A/N: I do not own Criminal Minds or it's characters. They are the property of The Mark Gordon Company, ABC Studios, and CBS Paramount Network Television. I only own the DVDs. This is a sequel to my story Mistaken Identities. The OC of Jason Armitage was first introduced in that story. He and all other OCs are mine. This story is based on the Black Dahlia murder. Also, I'm excited that this story was voted Runner-Up in the Profiler Awards for Best Team/Case Fic. Thanks to all who voted for it.
Chapter 1
Carrie Linton walked her terrier puppy in the woods several blocks from her home. She and her siblings had pestered their parents for a dog for two years before their parents presented them with the puppy last Christmas. The children agreed to take turns walking the puppy and today was her turn. Suddenly the little pup's body stiffened and then strained on his leash nearly yanking it out of Carrie's hand.
"Cut it out, Sasha," the girl hollered. "Quit pulling on the leash!" But the pup, attracted to something further ahead, continued to pull on the leash. With a frenzied bark, the little dog bolted, yanking the leash from Carrie's hand, and took off into the woods. "Sasha, come back! Sasha!" Carrie ran after the dog which got further and further ahead of her. She knew her parents would be upset if she returned home having lost the family pet.
Suddenly she stopped when she spotted the pup sniffing and pawing at something white just ahead. It looked to her, like somebody lying on the ground. Carrie took a few tentative steps and stopped again. She found herself puzzled by how waxy and white the form was-similar to a sheet of white paper. Probably a dummy she thought to herself, or a store mannequin. The bottom half of the dummy was undressed.
"Sasha, come here, girl," Carrie begged slapping her palms against the front of her thighs. But the dog continued her sniffing and pawing ignoring her mistress. Carrie took another tentative step and paused again. A feeling of fear began to permeate her entire body for an unexplained reason.
The legs and a section of a hip appeared to be disconnected from the mannequin's waist. The top of the torso lay close to the bottom section, both sides facing upwards. The arms raised above the head, and what looked like dark red covered one side of the chest, and the eyes open and lifeless. The buzzing of flies could be heard as they swarmed noisily over the form in the thin grass.
When the realization struck her, Carrie screamed, turned, and ran away as fast as she could back home. When she reached her house, the teenager pushed open the front door screaming for her mother. Her mother, being in the kitchen, and her father, being in the upstairs bedroom, both appeared at the same time hearing their daughter's screams.
"Carrie, what is it?" her panicked mother asked pulling her daughter close. The trembling girl clung to her mother as she sobbed. Her father put a hand on his daughter's back, eyes frightened.
"Sweetheart, what happened?" he asked. "Did somebody do something to you? Are you hurt?"
With her face buried in her mother's chest, the girl shook her head.
Robert Linton then noticed the puppy his daughter had left the house with was nowhere to be seen. "Carrie, did somebody take Sasha?" Again the girl shook her head. "Then what happened?"
As she gathered herself, the child pulled back from her mother to face both parents. She told them what she'd seen in the woods. After hearing the story, Maggie Linton looked at her husband.
"It's probably just a department store mannequin that fell out of somebody's truck and broke. I'll take a look. I'll also bring Sasha back if she's still there." Robert said as he walked out the front door.
Robert hurried through the woods, and shouted the dog's name repeatedly. Finally, after several minutes, he heard barking as the puppy bounded into sight wagging its tail excitedly.
"C'here, girl. C'mon." The pup hesitated, then turned and ran away in the direction from which it had come. He chased after her finally catching up with her standing beside the form his daughter described. The dog ran up to him and allowed him to pick her up and tuck her under his arm, still staring at the form. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened in horror. He fought to keep the bile from rising in his throat, turned, and ran from the sight knowing he must call the police.
Within minutes, several police cruisers arrived at the scene. One of the young officers, after seeing the body, hurried away, dropped to his knees, and emptied his stomach of it's contents. He had not seen a body until now, and one in this condition, caused the bile to rise. He looked around when he felt a hand on his shoulder. An older uniformed officer looked at him in sympathy.
"You all right, Mike?" the older officer asked. His name tag read Sgt. P. Martens. Tears had formed in the younger man's eyes.
"Jesus, Pete," he stammered. "Somebody cut that girl right in half! How could somebody do that to another human being?"
Martens let out a deep breath. Even a seasoned veteran like himself had to struggle to keep from being sick at the cruelty done to the victim. He patted the younger officer on the back and returned to the crime scene, careful not to disturb the immediate area itself. He viewed the dead girl's slashed face and breasts. One had been nearly removed. Gouges made by a knife were on her right thigh. Her abdomen had been ripped open, the internal organs removed, and tossed aside like trash. Her legs had been spread wide apart, and her arms raised above her shoulders. Her smooth cheeks had been sliced open from the corners of her lips to the lobes of her ears. The Sergeant shook his head.
