Chapter 2: A Jumble of Coincidences
Lisbon and Jane drove toward the section of Sacramento where her townhouse and his apartment were located. Upset by her conversation with Minelli, Lisbon decided to talk with Jane that night.
"Jane, if you're not too tired, how about we stop at Panera for dessert?"
"We had dessert with Virgil and May. I sense ulterior motives."
"You sense right. How about it? I should warn you, it's not light conversation I'm after."
He glanced at her and noted her unease. He smiled, "An excuse for a muffin? Sure."
They stopped at the restaurant, got food and beverages, and chose a comfortable, secluded booth. It was late Sunday night and the restaurant was nearly deserted.
"What's up?"
"A couple of things keep pinging around in my head. I can't shake the feeling they're important."
"Go with your gut. Gavin de Becker recommends always paying attention to intuition, especially when you can't pin it down rationally."
"Forget de Becker. I'll go with Patrick Jane who says the same thing."
"What's bothering you?"
"Bear with me. This isn't crisp. It's a jumble of stuff that seems connected."
"Okay."
"Jane, tell me about the time you spent with the Carson Springs Child Protective Services."
"Why?"
"It makes me queasy that Red John murdered Eileen Barlow Turner, someone you knew when you were a kid. Someone who was currently being advised by Child Protective Services. The very same Child Protective Services that had custody of you as a child. The agency under the direction of Gottleib, a long-time friend of Red John. All these links to you make me suspicious and uneasy."
"Agreed." Jane leaned back on the couch, sipped his tea and took a bite of muffin. Knowing Lisbon wasn't asking out of mere curiosity, he was willing to talk about it. "Child Protective Services got involved after my mom died when I was ten. My father wasn't the greatest parent. When I skipped too much school, Child Services took custody and put me in foster care."
"How long?"
"Six months the first time. A few months on several other occasions when I was older–11, 12, 13."
"What did they do about school?"
"I had to go regularly. They also did a lot of testing. That was the start of a long, unwelcome relationship with Child Services and the school district."
"What kind of testing?"
"It's been 30 years... Umm, mostly content. The basic subjects by grade level. I was way ahead because of all the reading I did."
"Any other tests?"
He brightened at the memory. "Yeah. I think they threw in a couple of IQ tests. I remember a few were hard enough to be fun." He looked searchingly at Lisbon. "You're not just asking. What are you thinking?"
She ducked his question. "You said it was a long, contentious relationship. What happened?"
"Okay, I'll keep playing," accepting that she wasn't ready to explain. "My father kept me out of school to work the winter vacation spots in the South. It was resolved by transferring my custody to Samantha and Pete. That's how I finally stayed out of foster care for good. And we had to agree to mid-term and year-end testing. If I passed, they overlooked the sketchy attendance and left us alone."
"How did that go?"
"I read the textbooks on my own. Passing the tests was no big deal." He smiled at the memory. "I didn't like the system and did my best to mess with them. I'd barely pass one time, then ace the tests the next. It got to the point where they put me in a bare room with my very own proctor to be sure I wasn't cheating. They would have strip-searched me if they could have gotten away with it."
"You know, that just gave them a reason to make your life difficult. It also made you stand out."
He shrugged. "I was a kid. Of course I was immature. Initially I hated school because it was boring. Fortunately, my mom introduced me to libraries. Reading during class made it bearable and kept me out of trouble. That carried over to the carny circuit. I'd get a library card everywhere we stopped, take out a bunch of books, read them in a week or so and mail them back. Media mail was great."
"Did you ever figure out how Red John knew about your memory of Leelee Barlow?"
"No. You think there's a connection?"
Lisbon sighed and leaned back. "Jane, I admit this is all speculation. But someone I respect recommends keeping an open mind until a case is closed."
"Can't disagree with that," he smiled at her oblique reference. "So what's the speculation?"
"Miranda Roman and other women in the battered women's shelter were a vulnerable population. Some were taken advantage of-raped and murdered. There are other vulnerable populations. For instance, kids from bad backgrounds who are under the care of government agencies."
"I wasn't in foster care for long. I was never abused."
"Would you even know?" She hurried to add, "I don't necessarily mean physical abuse."
"What then?"
"Remember Talman Bunting, the puzzle shop guy who collects geniuses for national security consulting? He used himself as a measuring stick. He said the metal puzzle you toyed with in his store was tricky. The only thing you found puzzling was that it was so easy. You won your chess game in a way that surprised him. And you kept him from getting a functional universal hacking machine by solving the murder. You're not interested in math, but you play at that level. You're clearly off the scale for standard IQ tests."
"Your point?"
"Bunting had all kinds of pull from his national security and intelligence work. They certainly value people as smart as you are. How badly would the CIA or a sister agency want to identify people like you? Especially young kids who could be recruited and diverted to their purposes?"
