Silent Shadow
Part Two
Lisbon stared unblinking at the dregs of coffee sitting in the bottom of the large mug that had been placed, silently, in front of her by the good Dr. Dorothy. She noticed the tell-tale signs of sugar that hadn't quite dissolved. She hadn't asked for sugar, hell she hadn't even asked for a coffee, it had just appeared. She didn't need sweeten coffee, she wasn't in shock, she was… what… tired, angry, sorrowful. Tired of Jane's inability to see how difficult he made life for those around him, angry oh so angry that he never even seemed to care, had to always be right, had to always be the one, and sorrowful, to have lashed out like that, to have been, for a split second, like her father. Lisbon gulped at the thought, no, Jane had provoked her, as always, and if the fates had been on her side instead of always on his, then her blow would have landed anywhere but on a secret bullet wound that any normal person would have told her about. Any normal person, in other words, anyone else in the whole wide world except, of course, Jane.
"Need more coffee?" The doctor's voice startled her and the mug bumped down onto the table as her hand jerked in reaction. "Maybe tea, seems to me you've had a little too much caffeine already."
"How is he?" He, Jane, hadn't spoken to her the whole journey from the graveyard of a woods back to the fairytale house where the kindly witch lived. Cho had driven, Lisbon had sat in the back beside him, just in case. Jane had looked pointedly out of the window, holding a crumpled handful of material to his arm and said nothing.
"Oh he's alright, you did do a brilliant job of undoing all my hard work, but he'll live."
"He told you what happened?"
"That you punch him, yes." Dr. Dottie poured coffee into Lisbon mug then prepared one for herself before taking a seat and stared unblinking at her unhappy guest. "Bit of bad luck you catching him on the same spot as Aileen's bullet." Lisbon didn't want to talk to this old woman, there was something strange about her, the unblinking stare, the lack of manners. She stood, there was still a murder to solve not to mention having to liaison with the FBI over the late John Barton's nasty hobby.
"Is he ready to leave?"
"No, he's feeling a bit off at the moment…"
'Off.' Lisbon thought, 'what kind of medical term was that? Was this old witch really a doctor? Should she ask to see some kind of certificate? Was Jane in safe hands?' The last thought brought a smile to her face, serve him right if Dr. Dottie was a fraud.
"…so it would be better to let him rest for a while." Lisbon tuned back in to what the Doctor was telling her and, feeling happier thinking Jane was being treat by a fraud, and hadn't spotted it, she retook her seat and sipped at the very good coffee.
"It's his looks isn't it, that's the problem, the way he looks?"
"What?" Dr. Dottie wasn't just a fraud, she was also completely barking. Lisbon's earlier happiness began to wane, her pain-in-the-ass consultant might, at this moment, be breathing his last lying in a pool of blood, in a room just across from this cluttered but clean kitchen, while she drank coffee with his smiling murderer. The doctor sighed.
"If Patrick looked like a mad professor, all shaggy white hair, thick glasses and worn outdated clothes that could easily have come from the bins at the back of a goodwill shop…"
"Well his shoes must." Lisbon had to comment, the doctor was in full flow and ignored her.
"… you would take not a blind bit of notice of his strange ways."
"Pardon….?" Lisbon was completely lost.
"Einstein. I take it you know who Einstein was."
"Of course."
"Well what did he look like?"
"Strange. Weird." Lisbon still couldn't see where this was going.
"Ever watched the Discovery Channel?"
"I don't have much time for television."
"Agent Lisbon I'm not asking if you spend twenty hours out of twenty four with you eyes glued to the screen, just if you've watched the Discovery Channel."
"Yes sometimes." Humour the old witch, Lisbon thought, then hopefully you won't have to shoot her.
"What do you think of the fashion sense of the real experts? The geniuses, the ones who know their subjects inside out and back to front."
In her minds eye, Lisbon was trawling through memories of the last time she watched a factual programme, something about archaeology and the man in charge, a doctor somebody, yes, mad white hair blowing in the wind on some English moor land, a jacket that would not have looked out of place on a scarecrow and a plaid shirt that have never, ever seen the underside of a hot iron.
"They can look a little peculiar."
"Good, you understand what I am implying." Dr. Dottie took another slurp of coffee. "So, my original point, if your consultant looked like them, like most geniuses, you would give him a lot more lee way, after all, those men are a breed apart and don't have to conform to the standards of us mere mortals. Patrick Jane looks as if he has just stepped out of an advert for men's cologne, so you don't see him for what he truly is, a mad genius, no you see a smart suit, bright smile and golden curls, good looking normal and therefore expect him to keep to the rules.
