Report # ARI-47023-TX-001
ASAIC H. Carruthers commentary: Agent Jayden's oral preliminary profiling has been left unedited by me. It is difficult to say how much he would choose to include in a final, edited report, and it is beyond my capabilities to determine how much of it is accurate or worthwhile.
SA Jayden initial site notes: So much care taken, so much love, he had to hurt them, their worthless perfect bodies. I want a fresh one, I want a new one, I want to see if there's semen on them. He had to . . . ritual, perfect, ceremonial sex. With their worthless perfect bodies. He cut her, he cut this one, he had to see that sacred blood spill out
.
"I follow you, Sheriff," Aaron said, diplomatically, as they together watched the FBI agent fuss with his sunglasses, his glove, tug on his sleeves to pull the lines of his wrinkled suit into shape. "I don't understand much of what he was talking about. You got a handle on that?"
Sheriff Joe Walters scratched furiously at his greying moustache, and Aaron was at this point so accustomed to the dandruff that would blizzard out under the other man's fingernails as a result of the process that he barely blinked. "Well," Walters drawled, "I only told the FBI what we got, really. What we found so far. I had to call all the way down to Dallas, would you believe it? Feds wouldn't even think about OK City, even though it's closer. Once I said we had four dead girls and Leonard couldn't tell us much about them, they said we shouldn't touch anything more until they sent someone over to check it out. Guess they jumped right to 'you got a serial killer.'" Walters twitched a few last shreds of skin off his upper lip, shrugging dismissively. "I don't know, son. The feds think this is something special."
"Mm," Aaron agreed. Silently, he agreed that doubting the opinion of the local medical examiner was probably justified. In Aaron's opinion, M.E. Leonard Henry had more than once just written off some questionable corpses as "natural causes" because his bowels were acting up in his old age and he didn't care enough to go through with an investigation. "Mr. Special Agent Norman Jayden, there, appears to believe that he's something mighty special, as well. I thought maybe he was crazy, but he says he's got I guess some hi-tech thing in his sunglasses. They got some little lights on the front."
"Ah, yeah," Walters agreed. He'd stopped scratching and was staring, hipshot, at the FBI agent. "That's a big deal, I guess. New. He's got a computer in his head or some such. But I don't really . . . what in . . ." Both men stared at the thin, dark-suited, dancing crow that was the FBI agent. "You seein' what I'm seein'?"
Aaron thoughtfully probed the jagged edge of a chipped tooth with his tongue. "Well, if I am, I guess it's good that you and me aren't crazy. But I guess it's bad that it means he probably is."
It did, actually, look a little bit like the FBI agent was dancing, or at least that he thought the ground might be dangerous. He was nearly on tiptoe in his dress shoes, which was impressive enough in itself, but he also appeared to be hopping gingerly from spot to spot as though he were attempting to avoid piles of dogshit, his gloved right hand shoving out in front of him, pushing something invisible away.
"What did I miss while picking up Mr. Computer?" Aaron asked, his head cocked in curiosity. Walters filled him in while they watched the dance continue. Norman Jayden danced a circle around the graves, in between them, bent into each one, backed up, stood still. Eventually, after Walters had stopped speaking, Norman pulled his glasses off and began walking back towards them, brow furrowed.
"God, here we go. What you need, then?" Joe Walters demanded as soon as Norman got close enough so the sheriff didn't have to shout. "I thought you was here to just forensic the evidence."
"I don't understand what has happened with the bodies. What has been done to or with the bodies, please?" Aaron repressed a smirk at the sight of Norman's lips pressed together disapprovingly as though he were a nun.
"We moved 'em when we needed to," Walters told him, arms folded over the top of his gut.
"That is not helpful," the FBI agent snapped back. "I am trying to photograph and establish the crime scene, and –"
"Them women have been dead for twenty years, maybe more. What in god's name do you think you're looking for out there, footprints?"
"I think I'm asking for what you did to the fucking bodies. I already know some white trash shit-for-brains ripped a hand off one, I want to know what else happened."
Walters was actually turning red. "Son, you are getting off on the wrongest of foots. You – "
"I got it, Joe." Much as he wanted to avoid involvement, this had immediately escalated to the point that Aaron decided that it was actually less unpleasant to intervene than to watch these two work themselves up into a full confrontation. "Norman? Let's walk back over to 'em and I'll show you." He'd missed much of the proceedings, but felt that Walters' rundown had given him a basic handle on the information. Norman Jayden sputtered for a few seconds, then followed. Sheriff Walters was content to glower after them.
"Stop," Norman commanded as they neared the graves. "Just stop there. I need to see the big picture. Just point."
"All right." Aaron froze in place was already tempted to regret volunteering for this. "What's the question?"
