Chapter Text
Blackbrook's sheriff hadn’t had a busy day since she flew back to Chicago to sort out the pool hustling mess Tommy had gotten into two years ago. The mayor’s inauguration the previous summer had verged on hectic, but she’d mostly been going through the motions. She hadn’t felt any actual urgency.
Adrenaline coursed through Teresa Lisbon now, and she anticipated it would keep her going for at least the next twenty four hours. “Is that Ryan Jefferson?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Deputy Rigsby couldn’t muster any words at all, and nodded. Teresa kneeled before the body. He looked peaceful, like he’d been arranged for a coffin, his hands folded over his chest. It sparked something in her brain, a memory, a fear, but she couldn’t place it. It was her fourth murder in Blackbrook, and the only one that wasn’t a bar brawl or domestic violence. The only one that was strange.
A hiker had found the body at six am, but it had taken her nearly three hours to report it because of the rough cell coverage up in the mountains, and she hadn’t known exactly where she was, so finding the body had proven difficult too. Teresa and Rigsby had arrived at half past eleven in the morning, and the hiker had been hysterical by the time they reached her. Too much time alone with a dead body. Teresa had calmed her down and took an initial statement, keeping it brief out of sympathy, and then let her sit in the back of their patrol car.
“Poor Ryan,” Deputy Rigsby was saying, as he kicked a rock along the trail. They were waiting for forensics to show up, which would drag this out even longer. They had to come in from Aberdeen. “Bad luck followed him, you know. Things just never went right.”
“His parents died, right?” Teresa asked. “When he was a kid.”
“Yup,” Rigsby said. “Their car went off the bridge, stuff of local legends. We’d tell stories about it. Poor Ryan.”
Poor Ryan didn’t wear a wedding ring, or keep photos in his wallet, which hadn’t been stolen. “Raised by his uncle, Luke, the bartender,” Teresa said. She didn’t know all the ins and outs of Blackbrook, not even after almost a decade there, but she knew the staff at all the bars. Half through her own patronage, and half through the many drunken fights she’d been called out to disrupt. “That’s his next of kin, right?”
“Yeah,” Rigsby said. “You want me to tell him?”
She could hear dread in his voice, and she stepped in quickly. “No, it’s okay. I will.” She frowned. “This time of year… He’s a hunter, and I haven’t seen him at the bar in a while. Has he gone up to a cabin?”
“Yeah, I reckon he has,” Rigsby said. Teresa held in a curse. He’d be as hard to find as his nephew’s body, then.
“Davie would know exactly which cabin, you can ask him,” Rigsby said. She could tell from his tone he expected her to leave immediately, and that would make sense. She had things to do. She had to tell Mayor Hightower, and she should get the hiker back home. Rigsby could stay with the body, get a lift back to town with forensics.
But something kept her there. The body looked strangely familiar, though out of place in the hot dark woods, on the side of a mountain. She felt like she was experiencing deja vu. She ran through a list of everything she’d noted about the body. Folded hands, closed eyes, slit throat, disemboweled stomach, missing shoes and nothing else, young man. One of the pitied, unfortunate, burn outs of the town. She leaned closer to his face. She’d thought the discoloration was death, but it wasn’t, or not just that. He had makeup on. She pushed his sleeves up and found the needle marks easily. They were fresh. Her hands began to shake. She stood up.
“What’s up?” Rigsby said.
“I need a boost,” she said, and they walked together to the patrol car. He cupped his hands by the passenger door and she put her foot on them, launching herself up to get a knee on top of the car. She pulled herself into standing on the roof and took out her phone. If she stood on tip toes and put it on loudspeaker and held it slightly above her head, she’d get signal.
She heard Rigsby apologize to Katie, the hiker in the backseat of their car, and then he raised his voice to ask Teresa, “Who are you calling?”
“The FBI,” she said. “I think this might have been a serial killer.”
–
It took her a while to find someone who’d take her seriously. The more doubt they voiced through the tinny cell line, the more confident she felt in her belief. She was stubborn like that. The coffin killer was distinctive and memorable. The folded arms, the makeup – she was sure forensics would find some internal organ missing, once they sorted through the mess that had been done to his stomach cavity. They’d find formaldehyde in him, too.
