Morgan pulls the SUV up in front of a house that would be quite beautiful if it wasn't surrounded by crime scene tape. A man leans against a car that could only be an unmarked police sedan. He stands as the four agents approach him.
"You're either the FBI team or more crazy gawkers."
Morgan grins. "FBI. I'm SSA Derek Morgan. These are SSA's Dave Rossi, Emily Prentiss and Jennifer Jareau."
"Harry Dillon. My partner Phil Squires is back helping the rest of you all get settled at the precinct," he studies Emily a second longer than the others, something the profilers all notice.
"Good. So, how did you all get the call to this scene?" Morgan asks, bringing the attention back to him.
"Store employees got concerned when neither of the owners showed up at the store. They called police and a couple of officers drove by just to check things out. Looking in the window they found, well, hell revisited."
Rossi nods. "Well put. Signs of forced entry?"
"Not that we could find. Could be she opened the door to the unsub. M.E. says she died about 4 hours before her husband so he had time to pose her just right and, hell, mutilate the body nearly exactly the way Rosemary LaBianca was. Right down to the same 41 postmortem stab wounds."
"Damn," Emily breathes.
Dillon nods. "Exactly. So, ready to go in?"
Morgan nods. "As ready as we'll ever be."
"I'll wait out here for you. If you need me come get me but I know you guys like to see things without input from the locals."
"Thanks," Morgan agrees.
A few minutes later the 4 agents walk into a scene that they had only ever seen in photos. Rossi shakes his head.
"When I was helping start the BAU this was one of the scenes we held up as never wanting to see again. Little did we know some sick bastard was going to hold it up as something to emulate."
They look over the scene in the living room, each agent picturing what it would have looked like with the murdered man laying there. The amount of blood left behind was something the pictures of the Manson scenes had not done justice to.
"That poor man," JJ whispers.
Emily walks over and looks at the words "Rise" and "Death to Pigs" on the walls. She holds her tablet up to compare them. They look nearly identical, the only differences being expected variations of the blood streaks and the slight changes in the shape of the letters due to the person writing them.
"These are more exact. Let's check out the fridge," she says as she walks into the kitchen.
The four agents study the strange anomaly at the end of "Skelter". It almost looks like a smear with 2 drip trails. Emily shakes her head.
"I can't tell if it's a mistake or not."
"I'd say not," Rossi says. "This guy made sure things were incredibly precise. I think he would have taken the time to wash that off if he'd done it by accident. He's controlled enough to pull these murders off, he's controlled enough to correct a mistake like this."
JJ nods. "I agree with Rossi."
The group then goes to the bedroom, where the wife had been killed. Again, the amount of blood is horrible. JJ shakes her head.
"I feel like I've stepped into a wormhole in time or something. This bedroom is…it's…too right."
Morgan nods. "I get what you're saying." He pulls up the bedroom from the original murder. "There is no way this woman just happened to have that clock in this room. Look around the house, they are into new gadgets. That thing is right out of the 1960's."
"We need to check with pawn shops, junk stores, places like that where the unsub may have found it," JJ states.
The others nod. This guy was seemingly going out of his way to make things perfect. Perhaps that is what would help catch him.
After another 20 minutes, the agents are sure they have seen all they can at this scene. They make their way outside to have Dillon take them to the next scene.
JJ takes a deep breath as she gets out of the SUV.
"A whole family. No fucking reason," she says.
Rossi nods as he gets out of the seat in front of her. "You can say that again, kid."
On the other side of the SUV Emily looks at Morgan. "This is an older house than the last one."
Morgan nods. "Unsub knew he had to find an older house in hopes of finding an exposed pipe like at the Otero house."
"True. But how did he know? He had to have seen the basement, had to know it would be there or he couldn't recreate the scene," Emily points out.
"We'll look around the outside to see if he could have seen inside. If not, he was here before he killed them."
Emily nods. "That's what I'm thinking."
The four agents go in after Dillon unlocks the door for them. Again, he waits outside as they go in to experience the scene themselves. The murders had been clean compared to the previous scene. Suffocation and strangulation meant no splashes of blood. They did see signs of struggle.
"The father wasn't hampered by a busted rib this time," JJ says bitterly. "He tried to fight back."
"But by that point his wife and kids were already dead. He panicked. The unsub didn't expect that," Morgan states. He bends down to look at the edge of a nightstand. He pulls on a latex glove and carefully pulls off a busted corner of it. "The glue is still new. The bastard fixed this because it was broken in the struggle. He had to fix it because there was no damage to furniture in the original crime."
Rossi frowns. "Is this guy OCD or what?"
JJ shakes her head. "No way. Someone with OCD couldn't handle anything straying from the original scene. Not even time of death."
Rossi nods. "Good point."
"But anything he can fix, he does," Emily points out. She suddenly frowns. She steps away from the others and goes to the kitchen and laundry room. "No signs of a dog." She looks into the backyard. "No signs out there, either. That's a slight difference." She goes back to the others. "This family didn't have a dog."
JJ nods. "Another change then. Definitely not OCD."
