So Carefully Taught

Timeline: I guess the current season (7) of Criminal Minds. Morgan ended up being a bit more of a focal character than others, but it's definitely a team case fic, not a character study. For Glee, it takes place in an AU season 2.

Again, this is AU for Glee. I am changing canon in a very significant way that will make at least one character very OOC. FYI, it will be a while before any characters from Glee show up. (Or will it?)

***IMPORTANT WARNINGS: graphic depiction of rapes and murders—including of teen character(s). The age of consent in Ohio is 16, so I don't think we're talking officially underage, but pretty close to it. Also: bad words, misogynistic and homophobic attitudes, etc.

Disclaimer: I don't own either show and do not work in law enforcement. And the pacing is pretty slow in these first few chapters, but it does pick up.

Chapter 1: The New Case

"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides." –André Malraux

March was drawing to a close with a sigh, and the view outside JJ's window was still tinged pink by the sunrise. She sighed, cuddling a still-sleepy Henry to her chest and mentally running through the day. She hadn't quite decided whether the team would be travelling to Tennessee or Ohio. Tennessee seemed potentially more urgent, but yesterday afternoon her contact in Ohio had informed her of a missing girl. It didn't seem to be any obvious connection to the case she was considering, but JJ had a gut feeling about it.

She shook herself and dropped a kiss on Henry's forehead, murmuring "Back to bed, sweetie." She'd head in early and look at the files again, perhaps call for an update from Ohio. They'd head out soon enough. For now, her colleagues could sleep.

She might not have bothered had she known that only Rossi and Hotch were actually sleeping. Garcia was sitting at her computer and waiting for another message; she'd been IMing for the last four hours with the daughter of a murdered doctor. Prentiss ran on a treadmill and skimmed the latest international news.

Spencer Reid sipped coffee and started the final chapter of a book arguing that violence was in decline. He thought the author, a cognitive psychologist, made some compelling points statistically, but it was still hard for Reid to believe. Of course, Reid knew his sense of the prevalence of violent crime was distorted by his work with the BAU. And fewer homicides in the country meant relatively little to individual victims.

Morgan ran across a field behind the animal shelter, a burly pit bull bounding at his side. He'd volunteered at a women's shelter for a time. But after a while he'd had to stop. He didn't blame the women for the fear in their eyes when they looked at him. He knew what he looked like to them, and eventually looked for another outlet for his sporadic volunteering.

He didn't get out to the shelter on any particular schedule, because of work and because he ran with his own dog a lot, too. But his dog Clooney was a lazy bum, and on restless mornings it picked him up to see a big, muscled dog get a chance to really move. His usual pleasure was tempered this morning by the absence of a bull mastiff, Jester. Not all dogs found homes, and after Jester snarled at shelter visitors, sometime between Morgan's last visit and today, he'd been euthanized. Morgan pulled at the pit's stubby ears and led it back into the shelter with regret. He had a bad feeling about the day already.

It had been a full five weeks since the team's last trip out of state, three weeks of consulting with local departments by phone, scheduling prison interviews and catching up on paperwork. It didn't surprise them to be summoned to a 9am meeting in the conference room.

JJ handed them out files for them to peruse as she explained, "Over the last three weeks, four women have been murdered in southern Ohio. The first is Angela Meeks, found March 4." A photo flashed onto the screen of Meeks as she was in life; a pale woman with greasy light brown hair and heavy makeup. JJ knew the team was reading details in their files; that Meeks was a 36-year-old prostitute from downtown Columbus, her body found in the hotel where she often took johns. After a pause for them to read, JJ projected a photo of the body and explained, "Her hair was cut off with dull scissors, possibly nail scissors; none were found at the scene, but she was known to carry them. She died of asphyxiation and was anally raped post-mortem."

She clicked to a picture of the next victim. "Next was Ashley Beck, found March 6."

"She's quite a bit younger," mused Rossi, noting her age of 23.

"She's the same physical type though," Prentiss said, "and also a prostitute from Columbus."

"But dumped in a park in Grove City. That suburb is a solid 20 minute drive south of Columbus's city center," JJ told them. "This time the unsub came prepared to cut off her hair, with what forensics think was an ordinary kitchen knife. But he also used it to cut off her breasts. There's evidence of both vaginal and anal penetration, with the latter more severe, and both occurred before her asphyxiation."

"The first murder was a crime of opportunity," Hotch surmised. "Whatever fantasy the unsub had, Meeks wasn't a perfect match. Something changed with that murder and made him decided to carry out his fantasy more precisely."

"That's what the police suspect," JJ agreed, briefly displaying the gruesome photo of Beck's body. The crude haircut looked grotesque, the few remaining longer strands soaked with blood, and the amputated breasts nearby.

"He didn't take the breasts as a trophy, then," Morgan said to no one in particular.

