- Chapter 10 -

The next day, back in BRIC, Jane had to deal with the issue of telling her team to back off of the only lead they had for the Burning Man case. She hardly wanted to be the one to break their bubble. Frost and Frankie were trying, and mostly failing, to hide their eagerness to head upstairs to the captain's office. Riley, on the other hand, was focusing her attention on the computer screen, typing at lightning speed as information popped up on screen just as fast. Everyone was ready to go to push this case forward and she had to be the brakes.

"Alright, I didn't want to say it, but we have to drop the Day angle."

Both Frost and Frankie sighed heavily but Riley looked up to her boss.

"You sure?"

"Not really, but I don't have much choice. Day and I had a," Jane stopped abruptly, searching for the right word, "discussion regarding his involvement. Off the record. Ordinarily, I wouldn't hold much stock in that type of conversation but he was genuine. The captain is not involved directly to the case or Danny's death."

Frost frowned, hearing the struggle to keep Day's secret in his former partner's voice. "That it?"

"As much as you're gonna get, sorry."

"We can find another angle," Riley said, optimistically. "There's got to be something else that we can use."

"Good idea. Is there someone or something that's associated with both Danny's death and his unplanned cremation twenty years after the fact?"

Riley brought the same information from last night back onto the screens in front of them. She continued to type on her keyboard as Jane began to study the data for a second time. Her mind rapidly took in information, making connections and determining their legitimacy without needing to speak a single word. Suddenly, an association revealed itself like a shot in the dark. She was surprised she had not noticed it sooner.

"The cemetery."

Frankie turned to his sister. "Excuse me?"

"The link. The cemetery is the link between the two incidents. Danny was found at the same cemetery that he was released to for burial in 1990," Jane said. "Who was the sexton for the cemetery back then?"

"George Doe, father of John Doe, current sexton of the cemetery."

Jane smiled. They finally had their connection, a legitimate connection. Now, all they had to do was close the deal.

"Frost, set up a BOLO on Mr. John Doe. I don't want him trying to make a run for it, the guy's super squirrelly. Frankie and Riley, you two are coming with me to question him." Jane stretched before motioning to the two detectives. "Let's get some answers, guys."

-?-?-?-?-?-

The all-points bulletin proved to be of little use. Their suspect, John Doe, had been holed up in his house for the entire day. He had left once for breakfast and to pick up a couple of his friends, according to the patrol cops assigned to watch him. Jane and the team had gotten the call and raced over to bring Doe into BPD custody.

"He still in there?" Jane asked the patrol officer in command.

The patrol officer nodded, motioning to the front door of the large two-story home on the other side of the street. Weeds broke out from the sidewalk, invading the well-tended yard in front of the Victorian styled brick structure. Paint was peeling from its elaborate façade, reflecting the home's age. Compared to the abandoned houses next to it, however, Doe's home was the better of the group.

"This might be a trap. You did a check of the periphery for any kind of surprises?"

"Nothing, over then a really bad weed infestation. There are some noises coming from a room upstairs."

Jane looked to her team to make sure everyone was adequately protected. She made a motion to Frankie to knock on the door to Doe's house. Like a bad movie, Doe didn't respond to Frankie's knock, forcing her to be more aggressive. With another subtle motion, Frankie stepped back to allow the patrol officers enough room to bash the door down with force.

"Boston Police Department," Jane said, moving into the darkened home. "Let's go upstairs. He's not down here."

They quickly made their way up to the room where the nexus of noise emanated. Several voices were arguing back and forth passionately, followed by the sound of small, heavy objects being thrown on to a flat surface of some kind. Jane and Riley both brought their guns out to be ready for any sort of issues while the patrol officers announced their presence verbally, getting no response in return. Jane nodded, giving them the signal to bash the door down.

"BPD, put your hands up. Right now."

Jane lead with her gun first, followed by her body, into the small bedroom. Four men, including John Doe, surrounded a heavy table where the accoutrements of a fantasy card game littered the flat surface. Much like the nervous tendencies of John Doe, she noticed the way each of the men shuffled awkwardly in place, refusing to make eye contact with her. All of the men managed to look up briefly in confusion at the police officers who were pointing guns and screaming at them like they were common-day criminals before returning back to the exciting focus of the video-game posters decorating the bedroom walls.

