Chapter 12
The look on Jane's face clearly indicated something was wrong. Maura struggled with coming out of her sleepy haze as she stroked Jane's cheek. Jane's skin was softer than she had imagined it would be; in fact Maura wasn't certain this wasn't yet another dream she was having of Jane. They were common, too common for her liking, but she couldn't resist relishing in the intimate touch she was having with her best friend.
Maura's fantasy was short-lived when she felt dampness coat her palm. She focused on Jane's face seeing the tears slowly falling. Maura had witnessed Jane cry once, at the hands of Charles Hoyt when he attacked them in prison and Jane had bravely saved them both killing Hoyt in the process. These tears were not an emotional and physical release attributed to the adrenaline rush like when she killed Hoyt; there was real fear dancing in Jane's expressive eyes.
"You're scaring me."
"Join the club." Jane's voice was gruff, more so than usual.
"Why are you scared?"
"You." Jane coughed to regain some composure as well as her voice.
"Of me?"
"For you," Jane said softly as she wiped her own tear, replaying the conversation she had with Doyle and the seriousness of the parties involved. It was ridiculous to imagine that a BPD Homicide Detective could go up against something with ties all the way to the Middle East and win; even if it was to protect someone she loved.
You're scared because you love her.
"What's happened?"
How long have you loved her, Rizzoli, and just ignored all the signs.
Jane couldn't help but to reach out and brush Maura's hand. It was selfish, she didn't do it to reassure Maura that all would be okay; she did it to experience the feeling of touching Maura after admitting to herself that she loved her.
Jane got up off the bed and began to pace, taking care to not face Maura until she had her emotions under control. Maura was patient; she had already seen the cracks in Jane's façade and they both knew she wouldn't simply dismiss it.
"I talked to your father." Jane instantly transformed herself into a homicide detective. Her posture was stiff, the eyes now staring at Maura were unreadable, and when Jane ran her hands through her unruly hair Maura instantly recognized it as a release of frustration.
Don't shut me out, Jane.
"I thought he was my sperm donor." Maura waited for a response from Jane that never came. "He's still alive then?"
"How close did you get to him, Maura?"
"Not more than I was previously. He was sick; I was helping him preserve what he thought as his dignity."
"How much do you know about his business?"
"The same as before," Maura struggled to remain calm and allow Jane her interrogation. "Probably less than you do at this point."
How do I tell her she's in even more danger than I originally thought? I protected her, just barely, from a psychopath serial killer but can't protect her from her own father.
"He's involved in more than we ever knew, Maura," Jane growled as she ventured back into the living room with the expectation that Maura would follow. She wasn't disappointed when Maura sat down on the couch in front of her files and began to thumb through them.
"What more could he do to humanity that he already hasn't thrust upon us?"
"Terrorism."
Jane waited for Maura's reaction and although she had to wait for the word to register, she wasn't disappointed when Maura's eyes met her own. Maura's were wide; she was shaking her head in disbelief.
"I know he's a monster, Jane, but terrorism? He's big in Boston, I'm not sure that extends globally."
God, please tell me I don't share DNA with a terrorist.
"His docks provided access for drug money to be made and likely funneled back to the Middle East," Jane said sitting next to Maura waiting for her rather slow processing of information to finish.
"Are you telling me that he's funneling drugs into Boston from the Middle East?" Jane was surprised that Maura was so slow on the uptake.
"I'm telling you that he knew about it, claims to have stopped a shipment, and that this killing spree someone has begun is over making the docks accessible for ease of delivery. It's his own version of NAFTA."
"NAFTA is restricted to North America only, Jane." Maura had completely missed the level of sarcasm in Jane's voice. "This is larger than Patty Doyle. I know he has a lot of power in Boston, but this sounds like it's a great deal bigger than Boston. Why Boston anyway? It's not the easiest place to get into, or most known for trafficking drugs."
