You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.
—The Adventure of the Copper Breeches
NOTE
The Mentalist is not mine. The story, all of it, is.
One year from now, when you re-read this fic, I will strike you as either the most arrogant idiot or the most perceptive audience in the history of Mentalist fandom ever. It's a 50-50 shot. I'll take it.
Oh, and since the whole thing is too long for a single tag, I have to make this a multichapter. Hope you all enjoy.
SACRAMENTO
Stillness reigned in his attic. Jane stared out the window, saying nothing, looking exhausted, obviously occupied by the monumental challenge they'd just watched. Red John was going to kill again. Innocent people were going to die. Lisbon swallowed. She felt no surprise, yet when she tried to rise, her shoulders weighed a thousand pounds. She felt like a tourist who'd gotten lost. The confusion was overwhelming, the worry eating her alive.
But eventually she stood up, and walked to Jane's side.
"What are we going to do now?"
To her surprise, Jane turned to face her, and, after a moment of silence, pulled her to her arms. He hugged her so tightly that she wondered whether this would lead to anywhere. She wished. It had been too long.
Instead, Jane whispered to her ear, "We need to catch Stiles."
Lisbon looked up. "He's Red John?"
"No. He's the one protecting Red John. Without his protection, without his influence, Red John will be within our reach."
"So you're saying Stiles is involved?"
"Absolutely."
"I thought..."
"Exactly. You thought. You believed. You're sure." Jane sighed. "It's the myth."
"The myth?"
Jane released her off his arms, leaving her bereft and wanting. He walked to his bed and began to felt under it. When he returned to face Lisbon, there was a tiny tube on his palm, no larger than a quarter. He flicked it to her.
"Open it."
She did. "A micro SD card."
"A plastic miracle. Such a small thing for its capability. 64 gigabytes, no larger than your finger's digit."
"What's inside it?"
"All the files about Red John."
"I thought you burned them all."
"Always backup your file, Lisbon. The second thing every teacher involving computer teaches you."
She plugged the card into the laptop. As Jane said, it held all the files about Red John's cases since the very beginning.
"You said something about the myth?"
"Yes. Myths protect man. Myths separate him from the others. Myths make the others afraid."
"What?"
"Look, do you know the myth of the Aztecs?"
"Of course I know the myth of the Aztecs. Only an idiot doesn't know the myth of the Aztecs."
"Good. Then I don't have to explain its essence to you, which is that men are born to feed the gods. Should gods not eat men, they will destroy everything men have built. The gods have to eat the holy matter in human blood to sustain the world."
"Human sacrifice."
Jane nodded. "The priests carved out the hearts of those sacrificed and offered them to the gods. Bloods were spilled so the gods were appeased." He opened several docs in the flash drive's folder. "In essence, that's what Red John do for Stiles. He killed people to keep the high priest satisfied."
"But Red John—"
"Is a serial killer."
Lisbon paused, then nodded. An icy ball formed in her stomach. "The myth."
"Yes. All those bloody smileys are for the myth. Stiles, Visualize, and Red John—they all want us to believe that there exists a sadistic serial killer preying for young women in the middle of the night just so he could draw smileys from their blood. In reality, he is nothing but a thug. A clever thug, admittedly, but a thug nonetheless."
"A real life Luca Brasi."
"Only smarter. And Bret Stiles would make an excellent Don Vito, methinks. Or Alex DeLarge. Here, see for yourself."
Lisbon took the laptop from Jane. She read the cases Jane had opened.
"Three of the original nine victims were wives of Visualize critics."
Jane nodded.
"Why hasn't anyone noticed this?"
"Why hasn't anyone?"
Lisbon didn't get it, and then she did. "Because it's three out of nine. Not nine out of nine."
"Correct. All the other victims have been murdered to misdirect us. Their murders magnified the illusion of Red John. "
"Smoke and mirrors."
"It's a magician's oldest trick. The audience always see more than they have to. Red John wanted to make his crimes bigger than they were. A deranged serial killer is more frightening than a hired gun paid to silence critics of a cult. For every critics Red John silenced, he killed two more men to obscure it."
"And one more thing," Lisbon said. "It's the wives that were murdered. If it was their husbands, the critics themselves, suspicion would fall directly to Visualize. This way, it didn't. But the result is just the same. Overwhelmed by the loss of their wives, those critics, grieving husbands all, became unable to continue their work against Visualize. Psychological warfare at its finest."
"Very good."
Jane smiled that smile his brothers used to show their pride of her. A little disappointment crept inside her.
"But your wife and daughter—"
"They're dead," Jane said, shaking his head, "because of the myth."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It all comes together now." He shrugged. "Red John could not appear weak to his followers, Lisbon. I insulted him on a statewide TV. If he let that slide, his myth would lessen, and his grip on his followers would weaken. He had to maintain the illusion of his omnipotence. He had to come after my family. Made a lesson for me and his followers."
Lisbon noticed Jane's knuckles had gone ashen, and that blood was dripping out of his fists.
"You know how it goes from there. Jacqueline Sandoval. The snuff film students. James Panzer. They insulted Red John, and so they died. But, like Tom Hagen said, this is business, not personal."
"Sit, Jane," Lisbon said, and sat down beside him. Silence fell between them for a while until curiosity nudged at Lisbon.
"There are several things that still don't add up to me."
"Yeah?"
"Well, to start with..."