Chapter 14: It Never Ends
Lisbon and Jane
Lisbon's alarm sounded way too early. She dragged herself out of bed to silence the loathed country music. She groaned. It was earlier than usual because she had to catch a too-early fight for a too-political boss for a too-useless meeting. Lisbon resented the triumph of appearance over substance. In her line of work it could get you killed. After gathering her clothes, she went into the bathroom and closed the door before turning on the light, not wanting to disturb her mate.
The light in the dining room surprised her. Still in pajama bottoms and a tee, Jane had gotten up during the night. The empty Coke cans and sheets of paper filled with his precise writing told her he spent much of the night working, fueled by caffeine and sugar. She ruffled his hair and kissed his cheek.
"Jane, whatever happened to sleep?"
"Couldn't. Decided to work."
After a moment. "The missing files?" After he nodded, "Getting anywhere?"
"If my hunch pans out, I know who might have something to hide from those cases."
"But you're not going to tell me yet."
"Hunch stage, Lisbon." He abruptly stood, stretched, then turned and gave her a slow, tender kiss and full-body hug. "How're you doing, love?"
She shrugged. "Wish I wasn't going to some irrelevant meeting." He pulled back to look at her and waited patiently. She glanced down while shaking her head a little. "The fertility thing is a bitch. We will figure something out," she said, determined. She looked into his eyes anxiously, "Are we okay, Patrick?"
She could feel him tense as he replied, "We'll figure something out we can both live with-" then winced and looked aside, "Sorry. I didn't–"
"It's okay. I know you didn't mean it that way." Lisbon mentally sighed in relief. Anything that hooked into his feelings from his family's murder was hugely destabilizing. But Jane seemed pretty calm and balanced despite being slammed into the repulsive "selective reduction" concept yesterday - not to mention learning that having a child was going to be anything but easy. (Children was too painful to hope for at the moment.)
She turned down his offer to make breakfast. It was too early and she could get breakfast on the flight. She promised to call that evening, then was gone.
Cho's Team
In early, Cho looked up in surprise as Jane arrived a good hour before the official workday started. "Jane," he greeted the consultant, "Why so early?"
"Lisbon's traveling. Thought I'd come in and check something out on the missing files."
Cho looked hard at him again. It's several weeks and he's looking more ragged, not less. "Jane, you okay? Lisbon okay?
Jane gave him a fake smile. "I'm never just 'okay.' Far superior to that."
Cho's lips tightened a fraction. "Deflect all you want. If it continues, you're gonna talk to me. It's irresponsible to be distracted."
"Awww. Such tender concern."
Cho grunted then said, "That's Lisbon's department. I need a fully functional team."
"Can I grab Van Pelt to check something out?"
"Whatever you need. Got something?"
Jane tipped his head, noncommittal, distracted. "Either it's almost solved or back to square one. I need Van Pelt."
Van Pelt entered in time to hear his last sentence, uncharacteristically without her husband in tow. She wanted to get started on the three-week backlog that accumulated during her absence. "And I need you, too, Jane," she said with a grin, "Three dull weeks without you." She paused and frowned. "–Although, those guys in Forensic Accounting are surprisingly crazy. Who would 'a thought? What can I do for you?"
"I need to trace the jobs that Merton Williams has had for the past 12 years."
"Uh, he's the manager of a CBI forensics team, right? Brett Patridge's boss - I mean, before Red John killed him?"
Jane nodded.
Van Pelt figured it would take just a few minutes. Rather than have Jane pester her till she got to it, she sat down immediately and entered search criteria. "He's only been here six years. Before the CBI, he worked for ... San Francisco PD for four years. And, um, LAPD the three years prior to that."
"All as a forensics manager – for crime scenes?"
"That's what it says."
"Any way to ID the forensic techs who worked under him?"
"That's a little harder. Give me a few minutes."
Cho looked at him. "So?"
A broad grin broke out as Jane mentally correlated Williams's positions with information in the missing files. Jane had the Red John files memorized for years. He mentally rifled through the information from the Blake Association files he had more recently memorized rather than lug dozens of paper copies around. Finally, "Williams fits!" he said happily.
Van Pelt then touched his elbow. "Here are lists of people who worked for him in each position."
Jane's smile grew wider. "The missing link. Williams was the boss of the forensic techs who handled the crime scenes in every case in those missing files."
"Spell it out," ordered Cho.
"There's never any useable forensic evidence from a Red John crime scene, right?" They nodded. "He had help. Some of the techs are Red John friends, or maybe Blake Association."
"Did the same forensic techs handle each case?"