"Rules are important." Lisbon didn't like the way this conversation was heading. How could anyone who had been around Jane for any longer that five seconds actually stand up for him.
"Yes for the likes of you and me, very important, but what if the geniuses of old had stuck to the rules, where would we be now? How would we live without the discoveries, the inventions that these people, people who didn't blindly follow the rules, come up with."
"Jane was nothing more than a fraud, fooling gullible, grieving people, that he could contact their departed loved ones, taking their money."
"So he didn't use his powers on the side of the good, he went all Dart Vader and turn to the dark side." Lisbon glanced again around the kitchen, hoping to spot a back door, any escape route from this mad old bat.
"You keep referring to him as a genius, I would disagree on that point." The Doctor shrugged.
"Could you do what he does?"
"No, but….."
"Have you met anyone else who can do what he does?"
"Well…"
"I'll take your indecision as a 'no'."
"Okay I'll admit he closes cases, he usually works out who did it, why and then backs them into a corner until they confess, but the complaints, the paperwork he makes."
"Would you rather he didn't close cases, didn't catch the felons, leave murderers out to maybe kill again."
"No disrespect Doctor, but you just don't understand." Lisbon had had enough of this lecture from the medical wing of the 'I Love Patrick Jane' fan club'.
"No Agent Lisbon, I understand maybe a little too well, I was an extremely competent ER doctor in one of the worse hospitals in Chicago, and I was good. But, and it turned into a extremely large, elephant in the room, but, I had no bedside manner and even worse, no ability to give comfort to the relatives of my patients. I couldn't see the problem, I'd keep the stab victims alive and someone else could pat hands and go 'there there'. The powers-that-be decided keeping people alive wasn't enough, they expected me to change my core personality. I was unbending on the matter and three guesses who got backed into a corner and forced earlier retirement."
"Maybe if you had at least tried."
"It wasn't in my nature, it would have be like expecting a cow to fly, I knew what I was capable of and what I wasn't."
"And you lost a job you obviously loved." Lisbon commented. Dr. Dottie glared at her over the top of the coffee mug.
"Yes I did, and the death rate for that hospital rose dramatically. Which do you think the relatives would have preferred, a kind caring doctor who dried their tears and told them everything was going to be alright, or a doctor who kept their loved ones alive?"
"I always argue in Jane's corner, my career is on the line because of his childish inability to even attempt to follow the rules. The AG…"
"Ah the AG." Dr. Dottie interrupted. "Stickler for the rules is he?" Lisbon just nodded. "I bet you if his grand-daughter was kidnapped, her life hanging in the balance, that rule book would fly out of the window, I bet he wouldn't give a damn about which rules Patrick broke as long as his little girl was returned safe and well." Lisbon started to feel slightly panicky, she liked rules, you knew where you were with rules, do this, don't do that. Rules worked for her. Dr. Dottie noticed her discomfort.
"Maybe Agent Lisbon, it would be easier for you just to think of Jane as physically unable to follow rules, that you are dealing with a horse of different colour, a non-flying bovine."
"I don't understand what you are trying to say." Lisbon drained her coffee so she didn't have to look into the woman's unfaltering stare.
"Either accept him the way he is, or for the sake of your own mental health, cut him loose."
"No….I….."
"Agent Lisbon," Dr. Dottie interrupted, easily reading the emotions running across the brunette's face.
"I have never married, hell never really had much to do with men, unless I was stitching them up. The one thing I have noticed, and never understood about my own sex, is why, why do they think they have to change men? They see them as little more than craft clay, a basic substance to be moulded any way the woman wants. Patrick Jane is not now, nor ever will be, craft clay, you will not change him, so why cause yourself so much heartache trying."
"Sorry Doctor Kary, you really don't understand, you…" Lisbon wasn't allowed to finish.
"Of course this is just my personal opinion, you must do as you see fit and suffered what ever consequences arise. It makes no difference to me one way or the other, I am sure by now Patrick is feeling better and could do with a cup of tea, I'll make it and you can take it into him." She stood and pointedly turned her back, the conversation was closed.
Lisbon mulled over the doctors words as she carefully carried an overfull cup of tea into a surprisingly clean and modern treatment room. She did not think for one minute that Patrick Jane, for all his abilities - including beable to play chess in his head - was a genius. Lisbon had to admit he did act very eccentric, very mad professor. As much as she did not wish to admit Dr. Dottie had a point, she did have a point. If Jane looked more like Einstein and less like the character from a Mills and Boon romance novel, then maybe just maybe she would act differently towards him.
