Welcome to my first ever published fanfic! I've done some restructuring, in case anyone was wondering, which is why I'm posting everything again...
Disclaimer: The Mentalist doesn't belong to me, no money made
A Cup of Coffee
„Well, there was this guy who came to talk to Leslie, about half an hour before she left. I'd never seen him before, so that was a bit weird."
"It was weird that a guy would try and chat your colleague up?", asked Cho without missing a beat.
The girl currently under his scrutinizing gaze flashed him a bright smile, unperturbed.
"No. The weird thing was that she actually stopped rinsing the cups and talked to him. Leslie never does that. She likes to play by the rules too much. She wouldn't even talk to me if I came in during her shift and wanted to have a chat."
Lisbon had taken a seat at the bar, where she sat now, contentedly sipping the direly needed cup of black coffee the girl, who was waitressing in the same coffee shop as their latest victim, had offered her immediately after she and Cho had come in. She must have noticed how tired the female agent looked, Lisbon thought, half-amused at the thought. Well, she wasn't complaining, and since Cho had also been offered a beverage, although he had declined it, Lisbon didn't feel like she was showing a weakness here – and since her consultant was not around to pick up on it anyway she didn't mind at all.
A secret smile pulled up the corner of her mouth as she noticed how Emma continued to wipe the table while she talked; she had done that since they had come in, immediately agreeing to talk to the agents about Leslie Harrold, their latest victim, but subtly slipping back into her work routine during the interview.
She actually had Cho, who didn't seem bothered, following her around the café, taking notes and asking questions while the girl collected dirty cups, wiped wooden surfaces and finally started brushing the floor.
Now she lifted her eyes to Lisbon's colleague's face. "I figured he might be her brother", she said slowly, as if a bit unsure of herself.
"What makes you say that?", Cho inquired immediately.
"Well", the girl said, ducking in order to be able to reach the floor underneath the furthest chair with her broom, "as I said, she never stops to chat when she is working; we're all a bit weird that way. I've seen her make her boyfriend wait till her shift was over before she'd allow him to really talk to her. But that guy came in, made a beeline for her, struck up a conversation – and she just let him. I don't know what they were talking about, I was over there" - she added, pointing to the other end of the bar where the cash register sat on the wooden counter – "trying to sell muffins to a really annoying customer, so I was rather occupied. Also, it didn't look like he was hitting on her, not even like he found her very attractive. Or she him," she added as an afterthought.
"How could you tell when you were so busy?" Cho asked, watching her with his usual close attention.
The girl gave him another smile, almost indulgent this time. "It's about the easiest thing in the world, telling if a guy is interested in a girl that way." She nodded at Lisbon and her smile turned almost intimate, as if they were sharing a secret.
That felt oddly familiar to the agent, although she couldn't quite say what made it so.
"Only takes one look. Anyway, he wasn't, so I figured, it can't be that she's flattered by the attention - she has to know him well, and he's got to be really important to her. Also, she'd told me some things about a brother who likes to get in trouble, so I thought he might need help or something."
Cho and the girl had arrived back at the counter now, and she was stowing away her cleaning utensils. Cho was standing next to Lisbon again, who emptied her cup of coffee with one long sip, and handed it to the girl on the other side of the wooden barrier.
"Thanks for the coffee", she said. The girl just nodded, putting the cup in the dish washer.
It was late, and the coffee shop had closed half an hour ago, so the only light still burning was the one over their heads. Lisbon looked at her partner while the girl went to put her uniform away. Cho seemed content with what they had gotten from the waitress so far, so they'd head back to the office now; it was too late to continue their work out here anyways.
"Why don't you go ahead and get the car?", Lisbon suggested, eager to leave. "I'll be out in a minute."
The girl came back, pulling her blond hair out of the ponytail she'd had it in before; it was surprisingly long, but because of her curls Lisbon hadn't noticed that before. She walked up to the counter, and Lisbon could see her checking if she had done everything that was necessary for the night; frowning, the waitress added a few coins to a small pile next to the coffee maker.
When she raised her eyes again, the older woman could see that she, too, looked rather tired.
"Why have you been asking me all these questions about Leslie?", the girl asked, and suddenly she seemed a lot younger than before, making Lisbon wonder about her age. She regretted not having paid much attention to the interview, trusting Cho to handle things, because now she missed the facts. Hell, she hadn't even bothered to make sure she caught the name!
The waitress had come around the bar and stood in front of the agent, looking at her intently; standing slightly taller than the dark-haired woman, her green eyes were prominent in her tired face, making her look even younger.
"Something's happened to her, hasn't it?", she said quietly, and Lisbon could her fear in her voice.
"I'm afraid so", she answered, trying to make her voice gentle. "She was found dead a couple of hours ago. We're investigating murder."
Her hand covering her mouth in shock, the girl who had, as far as Lisbon had seen, not shown any sign of unease while being interviewed by stone-faced Cho, sat heavily on the leather-covered stool behind her.
"Oh, no!", she whispered, tears springing to her eyes. "Why? How? When?"
Lisbon heaved a heavy sigh. She hated having to deal with emotional reactions from friends and family when it was this late in a day.
"I'm sorry, we don't have much yet. Were you close friends?", Teresa asked, sure that Cho had already covered that.
The waitress gave a funny tilt of her head, lifted her shoulders uncertainly, but, taking a deep breath, nodded her affirmation. "For your purposes, I guess you could say that."
"Then I'm going to have to ask you to come in tomorrow, please. It's too late today, you should get some sleep and calm down a little.", Lisbon told her, acting on her gut-feeling that this girl might know more about what had been going on in Leslie's life than Leslie would have told her.
"I can only come in the morning, though", the blond waitress said slowly. "I'm working the afternoon."
"That's no problem", the agent said, as friendly as she could. "Just go home now, and whatever time after 9 suits you is fine. Just ask for Agent Lisbon when you're there. Maybe your parents can drop you at the office before they go to work or something?"
The girl gave Lisbon one of her overly bright smiles and nodded.
"Or something", she agreed, the smile wiping any trace of fatigue or sadness from her face as long as it lasted. They were back in full force as soon as the corners of her mouth sunk again, though.
The two women left together, and when Lisbon pushed the door open for the girl, allowing her to step out into the yellow light of the lanterns before her, she could feel something beginning to nag at the back of her head.
She knew that kind of smile from somewhere, she just couldn't place it. The waitress turned the keys, then bid her good-bye and walked swiftly off down the road.
Cho had brought the car around and was parked in front of the coffee shop; Lisbon was frowning slightly when she opened the door on the passenger's side and climbed on her seat.
Cho looked at her impassively for a moment, then he started the car.
"She's got a strange name, that one", he informed her after they'd left the town centre and the night was creeping closer to the Jeep's windows as the dark countryside flew past them.
Lisbon, who had been trying to get rid of the nagging feeling and failing despite her best efforts, threw him a glance out of the corner of her eye. He looked about as puzzled as he ever looked, making her suspect that she wasn't the only one whose head was behaving weirdly.
"Is that so?" she asked, and trying to pretend she had paid some attention, she added, "Wasn't it something completely ordinary?"
"It's Emma", Cho went on, ignoring her question, and Lisbon felt that he knew perfectly well that she had no idea whatsoever. "Emma Jane."
thank you for reading :)