A/N: Episode 4 is brought to you by Consulting Patrick Jane - When a murder takes place at a posh high-rise apartment complex behind a seemingly locked door from the inside and no other way out, Jane is called in to investigate, and finds that all is not how it seems. Meanwhile, the team gets a new agent, and baby Liam shows Lisbon a trick.
ALABASTER PLASTER
Her fingertips spread out across the satin sheets, looking for the intimate warmth of skin she had become accustomed to finding. She had every intention of curling up against him in hopes she could fall back to sleep before either being called in hastily or Liam waking up and crying out, as he was still teething and uncomfortable. Her eyes opened just enough to see that his half of the bed was unoccupied, the covers flung over the side of the mattress without much care. Her half-lidded eyes opened wider as she shifted herself into a sitting position, setting her back against the rigid headboard.
In the stillness of the room, she became aware of a faint sound somewhere down the hall. Rubbing a hand over her face, she pulled back the covers and stood, yawning and stretching her sleep-tightened muscles. She moved toward the sound which brought her out of their room and into the hall. She could hear it clearly now; a small, quiet humming coming from Liam's nursery across the hall. She thought it rather sounded like the song 'Little Boy Blue'. She peered inside the room, the small light on the small table next to a rocking chair tucked away in the corner illuminated the room in dim, filtered light. Lisbon smiled at the sight before her, leaning against the door jamb and crossing her arms.
Jane sat in the rocking chair, their son pushed firmly against his chest, his hand rubbing Liam's back in small circles as he hummed the song to him, rocking the chair slightly as if in an untamed wind. There was a pacifier on the table beside him, and Liam was sound asleep in his father's arms.
"Did I wake you?" Jane whispered, laying off the humming and finding her profile in the gentleness of the table lamp light. "I'm sorry."
Lisbon shook her head, lifting herself from the doorway and walking toward her husband and son. She closed the gap quickly between them, reaching a hand out to push through Jane's sleep-pressed blond curls.
"No," she whispered back. "You didn't wake me. I reached for you and you were gone," she told him. "I didn't even hear Liam wake. Was he crying?"
Jane looked up at her and nodded softly, as to not disturb the baby. "A little," he answered. "Sore gums."
"You could have woken me up, Jane," Lisbon told her husband, giving him a terse squeeze. "I would have tended to him. Got him to go back to sleep."
He reached up with the hand that was caressing their son's back and touched her elbow. "You've been working a lot, Teresa. You deserve some beauty sleep. Besides," he said, turning back to Liam's sleeping form, "I wanted to."
"What were you humming?" she asked. "It sounded suspiciously like 'Little Boy Blue'," she added with a laugh.
"It was," he replied. "I was singing the words until he fell asleep. I heard you singing it to him once," Jane assured her. "Not really sure whether my singing did him in with the sleeping, or if he was just that tired." Jane laughed and Lisbon joined in almost noiselessly as to not wake the baby.
She was about to reply to his humorous pondering when she heard the shrill of her ringing cell phone from across the hall. She sighed heavily, knowing there could only be one person making a call in the middle of the night. Lisbon bent down and gave her husband a kiss on the lips and then set a small peck on her son's blond, curly locks.
"Duty calls," Jane told her, reaching his free hand out to push a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her face back behind her ear. He gave her kiss and whispered that he loved her.
Lisbon whispered it back and rubbed her son's back before raising herself and walking quickly through the nursery and crossing into her room to pick up her phone. She noted with a sour expression that the bedside clock read 3:02 am.
"Lisbon," she greeted as soon as she put the phone to her ear. "Ashmore Garden Condominiums?" Lisbon sighed. "Okay. I'll be there."
"The new recruit starts today, doesn't she?" Jane asked as Lisbon hung up the phone, coming into the room after putting Liam back down in his crib. "Should be interesting for you guys."
"Yeah," Lisbon told him. "Her name is Sandra Philips. Cho says she hails from the New Mexico office, " she added as she dressed quickly, throwing him a rueful smile as he watched.
"Interesting," Jane replied. "So, where are you headed off to this time?" He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled at the loops of her jeans, bringing her forward to settle between his pajama-clad legs. "Another embezzlement case?"
She shook her head, resting her hands on his biceps as he looked up at her. "No," she finally said. "A murder at a high-rise apartment."
"Oh," answered Jane. "Are you going to need me? I can drop Liam off at the daycare…"
"Don't wake him, Jane. Let him sleep. I've got to go, Patrick," Lisbon told him, bending herself to kiss him on the lips. "If I need you, I will call. If not, I'll be home for lunch, okay? Try to give him a bath when he wakes up. I'm going to go say goodbye to Liam and head out."
Jane kissed her back, his hand floating up to lock in her chestnut hair framing her face. "Okay," he said between kisses. "I love you. Be careful."
"I love you, too," she whispered, shoving one more quick kiss across his lips before grabbing her badge and coat off the dresser. "Don't teach him how to pick pockets while I am gone."
He laughed as he watched her dash toward the door. She turned back around, blew him a kiss, and disappeared across the hall, where he could hear her softly talking to their sleeping son. Finally, after a few minutes, he heard the front door click shut, and the cabin was once again stuck in silence.
An hour and a half later at the crime scene, Lisbon looked from Cho to Wylie to Tork and back down at the body lying on the floor over a particularly large, dried amount of blood. Well, not exactly a body—more of a badly decomposed pile of flesh and bone wearing tattered and dusty bits of cloth; whatever didn't fade and turn to dust off the long deceased corpse.
She turned from the three agents, her mind trying to gather what exactly was going on here. Since she was called to the scene just a little while ago, there was little any of them could figure out. The pile of flesh and bone—who could not be differentiated if male or female—had been in a locked room in a large condominium set high above the Austin skyline. She walked stiffly over to the door that had been locked from the inside, checking it for any pry marks from some kind of tools. There were none, and she could feel the eyes of the three agents on the back of her skull as she heaved a deep sigh and turned to the window. But that, too, was of no help. The window was closed and latched shut, and even if it hadn't been, there was no way for anyone to get to the room from outside; there were no balconies or fire escapes leading down twenty-five floors to the bottom.
"Tell me again why the FBI is on this case?" she asked with a moan. "Do we actually know if this was a murder? It seems like nobody was able to get in. Maybe he or she died of a medical event. And why is it so cold in here?"
"It was called in as a possible murder, Lisbon," Cho reminded her. "We have to investigate it like it is." He watched her yawn tremendously as she sidestepped the body and placed her hands on her slim hips. "Long night? Kid still teething?"
"Liam is teething still, yeah," she replied, pushing a stray strand of hair from her face. "Not as bad as his first tooth, though. He was fussy last night. Jane just got him back down when you called." She bit her lip and frowned. "He wouldn't sleep without Ducky." She landed a reproachful look at Wylie. "So, what do we do now?"
"That would be my introduction," Dr. Anna Rosales said from behind her. "I should have some answers for you, even in my preliminary findings here."
Lisbon turned to Dr. Rosales and noticed from the corner of her eye that Cho fixed his tie and unconsciously cleared his throat as she entered. She was fairly certain that Cho and Dr. Rosales were now seeing each other. She remembered the remark she made to herself about how they mirrored herself and Jane when they first started dating; Jane tidying himself and donning his suit once more, and Lisbon feeling confident, yet trying to be inconspicuously herself, not giving too much away of their romance. She rather thought it was cute.
"Dr. Rosales," greeted Lisbon. "Did Cho call you down here?" She smirked and stole a glance at her boss.
Rosales smiled and knelt down next to the body, turning toward Lisbon as she slapped on her plastic gloves. "He did," she replied. "Apparently he has me on speed dial." Lisbon smiled at her answer and watched as she carefully struck out a gloved hand, feeling the hip bones, tracing her fingers down to the exposed femur. She brought her hand back up and felt the exposed rib cage.
"I can only tell you what I see from visual examination of the bone structure, but I would say this person is probably, in my hasty opinion, anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five years of age." She turned herself and looked up at the three agents gathered around in front of her. "Best guess until I can examine the bones more thoroughly."
"What about the sex?" Cho asked her. "Can you tell if it is male or female?"
Rosales glanced back down at the body and brought her gloved hand to the pelvic bone, gliding her fingers along the jagged bones. "Based on the pelvic region, I would say female. Again, I can't be exactly sure until she or he is back at my lab."
"Alright," Wylie replied. "So we have a female around twenty-five or so," he repeated. "But is this a murder? How can we be sure it isn't just a heart attack or stroke?"
