chapter five

*PlainJane is online*

Lisbon: Jane.

Lisbon loved seeing the look of pure shock on Patrick Jane's face as he got her message. The shock lasted for about a fraction of a second, and transformed into a full blown grin.
Jane's one-hundred watt smile made Lisbon smile as well. But she hid it as he looked up towards her office.

Lisbon: Jane.

PlainJane: Lisbon.

Lisbon: Can you please explain to me why everyone is so euphoric today?

PlainJane: i believe it is because they all got access to the instant messaging program.

Lisbon: Yes, that's what I thought.

PlainJane: oh, lisbon's a smart cookie.

Lisbon: what does that make you? a dumb cake?

PlainJane: actually i prefer muffins.

Lisbon: Okay. You're a dumb muffin.

PlainJane: yay!

Lisbon: Ha.

Lisbon: Do I need to ask who spread the whole IM thing around?

PlainJane: yours truly.

Lisbon: Minelli is going to grill us and eat us for breakfast.

PlainJane: nah he's not. that would be hypocrisy.

Lisbon: What?

PlainJane: he uses instant messaging every day to talk to his daughter.

Lisbon: And you know this why?

Lisbon: Do you stalk Minelli?

PlainJane: why does everyone think I'm a stalker? observing counts as stalking?

Lisbon: Aw, poor muffin.

PlainJane: are you going to tattle to Minelli?

Lisbon: "Hey, boss, guess what! someone from my unit hacked past the block on our computers. Now everyone's sending each other IMs instead of working! Ain't that the greatest?"

PlainJane: so your not gonna tell him?

Lisbon: Of course I'm going to tell him!

PlainJane: why are sitting in your office IMing me, then?

Lisbon: I finished all my paperwork, I got nothing to do.

PlainJane: *have nothing to do

Lisbon: whatever, Jane.

PlainJane: now you're a cranky cookie (:

*Lisbon is offline*

Lisbon sighed as she powered off her computer. How was she going to tell Minelli about this? Surely she had to tell him. If he just found out on his own she'd be in bigger trouble.
And how was she going to kill her teammates?

Jane walked into her office just then. He didn't knock, which was very Jane-ish of him.
"You logged off," he said, lying down on the couch and making himself comfortable.
"Congratulations, you noticed." Lisbon rested her head on her arm.
"How did you manage to complete all that paperwork?"
"Easy. I didn't IM anyone."
"Ah."

Then they both just sat there in her office, silent. Soon they both started to zone out, too.
Lisbon thought she should feel a bit awkward just sitting there with Jane. But she didn't. Which was weird. Not feeling awkward made her feel awkward. Which was also weird. What a weird day.

"The Mexican restaurant was nice." The silence shattered like glass.
"Who won the bet?"
"Cho."
"Really." It wasn't a question. Lisbon knew Jane had let Cho win on purpose. Jane always won the bets.
"I'm bored. Wanna go bother Minelli?"
"About what?"
"Anything."
"No."
"You're no fun."
"Fun doesn't get work done."
"You've already finished your work."

Lisbon ran out of snippy replies.
She began to doodle absentmindedly on a piece of scrap paper. Just random scribbles and lines, and stick animals. She couldn't really draw that well.
"You just drew a cat." Jane startled her as he suddenly spoke up.
And he was right. "How'd you know?"
"I have super muffin powers. You just drew an alligator."
Right again. Lisbon turned her head to look at his eyes. They were tightly shut.
One by one, Jane guessed the animals right. Giraffe, lion, fish. Wolf, tiger, mouse. It was actually kind of amusing, Lisbon had to admit.

She was in the middle of drawing a monkey when Cho poked his face in.
"Boss, we have a case."
Lisbon immediately sprung to her feet and followed Cho out. Jane followed Lisbon.

Jane was glad they had a case. It wasn't like he sat around wishing someone would die or anything. That would be mean.
But he'd rather be solving murders than sitting around doing nothing.

The victim had been dumped in a ditch just outside of Sacramento. Lisbon gave everyone a briefing on the drive there.
The victim's identity was unknown. She had been found in the ditch around 1pm earlier that day. Cause of death had not been yet determined- there was no blood, just a couple of bruises.

Though it had previously been bright and sunny, the sky was starting to darken. Van Pelt found it hard to navigate the road as rain fell harshly down. It was hard to see anything, which made her kind of nervous.
It was still raining hard as they arrived at the scene. It was difficult to see and everyone was shouting to compete with the rain. Van Pelt and Rigsby huddled together under an umbrella. Jane held a big yellow one for him and Lisbon. Lucky Cho had one all to himself.

After Lisbon introduced them to the policemen at the scene, they all peered into the ditch. It wasn't that deep, but not shallow, either. Jane estimated about four or five feet.
At the bottom, white and splattered with mud, was a cold, lifeless girl.

She seemed peaceful, almost like she had crawled down into trench and fallen asleep.
Her hair was covered in mud, but Jane could see that it was a flaming color of scarlet. A big purple bruise was present on her sharp chin.

"They found nothing on her," Lisbon said loudly over the rain. "No wallet, no keys, nothing."

The guys from the medical examiner's office were examining her and trying to figure out how to get her out of the ditch. Jane spied a marking on her right arm.
At first he thought it was a tattoo. But the rain was starting to smudge it, so it must have been marker.
"What's written on her arm?" he called down to the men.
"Random words," shrugged one man. "The forensic team took some snaps of it, if you're interested."
Jane nodded, even though the man couldn't see it.

Dragging Lisbon along with him, Jane headed over to the forensics team as the others questioned the policemen.
"Hello, gentlemen," Jane said after making sure there were no women on the team (that would be incredibly offensive). "You took photographs of the markings on our victim's arm?"

A tall, gray-haired man handed him the photos.
"Thank you."
Jane and Lisbon examined the markings with the others. 'Mushrooms. Peppers. Olives. Onions. Sausage.'
"A bunch of random food?" Cho couldn't find the connection.
"Makes me hungry," said Rigsby, and Van Pelt visually scolded him.

"Maybe it's a shopping list," suggested Van Pelt.
"There are tons of supermarkets around here," Lisbon shook her head. "We can't just go through all the security tapes. And even if we do find her on one, we can't use it to identify her."
"If she was with someone, the tapes would show it," Van Pelt tried.

Unlike everyone else, Patrick Jane knew exactly what the list meant.
"No need to check supermarkets," he said before Lisbon could reject Van Pelt again.
Four pairs of eyes were on him as he explained.
"The poor girl was a new employee at a place that sold pizza. Those things she wrote down were toppings on a supreme pizza. She wrote them down to remember them, because she kept forgetting what to put on the pizza."

Lisbon nodded. "That makes sense."
"Judging by what she's wearing, I'd say she worked at a Pizza Hut."
"Check all the pizza places in the area, see if they have any missing employees," Lisbon instructed Van Pelt. She scurried off to do so, leaving Rigsby to share Cho's umbrella.

"They still haven't found cause of death?" Rigsby asked.
"Nope," Cho answered.
"There's not even a cut on the body," Lisbon said. Her hair was drenched, despite Jane's big yellow umbrella. "The M.E. is going to take her back to their lab for a full autopsy."
"We won't have any leads unless we find out who she is." Rigsby said, stating the obvious.
Lisbon nodded. "Right. So let's find out."

Lisbon's not going to kill anyone off yet. She's gonna have a little fun with it.