A/N: Hi, readers! I'm sorry it took me so long to get this updated. I suffered from a severe case of ennui regarding this fic (most likely stemming from the fact that I was in exile at my parents' down in Florida). Now that I'm happily back with my girlfriend and cat, my creative juices seem to be flowing quite nicely.
Jane stormed into Cavanaugh's office, completely disregarding the closed door and phone to her boss's ear. He raised one eyebrow, the only indication on his otherwise expressionless face that Jane had entered.
"What do you know about Frost, Sean?" Jane spat out, placing an aggressive hand on her hip. Her boss was regarding her coolly, obviously unperturbed by the detective's confrontation. He was used to a fiery Jane. It's what made her a good detective.
He motioned for her to sit down, said a few hushed words into the mouthpiece of the phone and carefully placed it back on the receiver. His slow, deliberate movements divulged that he knew something; the lack of surprise on his face let her know that he had been expecting her to barge in at any moment.
"Rizzoli, sit down," Cavanaugh said gently but with just enough force to make the pacing woman comply. "Now," he said, leaning back in his chair and sighing heavily. "You know I can't tell you much."
"Tell me all you know," Jane said through gritted teeth.
"Frost got a tip from…someone…and started poking around the docks. He spoke to one too many of the right people and someone tried to blow him up," he put a hand to his forehead and slowly massaged it. Eyes closed, he said, "Got his mom and her partner instead."
Jane's face fell, her angry façade cracking as the reality of the situation set in. "Why haven't—"
"Not in your jurisdiction, Rizzoli. It happened in New York. When it became clear it was the mob, the FBI came in and took Frost to WITSEC."
"Have you heard from him at all?" Jane asked wearily. She slumped down in her chair when she saw his head shake slowly from side to side. She would most likely never see her partner again.
"Don't worry. He's in good hands," Cavanaugh said quietly. Jane nodded numbly and slowly made her way down to the morgue, ignoring the questioning looks from Korsak and Frankie.
Seeing the look on her best friend's face, Maura instantly stood up from her desk and pulled the brunette down onto her uncomfortable couch. She held the broken brunette against her chest, slowly stroking her hand through wayward curls while she felt tears soak her new Prada dress.
It was red and off-the-shoulder, not something the ME would normally wear to work, but she had felt particularly rebellious today after Jane had dropped the engagement grenade on her. So she had plucked it out of her "emergency" clothes closet in her office and had been strutting around, empowered, ever since.
She instantly regretted the decision, however, when the detective showed up at her door. She wished instead that she had opted for a nice, cozy sweater for her best friend to cuddle up to. She wrapped her arms more securely around the brunette, willing her love and sympathy to bleed through the action.
She cursed the Prada dress, in all its beauty. The scratchy wool of her designer dress could not have been comfortable on the cheek of her distraught friend.
Maura didn't say anything. She didn't need to. She simply held the detective very close, waiting for the tears to stop and wishing there was a medical term for the ache she was feeling in her own heart.
"Frost is in WITSEC, Maura. Camille and her partner are dead. I didn't know anything about it…I couldn't do anything to stop it…they're dead…and Frost's gone," Jane said in between sniffles.
"Oh, Jane," Maura breathed out, clutching the brunette closer to her chest. A few wayward tears cut their way in lines through her perfect makeup. "Detective Frost is a smart man. When he's ready to talk to you, he'll find a way."
The buzzing in Jane's pocket told Jane she had a call; almost simultaneously, the phone on the Chief Medical Examiner's desk began ringing. The two looked at each other: puffy brown eyes, clear hazel eyes, a small eternity.
Maura is slightly comforted by the fact that in a quantum multiverse, she is kissing her best friend right now.
But why not in this historical universe?
She would start with the tear that was lingering on Jane's chiseled jawbone. And then she would kiss away the wet mess under her eyes. She would rub the rest of it away with the pads of her thumbs and she would say, "Baby, I love you. I don't want to die without marrying you, without holding you in my arms and calling you my wife. Please, Jane. Don't let's wait. Be mine forever, right now."
But instead she stood up, grabbed her phone and answered, "Isles," just as Jane had composed herself enough to open her phone and bark "Rizzoli." Her gruff growl belied the fact that tears were still streaming down her face. She gruffly wiped at them with the palms of her hands, which she then promptly wiped on her pant legs. She shook herself like a dog after a bath, her wild mane bouncing, trying to rid herself of the sadness.
"You coming?" Jane asked with a sharp bite to her words. She was still feeling edgy, but softened the harsh edges of her face with a lopsided smile. "Please, Maur?"