"Sergeant Rizzoli?" Doe said. "Is something wrong? What are you doing in my house?"

"What are you doing?"

"Playing Magic: The Gathering. We have a tournament coming up. I think we have a good chance of making the Pro Team this year."

Jane frowned. "Are you serious?" She holstered her gun and the rest of the team followed suit. "Mr. Doe, we need to talk to you about the body we found in the mausoleum. And no, we can't wait."

"I thought you said no one would find out, Doughboy?"

"Excuse me?" Jane said, turning to the taller man of the group. His face was covered in red blotches of acne, but she could tell he was blushing given the flush of red that gave him the appearance of an overripe tomato. She felt an unhealthy desire to squeeze him to see if juice came out of his pores. He knows something that he's not telling me, Jane concluded, instantaneously.

"Listen, little boy, if you know something about an open case, it is your responsibility to tell me, the lead detective on the case in question, what you know."

The tall man lowered his head submissively, his friends quickly separating themselves from him and John Doe. Sensing an opening, Jane stepped forward, confronting the weak link with her most powerful gaze. Maura always called it her thousand-yard stare, the result of being a perpetual badass for far too long. The reference always brought a dramatic eye-roll from her. She applauded Maura for trying to bring a pop culture reference into their day to day actions – finally, she was cracking the culturally inept woman down after years of dating – but the reference was a tad dark for her personal tastes.

"Either you start talking or Doe starts. But someone will be talking by the time I count to three or, so help me God, your little card game will turn into a massacre."

Jane motioned to Frankie and Riley. The two detectives quickly caught the drift, smiling evilly at Doe and his friend. With a flick of the wrist, the two each took out a lighter from their pockets, playing with the ignitor. Like clockwork, the sound of a spark was followed by a flash of flame before being put out. Spark, flash, out. Spark, flash, out. Spark, flash, out. A never ceasing game of fear meant to evoke a reaction from the guilty looking men. As Frankie and Riley stepped ever closer to the cards splayed across the table, Doe and his friend began to visibly sweat in panic.

"Woah, woah, woah," Doe said, anxiously. "There's no need to threaten me with violence against our cards. We've got Mythic Rares, for goodness sakes. Mythic Rares."

"So?"

"They're like really valuable cards, Jane. Some of these, I've only read about in catalogs, they're so rare," Frankie explained, showcasing the inner nerd he usually saved for his weekly outings with Frost and Suzie. "I know this is probably the wrong time to ask, but would you guys mind if I take a selfie with some of these? Frost will never believe I actually saw an Alpha Black Lotus."

Jane coughed loudly. "Can it wait, Frankie?"

"Sorry, Sergeant."

"I'm still waiting on you to tell me something, Doe."

"There's nothing to tell. I admit, I burned the body. But I made sure it was a body that no one was going to miss."

"And how did you make a determination like that?" Jane asked.

"It was easy. Every time a gravestone is left with flowers, teddy bears, any kind of memorial, I have to document in the database to keep track of which areas receive the most visitors, where future bodies should be placed, which holidays are the most popular for visitors to come and pay their respects to the dead. For the last ten years, Lot 344A was routinely lower than average in regards to visitors."

Jane frowned. "I highly doubt that no one came to visit him in the last ten years."

"Two. Lot 344A got the same two visitors, every year. A bouquet of cheap daisies, probably his mother, and a man would leave one single piece of rose quartz. If the grave was disturbed, no one would question it. Just maintenance, nothing more."

"Lot 344A has a name, Doe," Jane said, annoyed. "Danny Jacobs."

"Regardless, he wouldn't be missed. The only reason you guys noticed was because those random burglars had a key to the mausoleum and were unlucky enough to get caught by my ancient team of security guards. My plan was to come back in the morning, clean up, and rebury the remains. No one would have known the difference."

