Vacation Blues (9 + 10/16)
Part Nine
They waited outside, sitting in silence as the summer sun beat down on them. Lisbon watched as Jane continually fidgeted, seemingly unable to get comfortable. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but it was difficult, especially with Jane’s obvious discomfort. However, she just wanted to get this interview over and done with so she could continue with the rest of her day. It felt like they had been forced to put their day on hold, especially to help conduct this interview. Then again, that feeling wasn’t entirely dissimilar to her getting unwelcome phone calls on her days off, calling her to one crime scene or another. Eventually, Decosta and Halligan interrupted their peace and they were whisked off back inside the hotel. As far as Lisbon was concerned, they couldn’t have turned up a moment too soon.
The agents led them to the manager's office, where the interview was to be conducted. Inside, the receptionist, Bethan, waited with her mother. Lisbon was marginally surprised when Halligan introduced them as the relatives of the deceased. She had seen both women hard at work over the past twenty-four hours and neither of them fit into the usual description of mourning relatives. That meant that they were either exceptionally good at putting on a brave face or they were hiding something. Instinct and experience dictated that it was more than likely to be the latter rather than the former. Lisbon relaxed immediately; if her hunch was correct then she knew Jane would work out the truth soon enough. It didn't mean she necessarily believed they were guilty - it just meant there was something they didn't want people to know about.
"I'm very sorry for your loss," Decosta stated calmly once everybody had taken a seat. "This is Teresa Lisbon and Patrick Jane. They will be consulting on this case. I hope you don't mind them listening in."
"We've met," Bethan replied coolly and turned to her mother. "They're the couple staying in room 24, Mom. The ones who originally booked separate rooms."
"We're not together," Lisbon said hastily.
"I don’t care what you do in my hotel rooms,” Susan Parker stated before glancing at Agent Halligan. "Provided it's legal, of course."
"Your husband and your father just died and yet, you're still working," Jane said bluntly before anybody had a chance to stop him. "Why?"
Susan Parker opened her mouth to retort angrily but quickly closed it again. Lisbon watched as the woman considered her response. It was clear that Jane's manner of delivery had angered her, but at the same time, they were her customers. She didn't want to upset either of them, especially as they had already been inconvenienced by the murder and the hotel as a consequence. Added to that, this was a murder investigation and inevitably, she probably wanted justice sought for her deceased husband. She knew that she had to cooperate in order to allow the police officers to carry out their duty.
"It’s the summer season, Mr. Jane, the most important time of the year for us. I cannot afford the time off and even if I could, there’s nobody to cover me. If I could, I would, of course, but life goes on. My husband understands - understood - just how important the hotel is to my family."
"And what about Bethan?" Decosta questioned.
"I like the distraction. It stops me from feeling so sad and so angry about Dad. Besides, Mom's right. This is the busiest time of year and she can't afford having employees off."
The arguments seemed logical, if a little clinical. Still, at least it made it a hell of lot easier to interview the pair of them. Lisbon had interviewed more than her fair share of hysterical relatives and friends in her time. It was always easier when the individuals remembered to keep a calm head when they told them everything they knew, instead of them being in receipt of misguided anger. It also made it less stressful for everyone concerned. However, just how clinical both of their responses irked her; they had just lost a member of their family and they were acting as if their elderly dog had just died.
Decosta then took the opportunity take the lead the interview. Lisbon found his choice of questions intriguing; they weren't necessarily the ones she would have used but they seemed to work well enough. Again, she could tell he was fairly new to this and that he would get better in time. She didn’t say much; this was Decosta’s case, not hers. Instead, Lisbon mostly trained her attention on Jane, partially to check that he was still behaving, but mostly to see what he was reacting to. As usual, he couldn't sit still for long and had taken to wandering around the office to get a 'feel' for its inhabitant. Vaguely, she wondered if he had noticed anything of interest yet and it wasn't long until her interest was rewarded.
"Where's the photo of your husband?" Jane piped up, interrupting Decosta mid-sentence.
"Excuse me?"