"What did you do to make somebody this angry at you?" he asked nobody while looking at the body. He guessed the victim had to be between seventeen and twenty years-of-age. There were deep bruises from a severe beating as well as rope burns on her wrists, neck and both ankles. Her damp hair was a honey-blond color with red which he determined not to be blood. In fact, there was no coagulated blood anywhere around the wounds on the body nor around the body itself. There wasn't even any blood between the two halves. But what was beneath the body couldn't be determined until the detectives arrived, and the body removed by the coroner.
Detective Frank Parsons arrived and right away ordered several uniformed officers to keep everyone away from the crime scene. His green eyes took in the gathering crowd all straining their necks to get a look at the gruesome sight. It sickened him when crowds gathered at crime scenes. It became a circus to them. He informed Martens the lab crew, the coroner, and two other detectives were on their way. He turned his attention back to the body. He crouched beside it and examined it carefully.
From the ligature marks on her neck, he suspected the cause of death to be strangulation with either a rope, a cord, or even a wire, not manual. But as with the other body two weeks ago, he couldn't tell how much had been done while still alive because of the body having been cleaned. Parsons wondered from the ligature marks on her ankles, if she had been hung upside down like a side of beef. Hung to allow the blood to drain out of the body. Her body had been either soaked or washed so whatever evidence had been removed leaving little, if anything, to help in their investigation. He could tell this body, as the other two weeks ago, had been drained entirely of blood. With the body naked, and from its positioning, he speculated the victim had been raped.
Officer Martens crouched on the opposite side of the body. "Think it's our friend again?" he asked glancing up at the detective grimly.
"Probably," Parsons replied with a sigh. "But we can't be sure until the coroner gets here with the crime lab. But something tells me we might have a serial killer." The two men exchanged looks as the possibility of a serial killer being on the loose, a nightmare they didn't need. But two bodies in two weeks told them their nightmare might be true.
They were soon joined by Ken Barlow, the medical examiner. Parsons and Martens stood up and shook hands with the ME.
"Looks like someone spent a lot of time with this one," Barlow remarked seeing the victim. "The victim two weeks ago wasn't cut up as badly as this one."
The morning sun just started to break through the morning overcast sky as the ME crouched beside the body.
"How long do you think she's been dead?" Parsons asked.
"Keep in mind I can't be sure at this point. But if I had to speculate, I'd say maybe nine, ten hours." He proceeded to gather fragments from the skin hoping they might offer something. He told Parsons and Martens that it appeared Parsons might be right when he stated the girl's hair had been washed or shampooed after she had been killed. "I'd say most of her wounds were inflicted after her death. I'll hopefully know more after an autopsy."
Detectives and uniformed officers continued to comb the scene looking for evidence. The attendants with the coroner's office, placed the sections of the body on a stretcher, and loaded it into the back of the vehicle for transport. All which remained afterward was damp and bent blades of grass and depressions from where the body parts had laid. Something else, crushed, had been hidden under the lower part of the body.
Parsons put on a pair of latex gloves and removed a plastic bag. He picked up the item and examined it closely. A crushed pink flower he recognized as a Dahlia, had been concealed under the body. He sighed. He had seen the same flower but in white at the crime scene of a young man two weeks earlier. He looked up at Martens.
"There's no doubt anymore, Pete," he said. "We have a serial killer on our hands."
Hours later, Parsons looked through a glass-portioned area next to the examination room. The fingerprints had been sent over two hours ago, and he hoped she had a record of some kind so they could know the identity of their victim. He continued to watch as the ME's assistants went about working on the two body sections aligned on the steel table awaiting the taking of photographs. But first, a bit of work had to be done on her. The lacerations to her face were being stitched closed so her jaw could be aligned. Then a sketch of what the victim might look like needed to be done. Her face was so bruised and swollen, normal identification would be difficult without a likeness of their Jane Doe.
Parsons was about to leave the area when his cell phone vibrated. Reaching in his inner jacket pocket, he saw who was calling and pressed the phone to his ear.
"Parsons. What have you got for me, Ken?" He asked hoping he would finally know the name of their dead girl. A slow smile crossed his face. "That was quick. Thanks." He disconnected the call and tucked the phone back in his inner pocket. At last, their Jane Doe had a name.
Jane Doe's fingerprints were on file from a government job with the Recreation and Parks Department located in Alameda, California. In fact, she had recently applied for a job there, been hired, and was to start work the following Monday. She was white, five feet six inches tall, weighed one hundred twenty-five pounds, had honey-blond hair and blue-grey eyes. She had been born in Hillside, New Jersey on January 24, 1987 meaning she was nineteen at the time of her death. Her name was Shannon Carstairs with no middle name. And unless they got lucky this time, they would be no closer to finding the killer. The detective realized he needed help if he would be able to catch this sadist before he or she killed again.
