Chapter 4: Who is the victim?

Wednesday, seven p.m.

They had spent three full days now in Shasta Lake. Since midday on Monday also Van Pelt was here, but although they were a full investigation team now, there seemed to be no real revelations on this case. It was dead hot, maybe a few of the hottest days in this summer; but they had no chance or time to pay any respect to the heat. They had spent Monday and Tuesday outdoors, searching the grounds around the place where the man was finally hanged for any evidence. Also some forensics specialists had been there with them, but they had not found out much more than they already guessed at their first visit. The victim had been dragged along the small path that led to this tree; they found fabric pieces that matched the jogging suit of the man at some thorny bushes that were growing alongside the path, and on one of the bushes there were also blood traces. The man was tortured and murdered at this place, almost all his blood was spilled here. When he had been hanged some carnivore birds had taken pieces out of the victim´s upper body and arms, and the flesh of one lower leg was missing because some larger carnivore, the bite marks fitted a fox or a small coyote, took it. There were flies, ants and some bugs – all together they proved that the body must have been hanging there for at least four days.

So the torture and the murder themselves, as well as the fate of the corpse, had a complete history, at least from the parking lot until the pathologist started his examination.

But that did not mean much. One could have the complete report of the coroner, but if the murderers left no trace, like here, it was a dead end. They could only wait for the computer reconstruction of the face of the victim; the fingertips were all cut and burnt, so they could get not a single fingerprint. Respecting the state in which the body had been in when they found it… it was a difficult job to reconstruct a life like picture on the computer and everybody understood that the technicians needed more time for that.

Three hours ago the report of the pathologist had been completed and sent to them, for the files. The CBI team as well as the officers in the local Sheriff´s department had forced themselves to read it through once, and that was really enough. It was like reading the little book of horrors; one of the officers in the room did not bear it and went to the men´s room with an almost white face. Whoever had done this to that poor man, must be so far out there, that no one here could believe it. Sometimes it was hard to understand what humans could do to other human beings.

»Okay.« Sheriff Summit said, with a little bit of resignation in her voice. »It´s been a long day, really, and after that shocking report I think we might need an evening outside this office. So… the night shift will start their work in half an hour, the rest of you officers can go home if you…« She was interrupted by a phone call. »Yes, Summit here?« she answered, listened to the caller, and explained to the others: »Sorry guys… the reconstruction of the face is ready. They´ll send it over. They only need a secure e-mail address.«

»I´ll tell them mine.« Van Pelt said. »They can send it to my computer right away.« She took the phone for a minute and only a short time later she had the mail on her laptop. »Yes, I got it here.« she told the technicians. »Thank you for the work.« She hang up.

They all looked at the face of the man. It was computer made and had of course the touch of artificiality, but it was a start. The man had brown hair and grayish eyes, and no really distinctive features; was between thirty-five and forty-five years old, and neither very tall nor too small. It was a type of man that could be found everywhere.

Lisbon said: »Start the run through immediately. Maybe we get some results. Although I fear that the list will be very long. Even if we include the fact that he might have been living not far away, as Jane told us.« She sighed. »It will be a long night, I think.«

»I fear so.« Van Pelt said. »I´ll send the picture through all the civilian registration offices, also I will include the missing peoples reports that we have selected before, and the list of the people who had criminal records.«

Lisbon turned to Sheriff Summit: »But if you want, you can send your day-shift-people home, and get some rest. While the search for the man is on the run, we´ll try again to compare the statements of the neighborhood to the facts we found at the parking lot.«

They had been asking round in the street next to the small parking lot right on Monday morning, but as Sheriff Summit had predicted, the round through the neighborhood had not been very successful. There were only ten houses that looked out directly on the street that let out to the small parking place, from where the path to the crime scene parted off; and no one could tell who might have been at the parking place itself five days ago. A much too long time had passed since the murder. Only two persons, an older woman who was a passionate gardener and a young scout-boy who had been bird watching in the area had seen something that could possibly be a hint: A dark blue van-car with blackened rear windows. Rigsby and Cho still searched for the car, but there were thousands of that kind in the middle-northern California. None of the witnesses remembered the car type, not even to think of the license plate. It could have been the murderer´s van as well as the van of a happy family that was here to go hiking or camping for the weekend. So this had been a dead end, but if – maybe if, the murdered person himself owned a car like this, this might be a little step forward. When the kidnappers used the car of the victim, there were maybe some usable traces inside, but at first they had to find it!

And it was getting late. Dusk and dinner time passed; they had only some take away food from the next corner´s Pizzeria. It was late night now, and only one tired officer who had night shift was still there besides the CBI team.

