DISCLAIMER: I do not own this show, the books, or these characters. I only borrow them.

Chapter 26

The detectives and Dr. Isles were in for a shock when they arrived at work the following morning. While they were at home sleeping, or trying to sleep as the case may be, another body with similar wounds was found. As the ME and detectives called to a crime scene near the Boston Common Frog Pond were not at work the previous shift, they didn't know about Mr. Clark's case; therefore they didn't know to call in the original investigators. The autopsy and initial report were already written up by the time they learned of the similar case, only about an hour before Detectives Frost and Korsak and Dr. Isles arrived at work that Friday morning.

As Dr. Isles was walking in the door to work minutes before eight am, she was accosted by one of her colleagues, Dr. Costas. He handed over the report on an autopsy he performed earlier that morning. At a brief glance as she walked down the hallway, she first thought he was showing her the report she wrote up the night before. She wondered for a moment if he might have found some additional piece of information to add to Carl Clark's report, as just a quick glance told her of the gunshot wound to the head and the missing digit. But then she noticed the differences: the body was a female of Middle Eastern decent, in her early twenties; the gunshot wound to the head was delivered with a smaller caliber bullet between the eyes; and the index finger missing was from the left hand.

"Is the time of death correct?" Maura looked up confused at what she was reading.

"I double checked my calculations when I learned about the similar case yesterday, and the TOD determined on that one."

"Well then triple check them." She passed the file back over to Dr. Costas. She knew she would do the same, but there had to be some difference.

"I checked the vitreous potassium level from both eyes, just in case there was an imbalance. I also ran the calculations based on body temperature and amount of rigor. All calculations gave 31-35 hours for the postmortem interval."

That TOD stated that the girl died around the same time as Carl Clark...similar murders and yet not. She waved him into her office to find the file on her desk that she though she had been looking at earlier. She sat behind her desk and scanned the report she created the day before. Then looked at Dr. Costas who sat on the other side of the desk in silence, "Tell me what you found?"

"Female, early twenties, Middle Eastern descent. Perforating GSW, close-contact entrance wound between her eyes causing damage to the Frontal and Nasal bones. The wound track angled upwards and exited through the Parietal bone. Left index finger was removed postmortem. With the markings on the bone, it looks like it was created by a small circular saw...similar to the bone saws we use during autopsies. Her wrists and ankles were bound with plastic flex cuffs long enough that there were abrasions on her wrists. And as you noticed, based on calculations, TOD was around 9pm Wednesday night to 1am Thursday morning. There were a couple foreign hairs on her clothing that were delivered to the forensic lab marked high priority."

"You read the report on Mr. Clark?"

"Yes."

"What's your interpretation?" Maura was wondering what the other pathologist thought.

"Let's just say I'm glad I'm not the detectives on this one...we wrote up the cause of death, and I already have a headache over the ideas on why and by whom."

Dr. Isles couldn't help but agreeing as she pulled the report of the female's autopsy back toward her, "Please check the times again...I'll do the same with Mr. Clark's report." She knew Dr. Costas' work so she knew that the numbers would more than likely come out the same, before he could say something to that affect she added, "If we point out how thoroughly the calculations were double and triple checked, then a defense attorney can't rip the testimony to shreds...at least on that piece of evidence." She grabbed the two similar files and walked out of her office not even giving the ME still sitting at her desk a second glance. She was too busy trying to think about what she was going to tell the detectives.

It was complex cases like this one...these two...that had her pining for the less complicated days when she was not the Chief Medical Examiner. If she was not the CME, she could stay in the autopsy suite, just giving the dead a voice through the reports that she compiled. Now she was stuck delivering a report she didn't even complete to the initial detectives on the case. She preferred clear-cut answers, black and white, right and wrong; Jane on the other hand would have loved trying to solve this puzzle, and was probably going to be really annoyed to learn that she was missing out on, at least to her, an interesting case.

Maura started walking toward Frost's and Korsak's desks, and only saw the older man. She watched as he searched the stacks of folders and papers on his desk. It was hilarious to watch as he just kept moving one pile to another part of his cluttered desk. It was even funnier when she overheard Vince mumble, "...can't wait for Jane on Monday. Will make sure she doesn't become bored." Maura knew that Jane would not put up with playing secretary for very long, no matter how much she wished to be back at work.

Korsak found the folder he was looking for. Somehow, even though the file was only started yesterday, it ended up near the bottom of the large stack of papers. He grabbed the folder, stood up, and motioned for Dr. Isles to join him in a nearby conference room. "Frost is getting us coffee and then is going to join us for this interesting pow-wow."

