Essential Listening: The Noose, by Perfect Circle
0o0
Morgan had been in the interrogation room for barely ten minutes before there was another shooting – in broad daylight, no less. One more officer was dead and another gravely injured, but this time the M.O. was all wrong. The earlier killings had all been well-crafted traps, constructed to separate partners and pull officers in.
Spencer reviewed the report with the detachment of someone who had seen far too many murders already. A blitz attack at a red light, no call, no trophies. This was clearly gang retaliation, not their unsub, but convincing the men and women forming the thin blue line in Phoenix was going to be something of an uphill struggle.
It hadn't taken long for the press and the police to jump the gun and decide the unsub was dead. They'd even called a triumphant press conference on the spot, and unfortunately Hotch hadn't managed to talk them down from that particular mistake. They'd been given sufferance for a little more time, but four hours wasn't nearly long enough to bring this one home. It was all they were going to get. He frowned, wondering how the hell they were going to pull this one out of the bag without someone else getting hurt.
Beside him, Pearce huffed, watching Morgan trying to get useful information from Evans. He ignored her. Unless it was about the case, he didn't want to know – and he was just as frustrated as she clearly was.
The resistance of the local officers was bordering on the ridiculous.
"Ballistics aren't back yet, but the preliminary M.E. report suggests the weapon used to kill officer Beck was not a .357," he read aloud.
No surprises there.
"I spoke to Garcia," Hotch told them, wearily. "Beck arrested Diablo twice on drug charges. Last time sent him away for ten years. Diablo was just released on parole last week."
"So Diablo went after the cop who put him away, assuming it would be lumped in with the other murders," Rossi surmised. "The unsub would take the fall."
"It almost worked," Emily observed, drily.
"Yeah, until he fell out of a third floor window," Pearce grumbled.
Spencer sent her a glare. She was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
"Lieutenant, what did you find?" Hotch asked, before they could get further off-topic.
Spencer looked up. Evans was approaching with a slim file, looking harassed.
"Well I pulled up that information on Playboy's lieutenant, Bobby Q," he said, with obvious disinterest. He handed Morgan the file.
He was humouring them, but only just. Their remaining time was limited and he was obviously only helping them now so they could trip themselves up and get out of his hair.
"There's not much there," Morgan remarked, after flicking through.
Evans scowled at him. "And you're thinking Playboy was right and we didn't pay enough attention to the case."
"And did you?" Prentiss asked, giving him a hard look.
Five pages mostly comprised the autopsy report and a copy of the call sheet from when the murder was first called in; it looked like barely anything else had been done after they'd picked up the corpse. Even the forensics were unusually brief.
"Look," said Evans defensively. "The majority of homicides in this city are gang killings. Most of the time we spend time and resources that only lead to the same place anyway."
Unimpressed, Morgan slid the file across the desk to Rossi. Pearce turned back to the evidence board, an ugly expression on her face.
"You just assumed this was another one of those trails," said Hotch.
His tone hadn't been censorial, but Evans took it that way anyway.
"Being in a gang shortens your life expectancy, so it's no big surprise when a gangbanger winds up dead," he retorted.
Spencer ran his eyes over the man, thoughtfully.
He probably doesn't even realise how callous that sounded.
"Same could be said about being a cop," he said aloud, causing Evans' frown to deepen further. "The job involves a fair amount of risk, so a percentage of untimely deaths is practically inevitable."
Around the table, his colleagues nodded, which put Evans off a little.
He's not a bad cop, Spencer reminded himself. He's just hurting – and that has made him desperate and lazy all at once.
"The M.O. was the same as our unsub," Rossi told them, pinning the crime scene pictures from the file up on the board. "Did – uh – Playboy tell you if the killer took a trophy?" he added, including Evans in the discussion whether he liked it or not.
They needed his local knowledge.
"He said Bobby Q's necklace was missin'," said Morgan, when the Lieutenant didn't answer.
"Yeah," said Evans. "It's in the report. Big chain, solid gold. Just figured the doer took it to pawn it."
"Or as a souvenir," Rossi pointed out.
Morgan nodded. "That's the signature."
Hotch set his eyes on Lieutenant Evans. "He built up to this – we need to go further back." He pulled out his phone; Spencer took a gulp of his tea, aware that if Garcia could help them track this guy down, there soon might not be time to finish it. "Garcia," said Hotch, putting her on speaker. "Could you pull everything in the Phoenix area that matches our M.O.? Not just police officers."
They listened as she began cross referencing, the sounds of the key strokes coming through the phone speaker a little tinnily. "Okay, so I'm searching homicides in Phoenix in what – the last two months?" she asked.
"Uh, make it three," said Hotch, frowning.
"Got it… murders, shootings, specifically neck wounds…"
Spencer shifted his feet, impatient now they had a chance at getting the guy.
"Oh, I got a guy named Robert Quinones, nicknamed Bobby Q –"
"We already have that one," Morgan interrupted. "Anythin' else?"