"Nope, but they all worked for Williams. It's a pretty small group and several followed him when he changed jobs. The common element is Williams. –Think," he said, excitedly, "as a manager, Williams would be ideal to recruit new people into Blake. Remember that at first it was just Red John's followers, till there was a schism and the people who formed Blake broke away from Red John. Wlliams is one of those people. The time line fits the Red John schism. And the forensics work was done by techs managed by Williams."
"Circumstantial."
"All three law enforcement agencies had jurisdiction for some of those cases, Blake or Red John. And Merton Williams was the manager over the forensics teams for every case. Strong circumstantial. –Besides, now that we have a lead, we know what to look for."
Van Pelt had continued to work at her computer. "Look. Williams is listed as scheduled to retire in a few weeks. He's supposed to be at an awards ceremony – for sheer longevity, apparently."
"That fits, too! He needs to erase the trail before he's out of the CBI. I'm the only one who can fill in the blanks from the missing Red John files. And he'd have no way of knowing about the FBI's off-site back-up Blake files."
"Then I need to work with LaRoche and Abbott. LaRoche since Williams is a CBI employee. Abbott because of the Blake connection," noted Cho.
"I think this calls for tea," Jane said, moving toward the break room. Van Pelt rolled her eyes. Everything called for tea according to Jane. Cho followed a moment later.
Jane poured the boiling water into his cup then reached up to get a tin of tea from the top shelf. Chamomile, Cho noted, herbal stuff that's s'posed to be good for upset stomachs. Cho busied himself with pouring his own coffee.
"Who moved my tea?" Jane asked, distractedly looking at the other little-used tins on the top shelf as he filled a teaball with the chamomile.
"No one, Jane. You're the only one who drinks that crap."
"Cho, I'm offended. It's anything but."
"Look, Jane. I'm Korean so I understand about tea. But chamomile isn't real tea."
"To the contrary, herbal teas have recently become quite popular in South Korea."
Cho shook his head, reminding himself never to argue with Jane about random factoids of which Jane seemed to have an inexhaustible supply. He stirred his coffee. Jane finished dunking his tea ball and set it aside. He lifted the steaming cup to his lips.
Suddenly Cho struck Jane's hand. Hot tea splattered as the cup and saucer clattered to the counter. They didn't break.
"Ow! What the– Why–"
"Jane! Just step back. Sorry." Van Pelt dashed to the break room at the commotion. She stopped dead, eyes round with surprise. Jane was rinsing his bruised and scalded hand under cool water while Cho soaked up the spill with towels.
Cho took a breath. "Sorry, Jane. Someone tried to kill you twice, Lisbon once. But nothing recently, right?" Jane nodded. "You think it's a CBI forensics manager. What better way than to–"
Jane finished, "-poison something that only I drink?" He paled.
"I could be wrong – hope I'm wrong. I have a friend in the San Francisco PD's forensics department. Van Pelt, take the three tins of tea on the top shelf - no, dammit, take all of them – to SF PD. I'll give you his name and address. Don't give them to anyone else. Don't let them out of your sight. I'll call in a favor and see if he can check them out now. If possible, I want you to wait till he's finished." She fetched and donned the latex gloves and bagged the tins as possible evidence.
Jane sighed. He took a can of Coke out of the refrigerator and walked to his couch, slightly unsteady on his feet. He had calmed down by the time Cho sent Van Pelt off to San Francisco.
Cho sat down at his desk and took the measure of Jane. "Jane, usually you would have caught that and way before anyone else. What's wrong?" Jane shook his head mutely. After a minute Cho let it go and returned to his paperwork.
Van Pelt called back two hours later. Alerted to Cho's suspicion, Cho's friend chose a brute force approach to get a quick read on whether the tea was poisoned. He steeped samples from each tin and had lab mice ingest the tea. The three which ingested tea from the top three tins died within minutes. There were several colorless, odorless, tasteless poisons that could kill that quickly. Pinning it down would take more extensive testing. Chillingly, the symptoms mimicked a heart attack. Without a suspicion of poisoning, the cause of death might not have been discovered.
Cho and Rigsby arrested Williams and put him in a locked interrogation room. Cho interrogated him with Jane watching behind the one-way glass. Jane confirmed Williams's membership in Blake from Williams's reactions. Cho was able to extract leads that could provide the hard evidence needed for prosecution. It was time for Cho to involve LaRoche and Abbott.
Cho and LaRoche
"What can I do for you, Agent Cho?" LaRoche asked, his voice making Cho seem overly emotional by contrast.
Cho closed LaRoche's door none too gently then stood stiffly in front of LaRoche's desk. "Jane came within seconds of being poisoned at the CBI this morning. We believe it was Merton Williams."
LaRoche instantly made the connection between poisoning and forensics expertise. "That would be logical. Motive?"