With a weary sigh, Parsons grabbed his cell phone again from his pocket. He dialed a phone number and waited until somebody picked up on the other end.
"This is Detective Parsons; Santa Barbara police. I need to speak with Agent Jennifer Jareau in the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia."
Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner lay his pen on his desk and leaned back in his plush chair. He ran both hands over his face then rested his arms on the arms of his chair, looking up at the ceiling. The words on the report in front of him was starting to run together and he needed a break. His dark eyes shifted to his in-box at the stack of folders still awaiting his review and sighed. Hotch got up, grabbed his coffee cup, and left his office for the break room for a refill.
Reaching the break room, he saw Emily Prentiss pouring herself a cup of coffee as well. Hotch smiled when he entered the room. She returned his smile and wished he'd do it more often. He had a nice smile and his dimples showed when he did. In her opinion, her boss was always too stoic and serious-looking.
"Coffee?" she asked with a shake of her head, holding the glass coffee pot in her hand.
"Please," he replied. He was silent as she filled his cup. "How many cups does that make for you?" he asked eying her cup with a raised eyebrow.
"I lost count after my second," Prentiss said moving a strand of her raven-hair behind her ear. "How about you?"
"The same. I stopped counting after three." He took a sip of his coffee. "I've got a feeling it's going to be one of those days with all the paperwork we have."
"Um. Tell me about it," Prentiss agreed taking a drink of her own coffee. Her dark eyes shifted past Hotch. Seeing the shift, Hotch turned as well to see what had caught her attention. Their blond, blue-eyed media liaison, JJ, approached them, a folder in her hand.
"Glad I found you guys," the blond remarked. "We just got a new case and it looks bad."
Minutes later, JJ handed out copies of the file to Hotch, Prentiss, Morgan, Rossi and Reid before she sat between Morgan and Rossi. Picking up the remote, she activated the viewing screen behind her and the photo of a handsome young man appeared.
"This is Anthony Barstow, age 22. His body was found two weeks ago in the woods behind a residence in Santa Barbara, California. His body was cut in half at the waist. Also, all the blood had been drained from his body." From the corner of her eye, she saw the others wince at the photo.
"Looks like somebody really did a number on this guy," Prentiss remarked looking at the open file in front of her. "Check out the bruises and ligature marks on his throat, wrists and ankles. Looks like the vic was tied down and strangled after he was beaten."
"Yeah," Rossi agreed. He had seen many things, but nothing like this. "Looks personal."
"Look at how the body was dissected at the waist," Morgan leaned back in his chair. "That took surgical precision."
"The police weren't sure if the victim was randomly selected or targeted," JJ continued. "In fact, they still aren't. But the COD was blunt force trauma to the head from the beating he took. The ligature marks and cuts on the body were done postmortem."
"That's a lot of anger displayed by our Unsub," Hotch commented.
The victim was left stark naked," Spencer Reid twirled a pencil back and forth in front of his face. "Was there any sign of sexual abuse?"
"None." JJ pressed the remote again and a close up of a crushed white flower appeared on the screen. "This was found beneath the body."
"A flower?" asked Derek Morgan with arched eyebrows. "What kind of…."
"It's a Dahlia," Reid said. "They come in many colors and are native to Mexico, and were declared the national flower of Mexico since 1963." He griped his pencil in both hands. "The fact that it's white could be symbolic in that the victim was a male as opposed to female."
"What I still don't understand," said Prentiss. "Is why are they calling us as there's only one victim?"
JJ pressed the remote again and a photo of a pretty girl with honey-blond hair and blue-grey eyes appeared. "This is Shannon Carstairs, age 19. She was found earlier today in the woods by a fifteen-year-old girl chasing after her dog who got away during a morning walk." She pressed the remote again.
There was silence among the agents as they saw the same cuts, bruises and ligature marks on the girl's body as on the earlier victim.
JJ pointed out there had been no sexual abuse with this victim either. "And then there was this," she added changing photos. It was a photo of a crushed pink Dahlia.
"A pink flower this time," Morgan commented with a look at Reid. "Don't even say it, Reid. I assume it's pink because the victim is female, right?"
Reid shrugged. "Well, I wasn't go to say anything since it's fairly obvious."
Prentiss chuckled and just shook her head at the young genius. "Looks like we're going to Santa Barbara, California."
Hotch tore his eyes away from the screen to gather up the contents of the folder in front of him. He got to his feet. "Wheels up in thirty," he announced.
