A/N Thanks everyone for the positive reviews
Stipling called a driver's license picture up on the screen. Maura immediately recognized her.
"Samantha Lynn Collins, age 35, of Boston," Stipling said. "She has a B.A. in business and computer science from Boston University and along with a MBA. She is very smart as you can see from her transcripts. She first met Jane when Jane was fresh out of the police academy. Jane was paired up with an experienced officer on her first week and that officer had arrested a Sara Collins, 18, and she was charged with possession of heroin. Sara called her older sister Samantha to bail her out."
"Jane helped navigate Samantha through the bail bondsman process. They started to date afterward and had a somewhat secret relationship for nearly three years before Samantha broke it off. Did Jane ever tell you why?"
"She um … she said Samantha had bigger dreams than marrying a cop."
"Interesting and maybe from Jane's standpoint that is how she viewed it. Anyway, this appears to be the only same-sex relationship Jane had prior to you. Now Samantha is a highly successful financial analyst. She weathered the economic downturn with more money than she started with. She also helped some very influential clients through it who were more than happy to pay her bonuses as well. Her current wealth is spread across worldwide investments and banks making her actual net worth unknown."
"While her professional life appears to be completely in order, the same can't be said for her personal life. I'll go more into that in a little bit. Now fast forward to the night Jane and Samantha see each other at the bar. You were away at a conference and Jane was here. She told you she ran into Samantha earlier in the week, correct?"
Maura remembered the conversation clearly. It was right before Maura was leaving to go to the medical examiner's conference in Florida. They were sitting on the back patio just after dusk, Jane drinking a beer and Maura a glass of wine. They had shared several peaceful nights like that and at the time she thought that was how it would always be. Then Jane mentioned Samantha. She of course knew who Samantha was. While she had never met her, nor seen a picture of her, when she and Jane were dating, Jane had told her about her first girlfriend.
"I saw Sam today," Jane said, as if it was a common occurrence. It took Maura a moment to register that Jane meant Samantha. "When I stopped to get coffee I was walking out when I heard someone call my name and there she was sitting at one of the tables."
"Did you talk to her?"
"Briefly. I needed to get back to the precinct. She's back in Boston for a few weeks to clear up some personal matters, something to do with her mom's estate I think. I didn't really get into it. She wanted to know if she and I could get together why she was in town to talk. Don't worry, even if she hadn't mentioned she heard I got married, I would have told her."
"I'm not worried," Maura smiled. "What did you tell her?"
"I told her I didn't know and I really needed to run. She handed me her business card in case I wanted to call and get together for dinner."
"Do you want to?"
"No. But I feel like I owe to her. I know that sounds stupid, but the last time I saw her I …I was just so angry."
Maura leaned over and put a comforting hand on her wife's arm. "It's your choice, but maybe you should go if nothing else to apologize."
"I don't know. I will think about it. Sam is … when she and I were going out our differences kept popping up it seemed but we always worked through it until the end. Then when she came back into my life it was … it was completely the wrong timing and I guess a part of me has always wanted to apologize for the things I said to her that night, but you know I don't like thinking about that time in my life on a normal basis and I sort of figured an apology was pointless. It was a long time ago and I am happy now with you and there is no reason to revisit the past."
"Maybe you shouldn't look at it was revisiting the past and instead look at it as letting someone who was once very important to you know that you didn't mean to hurt them."
"How do you always know the right things to say?"
"I'm a genius," she said matter-of-factly and Jane leaned over and kissed her.
"I knew she had run into Samantha and I knew she was going to meet her while I was away," Maura said. "I didn't think there was anything to worry about and I even called her that evening to say goodnight. She was at a hotel bar with Samantha when I called. She must have stepped away to talk. She said she was finishing her drink and would be leaving. She said she had apologized to Sam who accepted and appreciated it. She even said meeting with Samantha made her even more grateful that she had me in her life. The next day when I called her though she was acting strange, a little off and I didn't know why."
"How long was it before you received this picture?" Stipling asked displaying a photo on the screen of Jane and Samantha kissing. Maura only glanced at it before looking away.
"It was within the week of me returning."
"I imagine like any spouse you confronted Jane immediately?"
"She denied it. And then she told me that she couldn't remember what happened that night after talking to me on the phone. She remembered going back to the table, sitting and drinking and then … then she said woke up in Samantha's hotel room, in her bed. When I asked her if she had passed out there or if she was actually in bed with Samantha she admitted that Sam was there and they were both naked. She swore she didn't know what happened, but I … I asked her to leave our house that night."
"See, she clearly did something with this Samantha person," Constance said. "The photo, her admission that she was in bed with her, Jane never had any proof that she didn't carry on an affair."
"Actually, the photo is a fake. It was photo shopped." Stipling said indicating the screen. "I had an expert friend of mine take a look at it and he said while it's a good manipulation it wasn't without some flaws that made him see it was a fake. The photo of Jane kissing is the base photo, but who she is kissing was inserted. My friend even found the original photo used on a Facebook page."
The screen changed to a photo of Jane and Maura kissing.
