overdrive. Their first witness had said that one of the men dumping the body had been short and stocky.
"Our victim was armed, and he didn't try to fight back against a man shorter than him. Was there anything else?" She asked.
"You know, there was some odd bruising around his right bicep and left hip."
"Like someone holding him in place?" She questioned.
"The bruises are too vague to tell what exactly they were."
"So someone grabbed him from behind, keeping him in place so he could take two to the chest." That explained Mr. Fullback. "You should go home, get some rest." She added as an afterthought, focusing back on the case.
"I like it better here. It's quieter." She grinned, but it fell quickly.
"Thank you, for everything. This kid would've driven me crazy long before this if it was left up to me and Ma." Maura gave her a kind smile, before wrapping her in a hug.
"It really has been a pleasure so far. Even if he is going through a rough patch right now."
"Yeah, it kinda has." She admitted, however quietly.
