Truths of the Father

Chapter 4

"Because I pissed him off... And he was hell bent on making me pay for it."

Jack watched as his father stared off into the distance, eyes moving around as if he were watching this tragedy play out once again right before them on these hallowed grounds. He watched his father absently fiddling with the wedding ring he hadn't worn in so long that Jack had no memory of it. Every so often Aaron would swallow hard and brush his thumb across the old faded scar that lived on his forearm, midway between the elbow and wrist. He rubbed his hands over his face before finally speaking.

"Back in 1998 the Bureau got a call seeking help from Boston PD. I'd been with the BAU for a few months and Gideon thought it was time I took the lead on a case."

"Who's Gideon? I don't remember him."

"Jason Gideon. He was the Unit Chief back then. He left the unit when you were about a year old. He and Uncle Dave used to run the unit together. They helped build that unit from the ground up. They taught me everything I know about being a Profiler." He smiled remembering those few months he got to spend with both Dave and Jason in the BAU. They were a young, eager learner's dream team. And he'd soaked up everything they'd had to offer like a sponge.

"By '98 Dave had retired the first time and was writing novels. So Gideon was running things on his own. He thought I was ready. My first case as lead profiler, so of course I was excited. And nervous. This was my chance to prove I belonged with this unit. I felt like I was up to the challenge. So we went to Boston and worked with a detective named Tom Shaunessey. We got all the information Boston PD had on the case. And it was an ugly one.

"He was called The Boston Reaper. And he lived up to the name and then some. He killed 21 people over four years. And his kills were brutal. He would stab his victims mercilessly and draw the Eye of Providence at the scene in their blood."

"His signature," Jack stated.

"That's right," Aaron nodded. "He had several. He would also taunt the Boston PD. He would call 911 and gloat about his victims and of course by the time medics got to the scene his victims were dead. We'd been there for a week or so and were getting nowhere with finding this guy. Everything we use to try to build a profile - geography, victim type, time between kills, signatures - they were all over the map. This guy had no preference. If you were a human being, you were a target. Nobody was safe and everyone knew it. You could feel the fear emanating from people as they walked down the street. We were supposed to be there to help but we weren't getting anywhere. And people were still dying. We were all getting frustrated, feeling like we were running in circles. But while we were there, he made a mistake."

"This doesn't sound like a guy that makes mistakes," Jack looked on with surprise. "What happened?"

"One of his 911 calls saved a victim. When medics got to the scene the female was already dead. The male had lost a lot of blood and was barely breathing, but he was alive. They managed to stabilize him at the hospital and after a few days we were able to talk to him. It was the break we'd been waiting for. We had an eyewitness who could tell us everything about the attack, what kind of ruse he used to get close to them, things he said, how he acted. He was able to give us a description of his attacker. We put him with a sketch artist, and once we had his picture we put it everywhere. Newspapers, local and national TV, flyers. All the attention didn't phase him at all. The survivor was his ninth victim. He killed 12 more after that.

"And then everything just... stopped."

Jack looked at his father, confusion written across his brow. "What do you mean 'everything stopped'?"

"Just that. Everything stopped. He stopped killing. Stopped taunting the police. There were no more 911 calls. He was gone. We thought maybe we'd scared him into going underground, that maybe he'd surface with new tactics and we'd catch him that way. Or maybe he'd surface in another city. We didn't have tech analysts like Garcia then. We had to do all the digging on our own, but we were all coming up empty. We waited six weeks. Nothing ever turned up. We never had enough for a true profile. Every possible lead we had went cold. Finally we had to give up the chase. Boston PD shut down the investigation and sent us away. We filed it as a cold case and came home. And the Boston Reaper faded into obscurity. Or so we thought."

Jack tried to process what his father was telling him, but he didn't see the connection to this case and his mother. There had to be more to it. Something his dad wasn't telling him.

"Dad, what does this have to do with Mom? I don't understand."

"You will," he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Because one night in 2009, out of the blue, I got a phone call..."