Chapter Text
"Nothing from AFIS, zilch from CODIS, no match to any missing persons report in any precinct in Massachusetts, not one single shred of physical evidence on the body." Jane punctuated each point on her list by stabbing a finger against the devastatingly thin blue BPD file folder that sat on her desk. It contained nothing but a few photos and a toxicology report. They were so short on evidence they hadn't even started a murder board yet because there was hardly anything to put on it. "This man has been dead five days now and we barely know more than we did the day we found him."
Frost shoved the last soggy bite of his greasy diner burger into his mouth, hunching over his desk to make sure nothing dripped onto his shirt.
"Yup," he offered dispassionately. He reached for a handful of napkins, wiped his face, then wadded them up in his hands before throwing them into the brown paper bag on his desk.
Korsak said nothing and instead took a long, loud slurp from his fountain soda. Both Jane and Frost looked over at him with mild annoyance. He glared back.
It was Wednesday and everyone was frustrated with the case. They'd cleared the rest of their active cases, so the only thing they'd had to do since Monday was paperwork, poking at cold cases, and getting on each other's nerves. That last item had recently taken priority and they'd been sniping at each other all day. Jane had spent most of her morning staring at Frost's paisley patterned tie. It was too flashy and she didn't like it and she was inexplicably annoyed by the way he tucked it away between the buttons of his shirt while he ate. She had been trying to come up with a suitably devastating insult for the last hour. Frost had caught her staring enough times that he surely knew it was coming and he narrowed his eyes as he once again found her looking at him.
The sound of Maura's heels clicking their way through the bullpen saved them from each other and all three detectives whipped their heads around to look at her. Visibly startled by the intensity of their collective attention, Maura's step faltered slightly before she regained her stride and came to a stop by Jane's desk. Jane noted with great relief that she was holding a file folder.
On Monday they had received the initial toxicology report from the crime lab, and while there were sedatives present in the victim's blood work, it had not been enough, by Maura's estimation, to subdue someone into sitting idly by as they bled out over the course of several hours. She'd ordered further tests for a broad range of medications.
"Second tox screen?" Jane asked. Maura nodded, still visibly ill at ease as she looked between the three grumpy faces on display. The ever proper doctor had, of course, maintained her typical professional and cordial disposition all week, so she'd been sticking out more than usual when she was with the detectives.
"Please tell me there's something, doc." Frost leaned back in his seat and threw away his crumpled up burger bag with a high-arcing toss into the nearby garbage. It circled the inside lip of the can before falling inside, which somehow also annoyed Jane. She'd spitefully wanted his shot to rim out so he'd have to get up from his desk to go pick it up.
Man, the lack of movement on this case was really getting to her.
"There is." Maura placed the folder down on Jane's desk. "After the initial panel only showed a relatively trivial amount of sedatives, I started thinking about what other drugs could aid in such a bizarre exsanguination. We tested for a wide range of blood thinners and found a significant amount of heparin in his system. Someone gave him an overdose of it."
"Could he have just taken an accidental double dose of his prescribed medication?" Korsak asked. "I got a buddy who never remembers if he took his heart meds or not."
Maura shook her head no. "Heparin isn't an oral medication, it's administered intravenously or subcutaneously and works much faster. It's used in hospitals. And your friend should set a daily reminder on his phone."
Jane looked puzzled as she slumped down in her chair. "But there was no other injection site during the autopsy."
"Correct," Maura said. She placed her hand on the back of Jane's chair and just slightly pressed her knuckles against Jane's spine. Jane was confused for a moment, but she quickly figured out she was being sent a silent message about healthy posture. As it always was when someone thought they knew what was best for her, Jane's first instinct was towards petulance. She very nearly slouched down even further in her seat but instead decided that maybe having someone who cared about her like this wasn't the worst thing in the world. Jane sat up just a little straighter in her seat and Maura stroked her thumb approvingly against Jane's back as she continued. "Just to be certain, I re-examined the body in case we'd somehow missed it, but I found no evidence of another needle stick. They must have injected it into the site of the blood draw."
"Which basically confirms it's intentional and related," Frost said.
"I would agree with that assessment." Maura nodded. "This high of a dose of heparin would have likely killed the victim either way. If not for the blood draw getting him first, it surely would have resulted in internal bleeding, likely in his digestive tract."
"So this would have made draining the blood faster, yeah?" Jane asked.
"Yes. I can't say for sure exactly how much faster, but it certainly would have hurried things along."