Jane shook his head. "You're casting a pretty big net. I'm not sure anything hangs together." She could tell he was intrigued nonetheless.
"Are you sure you never told anyone your Leelee Barlow memory?"
"I've thought about that since she was murdered. Pretty sure."
"Jane, think. If you didn't tell anyone and you rule out 'real' psychics, 'real' mind-readers, how could Red John find out?"
"I'm not about to start believing in 'real' psychics."
"What if you were hypnotized or drugged? Child Protective Services would have had that kind of access when you were a child in foster care. Or, maybe, Sophie Miller or someone else learned about that memory when you were treated in the asylum? We can't take Child Services at face value. Gottleib was with the agency a long time and she was a Red John friend a long time. Coincidence on top of coincidence." Absent good reason to the contrary, Lisbon knew Jane rejected coincidence out‑of‑hand.
"It would be possible to get at my memories that way. If they did when I was a kid, there doesn't seem to have been any follow-up. It's also a little thin to think there's a program that goes back 30 years. There's no information suggesting anything underhanded happened in the asylum ten years ago. For what it's worth, I don't recall anything happening in foster care or the asylum. Interesting conjecture, though."
"Jane, let's leave that for now. Virgil had some interesting information. He asked about the Vegas operation and the problems between the CBI and FBI. I gave him a quick overview. When you first came to the CBI, Virgil hired you after you solved the Dellinger case. He also gave you access to the Red John files."
"So?"
"Here's what's new. The day you were hired, Alexa Shultz called Virgil that evening. She knew the CBI had hired you. She claimed to know because you were associated with Red John, a case of interest to the FBI. She asked to be kept abreast of CBI's work on the case."
Jane frowned. "Knowing CBI hired me is odd."
"One more thing. She asked if Virgil knew why you'd been off the radar during the previous year. She told him you'd been in an insane asylum and wished him luck."
Jane straightened, suddenly tense and uneasy. "Why would the FBI track me, why would it care? How could it know about the asylum? Other than Sophie, no one knew I planned to hunt down Red John and kill him. Even if the FBI knew, why would anyone take me seriously? I didn't have credentials or a track record back then."
"I can't believe the FBI tracks all the relatives of Red John's victims. And if it doesn't track everyone, why you? Anyhow, set that aside, too. Here's something else that keeps bothering me–and you, too, if I remember. Why the hell is Homeland Security interested in a local–or at most, regional–serial killer? I keep asking Kirkland and never get an answer."
"He is one of my seven Red John suspects," Jane said quietly.
"Jane, we've made a fundamental assumption that may–or may not–be justified. We keep assuming Red John is an individual psychopath. Even if he has a network of friends, we think of him as one person. What if Red John isn't a private party but part of an organization?"
"Go on."
"What if Red John is–or was-with the CIA or some similar agency? He could have a loyal following in the agency. Maybe another agency faction is fighting him. Since the 9‑11 attack, all the Federal intelligence agencies are under Homeland Security. We had that kind of inter-agency fighting between the CBI and FBI after the FBI botched our Red John operation."
"I've thought along those lines myself, Lisbon. There isn't enough evidence to go anywhere with the idea, though."
"Not so far although Minelli's information about Shultz is consistent. It would explain a lot if it were true. Red John has wide access at high levels. He seems to have unlimited resources. And I keep wondering why Bertram is so willing to work with Homeland Security, trusting them over his own CBI agents. We would have kept Jason Lennon except for Bertram's cooperation."
"Again, that assumes Bertram isn't Red John. –I'm bothered by how a psychopath commands such absolute loyalty. Several Red John disciples have willingly died for him. That kind of devotion is more typical of religious zealots or military and intelligence agents. Red John attracts recruits by giving them something they want but, even so, dying for him is a big leap. And how does he attract normal people when he kills innocent women with such a heinous m.o.?"
"Maybe none are normal. Gottleib seemed normal, but she helped kill Eileen to steal the baby. Jason Lennon seemed normal when we interviewed him as a shelter trustee. He turned out to be a monster. Ditto, Timothy and Sally Carter. Dumar was clearly unbalanced. I don't know about Gupta and the others."
Jane took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't know what to make of this, but it's certainly worth thinking about. The Minelli stuff puts it beyond idle speculation." He looked at Lisbon with new appreciation. "You surprise me, Teresa. Usually you try to curb my wild conjectures. Good thinking outside the box."
"Jane, I'm concerned. Nothing about Red John is a 'normal' homicide case. I believe in following the evidence, wherever it leads. Especially now that Red John's declared open warfare."
"Let me mull this over, see if there are any links to my past. Let's keep these ideas in mind."
She dropped Jane off on her way home. Although worried about the implications, she was pleased by Jane's reaction. It wasn't often anyone offered something he hadn't already considered.