Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds. I just like to borrow the characters from time to time.
Author's Notes: This story takes place in the October following my other story, Requiem. Apart to some references at the beginning of this chapter, I don't think you'll need to have read Requiem to read this one. Of course, if you want to go back and read that one too, I'm not going to stop you. :) Also, the "historical" murder of Faye Reynolds is complete invention but, sadly, the murder of Elizabeth Short is not.
I hope you enjoy. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated! :)
Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
-Hamlet, V. ii. 211-215
CHAPTER ONE:
The Fall of a Sparrow
On a beautiful fall morning in mid-October, Penelope Garcia was unnerved. No, perhaps a better description of her state of mind was preoccupation, she thought. She had no right be preoccupied, she chastised herself. She was debuting her newest sundress today, a confection of pink and powder blue, and completed the ensemble with fresh pink streaks in her hair and chunky heels. In fact, she was quite pleased with her appearance and was eager to see how the team – no, how he – would react. The weather was nice, the weekend had passed without a call into work and she had a new outfit, but she was still antsy, as she had been since the BAU had encountered Tamara Barnes.
Garcia wandered into the bullpen. It was still fairly early and she doubted that anyone would be here. Nevertheless, the movement helped her feel a little less cagey, so she stalked through the glass doors into the BAU to find young Dr. Spencer Reid perusing the Washington Post at his desk.
"Well, hello there," Garcia said with false cheer and bravado, joining him at his desk. "You're here early."
Reid looked up from the paper and smiled at her. "I was up early and decided I would come in. I could read at home, or I could read here. What about you?"
Garcia shrugged. "It's tough to stay away from this place."
"Indeed," he said slowly. Reid narrowed his eyes, analyzing her.
Garcia could practically see the gears turning in his head, so she decided it was time to change the subject. "I'm so glad the rain let up," she said. "I'm not ready for winter yet." Today's sunshine had ended a weekend of torrential downpours 40-degree weather.
Reid nodded, but wasn't fooled. "Take a seat." He jerked his chin in the direction of Prentiss' desk and her chair. "You seem a little on edge, Garcia. Is everything okay?"
Garcia rolled her eyes. "Profilers. Nothing gets past you, does it?"
Reid smirked. "I would have thought that after so many years working together, you would have realized that we pick up on everything. So what's up?"
A sigh. "You can't breathe a word of this to anyone."
"You know I wouldn't."
Garcia opened her mouth to speak when she noticed which the section of the paper Reid had been perusing. She blinked. "Since when do you read the sports section?"
Reid followed her gaze to the paper, open to coverage of yesterday's Redskins game. A deep blush bloomed across his cheeks. "Well…I…you know," he stammered.
"Oh Reid," Garcia said, knowing that she couldn't tell him what she was thinking and expect him to understand. Reid had more in common with Morgan now than Garcia cared to admit. She reached for the paper. "I don't think she's in here."
"I know," he murmured.
"Did you see her? I mean, was she even here?" Reid looked away but he grew even redder and Garcia grinned. "Oh my God! What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Of course something happened! You wouldn't be beet red if nothing happened."
"What happened to who now?" Morgan and Prentiss had arrived together in the bullpen, catching the tail-end of Garcia's comment.
"Nothing! Nothing happened to anyone," Reid snapped, collecting the paper.
"I think the genius doth protest too much," Prentiss laughed.
Garcia snatched the sports section out of Reid's grasp and proffered it to Morgan. "The Patriots were in town this weekend," she said.
"Ah, yes," Morgan said, eyes glittering with good humor. It was these brief moments that made Garcia's day: before the work day officially started, Morgan wasn't BAU Section Chief, he was just one of the team, joking with Reid. Garcia missed their witty banter over the phone while working on cases and knew she would never truly be able to call him "sir" with a completely straight face. There was no denying that Morgan was a natural leader, but Garcia couldn't wait for Hotch to resume his duties. Something within the order of the team, something seemed out of line.
Morgan was opening the paper with excessive flourish. "Yes, the Patriots delivered an exceptional beat down of our struggling home team," he said, smirking. "But, I wonder, Reid, was the lovely Lena Lopez here with her team?"
"She was, though he won't admit it," Garcia said.
"Guys, come on," Prentiss interjected. "Let him be. Anyway, we're profilers. We'll figure it out soon enough." She turned away to start making a pot of coffee.
"What about our moratorium on profiling one another?" Reid demanded, the slightest note of anxiety creeping into his voice.
"Ooh. I see," Morgan nodded. He returned the paper to Reid and chuckled. Even Prentiss was hiding a smile as she tinkered with the coffee machine.
