-9-
Jane dropped the pizza box on the kitchen island with a loud groan and rolled her head on the back of her neck. "God, I'm starving."
Maura rolled her eyes and shook her head. "If your mother was in town -"
"Stop right there," the Italian growled, lowering her brows. "I'm glad Ma's with her friend in California for a few weeks."
"Why?" the doctor asked almost innocently. "Are you afraid Angela and Lieutenant Cavanaugh are going to take a nighttime trip to a forest or park?"
"Really?" muttered Jane warningly while she already had pizza in her mouth, and the blonde grinned mischievously. "At this time, I don't want that image in my head." She dropped the slice back into the box. "Hell, I don't want that image of Cavanaugh and Ma getting down to business in my head at all."
Maura laughed harshly. "Do you think Angela and Lieutenant Cavanaugh are just holding hands and making out on the couch?"
"Maura!" the detective whined, dropping her shoulders in resignation. "Ugh."
Maura chuckled in amusement when she handed Jane a beer and then poured herself a glass of red wine. Then she grew serious as she raised the glass to her lips. "I didn't realize you were still in touch with Amy."
Jane frowned deeply and drained the bottle in one gulp and large to the halfway mark. She knew that the subject of Amy Ruiz was a very sensitive one between her and her wife. Not because Amy was a shrink, of which Jane was not necessarily the biggest fan, but because she and Amy had once been together.
Jane had never been a patient of the therapist. They had met when she had been investigating a family homicide and Amy Ruiz had been assigned to her as spiritual support for the relatives. The two women got along well after a brief banter in which the detective vented her dislike for the profession of therapy, and Jane had invited Amy to join her and Maura for a beer at the Dirty Robber.
Maura liked the redhead at first, too, until the day her now-wife had hesitantly slipped into her office and asked Maura if she could handle Jane dating Amy on the record.
Maura had to swallow hard at that moment, as the ME was already aware at that point that she felt more for the brunette than just friendship, but smiled and wanted to know what she would have against it. However, she added that she didn't care as long as Jane was okay with it when she started seeing Detective Connolly.
Secretly, it was a stalemate. An 'it's okay with me if ...' situation that produced no winners, only broken hearts, as the two women already knew at this point that they had more than platonic feelings for each other, but neither of them didn't say it out loud for fear of getting hurt.
This went on for a few months, Jane seeing Amy and Maura Connolly until Jane had the balls to come storming into Maura's house one morning just before work and loudly announce that she couldn't go on like this, even though Angela was also present. She had admitted in a short speech that she wanted to be more to Maura than only the best friend. That she wanted the whole package. A relationship, dating, movie nights snuggled together, marriage, children, grandchildren. Everything.
Angela had squealed joyfully but was ignored by the other two women.
At first, Maura had been speechless, and then, to Jane's horror, she had tears in her eyes. Jane had assumed the worst, thinking that she had ruined everything, that only she felt deeper feelings for her counterpart, but then Maura openly admitted that she wanted the same thing.
"Maura?"
The blonde blinked several times and looked at her wife. "Hmm?"
"Where did you just go?"
Maura took a deep breath, shook her head slightly, stood up with her wine glass in her hand, and walked to the couch, sitting down without giving an answer.
Jane opened her mouth, quirked an eyebrow, then cocked her head to the side in wonder.
Maura looked over her shoulder and frowned a little. "Are you joining me?"
"And what about our dinner?"
"You can bring it with you."
Jane sat up straight before standing and grabbing her beer and the pizza box. "Pizza on the couch? Who are you and what did you do to Maura Isles?"
Maura rolled her eyes and smiled.
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Jane finished her report on the conversation with Sophie Dornan. Immediately, Korsak and Frankie, who had been reading through the old files, asserted that nowhere had there been any mention of a silencer. Nor had there been a description of the person or a sketch at the time.
"No wonder," Korsak said, "because there were no witnesses who survived."
Appearance and stature were too vague to draw comparisons. "And what good would that do us?" asked Korsak. "If we assume a copy killer, that is, someone who imitates the old murders, he feels some connection to the killer at the time. Or at least he wants to be. His appearance, however, he can hardly take on and probably won't try to."
He was right on the money with that. Another point seemed much more important.
"What about the voice?" asked Jane with furrowed brows. "Any indication of abnormalities?"
"At the time? Not a thing. At least none of it is documented."
