Lisbon called the team into the office at three-thirty in the morning, which was unusual enough in itself. She wouldn't say what it was for on the phone; she just told them to come.
They trickled in over the next half hour, Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt. Patrick Jane was last, of course, even though he had not yet fallen asleep when Lisbon called. Jane walked in to find everyone more or less sloppily dressed, except Lisbon, but then there are only so many ways to mess up jeans and a tee shirt and even Lisbon had only managed to throw her hair back into a sloppy pony-tail. As for the others, Cho was practically slumped across his desk, an oddity for the normally stiff man, Van Pelt was trying to conceal that she couldn't stop yawning, and he could still see the sleep in Rigsby's eyes.
Jane, of course, looked dapper as ever in his three piece suit.
"So, what is it?" Jane said. "Midnight ransom note?"
"No," Lisbon said.
Cho shrugged. "We were waiting on you," he said. "And you took your damn time. Lisbon wouldn't tell us what it is without you here."
Jane looked sharply to Lisbon, studied her tired face for a moment. "Red John," he said. It was a statement, not a question.
The rest of the team looked more or less surprised at this, more being Van Pelt, less being Cho. All of them looked closely at Jane, though, as if waiting to see if for a moment his veneer would break.
Lisbon just nodded, an answer to his statement. "Manelli called me in at three. I came in, he told me, I called you," she said.
"What happened?" Jane said. If anything, he looked thoughtful.
"A little over three hours ago, the super at the Shaker Heights Apartment Complex heard strange noises coming from one of his apartments," Lisbon explained. "He didn't think anything of it, said he thought it was some inconsiderate twenty-somethings have loud sex until about twenty minutes later when a dark vehicle drove out of the lot at about thirty miles an hour over the speed limit. He decided to check things out. He knocked on the door of the apartment where he'd heard the disturbance and when no one answered he used the spare key. Inside he found a girl's body with Red John's signature painted over it in blood. He called the police, they called the CBI."
"Three hours ago," Cho said.
"This is still fresh, then," Rigsby commented.
"That's right," Lisbon answered.
"Let's go," Jane said.
---
Rigsby drove to the crime scene in the CBI truck with Van Pelt and Cho with him. Cho napped in the back seat along the way. Lisbon drove her own car behind them, with Jane in her passenger seat. She had insisted that Jane stay with her and for the moment Jane had quietly agreed.
It was nearly five in the morning when the team arrived at the apartment complex.
"What do we have?" Lisbon asked the local police officer who was waiting for them when they got out of their cars.
"It looks like that serial killer," the cop said. "The one they call Red John. It's got his smiley face and everything."
"We got that part already," Lisbon said. "I wouldn't have my people here in the middle of the night if that wasn't the case. Have you identified the dead girl yet?"
"Yes," the police officer answered. "Her name is Holly Pasto. She's one of the two girls that rent the apartment. The other girl is supposedly away for the weekend, visiting her sister in Nevada."
"How old is she?" Lisbon asked.
"Twenty-six," the cop said.
"All right," Lisbon said. "Take us up."
"If you'll follow me," the police officer said and then he turned and headed for the stairs.
Lisbon halted Jane for a moment as the others followed him. "Jane, stay with me," she said. "I don't want you wandering off alone on this, okay?"
"Why not?" Jane answered.
"Just stay with me," Lisbon said.
She turned and hurried to catch up with the others. Jane followed behind. The rest of the team was standing just outside of the open door with the police officer. They didn't need to go any farther than that to see the giant dripping red smiley face, drawn in blood.
"That's Red John's signature, all right," Cho said.
"I think I'll leave you all here," the police officer said. "I've already seen all this once and that's more than enough."
"All right," Lisbon said. "We can find our own way around. We'll be in touch if we need anything."
"The girl's straight on through in the living room," the policeman said. "You can't miss her." Then he headed back down the stairs.
Lisbon led the way into the apartment, past the red smiley face and into the living room. Jane was practically on her heels. The girl, Holly Pasto, was lying dead in a pool of blood on the area rug. From the corners of the rug they could tell that it had once been light green, striped with cream. It wasn't anymore.
Jane stared down at the body, looking half like a man trying to determine the next move in a game of chess and half like one who had just seen a tidal wave or a car crash.
Lisbon looked to him. "That's Red John," he said.