CHAPTER SEVEN
The second she'd started the car she'd realized she wasn't going to get very far without help.
She'd sat for a minute while it idled, before deciding she couldn't stomach the additional embarrassment that calling Korsak would create. Asking him yet more questions to which she should already know the answer.
So she'd called in a favor or two instead. Asked around and eventually awoken a very grumpy employee of the Cemetery Records Office in order to get the information she'd needed.
Now she doesn't have to scour every burial ground from here to Readville, but there's still some searching to do. So she walks the paths of Evergreen Cemetery, hands stuffed into the pockets of a winter parka she's dragged from the trunk and shrugged on over her suit jacket.
The cold air stings her face, freezes eyes that rarely blink as they hunt in the dark, concentrating on every name as her gaze follows the methodical search pattern of her flashlight.
Row after row of stones. Granite markers for those who are forever lost to the world.
She's not sure how much time has passed, how long she's wandered, almost ready to quit and go home lest the morning sun rise to find her still here, still searching.
Then a sudden gasp halts her feet and the beam from her flashlight dithers erratically in the dark under a trembling hand.
No, no, no.
Every sinew resists the very truth that she has stubbornly sought out. Every word feels like an ice-cold drip inside her chest as she reads the inscription.
Barold 'Barry' Frost
Wonderful son.
Beloved friend.
Boston's finest.
Death may have taken you,
But it will never take our memories.
There's a sharp inhale, a shallow screech of shock that repeats over and over as her chest heaves. And then her legs give out, folding beneath her collapsing body. The impact is heavy when her butt hits the ground, and her barely half-full lungs let rip with an anguished cry that soon turns into a silent scream as her oxygen runs out.
"No, no, no," she sobs aloud when she's able to breathe again, pounds the flashlight into the ground beside her as her watery gaze stares at words that tear through the muscle of her heart.
When she's done swinging the heavy tool it blinks out once, twice, and then dies completely. "Aw shit," she mutters, sniffling wetly. It is just her luck. She lets out a bitter chuckle, levels it directly at Barry. If he were here, he'd laugh at her being ridiculous, too.
"What the fuck, man?!" she exclaims into the blackness, lobs the broken flashlight petulantly towards his headstone. "What is this?" she shouts, shoulders hunched up and hands gesturing the outline of his personal little plot. "What are you doing here? Of all people – You are not supposed to be here! Not before me! I didn't even get to say goodbye, dammit!"
For long moments, only her sniffles permeate the silence. "What happened to you?" she whispers, "I don't even know what happened – I - I don't remember."
Her frown is heavy as her brain works hard to fill in the gaps. The best she can do is replay the bits she does remember, as if he's somehow going to help her complete the picture. "You were just here! We closed the Murphy case, right, which was a huge deal because it'd driven us nuts for two straight weeks… then we went to the Robber and... You watched me leave… with that – that… goddamned gooey look on your face."
She can hear him chuckle clear as day as she eyes him sideways. "Every time I turned her down you gave me that stupid look behind her back. I don't know how Maura never caught you. Asshole."
Scolding him repeatedly for encouraging her attraction hadn't put him off, and she could never be truly mad because he'd had good intentions. He'd wanted to see her happy. Could see her happy with Maura, he'd said.
"Next thing I know I've got a busted head and I'm living in a world where nothing makes any sense." Long fingers creep beneath her hair and gently examine her scalp, shoring up her words with painful proof.
"I mean… It looks like my life, but I feel like I don't… fit. I have no goddamn idea what's happening to me. And here you are -" she points accusingly, "no fucking use whatsoever! Right when I need you. Lying down on the job!"
The humor found in berating her friend even as he sleeps eternal feels somewhat restorative, but it is short-lived as sadness overtakes her.
She sits back on her hands, turns her face to the skies and sighs in frustration. "Shit, Frost. After all that… all those years of telling me how good we'd be together… And you were right. You were so right. If there were a way to – to, I dunno… breathe life into you for five seconds and tell you one thing before you vanish… it'd be that."
A familiar pressure constricts inside her chest and the tears come again. "I have the one thing I always wanted and I don't know how I got here," she mutters, sits forward again. Her chin rests low and her eyes are on the ground as she wipes wetness from her cheeks.
When she looks up to peer at Frost's headstone once more, her eyes narrow, as if his name holds all the mysteries of the universe. "What am I supposed to do now?" she asks.
It is a simple question that she genuinely cannot answer.
"We got a new case," she sighs, sounding relaxed and conversational.
It's been around twenty minutes since she found him and her emotions have run their course. With her tears dried out, she feels a little better, but then it could just be the darkened silence providing a false sense of calm. She's not entirely sure.
"A young woman was beaten and shot," she states, bringing him up to speed. "Six-year old kid's still missing but we'll find her." The repetitive nod she gives helps to cement the hopes of a positive outcome, aides her waning optimism.
"Korsak was too smart to take my fifty on the ex," she snorts lightly, smiles into the dark, "The old man knows a sucker bet when he sees one."
A shiver runs up her spine and she rubs her hands together, warming chilled palms. "You might have taken it," she points, wags her index finger at his name, "Not because I'm wrong, but… maybe just for the fun of the game? You always did like to make people smile."
She picks a handful of grass from beside her leg, tries to throw it in frustration but only manages to sprinkle it across her legs. "We had nothing to charge him on, so out he walks. Free to go about the rest of his day, all because we couldn't keep him long enough for the results to prove I'm right."