"I'm assuming you mean more like a gathering with feasting, socializing, and trading, rather than a pauwau which some Native American's in this northeastern area knew originally to be a man who could heal or deliver advice from the spirit world...Even though with the odd case so far and not much forensic evidence, maybe you think we need help interpreting what we have."

"Well, if Frost remembers to grab some donuts or something, there will be feasting along with the talking and trading ideas part...And why would we need someone else to give advice from the dead...that is your department. So are you our resident female pow-wow?"

Maura was glad that they finished that conversation in the conference room, else the sticklers for political correctness would probably be very annoyed with Vince's odd interpretation of the words. Even more so when he added, "...but no dancing. I'd probably fall on my ass."

Frost with his impeccable timing entered then and jumped into the fray even though he had no real clue what the original conversation was about. "At least there is plenty of padding." He just smirked past Maura to his current partner.

"Be glad Doc here is in the middle, and you have the drinks, else I'd dump you on yours...and with no padding, it would hurt."

"Try old man."

Them were fighting words! And Maura really was not thrilled with being in the middle, so she grabbed the drink holder out of Frost's hands, the bag off his wrist, which from the aroma contained cinnamon rolls, and rounded to the other side of the conference table so the two male children could duke it out if they so pleased. After taking a seat, Maura went to savor her specialty coffee, but found that it tasted even worse than the office coffee...on a bad day. It must have been made incorrectly, or she got someone else's coffee, but at least she had the sweet treat to help take the bitter taste out of her mouth.

With the movement of the food, the two detectives lost interest in their squabble, and sat down to reach across the table for the icing covered rolls, and the steaming paper cups. Breakfast was no where near being balanced, and the combination of sugar and caffeine would give them fuel until they crashed in a couple hours, but hopefully they would be closer to answers by then.

They decided to look at the information from yesterday, and then segue into the newer case. All three opened various folders in front of them: Maura with the autopsy report, Frost with the various statements throughout the day, and Korsak with the crime scene report, and the logged evidence of which there was little. The statements included the witness statement, boyfriend's statement, bicycle officer's statement as he was the first on scene yesterday, and even a 'not sorry he died, but I didn't do it' statement from Mr. Thomas. Somehow those words, evidence, and the pictures and data from an autopsy were supposed to help point to a killer...but so far there had been no eureka moments. The clarity of the situation was now muddied with additional information.

Frost started reading from the notes the detective that morning wrote up. "A dog walker, very early this morning, found what at first he thought was just a pile of clothing near the Boston Common Frog Pond. He went over to check them out when his dog kept barking and wouldn't leave no matter how hard he pulled on the leash. He reached down to pull the sheet back a little. He told the police on scene that he assumed it was going to be someone homeless finding an interesting place to sleep for the night, but he was not expecting to open the sheets and see a body with a GSW between the eyes. He had a cell phone and so was able to call it in. We have the recording already..." And Frost pushed play on the sound file he had saved on his personal laptop.

"911, what is your emergency?" A clipped female voice asked.

"Um, yeah...aw, shit...I found a dead girl..."

"Are you sure she deceased? Can you find a pulse?"

"Assuming not...since she has a Hole In Her HEAD!" The voice continued to get louder as the horrors of the situation slammed into him. "Oh, God. What if the killer is still around?"

She could just imagine him turning around in circles looking for someone who was probably long gone. "Stay calm, sir. What's you name?" Names were easy to say and so usually helped calm down callers. Plus the name would be needed for the records.

"Benjamin...Benjamin Fowler."

"Okay, Benjamin. Do you know where you are? So I can send police out to your area."

"By the Boston Common...pond...the ice skatin' one." He knew it had another name, some animal, but he couldn't think very clearly right that moment.

"The Frog Pond?" With his affirmative grunt followed by a quiet 'yeah,' the dispatcher relayed the information over to the proper authorities. She then calmly told the caller, "The police and medical personnel are on their way. Please stay on the line until they get there."

The guy wanted to ask why she was sending medical help as he already mentioned the female had croaked. He couldn't help the stressed laughter that bubbled out as he thought of someone croaking by the Frog Pond. Before too long, sirens could be heard, and the pulsing blue lights on the police cruisers lit up the predawn darkness. "Um, they are here now." He said over the still open phone line.

