A/N: This story is the story of the double murder that happened during Chapter 6 of The Adventures of Kate and the Sitter.
Halloween Murder
Drake Robbins didn't know what he was doing, he didn't feel well. He wanted to go back to bed. He was so pissed off. He told himself that if one more person told him what to do, or if one more person backtalked him, he would lose it.
He had to be to work in thirty minutes and it took him twenty minutes to drive there. He didn't have time to mess around. Yesterday had been a terrible day for him and he just wanted to forget everything that had happened.
When he finished getting dressed, he grabbed his keys, hopped in his truck and headed to work. If he was lucky, he would be able to find a decent parking spot and be able to clock in with a few minutes to spare. If there were too many people there he might have to park further away.
He got lucky he was able to park close to the building. He grabbed his thermos and headed into the building. Still with the thought that people better stay out of his way. He didn't like when he felt this way. He would stay home but he couldn't afford it. He needed the money as he had bills to pay. His bills didn't care if he felt off or not. There was no break from the bills, EVER.
He clocked in and changed into his uniform, a pair of denim overalls with a short sleeve plaid button up shirt underneath. He didn't like the uniform but the job helped him pay his never-ending bills. He had been working at this particular job for over three years. He liked some of what he did. He had known the owners of the company since he was a small boy and they had made him a shift supervisor within three months of being hired.
He had twelve employees under him, two of which were new and weren't learning the ropes too fast. They got on his nerves. They were scheduled to work today because it was Halloween and it was an 'all hands-on deck' kind of day.
Jane was gathering her things as it was a couple minutes before five and Maura had just walked into the bullpen so they could ride home together. They knew their children would be waiting to go trick or treating. Just minutes before their shift ended, they received a phone call that there was a double murder. They were on call so they couldn't call out, they had to respond.
They knew their children would be disappointed but they had told them that they were on call and that they could get called away. Jane knew she shouldn't have thought that they were in the clear a few minutes before five. She brought the bad luck to them.
"Maur, can you call my Ma and I will call Kelly?" Jane asked as she sped off to the pumpkin patch. Maura took out her cell phone and called Angela while Jane called Kelly. Jane felt it would be easier if Maura called her ma as Angela would ask her too many questions. She wouldn't ask Maura so many questions.
When Angela hung up with Maura, she immediately went over to their house to help their nanny, Kelly, get the children ready. Then she and Kelly took the children out trick or treating. Jane, Maura and Frost made their way to the crime scene. Normally, Maura would have drove herself to the crime scene but she told her staff she would catch a ride with Jane and Frost.
Jane couldn't believe when the call came in, they had a double murder at the pumpkin patch. They had just taken their children there a few days ago for the annual Rizzoli pumpkin patch trip. It had been a great time with all three Rizzoli children and their families. Jane wanted to keep that positive thought in her mind and not let what they were about to see cloud her memories of the pumpkin patch.
When they arrived at the pumpkin patch the owners were beside themselves. In all the years that they have owned and ran the pumpkin patch they had never had any injuries let alone a murder. They had been very cooperative with the first responders that arrived on the scene.
They drove Jane, Maura and Frost out to where the bodies were in their golf cart. The first responders had counted the body parts without moving anything and were certain that the remains of two bodies were located on the right path of the route that the hayride took several times a day.
Normally the hayride would take the passengers to one of two destinations, to a trailer of smashed pumpkins or a trailer of pumpkins. Upon discovering the body parts, the driver announced that he had to back the truck and trailer up and he was discontinuing the hayride and would be refunding everyone's money.
The driver didn't tell anyone what was going on. He simply took out his cell phone and dialed 911. He walked away from the truck and explained what he saw and asked for the police to come. Within ten minutes the police were on sight. When the first responders took in the sight, they roped everything off and call the Homicide department.
Frost retrieved the information from the first responders while Jane and Maura walked the rest of the way to where the bodies were located. It was a gruesome sight. There was blood everywhere. The trailer was parked where it normally would be however instead of smashed pumpkins it contained body parts all over it.
Earlier, one of the senior employees walked into Drake's office and said, "Mr. Robbins, we seem to be one-person short tonight. Billy called in sick. He said he had been throwing up all morning. Is it possible for you to help us out tonight. I know you have paperwork to do but we have one last hayride that we need to prepare for. The two new guys are working on the smash pumpkins. I have already set out the pumpkins on the other path and I will be driving the truck for the hayride."
"Okay, okay, I will help you out. Just make sure the truck is all gassed up. We don't want to run out of gas again, that was really embarrassing when that happened earlier this week."
"Sure boss, I will take care of that now." The employee left Drake's office and he grabbed his jacket and left the office. He mapped out where all of the employees were and then went to help the new guys with the smashed pumpkins.
The CSRU team took plenty of pictures before any of the body pieces were bagged up and removed from the scene. Maura found the two torsos and was able to obtain the liver temperature in an effort to estimate the time of death. She stood up and told Jane, "Jane, I am leaving now. I will see you back at the precinct."
Once all the body parts were bagged and removed, Maura left the crime scene with her team. She would need to spread the body parts out on the autopsy tables in an effort to piece the bodies back together.
