Liz POV
"Don't you have a life, Doc?"
I looked up from the body of the last Jane Doe in Mike's case and saw Sarah standing in the doorway.
"No, but I'm old. What's your excuse?"
"I guess Detective Logan is still working," she remarked with a smile.
Sarah started working at the morgue a few months ago, but just recently her shifts started coinciding with mine.
She's a hard worker and I don't mind that she seems to look up to me.
"And I guess you kicked out the cheating boyfriend," I replied without answering her question.
"Is that a yes?"
I'm not sure why she was so dead set on pinning me down to admitting my relationship with Mike, but whatever.
It's not a secret.
In fact, now that Danny's come back to life, I'm thinking about hijacking one of Alex's press conferences and laying Mike out across the podium.
"Yes, he's still working," I admitted as I glanced at the clock. It was almost midnight. Where does the time go? "He picked up a suspect earlier today, so I guess they probably have him in the interrogation room.
"So you two really are a thing, huh?" she asked thoughtfully. I raised an eyebrow at her, but didn't respond, so she said, "Oh come on, Doc. Just admit it."
"You should be a detective," I joked. "You deduced that we're together just because I know he's working tonight and because he was supposedly checking me out at a crime scene?"
"No," she answered. "I figured it out because of the look on your face any time I mention his name."
"Oh," I replied, unable to formulate any larger words due to my surprise at her statement.
And here I thought I was exempt from doing things so blatantly juvenile as mooning over a boy.
"Not that I blame you or anything. I mean, if I were the one with the insanely hot boyfriend, I'd be smiling all the time, too. So have you ever watched him when he's interrogating a suspect? I bet he's pretty sexy when he plays the bad cop, isn't he?"
"Sarah," I chastised, laughing as I shook my head.
"His partner, too," she continued.
"Yeah, well you'd better not say that too loudly. He's definitely spoken for."
"Detective Goren? Really?"
"Really. And he, like Logan, is much too old for you. So instead of hanging out in the morgue on a Saturday night, you should be out having some fun."
"You, too," she answered hard-headedly. "I'll leave when you do."
I paused and looked down at the Jane Doe again, wishing desperately that I could find something that would give her a name.
But wishing it didn't make it so.
"Come on, let's get out of here. Go over to 1PP and watch him in action," she encouraged. Then she grinned at me and added, "Then maybe later he can play bad cop with you."
"I don't need your help with my sex life, thank you very much," I told her, still chuckling at her exuberance as I took off my gloves.
"So you're admitting that you have one…now we're getting to the good stuff," she replied with a victorious expression on her face. "I bet he's incredible, isn't he? Come on, let me live vicariously through you."
"I don't kiss and tell," I told her. "So is it just Logan or do you have a thing for cops?"
"Something about that level of confidence," she said thoughtfully. "You know, not just a cop, but a detective."
"I get that," I agreed as I waved in another assistant to have him take care of the body. "Just don't let the badge fool you. It doesn't always make the man a keeper."
"Ah…now you mean Captain Ross, right? I heard about that."
"Captain Ross?" I asked, raising my eyebrow at her. "He's not anything right now, so you don't have to call him that. And yeah, he'd be a good example."
"So it's true that you and he had a thing."
"Past tense, yes."
"And he wants it to be present tense," she stated. When I gave her a questioning look, she added, "Luke said he saw the two of you kissing the other day."
"Oh, that's great," I said in annoyance. "Tell me that information isn't floating around the entire morgue."
"Not really. Mostly the talk is just surprise that Ross is back more so than the fact that he kissed you. Was there something to that?"
"It wasn't anything," I said firmly. "A misunderstanding, I guess."
"So he's not competing to take Logan's place?"
"Oh, he is. But as far as I'm concerned, there's no competition."
Sarah and I walked out of the morgue and then we went our separate ways. Well, after she got in her parting instructions.
"I need details tomorrow," she told me firmly.
"About what?"
She flashed me a mischievous smile and clarified, "Logan. Bad cop."
"Go home," I told her, waving her off as I shook my head.
I knew she was just trying to get me to smile again, after bringing up the fact that my assistants were speculating on my personal life. For years, I've mostly managed to keep my personal life out of the office, and even with this serious affair I have going on with Mike, I was still keeping it a secret, and yet Ross had strolled in and put me at the top of the gossip agenda.
One more reason not to like him.
I got off on the eleventh floor and crossed the nearly-empty squad room. Mike was nowhere in sight, but since he hadn't texted me lately, I was pretty sure he was still here.
I knocked on Alex's office door, but it was closed and dark inside, so then I headed for the interrogation rooms.
I saw that the doors were closed on two of the rooms, and so I knocked lightly on the adjoining center observation room door, but that was when I heard Alex's voice through the door.
