-8-
There was general yawning during the staff meeting.
Korsak and Connolly had organized sandwiches.
Korsak had briefly surveyed the scene, and now the four detectives and Cavanaugh were in the conference room.
"Let's talk about these vigilantes, please," Jane demanded. "I don't like the idea of self-appointed sheriffs hanging around the park."
"We can't stop them," Cavanaugh said glumly. "As long as they're not bothering anyone -"
"Great. And the press makes us look like incompetent idiots."
"You know how I feel about that. Why don't you let the hacks pick on us? As long as they do that, at least people are careful. And we're getting all up in our knees now. It's got to be to some use that we have an eyewitness."
Jane was silent. She knew there was no point in contradicting Cavanaugh. First, because he was the boss, and second, because (unfortunately) he was right. Whether she liked it or not, there was nothing she could do about vigilantes per se. Except turning in the killer.
So let's focus on that, she decided quietly.
"How are the tire tracks?" inquired Korsak.
"The lab's on it." Cavanaugh nodded. "They're getting back to us. But let's face it, a tire print is only useful if we also have a vehicle to compare it to. The make and model of the tire alone won't do us any good."
"Are there maybe photo traps for the deer or something like that?" asked Connolly.
"Not that we know of," Jane muttered, rubbing her eyes wearily. "Would you take care of the photo trap thing? There are some buildings in the woods, I've seen. Maybe there are security cameras hanging there somewhere."
Connolly nodded and made a mental note.
"I'll join Maura in the morgue if it's all right," the Italian suggested afterward, reaching for a pastrami sandwich.
"Then we'll deal with the victim's environment," Korsak said, looking at Frankie. "Means of movement, possible enemies, neighbors."
"Don't forget cell phone tracking," Cavanaugh said, and Jane winced.
"Wait a minute!" she groaned. "Now don't tell me we haven't already done that."
"It's all good," Cavanaugh murmured, raising his hand. "They had Robert Dornan's cell phone tracked directly while you were still at Logan. The others aren't incompetent, Rizzoli, they all remember the summer as well as any of us in this room." Jane mumbled an apology and waited for him to say more. But there didn't seem to be too much. "The last sign of life from the cell phone came at 0:53 am."
"Wait. The time of death was midnight, right?"
"Yes."
"And his wife didn't have the device with her. So the perp must have taken it with him. Knew it!"Jane slapped her thigh with her hand. "He's a souvenir hunter."
"Wait -" Cavanaugh was about to object, but she cut him off.
"Do we have a fix, too?"
Frankie noticed the other two detectives eyeing him. "Um, south. But that's just rough. The transmission tower isn't far from the spot with the tire tracks."
"You see," Jane triumphed. "We're getting closer! After the autopsy, we'll meet at Burkhardt's and make a sketch."
Her heart pounded with excitement. Even though many voices in her head were reporting that there was no reason for premature hope yet, she felt that things were moving forward. For the first time in this case. Let the press write what they wanted. And to hell with the vigilant citizens. She would hunt down and turn in the panther, and no one else. Before taking her blazer off the back of her chair, Jane considered checking her e-mail again. But she didn't want to waste any more time. Besides, it was Sunday. Under normal circumstances, no one would have expected her to turn on her computer.
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Jane entered the floor where the forensic lab and the morgue were located. The particular smell that dead bodies give off seemed to be all over the walls. Maybe she was just imagining it.
Jane entered the autopsy room. The corpse lay naked on the metal table, Maura had already washed it and photographed it from all sides. Jane was now expecting the typical Y-incision on the sternum, followed by the removal and examination of the organs. But instead, Dr. Maura Isles said, "We're going to do it a little differently today, huh?"
Jane blinked a few times. "What do you mean?"
"We'll start at the head, here put the goggles on." She handed her wife a pair of goggle frames that had a large, clear plastic patch attached. Landscapers and gardeners wore such models to protect themselves from soil - and plant debris they kicked up with their trimmers.
The detective suspected something bad, and just a few moments later, the bone saw whirred and Maura began to open the top of the skull. She hummed 'Be my baby" by the Rottnettes as she did so, as lightheartedly as if she were in the kitchen preparing a salad.
Jane raised a brow and took a step back, yet a piece of tissue splattered against the privacy screen and she had to swallow. Some things she would never get used to, and this was clearly one of them.
The sound of the saw died away.
"Violà, one mind reading please," Maura commented, running the back of her hand over her sweaty forehead. "Quite a stubborn one."
Jane rolled her eyes, knowing it alluded to the morning's events at the crime scene. She cleared her throat and eyed her wife. "Did you find anything?"
