Through the side window, Maura saw Jane. The detective was still wearing a T-shirt and suit pants. The gold BPD badge was clipped to Jane's belt, and the gun was in the belt holster Maura took a deep breath and turned off the alarm, and unlocked the door, but she only opened it halfway.
Jane smiled, but the lawyer could tell how exhausted she was. In one hand she held a few sheets of paper stapled together at one corner and waved them in front of Maura.
"Thanks for bringing them by, Jane." Maura took the documents from her. "You didn't have to do that. I could have picked it up." She didn't invite the Italian woman in.
"You said you needed it today, so you'll get it today. Even with three hours to spare. It's only nine."
"Thank you very much. How do you know where I live, anyway?" The idea that Maura could be found made her uncomfortable. She was very careful about her address and didn't give it to anyone. And because she was a prosecutor, it was also kept under lock and key in the office.
"Have you forgotten that I'm a detective? We get paid to figure things like this out. Honestly, I just called your office, Cara gave me your address."
Maura took it upon herself to give Cara hell the next morning.
An awkward pause ensued. Finally, Jane asked, "Do you think maybe I could come in for a moment? I wanted to tell you about the house search. Unless you don't have time right now." Her eyes drifted past the lawyer and into the house.
Maura answered quickly, too quickly probably, "I'm alone." Then she bit her lip and continued more slowly. "Well, I'm just a little tired, and I have a headache and -" She looked Jane in the eye and realized the detective was drawing her own conclusions. Maura made an effort to smile and appear normal. "Oh, what the hell, I'm sorry, come on in." She opened the door for her, and Jane entered. For a moment or two, they stood in front of each other in the hallway, then she turned and walked into the kitchen. "Would you like a glass of wine, or are you still on duty?"
Jane followed her, "I thought you had a headache."
"I do," Maura replied, opening the fridge. "Wine is good for a headache. You just forget you had one."
Jane took a long look at her and laughed. "Well, I'll definitely have a glass, then, thank you." She looked around her house. It was colorful and tastefully decorated. The kitchen was painted a bright sunny yellow. The living room was bright, and modern art hung on the walls. Jane was surprised. Maura always seemed so serious. Somehow the detective had expected her house to be all white and gray, with maybe a touch of cream, and the walls bare. "Nice place you have here. So colorful and so cheerful."
"Thank you. I like bright colors. They calm me down."
"The house is great.
"Yes, I'm quite happy here. I've had it for good five years now. It's a little too big for Lucy and Tibby and me."
"Lucy? Tibby?"
"Tibby's the one who's just spreading his white hair all over your fancy black pants."
As if on cue, Tibby let out a heartbreaking meow from below. Jane patted the fat cat on the head, and Tibby purred as miserably as if he'd never been given love in his life.
"- And this is Lucy. My baby." Lucy had smelled that the fridge was open, and flopped into the kitchen. She spotted Maura's outstretched hand and shifted in position to be scratched behind her long ears. "She doesn't hear so good anymore, but that doesn't matter. Right, girl?" Maura leaned down to her, and Lucy wagged her tail eagerly.
"Nice and quiet here. A whole different pace than Boston."
"I like it. Like any big city, there are just too many crazies in Boston. I see them every day, already have to deal with them all day. I don't need them where I live, too. Besides, I like to keep work and home separate."
"Because of anonymity?"
"That's another reason. All of this is worth the twenty-minute drive to the office."
"I was born and raised in Boston. The city is in my blood. I couldn't live more than twenty minutes away from Little Italy to have really good Italian food."
"There are good Italian restaurants all over Boston."
"That's right. Maybe I'll get transferred to Roslindale. Then I'll drive around like an undercover cop, chasing down stray truants."
"Now you're exaggerating. It's not like this is Boringville, Iowa. I wish. There's way too much happening across the county line, and more of it every year."
"Just kidding. Of course, Roslindale has its problems, too, and they keep growing. Even the crazies are expanding, they need a residence outside the area where their house bans apply, but still within the 50-mile radius of their parole officers." Jane thought for a moment and stroked her chin. "I just like Boston. And I like living in a familiar environment. I'm probably just lazy."
"Good, that's good to know," Maura said softly.
They were both silent for a moment and took a sip of wine. Maura looked tired, drained. Individual strands had come loose from her loose topknot and framed her face. Jane hardly knew her like this. She looked good even without makeup. Very good, in fact. She possessed a natural beauty that was rare. Strange that she always seemed to try to hide it. But the criminal justice system was a man's world. Even in a city that pretended to be as cosmopolitan as Boston. The courts were still teeming with chauvinistic judges, cops, and prosecutors. In her years with the BPD, Jane had seen many women struggle to be taken seriously and respected by their colleagues and the judiciary. Maura didn't have that problem. She was probably one of the most respected female prosecutors around. She even enjoyed more prestige than her weird boss, Small. Jane saw the gray blazer over the kitchen chair and noticed that Maura was still wearing her suit pants. "Didn't you go home early today?"
