Ronnie Masters | the MENTALIST

LADIES IN RED : pt I

The team stood a respectful distance from the funeral of Jason Sands, a wealthy man whose body had been found in a secret room in his home, having bled to death after being tortured. His office had been found empty, with evidence of a hostage situation, papers scattered all over the room and blood on the floor. Jane had found evidence suggested a hidden door, fashioned out of a bookcase. Jason Sands had escaped his captors and hid in the secret room, allegedly waiting for safety, but had bled out from his wounds in the meantime.

Appropriately dressed in black, Ronnie stood quietly next to her partner, smoothing down her skirt. Cho brushed a fallen leaf from her shoulder, casting observant glances around. Occasionally he'd lean in discreetly, pointing out a behaviorism or expression in the attendees that he found strange.

Around them, men and women in dark formal dress bustled around, offering their condolences to the tearful widow. Half of them seemed entirely too cheerful to be attending a funeral, though Ronnie assumed that he was successful enough that most of the guests didn't know him well personally, rather having been in business with him somehow.

Heading the crowd, standing before the closed casket containing her husband, Mrs. Sands' behavior struck Ronnie as odd, particularly the way she was keeping a tense and deliberate distance between herself and a suited man behind her. Cho pointed the same thing out to her soon after she'd noticed it for herself.

"Funerals are nice things," she decided softly.

Cho needed convincing. "How can funerals be nice?"

It certainly made no sense for a woman who couldn't bear to be in a morgue without becoming physically sick to decide she liked funerals.

"They're warm," she explained. "Killing a man is chilling; someone dying is emptying. Bodies are cold. Death as I know it is ugly and frigid. Funerals are...the after. The people who care are there for each other. The body is spoken kindly of. People process the death out of love. It's nice. It's nice to know that it's not just over when someone's dead." She gazed around, watching a few people hover near the casket, saying heartfelt goodbyes.

Death had never been handed to her in the form of a gentle memorial service. It had always been gunmetal and blood and steel. Funerals were nice.

Cho waited, thinking, eyes drifting from face to face, and then he just shrugged. "I guess."

Over to the side, unaware of their quiet comments, the team watched the service vigilantly. The investigation had hardly begun yet, and the likelihood that the murderer would show up at the funeral proved historically to be high.

"I look around. I don't see anyone here who could torture a man to death with pliers and a lit cigar." Rigsby muttered, hands in his pockets. He seemed to view the memorial service as a stuffy affair, a frustrated scowl tightening his features. He'd complained many times in the past about being forced to go to dozens of burials.

Jane, gazing around easily, responded simply, "Picture them naked and ravenously hungry."

The delicate and demure agent van Pelt reeled in disgust, eyes flashing to Jane. "Ew!"

Ronnie shrugged. "I've seen nicer people kill with a lot less." Her gaze dropped to her heels, shuffling them carefully beneath her. She missed the uncomfortable glances she got for that comment, instead choosing to tuck the loose ends of her shirt back under her skirt's waistband.

The team never knew if the things she said in passing counted as jokes, or even if they could respond. Lisbon's policy of not discussing personal lives prevented any of them from asking many follow up questions.

Only Cho and Lisbon knew her full story.

Attempting to defer the awkward attention, her partner added, "You know, strictly speaking, he wasn't tortured to death."