Disclaimer: I do not own the song I used in this chapter! It only fits in the situation, so I wrote down a few words of it.

Chapter 3: The man in the tree

Waking up was like… some mixed cocktail of feelings. Not all of them were entirely good, but mostly they were; and that was enough for this few seconds until she was completely awake. Whatever the consequences may be, it was not the moment to think about it. This was no minute to think at all, it was a moment to benefit from. Only a moment, please; you stubborn professionalism; give me just one more second.

Sighing, Teresa had to admit that she was well rested and wide-awake. And in this state her mind kept playing with theories. There was no chance to get them away, so… she took a deep breath, turned round and poked Jane softly in his back, to wake him up.

He groaned instead of an answer and also turned round, still being sleepy. He slowly opened the eyes, smiled slightly and asked: »Hm?«

»We still have something to discuss.« Lisbon said. »Let´s get this over with.«

»M-hm.« he replied.

She had to smile: »And you called me grumpy in the mornings.« she stretched herself and was back to duty again: »I still think it is the best to ignore it. But the way I tried to convince you was wrong. We should have made some kind of… agreement

He sat up, still groaning, stretched, and rubbed his eyes. »You… mind if I bathroom, before work?« he murmured, almost unable to compose complete words.

She sighed. »No, I don´t mind. But let me in first, only for a short break. I´ll prepare some breakfast as long as you are in then.« She was the first out of the bed; grabbed her clothes and disappeared in the bathroom for a few minutes. When she came back out, Jane was putting a few different kinds of tea out of his small cupboard.

»Choose what you like.« he said, and they changed places.

The mini-kitchen he had in this motel room was barely enough equipped to make some tea; he had no breakfast-like food, not even cookies in his cupboard; there was only microwave food like macaroni and cheese and chili, and this was not really fine in the morning. Yawning she collected her shoes and left the motel room to look out for a bakery or another store that had it´s opening hours on Sunday morning. What a morning… she looked at the sun. Fortunately she found an open bakery right at the next corner. As if it was some kind of planned coincidence, she could hear a part of a song that was playing in the radio in the little shop while she was waiting, and that made her smile.

» What a difference a day makes… only twenty four little hours, brought the sun and the flowers, where there used to be…« the voice of Dinah Washington sang out of the radio; then the owner of the bakery got aware that there was a customer and she turned the volume level down.

»Yes ma´am?« the saleswoman asked.

»I´d like two blueberry muffins please, two plain bagels, and two of those very little packs of butter and strawberry jam.«

The saleswoman was fast; and one moment after she had bade Lisbon good bye, she turned the music louder again, but there were only the last words of the song left: »What a difference a day made… and the difference is you…!« She shut the door slowly.

:-:

Soon she was back and found Jane who was pouring the tea in the cups. »Morning, Lisbon.« he said, as if he only just noticed that she was here.

»I got some blueberry muffins and bagels, butter and jam. I think this would be enough.« she sat down at the tiny table, that was rarely used as a table for two to eat. »So, let´s get this over with, I also want to go home and prepare for tomorrow.« She shook her head, and laughed bemused: »I never expected that my weekend off duty would end like this.« she smiled. »I never thought that I´d ever spend a night with you.«

He did not really refer to her words, but said: »I told you once: Never say never, Teresa.« then he looked at the tasty bakery: »Hm… finally you remembered! You never brought me blueberry muffins when I was behind bars, but you got me some now.« Jane also took place and took one of the bagels, then he asked, with his mouth full: »Now tell me why you want to cover up all this. Stop me thinking.«

»You are thinking? What are you thinking?«

»Mm… you must be so eager to get the person who did this to you. Well, I am eager to get him, - I mean, now I assume that it´s a man; but…« he shook his head, cause the thoughts, that were coming up again were not useful in the moment. »If this was a woman´s work; this woman must be really crazy and also is a great danger. And to be honest, I can´t –or I refuse to – imagine that a woman is capable to do such a horror to another one.« He could not ban the thoughts, and so he told her: »We are right back at the happenings in the night. He painted those red strokes on you, and… maybe… had his will you. I can´t and I won´t accept anyone to hurt you, you know that. Why by all means did you choose to let him get away with this, only to protect me? Do you think I can live with that?«

She answered: »Hm, a lot of those thoughts I had myself, and of course I´d like to get this person charged for his or her doing! I cannot deny that. But if there are any doubts that Red John might be still alive, it is clear that you shot the wrong person, even if this Timothy Carter was not a nice man, and… they will know that you lied to the jury, that you lied to the court, which let you go because of your lies… If this case is picked up again you might end up in jail for a life sentence or even worse. I never could let this happen. And it would backfire at all of us. I care not much about me, because this was my decision; but I care for my team, and I swear, I would do everything to protect them. And you are part of the team.« She coughed for breath and also took a bite of her breakfast.

