Chapter 4

Wow, this story as been difficult to write. It's been hard to hold the plot together, but I will do my best. Enjoy.

"Even if he saw something, how much help can he be? He's got dementia." Jane sighed audibly. "See you after work Maur?"

"Yes, I'll come to your place so there is no chance of you running into your mother before she's cleared."

"Thanks."

Little did they know that the process they vowed to trust in was about to be blown straight to Hell.

Maura knocked on Jane's door, but there was no answer. She called, "Jane, Jane it's Maura," still no answer. Maura felt her heart race and her breathing quicken. She fumbled in her purse for her keys, and her hand is shaking as she misses the keyhole. Just as she is about to unlock the door, it swings open and Jane is standing on the other side.

Maura jumped slightly, "Jane, why didn't you answer?"

The taller woman cleared her throat and ran her fingers through her hair, "Sorry Maur. I'm exhausted. I'm sleeping weird hours, eating weird hours, eating more weird shit than usual."

Jane stepped aside to allow Maura entrance. "What time is it anyway?"

"It's almost 4:15."

"Crap. They were going to bring ma and pop in at 3:00 for questioning. Did you see them? Do you have any news? Is my mother pissed?"

"Jane, Jane calm down. Everything is OK. I saw them." Maura placed her hands on Jane's biceps, trying to get Jane to focus.

"And?" Jane asked with a slight squeak to her voice.

"Of course I wasn't allowed to speak with them, but from what I could tell, Detective Vines was noting but professional. Your father looked stoic, your mother anxious. They were brought in separately. Frankie was in the bullpen, and he was quite tense."

"Tense, Maura tense? We're cops and our parents are being questioned in a murder. Tense is probably an understatement." Jane wasn't yelling, but her tone made Maura lower her eyes. Whenever this happened, she always felt as if she had disappointed Jane in some way.

Jane saw Maura's distressed look and slumped shoulders, and it made her chest ache a bit. She felt terrible for speaking to her friend like that, and grabbed Maura pulling her close to her chest. Jane rested her chin on Maura's head and snaked her hand around the shorter woman's back.

"I'm sorry Maur. I'm so stressed, but that's no excuse for snapping at you. Forgive me?"

"Yes." Maura snuggled the side of her face against Jane's chest, and released a breath she had been holding for longer than intended.

They stayed like that until Jane's phone began to vibrate. "Rizzoli."

It was Korsak, "Jane, get down here."

"Mom and pop?"

"They've been cleared, so have you. Me and the squad room video put you at the precinct at the T.O.D., you'll still be questioned, but you need to get them outta here before they get charged with something else."

Jane could hear her parents' voices and yelling in the background. "Be right there."

"I'm going with you." Maura grabbed her purse.

Jane smiled at her and the pair made their way back to the police department.

They walked down a long hallway, following the familiar voices that were screaming at one another.

Korsak met the ladies and pulled them aside. "Jane you've got to help us get them out of here. Your mom and dad have been fighting like cats and dogs for a half hour."

"What the Hell? I thought they were being taken in separately?"

"They were, but they were released at the same time, and chaos ensued."

Jane could make out what they were saying and just listened for a minute.

"Angela, that's part of why I left. You never let anything be! You meddle, and sometimes it can be so damn selfish!"

"You wanna talk selfish? I raised our children, I cooked meals, planned parties, ran a household, supported your business with the money my father left me while you brooded and whined in between watching baseball games and drinking beer! And what did you do? You pissed it all out the window Frank!"

"Nag, Nag."

"Jesus, Jane sighed."

Korsak raised his brows, "Well Jane the good news is your mom was at her sister's house when the victim was nail gunned. Traffic cams have her driving to and back. She had only met Patterson that day, and knew next to nothing about him. Your dad was on his way to a fishing trip with one Johnny Romano."

Both Jane and Maura chimed in simultaneously, "The loan shark?"

Korsak nodded. Jane looked down at her shoes. "Maura, I can't. I just can't. This is too much."

The doctor had had about enough of the elder Rizzoli's. They had been bickering ever since she'd met them, and had probably been arguing continuously for the last thirty-five years. The fighting had taken it's toll on Jane. She watched silently as the detective slumped into a chair outside an empty interrogation room.

