Hey, guys. This is a short update. Than you all over again for all your reviews. I am glad that you're enjoying this story it means a lot to me :-))
I hope that you'll like this chapter as well. Enjoy,
T73
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Jane arrived at the new scene, she immediately knew that there would be trouble. Normally neither she nor Korsak or Frankie were responsible for this district. It was not new to her that there was always a question of jurisdiction, especially when it came to a woman murderer, so Jane wasn't surprise that Frankie stood behind the yellow police tape, waiting for the okay to get to work. "What are you waiting for," she asked when she got closer to her brother, putting her hair into a ponytail.
Frankie rolled his eyes and nodded in the direction of a town house. "That Korsak clarifies the damn responsibility. A certain detective Kaminski wants to make a name of himself."
"Seriously?" She growled and made her way to said tape, feeling Frankie grinning proudly. Jane knew Detective Joshua Kaminski, not personally, thank God. She heard about him. If she'd had to fight with this idiot, she would have rather landed in a funny farm than in Homicide. She huffed and marched towards the tape. She ignored a officer, who was struggling on his hands and knees, to pick a further roll of police tape from a rosebush. Rather than simply tear it and start again with the taping, he picked up a fight with the thorns and pulled his hand back repeatedly. "Hey!" He said out loud when he finally noticed that she was walking to the front door. "You can't go in there!" When Jane didn't slow her steps, he jumped up and dropped the tape, which dropped to the inclined lawn. For a moment it looked like he was going to run after the tape instead of Jane. She almost laughed, but remained serious and pulled her jacket back to reveal the badge of a Detective. "Boston Homicide."
"Of course," he replied and let his eyes roam over his body as she handed her badge over, eyeing it then.
Jane tensed immediately and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Holy crap. You're really Homicide." A little embarrassed, he handed her badge back. "I didn't know that BPD would investigate in this."
Of course he didn't. She kept that for herself, and that she had experience in such cases, and asked instead, "Who's the leading detective?"
"What?"
She nodded to the house. Who's the leading the investigation?"
"Oh, that's Detective Kaminski."
On her way to the front door she felt his eyes on her. But before she closed the said door, she watched the officer hurry after the tape that had spread all over the lawn.
No one was near the door. There was no one at all. The foyer was almost as big as her former home. Jane took her time, looked into each room, stepped carefully, and touched nothing. The house was clean as a new pin, nowhere was a dusting until she entered the kitchen. On the chopping board she noticed all the ingredients for a sandwich, but dried up and shriveled. Weltered lettuce lay on the board next to tomatoes and peppers.
The wrapping paper of several chocolate bars, a few cans of soda and an open glass of mayonnaise were waiting to be cleaned. In the middle of the kitchen island was a sandwich, the sumptuous filling was curving the whole-grain bread, in which was bitten only once. Jane's eyes wandered through the rest of the kitchen. Shining work surface and equipment and a spanking clean floor on which lay three other wrapping papers of chocolate bars. The cause of this mess clearly didn't live here.
She heard voice now, muffled and coming from upstairs. As she walked up the stairs, she avoided touching the oak banister, but doubted that the local police officers has been as careful as she. On a step, she discovered a lump of clay, probably from a shoe of a officer. But it glittered oddly. She resisted the temptation to pick it up. Unfortunately, she didn't always have bags with her to seize evidence. Even though it had already happened that she suddenly found one in her jacket pocket. She walked along the long, carpeted floor toward the voices. At the door to the main bedroom she was greeted by a blood pool, with a shoe print on the side while the second blood pool oozed into a expensive Persian rug. Jane found a pattern of blood splatters on the oak door. Please, they only reached her knees. While Jane looked at the contaminated crime scene she was sure that Maura was mafficking.
Thoughtfully, she stopped in front of the door as a detective in light-blue sports jacket and wrinkled cotton pants yelled at her, "Hey, lady! How the hell did you get in here?"
Maura and a CSRU stopped their work and stared at her. Jane could exactly see that the ME was beyond being teed off.
"I am Detective Jane Rizzoli, I work for the BPD." She held her badge in front of his eyes, but her gaze wandered around in the room.
"BPD?"
He exchanged looks with another detective while Jane carefully stepped over the blood pool and entered the room. Even more blood speckled the white comforter on the canopy bed. Despite of the blood, the comforter had been spread smoothly without any dents. The fight obviously hadn't take place in bed.
"Why is BPD interested in this," the man in the sports jacket wanted to know. He ran a hand over his head and Jane wondered if the flattop cut had been made recently. His look from dark eyes slid down on her, and again she was reminded that she was working in a men's world. She looked at the two men, and then she looked at the quiet, angry Maura, then she turned her attention back to the older man. "You are Detective Kaminski," she asked the flattop cut. He lifted his eyes abruptly and didn't seem to be only surprised but also alarmed that she knew his name. Was that worry in his eyes, that his superior would let him being checked? He appeared to be a bit clumsy. She guessed that he was in Korsak's age. Perhaps it was the last time he was leading a murder investigation.
"Yeah, I'm Kaminski. Who the hell did call you?"
It was time to confess.
"I guess that was me." Maura stated and got up to her feet.
"Good God!" He ran a hand over his face and looked at his colleague. "Just because you're from the damn BPD, you think you can burst in here?"
"I work for Homicide, I'm used to investigate such crime scenes. Dr. Isles thought my team and I -"
"Well, we don't need help. Everything's under control."
"Hey, Detective." The officer that had watched the police tape came in, and everyone saw how he stepped into the blood pool. He jerked his foot up and stepped back into the hallway. Maura groaned loudly.
