Red in Tooth

By Thalia Drogna

Author's Note: Sorry it's been a long wait. Thanks for hanging in there.

Agent Lisbon broke the speed limit to get to the hospital, and then she ran from the car to Jane's room. Apparently his blood pressure had taken a sudden dive and his kidneys were beginning to fail. Talavera had put him on dialysis as a measure to prevent things from getting any worse. Lisbon didn't like the sound of any of this though.

Talavera saw Lisbon come in and looked up from her checking of Jane's monitors. Jane himself was much as she'd left him, still pale and sweating, hooked up to a huge array of medical equipment and with red blotches on his skin from the allergic reaction. The machines that monitored him beeped quietly and, more importantly, rhythmically. His eyes had dark red circles around them and his breathing was laboured. There were several bags of liquid hung on the IV stand and their contents were running down a narrow tube into Jane's arm. This was the picture of a seriously ill man.

"He's worse?" asked Lisbon, seeing no point in beating about the bush. Her face was a picture of concern.

Talavera took a moment to consider. "He's actually improved a little since I called you, but his blood pressure is still too low. He's been in and out of consciousness, mostly out, but asking for you when he's been talking. He's still not making much sense though. I'm hoping the dialysis will mean he's more lucid, but he's been having a bad allergic reaction to the monovalent antivenin."

"Worse than the other stuff?"

Talavera frowned. "About the same, but that was fairly a severe reaction anyway. In many ways he's doing quite well. We haven't had any further cardiac episodes and now that we've got the correct antivenin, we can stop any further damage being done by the venom. I think it might help him, just having a familiar face here."

"What about the dialysis? That can't be a good sign." Lisbon headed towards Jane's bedside, wondering what she was doing back here. After all, she couldn't help her consultant in any meaningful way but yet she still felt the need to be here.

"Mostly it's supportive. If we help out his kidneys then we can give them some recovery time. I'm hopeful that the damage won't be permanent, but we'll have to wait and see."

Lisbon nodded, not really understanding how these things worked but at least seeing the logic behind the procedure. She sat on the lone chair in the corner and waited. She wasn't going to go anywhere now, and the team would call her if they came up with anything. She'd already noted that Jane had no one else, no one other than her and she already felt guilty about having to take off before. This time she'd just have to wait it out and see if the dialysis helped. If he had been asking for her then she had to be here.

She checked her phone again, Grace had sent her the standard background checks on all of the main suspects, but there were no other messages from the team. She settled back in the chair, answered a couple of emails from other colleagues about paperwork that she had filed, and read the background checks. She tried not to clock watch and did her best to ignore the sounds of the medical machinery that was keeping Jane alive. An entire hour passed.

Jane emitted a groan and moved his head just a little. Lisbon's eyes widened and she glanced over at Talavera to see if she should get her hopes up.

Talavera checked the monitors again. "Try saying something to him, sometimes he's lucid enough to reply."

She got to her feet and approached the bed. "Jane, it's Lisbon. Can you hear me?"

Jane tilted his head towards her. "Lisbon?" he mumbled through the ever-present oxygen mask. "Lisbon?" His eyes struggled to pull themselves open and he looked up at Lisbon.

"Hi there," said Lisbon, giving him as reassuring smile as she could manage.

"Hey." He favoured her with a smile of his own in return. It wasn't even close to its usual brilliance but to Lisbon it was somewhat miraculous. He blinked at her.

"You look like crap," she said, knowing Jane would appreciate her honesty and humour.

The smile broadened. "Such a… way with words, Lisbon… I feel… like crap." His eyes closed again and his brow furrowed. "Did you… get the snake?"

Lisbon nodded. "Yes, it was a Long Nosed Viper. Apparently the venom is pretty weak compared to other vipers, but it looks like it injected a lot of it. I guess, like a lot of the people you meet, it took a dislike to you because you annoyed it."

Jane gave a nod, eyes still closed and still smiling in that annoying way that he had. "Tol' you… it was a vicious one... Meanwhile… I solved… your… case for you." His eyes opened again just in time to see the look of amused disbelief on her face. "Don't smirk…I'm perfectly serious. You need to check… the milk snake tank."

"Jane, you've been laid up here in the hospital and pretty much unconscious for the entire time since I left. How could you solve the case? You don't even know what we've been working on."