Maura returned her best friend's smile with a soft one of her own. "Always." She picked up her purse and followed her best friend out of the cold morgue and into the deliciously sunny fall day.
"Ah, The Great Masturbator," Maura said appreciatively as she entered upon the scene. Jane began coughing uncontrollably.
"That a new name you got for Korsak?" Jane choked out, trying to pretend she was okay with the fact that her best friend had just said the word "masturbate" aloud.
Maura, alone in her massive bed. Smooth, toned legs cocked and spread wide over the white duvet. One delicate, precise finger travels downward, splitting rosy folds and finding a well of moist. A moan…
"Jane?"
The tall brunette whipped her head up quickly and barreled through the throng of people, wanting desperately to hide her blush from the blonde ME.
"VICTOR 825!" she barked at the startled cop who stood with a notepad at the crime scene tape. Her heeled boots crashed loudly enough on the pavement to be heard over the din of the ever-growing crowd around the building.
"Chief Medical Examiner," Maura said politely to the still-befuddled cop.
"Dr. Isles?" he asked with a smile. His face exuded gratitude as he chivalrously lifted up the yellow tape for her. His bright blue eyes sparkle when they meet those of the gorgeous ME.
The coloration of the iris is quite beautiful. And the pupils, significantly dilated for the amount of sun exposure we're getting.
"Your eyes are a perfect shade of glaucous blue, Officer—" Maura paused to get his name.
"Kinsey. Officer Kinsey," the man said with another smile.
"Oh, Kinsey!" Maura gushed. Her eyes lit up, "Like Alfred Charles Kinsey, the famed biologist and sexologist who wrote "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female." He is particularly known for his development of the "Kinsey Scale," which places sexuality on a scale from 0-6—"
"Hey! Dr. Death! Get on over here before you live up to your name and bore the guy to death!" Jane shouted, crossing the crime scene in long strides before wrapping a blue-gloved hand around her best friend's upper arm. Seeing her intent was to guide her all the way to the body, Maura shooed the gloved hand away.
"No need to chauffer me, Detective Rizzoli," Maura said in a warning tone. She followed the lean form to where the body hung. If she weren't so sure about Jane's sexuality, she might assume Jane had been a bit jealous.
Was Jane jealous? Maura thought back to every man she had ever dated around Jane. She had never seemed particularly…happy about them. In fact, she had never once approved of a man Maura had expressed any interest in.
"EEP!" Maura squealed, snapping out of her deep ruminations. She rubbed her right side where Jane had poked her and looked into the brunette's smiling face. She wanted to feel angry, but instead found her heart melting slightly at the mischievous glint that shined in the detective's eyes. It was endearing, if not a little bit sexy.
Before her on the brick wall of a downtown bicycle shop was the largest reddish brown stain Maura had ever seen. It was a large blob that pointed down on one end and had the head of a woman at the other. Her eyes and lips were closed, though before them lay the "male organ of copulation" clad in boxers. A grasshopper lay on the underside of the blob, seemingly feeding off it. The body hung at the left of the painting, swaying lightly back and forth, in turn obscuring and revealing what looked to be vertical eyelashes, an eyebrow and the thinned combover of a man.
"This musta taken the sick bastard all damned day!" Jane muttered, squaring her shoulders and looking up at the suspended scaffolding that hung about seven feet above their heads. A two-gallon paint bucket sat neatly on the scaffolding, the feet of the victim almost brushing it as it swung slowly back and forth.
"Get the body down for us, will ya?" Jane growled at a couple of morgue attendants that were looking up at the strange scene. Jane found Korsak while they pulled the body down.
"Got any witnesses?" she asked him hopefully.
"Plenty of 'em. Apparently there was a whole crowd that was here at some point watching him paint. Nobody suspected, of course, that he was painting with someone's blood."
"Anybody talk to him? Get his name? Facial features?"
"Nope, nothing. He was wearing an orange worksuit that had splotches of paint—er, blood—on it. Never turned around once. Just kept painting. He finished the painting, left, and about a half an hour later, this appeared," Korsak said, gesturing toward the body. It had been laid down on the ground by this point and Dr. Isles was already busy doing her initial examination.
"Is she a…bearded lady?" Jane asked incredulously, squatting next to her favorite ME. The victim was wearing a flowy red dress that reached to her ankles and red heels to match. Her frame was slender but lanky and her facial features exaggerated by stage makeup. A slight amount of dark stubble graced her cheeks and chin—a stark contrast to her almond-shaped eyes and feminine lips.
