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I do not own The Mentalist. It's a damn shame, that. No copyright infringement is intended, and I do not profit monetarily from writing this stuff.
AN: More plot, but shorter, and at least more promptly delivered, yes? I hope you like how this one is proceeding. I've never written a fic this long before, so I'm not sure if I've started boring people. Please tell me if I do because I do want to put out material that is worth your time. The chapter title is taken from song from the 70's. Hold up your walker if you remember it!
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It had been one hell of a morning, Lisbon observed, rolling her head until her neck cracked, and it was just getting started. After the situation at the hotel was under control, she'd gone about getting Ellie settled into a new room. The girl was upset when she saw Jane was injured, and a bit clingy, understandably. As the only familiar face left for Ellie, Lisbon knew she had to stay and make her feel secure, so Cho went to the ER to see about Jane. He was coherent and talking by the time the EMT's carted him off to the hospital, after all, and Lisbon knew he would be okay. Yeah, of course he would be fine.
She must have done a decent job reassuring Ellie, because the child fell back to sleep immediately in the new room, leaving Lisbon little to do but to fret about her injured fiancé. Two of Scott's agents stood guard over them for the rest of the morning, and when the child woke about seven thirty, Lisbon got her breakfast. Then the two men chauffeured them through the soaked streets of Galveston back to the station.
During the drive, Lisbon could barely see out her back window, and she knew the pouring rain was merely a prelude to what the approaching hurricane had in store for them. When they arrived, she gave Ellie a hug and left her in the break room with the agents so she could attend the briefing.
Lisbon entered the dark conference room and flipped on the light. She eased into a chair and took a sip of a badly needed second cup of coffee that she'd scrounged from the break room. Maybe not the best coffee, but it was hot and strong, and the warm liquid revitalized her, doing its job.
She was early for the briefing, which had been pushed back from eight until nine. Given the new "incident" occurred about five, Supervisor Scott wanted to give everyone time to do some investigating. While she waited, she relished the few moments of quiet, using the time to calm her jittery nerves and remind herself that Jane was going to be fine. She was only partially successful.
Before long, other agents started to filter in, and soon the room was full. As Abbott edged behind her chair on his way around the table, he placed a quick hand on her shoulder. She smiled and gave him an appreciative nod. Abbott liked to put on a hard man front, and there was no doubt he was one tough agent, but she'd come to realize there was a closet romantic lurking in there somewhere – one that had apparently seen her and Jane as a couple for a long time. She was thankful he was their boss.
Scott took his place up front. "Let's get started," he boomed in his authoritative baritone.
Seconds later her phone buzzed – a text from Cho: We're on the way to the station. Jane has six stitches in his head and a couple of cracked ribs, but he's fine. Be there in five.
She took a deep breath and sighed, releasing tension in her shoulders that she hadn't been aware of. While she'd assumed that Jane wasn't seriously injured, it was comforting to hear that confirmed.
Scott began the briefing. "As most of you know, at approximately five this morning, an assailant entered the hotel where our witness was sleeping. He shot and killed a Galveston officer, John Wilson, who was guarding the door. Had it not been for the fortuitous actions of Agent Abbott's consultant, Patrick Jane, Agent Lisbon here," he nodded in her direction, "and Ellie Caswell might have become additional victims."
Lisbon understood that Scott emphasized the word "consultant" not to be disparaging, but to point out that Jane was untrained for the more physical aspects of the job.
The New Orleans boss continued. "Mr. Jane was - by pure chance - sleeping on the couch, and he tackled the armed assailant on his way in, successfully thwarting his progress, and alerted Agent Lisbon in the next room. The assailant escaped without anyone seeing his face. Jane, however, managed to pull out few strands of his hair." That elicited smiles around the table. "We have DNA. Now we need a suspect."
Lisbon wasn't sure whether she was sorry or glad that Jane was missing all this glory. It would fuel his ego, but on the other hand, the fact that he'd most likely saved both her and Ellie from harm was a good thing for him to absorb.
"Up to this point, we have sorely underestimated our killer," Scott observed with chagrin. "We must not do so again. To complicate matters, I expect the weather will be an increasing challenge in this investigation. Wylie, what's the latest?"
