Ma Fille Chapter 7
He had told me to sit in the car. I wasn't so sure that was a good idea, for that was the front row seat to watching my father kill. We were sitting at the market and he had his target all picked out as if he had him saved for something special. I looked at my father "What are we doing?"
He didn't reply to my question. He pointed out the window to show me the man that he was looking for; he had just gotten out of the car and has walked into the store. "Stay here."
"What are you going to do?"
"You will see. Just stay here."
I watched him make his way over to the man's car and get down underneath it. My heart was beating rapidly for the fear that my father was going to get caught. Of course I should have known that he wouldn't. He got back up from the ground and walked back to the car and got back in "What did you do?"
He showed me the screwdriver he held in his hand "I punctured the antifreeze tank."
The man came out of the store and walked back over to his car and climbed in, almost none the wiser of what was going to happen to him. I shivered in the seat, whether it was because I was cold or I was in anticipation f the moment. I wasn't sure. My father took my hand before starting the car and following the man down the road "Who is this man anyway?" I asked.
"No one, you need to worry about." My father stated, stopping the car and watching the man's car make it down the road. He turned to me, "Get them out in the middle of nowhere, no one can hear them if they scream, and we have no witnesses. You were lucky with your four, but you can't be that lucky all the time."
I nodded my head and I looked past him,"His car came to a stop." I stated.
My father looked down the road at the break lights "Alright, now I am going to show you how it's done, Caretta." He drove down the road and pulled over behind the man's parked car "Stay here." He told me again, stepping from the car. The headlights of our car blinded the man in front of me "Thank God, I don't know what's going on with the car, but it says that I am out of oil."
My father didn't say anything; he just kept walking towards him. The man looked at my father as his face appeared. I knew what was coming next. I braced myself as my father hit the man over the head and the man crumpled to the ground. I opened the car door but stood right behind the passenger door. My father looked at me quickly but he didn't say anything. His eyes were different than before, now that I looked at him, his eyes almost seemed to glow in the headlights of his car "Caretta, come here."
It wasn't a request, the sound of my father's voice was different as well. No, this was a command. I walked around the car door, my eyes fixated on my father's the glow in his eyes intensified. When I made it to his side, he turned his gaze to the man "This is what we do, Caretta. We were born for this."
I looked over the man's crumpled body, he was still alive but he wasn't going to be for long. Something inside of me started to come back, like the day that Richard died, the day that all of those others died. My heart began to race, my mind began to think, I even think my pupils began to dilate "You feel it too, that's good, but you still need to control it." My father said, but he sounded so far away. "Caretta, focus on my voice and listen to me"
I looked at him suddenly and everything began to came back. My father smiled and kissed my forehead "Good, now. Pay close attention, I have a lot of work to do before the night is done."
"Alright everyone, today we are going to discuss human behavior in the mind of a criminal, we are going to talk about some of the most important criminals in history."
The students sat forward, most of my students had started to like the class, since I had begun to use examples of some of the most infamous. "Let's talk about the past Criminals…lets start with…Jack the Ripper."
The students looked at me surprised and one of them, (One that had just happened to be one of my favorite students) rose her hand "Miss Lector, no one knows who Jack the Ripper is, how can we do a behavioral study on him?"
I smiled and looked at her "Good question, why do you think I am doing a study on him?"
Another student raised their hand and I picked on him "Because he is one of the most infamous killers."
"That's correct because he is one of the most known. I clicked a button and shot up a picture of the murder scene from 1880's killings "Alright, I want some quick answers on Jack the Ripper just based on the murders of the prostitutes."
"He had a problem with Prostitutes."
"He was Angry."
"He was Brutal."
All of the answers were somewhat what I was looking for and I wrote them down. "Okay, how about 'His problem with prostitutes.' I want to know why. Could it be a strong hate because he contracted syphilis from one? Could he have been a social reformer trying to clean up the streets? Could he have had some hate because his mother was a prostitute and she abandoned him?"