"Still doesn't explain how they got him to sit still for it." Jane frowned as she stared almost resentfully at the folder on her desk, her excitement for the new toxicology report waning. It was looking like it was going to be one of those times where getting more information somehow made the whole thing even harder to puzzle out.
"Yes, and that's the other thing," Maura said. "Without the presence of sedatives in his system or restraint marks on his body, there was only one other thing I could really think of to subdue the victim, and we found it. He had paralytics in his system."
Jane arched her brow. "So he was unconscious? Okay, so that explains it."
Maura tilted her head and scrunched up her nose, her familiar shorthand for close, but no cigar.
"You're half right," Maura said. "It does explain it, but because he was unable to move, not because he was unconscious. Paralytics are just one part of general anesthesia. On their own they don't have a sedative effect."
Frost's eyes bugged out a little. "So dude was awake while he bled out? Yeesh."
"Yes. And there's one last thing: these drugs cause diaphragmatic muscle paralysis. When a patient is put on paralytics they're also put on a ventilator to help them breathe because the diaphragm isn't inflating and deflating the lungs. If you put someone on paralytics without breathing assistance they would suffocate, and our John Doe definitely didn't suffocate."
"Wait, so…" Jane trailed off.
"...Whoever did this to him ensured his lungs continued to take in oxygen long enough to make sure he died of blood loss," Maura finished for her. "They could have just killed him much faster with just the drugs but specifically chose otherwise."
Jane slumped down in her seat, scrubbing her hands down her face. This murder had already put her on edge, but a serious case of dread was settling in.
"What the fuck," Frost exclaimed. "This is some real twisted shit."
"The person or persons who committed this murder put a lot of thought and effort into it and absolutely has a strong background in medicine," Maura said as she glanced over at Jane and Jane knew why: she was also thinking about Charles Hoyt. "This kind of death would take a lot of planning. There's specialized equipment involved, and these are serious medications that are kept specifically in hospital pharmacies and carefully inventoried. I know you didn't turn up any reports of missing blood donation equipment but I can think of some other ways to end up with that. With the drugs specifically, I don't see how someone could get them except from a hospital."
Jane sat up a lot straighter at her desk. She had been momentarily distracted by the depravity but now realized that they finally had something they could work with again. She pointed urgently at Frost's phone. "Okay, we gotta call every hospital in Boston to figure out if anyone had either of these drugs go missing. Get them to do a complete inventory, check all the bottles. If anyone's missing anything, we need employee names, particularly anyone who quit recently."
"It's going to have to wait," Korsak said, and Maura, Jane and Frost all looked over to find the sergeant on his own phone, his hand over the mouthpiece. "We got a body."
In a show of their consummate professionalism, and also because they were already annoyed with the jokes Frost would make after any time they were alone with each other during the work day, Jane and Maura took separate vehicles to the crime scene. Frost hitched a ride with Maura in her Prius and Jane drove herself and Korsak in her unmarked. Neither she nor Korsak had said a word since they pulled out of the precinct garage.
Jane enjoyed working with Frost but they had only been partners a couple years and in some ways they were still getting to know each other. Frost really liked to talk the case out loud and still didn't quite have Korsak's sense for when Jane wanted to ride in silence. It was a companionable solitude that she and the older sergeant shared, and Jane was able to fall deep into thought on their drive to the Boston Common.
The new details from the second tox screen had put Jane off in a big way. It had already been a weird and creepy death, but the fact that their killer could have quickly murdered the victim by way of the paralytic drugs, but instead chose to keep him alive specifically so that he could die from blood loss, pushed it into a whole new arena of fucked up. It was abundantly clear that they weren't dealing with an ordinary murderer.
The medical aspect had chilled her too. She thought back to the quick, slightly nervous glance she'd gotten from Maura as the doctor had explained to Jane and the others that their suspect or suspects had medical training. Hoyt was dead, but he seemed to have collected apprentices like trading cards, so Jane was certain that Maura must have worried about their being a connection.
It was unsettling Jane but her internal Hoyt alarm wasn't going off. All of Hoyt's kills were violent in a way that this death wasn't, they were all bloody and intimate and vile. Charles Hoyt was a true sadist and a very hands-on one. This death was twisted and dark but there was something clinical and detached about the cause of death that just didn't jive with Hoyt. Hoyt needed to feel the life drain out of someone. He needed the evidence of it all over his hands. Jane supposed it was within the realm of possibility he could have acquired an apprentice with a very different approach than his own but that didn't ring true for her either. When Hoyt sought an accomplice he wanted a yes man (or a yes woman). Jane was no profiler, but whoever this killer was, she felt pretty confident they were too much their own person to have ever been apprentice to Charles Hoyt.