"She's got a knife wound in her chest," Rosales told them, pointing at a small hole just over where the breast bone would be. "She's a murder victim all right!"
"Couldn't she have done this to herself?" Tork asked. "Like some kind of suicide?"
Cho bent down next to the body on the other side and looked up at Rosales. Lisbon noticed that Cho was a lot less rattled then their first meeting; she also noticed a faint smile cross his face when she looked at him. She was happy for him. Well, she thought he deserved someone to challenge his stoic personality. Dr. Rosales was just such a person.
"This was murder, Kimball," she told him. "See," she said, looking down at the chest area and pointing. "There's stippling in the bone. It was a close stab. Besides, where is the weapon? Wouldn't it be here if she killed herself? Who stabs themselves, anyway, in a world full of guns and pills?"
Kimball. Oh, la la! Lisbon thought.
"But the room was locked up tight," Lisbon told her. "The local PD had to break down the door. It was padlocked, and the window shut as it is now. How did anyone get out after killing this woman?"
Dr. Rosales lifted herself and unrolled the gloves off her hands. She shrugged her small shoulders and put a hand to her neck. "You guys are the investigators," she told Lisbon with a wink. "But this woman, I am fairly certain, was murdered." Dr. Rosales turned to Cho. "I can get you how long this body has been here when it's brought to my lab. I would say, though, judging from the lack of flesh, that this body is at least six months old."
"Thanks, Anna," Cho replied. "Dr. Rosales," he amended.
"Sure!" And she exited the room.
Cho looked up at Lisbon and stood, putting his hands in his pockets. "This would be—" he started to say.
"I'm on it," she cut in, turning from her boss and reaching into her jeans pocket for her cell phone. She dialed quickly and waited for him to pick up on the other end.
"Hello?" Jane's voice called out in the midst of Liam's cackling. "Teresa?"
"Yeah, it's me," she answered. "What in the world are you two doing?" she asked, listening as Liam's voice grew louder and she heard a loud sound that followed which she thought sounded an awful lot like water pouring over.
"Uh," said Jane, his voice diminishing momentarily. "I am trying to give our son a bath, but he's decided that the water would be better suited all over the floor—no, Liam! Honey! Don't throw that!" Lisbon heard a plunk and a laugh from Liam. "How much did you love that soap dispenser?" he asked Lisbon.
"Look, can you finish bathing the baby and come down here to the Ashmore Garden condos?" she asked. "I think we are going to need your skills, here. Besides, this is right up your alley."
"Wait! Wait! Hold on a second!" Jane said.
Lisbon could hear a muffling of the phone and Liam laughing before her phone vibrated in her hand. She lifted it from her ear and looked down, finding Jane had sent a selfie of himself in his wet shirt, and their son, who was playing in the water in their kitchen sink, bubbles piled on his face like a white beard. She laughed and shook her head, returning her phone to her ear.
"That is adorable," she told her husband. "You look wetter than he is!" She felt the familiar pang she always felt when Jane sent her pictures of Liam; the pang of his little warm, baby-powder scented body pressed into her arms.
"Oh, I think the floor has both of us beat," he answered. "He wanted to show mommy his beard. I think he looks dashing, but I told him I think you'd find it scratchy for those mommy kisses you give him."
"Shave it, mister!" Lisbon laughed again. "Come down here. I will show you this weird case. Like, I said, it's up your alley!"
"Oh! I am titillated," Jane said. "Just let me get this little one dried off and I'll be right there. What kind of case is it?" She heard her son laugh again followed by the water dripping sound and Jane exhaling noisily.
"It's right out of an Agatha Christie novel, Jane," she told him. "The mystery of the murder in a locked room." She waited for him to reply. "Jane? Don't forget to drop Liam off at daycare!" When she got no answer, she hung up and turned back to Cho, who was staring at her. "What?"
"It's weird," he told her. "This case is weird. I don't like weird."
"Jane's weird." She meant that with pure fondness, of course.
He thought about that for a second. "Yeah. You are right. I am going to have Wylie and Tork interview the neighbors on either side, and the one who called a welfare-check. You and Jane can see what you can figure out when he gets down here."
"And you?"
"I'll arrange for Dr. Rosales to get the body," he said. "Take a look at it."
Lisbon smirked at him as he left the room. She turned her attention to the body on the floor and sighed.
"What surprises do you hold?" she asked the corpse. "What could you possibly be hiding?"
Jane strode out of the elevator on the twenty-fifth floor of the Ashmore Garden condos, his old brown shoes squeaking on the Italian tiled floor. He followed the trail of detectives and local police, bypassing Wylie and Tork, both of whom were interviewing a separate individual. On down the hall further, Cho was speaking with two men who were wheeling a body bag down toward the service elevator at the other end of the hall.
Jane turned himself into the open door of apartment number 717, smiling to himself as he viewed his wife inspecting the window sill, her chestnut hair done up in a small bun on top of her head—a classic sign that she was in full concentration, but things weren't clicking. He looked around the room as he neared her, observing that the place was practically unfurnished. The only thing he could detect in the apartment's front rooms were a bloody rug and an acrid, decayed smell that he knew to be the odor of death.
"Well, this is quite a puzzle," he told her, placing a hand on the small of her back, effectively startling her. "Sorry," he apologized quickly. "You just seemed deep in thought."
She turned her head toward him and shook it. "This crime scene doesn't make any sense, Jane." She nodded back toward the window she was surveying earlier. "It's closed and latched, plus there is a straight drop down to the ground from here."
"Ah, I do enjoy a good puzzle," he told her, releasing her back and walking back over to the door and bending to take a look at the smashed door jamb and padlock. "Interesting."
"I hate when you do that crap," Lisbon moaned. "Interesting how, Jane? We have a rotten corpse—a stabbed corpse—with no means for the killer to leave. Interesting is the last thing I would say about this case." She walked over as he drew back from the door and turned to flash a smile at her.
"You are just a bit cranky because Liam has been fussy lately with his sore gums and you feel guilty about dragging me on this case and putting him with the ladies at the daycare," he said, cold-reading her. "You feel bad about that. Understandable, Teresa."
She scowled at him. "I hate when you do that!" She sighed deeply. "But, yet again, you are right. I just don't think he likes being away from you or me when he isn't feeling well."
He reached out his hands and placed them on her shoulders. He leaned down just a touch and then moved his hands to her cheeks. Rubbing them slightly, he nodded his head in understanding.
"I know you don't," he replied. "I don't, either. But we can't crowd him all the time, Teresa. I told you before. I don't want to be one of those dads who huddles over our son just because of what happened to Charlotte. Plus, he's a little charmer. Loves the ladies." He smiled widely again. "Besides, he has Ducky with him. He's fine."
"You're right," she whispered. "This is my first rodeo, Jane. I'm going to be so maternal it will drive you nuts!"
"I know," he whispered back, leaning in to kiss her forehead. "But let us crack this impossible looking case and go home to our son, okay?"
"Okay," she acquiesced. She gave him a chaste kiss and he let go of her face, turning herself around to look around the room. "Kind of bare in here. No furniture."
He walked around the room and agreed. "Bare for someone found dead in it," he answered. "Nothing. No paintings on the wall, no couches or chairs." He shook his head. "Whoever your victim is didn't live here. Nobody did."
"You think it was someone not from this apartment complex?"
"Maybe," responded Jane. "Maybe not." He heard her groan at his answer and he shrugged. "But one thing is for sure; whoever killed your victim knew this place would never be opened. In fact, it's more than likely it was used as a model apartment."
"That could explain the lack of furniture and mail piling up," Lisbon agreed. "What about the deadbolt on the inside being engaged? Why would our victim, who Dr. Rosales assured me was murdered by stabbing, deadbolt the door first?"
"I don't know that answer yet," he admitted, reaching up for the window latch and shaking it to make sure it was secure. "But I will know more when I can talk to the people Tork and Wylie are interviewing."
"You want to interview them?"
"Sure," he told her, turning to face her as he drew away from the locked window. "I would also like to know who the victim is so we can find any family for her. Could be a good way to start, I think." He turned to the wall next to the window and began knocking on the drywall with his knuckles.
"What are you doing?" Lisbon asked her husband curiously as he made his way a quarter down the length of the wall.
"Looking for wall trolls," cracked Jane slyly.