"That's at the precinct bbq two years ago," Maura said.
"That is the thing with social media, people make everything public. Too anyone with PhotoShop experience it could have been done, although my friend tells me this was more than simple copy and paste job. Someone put effort into this. Now the emails. I am sure you are aware that each time you send and receive an email it records an IP address in it. Basically it's a tag to show where it came from. None of the emails from Jane's personal account that were sent to Samantha had an IP address that matched any of the ones Jane would have sent from."
"How do you know this?" Maura asked. "Samantha only showed me the print outs. I only saw them in electronic form when Jane denied sending them and called up her account to show me she didn't. But many of them were still there in her sent folder, although cleared from her inbox"
"Let me back up. The emails were sent from Jane's personal account, as you saw. That is indisputable. What isn't indisputable is if Jane was the one who actually wrote them and sent them. I am saying no and not just because the IP addresses don't match up. Look here at this email."
He called up one that appeared to be Jane sending Samantha a quick email to see about arranging to see her. It was signed Love Always, Jane.
"Notice anything odd about it?"
Maura looked at it. She read it several times. She had read all the print outs multiple times, although she never really knew why beyond maybe a bit of self-torture.
"I don't see anything."
"The date and time the email was sent," Stipling said, blowing up that part of the document to make it more visible.
Maura hadn't really paid much attention to the dates on the emails beyond wanting to know when they started. She studied the date now, knowing it must be significant or Stipling wouldn't have showed her. After several moments she knew.
"The Kelly Murphy case. Jane was on the stand for six hours that day," she said.
"Correct. There was no way she could have sent this at 2:14 p.m. because she was testifying. I checked the court logs, and there was no break anywhere near that time," Stipling said.
Maura was beginning to respect Stipling's thoroughness more and more.
"Still how did you get the emails in electronic form?" Maura asked.
"I have a contact who was able to acquire them for me," he said. "But regardless Samantha Collins with or without someone's help went to a lot of trouble to make it look like Jane was unfaithful to you."
"So she really never …"
"No. Tell me, when you called Jane that night that she was out with Samantha, you said she stepped away to talk. Do you know if she left the actual bar area?"
"I don't know for sure. When I first called the background noise sounded like a bar but she told me to hold on and when she got back on it didn't sound like it."
"I believe she did leave the bar. The waitress on duty that night remembers Jane being drunk to the point Samantha helped her from the bar, most likely all the way up to her room. But the waitress also thought it odd after I started questioning her about it because she doesn't recall Jane having more than two beers and she thought Jane didn't finish the second one. Once she left the room to talk to you it would have left Samantha plenty of time to put something in her drink."
"Drugged? She drugged Jane," Constance said. "Why? If what you are saying is true, why all of this?"
"That would be pure conjecture on my part," Stipling said. "As it is, I can prove the photo and emails are fake, but I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt Samantha did it. She is most likely yes, but proving it would be another matter. Just as there is no proof she drugged Jane. But having said that, it's my belief Dr. Isles that Samantha had an unhealthy obsession with your wife."
"Do you think Samantha killed her?" Maura asked.
Stipling sighed. "Forgive me for saying this, but you and Samantha on the surface of things are somewhat alike. You are both wealthy, although you came by it differently. You are both philanthropists who give money freely to charities. You are both highly educated and respected in your fields. You were both in love with Jane. There are two main differences when it comes to her murder however. You had motive, she doesn't. She has an alibi, you don't. I don't believe you killed your wife Dr. Isles. From everything I have been able to discover since being hired points to you two having a loving marriage until Samantha came along. But as of right now at least I can't prove that Samantha had anything to do with it. She wasn't even in Massachusetts when Jane disappeared."
"But if what you are saying, you can prove Jane didn't have an affair, which means Maura had no motive," Constance said.
"Yes, but she didn't know that information until now. The jury would still see it as a wife who was upset over her spouse's perceived adultery. It's also why I asked earlier if you had personal items that belonged to Jane. A jury isn't likely to see a woman who loved her wife, not given the contention between the two of you at the end. When Jane woke up in bed with Samantha, I imagine she got scared since she couldn't remember. She should have been honest with you so it's understandable that you believed she cheated, especially with the evidence Samantha provided."
"Except Jane asked me, begged me, to have faith in her and in our love. And I … I didn't. I threw it all away."
"Oh Maura, you had no way of knowing," Constance said squeezing her hand. "Even Jane thought she had done something with Samantha. You aren't at fault here. You couldn't have known."
"Your mother is right," Stipling said. "Giving in to despair now will not help matters."
"What is there to help?" Maura said. "All the evidence points to me. You are right, I had motive and I have no alibi. I didn't kill Jane, but a jury could very well believe that I did."
"You've known from the beginning that you were set up, you had to have," Stipling said. "But you haven't done anything to help yourself in the process so far either. The question is, are you ready now to fight?"
Maura looked at the screen which still showed the fake email. Samantha Collins had ruined her marriage. She didn't know why, but she was going to find out.
"I am," Maura said.
"Good," Stipling said. "Because what I have to show you next isn't going to be easy."