Summary: Every person is supposed to have an exact double somewhere in the world. When asked about it once, Grissom said, "Never been proved." Until now.

Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. No silver has crossed my palm, either.

A/N: Special thanks to my friends csishewolf, vrtrakowski, smacky30, scifijoan and mingsmommy who have given me invaluable feedback on this story and supported me throughout this process.

This story is a crossover between CSI and Manhunter (Red Dragon). William Petersen created an enigmatic and tortured character in FBI Agent Will Graham. Some say he reprised the character when creating Gil Grissom. Dead Ringer throws Gill Grissom and Will Graham together as they try to sort out a series of murders so horrible they rival the crimes of Hannibal Lecter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Friday, January 5, 2007 – 12:30 pm ­– Quantico

Miranda Robinson took a bite of her fish sandwich and made a face before setting it back on her plate. "You know, I think part of the initiation here is surviving the food."

Graham wiped his mouth but that did not remove the smirk he was wearing. "I tried to warn you, Miranda. The FBI Academy is landlocked...never buy fish in a landlocked state."

"Very funny, Bayou Boy. Even though the FBI thinks it is a kingdom unto itself, don't think I don't know we're in the state of Virginia, which has considerable coastline even if I can't see it out the window." Looking around the table at the rest of the Task Force, she said, "I'm going back though the line to find something edible...can I get anybody anything?"

Everyone was fine and conversation picked up as Miranda strode off.

Mason Robichaud said, "So it looks like we're just tying Rick Culpepper to the rest of the murders, eh? How long until we get a record of his movements for the time in question?"

Foster had just dipped a couple of French fries in ketchup and taken a bite. He raised a finger, then finished chewing. "Crawford will have the preliminary information this afternoon...the in-depth stuff will take a few days."

Grissom and Graham were both shaking their heads. Each caught the movement and smiled. They gestured in unison for the other to speak, getting chuckles from the rest of the group.

Miranda returned to the table just then. "Don't tell me...the twins went into their act..." she said as she set down an somewhat forlorn looking fruit plate. "What'd I miss?" she asked as she snagged a couple of grapes, popping them in her mouth.

Grissom spoke. "Something isn't right about the two recent murders...I...well, we..."

Graham interrupted, "We need to look at the evidence...follow the evidence. We can't just assume it all points to Culpepper, despite what we've seen so far."

Chewing furiously, Miranda wiped her mouth. "And if it still leads right to Rick Culpepper? When will you be satisfied?"

"When we've examined all the evidence, Miranda," Graham said quietly.

Sara and Foster exchanged a look. Miranda carefully straightened her plastic ware. "Will, you know I love you, honey, but sometimes, you can be a major pain in the ass...He did it! Rick Culpepper killed those girls...his DNA was found inside them and we have film of him killing the last one. What evidence am I supposed to follow and where on earth do you think it's going to lead?"

Will Graham idly moved the remains of his Kung Pao Chicken around the plate with his fork. Sara noticed his jaw working: if Grissom did that it was not a good sign. She realized she was holding her breath when Graham met Miranda's glare. "I don't want a foregone conclusion to prevent me from hearing what the evidence has to say or make me overlook something important."

Shaking her head, Miranda grumbled, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were Crawford's new Golden Boy, bent on getting the old one off on two charges of murder."

The fork in Will's hand broke with a loud snap and the anger that flared in his eyes practically leapt across the table. "I am many things, Miranda, but I am not Crawford's Golden Boy...I am not Crawford's anything." He looked around at the other members of the team. "Excuse me...I'll meet you back in the conference room," he said, then stood and left the dining hall.

The rest of the team was silent, staring at Miranda. "That was uncalled for, Miranda…you know his history," Robichaud scolded.

"Oh, don't get all in a knot, Mason," Miranda said, embarrassed. She stood and picked up her tray. "If I hurry, I can catch him…" She looked at Foster, Sara, and Grissom, "I'm sorry, folks. I have a hot temper and a big mouth…not a great combination. I'll meet you in the conference room."

Sara watched her leave and turned back to Foster. "What was that all about?"

Agent Foster took a sip of his soda. "Dad would never have come out of retirement on the Dolarhyde case if Jack Crawford hadn't shown up in Florida with pictures of two murdered families. Nothing else but imagining a lot more dead people could have gotten Dad to leave Mom and me. What happened…after…well, Dad blames Crawford for that. They haven't spoken a word to each other in more than 20 years…until two days ago."

