Red in Tooth
By Thalia Drogna
Author's Note: Thanks again for all the reviews, favourites and follows. I update faster when people review :-)
Jane's memory was an amazing thing to others, but to him it was both simply a useful tool and something of a curse. It meant that he'd never be able to forget even the smallest detail of the Red John case files, including the pictures of his wife and child sliced red and bleeding in their family home, because he'd filed them all away so carefully. He could tell you the phone number of anyone in Sacramento as long as they were in the phone book that he'd read, but there wasn't a single person in there that he'd ever wanted to call. Of course his memory wasn't perfect, and he had to work to create the memories that stayed, admittedly a lot less than other people, but it wasn't as simple as glancing around a room and remembering things. He knew how to use his brain though and get more out of it than most other people did.
Perhaps this was why he was aware that he was unconscious, and if he concentrated then he could occasionally catch something from the real world. He'd only experienced this once before and had put it down to the hallucinogen in his system at the time, but maybe it had triggered something.
He was standing in the house of their most recent victim, looking at all the snakes, just as he had a few hours earlier today. Everything about the room was in sharp focus, making the colours more vivid and harsher on his senses. The wooden floor seemed harder under his feet and the air seemed warmer. Time seemed to have stopped. He could watch Lisbon and Rigsby talking to the girlfriend, the Forensic techs examining the body, the snakes themselves, but everything was frozen in a moment. He could move around this silent, still tableau, like looking at an exhibit at a museum.
He smiled, enjoying this thing that his unconscious mind had produced and amazed at what his brain was capable of. He was even able to find the snake that bit him hiding up a corner, ready to attack him as he investigated the packing crate. He could now examine the distinctive diamond pattern and strange nose that would identify the snake, but he expected the animal control people had probably caught it by now. Even if that wasn't the case, he wasn't in a position to be able to tell anyone what he'd found.
He didn't really believe that it was a coincidence that his mind would take him here. The unconscious mind was a powerful thing and he was trying to tell himself something. He'd missed something at the crime scene, something which would help them solve the murder. Now he just needed to work out what it was that he'd seen and failed to process at the time.
He turned around, taking in the scene. He stood beside the tank where the snake should have been placed if Addison hadn't been shot. He looked to his left and towards the milk snake tank. Then it struck him, firstly that the girlfriend had been lying about something and then that this snake had a secret. The other tanks were closed carefully, this one wasn't, it was as if the latch hadn't quite fallen into place, suggesting it had been closed quickly and without due care. That didn't fit with the careful man that Jane knew Addison to be. The sand in the tank also looked less disturbed and fresher than the other tanks suggesting it had been replaced recently. If this had been the real world then he would have reached into the tank to see if something was hidden there, but he couldn't right now. He let out a long breath and turned around again.
If the victim had hidden something here then it was because he didn't trust someone. He'd closed it quickly, most likely because he was disturbed by someone coming into the room and that meant his killer was someone that he knew. Someone who had been in the house with him and that he felt comfortable enough with to get his new snake out of the packing crate and start to put it away. Yet he had needed to hide something from them, so perhaps he didn't trust them that much.
Jane looked around him again. He wished that the team were really here, rather than just his memory of them. He needed them to gather information so that he could confirm his hypothesis. Even he couldn't work alone, especially with no fresh input to the problem. He needed to wake up, but he was well aware that he was very ill and probably unconscious for a reason. But if anyone knew that the brain was capable of amazing things, then it was Jane. He was confident that he could use his mind to find his way back to consciousness under normal circumstances, but for all he knew that usually precise instrument of his was now full of interesting drugs and snake venom. It could simply be playing games with him and leading him round in circles.
He took a deep breath, not really knowing if this was something that translated to the real world, closed his eyes and concentrated on the hospital. He thought about the room that he knew he was lying in and the image of Lisbon sat at his bedside. He remembered the nurses and doctor who were treating him, and then his brain refused to go any further. Suddenly it was hung up on his doctor, Doctor Talavera, who seemed to be paying more attention to his case that he would have expected. Why was that?