"Just one more – a bouncer at a bar in downtown Phoenix," Garcia reported. "Mickey Reese. Weapon's a .357 magnum…" She trailed off for a moment, and they waited, knowing that her brief silences were usually the precursor to the kind of data that broke cases wide open. "Interesting. Says here that the victim was wearing a ballistic vest. Apparently they don't serve Shirley Temples at this establishment!"
"The bouncer was wearing a vest," said Prentiss, raising an eyebrow. "That could be where our unsub developed his M.O."
"Send us everything you've got," Hotch instructed.
"Sure." Everyone's phones buzzed. "Done."
"Alright, we got gangbangers, bouncers and cops," Morgan reeled off. "All pretty tough targets. Victims capable of defending themselves."
Spencer nodded slowly, seeing what his friend was getting at.
"As the unsub's sense of power escalated, so did his confidence," Rossi added. "Leading to bigger and more difficult prey."
"Makes sense," said Spencer, folding his arms. "Risky deaths would increase the unsub's feeling of superiority. Same thing with using a .357 magnum. It would make him feel powerful."
"So he needs to prove himself," Pearce mused. She had turned away when Morgan had said the word 'gangbangers', though Spencer couldn't begin to guess why, but now she was scanning Bobby Q's autopsy report thoughtfully. "He went after a gang member, but that still wasn't enough."
"Cops are at the top of that list," Prentiss commented. "High profile, always on alert and they're gonna make headlines."
"Killin' a gangbanger isn't easy," Lieutenant Evans reflected, following their line of argument. "They're always armed, travel in packs…"
Pearce nodded. "Harder to isolate than two people in a cruiser who have to go into a dangerous situation whether they like it or not."
"The bouncer's the earliest," Morgan said. "It was a pretty simple attack, no carefully thought out plan. He could have been the first victim."
"Then he might have been the stressor that kick-started all of this," said Pearce.
Hotch agreed. "We need to find out where their paths crossed. Morgan – you, Rossi and the Lieutenant check out the bar. We'll keep digging."
Spencer watched them go as Hotch and Garcia got down to the business of combing through Mickey Reese and Bobby Q's lives. It always amazed him how different the paths people took through life could be, even two people who had lived in the same area all their lives. Though, when you looked at it, Mickey Reese wasn't all that different from a gang member – he had simply found a way to make casual violence and thuggish behaviour a legitimate, legal profession.
He sighed and went to look at the map on the board, mildly irritated that Pearce had had a similar idea.
The crime scenes were clustered close together – including the first two murders, which Pearce was pinning onto the board. This guy definitely had a comfort zone.
And favoured murder site parameters, he added, thoughtfully. Each kill had been conducted somewhere dark, with plenty of places to hide or set up distractions. He'd managed to find little pockets of back streets or vacant lots where any shouts or gunshots would be ignored.
That was the problem of an area where gang violence was routine; if you heard a scream or a shot, you ignored it if you didn't want to get caught up in something deadly. It was the number one reason why people didn't report crimes or come forward as witnesses, and often made the difference between putting the right person away or having a case go stone cold.
He was about to remark on this when Pearce's phone buzzed.
"Pearce," she answered automatically, her head in the case. "Yes, speaking."
There was a pause where Spencer glanced up at her. If she had something that could break this case – he watched her expression change from one of concentration to one of pleasant surprise.
"Oh, hello!" she said, and immediately angled her body away from Spencer and the others.
It was an entirely unconscious movement, but it was telling.
Someone she doesn't want us to know about, he thought, frowning back at the map.
"Yeah, sorry about that – I'm out of town at the moment. No, I'm afraid not. Could be tomorrow, could be next week. It's a bit of an occupational hazard."
She laughed, and Spencer looked up in time to see both Hotch and Prentiss sending their colleague curious looks. Perhaps aware of the scrutiny, she took another step towards the window, away from them.
Definitely someone she doesn't want us to know about.
He swallowed, wondering where the hell the tightness in his throat had come from. He reached for the horrible coffee one of the officers had made them, possibly as an attempt to encourage them to leave.
"Sure – that sounds amazing," Pearce continued, probably unaware of how much her posture had changed. Already, she had lost all the tension she had been carrying around for the last couple of days.
Spencer couldn't help but wonder who was on the other end of the phone.
"Well, how about I give you a call back when I know we're coming back and we can work out a time that suits us both?"
She laughed again; behind her, Hotch and Prentiss exchanged looks of genuine amusement. Spencer realised he was holding the coffee mug perhaps a little too hard and set it down again.
"Fabulous. I look forward to it."
Hanging up, she turned back to the room as if nothing had happened to discover all three of her colleagues staring at her.
"What?" she asked, nonplussed.
"Made a new friend?" Hotch asked, looking entertained.
Prentiss raised a suggestive eyebrow at her.
