AN: Thanks again for your support of this story! I apologize for the delay in posting. I planned a spur of the moment trip to travel to Canada for the Women's World Cup final, and the game was absolutely unreal. Message me if you're a soccer fan and we can squeal together about the beautiful game!
At any rate, I hope you all enjoy the next chapter in the saga of Jane and Lisbon!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.
Chapter 3: 'Til it Hurts or Bleeds
The sound of Cho and Rigsby's chairs being pushed backwards startled Lisbon, and she quickly pulled away from Jane and composed her facial features. Jane took a step back from her, knowing she wanted to maintain her professionalism, but his eyes never left her face. She glanced at him and saw that his own visage showed signs of worry and confusion—he was having a difficult time reading her.
She congratulated herself. It was the first time she had been able to hide her emotions better than he had.
Rigsby and Cho soon opened the door to observation, and Lisbon turned away from the window to interrogation to face them. Jane's focus remained on her.
Rigsby looked uncomfortable, but Cho looked unfazed, and it was he who spoke.
"You think it's possible?"
Lisbon nodded. "More than possible. Probable, even," she said.
"Alright," said Cho, crossing his arms over his chest. "Rigsby and I will check out Dellinger, Jr. and ask him a few questions." His phone dinged, and he dug it out of his pocket to check the text that had just arrived. After a couple of seconds, his gaze returned to Lisbon. "They're still working on thawing the ground," he said, referring to the efforts to raise Lisbon's father's casket from the ground. "But they're almost done. You said you wanted to be at the exhumation…"
Lisbon swallowed and nodded again, this time more tersely.
Jane spoke for her. "We'll head over there now," he said, ushering Lisbon towards the door with one hand at the small of her back. Lisbon shot him a quick glance, attempting to convey a silent thank you.
Cho and Rigsby let them leave without another word.
The not-so-final resting place of Robert Lisbon was a small cemetery in a rather dingy suburb of Chicago, and Jane drove them there using Lisbon's directions and the keys he had pickpocketed from Cho. As per usual in Chicago winters, the heat in the car took a while to get going, and the car only became tolerably warm when they'd finally passed the stone arches that marked the entrance to the cemetery.
Though it had been years since she'd visited her father's grave, Lisbon could never forget its location, and the throngs of workers surrounding the site only made it easier to find. Jane and Lisbon slammed their car doors behind them and pulled on mittens and hats—they'd be here a while, and the cold had only become more biting as the day wore on.
Lisbon led Jane over gently sloping hills, making sure to stick to the paved pathways. Though they appeared to have been plowed earlier that morning, the afternoon snow had already started to accumulate.
She caught Jane glancing around the cemetery, and she wondered what he was thinking. She tried to put herself in his shoes. What the hell would she be thinking about if they were going to exhume one of Jane's parents? The answer came easily.
She'd be in pain. She'd be devastatingly pained on his behalf.
She wondered why that same pain didn't hit her now.
Was it because she was numb? Was she still in shock and unable to feel anything?
Or was it because there was nothing to feel? Had she given up on her father so completely that she didn't care anymore about what had happened to him?
The thought scared her, and she determinedly avoided Jane's eyes.
Together, they watched the snow—and later, the dirt—fade away from the grave. The casket was raised from the ground, and Jane stepped closer to her, his upper arm faintly touching hers.
Jane and Lisbon accompanied the coroner's van to Evanston, a city to the north of Chicago and the home of Northwestern University. The forensic anthropologist who would be performing the autopsy taught part-time at the university and also worked out of Chicago's Field Museum. His labs, however, were based on campus.
They parked near the anthropology building and only walked a short distance, but Lisbon caught Jane taking in the campus with the same reverent look he'd worn when he'd seen his first snowflakes. She smiled; Northwestern looked like a real-life Hogwarts, straight out of a Harry Potter book, with its view of the lake and old stone buildings covered in ivy.
"Why didn't you go to school here?" he asked quietly. "I think I could spend my entire life on this campus. It's breathtaking."
Lisbon smiled at him sadly. "Couldn't afford it," she said, her tone a little wistful. "It was one of my top choices, but it's private, and I wasn't offered enough scholarships for it to be feasible."
Jane looked at her. "Do you want to go back?"
The crime scene techs continued to wheel the casket ahead of them, but Lisbon stopped in her tracks. Jane stopped and turned around to face her.
"'Go back' to what?" asked Lisbon.
"Do you want to go to school here?" clarified Jane. "If it was your dream—do you want a degree from Northwestern? The year we spent in South America barely scratched a dent in my savings—"
Lisbon began walking again. "I have a degree," she said.
"You have a criminal justice degree from California. You do not have a music degree from Northwestern."
She stopped again, this time turning around to face him.
"Don't be ridiculous, Jane. What would I do with a music degree?"
He shrugged. "Anything. Nothing. It doesn't matter. The point is getting the degree—getting to learn about music—would make you happy."
Lisbon thought about the role music had played in her relationship with Jane and in her life in general. The first song she'd written for Jane, when they'd been hunting down Red John, had been particularly cathartic. And Jane had loved listening to her play when they'd been in South America. Music had, in a way, brought them together in a way she never would have expected, and she didn't want to give that up.
But she couldn't think about any more life-altering decisions right now. Not today.
She told Jane so, and he gave her a small smile when he realized she hadn't said no to his question.
They began walking the last few steps to the entrance to the anthropology building.
Dr. Gabriel Clark, the forensic anthropologist, was an imposing presence, easily 250 pounds and nearly six feet tall. His auburn hair had started to fade to gray, and it hung low on his forehead, almost touching his eyebrows. He offered Lisbon a small smile in greeting and shook both her and Jane's hands.
He gave them each a pair of gray scrubs that matched his own, and Jane and Lisbon changed into the hospital garb before entering the autopsy room.
The first thing Lisbon noticed was the casket, still coated in chunks of dirt and seated on a table next to the main autopsy bay. Next to come to her attention was the gleaming silver of nearly all the surfaces in the lab. It looked impressive, far more so than the autopsy rooms she'd seen in California.
Private universities evidently had no lack of funding.
Clark grabbed a voice recorder and began to speak into it, and Lisbon and Jane moved closer to the casket. Lisbon looked up at the older man once he'd finished annotating.
"What will the remains look like?" she asked.
Clark squinted at her. "After thirty or so years, it's likely that there will be very little left besides the skeleton. You ready?" he asked.
She wasn't but said she was, and he opened the casket.
Lisbon had barely caught a glimpse of the body—true to Clark's prediction, it was all bony skeleton—before the forensic anthropologist breathed out deeply.
"Good god," he said.
Jane's head snapped up. "What?" he asked.
Clark pointed down at the chest. "What do you see there?"
Lisbon's eyes narrowed as she looked down at the ribs and the sternum. They looked intact and normal to her, though she was no forensic expert.
"I don't see anything," said Jane finally.
"Exactly," said Clark. "That's what's odd. We should be seeing signs of cuts—on the ribs, and also up here on the cranium." He pointed to the skull.
Lisbon and Jane looked at each other, not bothering to hide their confusion.
Clark hurried to explain. "When an autopsy is performed, the pathologist removes a triangle-shaped portion of the ribs over the heart to have easier access to the internal organs. Furthermore, a saw is used to cut around the entire circumference of the skull in order to remove the top portion so that the pathologist can access the brain. Thirty years ago, a pathologist signed off on an autopsy he had supposedly completed on the remains of Robert Lisbon."
Jane's eyes lit up with understanding. "But if there aren't any cuts from the saw…" he began.
"Then there was no autopsy," finished Lisbon.