"There's a picture of your daughter, your dog and presumably, this is your parents," Jane said and held up the photo of a couple in their late seventies. "But what about your husband?"
"Is it a legal requirement to have a picture of your spouse up at work?"
"Well, no, but if you have all the others, why not the love of your life? My guess? You were thinking about leaving him."
In a flash, the woman rose to her feet and slammed the palms of her hands down on her desk as she glared at Jane. A hissed 'how dare you?' followed quickly after and Lisbon apologized profusely for Jane's behavior. But then, he could never resist poking people with the proverbial stick until they reacted. And she had wanted to know what the Parker family was hiding and it looked like she had found out precisely what she wanted. In this day and age - and especially, it seemed, in cases where somebody had been murdered - marital stress was commonplace. At least it explained the mother's ambivalence, if not the daughter's.
Lisbon hurried an apology and excused them both, bodily dragging Jane out of the office before he created any more trouble. Just because they were only working on a voluntary basis, it didn’t mean that he could wreak havoc for somebody else to clear up. She was about to start questioning his behavior when the office door slammed open and the two agents from the Hawaii State Police Department stormed out. Decosta turned to face Lisbon and for a second, she thought he was going to be angry with Jane behaving just as he usually would at home. Lisbon knew that other people would find Jane’s behavior shocking whereas she was entirely used to it and expected it, even. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pants pockets and regarded them both for an instant.
“Well?”
“Well what?” Jane enquired and smiled winningly at the agent.
“Did you find anything useful from her?”
“The Egyptian garb is just a ruse, an attempt to misdirect the case. If I were you, I would start looking a little deeper into Mrs. Parker’s alibi and motives.”
“You do know that the Parker family is highly regarded in Honolulu?” Halligan questioned.
“Being highly regarded doesn’t stop somebody from being a murderer,” Lisbon replied with a shrug and Jane nodded in agreement.
“If anything, it means they believe they are more likely to get away with it.”
“Interesting,” Decosta answered, but he sounded anything but interested. “I still think the protestors at the museum have more of a motive.”
“Why?”
“The family home has been burglarized several times in the past month. All three members of the Parker family have been attacked. All because people don’t approve of Egyptian artifacts being housed in a Hawaiian museum.”
Lisbon raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Decosta didn’t seem to care. Instead, he started to head towards the elevator with Halligan hot on his heels. Briefly, he turned around to face them both one last time.
“Thank you for your insight; we’ll call if we need your help again.”
Part Ten
Over the next couple of days, Lisbon fell into a comfortable routine. She spent the mornings by herself, either on the beach relaxing, seeing the sights or just finding somewhere to hide away and read her book. It almost felt like a novelty, being able to do what she wanted and when she wanted to do it. At home, she often had to sacrifice that luxury in order to do her job. It was the price of power, but she also knew that she wouldn't have it any other way. At lunchtime, she joined Jane at some quiet restaurant or café, one which nobody else ever seemed to have heard of. Then, he would take her to see something off the beaten track, the hidden gems that other tourists didn’t know about. They spent the entire time either in a companionable silence or alternatively, discussing whatever topics came to mind. It didn't really matter either way; she was just glad for his company. If he hadn't decided to join her on a whim, or alternatively, for whatever reason which had yet to become clear, she knew she would already have been fed up and lonely. As it was, she was actually enjoying herself and felt more relaxed than she had done so for years. Even the problems of sharing the room with him seemed to fade into insignificance.
The only thing that was bothering her was the fact she hadn't heard from the murder investigation unit of the Hawaii State Police Department lately. When they had invited herself and Jane to assist in the interview of Edward Parker’s family, she had been more than happy to help. However, when the two men had promptly decided to ignore the advice she and Jane had given them, she had been incensed. What was the point in them consulting on the case, free of charge, no less, if they weren't going to at least take what they said into serious consideration?
There was a reason why Jane believed that the museum activists had been a dead end. It seemed far too obvious. And besides, why would they have dressed the body in Egyptian garb if they were trying to hide the tracks? Decosta, however, was convinced that it had been a double bluff, a ruse to try and make them think just that. In Lisbon's professional experience, that was just over thinking the predicament. And she knew that Jane believed that first instincts were usually the ones that proved to be the most sound. The simplest answer invariably proved to be the one most likely to be correct.
