Causality (4/19)
Previous Parts: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
Part Four
“Lisbon.”
Almost as if she had predicted it, Lisbon received the telephone call at midnight, shortly after she had gone to bed. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she listened to the ADA give her a brief rundown of the case. Apparently, it was a mugging gone wrong, with one victim and a very shaken up fiancé. And because she lived closest to the crime scene, and her team had a relatively small workload, it automatically came under her remit. Politely, she informed the ADA that she, along with the members of her team, would be there within half an hour.
She dressed as quickly as she could and was soon in her car. It didn’t take long to get to the riverside, but she was still yawning as she climbed back out of the car. Crime scenes at this time of night were always one of the worst aspects of the job. However, at the same time, it also meant they were generally quieter and she didn’t have to worry about the general public getting too curious and destroying the evidence. There was a silver lining to everything. Besides, as soon as they had inspected the crime scene and the coroner had taken the body, then she would be able to get back to bed before launching the proper investigation in the morning.
A man, presumably the fiancé that the ADA had told her about, was frantically attempting CPR. However, Lisbon could tell there was no hope. The woman would have bled out long before she’d gotten to the scene.
Lisbon closed the distance between herself and the man and attempted to peel him away. Instead, he insisted upon hugging the body as he cried, seemingly unable to comprehend what was going on. It wasn’t until Rigsby arrived, along with Cho, that the three of them managed to convince him to let go of her so that they could help.
And it was only then that Lisbon realized exactly who the grieving man was.
Patrick Jane.
“Mr. Jane,” she whispered quietly and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Jane, please look at me.”
Bitterly, he looked up at her with tear-stained eyes and her heart broke a little. All the resentment she had felt for him earlier on melted away. This wasn’t a man she needed to feel angry about; this was a man who needed her support. He’d clearly just lost the one person who had meant the world to him and worse, he’d been present at the time. Though her parents had died when she was young, Lisbon hadn’t been there when it had happened. It was something she was eternally grateful for. If she had actually witnessed either of their deaths, she was certain that she wouldn’t have been able to cope with it.
Silently, she led Jane away towards a bench, to allow Rigsby, Cho and the coroner to get better access to the body. Jane’s well-being was of more importance to her and besides, those two were entirely capable of looking for the evidence they needed. Shell casings and the like. Besides, Jane was always going to be a better resource. He was a witness and therefore, once he calmed down, he was most likely to be able to give her an accurate recount of what had happened leading up to the shooting.
She took a couple of steps forwards, guiding him gently as she did so. Seconds later, she paused. Quickly, Lisbon craned her neck as she looked over her shoulder. Cho frowned a little when she glanced at him, but he didn’t say a word. Still, that was a little weird. She had thought she’d heard someone scream.
xxx
Angela had shouted until she was hoarse, trying desperately to get Jane to hear her, but he had been stunned by the turn of events and seemingly distracted. She had briefly chased after their attacker, to try and find out his identity and his hood had slipped. Quickly, she had memorized his features, relieved that their old carnie roots had taught her how to maintain an effective memory palace. At least it meant that she would have something to tell the police as soon as they arrived.
When she returned to where she had left Jane, he was surrounded by three people she didn’t recognize. Two men and a relatively petite woman. Angela watched curiously as the woman talked soothingly at Jane and eventually persuaded him to stand. A wave of jealousy coursed through her body. This was exactly what she had feared, that Jane would run and find comfort in another woman’s arms if she told him she loved him. And this time, he had the audacity to do it in front of her, the bastard. At least her ex had attempted to keep his sordid secrets hidden from her.
“Patrick!”
As the woman led her fiancé away from her, Angela briefly glanced at the other two men. It was then that she saw it. Her own body. She couldn’t help but let out a blood-curdling scream at the sight. What else was she expected to do? To take it on board as if it were something perfectly normal?
Besides, how was this physically possibly? She could remember losing consciousness for half a second or so, remembered the influx of pain and then, she had been okay once more. Had merely assumed that she had had a brief dizzy spell due to low blood sugar or something. Angela felt - was - fine, so how the hell could she be laying on the ground, surrounded by men who were presumably cops and yet, standing beside them watching it at the same time?
She watched with a morbid fascination, barely hearing the words being discussed. Instead, Angela just stared at herself, her own features, taking them in. It was strange, looking directly at herself and not seeing the image that she was used to viewing in a mirror. This was the way that the world perceived her and it was disconcerting just how different it was to the way she saw herself. A precise mirror image, right down to the finest of details. She took a tentative step closer as one of the men, the taller of the pair uttered the words ‘she didn’t have a chance’ and she cringed. How could they have decided that when she was standing right beside them?