"Yes I did, why?"
"Because you didn't change."
"I just didn't get around to it. I took some work with me." Maura deflected. "How did the search of the house go? Did you find anything?" Glancing under the table, she noticed Jane petting Tibby and Lucy at the same time.
"Oh, yeah. Quite good. I'm surprised Korsak hasn't called you yet to tell you everything scaldingly."
"He has, but he hasn't reached me. And when I called back, he didn't answer. I left a message, like, two hours ago."
"Well, we only stopped forty-five minutes ago. I came straight here. We found blood in the shed behind the house. Not much, three little drops, but it's enough. Preliminary tests came back an hour ago. It's human blood. We'll do DNA analysis and compare it to Anna Prado's DNA. That'll take a couple of weeks, though. And we might have a murder weapon, too. Looks like Bantling liked to stuff animals in his shed. Do you know what that's called?"
"Taxidermy?"
"Yes. There were some birds hanging from the ceiling beams in the shed. But he's got about sixteen different scalpels there. And we may have found blood on one. Neilson brings in an expert in knife cuts, maybe one of the scalpels matches the cuts in the girls' chests, on the ones that aren't too badly decomposed. We'll have the microscopic tissue lesions compared."
Maura shuddered. She was starting to feel a little too directly involved and didn't know how long she could keep having this conversation tonight.
"We've packed everything up and sent it to the lab, and now we're just waiting for the results. They sprayed the whole house with Luminol. Nothing. No trace of blood."
"And the shed?"
"It was glowing like a swarm of fireflies. Bantling apparently tried to clean it up, but he forgot a few splashes on the lower part of the wall. Anyway, there was blood all over the place. Even the ceiling has glowed, and the splatter pattern looks like he killed Anna Prado right there on the metal table. When the aorta is injured, the blood spurts like a volcano. We'll show it to Leslie Bickins. She's an expert on this kind of thing. Tomorrow she's coming over from Connecticut to take a look. One problem, of course, is that he also cut up dead animals in the shed and stuffed them. So the question of the day is, whose blood is on the wall?"
"Anything else?"
"Yes. I found a tube of Haldol that Bantling got from a doctor in New York. You may know that Haldol is an anti-psychotic. It's prescribed for delusional states. So Bantling obviously has a psychiatric history as well. That would fit the pattern, and it would also explain the gruesomeness of the murders. Then he has a whole chest full of homemade Sado-Maso porn. Always different women, some looking very young, many about the same age as our victims. We haven't gone through all of them yet because there are over a hundred. From the titles, mostly with blondes."
Maura had gone white as a sheet.
"You okay? Jesus, you look like you did in court this morning again." Jane leaned across the table and touched Maura's arm. The lawyer clenched her hand around the stem of her glass, her knuckles all white. "What's wrong with you, Maura? Maybe I can help you."
"I'm fine ... I think I'm getting a little sick. Nothing more." Maura realized how distracted and absent-minded she sounded. It was time to end the conversation. Before she broke down completely. She pulled her arm back and stood up. Avoiding Jane's gaze, she looked at the AutoTrackback on the table. "Thanks for bringing that over I'll look at it in a minute." Her voice seemed to come from far away now. She flipped through the papers, then looked at Jane. "And thank you for coming all this way. You didn't have to."
Now Jane stood up, too, and followed the lawyer to the door. She noticed the four different security locks. And the sophisticated alarm system on the wall. What was Maura trying to lock out, up here in her tower in nice, quiet, Beacon Hill?
Maura opened the door and just barely managed to keep Lucy from escaping. "No, Lucy. No. We've already been out tonight." The lawyer glared at Jane. The detective saw it then, abundantly clear, the fear in her hazel eyes. "Well, thank you, Jane," she said softly. "I'll see you tomorrow. Call me after you talk to Neilson. Maybe we'll meet there. And ... I'm sorry to be so ... absent. It's just -"
Jane reached for Maura's hand on the doorknob and held it tight. Her face was very close to Maura's now, and the lawyer felt Jane's warm breath on her cheek. It smelled sweet and cool, of peppermint and chardonnay. Jane's gaze was serious, but also gentle.