Before Lisbon could counter, Tork strode inside the room. He was clicking his pen with his thumb and wearing a casual smile that Jane thought was befitting of him. He stopped short of them and pointed toward the bustling hallway behind them.
"Cho wants you guys," he told them. "He's getting all of us together in the hall."
"Okay," Lisbon told her colleague. "Did you get anything from the neighbors?"
Tork held up a finger for them to hold on, and reached inside his jacket pocket for a small black notebook. He flipped toward the back and looked up at the two of them. "Daniel Tullin. He says he doesn't know anything. He says he works a lot and didn't know anything until he heard the kicking of the door by the local cops that disturbed his sleep. Big bunch of nothing," he told them, shutting the notebook and shoving it back in his pocket.
"Meh, don't be so quick to throw in the towel, Tork. I'd like to interview him," Jane piped up.
"Alright," Tork said with a shrug. "But you'll have to wait until Cho finishes with us."
They followed Tork out into the hallway, noticing that the bustle of local cops and techs and FBI had trickled down to just a few crime scene techs and their team. Jane noticed that Mr. Tullin, the neighbor that Tork had been interviewing, turned and went back into his apartment, closing the door behind him with a snap. Jane put that away for later. He turned his attention back to Cho.
"Okay," Cho said. "We don't have much going here. The body has been taken down to Dr. Rosales' lab for analysis. I think I will go down there and see what is going on with that. Tork, you can come along. Lisbon, Jane, I think—"
"I want to interview the neighbors again," Jane interrupted. "I want to read them myself."
"Fine," agreed Cho. "You two can interview the neighbors, but then I want you down at the field office checking on the records for the condo. I want to know who owned it before."
"Okay, but you'll find nobody owned it," Jane told him. "It's a model."
"Wylie," he said, turning to the young agent, "I need you to go back to the office and standby. Hopefully, I will have a name to give you on the victim. You can run her through the database."
Wylie nodded as Cho looked around Lisbon and tilted his head infinitesimally. Following Cho's gaze, she saw that a well-dressed woman was walking toward them, a smile planted on her dark complexioned face. Lisbon could see that she had short black hair framing her beautiful face, and held an air of importance and confidence in her walk. She immediately struck out her hand when she met them, taking Lisbon's small hand in hers before turning to Cho and firmly shaking his.
"Sandra Philips," she introduced. "I'm the new recruit! It's great to be working for the FBI and with this team. I've heard great things about it," Sandra told them. "I presume you are Teresa Lisbon," she nodded at her, "and you are my boss, Kimball Cho."
Lisbon looked over the new Agent. She had read her file, anticipating her arrival, in order to gain more insight on the new part of their team. Sandra Philips was 36-years-old, divorced with no kids. From her files, Lisbon gathered that Sandra had an extensive history with the local police departments where she had resided, finally choosing to try her luck at the Federal level. For Lisbon, the only thing she was really interested in about Sandra Philips was how she'd handle Jane's methods.
"Sandra," Lisbon repeated. "Nice to meet you."
"Agent Philips," Jane repeated, throwing out a hand for her to shake. "Patrick Jane. Welcome to our humble team."
She looked at Jane for a long moment, keeping her hand in his before finally dropping it. "Sorry about the circumstances for introductions, but I wanted to come down here and see how you operate," Sandra told them. "I am eager to learn."
"Well, we can put you to work right away, Agent Philips," Cho told her. He pointed to Tork and then Wylie. "Agent Tork, Agent Wylie," Cho said, pointing back at Philips. "This is our new team member, Agent Sandra Philips. Wylie, why don't you fill her in on what we know?"
"Hi!" Wylie greeted Philips with a wide smile. "I am the tech wizard of the group. The axiomatic nerd."
"Who needs to head back to the office," Cho replied with a pointed look. "Why don't you take Agent Philips with you? You could fill her in and show her around the office?"
"You said you're Patrick Jane?" She flashed her teeth in a toothy grin towards Jane. "You're quite legendary in the New Mexico FBI. It's nice to match a face with the reputation."
"You flatter me," replied Jane scrupulously. "Was it my mounds of complaints? The sea of pink slips in my file?"
She laughed at his humor. "It was your case. The one in which you sought and served your own justice," she said. "I am sorry," she said off his look. "I didn't mean to bring it up. My apologies."
"Not at all," Jane told her. "But I do have to get to interviewing these neighbors. Maybe add a complaint or two to my file…"
"It was nice to meet you, Agent Lisbon, Mr. Jane," she told them, turning from them and following Cho, Tork, and Wylie toward the elevators.
Jane and Lisbon watched them fade into the elevator before turning and heading to apartment 718. Lisbon knocked on Mr. Daniel Tullin's door, holding up her FBI ID when he answered a moment later.
"Can we come in and ask you a few questions, sir?" Lisbon asked Mr. Tullin.
Mr. Tullin was a balding man; about fifty years of age, pudgy in the mid-section and broad shouldered. Lisbon noticed that he seemed a little nervous. Not exactly a tell-tale sign of any guilt, but it was unusual that someone who was only being questioned about a crime next door to display.
"Come in," Tullin told them, opening the door for them as he walked into his living room. "It's just horrible about what happened."
"Did you hear or see anything from next door, Mr. Tullin?" Jane asked. His eyes looked around Tullin's apartment. It was cluttered, but neatly so. "Anything suspicious? Arguing or any loud noises?"
Tullin shook his bare head. "No. But I work a lot, you see. I am not home very much."
"What do you do for a living, Mr. Tullin?" Lisbon asked. She noticed he was still quite nervous.
Tullin beamed at her and sat down on the small couch just behind him. "I am a Professor at Austin Collegiate," he explained. "I teach Parapsychology. I am teaching all the time. Night school and day school. I didn't see anything or hear anything, but that isn't unusual. When I am home, I sleep."
"You teach people about ghosts?" Jane snorted. "Dead sleeper?"
"I know it seems silly, but there are things we just don't know in the world. Finding a body in a locked room is certainly one of those. And, yes, dead to the world," Tullin agreed.
"No mystery in that," Jane told him. "Someone offed that poor soul. Unless you think ghosts did it?" Tullin didn't answer. "Did you know of anyone who was living adjacent to you?"
Tullin grimaced and tilted his head. "I don't recall anyone living there. It's used as a model apartment for interested clients," he clarified. "It's mostly been empty from what I remember."
Lisbon looked at Jane who smirked at his correct guess that the apartment was used to model. Jane turned back to the pale plaster wall facing the apartment where the body was found and took his knuckles to it, bypassing a large oil painting that hung on the wall. It was sound. He stretched out his fingers and felt the wall, looking for any signs of air flowing through to indicate holes, but he only felt the warmth of Tullin's interior.
"Do you know the tenant to the left of the apartment? Do you know them on a personal level?" inquired Lisbon.
"Noel Moreno?" Tullin nodded his head. "Sure. She's lived here ever since I have. I'd say she moved in a few months before me."
"How long has that been?"
"About four years." He laughed. "Seems more than that. Yeah, she moved in a few months before me. Nice lady. I don't really speak to her much, though. I think she's the floor manager. You know? Shows off the model apartment?"
"Thank you for answering our questions, Professor Tullin," Jane said, turning toward his wife. "I think we can go, Teresa."
They said their goodbyes to Professor Tullin and exited his apartment, closing the door behind them tightly.
"Well?" she asked, walking slowly toward Noel Moreno's apartment. "What do you think about Professor Tullin?"
Jane sighed. "We can't rule him out."
"Why?"
"Because he's hiding something, Teresa," he told her. "Something un-kosher."
"You can positively identify it as a female?" Cho asked, watching Dr. Rosales as she bent over to examine the pelvic bone of the badly aged and decomposed body from their crime scene.
She looked up at him and flashed a small smile. "I can, indeed, Kimball." She straightened herself and pointed to the skull. "Her gonial angle and mental eminence shape is also indicative of a female, between the ages of twenty and thirty-five."
Tork looked uncomfortable looking at the grossly deteriorated body lying openly on the examining table, bits of clothing and hair still stuck on the decayed body. He cleared his throat and turned his back a little to avoid the visual.
"Still convinced it is a murder?" he asked.
Dr. Rosales nodded, pointing to a cup on a table nearby which held some chipped bone. "Positive. I've seen my fair share of knife cuts in bone. I'd say it's a butcher's knife, but then I am not the expert on that. It's deteriorated, but you should be able to get that analyzed still."
"Great," Tork replied sardonically. "Who did it? Houdini?"