"Did anyone see how he could have known the son wouldn't be here?" Morgan asks.
JJ consults her tablet. "He'd had band practice that night. Didn't get home until after 8. His father was supposed to pick him up but, obviously, didn't show. A classmate's mother drove him home and was the one that called the police when the son came running out of the house after finding his parents. The mother entered the house to check on them and subsequently also found the brother in another room."
"Damn. So, he finds the right house, the right family combination, and then bides his time, allowing him to kill them one at a time instead of having to kill them all at once like BTK," Morgan recaps.
"The added time gives him the chance to make sure everything is perfect for his fantasy," Emily states. She frowns. "Not fantasy, his homage. He is paying homage to well-known serial killers. This guy has killed before but hasn't gotten the recognition he desires."
"Shit. So maybe these killings are just a break for him; a chance to do something other than obey his own urges," Rossi theorizes.
Emily whips out her phone. "Garcia, when you have a chance, check unsolved murders with similar m.o.'s in the state of New York. There's a good chance this guy has his own original set of murders and wants the recognition these other killers have gotten."
"Oh, that is too fucking twisted for words, Emster. I'll get that going now."
"Thanks, Garcia," Emily says as she pockets her phone. "I'm going to look around outside to see if he could see into the basement. I'll also check the phone lines to see if they were cut like at the Otero house."
The others nod and head to the basement as Emily goes outside. She finds a small vent-like window leading into the basement. She lies down on the ground and tries to look in. The window is covered with years of grime, inside and out. She can see movement but can't make anything out clear enough to see that there is a drainpipe. She jumps in fright as someone speaks beside her.
"Agent Prentiss?"
"Shit!" She blurts. She looks up to see Dillon standing beside her, confusion on his face. "Hi. Just checking to see if he could have known about the drainpipe by looking in the window."
The detective grins and offers his hand to pull her up. "Ah. Good idea."
She stands and dusts off her suit. "Do you know where the phone box is?"
He nods and leads her around to the side of the house. She puts on her gloves and uses a multi-tool to open the box.
"Son of a bitch," Dillon mumbles as he sees the cut phone line. "Never even looked in there."
"Dennis Rader cut the lines to the Otero house in case one of them got to a phone."
"Shit. I…I didn't know that."
Emily nods. "Not many people do. I only know because I read the transcripts of his confession on the plane."
"Damn. So this is pretty exact?"
"Pretty close. He chose this family carefully. And there's a damn good chance he was in this house before he killed them. We need to see if they had any repairmen in recently. Or it could be he broke in, scouted the place and then left to plan the kills."
"This is one sick bastard," Dillon says, shaking his head.
"Yes, he really is," Emily agrees.
In the basement, the team had seen the shadow of Emily outside the window but had also concluded there is no way the unsub could have seen anything in the basement.
"He was in here. He knew the pipe was here," Rossi concludes.
"Yep," Morgan nods.
"But why this family? Was it just that they had the right combination of people and the right basement?" JJ asks.
Rossi shrugs. "Could be something as twistedly simple as that. Or there could be something else that put them on his radar. We won't know until we finish the victimology."
JJ nods. "Right."
The three move out front to find Emily and Dillon waiting.
"He cut the phone lines. Dillon has called for a tech to come out to dust for prints and take impressions of the cut patterns," she relates to them. "I can guess you all couldn't see out any better than I could see into the basement?"
"Saw shadow and that was it," JJ confirms.
"So he had to go in at some point and confirm there was still an exposed drainpipe. Even with the age of the house, renovations could have at some point covered the pipes. He wouldn't take that chance," Rossi says.
Morgan gives a slight chuckle. "Is it just me or is it too fucking twisted he'd risk getting caught for a B&E to commit the perfect murder?"
Emily chuckles. "I agree. But I guess Breaking & Entering is a necessary part of his desire to get things right."
"So, ready to go check out the bus driver's death?" Dillon asks.
The agents nod and head off to a local park area.
Dillon gets out and stands near a curb.
"The bus was here, waiting to get going for the day. He would have pulled away at 6:03. First passenger said he was just sitting in the seat, not standing in the stairwell like the DC Sniper's victim. As she went to get on she heard glass shatter, he grunted and slumped over the steering wheel. It took her a second to realize that the wet she could feel on her cheeks was the victim's blood."
JJ looks off into the distance. "So the shot came from that line of trees?"
Dillon nods. "Yep. Found the shell casing for a hunting rifle, not a Bushmaster, another variation from the original scene. Truth is, if this hadn't been the third murder to resemble a previous series of killings we may not have realized it was the same unsub."
"I can understand that."
"The bus is in our impound lot if you want to check it out. He left a fucking tarot card at the scene. That's in the evidence room."
Morgan nods. "We'll want to see both."
The four agents cross the street to see what they can see from the shooter's vantage point. The other three step back and let JJ take the lead.
"What are you three doing?" she asks in confusion.
Morgan looks at Emily. "What's your shot rating?"
"Nothing compared to my wife's," Emily says proudly.
