Righty-oh, onwards with chapter one!
Exams are all finished (until later this year) so I now have two days off! Whoopee!
Disclaimer: The Mentalist and its characters belong to CBS. Maddy Clark belongs to me
Chapter 1 - Scarlet Lions
Last Chapter...
"We've got a stabbing, university soil, take two cars incase we need to split," The team moved into action on her words.
I jumped as a voice whispered in my ear "For important things like this,"
I gave myself a shake before sighing and following the eager consultant out of the door.
There was blood. A lot of blood. A pool of it, soaking into the dirt at the edge of the grass. And for the first time since my early days as a CSI, it made me feel squeamish. If it had been a shooting, or a bludgeoning, or a strangling I would have been okay, but it wasn't. The boys shirt was open, and the jagged would was visible under the mass of clotted blood.
I saw my mother's face flash before me, the image of the blood stained carpet in my old flat, I could hear Red John's mocking voice in my head. The world spun slightly, my throat dried up and my heart thudded in my head. I froze where I stood, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath before looking around. Luckily, no one had seen my little episode. Pulling myself together, I automatically went into crime-scene-analyst-mode and stepped closer to the body.
"So, sharp forced trauma to the chest, M.E. says he died between nine and eight hours ago," Lisbon filled us in "So that puts time of death between 2:30 and 3:30 am, give or take,"
"Do we have an ID?" Jane asked, and she shook her head.
"Nothing on him, forensics are you going to run his prints, see what we get,"
"That's weird, most students carry their ID with them," I muttered, crouching down to take a closer look.
"What makes you so sure he's a student," Jane asked. He had a point.
"What's with the flag?," I picked up a stick, poking the tiny flag so it flipped onto its side. "Scarlet Lions,"
"Football team?" Rigsby asked, peering over my shoulder
"Looks like it,"
Under the words sat a roaring red lion, standing out on the yellow background. The flag was dirty and bloodstained, with a slight rip in one side. It looked like the boy had been holding it when he died.
"Why didn't he fight back? No defensive wounds, you would have thought he'd have fought against the attacker," His wrists and lower arms were free from cuts or bruises, pale in the morning light.
And then his phone started to ring. Vibrating in his pocket, a worried caller. I looked at Lisbon who sighed before asking me to hand it to her.
"Why don't I do it-" Jane began to ask, but was soon interrupted by a resounding "NO!" from the rest of the team. I had to stop myself from smiling at the hurt look on his face.
Lisbon opened the phone and put it to her ear. I could hear a frantic voice in the background, a stream of words.
"Jimmy, where the heel are you, I'm worried sick, if mom finds out that I've lost you'll she'll kill me, get you ass back here!" The man was shouting and Lisbon had to hold her ear away from the phone until he had finished.
"Excuse me, this is Agent Lisbon, CBI speaking, I'm afraid there's been an incident concerning Jimmy,"
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
"Would it be possible to speak to you in person?" Lisbon asked, and the man stuttered out an address. Lisbon hung up the phone.
"Right, lets get going,"
"I can't believe he's dead!" Kevin Walker was sitting, staring into space, pale white and shaking.
"When was the last time you saw your brother Mr Walker?" Lisbon asked
"Last night. He'd turned up friday morning, said he was taking the day off school and wanted to hang out. I couldn't, I had classes so I left him here. When I got home, he'd gone, said that some guy had come to the door and invited him to a party, he'd already left,"
"Do you know who the guy was?"
"No, but it could have been Brad Harris, he throws parties nearly every week." Van Pelt scribbled the name down.
I was shadowing Jane carefully, as he edged around the room, picking up photos and inspecting them, reading trophies sitting on the cabinet, turning over envelopes. He didn't seem to be listening to anything the guy was saying, interested only in the objects around him. Not that I was complaining, compared to my first day working with him, where he had snuck off to explore and encountered a knife wielding maniac, he was behaving, which meant I would have less chance of loosing my job. Although he seemed to have other ideas.
