Chapter 4
Maura hesitantly walked through the front door of her own house, unable to hide the smile that graced her lips as she witnessed Jane sitting on her couch looking amazingly beautiful. The files that had once been piled on Maura's desk were sitting on her coffee table, currently being used as a footstool by Jane. Jane did nothing to hide her smirk as she sipped her beer maintaining eye contact with Maura.
"Welcome home." Jane's voice elicited a reaction that Maura didn't quite understand. It struck Maura that she felt safe, her walls could come down; this was Jane welcoming her home from a long day.
"Where's your mom?"
"Letting the sauce simmer while she goes to the store to get an onion."
"I had an onion." Maura picked up Jane's legs and held them so she could pass and sit next to her on the couch. She deliberately allowed Jane's feet to fall once more on the stack of paperwork landing with an unceremonious thud. Maura took her designer heels off; rubbing the arches of her feet after a long day.
"I refused to tell her that," Jane replied, arching her eyebrow in a mischievous way, making Maura chuckle. "I needed some time alone."
"Alone time?" Maura looked perplexed. "In my house? What kind of alone time are we speaking of, Jane?"
"I don't interrogate in front of others." Jane turned her shoulders to display body language that Maura could only classify as challenging. "And you, Dr. Isles, have a lot of explaining to do."
Maura felt her skin begin to flush and sat back, knowing anything she could say would only delay the inevitable.
"Please feel free," Maura said as she closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing to remain calm.
"Where did you run off to, Dr. Isles, in such a hurry, that you forgot this mountain of paperwork?" Maura could just feel Jane's chocolate brown eyes glaring at her. "Which, by the way, I would like a 'thank you, Jane' for bringing it by. I just know how important it is since you declined an invitation for chalky red wine with me to be able to manage it all."
"That's sarcasm, right?" Maura grinned as she opened one eye to peer at Jane.
"I mean," Jane got up, setting her beer bottle down on the table sans a coaster much to Maura's dismay. "What's the big whoop, Maura?"
Maura laughed at the private joke between them. True to form Jane had used that saying more often than Maura cared to remember since the day she uttered it in Jane's living room.
"Are you cheating on The Robber?"
Maura's snort of laughter was answer enough for Jane to continue her line of questioning.
"Is there another Ian, named Stan perhaps, with a British accent and history of rescuing puppies and orphans that I don't know about?"
"There is no man to speak of," Maura smiled as Jane leaned down, meeting Maura's gaze as she inched closer to her face. Jane's strong hands were on either side of Maura's head bracing her weight on the couch. Maura closed her eyes briefly as Jane's unique scent overwhelmed her sense of smell for the briefest of moments before settling in as an old, familiar scent.
"So you say you were with a sick friend," Jane couldn't hide the playful smirk that tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Is this sick friend a new LLBFF then?"
"I'm sorry, Jane; I was going to tell you at recess on the playground tomorrow before you found out by note passing in homeroom." Maura beamed at her joke until Jane burst her bubble.
"You're mixing grade school with middle school, Dr. Isles. A decent attempt at distraction, but let's get back to your sick friend." Jane chuckled as she began to pace back and forth in front of Maura, wearing on Maura's remaining mental capacity.
"I wouldn't even classify them as a friend." Maura gasped as she completed the sentence, throwing her hand over her mouth to prevent admittance to anything. Jane turned on her instantly with a look that Maura would only classify as predatory.
"So this 'not friend'," Jane paused, using her fingers to make air quotes, knowing she had Maura right where she wanted her, "is more important that your LLBFF?"
"I didn't say that."
"Actions, Dr. Isles, they speak louder than words." As the two women stared at each other, Jane's phone began ringing on her hip.
"Louder than Frost's ringtone?" Maura laughed as Jane grunted, picking up her phone while signaling the conversation wasn't over.
"Yeah, Frost." Jane stopped pacing and bit her lower lip listening to her partner's recitation of the facts in their new case. "No, I'm here with Maura so I'll fill her in as we go." Jane hung up her phone and walked toward the stove, turning the sauce completely off. She searched for a pen and paper, leaving Angela a note that they'd be back as soon as they could from their crime scene and then turned to face Maura.
