Chapter Three
"What are you going to do with a ball of yarn?" asked Van Pelt with a wrinkled nose as she tossed the zip-locked back to Jane.
"Ah, well," said he, "I'm running out of socks."
"You can't treat that as a toy," said Lisbon brusquely. "That's evidence."
"Lisbon, I would never play around with criminal evidence."
Van Pelt landed next to them with a wet plop and lifted a skeptical eyebrow at Jane.
"Let's go," said Lisbon, turning towards the front yard. The others fell into stride beside her. Jane craned his head to get a better look at her expression.
"You don't believe me?"
"Jane," started Lisbon as she crossed to the left side of the black SUV, "you were twenty minutes in a tree-house with the sister of the deceased victim. How much maturity do you expect me to credit you with?"
"Oh, come on," said Jane as he climbed in, "you know there's method to my madness. Make friends with the sister, and sooner or later she'll come to me when she decides to reveal what she's hiding."
Lisbon's eyes met his briefly in the review mirror.
"What makes you so certain that she's hiding something?" She sounded amused.
"Well I don't know for sure," he acknowledged, "but it's certainly a good possibility."
"What makes us think that it's not just a regular suicide?" asked Van Pelt from the front seat.
"We don't," replied Lisbon, shifting the stick to drive. "It's the head who personally asked Minelli to have us check it out. In all probability the victim's family overreacted under the emotional stress and when forensics finish checking things out we can quietly close the case."
"Or," offered Jane, leaning far forward in his chair and glancing from one to the other, "there's something else going on beneath the surface that we haven't clearly seen yet."
Van Pelt turned to look at him.
"What did the sister tell you when you were up on that tree house?"
Jane grinned.
"Nothing too revealing. If anything, that Veronica Lanner was a bright and happy girl who mysteriously died an unfortunate death. There's nothing on her medical record that indicates a past history of depression. Ah-ah—yes, Lisbon, I know what you were about to say. But the fact remains that even though it's possible for a healthy person to suddenly develop psychiatric problems there first must have been something which triggered those problems, and that's where we should start when we begin investigating."
The SUV dallied up to a red light. The engine hummed calmly as each person worked through his or her thoughts. Van Pelt turned to him again.
"What do you think triggered them?"
Jane looked at her with quiet energy.
"It just so happens that Mrs. Lanner started seeing someone a while ago, someone whom Veronica didn't seem to approve of. I say that whatever the reason for her death can be traced back to this mystery suitor. We should check up him first before we do anything else."
He was looking at Lisbon now. Van Pelt glanced at her too. The team leader had been gazing distractedly at the unchanging traffic light, but now she turned her head and gave Jane a look.
"You just want to make this as complicated as possible."
Jane grinned widely.
"You know you like it."
He paused.
"Besides, the evidence wouldn't be complete without the testimony of everyone who had been close to the victim in recent days."
Lisbon drummed her fingers softly against the plastic arch of the steering wheel, eyes back on the traffic lights. She fancied she could feel the others holding their breath. Waiting, waiting.
The light turned green.
"Alright," she said, "let's go ask her."
Jane smiled and held on as the black SUV executed a clean and quite illegal U-turn at the intersection, heading back to the house of mourning.