Unable to speak, Jane turned back to her team with a look of disbelief. Doe was confessing which was great but something about him made her unsettled. He was telling the truth about burning the body, yet he lacked the critical element that she called the killer instinct. In all of her years as a detective, every murderer she had come across had an overwhelming level of darkness within them that led them to take another life. John Doe, as oddly awkward him and his friends were, he certainly wasn't a depraved murderer satisfying a need to kill. He didn't even have a legitimate reason to kill, not to mention, burning a corpse hardly denoted a desire to kill.

"Okay, I'm still really confused about key elements of this case. Why did you burn Danny's body, in the first place?" Jane asked. "Is this your way of developing a M.O. for future kills?"

The tall man twitched his leg, a nervous tick. "Future kills? What are you talking about? We just wanted to impress our friends in the Kill Club."

Here we go, some real action.

"Someone please tell me what the hell a Kill Club is."

Doe and the taller man looked awkwardly at each other. They seemed to be silently debating their decision to remain silent.

"Well…the Kill Club is just a gathering of like-minded individuals," Doe said, resignedly.

Jane rolled her eyes. "Yeah, like-minded individuals who enjoy killing innocents."

"No. We don't kill anything. All we do is, study crimes. Like serial killers and freak accidents. That's all we do, really. I mean, c'mon, look at us. The whole group is just like us, a bunch of nerds with a lot of expendable income and weird interests. Do you really think we could kill anyone?"

"You know, Jane, I've heard of things like this. It might seem a little weird, but a lot of big cities have groups where people get together to discuss Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Laci Peterson. All the biggies," Riley said. "It's completely above board. They do ID checks and everything to make sure no one is underage or, well, really weird."

"Speaking from first-hand experience, Detective?"

Riley blushed. "Frankie and I, uh, kinda, went together a couple of months ago. Like a, sorta, date. We thought it would be fun."

With a smile, Jane mentally filed away the embarrassing tidbit regarding her favorite new couple. She quickly returned her focus to their suspects.

"So back to this Kill Club. Where does the burning of the corpse come in at? And what about the bones being cut up?"

"A lot of serial killers like to burn their bodies to get rid of evidence. I decided to film an actual corpse being burned to show at the next meeting as a sort of, I don't know, artistic statement. The Kill Club's organizers have recently decided to allow artistic expression inspired by serial killers to be exhibited. $500 is the grand prize." Doe sighed heavily, scratching his head. "If even one of us can make it to Pro Tour, we're going to need money. We don't want to start selling our cards so…entering this art competition seemed like a good bet. Michael," he nudged his taller friend, "has an MFA from USC."

"And the bones being cut up?"

Doe blushed. "Michael said the video would have more artistic impact with the chainsaws and a couple of the Kill Club members got a little…overzealous."

"So. You're telling me that you took a corpse from its resting place and burned it in a mausoleum. All for the purpose of making money for a professional nerdvana fest. That about it?"

"Essentially, yeah."

"Couldn't you just use your savings or something?"

Doe and his friends looked at each other with raised eyebrows before erupting in laughter. Jane watched the group with a raised eyebrow of her own, obviously confused.

"With grad school loans and basic costs of living, we barely have enough money to enter tournaments for Magic on the regular," Doe said. "Are you…going to arrest us for something? I swear, I'm planning on returning Lot, sorry, Danny back to his resting place as soon as the body is released back to the cemetery."

Jane shook her head with a sigh. She really didn't want to arrest the two of them. They were just trying to make some money for their stupid card game. But the law was the law. Doe could easily be charged with disinterring a dead body which carried a potential sentence of up to three years or a $5000 fine. Either way, he'd be up the creek without a paddle. All she could hope for was the guy would scrounge up a quality lawyer to get the charge down to something more manageable. Her job was complete, however. Let the justice handle it from here.

"This really sucks. Frost and Riley, take the two of them in for custody. Frankie, call the captain to let him know he needs to put on his good suit for our press conference. God forbid the 'community' not know that a 'killer' is now safely in the hands of the BPD," Jane said. "Damn it. I hate press conferences."