Knowing most of the team liked to work through their initial reactions aloud, and that that Reid would likely join in once he finished reading the complete file, JJ moved on. "Both Meeks and Beck usually worked on Sullivant Avenue, but the third victim worked West Broad Street. Both are common locations for prostitution in Columbus. Shawna McKenzie, age 20." The photo of McKenzie in life was probably her senior picture; it looked professionally done, her brown hair cut to flatter her pale skin and high cheekbones.

"She was found two weeks later, on March 21, in a dumpster in the west Columbus suburb of Hilliard. Her injuries resemble Beck's. The latest victim was found this morning in a highway rest area between Columbus and an eastern suburb, Gahanna. Caitlin Cornelius, 19 years old, of Marysville, Ohio."

"Where is that? Is it near Columbus?" Prentiss asked.

JJ clicked to a map showing the Columbus area, but Reid was already answering, "It's 35 miles northwest of Columbus."

No one even commented on how Reid could possibly know that information. They knew he picked up road atlases wherever the team found themselves.

"Besides the location, there's another striking change about Cornelius," JJ told them. "She's not a prostitute." A click, and the team gazed at her photo as if she could tell them what had happened to her. "She was living with an infirm aunt and attending college online. She went for a run every morning around 9; yesterday she never returned. The coroner on the scene estimated her time of death at around noon yesterday."

"The unsub went seeking prostitutes in Columbus because they're easy prey," Rossi theorized. "He may or may not live there. But look at her; she's exactly his type, he saw her, and he took her."

"Are we completely sure it's the same unsub?" Morgan asked. "If information about the earlier murders has been released to the press, we could be looking at a copycat."

JJ shook her head. "The police were examining the connection by the second murder, and were aware of it by the third—I've been in contact with them about a possible consult for the last few days—but none of the details had been made public. In fact, due to the differing locations of the bodies, the media hadn't picked up on the serial nature of the case."

"I'm guessing they have now," Rossi drawled.

"Before this, the last murder in Marysville was in 2004, an open and shut domestic case. What do you think? I got a call from the police this morning about Cornelius's body. Local reporters have probably already made the connection. Anyway, fingerprints have been recovered from all the other crime scenes; they probably will from this one too. Unfortunately, they haven't matched any existing in the system. They're going to do an autopsy right away and hopefully have preliminary results in by the time we get there."

Hotch glanced at his watch. "The unsub seems to be following a timed pattern, but if he's not limited his search for victims to Columbus, we don't have a lot to go on. Wheels up in an hour."

On the plane, they floated ideas. The first victim, Meeks, was probably the unsub's first kill. As Hotch had noted, the murder seemed to be unplanned. The victimology was different enough to be significant from the later murders:

-over a decade older than the other victims

-the body left where she was found/killed

-no mutilation

-no vaginal penetration

-hair cut with a tool not like the other crime scenes

However, fingerprints found at the scene matched those found at the Beck and McKenzie crime scenes, and the hair was cut. It would be important to examine her death because something about her had led the unsub to progress from whatever he had been doing to murder. "Serial killers usually start with smaller crimes and work their way up to murder," Reid mused, and the others nodded at the obvious statement. "The mutilation suggests that we're dealing with a sadist, and you'd expect him to start with rapes without killing the victim before he ever kills."

Prentiss argued, "But while he's smart enough to use a condom, he's not smart enough to wear gloves or otherwise hide his fingerprints. It's unlikely he'd get that careless when murdering if he knew to hide his fingerprints when raping, and they haven't matched his prints to anything in IAFIS."

"His impulse has been growing in his mind for a long time," Morgan speculated. "He chose to blow off steam by going to Meeks as a customer; he didn't plan to kill her. If he did, he would have been prepared. He would have brought the knife with him, and he would have had a place to take her, instead of leaving her in her own hotel room."

Prentiss picked up the thread again. "That's why the first kill was sloppy. We definitely need to find out as much as we can about it."

Hotch nodded. "We'll see what the situation is when we get there, but I want you and Rossi concentrating on the Meeks case. However, the unsub's victimology seems to be more established now, and as we know, serial rapists hardly ever change victimology once it's been established. Yet, it seems that with this fourth victim, the profile is evolving. Let's confirm that it really is the same unsub and start putting a profile together. Since several police departments likely have jurisdiction over the different locations of the bodies, I want us to also help coordinate between them. JJ, you and I will take the lead on that. Morgan, Reid, I want you both focused on victimology and mapping, but we'll see what the situation is on the ground when we get there.

A/N:

-The book Reid was reading at the start was Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. (In case you were wondering).

-Reviews are appreciated; what do you make of the case so far? And the rough draft is done—there will be 10 chapters—so I think I'll be able to keep up with a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule. Thanks for reading.