The Mentalist

Hey, it could do with a little, uh,

yard maintenance, don't you think?

How does one person live in a house this big?

Uh, let me see. By being very rich.

That's now what I meant.

Ah, you mean morally. Well, we've been called in,

so it's likely that whoever lived here

paid a hefty price in the end.

There is something off here.

This place gives me the creeps.

Normally, I'd be tempted to mock your superstition,

but in this case, I'm inclined to agree.

Ladies first.

Boss, this is Reggie Brooks from private security.

Found the body, called it in.

Hi. I'm Agent Lisbon with the CBI.

This is Patrick Jane.

Hi. How you doing?

Is this gonna take long?

I'd really like to get out of here.

Why don't you just walk us through

what happened this morning?

Well, I was, uh, doing my rounds of the neighborhood

this morning, as always,

when I got a call that said, uh,

Ms. Vogelsong's doctor wasn't getting an answer

when he tried to call her and asked me to follow up.

Uh, do you know the name of the doctor?

No, I don't. Uh, you can call dispatch.

Okay. So the doctor told you to go and check on her.

I, uh, I noticed the smell right away.

And I, uh, followed it to the library,

and... that's when I called it in.

The final remains of Elise Vogelsong,

Sacramento's tragic heiress.

You know the story, right?

You know, orphan at 12, widow at 18.

Divorced 5 times before she turned 40.

My mother ate that stuff up when I was a kid.

Never heard of her.

Check out this place. What a creep show.

And, uh, look at this body.

I mean, it's reduced entirely to ash.

You know, there've been a handful of cases

I've read about. I've never actually seen it.

Spontaneous combustion, they like to call it.

It's in a book somewhere.

"Bleak House." Dickens.

Yeah, Mr. Krook, the rag and bone man,

burst into flames in his parlor.

It's not believable. I didn't buy it, either.

Oh, um, it's... It's a misnomer.

You know, it's not actually spontaneous combustion at all.

Uh, it almost always happens with a heavy drinker

and a smoker. They pass out with a cigarette in their hand,

ember falls onto clothing, starts to burn,

and smoldering cloth acts like a wick,

and it turns the victim into a human candle,

with the body's subcutaneous fat deposits

as a perfect form of tallow.

A human candle?

Isn't that awful?

Yeah, what's produced is a slow and all-consuming burn,

so in the end, there's nothing left but ash.

So this could be an accidental death?

Yeah. Very likely.

Uh, you notice how weird the light is?

Kind of waxy and brown?

That's because human fat is congealed

on all the light bulbs. I mean--

All right. Don't say another word, please, okay?

Uh, this was murder,

which is ironic, considering Ms. Vogelsong's appreciation

and love of murder mysteries.

Murder? Yes.

There's globules of glass in the fireplace,

and, uh, this scotch was opened very recently.

And that's a lot of scotch for one woman.

There were at some point four glasses right here,

but now there are only three in the room.

Where is the fourth glass?

So two people are sitting down,

relaxing, having a drink,

now one of them is dead.

The other one tried to conceal his or her presence

by throwing the fourth glass into the fireplace. Murder.

Oh, you think? Who's the other person, huh?

Why'd they kill her?

Well, you know, if you hadn't mentioned

the congealed human fat in the light bulbs,

I may have had the stomach to stick around and find out,

but I-I...

You're a ghoul.

== sync, corrected by elderman ==

Oh, thanks.

Hmm.

You know, my mom kept a scrapbook of Elise Vogelsong.

You'd have thought she was family,

the way she talked about her.

Your mom like that?

Nope.

I think for mom, it was a way

of feeling better about things with my dad, you know?

No matter how bad things got between them,

it was always worse for Elise Vogelsong.

I think that was it, anyway.

Have we got a name yet, for the doctor who called?

Dispatcher didn't write it down.

He doesn't even know if he got it or not.

Now this says someone poured accelerant on Ms. Vogelsong

and lit a match, right?

Right. Best arson teams in the world

would have missed it 99 times out of 100.

If Jane hadn't been so sure, I'd have missed it, too.

Spectrometer says traces of ethyl alcohol and methanol.

I'm guessing sterno as an accelerant.

Wouldn't take much.

That's nice work.

Yeah, next of kin didn't seem to believe it, though.

Give it time. Lisbon and Jane will convince them.

Can you think of anybody who may have wanted to harm your aunt?

She was an old lady

who devoted herself to charity and helping veterans.

Who'd want to hurt her?

She was losing her mind at the end.

Have you taken that into account?

Losing her mind how?

All right, you know what my aunt endured in her life?

The scandals, the tragedies?

Yes. I'm sorry.

Well, she was a strong woman, despite it all,

until about two years ago.

And what happened?

She stopped wanting to leave the house,

started getting paranoid,

thought people were out to get her.

Were they?

No. Not at all. It was all in her head.

She fired all her servants

and was living in that big old pile by herself.

Look, the police said

that there was nothing stolen from the house.

There are no signs of robbery.

Someone commits a murder in a house like that

and doesn't take anything? No money, no jewels?

No expensive works of art?

It doesn't make any sense, does it?

Well, not yet.

It's an ongoing investigation.

Yeah, it's ongoing.

Uh, could you provide us with your aunt's doctor's name?

The one who called the security guard?

I didn't know her doctor. I'm sorry.

As I said, my aunt had become withdrawn in recent years.

I didn't communicate with her much.

You had a falling out?

No. As her mind went, she became difficult.

I admit I distanced myself.

I preferred to remember her as she was.

Okay. So before that, you--you were close?

Well, some of my fondest memories from childhood

were sailing with my aunt Elise on the "Songbird."

Ah. Your aunt liked sailboats?

Well, aside from the family's charitable foundations,

it was her greatest joy. I don't think a week went by

that she wasn't out on the water.

Even at her age? Was that safe?

There was a girl wasn't out on that went with her

down at the marina.

Cayce Robbins?

That's right.

I'm Agent Lisbon with the CBI.

This is my associate, Patrick Jane.

We spoke on the phone.

Oh, about Elise.

You going somewhere?

Yeah, Elise always said she wanted her ashes

scattered out at sea, out of sight of land.

So I figured it's my duty to make that happen.

I'm just waiting to get the ashes.

That's gonna have to wait until after our investigation.

I'm sorry.

It's awful to think what happened to her.

Can you think of anybody who may have wanted to kill her?

Uh, I-I can't, but I only sailed with her.

I don't know much about her life on land.

What about her mental state?

In the last few years, you see any signs of senility?

Elise? No, she was sharper than most people my age.

I didn't like all the pills she was taking, though.

Doctors prescribe too many pills these days, I think.

What were the pills she was taking?

Or--or better still,

you know the name of the doctor that prescribed them?

You know, there's some in the cabin. I can go get 'em.

Thank you. Very helpful.

Seems like a civilized way to travel, don't you think?

Are you kidding?

Stuck on that thing in the middle of the ocean?

It's like being in a prison cell with a chance of drowning.