Wylie hopped up. "Heavy rains expected from now until landfall, which is estimated at four thirty this afternoon. Landfall of the eye is tracking about thirty miles east of Galveston. Predictions here are seventy-five mile per hour winds with heavy rain and a moderate storm surge.
I checked with the hotel, and they are making all the preparations they can – boarding up windows and such. The proprietors will be staying, because the hotel is built to withstand at least hundred and ten mile per hour winds. They'll officially be closed, but agreed to house any FBI personnel that need to stay, provided we sign a waiver. If necessary, we could ride out the storm here with minimal risk. But the official recommendation is for evacuation. Power will most likely be out everywhere for awhile."
"Thank you, Wylie. Obviously, time is of the essence. To reiterate, we underestimated Randy's killer. Now a veteran police officer –a husband and father - is dead, and were it not for the efforts of a relative civilian, things might be far worse. This is unacceptable. We need to find this guy and we need to do it now. What do you have for me, people?"
Just then the conference room door opened and in walked Cho, followed by a significantly worse for wear Jane. His suit was wrinkled, his hair was matted in several places, and he carried an ice pack in one hand. As he and Cho moved toward the back of the room to find a spot, a round of applause broke out. Jane waved it off with uncharacteristic modesty. But when the New Orleans agent sitting beside Lisbon rose and offered Jane his chair, he hesitated only an instant before gratefully accepting the offer. He looked like hell.
Lisbon slipped a hand under the table, giving Jane's knee an anxious squeeze and he smiled to reassure her. He held her gaze a little longer than was necessary, and she was certain by the haunted look in his eyes that he was appreciating the fact that she was still alive. She squeezed his knee again.
"Glad to see you back, gentlemen," Scott acknowledged and then moved right into the discussion. "Connelly, what do you have for us?"
The agent stood. "The single dark Toyota sedan in the hotel lot at the time of this morning's attack belonged to a gay couple from Texarkana. They have zero connection to any of this, so we got their info and let them go. They were anxious to get out before the hurricane hits. The only relevant footage we got from the hotel's security camera is this."
The man flipped a switch and the recording began to play on a screen in the front of the room. He narrated the action: "Here we see Officer Wilson, standing guard outside the room at 4:56 am. He sees something to his left, over by the stairwell out of the camera's view, and he walks out of view to check it out." A bit of time passes looking down the empty hallway.
"Then we see the perp enter the room with a keycard – he must have lifted it from the downed Wilson. He was careful to cover his face with his hood, and he is carrying what looks like a CIG Sauer with a suppressor. This is consistent with the Caswells' murder weapon.
A couple of minutes later," the agent fast forwarded the recording, "we see the assailant run out of the room. Unfortunately, he pulls the hood back up just as he exits the door. I've had all this analyzed and blown up. No rings, no tattoos. All we know is, he has dark hair and medium build. We've examined all the other cameras from the hotel, but there's nothing. He just disappears."
"Wait," said Jane from his seat next to her. His elbows were on the table, and he was still holding the ice pack to his head with one hand. "Could you back that up to where Wilson sees something? Please."
The agent complied.
"There. Look," Jane said. "Wilson doesn't look distressed at all when he sees the other person. This is someone he's familiar with. Someone he knows. Could be a janitor, I suppose, but Wilson knew him and wasn't surprised to see him at five in the morning."
Murmurs of agreement travelled around the room.
"It's not a big community," Chief Larson noted. "Our officers know a lot of the locals."
"But at five in the morning, while on duty? It would have to be someone he'd never suspect of wrong doing," Jane insisted.
"True," Larson agreed.
Scott continued. "Should we bring the sedan owners we brought in yesterday back in? None were recognized by the child. By their voices, that is. If the girl can be believed."
Jane sat up straight, letting the ice pack fall to the table. "She can," came his quick assessment. "She's smart, she's observant, and frankly, she's holding up better than most of us through this."
"Point taken, Jane." Scott noted. "Nevertheless, she is a traumatized nine year old child." He was about to call on another agent, when Jane blurted out an additional question.
"Did we find out about Monique's colleague? The one who was scheduled to use the condo before the last minute offer to the Caswells?"