The ME's hand reached purposefully behind the brain and unearthed a piece of metal. The projectile. Robert Dornan had been shot. With a small caliber, just like the others. Only this time the bullet had lodged in the top of his skull instead of disappearing through an exit wound. So the matter was official: the crime patterns matched. Everything was exactly as it had been in July.
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Twenty minutes later, Jane was sitting in Maura's office. She gingerly pushed aside papers so as not to make a mess. The detective needed to make a note or two, urgently, because her head was throbbing.
Ballistic examination.
Matching with the patterns of the other projectiles.
Skin particles, etc.
No foreign hairs or skin flakes were noticed on the dead man's body. Same with the July murder. The bodies in June had not been able to be examined for such traces because they had been in the open too long,
Sexual acts.
The male sexual organ was in a normal condition. No injuries, no indication of whether any recent activity had taken place. Same as in July. And again, limited ability to match the murder case with this.
It seems to follow the following pattern:
Perpetrator ties up the man, then the woman. Shoots the man in the head and subsequently kills the woman without messing with her.
Jane buried her face in her hands with a loud groan. None of this made any sense. She dropped her hands and paused her movement when she saw the meaningful look of her wife sitting at her desk. "What?"
"I'm trying to work here," Maura replied in an icy tone.
Jane surveyed her files spread out on the small table and furrowed her brows. "And I'm playing tic-tac-toe here, or what?" She dropped her shoulders when she saw Maura's hard stare. She knew her wife was still pissed off because she had taken the initiative and not let Kent do his job properly. "Look, I know you're still mad at me, but we need to finally show some results in this investigation. I'm sorry I overstepped my authority this morning."
"Thank you," Maura said, slowly standing up while licking her lips. "Is there anything I can do to help you, Detective?"
Jane opened her mouth and then tugged her chin when she realized the blonde had extended her title. "None of this makes sense," she said, turning to the doctor after she sat down next to her. "If someone is targeting lovers, why is the sexual component missing?"
Maura fell silent and raised her shoulders.
Jane frowned deeply. "Or is it the killing itself that provides him with the urge release? And what pattern does he use to select his victims." She took a deep breath and ran her hand through her hair. "The murdered couples didn't know each other, there's no professional overlap. The theory that it may have something to do with the pharmaceutical field has proven to be a dead end." Jane looked into hazel eyes and frowned more deeply. During her out-loud train of thought, she didn't notice that her wife hadn't said a word, letting her pursue her thoughts silently. "As a distracting coincidence, that only weighed in as a distraction. We started completely wrong. But where should we look instead?"
Jane gathered all her papers and stood up without warning, pausing at the door and looking at her wife with her prominent smile. "Thank you, Maura."
"Sure," Maura said with a smile, chuckling as the detective disappeared down the hall with a loud and clear 'Love you'. She knew from long experience that sometimes it was best to let Jane think out loud without saying a word, just listen to her.
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The power outage in his office made Cavanaugh despair. Ten minutes ago, the computer and ceiling light had gone out at the same time. Likewise, the cell phone made a system sound to say that charging cables had been removed. And while it took only a few minutes to get the light back on, the computer monitor remained black.
Cavanaugh walked up and down the hallway to see if any other computers were affected. As he did so, he spotted the flashing display of Jane's answering machine. Deciding briefly, he stood in front of her desk, wondering if she had shut down her computer before leaving BPD or if power had been interrupted here as well. Two minutes later, after opening the e-mail program, he had certainty. The last email that had read was from Friday afternoon. And he didn't want to pay any further attention to his 'stepdaughter's' e-mail but was about to write an urgent e-mail himself when his eyes fell on a boldly printed sender.
panther_hunter
Cavanaugh had to smile. Probably a crank, as they always were when extraordinary crimes made the headlines. But even the subject line raised doubts:
Again, blood gushes on moss and stone. You need help, no?
Only seconds later, the lieutenant had read the e-mail and was about to forward it to himself when he remembered that his computer was probably still on strike. He got up, turned on the printer, and waited impatiently, knowing it was a breach of trust, but he couldn't consider that at that moment. On his way out, Connolly ran into him.
"Jeez! What are you doing here?"
"Power outage. Not on your end?"
Connolly shook his head.
"Listen." Cavanaugh considered for a moment before holding out his hand to him with the printout. "This came this morning. It's from our poet, remember?"
Connolly skimmed the lines and drew his eyebrows together. "Addressed to Rizzoli again." He seemed undecided what to make of it.
Cavanaugh took his cell phone from the cradle on his belt. "Yeah. I'll call her right now."
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Detective Rizzoli!
You let it happen again! How many more times?
Didn't I give you a hand?
That's all I can do
I don't want to do this anymore.
Where did my call come from?
Where did the fresh lead come from?
1+1=2
It can't be that hard.
I'm waiting for you.
"He's batty!" snarled Jane into her cell phone.