The detective looked into her eyes. "Don't say anything now," she whispered, "don't say anything, or what's about to happen won't happen." Then her lips touched Maura's cheek, sliding gently over her skin until they found her mouth.
To Maura's surprise, she realized that her lips were already slightly open, awaiting Jane's mouth. She wanted the kiss, wanted to feel Jane's sweet, pepperminty tongue on hers. Their lips found each other, and a slight tremor went through her body. Exploring, Jane's tongue slid over her lips. She pressed Maura against the door, and even through their clothes, they both felt the heat between them. Maura knew Jane was carrying a secret herself, really only telling it her at least, and one evening when they were both overworked and no longer wanted to talk about the murders. The detective had confided in Maura that she was not like other women, that she was physically different. The lawyer had dismissed it as an exaggeration at the time. Do now felt Jane's arousal against her thigh.
Jane was still holding her hand. Now she let go of it and stroked her arm, caressed her shoulder through the silk blouse, then slid her fingers down to her waist. Jane placed a warm hand in the small of Maura's back. With the other, she held Maura's face, her other thumb surprisingly soft and gentle on Maura's cheek. The kiss grew fiercer, more passionate. Jane's tongue penetrated deeper into Maura's mouth, her chest pressed tightly against Maura's, so close that the lawyer felt Jane's heart pounding.
This time, Maura didn't back away from the Italian. Instead, she hesitantly put her hand on the back of Jane's neck and pulled her even closer. Her fingertips roamed over Jane's back, feeling her muscles through the T-shirt. A wave of emotion seized Maura, one she thought she had buried forever. The moment completely overwhelmed her.
Jane felt Maura's hot tears on her cheek. The kiss ended abruptly. Maura kept her head lowered, ashamed. She shouldn't have let the detective see her like that. But then Jane took her face in her warm, rough hand, lifted Maura's chin, and looked into her eyes. Again, the lawyer saw Jane's concern. And as if the brunette had read her mind, she whispered, "I'm not going to hurt you, Maura. Never." Gently, Jane kissed her tears away. "And we'll take things slow. Really slow. As slow as you want." Then she kissed Maura once again on the lips, tenderly, reservedly. And for the first time in a very long time, Maura felt safe, here, in this woman's arms.
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At 7 a.m., Maura sat at her desk, coffee in hand, flipping through the papers that had piled up in a single afternoon. Despite the sweet kiss goodnight, sleep hadn't come to her last night without dreams, terrible, blood-soaked dreams. The clown mask was gone, replaced by the smooth, smiling face of William Rupert Bantling. He smiled brightly at her as he cut her skin to shreds with his Rolex hand. She wasn't even sure if she was dreaming or if she was awake and the memory was giving her an encore with the haunting images after midnight. In any case, when she finally opened her eyes, she decided she didn't want to fall asleep again under any circumstances. At 4 a.m. she sat down on her porch wrapped in her thin sheet and watched the sunrise over Beacon Hill.
After Jane left, Maura had tried to think about what she wanted to do, needed to do, about the Boogeyman matter. Should she inform Small of her bias? Or hand the case off silently, without explanation, to a colleague? A radical thought kept popping into her head, even though she realized that this solution was really out of question: should she just go ahead without saying anything?
If she took Small into her confidence, the entire DA's office would have to step back from the case and turn it over to another county, which would then appoint a new prosecutor. That would be more than problematic in such a complex case, where everything was happening in Boston. The team was also much more experienced in felonies in this category. In some of the other counties, there were only three or four prosecutors at all, and no serial murders had ever gone to trial there. In these old, traditional Massachusetts counties, Boston was considered the den of iniquity, the black sheep. No one would voluntarily set foot here, let alone willingly work a case here.
Maura, on the other hand, was familiar with every single murder. She had been to virtually every crime scene, seen everybody, interviewed every girl's relatives, friends, lovers, talked to the ME, and she had sought every single court order. She had lived, breathed, and worked for this case for a year. No one knew the facts as well as she did, and she also doubted that anyone else could dig in as well again.
Even if she quietly assigned the case to a colleague in the Major Crimes Unit, there was still the problem that the new guy wasn't up to speed. And she would have to explain the reason for her actions. Why would she suddenly want to hand off the most important case of her career? A case that any law enforcement officer could only dream of? Her behavior would raise more questions than she was prepared to answer.
