The Silent Girl

she has no idea what’s going on.” Jane stared down at the dead man. “This just gets weirder and weirder. He complained about a van watching his house. He said someone broke in here while he was away. To me, it sounded like crazy talk.”
    “Not so crazy after all.” Marquette looked at the criminalist. “You checked his cell phone yet?”
    “We didn’t detect any signal on that one. The battery’s dead. Once we charge it up, we’ll take a look at his call log.”
    “Let’s get all his phone records, cell and landline. See who he’s been talking to lately.”
    Maura rose to her feet. “I understand there’s a second victim.”
    “The shooter,” said Jane. “At least, the man we assume is the shooter. I chased him a few blocks away.”
    “You brought him down yourself?”
    “No.”
    “Who did?”
    Jane drew in a deep breath, as though steeling herself for what came next. “It’s not easy to explain. I’ll have to show you.”
    They walked outside, where a crowd was gathering, mesmerized by the invasion of law enforcement into their neighborhood. Jane forged a path through the gawkers and led Maura around the corner to a quiet side street. Although Jane walked at her usual brisk pace, the swagger was gone, and her shoulders were slumped as though the night had beaten her down and stolen her confidence.
    “Are you really all right?” Maura asked.
    “Aside from having my good pantsuit trashed? Yeah, I’m okay.”
    “You don’t look okay. Jane, talk to me.”
    Jane’s pace slowed, stopped. She stared down the street as if afraid to look at Maura, afraid to reveal how vulnerable she felt at that moment. “I shouldn’t be standing here right now,” she murmured. “I should be dead, like Ingersoll. Lying in the alley with a bullet in my head.” She frowned at her hands, as if they belonged to someone else. “Look at this. I’ve got the goddamn shakes.”
    “You said you chased down the perp.”
    “Chased him, yeah. But I got cocky. Followed him into an alley. I’m the one who went down.” She hugged herself, as though suddenly chilled. “Saved by my birthday present. Remember how Gabriel bought me a Kevlar vest? How you and I laughed about it? So romantic, what every gal wants. When I didn’t wear it, he got royally pissed off at me, so just to keep the peace at home I put it on this morning. Now I’ll never hear the end of it. That he was right.”
    “Does he know what happened to you?”
    “I haven’t called him yet.” Jane swiped a sleeve across her face. “I haven’t had the chance.”
    “You need to go home. Right now.”
    “In the middle of this?”
    “Jane, you’re barely holding it together. Your team can process the scene.”
    “Right, with Marquette here? Seeing that I can’t handle a little thing like being shot in the back? Fuck that.” Jane turned and walked away, as though in a hurry to get this business over with. To prove she was up to the task.
    Oh Jane, thought Maura. You’ve proved yourself time and again, but it will never be enough for you. You’ll always be that rookie fighting to be acknowledged. Afraid to show weakness.
    They came to another barrier of crime scene tape, where a patrolman guarded the entrance to an alley. Once again, Maura was greeted with cold indifference. As she pulled on fresh shoe covers and ducked under the tape, she felt the patrolman watching her, and it was a relief to escape his stare and follow Jane into the gloom of the alley.
    “And here’s bachelor number two,” announced Jane, aiming her flashlight at the pavement. The jarringly flippant remark left Maura unprepared for the horror lying at their feet.
    The decapitation was complete. The head, wearing a dark knit cap, had come to rest a few feet away from the torso—a white male, perhaps forty. The body, garbed entirely in black, lay chest-down as though in mid-breaststroke through an ocean of its own spilled blood. Frozen in cadaveric spasm, the hand still clutched a gun. Swinging her flashlight, Maura saw stuttering arcs splashed across the walls, saw congealed pools, like puddles of black pudding on the pavement.
    “Meet the asshole who ruined my favorite suit,” said Jane.
    Maura frowned at the headless torso. At the weapon in the man’s hand. “This is the man you chased from the residence?”
    “Yeah. Followed him from Ingersoll’s backyard. He got off one round and hit me in the back. Still hurts like hell.”
    “Then how did he end