She was still suspicious about Parker’s wife and daughter. Both had been working every day after his death and utterly professional right down to the very core. Then there was the fact the body had been discovered in the very hotel that they ran. It hadn't been the place where Parker had been brutally murdered; as far as she knew, they still hadn't discovered the place of death. That meant that, while they knew he had died from a blow to the head, it didn't mean they had the actual murder weapon to hand. Of course, the presence of the body in the family hotel could have been meant as a serious message to the family (one which they hadn’t appeared to take particularly seriously), but it could also mean that they were involved.
Lisbon turned a page on her book and glanced briefly at her watch. It was a crime thriller she had picked up at the airport, but it wasn't really all that thrilling to her. She had already long since figured out who the serial killer was; the rookie cop, who was scrabbling desperately to cover his tracks as his boss worked tirelessly was responsible. As far as she was concerned, crooked cops were such a cliché of crime literature. Most people in the business were good honest souls with genuine reasons for becoming police officers. Even so, she couldn't resist continuing to read, if only to find out how the rookie cop was caught.
She was a little startled when her cell phone rang shrilly but quickly placed the book down and picked it up. Lisbon recognized the number immediately; it was that of Agent Decosta. She smirked as she answered; it was ironic that she was just thinking of him when he called. Hopefully, he had realized that he was looking up the wrong avenue and now wanted assistance when investigating the family. Or, even better, that he had just made an arrest and gotten a confession, so that she could stop thinking about the whole sorry scenario and get on with enjoying her vacation. For, as long as the case continued to linger over it like a dark shadow, she knew she was distracted from her real reason for being in Hawaii in the first place. That was to relax and rejuvenate, to take a break from thinking about the darker side of human existence. She was meant to be here to give her some time and space to actually breathe.
“Agent Lisbon?” he started, sounding almost nervous and she bit on her lip to stop herself from laughing. “It’s Agent Decosta, from the Hawaii State Police Department.”
“Good morning,” she replied, “how can I help you?”
“We have a problem.”
Her heart sank a little. Those four words were often relatively foreboding and she didn’t like the potential repercussions of what would follow. Immediately, Lisbon thought of Jane and briefly, she wondered how he was spending his morning. During the past couple of days, she had never particularly bothered to ask him. Usually, he’d tell her his plans over breakfast, but this morning he’d been deliberately evasive and she hadn’t bothered to press the issue. She was deliberately trying not to care about whatever misdemeanors he could have been getting up to, as right now, she wasn’t his boss. In all honesty, she wasn’t sure she was all that bothered by the precise definition of what she was to him at this moment in time, but she definitely wasn’t the one in charge. Jane had usurped that position from the precise second he’d revealed himself from their hotel room.
“Patrick Jane was found trespassing on the grounds of the Parker family home. We’ve had to arrest him.”
“Oh,” she answered, her voice sounding smaller and more defeated than she originally anticipated.
“They have agreed not to press charges, provided that he apologizes for this misdemeanor.”
Again, her heart sank. It was easier to get blood from a stone than it was to get Patrick Jane to apologize for any form of misbehavior. That was something she knew from very personal experience. Usually, she just gave up. However, if he didn’t apologize, Lisbon had a shrinking suspicion that they would either have to find somewhere else to stay for the duration of their vacation or alternatively, book new flights home for as soon as feasibly possible. With a heavy sigh, she finished the call and promised Agent Decosta that she would pick up Jane within the hour.
As she picked up the scant belongings she had brought with her to the beach, Lisbon cursed her naïveté. How could she have even thought that Jane would have been doing something else when he could have been investigating a case off the books? He needed something to stimulate him and the case was as good as anything. And she knew, deep down, that she shouldn’t have been surprised that Jane had gotten himself into trouble. After all, Jane and trouble were synonymous with one another.
And like usual, she was the one to pick up the pieces after he’d made a mess. It was just typical of him.