Damn. The clues didn't help beat a connection. Still, Jane ordered a close examination of the projectiles, including common silencers. "What about the caller? Anything new yet?"
"Nina's on it," Frankie replied. "She should be in touch any minute, at least I hope so."
Korsak grabbed a thick black marker and headed toward the whiteboard. He jotted down names and numbers on it, and it took a while before he seemed satisfied with the result. "Let's talk about the old murders," he grumbled after taking two steps back and examining his notes. They were all the names, dates, and locations of the couples killed, starting with the murders from the 1980s. "George Scully was convicted of six murders," he continued, drawing a red line under 1989. "His acts have two main factors in common that we should look at more closely."
"That they didn't take place in the urban forest and, more importantly, were solved long ago?" teased Frankie, and his sister looked at him silently but admonishingly.
"Maybe so." Korsak looked at him over the rim of his glasses, unimpressed. "And I'm not talking about the duct tape, the type of woman, the sequence of the kill ... you can read all that for yourself."
"Don't make it so exciting," Jane said, staring strained at the numbers. She had a thought about it herself, but couldn't grasp it.
"It's all right. Scully sought out secluded spots in the woods, places frequented mostly by couples. He lay in wait for them, possibly for hours. At any rate, there was some evidence to support that. The same must be assumed of our murderer. He always carries a weapon with him, duct tape, and whatnot. He takes his time, both for the killing and afterward, when he drapes the victims and leaves with souvenirs. All this despite public alarm. Psychologists attest to Scully's high drive, a compulsiveness that kept him going anyway."
"Without talking to him?" interjected Jane in surprise.
"Well, psychologists -" Korsak raised his shoulders. "It was the '80s, you needed some kind of explanation. Only it doesn't seem to be any different for our current killer. The press is even louder these days, he's the topic everywhere, even on the social networks. And still, he murders, always in the same forest."
"Always when it's warm!"; added Jane, who had just finished her thought. She stood up and strode over to a wall calendar. "Summer vacation! Here - and here." Her finger wandered on. But already came disillusionment. "Crap," she groaned softly, turning to the others. "Can someone go on the Internet and check the vacation dates from 88/89?"
It took only a few moments to assign the three earlier dates.
"Aren't we constructing something?" asked Korsak doubtfully.
"You mentioned the nice weather," Jane returned. "And anyway -"
"I'm talking about the weather, though. Who goes out in the winter to make out? We consistently deal with couples who have sought the discretion of the outdoors. Either because they were otherwise committed or because they found it nicer outside. Starry skies, comfortable temperatures -"
Jane's gaze lingered on the calendar again. And then her jaw dropped. "Damn it, Vince, this is it!" she breathed. Jane's fingertip hopped to 09/06, then to 07/09, on to 06/09. In the date field was a circular black dot on the paper. "Full moon!" she said triumphantly, again tapping the three dates in turn.
While Korsak was still rubbing his temple indecisively, Frankie's fingertips were racing across his phone's display. Connolly, too, typed something into the search field of his cell phone and was still reading when Frankie announced: "Hit. Summer of '89. There was a full moon with a lunar eclipse on the 17th. The murder took place on the 19th."
"Hmm. Kind of like tonight," Korsak muttered. "Except the full moon was four days ago. Why the discrepancy?"
"Weekend!" said Connolly and Jane practically simultaneously, laughing.
"Yesterday was a mere three days' deviation," Jane calculated, "and the moon was incredibly bright, I remember. So our culprit prefers the weekends."
Korsak nodded and continued, "What about the other two murders?"
"The first double homicide was on the night of July 30th, 1988," Frankie replied. "The full moon was on the 29th."
Connolly cleared his throat. "It was also the first week of summer vacation. And in '89 it was also at vacation time."
"The second murder certainly wasn't," Jane objected.
The day turned out to be Saturday. The weekend, no vacation, no bridge day. However, there had been a full moon on Sunday night.
Jane's gaze fell on the wall calendar. "What was going on in August?" she wanted to know, and the very idea that there might have been a dead couple lying somewhere that they hadn't found yet sent a cold shiver through her body.
"Lunar eclipse," came the reply from Frankie, and Connolly nodded vigorously.
"Didn't realize it," admitted Jane.
"You don't have kids either," Connolly joked, and Jane rolled her eyes.