"Now? Are you kidding me?" she was saying, and then she opened the door and motioned for me to come in as she continued. "It's premature…no, sir…I want that, too, but I'm not going to…no, sir…I'm saying…okay. Yes, sir. I appreciate that."
"Maybe it's not such a good time," I said as she stabbed at the button on her phone to end the call and then let out a heavy sigh.
"It's fine," she answered. "Zaring's just…"
"Prickish?" I suggested wryly.
"Exactly," she replied with a smirk. "Okay, so not really. He's just overanxious for me to go on camera to say that our murderer's been caught, but he's not grasping the full scope of the situation yet."
"The pressure of politics," I remarked. "Yeah, let's save prickish for Danny."
"Have you heard from him today?" she asked quickly.
"No. Just…no."
I wasn't going to start complaining to her about the rumor his actions had triggered. Not when she was currently dealing with her own issues.
"So which one is he anxious for?" I asked, since presently both interrogation rooms were in use.
Yuille and Wyatt had a woman in one room while Bobby and Mike had a young man in the other.
"Meet Jared Thomas," she said, nodding towards the room on the left. "Your assistant's catch of the additional substances helped them nab one of the killers. He's apparently a fisherman. Or at least he was on the day he killed Kaleigh Marquez."
"So he definitely did it?"
"He definitely did that murder," she elaborated. "But he's not in cahoots with the other killers. He doesn't know who they are or why they chose who they did or anything, really. That's why I don't want to go on camera yet. Catching this guy just means now the search is down to five. It doesn't mean that the search will go any faster."
"How long have they been in there with him?"
"Not long. His lawyer just got here about an hour ago," she said as she reached over to turn up the volume.
"Did she piss you off? Is that what happened? She was a hot girl, right? And you're just…you," Mike was saying as he moved closer to the suspect. Bobby was leaning against the wall behind the suspect and at the moment he seemed content to let Mike do the talking. "No way a girl like that would look at a guy like you, so you decided to make her look, right?"
"No."
"What, did she laugh at you or something? You saw her, all dolled up for a night out, and when you suggested that the two of you go somewhere together, she probably thought that was hilarious and so she…"
"No! It wasn't like that."
"Then tell us how it was, Jared," Bobby said quietly as he leaned down to get close to the suspect. "Why'd you pick her?"
"My client is not stipulating to guilt," the attorney interjected.
"We don't need him to stipulate," Mike said cockily. "We've got all the evidence we need. In fact, we're doing him a favor by talking to him because if it was up to me, I'd be home in bed with my girlfriend, but I've got a boss who says make a deal, so I gotta make a deal."
"What kind of deal?" the lawyer asked.
"We need to know what prompted the murder," Bobby stated firmly. "Where'd you get the information, and who's running the competition, and what are the stakes? If you help us, we might be able to get you paroled before retirement age."
"Competition?" I asked Alex.
"That's what they think, yeah. Scary, huh?"
"Did they bring in his computer?"
"Wiped clean," she replied with a nod. "But the techies are looking at it anyway. They might be able to get something. He doesn't strike me as the computer genius type."
"I need to think, okay?" Jared shouted suddenly. Then he turned to his lawyer and said, "Do I have to stay in here, or can we be done for tonight?"
"We can be done," he told him, then he looked at Mike and Bobby and said, "I'll be in touch when he's ready to talk."
"Don't wait too long, Jared. If we catch another one of your sick little friends then the deal's off the table."
I watched for another moment as the room cleared and then Alex clicked on the intercom for the other room so I turned around to see Wyatt and Yuille working on one of the twins.
"Which one is it?" I asked quietly.
"We're still trying to figure that out," she admitted.
"Was it an accident?" Yuille was saying. "Because if it was…"
"If it was what?" the woman fired back. "You'll let me walk out of here? You think I was born yesterday?"
"She's kind of feisty, isn't she?" I commented.
"She killed her twin sister. I'm not sure feisty is the right word."
"The twin is dead?"
"You didn't get the body?"
"No. Jenkins must have made that run. When was she killed?"
"Oh, several days ago. Weeks, maybe even. But Wyatt and Yuille just found her a few hours ago. They took dogs out to the property."
"She buried her in the backyard?"
"Uh huh," she answered, her eyes still focused on the scene in the other room. I shifted my focus to Yuille as he leaned down and looked at the woman, using a very Bobby-like move.
"No, not yesterday. It was actually April 28th, 1948. But the question is, were you born at 10:22? Or 10:36?"
The woman smiled and said, "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"So your defense is going to be that we don't know your true identity?" Wyatt posed. "It doesn't matter. We still know you killed your sister and Misty Hahn, and you hired someone to kill Judge Schuler."
"Or…my sister arranged to kill George. Then she killed the hooker. And then she tried to kill me, at which point I defended myself."
"And a jury might actually believe that if your sister was the last one to die. But she's not. She's been dead longer than two days, which is when Misty Hahn was killed."