"I don't know, but whoever did it made it awfully slow and painful," Rosales remarked. "It would take hours for this kind of wound to be fatal. She most likely bled to death slowly. The room was cold when we entered it, which is why the smell didn't wade through the floor after just a few days. It slowed decomposition and biological decay. The body, I'd estimate, is between six and eight months old." Rosales looked back down at the body. "Dental wear suggests this woman is between twenty and thirty-five years old, matching the age range of her mental eminence shape. I'm comfortable with that estimation."
"Any identifiable information pulled for this body?" Cho asked, his eyes on hers.
Dr. Rosales winked at Cho and reached down for the x-ray slides in a folder she had sitting on the counter next to the light box. Cho looked sideways at Tork, who was smiling a big, goofy grin at the stoic agent.
"No judgement," Tork murmured. "You two are totally seeing each other."
"Shut up, Tork," Cho commanded. Tork put his hands up in defense.
"You see these x-rays? See how Periodontitis has set in on her lower gums?" She looked back at the two agents and pointed to the clearly damaged area. "Well, I found a match after requesting her dental records from her dentist." She reached into the folder and produced another x-ray, placing it next to the other. It clearly matched.
"You have a name, then?"
Dr. Rosales bowed her head. "Your victim is Dakota Ketchum. From her dental records, she is twenty-nine, Hispanic heritage, and deceased. I found her name by this." She handed Cho a small, faded bracelet that had Dakota Ketchum engraved on it.
"Medical bracelet?" Cho asked.
"Doesn't appear to be so," Anna replied. "More of a fashion statement. It's inscribed on the inside. Probably a gift." She sighed. "It was tucked away under the wrist."
Cho handed it back and turned to Tork. "Call Wylie. Tell him to run Dakota Ketchum through the database and see if anything pops up. Tell him I want a previous address for her and any relatives still alive."
Tork nodded in agreement and turned away from them to make the call. Cho turned back to Anna, who gave him a Manila folder with her findings inside. Her hand overlapped his on the end of the folder, giving him a meaningful look.
"How about I come over sometime this week?" she suggested. "We could watch a movie? I'll bring the wine?" She arched an eyebrow at him.
"Alright," he said. "Thursday. My place."
"Eight?"
"Eight."
Anna Rosales opened the lab door, leading Cho out and into the open hallway. She stopped and turned to him, reaching over and kissing the stoic agent on the lips, surprising him. He stood slack for a moment before returning the kiss to the anthropologist.
"See you at eight on Thursday, Kimball," she said against his lips, pulling away and turning back into the lab to pack her tools away.
"Eight," he repeated in a whisper, a rare smile folding over his face. "See you then, Anna."
"You didn't hear or see anything remotely odd at any point?" prodded Lisbon. "No sounds, screams, or anything like that?"
Noel Moreno frowned and pushed a hand through her black hair. "None. I am typically around because I am the floor manager. I keep everybody on the floor in check," she explained.
They were sitting in her living room, Lisbon occupying the chair and Noel sitting on her white couch. Jane, as per his usual agenda, was walking around looking at the things in her apartment. He noticed that the place was incredibly immaculate; not a spot of dust or an object out of place. He moved behind Noel and Lisbon, taking his knuckles to the wall that connected to the murder scene next door.
"What is he doing?" Noel whispered to Lisbon. "He's knocking on my walls. Why?"
"He does that," Lisbon replied, looking behind Noel at Jane knocking on the wall, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips. "He likes to touch things."
"Oh," she said simply. "I really didn't see much. I told the young agent that already."
"When was the last time you showed that condo to anyone? Checked in on it?" Jane asked, lowering his hands from her wall and turning to her. "That body was in there at least a while. Why didn't you notice it? Check in on the place? Dust it, even?"
Noel narrowed her eyes at him as he came to stand in front of her, his finger tap-tap-tapping on his lips. She was silent for a few seconds before shrugging her slim shoulders.
"If management doesn't notify me, I don't bother. If someone wants a tour of the place before their final decision, I will go over there and tidy up. The economy hasn't been good, agents. It's been bad for a while. In fact, I haven't shown the place in eight months."
"You never went over there at all?" Lisbon asked, unconvinced.
"No."
"You mentioned that you are the floor manager," Jane piped in. "Did you ever have any issues with any of the neighbors? Anything that sticks out for you in the last, oh, eight or nine months?" He leaned forward toward Noel. "No matter how small you think it is, Noel, it could help us solve this crime."
"No." Noel hesitated. "Well, there is one thing." She looked up at Jane who was pacing from side-to-side in front of her, his finger still tap-tap-tapping away. "About seven months ago, I heard construction going on in an apartment. I was naturally curious because we don't allow them to modify the floor plans of the condos. They can only paint and that kind of thing," clarified Noel. "I didn't mention it before because it seemed insignificant."
"Someone was doing construction? Do you know what it was?" Lisbon asked. "Or who?" she added.
Noel gesticulated with her head toward the wall Jane was knocking on earlier. "Professor Tullin. I don't know exactly what he was doing, but I saw some pieces of drywall in the trash the next collection day."
Jane looked at Lisbon and back to Noel. "Like he was removing part of a wall?"
"Yes," she confirmed.
"And you didn't report it?"
"Well, no," she admitted. "I told him he can't do that, and if he didn't replace what he was tearing out, I'd go to management. He assured me he'd fix the wall, and I assumed he did."
"Hmm."
"Jane, what are you thinking?" Lisbon asked.
"Thank you, Noel. We'll be in touch. Lisbon?"
Lisbon rose and turned to Noel. "If you think of anything else, give me a call." She pulled out her card and slid it to the woman who took it with a nod.
They exited Noel Moreno's apartment and headed for the elevators. It was quiet on the ride down between them. Finally, after they exited the elevator into the lobby, Lisbon turned to Jane.
"What is it?"
"I think you need to get a search warrant for Professor Tullin's apartment," he told her, holding open the front door.
"Why? Removing a wall isn't against the law!" She sighed deeply. "We need probable cause, Jane. You know that."
"No, but it is suspicious because it is in the time range that body has been in that room, right? And it could explain how the murderer got out of the room without detection or un-bolting the padlock. Isn't that probable cause?"
"By breaking through the wall? Come on, Jane!" Lisbon laughed as they walked to Lisbon's car.
"It's not out of the realm of possibility, Teresa," he told her. "Remember the case where he landed in his secret vault? The house with the projected 'ghost'? It can happen. Besides, I am not so sure he actually removed the wall. Just saying if he did, it's suspiciously convenient."
She groaned. "Fine!"
"Good. Now, I want to go back to the office and make a beeline to see our son. I sense you do, too."
They got into the car and drove off toward the office, a potential lead in hand.
"Dakota Ketchum," Wylie said to himself, pecking at the keys as he squeezed a stress ball in his other hand. "Let's see if we get a hit."
He waited, watching as the database scanned for her name and matched the information on her vital statistics. He flexed the stress ball, swinging his chair from left to right as the screen scrolled on. Finally, the picture of a woman with long brown hair framing her face with brown eyes and an olive complexion popped up on screen. Wylie stopped swinging in his seat and put the stress ball on his desk. With a couple of keystrokes, he pulled up Dakota Ketchum's entire profile, including an address.
"Wylie!" Lisbon called out as she entered the bullpen, Jane following her with baby Liam in his arms. "Get anything from Cho?"
He looked up at them and nodded his head, lifting himself from his seat and reaching out to touch Liam's blond hair. Liam smiled and pointed a small finger at him. Jane wiggled Ducky in front of Wylie and Liam, letting the agent know he still loved that stuffed animal he bought for their son.
"Hey, little man! Yeah, let me show you." He let go of Liam's head and let Jane move the baby to the couch with him. He sat back down and pointed to the screen as she came behind him. "Dakota Ketchum has no living relatives as far as I can tell. Her parents died when she was young, and she had no other family. But her address is very interesting."
Lisbon followed his finger and she was surprised to find that Dakota owned a condo in that building. Her address stated that she lived in apartment 705. That was just a few doors down from the crime scene in which was her last resting place.
"It's the same floor as where she was murdered," Lisbon said in surprise. "Well, that is interesting."
"Cho and Tork are on their way back. Do you want me to tell them anything?"
She shook her head. "No. I need to get Cho to ask the judge for a search warrant. I think this may actually help us in that department. Thanks, Wylie!"
"No problem."
