Author's notes:
Thank you to two great writers and friends, make-mine-a-kiaora and Sue Shay, for their help. Be sure to check out their stories - I have favorited them in my profile for easy access.
I do not own the TV show The Mentalist and get no compensation from it. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes only.
Chapter 8 - "Oh, Lady Be Good!"
Back at the police station…
After lunch, Henry noticed that the Three Musketeers took Capp Grainger home. He guessed that Kimball wanted Wayne and Grace along about as much as a high school prom couple wanted a chaperone, but that's just the way it was. It was hardly his problem though, he had his hands full with his two bosses.
Professor Marbray had that glint in his eyes - the one that signaled he was onto a hunch. If Henry had any doubts about how serious the professor's hunch was, Chief Lisbon dispelled them. The professor's furrowed brow had captured her attention as well. She knew he was onto something, and that well-honed teamwork between the two surfaced.
Maybe I should say the well-honed teamwork between the three of us!
Back at the police station, Professor Marbray focused his thoughts - and Chief Lisbon and Henry's - on the River Manor Apartment building once more.
"How old is the building, Henry?"
"It's older than me, at least thirty years."
"Who built it?"
"Some old guy. Ahm, ahm…"
"Is he still alive?"
"No, he died. Recently too." Like many other times, Henry wished he had a smidgen of the mental recall that the professor had. He'd heard Lisbon once call Marbray's ability his "memory palace." Palace was the right word; given time to reflect, Henry figured the professor could remember what he ate for lunch twenty years ago. In a flash, the name came to him. "Fitzgerald Cummings. That's the guy."
"You say he died recently, Henry?" Until now, Chief Lisbon stood quietly beside the two men.
"Yes, ma'am. I think he had a heart attack."
"Did Doc Bee do an autopsy?"
"No, ma'am. Cummings died while he was out of town. In New York, I think. It was about a year ago. He was getting on up in years anyway."
Lisbon looked at Marbray.
"I'm gonna look up about Fitzgerald Cummings' death."
"Good, Teresa." Marbray looked from her back to Henry. "Does he have any relatives here in town?"
"That I don't know. He lived at River Manor Apartments by himself."
Marbray looked back at Lisbon.
"Teresa, did you subscribe to that genealogical database for the department?"
"I did, Arch."
"While you and Henry find out what you can about Fitzgerald Cummings and about the building, I'm gonna sniff out what I can in his family tree."
While Henry and Chief Lisbon were looking up information about Fitzgerald Cummings and the River Manor Apartments, the Three Musketeers reappeared in the chief's office.
"Oh, good. You're back. Why don't you help Teresa and Henry with their research." Marbray scarcely looked up at the trio and only to involve them.
"Certainly, Arch. It's not like we're on vacation or anything like that." Wayne answered the professor with a snarl.
"Good. I mean, thank you for your help. See, I am trying to get better."
"Must be baby steps you're taking then," said Grace as she and Wayne started looking through a folder that Chief Lisbon handed to them.
In a few minutes, Professor Marbray looked up from the computer he was using.
"Someone needs to go over to the River Manor Apartments in disguise to nose around the place."
Henry shook his head.
"Half the police force lives in the building, and the new apartment manager, Owen Myer, knows everybody in town anyway. He'd recognize any of us."
Marbray scratched his chin.
"We need someone else then. Besides, it'd be good to have new eyes looking at the building." The professor got up from his chair and paced around the room. When he got even with the Rigsbys, he stopped. "You know what? A youngish couple saying that they're moving into town would do the trick. Especially if both had experience undercover and the skills to observe things." Marbray looked at Wayne and Grace as he held his hands up like a camera frame.
Grace slapped the file folder she was holding down on the table.
"Absolutely not! We came here on vacation. We said we'd help you guys move in, but other than that we came to relax."
"Perfect, Grace! What could be more relaxing than a little sleuthing to complement the fine job you've done helping us move?"