Jane and Frost remained behind to make sure they had all the evidence and witness statements they could get. They arrived at the precinct about thirty minutes after Maura. Jane immediately went down to the morgue to see how things were going. Maura and her team had all of the body parts for two individuals. They weren't sure if they had the correct parts on each body but they had all of the parts.
Susie had obtained the fingerprints from all four hands and handed them to Jane when she walked in. They didn't have the opportunity yet to run the prints. Jane took the fingerprint cards and immediately ran them through the system. It didn't take long to retrieve the identity of the two victims and discover that the two were brothers that worked at the pumpkin patch.
Frost brought up the pictures and rap sheets of the victims. They also discovered that the two victims were the nephews of the owners of the pumpkin patch. Jane had seen them when she was at the pumpkin patch the other day with her family.
Jane sent a text to Maura to let her know that they identified the victims and that she had to go with Frost to make the notification and she would let her know that she would come down to the morgue when she got back. Maura acknowledged her and Jane left.
An hour later, Jane went down to the morgue to tell Maura about the identity of the victims. She had just stepped into the autopsy bay when her mother called her.
"Ma, I'm a little busy right now." Jane said as she answered her phone. Angela had switched the call to video and explained that some teenagers had tried to take Kate's candy bag.
"Is she okay?" Jane asked.
"Yes, but she wanted to talk to you." Jane walked over to Maura so she could hear what happened. Kate explained the incident and Maura stepped away and told her lab assistant that she needed to leave and she would be back later.
Jane grabbed Maura's hand as they headed to her cruiser. Jane continued to talk to Kate and Angela on the phone while she and Maura headed to their neighborhood. Jane knew she was in the middle of an investigation but this was her little girl. She needed to be there for Kate. When the video call ended, Jane turned on the lights and sirens.
Drake was still upset, those two imbeciles had ruined his day. They didn't have a clue what they were doing. He was pretty sure they were only hired because they were related to the owners. They had cut up the pumpkins instead of smashing them. He wanted to smash them. Better yet he wanted to cut them up just like they did to the pumpkins. He was very upset.
They backtalked him something fierce and he finally had enough of it. He tied the two imbeciles up and then walked over to his truck and took out his chainsaw. They had duct tape over their mouths so no one would hear their screams. He proceeded to cut them up and throw their body pieces around the trailer. They wouldn't mess up the pumpkin smashing ever again, nor would they ever backtalk him.
When he finished, he took his chainsaw and walked back to his truck and drove away. He parked towards the back of the building and walked into his office and cleaned himself up and changed his clothes. He hopped back into his truck and drove off of the premises without a word to anyone.
After Kate gave her statement to the police, Jane and Maura spent about half an hour trick or treating with Kate and then took her home. They spent a few minutes with their children before telling them they had to go back to work. Jane snatched some candy as they left. It was going to be a long night and the candy would make her feel better.
They arrived back at the precinct and picked up the investigation where they left off. Frost had acquired the video footage from the pumpkin patch. He had insisted that they used color cameras and now he was thankful for that. Quite a few people chose to save money by installing black and white cameras but he and Jane had explained that color cameras provided a higher quality picture.
The owners of the pumpkin patch trusted Jane and had called on her when they wanted to upgrade their security system. She and Frost had informed them of what equipment they needed and put them in touch with someone who could help them obtain the equipment and then install it for them.
The employees didn't know about the security upgrade as the work was done during the off season when the pumpkin patch wasn't open. Only the owners had access to the security feed. Frost saw the victims go out to the trailer on the path and about a half an hour later he saw a man go out to where they were. When the man appeared on the video again, he had blood on his clothes. Frost grabbed a screen shot of the man and ran his picture through their facial recognition program. Less than half an hour later he came up with his ID, Drake Robbins.
Jane and Frost got the arrest warrant and went to arrest Drake Robbins for the murders of the two young men. He wasn't at his house so they put out a BOLO him and this truck. Within an hour a patrol car located his truck outside a bar near his house. Jane and Frost went to bar and found Mr. Robbins drowning his sorrows in alcohol. They arrested him and took him to the precinct.
Maura and her team were able to match up the body parts based on the cuts on the bones. It was a tedious process but they wanted to make sure the bodies were piece together correctly before the bodies were turned over to the funeral home for burial. The family had already contacted Maura's office asking when they might have their bodies so that they could have a funeral. They were the only children in the family and they were devastated. Maura couldn't imagine losing all of her children in such a horrific way.
Jane and Frost interrogated him. Initially, he denied everything. When Frost showed him the video and then the pictures of the chain saw with blood on it in his truck and his clothes in his office garbage can, he changed his story and confessed to the murder of the two young men.
He then told them that he had been in a mental hospital and was on medication but he couldn't afford his medication. Frost verified what he had told them. They requested a medical evaluation for him and put him in holding pending a psych eval. The public defender's office was called so that he could be assigned a public defender.
They turned over copies of all of their notes to the prosecutor's office and considered this case closed. They knew they might have to go to trial but there wasn't any additional investigating needed for this case.
When Jane and Maura got home that night, they gave all of their children extra tight hugs. Their children had no idea what their mothers had been through and they wouldn't tell them anything except it was a bad case. They were sure they would find out years from now, and that was okay, as long as it wasn't right now. They wanted to keep them away from what they did for as long as possible.