The dispatcher double checked with the cruisers to make sure that they could see the caller. "Thanks, Benjamin, you can hang up now." She had been on the line of some very interesting calls, and even too many horror, gut-clenching ones as she hoped police would be able to intervene before she heard someone being injured, or worse killed. This one would definitely go down in the mixed pile.

Korsak spoke up a few minutes after the call log ended. "So the female vic was covered, while the male vic was not...He felt remorse for killing the girl? Or he wanted to make sure she was hidden from view as he dumped her, because the pond has a lot less cover than a dark alley?"

"Maybe he wanted the girl hidden where she might be found quicker?" Frost wondered out loud.

Maura knew she needed to finally give the piece of information that she learned coming into work. "If that was the case, he wouldn't have waited a whole day to dump her." At the odd looks from the detectives she went on, "both victim's time of death overlap."

"He killed them at the same time?" Korsak wasn't looking for an answer, but was just seeing if saying it out loud would make it make more sense. It didn't.

"I've had bodies come into the morgue before who were killed at the same time by the same killer, but the autopsies found that the manner of death, and the weapons used were the same. But here we have two different guns. The caliber of the gun that would have caused the wound in the female's head was smaller than that for the male. The type of implements used to sever the fingers were different – one a serrated knife, and the other a small circular saw. They were even bound differently. Not to mention the location of the wounds were not the same."

"Maybe he was trying to throw us off...thinking if the body was found on a different day with slightly different wounds that the connection wouldn't be made," Frost said.

"But then why cut off the fingers? Sadly gunshot deaths happen all too often so a connection might not be made...but both missing a finger, that is just screaming 'Look at me.'" Korsak decided to help his confusing thought by turning his attention from the murders to the gooey cinnamon roll in front of him.

"Maybe the finger was cut off as a torture method?" Frost threw the idea out there.

"I've had true torture victims on my table before. The damage to their entire bodies was much more extensive than I've seen in either victim the last two days. Plus the finger was removed postmortem on the female."

"Killed at similar times, so killed at the same location...maybe the torture for the other person was seeing someone they knew getting shot?" Korsak said and then licked the icing off his fingers.

Maura thought that that view of Korsak was torture. She didn't say anything, but she did throw over one of the napkins from a stack that Frost brought. She tried not to roll her eyes as Korsak took the napkin and only wiped up the droplets of coffee he got on the table when he stirred the sugar and creamer into his coffee.

As Frost interviewed the boyfriend of the male victim, he didn't see the logic in the idea of torture that Vince mentioned. "The first victim was gay. I doubt he was in a relationship with the girl..."

Korsak added, "He could have been bi."

"Even if he was, he was actively out of the closet. If someone wanted to torture him with seeing a loved one die, it would have been smarter to have used his live-in boyfriend that I interviewed yesterday...And we don't know enough on the second victim to speculate."

"There is still always the hate crime angle." Korsak hoped not, but knew it was a possibility they needed to keep in mind. "One vic is homosexual, and the other is Middle Eastern, and I would say Muslim based on the headscarf she wore..."

"Hijab," Maura informed in case either detective wanted to know.

Korsak flipped through the small file that they had on the female victim. "Frost, can you go check out the evidence? It says here that there was a wallet on the vic, but nothing is mentioned about what was in the wallet. Maybe we can get lucky." As Frost left the conference room, Korsak grabbed another cinnamon roll to pass the time while his partner was gone.

Frost came back into the conference room, waving the paper with the name on it like it was a flag for peace. He hurried over to his laptop to see what he could come up with from the name he got off of the Suffolk University ID.

When Frost came back with the name Saleemah al-Sharif, Maura wanted to cry at the irony. She knew the Muslim name meant many things including 'safe from harm.' She wished the college student could have lived up to that meaning...or at least still lived. She gave the pair of detectives a pinched smile as she stood up and grabbed her files and coffee, "Call me if you find anything, or need any information from the morgue. I need to get back down there before everything goes to pieces." She knew her colleagues would be fine on their own in her domain, but she wasn't sure how she would be if she stayed in here thinking of who the person was before they ended up on her table...the life ended before it really started. She needed a bit of fresh air.

Frost just nodded that he heard even though his eyes did not leave whatever he was learning from his computer search.

Maura felt it when Korsak reached across the table and gave her hand a quick squeeze. Not wanting to deal with emotions for awhile, even the pleasant ones like the gratitude she felt for Vince's strength, she grabbed up a napkin for the stickiness now on her hand and turned to leave.

