A/N: with thanks to janesbiotch, livingandthriving and Idan for reviewing part one.

x tromana


Part Two

After what felt like a lifetime, they were back at the CBI headquarters. Almost as soon as they exited the elevator, Van Pelt informed Lisbon that the man who tipped them off as to the whereabouts of the body had arrived. She'd installed him in one of the interrogation rooms with a cup of tea and a packet of chips. The man was homeless, hungry. And he was more than willing to share the information he had about the murder with them. Jane didn't think it would amount to much; it never did with these kinds of informants. However, it was better than nothing.

Especially so considering the man was a John Doe. There had been nothing to identify him, just a strange metal device in one pocket, an oddly shaped piece of metal – potentially a key of some variety, but Jane couldn't have been sure – and a piece of scrap paper. The man hadn't even got a wallet or a driver's license on him. Even Jane had to admit that he couldn't work that well on so little information. Anything which allowed him to expand on it would have been very much appreciated.

Lisbon barely says a word until they are in the interrogation room with their witness – a Mr. Joseph Jankowski. She still hasn't had her morning coffee and Jane knew that that meant she would continue to be in an irritable mood for the rest of the day. He was half tempted to go and get her one himself, but he suspected that he would find whatever Mr. Jankowski had to say far more useful than she did. As good a cop as she was, even she had to admit that she needed his sideways view of things sometimes.

Mr. Jankowski jumped when they entered the room, and then broke out into a toothy grin. He seemed thrilled to have finally gotten some company. Jane didn't know what time he had arrived at the headquarters, but then again, the temptation of air conditioning and shelter must have proven too great for a man who didn't know where his next meal ticket was coming from. The man had probably been there shortly after Van Pelt had arrived at the office. Heck, he could even have been waiting patiently for her to arrive.

"I'm Agent Lisbon, and this is Jane, my consultant," Lisbon stated as she sat. "You have information on a murder?"

"That I do, ma'am; that I do."

She pushed forwards a photograph of the body for the man to scrutinize. Jane watched and smiled when he saw the flicker of recognition in Jankowski's eyes. He looked up at them both and waited for them to ask questions. Jane suspected that this wasn't the first time the homeless man had supplied cops with information on crimes. Who knew just how much he saw out on the streets? The homeless became so much a part of the furniture that people barely even noticed them.

"Is this the man you saw murdered?" Lisbon eventually asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, this is the man I saw, alright," he said with a decisive nod. "But I didn't say I saw him killed. And I didn't do it, neither, before you ask. He was stone cold, so I figured it best to call in you guys."

"But in the phone recording, you state that you saw him arrive at the scene? That you saw him die?" she persisted after a quick glance at her notes. "How can you not have seen him killed?"

"Oh yeah, it was well weird, it was."

"How so?"

Jane remained silent by Lisbon's side, all the while attempting to get a read on Jankowski. The man's report was fairly interesting, but with each and every question, he appeared to be changing his story. One look at Lisbon suggested that she was finding him increasingly suspicious. Ordinarily, Jane would have agreed with her assessment, but this time, he wasn't so sure. The man seemed entirely harmless. His current predicament had certainly made him starved for attention, and that may well have explained why he was exaggerating his tale so much. He enjoyed having an audience and people actually paying an interest in him for a change. That wasn't too uncommon when it came to a certain brand of witness, after all.

"He just appeared as if by magic, poof! Or, it was like he had used some kind of trans-science-doohickey to just appear on the spot."

"Doohickey?" Lisbon echoed, frowning.

"I believe Mr. Jankowski means a teleportation device."

"That's the one!" he said animatedly, pointing at Jane enthusiastically as he did so.

"Right," Lisbon answered dubiously. She quickly stood and turned to face Jane. "A word in private, please, Jane."

He nodded and quietly excused them both. Then, he followed Lisbon out of the interrogation room and through to the observation room which had previously been empty. For a short while, Jane watched Jankowski sitting, sporadically eating his chips and picking at his fingernails. He seemed completely unperturbed by what had happened lately; it was like he had taken being a witness to a potential murder completely into his stride. A couple of seconds later and Lisbon broke the silence. She was definitely still in an irritable mood.

"He's not telling us the truth. These stories are completely ludicrous."

"You like him for it?"

She shook her head in response. "He's a person of interest, at the very least. Whether or not he's responsible for it, or just been paid to conceal the truth by the perpetrator, I can't say without any more evidence."

"I think he thinks he's telling us the truth."

"He's been hypnotized?"

"Maybe."