"Oh, grow up," she said, and stuffed her phone back into her pocket, not quite able to keep the grin off her face.
0o0
"Three pair," said Morgan, triumphantly.
"Aw, man!" said Prentiss.
Grace put down her cards, resigned to losing the last of the snacks on the table. She'd had a run of lousy hands tonight, and poker wasn't her favourite game. It passed the time, though, and the others enjoyed it, partly because it was good profiling practice.
"Another round?" Rossi asked. He'd had the sense to fold and still had a pile of pretzels in front of him.
"Nah, deal me out," said Grace. "I'm out of M&Ms. Besides, there's a cup of tea calling me. Want one?" she asked, getting up.
"No thanks." Morgan grinned.
"Throw me a water?" Prentiss asked, as Rossi shook his head.
"Sure."
She made her way further up the jet to the little kitchen area, glancing at her other coworkers as she passed. Hotch was on the phone with his son, apparently talking about a field trip his nursery had taken him on. Todd, who had spent several of their Nights in Phoenix coordinating tip lines, was fast asleep, one of the files she'd been working on clutched to her chest. Reid was absorbed in a philosophy textbook, lost to the world.
Flicking the kettle on, she reached into the little fridge for Prentiss' water and grimaced as her abdomen protested. That was the problem with bruises, she mused, you always forgot about them until you did something that moved the, chucking the bottle over Todd's sleeping head. Prentiss caught it deftly, gave her a thumbs up and immediately turned her attention back to the game.
She rummaged in the cupboard for the green tea, reaching up stretching the skin over her stomach ached uncomfortably. She sighed. It wasn't the worst she'd had, by a long shot, but it was still going to take a few days to heal.
And it's going to piss me off every time I stretch or bend until then, she thought.
Taking down 'Animal', the man the members of the semi-legal fight club Mickey Reese had been a part of had recognised from the profile, had been easier than they had expected. Once they'd had the leader of the club (a wiry, wild-eyed man inexplicably known as 'Beanie') sit down with a forensic artist, it had been a reasonably simple matter to set up their trap.
Their unsub was plainly narcissistic, and the press conference Hotch had given – using just the right amount of arrogant confidence and concern to fake the announcement that the FBI were taking over the investigation from an incompetent police force – was the perfect bait. With the press conference and the sketch, they'd set up a tip-line and data had immediately started rolling in.
It had been a couple of hours before they'd got a likely sounding tip; their unsub had taken the bait and was obviously – given the deserted location he had chosen to say he'd 'seen' the murderer – setting up a trap of his own.
Of course, the tip had ultimately come to nothing, as they had suspected. He was trying to draw them out, testing their parameters; baiting them. The Phoenix P.D. had seemed surprised. Commissioner Marks, have been convinced by Lieutenant Evans to give the B.A.U.'s profile a chance, had grumbled, perhaps feeling that Hotch's carefully crafted speech had gone a little too far.
The agents had ignored him. They knew as soon as they caught the guy, they'd be forgiven and Marks would be able to issue a statement about collaboration with his head held high. With this in mind, they'd headed back to the department, leaving Hotch to travel back alone.
After the target they'd pasted on his back, the unsub hadn't been able to resist.
The look on his face when he'd followed Hotch around the back of a van to execute him, only to find four armed agents waiting for him had been particularly satisfying, especially after all the people he had murdered.
She stirred the hot water in her mug, contemplatively.
And then, after all the paperwork, and all the shouting, and the press conference Marks had been dying to give, when the team had nothing on their minds but shaking hands and heading home, three members of the Phoenix Police Department had been escorting Animal to the van that would take him to County lock-up. Grace had been walking down the steps above it all when she'd spotted Playboy begin elbowing his way to the front, his eyes never leaving Animal's head – looking for a clean shot.
She'd jumped about five steps down and got him pinned to the concrete pretty fast, but he'd fought like a demon, desperate to avenge the death of his brother in arms. Between his feet and elbows, he'd managed to get in quite a few blows as various officers and agents bundled Animal into the van, pushed spectators back, wrested the gun from Playboy's grip and came to her aid, and she was really feeling it today.
She rubbed her cheek, wincing at the pain. That particular bruise was beginning to look particularly ripe.
Playboy had been sobbing when Evans led him away, plainly astonished to find himself in complete sympathy with one of the men he'd been trying to arrest for years.
Animal had looked particularly smug when they drove off, as if he felt his legacy was alive and well in the families of the victims he'd created.
Perhaps she should have let Playboy shoot him.
Grace sighed.
No. There was no way of pretending that the dark underbelly of Phoenix would be miraculously cleaned up because one gang member was robbed of his revenge, but the cycle of violence that revenge murder drove onwards had to stop somewhere. She doubted whether Playboy would agree with her on that.
Or Evans, for that matter.
That was the sucky thing about being law enforcement. You had to uphold the law, even when it no longer felt like justice.