She focused again on the calendar in front of her. The next black dot was on October 5th A Thursday. The next full moon. And even though the killer seemed to be skipping dates at random: there was a risk he would strike again in less than four weeks.
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Jane had thrown her blazer over the back of her chair. With a coffee in her hand, she stood by the window and let her eyes wander over the street. Someone dropped something on her desk, and Jane winced, spinning around.
Connolly sat down in the chair next to the desk and tapped on his notepad. "I've got something for you here. As a matter of fact, you have Meredith Cline to thank for it." Meredith Cline was the attorney general.
"What exactly does Meredith have for us?" asked Jane impatiently.
"There's actually someone Scully had talked to," Connolly replied with a frown.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Does the book 'Moonlight Murderer' mean anything to you?"
"No."
"I think the author is an ex-con. A fellow inmate of Scully's, to be exact, or at least that's what he passes himself off as."
Jane sighed heavily. "And it's a book about Scully's murders?"
"Yep. I didn't know about it either. So it wasn't a bestseller." Connolly opened the notepad and frowned a little. "It's a small publishing house out of Concord. Published in 1991, there was only one edition."
"So after Scully died," Jane stated thoughtfully. "Do you have it here? The book?"
"Not yet. Cline's taking care of it. She said she thought it was on a shelf somewhere at her house. She has a soft spot for that sort of thing, after all."
"That would be important. At least I think so," Jane said, scratching her chin. "I'd love to borrow it. Can we make that work?"
"Sure, why not? It's your case, not mine. I've had the pleasure before, once is enough for me."
"I've never known you to be that patronizing," Jane joked with a smile, glancing at her cell phone as soon as it started buzzing. She said goodbye and stood up when she saw the message was from Nina.
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Nina managed to outline her entire work process within a few sentences.
Normally Jane would have interrupted that at some point to get down to business, but this time her attention lagged. Her mind was still sorting through thoughts about the book. Would it yield insights that pertained to today's case? Did it contain information that hadn't made it to the press then and that the killer was benefiting from now? The tape thing, for example. It was crepe tape, the kind painters used. Anyone else would probably resort to so-called duct tape because it stuck even to poorly adhering surfaces. But then, as now, the adhesive residue was clearly due to painter's crepe tape. This information had not appeared in any news ...
"Hello, earth to Jane! Are you still here?"
Jane blinked a few times and looked at the other woman. "Sorry," she mumbled, "I had something to digest."
"Never mind." Nina laughed. "You're getting served dessert now. You won't want anything else after this anyway." She rattled off a few technical details, all of which Jane had heard many times before, but never fully grasped. What was the point? She was only interested in IP addresses when they led to a postal address, a name, and a person. But then Nina told her just that.
"Wait a minute." Jane sat down and repeated the name. "Axel Singer? That's who we know! Isn't that -"
"The janitor from the building you were called from. Keeper of the sacred payphone," Nina confirmed.
"Damn!" The detective rummaged through her memories, and then it all came flooding up on its own. Singer was a janitor in several apartment buildings owned by the same company. Korsak and Frankie had questioned him briefly; he had admitted to mending the telephone receiver, even though he had not been basically responsible for that. Neither had he been responsible for emptying the coins. The apparatus had been meticulously examined at the time, there were quite a few dactylograms, mostly partial prints of thumbs and index fingers. The areas used to touch coins to sink them into a slot. But without a cross-check, a test subject with whom to compare the prints ...
No such luck.
In retrospect, it seemed almost criminal to Jane that they hadn't taken Axel Singer's prints as well. What if his papillary ridges were shown on one of the coins? Wouldn't that catapult him to the top of the suspect list? Of a list that so far was devoid of any names, Jane had to admit to herself. And what if he really wasn't just an informant, but the killer. Had the BPD, through this negligence, been partly responsible for the death of Robert Dornan?
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"I guess it won't be Japanese then." Maura licked her lips and leaned back in her desk chair. "I thought we could have sushi ... You're probably headed straight to - where, exactly, though?"
"Quincy," Jane replied.
"Then you'll have to inform Cavanaugh," the doctor reminded her.
"Was going to anyway. I'll drive right out and call him from the road." The detective was about to get up from the couch when she remembered something else. "Okay?" she asked with a smile. After all, she thought, she didn't break a sweat by asking again.
Maura seemed to know where her wife's smile was coming from and returned it. "Do what you do best, Jane. I love you."