Anyone else might have been offended by the seeming snub, but Korsak was starting to understand the woman in front of him a little better. He got another napkin for himself and finally wiped off his sticky fingers as he watched Maura walk out of the room with her back straight and shoulders squared. He wondered how she could walk so well that way when it often seemed like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

From the college website, Frost found a small article from a few months back on Saleemah. It mentioned that she was an international student just starting graduate school. She followed her cousin to the school. With the strong family ties that she had with her family, not only did she pick a school to be close to family in the United States, she was working on a Masters in Computer Science. She wanted to be able to not only help support her family with the money a good job could bring, but also go back home to Kyrgyzstan and use what she learned to make the place better for her people.

Knowing that she had a cousin, Frost called the school and asked for the name and contact information for Saleemah's family, both locally and back home. The secretary did not want to give the information, but finally relented about the name and number of the local cousin as it was listed in the school phone directory if Barry would have known the name. The cousin, Aazim, was contacted and promised he would be in to talk with the detectives as soon as he could get there.

Korsak soon left to go to the Boston Common Frog Pond. With the light now out, and having the basics from the initial reports he had read, he wanted to see if there was anything additional that might grab his attention at the latest dump site.

Frost could tell who the man was who came into the bullpen an hour later. He looked so lost and worried about what he might learn. And with Korsak out of the office, it landed on Frost's shoulders to once again interview the victim's family...it never got easier.

A fellow detective pointed out Frost to Aazim when he mentioned being expected. He walked toward a man with skin even darker than his own. "Detective Frost? We spoke on the phone earlier."

Frost stuck out a hand to shake Aazim's. He could hear a touch of an accent to his ears, but it wasn't so pronounced that he had any difficulties understanding what the man said. He noticed the cousin was dressed in business casual, pressed black slacks and a light blue polo shirt, as he came straight from the part-time job he had in order to help pay for living expenses. His hair was slightly messy, and Frost wondered if that might be more from him running his fingers through his hair which was a common action when stressed, rather than the other alternative, that he never brushed his hair. The two men shook hands briefly, and then the detective led them to the same interview room he was in less than twenty-four hours ago...for the privacy, but also so he could record the conversation to make sure he and Korsak could go over the tapes for any guilty tells the grieving family and friends might give off.

Earlier Dr. Isles gave the detectives a picture of the dead woman's face. She didn't think the family would handle viewing the body too well at the moment. There was no way to get a positive identification without showing the entire face, including the gunshot wound. But even though the picture showed the means of her death, it also helped dull the pain to the family...just as the colors in the picture seemed duller. The reddish-brown, and black around the entrance wound weren't as bright; the blank gaze in the brown eyes wasn't as piercing.

Frost pulled the picture out of the manila folder he had with him, but he didn't turn it over right away. "I need you to look at a picture and let me know if it is your cousin. You ready?" Was anyone ever ready to possibly look at their loved ones dead, especially in such a horrific manner?

Aazim gave a nod. Staring down at the white back of the photo. Hoping that the image would not be of his younger cousin, but dreading that it was. He continued staring at the picture as it was turned over. The image slowly burned it's way into his memory, and it was a few moments before he remembered he needed to give the detective an answer. "Yes, that's her. That's Saleemah."

Frost put the picture away. "That's a beautiful name," he said, hoping the cousin would remember the beautiful things about his cousin rather than the ugliness from the image...the ugliness from a person who could do that to another.

Aazim gave a small smile as he remembered some of the stories he had heard about his cousin. "She was her parents' pride and joy. My aunt was told she was barren a few years into her marriage. She felt shamed for awhile, but then she learned she was pregnant. It was a rough pregnancy for her, and for some time the doctors didn't know if either mother or child would survive, but finally Saleemah was born...healthy and perfect, hence her name."

Keeping the conversation light for a few moments, Frost threw out a few conversation starters: names, Aazim's major, Frost's love of computers. Which flowed well into talk about Saleemah as it related to her schooling.

"Saleemah loved studying computer science. I would never tell her, but she is smarter than I am...I should have told her, at least once." A deep frown cut through Aazim's face.

"She was getting her Masters degree, correct? She must have studied a lot."