"Maybe that's why." Jane began to also flip through the files opening a rather thick one and glossing over the words as she spoke. "Miami is set up to expect this sort of thing. New York has been on high alert since they were attacked; Boston's quiet, unassuming, maybe it makes the perfect place to smuggle something in and not get caught. I don't know that every port in the United States is controlled by a high ranking mobster who has their own reasons for not involving the police in shady shipments."
"So he's an easy target?" Maura raised her eyebrow to question Jane. "Assuming you're right, which has yet to be proven with evidence that doesn't involve winging it, you don't assume that he would have taken care of the problem himself? I agree that he can't draw attention to the situation even if he did discover it because it would shine the spotlight on him as well. But Patrick Doyle's history shows he'd just take care of the problem himself."
"What if he tried and failed?"
"When has he ever failed at killing someone?" Maura reasoned back.
"He hasn't, but this wasn't about a hit, it started with drugs. It sounds like he believed he had taken care of the situation when he stopped the initial shipment. Apparently he didn't count on somebody coming at it from a different angle and attacking his organization itself." Jane was now feeling more confident in her ability to close this case if she found the one needle in the haystack. "Whoever is doing this wants the docks. They want the docks for drug shipments and there are plenty of crime families that dabble in drugs. We need a big one; a known rival of Doyle's cross-referenced with drug trafficking from the Narcotics Unit to match."
"So let's start there." Maura grabbed another file and opened it up leaning back on the couch with her leg crossed to begin reading. "We can start with trying to narrow the investigation to those crime families that are involved in drugs. Once we have a list, you can have Frost cross-reference it against the Narcotics files at BPD and see if there's a match."
"Most of them are involved in drugs one way or another," Jane noticed she was whining but nevertheless expressing her opinion. "It's a fucking needle in a haystack. We need a tighter lead. We'll be here forever if we don't narrow it further."
"It's all we have right now, Jane." Maura placed her hand on top of Jane's and offered a reassuring smile.
When did she begin to read me so well, what I need?
The emotions Jane had felt during the past ten minutes discussing the case with Maura certainly covered both ends of the spectrum. She had felt scared, angry, confident in her theory, but overwhelmed at the daunting task of proving it.
"They aren't all involved in trafficking drugs," Maura said with a hint of disgust in her voice as she read through the first file on her half of the stack. "For example this lovely family traffics young girls into prostitution. Can you believe the statement of this immoral and depraved human being was a justification that even in hard economic times prostitution and the sex industry still makes money?"
"These aren't nice people, Maura."
Both women continued reading in silence; perusing each file for any hint of an involvement in drugs, from suspicions of the officers involved to any concrete information. The pile was slowly decreasing between them, but no solid leads had been produced before Jane's stomach growled loudly and she realized that perhaps her stomach wasn't upset from nerves but rather lack of food.
"We skipped lunch," Maura announced as she rubbed her temples to ward off her pending headache. "We need a break. I'll make us something."
Jane watched as Maura rose from the couch and journeyed to the kitchen. She began to rummage through the cupboards in search of an easily prepared answer for lunch. Maura spied a load of bread and removed four slices before reclosing the package and searching for lunchmeat.
Is this what a relationship is about? Sarah Lee Bread and teamwork?
"I keep having this vision of someone's child engaging in drug abuse and ending up on my table as a statistic. His statement that he has never killed women or innocent people is far from the truth if he's involved in drugs."
"Some would say that it is the junkie's fault."
Maura looked up to see Jane staring back at her as she piled various lunchmeats on top of the bread for both of them.
"Is that what you think?"
"Yeah, I do. I can't think of any cases when I was in the Drug Unit where someone physically held someone else down and shoved a pill down their throat or a needle in their arm." Jane arched her eyebrow to emphasize her point. "You can't score if you don't shoot, Maura."
"While I can infer what you mean by the somewhat overused and popular sports analogy, I'm not sure that I totally agree. Look at some of the medicinal purposes of drugs and everyday people that become hooked trying to simply manage their pain."