That didn't really make the whole thing any less fucked up, but it did mean Jane wasn't quite so worried that whoever this was would personally have it out for her. Their suspect was just some fucked up psychopath they had to find, not some fucked up psychopath who might come looking for her to settle some other fuck up psychopath's score.
"Jane?"
Jane blinked out of her thoughts to find that she'd driven all the way to the scene without realizing it. Her ability to go absolute autopilot in the car was a little disconcerting at times. She looked to her right to find that Korsak had already gotten out of the car. He now stood next to it, his head poking in through the passenger door, a look of concern on his face.
"You good, Janie?" Korsak said quietly, mindful of the techs and uniforms mingling around.
"Never better." Jane nodded confidently and got out of the car. She was surprised to find Maura and Frost pulling in right behind them given the doctor's penchant for observing speed limits and full stops, but the mystery resolved itself when she realized Maura had let Frost drive. When the two exited the Prius, Frost gave Jane a waggish smile.
"Suit shopping, huh? Never thought I'd live to see Jane Rizzoli in couture."
Jane shot Maura a look.
"What?" Maura said defensively, walking to the trunk to retrieve her bag. "You know Barry and I talk about fashion. No one else at the precinct has an appreciation for fine tailoring."
"It's only right that I get a heads up, Jane," Frost said. "I deserve some notice if I'm suddenly going to be the dowdy one of the two of us."
"Oh God." Jane rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, you'll always be prettier." She turned her attention to the young officer approaching them. She was unfamiliar, and also looked like she was 12. Jane was still a decent ways off from 40 but the fresh faces coming out of the academy were starting to make her feel like a grandmother. She flicked a glance down to the officer's name plate.
"What have we got, Officer Roberts?"
"Hello Detectives, hello Doctor." Roberts swallowed nervously. "Uh, a jogger called in the body about two hours ago, I was first on the scene. Deceased was found in the bushes next to the walking path. Might just be a run of the mill unattended, I didn't see anything to indicate foul play." She looked nervously over at Maura. "Of course, we shouldn't guess."
Jane restrained a grin. Maura's reputation certainly preceded her, even with the rookies. "Do we have an ID?"
"No wallet in his jacket pocket," Roberts said. "He's face up so I didn't want to disturb him to check his back pocket. Is that wrong? Should I have—"
"Relax, Roberts," Jane said quietly. She herself had a reputation, one for giving boots a hard time, but she was always nicer with the women. She remembered what it was like. "You did fine. Why don't you show us to the body?"
The young officer blushed at Jane's gentle tone and Jane blinked in surprise. Oh geez. She looked over at Maura who had a knowing look on her face. Roberts quickly surged ahead of them, leading the way to where the deceased had been discovered. Jane fell back so she was walking beside Maura while Frost and Korsak took the lead position. As usual, Jane was overcome by the desire to touch Maura the moment she was in her vicinity. She settled instead for reaching for the doctor's medical bag which somehow felt like a decent proxy for holding her hand. Maura smiled indulgently and permitted Jane the act of chivalry she desired, releasing her bag into Jane's care.
"You have to be careful, Jane," Maura murmured quietly. "That voice was always dangerous, but now that they know you're gay?"
"You had her panicked too, you know," Jane said back, tossing a look in Maura's direction.
"I'm sure only professionally," Maura demurred.
Jane rolled her eyes. Her planned response was interrupted by a loud exclamation from Frost up ahead of them.
"Holy shit, Jane," Frost called over his shoulder. "It's that missing doctor."
Maura gasped. Jane snapped her eyes forward and broke into a trot, only barely cognizant of a heel-wearing Maura grumbling behind her as she tried to keep up.
"The blood guy?" Jane asked when she reached Frost and Korsak at the body, peering down into the thick patch of shrubbery that the body lay in. "Hematologist," Maura corrected, arriving at Jane's side to get her own look.
Frost nodded. "Gregory Pearson. I'm certain of it."
"I am too," Maura said, looking regretfully down at the body. She reached to take her medical bag back from Jane. "That's definitely him. I saw him at a fundraiser not that long ago."
Jane pushed down the thought that she too would surely be seeing people at fundraisers with even greater regularity than she already did. She gave the body a quick once over.
"He was reported missing a week ago, but that's definitely not a week old body."