But then again, she had already decided that this wasn’t, couldn’t be real. It was just all a great big misunderstanding. Her - the - body was just a copy, a waxwork being used to scare the crap out of her. Angela let out a hollow laugh. Whoever thought up that one had a sick sense of humor and somehow, they had managed to persuade Jane to play a part in it. He and that woman were probably having a right old laugh about how she had overreacted. She surmised that it must have been something cooked up by the bastards running some sort of television show. Warily, she looked around for the hidden cameras. The cops and the coroner, they were all just actors, making sure that she really believed it.
Or maybe, less optimistically, she was comatose, waiting for the moment when she was ready to wake. This was just a scary hallucination that her mind had thought up while she recovered. In a couple of weeks’ time, when her body would be able to cope with consciousness after the trauma, she’d wake up, with Jane clutching her hand. He would tell her that he loved her and Angela decided that she’d do the same. Not saying ‘me too’ as she usually would, be actually tell him those three little words she was so reluctant to share.
Or she was having a nightmare. That was the most likely explanation, a bad dream. It had to be, because there was no such thing as an afterlife. Ghosts didn’t exist; it was just the here and now and therefore, it was just something her mind had cooked up based on latent childhood fears. And she knew that at any given moment, Jane would wake her up and they’d still be in bed. They’d never have decided to go out and get ice cream. Instead, they would have just drifted off to sleep and he would have noticed her twitching uncomfortably and thus, do something about it. Jane could never stand seeing her in distress. Even when they had been small, too young to even consider dating, he had always looked after her. Been the one to supply her with band-aids when she grazed her knee, gotten her drinks when she was thirsty. Sometimes, she wondered what took her so long when it came to him. If she hadn’t been so reluctant, then maybe she wouldn’t have been hurt by other men in her life and therefore, would have felt more capable to trust Jane entirely rather than tar him with the same brush as others.
As the coroner loaded the body into a black bag, Angela shook her head. She found it all very demeaning, being treated like a piece of meat to be hauled away to be cut apart. Quietly, she hoped that her vivid imagination wasn’t true to life, that she was just over exaggerating based on things she’d seen on the television. People had always complimented her on her creativity, after all. All this had probably come from watching too many sci-fi shows, along with the odd crime procedural. Yes, that was all it was.
Danny turned up shortly after they took her - the body - away. She watched as the lady cop handed Jane over to him. It surprised her that her brother, of all people, had been the one to be there for Jane. She knew that Danny hated her fiancé and had done for a long while. Why, she wasn’t quite sure. Danny never explained it and Jane had always protested his innocence. Angela passed it off as wishful thinking. It was something she’d always wanted; Jane and her brother to actually be able to be civil to one another. However, that didn’t mean she believed it would actually ever happen.
“Patrick! Where are you going?” she called, frustrated. “I’m here. You said you’d never leave me.”
Nobody responded to her pleas. Nobody, except for the petite woman, the first cop who had been on the scene, that was. She had turned to the coroner and asked if she’d heard anything.
The coroner had said no. That the woman - Teresa, apparently - simply ought to go catch up on her sleep.
xxx
As far as Lisbon was concerned, morning came all too quickly. It felt like as soon as her head hit the pillow, her alarm clock rang out, indicating that it was time to get up and go into work. Groaning, she sat and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. It was going to be a long day. By her estimations, she had only gotten three or so hours sleep and she wasn’t going to let Marie down if she could help it. Mostly, because her friend wouldn’t let it drop if she did. All things considered, Marie was an understanding soul, but Lisbon still didn’t like constantly letting her down. Just because her career was important, it didn’t mean that other things weren’t too.
She dressed quickly and skipped breakfast. Roughly, she tied her hair back and when she did so, Lisbon swore she heard somebody whisper a quiet ‘hello’. Immediately, she disregarded it. It was just the exhaustion talking. When she got her second wind, then she would feel much better and therefore, be able to actually operate sensibly. Quickly, she grabbed her keys and her purse. It was an early start; it had to be. Not only did she have to get her head around the Red John case as soon as feasibly possible, Lisbon also had to start working this new case.
At face value, it looked relatively simple, a mugging gone horrendously wrong. However, Lisbon had been in the business for far too long to know that things like that weren’t always exactly how they first appeared. Patrick Jane hadn’t said much last night, but one line had stuck out at her. The fact that he had insisted that their attacker had had no interest whatsoever in his money, despite Jane having repeatedly offered him his wallet.