As for the last option, at least for now, she could continue. She would remain silent until it was certain without the slightest shadow of a doubt that it had been Bantling back in Bayside. Until she was perfectly sure. After all, she still had to talk to McMillan at the Cold Case Unit in New York. Perhaps, by some strange coincidence, someone had looked into the case over the last ten years, after she had stopped calling the detectives daily. Maybe her sheets, her pajamas, her panties from that night had been re-examined, and suddenly bodily fluids had turned up after all, where nothing had been found before. Maybe, by chance, charges had been filed against Bantling's DNA after all. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
She wanted to do the right thing, but she wasn't sure what that was. She wanted to bring Bantling to justice. Maura sighed and looked out the window of her office to the street, where street vendors were already setting up their stands with hot dogs and cans of drinks, yet it wasn't even 9 a.m. yet. At another stall, fresh mangoes, papayas, bananas, and pineapples were piled up under the striped umbrella, and the vendor was moving to Latin American rhythms coming from a radio under his counter. Last night, sitting on her patio, she had turned all these thoughts over and over in her mind a million times. And, of course, she had thought about Jane. Of all times, this one was the least opportune for something like love or passion. But now, of all times, it had happened, and she hadn't pushed the detective away.
Absentmindedly, she touched her lips and thought of how Jane's mouth had felt on hers. She recalled the peppermint smell of her breath and the worried expression of her eyes. Jane had just held her, there, at her front door, stroking her back, with her warm breath on her ear, and the feeling of safety had been overwhelming, if only for five minutes.
She hadn't been with a man in ages and had never been with a woman. The last man had been with was a stockbroker named Dave, whom she had met drunk in a bar and then dated for a few months. She thought he was funny and nice. Until, suddenly, he stopped calling. Purely by chance, exactly after they had slept together for the first time. When she asked him why he ended the relationship so suddenly, he said she was carrying around "too much baggage." That had been a few years ago. Being around a man scared her; it threw too much off, opened up too many wounds. She'd had a few dates since then, but nothing serious, and most importantly, no one got too close. It hardly went beyond dinner at the restaurant.
And then last night. And then Jane. It had been a kiss, nothing more, and the detective had said goodbye when she had asked her to. But she couldn't get Jane's words out of her head. The Italian had sounded so sincere, and the feeling of security had been so good. But Jane was far too involved in this case to be allowed to know the truth. And what was a relationship without sincerity? How many thin excuses and lies would Maura have to spin? And even if telling Jane everything was up for debate, could she ever talk about that night with another person who wasn't her psychiatrist? Why her body looked the way it did when the bedroom light was still on?
On her desk, the pink phone notes piled up. Maura would ask the DA's press secretary to respond to calls from newspapers and television stations around the country. On the top note, Cara had written in huge capital letters: THIS IS THE 3RD MESSAGE! WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL BACK! In the wooden box on her desk was plenty of mail from today. Besides Boogeyman, Maura was on ten other murder cases, two of which would be tried in the next two months. She had an explosive detention review next week, various hearings, and meetings with relatives. No appointment could be missed because of Boogeyman. She would have to juggle all the balls and could only hope she didn't drop any.
Maura looked at the back of Bantling's three-page arrest report. About twenty-five cops were listed there. First letter of first name, last name, department, and badge number. They were all witnesses. The cop who had pulled Bantling over, the first colleagues on the scene, the K-9, the officers who had broken into the trunk and found Anna Prado's body, the task force investigators, Detective Jane Rizzoli.
From the day of his arrest, Maura had twenty-one days to obtain from the grand jury an indictment against Bantling for murder. That meant she had to interrogate all the witnesses, collect the statements, and prepare a memo for the grand jury, which was then given to Smalls' deputy, Martin Yars. Yars was the only prosecutor in the entire House who was allowed to argue cases before the grand jury. So he would also obtain the indictment against Bantling, probably based on the testimony of Jane Rizzoli, in the capacity of head of the Boogeyman task force. The grand jury always met only on Wednesdays. Since today was already Thursday, she had only two dates left. If she failed to bring the case before the grand jury within that time, she would at least have to file a "normal" criminal charge of manslaughter, also within the three weeks, and for that, she would have to present evidence that incriminated the defendant. Then she would follow up with the murder charge the next time Yars was able to appear before the grand jury. Either way, then, Maura needed the sworn testimony of all the witnesses. Twenty-one was the magic number, and twenty-one days was not a lot of time.
Maura took the last sip of the Dunkin' Donuts coffee and massaged her temples. Her head was pounding. She had to make a decision about how she would proceed. Whether she would move on. Time was of the essence, and she couldn't afford a cooling-off period. All the cops had to be called in and their statements taken, and even organizing that would take a few days.
She looked at the clock. It was already 9:30 a.m. She grabbed her purse and sunglasses and hurried out, past the secretary's office and the musty Cara, who was wearing purple Lycra from head to toe today.
Maura vowed to make a decision, one way or the other.
When she came back.