Marital Problems
They loaded the trunk of Jane's cruiser in the Trader Joe's lot, as Maura checked off (for the second time) the items they'd purchased.
"Are you sure we haven't missed anything?" Jane asked, with more than a hint of sarcasm.
"I think we're set. You want this rehearsal dinner to come off smoothly, don't you?" Maura ran a finger down Jane's bare upper arm.
Jane gave Maura a smoky look through narrowed eyes. "I want it all to go smoothly. I want to have the wedding, already!"
"Me, too, but we have to be kind to our family and friends. This is as big a celebration for them as it is for us."
Jane snorted as she got into the car. "Not by half."
Maura just chuckled as she belted in.
As Jane started the cruiser the police radio between them crackled to life.
"All units all units in vicinity respond to officer-involved shooting 734 Camden Street. Caller says victim is in front yard."
Jane held her hand over the radio mike button, turned to Maura. "Camden's only about four or five blocks from here. I have to take this."
"But you're not on call."
"Doesn't matter. It's an all units. Anybody who can take it, has to." She triggered the mike with one hand, placed the emergency light on the roof with the other. "Detective Rizzoli, Victor 825, responding to your OIS on Camden. I'm close by, am on my way."
"Victor 825 we acknowledge your response."
"This an apartment?" There was a pause as the dispatcher checked with the caller.
"Negative on apartment. Single-family brick house."
"Have the caller meet us at the scene?"
"Not her house, she lives across the street. Says shooting is self-inflicted."
Jane let up on the mike. "Oh shit. Did you bring your bag?", She asked Maura.
"I always do."
"Dispatch, this is Rizzoli, I am bringing medical assistance and will be on scene in two."
"We acknowledge."
"This is Walston, Patrol unit 262, we are on scene now and appreciate your medical, Rizzoli."
"Anybody call EMS?"
"V825, they are five minutes out."
They came around a corner to see a parked cruiser, lights flashing, in the middle of the block. Two officers were in the front yard of a small house, one kneeling on the ground. Jane pulled up behind the marked car, unlocked her gun from the concealed gunsafe in the car. She pointed at Maura. "You stay here."
"But..."
"But me no buts. This is an unsecured shooting scene and you have no business there until I say it's safe. I'll wave you in when it is."
Maura opened her mouth.
"Do NOT argue with me."
"I was about to say all right. No need to get hostile."
"I just don't want to expose you needlessly."
"I understand." Maura looked hurt.
I do understand. I understand your need to protect me. I understand that it's your love for me that makes you do this. But Jane, I'm not a child. I survived this world just fine when I was just Maura, not one half of a collective noun. The only reason I acquiesced now was I didn't want to start a fight in front of our colleagues.
Jane approached the little group, hand on her weapon. She had a short conversation with the officers, and waved at Maura to come ahead. Maura retrieved her instrument bag and made her way across the crisp, under-watered grass to the scene.
The two officers were bent over the supine body of a third man who, as Maura could tell from the uncoordinated motions of his feet, was decidedly still alive. She knelt down to examine the victim, thankful that she was wearing stretch pants. Despite her devotion to sartorial elegance, and years of practice, she usually found assuming this position in a skirt uncomfortably revealing.
As Maura scanned the victim for wounds, Jane caught up with what the uniforms had already found. The victim was Ben Jenkins, BPD, patrolman second class. He had been found prone, on the front lawn of his own home, clutching his left hand with his right and in considerable pain, both hands covered in blood. His service pistol was lying on the ground next to him; one round had been discharged.
All this time Patrolman Jenkins had been venting a loud and continuous stream of abuse, in which the name Vicky, the word "bitch" and various obscenities were prevalent.
The ambulance arrived. The senior medic, Jane and Maura had a little conference while the officers tried to keep Jenkins quiet and the other medic finished what Maura had begun to treat the wound. "His only injury is to the third finger of his left hand", Maura informed them. "It's clearly self-inflicted. He apparently fired into his own hand at very close range; there's copious powder residue all over both hands. The finger is nearly severed proximal to the second knuckle; he could lose the digit. Oh, he's also alarmingly inebriated." The paramedic made notes of her diagnosis while Jane tried to get a story out of him.
"Okay, Officer Jenkins, can you tell us what happened here?" Jane asked, one cop to another.
"I wanna divorce! That bitch won't get the hell outta my house! She's still fuckin' that little shit and sleepin' in my bed!"
