Author's Note: Again my muse smiled on me :) I'm not fully happy with this chapter, but I promise that the next one – which also will be the last one – will be better! I hope you'll enjoy that one, too. :)
Frankie and I found Tommy at a bar, chatting up some chick, and after I made her leave by flashing my badge at her, we confront him about the missing TV – and jewellery, as it turned out, the TV wasn't the only thing missing, which upsets Maura even more and naturally, seeing her even more upset did the same to me, too. I'm not surprised when Tommy denies that he's the culprit, but I wish I could believe him; his sarcasm about how he's to blame for the divorce of Ma and Dad doesn't help, and I can't stop myself from snapping at him, remembering how upset Maura looked, the memory only fuelling my anger further.
Of course, Tommy starts to with some smart-ass comeback, but before he gets to finish, I hear the name of our prime suspect Manny Vega come from the TV and I automatically turn and look at it, forgetting about Tommy and the stolen stuff when I see the car wreck, the ambulance and the police cars.
"Can you turn that up?" I ask the barkeep, and he responds by doing just that; Frankie and I exchange a look when the reporter informs us and everyone else watching that the Pilgrims star Manny Vega died in a car crash, and he nods when I ask him if he can take over here, I still take the time to give Tommy another look that's somewhere between dirty and strict, then I hurry outside and to my car.
Just like when I drove ho—to Maura's house after the dinner, I can't stop thinking about her again; now I don't ponder how she called me sexy though, but the shocked look on her face when she realized that there's been a burglary in her house. Now that it's too late, I start wondering if it was a good idea to leave with Frankie and go looking for Tommy; then, I tell myself that Ma stayed with her and that it'll be fine, she'll know how to calm her down, and now with our prime suspect ending up dead in a car crash, he'll surely land on her autopsy table, which will give her something to do and help to calm her, as well.
While I ponder that, I spot a confectionary up ahead, and I remember how keen Maura was on eating the fudge clusters that Jorge – oh, jeez, Jorge, Mr Male-Nurse-House-Husband – sent me while he was trying to woo me; I know that it won't be much, but it'll be better than nothing, and so I make a quick stop to buy a pack of them, even though they aren't exactly cheap. Maura's worth it though, and if I'll succeed to make her smile with that, it won't matter one bit.
For once, I'm able to concentrate on driving fully after I got back into my car and put the pack of candy on the passenger seat; it doesn't take much longer until I arrive at the station, and I'm not surprised to find Maura in the morgue, already waiting for the corpse of our victim. She still looks a bit shaken up, but she smiles at me when she sees me enter, then grows serious again when she asks if I already heard about Vega.
"Yup, that's why I'm here", I tell her, then produce the pack of fudge clusters, "and to give you this."
The way her eyes light up and the smile that curls her lips sends my heartbeat through the roof. Again. Man, if I keep going like that, I'm gonna have a heart attack sooner or later. I hope Maura will be around then to give me CPR, I'd really like some mouth-to-mouth from… Jesus, Jane, you're waiting for a dead guy to arrive and your best friend is still upset, even though she tries to hide it, so get a grip!
"Fudge clusters", Maura now exclaims, kinda stating the obvious, taking the package from me and looking at it with shining eyes, "thank you, Jane! This is really what I need now. Did you know that chocolate is known to boost the endorphin production? Endorphin is responsible for feelings of content and happiness."
"In other words, chocolate makes you happy", I decide to translate her google-mouthing into easier understandable terms; she beams at me and nods, apparently, the chocolate already makes her happy when she simply holds it, I wonder what will happen when she actually eats it.
"Except for when it's chocolate from Jorge", she then tells me, and do I actually see a mischief little twinkle in her eyes? "Chocolate from Jorge makes you sadder."
"I remember", I let her know, and even though I should be annoyed by the fact that she brings that insufferable guy up again, I can't help myself, I just have to smile at her, and the smile she gives me in return does for me what the fudge clusters did for her. I'm really crushing so hard on her, it's ridiculous.
The moment poor dead Manny Vega is brought to the morgue and put down on her table, I can see how all worries and tensions caused by the burglary fall off of her as her professionalism takes over; for a while, she works pretty much in silence, starting with the usual Y-incision, and I just stand there and watch, I've been there often enough so it doesn't freak me out anymore the slightest.