It was text book coffin killer, except that the coffin killer hadn’t been active in nearly a decade. Through sheer force of will, Teresa had been put through to a junior agent on the team that had worked the case, but she still struggled to be taken seriously. Sunlight glanced over the corpse and glinted on the ears, and she said, “Sometimes the FBI holds back a detail from the public, right?”
“Right,” the woman said. It was an Agent Vega, and she sounded young, which made her condescension more annoying.
“For the coffin killer,” Teresa said, and felt foolish. She hated guessing. “Was it earrings? Did he pierce his victims’ ears?”
Because Ryan Jefferson had freshly pierced ears, and he wasn’t the type.
The line went quiet enough that Teresa knew Vega must be covering the receiver with her hand. When she came back through, she said, “Let me put you through to my boss.”
Teresa smiled. She could still get things done.
–
Special Agent Abbott asked smart questions and listened to her patiently, then thanked her for being so prompt in seeking out FBI involvement. She couldn’t entirely trust a first impression over a phone call with dodgy reception, but he seemed competent. His team, who had led the coffin killer investigation back in the day, would get out to Blackbrook as soon as possible, but it’d take them a while; they’d been working a case in Georgia. He gave her a number for an Agent Cho and told her to call it throughout the day to keep them updated. She handed Rigsby the number and passed along the instructions; she didn’t know how long it would take her to find the uncle, but she would be out of touch with any developments that transpired for the next few hours.
She drove back to town and dropped the hiker off along the way, telling her not to talk to anyone about what she’d found until the news went public, and that they’d call her into the station for a full statement in the coming days. In Hightower’s waiting room she compiled a list of local unsavory types and anyone she could think of who might have had a connection with Ryan. Even if this seemed likely to be a serial killer, other avenues of investigation shouldn’t be abandoned. She emailed the list to Deputy Van Pelt, as well as instructions to organize indefinite accommodation for a team of six FBI agents, which she’d offered to do for Abbott before she realized that mightn’t have actually been the Sheriff’s office’s responsibility. He had accepted, anyway.
Madeleine emerged from her office, her face falling when she saw Teresa. “The way you look at me, no one would know we’re friends,” Teresa said, and leaned in for a brief hug.
“I have a very different reaction to seeing you depending on whether it’s during your work hours or not,” Madeleine said. “Come in.”
Teresa followed the mayor into her grand office – grand by Blackbrook standards; maybe not by the standards of the FBI team flying in. She sat down in one of the seats in front of Madeleine's desk, and Madeleine sat beside her instead of across from her. Teresa half appreciated her friend’s proximity and half regretted how obviously shaken she must seem. “There’s been a murder,” Teresa said. “A hiker found a body up in the woods.”
Madeleine paused only for a moment to process it. Then she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Whose was it?”
“Ryan Jefferson.”
“Poor Ryan,” Madeleine said, leaning back. “And poor Luke. Have you told Luke yet?”
“No,” Teresa said. “That’s where I’ll go next, he’s out in a hunting cabin somewhere.”
“Davie will know where,” Madeleine said. Teresa nodded. “Do you know who did it?”
Teresa blew out a breath. “In a sense,” she said. “Ma’am, this isn’t a typical murder. He didn’t get caught up in a bad crowd, he didn’t get into it with someone in a bar. It’s more sinister than that. I think it’s a serial killer. I’ve called in the FBI, they’ll get in this evening.”
Madeleine stood up. “Well, fuck,” she said. “Oh, God, I feel like the town from Jaws. My first thought was about the effect this would have on tourism.”
Teresa smiled. “We can keep it under control. This serial killer, he’s never killed two victims in the same town. He’s probably already left. Still, if you were comfortable putting in place a curfew, just until we know what’s going on, that would be wise.”
Madeleine nodded. “Of course. Which serial killer is it?”
“Look, it hasn’t been confirmed, that’s what the FBI will be doing out here,” Teresa said. “But it seems like it could be the coffin killer.”
Madeleine frowned. “I remember him, from way back. I thought they caught him.”
“No, he just stopped. And now it seems like he might be back.”
“He did terrible things to the victims’ bodies, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Madeleine sighed. “Who knows about this?”
