Katie stood under the tree across from Reid's home where she had waited and watched for him. He wasn't there, but she could feel his presence like a veil over the grass, and the bare branches of the trees in the front yard. He would come back to the house soon, and she would tell him all about Johnny and what he'd done to her. She could trust Spencer Reid. She just knew it in her heart and she hadn't trusted anyone in a very long time. He could help her put her life back together.
The wind rose and white clouds tinged with grey began to scuttle across the sky. It looked like it was going to rain again. She hoped he would be home soon. It was going to get stormy and cold. She walked out from under the tree and moved to the house. She would wait for him on the stairs to the door. He would be back soon. He had to come back soon. She would be free of Johnny very soon and maybe she could see her family again.
--
JJ met Detective Rose Markowitz at the elevator. The detective was very short with shoulder length strawberry blond hair. Her eyes were light blue and large in her round face. She had a curvy body that was clad in navy blue slacks and a pink blouse. Her shoes were flat heeled and matched her pants. She wore her sidearm in a holster on her hip. Despite her height, she radiated an authority, and confidence that was meant for a much taller woman.
"I'm Detective Rose Markowitz," She held out a hand to JJ.
"I'm Special Agent Jareau. Please call me JJ if you like."
Det. Markowitz smiled and shook JJ's hand. "Glad to meet you, please call me Rose. I'm curious what your agent has found about the Katherine Duncan case."
JJ turned to lead the way across the upper walkway to the conference room. She gave the smaller woman her best cooperative smile. "Dr. Reid is one of our best profilers. He was the one that met Ms. Duncan in the library and has seen her several times since that meeting."
"Then I'd like to speak with him first."
"I figured you would. He's waiting for you in our conference room. He wants to find her as much as you do."
"Good," Detective Markowitz said as they passed through the door to the round table room.
Reid was sitting at the left of the round table skimming through the file Garcia had complied for him. His head was bent over the file and at first he didn't seem to realize that JJ, or the Detective, had entered the room. One finger was sliding down the top page of the police report on Katie's disappearance. He flipped to the next one, and then the next, before Det. Markowitz could whisper to JJ.
"Does he really read that fast?"
"Yep… he's our resident genius. He also has an eidetic memory, so I hope you know the details of the case."
Det. Markowitz's face hardened and JJ could see why she was feared at the ninth precinct in DC. "I know it better than anyone. It was the first case I ever worked as a new detective. I'll never forget her face or stop wondering what happened to her." She said through gritted teeth.
"I'm sorry - I didn't mean to imply that you weren't doing your job." JJ said with honest regret.
The detective's face softened and she gestured to Dr. Reid. "Does he even know we're in the same room?"
JJ laughed, "On some level yes, but he's probably tuning us out. He's good at that." She went over to Reid and tapped the table in front of him. "Hey Spence… Detective Markowitz is here to see you."
He jumped and then went tomato red at the sight of two women smiling at him. He could see they were trying not to laugh.
"Ah sorry… I guess I was a bit distracted." His voice was climbing up into the "squeak zone," as Garcia would say.
"Yeah, we can see that." JJ gestured to Det. Markowitz. "This is Detective Rose Markowitz. She's had this case in her unsolved file for the last five years. She wants to talk to you."
"Of course," He shot to his feet and went over to greet the Detective. "I'm Dr. Spencer Reid. Um, I guess you have lots of questions for me."
"Yeah… I do," She agreed.
"So, do you want to sit down?"
She nodded and grinned when he pulled out a chair for her. "Well… I don't believe it, chivalry isn't dead."
"I think you'll find that Dr. Reid is one of a kind." JJ advised the detective.
"JJ…" His face, which had been returning to it's normal pale tone was going scarlet again.
"I mean that as a compliment Spence."
He looked from one woman to the other and saw that they were laughing but not at him. He knew the difference by now.
"So JJ, are you going to let us talk or what?" He asked his friend a bit testily.
"You bet," She backed out of the room and shut the door.
Reid hurried back to join the detective at the table. He pulled out his chair, stepped around it and tripped. Luckily he fell into the chair and not onto the floor. What was it about pretty women and their ability to make him lose control of his long limbs? At least he hadn't landed on his butt on the floor. His face was going red again - he could feel it burning around the collar of his dress shirt.
"So what can you tell me about Katherine Duncan?" The detective asked. It looked like she was choosing to ignore his clumsiness.