"Blake member. Before that, Red John friend. Jane was the only one who could figure it out." Cho continued, anger checked only by iron discipline, "In the last several weeks someone's tried to kill Jane twice and Director Lisbon once. Aside from the poisoning attempt. Why the hell isn't Internal Affairs on top of this?"
LaRoche didn't respond immediately. "We haven't had any information suggesting he was corrupted."
Coldly, "Special Agent LaRoche, I can't tell you how to do your job. But it is unacceptable when my team is in danger from CBI employees inside the CBI building. Williams was involved with Red John or Blake for the last 12 years. Interrogation confirmed Jane's conclusion. Williams is in Interrogation Room C on the fifth floor, whenever you want to take custody."
"One of my agents get him this afternoon. The CBI was heavily infiltrated by Blake members, Agent Cho. I will take another look at the whole CBI. I am relieved Mr. Jane is uninjured."
"'Alive,' you mean." Cho waited a moment more. "I'll forward the evidence as soon as I get it back from an uncorrupted forensics department."
Cho and Abbott
"Enter, Agent Cho," Abbott invited and motioned to a chair.
Cho stood. "Agent Abbott, I understood the FBI cleared the remaining CBI employees of being Blake members."
"We have. Your point?"
"CBI employee Merton Williams is Blake. He came within seconds of poisoning Patrick Jane this morning."
"How do you know he's Blake?"
"There have been two attempts on Jane's life and one on Director Lisbon. Three with the poisoning attempt. Jane figured it out this morning from the missing Red John and Blake files."
"You have hard evidence?"
"We have tins of tea that only Jane drinks laced with poison. A forensics department I trust is checking for more evidence. As required, I am turning the case over to CBI Special Agent LaRoche of Internal Affairs."
"So no hard evidence connecting Willams to Blake and the murder attempts?"
Cho leaned forward on the balls of his feet. "There would be hard evidence if the FBI did a more thorough job of investigating. The CBI was infiltrated by Blake. You've had a year to finish cleaning up Blake in the CBI. My team can't do its job if it isn't even safe inside CBI headquarters, Agent Abbott."
Coldly, "I'll have my teams reexamine every CBI employee. We'll question all known Blake members again to identify links to CBI Blake members that we missed the first time. I appreciate your bringing this matter to my attention."
Cho stared at Abbott a moment. He turned and left.
Lisbon
It was past ten before Lisbon got back to her hotel room, showered, and was ready for bed. It rang three times and Jane picked up. "Hey."
"Hey. How's the meeting?"
"Pointless. Dog and pony show to convince the public we're doing something."
She could hear the grin in his voice as he responded, "Well it is election season. Gotta keep the masses content and voting the right way."
Her response was unprintable. "How was your day?"
"Slow. The team's working on that defense contractor question. I solved the missing files case, though."
She snuggled into the down comforter. RHIP. At least I stay in nicer hotels now. "Tell me."
"Merton Williams."
"From Forensics? I don't think I – we – saw him more than twice."
He yawned. "Blake member. Before that, Red John friend." She heard him stir his tea and take a sip before continuing. "Red John had help wiping his crime scenes–"
"–Which is why there was never anything we could use. Of course."
"When Williams defected to Blake he kept doing it for Blake crimes. Should have been obvious."
"I thought Abbott cleared out the Blake members from the CBI months ago!"
Slowly, seriously, "Blake membership is wide and deep, Lisbon. Abbott's tracked them across 20 states for a over a year and he's still not done. I don't think we'll ever be sure we got them all."
She grimaced and rubbed her face with her free hand. "I want to disagree, but you're probably right. So we're never gonna be sure? We'll always have to watch our backs?"
"I'm open to suggestions." After a pause, "What's new? You'll always be a target for the perps you've put away. Even before I got ... involved with the CBI, I had to keep an eye out for disgruntled clients and family members." He laughed mirthlessly. "People tended to get p.o.'d when I cheated them out of their dough."
Dryly. "Your clients were happy enough. It's the relatives who disagreed with how they spent their money."
"Teresa, don't go there."
"You don't go there. That was half a life-time ago and you're still flogging yourself. Nowadays the ire is mostly triggered by your good deeds."
"Anyhow, Williams wanted to eliminate any trail back to him before he retired next month. Motive. Means. Timing."
"Huh. Nothing special about trying to run us over, Jane."
"Cho can fill in the details. LaRoche and Abbott both have a stake in this."
"What's going on, Patrick. Something's up with you."
"Just tired. Not enough sleep last night."
She snorted. "Probably no sleep. Any more thoughts about having kids?"
He drew a deep breath. "Let's table that till the weekend, if that's okay. I just want to turn in."
"I'll hold you to it - sleep, I mean. See you tomorrow after work. Love you."
"Love you too. Good night, Teresa."