Chapter 4
Jane sat at her desk, slugging through the mundane task of writing up the crime scene reports now that CSU had finished cataloguing everything and Hair & Fibre had turned up a whole lot of nothing.
"Huh, cool," Poole enthused, picking up Jane's imitation ivory elephant.
"Stop," Jane ordered coldly, snatching the elephant and gently setting it next to her computer monitor.
"Where'd you get it?"
"It was a present from Maura," Jane put no inflection in her voice, trying to repel the guy with obvious dislike.
"Cool," he said again.
Jane slapped down her pen in frustration and glared up at him. "You're a fibbie; don't you have someone else to bother? What's so important about stabbings anyway?" Now it was difficult for Jane just to moderate her voice, and to keep from shouting it came out in a hiss. This guy was like a nine-year-old on a sugar rush, incapable of taking anything seriously. She wondered how the Hell he'd made it into the feds, considering their usual grey-suit, hard-ass characters.
"Well, it's a very high-profile case. The public wants to know if it's a serial, and two of your victims had a very high place in society," Poole explained. Finally a mature sentence had escaped his lips.
For two minutes they sat in silence, Jane finishing up with the paperwork while Poole picked at the old fibres that made up the dull, scratchy cloth that covered the seat at the side of her desk. Jane's rough scrawl quickly dragged across the pages, summing up each scene and the suspected nature of death, leaving an opening for the autopsy report. At last, her signature filled the box at the bottom of the page and she stood. "Come on, let's go see the last autopsy," she said grudgingly, stomping over to the elevator without giving Poole a second glance. Once at basement level, she marched into Maura's office, again ignoring Poole completely.
Maura, like Jane, was finishing some paperwork, signing off typed and printed autopsy reports and stacking them in a neat pile. When they entered, Maura's expression faltered at the site of Jane's expression of barely-contained anger and Poole's swagger as he sauntered in like he owned the place.
"Are you ready to start the autopsy?" Jane said in a very tight voice. She was clearly struggling to prevent from an outburst.
"Yes. Will Agent Poole be observing?" Maura tried to remain polite and formal.
"Unfortunately, yes," Jane said, without offering the same courtesy.
"Glad you like me so much already, Jane," Poole said.
Jane flexed her jaw in response. "Detective Rizzoli," she corrected.
Poole winked at Maura as Jane crossed Maura's office to the door that led into the autopsy room. Maura pulled her brows down so as to say 'don't push it.' Poole seemed to get the message and crossed to the autopsy room, his hands in his pockets and his gait as casual as if he were merely entering the cafeteria.
Outside the basement room's high, short windows the sky was black. Normally the occasional pair of feet walked by, and Maura and Jane sometimes created fantasy characters by judging the shoes they wore.
Jane yawned as she donned a gown and latex gloves and settled her eyelids for a moment. Maura continued to worry; Jane always remained stoic, never revealing a single weakness, even tiredness, but Maura thought it best not to ask with another person present, especially an FBI agent whom Jane was so clearly was trying to covertly flip off.
Scrubbed and gowned, Maura approached the body and picked up her tape recorder, which Jane had put in a clear, sterile bag. Jane had also brought over Maura's instrument tray and set out each tool as Maura preferred to order them. They were so in sync; Jane knew Maura's habits better than Yoshima did, though she'd worked with him far longer. As Maura began to speak and tell the recorder her usual boring, repetitive scores of information, Jane positioned herself prepared to turn the body to allow Maura a glance at its back. Maura smiled a little at just how well Jane knew her and her procedures.
Placing the recorder on a clear instrument tray, Maura helped Jane roll the body. They set him back down and started to remove his clothes, fighting with rigor to pull at them. When he was finally nude, they both went to the sink to replace their gloves so as not to contaminate the victim's internal organs with toxins from his clothing, though Jane couldn't see Connolly settling for anything less than perfection when it came to his $800 suit.
Reaching for a syringe and various coloured vials, blood was drawn from the femoral artery, the stagnant liquid flowing almost black and terribly thick. Maura was not surprised to see a frenzy of stab wounds, just the same as the other victims. In this case, she had to curve the incision she made from the right shoulder to preserve a slice into Connolly's pectoral.
"Oh, I forgot to ask if you did the X-Rays," Jane said.
"I did them while you were writing up, but not so many views as normal; I need Yoshima for those."
"I can help," Jane offered.
"Thanks, Jane, but I need a qualified radiation tech with me, sorry."
"Sure," Jane said, shrugging. She was more interested in the body anyway, specifically the kidneys, and organs wouldn't have shown up on the X-Rays.
"Well, I don't need to tell you there's evidence of sharp force trauma, that's evident even deep in his thoracic cavity. A few ribs are chipped, too. Jane, roll him toward me."
They log-rolled the body onto its right side and Maura bent over it to view the back. "Stab wound right where the kidney will be," she observed.
"Maybe we're looking at a contract killer, Maura," Jane suggested. "I mean, the other two were killed with a stab to the kidney, the other wounds were just for show. If this is the same... and there's no forensic evidence – not a hair, not a print, not a shred of DNA. This guy is good – he's a professional."
"I... I think you're right Jane, but you know I don't like to guess."
"How do you know it's a man?" Poole finally spoke up.
"All three victims are presenting with wounds that would have taken a lot of force, there is bruising from the hilt of the weapon, and ribs and vertebrae have been chipped and broken. Jane, I got the results on the metal fragments – it's definitely from a knife blade of some description. The techs are trying to make a possible model based on the depth and structure of each wound."
"Maura, I know I already said this but my cop gut is really giving me some bad vibes."
"I know, Jane, I don't like it either."
They stood in silence while Maura completed the autopsy, resecting the organs and analysing each one, sawing open the skull and placing the brain in formalin, sewing together the Y-incision.
"Well this has been a long day," Jane said wearily.
"Definitely, when was the last time we had three stabbings in one day?" Maura replied.
"Well, don't get too excited, maybe tomorrow will be National Gunshot Day," Jane joked, though it was a very half-hearted impression of her usual wit. She was very tired; Maura had not forgotten that she fell asleep in the car on the way over here.
"I think we should all go home," Maura said, giving Jane a fond smile. "Agent Poole," she regarded him, and he took the hint, saluting them farewell and pushing through the double doors.
"He is so irritating," Jane said.
Maura laughed. "Give him a break; you detectives are always so hard on FBI agents."
"Because they always steal our crimes and push in on our turf!" Jane protested with a very popular complaint.
They went into Maura's office and sat on the tribal-inspired couch, Jane taking off her boots and pulling up one leg in her usual strange position.
"Jane, I know I keep saying it, but something is wrong. What is it?" Maura looked at Jane very analytically, and Jane slightly resented that nothing got past Maura, though of course she was grateful that her friend cared enough and knew enough about her to spot these things.
"Guess I'm just a little run-down, is all. You know, long hours, irregular meals. I just need some dinner and a good night's rest," Jane assured her.
Maura feigned acceptance, but she was almost certain there was more to it than that. She scooted over and put her arm around Jane, who leaned in for a warm and welcome hug, though she certainly wouldn't have hugged anybody else, except maybe her mother if she was having a particularly hard day.
It wasn't until the next morning when Poole found them sleeping in each other's arms that they realised just how late it had gotten.