A woman's voice howled from the front porch, "I ain't fuckin' nobody, you fat slob! You're just too drunk to think straight! Stupid bastard!"
Jane directed the junior uniform to get the woman back in the house. She turned back to Jenkins. "So, what, you and your wife have a fight and you come out here and shoot yourself in the hand? What the hell is that all about?"
"I don't wanna be married to her any more! I want her gone!" Jenkins was sitting up now, while the medics finished bandaging his injured hand. He was bellowing loudly enough to be heard all along the block, and a dozen neighbors were watching from across the street. Jane asked Walston to call for another cruiser to do crowd control.
"So, hey, that doesn't explain why you blew your hand off."
"The ring! I was shootin' off the fuckin' ring!"
"Say what?" Jane looked up at Maura, who was hiding her mouth with her hand; to Jane's practiced eyes she was trying to hide stifled laughter.
"My goddamn weddin' ring! I couldn't take it off so I fuckin' shot it off!"
"Jesus H... All right, look, Jenkins, we're taking you in on charges of, ahhh, illegal discharge of a firearm, and reckless endangerment. You have the right to remain silent..." She rattled off the Miranda warning, knowing even as he agreed that he understood her that he was so hammered he'd almost certainly not remember any of this until he sobered up, if then. The unis bundled him into the back of their cruiser just as the second cruiser arrived and dispersed the crowd. Before they left Jane asked the first pair, "Anybody find the bullet?"
"No, detective, we were pretty busy with him."
"Okay." To the new officers, she said, "Can you guys check this yard for a bullet hole? Don't try to dig it out if you find it, just mark it. I'll call CSRU right now. Oh, the wife's in the house. She's good for now, but if she comes out and starts raising hell, arrest her on a disturbing. I'm going to go book this asshole."
Maura was finishing her crime scene notes on her blackberry. She smirked at Jane, a cryptic expression that implied she had more to say than she had said already. Jane asked, as they walked back to the car, "what's up with you?"
"I was kind of mad at you for a while, back there."
Jane put a hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry. I was just doing my job. It's a crime scene. I'm supposed to do that."
"I know. But you needn't have been so...condescending. I have a job to do, too. I'm a grownup. Please remember that."
"I will. I'm sorry. Still mad?"
They paused at the driver's side door. Maura turned them so that Jane's back was to the officers still combing the yard, where she couldn't be seen. She ran her fingertip along the collar of Jane's teeshirt, leaned in close enough to feel Jane's breath on her face. "No. Not any more. But I assure you, my love, that no matter how mad I ever get at you, I will never use a firearm to remove my ring."
They both exploded into breathy laughter.
Jane twisted a lock of Maura's hair around a finger. "And you? What were you laughing at back there? That poor stupid bastard was hurt!"
"Oh, he'll live. They may even be able to reattach the finger. I was just struck by the irony."
"Irony?"
"The ring. It was still on his finger."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. He missed."
######
Electromagnetic Radiation
Jane was warm. All over. Every square inch of her bikini-clad body was glowing in the tropical sun.
I might never go back to Boston again.
She opened her eyes, swept the far horizon of blue over blue, and the white sand beach between her and the crystalline water. She lifted the cold glass to her lips, enjoyed the burn of the dark rum, the chill of the ice.
And Maura, to her left, her body as exposed as it could possibly be and still be in public. Her eyes were closed, her left hand resting on her bare stomach. The ring on her finger caught the sunlight, reflected it back to Jane's eyes.
Jane lifted her left hand, stared happily at the matching ring there. The ring that would always be there, just as this woman would always be here for her. That's what they promised, three days ago, in front of every person in their lives.
She was a wife. Someone's wife. Maura's wife.
Jane Rizzoli-Isles. Not too bad, after all.
She rolled on her side, put a hand on Maura's shoulder. "You okay?" It was a purely rhetorical question.
"Mmmmmnn. Supremely okay. I could lay here forever, soaking up all this lovely electromagnetic radiation."
"Translate, please?"
"Oh...you know, electromagnetic radiation. Light, Ultraviolet. Everything in sunlight. Electrons, you know. They oscilate, give off energy as photons. Different wvelengths..."
Jane touched a finger to her wife's lips. "Ooookaaay, , my dear, that's just peachy. But too much more and you won't be in shape for what I have planned for you this evening. Your tender little body will cook to a crisp."
