13

Jude

It had been a long morning. After getting the go-ahead from Cisco to start working on the Domenica Fibonacci case, they'd headed to the off-site storage archive to pick up the case file. Unfortunately, the boxes weren't where they were supposed to be.

Jude, Ronan, Fitz, and Cope spent three hours digging through the hot, dusty room, climbing wheeled ladders to check out boxes stacked high out of reach on shelves before they'd found what they were looking for. Five boxes filled with documents and evidence collected from Rothschild Manor.

When they got back to the office, everyone collapsed into chairs around the conference table.

"I don't think I've ever been this dirty in my life." Jude could feel the dust and grit of the warehouse in places dirt should never be. His eyes were itchy, constantly watering, and he couldn't stop sneezing.

"Same," Ronan agreed. "I'm so itchy."

"Wash your face and hands, then take some Benadryl," Fitzgibbon ordered. "We've got a shit ton of work to do before Ronan's press conference. I want to head over to the ME's office after he's finished charming the Boston media. The sooner we can get the biological samples submitted to the lab, the better."

Jude grabbed the first box and pulled off the lid. "This is part of the case file documents."

"Yeah, so is this one," Ronan said, shoving his box toward Jude.

"I've got physical evidence and the log sheets." Fitzgibbon grabbed for another box. "Same here and here."

"Three boxes of evidence and two with documents. I can't believe that's all there is." Ronan shook his head.

"You have to remember Domenica died in 1984. There wouldn't have been the kind of evidence collection we have now. There was no DNA technology at that time, and with Domenica having been in the water for several days after her fall, there isn't going to be any hair or fiber evidence either. The best thing we can hope for is Vic's clothes. Pray there's touch DNA on his shirt."

"I'll take the evidence," Ronan said. "See what I can turn over to the lab for testing."

"Jude and I will read the case file." Fitzgibbon rummaged through the box and pulled out a binder marked with Domenica's name.

"Can I touch the evidence?" Cope asked. "I might be able to connect with Domenica if I touch her things."

"You can touch them through the plastic evidence bags, but I'd rather you not take them out until the lab has gone over everything. The last thing we need is cross-contamination with the way you're all sneezing and have drippy noses." Fitzgibbon went back to the report he was reading.

Ronan motioned Cope to his side of the table and handed him two sheets of paper. "This is the evidence log. It lists each object and gives it a number. You'll find that number written on the bag. The first thing we need to do is make sure it's all here, and then we can go from there."

"Is it strange for you to not be working with Ten on this case?" Cope whispered.

"A little bit, but he never did this sort of work with us. He sat in on witness interviews and did his best to connect with the spirit of the murder victim, but he's not one to sort through evidence or to read the police report and autopsy."

Cope nodded. "I get that. I sort of feel like I need to see everything to get a better picture of what happened to Domenica that last night."

"Do you think you'll pick anything up psychically from the pictures or the evidence?" Ronan sounded truly interested in hearing Cope's answer.

"Maybe. I'm curious to see what will happen when I hold Vic's clothing."

Ronan sorted through the boxes and pulled out a bagged black T-shirt with some sort of printing on it. "Here, try this."

Cope took the bag and held it in both hands. His eyes slid shut as he took a deep breath and opened his gift. "You're so excited to be working this case. Fitzgibbon is praying you stay on topic and don't write any checks your ass can't cash. Jude's quiet as the grave, but I can feel a sense of calm radiating from him. As for this shirt, all I can feel is rage. It's thick and black and almost suffocating."

"What is the rage directed toward?" Jude asked, his chair creaking as he sat forward. Cope's gift never ceased to amaze him. If he could pull a little detail from the shirt, they could use that when they interviewed Vic Rothschild.

"I don't know. Everything. Everyone. It's all-encompassing." Cope sighed, his eyes opening slowly. "I'm sorry I couldn't see anything else."

"Don't be sorry," Fitzgibbon said. "That shirt has been sitting in an evidence room for forty years. I wasn't sure we were going to get anything from it at all. Good job."