It didn’t take long for her to decide that as soon as she had finished briefing the team, she would take Cho to go and talk to Jane again. Lisbon had briefly considered the concept of taking Van Pelt - the experience would have been good for her - but suspected that she would have been too star struck around Jane. That certainly wasn’t something that the man would need at this moment in time. Instead Cho’s no-nonsense attitude would probably be of benefit in the situation.
She also wondered what would happen to the prior agreement of Jane working with the CBI. This situation certainly changed things. Not only was he now a victim, but he would also probably want to come to terms with his loss before making any major decisions. If she were in his shoes, then Lisbon certainly wouldn’t be considering something as important as a job change on top of mourning for a loved one.
“Hi, boss!”
Van Pelt sounded all too cheery considering it was only five thirty a.m., but Lisbon didn’t expect anything less of her. At least the drive into work had been peaceful. Instead, she headed straight to her office. While she waited for Rigsby and Cho to turn up, she knew that she might as well get on with reading the case files that had amalgamated on her desk overnight. Besides, she didn’t think a grief-stricken man would appreciate a courtesy call at this god-awful hour in the morning. She had already spoken to him once; her follow-up questions could wait.
“Do you always ignore people who are trying to talk to you?” Angela asked as she followed Lisbon.
“Excuse me?”
A woman, one of the cleaners, glared at her, obviously having said nothing and Lisbon frowned. She didn’t like this. It sounded like there was an echo or something and she knew she couldn’t blame it on the building. It had happened at home too, and at the crime scene last night. All she could do was blame it on being over-tired.
Lisbon sat down at her desk and placed the coffee she had bought beside her. Immediately, she booted up her computer and grabbed her notebook. Though she knew Jane had a squeaky clean record, that didn’t necessarily mean that his deceased partner did. Silently, she wondered if that was where all of Mr. Jane’s secrets were hidden; in her records. Then, she shook her head and realized that she was not only thinking ill of the dead, but a woman she knew next to nothing about. Yet.
“When are you going to actually stop pretending you can hear me and actually answer back?” Angela said irritably.
Lisbon placed her pen down and looked around suspiciously.
“Who’s there?”
“Angela,” she replied, tapping her foot impatiently. “Angela Ruskin.”
Briefly, Lisbon glanced down at her notes. The name was familiar, awfully so. It didn’t take long for her to pick out exactly why.
“No, that’s impossible.”
“You’re telling me.”
To Part Five
Part Four
“Lisbon.”
Almost as if she had predicted it, Lisbon received the telephone call at midnight, shortly after she had gone to bed. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she listened to the ADA give her a brief rundown of the case. Apparently, it was a mugging gone wrong, with one victim and a very shaken up fiancé. And because she lived closest to the crime scene, and her team had a relatively small workload, it automatically came under her remit. Politely, she informed the ADA that she, along with the members of her team, would be there within half an hour.
She dressed as quickly as she could and was soon in her car. It didn’t take long to get to the riverside, but she was still yawning as she climbed back out of the car. Crime scenes at this time of night were always one of the worst aspects of the job. However, at the same time, it also meant they were generally quieter and she didn’t have to worry about the general public getting too curious and destroying the evidence. There was a silver lining to everything. Besides, as soon as they had inspected the crime scene and the coroner had taken the body, then she would be able to get back to bed before launching the proper investigation in the morning.
A man, presumably the fiancé that the ADA had told her about, was frantically attempting CPR. However, Lisbon could tell there was no hope. The woman would have bled out long before she’d gotten to the scene.
Lisbon closed the distance between herself and the man and attempted to peel him away. Instead, he insisted upon hugging the body as he cried, seemingly unable to comprehend what was going on. It wasn’t until Rigsby arrived, along with Cho, that the three of them managed to convince him to let go of her so that they could help.
And it was only then that Lisbon realized exactly who the grieving man was.
Patrick Jane.
“Mr. Jane,” she whispered quietly and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Jane, please look at me.”
Bitterly, he looked up at her with tear-stained eyes and her heart broke a little. All the resentment she had felt for him earlier on melted away. This wasn’t a man she needed to feel angry about; this was a man who needed her support. He’d clearly just lost the one person who had meant the world to him and worse, he’d been present at the time. Though her parents had died when she was young, Lisbon hadn’t been there when it had happened. It was something she was eternally grateful for. If she had actually witnessed either of their deaths, she was certain that she wouldn’t have been able to cope with it.
Silently, she led Jane away towards a bench, to allow Rigsby, Cho and the coroner to get better access to the body. Jane’s well-being was of more importance to her and besides, those two were entirely capable of looking for the evidence they needed. Shell casings and the like. Besides, Jane was always going to be a better resource. He was a witness and therefore, once he calmed down, he was most likely to be able to give her an accurate recount of what had happened leading up to the shooting.