They were standing, essentially, at the base of a quarter-circle, with a right angle at their feet and to their left, the curve stretching from the right edge of that angle away from them. The center of the angle was a partially-excavated small hole at the bottom left, and four graves in various states made up the curve.
"Start me with Sam Corning."
It again took a few seconds for Aaron to connect the name. "Right. Well, Boom-boom pulled the hand off the one that was in there." He pointed to the grave second from the left, which was standing empty. "She was kind of a mummy. She's in the M.E.'s office, if you want to look at her. We found her next." Aaron moved his finger to indicate the grave just to the right. It was empty as well, but there was a body bag sitting next to it. "She was mostly bones, and she's in that bag there. She was the third –" he pointed now to the first grave to the left, which was similarly empty, with a similar body bag perched next to it, "And she's pretty much the same. Just bones, packed up in there if you want to look at her. Last one was the one still in the ground, there." Aaron pointed now to the last grave on the right, half-dug out, and holding something he didn't like looking at. "Guess you can see she's kind of a mummy, too. We left her in there in case you wanted a look at her as she is. Leonard said they're probably all women – he was kind of guessing, with the bones, but I guess there's something about the pelvis? Anyway, they been looking for other ones next to 'em, some kind of scanning thing, but they ain't got nothing else. Oh, except the stuff." Aaron pointed now to the tiny pit that all the graves were pointed towards. "Guess they got that half done, then decided to wait for you."
"Good, good." Norman Jayden was typing on that invisible keyboard again. "The first one is intact?"
"Don't know what the M.E. might have done with her. He ain't got cause of death or nothing, so I don't know if he did a full autopsy. Boom-boom pulled her hand off, remember, so she's . . . broken up a little."
"Yes, of course." Norman was already dancing a little bit again. "Thanks, don't need you any more. Let you know if I need you."
Aaron folded his arms. "Well. Yes, sir."
"Don't walk in front of me when you go."
"No, sir." Aaron stepped backwards, his eyebrows raised as he watched Norman Jayden dive towards the one grave still holding a desiccated body, hovering his hand over her face, then her torso. Aaron gave up, turned, and walked his way back to Sheriff Walters, who was still scowling, but no longer looked as though he was on the verge of exploding.
"What'd he want?" Walters asked.
"Just what we dug up when, I guess. I got no idea what he's doing now. He lost his luggage on the way here and I think he's still pitching a fit about it."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah, that briefcase is all he got."
"Huh."
Aaron sighed. "Gonna check on John." John Williams, who Aaron was pretty sure was the dimmest deputy to ever disgrace the badge, was theoretically back on perimeter watch, but had wandered some distance off and pulled his gun out, squinting at it and fiddling. Aaron only made it halfway there.
"Deputy Banks!" When Aaron Banks looked back over his shoulder, he was surprised to see the FBI agent standing next to Walters. The Sheriff was waving him back; both men already looked irritated with each other. All right, well, if John blew off a few fingers, that'd just have to happen. Aaron strolled back.
"I don't have any connection!" Norman shouted at him as he neared them. He waved his folded sunglasses in the deputy's direction.
"What?" Aaron was already lost.
"I don't know what to tell him, Aaron," Walters drawled. There was a mean glint of pleasure in his eyes. "He says he doesn't know how to do his job."
"That is not –" Norman sputtered. "The ARI can only hold so much information."
Aaron didn't want to ask, but did: "What are we talking about?"
"My glasses." Norman gestured with them again. "I scan information with them and I look it up in databases. But I need a wireless connection to the appropriate databases to get useful information, put the whole pattern together."
"Oh." Aaron looked to Walters for guidance, but none was apparently forthcoming. "Yeah, phones and such don't work real well out here. Gets better when you get into town. Should work at the Valentine."
"That's . . . that's impossible." Norman Jayden's pale eyes were squinting at him. "I'll have to do everything twice. I'll have to look at everything here, and then go somewhere else to be able to look it all up. It'll take . . . it'll take forever."
Walters scratched his nicotine-stained moustache again. "Impossible. Well, Aaron here can take you back to the airport, if you want. Since you got no luggage and you can't work under our, our – "
"Primitive conditions," Aaron put in helpfully.
"No! No." Norman Jayden was actually baring his teeth at this point. "No, I can do it, I can do this. It'll just take . . . I'll need . . . I need my luggage. I will need things in my luggage. I need it found as soon as possible." His attempt at authority was limp; the other two men simply stared at him until he turned and stalked away, muttering, pulling his sunglasses back on his face as he walked back to the still-occupied grave.
"Was he speaking English?" Walters asked. "Is that an accent that originates from the US of A?"
Aaron chuckled. "I think that might pass for English in some uncivilized part of the country."
"Christ on a crutch, where is that boy from? He sounds like Kennedy after a root canal."