“Outside of my team, forensics, and the FBI? Just the hiker who found the body. A Sarah Ellis. I told her not to spread it around, but...”
Madeleine nodded again. “I’ll get ahead of it, I’ll make an announcement. You bring Luke back home.”
Teresa nodded.
-
It took her almost two hours to get to Luke’s cabin, not including however long it took her to get the directions from Davie. She’d seen a few hunting cabins in her time as sheriff, and this one met all her humble expectations. In a clearing, small dark windows, a four by four parked outside, plaid blankets hanging over the wooden fencing around the porch, a smell of gunpowder and dirt. She inhaled the clear air – she still wasn’t used to it, even all these years out of Chicago – and approached, rapping on the door.
The first people she had ever let know about the death of a loved one were her brothers. Her dad hadn’t had the strength to tell them about what had happened to their mother. It felt like she’d been breaking bad news to people ever since. She had perfected it. Her head was already tilted sympathetically before Luke Jefferson opened the door.
“Teresa,” he said, sounding pleasantly surprised. She made a good customer at the bar he worked. His smile faded as he glanced up and down her uniform. “Or, you’re here as Sheriff Lisbon, are you?”
She nodded. “Can I come in?”
He paused but nodded, warily. She followed him through a smoky-smelling living room, messy but pleasant, aside from the guns and animal heads. He sat and she sat opposite him. He was maybe a decade older than her, rugged and still handsome, though not as much as he had been when she’d first arrived in town. He’d gained weight, lost a certain vitality, though never his pride or dignity. She thought he was a good man. She had never seen him look nervous before. “It’s your nephew, Ryan,” she said. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but he’s dead.”
Luke didn’t react, his expression didn’t change, for what felt like minutes. She waited him out. He said, “How?”
“He’s been murdered. We found his body in the mountains.”
Luke stood up, turned his back to her. She could see his hands flexing, agitated. “Who did it?”
“We don’t know.”
“How did they do it?”
“They slit his throat,” she said.
He nodded. “That’s what you do to put an animal out of its misery,” he said. “At least he wouldn’t have suffered.”
She chickened out of telling him about what had happened to his nephew’s insides. She thought that the coffin killer did that post mortem, usually.
He turned and looked at her. “What do you need from me?”
“Me? Nothing, really,” she said. “We’re calling the FBI in. They’ll be here this evening. I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you.”
He frowned, shook his head. “The FBI? Why?”
They still hadn’t confirmed that it was the coffin killer, and there was no use scaring the man. “I’m afraid I can’t say, but I’m sure when you talk to them they’ll be able to answer more of your questions.”
Luke sat down. “I’m not sure how much time you were planning on spending up here,” she said. “And maybe it would be nice, to stay by yourself after a tragedy like this. But we’re going to need you back in town, for questioning.”
He nodded absently.
“I’m going to go, now,” she said. “Would you like to come with me?”
He looked at her. “I’ve food up here. It’ll go to waste if I leave. Will you have some of it with me?”
She shifted in her seat. She had barely eaten all day, and she didn’t want to leave Luke alone, especially because she didn’t trust him to come back to town if it was entirely up to him. It would mean being out of reach for a while longer, no signal this far into the mountains even if she did stand on a car, but Rigsby and Van Pelt could manage. She nodded. “That sounds nice,” she said. “Thank you.”
He retreated into the kitchen and she looked around. She wondered how often he came out here, how long the cabin had been in the family. Planning for new cabins was hard to come by, she knew, so most of the cabins in the area had been built unofficially and passed down between generations. But nothing about this room hinted at history; there were no photos, no keepsakes. Nothing in it looked especially old.
He returned with a bowl of warm stew, and they ate it sitting out on the porch. “How long have you had this cabin?” she asked.
“It’s been mine since my brother died,” he said. “Ryan’s dad, you know.”
She nodded. “It didn’t go to Ryan?”
“Well, at the time he was too young. When he turned eighteen I told him it was there for him, whenever he wanted it, but he had no interest. I don’t think he’s ever been up here, he’s not a hunter. Not in any sense of the word. He’s soft. He got it from his mother. Me, my brother, my dad...”
“You’re hunters.”
Luke nodded. “I didn’t know what to do with a boy like that. I...”