Then she started again: »Which does not mean that we two are forbidden to discuss it. I must draw back the order that we never talk about this again, because we´re doing it right now. But you must see that it would be the wrong way to involve somebody else.«

He asked: »If I hadn´t been there, you wouldn´t have told me. Right?«

»Right. And maybe that would have been much easier, on one hand… I mean; to cover it up and all. The fewer people who know about such a thing, the better it is. Because then the others don´t have to suffer because they carry round dark thoughts; about what happened to me. And don´t worry about my health, I am pretty sure that those painted red lines were the only thing that was done to me.« She growled: »Stop looking that way. You´ll have to trust me with this, Patrick. I am okay.«

He insisted: »If you would let me hypnotize you maybe we…«

»That worked once. I admit that this might be a good idea, but later. Right now we should work on a list of the facts we have and which could be dangerous for us.« She cleared her throat. »I don´t think that the Inn owner or the room maid noticed something, and when the next guests have checked in there and left their traces in the room, no one can blame me for the slightly false-colored spot on the wall. But… there comes a memory.« She looked round in the room and started to her suitcase where she found a pen.

»Look.« she said, while she was drawing a sketch on a napkin. »The smiley at the wall had those strange eyes.«

»I remember.« he answered. »Like as if it was one minute ago. The eyes are wrong, they looked evil instead of slightly sad.«

She nodded: »Could this be a hint that it was not Red John or one of his close associates, just some impostor or fare-dodger?«

»Maybe.« Jane replied. »But this scene had something ghastly, some atmosphere I only sense if it was RJ´s doing. Second to that, why should any "Fake-Red-John" choose exactly you? Hm, but why not, if you think about it.«

Teresa was his opinion: »Yes; because it has something to do with you and us and the fact that you´d be not out of jail if Red John was still alive. There´s someone who wants you to be behind bars again, I am sure, maybe a…« her face enlightened. »What if some of our opponents tries to discredit you, so that you really get the life sentence? Maybe someone who´s still angry on you? And there are a lot of possibilities, to be honest.«

»Good point.« Jane said. »But how would this person react when he or she realizes that you block the nightly attack from being investigated?« He smiled. »I think that must be very confusing for the mercenary and the client.«

She agreed: »Well, yes, that also was a point I was thinking of. A confused attacker is more likely to make a mistake than an attacker who is pretty sure in all he does. I know that this might be a dangerous game, but what if we´d look out for what comes next? If this was an attempt to get you to do something stupid, then this cannot be the only one, if you do nothing. We wait, and try to turn this whole thing to a backfire.«

Jane said: »I am sure that there is much more to think of to those happenings than we can imagine now. Maybe it is really better to wait for the next step – if there is one. But I assume that this was not the end. There will be a next try.«

»I think so too.« Lisbon added.

They fell silent for a while, but she started to speak again: »But Patrick, we… still have some other thing to talk about. We both know that we shouldn't have done that. I really liked it, yes, but it ran away with us.«

»I …« he started, but his words were interrupted by the ringing tone of a telephone.

It was Lisbon´s, so she answered: »I´m here, Mr. Wainwright, what is it?« It was unusual that the boss of the department called her on a Sunday morning. Something must have happened. Her primary concern was: »Something wrong with one of my team?«

»No, Agent Lisbon, your team is all right, but they might not be very happy. You´ll have to round them up, although the director gave you the whole weekend off, inclusive today, of course. But we´ve got a murder reported, that needs us to take over.«

Lisbon sighed: »Can you tell me any details?«

»Not on the phone, no, this has a top secret rating. I have been called to the office by Bertram himself, and had a short look at the very first report. Then we decided that you´re the best team to handle this. If this only happened three hours earlier, I could have engaged Carew and his team, but another murder was reported during the night-shift from Sat to Sun, so... he took over this one.« He cleared his throat. »The director and I know that your weekend is ruined, but he´ll remember that and keep you in mind for a compensation.«

»Fine, then I´ll get my team together. I happen to be at Sacramento, I could start at once, to have a look at the corpse, to let the coroner do his work.«

Wainwright seemed to be relieved: »Oh, that is good news! The body was found just outside the Town of Shasta Lake, in the woods, by a quail hunter – who unluckily is one of the best friends of one major senator – just this morning. Meet Sheriff Summit at the local sheriff´s office, maybe you can order your people to get right there if they´re ready.«

»Ok, Boss. I´m on my way.« she shut the phone and turned to Jane: »So… I´ll have to skip going home first. May I use your bathroom to get ready?«

»It´s all yours.« Jane answered, and went to his small wardrobe. There was not much inside, but enough to be equipped if needed. »Just close the door when you´re ready. I take the keycard with me.« he said and started to pack up a small travelling bag. Shasta Lake was too far away to go back to Sacramento before the morning.