»Eureka!« Grace suddenly exclaimed, but her voice was not very happy. Everyone in the Sheriff´s office looked at her. »The run through got me results.«

Lisbon, who had been working with Cho and Rigsby on an aerial photo of the area, went over to her teammates place: »Is it much?«

»As much as I feared.« Van Pelt answered. »We have six hundred and twenty two matches with the drivers licenses of northern and middle California; five hundred and seventy nine matches to the passport´s pictures of citizens of this area, one hundred and three persons who could fit according to the list of already police-known people; and still fifty-nine persons who are on the missing peoples list of California, that look like him.«

Lisbon sat down next to her. »Oh dear.« She took a deep breath. »That means a lot of sorting out per hand – we start with the missing peoples reports as a base and compare them to all the other files. It´s the shortest list, maybe we get something.«

Jane sighed: »That means work until the morning, does it?«

»Seems so.« Lisbon replied, but fell silent within a second.

It was this very moment when she noticed how eager she was to put all her concentration to the current case. It was a good chance to put back her own mishap for a while, when she had other things to think on. Strange, how fast her mind nevertheless was back to that night. It was as if she only slowly really began to realize how incredibly delivered she had been to her attacker. This person could have done anything to her; the intruder had got it in his or her will if she´d live or die, whether she was hurt or unscathed… It was a situation that was not easy to forget.

And Jane knew; the way he looked back at her right now was heartbreaking. Maybe it would be better to admit that she really suffered from this situation, but… being strong was her way! She would not allow this attack to bring her down.

»Folks.« she said, to distract her. »Listen. We´re all overtired. Let´s get to the motel and try to sleep a few hours. We´ll work tomorrow on these lists; with the help of Sheriff Summit and the day shift officers. We meet again at half past eight, here.«

Grace proposed: »I let the computer do an overnight-run through the files again – and include the missing people´s reports of western Nevada and southern Oregon. I know that we´ll get even more results then, but probably there´s one better match.«

»Yes, do this.« Lisbon agreed. A few minutes later they left the Sheriff´s office.

:-:

Later, when Teresa was up to turn off light in her motel room and get some sleep before the long day that was waiting in the morning, there was a soft knock on the door. She knew at once that it must be Jane, and went to open the lock, but then she decided for another way, she let the door closed; why exactly, she did not know – or pretended not to know. No, on the contrary. She was well aware of it. She could not bear the sorrows he carried round, and which were still visible with a look in his eyes – although he tried hard to keep their trace out of his voice when he was talking to her.

»Yes?« she asked through the shut door, while leaning her shoulder against the thin wooden barrier.

Jane answered: »I want you to see your doctor as soon as we´re back home. If you don´t want to talk to me, maybe you´ll talk to someone else.« He put his hand on the door from the outside. If it would be possible to cut the door in half and look at the scene from the side, it would be charming. If it was not for the door as a barrier, his hand would rest on her shoulder; a gentle, but encouraging touch.

»That´s not your business, Patrick. You are not at my side to be concerned about my health. You´re my consultant in crime investigations. We discussed that once, and that had been enough. But I will do, I told you. And don´t let you be carried away by the thoughts about that night. We need to be professional to protect the team. You agreed to that.«

He took a deep breath: »Yes. But it is difficult.«

»I know.« Lisbon said. »Good night.«

»Night.«

:-:

Finally they had it; or someone like that. It was past noon again, but together they had worked out the list until only two names had remained.

Rigsby wrote those two names on the big flip-chart: »It´s probably Mister Andrew Greene of Two-Seven-Nine-Six Harlan Drive, Redding; or Mister Tom Baker, Seven-Four-Three-One Mill Street, in Anderson. We need to check where the key fits and we got it.«

»Fine!« Lisbon said. »Let´s go, thank god Van Pelt brought the big van.«

First they went to the address in Redding, because it was a little bit nearer, and as soon as they stood in front of the entrance door, they knew that they were right here. The key fit the lock and Cho opened the door. In the house there was the smell of food that was beginning to rot, but nothing else seemed to be changed by intruders. The house owner only left his home for his jogging round, and was up to come back soon. There was food prepared on the table and the coffee-machine had caused a short-circuit because it was on and no one had turned it off again. There was old coffee in the cup; everything seemed to be just waiting for the man to return, but he never did. Upstairs the light in the bathroom was still on, and a suit for the day was prepared next to the big mirror on the wardrobe. Also shoes were standing there, next to a business-bag with laptop inside.

»That makes me sad, the whole house waits for him to return, but he never will.« Jane said. »This man never expected to be taken by someone.«

»Hm.« Cho said, who had opened the wardrobe. »But maybe you´re wrong, Jane.« he pointed to a ready-to-go packed bag, that was standing at the floor of the wardrobe. If needed you´d only have to take it and off you go.

