Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

the snowbank? Cathy was already walking toward the front porch, boots crunching over compacted snow, but Jane paused by the car. They had no search warrant. They had no reason to be here, except that Deputy Martineau was a puzzle to her, and any good homicide investigation included a victimology analysis. Why was this particular man attacked? What actions did he take that led to his death in the windswept driveway on Doyle Mountain? So far, all the attention had been focused on the alleged shooter, Julian Perkins. It was time to focus on Bobby Martineau.
    She followed Cathy up the driveway, her boots finding traction on the gritty sand scattered across the ice. Cathy was already knocking on the front door.
    As expected, no one answered.
    Jane noted the rotten windowsills, the peeling paint. Firewood had been carelessly piled up at one end of the porch, against a railing that looked dangerously close to collapse. Peering through the front window, she saw a sparsely furnished living room. A pizza box and two beer cans were on the coffee table. She saw nothing that surprised her, nothing she wouldn’t expect to see in the home of a bachelor living alone on a deputy’s salary.
    “Boy, this is a dump,” said Cathy, looking at the detached garage, which seemed to sag under the weight of snow on its roof.
    “Do you know about any of his friends? Anyone who might know him well?”
    “Probably in the sheriff’s office, but good luck getting them to say anything negative. Like I said, a dead cop is always a hero.”
    “Depending on how the cop ended up dead.” Jane tried thedoorknob and found it locked. She turned her focus to the detached garage. The driveway leading to the bay door was plowed clear, and she spotted tire tracks—wide ones, from a truck. Gingerly she made her way down the slippery porch steps. At the garage bay door she hesitated, knowing that, by opening that door, she was about to cross an ethical line. She had no warrant, and this wasn’t even her own jurisdiction. But Bobby Martineau was dead so he could hardly complain about it. And in the end, this was all about justice, wasn’t it? Justice for Bobby himself, as well as for the boy accused of killing him.
    She reached down for the bay door handle, but the tracks had iced over and she couldn’t make it budge. Cathy pitched in and together they strained to lift the door. Suddenly it jerked free, and they slid it up. They stood, staring in astonishment.
    A massive black behemoth gleamed inside.
    “Will you look at that,” murmured Cathy. “It’s so new, it’s still got the dealer plates on it.”
    Admiringly, Jane stroked the flawless finish as she walked around the truck. It was a Ford F-450 XLT. “This baby’s gotta cost at least fifty thousand bucks,” she said.
    “How could Bobby afford this?”
    Jane circled to the front bumper and halted. “An even better question is, how could he afford
that?”
    “What is it?”
    Jane pointed at the Harley. It was a black V-Rod Muscle model, and like the truck, it looked brand new. She didn’t know how much a bike like this cost, but it certainly didn’t come cheap. “Looks like Deputy Martineau recently came into some money,” she said softly. She turned to Cathy, who stared openmouthed at the Harley. “He didn’t have a rich uncle somewhere, did he?”
    Cathy gave a baffled shake of the head. “From what I heard, he couldn’t even keep up with his alimony payments.”
    “Then how did he pay for this bike? For the truck?” Jane lookedaround at the shabby garage with its sagging timbers. “Obviously, we have a disconnect here. It makes you question everything we’ve been told about Martineau.”
    “He was a cop. Maybe someone was paying him to look the other way.”
    Jane again focused on the Harley, trying to understand how it connected with Martineau’s death. It was clear to her now that he had purposefully shut off his dash camera to hide his actions. Dispatch had just told him that Maura Isles was waiting there, a lone woman, in need of rescue. After taking the call, Martineau had shut off the camera and proceeded to drive up Doyle Mountain.
    Then what happened? Where did the boy come in?
Maybe it all comes down to the boy
.
    She looked at Cathy. “How far is Kingdom Come?”
    “It’s about thirty, forty miles from here. Middle of nowhere.”
    “Maybe we should drive out there and talk to Julian’s mother.”
    “I don’t think anyone’s living there right now. I