She turned back to Jane with the intention of telling him that his hunch might be right about Professor Tullin with the news that Dakota did own a condo on the same floor, but she was rendered speechless by the sight on his couch.
Jane was lying on the weathered material with his eyes closed, and Liam lying on his chest. Jane's arms wrapped around his son tightly, Ducky in his hands on top of Liam's back. He was humming a familiar tune as he stroked his little back in small rubs. She smiled at the sight as she wandered over close to father and baby. She could hear the tune clearly now. It was 'Little Boy Blue'.
"Is he asleep?" Jane whispered without opening his eyes.
"I think so," she whispered back, leaning down and bringing an arm up to brush a lock of her son's hair from his forehead. "Must be the rousing up from his teething."
"I think my heartbeat helps him to sleep."
"What is it that you do when I am working, Jane?" she asked in a whisper. "I mean, with our son?"
"Well," he smiled, "I find that our son is very adept at gambling. I let him pick the cards and horses. He is very good at his poker face. He just cries and it confuses people."
"Ha-ha," she whispered. She was quiet for a long time. "You're a great father, Jane. I see that every single time you hold Liam. I see everything I saw in you all over again."
"You, too, Teresa," he told her softly. "A great mother. I always knew that, though. Even not being able to read you and you being a mystery has blinded some things from me, I've always known you'd make a great mother."
"You did?"
"Yes." He opened one eye to peek at her. "Yes. And I am glad to say I am happy it was with me."
"I'm going to have Wylie take Philips and take a look at our victim's condo," she whispered. "You stay here and keep Liam busy. I'll be looking over the neighbors' statements, okay?"
"Okay," Jane said. "I'll be here, Teresa."
Liam budged in his sleep. Lisbon smiled and gave her husband a kiss and lifted herself to let Liam nap with Jane.
"Wylie," called Lisbon. "Take Agent Philips to the apartments. Look for anything suspicious, okay? I assume you filled her in about the case?"
"Yeah, I did. I got you," he replied, grabbing his jacket off his chair. He motioned over to Philips, who was sitting at her desk waiting for instructions. "Agent Philips, let's go snoop in other people's things!" He smiled when Lisbon looked at him. "Joke," he added.
"I got that, Wylie," replied Lisbon, watching the two agents head to the elevator.
"Okay," he said cumbersomely. "No more jokes for me."
"It's really not a joke, Wylie," Philips told him. "It's what we are going to do."
Half an hour later, Philips slipped the key she got from the management team into the lock of 705, turning it until she heard the lock click open. She pushed the door open and felt Wylie right behind her as he clicked the door closed.
The condo was neat; the light fading in from the window across the room. Though it was tidy, Philips could see signs that the apartment hadn't been lived in for quite a while. Cobwebs lingered in corners and the air smelled stale. Philips sighed and put her hands on her hips.
"What do we do now?" Wylie asked.
"Search for anything that can give us a clue as to what might have happened to her," Philips answered, sweeping a hand toward the living room and kitchen. "Look for computers or papers."
Philips took to the living room, searching through some papers Dakota had stacked on the table. It was just bills from what she could see. She flipped through them quickly before putting them back. Wylie headed off towards the bedroom. Philips moved over to a date book sitting near the phone. She flipped back a year and started flipping forward on each page. On March 26, eight months before her body was discovered, Philips found an entry that read DT 8:30pm. Philips took the date book and put it in her pocket, ear-marking the page for reference later.
"Philips!" Wylie called out. "I think I may have found something."
Philips walked back to the bedroom down the small hallway and found Wylie sitting on Dakota's bed, a laptop open and him pecking away at the keys. He looked up when she entered and pointed to the computer.
"There are a bunch of deleted emails in her trash can," he explained. "I was going to exit out when I noticed that some of the emails are from someone we know."
"Daniel Tullin?" she asked, putting Dakota's DT with the professor's initials from her date book.
"No," he said with a shake of his head. "Noel Moreno."
"Can you read them?"
"They're encrypted," he replied with a sigh, "Either she didn't want anyone to read them, or the sender put a timer on the emails. After so long, they just become gibberish to most."
"To most?"
He smiled. "I am not most people. This is easy stuff."
"Okay!" said Philips. "Finally, something! Grab the computer. I've got her date book. Let's check the rest of the apartment and get out of here for the day."
Philips and Wylie looked around Dakota's residence in mostly silence, apart from the occasional small talk about her life before coming to the FBI. She kept it brief, and he did not pry. The conversation drifted to Jane, as it often did when new people came in. Jane's reputation superseded him.
"Patrick Jane," said Philips, turning in the passenger seat. "He's a consultant, right?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"He's well-known. In fact, I followed his case closely," she answered, smiling marginally.
"Yeah…" Wylie trailed off. "We don't bring it up."
"Sorry," she whispered. "It was intriguing to me is all."
"How so?"
"Well…" started Sandra, trailing off as Wylie watched her look through a book shelf. "I think it was very intriguing for a lot of people for variety of reasons."
"Maybe," he told the new agent. "He's married and has a child now. He left that in his past."
She said nothing to this. They completed looking through the apartment, taking the datebook and computer with them, but nothing else was of use. Philips re-locked the door and both agents headed back to the office with their findings.
Later that night, Lisbon padded into their bedroom after giving their son a bath and putting him to bed, glancing over and seeing Jane propped up with a pillow cushioning his back and the crime scene photos spread out on Lisbon's pillow on his lap.
"Liam down?" Jane asked, reaching out to pull Lisbon into a kiss as she crawled onto the bed from her side. "He had quite the busy day sleeping."
Lisbon laughed and kissed him again before settling down, propping herself up on the lone pillow Jane left her. She curled her arm around his and pulled her face close to his side, peering at the photos spread out in front of them.
"What are you doing with those?" she asked. "I don't think you'll find anything useful, Jane."
"You doubt me," he told her. "I cook you a nice meal, I clean up baby Liam in all his messy glory, and you doubt me?" He laughed. "Something is bothering me about what Noel told us," he admitted. "There is something I am not seeing."
She looked at the photographs. Some were of the murder scene, and some were of various shots in the room where Dakota's body had been found. She couldn't really see anything that would help them. Nothing to do with the case, anyway.
"Jane," she said, looking up at him. "Nothing is here. Maybe she was mistaken."
He shrugged his shoulders at her. "Maybe."
"There is nothing we can do until we get the search warrant, Jane. Besides, Wylie still hasn't decrypted those emails from Dakota's laptop, and I found nothing in the neighbor's statements to hint at anything. Maybe getting her picture out on the news will work. It's supposed to air tonight."
"Something just seems like it's off. I'm a bit rusty at this. It's been a while since I was challenged like this."
"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, Jane." She squeezed his arm. "Why don't you put those away and come snuggle with your wife? Hmm?" She smiled mischievously. "Forget about murders and death for a little while?"
He looked over and her and mirrored her mischievous grin. He stuffed the photos back into the folder without looking and placed it on the nightstand. He turned back to his wife and reached out for her hip, turning her closer to him.
"How much time until Liam wakes up?" he asked, breathing in her ear.
"I really don't know, Mr. Jane," she replied, accepting his deep kiss. "Better get a move on."
"Why, Mrs. Lisbon!" Jane said, feigning shock. "Are you propositioning me?"
"Does that bother you, Mr. Jane?" she asked her husband, planting a kiss on his neck. "Because it doesn't me."
He laughed and reached to turn off the light, knocking the folder down, sending the pictures falling to the floor. He didn't bother picking them up. Instead, he turned back to his wife, and both shrank down into the satin sheets embraced in each other's arms.
"Warrant came in last night," Lisbon told Jane as she entered the kitchen the next morning. "I still don't know exactly what you think we are going to find. Morning, baby!" she said to Liam, bending down and kissing the tip of his nose as he happily ate his oatmeal Jane was feeding him in his highchair. She was thankful that Liam slept through the night and allowed them to get a decent night's sleep after their prior activities.
"Mmm," Jane replied, scooping another bit of oatmeal onto Liam's spoon. "You doubt me yet again?" He arched an eyebrow as he watched her pour orange juice from the carton on the table into a glass and take a few sips.
"I never do," she promised him. "We don't know when the murder occurred time wise, so I can't run Tullin's time card. A neighbor seeing him dismantling a wall is thin, Jane."
Lisbon sat down and pulled a paper towel off the roll and wiped her son's face. He leaned toward her and laughed, spilling the food from his mouth and dirtying his face once again.