"That's for sure," said Korsak, already down beside the body. He extended his hand to Maura to help her down the slight incline off the path and into the bushes where the body was. "The doc will obviously be able to tell us exactly but he looks pretty freshly dead to me."
Jane watched as Maura went through her process for inspection, snapping on a pair of gloves and waiting for the crime scene tech to finish taking photographs before placing a knee pad on the ground and smoothly lowering herself down beside the body. Jane and Frost donned their own sets of gloves before carefully stepping down off the walking path.
"He's in advanced rigor so he's been dead for about 6-8 hours," Maura said as she began her examination. She inspected his neck, head, and hands. "No visible injuries so far."
"Nothing about the scene looks weird. No signs of struggle, the bushes aren't even trampled. Maybe a body dump?" Jane mused. "Strange place for it, though. Even at night you can run into people in the Common and this spot isn't very secluded."
"There's dirt on his hands and knees, like he crawled on all fours, "Maura said, then made a sound of surprise when she lifted up the deceased's shirt. "He has a recent surgery scar, and this bruising looks like evidence of internal bleeding," she said, running a gloved fingertip along the stitches. "It's very fresh. It was done early yesterday, probably. It looks like a hepatectomy incision." Maura stared at the body, brows knit, before looking up to find all three detectives staring at her.
"For those of us who haven't gotten around to finishing their MD?" Jane said, albeit with a lot less bite than she usually did when Maura forgot to dumb down something medical. Maura rolled her eyes anyway.
"A liver resection," she clarified.
"Like a donation? Or getting ready to receive a transplant?" Frost asked.
"Yes, consistent with either of those," Maura said as she continued her examination, pushing open one of his eyelids to examine the colour of the whites of his eyes. "He's a little jaundiced."
Frost shook his head and turned to Jane.
"I asked around about him, carefully, like you told me," he said. "No one said anything about having a surgery scheduled. He was supposed to be at a conference this weekend."
"You think someone stole his liver? Doesn't exactly fit the profile of an organ trafficking victim," Korsak said.
"Sure doesn't," Jane agreed, crossing her arms across her chest. "Plus we don't usually see them stitched back up after." She stared down at the body, trying to puzzle it out. She was, unfortunately, getting that feeling. There was no concrete reason to consider these two deaths related but the fact that both bodies showed evidence of recent, suspicious medical procedures had her gut churning. She knew if she said it out loud Maura would jump all over her leaping to conclusions, so in the interest of the honeymoon period Jane merely gave Frost and Korsak meaningful looks. They both nodded.
"He received a blood transfusion," Maura said flatly, looking down at where she'd rolled up the deceased's sleeve.
Nevermind. Fuck the honeymoon period.
"They're connected," Jane declared. "It's the same guy."
Jane heard Maura heave a sigh, like she'd been expecting it.
"I'm sure I don't have to tell you that's extremely presumptuous, Jane. If the deceased had major surgery, which the incision on his abdomen would indicate, then of course he would have a blood transfusion. We don't know what killed him, it could be entirely unrelated." Maura re-packed her bag and stood up, evidently satisfied with her on site examination. She beckoned over the crime scene techs that would be responsible for relocating the body to her morgue.
"Everything you said makes perfect sense, and yet, I'm certain of it. Care to make a wager?" Jane extended a hand to help Maura back up and out of the bushes. Maura took her hand but gave her a disapproving look as she stepped back onto the walking path.
"Making a bet over someone's death, Jane? That's a little macabre."
"Wouldn't be the first time. Scared I'm right?" Jane challenged. Maura narrowed her eyes. Nearby Frost tried and failed to stifle a laugh.
"What are your terms?" Maura asked coolly.
"If I'm wrong and the same guy didn't kill them, I'll switch out my coffee for green tea for a week."
Maura's eyebrows jumped at that. "And if they were killed by the same person?"
Jane grinned, feeling quite confident that Maura's desire to see her choking down hot grassy water for a week would force her to accept Jane's terms.
"You have to drink instant," Jane said. "For one weekend," she added, very magnanimously.
Maura went visibly pale and for a second Jane thought she'd miscalculated, maybe this wouldn't actually survive the doctor's risk-benefit analysis. Jane had figured it was a slam dunk with the one week for one weekend angle but perhaps she'd underestimated Maura's level of disgust when it came to instant coffee. Jane watched as Maura glanced over at Frost and Korsak, who were both eagerly watching the exchange. She returned her gaze to Jane and threw back her shoulders with confidence. "You're on."