"Oh, so it's ok to get hooked on drugs when you're doing it with the excuse that you're just trying to manage your pain? I know a lot of people that go through things that don't get hooked on drugs. It's a cop-out."
"There are plenty of pain management techniques and treatments, Jane, but I am often cautious about making assumptions on patients that become dependant upon medicine to manage their pain. There's a fine line between a psychological need to have medication which certainly would imply addiction and physically needing it to take the edge off."
Maura handed Jane a plate with her sandwich on it and placed her own on the coffee table next to the stack of folders she had taken responsibility to read.
"I think using medicine as a short-term relief from pain while one is receiving treatment is advisable given what pain itself can do to the body."
"Most people don't get hooked on Tylenol, Maura." Jane had already eaten half of her sandwich and placed the remaining half back on the plate to brush the crumbs on her pants off onto the floor.
"I'm hardly suggesting they do, but for treatment of curable cancers, management of pain after operations or an accident, many patients require more than Tylenol, and often for a long period. These are hardly unjustifiable reasons."
"But if their disease isn't curable then we let them suffer?" Jane was clearly mocking Maura as she finished her sandwich quickly.
"No, but then it hardly matters if they're addicted to pain meds given they won't last long anyway."
Jane allowed her head to fall into her hands as she began to mumble incoherently to Maura. It was one of the many behaviors that Maura simply didn't understand but found endearing because it could only be classified as 'so Jane' in nature.
"Do you have entire conversations talking through your hands with other people?" Maura smirked as she reached out and touched Jane's shoulder to prompt her lifting her head.
"I said," Jane overly annunciated to prove her point, "I can't believe we're actually having this conversation which is turning out like our investigation, going nowhere fast."
"The use of habit forming drugs for medicinal purposes has been an age-old debate, Jane. I hardly thought we were going to solve it today."
Jane shot Maura her patented look; the look that clearly signified her annoyance at a discussion, person, or food. Maura couldn't help but to chuckle causing Jane to dramatically place the folder she was holding on her discard pile and pick up another one.
"I'm just saying…" Jane sighed as Maura couldn't allow the moment of silence to fall between them for too long. "If I were suffering from a terminal disease or someone that I loved was suffering, I would hope that drugs could be useful to prevent pain and give me some dignity. I was thankful for the pain medication you were on when you shot yourself. Imagine how you would have felt trying to recover without it."
"I didn't take it when I was home," Jane admitted quietly. "I was afraid of actually becoming addicted to it. So that proves my point."
"You have no idea what it was like to watch you struggle." Maura's voice was laced with sadness and her eyes clouded up as she blinked back tears. "If you did so because you didn't want to take the aid of a potentially addictive drug, I wish you would have told me that so I could put your mind at ease. The levels of morphine they were giving you at the hospital in ICU were reduced over time. The amount you were given to take at home was minimal. It would have taken much more for you to become addicted, Jane."
"I don't remember being in the ICU on pain meds." Jane tried to catch Maura's eye but Maura stared off across the room focusing on the fireplace on the opposite wall.
"I remember it all," Maura said sadly. "I remember you on the street and me thinking I was going to lose you. I remember every surgery, every grimace of pain, Jane."
I never wanted to hurt you, Maura.
"If someone who has no chance of surviving can have a little time in peace physically, I'm an advocate for that."
"Right, because someone like Doyle deserves to be peaceful when he didn't provide that to any of his victims." Jane quickly changed the subject, opening another folder while her mind began to process the venom behind her words.
"Ugh! We aren't finding any crime families that traffic drugs as their M.O.!" Jane was becoming frustrated and then she stopped her rant suddenly, turning to face Maura. "People trafficking, money laundering, outright murder to avenge another person's senseless death, but drugs? None of those when you want to find them!"
They worked in silence for another hour before Jane slammed her folder down and began to rub her eyes to better focus. She was tired, her brain was working overtime, and with no leads there was no way for her to process her gut instincts. Yet, as she looked over at Maura weeding through her stack of files, she was taken aback at the surge of emotion that she felt.