“You’re a good man,” Teresa interrupted. “Good men make good fathers. It’s that simple.”
He smiled at her. “Thanks.”
She nodded, and this time when he lapsed into silence, she allowed it.
They finished and he packed up a few of his things, got in his jeep and followed her down the winding track back to town. She kept half an eye on her phone for when it regained signal, and as soon as it did she got an alert for three voicemails. Playing them, she learned that forensics had come and gone without issue; that Ned Clayton – Blackbrook’s most violent man – had been in lock up three towns over last night; and that the FBI agents would get to the Royal Oak Hotel by 8pm. When Luke pulled in along the main street she pulled in too, though she planned on going back to the station. She climbed out of her car and approached him.
“I just wanted to let you know the FBI will be in within the next hour. They’ll be staying at the Oak.”
“You think they’ll want to see me straight away?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m guessing you want to see them straight away, and I think that’s your prerogative.”
He nodded and to her surprise extended his arms. She stepped into the hug but kept it brief, uncomfortable. “Thanks, Teresa,” he said.
She smiled and nodded, and breathed a sigh of relief once she was back alone in her car, on the way to the station.
-
Rigsby and Van Pelt were both waiting for her, but she sent Van Pelt home and Rigsby to the Oak, to welcome the FBI. There was nothing more for them to do. She retreated to her office and checked her voicemail. Madeleine let her know that a curfew had been announced, but that the town would want to hear from their sheriff at some point; there would be a vigil the next evening, maybe Teresa could speak there. Then there was a message from the local newspaper, which she skipped over without listening to. Then a call from Henry Grange, saying that he hoped the murder wouldn’t distract her from finding whoever smashed his car windows. As she clicked to the next message, she was interrupted by the phone beginning to ring. She picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Oh. That was prompt. Sheriff Lisbon?”
“Yes, that’s me,” she said.
“This is Abbott, we spoke earlier.”
She straightened her posture without thinking, her natural reaction to authority figures. “Of course.”
“I just wanted to let you know that my team and I have landed and are en route to the hotel now. We’re coming straight from another case that got pretty intense, so I’ve promised my people one night of good sleep, and we’ll get started tomorrow.”
She grimaced, thinking about how she’d sent Luke their way, but kept her voice pleasant when she said, “Sounds good.”
“Also, I’m just off the phone with Forensics in Aberdeen, and it does seem like it’s the coffin killer. I want to thank you again for bringing it to our attention so swiftly.”
“Of course,” she said again.
“In the mean time, do you have an idea of where we could set up our base of operations? It’s ideal when we can use the local police station, but I know sometimes it can get a bit cozy.”
“Everything’s cozy in Blackbrook,” she said, dryly. “There are six of you, right?”
“That’s right.”
She glanced through the half-shuttered window of her office to the space beyond it. It was too big for just her and her two deputies, and could about manage an extra six occupants. “That should be fine, sir. I’ll find some extra desks and chairs.”
-
Once Abbott hung up, that’s exactly what she did, eating nearly another hour of her evening trying to arrange them in the most practical way. Then she cleared out the communal fridge, which was overdue. Finally she returned to her office to take care of the daily administration that she had neglected in the wake of the murder. It was relaxing, almost meditative, and she felt broken out of a trance when she heard the ring of the front desk bell out in the lobby. She startled, looking at the time on her computer screen. It was past ten, and purple summer darkness had fallen. The only light in the building was her office, and the front porch in the distance. Whoever had come to visit was breaking the curfew.
She stood up cautiously and padded into the main room, switching on all the lights in the building with one hand. She shook away her nerves – stupid, irrational – and straightened her back as she walked into the waiting room area at the front of the building, where she found a man in a fancy three-piece suit with a Hollywood face, looking more out of place than anything else she’d seen that day, including the dead body. If she’d seen him on the street or in a restaurant, she would have skipped over him. She had no time for men that handsome, almost pretty; they caused trouble, and were usually boring, and were not part of her world. But she couldn’t ignore him, not when he alone sat in the station’s waiting room, hands folded neatly on his lap, patient.
“Hello,” she said, cautious and bemused.