"Are you being silly for mommy?" Lisbon asked her son playfully. "You be good for daddy, okay? Mommy will be home for lunch and Mommy will feed you."
"Did Wylie get a chance to crack those emails?" Jane asked, a smile on his face as he watched his wife talk to their son.
"Almost," she answered, reaching over to steal a slice of bacon off Jane's plate. "He knows they came from Noel Moreno but not what they say. As floor manager, I am sure she'd send out emails about fire drills and such." She thought a moment as she chewed on the piece of bacon. "Why it would be encrypted, I don't know."
"Privacy reasons? I don't know, Teresa," replied Jane. "I am technologically impaired."
Her phone rang in her pocket. She pulled it out and put it to her ear. "Lisbon." She listened for a minute or two. "What? Really? Alright. I am on my way. Thanks, Cho." She hung up quickly and replaced her phone in her pocket.
"Lead?"
"Cho said they executed the search warrant on Daniel Tullin and found something interesting. He didn't say what."
"Do you need me to come with you? I can drop Liam off at the daycare and meet you there," Jane offered.
"No, no," Lisbon said. "I think Liam could do with some Daddy time. If we find anything, I will tell you over lunch. How is that?"
"Wonder what they found…" Jane trailed off.
"Well, I guess it's another mystery to unravel." She looked at her watch. "I have to go." She slid her chair out from the table and bent to kiss Liam on his cheek, getting oatmeal on her lips. She wiped it off with a laugh and bent over to kiss Jane goodbye.
"Be good for Daddy, okay?" she told Liam as she headed out of the kitchen. "And don't teach him your bad habits!" she yelled back before Jane heard the door close behind her.
"I won't tell if you don't tell," he replied to Liam, who was reaching for the spoon in Jane's hand.
"Muh muh muh muh!" the baby cooed, helping Jane bring the spoon to his mouth.
"I agree."
"We found this," Cho told her when she finally arrived back to the apartments. "It proves he knew Dakota Ketchum."
He handed her a photograph. It was of all the staff on duty at Austin Collegiate. Apparently, Professor Tullin worked with their victim. She was dressed like a professor, and she was in the back of the picture, and Professor Tullin was just in front of her, a smile planted on his face and her hand on his shoulder.
"So," Lisbon sighed, turning to Cho, "he knew our victim. I guess Jane's un-kosher feeling about him was right. Are you going to do anything about the wall?" She pointed to the oil painting. "See if there is a secret passage or something?"
"On it," he answered. "I should have the techs in to radar the wall, see what is behind it."
"I'll ask Professor Tullin to make a trip down to the office. We can interrogate him further. Let me know what you find."
"I will," Cho assured her. "I want you to take Agent Philips with you. Put the pressure on him, Lisbon." He turned back toward the agents going through Tullin's stuff. "Agent Philips! Can you ride along with Agent Lisbon and sit in on the interrogation? Give you an idea how we run it here in Austin?"
Agent Philips nodded her head and smiled. "Sure! Anything I can do to help." She advanced toward Lisbon, and she nodded her head and took the photograph with her as she exited the apartment.
"This should be fun," Agent Philips commented.
"Just be glad Jane isn't around," Lisbon retorted. "You'd be entertained for hours with his techniques." She got close to the elevators when she heard her name being called from behind.
"Agent Lisbon!" a familiar voice drifted to her. She turned around to see Noel Moreno leaning out of her apartment. She beckoned to Lisbon, and Lisbon turned around and walked back to Moreno's apartment.
"Noel? What is it?"
Noel looked at Agent Philips over Lisbon's shoulder. Lisbon turned around and nodded to Philips, who turned and walked to the elevator. "Well, the lady's picture and name was on the news last night," she told Lisbon, looking around nervously. "I saw Professor Tullin acting very suspicious after that. He was pacing in the hall and I even saw him enter the crime scene! I'm scared to live this close to him!" She spoke rapidly, as if she would be caught any minute divulging this information.
"He entered the crime scene? Last night? You sure?"
"Yes! I was scared to leave my apartment!"
Lisbon looked at Noel and realized that her posture and her flighty eyes gave away enough for Lisbon to read her. Working with Jane all those years had its advantages. She stared at the woman and squinted her eyes.
"Do you know something, Noel? Something you haven't shared with me?"
"I don't like getting into personal business," she said, "but I think it might be important. Professor Tullin was dating that woman. At least, I think he was. I saw her a few times going over there. When I saw her on TV last night, I recognized her."
"They were involved with each other?" Somehow, this potential revelation didn't surprise Lisbon.
"Yeah. She would sneak into his apartment at night. When she disappeared or whatever, he just started working more."
"Do you mind coming down to the FBI office to make an official statement on that?" She could see Noel hesitate. "It's a woman's life we are talking about here, Ms. Moreno." Lisbon sighed. "I can do it by force, but I rather not. It won't take long."
Noel hesitated, finally deciding to close her apartment door and follow her over to Agent Philips. They rode the elevator down and exited the apartments, Noel looking around nervously before she was ushered in the back of the Lisbon's car.
"How long will this take?" Noel asked. "I…I really don't want to be too long."
"Not long," Lisbon promised her. "Just relax."
Lisbon looked in her rearview mirror and then over to Agent Philips who had been gazing at her. She threw the agent a smile and put her eyes back to the road.
"I didn't mean to stare," Philips said. "Sorry. It's just I didn't know you and Mr. Jane were married." Agent Philips looked abashed. "Agent Tork told me," she explained. "I also saw your interaction in the bullpen. Cute baby."
"Thanks," she replied. "It was a long road. Liam is the product of years of development." She sighed deeply. "It's hard to explain."
"I know about you, too, Agent Lisbon," Philips told her. "About your perseverance and patience with him and his case."
Lisbon snorted. "Patience is hardly the right word."
"At any rate, you saw his revenge first hand," Philips went on. "I know that must have been hard on you."
"It was harder on him," she told her quietly. "It nearly destroyed him and me right along with it."
Sandra was quiet then. She turned from Lisbon and looked out the window. "I can understand," she said. "I can relate."
"Unrequited love is a terrible thing," Noel said from the back of the car. "It hurts."
"I was told that once," Lisbon told her. "It's not always true."
"Sure it is," she whispered before falling silent.
Lisbon looked back again in the rear view mirror and squinted her eyes at the woman who was now looking out of the side window. She shook her head slightly at the odd statement, and dragged her eyes back to the road and to thoughts of the long road she and Jane has shared and the little bouncing, messy baby that came of it all at home.
Jane balanced Liam—who was holding Ducky firmly in his little fists—on one hip, and a basket full of dirty laundry in the other. He sat the basket down on the edge of the bed and placed Liam next to it, placing Ducky on their pillows. Immediately, the baby turned himself and began to crawl up the bed to where Jane had placed Ducky.
"You found him! Good boy!" Jane praised, reaching down to pick up a stray sock that fell from the hamper near the bed.
He noticed a few of the pictures he was looking at last night on the floor, realizing that he forgot to pick them up the night before. He reached down and picked them up, tapping them into a neat pile. He glanced at Liam, who was squeezing Ducky's beak before moving to place the pictures in the folder on the nightstand. Something caught his eye on the photograph on top. He sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling Liam crawl over to him and show him Ducky.
"Yes," Jane said, smiling widely at his son. "He is such a nice duck, Liam." He reached out and brushed his son's hair with his palm. "I like him, too."
"Ba?" Liam asked his daddy, shaking his curls. He pointed to Ducky. "Ba."
Jane turned his attention back to the picture. It was a picture of the entire room; wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling. His eyes stared at the wall on the right. He tilted his head and looked harder at the picture. Suddenly, his mind flashed back to his interviews and observations with Lisbon on the neighbors, and he knew what was troubling about them.
"Oh!" Jane exclaimed, hurriedly putting the pictures back in the folder and placed them on the bed. He reached over and picked up his son, slinging him on his hip as he reached for the phone. "I have to tell Mommy something very important. We are going to help her nab a mean old bad person!"
He dialed Lisbon's cell number, but his call went unanswered. He put down the receiver and went into their closet, retrieving Liam's baby carrier. He took Liam back over to the bed and sat him there as he put the carrier on. He belted it tightly around his body before reaching down and lifting Liam into it, picking up Ducky, and handing it to him when he dropped it and started to fuss for it.
"We got to get down to help Mommy," he told Liam. "Want to go see Mommy? Yes! Let's go!" Jane exited the bedroom with his son strapped to his chest. He came back in a few seconds later, picked the folder up off the bed and hurried out of the room a second time.