Lisbon ordered: »Open the bag and look what´s inside. Still possible that he was up to go on holidays and had already prepared all, such as he had prepared his breakfast and his suit before he went for his morning-sports. All the others, search for photos, personal documents, some letters or bills. We must get to know our victim, maybe we´ll find his murderers that way. The boss of his working place reported him missing. Look if there are really no other persons that could possibly miss him, like relatives or friends. If there are some persons connected to him that did not make a report this could be suspicious.«

Rigsby went downstairs, saying: »I start with the cellar.«

»Then I´ll search the roof floor.« Van Pelt said.

Jane, Lisbon and Cho were soon surprised by the return of the two others.

Rigsby explained: »Nothing in the cellar, only the heat generator and the pipes, also the fuses. Some empty cardboard boxes, but they are all unmarked.«

»The same upstairs. The roof room is small and you can hardly stand upright, but it is dry and would be the perfect place for the storage of older personal belongings or spare clothing, but it is as empty as if the house was never used.«

Jane supposed: »Maybe he did not live here for a long time. The cardboard boxes could be the remains from a move. I´ve noticed that he must have been living alone – the other rooms here all belong to him too, he has a computer- and library room where one of the children´s rooms could be, the other room up here is his sports-room with some training-apparatus, and there are no signs of a female touch in this house. Probably he had someone, but this person was not living here.«

»We´ll find out.« Lisbon reassured the team.

Slowly a picture of the person that was murdered was beginning to form. He worked at a firm for car-parts, not in a very high position, but apparently he tried to look as much business-like as possible. He was not living in Redding for a long time, only two years now, and he had several relationships but nothing really serious. When Cho went to talk with his boss, it came out that Mr. Andrew Greene had been a good worker, thrice been employee of the month, and never complained about anything; if he´d not been murdered he would have had the best chances for a promotion. All his current co-workers were deeply hit that he was dead, and it was his boss who had reported him missing; because he never before missed a working day without an excuse. There was nothing suspicious in the life of Andrew Greene, nothing that would have justified a murder like this.

When they sat together at the evening round, Lisbon decided: »We´re going back to Sacramento tomorrow, we can´t do nothing more here. We´ve heard all witnesses, looked at all evidence and still this Mr. Greene seems to be a victim of unidentified persons. Possibly we´ll find some more in the files of the CBI, maybe we can try to contact the FBI too. So we´ll pack up the things now, so that we can start off tomorrow morning.«

They all were ok with that; it was strange feeling to be in a dead end, especially when they had such a disgusting case. Of course they would have preferred to get the murderers in charge for their doing. But it was as if… Mr. Andrew Greene had never existed more than two years ago.

At this moment Rigsby said: »Boss, it is a good idea to search the CBI internal files. I think it is very strange if someone has no past, I mean… there were all the documents… birth register, high-school and college diploma, of course his driver´s license, passport… but they all seem to be new – the paper and the computer print looks new.« He gazed at Jane who was also looking through the files of Andrew Greene now. »What do you think?«

»Oh, um, I what? Ah, yes, the personal documents…« he seemed to be not very concentrated, and then he said only something that they all already knew: »Yes, the passport is new, also the driver´s license. New photos and both issued two years ago. But that may mean nothing, maybe he had to make them new because they were expired.«

It was Van Pelt who asked: »Jane, are you sure that you are all-right? You seem to be carried away… I mean, although this case is really interesting, you´re not really with us; not even half the time. We watched this almost the whole week now… but…«

Patrick smiled: »Sorry about that. Possibly the fate of that poor guy repels me too much to think straight ahead.«

Cho said: »You never think straight ahead.«

»This time I tried to do. But it seems to be the wrong direction. Straight ahead there is that dead end; we know no one that might have had a grudge on Mr. Greene; and looking straight back his existence breaks down two years ago.«

Rigsby smiled and said: »That sounds much more like the Patrick Jane we know.«

Only Lisbon remained silent. She knew what he was thinking about and all the focus she had tried to put on this current case popped away like a soap-bubble. It had been nice to concentrate on as long as it was there but now she also thought back to that night again.

Finally Jane broke the silence: »If you ask me, I´d say that "Mr. Andrew Greene" exists only since two years. Respecting the fact that this man was almost forty years old; that's a long time for someone to "not exist". What if this is a new identity, chosen by him to conceal a past that he´d like to forget, or given to him by someone to protect him.«

»Witness protection program.« Rigsby and Cho said at once.

Jane nodded: »Therefore we really need to go back to the HQ where we have the full access to the files. Maybe someone recognizes him if we show the photo to our colleagues.«

»That´s brilliant.« Lisbon credited to him. »And it´s the only new track we have.«

While the Senior Agent explained their new theory to Sheriff Summit, the others started to pack the things. Grace put them in the police safe, then they left the Shasta Lake Sheriff´s office for the night.

