Oh my goodness! Thank you all so much for your favourites/alerts, as a many-a-time-failure writer, this is so good to hear! I love each and every one of you; have a loveball with a side of rainbows. In answer to reviews: I have read the book series (I'm on #9!) and so it coincides with that a teensy bit. It basically is in season 3, Maura and Jane are friends again and it's just another case, until it all goes bad, etc, etc. Thank you for asking about the context, because I hadn't thought about it before and I now realise just how important it is; I'll adjust the plot slightly to fit it, too.
Thanks guys!
Chapter 2
Maura carefully surveyed the crime scene as they arrived, trying to mentally connect some dots. The other murder had been in an alley, where no-one would find the body for a while, but this one had taken place in front of a Wharf fronting Atlantic Avenue, right where anyone could see.
"I haven't even done the first autopsy," Maura reminded Jane, "so let's take all the pictures we need and then get him back to the morgue ASAP."
"Sure thing, Doc," Jane said, stepping out of the car and surveying the bigger picture, while Maura remained honed in on the body.
"Dr. Isles," a uni said respectfully and handed her a digital camera.
She started snapping pictures while commenting on the body, the uni frantically jotting down everything she said.
"Caucasian male, appears to be in mid to late thirties. Any I.D?" she turned to the uni.
"We didn't find anything on him. We're canvassing now to see if he worked around here. Whether he did or he didn't, it should give the detectives something to go on."
"Alright. Is the coroner's van on the way?"
"We called him straight after you."
"Okay, great. Thank you officer."
As the uni walked away, Maura bent down to get a closer look at the body. The victim was dressed in clean jeans and a frayed plaid shirt, while Professor Ewell had been dressed in an old but crisp black suit. Pulling on gloves, Maura pulled up the sleeve cuffs of the shirt to reveal only tan lines where clearly there used to be a watch and a tennis bracelet.
"You thinking robbery-homicide?" Jane asked, appearing over Maura's shoulder and casting the body in shadow.
"Maybe, but I'll have a better idea once I open him up. I'm really eager to do the professor now; I want to know the similarities. I don't even know how many wounds there are; the professor's dark jacket would have masked blood, while this man's red shirt doesn't help." Maura thought for a moment, surveying a visible gash in this victim's right arm. "If this was a robbery, why cut his arm? It's unnecessary – brutality for brutality's sake. Wouldn't you run?"
"Yeah, you're right. There's nothing here, by the way. No I.D, he doesn't work nearby, nobody around's ever even seen him before." Jane paused. "I got a bad feeling Maura," she confessed.
"Yes, me too."
By 3pm, Maura was in the morgue and ready to cut. They were only waiting for Jane.
Frost was nearby, having strategically placed himself midway between the table and the sink, should he need to evacuate his stomach in a hurry. Maura made petty notes such as the condition of the victim's skin, hair and teeth into a recorder until Jane arrived.
When Detective Rizzoli did finally push through the doors, her face was flushed and her hair seemed even wilder than before. She tried to smooth it back with her hand, but it rebelliously sprang forward again. She did not look herself and she seemed sicker than she had this morning.
"Are you alright, Jane?" Maura asked, her voice thick with concern.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?" Jane sounded perfectly happy, but Maura had become so accustomed to Jane's behaviours and expressions. She looked tired, but that couldn't be what was affecting her so, she'd pulled many an all-nighter in the hope of breaking a case, such as with Amanda Mateo's disappearance last year.
"Okay, I'm about to cut. Are you ready, Frost?" Maura always tried to give the squeamish ones fair notice.
"Yeah, I'm good. Go ahead, Doc."
Maura raised her scalpel and began to etch the Y-incision, revealing a heavy yellow layer of subcutaneous fat. Dr. Ewell clearly did not have the healthiest diet. The intersection of the cuts was lower than usual in order to preserve a stab wound between the third and fourth ribs, no doubt nicking the sternum. Once she reached the pubis, Maura moved to the shoulders again and began to go through the fatty layer, then the muscle layer. At last Dr. Ewell's thoracic cage could be removed, each rib cut through swiftly with a pair of standard garden pruning shears. After that, Maura began resecting the organs, curious as to which were damaged, which wound had been the decisive one, the one that had welcomed death into the body.
"The left lung has been punctured, causing pulmonary edema, but I this is not enough to kill him," Maura told the detectives.
The lungs were weighed, the number noted by Maura's quiet assistant, Yoshima. Next Maura took out the heart, which was inflamed from circulatory shock. Again, though, this did not appear in Maura's professional opinion to have been the cause of death.
"Ah," Maura said triumphantly.
Holding up the right kidney, she scrutinized a wound here that had entered through the victim's back. "This wound induced the circulatory shock, which is fatal. Hypoxemia would have followed. Let me look at the heart."
Maura picked up one of her scarier knives and began to dissect the heart, confirming beliefs that she would not dare voice without sufficient supporting evidence. "Hypoxemia led to cardiac arrest. His heart was already slightly shrunken, so I wouldn't have noticed without dissecting."
"Why was it shrunken?" Frost asked, his voice a little shaky.
"Cardiomyopathy has several causes. If you were to subpoena I could probably tell you which was his, but as it is not essential to your investigation we probably won't find out."
"Okay," Jane said, "why could it be shrunken? In theory?"
"Well, we could attribute it to a previous heart attack, alcoholism, even a viral infection. But I am not going to guess what caused Professor Ewell's."
Jane smiled at Maura for what seemed like the first time in an age.
By the time Maura had cleared the abdominal cavity, it was 4pm. Yoshima wielded the bone saw while Maura stood ready to accept the brain. Frost, at this point, turned away. The brain was quickly placed in a bucket of formalin to prepare it for analysis.
The professor's clothes and personal possessions were placed into evidence bags, which Frost quickly volunteered to run upstairs. Meanwhile, the second body was wheeled out and undressed. Rigor had set in enough that his vest had to be cut off.
"John Doe, mid to late thirties, Caucasian..." Maura relayed details into the tape recorder while Yoshima set up the X-Ray machine.
By now it was 4:30pm. Maura heard Jane's stomach rumble, and was reminded of her pitiful salad lunch. Maura was just about to pick up a fresh scalpel when Jane's phone buzzed and she pulled it from her hip to read the message.
"It's from Frost," she said, and looked up at Maura, who had already put down her scalpel and was beginning to untie her gown.
It's going to be a long night, Maura thought.