The woman laughed, as though she couldn't imagine a funnier situation, and then she rolled her eyes at Wyatt.
"Okay, fine. But good luck getting an indictment without a positive ID, on your suspect or on your victim."
"So no jewelry on the victim?" I asked Alex as I texted the ME on duty to find out the status of the body.
"No, nothing. And this one doesn't wear any either. The clothes seem to be from Martha's closet, but that doesn't really mean anything."
"Hospital records?"
"Nothing that helps us."
"And there aren't any other relatives or friends? No one who can identify her?" I asked, feeling probably only a small portion of what Yuille and Wyatt had been feeling for nearly a week now.
"I'm telling you…it's the perfect crime."
"You know what?" Yuille said suddenly. "Forget it. I don't really care which one you are. We'll name both of you on the indictment. You can be co-conspirators with your dead twin."
"Will that work?" I asked as I focused on the woman, who seemed to have lost some of her confidence.
In fact, she opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again, as though Yuille had thrown her with his assertion.
"For this, it might," Alex answered. And then she murmured under her breath, "Keep going."
The door to the observation room opened, and in came Bobby and Mike.
I couldn't help but appreciate the smile that spread across Mike's face when he saw me, but before either man could say anything, Alex held up a finger and pointed at the glass.
"Watch," she said simply.
"That's right," Wyatt was saying as he nodded at his partner. "Co-conspirators. I mean, we can't say for sure if that body we found in your backyard is your twin. Maybe it's some other woman who looks eerily similar."
"And it's not like we can confirm her ID," Yuille added as he walked around behind her and then sat down close to her, on her left side. "So we'll just list you both as conspirators in the murder of a Jane Doe."
"Both of us," she repeated. "That'll never work."
"Maybe. Maybe not," Yuille said with a smile. Then he reached out and grabbed onto the woman's wrist, holding up her left hand for closer inspection. "But now, it looks like we only need to put your name on it, Martha."
"Martha?" Mike asked as he took a step closer to the glass. "How does he know that?"
Alex shushed him as Yuille continued.
"You know, my old girlfriend was married for a while. And even though it was months before I started dating her, she still couldn't get rid of the slight wedding ring imprint on her finger. One that looks just like this one."
"So I used to wear a ring…so what? You don't know it was a wedding ring."
"We've seen pictures, Martha," Wyatt said, getting in on the action. "Your sister randomly wore costume jewelry. You always wore three rings – the wedding band, an anniversary band, and the diamond engagement ring. I bet if we brought those rings in here, they'd fit this exact indentation."
"You have the rings?" I asked.
"Uh huh," Alex said as a smile spread across her face. Then she turned to look at the rest of us and said, "I guess something good came out of him sleeping with Alonzo, huh?"
"Okay, so now what?" Martha said. "You've caught me. You're going to put me in jail for the rest of my miserable life? Fine. It can't possibly be any worse than living with the judge."
"So it was the wife all along," Bobby said thoughtfully. Then he looked at Mike and said, "And didn't we bet on whether or not the twin was dead?"
"Yeah, okay," Mike said, rolling his eyes. "Beers on me the next time we go to Pete's."
"Which won't be tonight," Alex said as she clicked off the intercom. "I need to stay and make sure they get her statement."
"If it's okay with you, I'd like to head out," Mike said. "We'll pick up the trail again in the morning."
"No," she said, catching me by surprise until she added, "Pick it up at noon. You've been hard at it all week. Sleep in tomorrow morning."
"I like the way you think, Boss."
"Me, too," I said. "So, Mike…I think you said something about being home in bed with your girlfriend?"
"Oh, you heard that, huh?" he asked with a smile.
"Go," Alex encouraged. "You, too, Bobby."
He hesitated near the door, and I could almost hear the conversation going back and forth between them, even though the only words uttered were Alex's.
"I'll…um…yeah."
They looked at each other for a moment longer and then Bobby led the way out of the room.
"You need a ride?" Mike asked Bobby.
"No, I think I might look over those Facebook records some more."
"Didn't the boss just tell you to go home?" I asked with amusement.
"You think she'll punish me for working too much?"
"If you're lucky," Mike joked. "So…tomorrow at noon?"
"I'll be here," he agreed as he sat down at his desk. "And tomorrow night, we'll do Pete's."
We left Bobby in the squad room and went to the elevator where Mike immediately wrapped his arms around me.
"It's been such a long day…I can't tell you how happy it made me to find you in there with Alex," he said quietly.
"I was missing you," I admitted. "And my assistant encouraged me to go check out my insanely hot boyfriend in action."
"What?" he asked on a laugh.
"Yeah, she suggested that you probably look pretty sexy when you're doing your bad cop routine."
"Oh. Well…what's the verdict, Doc?"
"I need more evidence," I said suggestively, stealing a kiss just before the elevator doors opened. "So why don't you take me home and show me what you've got?"
TBC...