She took a couple of steps forwards, guiding him gently as she did so. Seconds later, she paused. Quickly, Lisbon craned her neck as she looked over her shoulder. Cho frowned a little when she glanced at him, but he didn’t say a word. Still, that was a little weird. She had thought she’d heard someone scream.
xxx
Angela had shouted until she was hoarse, trying desperately to get Jane to hear her, but he had been stunned by the turn of events and seemingly distracted. She had briefly chased after their attacker, to try and find out his identity and his hood had slipped. Quickly, she had memorized his features, relieved that their old carnie roots had taught her how to maintain an effective memory palace. At least it meant that she would have something to tell the police as soon as they arrived.
When she returned to where she had left Jane, he was surrounded by three people she didn’t recognize. Two men and a relatively petite woman. Angela watched curiously as the woman talked soothingly at Jane and eventually persuaded him to stand. A wave of jealousy coursed through her body. This was exactly what she had feared, that Jane would run and find comfort in another woman’s arms if she told him she loved him. And this time, he had the audacity to do it in front of her, the bastard. At least her ex had attempted to keep his sordid secrets hidden from her.
“Patrick!”
As the woman led her fiancé away from her, Angela briefly glanced at the other two men. It was then that she saw it. Her own body. She couldn’t help but let out a blood-curdling scream at the sight. What else was she expected to do? To take it on board as if it were something perfectly normal?
Besides, how was this physically possibly? She could remember losing consciousness for half a second or so, remembered the influx of pain and then, she had been okay once more. Had merely assumed that she had had a brief dizzy spell due to low blood sugar or something. Angela felt - was - fine, so how the hell could she be laying on the ground, surrounded by men who were presumably cops and yet, standing beside them watching it at the same time?
She watched with a morbid fascination, barely hearing the words being discussed. Instead, Angela just stared at herself, her own features, taking them in. It was strange, looking directly at herself and not seeing the image that she was used to viewing in a mirror. This was the way that the world perceived her and it was disconcerting just how different it was to the way she saw herself. A precise mirror image, right down to the finest of details. She took a tentative step closer as one of the men, the taller of the pair uttered the words ‘she didn’t have a chance’ and she cringed. How could they have decided that when she was standing right beside them?
But then again, she had already decided that this wasn’t, couldn’t be real. It was just all a great big misunderstanding. Her - the - body was just a copy, a waxwork being used to scare the crap out of her. Angela let out a hollow laugh. Whoever thought up that one had a sick sense of humor and somehow, they had managed to persuade Jane to play a part in it. He and that woman were probably having a right old laugh about how she had overreacted. She surmised that it must have been something cooked up by the bastards running some sort of television show. Warily, she looked around for the hidden cameras. The cops and the coroner, they were all just actors, making sure that she really believed it.
Or maybe, less optimistically, she was comatose, waiting for the moment when she was ready to wake. This was just a scary hallucination that her mind had thought up while she recovered. In a couple of weeks’ time, when her body would be able to cope with consciousness after the trauma, she’d wake up, with Jane clutching her hand. He would tell her that he loved her and Angela decided that she’d do the same. Not saying ‘me too’ as she usually would, be actually tell him those three little words she was so reluctant to share.
Or she was having a nightmare. That was the most likely explanation, a bad dream. It had to be, because there was no such thing as an afterlife. Ghosts didn’t exist; it was just the here and now and therefore, it was just something her mind had cooked up based on latent childhood fears. And she knew that at any given moment, Jane would wake her up and they’d still be in bed. They’d never have decided to go out and get ice cream. Instead, they would have just drifted off to sleep and he would have noticed her twitching uncomfortably and thus, do something about it. Jane could never stand seeing her in distress. Even when they had been small, too young to even consider dating, he had always looked after her. Been the one to supply her with band-aids when she grazed her knee, gotten her drinks when she was thirsty. Sometimes, she wondered what took her so long when it came to him. If she hadn’t been so reluctant, then maybe she wouldn’t have been hurt by other men in her life and therefore, would have felt more capable to trust Jane entirely rather than tar him with the same brush as others.
As the coroner loaded the body into a black bag, Angela shook her head. She found it all very demeaning, being treated like a piece of meat to be hauled away to be cut apart. Quietly, she hoped that her vivid imagination wasn’t true to life, that she was just over exaggerating based on things she’d seen on the television. People had always complimented her on her creativity, after all. All this had probably come from watching too many sci-fi shows, along with the odd crime procedural. Yes, that was all it was.