Grissom frowned, puzzled. "I'm surprised he agreed to be on this Task Force, then."

"Well, that took some doing and another trip to Florida…me, this time. I thought if he got back to work it would help…he's been holed up down there since Mom died…I didn't want to lose him, too." The younger man paused a moment and swallowed heavily before continuing slowly, "Jack agreed to keep his distance from the Task Force…for Dad's sake… but then we got that Sky Landing murder and all bets were off."

Sara reached out to touch Foster's arm. "It's not really Crawford he's mad at, is it?"

Foster shook his head. "No…he's furious with himself, but with that much anger there's bound to be spillover…Dad gave it all to Jack."

Mason checked his watch. "We need to think about getting back over to the conference room. We're scheduled to present in 20 minutes."

xxx

Graham had cooled off by the time he hit room 1516, running smack into Jack Crawford in the doorway. While Crawford mumbled something that sounded like an apology, Will muttered, "Today is just not my day."

The two men stood frozen for a few moments, staring at each other. Crawford looked away first, gesturing for Graham to precede him into the conference room. Walking to his spot at the table, Will picked up a folder and began to read, doing his level best to ignore his old friend Jack Crawford.

They hadn't been alone together in more than 20 years – since that morning when they thought Dolarhyde had gone up in flames along with his house. A lot had happened since then – much of it terrible – on both sides. Crawford knew he was the target for Graham's anger and he'd taken it on: the man was right…he had gone to Florida willing to do anything, say anything to get Will Graham back. But he missed his friend and sometimes, he got tired of being the villain in the story.

"I heard about Molly, Will. I'm sorry," he offered quietly.

Graham didn't look up. "I got your card, thanks."

Crawford stood in the doorway, wondering what else to say.

Glancing up quickly, Graham said, "We got your flowers, too. Willy sent a thank you, I believe," then resumed his reading.

"I got yours when Bella passed," said Crawford, taking a seat at the table.

Will shut his eyes and closed the case file, holding it a minute before placing it on the table in front of him. Then he met Crawford's gaze. "Cancer is the worst. I'm sad to say I know what that means now. You took care of Bella to the end…it must have meant a lot to her to die at home." Twenty years of rancor evaporated when he looked up and saw grief still fresh in his old friend's eyes: he'd lost the love of his life, too.

Jack noticed the tears that started in Graham's eyes. Before he could say anything, Will was out of his chair. "Excuse me, Jack. I need to…" Whatever else he said was lost as he hurriedly left the room and escaped down the hall.

Miranda entered the room minutes later to find Jack Crawford studying his fingernails. "Have you seen Graham?"

"You just missed him."

As Miranda turned back toward the door, Crawford said, "He needed a break, Miranda. Stay until he comes back…whatever it is can wait, can't it?"

"You put your foot in it, too?" she asked.

"It's my special gift," he said tiredly.

xxx

The Task Force reconvened at one o'clock. Jack had corralled Agent Foster to help collapse the panels separating conference room 1516 from the layout room next door. He quickly folded them into a wall recess. When William had returned to his seat, Crawford took the floor.

"Thank you all for the time and effort you've put into reviewing these case files. Originally, it was our intention for the Task Force to evaluate these cases…we'd only recently determined them to be the work of a single perpetrator…we needed to build a centralized database first so we could then create a profile of the killer."

Crawford glanced quickly at Graham, who nodded and did not look away. "The two recent murders at Sky Landing and the Sculpture Garden have added urgency to this task: after a two year hiatus, our subject has stepped up his pace. We don't know what set him off or much else about him…what we learn from your case evaluations will draw us a picture. Given the depravity of the killings, I hope it's a clear one.

"I've opened up the room so we can lay out material from all the cases side by side. Unless you have objections, I suggest we begin with the first case and more forward chronologically."

As the Task Force transferred their stacks of files to the layout table, Crawford picked up the phone and punched a few numbers. "Jill? We're ready for you now," he said and hung up. "I'm having Jill Arthur join us...she'll transcribe your findings and develop a database reflecting all the cases."

Once the transcriptionist had settled with her equipment at the far end of the layout table, the presentations began.

Grissom said, "Guess I'm up first," as he opened a folder and placed several photographs on the table. The victim was shown in life and in death.

