Friday
The day started weirdly. Frost and Korsak had gone out for a call in the early morning since Jane wasn't back on call yet. Alone in the squad room, she tidied up the case for the prosecution for the arrest they'd made yesterday.
Frost and Korsak came in as she was about to get a coffee and she paused at her desk.
"Stabbing victim," Korsak said, then flinched when he realised what he'd said. Frost's eyes flickered for one brief moment to Jane's hands, which she slid under the desk. Korsak looked as though he was about to apologise - but looking at Jane's face, thought better of it.
"We got an ID?" Jane asked.
"Yep. Wasn't a mugging, he had everything on him." Frost sent through the pictures he'd taken from the scene, the driver's license, the keys.
"What's this?" Jane asked, pointing to something small. Frost came over to look at her screen and so did Korsak.
"Zoom in," Frost suggested. "Huh, I didn't notice that."
"Was it in his pockets?" Jane asked. "Is it down in the crime lab?"
"Yeah, they bagged everything."
"I'll head down there later. No knife on the scene?"
"No knife," Frost confirmed.
"I can head down there if you like," Korsak offered. "I was going to check in on the autopsy later - Doc said she saw something in one of the wounds. If we're lucky, it's part of the murder weapon."
"Doctor Isles, huh?" Jane asked. "Nah, I'll go. You see her with a coffee while you were out?"
"Mending fences, huh?" Korsak chuckled. "No, and she looked like she'd had a late night."
"Y'know what she drinks?" Jane asked.
"Skinny flat latte," Frost said. "What? She was in line with me the other day," he said in defense to the weird looks Jane and Korsak were giving him.
"Thanks Frost." Jane looked down as her phone beeped. "That's my cue, wish me luck."
"Good luck," Frost and Korsak echoed.
Jane put down the two coffees on the table near the lift and rubbed her hands. The warmth from the takeaway cups was a weird sensation on her palms. Not painful, but uncomfortable. She might have to look into getting a keep cup, one with insulation. She picked them both back up, knocked on Doctor Isles' office door with the back of her knuckles.
"Come in," a voice called, and Jane took a deep breath before pushing the door open.
"I thought you might..." Jane put the coffee with SFL on the top on Doctor Isles' desk, pushed it across to her. A confused look crossed the doctor's face, then a moment of anger, then, as she looked at the way Jane switched hands for her own coffee, rubbing her palm against her pants, her face went back to neutral.
"I normally don't backpedal when I say I don't want something," Doctor Isles said sternly.
"But I hadn't asked you yet today," Jane said as winsomely as she could. "And Korsak said you looked tired." Even as she said it, Jane knew she'd screwed up. "It was early, everyone pulled out of bed. He and Frost look tired too. Not that I think you look tired. I think you look nice." Jane hadn't meant to say that, but as she eyed the Medical Examiner she found it was true. Her dress was green today, with a wild pattern across the torso, shoulders bare, showing firm biceps. She had to work out, yet Jane hadn't seen her in the gym after work. Her makeup was meticulous - her earrings and eyeshadow matched her dress, and Jane would bet money that her shoes matched too. Her hair softly curled over the strong shoulders, and the soft pink lipstick made Jane lick her own lips. "Please," Jane said, gesturing to the coffee. After a long moment of hesitation Doctor Isles lifted it to her mouth. She sighed after her sip, the way Frankie did when he first popped a beer open. Satisfaction.
"Perhaps I did need that. As you said, it was an early start."
"You had an early start and you look like a model. I didn't have an early start and..." Jane gestured to her t-shirt and slacks.
"You look like a Detective." Maura said, not unkindly. "Very well. Thank you for the coffee."
"You're welcome. Is the body back yet?"
"It's on its way. You'll get a text when the autopsy starts."
"Thank you."
"Will you be observing today, Detective Rizzoli?" Doctor Isles asked.
"Maybe," Jane said, looking down at her coffee. "I came down to..." Jane held out her coffee. "And see if the crime lab had his possessions."
"They do. I was going to check on that as well," Doctor Isles said. "There was one object I couldn't identify."
"The little red thing, right?" Jane asked, perking up.
"Correct, Detective," Doctor Isles said, looking surprised. She stood and walked through the morgue and Jane followed her reluctantly, walking past a tray set up for an autopsy, several scalpels lined up. The way Hoyt had lined his up. Her mind flew back, hearing his laugh as he picked up... "Are you coming?" Doctor Isles had paused at the door, looking back, puzzled. Jane sipped her coffee nonchalantly, ignoring her pounding heart as she kept walking, shaking her head to clear out the memories.
"I don't know what it is," Susie said, and Jane gloved her hands, sighing in relief once her scarred skin was hidden from sight. "It looks like a keychain charm, and there's a metal loop but it was loose in his pocket."
"C'n I?" Jane asked, and Susie nodded. Jane picked it up, turned it over. "It's so small. Do you think whoever killed him missed it, or they just weren't interested in his pockets?"
"Impossible to say," Susie said, looking over at Doctor Isles, who nodded in approval.
"Wait... Is that a seam?" Jane asked. Jane handed it over and Susie put it under a microscope.
"It is, nice find, Detective." Susie picked up some tweezers and pried apart the shell. "It's a micro SD card. I'll pass it over to the tech team." Jane pumped her fist and Susie laughed. Doctor Isles remained unamused.
"She's out there again, isn't she Susie?" Doctor Isles asked.
"Yes."
"Does it look like she'll come in?" Doctor Isles asked, pulling out a fragment of metal. "I know her team were interested in the object left in the wound."
"I can ask?"
"Please do. Every time I look up she ducks down. It's incredibly juvenile."
"I think she's just nervous. Maybe you make her nervous. Maybe dead people make her nervous."
"She doesn't act nervous around me in the crime lab," Doctor Isles pointed out. "And she had no issues with the body at the crime scene."
"Most people don't enjoy watching surgery, even on the dead," Susie pointed out. Doctor Isles tilted her head to consider this perspective, pausing for a moment before nodding. "I'll go ask her."
"We found something," Susie said as she pushed the door open. "In the wound."
"Yeah, Korsak said there was something jammed in there."
"Do you want to come see it?" Susie asked, and Jane looked through the window. Doctor Isles was watching, once again with that intense stare.
"She done cutting him up?" Jane asked, eyes locked on the instrument tray.
"For now," Susie said, and Jane nodded, followed Susie in, slid another pair of gloves on.
"Metal shard, sharp, triangular. One edge straight except for where it may have glanced off a bone, chipping a point off blunt at the tip. Second edge at a 22 degree angle with a slight curve. Very sharp. Third edge looks to have broken off of a larger implement. Possibly a mixture of multiple metals. Fragment was stuck in rib 4 on the left hemisphere of the torso." Doctor Isles kept poking around in the wound with tweezers, pulling out smaller fragments.
"Looks like the top of a knife snapped off," Jane said. "Any way to get prints off it?" Jane asked as she carefully picked it up. "I'll get uniforms on the trash collection, no one would keep a broken knife, and if they ditched it close to the scene we might have luck."
"We might be able to lift prints, but if it is from a knife, it's not a part of the knife people tend to handle," Doctor Isles said, pulling out more shards.
"Still, pretty cool," Jane said, putting the knife back down. "Thanks, I'm going to get the uniforms sent out," Jane said, pulling off her gloves and leaving.
"She didn't seem nervous," Susie noted. "So it's not the bodies - because the way you're rummaging around in there is pretty off-putting - and it's not you."
Doctor Isles looked over at her instrument tray.
"I wonder..."