- Chapter 9 -

Jane had driven to Capt. Ashley Day's brownstone immediately after dropping Maura and Bart back at the house and making sure the two were comfortable. The drive had taken a measly thirty minutes. His place was just a couple of blocks down from their own townhouse. Compared to the rest of the neighborhood, the captain's brownstone stood visibly separate from the others. The wrought-iron gate painted black extended a good ten feet from the brownstone's door, giving the home a decent sized driveway where a sleek Range Rover was parked. Nothing was out of place, just like Day's luxurious office.

With a heavy sigh of resolve, Jane walked from the car to the wrought-iron fence, quickly realizing that it wasn't just a decoration. The fence was locked via a mechanism that was kept inside the house somewhere given the lack of a keyhole. She looked up before noticing the unobtrusive cameras placed all around the perimeter of the captain's home. To minimize her appearance as a potential threat to the security team probably watching her, Jane took out her golden badge and waved it to the cameras. Following a brief second of staring awkwardly at a rider installing a new exhaust on his sport-bike, a loud sound of electronic interference came across on a small two-way speaker next to the gate's entrance.

"Sgt. Rizzoli? You do know what time it is, right?"

"I need to discuss something with you, sir. And, no, it can't wait until tomorrow." Jane could hear the contemplation from Day, contemplation she didn't have time for. If he didn't let her in now, she was afraid she would just lose her nerve. Interrogating the captain of BPD wasn't something she desired to do, especially when it came to what she was going to ask him in regards to the case. This had to happen, tonight.

"Sir, Ashley, I need to talk to you. Please," Jane continued.

Another heavy silence before an audible click from the gate signaled Day's acquiescence.

"Rizzoli, I need to know something before you come into my home."

She sighed in response.

"Is this a personal or professional visit?"

"Both."

The speaker turned off, but the gate didn't click for a second time. Jane walked toward the red door before knocking three times. Exactly ten seconds passed before a small boy wearing an oversized fisherman's sweater, leggings, and thick house socks opened the door with a bashful smile. Keeping the door half-cracked, he peeked at the visitor like she was the mailman.

"Well, hello there," Jane said. "I wasn't expecting to see you."

"Daddy was too slow." The little boy extended a spindly arm from the safety of the home in an attempt to be civil. His fingers shined with a purple jelly substance. "My name's Sam. What's yours?"

"Jane."

"Would you like to come in, Jane? Daddy made me jam cookies."

What the fuck? Daddy?

Suddenly the shadow of a man came up from behind the little boy. He opened the door fully to reveal the captain, wearing an old Christmas sweater and black slacks. With a smile, he motioned toward a well-lit room behind him.

"Go help clean up, Sam. Jane needs to talk to me about work."

"Daddy showed me his gun once," the little boy whispered, like it was the biggest secret ever kept between two people. "It was really heavy."

Day frowned. "Sam…"

"I'm going, I'm going. It was nice meeting you, Jane."

Sam ran off behind Day, allowing the two to continue their discussion from outside. He opened the door wider to reveal the inner sanctum of the captain. Despite the obsessive-compulsive state of the exterior, the home was obviously lived-in, children's toys flung haphazardly near a chest in the living room and odd dents in the furniture from a child's small feet jumping up and down, up and down, up and down. Two scarves, both brightly colored and incongruous with the bachelor's pad style of the brownstone, were hung up on a small hook on the wall.

"Excuse the mess," Day said, directing her to take a seat on a red couch, pushing aside a sticky, yellow model dump-truck. "He's with me for the month."

"So, Sam isn't your son."

"Oh dear god, no. My brother's a single dad. He's doing business in Australia. Of course, no one in my extended family could take Sam on, so his Uncle Ash is stuck with parental duties. Parental duties that I am not used to dealing with, by the way."

"What's with the 'daddy' thing?"

"My brother and I look alike. When he's not here, I become the temp Daddy. Like a security blanket. Trust me, I know it's kind of weird. Every time I correct him, he starts to," Day's face crinkled in disgust, "cry. Loudly."

Day leaned back into the lumpy softness of the sofa next to Jane. "How's your wife?"

"Fine…I guess. Pissed that I decided to come over here instead of putting our son down for the night."

"Then let's cut to the chase, shall we. What's on your mind, Jane?"

Jane ran her hand through her tangled curls. Her whole body clenched in expectation of what she was going to say. How would he react? Would he be angry, disappointed, frustrated? Day might be her childhood hero but the truth needed to come out. She wouldn't be able to move forward with the case until she knew for sure.

"You know that case we got at the cemetery today? The Burning Man corpse."

Day nodded, playing with a loose thread on the upholstered couch.

"Our medical examiner determined the identity of the body. Danny Jacobs, a former CI who died in 1990. He was your CI, Ashley."

"Yes, I remember Danny. He worked a couple of suspects for me when I was a detective in Narcotics."

"Do you know why he died?" Jane interrogated.

He shrugged. "I think it was cardiac arrest."

"His autopsy report states that the death was 'suspicious'."