Garcia wrinkled her brow. "What do you see? What's going on?"
"I'll tell you later, baby girl," Morgan promised.
Reid glowered at them and made his way over to the coffee pot, pretending to be exceedingly interested in finding his mug. "It's not like it's any of your business anyway," he whispered to no one in particular.
A few moments later, J.J. whisked into the bullpen, a file clutched to her chest. "I just got off the phone with D.C.," she said, oblivious to the slight tension in the room. "I've got a new case. They want us up there ASAP. Where are Hotch and Rossi?"
"They're not here yet," Morgan said. He snapped to attention and Garcia felt a pang of disappointment. AllBusinessMorgan was back.
J.J. nodded and dropped into an empty chair, sighing.
"Bad one?" Prentiss asked. She handed J.J. a mug of freshly-brewed coffee.
"Yeah, pretty bad." J.J. turned slightly in her chair, looking for Reid. "Hey, Reid?"
"J.J.?"
"Tell your girlfriend that that last touchdown was a little gratuitous."
Even Morgan broke into laughter at that comment and Reid blanched. "She's not my girlfriend," he growled, emptying another sugar packet into his own coffee mug.
Hotch arrived within five minutes and Rossi was right behind him so the entire team adjourned to the conference room for briefing. Reid slumped into his seat between Rossi and Hotch, feeling somewhat safe flanked by the only two team members who hadn't been ribbing him about Lena. He let his mind wander back to their conversations over the weekend. Lena had admitted to him that she wasn't adjusting to life as successfully as she had hoped, though she had been trying to hide this fact from her employers with limited success.
J.J. cleared her throat. "As I mentioned to some of you, D.C. metro P.D. called me up this morning with this case and they want us to get started as soon as possible." A picture of a young woman with long curling brown hair flashed up on the screen at the front of the room. "The body of Tabitha Lawrence was found in the East Potomac Park three days ago." J.J. paused again to bring up another picture. Garcia turned away, wincing." "She had been stripped down to her underwear. Her throat had been severed so violently that her head was almost completely detached from her body. Her hands and feet were removed and were not found at the scene. Most curious was what the killer had carved into her stomach." A third picture appeared on screen: the word TRAITOR etched in sharp strikes across the victim's abdomen.
Reid gasped. "Oh, wow."
Rossi turned. "Does that mean something to you, Reid?"
"Maybe." He blinked and leaned forward, evaluating the pictures. "That looks like the Faye Reynolds crime scene."
"Faye Reynolds? That name sounds familiar," Prentiss said. "A cold case?"
Reid nodded. "From the forties. Faye Reynolds was a young woman murdered during the summer of 1947 in L.A. The murder didn't receive quite as much media attention as the Black Dahlia murder earlier that year, but it shared a number of characteristics with that killing, including taunting notes sent to the LAPD and a distinct, extremely violent MO. Some people thought that Faye Reynolds' killer and Elizabeth Short's killer were the same person, although they could never explain why the killer would have altered his style so drastically. But anyway, Faye Reynolds' body was found in much the same condition, down to the word 'traitor' on her body."
"The Black Dahlia – like the movie from a few years ago?" Morgan asked.
"Exactly. Elizabeth Short – famously called the Black Dahlia after her death – was found in a field, her body cut in two and drained of blood. Her face was also severely mutilated. Elizabeth Short and Faye Reynolds shared a number of similar victimology traits, including aspirations to be an actress and the penchant for never residing in the same place for long. But a number of rumors circulated about Short after her death which weren't true, and Faye Reynolds also seems to match a number of those traits. For example, Short was rumored to be a call girl and Reynolds was one without a doubt. It almost seems like the Reynolds killing was a gruesome copy-cat murder and the killer picked a girl who matched the Short invented by the press, not the actual murdered woman."
"So, you're telling me that this murder mimics that of an L.A. starlet that's over sixty years old?" Morgan asked.
"That's exactly what I'm telling you."
"There's more," J.J. said. Another woman's face flashed before them. This woman had blonde hair so light, it was almost white and small, intense gray-blue eyes. Her face was twisted into a scowl but still managed to appear vaguely familiar. "Neve Williams. Her body was found by her roommate in their Logan Circle townhouse last night, similarly arranged."
"Why take the hands and feet, I wonder," Prentiss mused. "The first girl was left in a park, yes, but this victim was left in her own house. It's not like the unsub is trying to erase their identities. He doesn't destroy their faces either."
"Traitor," Hotch read, considering the photos. "A traitor to what? Or to whom?"
"J.J., have the police found any connection between the two victims?" Rossi asked.