"You all right?" retorted Cavanaugh. "This almost blew my ear off."
"Sorry. But he's not right in the head!"
"Maybe so. But he must know something. Has the news even reported the new find yet?"
"They have." The radio report had been brief but definite. Body in the park. Anyone in the Boston area who had witnessed the murders over the summer could put one and one together. But what leads had the caller meant? There had been no mention of leads anywhere.
"I'll have to read this myself," Detective muttered. Her head was spinning. I don't want to do this anymore. What did the stranger mean by that? A thought arose in her mind. What if it wasn't a crank? If instead, it was ...
"Do you think it's himself writing?" she asked, musing.
"I thought so," the lieutenant replied. "But honestly, why doesn't he just turn himself in then? After all, he wouldn't have to report to the police station here, but to WCVB or the Boston Globe. If he doesn't want to do it anymore, as he claims, that would be the easiest way, wouldn't it?"
"In theory, yes," Jane bobbed her head. "But he's all about attention. If he cared even remotely about the victims, he wouldn't be making such a charade."
"Attention he truly gets enough," Cavanaugh muttered. "We probably still have to be grateful to him for turning to us and not the press."
"Hmm. Can you forward the text to my cell phone?" asked Jane. "I'd like to show it to Sophie Dornan, maybe she'll have another idea about this. Are Frankie and Nina on it?"
"Not yet," Cavanaugh said. "I've already rounded them up, though."
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Jane smiled a little while Sophie Dornan removed a blanket and pillow from the couch with just a few moves. "Sorry. I was lying down ... I couldn't -" Her eyes fell on the bedroom door, and Jane understood. Just like when her grandmother had died, her grandfather hadn't wanted to use the marital bed for weeks and had also slept on the couch.
Then Sophie Dornan stood before her with a glass of water in her hand.
Jane thanked her and took a sip, then the two women took seats on the couch, sitting diagonally across from each other. The detective pointed to her cell phone. "I'd like to get someone from the recognition service to do this so we can do a composite sketch."
"You can save that," Sophie muttered.
"Why is that?"
"Well, because of the mask. I didn't see anything."
"Hmm." Jane put the phone down beside her on the charcoal gray fabric upholstery. The couch, all the furnishings, everything looked new. "How long have you lived here?"
"Almost two years," was the answer, which came in a clogged voice. And already a tear was rolling down the poor woman's cheek. Jane swallowed, and she decided to keep the conversation as short as possible.
"I'm sorry, but it would be important to go over some facts. You're the only witness we have in this case."
"That's all right. As long as you can stand the fact that I ... that I -" Sophie Dornan apologized and blew her nose. "It's so bad, we were so happy."
"I lost my partner some time ago," Jane said softly. "It's not the same, but we were and very close and ... Well, anyway, I can sympathize with you. I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart. We're going to do everything we can to bring that son of a bitch in."
"That won't bring Robert back to life," her counterpart replied.
"That's true. But it's important to have a perpetrator. To get all the questions answered."
"It's okay, I didn't mean it that way. Let's get this over with."
Jane picked up her notepad, then thought of something. "Do you mind if I record the conversation? It'll save me from writer's cramp." She raised her eyebrows and pointed to the cell phone.
"Whatever. What do you want to know?"
"Hold on, please." The detective unlocked the screen and tapped the voice memo icon. "Okay, here we go. I'd like to go back over the events chronologically. Starting with how you got to the forest. Just in order, and preferably as detailed as possible."
"Well, we left in the evening."
"I'm sorry. Who came up with the idea?"
"Robert. We left at some point, it was already dark, he said he had prepared a picnic. Robert sometimes got ideas like that, he -" a heavy swallow, " ... he was just like that. We drove in his Mercedes, he already had the basket and everything else in the trunk."
"Very good, thank you, keep it up. Where did you park?"
Sophie described the spot, the detective made a note. She didn't trust important things to modern technology alone. Then she continued listening to the report, "We walked for about fifteen minutes. Robert said he knew a place ... we'd been there before when we'd just met. He held my hand the whole time, and only when the path got too narrow did we walk one behind the other. Robert was in front." Sophie swallowed hard. "He still told me not to get lost. Just like Little Red Riding Hood. Because he carried the blanket and I carried the bag, just like the girl carried the basket. We laughed, Robert said that until the wolf comes to the park, it will be a long time. He is not necessarily a friend of these animals. Too many people. Too many children. It won't be long before the wolf realizes that little people are easy prey. That we are more afraid of them than the other way around. But then -"
It wasn't a wolf who killed Robert, Jane wanted to say. But she remained silent. Let the woman babble when she felt like it because she knew that trivia helped. They made you forget, if only for the moment, how awful the reality was.