Agent Philips and Tork sat across from Professor Daniel Tullin, the photograph in the middle of the table. His eyes darted to it and back up to the two agents who were waiting for him to speak, having just told him they found that in his house and they knew that the victim not only worked with him, but dated him, too.
"I don't know what to tell you!" Tullin told them, jabbing the picture. "Yes, I worked with her, but I didn't know it was her until last night's news broadcast, and I certainly never killed anyone!"
"Did you date her?" Philips asked him openly. "We have a statement that says you were dating Dakota Ketchum."
Tullin shook his head and laughed dryly. "I've never dated her in my life! We just happened to work together and live near each other! That was it!"
"So why would someone give us a statement to the contrary, Professor Tullin? Why would they tell us that you've been dating the victim up until the time of her disappearance?"
"I don't know! Are they of sound mind?" he asked. "Look, I really didn't know her well! I've never dated her, and I don't know what would possess anyone to say otherwise!"
"How good do you know Noel Moreno?" asked Tork. "Well?"
Professor Tullin straightened himself and scoffed. "Noel Moreno is a nice woman. She's always treated me kindly. What does she have to do with this? I am confused."
Tork and Philips looked at each other. Noel was in the interrogation room next door giving Lisbon a statement all of her own that contradicted Tullin's. Philips leaned forward and sighed. She took the photo from the table and put it back in the folder in front of her before sitting back in her chair again.
"She says contrarily, Professor Tullin. She tells us that not only did you date the victim, but you were doing construction on your apartment like you were making a way into the apartment next to you. Maybe to murder Dakota and lock the place up tight?"
"That is preposterous! I did no such thing! I never did any renovations! I certainly never killed anyone, and I never dated Dakota! Noel Moreno is either mistaken or crazy or both!"
"She just made it all up?"
"Yes!"
"Why would she?"
"I don't know! Look! I refuse to talk anymore. I want my lawyer."
"Fine," Philips said, rising to her feet. "When we get the radar results back on your wall, we'll see just who is crazy." She and Tork exited the interrogation room and walked into the bullpen with as little as they had walked in with.
"Uh," Wylie said, spinning around in his chair to face them when he heard them re-enter the bullpen. "I have something on those emails."
"What?"
"Well, I was able to decrypt some of the emails, and it seems to be an exchange between Noel Moreno and the victim." He shrugged a shoulder. "From what I see, the victim was having conversations with Noel about some kind of argument or something. It's not too clear because only some of the emails could be decrypted, but it sounds like Noel was unhappy with Dakota."
"You can't tell us about what?" Philips asked.
"No," Wylie said. "Too vague in their wording. Here is a little snippet of an email." He turned back to the computer and cleared his throat. "It says, 'You can't do this. This isn't the way it is supposed to go. I don't think you understand how serious I am about this.' It just goes on like that back and forth."
"We could ask her," Tork offered. "I mean she is already here, right? Why not just ask her about them?"
Philips sat down at her desk and sighed. "It's too vague. She is floor manager. It could be just something as simple as a contract breach or something. Hell, maybe Dakota wanted to build a damn bar in her apartment. Point is it is too vague to use. She may clam up and renege on her statements, too."
The elevator opened up a moment later, and out stepped Jane with baby Liam strapped to his chest and a folder in his hands. They watched him walk up to them, looking around the bullpen before settling his eyes on the three agents.
"Where is Lisbon?" Jane asked. "I need to talk to her."
"What is Liam doing here? Why didn't you take him to the daycare?" Wylie asked, watching as Liam turned his head toward his voice.
"No time!" Jane told them. "You get anything yet, Wylie?"
"Yes," Wylie told him. "Some emails. Most are too vague." He reached down and handed Jane a print out of the conversations.
"Oh! Excellent!" He shoved that paper in the folder with the pictures and looked around again. "So where is my wife?"
"Interrogation room 2," Philips told him. "I don't think–"
"Thanks!" he said, cutting her off and walking past the fishbowl and toward the interrogation room.
A moment later, Jane wrenched open the door to the second interrogation unit, striding inside and watching as his wife and Noel Moreno turned to him.
"Jane! What are you doing here? And why is Liam strapped to your chest?" Lisbon asked her husband with an undertone of annoyance. She noticed that he was in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt that fit just perfect over his muscled forearms.
"Sorry, Teresa," he apologized. "The baby and I apologize for crashing this interrogation, but I have some information I think will be very interesting to you."
Jane flopped the folder down in front of Lisbon and pointed to it.
"What is this?" she asked, watching as Liam fidgeted in his carrier. She watched as Jane bent his head down to kiss Liam's head, but his eyes did not leave Lisbon's. "You can't bring our son into an interrogation, Jane!"
"Sorry, but…"
"Evidence to what exactly?" she interrupted, opening the folder. "It's just the pictures of the crime scene, Jane."
"But that is the evidence, Teresa," he assured her. He looked at Noel Moreno and smiled that familiar mischievous smile. "You are good; I will give you that. So good. Nearly bought it."
"Huh?" Noel asked, scrunching her nose in confusion.
"When we first interviewed you, you were extremely nervous when I was knocking on your walls," he explained. "That was unusual all in itself, but there was something else unusual, Noel." He pointed to her as he bounced his son in his carrier. "Your place was neat as a pin. I didn't notice it until I looked at those photographs."
"What are you talking about?"
"Daniel Tullin had an oil painting hanging on the wall of his apartment; the wall that connected to the murder scene. You, on the other hand, had nothing on that wall when we visited you." Jane laughed. "I almost missed it!"
"Jane…" Lisbon said.
"Okay, okay! Well, the reason nothing was hanging on that wall is because nothing can hang on that wall! There are no studs or boards back there. Nothing for nails to catch and grab." He smiled wider. "It's a phony wall, isn't it? It pulls out to allow you access to the model apartment, doesn't it? At least a section of it."
Lisbon looked from her husband to Noel, a bewildered expression on her face. "What is he talking about?"
Noel shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know!"
"Ah, sure you do, Noel! It's why you were panicked when I knocked on the wall," Jane told her. "But the false wall is insulated to keep sound down. A partition! That's what they call false walls! You are the floor manager, Noel. Your apartment opens up to the empty one. It's something the builders and planner of the building put in just in case they needed to change things down the road."
"That's crazy!"
"You lured Dakota into your apartment that night, didn't you, Noel? Showed her the false Alabaster wall that led into the model apartment next door? What was the pretense? Calling off your argument over Professor Tullin? Tell her to back off of him?" Jane pointed to the top sheet with Wylie's print out. "Your emails tell it all."
Noel shook her head. "You don't know what you are talking about! I won't be accused of something I never did!"
"You thought Dakota was dating Professor Tullin, didn't you? And you were secretly in love with him. I am guessing you saw them leave for work together or maybe you used your floor key to get into his apartment and snoop?"
"GAH!" Liam said loudly, kicking his legs.
"I agree, Liam," he said, putting a hand to his back. "Gah, indeed."
"Wait! This sounds crazy," Lisbon said, turning to her husband. "But crazy is your business. Plus, that would explain her odd statement on the way here about unrequited love."
"The date book Philips found in Dakota's apartment? How much do you want to bet Noel, here, let herself into Dakota's apartment and read that entry. Probably infuriated her that Professor Tullin and Dakota were closer than she'd ever get to him. That's when you decided to get rid of her, isn't it? You tried emails, but it didn't work."
There was silence from Noel before she suddenly started to weep. She shook her head and put her hands in her hair on either side of her face, bowing her head.
"You want to tell us what happened, Noel?" Lisbon asked. "Don't make us drag it out of you. The gig is up. Time to be truthful."
Noel raised her head and leaned back in her chair. She looked from Lisbon to Jane and back to Lisbon again. She shook her head and laughed without humor.
"She was always around him!" she started finally. "She moved in and suddenly it was like I didn't even exist to him! It started out with them just swapping pleasantries," Noel said with a shrug. "Nothing big. But the more I watched them, the more I could see how he looked at her and touched her hand and shoulder, laughing with her! He ignored me! For what? For her?"
"It must have pissed you off knowing he would never see you like that, huh?" Jane pushed. "Knowing that you were a speck on his radar. You sat there and thought about it, getting madder by the second that she was close to him while you were ignored by him. Or so you thought."
"He was mine."