To Part Eleven
They waited outside, sitting in silence as the summer sun beat down on them. Lisbon watched as Jane continually fidgeted, seemingly unable to get comfortable. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but it was difficult, especially with Jane’s obvious discomfort. However, she just wanted to get this interview over and done with so she could continue with the rest of her day. It felt like they had been forced to put their day on hold, especially to help conduct this interview. Then again, that feeling wasn’t entirely dissimilar to her getting unwelcome phone calls on her days off, calling her to one crime scene or another. Eventually, Decosta and Halligan interrupted their peace and they were whisked off back inside the hotel. As far as Lisbon was concerned, they couldn’t have turned up a moment too soon.
The agents led them to the manager's office, where the interview was to be conducted. Inside, the receptionist, Bethan, waited with her mother. Lisbon was marginally surprised when Halligan introduced them as the relatives of the deceased. She had seen both women hard at work over the past twenty-four hours and neither of them fit into the usual description of mourning relatives. That meant that they were either exceptionally good at putting on a brave face or they were hiding something. Instinct and experience dictated that it was more than likely to be the latter rather than the former. Lisbon relaxed immediately; if her hunch was correct then she knew Jane would work out the truth soon enough. It didn't mean she necessarily believed they were guilty - it just meant there was something they didn't want people to know about.
"I'm very sorry for your loss," Decosta stated calmly once everybody had taken a seat. "This is Teresa Lisbon and Patrick Jane. They will be consulting on this case. I hope you don't mind them listening in."
"We've met," Bethan replied coolly and turned to her mother. "They're the couple staying in room 24, Mom. The ones who originally booked separate rooms."
"We're not together," Lisbon said hastily.
"I don’t care what you do in my hotel rooms,” Susan Parker stated before glancing at Agent Halligan. "Provided it's legal, of course."
"Your husband and your father just died and yet, you're still working," Jane said bluntly before anybody had a chance to stop him. "Why?"
Susan Parker opened her mouth to retort angrily but quickly closed it again. Lisbon watched as the woman considered her response. It was clear that Jane's manner of delivery had angered her, but at the same time, they were her customers. She didn't want to upset either of them, especially as they had already been inconvenienced by the murder and the hotel as a consequence. Added to that, this was a murder investigation and inevitably, she probably wanted justice sought for her deceased husband. She knew that she had to cooperate in order to allow the police officers to carry out their duty.
"It’s the summer season, Mr. Jane, the most important time of the year for us. I cannot afford the time off and even if I could, there’s nobody to cover me. If I could, I would, of course, but life goes on. My husband understands - understood - just how important the hotel is to my family."
"And what about Bethan?" Decosta questioned.
"I like the distraction. It stops me from feeling so sad and so angry about Dad. Besides, Mom's right. This is the busiest time of year and she can't afford having employees off."
The arguments seemed logical, if a little clinical. Still, at least it made it a hell of lot easier to interview the pair of them. Lisbon had interviewed more than her fair share of hysterical relatives and friends in her time. It was always easier when the individuals remembered to keep a calm head when they told them everything they knew, instead of them being in receipt of misguided anger. It also made it less stressful for everyone concerned. However, just how clinical both of their responses irked her; they had just lost a member of their family and they were acting as if their elderly dog had just died.
Decosta then took the opportunity take the lead the interview. Lisbon found his choice of questions intriguing; they weren't necessarily the ones she would have used but they seemed to work well enough. Again, she could tell he was fairly new to this and that he would get better in time. She didn’t say much; this was Decosta’s case, not hers. Instead, Lisbon mostly trained her attention on Jane, partially to check that he was still behaving, but mostly to see what he was reacting to. As usual, he couldn't sit still for long and had taken to wandering around the office to get a 'feel' for its inhabitant. Vaguely, she wondered if he had noticed anything of interest yet and it wasn't long until her interest was rewarded.
"Where's the photo of your husband?" Jane piped up, interrupting Decosta mid-sentence.
"Excuse me?"
"There's a picture of your daughter, your dog and presumably, this is your parents," Jane said and held up the photo of a couple in their late seventies. "But what about your husband?"