They were all silent. And I smiled "These are all questions that you need to think about when you become a sociologist…How about we move on to something more modern…"
I clicked again and moved on to a new murder scene, one I had seen rather recently "The Chesapeake ripper. Now, just because no one knows exactly who The Chesapeake ripper is, just like our buddy Jack the Ripper, that doesn't mean that we can't do a behavioral study on him, you are going to find that you are going to have to do studies of behavior on people that you have never met and people that may not even exist. Now, everyone think long and hard."
The door to my class room opened and two men walked through the door, one of them, just happened to be my father, the other was Jack Crawford. "Sorry to bother you Caretta." Jack said.
"No please, come in, we were just doing a quick behavioral study on the Chesapeake Ripper, why don't you listen to a couple of the answers."
He took a seat at my desk and my father stood in the corner, intrigued. I turned to my students "Alright, what do you have?"
One student raised his hand "He is a psychopath but he has perfect precision of reality, as far as his mind goes, he is completely sane, he knows the human anatomy, He doesn't seem to like rude people, and he may find killing to be almost an art."
I was surprised and I smiled "That Is very good Travis. I am impressed…So impressed that I want everyone to do a behavioral study on a famous criminal all by Monday. Class Dismissed."
After everyone had left I looked at my father and Jack Crawford "So, to what do I owe this pleasure today?"
"Well, I was going to take you to lunch, when I ran into Jack." My father stated
"I actually came to see if you wanted to put your behavioral studies to work, we have a problem." Jack said "And as much as Dr. Lector has boasted your talents, I decided that I wanted to give it a try."
"Alright, what do you need?"
He handed over a file to me and let me open it up "It would seem that the killer makes enjoys making his victims instruments."
I went through the photos of a man whose vocal cords were exposed and the neck of a cello was inserted into his mouth. The man looked familiar. "Seems that he has found his metaphor that murder is art." I stated
"Some art."
I smiled and looked up "I am going to need the rest of the photos if I am going to make a proper comparison, and I am also going to need to talk to Will Graham."
"Why?" Jack asked
I blinked in surprise "He is your profiler right? I want to make a couple of comparisons with him. If that is alright of course Agent Crawford."
Jack thought about it for a moment before my father responded "I have an appointment with him tonight. If it is alright with you Jack, I can have the two of them talk and she can get her information."
Jack sighed "alright, I will send all of the photos with Will tonight, and then we can kill two birds with one stone."
"Good, I happen to be working at the office with my father tonight. I will take them there." I looked down at the photo again "Father, does this man look familiar to you at all?" I asked suddenly
My father looked over my shoulder at the photo. "Yes, as a matter of fact he does…"
"We saw him at the orchestra a couple of weeks ago didn't we? I commented that he was…a little off."
"I would say that he was more than a little than 'off' Caretta, I would say that he was drunk."
"Father!" I gasped. "Don't insuate that the man came to the ochestra inebriated."
My father shook his head "I didnt mean to insuate anything Caretta, I was just saying that his performance was below the expectations that I had for a man that played an instrument."
Jack looked at the two of us "You know who this man is?"
"Not personally of course. Like I stated before we saw him at the orchestra a couple of weeks ago, and like I said he was a little off…He wasn't keeping in time, he wasn't on key and he wasn't really all that good. I was able to hear him out of all of them, but I have exceptional hearing."
"Is that a possible motive?" Jack asked.
"Maybe. I won't know until I talk to Will and I get the rest of the case. It sounds, as of right now, that your killer is angry that this man may have possibly 'butchered' some very beautiful music. He is trying to make a point, he wants music to be beautiful and that he has turned this man, who causes disturbances in beauty and turned him into music…I don't remember, did this man play the cello?"
"I believe that he did." My father said trying to remember.
Jack had excused himself and went back to the FBI "This is going to sound really strange Dad, but I already think I know who it is."
My father looked down at me with eyebrows raised "Who?"
"Do you remember that man that Franklin was with at the Opera? Tobias, I think his name is."
He nodded "Yes."
"Something tells me that he was the man that was behind it. Or at least has something to do with it. Even if he isnt, the man who killed the victim, was at the ochestra the exact same time that we were there."