"You were infatuated with him?" Lisbon asked. "She was in your way of that."
"She was blocking the way! Blinding him to anyone else!" Noel told them. "I sent her emails telling her to stay away for him and how serious I was about her keeping her distance from Daniel. She just wouldn't listen! Working with him during the day and being in his bed at night!"
"So you killed her."
"That wasn't the plan," Noel explained. "I just invited her over to talk about it briefly before she went on her merry way. Come to a compromise. She'd stay away from him and I would let her alone. I'd stop the emails."
"Something went wrong. What was it? Start from the beginning."
"She was supposed to meet Daniel that night at eight-thirty. For what, I can only guess," Noel said, wiping tears from her cheeks. "I saw her pass my door about ten minutes before that. I asked her to come inside, as I said before." She sighed deeply, looking down at her hand in her lap and shaking her head. "I knew she'd never stay away from him. I just knew it in my heart."
"What happened next?"
"I told her Daniel was waiting in the apartment next door," Noel went on. "She was a little suspicious, but she was so dumb!" She laughed. "I pulled the butcher's knife I kept in a cabinet. I didn't intend to kill her. I only wanted to scare her. I stabbed her accidentally," she said.
"How do you stab someone accidentally, Noel? Was she still moving when you left her?" Lisbon asked, her face serious. "Could she have been saved if you made a call?"
Noel shrugged. "I don't know. I panicked and closed the wall. After a few hours, I didn't hear her moaning anymore. I went over and she was dead!"
"So you put the air conditioner on to try to slow down her decomp?" Lisbon asked. "That's why it was cold when I first walked in there. It also explains the padlocked door from the inside. Neat and clean," Lisbon told her. "Your nosiness in this case really did you in," she added. "Though Jane would have figured it out, I am sure. Tell me, why did you want to make the object of your obsession guilty? Why tell us lies to implicate him when you knew he didn't do it?"
She shrugged. "If I can't have him, nobody can," she said simply.
"Where's the knife, Noel?"
"Where I got it," she replied. "In the kitchen cabinet."
Lisbon rose, leaving the room to get Tork to book her on first degree murder. Jane kissed his son as he watched Noel over his little head as the woman wept again.
"I should have known it was you," Jane said. "You said you were home almost all time, yet you never heard any commotion of any kind? Improbable. Professor Tullin didn't hear it because he hadn't arrived home yet. Probably worked late. Other neighbors thought nothing of it or were asleep. But you being so close would have certainly heard it. I also suspect you had delusional episodes where you pretended to be Tullin's wife or girlfriend." Jane shook his head at her. "Your place was exceptionally clean. You were letting potential clients see your apartment so they wouldn't stumble upon the body. I mean, you couldn't say, 'Oh crap! A dead body!'. No. You just had to keep people away. The padlock from inside assured nobody from management down below would get in there, either. Clever, actually." He shook his head in self-disappointment. "I'm getting rusty in my old age."
She just stared at him as she wept.
"Obsessions can be dark things, Noel," he told her. "They can eat you from the inside."
"How would you know?" she asked.
"Trust me," Jane told her. "I know very well."
Tork came in, read Noel her rights and led her from the room. Jane and Liam both waved goodbye to her as they watched her disappear down the bullpen and out of sight. Lisbon stood there with her hands on her hips.
"Uh," Jane said. "He made me come," he accused, nodding toward their eight-month-old. "He wanted to see his mommy, and Daddy wanted to help mommy bust a bad person," he told her.
"You caught a bad woman, Jane," she said with a tired sigh. "Most days that is enough."
Jane smiled widely. "What about today?"
"This," she said, walking over and kissing Liam on the cheek, "makes up for what doesn't. Thanks for coming down here, Jane."
"You're welcome, Teresa."
"Let's go get that lunch, okay? After the morning I've had, I could use some fresh air, food, and kisses from my two favorite men."
"We pulled back the wall in Noel Moreno's apartment," Cho told Dr. Rosales, passing her the popped bowl of popcorn and plopping down beside her during their date later that night. "It led right into the crime scene. We recovered the weapon, too. It was a good day." He wrapped his arm around her. "Wylie also found a flight booked using her credit card. She was buying time by lying on Tullin while she planned to head to Mexico."
"I matched the knife wounds with the weapon you recovered. A complete match. Why did they have a partition in an apartment, anyway?" Anna asked, sitting back against Cho's chest. "Seems strange."
"We talked to the management of the entire building," Cho said, handing her a glass of wine before picking up his. "They said that it was meant to show visual impact. They said it once was one big apartment suite, but was converted in later years, but the wall was never closed off completely." He sighed. "She's undergoing psychiatric observation."
"Well, I am glad justice was served," Anna told him. "Patrick Jane is certainly an interesting man, Kimball," she added. "I do believe he was trying to play matchmaker to us."
"He does that," Cho said. He reached for a popcorn and popped it in his mouth.
"Did it work?"
"Yes," he said deadpan.
"I love your way with words, Kimball," she told him, reaching up to kiss his cheek. "It's been two months. I think the odds are in our favor. Don't you?"
He looked at her then. "Nobody rattles me the way you do. I think if the odds aren't in our favor, then I am in trouble."
She laughed at that and sighed, taking a sip of her wine. "You're a very interesting man, Kimball Cho. I look forward to finding out more about you."
"I will tell you whatever you want to know, Anna," Cho told her, sitting his wine glass down and bringing her face close to his. "Just ask."
He kissed her, and she kissed him back, letting the popcorn bowl fall to the floor as they embraced each other, the movie long forgotten in front of them.
Across town in their cabin, Lisbon stepped through the front door and a smile spread across her face. Lisbon sighed, reaching up to remove her ID badge and put it in her blazer's front pocket and undid her hair clip, letting her curls fall around her shoulders. She felt Jane's hand on her back. She turned to find him staring at her.
"I missed you," he whispered. "I know it's only been a few hours, but I am so glad you are home."
"Mmmm," she murmured into his chest. "Glad to be home and have this case wrapped up."
"Someone wants me to share you," he told her with a laugh when Liam squealed.
She gave her husband a kiss and he patted her behind playfully as she walked into the large living room and crept over to her son's pen. He was sitting in the center, Ducky firmly in his little hands. She reached down and scooped her son into her arms, reaching down when Ducky fell back into the pen to retrieve him.
"What?" She laughed.
"Just wondering why I am so lucky," he told her truthfully. "A beautiful wife, an amazing son. I was just thinking of how I could have turned out like Noel Moreno. Let the obsession overtake me and render me devoid of any common sense or decency," he explained. "But I have had light in my life to get me out of it. I was just thinking of how lucky I am."
"Let's not drag that out into the night, Jane," she told him, taking his hand in hers. "Always look on the bright side, remember?"
"I remember it well, Teresa," he told his wife, allowing her to reach up to kiss him. "I'm sorry."
"You said Tullin made you feel something un-kosher was going on, but he ended up being innocent. You are losing your touch." She grinned.
"The feeling he was hiding something wasn't entirely lost, Teresa. Looking back, he was nervous because he knew Dakota was missing. It probably got around at work she just vanished. He wanted to tell us about her, but he was afraid he'd be accused. A natural fear." He paused. "When we were meeting Agent Philips after the first time we interviewed him, he was going to tell us, but he was afraid and went back inside the apartment."
"God, do you ever get sick of your own skills?" Lisbon asked sarcastically.
"No," he replied with a laugh. "Worked on you, didn't it?"
"Muh muh!" Liam said, picking up Ducky and throwing it down again, pulling their attention away from the conversation.
"Someone is ready for their bedtime." Lisbon reached down on the floor for his stuffed duck, slinging it in her hands. "Want to get his bath ready, daddy?"
"Yes, Mommy," Jane said with a laugh, tickling his son on his belly before kissing Lisbon on the forehead. "One bath coming up. Extra suds! But no scratchy soap beard!"
Lisbon heard him walk into the kitchen, over the sink, where the majority of Liam's baths were taking place. She walked with him to the couch and sat down, turning him to face her. She noticed something in Liam's mouth. Something white. He was drooling on it as his little hands clasped it tightly.
"Liam, what do you have, baby boy?" she asked, taking the object from him. "How in the…" she trailed off, looking closely at it. "That ID badge was in my breast pocket…" She narrowed her eyes and looked up toward the kitchen. "PATRICK JANE! YOU TAUGHT HIM TO PICK POCKETS!"
FIN
A/N: Next up is the mid season finale, Black Knight.