"Is it a legal requirement to have a picture of your spouse up at work?"
"Well, no, but if you have all the others, why not the love of your life? My guess? You were thinking about leaving him."
In a flash, the woman rose to her feet and slammed the palms of her hands down on her desk as she glared at Jane. A hissed 'how dare you?' followed quickly after and Lisbon apologized profusely for Jane's behavior. But then, he could never resist poking people with the proverbial stick until they reacted. And she had wanted to know what the Parker family was hiding and it looked like she had found out precisely what she wanted. In this day and age - and especially, it seemed, in cases where somebody had been murdered - marital stress was commonplace. At least it explained the mother's ambivalence, if not the daughter's.
Lisbon hurried an apology and excused them both, bodily dragging Jane out of the office before he created any more trouble. Just because they were only working on a voluntary basis, it didn’t mean that he could wreak havoc for somebody else to clear up. She was about to start questioning his behavior when the office door slammed open and the two agents from the Hawaii State Police Department stormed out. Decosta turned to face Lisbon and for a second, she thought he was going to be angry with Jane behaving just as he usually would at home. Lisbon knew that other people would find Jane’s behavior shocking whereas she was entirely used to it and expected it, even. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pants pockets and regarded them both for an instant.
“Well?”
“Well what?” Jane enquired and smiled winningly at the agent.
“Did you find anything useful from her?”
“The Egyptian garb is just a ruse, an attempt to misdirect the case. If I were you, I would start looking a little deeper into Mrs. Parker’s alibi and motives.”
“You do know that the Parker family is highly regarded in Honolulu?” Halligan questioned.
“Being highly regarded doesn’t stop somebody from being a murderer,” Lisbon replied with a shrug and Jane nodded in agreement.
“If anything, it means they believe they are more likely to get away with it.”
“Interesting,” Decosta answered, but he sounded anything but interested. “I still think the protestors at the museum have more of a motive.”
“Why?”
“The family home has been burglarized several times in the past month. All three members of the Parker family have been attacked. All because people don’t approve of Egyptian artifacts being housed in a Hawaiian museum.”
Lisbon raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Decosta didn’t seem to care. Instead, he started to head towards the elevator with Halligan hot on his heels. Briefly, he turned around to face them both one last time.
“Thank you for your insight; we’ll call if we need your help again.”
Part Ten
Over the next couple of days, Lisbon fell into a comfortable routine. She spent the mornings by herself, either on the beach relaxing, seeing the sights or just finding somewhere to hide away and read her book. It almost felt like a novelty, being able to do what she wanted and when she wanted to do it. At home, she often had to sacrifice that luxury in order to do her job. It was the price of power, but she also knew that she wouldn't have it any other way. At lunchtime, she joined Jane at some quiet restaurant or café, one which nobody else ever seemed to have heard of. Then, he would take her to see something off the beaten track, the hidden gems that other tourists didn’t know about. They spent the entire time either in a companionable silence or alternatively, discussing whatever topics came to mind. It didn't really matter either way; she was just glad for his company. If he hadn't decided to join her on a whim, or alternatively, for whatever reason which had yet to become clear, she knew she would already have been fed up and lonely. As it was, she was actually enjoying herself and felt more relaxed than she had done so for years. Even the problems of sharing the room with him seemed to fade into insignificance.
The only thing that was bothering her was the fact she hadn't heard from the murder investigation unit of the Hawaii State Police Department lately. When they had invited herself and Jane to assist in the interview of Edward Parker’s family, she had been more than happy to help. However, when the two men had promptly decided to ignore the advice she and Jane had given them, she had been incensed. What was the point in them consulting on the case, free of charge, no less, if they weren't going to at least take what they said into serious consideration?
There was a reason why Jane believed that the museum activists had been a dead end. It seemed far too obvious. And besides, why would they have dressed the body in Egyptian garb if they were trying to hide the tracks? Decosta, however, was convinced that it had been a double bluff, a ruse to try and make them think just that. In Lisbon's professional experience, that was just over thinking the predicament. And she knew that Jane believed that first instincts were usually the ones that proved to be the most sound. The simplest answer invariably proved to be the one most likely to be correct.