The agent who had been assigned that follow-up, Barnes, looked at Scott, who gave him a 'go ahead' nod. "Monique Caswell's colleague in New Orleans is one Bob Hardcastle. He had a weekend planned with his girlfriend, Sherri Parks, but she broke her wrist Wednesday working out at the gym, so they decided to cancel the trip. That's when Hardcastle offered the condo to the Caswells.
I ran a check on him, and Hardcastle didn't have any obvious mortal enemies. He bought and sold clothing for a department store. He seemed genuinely upset about the Caswells during our phone conversation."
"How old is he?" Jane asked.
The agent shuffled some papers. "Forty six."
"How old is the girlfriend?"
"Twenty nine."
Jane returned the ice pack to his head and raised his eyebrows in interest. "Divorced?"
"Yes, two years ago," Barnes confirmed.
"What about the ex?"
"I don't know. I can find out pretty quickly, though." Scott nodded to Barnes, who stepped out of the room with his phone.
Jane shifted stiffly in his seat, and Lisbon heard his breath catch at the movement. She wished this briefing would be over soon, so she could get him onto a couch somewhere and let him rest. She knew that was unlikely, so she rubbed his knee instead. He slipped his free hand under the table and patted hers. A few wildly inappropriate thoughts flashed through her head, but what she wanted to do more than anything was give him a hug. She settled for entwining his fingers with hers under the table.
For the next fifteen minutes, Scott took reports from various agents' investigations, but none of them contained anything very promising. The most suspicious sedan drivers had been vetted yesterday, so agents were assigned to bring in the "less suspicious" ones for Ellie to evaluate.
If they could establish even the smallest connection of any of the persons of interest, Scott pointed out, it might be enough to get the okay to collect a DNA sample for comparison. While they were mulling other directions to proceed, Agent Barnes reentered the room. At the first break in the discussion, he raised his hand.
"Find anything interesting?" Scott asked, acknowledging him.
"Yes, sir," he said with excitement, looking back at Jane. "The ex wife's name is Phoebe Hardcastle."
A twitter went around the room.
"Phoebe," Jane repeated, and that 'I told you so' grin lit up his face as he slowly lowered his ice pack from his head to the table. "This one's for Phoebe."
Barnes shared the rest of his information. "She has two kids, one is special needs, and the divorce was ugly. She also has a rock solid alibi for this weekend. She was there in New Orleans the whole time."
"Relatives? Violent friends? " Abbott questioned.
"Don't know that yet."
"I'm on it," said Wylie, typing furiously.
"While Agent Wylie checks on that," Scott said, "should we plan to compare Phoebe's DNA with our hair sample just in case?" he wondered.
"Sir!" Wylie raised his hand urgently.
"Yes, Wylie," Scott smiled at the young man's earnestness.
"Phoebe Hardcastle's maiden name was Singer. Father deceased five years ago, mother lives in Ohio. There are two brothers. George Singer lives in Ohio, works at a Home Depot and…" Wylie hesitated, his eyes widening.
"Spit it out, man," Abbott urged.
"James Singer is her other brother."
There were gasps from the local cops in the conference room.
"He's a police officer here in Galveston," Wylie finished.
Jane stiffened immediately and she saw fear flash in his eyes. "Who's with Ellie?" he blurted out.
"It's okay," Lisbon assured him. "Two of Scott's men are with her."
He sighed with relief, closing his eyes.
Chief Larson spoke up. "Andrews," he said to one of his deputies with a laptop sitting in front of him. "What were Singer's assignments this weekend?"
The deputy typed for moment, and soon had the answer. "Motor patrol from eleven to seven both nights."
Everyone looked around at each other in disbelief. It was the perfect alibi- the perfect cover. Who could have anticipated this?
"Agent Scott?" Wylie piped up again. "A black Toyota Camry is registered to a James L. Singer of Galveston."
Jane turned to look at Lisbon with a smug, satisfied smile. "I believe our work here is done."
She couldn't help but grin back.
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AN: Just a little more case related stuff, and then the story will take a turn back toward the personal. Thanks for reading! (I love constructive feedback of any sort)