"Are you insinuating something, Sergeant?" Day asked, turning to face Jane with a look that warned her to be careful with her next words. As much as she wanted to take that warning to heart, she continued forward unabated. There was something about Danny and Day's involvement that was niggling at her cop-sense. All she had to do was keep pulling the threads and she'd get the truth out of him.

"Did you have a hand in Danny Jacobs' death, Ashley?"

Day exhaled a heavy breath. "Don't do this, Jane."

"Do what?"

"You're going down the wrong path. Stop looking at the past and focus on the present. Why is Danny's body even in the mausoleum? Who would burn a corpse that's been dead for twenty plus years?"

"But I can't look into the present without understanding the past."

"I didn't kill Danny. I couldn't have killed him."

Jane watched him subconsciously fiddle with the ring on his left hand with one eye as the other observed Sam in the kitchen. The little boy was attempting to clean up the cooking area by placing the cooled cookies into the cookie jar. Every two cookies placed in the jar were followed by a quick pop of another in Sam's small mouth. With each cookie, he looked back over at Jane and Day with a guilty smile. Two adult aprons covered in flour and jelly hung on a small hook near the refrigerator.

"The statute of limitations has passed on this case. Danny's death was ruled a result of natural circumstances. If you just tell me what you did, the guilt of killing your CI-"

"I didn't kill Danny," Day said. "There's nothing to confess. What else do you expect me to say?"

"The truth."

Day narrowed his eyes. "Danny was my boyfriend."

Jane felt her mouth go slack-jawed for a brief second.

"Don't believe me? When he died, I spent the money to have him buried. I even ponied up the cash to get the medical examiner to give him an autopsy. I did it under a false name, but the records are right there."

"Why all the secrecy?"

"I…haven't told anyone about my sexual preferences, Jane. Even back then, I always suspected my secret wasn't as secret as I would have liked. People would never outright accuse me of being gay given my rank, but the whispers made it unnecessary. The idea of him being…murdered to hurt me was on my mind. You have to remember, I was a hotshot detective that actively pushed against rampant crime in the Boston community. It wouldn't have been difficult for a rival to sell my secret to the devil, so to speak."

"But why haven't you…?"

"Come out like you and Maura?" Day continued. "Jane, c'mon, isn't it obvious? I'm the captain of the largest metropolitan division in the state. When would it have been appropriate to share that bombshell? In between the ribbon cutting ceremony at an elementary school for the deaf and blind and making a donut run at DD for my detectives? Besides, being a woman makes the process easier. No one's picturing you getting fucked in the ass, afterhours."

Jane coughed. Well, she hadn't expected that particular confession. It made sense, though. Back when she had been at career day, she remembered how awkward Day had been around the female teachers that had surrounded him like hungry seagulls on a pier. He had actively separated himself from them. Not in a rude way but with a clear purpose. As a teenager, she had assumed that the standoffishness was the result of his role as a detective and wearing the gold badge. In retrospect, Jane began to realize that Day's lack of interest in being around all of the fawning women that day was probably more dependent on his lack of sexual attraction for women as a whole.

"You know, your sexuality doesn't prove anything."

"But it does give you pause. And pause is all it takes," Day said. "My relationship with Danny was…complicated given my career. I know this might come as a shock to you, but BPD hasn't always been open-minded about lifestyle choices as it is now. Back then being gay or even remotely bi-curious was a death sentence for a detective, especially if you happened to be a man. Taking the risk just wasn't worth it."

"But if you loved Danny…"

Day shrugged. "The job meant more to me. Helping people, helping the community, that's what turned me on back then, odd as it might sound. Danny was a…nice distraction. He knew that, I knew that. That's why he never pushed me to come out."

"And I'm back to square one."

"Not quite," Day said. "Now you ask why someone would burn a dead CI employed by the current captain of the Boston Police Department in a mausoleum."

"Easier said than done." Out of the corner of her eye, Jane saw an unfamiliar shadow peek out from the hallway, followed by the loud "clomp-clomp-clomp" steps of Day's nephew on the person's heels. She felt her eyebrows rise upon the shadow's reveal around the corner and into the living room. The man was a tall, dark, and handsome, the literal representation of a living Adonis brought to life. His black hair was just long enough to flip back and a peek of the all-holy V slipped out from his tight, red polo. And I thought I was attractive, Jane thought, feeling an unusual desire to take out her smartphone and take a selfie with the middle-aged man.

"Ash, you need to do something about Sam. He's way too hyper." The man shifted his gaze to Jane's slack-jawed face. "And you must be the guest that I was supposed to wait upstairs for."

"That would be her, Alex."

Sam jumped up and down on the balls of his feet. "Uncle Alex is Daddy's special friend who sleeps in his bed with the lights off. All of my friends' moms call him 'a hot caramel latte.' Do you think he's a hot caramel latte, too?"

"Umm, he's very nice to look at, certainly," Jane mumbled, blushing.

Everyone looked awkwardly at Sam as he flitted away, completely oblivious to the consequences of his actions. Jane felt her eye muscles struggling to look away from Alex's blushing face but all she could manage was a slow track downward to the all-holy V still managing to reveal itself with each breath the man took. On the other hand, Day just dropped his head with a heavy sigh.

"Let's try to keep this off the record."

"Which part?"

"All of it, preferably."