Danny turned up shortly after they took her - the body - away. She watched as the lady cop handed Jane over to him. It surprised her that her brother, of all people, had been the one to be there for Jane. She knew that Danny hated her fiancé and had done for a long while. Why, she wasn’t quite sure. Danny never explained it and Jane had always protested his innocence. Angela passed it off as wishful thinking. It was something she’d always wanted; Jane and her brother to actually be able to be civil to one another. However, that didn’t mean she believed it would actually ever happen.
“Patrick! Where are you going?” she called, frustrated. “I’m here. You said you’d never leave me.”
Nobody responded to her pleas. Nobody, except for the petite woman, the first cop who had been on the scene, that was. She had turned to the coroner and asked if she’d heard anything.
The coroner had said no. That the woman - Teresa, apparently - simply ought to go catch up on her sleep.
xxx
As far as Lisbon was concerned, morning came all too quickly. It felt like as soon as her head hit the pillow, her alarm clock rang out, indicating that it was time to get up and go into work. Groaning, she sat and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. It was going to be a long day. By her estimations, she had only gotten three or so hours sleep and she wasn’t going to let Marie down if she could help it. Mostly, because her friend wouldn’t let it drop if she did. All things considered, Marie was an understanding soul, but Lisbon still didn’t like constantly letting her down. Just because her career was important, it didn’t mean that other things weren’t too.
She dressed quickly and skipped breakfast. Roughly, she tied her hair back and when she did so, Lisbon swore she heard somebody whisper a quiet ‘hello’. Immediately, she disregarded it. It was just the exhaustion talking. When she got her second wind, then she would feel much better and therefore, be able to actually operate sensibly. Quickly, she grabbed her keys and her purse. It was an early start; it had to be. Not only did she have to get her head around the Red John case as soon as feasibly possible, Lisbon also had to start working this new case.
At face value, it looked relatively simple, a mugging gone horrendously wrong. However, Lisbon had been in the business for far too long to know that things like that weren’t always exactly how they first appeared. Patrick Jane hadn’t said much last night, but one line had stuck out at her. The fact that he had insisted that their attacker had had no interest whatsoever in his money, despite Jane having repeatedly offered him his wallet.
It didn’t take long for her to decide that as soon as she had finished briefing the team, she would take Cho to go and talk to Jane again. Lisbon had briefly considered the concept of taking Van Pelt - the experience would have been good for her - but suspected that she would have been too star struck around Jane. That certainly wasn’t something that the man would need at this moment in time. Instead Cho’s no-nonsense attitude would probably be of benefit in the situation.
She also wondered what would happen to the prior agreement of Jane working with the CBI. This situation certainly changed things. Not only was he now a victim, but he would also probably want to come to terms with his loss before making any major decisions. If she were in his shoes, then Lisbon certainly wouldn’t be considering something as important as a job change on top of mourning for a loved one.
“Hi, boss!”
Van Pelt sounded all too cheery considering it was only five thirty a.m., but Lisbon didn’t expect anything less of her. At least the drive into work had been peaceful. Instead, she headed straight to her office. While she waited for Rigsby and Cho to turn up, she knew that she might as well get on with reading the case files that had amalgamated on her desk overnight. Besides, she didn’t think a grief-stricken man would appreciate a courtesy call at this god-awful hour in the morning. She had already spoken to him once; her follow-up questions could wait.
“Do you always ignore people who are trying to talk to you?” Angela asked as she followed Lisbon.
“Excuse me?”
A woman, one of the cleaners, glared at her, obviously having said nothing and Lisbon frowned. She didn’t like this. It sounded like there was an echo or something and she knew she couldn’t blame it on the building. It had happened at home too, and at the crime scene last night. All she could do was blame it on being over-tired.
Lisbon sat down at her desk and placed the coffee she had bought beside her. Immediately, she booted up her computer and grabbed her notebook. Though she knew Jane had a squeaky clean record, that didn’t necessarily mean that his deceased partner did. Silently, she wondered if that was where all of Mr. Jane’s secrets were hidden; in her records. Then, she shook her head and realized that she was not only thinking ill of the dead, but a woman she knew next to nothing about. Yet.
“When are you going to actually stop pretending you can hear me and actually answer back?” Angela said irritably.
Lisbon placed her pen down and looked around suspiciously.
“Who’s there?”
“Angela,” she replied, tapping her foot impatiently. “Angela Ruskin.”
Briefly, Lisbon glanced down at her notes. The name was familiar, awfully so. It didn’t take long for her to pick out exactly why.
“No, that’s impossible.”
“You’re telling me.”
To Part Five