Maura instantly recognized Jane's facial expressions. Her orbiculars oris was tight and her buccinators flexed suggesting she was clenching her teeth.
"What is it?"
"We have a crime scene," Jane began as Maura got up and slipped her heels back on, struggling to keep up with Jane's long strides. "We're not sure, Maura, but it looks like….it's similar to…"
Maura yanked on Jane's arm before she was able to get into the car and spun her around to initiate eye contact. Jane's facial expressions showed more stress than moments ago.
"Tell me before I walk in blind, Jane."
"There's an ice pick sticking out of the vic's chest, Maura. I'm not sure you can prepare for that…"
Maura got into her car, but allowed Jane the duty of driving while she composed her thoughts. It was Paddy Doyle's signature MO. But Maura knew, with certainty, that Paddy Doyle was in no shape to commit a murder. Even getting out of bed would have debilitated him, and drifting in and out of a drug-induced stupor made it virtually impossible for him to direct others to do the work for him.
Jane remained silent until they pulled up to the crime scene and she saw Frost beginning to approach the car. Jane's voice broke through Maura's thoughts and ended the silence that was beginning to suffocate them both.
"You can call in Pike if you want." Jane laid a caring hand on Maura's thigh watching Maura's reaction to the suggestion she just made. "I know we teased you before about his OCD, but you gotta do what you gotta do, Maura."
"Let me look at the crime scene first," Maura offered Jane a weak smile before opening her door and accepting Frost's hand to steady her feet on the muddy ground.
"What do we have, Frost?" Jane met up with the other two in front of the BMW and the three friends walked together down near the shoreline where an area had been roped off.
"We've got a white male, early 40's, one witness running near the shore that says they saw the body wash up when the tide came in."
"Running in the dark?" Jane arched her eyebrow in disbelief before she felt Maura move closer to her side.
"It's common actually." Maura held onto Jane's arm as they began to walk in the sand toward the body. "When it's hot out, people usually run early in the morning or when the sun goes down. It keeps the body temperature manageable."
The body was facing up, the ice pick visible by the moonlight alone. Maura squinted as portable lights were turned on to help in the evidence gathering. She bent down, snapping her gloves into place, before removing the ice pick that was imbedded into the man's chest.
"Whatever was on this paper washed off." Maura dropped the blank photo paper into the evidence bag that Frost held open for her.
"There's no way we can distinguish footprints in the sand, there's just too many." Jane already felt exasperated by this case and it had only just begun.
"That's the point I'm sure," Korsak leaned forward and looked at the victim's face before looking back up at Jane. "The name is Sean Murphy; he's one of Paddy Doyle's boys."
"Paddy wouldn't kill his own would he?" Frost asked; new to the way the Irish mob worked.
"It's his signature," Jane pointed out as she squatted next to Maura who had been silently surveying the scene and body. "TOD, Maura?"
"I can't tell you until I get him back to the lab." Maura looked into Sean Murphy's face, she remembered seeing him the first day she had entered Patrick Doyle's South Boston home.
Maura knew that this couldn't be the work of her father. He simply wasn't in any shape to even plan such a thing, let alone carry it out.
Maura placed the ice pick into another evidence bag and handed it to Frost to pass to the crime scene unit. She stood up to flex her legs, to take pressure off her aching calf muscles, and to be physically on more equal footing with Jane.
"It's odd that someone would secure a message to this man's chest but throw him into salt water that would wash the message away."
"Maybe the killer got spooked?" Jane suggested beginning her usual conjecture which Maura detested. "Threw the body into the water near the docks maybe, and it washed up here? Paddy owns the docks so it isn't that far fetched."
"We'd have to analyze the tide and which way it would have dragged the body," Korsak offered but before he could speak again, Maura cut him off.
"The odds of this body being thrown into the water at the docks and washing up here, unharmed with little decomposition, are rather impossible. Statistically speaking, of course, for a body to be washed onto the shore with no visible signs of decay indicate that it was not submerged under water for a long period of time. This is likely very recent."