"I love you, too." Jane walked over to Maura, around the desk, and kissed the blonde when she looked up. Then the detective hurried away. Grabbing her blazer, she rummaged out the car keys on her way to the elevator.
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Connolly sat at his desk and frowned deeply when he saw Jane. "You again? Cline's not that fast."
"I'm not here for the book," Jane rebuffed, explaining what Nina had come to know.
"And the router is really in Quincy?" he huffed.
"I trust Nina blindly," she assured him with a frown. "Mostly because I only get a fraction of what she does. But in short, I assume Nina is right."
"Okay," he said, standing up.
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They had not come.
Singer had made all the arrangements, but no one had come to see him. No patrol car, no unmarked police car.
No Jane Rizzoli.
He had wanted to call her, but he was not allowed.
No further contact. They'd have to figure it out for themselves.
It had not been easy for him to stick to it.
That they came today, of all days, almost surprised him.
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Jane had rolled down the window of her unmarked car. It was a glorious Indian summer, with only a few wispy clouds in the sky. And yet autumn could already be felt. Who knew how long the summer would last. Any day it could be over. All of a sudden. As it was for all the victims of their ongoing case. It pissed off the detective every time she read the term Moonshine Killer. Did a murderer deserve to get such attention?
A car speeding head-on toward the unmarked car abruptly ended her train of thought. "Son of a bitch," she growled as she honked the horn and the other vehicle swerved back into the right lane. "I'm surprised Barker let you out."
"I'll let you tie me up once," Connolly retorted, "but I won't let you do it to me a second time! This is my turf, my territory, and I - quite unlike you - have dealt with the old cases before. So -" Connolly gestured expansively with both hands.
"It's all right," she said with a smile. "I wouldn't have informed you if I didn't want you on it. Besides, I'm glad I don't have to go through this alone." She stopped in front of a house and killed the engine, frowning deeply. She couldn't gauge what awaited them in that building and for that reason had taken Korsak and Frankie out of the line of fire. If all would go well, then tomorrow morning she would explain to the two men why she had preferred to take a 'stranger' as backup. She registered in the corner of her eye a curtain jiggling in the house she had parked in front of. "We should go in," she murmured to her colleague. "We've already been spotted.
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Singer had presumably been waiting behind the door but seemed to deliberately let a few seconds pass to give them the impression he wasn't expecting the detectives.
"Yes?"
"Detectives Rizzoli and Connolly, BPD," Jane said curtly, nodding at the man. A normally built, all-around average guy. Not a looker, his eyes were too far apart for that and his nose was a little too big. But also not an unattractive contemporary. Maybe other women judged it differently.
"I know. But I'm wondering why today of all days you -"
"Can we maybe talk inside?", Connolly interrupted him.
"Um, yeah sure." A dog barked somewhere. "Why don't we go into the living room? That way."
It was that voice. Jane was sure of it. Even though it had been two months, Singer had a manner of expression and tone that clearly matched the summer caller.
Singer shuffled in front of the two, they stepped through a wide wooden frame where there must have once been a sliding door. It smelled musty, but not of rotten food or unwashed clothes.
"Do you live alone?" inquired Jane, watching the man clear shirts and magazines from the two armchairs with nimble hands to make room for the detectives.
"Yes." He apparently had nothing more to say about it.
A glance at his fingers told Jane two things: first, he apparently manicured them regularly. And second, there were no marks on either left or right that came from a ring.
They sat down.
"To get right to the reason for our visit -" Jane leaned forward and laid two printouts on the copper-track-tiled tabletop. Once the transcript of the phone call with the poem and also the e-mail.
Singer looked at both papers only briefly and placed them neatly back on top of each other. "That's not from me," he said, pointing to the email on top.
"What's not from you?" asked Jane with a slight frown.
"Well, that one. This email."
"I see, but the other one is?"
"Didn't say."
"But you didn't deny it either," Connolly interjected, his face unreadable. "You just referred to the e-mail."
"So what? Is this an interrogation? Do you want me to call my lawyer?"
"Wait a minute." Jane rowed back. "We're just used to putting everything on the line." She furrowed her eyebrows. "It's just that no one asks for their lawyer in a conversation - well unless they're scared," she cleared her throat, "or have dirt on them."