"Are you going to give me what's left of that tea, or do you prefer paddling in it?" Jane's voice brought her out of her musings and the realization that she was, indeed, standing in a pool of tea that had slopped over the rim of the mug. She banged the mug down on a bedside cabinet and watched as more tea escaped.
"So you're talking to me again."
"I always talk to you Lisbon, most of the time you don't seem to like what I'm saying, but I'll always talk to you."
"Well then you must have gone mute earlier."
"Yes intense pain does that to me."
"So if I ever need a quiet half hour, I'll stick you with pins."
"There's a nasty side to you Agent Lisbon, and I've noticed lately it is always directed at me, you never threaten Rigsby or Cho with violence, why is that? Do they have a better union, or is it simply because they carry guns?"
"They do as they're told and never, never cause the complaints that you do, whole forests have been lost making the paper needed to clean up your messes."
"Meh, bureaucrats. They're the ones who want everything in triplicate, it's only to make themselves seem important." Lisbon sighed, Jane did have a point, the endless paperwork that flowed across her desk did, at times, seem completely pointless and, in all probability, end up in filing cabinets deep in the bowels of the CBI building, unread.
"Drink your tea, we have work."
"Is there any left?" Jane eased himself into a sitting position and looked dubiously at the mug. Lisbon's mobile began to trill at her and a glance at the screen told her it was Hightower calling.
"I have to get this."
"Boss checking up on you, tell her it's all my fault, no, on seconds thoughts, that will get you fired quicker than if you take the blame. Tell her…." Lisbon waved him quiet as she started to explain to Madeline Hightower how a seemingly straightforward murder had somehow managed to grow into a major incident, requiring FBI assistance and why a travelling convoy of news hounds and media vans were, as they spoke, heading their way.
Jane drank what was left of his mug of tea whilst watching Lisbon's changing expressions. When she finally pressed the off button he didn't need to be told that they were off the John Barton murder case and were required to return to Sacramento with all possible speed.
"Hightower wants us back before the media circus arrives."
"So wagons roll at first light."
"No, now." Jane thought briefly about this, he had something he needed to do, something private that Lisbon wasn't to discover.
"Sorry can't do, I'll find my own way back."
"How? Its over a five hour drive."
"Oh I'll find a way, hitchhike or something." Jane's reply was flippant and masked the worry of how he was actually going to get back to his worn brown couch at the CBI offices if Lisbon decided to take him at his word.
"Why can't you leave now?" Jane used his trump card.
"I don't feel well enough."
"You can sleep the whole way."
"The road for the first hour or so is more like a ploughed field than a highway, my arm hurts like hell and the painkillers Dr. Dottie gave me hasn't touched it." It was all lies, the tablets worked like a dream, his arm was numb and he could have quite easily slept for the entire journey home. Tomorrow he would happily return to Sacramento but tonight, tonight he had plans. Lisbon, never really sure when he was telling the truth or lying through his back teeth, stared at him. He did look pale, his left shirt sleeve was encrusted with dried blood, as was his discarded jacket. A few hours down time was something they could all use.
"I need to update who ever takes over Barton's case." She plucked his jacket off a chair and handed it to him. "We'll leave in the morning, very early in the morning so be ready or I will leave you to find your own way home. And one more thing Jane."
"Anything for you Lisbon."
"This silent shadow nonsense ends now, just remember I know where your mute button is. One good punch…" Jane winced and nodded his agreement.
Three a.m. and Jane was awake, watching the same Laurel and Hardy film that had played the previous night, obviously the TV station didn't think insomniacs needed any kind of variety for their night time vigil. Tonight Jane wanted to sleep, his body called out for it to the extend that he felt if he lay down for just a moment he would wake to bright morning sunshine, and have missed his chance. So he sat upright in a hard motel chair, fighting sleep, and waiting.
Finally he decided the time was right, slipped from his room and walked quickly along the corridor to the staff's private smoking area. It was a gamble, the chance that the person he wish to speak to would also be suffering another sleepless night, was slim. He sat in one of the plastic chairs and waited.
"Still can't sleep Mr. Jane." A voice, one again woke him from a light dozy.
"Tonight I could probably manage it but I was waiting for someone."
"Oh. Midnight trysts with a secret lover perhaps?"