When did you start to notice the crease on her forehead when she's concentrating, Rizzoli?
"What were you keeping him comfortable with, Maura?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I just want…I need to know. I need to know the entire story; I need to feel like there's not this huge elephant in the room that I don't ask about because I'm afraid of the answer. I wouldn't have helped him, not under the same set of circumstances, but I can't ignore that you did. I just…I need to know."
"A variety of medications and treatments were being explored because he failed to manage his pain consistently and early; it becomes an uphill battle to gain relief."
"Are we talking Tylenol or shit with street value?"
"Something like acetaminophen is considered a first-line medication in the treatment of pain and is often ineffective when you let pain get out of control or when the pain is long term and at a higher level. I recommended morphine which is a common practice for terminal cancer patients."
"Where did you get it, Maura?" Jane stood and began pacing in front of Maura as her mind began to process her gut instinct. "Did you write a prescription?"
"No, I can't do that since I'm the Chief Medical Examiner. My patients don't require prescriptions."
"How did you get it then?" Jane's eyes locked with Maura's as she began to connect the pieces of her theory.
"I didn't get it for him. He told me to write out a list and he would get everything I needed. When I saw him last, he had the supplies as well as the drugs already."
"Who did you give the list to?"
"Michael Byrne," Maura said quietly as she struggled to read Jane's emotions.
"Did he get it himself?" Jane's questions were coming faster, fire coming back into her eyes as she began to rifle through the files looking for a specific one.
"I don't honestly know," Maura said confused but willing to follow Jane's logic if she would ever share it with her. "What are you thinking?"
"Morphine and drugs like it are tightly regulated and controlled. How did they get a hold of it so quickly?"
"Jane, this is Patty Doyle," Maura began, leaning back into the couch. "I'm sure he has connections that can get him almost anything."
"Oh, I don't doubt that for one second. But for an organization that claims to have no connections to illegal drugs, they seem to have put their hands on some fairly easily."
"That's a pretty big leap, Jane." Maura eyed Jane skeptically.
"Doyle told me that this all started with a shipment of opium coming into the docks that he stopped," Jane sat down and began to scribble her random thoughts down as she spoke. "He told me that it was left as opium because it was easier to conceal in raw form and then convert it when it got here. I asked him who the importer was, assuming he had taken them out for using the docks without flying it by him."
"Who was it?"
"That's just it." Jane now locked eyes with Maura once more. "He said he handles his own dirty laundry. I don't think we're looking for another crime family. He just let us believe that. I think we're looking for someone within his organization."
"Why wouldn't he tell us that?"
"Because he doesn't want us to know. He wants to handle it himself. He's letting us chase our tail." Jane felt her anger rise up at Doyle's games.
"Then why involve BPD at all?" Maura asked.
"You," Jane offered. "He wanted you protected and didn't think he could do that himself right now."
"I'm not so sure…"
"Think about it, Maura! It's perfect; the person would need to know enough to know Doyle was sick, they would need to know the hierarchy of his organization, they would need to be close enough to know you were coming and going."
Jane pulled out her phone and hit the speed dial on it to connect with Frost. She didn't want to tip her hand to Doyle, not before getting enough information to risk going back and dealing with him in person. Frost quickly answered the phone and sounded panicked.
"Jane," Frost's voice was barely a whisper. "I'm glad you called."
"Listen, Frost, we're moving in the wrong direction. It isn't another family after Doyle and the docks; it's Doyle's organization turning on him. It's someone inside and we need to start peeling back the layers on his own family before we let him lead us to another!"
"That makes what I'm about to tell you ten times worse." Frost paused before completing his sentence. "Doyle's gone, Jane."
"What are you saying? He's dead?"
"Korsak and I are at his house; it looks like a fuckin' grenade went off in here, paper and pictures everywhere. I don't know what's going on, Jane, but Doyle's not here."