»See you in a few hours.« he said and smiled at her in an unforgettable way. It was true; they needed no words to communicate with each other.

»See you there.« she replied, knowing that it would be better if they´d be driving alone, although it was a good piece of way.

Fast she called the others – as expected, none of them was very happy to be called in for duty; Van Pelt was still with her family and she was not sure if she would make it in time. She promised to try to rebook her flight directly to some town near Shasta Lake, but Lisbon refused that and said, that Grace should go back to Sacramento as planned. Maybe they were ready in Shasta within one day and could carry on the further investigations in the Headquarter. If not, she could join them on Monday morning. Rigsby was next to Sacramento and seemed to be ready to start off at any moment; Cho was outside town and would need about two hours longer than the others to arrive there.

About half an hour later she was also ready and re-packed her little suitcase, and left the little motel room. As she had expected Jane´s car was not there anymore, but for sure she´ll meet him at the Sheriff's office in Shasta Lake.

:-:

»Wow, I am really happy to see you here.« the Sheriff said, as soon as Lisbon had stepped into the office. She was a woman about Lisbon´s age, maybe three or four years older. She had dark-blonde hair and green eyes, and right now there was an anxious flickering in them. »We… seldom have such things here, Agent Lisbon. And I must say my officers were really troubled when they called in their first report. I still can´t believe it, although I´ve seen it myself, but… sorry… I should have welcomed you first.«

Teresa asked: »Has anyone else of my team arrived yet?«

»Yes, one Agent Rigsby, half an hour ago, I was informed… but I was not back at this time.« She turned to a younger officer: »O´Malley, what did Agent Rigsby say?«

The younger officer replied: »Well, he said he´ll use the time to arrange some motel rooms for the night, because he thought that it´s not much likely that they´ll be able to leave today. But he´ll be back soon.«

Lisbon nodded. »Anyone else? Like an Agent Kimball Cho or a Patrick Jane?«

»Not yet, but If you like we´ll wait for them.« the Sheriff said. »In the meantime I can show you what we´ve already got and you can meet Mr. Bailey, who found the body.«

The CBI Agent nodded: »Okay, maybe it would help to be a little bit informed.«

»Or prepared.« Officer O´Malley said. »I got sick when I heard.« he turned away again.

Sheriff Summit started to explain: »We sent Mr. Bailey home after we got his first statement, to keep him here would be too much stress after all. He was out for a quail hunt with his dachshund, when he found the body – he found it because he followed a sheer unbearable stench. It was a man, at least one could tell that by the figure of the body, who had been hanged on a tree, only about a hands breath above the ground. Bailey immediately called the police and did not go any closer, but for what he could see from there…« She was interrupted by Rigsby, who came back to the office, accompanied by Jane, whom he must have met right outside; they were still at the beginning of their conversation.

Lisbon greeted them and said: »Sheriff Summit, may I introduce Agent Wayne Rigsby and Patrick Jane, our consultant?« They all shook hands, and waited for the next words; the Sheriff being visible relieved that the CBI had taken over. Teresa continued: »Cho will be late, he´ll follow us. And Van Pelt may be not coming, only if needed; when we have to stay longer than till tomorrow. We can go and look at the crime scene now; so that the coroner finally can take the body with him.«

The Sheriff drove them out to the next parking possibility with the car. Two other police vehicles were waiting there, also the coroner´s wagon, but the team was still there, waiting next to the open back door, where one could see the plastic coffin.

Sheriff Summit informed them: »It might not be long now, guys. I´ll call you immediately when the CBI is ready there.«

»Yup, we´ll still be here.« one of the coroner´s team said.

They went on, had to walk about one and a half mile following a small trail deep into the woods. »From what we could interpret…« Sheriff Summit explained, »The dead person was not walking this way, he must have been dragged along – his clothes are ripped and torn, and I think this was not only done by the animals that were at him.«

The nearer they came the more they had the impression that the sight won´t be very nice, and unfortunately they were not disappointed. The hot summer air had done much to the body that must be hanging here for at least four or five days. Fly maggots were everywhere and not only in wounds and body holes of the victim; also at the earth below, where the blood and other substances had met the earth. One of the legs seemed to be half-eaten by some wild animal; the clothes he was wearing were dirty and stained with blood and body liquor, and maybe some bird of prey had been feeding on his shoulders.