While Maura carefully starts inspecting Vega's intestines, one of the lab guys comes over with the results of the blood screening; I'm surprised they got done with that so fast, and when I tell him that, he lets me know in reply that he did the screening himself and that he was a huge fan of Vega. Aw man… But at least this got us the results faster.
"Put them here", Maura instructs him, gesturing with bloodied gloves to a free surface at the end of the table; he does so, then retreats while Maura looks at the results, then up at me, sounding just the tiniest bit surprised when she goes on and tells me that he was clean – no drugs, no alcohol, no steroids.
"Who would have thought that", I comment, that puts us back to the starting point – after all, so far, we thought that Vega did for his sober coach because he got caught doing drugs or drinking or both, and that would have cost him his spot on the team.
"His heart is enlarged", Maura tells me in reply, after taking a closer look at said organ, and I perk up.
"Congenial?" I want to know, and she shakes her head, then tells me that it happened recently – before she seems to spot something else, because she gets that special expression on her face.
"Maura?" I try to gain her attention, "what? You look as if you've got one of your 'I'm about to crack a case' hunches."
"My face doesn't hunch", she tells me, only looking at me briefly before she focuses on Vega again, mumbling something about itches instead of hunches while she checks some organ or other in his tummy, then takes it out and briefly looks at me again before she cuts into it – almost as if to make sure I'm not gonna puke or something. Is she confusing me with Frost now?
"His kidneys are damaged", she tells me after cutting and looking, and I realize that once more, I have to make her guess. Ugh. Good thing I brought her the fudge clusters, that will make up for putting her through that again. I hope. It takes some more coaxing than in the shower back at the stadium, but finally, I succeed – turns out that Vega was poisoned with antifreeze.
"How long would you have to poison someone with that to get that effect?" I want to know, and Maura let's me know it must have been three weeks after checking the kidney once more. I wanna stay here with her longer, make sure she's really okay, but with that recent development, I can't; so, I just tell her to call or page me as soon as she finds anything else and, after her confirming nod, hurry to the door to go upstairs and brainstorm with the guys.
Before I leave though, I turn once more to look at Maura; she's bent over the corpse again, studying the remaining organs, and even though her gloves are bloody and she's wearing that unflattering blue scrub thingy, I take a moment to admire how beautiful she is, how she manages to be attractive even when wearing hideous scrubs and bloodied gloves, the highly concentrated expression on her face only making her even more appealing.
Luckily, she doesn't notice me staring, that might have been really awkward, again; I have to shake my head a tiny bit to clear it, and finally, I manage to turn away and hurry upstairs, telling myself that I have to put my thoughts about her and how much of a crush on her I have aside at least long enough for proper brainstorming with the guys. Won't be easy – I'm crushing so, so hard on her.
It takes us a while, but finally, we got pictures of all of Vega's team mates, the team owner, his ex-wife – previous team owner – and the coaches up on one of our "brainstorming boards"; while we are pondering who might have a reason to kill him, coming up with various answers, from another player to the team owner's ex-wife who wants her share of the team back, Maura texts me, not even half an hour after I left the morgue.
"Maura's got something", I tell the others, and no more words are needed as we hurry downstairs together; there, Maura has our not-a-slip-and-fall-after-all guy on the table again and, once we're there, starts extracting fluid from one of his eyeballs, which looks kinda gross, but I don't make any grossed out noises, unlike Frost.
Deciding to ignore him, I ask Maura why she makes us stand there if she's sure she's got something, and she tells me that the time of death is usually hard to trace and that I should be patient. Pah! Jobe's a cranky toddler, compared to me, and I tell her just that. She just smirks.
While I admire that smirk, Korsak starts teasing Frost about the grossed out noise he made, and Frost teases back about his jacket or something, I'm not really paying attention, I'm too busy admiring Maura.
"Come on guys", I interrupt them, because now I'm getting a hunch that Maura's up to something, "let's focus. One of our ideas was Gina hiring him of the bad pick-up lines to get rid of Vega, right?" "Him of the bad pick-up lines?" Frost inquires, but I shrug him off and give him my "Man, focus!" look.