Gil said, "The first victim that we know of was Emily Harper, age 28, five feet seven inches tall, blue eyes, brown hair, weighing 120 pounds. Her nude body was discovered behind the Northern Rest Funeral Home in Duluth, Minnesota on September 16, 1997. It was pierced through the upper abdomen with an umbrella. The funeral director, Vernon Scarey, was parking his car behind the building when he noticed something he thought was a bag of trash in a landscaped area at the rear of the property. He approached the area and, when he realized he'd found a body, went into the building and called 911."

Pulling more photographs from his stack of files, Grissom set them out on the table next to the others. These were close up shots of the body. Words had been burned into the flesh of the young woman's abdomen:

Judgment is coming

I have not forgotten

"Vital response in the tissue around these burns indicates they were inflicted pre-mortem. Cause of death is listed as exsanguination from the damage caused to her liver when the umbrella impaled her body. There were no ligature marks or other injuries, though blood on the victim's hands and on the umbrella, later determined to be her own, indicate that she was conscious enough to try to save herself after she was left at the dump site. However, her blood alcohol level was .30, which may explain why the killer didn't need any other restraints. The rape kit revealed semen in the vaginal and anal cavities. No other foreign DNA was found at the dump site."

Grissom picked up one of the scene photos and pointed to something in the landscaping near the body. "You can just make it out here: there is a mouse impaled on a thorn in this bush…looks to be a species of hawthorn, probably a Cockspur Hawthorn or Crataegus crus-galli. That's the only variety I know that is hardy this far north…Zone 4, I believe."

Miranda, who was standing next to Sara, murmured, "Zone 4…is he kidding?" Sara smiled slightly and shook her head.

Graham asked, "Did they find a primary crime scene?"

Nodding, Grissom said, "Yes. The funeral home had been broken into and the umbrella taken from the Director's locked office. The Coroner believed the sexual activity and branding took place in the preparation room. He didn't think it was rape…clock exam on the victim was negative for sexual assault. Since the woman was later found to have been a prostitute, they ruled out rape and decided it was a John who got carried away."

Mason shook his head. "And just how did they reach that conclusion?"

Grissom sighed, irritated. "I have no idea. The elaborate disposition of the body ought to have said something else to them, but it didn't."

Will picked up the pictures and looked at them closely. After a moment, he said, "How about funeral home personnel? I guess there was no connection there?"

" Duluth police determined all employees and family members, as well as former employees were accounted for at the approximate time of death. The preparation room had been wiped down thoroughly and the only other prints in the room were the victim's, on an empty fifth of Southern Comfort."

Miranda coughed. "How many carried-away Johns have you seen wipe down a room that well?"

Grissom smiled slightly. "None."

Sara picked up the photo of the woman in life: a smiling dark haired girl flanked by a man and a woman with similar features. "Is there anything about the victim herself?"

Eyes softening as he watched Sara trying to resurrect Emily Harper, Gil said, "Actually, there is. The Harper family was well known locally. The victim's father owned a Cadillac dealership and made commercials featuring his six children: our victim was the youngest. Duluth had watched the older ones grow up in those ads. In 1972 the eldest, 14 year old Polly, was killed in a boating accident."

Grissom passed around photocopies of newspaper clippings. "Father, David Harper, was under the influence when he took out and crashed their ski boat: Polly and a friend were killed instantly. It caused quite a stir in Duluth and eventually the father lost the dealership. He killed himself on the first anniversary of the accident. When Emily was murdered, someone made the connection and the whole business was rehashed in the papers. Despite media attention, the murder was still thought to be the work of a John."

Remembering the DC scene, Graham asked, "Any footprints?"

Grissom shook his head. "The area between the funeral home and the dump site was paved. No footprints were noted or photographed."

Reluctantly, Sara put the photo of the victim down. "Pretty girl."

Graham said, "You know…they all were…our two recent ones, this one…the case I reviewed…and tall, they've all been tall…"

The others nodded and pulled out photos of the women in their cases.

Lined up on the table were seven photos of smiling dead women. Each one had been tall and slender with long dark hair. Miranda said, "Ted Bundy's victims all had a similar look. I guess this guy's do, too."

Graham glanced briefly at Sara. His gaze lingered on Grissom who looked away and frowned, saying nothing.

To Be Continued...Chapter 12 to follow shortly.