He found himself now in his hospital room looking back at his own unconscious form lying in a bed. It actually took his breath away for a moment to see himself with so many monitors and drugs being pumped into his body. He wondered for a few moments how his mind had actually managed to put this picture together, but vaguely realised that he'd probably had all the pieces simply by looking around.
Talavera stood beside the bed with his chart in her hands, frozen in a pose that he'd seen at the point that this memory came from. Talavera was bleeding though, and he didn't remember that. In fact she had a deep cut across her neck and another two under her white coat that were rapidly bleeding through her clothes.
He muttered the words, but they were loud enough. "Red John." He looked around the room, desperately trying to work out what his brain was telling him. "She works for Red John? No, she does not. She does not." He repeated the words, at least partly working it out while he spoke, and he inspected the doctor more closely. This was a victim, or a potential victim, not an accomplice. "So what am I trying to remember?"
He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. "Okay, let's go through what we know. Doctor V. Talavera." He inspected her name badge. "She's from a long line of doctors, from money probably, but her small act of rebellion was to become a doctor in the army." He noted the expensive, but modestly sized St Christopher medal that rested on her collar bone. It had been given to her by a loved one, probably her mother, because she wouldn't believe in the superstition that it would keep her safe. This woman was meticulous in her appearance; it was one of the first things that had given her away as ex-military. Her hair was dark and pulled back into a neat bun of the kind that women in the military habitually wore, although she wasn't as particular about it now that she was out. He examined the contours of her face, and something sparked at the back of his memory. He knew this woman. Or he had known her at some point, when she was younger.
His construction of the hospital room was beginning to become fuzzy around the edges. He recognised fatigue in himself and realised that this was tiring work. Perhaps he was underestimating just how much work he might have in front of him before he could push back up to the surface of consciousness. He had been so close this time, perhaps it wouldn't require that much more work. The light was fading and the room around him darkening. He could hear people talking a long way off, and one of them had just mentioned a drop in his blood pressure. He just had time to think that he was probably about to be out of it again for a while and that this was extremely tedious, before the lights switched off completely and the subconscious of Patrick Jane stopped being something that could be perceived by its owner.
Lisbon found herself in one of the worst areas of Sacramento, an area that even the Police only entered with sufficient fire power and backup. As a member of the law enforcement community, she often found herself on the bad side of town because that was where bad men usually decided to do bad things. She strapped on her Kevlar vest and checked her gun as the SWAT team assembled in front of them. Everyone knew what to do; it was now just a matter of doing it and hoping that the gang members were smart enough to go down without a fight. She doubted that it would.
She gave a nod to the leader of the SWAT team and they took a ram to the dirty white door of the ramshackle building they stood in front of. Others were covering the rear of the building, which was just as well because that was the direction that Tomio of course decided to go. He climbed out of a window at the back and into the yard. He didn't try to shoot anyone, he just ran, whereas the other gang members were not as smart. They were now engaged in an all-out gun battle with Lisbon, Van Pelt and the SWAT team, who were all pinned down in cover around the house. It was somewhat miraculous, but by timing his run carefully and choosing a path at the edge of the gun battle, their suspect was uninjured and still running.
Rigsby took off after Tomio and Cho ran after them, a few steps behind because he had to dodge a bullet first. Lisbon didn't actually witness them take down their suspect because she was concentrating on not getting shot, and one of the other gang members who seemed pretty determined to take her head off. She hunkered down behind a truck parked on the drive way and waited for the right moment to return fire. The gang member moved towards her, and for a moment she wondered if she could get her shot off before he rounded on her hiding place. Luckily Grace, from her cover behind a large tree, caught him in a crossfire and he took a bullet to the shoulder from Van Pelt's weapon. Lisbon gave her a quick nod of thanks before she turned her attention back to the other gang members who weren't writhing on the ground with a gunshot wound in their shoulder.