"No!" said Wayne.
"But the two of you are so good at something like this. Teresa always relied on you to do stuff like this at CBI." Marbray glanced at Henry. "Uh, so I heard anyway."
"Ja-ur-Archie!" Grace glanced over at Henry too then resumed. "Get someone else. You've already dragooned us into wading through these folders."
Marbray looked over at Lisbon.
"Teresa, help me out. Don't you think Wayne and Grace would be perfect for sniffing out something about the building?"
Lisbon turned to her friends.
"Archie's right. I know we're imposing on you, but would you do this for us, please? As a personal favor to me if not to him?"
Wayne and Grace's stern expressions melted before Henry's eyes. He heard them hem and haw as they looked at each other. It was clear that Marbray knew he'd won when the chief applied pressure on their friends. Grace cleared her throat to speak for them both.
"All right. One time only. If Dr. Truth asks us to do anything else, we'll start charging our standard client rate."
"Actually, we'll charge our hazardous duty rate for anything he cooks up," Wayne said.
Grace scrunched up her nose.
"We have a hazardous duty rate?"
"We do now, Grace."
Chief Lisbon went over to the doorway of her office and stuck out her head.
"Officer Hinks, would you step in here a minute please?"
In an instant, Michaela Hinks appeared at the door.
"Yes, ma'am."
Lisbon pointed to the Rigsbys.
"Our friends Wayne and Grace are going to do an undercover assignment for us. They'll be posing as potential tenants at River Manor Apartments."
"Oh, I live there! It's a great place except the air system has been messed up lately."
"We need you to outfit the Rigsbys in something other than how they're dressed now."
"Why, Teresa?" asked Grace.
"Because the two of you look like classic suburbanites nowadays. We don't need you raising eyebrows." Lisbon looked back over to Michaela. "See what you've got in the storage room that they can wear."
Michaela raised her eyebrows.
"I'll try to come up with something that'll work for them, ma'am. It'll be a challenge."
"I know you'll find something, Michaela." She patted her officer on the arm, which prompted Michaela to brighten.
The officer waved for the Rigsbys to follow her.
"Let's go see what we can do."
Wayne and Grace both thrust their file folders into Kimball's hands and left.
"Thanks a lot, guys," said Kimball.
"Okay, now that that's taken care of, let's all get back to work." The professor rubbed his hands together with that I'm-on-a-hot-case grin. Sighing, Henry went back to his database.
Twenty minutes later a voice at the doorway drew everyone's attention from their work. Michaela was back.
"Chief, there's a couple here to see you by the name of Jim-Bob and Bodette."
She withdrew, and two oddly-familiar yet just-plain-odd people walked in. The woman was a gum-smacking blond with streaked curls that exploded out in all directions from her head. The man, wearing a Twisted Sister t-shirt, sported a mullet that had taken on a life of its own as it curved back behind his neck.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Kimball's phone camera clicked three times.
Marbray leaned over to Kimball.
"Are you sure you got a good shot of them?"
"Why do you think I took three pictures? I want to remember this moment forever." Kimball turned to Wayne and Grace. "Hey, guys. The 1980s called and wants its hair back."
"Shut up, Cho," said Wayne.
Grace grimaced.
"Teresa, it's been years, ever since CBI, that we've done something like this."
"But you two are naturals, Grace. All I'm asking is for you just to nose around, look for anything that strikes you as odd."
Wayne groaned.
"Even if Officer Hinks transformed us into a modern day hair-band groupie and roadie, we're still gonna drive up to the apartment in a minivan. Is that the right image?"
"You're right." Walking over to her desk, Chief Lisbon pulled out a set of car keys from a drawer and tossed them to Wayne. "What if you guys roll up to the front door driving a black mint-condition 1966 Pontiac GTO?"
"Really, Teresa? That's a classic muscle car! How'd you come across one?"
