Patrick Jane gave a start as the warning bell rang, signalling half an hour to the library closing. The psychology textbooks and journals were held here in the main University library, presumably because they were not considered 'medical' enough for the Zane. After the fuss was all resolved earlier that day he had come straight here, spent the rest of the evening looking for more information about Red John, starting with the textbooks first as he had done in the Zane. The psychologists' perspectives were different to the psychiatric ones, interesting in their way but the details he sought were similarly absent from their writings. He'd gotten maybe halfway through his list of books that contained information about Red John by the time he had to leave. He headed back to his motel, picking up a gas station sandwich on the way.
He noticed a girl leaving one of the rooms upstairs as he arrived. She was reading something on her phone or sending a text, not really paying attention to her surroundings. A thought occurred, and he headed to intercept her at the bottom of the stairs.
"Hello, young lady, I wondered if I could ask you a question?"
"You need to speak to my business manager, he'll be here in about ten minutes." Well that confirmed his initial cold-read had been correct, anyway. Jesus, she's even younger than I thought, under all that make-up she couldn't be more than twenty.
"Ah, no, I don't want to avail myself of your services this evening, I, ah, just wondered if you knew where there might be an, um, unofficial late-night pharmacist." Now she looked at him curiously.
"You wanna buy some drugs?"
"Yes."
"You a cop?"
"No."
"Twenty bucks."
"Excuse me?"
"I can tell ya where to go for twenty bucks."
"Ten." He'd said it automatically then felt bad about it. Was he really haggling over information about drug dealers with this young prostitute?
"Deal." Whatever her profession, that smacked of inexperience, didn't it? She was holding out her hand so he dug around in his pockets, found a ten.
"Whatcha after?"
"Hey…"
"No, I'm not hustling ya, I just mean, if you're after, y'know, M.J. it's one guy, if you want coke it's someone else, stuff like that," she explained.
"Sleeping pills. Prescription ones. Anything strong." Again she gave him an appraising look.
"I got Temazepam right here." She started rummaging in her handbag.
"You can't sleep?" She just raised her eyebrows at him for a second then continued searching. Patrick shook his head, murmured to himself, "Never mind." She pulled out what seemed like quite a full bottle of pills and gave them a shake.
"Five each."
"Fifty bucks for the whole bottle," he countered. She shook her head.
"I need these. Don't know when I'll get more." She wasn't lying and her attitude seemed to suggest that whatever these pills really were, at least they helped her sleep. Of course that just meant she believed they were genuine, not that they really were. He didn't think she'd got them on prescription herself.
"OK, twenty-five bucks for half."
"Thirty."
"Deal, if I count out the pills." She shrugged, so he took the bottle off her. The label on the bottle said 'Temazepam', but then it also said they were prescribed to 'Mrs Coelho'. He didn't pass comment. The tablets were white, anonymous, different to the ones he'd been given by the hospital. Half turned out to be eleven pills. He handed over the cash and the bottle with the remaining pills, pocketed his half. Temazepam was what he'd been given on his discharge, if these were the genuine article he'd just gotten a bargain. If not, well… maybe he would stop by some clinic tomorrow. It should be easy to tell, he could guarantee a dreamless night with Temazepam.
He hadn't been asleep for long before the old, familiar nightmare started. He was climbing the staircase, reading the hateful note, opening the door to the mocking, bloody icon on the wall, finding the mutilated bodies of Angela and Charlotte beneath. He had again woken screaming. He was overcome with sadness, curled into a fetal ball and weeping his regret at the unfeeling walls of his anonymous motel room. His mind filled with the same unanswerable questions that had broken him all those months before. Had Charlotte been conscious when Red John slaughtered her? Did the monster make Angela watch as he ripped apart her precious little girl or had Charlotte been forced to witness the screaming death of her mommy? How long had it taken them to die? Had they begged Red John for the release of death before the end? Did he tell you it was my fault? This was too much, he felt icy with despair and it seemed there was nothing left inside him to fight it. He knew too much about their deaths to ever move on while that monster was still breathing but it was everything he didn't know that tormented him beyond endurance. He felt again the siren call of death, his own not the monster's, to put a final end to this misery.
I can't bear this. How could anyone bear this?
I don't need to know. It started as the faintest of whispers inside his mind but it was relentless. No longer cold and hard, the darkness was no less strong for now seeming warm and embracing. I've made a decision that means I don't need to know these things any more. Would I ask him? Beg him to tell me? Will I give him that power over me?
"No!" He didn't realize he'd shouted until he heard himself.
He couldn't change what had happened, though he wished with his whole being that he could. Knowing the answers to these questions wouldn't strengthen his resolve, help in his hunt or offer him any aid with the necessary conclusion of it. What helped was knowing that he no longer needed to know the answers. He had chosen to murder Red John. He would find him, plan his slow and painful death, then carry out the plan. There could be no possibility of mercy, he would give the monster no bargaining chips to weaken his resolve. The choice had been made. Everything else – everything else – was just fine details. He wasn't going to give the monster anything. The questions that had formerly shredded his sanity were blunted by his choice, faded, became almost irrelevant. I don't have to bear this. It's a burden I've already set aside because of the choice I have made. There are some things I no longer need to know. He wasn't going to waste time asking questions of Red John when he caught him. At last he lay, stretched out and unthinking, staring at nothing in the darkness of his motel room and picturing Angela smiling her understanding of him. After a long time a lesser, dreamless oblivion finally overtook him.
Patrick returned to the library first thing in the morning expecting this would be his last day at Stamford. He finished methodically working his way through the remaining books in a scant few hours – his speed reading and use of his memory palace were both definitely faster now – then started on the academic journals. When the warning bell sounded that evening he threw down his pencil. He had some more information, yes, but the details he needed still eluded him. His mind wandered back to the article he hadn't found, some internal FBI profile of Red John.
That didn't make much sense. Sacramento PD had the case, didn't they? He'd given a statement to the detective in charge, Elliott, as well as to various other members of his team as fresh questions arose afterwards. It had been awkward, this was the man he'd duped into hiring him as a psychic consultant on the Red John case. To Elliott's credit he had remained professionally courteous after Patrick confessed to being a fraud. He had thought psychic abilities weren't real but had been prepared to try anything to move the hunt for Red John forward. Maybe he had commissioned the FBI to write the profile too? That smacked of desperation, didn't it? Calling in the FBI, hiring me, for chrissakes? Patrick cast his mind back. There had been a huge amount of police paperwork for the previous eight murders Red John had committed, he'd been shown some photographs and personal items but there had been boxes full of files and other things he'd never looked at. The details I'm looking for will be in the police files for all the Red John murders. Maybe Elliott would be willing to let me see inside those boxes. Patrick put back the last few journals he'd read. Stamford couldn't help him any more. For the last time he left the University campus, headed back to his motel.
Food, sleep, drive to Sacramento in the morning. He had one last genuine sleeping pill he'd been hoarding like a precious jewel. He'd take it tonight. He needed to be rested tomorrow, take the freeway, get there early. More sleep will help me come up with some ideas for tackling Elliott. I need to see all his Red John files.