"No, I was waiting for you Annie." Jane hadn't looked at the woman whilst he spoke but now he turned his gaze directly to her, spotting the worried frown in her features briefly illuminated by the glare of a match lighting her cigarette.
"Oh." She tried to keep the anxious note out of her voice but failed.
"It must have taken a lot of nerve to shot your own son, you hide the emotions very well. And to stay in town after, acting normally, drawing no suspicion on yourself. Well that takes a really strong character. But then I suppose only someone of such character would have survived marriage to John's father." Jane noticed, as he spoke, the way Annie was dragging deeply on her cigarette, getting as much nicotine into her bloodstream as quickly as possible. She finished one and lit another, before looking directly at him with unblinking gaze.
"Heard you'd been through the wars today Mr. Jane, receive a knock on the head did you? Spouting such rubbish." She stood to leave.
"You can talk to me Annie, or I can tell the FBI what I know, choice is yours. One small point to help you decide, I'm not a policeman or federal agent, I don't actually stick to the rules, well not theirs. I live by a few of my own, and one of those is eye for an eye. Your son deserved to die."
"Why do you keep referring to him as my son?"
"Your John Barton's mother, the one who was thought to have met her end at the hands of Tom Barton and rotting away in the woods."
"No…."
"Annie, there's a picture of you up in the cabin, Old Tom's arm around you, your face like a thunderclap. You may now have perfect make-up, pumped with botox and supporting a different nose but I can see your that woman. Your height and build are a bit of a give away, what are you six one, six two?"
"Six two in heels." Annie sat back down again.
"Annie," Jane noticed she was now trembling and reached out to take one of the woman's hand in both his. "Tomorrow morning I'm returning to Sacramento with the rest of the team, we've been taken off the case now its all blown up. This town is going to be on the front of every paper and on every news channel for the next week at least, hell they probably make a movie about the place and what John and his father did. Who ever killed John Barton did the world a favour and I, for one, don't see why that person should be punished. The FBI and my boss Special Agent Lisbon live and die by rules, even ones they may not agree with. I just like to know the truth, I need to know I'm right." Annie Brown looked at him as if he was a species from another planet, then pulled her hands out of his grip, and lit another cigarette.
"Tom had me brainwashed and submissive in a matter of months after we were married. My folks had died and I came into some money, that was what he wanted, not me, but he courted me and came on all charming. He was a big man and my height didn't matter to him, not like it did the other boys. I married him after what they call today a whirlwind affair, what's the phrase, marry in haste repent at leisure. Didn't take me long to start repenting, at first I had no idea what he was doing, you really have to believe me Mr. Jane, no idea."
"I believe you Annie, psychopaths can be very intelligent and devious."
"Use to travel a lot and bring me back a kitchen towel from all the towns he visited, it was years before I realised that wasn't all he was bringing back. By then I had had John and I thought I was protecting him by staying. Mr. Jane you got to realise I had no family, no money, no where to go, and I was so scared of Tom…." As Annie talked her local accent became stronger. "I sacrificed those girls lives for my own."
"What changed?" Annie lit another cigarette from the glowing butt of the previous one.
"My son hit me, I was a good mother, looked after John as best I could, thought he might start protecting me from his father's rages once he got big enough. All that happened was he followed in his father's footsteps, I told him off one day, walking mud over my fresh wash floor and next thing I know he's cussing me and I'm bleeding. Took off the next day."
"You did very well for yourself." Annie cracked the briefest of smiles.
"Started off working as a cleaner for a lonely old man who owned a small building firm, went from there. Worked hard, made sure I was nice to everyone, especially those that could advance my career, and moved up the ladder."
"So why return here?"
"Didn't plan on it, this development came up and I was sent, couldn't say no."
"And John recognized his mother."
"No, didn't have a clue, but I saw him with that poor wife of his, Aileen is it…" Jane nodded. "…and I knew, I just knew, he was no better than his father, so I planned on speaking to her once John was away, rescue her."
"What went wrong?"
"Discovered he was as evil as his father."
"How did you manage to get so close to him?"
"Money Mr. Jane, same evil runs in John veins as his fathers, same greed for money. Introduced myself to him, told him I was his long lost Mother, begged his forgiveness for running out on him, made up some story about being wealthy, wanting to make his life better. Sold him the whole abandoned-child-guilty-mother rubbish and after I'd reeled him he, well it was easy enough to blow his brains out."
"You feel no guilt about killing your own son? No remorse?"
