Shout-outs: SteelSimz, Marcia Santo, Lothlorien Aeterna, and Nerwen Aldarion for reviewing chapter 3, you guys are all dolls.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, sadly. If I did, Red John would be gone and Jane/Lisbon would be together and the show would be over.
Thanks again to my beta reader, just_mosie. Girl, you know I adore you.
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Chapter 4
"Patrick, what are you doing?" Teresa asked, walking into the mall Starbucks to find her husband behind the counter making tea while an unhappy teenage girl wearing black leggings and a lip ring watched him with her arms folded across her chest.
"I'm just showing Willow here how to make a proper cup of tea," he answered.
Teresa rolled her eyes. "Come back around the counter and let the poor girl do her job," she said.
"But Teresa, she wasn't making my tea the right way!" Patrick protested. "What did you expect me to do?"
"Um, I don't know," she replied. "Maybe pay for your tea and drink it without complaining. Why are you even here anyways? You're supposed to be with Cho questioning Shawn Jones."
"Shawn wasn't there when we got to his mother's apartment," Patrick said, picking up his drink and coming around the counter, he smiled at Willow as he took Teresa's hand and tugged her towards the door. "Thank you for the lovely tea."
"Come again," the teenage barista managed to get out, even though both Patrick and Teresa could tell from the tone of her voice that she didn't really mean it.
"Patrick, what did you do to that poor girl?" Teresa asked as they started to make their way towards the mall entrance.
"I told you, I was just showing her the right way to make tea," he answered. "She was going to put the milk in after she'd brewed the tea."
Teresa gasped, pretending to look scandalized. "Putting the milk in after the tea, what a crime."
"You won't be laughing the next time somebody at Starbucks doesn't put enough foam in your latté," said Patrick.
"I won't go behind the counter and show them the right way to make a latté," she replied.
"Do you even know the right way to make a latté?" Patrick challenged as he opened the mall doors and allowed her to exit first.
Teresa smirked. "I'll have you know, Mr. Jane, that I have latté making down to a science. My friends and I used a French press to make them when we were in college and were trying to save money."
Patrick was about to reply when his phone buzzed. "It's a text from Cho telling me that Shawn's at his mother's apartment, and that he's willing to talk to us."
Teresa frowned. "Really?"
"Honestly, I'm not so sure anymore that Shawn's guilty of killing Pricilla. She was strangled with a woman's scarf."
Her frown deepened. "So? What does that have to do with anything? He could have killed her with her own scarf—"
"Did you ever see Pricilla wearing Hermés scarves?"
"Well, no. . ." Teresa admitted slowly. "In fact I don't think I've seen her wear any kind of scarf before."
"So, it's impossible that Shawn could have killed her with her own scarf," Patrick reasoned.
"Maybe he brought it with him," Teresa answered.
"Doubtful," Patrick said, unlocking their car door. "They don't think it was premeditated, remember? Stealing a scarf to use as a murder weapon would qualify as premeditation, wouldn't it?"
Teresa was about to answer when a masculine voice interrupted her.
"Patrick Jane! Funny running into you here of all places, I thought for sure that you'd still be in Sacramento solving cases for that CBI place!"
Patrick turned around and faked smile as a tall, dark-haired man approached them with a leggy, blonde in tow. "Walter Mashburn! Long time no see! I thought you were somewhere in Europe."
"That was ages ago," the other man answered, his eyes zoning in on Teresa immediately. "Who's this? Is she your new partner?"
"You could say that," Patrick answered, putting a possessive around her waist. "This is my wife, Teresa. Teresa, this is Walter Mashburn—"
"Your husband saved me from going to jail twice," he interjected, looking like he was proud of the fact that he'd been a suspect in murder cases. He turned back to Patrick. "How in the world did you land her? She's absolutely gorgeous!"
"I married her for her money," Patrick replied with a smirk. "She's literally rolling in millions."
Mashburn frowned. "Really?"
The blonde he was with sighed impatiently and tapped her Prada clad foot on the pavement. "Walt?"
Mashburn smiled. "As much as I'd love to catch up with you, I have things to do."
I'm sure," Patrick said, giving the blonde a critical look. "Well, it was lovely seeing you again. I'm sorry we can't spend more time catching up, but I'm running a little late."
"Well, get in touch soon!" Mashburn called as the woman he was with started to pull him towards the mall.
"You're not going to get in touch with him, are you?" Teresa asked as she tossed her purse and shopping bag into the car and got in.
"I might," he answered, sliding in and putting the key into the ignition. "Mashburn's an okay fellow, and I like him a lot. He's just not the kind of person you become really close friends with."
"For a moment there, you looked like you wanted to kill him."
"He has a tendency to flirt with anything that has breasts and is attractive," Patrick explained almost defensively. "You should have seen him hit on Madeline Hightower the first time we met him. It was pretty funny to see him try and charm her socks off, but what was even funnier was the way she shot him down twice. Hightower is just the kind of woman you couldn't charm."
"Oh, really?" Teresa asked as he pulled out of the mall parking lot. "So, I'm assuming that even you couldn't succeed in charming her then?"
"You have nothing to be jealous about dear; I never hit on her or anything like that. She wasn't my type."
She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so you have a type then, do you?"
"I do," Patrick replied, winking at her. "Petite brunettes who agree to marry strange men."