"And then?" she asked after an appropriate amount of time.
"Then ... everything happened very quickly. There was a loud crack, but we didn't notice it at first because we were trudging through the forest ourselves. Then again, and suddenly he was standing between us. Robert raised his fist, I stumbled back. I saw how he instinctively wanted to strike. He hit the attacker, I'm sure."
Jane made a mental note. "How big was he?"
"I don't know."
"In proportion to your husband? Just a rough estimate?"
"Same size."
Another note. "And where did Robert hit him? In the head?"
"I think more on the shoulder. They both staggered for a moment."
"And you -"
"Robert yelled: Run away! But I couldn't move. Only when he shouted "Run! Run!" A tremor ran through her. "Then I couldn't stop running." Sophie cried briefly and buried her head in her hands. "What did he do to Robert?" she asked softly.
"He shot your husband," the detective replied. "A quick death." She couldn't help saying that. Her counterpart was already suffering more than enough.
"But I didn't hear a gunshot."
Jane wrote down. Silencer? She knew from the ballistics investigation of the previous murders that there were no definite mold marks to prove the use of a silencer. The 1988/89 murder weapon had never been found. "You see," she said somewhat awkwardly. "Details like that are helpful to us. The use of a silencer has not been an issue for us."
"Hmm."
"Let's talk about the perpetrator again, shall we? Can you tell me anything about the man's appearance, then?"
Sophie shook her head. "No, as I said, I barely saw anything."
Jane furrowed her brows. "What else do you remember?"
Her interlocutor considered for a moment then raised her shoulders.
"His build, maybe," Jane said. "Slim, stocky, muscular - something like that? Think very carefully, please." She knew what she was asking was a heavy burden for the widow. To review the last moment, the last memory of her husband, over and over again. But she had to push for it, and sure enough, Sophie Dornan put her fingers to her eyes and headed back into the nighttime woods once more.
"It was bright," she said, "the moon. Incredibly beautiful. That's why we were ... Never mind. The man was as tall as Robert but more petite. Narrow shoulders. At least I think so because the clothes somehow seemed a size too big. Baggy, though that could have been shades."
"And the face?"
"Black. Piercing eyes. Like he didn't have ears. Must have come from the mask. A pair of tights or something."
Jane smiled a little and nodded briefly. "Well, that's something. What about the voice? Did he speak?"
"Just hissing sounds. I think first he cursed, then he gave some orders. And then ... I was gone."
"Hmm. So an occupied pronunciation. Or more hoarse?"
"No, more like stressed. It was commands, mostly just one or two words. 'Hands up,' 'over there,' 'apart.'"
"Is it fair to say he disguised his voice? Quite deliberately, then?"
Sophie nodded slowly. "Yes. It was like on The Walking Dead when the zombies croak around. But nothing mechanical, so not like those throat mics or anything."
"Alright, thanks." Jane stopped the recording and checked to make sure everything had been recorded. She placed her phone and pad on top of each other before asking her final question, "Mrs. Dornan, just between the two of us, I'm not recording this. Do you have any suspicions about who tried to take both of your lives?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"I'm looking for a motive, a reason, something," Jane replied, but Sophie just wearily raised her shoulders.
"The press says it's a nutcase. Isn't that true?"
"We don't know," the detective had to concede, rising. "So if you think of anything about it - please come forward. Otherwise, I'll leave you alone now, I'm already one step ahead thanks to you." She paused for a moment. "Do you have someone to talk to then? Otherwise, I'll recommend you a friend of mine. Therapist, very empathetic, believe me, I speak from experience."
"I don't know if I can do that yet," Sophie rebuffed.
Jane nodded curtly, that was how most responded, but she pulled out a business card anyway. Annoyed that it had snapped at the corner, she straightened it out and placed it on the table. "Just in case." She rose. "And Amy has confidentiality, don't worry. We don't talk about what she's told. After all, I wouldn't want her to hear about me - well, you know."
"I just want to be alone right now", Sophie said softly. "And I can't imagine that will ever change."
"It will. I promise. But everything takes time. And please, if you need help ... There are a lot of unpleasant things coming your way. Formalities, funeral, etc. Just call me, okay?"
Sophie Dornan regarded Jane with eyes narrowed to slits. "Isn't that going a bit far for a detective?"
"Maybe. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it helps me, too."
The two smiled briefly at each other, then the detective pulled the apartment door closed behind her and stood alone outside the house. She liked Sophie Dornan. And it was unbearable what the woman was going through. As she walked toward her car, Jane clenched her fists. That son of a bitch! What he had done to all those relatives.
She would chase him, on and on, like Ahab chased his whale. It was sobering how little they knew so far. But the pieces of the mosaic became more and more.
At some point, they would form a picture, at some point something would be recognized.