"Police property. It came through forfeiture law. We've kept it for some special occasion, and I guess this qualifies. It's parked in the rear lot, gassed up and ready to go."
"Thanks, Teresa! This almost makes up for going on this undercover assignment. Come on, Grace. Let's check it out." Wayne tugged Grace's sleeve as she rolled her eyes.
Since Capp Grainger had come back into his life that morning, Kimball Cho had only a halting connection to what was going on around him. Capp's blue eyes, those eyes, banished all other thoughts from his mind. As Wayne and Grace exited the office, he looked down at the file folders in his hands.
What the hell are these things again? Oh yeah, something to do with the apartment complex across from Viola's house. Where I dropped off Capp. Where those blue eyes are.
"Kimball. Kimball? Cho!"
He looked up to see Teresa staring at him. She was standing beside Henry, and her husband was behind the computer on her desk, but they all were looking at him.
"Uh, yeah. I haven't found anything yet."
Teresa glanced at Jane or Archie or Professor Marbray or whatever the hell they were supposed to call him in front of Henry. Her husband looked back at her, and they both had those same "Isn't Kimball sweet?" expressions on their faces that Wayne and Grace had when he drove Capp home. They made him sick. Couldn't they mind their own business?
Jane spoke up.
"I hit pay dirt with your geneology database, Teresa. Cummings has a daughter living here in Cannon River. Employed at Deverell College of all places."
"Great. We'll go talk to her."
Kimball watched as Teresa circled around the desk to look over Jane's shoulder. She got that smile of triumph on her face like she used to get at CBI when her team got a break in a case. As soon as she took a glance at the screen though, she recoiled like the pungent odor of a dead body had flooded the room. The smile flipped to a grimace.
"No. It can't be."
"It is. I'm glad you're going with me to talk to her."
Teresa took a step away from Jane as she held up her hands in a defensive posture.
"Oh, no. I'm not going with you." Twisting her head around to Henry, she addressed her officer. "Henry, you go with my husband and I'll stay here."
Kimball could see Henry hesitate before he replied. Smart kid Kimball thought as he watched the young man walk behind the desk too.
"Who is it, ma'am?" Obviously he'd been working with Teresa and Jane long enough to develop that sixth sense you needed when the two of them went off on some tangent.
"It's not so bad, Henry. It's someone we all know." Jane thumped the computer screen for Henry to look at it.
The young man bent his head over to focus on the screen. The color drained from his face as he turned back to Teresa.
"No, Chief, please. No. Don't make me do that."
"But Henry, it's not so bad. Besides, I've got to be working on the monthly report to the mayor."
Monthly report to the mayor? Teresa had been hanging around Jane for too many years now. That was the weakest - and worst - excuse Cho had ever heard come out of her mouth.
"Ma'am, please?"
"It's not so bad, Henry."
"Don't you have something like a car accident over on the Interstate that you need someone to work?"
"Henry."
"What about that burglary over at the elementary school?"
"Henry."
"A homicide, any homicide? Please. I'm begging you. I have to see her all the time over at Deverall, and it's bad enough that she associates me with your husband." Henry choked on his words as he turned to Jane. "Uh, sorry, Professor. I meant no offense. But you know what I mean though, don't you?"
Jane put his hand on the young man's shoulder.
"No offense taken. I understand, Henry." Jane looked back to Teresa.
She knotted her eye brows.
"Don't you look at me."
"But she won't talk to me."
"That's your own fault. Well, half your fault anyway."
"Half, Teresa?"
"All right, mostly it's her fault because she's crazy, but you egg her on. That's one of the most irresponsible things I've ever seen you do, and remember that I've seen you do some really irresponsible stuff over the years."
"I can't go see her alone. I need someone with me, someone who's an authority figure to get her to answer some questions about her father."
Slowly Teresa, Jane, and Henry shifted their gaze from each other over to Kimball. An old familiar churning started in his stomach, one he hadn't felt since his days at CBI. Jane smiled at him. The churning in his stomach threatened to explode into his chest. Kimball knew he needed to speak up.