JJ rolls her eyes as Rossi gestures to the place the shooter had set up. JJ kneels down but bushes block her view. She lies down and now has a clear view of the corner. In her mind she sees the bus sitting there.
"He had to shoot the guy while he was in the seat. Had he been standing in the stairwell like Conrad Johnson was he wouldn't have had a clear shot. It was dark. I bet he waited for Johnson to open the door. That would have lit the light up at the front of the bus and given him a perfect halo to shoot into." She looks over her shoulder at the others. "I shoot, I stand," she walks it through, "toss down the card near the casing and simply walk out that way," she points to where the woods back to another sidewalk. "My car is probably parked over there. I get in and drive away before the first responders are anywhere near the scene. It's early probably not much traffic so I don't even have to worry about getting slowed up too close to the scene."
Rossi nods. "Good thought." He walks out to the sidewalk and looks both ways up the street. "No traffic cams. He wouldn't even be caught on tape leaving the scene."
"Gun had to have been in a case," Emily points out. "Even if no one thought anything about it at the time, when the news broke someone would have called it in if they saw a guy with a gun in his hand near this area around the time of the shooting."
Morgan nods. "Let's head to the impound lot and check out the bus."
"One thing to keep in mind," JJ says. "He had to have been a hell of a shot to make it a kill through the window."
Emily nods. "You would know."
JJ's eyes darken and she glances away. "Yeah…I would."
Nothing more can be said as they all remember the two shots JJ had made through glass to save first Garcia, then her wife, son and parents.
The group next follows Dillon to the impound lot. Though there isn't much to see, they study the bus. A single gunshot through the drivers' side window had proved fatal for a man just a year from retirement. The father of 3 and grandfather of 7 had been dead before his head hit the steering wheel.
Emily sighs. "All this tells us is the unsub is one hell of a shot to make that from distance."
"Maybe we're looking at someone who flunked out of the academy or a criminal justice major after time in the military?" Rossi suggests, expounding on the earlier theory.
"Could be a hunter, too," Morgan points out. "The use of a rifle versus a Bushmaster is a variation that could be due to the fact he is more comfortable with that sort of firearm."
"Look, let's head to the station and see what Garcia and Reid have come up with," Rossi suggests. "Maybe we can start to find the places the unsub crossed paths with his victims."
Dillon nods. "Agent Prentiss? Would you mind riding with me?"
Emily is surprised. "Uh, no problem."
The other agents go to the SUV as Emily follows Dillon to his sedan. Morgan grins at JJ in the rearview.
"Crush or business?" he asks.
JJ laughs. "Business. Maybe," she hedges with a wink.
The three agents chuckle, knowing they will probably have a good chance to pick on Emily later.
In the sedan, Dillon pulls out onto the street. "Last year you spoke at a conference in Albany."
Emily nods. "Yes, I did. You were there?"
"Yep. Squires and I both. That's why when we saw this shit we knew to call you. We tried to get the captain to call you in after the second one but he was reluctant to hand it off the Feds. He has a beef with you all for some reason, not sure why. He may act like an ass but he's a good cop. Despite what he says or does Squires and I have your backs. I just wanted you to know that."
Emily smiles and nods. "Thank you. That's all good to know. Trust me when I say we only care about stopping the unsub. The arrest, the positive publicity are all yours. We'll even shoulder anything negative to help you all save face in your own community."
He nods. "I know. We talked to a couple guys at the conference you all had helped out. They said the press blew up about police inefficiency and your spokeswoman stepped up and said that you all were the ones that made the mistakes but that you were working to correct them with help from the locals. And when they took the bastard down, you all disappeared letting the cops take the glory. They said the truth was they had never seen anything like that perp before and made a ton of mistakes. They learned a lot about procedure and what the BAU teams do."
"We really are just a tool for the police to use. We want the unsub stopped and we want to learn about them so that in the future hopefully another sicko can be stopped sooner rather than later," Emily tells him.
"I know. And let me say I'm damn glad to have you all here."
Emily smiles and nods. "Thank you. Let's hope it's a quick trip for us."
He chuckles, seeing that it is the hope that they stop the unsub soon.
When they get to the station Emily goes to the SUV to get her briefcase. Morgan sidles up to her.
"So, Prentiss, got a date later?"
Emily smiles at him. "As a matter of fact I do."
JJ's eyes get wide. "What?"
"I've got a date with a hot blonde FBI chick. I think you might know her," she says with a wink at her wife.
Rossi chuckles. "Good one, Prentiss. So then why the ride-along?"
"He saw me speak last year in Albany. He warned me the captain wasn't thrilled about calling us in but said he and his partner are on our side. They just want to stop this guy."
"Good to know about the captain," JJ says. "If Hotch doesn't know already I'll warn him and plan to be peacemaker if needed."
"Good. But, uh, if you give him a list of references, how about leaving out the one guy that hates my guts this time?" Emily suggests.
JJ laughs. "Uh, right. I'll make that change."
As one the team makes their way inside to start working up a profile of their unsub.