"Here are Domenica's wedding rings." Ronan took the shirt and handed the next bag to Cope. "It's a wonder they didn't slide off her hand when she was in the water."

Cope took the bag and gasped.

"What is it? What do you see?" Ronan asked.

"I was falling toward the sea." Cope gasped for breath.

"Go back to that moment where you felt yourself falling. Could you feel the ghost of Vic's hands on your chest or back?"

Jude was impressed with Ronan's calm, gentle handling of Cope. If he'd been the one asking the questions, he would have been spitting them out rapid fire, which would have made his husband anxious.

"All I feel is a horrible fear. Domenica fought against it, tried to reach out to the cliff to slow her fall. She didn't want to die. I can hear the roar of the ocean, but I can also hear her voice."

"What's she saying?" Ronan asked.

" Ave, O Maria, piena di grazia, il Signore e con te ," Cope recited.

"It's the first line of the Hail Mary in Italian." Fitz held up his phone. "It's nice that she was praying before her death, but is there anything you can read about her husband?"

Cope shook his head. "There's nothing about Vic, and I don't think she jumped. Her thoughts are ordered but slow."

"Because of the drugs?" Ronan asked.

"Feels that way. There's no regret. No remorse. Just her fervent wish to meet her lord and savior." Cope opened his eyes, which were watery. He looked down at the rings. "Domenica, can you hear me? My name is Cope Forbes. I want to help you."

"Try it in Italian," Fitz said. " Mi chiamo Cope. Voglio auitarti ."

Cope repeated after Fitzgibbon. " Per favore , Domenica. Please let me help you." Cope rolled the rings around with his fingers. "She's not here. Damn." He handed the bag back to Ronan.

"You did great, Cope. Keep trying to reach out."

"That translation app is neat," Jude said. "You should download it in case Domenica comes to you and is speaking Italiano."

Cope nodded. "I'll do it now."

"The police work done on this case was shit. No offense, guys, but there's barely anything here. The cop first on the scene, an Officer Lavoie, writes about using his flashlight to illuminate the edge of the cliff but that he didn't venture out too far for fear of falling over the edge. Officer Downs interviewed Vic Rothschild, who he claims was overcome with grief for his dead wife, insisting again and again that Domenica jumped. There are notations that he collected Vic's shirt, which was rain soaked and sitting in a heap in the upstairs bathroom." Jude shook his head. "They didn't collect his pants, shoes, or socks. No one checked his body for marks and scratches. There was no other evidence collected from the house either. I would have expected the police to have collected Domenica's pill bottles, at the very least, if Vic was insisting her death was a suicide."

"How the hell did he have time to change his clothes before the police arrived?" Cope asked.

"He didn't call 911 immediately after the fall. That's also why there are no pill bottles to be found." Ronan sighed. "The son of a bitch cleaned up."

"Officer Downs made mention of Vic wearing creased dress pants and a white button-down shirt with a tie. He was completely dry, even his hair. The 911 call was made after 10:00 p.m., in the middle of a hurricane, and this guy is dressed like he's about to walk into a business meeting. That makes no sense." Jude tossed the police report onto the table with a look of disgust.

"Appearances are everything, after all," Ronan said. "Not to mention that those clothes covered his arms and legs, hiding any scratches or bruises he might have gotten from Domenica fighting for her life."

"With my gift not giving us anything and no physical evidence from Vic, what do we do next?" Cope asked.

"Let's see what the medical examiner has to say this afternoon. I want to go over all of these reports in detail so that when we interview Vic Rothschild, there won't be any surprises. I'm going to request he run a drug toxicology panel to see what was in Domenica's system when she died, if there are biological samples still available for testing. Maybe we can get pharmacy records to see what had been prescribed and at what dosage."

Jude knew Fitzgibbon was grasping at straws. Unless they found some sort of smoking gun like handprints on Domenica's back or chest, Vic was going to continue to get away with his crime.

Jude was going to do everything in his power to get justice for Domenica.