"Jesus, I can't believe that this happened to me again," he whispered.
Jane realized that the intruder had been more careful than the local police. Thus the shoe print in the blood pool was useless. When she looked at Kaminski, He looked away. He shook his head and disgusted his embarrassment as contempt for the young officer. "What, Officer Stevens?"
Stevens desperately sought a place where he could his foot down. With a look he was begging for forgiveness, he finally wiped his shoe at the hallway carpet. Kaminski avoided looking at the two women. Instead, he shoved his big hands deeply into the pockets of his jacket, as if he to prevent them from straggling the young officer. "What the hell do you want, Stevens?"
"It's just ... There are a few curious neighbors out there. I just wanted to know if I should start interviewing them."
"Write down names and addresses. We'll talk to them later."
"Yes, sir." The officer appeared to be relieved that he could leave.
"Well, Rizzuto, what do you think of this mess?"
"Rizzoli."
"What?"
"My name is Rizzoli," she corrected him and didn't wait for a second invitation. "The body is in the bathroom?"
"There is a Whirlpool bath with even more blood but no body. This insignificant detail is obviously missing."
"The blood seems to be confined to this room and the bath." Maura finally said and Jane noticed that the ME was the only one who wore latex gloves.
"If someone got hurt, we would have found blood somewhere else. But the house is spic and span, you could eat from the floor." Kaminski Ran his hand over his flattop cut again.
"The kitchen isn't that clean." Jane replied.
He frowned. "For how long are you at my crime scene?"
She overheard his question, knelt down and looked more closely at the floor. Most of the blood was clotted, some dry. It probably had been there since morning.
"Perhaps the woman had no time to clean up after lunch." Kaminski continued when he didn't get a answer.
"How do you now that the victim is female?"
"A neighbor called us because the lady of the house didn't answer the phone. She and the victim wanted to go shopping together. She saw the car in the garage, but no one opened the door. I think the guy, whoever he was, interrupted her at lunch."
"Why do you think she made the sandwich?"
Kaminski and the other detective were confused. They exchanged looks and appeared that they were expecting information from one another.
"What the hell are you talking about, Rizzuto?"
"My name is Rizzoli, Detective Kaminski." This time, Jane showed her tetchiness. His obvious disregard for her name was a small but familiar and annoying dig to discredit Jane. "The house of the victim is impeccably clean. She wouldn't have left such a miss, or sit down for lunch before cleaning up."
"Perhaps she was interrupted."
"Perhaps. But there are no signs of a fight in the kitchen. And the alarm system was switched off, correct?"
Kaminski appeared to be annoyed that she had guessed right. "Yeah, it was turned off, so maybe it was someone she knew."
Maura smiled a little and quirked an eyebrow. She knew that Jane was way better than the old man, but didn't say a word until she needed to.
"That's possible." Jane stood up again and looked around in the room. "if he disturbed or surprised her, then only up here. Perhaps she had expected him or even invited him to come up. Maybe that's why there are no signs of a fight until the bedroom. Maybe she changed her mind and didn't want to carry out her plan. This blood splatter on the door is odd." She pointed on it without touching it. "It is so low that one of them must have been on the floor when the wound was inflicted." She went to the window and felt Kaminski's and Maura's eyes following her. She saw a yard that was just like Maura's and hers. "There's not much blood, though." She continued. "Unless there's more in the bathroom. Perhaps there's no body because the victim was able to walk away on her own."
Jane heard Kaminski snort. "You think they had a nice little lunch, then he beat her up by every trick in the book because she no longer wanted to be fucked by him, and then she left with the guy voluntarily, and the whole goddamn neighborhood hasn't noticed anything in the meantime?" He laughed.
Jane ignored his sarcasm because she knew it all to well by using it herself. "I didn't say that she left voluntarily.
"Besides," Maura jumped in. "This blood is too clotted and dry that the attack happened in the noon."
Jane raised her eyebrows in surprise. "What do you think, Dr. Isles?"
Maura kept an straight face. "I would say it happened early in the morning."
Jane smirked proudly. Not only because Maura left her comfort zone, but also because they act in concert when it came to Kaminski. "I don't think they had lunch together. He probably made the sandwich for himself. You should bag it as evidence. If you don't get a tooth print, perhaps you get saliva for a DNA analysis." She ignored the amused look of her girlfriend. When she turned around she looked at the other detective. His frustration had turned into astonishment and the wrinkles around his eyes were clearly visible. Apparently, he was older than she had thought. Therefore, his clothing and haircut were more a midlife crises than modesty. She saw his surprise. She got such responses more frequently after her impulsive but clear crime scene analysis. Occasionally, under such looks, she felt like a cheap fortune-teller. However, the skeptism of her listeners has usually been associated with sufficient astonishment and respect to mitigate this impression. "Do you mind if I take a look at the bath," she asked.
"Go ahead." Kaminski replied, shaking his head.
Before she reached the bathroom, she stopped. There was a photo on a secretary. She saw a smiling blond woman, who had an arm wrapped around a dark-haired man and the other one around a panting white Labrador. Somehow the woman reminded her of Maura and she got Goosebumps. This wasn't the first time that a victim had a close resemblance to her girlfriend.
"What is it," Kaminski asked right behind her.
Jane swallowed down the lump in her throat. "Nothing." At the same moment, she saw more blood in the dresser mirror. It was smeared at the ruffle edge of th bedspread. Jane turned hesitantly. Was it possible that the bleeding victim lay under the bed?
