"I need to show you something," Stipling said. "Again with the internet this job gets easier and easier. You see why I can't prove Samantha had anything to do with Jane's death, she was clearly involved in this. I started to look into more of Samantha's personal life. It is one long string of failed relationships. These are the pictures of the ex-girlfriends that I have been able to trace."
The screen changed and a series of six pictures came up.
"Oh God," Constance said. "They all look like Jane."
Maura couldn't turn away from the pictures. The women were clearly not Jane, but they all resembled her in someway whether it be the hair or facial structure.
"This … this is an obsession," Maura said.
"My thought exactly," Stipling said. "These women all have diverse backgrounds, occupations, likes and dislikes. The only thing that connects them is that they all resemble each other. Here is a picture of her last girlfriend, the one in my opinion that most looks like Jane."
He brought another picture up and Maura had to agree that this woman of all of them did look the most like her.
"This is Penny. She is a waitress at a bar in New York. I went up there and interviewed her. When I told her I was there to investigate the death of woman who was connected to Samantha she was more than a little reluctant to speak. I left her my card and told her I would be in town for a few days. She called me up early the next morning and asks me what the name of the woman is, the woman whose death I am investigating. I tell her Jane Rizzoli. She gets silent and then agrees to meet with me."
"She knew something about Jane?" Maura asked.
"No. Had no idea who Jane was, not exactly at least. Penny is barely scraping by there in New York. She said the first time she met Samantha, Sam was immediately flirtatious with her. She thought Samantha was great looking and she figured flirting back would net her a good tip. Then Samantha came back a few times – always polite to her, always flirting until the day she asked Penny out. They started to date and Penny thought she was the luckiest woman in the world."
"Here was this attractive, well-off woman who seemed genuinely interested in her and treated her better than any other person she had been with. Then things started to change. Samantha became more controlling, always wanting to know where she was, and sometimes she would come into the bar just to watch Penny and make sure no one else was flirting with her. One night she got into it with another woman because this woman was apparently checking Penny out."
"Penny's boss told her she needed to get a handle on the situation or she would lose her job. She tells Samantha this and Sam suggests that she quit her job that Samantha would take care of any expenses, that they could move in together. Penny turned her down which led to a big fight. Samantha accused her of cheating on her and slapped her across the face."
"Penny said when Samantha did this, she also called her Jane. When she asked who Jane was Samantha left and she never heard from her again. The other women I talked to had similar stories of things starting out amazing with Samantha and then they would go downhill quickly. One of the women told me they had just finished having sex when Samantha looked at her and told her to get out, that they were done. When the woman asked her why, she said 'because you are not my Jane.'"
Maura started getting sick to her stomach thinking of how obsessed Samantha was with Jane – and Jane, nor she had known it. She had let this woman manipulate her into destroying her marriage.
"Samantha has to be involved in Jane's death," Constance said.
"I agree," Stipling said. "I am just unsure how. Like I said, she has an alibi. There are at least 20 people who will testify that she was on a video conference with them while she was in New York on the day Jane disappeared. I can't find any evidence that she left New York for any extended period of time during the week in question. That doesn't mean she didn't, but if she did she was very good at covering her tracks."
"She has money, she could have hired someone."
"Again, she could have, but it's a matter of proof. Don't underestimate this woman. She is very smart. And the idea that she could do anything violent would be a shock to just about anyone who hadn't dated her. From what I can tell she is very highly-regarded. She volunteers at homeless shelter on Saturday mornings where she hands out meals. She is a Red Cross volunteer and actually went to New Orleans after Katrina to help out. She is one of the organizers of the NYPD fallen heroes memorial 5K which provides scholarship money to the children of deceased cops."
"Um, is this all you have to show us because if so, I think I'd like to go home now," Maura said. She was feeling completely overwhelmed now and wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up in Red Sox t-shirt.
"There is more, but if you need to take a break, I understand," Stipling said. "This is a lot to take in."
"No, please continue."
"Ok," he said. "I do have something else to show you."
The screen changed again and Maura knew immediately what was being displayed – a copy of her divorce papers, specifically the last page where they had to sign it. This time she did look away. Knowing what she knew now, those papers were like a bullet to her heart.
"You can see here Jane's signature," Stipling said. "Once I realized the extent of Samantha's obsession with Jane I had a handwriting expert at Harvard look at this document. You see how curve in Jane's J is. Well he compared it to a sample of Jane's signature on a police report – an easy enough thing to obtain through a public records request."
He called up the report and from an eye view the signatures matched. He called up another paper, which must have been the experts notes showing the precise measurements of the letters, which matched. Maura got up and approached the screen.
She reached out to the letter J.
"This isn't how Jane signs her name?"
"It is and it isn't," Stipling said. "What you are looking at is a comparison to a police report Jane signed during her first year on the force, the time when she would have been dating Samantha."
He changed the screen again to another signature where the J and the other letters weren't as curvy and had more sharp edges to them.
"This is probably the signature that you are more used to seeing from Jane," Stipling said. "For the most part our signatures don't change over time as we are adults. We naturally sign things as we are used to. But in Jane's case the signature did change over time."
"The damage to her hands," Maura said. "From Hoyt. When he stabbed her with the scalpels through her hands. During rehab she had to retrain some of the muscles in her hands. It changed her handwriting, which means the divorce papers they were …"
"A forgery. Jane never signed them," Stipling said.
Stipling rushed to her side as Maura felt light-headed. He guided her to a chair and Constance came to her side with a glass of water. Maura took it and drank some, not because she was thirsty but because she had to do something, anything. Jane didn't sign the divorce papers. They were still married.
"We were still married."
"I know this all comes as a shock to you," Stipling said.
"No, you don't understand. We were still married. When I went to Maine, when my divorce lawyer called and said the papers were received and filed with the court, I thought ..."
"I do understand Dr. Isles."
Maura looked up him and saw the sympathy there in his eyes.
"When I get hired on to a case, and Mr. Dalton will attest to it, it's not just my job to find the holes in the prosecution's case. My job it also to see if there are holes in the defense that need to be addressed. And unfortunately for you Dr. Isles, your conduct in the aftermath of the divorce papers being served isn't going to do you any favors."
Maura just looked at him, and when she didn't say anything, Constance spoke up.
"What is he talking about?"
Maura looked down at the table. "When I was in Maine, I slept with someone."