"The brain is an amazing thing, Lisbon… Amazing… Go check the tank… tell me what you find there. I'll tell you who killed Marcus Addison." He sounded half asleep, or at least as if he would drop off at any moment. He blinked at her again.

"You need to rest and concentrate on getting well." She met his eyes so that he would know that she meant every word. "Forget about the case. Rigsby, Cho and Van Pelt are interviewing two suspects right now that look good for it."

He shook his head and gave Lisbon one of his withering looks, the kind that he reserved for when he felt she was being particularly naïve. "Whoever they are… you've got the wrong people." He did his best to reach out a hand, but failed even in trying to lift it off the bed. Lisbon had to listen hard to hear what he was saying. "It was someone he trusts. Not as much as… they thought he did though… Tell me more about…the suspects."

Talavera didn't look happy at the way this conversation was going, and Lisbon noted the disapproving look on her face. She knew Jane, however. If he had information on the case then he would be desperate to do the big reveal, and for him (as always) to show that he had worked out who the killer was before anyone else. Not that Lisbon believed for one moment that he actually knew every time who the murdered was; it was just that he had very good skills for reading faces. When he combined that with his talent for getting people to give themselves away, it meant he could usually identify the killer before anyone else.

Lisbon sighed. "Their names are Kumiko and Tomio Hatayama. Kumiko works at one of the pet stores and was Marcus' sort of protégé. Tomio is her older brother and runs with one of the Sacramento gangs. We figure that she's involved in illegal snake importing somehow and he's her connection to the criminal element."

Jane shook his head again, weakly and without much enthusiasm. "She was trying… to go straight, yes?" He took a few long breaths before continuing. "You'll find her involvement… in illegal snake importing is minimal, just enough to make her… run to her brother for help."

Lisbon frowned. "Okay, then who else? There's a snake importer that Marcus dealt with, Juan Romanos; a guy who manages his main store, Jonathan Barnes, and Lois, his girlfriend. None of them have motive at the moment."

Jane's eyes closed slowly. "It was someone he trusted enough to let them into his home… without any questions or worry, but not enough… to trust them with whatever he hid in that snake tank."

"That could be any one of them."

"I know, Lisbon… it'll come to me… how to catch them," said Jane, sleepily and blinking hard. His eyelids fell shut once more. This time his body went limp too and she knew that he was out of it again. She gave him a quick squeeze on the shoulder, unsure why she felt the gesture was needed, but it was.

Talavera looked none too pleased. "Agent Lisbon, he doesn't need the stress of work at the moment. I won't be able to let you in here if you're going to discuss cases with him."

Lisbon frowned. "He's a serial obsessive and right now he's obsessing about finding the killer of Marcus Addison. I can guarantee that talking about it will make him less stressed rather than more. He lives for puzzles like this."

It was Talavera who frowned now. "Since you've been here his vital signs have improved a little. Perhaps he did need to get something off his chest. Just try to keep your discussions short, I'm still a little concerned about his blood oxygen levels and he needs a lot of rest."

Lisbon nodded, and once again sat on the uncomfortable plastic chair that she had vacated a few moments earlier. It was now early afternoon and she'd skipped lunch in order to raid a gang's hideout. Talavera finished taking her readings and left the room, leaving Lisbon to contemplate whether she should leave Jane's side to forage for a sandwich, or if she was better just waiting here a bit longer.

She looked over at the unconscious consultant and wondered how much of his reasoning she could trust in his current drugged and ill state. He'd seemed reasonably coherent, remarkably so in fact, but then Talavera had said that the dialysis might improve things. It wouldn't hurt to call Van Pelt and tell her to look more into Romanos, Birchley and Barnes's backgrounds, or ask her to see if there was anything hidden in the Milk Snake tank at Addison's house. The crime scene hadn't been released yet, nor would it be for a while and no one would have removed the other snakes yet.

She took out her phone and called Van Pelt, and then she dialled again to call in a couple of favours.

Rigsby and Cho wanted to interview Tomio Hatayama first, but he knew the system and exactly what his rights were. He was sat there with his lawyer, and his plan seemed to be to say nothing. They left him to stew for a while and moved on to Kumiko. Cho went in whilst Rigsby observed through the two way mirror.

Kumiko just sat looking scared, with her arms wrapped around herself. She watched Cho come in and sit down with trepidation.

Cho opened the file on the desk. "Why did you run?"

She looked down at the table. "I got a snake for my brother."