:-:

It was almost midday on Friday, when they all arrived in Sacramento; there had been an accident on the interstate and only Jane and Rigsby, who were the fastest drivers, had passed that spot ere a long vehicle truck toppled over and the lanes were closed for almost one hour until Cho, Van Pelt and Lisbon could finally pass by.

Wainwright was waiting for a report, so Lisbon joined him. In the meantime the others worked on the files and also looked at the old, expired driver´s license register; but that would be a really long work because they did not know where they could search for the man who now was Mr. Greene. They had to look at all the US records, while the computer was working on it´s own, they retreated to the cellar to look through the old files of the witness protection program.

»I hope that this is not a FBI case.« Cho said. »Then we won´t get far with our files.«

Rigsby sighed: »Oh, don´t worry. Wainwright has granted Lisbon overtime. We can work all the weekend, if we need to.«

»Wow.« Van Pelt groaned. »So far about that, I think.«

Monday morning

It would have really been a long work, if not Agent Mallory, an Agent who was working in the team of Agent Price, would have passed by Rigsby´s desk when she arrived at work in the morning. She stopped and asked: »What do you do with a photo of one of our clients?«

»Eh, what?« Wayne, who was a little bit overtired and had not left the office since Saturday morning, looked up to her. He was puzzled and felt dizzy. Before his little nap he had been working at the computer for a long time and blinked to get his eyes clear. »Oh, this man… He´s our case now. You know him?«

»Yes, although the photo is not really life like. But yes, this is… I don´t recall his name now. But I know him. He´s in Agent Price´s witness protection program. I´ll round him up, as soon as he´s here. He´ll take a look at the photo. I am sure he knows his name.«

Rigsby smiled: »Thank you very much!«

Grace had spent this night here with him, therefore she was already in the house, as well as Jane was, who had never left since Friday, he was sleeping in his roof chamber. So he only had to call Lisbon and Cho, but they both were already on the way to the bureau.

Thirty minutes later the whole team was there, also Wainwright, and they were waiting for Price. The other team leader arrived, accompanied by his own people, and confirmed: »This is one of our former clients; from almost three years ago. We had him under cover for nine months, and then we established him a new identity. His name is Andrew Greene now, right? What happened to him?«

»Right, we found him as a Mister Andrew Greene, in Redding. I mean, near Shasta Lake. In the woods.« Lisbon started to explain. »He´s dead, murdered, to be exact. Whoever did this, tortured him several hours ere they let hanged him to suffocate.«

Agent Price was shocked: »Wow, no… I told him to move to the east coast; I never knew that he´d stay here in California. You know already how did this to him?«

»No.« Jane replied. »But it would help a lot if you´d tell us his old name.«

»Of course, and if you need it I would give you all the information I have upon him. His name was Howard Hanson, he was that person who had been the night shift security employee who had tried to spy on my files. That time you also helped me out, didn´t you?«

For a few seconds there was a blank silence between them all.

Then Patrick asked: »That protection program you ran for Mister Peter Thompson, who witnessed against Lazar Levine and his associates? I think Hanson made a statement on that, did he? I mean, on the part that he was hired for.«

»Yes he did, and that got Levine some more years. But how the heck comes it that Hanson ends up murdered now? May I have a look in the case file, please?«

Lisbon said: »Of course, but you might not be very happy. It´s gruesome.« She pointed to the file that was on the table. It was still small, but they were sure that it soon would be much fatter. Price stretched his hands out for the papers; never took them, but startled.

»Now I know!« with this three words Jane jumped to his feet and started rummaging in the file until he found the report of the pathologist. »See here, he´s been punished cause he´s a rat, a traitor! He heard something he must not hear, and passed it on! Therefore the extremely violent humiliation of his ears and mouth!«

Price asked: »Ears and mouth?« Then Jane handed him the file so he could read it himself. Price´s face went white; he needed some time to find the ability to speak again. »And the victim was still alive when they did this? The thing with the screwdriver and the… staples?« he coughed. »Oh crap, they´re really crazy.«

»Crap indeed.« Wainwright said, who was looking at the report from one side. »That surely means that someone who knew that he was witness in a big process is behind this attack. They punished him for talking. And that leads us to this case where he was in court.«

»It does.« Price admitted. »Do you agree, Agent Lisbon, if we work on this together?«

Teresa nodded: »Everybody who´s able to help us is welcome.«

Price said: »At first, I would like to be sure that the other witnesses in this case are safe. If this goes out from someone close to Levine, they will be after the other witnesses.«

»That's fine for us. And we try to work out this specific murder, which hopefully will lead us to the people who did it – and finally to their client, wherever he may be.«