When the shooting finally stopped, most of the gang members were wounded or dead, and Lisbon couldn't help being disappointed that it had ended this way. She knew they were going to find a drug stash at the very least in the house, perhaps even a meth lab, but some of the men who had died here were actually really still boys. Teenagers who had thought that life in a gang was the only way, and they all had mothers somewhere who would have to be told what had happened to them. She holstered her gun and looked over to where Rigsby and Cho had last been seen.
One of the SWAT team came out of the house tugging a scared looking girl with him. Lisbon immediately recognised the name of the pet store on her t-shirt.
"I found her hiding in a cupboard under the kitchen sink," said the SWAT guy. "Is she the one you were looking for?"
Lisbon nodded. "Kumiko Hatayama?"
The girl nodded. She looked shocked more than anything else and clearly wasn't usually involved in shoot outs. "Van Pelt, put her in the car, we'll chat to her back at the office. Did you see where Rigsby and Cho went?"
Van Pelt shook her head. Lisbon looked around again, the two agents were nowhere to be seen and that worried her. She really didn't need any more of her team in the hospital. Hopefully they had the suspect in custody and were now bringing him back to base.
Lisbon's phone rang and when she pulled it out, she could see that it was Doctor Talavera calling her. She answered it immediately.
It was annoying when suspects ran, but Rigsby usually didn't mind a short chase. His long legs and general level of fitness meant that he almost always had the upper hand when it came to catching people on the run. But Tomio was seemingly fit too and tall, he'd just leapt over two backyard fences with apparent ease and was now making a run towards the main road. This was not good news, because even though Tomio hadn't fired a shot yet, he was carrying a gun and they were now running towards a busier area.
Rigsby had already tried shouting at him to stop, but in his experience, other than the requirement in law to identify themselves, it was a waste of breath. He decided to save his breath for running. He glanced behind him to see how far back Cho was, but he couldn't see the other CBI agent. Suddenly he worked out where his partner was, he caught a glimpse of someone else running along the path that went down the back of the houses, behind the line of the fence. As Tomio jumped over the final fence, Cho was there to tackle him from the side.
Tomio hit the ground with Cho on top of him as Rigsby vaulted over the last fence. Rigsby could see Tomio hit out and scramble out from Cho's grasp, who was reeling from the pain of Tomio's fist connecting with his nose. Tomio moved backwards along the ground, and started to aim his gun at Cho. Rigsby had to move quickly, but Tomio hadn't noticed that he was coming round from behind him, and he was able to simply grab hold of the gun. But Tomio didn't want to let go. Rigsby gave the gun a twist, and at the same time threw his elbow back as hard as his could into Tomio's chest. It worked and the cry of pain from Tomio as he let go of the firearm was actually pretty satisfying.
Cho had recovered his composure and took advantage of Rigsby's move to cuff their suspect. Cho's nose was red and already beginning to swell, but not bleeding. The two agents exchanged a nod and Rigsby got to his feet, pulling their suspect with him. Cho pulled out an evidence bag from his pocket and handed it to Rigsby for the gun that Tomio had been carrying. Rigsby removed the ammunition and cleared the round in the chamber.
"Come on, let's get him back. Call Lisbon and let her know we're on our way," said Cho.
Rigsby nodded and pulled out his phone. When he dialled Lisbon she was engaged, so they began the walk back to the gang's house and he tried calling again as they walked. This time he got through.
"We've got Tomio in custody, Boss," said Rigsby.
"Good work," said Lisbon. "Grace has got the sister. I want you to take them both back and start interrogating them."
"You're not coming back with us?"
"I've just had a call from the hospital. Jane's taken a turn for the worse so I need to head over there." Lisbon's voice was all business as she said this, but Rigsby knew she was just doing a good job of hiding her worry.
"Okay," he replied. "We'll take care of everything back at the office."
"When you're done interrogating this pair, I want you to go and see the snake importer. Van Pelt has the address."
"Yes, Boss."
Lisbon just hung up, which was a sure sign that she was preoccupied with other things. They made their way back to where Van Pelt was waiting with the SUV. Lisbon was already gone in their other vehicle by the time they got there.