"Um yeah… I ran into her at the library two weeks ago. We were reaching for the same book and…"
She listened while he gave her a complete accounting of every encounter with Katie and everything he'd learned from them.
"She never told you her last name or where she was living." Detective Markowitz prompted him after he fell silent.
Reid was playing with the edge of the file folder instead of looking at the detective. "No… She never told me anything about herself, or what was happening to her till today. She told me that 'he,' tried to kill her. She didn't tell me who 'he,' was or how he tried to kill her. I just assumed that it was domestic violence gone wrong and that she somehow got away from him.
"Well, you read the file." Det. Markowitz asked.
"Yeah, most of it, I know that she was a student at Georgetown. She was majoring in English Lit. She was a sophomore at the time she went missing and she was twenty one years old. You talked to all of her friends and her associates after her best friend reported her missing. You talked to all of her professors and the woman that owned the book store where she worked three times a week. She had a boyfriend and he was your first suspect because there were seven complaints made against him for domestic violence. Katie refused to press charges against him, and you believe he killed her and got rid of her body even though you were never able to get enough evidence for a warrant to search the apartment."
Det. Markowitz had been sitting leaning forward and listening intently to the way he dissected her case in a few short sentences. It was almost like he'd been on the case since the first day and it was a bit disconcerting.
"I'm impressed Dr. Reid. You know this case almost as well as I do."
He didn't look up at the acknowledgement so she decided to press ahead. "I'd like your professional opinion and your help on this from this point forward. I can get the necessary paperwork for Agent Jareau."
He looked up and the relief in his dark eyes was poorly disguised. "I'll call in the rest of the team."
--
Morgan, Hotch and Rossi followed JJ and Emily into the conference room where Reid was talking to Det. Markowitz. They took their places around the table and JJ deferred to Reid with a nod.
As most of the team already knew most of the story, so it was easy to catch up with what Det. Markowitz brought to the case.
"The first person we interviewed was Jonathon Zacharias. He'd been living with Ms. Duncan for six months. He was our primary suspect because of the history of abuse. Of course he claimed that he didn't know where she was. I grilled him about three hours, but he stood firm in his story. He claimed that he went out early on the morning of October 5th 2003. He said he went out for cigarettes and when he came back, she was gone along with all of her clothes and possessions. He didn't call the cops because he just assumed that she left him."
"He went out for cigarettes." Emily asked with a furrowed forehead. "Isn't that a bit of a lame excuse?"
"I thought so, but I couldn't break him."
"Reid, what is your impression of the young lady?" Rossi asked the genius as the young man stared down at the picture of Katherine Duncan.
"She's smart and she likes poetry."
Morgan smirked at the love sick tone in his partners face. Emily elbowed Morgan and he grinned at her while JJ glared at him.
"She seemed very nice, but I didn't see any bruises or injuries that would indicate that she was in an abusive relationship."
He pursed his lips together for a minute and looked at the space between where Rossi and Detective Markowitz sat next to each other. "She was very frightened the last time I saw her, but she really wanted my help. I'm sorry Hotch, I don't have anything else to tell you. She just didn't look like someone had been abusing her."
Hotch didn't excuse Reid, but he inclined his head slightly to the younger man and Reid relaxed a bit. It was his fault. He should have been profiling her instead of getting caught up her beauty and his burgeoning feelings for her.
"What about her family?" Emily asked.
"Her parents live in Philadelphia. Ms. Duncan has two brothers and they were hiking in the Appalachian Mountains the weekend she disappeared. Her father is a surgeon and her mother is a real estate agent. They all have solid alibis for the day she went missing. Her parents didn't hear from her. She didn't ask them for help, or even run to them, if she did run away. She had very little money in her bank account. I just don't think she ran away."
"She may have gone underground." Garcia piped up for the first time.
"That's a possibility. It could be the only reason that makes sense," Emily agreed.
"Garcia, do you still have contacts underground." Rossi asked her and her face went carefully neutral.
"Sir… I can't just call them up and ask if they've seen this girl." She said, but her eyes said that she could do just that.
"I'm not asking you to; just do what you can to contact anyone you still trust. We don't want to know how you do it."
"I'll do my best sir." She said and then she got up to leave the room for her beloved computers.
"I think we need to talk to Mr. Zacharias again." Rossi said.
"Is he still in the DC area?" Hotch asked the detective.
"Oh yeah… He's in the high security ward at Columbia Mental Health. He's tried to kill himself multiple times." She told the surprised group.