Maura sighed. "I know. I'm so fair and I burn so easily. You don't. Ever? Do you ever sunburn? I hate you. Italians." This was all murmur, with her eyes closed.
"And this in pite of that inch-deep of SPF-1 million sunscreen you slathered on."
"You slathered on. And don't tell me you didn't enjoy it."
"Every square inch. Y'know, I could just lay on top of you. Be your shade."
"I'd rather you did that back in our room."
"Now?"
"Now."
"Where do you want go for dinner?"
"The room service lounge. Once I'm in with you I won't want to go out."
"Being on a honeymoon is so much fun."
"Yes it is. Yes it is." Maura wrapped her arms around her wife and kissed her with all the power at her command.
After they broke the kiss, Jane stood up, took Maura's hand. "Now."
######
Why
"Hey. Ready to go home?"
"Oh, I can't right now." Maura stretched, pressing her arms against her desk and leaning back in her chair. "I'm being deposed tomorrow. I have to study these files. I'll take a cab home."
Jane put on a whiny face. "C'mon, Maura. You'll be at it all night. And it's not safe to wait for a cab late at night."
"Not safe? I'm right in front of police headquarters!"
"Well...what about dinner? You have to eat."
"I've got food here in the fridge."
"The dead fridge? Ecch."
"It's all cold air, Jane. And it's all sealed up."
"Well...look, come home, you can work while I cook, you can take a shower, get into some comfortable clothes, work in your office. I won't disturb you."
"I've heard that before."
"I mean it. I...I'll worry if I leave you here."
"That is not fair."
"I know. But you should come home."
Maura puffed out her cheeks, gave an exaggerated sigh, and packed her files into her briefcase. Jane beamed. "That's my girl."
"I am yours. I am not a girl." Maura flounced into her coat, shut off the lights and locked the door.
When Maura emerged from the shower she pulled on a tank top and a pair of Jane's sweats – which, to her surprise and secret embarrassment, she had found seductively comfortable – and went down to her small office off the rear hall. The house was quiet, except for the sounds Jane was making in the kitchen. No TV, no music. Jane was trying to keep her word.
There was a glass of red wine on her desk. Maura smiled to herself, knowing that glass represented many things – a peace offering, a deprivation of excuses, a profession of love. Her earliest impression of Jane, that of deceptive complexity, was still true. In spades.
She sat down and spread the evidence file out in front of her. She became absorbed in ballistic angles, entry-exit wound elevation, and began doing calculations on a yellow legal pad. Yes, that conclusion made sense; the killer could not have been closer than a couple of meters – no powder residue; and no further away than ten meters – layout of the room; the entry-exit angles said the gun was high enough to cause the bullet's path to be depressed by seventeen degrees. The shooter must have been halfway down the stairs, nine meters away...
A plate of food slid into her peripheral vision; she hadn't seen or heard Jane enter the room with her dinner. She picked up the fork on the plate, only half-conscious of what was there. Pasta, greens. She took a bite of the pasta and was immediately rewarded with a burst of meaty, smoky flavor. Mmmmm.
"Delicious! Thank you!"
"Carbonara. Better than morgue leftovers, huh? Enjoy." Before Maura could reply, Jane kissed the top of her head, ran her hand down Maura's back, and left her to her work.
Several hours passed, in silence and peace, Maura absorbed in the technicalities of a brutal domestic murder. At some point, without thinking, she moved from the desk to the buttery-soft comfort of the leather love seat, her back against the padded arm, and incidentally, the closed door. File folders piled up on the floor next to her.
She felt, rather than heard, Jane's presence behind her. Before any words could be exchanged, strong fingers kneaded the muscles of her shoulders and neck into a looser, more relaxed configuration. For a long moment she released her mind to go wherever it would; at first she catalogued the muscles being so expertly handled. Trapezius. Deltoid. Splenius capitis. Semispinalis capitis...
The array of aromas assaulted her senses. Lavender. Garlic, bacon. Beer. The warm, female scent of Jane Rizzoli. Maura's addiction. She allowed herself to slide down the slope of seduction brought on by Jane's touch, becoming pliable, unresisting...
No. No. She still had work to do.
"Jane. Please. You promised. I have to finish."
"Maura, it's after eleven. You've been at this for three hours. Isn't that big brain ready for a break?" Strong, long fingers move up into her scalp, stroking, stimulating the circulation. It felt sooo good...occipitalis...