She was still suspicious about Parker’s wife and daughter. Both had been working every day after his death and utterly professional right down to the very core. Then there was the fact the body had been discovered in the very hotel that they ran. It hadn't been the place where Parker had been brutally murdered; as far as she knew, they still hadn't discovered the place of death. That meant that, while they knew he had died from a blow to the head, it didn't mean they had the actual murder weapon to hand. Of course, the presence of the body in the family hotel could have been meant as a serious message to the family (one which they hadn’t appeared to take particularly seriously), but it could also mean that they were involved.
Lisbon turned a page on her book and glanced briefly at her watch. It was a crime thriller she had picked up at the airport, but it wasn't really all that thrilling to her. She had already long since figured out who the serial killer was; the rookie cop, who was scrabbling desperately to cover his tracks as his boss worked tirelessly was responsible. As far as she was concerned, crooked cops were such a cliché of crime literature. Most people in the business were good honest souls with genuine reasons for becoming police officers. Even so, she couldn't resist continuing to read, if only to find out how the rookie cop was caught.
She was a little startled when her cell phone rang shrilly but quickly placed the book down and picked it up. Lisbon recognized the number immediately; it was that of Agent Decosta. She smirked as she answered; it was ironic that she was just thinking of him when he called. Hopefully, he had realized that he was looking up the wrong avenue and now wanted assistance when investigating the family. Or, even better, that he had just made an arrest and gotten a confession, so that she could stop thinking about the whole sorry scenario and get on with enjoying her vacation. For, as long as the case continued to linger over it like a dark shadow, she knew she was distracted from her real reason for being in Hawaii in the first place. That was to relax and rejuvenate, to take a break from thinking about the darker side of human existence. She was meant to be here to give her some time and space to actually breathe.
“Agent Lisbon?” he started, sounding almost nervous and she bit on her lip to stop herself from laughing. “It’s Agent Decosta, from the Hawaii State Police Department.”
“Good morning,” she replied, “how can I help you?”
“We have a problem.”
Her heart sank a little. Those four words were often relatively foreboding and she didn’t like the potential repercussions of what would follow. Immediately, Lisbon thought of Jane and briefly, she wondered how he was spending his morning. During the past couple of days, she had never particularly bothered to ask him. Usually, he’d tell her his plans over breakfast, but this morning he’d been deliberately evasive and she hadn’t bothered to press the issue. She was deliberately trying not to care about whatever misdemeanors he could have been getting up to, as right now, she wasn’t his boss. In all honesty, she wasn’t sure she was all that bothered by the precise definition of what she was to him at this moment in time, but she definitely wasn’t the one in charge. Jane had usurped that position from the precise second he’d revealed himself from their hotel room.
“Patrick Jane was found trespassing on the grounds of the Parker family home. We’ve had to arrest him.”
“Oh,” she answered, her voice sounding smaller and more defeated than she originally anticipated.
“They have agreed not to press charges, provided that he apologizes for this misdemeanor.”
Again, her heart sank. It was easier to get blood from a stone than it was to get Patrick Jane to apologize for any form of misbehavior. That was something she knew from very personal experience. Usually, she just gave up. However, if he didn’t apologize, Lisbon had a shrinking suspicion that they would either have to find somewhere else to stay for the duration of their vacation or alternatively, book new flights home for as soon as feasibly possible. With a heavy sigh, she finished the call and promised Agent Decosta that she would pick up Jane within the hour.
As she picked up the scant belongings she had brought with her to the beach, Lisbon cursed her naïveté. How could she have even thought that Jane would have been doing something else when he could have been investigating a case off the books? He needed something to stimulate him and the case was as good as anything. And she knew, deep down, that she shouldn’t have been surprised that Jane had gotten himself into trouble. After all, Jane and trouble were synonymous with one another.
And like usual, she was the one to pick up the pieces after he’d made a mess. It was just typical of him.
To Part Eleven