"It seemed like whenever she was awake there was always a book in her hand. That is how I knew something happened to her, as she didn't meet me in the library like we always did after classes yesterday. Then I learned from her roommate that she wasn't at her place the night before. None of her Thursday professors saw her in class...and she always goes and sits in the front, so it's not like they would miss her. I talked to campus police, and even called Boston police to see if I could report her missing, but they said she wasn't gone long enough to be labeled as missing. I even started calling emergency rooms...I didn't want her to be hurt, but at least then I would know where she was...She'd at least have a chance to still be alive now." He turned questioning eyes on the detective. "How can someone not be missing long enough if they could be hurt in that amount of time? Maybe I could have done something...maybe someone could have done something."

Frost wished he had answers for the cousin, but the hard questions that death brought up never gave away answers easily, if at all. "Do you know of anyone who might have done this to your cousin? Did she have any enemies?...Or a boyfriend?" More questions, but hopefully these had answers.

"I believe that she had a boyfriend, but I don't know his name. Saleemah said that the family wouldn't approve of him, so she was going to break up with him. I don't know anything more than that...Her roommate might though. They had been friends since junior year of undergrad. They shared a lot."

Frost wrote down the name of the roommate so she could be contacted and questioned later.

"Her parents need to know," Aazim said quietly. He pulled out his cell phone which had their contact information, but he paused not knowing how to break the devastating news to his aunt and uncle. It was the middle of the night where they lived, but he knew they would want to know sooner rather than later...not that they would really want to know that information.

Detective Frost was used to going to family members' homes, or having them come into headquarters. It was a rare occasion that he needed to inform someone of a homicide over the phone. On one hand it was easier, because he couldn't see the pained emotions chiseled on the faces of loved ones; but it was also harder, as he couldn't reach out a hand or arm to offer them some sort of comfort. He asked Aazim to pass over the cell after he pushed the send button. When someone sleepily answered on the other end, Frost said, "Hello. Is this Saleemah al-Sharif's father?"

"You called me...and from my nephew's phone...where is Aazim." The accent from the deep male voice was stronger than that of Aazim's.

"He is right beside me...and I'm Detective Barry Frost in the Boston Police Department...I regret to inform you that your daughter was killed two days ago. We are doing everything in our power to catch the killer." There was a short pause, and then a response. Frost was expecting crying or doubt, but he was not expecting what he got.

"This is NOT a funny idea for a prank! Where...Is...My...NEPHEW."

No one thirty feet away could have missed the yelling over the cell phone, and Aazim was much closer. He grabbed the cell phone to help explain the truth of the situation. "It's true, Uncle. I saw her picture...It was her, it was Saleemah."

Now it was Frost hearing yelling from the phone across the table. He wasn't sure if it was Saleemah's father yelling for his wife, or if he was cursing. This was one of the few times that Frost was thinking it was a good thing that he was telling someone over the phone rather than across the table that their loved one had died. If the anger heard in the father's voice was anything to go by, he would definitely be one of those dangerous animals who Jane would say Frost was going to try and tame.

At the end of the day, the group was no closer to answers, even though they went home with more questions because of the second body. Arrangements had already been made to transport the bodies to their final resting places. Mr. Tucker had his boyfriend sent over to a local funeral home; he was removed from the morgue while Dr. Isles was in conference with the detectives so she did not know which one he was sent to. Saleemah's father must have known some people in high places, because the next thing the morgue knew, they were getting the forms so that the body could be released as soon as possible for aerial transport. She was scheduled to return home in a few days, but it was not the homecoming that her parents had wished for.

The two detectives took notes, crime scene photos, and copies of the autopsy reports home with them. They had the weekend off, but they both knew they would pour over the information that night, while they ate whatever they would get for dinner, and would probably be back bright and early so they could bounce ideas back and forth in their odd version of mental ping-pong.

Dr. Isles would usually be as dedicated to her work, but she had already set up plans with Jane. As long as no new bodies with a similar manner of death were found in the Boston area, Maura was going to spend the weekend solely as Jane's friend rather than Medical Examiner. She hoped she wouldn't get a call, but she didn't think that was going to be the case as she knew that once a killer had more than one killing to their name then there were bound to be more that came through her morgue. Jane would have been proud if Maura mentioned the fear that clutched at her gut. Jane always did go with gut feelings...Maura just never knew they felt so awful.

AN: Getting reviews to 100 would be an awesome b-day gift...granted at least Doctor Who coming back will do if not :D ...Speaking of birthdays, does anyone know if the books mentioned Frost's b-day...I wrote what he should get for presents, but not for sure if there is a day set, or if I can play pin the birthday on the calendar...If so I'm thinking St. Patty's day as he so doesn't look Irish, but he has the green part down pat :D