"There's not even trash on this beach!" Jane turned around in the sand throwing her hands up in frustration. "Aside from a guy with an ice pick sticking out of his chest, we've got virtually nothing."
"I'm going to process the body." Maura began walking toward where Jane had parked her car. "I can look into the tides and flow patterns of the water while you work on the beach."
Maura didn't look back, she felt her breathing become shallow as she recognized what she was about to do. She couldn't even remember the last time she left Jane alone at a crime scene, but she had more clues than she cared to acknowledge even to herself, and she had to follow up on her own leads.
Maura started the BMW, knowing that while the body was being shipped to her morgue, she wouldn't be there to receive it. She had to make a rather important stop on the way, and she drove with purpose and conviction, thankful for the speed of her sports car shortening the duration of her journey.
Maura tried to smooth the wrinkles of her skirt before knocking on the door quietly, not wanting to catch the attention of neighbors at this time of night. The door opened and Michael looked at Maura inquisitively, not certain why she had returned to the house.
"Did you forget something?" Michael smiled as Maura pushed past him and into Patrick Doyle's room. The light was on and he was holding a book in his hands; his head was propped up by a pillow to make it easier to focus on the pages of his book.
"What are you trying to pull, Mr. Doyle?"
Maura's stern voice instantly got Patrick Doyle's attention as his eyes widened and he smiled at his daughter's fierce tone and defensive stance.
"I'm sorry?"
"Do you really even have cancer?" Maura stormed into the room and searched for Patrick Doyle's medical records. She knew she has seen his medical files earlier that day, but she had failed to review them thoroughly enough now that it appeared Paddy Doyle was well enough to commit a brutal murder.
"How can you ask me that?"
"I can ask you that since Sean Murphy's body washed up on shore with an ice pick sticking out of his chest!" Maura finally located the file and grabbed it with such force she knocked over several magazines that had been on the table near it. "You're too sick to take care of yourself but not too sick to murder someone!"
"You think I killed Sean?" Patrick Doyle looked at Michael with a look of concern that Maura had never seen before. It appeared to her, reading his facial expressions, that indeed he was surprised by the news that Sean Murphy had been killed.
"I didn't stick an ice pick into Sean, Maura," Patrick Doyle coughed and then settled back in, a look of concern etched into his face.
"It's your signature!"
"I wouldn't kill one of my own!" Patrick Doyle's voice was shaky, raspy from dryness, and he nodded at Michael holding out his hand so that he could receive an envelope that had already been opened. "This came earlier today."
Maura opened her hand and took the envelope quickly; opening it up to find a black and white picture of Sean Murphy at what looked like a hospital supply store. Behind him, in bins, were different canes and in the background Maura could see several shelves displaying blood pressure cuffs in various boxes.
"When was this taken?"
"After you gave Michael the list of supplies you needed," Patrick Doyle stared at Maura waiting for a reaction. "He went out to get them; brought most of them back other than the shower seat. He had to go get that at a different store, that was a few hours ago."
"You're telling me that he's been dead just hours?"
"You're the Chief Medical Examiner," Patrick Doyle's voice was stern. "I'm sure you can verify that during your examination."
"You're right," Maura clenched her teeth, straightening her shoulders to regain her composure. "That's where I should be, standing by my friends and giving them the forensic evidence they need to discover the truth."
Maura moved her palms down her skirt once more, smoothing out the wrinkles that were there to simply punctuate the long day that she had. She grabbed her purse and met Michael's gaze for the first time since she had arrived.
"I'll be back in the morning to look in on things. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a body to tend to so I can provide the time of death."
Maura walked out of Patrick Doyle's house with her purse under her arm. She looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, and opened her BMW with a small chirp to signal the unlocking of the doors and disarming of the alarm. Maura drove away, unaware of being watched and photographed yet again. She didn't notice a car pulling out behind her keeping a safe distance.
"She certainly is photogenic," a young man laughed as he began to follow Maura back to Boston PD headquarters.