He grinned and stood, reaching her in a few long, quick strides. She felt the weight of the gun on her hip unconsciously. “Hello,” he said. “You’re Sheriff Lisbon?”
“Yes,” she said, warily. Even people she didn’t know knew who she was, which meant he was from out of town, and out of towners shouldn’t have business with the sheriff. “Who are you?”
“Patrick Jane,” he said, stepping closer. She stepped away, and he grinned again. “FBI.”
She snorted without meaning to and he laughed as well, like they were sharing some joke. “No you’re not,” she said. Unless he worked in media relations for them or something. He wasn’t a cop.
“I’m with the FBI,” he clarified, and pulled out a card. “Consultant.”
Ah. She nodded and glanced around. “Let’s go to my office,” she said.
“Oh, let’s,” he said. As he followed he asked, “What’s your first name, Sheriff Lisbon?”
“Teresa,” she said.
“Irish?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Lisbon isn’t,” he said. “It’s a pretty name, Teresa Lisbon. It sounds made up, though, like you’re in witness protection, or a fugitive. It’d explain finding someone like you in a place like this.”
She glanced at him. He was still grinning. Suddenly she didn’t want Patrick Jane in her office. Slowly she pushed open the door and stepped through. She sat behind her desk and regretted it, because he didn’t sit opposite her. Instead he slowly perused her shelves, her books and photos and keepsakes, picking things up and bending down to look too closely. He shook a small wooden box by his ear – it had a bullet in it, from the time she got shot at – and he smelled an old book. Definitely odd. She couldn’t read his face, which had quieted. Sometimes his lips twitched into a near smile. Her palms began to sweat. He hadn’t looked at her once since he’d stepped into the office, but she somehow felt under a microscope. She cleared her throat.
He turned to her immediately, as though he’d forgotten she was there. “You’re from Chicago, right?” he asked, and finally sat down, although on the small couch against the back wall rather than in the chair by her desk. “That’s why you’re more experienced than anyone else here, tougher. You would have suited the Chicago PD, but you ran away. Not just because of a man, but a man was part of it. He proposed, he wanted too much from you. You’ve spent your whole life surrounded by people who need you, that gets claustrophobic. Somewhere with big open spaces, a limited workload. You thought that would be best for you, and you’re good at following through. You keep your promises, and you’re self disciplined. You can make sacrifices, that’s the Catholic in you. So you won’t let yourself regret the decision. But you miss it, you jump at the chance to be useful, you think about going back home, or to some other big city. Today excited you, and it scared you how much it excited you.”
She leaned closer toward him, her hand on her gun under the desk. He couldn’t see it, but he tensed when he saw her arm move. “You picked the wrong woman to stalk, if that’s what this is.”
His eyes widened. “No,” he said, sounding distressed. “It’s something I do with everyone. I mean, your deputy who met us at the hotel is secretly in love with someone and became a cop because his dad was a criminal. I do it with everyone. I’m usually good at keeping it to myself, though, when I first meet someone. You’re just... intriguing.” He grinned again. He smiled a lot and it put her on edge. “For example, no one else has ever responded to a demonstration of my skill set by accusing me of stalking.”
She grimaced, wrapped her arms around her stomach, then dropped them and raised her chin. “Maybe not aloud,” she said.
He cocked his head at her. “Interesting. Intriguing, but you don’t want to be. You don’t want to stand out from the crowd. You probably did for a lot of your life, you’ve had enough of it. That’s why you’re here. You’re here because you’ve had enough of a lot of things.”
She clenched her jaw. “Why are you here?”
He shrugged and made a considering face, looking uncomfortable. She didn’t trust how easy to read he was. “That’s a long story,” he said.
“I’m not interested in the long story. I mean why are you here, in my office.”
“Oh,” he said. “Like I said, you intrigued me. I’ve been to a lot of small town murders, the sheriff has never done such strong ground work for us. How quickly you worked out it was the coffin killer, and how insistent you were in making sure it got to us. We arrived to no fuck ups at the crime scene, a list of possible persons of interest complete with their basic bios, local attention under control, curfew in place, and the Sheriff who organized all of that had gone away to get the victim’s uncle from his hunting cabin, who, upon his return to civilization, reported directly to us.”
She felt uncomfortable again. “It’s my job.”