Singer sped forward to where his cell phone lay. An older device, without a touch display. In general, with few exceptions, time in this house seemed to have stopped in the '90s.
"I won't be fooled!" threatened Singer, waving the device.
"Well!" said Connolly loudly. "You called Detective Rizzoli yourself and recited the poem to her! Who's kidding who?"
"You're a janitor in the building I was called from," Jane continued. "We've clearly established that. And the IP address of the e-mail leads to your router."
"That can't be at all," Singer defended with a vigorous shake of his head.
"But you and I talked on the phone. You're not denying that. You called me."
"What does one have to do with the other?"
"I think we're all interested in that." Jane smiled. "May we examine your router?"
Singer crossed his arms. "No."
"Listen." Connolly took over and Jane looked at him slowly. "The e-mail came from here and is linked to multiple homicides. That's enough for a legal warrant. Even your lawyer can't do anything about that -"
"I didn't email this!"
"All the more reason to have our specialists look into it," Jane affirmed in a calm but in-depth voice. "I don't know much about any of this, but if it wasn't you, I think it will be possible to determine that."
Axel Singer remained silent and put the cell phone back on the table. Only after a short while did he say, "Do you know where we are?"
Connolly nodded, which Jane didn't find unusual at first. But when Singer spoke out what exactly he meant, an icy shiver ran down her spine.
"He was sitting here. Here", Singer said, patting his palms on the dismounted leather. "He's been sitting here at the kitchen table, and on the shelf are his books." Before Jane could respond, he gave the name. "George Scully."
"Did you know that?" asked Jane Connolly after what felt like an eternity."
"You didn't?"
"Uh, no. How could I? And why -"
"Everyone knows, actually," Connolly said guiltily, apparently not having considered at all that she was not one of those in the know.
"1992," Jane said, pointing her index finger in the direction of the stalls.
"I'm sorry. But now you know. This is the house George Scully lived in, and this is where he was arrested."
"Mm." Jane looked at Singer and furrowed her brows. "And where were you at the time?"
"Here."
"Here?"
"Well, to be exact, a few houses over. My parents lived a few houses down. The sand-colored bungalow that looks like a Finca. Maybe you saw it when you drove up."
"Good, so you were present at the arrest? Did you know Scully?"
"Who didn't?"
"How did you get this house?"
"It's been vacant for two, three years. No relatives. Then it went into foreclosure or something. My dad bought it because he didn't want an eyesore on the street that would fall into disrepair while everything around it grew over. He wanted to rent it out, but no one from the neighborhood wanted to live in it."
"Understandable. And then?"
"I had my first job then. First money and all that. And the relationship with my parents wasn't the best. I wanted to get away, get out, and that's when we made a deal. If I got the house in order, I'd get it signed over to me." Singer raised his shoulders with a sigh. "The lot of an only child. There was no one to dispute it with me. And I was sent down to mow and clean the gutters all the time anyway. I was allowed to move and had to prove myself. I brought the property up to scratch, whitewashed the facade, and replaced the downspouts. And inside, well, the furniture was all still there. I knew that. And I also knew who it had once belonged to. That was a special attraction, I admit. My father would come in every once in a while to check. He seemed to like the fact that the house was presentable again. So a little over a year later, on my twenty-first birthday, I officially became a homeowner."
"Still a strange feeling, I think," Jane said, glancing over the bookshelves. "I mean, Scully was a cold-blooded killer, probably a psychopath. Anyway, I wouldn't want to sleep in the same bed as him."
"The bed's new." Singer grinned broadly. "The slatted frame and mattress, anyway."
"You know what I mean."
"So what. Did you know him?"
"I did," Connolly said with a hard face. "And we both saw what he did."
"Yeah, all right. But does that make his house bad? His furniture that's still good?"
Jane realized this was going nowhere. "We need to check your alibi. And a DNA sample would be helpful."
Singer ran a hand through his hair. His voice shook as he asked, "What kind of alibi?" He pounded his chest, "You don't think I -?" He laughed.
Jane pretended to be unimpressed and named the three dates involved.
"I don't know that!" snapped Singer at her. Then he grinned and raised his index finger: "Doesn't that speak for my innocence? I mean, if I didn't, I'd have alibis and know them off the top of my head."
"That doesn't mean anything for now," Connolly grumbled, pulling a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket. "So. What happened in June?"