"Ah, Kevin do you mind if I use your bathroom?" He smiled at the boy, who looked a bit taken aback.
"Uh, sure, go ahead. Upstairs and to the right,"
I gave Jane a glare that practically shouted "What do you think you're doing?!?!" and he just glanced meaningfully back. How was I supposed to keep an eye on him without looking like I was following him to the bathroom?!
He disappeared out of the room, and I could here his quiet footsteps climb the stairs. I stood, arms crossed, fuming, staring at the wall opposite as if I was trying to drill a hole in it. Rigsby shot me a sympathetic glance, and I rolled my eyes.
And then suddenly my phone began to vibrate in my pocket. I jumped, pulling it out and glaring at the called ID.
Patrick Jane
"Uh, sorry, have to take this," I apologised, slipping out to stand in the hallway before answering.
"Coast is clear," came the voice on the other end
"What? What the heck are you talking about? Come to think about it, what are you playing at?!" I snapped in a hushed whisper down the phone
"Oh come on, its the perfect plan. I've just given you an excuse to leave the room," he replied evenly
"Well you could have warned me before hand, but no, you had to sneak off to "Use the bathroom"!,"
"Well, it would have looked a bit suspicious if we'd both asked to use the bathroom at the same time," I felt my cheeks begin to burn, and I was suddenly thankful he wasn't there. I could hear the smirk in his voice.
"Right," I squeaked "I'm on my way," before hanging up, giving my face a rub and headed to the stairs.
Luckily, they were out of view from the living rooms occupants, but the noise of my footsteps wasn't. I padded lightly onto the first step, trying not to alert anyone of my presence and stopped myself from grumbling as the floorboard groaned. Slowly but surely, I climbed the stairs, gripping onto the banister tightly as if that would make me lighter. Jane was waiting at the top.
"You took your time," I grinned and I frowned back, still in a mood with him "Kevin's bedroom's straight ahead,"
He swung the door open and we stepped into the room. Or at least tried to. It was like a bomb site, clothes and CDs and books littered everywhere. The walls were covered in posters, with photos dotted around between them. A laptop sat on the unmade bed, stand-by light flashing, its cable twisted into knots. And the place stank, like a mixture of dirty clothes, unwashed human and old pizza. The latter was explained my a mouldy pizza box lying open on the floor. I wrinkled my nose.
"Euch, typical student," I muttered, picking my way through the rubbish on the floor for a closer look at the photos.
I bent down at the wall, squinting in the poor light, which was probably due to the fact that the curtains were still closed. There were many of the same group of friends, four boys and three girls, drunk, sober, partying, relaxing, all together, having a laugh. A small group of the photos consisted of three people, Kevin, and older woman and a teenage boy. Confused, I looked for our murder victim. He was nowhere to be seen.
"Have you noticed it too?" The voice right beside me made me nearly jump a mile in the air.
"Will you quit that?!" I hissed
"Quit what," he grinned, quite obviously knowing what I meant
"Sneaking up on me," He gave a short laugh before bending down level with me, taking a look at the photos.
"Every family photo in the house contains this boy, not our victim," He said quietly, pointing at the boy.
"So, what you're saying..." I turned around and became suddenly aware of our close proximity. His face was right beside mine, and I could see every detail, the golden hair, the mouth curled in a slight smile, those blue eyes...I felt myself blushing and tried to compose myself, failing. "So what y-your saying is that our victim is not Kevin's brother?"
He smile broadly "Exactly,"
"Then we have a problem," I stated, standing up and unpinning a photo from the wall. "Where is Jimmy Walker?"
Oooh, slightly new layout for the intro, thought I'd swap it around a bit, just for fun :)
I had written a little more than that, but I cut it back. I know how you all love cliff hangers ;)
Wow, it's amazing where inspiration comes from. I couldn't think of a good second name for the victim's family. I was eating Walker's salt and vinegar crisps. I put two and two together xD
I am also quite proud of the fact that I used Mom instead of the British Mum. Oh yeah, I'm good xD
REVIEW!!!