“Yes, but you’re very good at it,” he said. “All my colleagues were impressed.”
“And you?” she asked, and then cursed herself. It wasn’t like she wanted to impress him.
“Well, I thought you might be a psychopath with some connection to the murders, but I see how ridiculous that is now,” he said. “You’re a good girl.”
She curled her lip at him and said, “So you wanted to check up on me and see if I seemed like a serial killer? And that couldn’t wait until morning?”
“I was testing a theory,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“That a sheriff who so meticulously looked after a murder investigation would also be the kind who worked late,” he said. “Even in this small town, with not much going on. Are you looking into a ruthless gang of ding dong ditchers?”
“I’m organizing a fundraiser for the town goose,” she said. “She broke her leg, all the kids are in pieces about it.”
He smiled slowly. “I see. You’re making fun of me for making fun of small towns.”
“Yes,” she said.
He nodded. “It’s very older sister of you,” he said. “I mean, I know this place drives you crazy. But only you can insult it, nobody else. Certainly not a fancy FBI outsider.”
“Fancy?” she repeated skeptically, not able to offer anything more than the obvious jab. His psychic routine put her on edge.
He smiled. “You’re fun,” he said. “Which is more often true of murderers than cops, but I’m glad you’re not a murderer.”
She had no idea what to say to that. He stayed there, looking at her, smiling, and she got the unsettling sensation he could do that for another hour or two. He had bags under his eyes. She’d missed them at first because of the over all handsomeness, but he probably didn’t sleep much. She had to get him out of her office. She stood and cleared her throat. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Jane,” she said. “I’m glad I could introduce myself. I’ll be meeting with the rest of your team tomorrow morning, and it goes without saying that we’re at your disposal. Anything we can do to help.”
He stood too, and smiled again, more dementedly than any she’d seen previous. “You’re at my disposal?” he repeated.
She rounded her desk, beginning to show him out. “Well,” she said. “Not me specifically and not you specifically. The Sheriff’s department is at the FBI’s disposal.”
He looked to her like he was missing something. “And you’re the Sheriff, and I’m FBI,” he said.
She had less control over herself this late in the day, and she was out of practice with frustrating people. She made a noise of annoyance and said, “You’re a consultant.”
He laughed, but she felt bad. She ought to be professional.
“I’m going to go home, now,” she said. “It was nice meeting you.”
“So you’ve said. You’ve said nice twice. Let me walk you to your car, there’s danger about.”
“Yeah, there is,” she said, dubious. “And a curfew. Maybe I should walk you to your car.”
“Even better,” he said.
She felt his hand hovering over her back without touching it, as though he was leading her, and they walked through the offices and the lobby. She felt the space’s emptiness, how alone she was with this man. Her breath caught, her body warmed. It was stupid. She just hadn’t gone on a date in a while. When they left the station the air outside still held the day’s heat, unable to cool her. He cleared his throat, breaking her from her reverie. She looked at him and his small smile and groaned inwardly. Even if he could tell she was an older sister who’d broken off an engagement and left Chicago, it didn’t mean he could tell what she’d just been thinking then. She shifted on her feet.
“This is me,” he said softly, like a date she’d walked home.
“Right,” she said, and glanced to the car they stood beside. And then stared at it. It was a sleek, low, purple sports car.
“Oh my God.” She couldn’t keep the disgust from her voice.
“You don’t like it?”
“You flew in, right?” she said. “This is a rental?”
“Yes,” he said.
“The FBI paid for this?”
“No, my own money. Why not, right? They’d have me in a Honda.”
“I drive a Honda,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I was making fun of you, Teresa.”
“Lisbon,” she said. He cocked his head and she clarified. “We'll be working together. You should call me Lisbon.”
He nodded. “So you won’t call me Patrick?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. She was a cop, she could read people too. “You’re just saying that to get under my skin,” she said. “You wouldn’t want me to.”
He smiled, nodded, looked away and then back. “Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” he said. “Lisbon, I’ll be seeing you.”
She made a dubious noise and he shook his head, climbed in. She watched him drive away and thought that by the time he and the FBI leave Blackbrook, she’ll have given him a speeding ticket.
Yeah. She’d be kept busy for a while, she imagined.