"Why should I Mr. Jane? The only guilt I feel is for giving life to the monster, it was my place to kill him, if I known how he would grow up I would have smothered him at birth." Jane sat wordless watching Annie lighting yet another cigarette. She had told him the truth without much signed of emotion, but her hands still shook.
"What now Annie, what are your plans?"
"Well Mr. Jane, I suppose that all depends on you."
"Now I know the truth, I have no desire to tell anyone else, your secret is safe."
"If that is the case, I'll stay here until my company tells me to leave. Can't see the holiday complex being built now, who would want to stay in a place were so many girls died? Apart from ghouls and sick sightseers."
"Oh I think you'll be surprised by just how many people will be interested enough to come visit. They'll probably change the name of this motel within six months to John Barton's Lodge and be overrun with tourist." Jane commented. Annie ground out her last cigarette, only part smoked.
"No doubt." She stood. "Is there anything else Mr. Jane or can I say goodbye? Reckon I might be able to sleep now."
"Goodnight Annie and goodbye, I shall be gone in the morning, one last thing."
"Yes."
"Bit of advice, if one of the FBI agents who takes over the investigation manages to work out who you are, just deny it, even if they use DNA evidence. Most cases are only closed when someone confesses, keep mute and you'll never see the inside of a prison." Annie nodded and disappeared back down the dreary motel corridor. Jane stayed sitting in the hard plastic chair and watched another beautiful dawn.
Lisbon sat in the SUV and started the engine, she looked in the rear view mirror and caught a glance at her pain-in-the-ass consultant who already seemed to be asleep. She switched off the engine.
"We there already?" Jane muttered, not opening his eyes.
"John Barton's murder." Lisbon twisted around in her seat to look directly at him. "Do you know who did it? Is there any information you can pass on to the FBI before we leave?" Jane had the good grace to open his eyes, sit upright and look directly at her. He shrugged.
"No, I'm stumped." Lisbon made a big show of doing a double take at him.
"Patrick Jane, case closing genius is stumped by one little murder, I don't believe you." Cho had turned to watch the latest battle between his boss and the cocky consultant.
"Neither do I." He commented. Jane did his best 'I'm completely innocent' shrug and settled back down to sleep.
"Spill Jane or I'm not moving this vehicle."
"I'll grab a ride with Rigsby and Van Pelt." He unclipped the seatbelt.
"I've engaged the child lock on your side." Lisbon told him, Jane pouted, the pouting gave him time to make the next comment sound convincing.
"I seem to need the teams input before the show can begin." Lisbon looked dumbfounded at Cho.
"Did I hear correct? Jane actually admitted to needed us."
"Must be the blood loss." Cho decided.
"Let me get this right, your saying you need Cho, Rigsby, Van Pelt and my involvement before all those cogs in your head start to whirl and the light bulb goes off in your brain."
"Yes, alright, I can't do it alone, I need the team." Jane made the tone of his voice change slightly so he sounded upset by the revelation. Upset, slightly defeated and telling a truth he did not wish to admit too.
Lisbon turned to Cho, "We should be taping this, he'll deny he ever said it tomorrow. Blame it on the medication." This conversation was going exactly the way Jane wanted, they had believed his lies, sometimes it was just too easy. He replaced his seatbelt, settled down against the SUV's door and closed his eye. He had planned on being good, give Lisbon a break, maybe even behave for a day or two, even a week - how long would the wound in his arm take to heal? The little devil that lived inside him, had other ideas. He was speaking again without conscious thought.
"I can't understand why you are so surprised Lisbon, all stars need support, bit part actors, stage hands, someone to open and close the curtains." He opened his eyes briefly and stared directly into Lisbon's. "Lighting crew to aim the spot light." Lisbon wished she could just lean across the seat and punch Jane on his injured arm, just one tiny punch right where the stitches were. But she had promised Hightower they would leave before the media circus arrived and if Jane started to bleed like a stuck pig again, it would only hold them up. Closing his eyes again, Jane could feel the electric frizzle of her growing temper and tried to repair the damaged. Badly.
"I really don't understand why you are so angry, think on Lisbon, I've just promoted you from 'audience'." Lisbon started the engine and gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. She looked in the rear view mirror at Jane, his head resting against the SUV's door, a shaft of sunlight illuminating his hair into a halo of golden curls and repeated her new calming mantra. 'He's really Frankenstein, he's really Frankenstein.'
End
NB. For those who don't remember the original story, Frankenstein was the mad scientist who created the Monster.