Tag for 4.7 "Blinking Red Light"
Author's Note: Yes, I know this is late getting out, and I've seen the new episode (which I couldn't help but love in some ways), but I still wanted to post this. Let me know your thoughts.
Special Agent Teresa Lisbon stood stock-still in the late evening at the crime scene, blue and red lights flashing as dozens of cops walked about in their duties. Her hair flew in the wind, the only indication that she, in fact, was not a Greek statue frozen forever. Although, in some ways, she thought she might as well be one tonight.
Someone had shoved a tablet computer into her hands, and she watched in silence Patrick Jane's first television interview since his family's murder, talking with James Panzer, a blogger/journalist who was supposed to be following the murders of the The San Joaquin serial killer ,but instead was the serial killer himself. Well, Jane said he was. There had been no proof.
But, as always, no matter what happened, she knew Jane was correct. And now Panzer was dead by Red John's hands. Hands that were supposed to be dead themselves, because Jane supposedly shot Red John down in a shopping mall, even though the courts named him not guilty.
Focused once again on the screen, she noticed a pause in the dialogue as an unearthly look crossed over Jane's face as his eyes stared through the camera into her soul. He saw Red John there, watching, at that moment in the live interview. She didn't recognize that her hands shook in dread.
So when Panzer deeply insulted Red John, his death would be sealed. After all, Jane would know. In his eyes, he sealed the fate for his wife and child talking about Red John's supposed failures on TV years ago.
"Is Jane here yet?"
Lisbon jumped in her skin, the tablet falling from her hands. Luckily, the person who spoke caught it in time.
"Don't scare me like that, Grace! I didn't see you there." Lisbon put on her mask of professionalism, hoping Van Pelt hadn't been standing there too long.
"I can't believe Jane went on TV." Van Pelt's voice was quiet, thoughtful, but tinged with something else. Lisbon feared what it could be.
"And Red John's alive, then. I wonder what Jane must be feeling, to know..."
Lisbon completed it in her head: toknowthathekilledthewrongperson,eveniftheguywasapsychopath.But she said nothing. Her mask ached on her face; she longed to take it off and throw it into a million pieces, to let go of pretending it would be okay once she was alone.
Van Pelt noticed the carefully neutral expression. "Unless he knew? Knew that he didn't kill him?"
Lisbon's eyes moved to the junior agent and, somehow, friend; pain leaked out as she made eye contact.
"He told me right after the trial." Lisbon's voice felt so toxic in the midst of everything.
"But you didn't want to believe him. Because you wanted him to find peace. To move past this." Van Pelt's voice wavered, though her convictions were strong.
"And he asked Rosalind to come in so she could confirm if it was Red John or not." Van Pelt's jaw clenched. "And it wasn't Red John."
"I knew when you told him she was at headquarters." Lisbon attempted to swallow the sour taste in her mouth; it took several times. The more she told Van Pelt, the more her mask was falling away. Not that she knew why. It was just happening. "I can't believe that after all this..."
"I hate how twisted this is." Van Pelt's voice sounded so bitter, so unlike her. Lisbon's eyes widened, and she turned more towards her to try to take it in. However, in the back of her mind she knew how much Van Pelt's world had turned upside down this last summer, engaged to a man she thought she loved who was actually Red John's mole, almost killing her and Lisbon so that she had to shoot him. Lisbon shut her eyes for a second, wondering if she should have kept all this information from Van Pelt instead.
Her mind mocked her, Selfishasalways,Teresa.It'llgetyouintroublesomeday.
She opened her eyes again when Grace's voice whispered, "I truly think..."
Lisbon's breath died on its way out.
"If I were able to find Red John, the real one, I might try to kill him myself." Quickly, she added, "Not for me. But for everything, everyone that has had to suffer."
Tears trailed down Grace's face as the red and blue lights created shadows to try and hide them, but they couldn't succeed.
Air flowed back in and out as Lisbon considered her friend's words. She had no platitudes, no admonishments, not even "The justice system prevails" speech that she used on Jane in the spring. What could be expressed already had been, and Lisbon felt that even if she could try to think of something to say, her voice would cease to exist.
So she held onto Van Pelt's hand as if they were both statues sinking deeper and deeper, silently praying that even if they were non-salvageable, those they cared for so deeply would be granted what these two women never had: the chance to transform from statues back to living forms.