"The pet store gets snakes for people all the time," replied Cho.

"It was a Burmese Anaconda, they're protected. There's this guy, he's the boss of Tommy's gang. Has a thing for making himself look big by keeping bad ass animals. He wanted an Anaconda. I think he'd seen a film or something. They're deadly. They'll squeeze the life out of you if you let them."

Cho used his best contemptuous look on her. "So you thought it would be a good idea to get this gang boss a deadly snake?"

Kumiko looked a little shocked. "No! He knew that I worked at the pet store and had access to the imports. He put pressure on Tomio, and made it a personal slight if he didn't get what he wanted. Tommy came to me and begged me to help him. This guy… you don't want to cross him." Her eyes pleaded with the agent to understand. Cho understood all too well what the peer pressure within a gang was capable of and what it meant to cross other gang members.

"You should have gone to the police," said Cho, still unwilling to concede the point.

"Yeah, you would have done a lot if I'd told you a gang member wanted an illegal snake. You'd have told me to stop wasting your time and that Tommy should just get out of the gang. It's not that simple." Her voice got just a little louder and more animated. She leaned back in her chair and looked pointedly at the two way mirror. "All you're interested in is shooting people that shoot other people. What good is that?"

"That's not all that we're interested in, but right now we do want to know who killed your boss, Marcus Addison," said Cho. "We think he found out that you'd put his business in jeopardy by buying an illegal snake through the pet store. If he was found out and fined, then he would have lost his reputation and a lot of money. He confronted you at his home and you killed him."

Kumiko shook her head vigorously. "No way. I'd never hurt Marcus, he gave me a chance when no one else would. I used to hang out in the pet shop, I was in there every day if I could be. I got to know him and the reptiles pretty well. Finally he gave me a job and taught me about the reptiles in the evenings. I wouldn't want him dead, because without him there I probably don't have a job." Her words sounded sincere but then in Cho's experience, murderers were often good liars. "And I wasn't at his house last night. Look, okay, he knew about the snake and that I'd faked the paperwork. He caught me doing it. But he told me he'd square it somehow. The one he was really angry with was Juan Romanos, he thought he shouldn't have helped me. But I guess he was equally pissed at Lois."

"Why was he angry at Lois?" asked Cho.

"I run errands between the stores in Sacramento. Sometimes customers ask for things that we don't keep in stock at the smaller stores, so I run them over from the one I work at. Lois is in charge of the L Street store so I see quite a bit of her. I went to see Juan at his Sacramento office, and Lois was there. She saw me, but asked me not to tell Marcus. I assumed she was buying a snake, as a surprise for Marcus' collection or something, but when he found out about the anaconda… I asked him about Lois and he didn't know anything about it. That's weird because it was his birthday that week, and he would have had to sign off the owner's permits at some point. Then there's other paperwork that he'd have needed to do if it was being bought through the shop. Normally he'd be excited about a new snake too… One snake, that he could hide I guess, but if Lois had been doing something illegal too, well I can understand why he'd have been angry. He said he was going to have to have a talk with Juan about it."

There was a tap on the glass of the two way mirror. Cho picked up his folder, and got up from his chair. "We'll have more questions for you later."

"It's not like I can go anywhere," said Kumiko.

Cho ignored her and left the room. In the corridor outside Van Pelt and Rigsby were waiting for him. He didn't have to say anything, Grace was ready with the reason that she'd interrupted the interrogation.

"Lisbon called. Jane came round and he thinks that the murderer hid something in the milk snake tank. Lisbon wasn't sure how to take it, but Jane's usually right about this stuff," said Van Pelt. "She wants us to go and take a look."

Cho and Rigsby exchanged a look, but if Lisbon thought it was worth looking into then that's what they would do.

"I guess it might make Jane a bit easier for the doctors to deal with if he thinks he's helping," said Rigsby.

"He's probably on medication and it's a waste of our time," said Cho. He wasn't intending to be mean, more pragmatic.

"Yes, but Grace and I can run over there and check. We're talking an hour tops. It might even give us a lead." Rigsby was giving him that look, the one that was a bit like a puppy wanting a new bone. It wasn't hard to give in, especially given that one of their colleagues was in the hospital.

"Go on," said Cho. "Just don't complain if you don't find the answer to this case in the snake tank, and get the snake expert from animal control to meet you there."

"Already done," said Grace, as efficient as ever. "He gave me his card. Tom Courtney."