"Jane...love, I can't..."
Jane's hands slid smoothly down, across Maura's shoulders, down her bare arms, now circling her waist...
"No, Jane. No..." Maura's protests weakened, as a liquid warmth suffused her body.
She was being seduced, and she had completely forgotten why she might have objected.
"Why do I let you do these things to me?"
Jane didn't answer. Instead she brought her hands up to cup Maura's breasts, then slipped under her top to touch them unadorned. Maura was worrying her lower lip, eyes closed, making no protest but a low, irregular hum that became breathy moans. As Jane's hands continued to wander, lower, lower, Maura discovered one of the double-edged qualities of Jane's sweatpants: they were extremely easy for Jane to get into.
Under the ministrations of Jane's nimble fingers, Maura's body overwhelmed her mind, leading her up to a dangerous high place, where the only thing she could do, did do, was topple into a panting, gasping climax that set her skin on fire with a rosy flush and a roaring tumult in every nerve.
She lay back into Jane's embrace, a limp rag doll, feeling the erotic fog in her mind gradually clear, until she was thinking again.
"That's why." Jane whispered in her ear.
"Yes. It's true."
"I'm going up to bed. Finish your work, come up when you're ready. I did the dishes."
Maura turned, kissed her. "I don't know if I'm in any state to work."
"Aren't you always telling me about the beneficial effects of orgasms?"
"Well...yes. There may be some positive cognitive effects..."
"Well, let's see. Consider it therapy."
"You're very odd."
"I am. I love you."
"I love you. I'll be up soon."
Jane smiled impishly. "Good."
######
Spring
Jane was laying out the antipasto platter. Olives, here. Anchovies, here. Cheese. Salami, artichokes, tomatoes. It was tedious work for eleven o'clock on a Saturday night.
Her mother was putting finishing touches on the red sauce, and Maura was laying together lasagna noodles and meat and cheese in a casserole pan. They had been cooking all evening, and Jane was ready to call it quits.
"Why do we have to do this all now?" Maura recognized six-year-old-Jane in the whining tone.
Angela answered without looking up. "We have to have everything ready for dinner tomorrow. It's Easter."
Their normal Sunday dinner had been expanded by extending invitations to Frost, Korsak, Cavanaugh, Susie Chang, and Alex. Lydia and her mother had also been invited, but it was uncertain whether they'd be there. All the leaves had been set into Maura's dining table.
"Can't we do this in the morning?"
Angela began ladling sauce over the lasagna noodles. "No! we have to go to church in the morning."
"Well, Maura and I could finish a lot of this while you were...whoa, what do you mean we?"
"Well of course we're all going."
Jane stopped what she was doing. "Ma! You know I don't go to church. C'mon!"
Angela turned to Maura. "Did you put the chicken in to marinate?"
Maura shot an uneasy glance at Jane. "It's in the refrigerator."
"And the salad greens are all cut, and the bread is out of the freezer..."
"Ma."
"What, Jane? Is that antipasto finished?"
"I am not going to church with you."
Angela turned with her hands on her hips. "You are. Once a year, Jane, once a year I expect you to honor your family's traditions. Everybody else is going. Tommy's going. He's bringing TJ. The least you could do..."
"Ma, I'm not even Catholic!"
"You were born Catholic, you were raised Catholic, you're Catholic, you're going!"
"Ma, I haven't been to church since...Jeez, last Easter!"
"So? It means you can't go now?"
Fishing desperately, Jane stuttered, "I...I can't go. I haven't been confessed."
"You can't take Holy Communion. But you can attend with the rest of us."
"Ma..."
"What's so hard? You get dressed up, you meet some old friends, you stand, you kneel, you sing a little. You're with us. We love you. We want you there."
"Ma...oh, all right!" Jane threw up her hands. "But after this, don't bug me anymore."
"Whatever!" Angela went back to the lasagna.
Maura had moved next to Jane during this whole argument. She asked, "Angela, what would be appropriate for me to wear tomorrow?"
"Wear? What, to dinner?"
"No, to church. I've never attended a Catholic service."
"Maura, you don't have to go."
"Is there any reason I can't go?"
"Well...no. You'd be welcome, of course."
Maura linked her arm inside Jane's, molded herself close to her wife. "Then of course I will."
Jane smiled.