"Honestly, I don't know. I'll have to think about it. After all, it probably won't do any good if I tell you I was asleep. Alone. Like most of the time, just to get that out of the way right away. There's no woman in the house. At least not directly."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, there is someone. Next door." Singer sighed theatrically. "But we're just neighbors."
"Uh-huh. And this neighbor could confirm -"
"Bullshit! I'm not signing off on her, am I?"
"Mr. Singer, let me put it right." Jane was at the end of her patience. "You really ought to give us some explanations! Why the phone call? What about the e-mail? What are you trying to do with it? And where were you at the time of the crimes?"
"Jesus, isn't it clear? I saw what you couldn't see. Or didn't want to see. That there's a connection there. That this is all just like before."
"Okay. And you couldn't just share that with us? 'Hello, so-and-so, I have a suspicion' why these games?"
"Because nobody took me seriously back then."
Jane looked at him, frowning. "Back then?"
"Back when Scully was up to his mischief. I warned the police, I told my parents, and nothing happened."
Jane looked at Connolly, but he didn't make a face. Instead, he asked, "Where at police did you report?"
"To out wanna-be sheriff. He laughed at me." Singer snorted. "Well. I was a young guy. Who would you believe?"
"Were you watching Scully?" continued Connolly.
"Not directly."
"So you had no evidence."
"Evidence." Singer pursed his lips at that. "A few days later, he was taken away in handcuffs. Guilty. All I'll say to that is, you could have had it sooner."
"Hmm. You do understand that persons like you make us - well - suspicious, don't you?"
"The feeling is mutual -" Singer replied with a shrug.
"We'll have to take a DNA sample from you. And what kind of vehicle do you drive?"
Singer named the make and model. "What for DNA?"
"As a sample. To rule you out, if you want."
"And I have to?"
"You should. Based on this email and the phone call, it may well come to a court order. It looks better -"
"How many times do I have to say this about the email?"
"It doesn't matter in the end. The phone call. The house. We'd like it to be official if you had nothing to do with the more recent murders. It's better for you, right?"
"Whatever. Do I have to come somewhere for this?"
Jane pulled a tube from her jacket pocket, opened the plastic wrap, and pulled on the cap holding a cotton swab. She described to Singer where to rub and with what motions.
He slid the chopstick into his cheek pocket, grimacing as he did so, and handed the chopstick to Jane when the job was done.
She nodded slowly. "Thank you."
Singer looked at her questioningly. "How long will it take?"
"A day or two."
"So if there's no SWAT in my backyard by then, I'm out of the loop, right?"
Connolly hid a grin. "Yeah, something like that."
Jane cleared her throat. "We'd also need your fingerprints."
"Uh-huh."
"Is that a problem for you?"
"Go ahead. But before I do, will you tell me how to get the ink back down? Do you have any nail polish remover in your jacket?"
Jane was slow to follow Singer. She looked to Connolly.
The latter jumped in. "We use a scanner these days. Don't worry about the ink."
"Yeah, all right. Let's get it over with" Singer rolled up his sleeves and checked to make sure his hands were clean.
As he did so, Jane noticed how rough they were. A man who still worked properly. Who could operate tools, who was skilled in his craft. A man who owned crepe tape? On the other hand, almost everyone already had that ...
When the fingerprints were scanned, Connolly packed up the paraphernalia again.
"Getting back to the computer specialists," Jane began. "About your router -"
"Yes, yes. Whatever," Singer groaned irritably. " But I'm not giving you that thing! Everything goes through it, Internet, phone, TV."
"I'll call for someone right now," Jane suggested, "and we'll handle it on the spot."
"Mm ... okay."
Jane called Nina, who promised to be on her way right away. "In about thirty minutes. I'll stick with it if you don't mind. In the meantime, I'll go over a few things with my colleague."
"You'll wait here?" Singer made no secret of the fact that he was deeply displeased to have the detectives in the house so long.
"I'm going outside with Detective Connolly," Jane corrected. "But we'll stick around." She knew it made little difference whether they sat here or not.
Either Singer had dirt on him. Then he would have cleaned his computer, router, and e-mails long before. And it didn't make much difference to the IT experts. Sometimes, Nina had once explained, it was much more interesting to see what someone was doing to their hardware if they knew someone was going to be on to them.
The detectives said their goodbyes to Singer. Jane even wrestled a 'thank you for your help' out of herself.