“I’m Detective Rizzoli; I need to ask you some questions.” She smiled warmly at him and he felt himself relax almost immediately.

“Ok. It’s about that old guy from last night, right?” He asked, eager to get this over with.

“Yes, can you tell me what happened?”

“Well, we got a call to an old man, it wasn’t all that clear, just that he needed help. Dispatch said the woman was hysterical, saying her husband was dying. We thought the old guy had had a heart attack or something.”

Jane frowned. Nothing about this case was making much sense.

“When we got there we found him in the road, his head all smashed up on the kerb.”

“What time was this?” Jane asked as she reviewed her notes.

“We got the call about 10pm I think, you’d have to double check with dispatch. By the time we got there, and realised what had happened, the guy was barely clinging to life y’know. He was beat up real bad! We worked on him in the bus for a while, and then called ahead and they must’ve called you guys.”

Jane glanced at her watch. ‘How did she only hear about this at 6am?’

A knock at the door cut into her worrying and she glanced up.

“Frost?” He stuck his head around the door and nodded a greeting to the paramedic. “SUV came in, thought you’d wanna see.”

“Thanks Frost.”

“Does that mean I can go now?” Shannon asked quickly but the look from the detective pinned him to his seat.

“I just have a couple more questions.” Jane told him. “You said; ‘when you realised what had happened’. What did you mean?”

Shannon sighed. “Well it was obvious the guy didn’t have a heart attack. His clothes were torn and he looked like he’d been dragged round the block. From his injuries it was obvious he’d been hit by a car, or beaten up pretty bad.”

“And there was no one else there, nothing strange?”

Shannon shook his head slowly. “Not that I remember, his wife was crying and his grandkid was there, they looked pretty cut up.”

“Ok, thank you Mr Bridges.” Jane reached in her pocket and handed him her card. “If you think of anything else, be sure to call me.”