J.J. shook her head. "Not yet. Tabitha Lawrence has a rap sheet – prostitution – and Neve Williams is the youngest daughter of a senator from Tennessee."
"That's it!" Prentiss exclaimed. "I thought she looked familiar. She's Senator Williams' daughter."
"A debutante and a prostitute," Rossi said. "That's an odd combination."
"I don't know," Reid replied. "Traditionally, the whole point of a debut is to introduce a young woman to society and parade her in front of eligible bachelors, hoping the richest one of them will eventually 'purchase' her from her family by offering the family access to the greatest wealth possible. I mean, isn't that the motif of every Jane Austen book?"
J.J., Prentiss and Garcia all shot him dark looks and Hotch hurried to speak before a verbal brawl broke out over the merits of Pride and Prejudice. "But do you think the unsub made the leap from prostitution to debutante balls? And it is something of a leap."
"He's clearly angry," Rossi said. "It takes an incredible force to sever the human head from the body and the pictures make it look like he did it in one blow. Only someone with an extreme amount of anger could produce that kind of force in one movement."
"He considers these women traitors," Morgan continued. "Maybe he feels that the act of prostitution is the treacherous act. Maybe he believes in old-fashioned gender roles – women are supposed to be demure, not sexual beings."
"He seems to have trouble with the archetypes of the virgin and the femme fatale," Reid said. "The virgin often appears as a blonde, blue eyed girl who is docile and subservient. The femme fatale is dark haired and sexually aggressive, often putting men ill at ease. That fits with his MO too. In the 1940s the noir was a popular film and fiction convention and the femme fatal was one of, if not the most common thread in the noir style. So perhaps he feels a kinship with Faye Reynolds' murderer. He 'likes his style,' so to speak – dispatching prostitutes. After all, Reynolds was a call girl and Elizabeth Short had a bad reputation, at the very least."
"Then why not copy the Black Dahlia killing?" J.J. asked.
"That killing took a lot of time and effort – the body had to be cut completely in half and all the blood drained out. It would require a lot of privacy as well. This MO is a lot quicker and conveys practically the same message," Reid replied.
"I'd say it screams it," Rossi said dryly.
"Okay, guys, let's head out," Morgan said. "Hotch, I want you, Reid and Prentiss to go to the latest crime scene and see what you can find. Rossi, you and J.J. are with me. I want to talk with the lead detective and see if we can learn anything else about Tabitha Lawrence. Garcia, start digging into the victims' histories – see if you find anything useful. And if you have time, look into the LAPD's cold case files on Faye Reynolds."
In silence, the team filed out of the conference room, leaving Garcia alone with the ugly images of the latest BAU case. She shivered and tried to think happy thoughts as she returned to her office, but the only thing she felt was a growing sense of despair.
Nastia Eldridge hadn't slept that night, though insomnia in and of itself was not particularly noteworthy. She hadn't been getting much sleep for months now. But tonight she was haunted by the images of Neve's mutilated body. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the carnage.
Around four in the morning, Nastia gave up on even feigning sleep so she left her bed and went downstairs to start a pot of coffee. After discovering Neve's body, Nastia had sought refuge at another friend's house. Even if she was mentally capable of staying in the house – which she wasn't – DCPD and CSI units would be working the scene late into the night, so Nastia had come here, to Autumn's house.
Not long after Nastia had begun brewing the coffee, Autumn herself appeared, looking about as exhausted as Nastia felt. Dark circles surrounded her brown eyes and her face, normally ruddy, was pale. Her brown hair hung limply around her face.
"Did I wake you?" Nastia asked softly.
Autumn hoisted herself onto one of the stools lining the island in the middle of the kitchen. She shook her head. "I couldn't sleep."
"Me either."
"Do you think…" Autumn began, but Nastia cut her off quickly.
"No. Don't."
Autumn glanced at the cobalt-blue tiles topping the island. "You have to admit, it's spooky," she said.
"Don't go there," Nastia replied, turning to attend to the coffee pot.
"He'd be mad – maybe he is mad. I'd be mad."
"He can't be mad, Autumn. He's dead."
"This is just like the book. He's coming after us because we didn't follow the plan."
Nastia whirled around to face Autumn. "Joey is dead, Autumn! When you're dead, you're dead. You can't mete out punishment from beyond the grave."
Autumn shook her head, unconvinced. "He's angry, Nastia. I can feel it."
"There's no such thing as ghosts and they certainly don't kill people."
Autumn closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. "Can you come up with a better explanation for Neve's death?"
Nastia fell silent. No, she couldn't.