"Male. Mid-to-late twenties," Maura said, not stopping in her poking and prodding. "Time of death…at least 12 hours ago. The body has already come out of rigor mortis. I'll be able to have a more precise time for you when we get back to the lab."
"Cause of death?" Jane asked hopefully.
"Well, there are a multitude of abrasions, lesions and contusions on the body," Maura said, her gloved hand pointing out the different wounds as she spoke. Indeed, there was a thick red abrasion around the victim's neck where the rope had been; there were also multiple lesions on the victim's arms and legs that were surrounded by purple contusions. The hair on the back of his head was matted with blood, and above the neck abrasion was a clean cut from ear to ear. "But it's safe to say that the cause of death is not exsanguination, as the throat was sliced post-mortem. It could be strangulation, but I'll be able to determine that—"
"When you get back to the lab, I know," Jane hurriedly finished. She was itching to get to the bicycle shop to see if anyone who worked there had seen anything suspicious. Seeing Maura's crestfallen face, Jane flashed her a large smile. "Thank you for all your work, Dr. Isles. The good people of Boston really are safer due to your…fastidiousness," she said unsure of whether she was actually being sarcastic or not. She generally just chose to let people determine for themselves whether to take her comments as sarcastic—most of the time she wasn't even sure herself.
Maura looked at her, deadpan. Apparently, Jane was being sarcastic. "See ya at the car, Maur!" Jane said, choosing to ignore the ME's obvious displeasure. She strolled around to the bicycle shop and pushed open the door, a little bell tinkling as she entered.
"I was wondering when you guys would show up," the woman behind the counter said with a rueful smile. "That's some sick stuff, huh?" Her eyes roved unsubtly over Jane's body and met the detective's brown eyes with her seafoam green ones. Jane shifted uncomfortably before squaring her shoulders and cocking an eyebrow.
"You know anything about it?" Jane asked, all business. Her eyes took in the rows of bikes, the glass case full of accessories and the repair station behind the counter. It obviously catered to a serious biking clientele. It had all the latest Trek bikes, clothing and gadgets that the bikers who rode in packs through the Boston city streets tended to have. The ones that seriously got on her nerves when she was trying to get anywhere quickly.
"Some guy called yesterday and said he'd like to do an art project on the side of the building. We thought I'd liven up the place a bit, so my boss said yes. He was here when we opened at eight this morning, already setting up his scaffold."
"Did anyone talk to him? See his face?"
The redhead shook her head no. "Not very well. He was white. And had what looked to be a rather impressive mustache. Very Dali."
"Dali?"
The redhead sighed. She shrugged off her leather jacket and turned around to reveal a tattoo of a man with wide eyes, crazy hair and a thin, pointy mustache. The black wifebeater did a lot of justice to her well-muscled back and ample breasts.
"It's Dali," the redhead said, turning back around with a sly smile. She had noticed Jane's eyes had taken a few seconds to bounce back up to her own.
"Our perp's mustache look like that one?"
The redhead nodded, shrugging her jacket back on.
So this guy is a crazy Dali enthusiast.
Jane smiled gratefully and held out a business card to the woman, who took it with a knowing smile. "I'll give you a call if I remember anything else," she said. She pulled out a card of her own and handed it to Jane, "And you give me a call if you ever get hungry sometime."
Jane shook her head a bit, her unruly curls flying in front of her eyes. She didn't bother to correct the woman. Instead she just said, "Okay," her voice rasping a bit more than usual. She shoved the card into her pocket, where it rested heavily next to the ring Casey had given her. She had no intention of calling the sexy redhead, but somehow it made her feel good. Confident.
She strode back to the crime scene to find her favorite ME packing away her equipment. She knew her smile could only be described as a "shit eating grin," and the ME gave her a questioning look.
"The redhead in there not only gave me a good lead, but she also asked me out to dinner," Jane said as the two walked toward her police cruiser. The little blonde looked at her best friend curiously. She sounded almost…interested.
"Was she attractive?" Maura asked innocently. Part of her felt the claws of jealousy raking her insides; another part felt the delicious kiss of hope.
"Yes, if you like that sort of thing," Jane said. Maura's stomach fell and she let out a small disappointed sigh. "Tattoos, leather, piercings. Nah. I like 'em more clean-cut," Jane said, laughing and nudging the ME a bit with her elbow.
Maura's heart leapt up and did a little Irish jig. Jane Rizzoli was definitely flirting with her. "Well, that does make me the perfect candidate, then, doesn't it?" And she was flirting right back.
A/N: Hey, I know you guys have been really upset with Jane the last few chapters, but she'll come around! Please, send me any feedback you have. I don't shy away from constructive criticism, and love to know what you think.