Lisbon pinched the bridge of her nose; a classic sign that she had an impending migraine. Jane reached out to touch her elbow and she flinched in response. This was already sounding like it was going to be one of those notoriously difficult cases where getting any information was like getting blood out of a stone. He wished he could tell her that they would get the man responsible in the snap of his fingers. But when their only witness was telling tall tales, they had no murder weapon and not even the means of death to hand, it already felt like they were getting nowhere.

"Fine," she breathed eventually and refocused. "You carry on working him and I don't want to know what methods you use, okay? I'm going to get Van Pelt to see if this man has any history we should know about."

"Okay, but only if you get yourself a coffee and some painkillers first," he said bluntly.

"Jane…"

"Lisbon," he started and he reached out to touch her again. "I know you have a headache coming on and you can't work at full capacity if you don't look after yourself. And if you won't do it for you, do it for me, okay?"

She nodded and Jane smiled. He knew she would see sense eventually. He headed to the door, but paused to take one last glance at her. Jane hated it whenever she was off color; it meant she was that little more difficult to work with.

"Thank you."

He stood aside and let her past. Jane's eyes didn't leave her once, not until she disappeared into the kitchenette, presumably to fix that coffee he had practically demanded she'd do. It was almost a relief to see her not behaving contrarily for a change. Usually, if he dared to give her a direct instruction, she would explicitly ignore him out of principle. There was a reason she was the boss and it was partially because she was better at giving out orders than listening to them. Then, he walked straight into the interrogation room and the company of Mr. Jankowski.

He almost looked disappointed to see Jane return on his own. Jankowski's expression faltered as Jane took to the seat that Lisbon had previously vacated. Jane couldn't blame him; even at her most frosty, Lisbon was still more feminine company than the man had probably seen in a while. Promptly, he stopped eating and picking his nails and instead returned his attention to Jane. Clearly, he was still eager to put across his side of the story.

"She didn't believe me, did she?"

"No," Jane answered. There was no point in lying to him. "As you know, I'm just a consultant for the CBI. I want to try something a little different with you, Mr. Jankowski. That's provided you don't mind, of course."

He was immediately willing to cooperate. He also seemed to be one of the most receptive people that Jane had ever dealt with. At first, it felt good to have free rein with Jankowski and that Lisbon hadn't even bothered to prevent him from doing such 'illegal' activities. However, his joy was short-lived. As he got deeper and deeper into hypnosis, Jankowski's story didn't change one iota. He was firmly convinced that he had practically seen a man fall from the sky and promptly died on the spot.

Before he had a chance to take Jankowski out of hypnosis once more, Lisbon walked straight back in. She frowned slightly, but didn't complain about the fact he had hypnotized him. Then again, she had no grounds to do so. When she had left him to his own devices, she had said she didn't care what he did. Her reaction seemed to make it clear that she had actually cared more than she had made out to; it was just she wasn't in the right state of mind to instigate an argument.

"Jane."

"Yes, Lisbon?" he said quietly.

"We have a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

She glanced briefly at the hypnotized Jankowski and then back at Jane. Immediately, he knew that she didn't want to speak about it in front of a person of interest. Naturally, she had a good reason to be so apprehensive. Without even knowing any of his history, Jane suspected that Jankowski was the kind of man who was notorious for gossiping with whoever dared to listen to him. So, he agreed to meet her in her office in five minutes while he brought the man back out of hypnosis.

True to his word, Jane walked straight into her office in precisely five minutes. Lisbon was pacing, she was still agitated. The coffee cup on her desk was empty, but clearly, it had had very little effect on Lisbon's frame of mind. Then again, she had probably received more bad news which she desperately wanted to impart on him. Without waiting for instruction, Jane sat on the white couch he'd bought her a couple of years ago and waited patiently.

"A strange blue box has been found about a mile away from the murder scene/"

"So?"

"It appeared at the same time as our John Doe was killed."

"And somebody thinks it's connected?"

"I don't; it's under Petty Crimes' jurisdiction. Apparently, it's not too dissimilar to an old Police Box which was once used by British law enforcement."

Jane furrowed his brow. That certainly did seem like a very strange item to randomly dump. Fly-tippers did tend to get rid of all manner of items, but that one was more unusual than most. Even so, he still wasn't entirely sure why Lisbon believed it to be his business specifically.

"They've been trying to open it for three hours, with no success. Agent Hollis wants to borrow your expertise for it."

"And you said yes?"

"What else was I meant to say? Our current case is a non-starter."

Jane looked her in the eye. At that moment, he couldn't help but feel intensely sorry for her. But then, in theory, this job shouldn't have taken him long. If anything, it was just a simple lock picking. Even he couldn't understand why Petty Crimes were having such difficulty with it.