Sheriff Summit coughed because of the sheer unbearable stench and said: »Looks like as if he was tortured before hanging him. And they did not break his neck, he must have suffocated slowly, dangling only few inches above ground.«

They approached and could see that his mouth was humiliated, one corner was still closed by the tight hold of a metallic staple, the other side had ripped open and the swollen tongue had slipped out there. Rigsby turned round, he had a strong stomach, but this was really enough. Jane also backed off at the first sight, and tried to cover mouth and nose with his hands. Everyone could understand them – If Lisbon had eaten since the breakfast, she would also be throwing up behind some bush. It was probably the ugliest and most disgusting corpse they ever found.

»At least you can´t blame the animals that took some pieces of him.« Jane said through clenched teeth. He coughed. »They don´t know the evil that happened here.«

Lisbon looked back at him, knowing that he was right. The wounds the wild animals had left on the body looked disgusting, also the fly maggots that were crawling all round; but they did not kill nor torture him, and they did not leave him here to the vultures… She avoided it to take a too deep breath and said: »Ok, your local forensics can start their work, take all the photos we need. You can take him down and transfer him to the morgue… I think we need to stay here until the examination of the body is ready.« She cleared her throat. »Anything remarkable, Jane?«

»Besides the fact that he was tortured, and that death was a relief for him? Uh… really.« he made one round around the hanged man. »The wounds that were bleeding were of course done when he was still alive. There are burn marks at his hands and lower-arms, that staples that must have shut his whole mouth before he cried so much that he ripped them out – they could be a sign that this man said something he´d better not said. Maybe that was the motive. His ears seem to be violated, so I think he heard some secrets and passed them on… but I never saw such an unbelievable amount of wrath before.« Now he retreated. »Whoever did this to him, must be a person who knows the body parts where you can hurt a man most, without taking the risk to kill him too early.«

Sheriff Summit had listened to his explanation with increasing repel, now she turned away with a white face and was close to join Rigsby, who got a water bottle from one of the other officers, and tried to calm down. »Poor boys.« she said. »They have to take him down now.« She called for the coroner and ordered her people then to start with the photos.

Lisbon looked round: »There are not much traces on the ground. The earth is hard and dry, so we won´t find footprints. And if this was really done by experts, as Jane said, they cleaned up for sure.« She shook her head. »I hope we find something on him… Has he been identified in the meantime?«

»No, we did not touch him of course, but ran a photo through our files. He´s not a local, must be a stranger.«

Patrick added: »But not from far. They used much time on torturing him, but not much time to drag him away, I think; they must be too eager to torture him instead of taking him somewhere else for hours before they could start. He wears a jogging suit, so maybe he was taken on his daily jogging trip. Judging from his well cared finger-nails and hands, and the accurate hair and eyebrow cut, also the quality of that expensive jogging suit and shoes, he was not a poor man. I bet on a man who was used to wear a suit when he went to work, and would prefer no one to see him in this free-time-garment. So he maybe used a jogging track that was outside his hometown, where he most likely won´t meet anyone of his business partners. He absolutely not counted on being kidnapped.«

»You see all this only by the look at him?« The Sheriff was impressed.

Lisbon explained, smiling: »That´s what we pay him for.« She rounded up her people: »Ok, let´s go back to the Sheriff´s office, I want to talk to this quail hunter who found him.«

When they arrived at the town center, they were surprised; Cho was waiting for them. He was introduced to the Sheriff and her officers. He took the key of the motel room and listened to the first details that were told him by the others.

»Oh, I think I am happy that I weren´t there.« he said. »I think it´s gonna be disgusting enough to read the coroner´s report.«

»You might be right with that.« Rigsby said. »I still feel sick although we´re miles away. I am really interested to know who it is – what a man deserves such a treatment?«

Lisbon added: »And what kind of man can think about the way of torture and the slow murder by suffocation?« She shivered. »Brr, this, I must admit, is a little bit rough for me. I wish Carew had taken over this one.«

They all were the same opinion. Slowly it was getting late, but Lisbon wanted to have the interview with the quail hunter Mr. Bailey on this day, so Sheriff Summit accompanied them to the house of the man. He was still in shock although hours had passed, and to his own embarrassment he had poured him a few drinks and was quite drunk now. He excused him a lot of times, but the law enforcement officers had to admit that he had a good cause for the half-empty whiskey bottle.