Maura, confidently, and with a stride that said she was definitely on a mission, entered the room where the voices were emanating from. A young, inexperienced detective was trying to calm them. Maura slapped her purse down on the table, and Frank and Angela both jumped in their seats."

Her mouth was a tight line, "No disrespect Mr. and Mrs. Rizzoli, but I must tell you this has to stop."

Angela was about to interrupt, but Maura raised her hand, "No let me finish. I know you've been arguing for what is probably the entire span of your marriage. And you were talking about being selfish, well I feel you're both selfish. Do you realize what this arguing has done to your children? And you Frank? What were you doing talking to a loan shark?"

"A loan shark!" Angela rasped.

Let me do something I normally don't. I'm going to venture a guess." Maura had fire in her eyes, and they knew not to interrupt her. In fact, they were quite intimidated because they have never seen Maura so infuriated. She gritted her teeth at the pair.

"You were talking to Johnny Romano because you wanted money to restart your business. YOU, because of your pride, chose that over going to a bank. And I'm sure your pride has cost your family deeply. You gave so many breaks to your customers; it ruined your business, and hurt your family. And how did you handle it? You withdrew."

Frank Rizzoli looked down at his feet, feeling foolish for a lifetime's worth of missteps, and Maura's face was red. She was terrified, out of fear for overstepping her boundaries, but she couldn't stand the tension a moment longer. And frankly, she would never ask Angela to leave her guest house, but she was tiring if the countless times she would enter the main house without knocking. She huffed as she turned toward the middle aged woman.

"And Angela, you're a very caring woman, but sometimes you care too much, and you do meddle. And you deflect, rather than deal with a situation; you use ill timed humor, and projects as a distraction, and when you do that, the shit piles up until you're up to your neck in it."

Angela's eyes went wide.

"Now, I don't care if you hate me for this, but someone had to tell you about yourselves, and stop all the pain your causing one another and especially Jane. None of you deserve this."

Maura swallowed the lump forming in her throat. "And Frank, you will have no more dealing with a loan shark, but you WILL take a loan from me at a respectable 3% interest rate, and Angela you WILL finish your professional organizers course."

With a final wave of her hand, she stared all of them down, "And you all need therapy, and I don't care if you get together or individually, or both, but you really need to have a professional sort this out for you, and because it will relieve Jane of so much stress, Ill even pay for it!"

Maura's face was now fully flushed, and her breath ragged. "You need to leave here, and I don't care if you leave together or separately, but you need to leave before you're charged with a domestic incident."

Maura tilted her head and smiled slightly, "And have a good evening".

Maura smoothed the front of her dress down and stormed out of the room, leaving the occupants dumbstruck. Upon exiting, she found Jane still sitting in the same chair where she had left her, her head buried in her hands. Maura gently placed her fingertips on the detective's shoulder. Jane looked up to see her parents headed in the opposite direction.

She perked up as she watched them talking amicably to one another and even laughing.

"Maur, what the hell did you do?"

"Oh nothing, I just changed their perspective slightly."

"Holy shit."

Jane had a spring in her step. Though, an adult, she harbored the childlike hope that her parents would reconcile. She made her way, with Maura, back to the bullpen feeling better than she had in weeks.

Jane sat at her desk and Maura perched herself on the corner smiling down broadly at Jane.

"OK Maura, let's get back to work. Cavanaugh gave me the OK, and we've got a killer to catch."

Jane and Maura began pouring over the case details and the autopsy report. They were there only a few minutes when Detective Joseph Vines approached. He was a good looking man in his early forties, and he was as good a cop as Jane.

"Jane. Dr. Isles."

"Hey Joseph, what's up?"

"Well, our vic had a lot of enemies. Half of his clients lost big in their divorce cases. This guy pissed off a lot of people. But Jane, I wanted to tell you, I'm not happy with the way this investigation is going. This guy was a public defender for a few years back in the 1990s, and some innocent people went to jail because of his shoddy work."

"Great, now our suspect pool doubles."

"Yeah, but they aren't letting us investigate anything from when he was public defender. It was over fifteen years ago, and we're short the manpower, and no one thinks someone will have waited fifteen years to get revenge."

Vines stepped back a bit from the desk, "And we still haven't found the gun. I'm sorry Jane."

"Me too, Thanks Joe."

Jane looked up at Maura who was sill seated on the edge of her desk. "Maura, the system we're supposed to trust, it just backfired on us."