"Ah."
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"I didn't kill 'Cilla," Shawn told Cho and Patrick, looking straight at them as he spoke. "I did talk to her though, I guess it was right before she was killed. But is that a crime?"
"It depends," Cho answered. "What did you two talk about?"
"Well. . ." Shawn hesitated, before shrugging sheepishly. "I was trying to convince her not to marry Edward or leave White Sands, before we could finish our conversation I got a text from Mr. Bennett asking me to go and take the inn's sign down before the storm hit. I swear, I didn't kill her! You just have to believe me, Sheriff! I loved her! Why would you kill somebody you loved?"
"Jealousy," Patrick answered. "Or maybe you thought that if you couldn't have her then nobody else should have her either—"
"No!" Shawn insisted adamantly.
"Shawn!" Natalie chided quietly.
He took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead wearily. "I didn't kill her!" he insisted.
There was a long silence and then Patrick cleared his throat. "Do you mind if I use your bathroom, Mrs. Jones?"
"Um no, of course not," Natalie answered. "It's down the hall and to your immediate right."
"I'll be right back, if you'd excuse me for just a second."
A few minutes later, Patrick returned with an unreadable expression on his face. "Cho, if you don't have any more questions for Shawn, I think can go now. I, ah, found an interesting lead."
"Okay," Cho agreed, snapping his notebook shut. "Thank you for your time, Mrs. Jones. Shawn, stay around town for a while. Okay?"
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"Shawn didn't do it," Patrick announced as they rode the elevator down to the lobby.
Cho frowned. "How'd you come to that particular conclusion?"
"I looked around his room—"
Cho held up a hand to stop him. "Wait a second. You searched his room? Now, I might not have worked on a lot of cases, but I know enough about investigating to know that searching a suspect's, anything is illegal without a warrant to do so. It could possibly get evidence thrown away in a court of law—"
"Oh, would you just relax? It isn't like he's going to ever find out about it. And even if he did, he should thank me. What I found will probably save him from a life in prison."
"What did you even find?" Teresa asked, interjecting quickly before a possible argument broke out between the two men.
"A prescription for inexpensive reflux medication, a week's worth of clothes, his high school yearbook, and a CD by some band with a strange name that I think is, possibly, Swedish."
"So?" Cho asked, folding his arms across his chest as the elevator doors sprung open and they exited it.
"What I didn't find was Pricilla's missing engagement ring," Patrick answered.
Cho raised an eyebrow. "What on earth made you go and look for her engagement ring?"
"Steiner told me that she wasn't wearing one when her body arrived at the morgue."
"Maybe Shawn got rid of it," Cho suggested. "Or maybe she hadn't put it on yet and it dropped in the sand while she was struggling to get away from her attacker."
"If Shawn killed Pricilla, and that's a big if now, I don't think he would have been in the right mind to even think about getting rid of the engagement ring after stealing it."
"Did you check everything?" Cho asked. "Even his clothes pockets?"
"What do you think? This isn't exactly my first rodeo! Of course I checked all his clothes pockets! I even checked the toes of his sneakers!" Patrick said in exasperation.
"Well, I just can'tthrow away a major lead on a hunch you have about a missing engagement ring." Cho replied defensively. "I need to make sure you have substantial evidence to support your theory."
Patrick smiled slightly. "Good for you, you sound like a seasoned investigator!"
Cho raised his eyebrows and sighed. "Fine. Go and investigate your lead."
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"So now that you've ruled Shawn Jones out as a suspect, who do you think did it?" Teresa asked as she lit beach wood scented candles and turned the radio up.
"I don't have any suspects quite yet. I'm still mulling over the possibilities," Patrick answered, picking up an apple and tossing it from one hand to another, before putting it back. "I think I'll go over to the bed & breakfast and take a good look around. Maybe I'll see something that I missed when we were talking to Bruce and Edward."
"Okay," Teresa agreed, rummaging through the cabinet and pulling out a box of lasagna noodles. "Try and not to be gone too long though. I should have dinner ready in an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes max."
"I'll be back in time," Patrick said.
"You better be!" she replied as she filled a pot with water. "And please, don't do anything you're not supposed to, try and follow some sort of protocol."
"Please, I'm a private investigator—"
"That doesn't matter! You still need to follow some sort of protocol!" Teresa insisted.
"Didn't I just promise the sheriff that I'd look into things legally?"
Teresa laughed. "I really don't think you're going to keep it though. I've heard stories from Madeline about your investigating—"
"If you knew about the way I closed cases then why did you insist that I help out with the investigation to find Pricilla's killer?" Patrick asked, raising his eyebrows.
"You're wasting valuable time," Teresa answered as she turned the heat down and dropped the sheets of pasta into the boiling water. "If you don't leave right now, you might not be back in time for dinner—"
"I'm going, I'm going!" Patrick interrupted, grabbing his keys and pecking her on the cheek. "If I'm not back by the time you have dinner on the table, then we're at war."
TBC. . .
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Author's Note:
You know the drill, I'd love to hear your thoughts or your questions. Please, feel free to leave me a review and tell me everything.
Love you!
Holly, 2/11/2013_
P.S
I am going to try and post the next chapter of "How Jane Stole Valentine's Day" soon. I kind of hit a brick wall with it. But I rarely ever just stop posting a story.