Mr. Bailey tried to pull himself together as much as he could and listened to Lisbon´s questions, then he answered: »Yes. I was hunting for quails in the early morning hours, started off when it began to get gray and planned to be home after sunrise. The quails like the morning hours, you know? I never go the same route, I have got seven rounds for seven days of a week, this is my Sunday round. Makes the birds suspicious if you show up in only one place. Well, then I noticed that infernal stench, and got my dog back on leash – no one knows for what cause wild animals die in this woods, and I don´t want my dog to get sick. I went for a look, cause you have to report the authorities if you find a larger dead wild animal; the pest control must look at the carrion, to be sure that there are no wild disease in the area. And then I saw this man hanging…« he shrugged. »I never went closer than ten steps, but the sight of it was … I think I can never forget that. I called the police immediately. It must have been around five, half past five in the morning.«

»Yes, half past five, roundabout.« Sheriff Summit added. »First some colleagues went out to look, after they´d seen that it was serious they called me in.«

Jane asked: »Mr. Bailey, have you seen anything strange at the crime scene? Something that did not fit your memory of that place?«

»Ehm, I must say, no. I go there every Sunday during the quail hunting season, there´s only woods and animals. Once two years ago there were some campers one Sunday, but not at the place I found the corpse. There was nothing. Sorry, Mister Jane.«

»Hm.« Patrick grunted.

Mr. Bailey asked: »Will there be more questionings? I mean, yes, my friend, Senator Fringe, told me that the CBI would have more questions, so I see that. But… was that my statement now? I… would like to try to forget that. Although I think I never will.«

Lisbon said: »No, there won´t be any more questionings, but you can call every time if you remember something you forgot to tell us. Your words are all recorded and I let one of my assistants write it down and print it. We´ll only drop by once again to let you sign your statement. We cannot inform you about details as long as the investigation is not closed, but you will be able to follow the police reports on the media.«

»Thank you.« Mr. Bailey smiled. »At this point I really hope that I hear nothing.«

They bade him good-night and returned to the Sheriff´s office.

:-:

Meanwhile the officers had cleared two desks to give the CBI Agents some working space there. The first digital photos were available and the small amount of possible evidence that was found at the crime scene was in a box on one of the tables. Although all those little things had no more contact to the dead body, they still had some indistinct stench on them that could make one sick. And they said nothing about the victim.

Only Jane noticed something: »Here are all the things a man might carry with him if he goes on a jogging-round: A little watch-like training computer, a small mp3-player, both of them state-of-the-art, not cheap. A jogging suit, as I said earlier, also an expensive model, and those shoes, and two keys for a door, his home maybe. No car key, wherever he must have been kidnapped, it was so close to his home that he did not use his car to drive.«

Cho asked: »But maybe they stole the car-key to prevent the man from being identified? If you got the car, you got the license plate, and the name.«

»And what about the house key in his pocket? Why did they let this there, you also get a name immediately if they fit and open the house door of a missing person.«

Cho smiled: »Right… sorry for that, of course you get the name if you have the house.«

Lisbon had started to give orders behind their backs, so they stopped talking and listened to her. »…ok, I want two of you to search the missing people's reports for men that might fit our victim. As soon as the coroner calls and can tell us something about the approximate dying time we can sort it out. Maybe we get some re-construction of a few facial distinguishing marks that we can run with the driver's license. It is possible that we get something there. Rigsby, please do me the favor and write down the report of Mr. Bailey. Jane, Cho, Sheriff Summit, I, and you, Officer O´Malley, we will start off tomorrow morning to the quarter of Shasta Lake that lies next to the exit to the woods. We´ll ask round, maybe someone noticed a car or some strangers; maybe we´ll have the look and someone had seen something and remembers it. Then we have to go back to the crime scene, I fear.«

»But the chance is not very good.« Sheriff Summit had to admit. »The place where they hanged the man is way in the woods… but we can try. You can only get to that hidden parking place, if you pass by some houses; including the house of the keeper of the parking lot; there is no other street. And maybe we have the luck and the kidnappers had been there once before, maybe to make out the perfect place for their doing. We can only try.«

Lisbon nodded: »Tomorrow the last member of my team, Agent Van Pelt, will also arrive here and then we have a full investigation team. We´ll get this one solved.«

For today, they were done; the coroner´s report would need more time. Only Rigsby wanted to stay a little bit longer to get the typing of the report ready. Later on they met for dinner at a small restaurant next to the motel, but no one was really hungry.