Chapter 9: Secrets

Several hours later, in the early afternoon, Reid had written his grandmother's last note out on one of the glass case boards in the station. He was pacing silently, trying to figure out what it meant.

He was so focused that he barely noticed when Blake came in to see how things were going.

"Are you still working on that riddle?" She asked.

"Alex, this means that my grandmother knew who the Unsub was, and that she was his next victim, probably even why all this is happening, she gave us answers here, I just don't know yet what they are…"

"You mean aside from the fact that she knew that someone was after her, who that person was, and why? We didn't know that before…" Blake replied.

"Where guilt is plain to see there is innocence, where there is innocence, guilt lurks below the surface…" He recited. "She's clearly saying that our Unsub isn't going to be someone who we'd easily suspect…"

"Right, and our suspects right now are the Dwight brothers, especially Jason… Now I know you guys weren't exactly friends, but did either of them have an actual reason to want your grandmother dead?" Blake asked.

"She was the reason Jack was placed in juvy and then did jail time after he came of age, that assult charge against a minor…well…he and Jason, used me for a human piñata… they hung me from a tree and beat me with sticks…and Nana was furious…if it was Jason, actually even if it isn't… he might see her as the reason his brother was taken away…" Reid explained.

"Why the hell were people so inventively cruel to you when you were younger?" Blake asked, well aware that, that was far from being the only such incident in Reid's childhood.

"I don't know, I guess I used to bring out the worst in people…"

"Apparently, and you're right, that's still a possibility, but if she took whatever time she did have, to leave a message saying otherwise, maybe we should widen our search a little… What about the rest of the message…?"

"Question those who keep the secret history, the root of all this, the apple falls not far from the tree." He read.

"Well… the apple doesn't fall far from the tree is an expression usual denoting the similarity between someone and their descendants…the root of all this, meaning that the source, the reason behind the killings has to do with that somehow…and the secret history could refer to something from the past that most people don't know about, or might be incorrect about what actually happened…"

"Yeah but…what about, and who knows the whole truth?" he asked, partly to himself.

"It has to be someone she trusted with absolute confidence, someone she was sure wouldn't say anything about it until they absolutely had to, to help catch her killer."

"But outside the family, I have no idea who that would be, Don, maybe… but he didn't seem to have a clue what she was talking about." Reid said.

"Is there any significance to where she left the note in the first place?"

"In her Bible? My grandmother was a very religious woman, that could mean something, or it might not mean anything except that's what she had on hand when she decided to write it…"

"Well, she took the time to make sure the note was left somewhere, where it would be found, but by the right people…so, one would think that the location she chose would be a clue in itself…" Blake suggested.

"There's one way to find out…" He said, as he headed out the door.

Fifteen minutes later, Reid approached the imposing, solid oak, double doors of St. Anne's Orthodox Church, where his grandmother had spent almost every Sunday morning of her life. He lingered, feeling strangely like an intruder. Nana had tried to share this part of their heritage with her grandchildren, bring him and his cousins along with her when they stayed with her over the summer, but as soon as they'd grown old enough to be left at the house by themselves the choice had become theirs. Actually, that had been his only personal exposure to religion at all, at least when he was growing up.

He knocked.

A few seconds later, the door opened and a man in his fifties, wearing an ankle length black robe, poked his head out. Once he saw Reid standing outside, he pulled the door the rest of the way open. He was a tall man, roughly twenty years older than Reid, with a full head of strawberry blond hair which was starting to turn a yellowish gray. His blue eyes searched Reid's, trying to gain a sense of what had brought him to the door of the church.

"Welcome, I am Father Casmir, what brings you here?"

"I'm an FBI agent and my grandmother was one of the women who was killed recently. She left a message among her personal things that, makes me think someone here may have a clue about who killed her, or why…" Reid explained.

"I'd be more than happy to assist, please come in…." Father Casmir replied, stepping to the side of the doorway.

Reid entered.

Like all churches of its kind, this one was built with an eastward orientation, so that the parishioners faced in the direction of Jerusalem on Sunday, and was adorned with Icons depicting the saints, the angels, and stories out of the bible, in the flat-looking, pre-renaissance style of byzantine art.

Another set of heavy, oak doors, flanked by columns reaching to the ceiling led the way to the sanctuary. On either side was a stone pedestal with a shallow metal dish filled with sand and golden candles. Reid noticed that five of them were lit, two in one dish, three in the other.

"Oh I lit those, and they'll remain lit until our community is safe again and there is justice for our departed sisters, your grandmother included, and their families." Father Casmir replied, as though he had heard Reid ask the question in his mind. "I hope I'm not prying too much here but… who was your grandmother and did she give you any hints in the message you spoke of regarding what this is about?"

"Her name was Penelope McGee, and all she said was to ask those who know the secret history and something about how an apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Reid answered.

Father Casmir didn't seem surprised, if anything it seemed as though Reid had just told him everything he needed to know. Reid was starting to find the priest's almost otherworldly sense of knowing a little unnerving.

"You've come to the right place, but it's not me you need to talk to, you should speak to my father…"