"Hey, I'm on vacation."
"Well, so are Wayne and Grace, but you saw them volunteer to help us out here."
"Volunteer? You dragooned them into dressing up like they were going out to trick-or-treat at Halloween. They didn't ask to do that."
Jane waved his hand in the air.
"Small point."
"Not for them, it wasn't."
"They'll be fine. And you'll be fine too. You don't even have to dress up like they did. All you have to do is come with me to Deverell College for a short interview with the Music History professor. Her name is Isadore Totty. Just bring along that stone-cold Kimball Cho stare of yours. Like the one you're giving me now."
"If your wife won't go and Henry won't go, that's a pretty good sign of trouble."
Henry spoke.
"If you go with the professor, maybe she won't throw as much of a fit since you would be new to her."
Teresa perked up.
"Yeah, Henry's right. Isadore would be on her best behavior with you. Probably."
"Hopefully," said Henry.
"Possibly," said Jane.
Kimball felt the acid coursing back-and-forth across his stomach.
"Why can't J-er-Archie go alone?"
"Because we need information, and she won't talk to me."
Teresa looked at Kimball with pleading eyes.
"Won't you help us, Kimball? Please?"
He rapped his knuckle across the table in front of him.
"I'm like Wayne and Grace. I'll do it for you, Teresa." He glared at Jane. "You're gonna be on your best behavior, right, Dr. Truth?"
"My very best."
Kimball sighed.
"Why do I have my doubts?" He motioned to Jane. "Come on, let's go before I change my mind."
Twenty minutes later at Deverell College the two men were walking down a hallway of faculty offices.
"I still have a hard time seeing you as a college professor, Jane."
"Really? I think I've fit in pretty well. Well enough to get the Professor-of-the-Year award."
"What that shows is you're still good at a long con, Dr. Truth."
"You like that 'Dr. Truth' nickname, don't you?"
"It's the irony, Jane, the irony."
The two men came to a stop in front of a partially-open door. The nameplate above read, "Dr. Isadore Totty, Professor of Music History." Knocking lightly on the door, Jane pushed it further open so Kimball ended up entering before him. A quick scan of the room revealed a cramped office with a piano in one corner, stacks of books piled askew on a bookcase in another corner, and a credenza that sported a line of plaster sculptures in the form of busts. Kimball recognized the classic scowl of Beethoven right off the bat so he guessed the rest were other music composers. A closer look confirmed that. The one on the end labeled "Vivaldi" had a piece of masking tape holding its left ear in place, and one near the middle labeled "Handel" had lost its chin.
A woman in her fifties with graying hair looked up from some sheet music spread out across her desk. Seeing Kimball, she smiled at him with a warmth that belied the image that Teresa and Jane had conjured up. She rose from her chair and extended her hand in greeting.
"Good afternoon, please come in. How may I help…" At that moment she saw Jane amble in behind Kimball. Both the color and the smile drained from her face. "What is that vile presence doing stepping into my office? Sir, please tell that cur behind you to leave at once."
"Good afternoon to you too, Isadore." Jane refused to be cowed by Totty's venom. "This is Kimball Cho. We wanted to ask you a few questions about your father. Kimball is an FBI agent. He's got a badge and everything."
Totty focused on Kimball again.
"You're an FBI agent. Really?"
"Yes, ma'am, I am. But I'm here on a local matter about…"
Totty pointed her long bony finger, shaking with rage, at Jane.
"Good, Agent Cho. I want you to arrest this man."
"Why, Professor Totty?"
"Because he's an imposter."
To be continued.
Author's notes:
George and Ira Gershwin wrote "Oh, Lady Be Good!" in 1924. Fred Astaire recorded my favorite version for his album, Astaire Story.
Up next: "I'll Be Hard To Handle"