For some reason, Korsak feel compelled to make mention of how superstitious baseball players are, which should earn him a "Focus!" look as well, but before I can send one his way, he needs to add that one player wore the cup from his high school days until it got stolen late in his career. Ew. And then, as if that wasn't gross enough, Frost talks about another guy who put tiger balm on his balls, and Maura makes it perfect by asking "His balls? Aren't they checking those before allowing him to pitch?"
I know it's nasty, I shouldn't laugh at her, but I can't help it and snort, from the corner of my eye, I can see how Korsak bites back laughter too while Frost is kind enough to explain that he's been talking about a different kind of balls. Her only answer to that is a cute, startled "Oh!", and I have to snort again, then that desire vanishes within seconds when a thought hits me.
"So players have a lot of little rituals", I think out loud, making the others look at me – unlike Maura, I'm not hesitant to talk about my hunches. "Like drinking from the same blinged up water bottle before every game", I add, and Frost catches on quickly, telling me that he'll have it retrieved from Vega's locker.
While he goes to get that done, Maura gets the results for the tests she ran on the eyeball fluid, and tells us that it is what she expected; when that makes me accuse her of indeed having a hunch, she denies it though and explains that she only ran the test because she couldn't figure out the state of rigor mortis and that it hadn't fit together with the data we'd gotten from his key card.
"He didn't die at six a.m.", she goes on before I can say anything to that, man, I gotta keep that hunch thing in the back of my mind to tease her with it later on, "but six hours earlier."
"So the keycard logs were faked", Korsak concludes, taking the words right out of my mouth, "and we know who can do that, right?"
"Right", I agree, frowning to myself, "our former colleague. But why would he do that?"
"I'll get him for questioning", Korsak decides in reply, but before he can leave to do that, his phone buzzes and after he checked it, he makes all of it even better by telling me that Tommy didn't do it, that it was the work of a burglar ring busted thanks to the fingerprints in the house and that Maura will get all her stuff back.
"This is great", I almost cry out, nearly feeling giddy now – the case is going well after all, and the news that Tommy didn't commit a crime so shortly after his release after all is the cherry on top. Korsak gives me an agreeing grin, then hurries off to have Marc brought in for questioning; that leaves Maura and me behind alone, and I turn to look at her, my heart nearly melting when I see the happy smile on her face.
"Happy to get your stuff back, huh", I tease her, but she doesn't take the bait this time, since she simply shakes her head, then pulls off her gloves while she moves around the table to stand beside me, as always when her heels aren't high enough having to look up at me.
"I'm happy that it wasn't your brother after all", she tells me, and I can tell from the expression in her eyes and the sound of her voice that she means every word, even though she hardly knows him. "He seems like such a nice guy, and both Angela and you were so upset when you thought it was him."
She pauses, and tilts her head in that cute way when she thinks about something, then smiles again and goes on, a sparkle in her beautiful eyes now. "Although, I have to say, of course I also am happy to get my things back."
I smile back at her, nod and briefly put my arm around her shoulders to give her a little cuddle, an action that makes her giggle slightly; then, my phone interrupts the nice moment, and it's Frankie, telling me he did the impossible and found something in the dumpsters he has been searching through ever since the sober coach's death has been declared suspicious. "This is great", I repeat my previous words of happiness, "I'll be right there! See you in a few."
"Bring anything he found back to me as fast as possible", Maura tells me, while I pull my arm back from her shoulders, and again I think I see that expression in her eyes, the same one I saw when I didn't tell her she looks sexy, too; I just nod though, still not sure if I'm imagining that or not, and then head outside and to my car.
Only when I'm driving towards the stadium, I realize something I missed before – the way she tilts her head when she thinks about something, it was just the same when I said that she doesn't want to sleep with me during that brief… thing she had going on with that jerk Giovanni. And then she said no, she doesn't want to. And she can't lie, right? That's what I thought, but not all too long ago, she did lie, so… maybe…
Man, I really need to get my head clear, now I'm trying to find evidence for her to be crushing on me, too. I better get this under control or who knows what might happen – but how am I supposed to control it how hard I'm crushing on her?