Cho didn't fail to miss the look of jealousy that flickered across Rigsby's eyes before he schooled them into a professional visage. It happened almost every time Van Pelt mentioned a new man though, so it was something that he was used to and not unusual in any way. Cho ignored it.

"Okay," said Rigsby. "I'll drive."

Cho watched the two of them head for the elevator, Grace's dark red hair bobbing as she walked. Cho marvelled that Rigsby could put up with having the woman he loved right beside him every day and yet so far out of reach. They seemed to have worked something out though. Cho had his own work to do though, and couldn't dwell on the love life (or lack of it) of his colleagues. He needed to go and visit Romanos, the snake importer, who seemed to be at the centre of this and do a bit of digging into Lois Birchley's background. It was already too late to catch Romanos at his office, so he arranged for his prisoners to be returned to custody and then started his research.

Van Pelt and Rigsby arrived at Addison residence in record time. Rigsby's driving was somewhat more aggressive than it really needed to be given that they weren't in any particular hurry. Van Pelt ignored it and just hung on at the appropriate moments. They arrived in one piece and she'd never actually thought he was being dangerous, just more assertive that normal.

It was now late evening and the house was in darkness. It still had crime scene tape across the door, so they sliced through it, turned on the lights and headed into the house, hearing the Animal Control truck pull up as they did so. Tom jumped out, smiling as he saw Van Pelt. He grabbed some equipment from the trunk and headed over to join the two agents.

"Hey there Agents, what can I help you with that couldn't wait until tomorrow?" he smiled.

Van Pelt smiled back. "We want to have a look at one of the snake's tanks. We think that Marcus Addison may have hidden something there."

Tom nodded. "Okay, we'd best go and have a look. Which one?"

Rigsby indicated for the snake expert to lead the way. "Jane seemed to think it was the milk snake tank."

Tom frowned as he walked. "It looks like the milks snake's tank wasn't closed properly. I didn't notice that before. At least they're not venomous." They entered the room where the snakes were kept. "Then again milk snakes have a nasty bite."

Van Pelt and Rigsby exchanged a look. "Maybe Jane was onto something," said Rigsby.

Tom reached for a new crate to put the snake in while they examined the tank. He put on a pair of gloves and reached in to retrieve the milk snake. He did it in one smooth action, grabbing it behind the head and quickly depositing it into the crate. He fixed the lid on firmly.

"All yours, Agents," said Tom, indicating the empty tank.

Rigsby snapped on a pair of gloves. He felt around in the substrate for a moment and Van Pelt saw his hand close around something. He pulled a small bag out of the tank, it was black and although now dirty with soil from the tank, it was clearly made of velvet. Rigsby opened it gingerly and tipped the contents onto the palm of his hand. Van Pelt's eyes went wide as about fifty sparkling diamonds fell into Rigsby's hand.

"Wow," said Van Pelt, unable to hold back some kind of exclamation. "That's got to be several million in diamonds."

Tom's eyes were wide. "How would he even have got them? The guy owned a pet store."

Rigsby nodded. "I think that explains why Marcus Addison was killed. Someone wanted the diamonds."

"But they didn't find them so why would they kill Marcus?" asked Tom.

"Jane would know," said Van Pelt wistfully. She hoped he was getting better. This case was highlighting why they needed him. They would never have thought to look for the diamonds without his tip.

Tom chipped in again, "It sounds like they didn't know how to handle snakes. Otherwise they'd have known that the viper would head towards the heater." Tom nodded at the wall heater that was right next to where the packing crate had been. Then he nodded at a metal pole with a hook on the end that rested against the wall. "And they'd have known how to use a hook to put back in its tank."

Rigsby sighed. "That puts us back to a gang connection, or at least someone who didn't work at the pet store. They must have known at least how to handle a snake."

Grace's brow furrowed. "I don't know. They can't all be experts."

"To be honest neither Jonathan Barnes nor Marcus's girlfriend were keen on the reptiles. Jonathan thought they were too much trouble and not enough income. Lois preferred the fluffy animals. I don't think I ever saw her handle a snake. I heard that she was trying to persuade Marcus to get rid of some of the really venomous ones," said Tom.

Grace's eyes widened, just a little with interest at this new information. Rigsby exchanged a look with the red headed agent that told her that he too had put this together with the information from Kumiko and was now considering Lois Birchley to be their prime suspect.