She breathes for a moment, brushes the grass from her pants. "You know how long those damn tests take, so now we're gonna have to pick him up again. Damn waste of time… We had him! Not in cuffs," she concedes with a tilt of her head, "but we had him."
She sniffs, lets out a big sigh and breathes out frustration with it. She can do nothing about Charlie Mills right now. Best to let it go.
"Am I crazy for talking to you like this? Is this weird?" she asks, her brow all scrunched up. Talking to him in this way feels a little ridiculous. How is she supposed to get any answers from a corpse? Funny, since Maura would say ninety percent of their lives is about getting answers from corpses.
She looks around for a moment but her eyes are unfocused, her mind too busy with recollections of an earlier conversation. "Maura didn't seem to think it was weird when I said -"
Oh.
The full irony of her current activity hits her square in the chest and she barks a loud laugh. Because here she is, after all, talking to Frost.
And all of a sudden, that indecipherable look of Maura's outside the crime scene this morning makes total sense.
The doctor hadn't pointed out that Jane had said something strange because it wasn't strange at all. Totally normal to mention wanting to talk to a dead man.
But Maura was concerned.
She must have come here before. The old Jane. The one she's forgotten. Must have talked to Frost in this exact same way. Maybe when times were tough, she muses, when she was struggling perhaps, or had problems to work through…
Man, she wishes she could remember.
The breeze picks up, blows the last of autumn's surviving leaves from their trees, and she looks around wistfully. "You ever have one of those days you wish you could just rewind, y'know… start over?" Her eyes flick up to him and she scoffs, throws out a dismissive hand, "What am I saying, of course you do."
Breezily, she continues, "I would rewind if I could. And not just today. Three days ought to do it. Just three days, that's all." She gives a little shrug, as if she's not asking for much. "I'd go home instead of chasing down that dick. Wouldn't get my head caved in. Wouldn't wake up to find everything's weird and you're, well… here."
It all sounds so simple in theory. Like she could retrace her steps and choose a different path. As easy as picking which doorway to walk through -
"Huh…"
It couldn't be that simple, could it? It sure would explain a lot.
"Okay, it's a crazy theory, but… I think I might have an idea."
She drags herself up off the floor, dusts off her pants. "I know, I know," she breathes, rolls her eyes because she can see his folded arms and smirking face. "But what do I have to lose? I'm just going to check it out."
She strides across the grass, presses flattened fingers to her lips and then to the top of his headstone. "I'll let you know how it goes. Talk to you later, buddy."
She knows what she looks like, curb crawling the back streets in the middle of the night. Not a pleasant image but a necessary one.
She thinks about the explanation she might give should she be pulled over but comes up empty. Law enforcement or not, her actions look odd. This time of night, this part of town… Any reason she could give would have to be a lie of course, anything to not sound crazy or raise suspicion.
Though if she's honest, she has a tiny suspicion that she's a little crazy.
Dark eyes search every alleyway out the driver's window as she creeps along. Tries to locate the strange light source she had accidentally stumbled upon once before.
When she finds it, emanating just as strangely as the last time she can't believe her eyes. As soon as the car screeches to a halt, her feet hit the pavement hard.
In her desperate search for answers, she runs toward the doorway, caution thrown to the wind. It is stupid and reckless and she just wants to know what happened, wants a satisfactory explanation for how her world got turned inside out overnight.
Squinting and blinking, the light is just as bright as she remembers, and with a tight grip over her holstered firearm, she raises a trembling right hand to the dazzling steel.
It's a hasty move, ill thought out. Like a child needing to confirm their mother's warning of a hot plate by burning their fingers. She knows she should wait, think it through, take some notes or photographs or catalog… something. Take stock and weigh the evidence. But she just needs to know.
The instant her fingertips try to touch the doorway she is pulled through the void, just as inexplicably as the first time. It yanks her with all the painful intensity of being dragged by a car. Feels like no force on earth could stop it as she is devoured once more by the light.
In actuality, she's never been dragged by a car, and so she has no idea what it feels like. Can only guess and imagine it's horrific.
But, as her eyes flicker open and her cognitive brain functions return, she knows enough now to decide this probably isn't what it feels like after all.
The pain she's in feels more like she died at the rodeo. As if somebody tethered her by the ankle to a raging 1500-pound bull. A monstrous beast that dragged her, flung her around like a ragdoll, stomped on her, and then dragged her some more.
"Holy fuck," she wheezes, rolls over gingerly, arms clutched around her torso. It even hurts to breathe.
She isn't lying in a puddle this time, which is a plus if you can call it that. It doesn't seem like much of a positive considering she just woke up in a cold, dark alleyway feeling like someone beat her. Again.
Picking herself up, she notes several other similarities – the dirt caked on her coat and pants, the smell of trash and cigarettes that seems to cling to her hair and skin, the mystifying light that blinked out as if someone flicked a switch.
The overriding feelings of stupidity are pretty new.
Nothing looks any different. She doesn't feel any different. The world didn't spin the other way or tip upside down to her knowledge, so it's a safe bet that she didn't achieve anything here tonight. Thinking she could fix it this way was crazy to begin with.
"Nice going, Rizzoli," she groans as she picks herself up. "Ow – shit! Y'know… doing a really dumb thing once is an accident…" She winces, feels the sting of having moved a little too fast. "Doing it twice… just makes you a dumbass!"
It's with a slow, hobbling limp that she heads back to her car.