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Chapter One – Funeral Oration
The car stopped, its headlights embracing the rain in a curtain of golden shades. In spite of the police officers already dispatched around to secure the area, the street was dark and uninviting. Cold.
Everything looks different at night, from a neighbor's smile to the architecture of buildings that seem to rise – powerfully – from the ground. Fears creep in the silent darkness before sliding icily into people's minds, leading to doubts and eventually insomnia as the nightmares repressed during the day decide to turn to life. Nobody feels fine by then.
Nobody but Maura.
Sat behind the steering-wheel of her car – observing absentmindedly the downpour outside – the honey blonde focused on her breathing and the rush of adrenalin the phone call had released through her body thirty minutes earlier. Her eyes caught a bright light coming from her left, a few feet ahead. Televisions had already arrived. As usual.
Everything went faster by night.
As she finally opened the door of her car, the wind rushed in; sending a shiver down her spine. Voices echoed in the dark – somewhere behind the fog that seemed to exude from the asphalt – but instead of trying to see any figure around, the scientist went for her umbrella then put a foot on the ground.
In a pop sound, the item revealed its black fabric – fragile shield against the enraged weather – just as the first rain drop brushed her ankle. The damp contact made her scowl and regret to not have chosen boots instead of stilettos. Clutched to her medical bag and umbrella, she closed back the door with her hip and finally started walking towards the scene.
"Good evening, Dr. Isles."
In an utter silence, she nodded at the young police officer and straightened up; aware of the journalists who were now staring at her.
She had ended up considering it as a funeral oration. A sweet vengeance before a painful past she hated thinking about. The invisible Maura Isles was gone once and for all. She had been buried – forgotten – as her ambition and talent had finally been recognized and she would have lied if she had now said that all these cams turned towards her didn't bring an ounce of self-satisfaction.
People knew who she was. Her face appeared on television, in newspapers. She was respected – feared, at times – but most of all indispensable to a whole system leading to justice; and pain relief.
She had even been given a nickname - The Queen of the Dead – as the ultimate proof that people cared about her and what she had to say. It wasn't a desperate quest of popularity but a delightful way to cock a snook at all these years of nonexistence she had had to deal with.
She passed under the yellow tape – barely hid a smirk as she heard a journalist say her name – and let a second officer lead her to the epicenter of what had high chances to be a murder.
Frost turned out to be the first well-known face she came across to and by the paleness of his cheeks, it didn't take her a long time to assume that the scene was particularly gruesome. The singular smell of blood confirmed it quickly.
"The rain is washing away all the evidence."
Wrinkling her nose, she stared at the ground – the old cobblestones – way too clean around the body. A bare shade of red embracing the rain drops and melting away along her own feet.
"Head included."
The brain uses two different parts to recognize a voice the person will consider as familiar: the auditory and the visual ones. Both work together and develop at a very young age. These two senses give similar and personal information about someone. Information being data.
Data leading to feelings.
Maura immediately looked up – turned her head – and locked her hazel eyes with darker ones. Barely repressing a smile, she rose an eyebrow at her friend and pouted; rather unconvinced.
"As much as water forces are among the most powerful ones, I doubt that the current downpour has a chance to sweep away a person's head to the point of making it disappear, Jane."
The detective shrugged and rose her free hand in the air – the one that wasn't holding an umbrella – in her very typical ironical way of pretending to abdicate. She pursed her lips, frowned.
"So no chance to find it back in Chinatown Park?"
Maura tilted her head on a side and was about to reply when a flash made them both jump of surprise.
The brunette turned on her heels as her hoarse voice resounded loud – menacing – against the media that had dared to take a few pictures.
Unlike Maura, Jane hated being in the spotlight. It made her cringe and involuntarily increased the dose of stress that a case could bring. Once people knew about a murder, all the gazes were turned towards her. The slightest mistake and she dragged in her fall the image of the Boston police.
A whole reputation.
"I'm still surprised none of these crows ever showed up at my place... Imagine if they did and they saw you there. I bet you they'd forget right away about the case and we'd end up making the headlines of that trashy yellow press. Who knows what these rapacious twats are capable of? Especially since you're so mysterious to their eyes."
Maura smiled – quietly enough – and cast a glance at the group of journalists standing at the end of the alley. They knew her name and her job position – even probably her address – but in spite of all of this, they often highlighted the idea that the chief medical examiner of Massachusetts was a complete mystery.
"It is their own way to spice up the image I represent, I suppose. Doesn't someone who works with the dead have to own a singular, mysterious shade? It sounds more appealing. Classic scheme."
And true. Because nobody really knew Maura Isles, in the end. Nobody was able to keep track of her personal life. Especially by night. Not even Jane.
Suddenly ashamed of her own thoughts, the blonde looked down at the body and squatted by it. There wasn't much she could do right now. The rain had cooled down the victim's temperature and with such weather conditions, a further exam would be more conclusive at the morgue.
In a dry environment. Under a bright light.
"Autopsy tomorrow morning at 9. You can go back to sleep. I am going to give my authorization so they take away the body."
Jane made a face and shook her head. The neighborhood was quiet and the few passers-by had already seen their identity saved up on the brand new opened file. In theory, the call was over and she could go back to her place.
In theory. Because she was wide awake, now.
"I was having a hard time falling asleep, anyway."
The alarm set off in Maura's head. Out of habit. Standing back up, she looked around and saw a bright neon light opposite the street. Chinatown was quiet but not quite asleep. With a tone she hoped casual, she walked up the alley and addressed her friend as they reached the yellow tape.
"How about some late-night tea?"