"Now I really am not following you," Mac said.
"We both know that Emi is extremely intelligent. I'm not sure if you are aware of just how intelligent she is. Adam is but as a result he is more protective than … basically he doesn't use her the way he could and doesn't allow her to be used, at least in so far as she allows him to protect her in that respect." Fielding snorted. "It's made some of my superiors aggravated because he cops to their play faster than Emi does most of the time." Mac's eyebrows showed he was clearly surprised by that bit of information. "In addition to this you have to understand that her father … regardless of how he figured it out … knew how to mold Emi's intelligence into something constructive. She isn't just academically smart … her intelligence has been molded into a constructive tool as opposed to the useless types that you see far too often working at university because they wouldn't have a job any other way. Do you understand what I am trying to say?"
Mac nodded. "She isn't an 'ivory tower' intellect."
"That's it exactly and we can thank her father for that by training her so early in life. One way he did this was by turning a lot of her learning activities into games. If she solved a puzzle or completed a task, just like a game, she would either earn a reward or she would get the next piece of the puzzle or task to solve. One of our profilers caught onto that and … and it became a way to reel Emi in on a project."
In disgust Mac said, "You people manipulated her … were essentially grooming her to become one of you … by utilizing the same tools her father used to teach her to cope with real life?! Do you know how messed up that is?! It's reprehensible."
Fielding nodded seriously. "Some of us have actively fought against that method being used. Not just for Emi's sake but because psychologically in this field you need someone who is going to do something regardless of a reward rather than specifically for a reward."
Mac contemplated the agent and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Ok and I agree but what does one have to do with the other."
"As you know Emi doesn't necessarily think the same way most other people do. This is just as true when it comes to what she considers a reward or motivation. What she asked for as a 'penalty' for catching onto whatever game was being pushed on her isn't what most young women would ask for. Sometimes it was access to therapies for her daughter, sometimes it was access to treatment for her husband's issues, but sometimes …"
"Sometimes?"
"Emi exhibits certain OCD traits. She'll get interested in a field of study or topic and that seems to be all she can think of for a while. One time she was working on a mass grave for the Smithsonian and something unexpected came up … they weren't victims of a local plague as first thought but suffered nearly identical, catastrophic injuries. I could go into the entire story – it's historically interesting in and of itself – but the bottom line is that she'd discovered a colonial-era serial killer's burial ground. She became obsessed with the case and though she'd worked on serials before, this time she wanted to learn everything to scratch that itch in her brain. She wanted it down to the minutiae of the subject. Someone above me by several levels decided to give her what she wanted. In spades. Because of her memory she's now essentially a walking encyclopedia on the subject though she is no longer obsessively attracted to it."
"I'm still not seeing …" Mac stopped as he thought about what Emi had written word by word. Just then his phone buzzed. "Adam, take it easy, I didn't leave. Agent Fielding and I will be right down. There's something you need to look at."
# # # # # # # #
"That's definitely Emi's handwriting and her tag." Then Adam, hand shaking, used his finger to trace the words as he read them.
"Adam?" Fielding asked.
"Gimme a sec'." Fielding and Mac both watched him as he read and reread Emi's message. Slowly he started parsing out the phrases. 'Two women walk into a bar arguing, one was a psychologist and the other a criminologist. The old lady bartender asks, "What are you two fighting about? You know my rules." They tell the older woman, "We're discussing the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath." The bartender has met plenty of strange people but these women are the strangest. "Why would you care about that stuff?" she asks. "Because we're trying to decide whether to kill you now or later.' OK, this whole thing involves three women … I don't think one of them is Emi because she is telling it in third person rather than first person. One of the three women is older … she makes a point of that."
Mayberry had been called in and had an erasable board and marker and was taking notes.
"She mentions a psychologist and a criminologist. Emi was constantly discussing … okay arguing … with other researchers about the difference in thinking between the two sciences and how that difference could significantly impact theories and hypotheses about perpetrators and victimology."
Adam paces around the room thinking then says, "The older woman is … is somehow …" Adam slows and seems to be talking to himself. Fielding starts to ask him something but Mac has seen Adam like this before and shakes his head at Fielding to give Adam time to chase whatever thoughts he is having.
Adam suddenly spills out, "Oh … crap! The bartender is Eudora Scott. She controls the house. The two women are the daughters. They come into her house, are under her control … sorta … because the bartender … old woman … whatever … tells them that they know there are rules against arguing. Then there is the 'difference between a sociopath and a psychopath' bit. Psychologists don't recognize the difference between the two but … but criminologists do. Jeannie Scott is a diagnosed sociopath … disorganized, impulsive, violent. We've been assuming they all are but Emi is saying … I think she is saying that one of the sisters would be a psychopath in a criminal investigation. Not good. Organized, ability to pass in public, able to make complicated plans and carry them out, able to carry a grudge for a long time before acting on it." Adam started pacing again. "Ok, I think what Emi is trying to say is that at least one of the sisters is holding a grudge against the mother … a death grudge. And …"
"And?"
"The mother … Eudora Scott … is clueless about it. So essentially we've got the mother's agenda – whatever that is – then we have at least one of the daughters with an agenda that she wants the mother dead, but Emi isn't certain if that plan is going down now and concurrent to the current situation or … or if is just something she is thinking about."
"Adam, let me ask you this," Agent Fielding said. "Why would Emi write in riddle rather than give a simple statement?"
"She was afraid that someone would see it. Women's bathroom at a truck stop? Bound to be other women around … might have been worried that the wrong person would see it. Or … you know when Emi gets stressed she … er … it is harder for her to … to process stuff out so that other people can see it the way she does. They could have given her something that was making her discombobulated and this was the best that she had. Hell, all I can do is guess. But she used her tag rather than her initials or signature. That means something but I'm not getting it unless it … well she only uses her tag on …" Adam stops and grows silent and still. He walks away to look out the balcony slider. The other three men in the room recognize he is trying to work through something and remain silent as well.
Carefully, like he is unwrapping something fragile which at that point is what the path his thoughts are trying to take are, he says, "She only uses her tags on some of her work. Work that needs special authentication. That could mean that she needs us to understand that that is her work and not a trick. But it is also about the type of work it is … she doesn't put it on her regular artwork, only on the stuff she does for her forensic projects … usually the high-pri ones. Wait … who would need to authenticate her work?"
Fielding blinked. "Carver … Dr. Josiah Carver." Suddenly Fielding begins to nod. "Dammit, why didn't I call him in the first place?!" Mac and Adam stare at him in confusion while he grabs his phone and dials out. "Joe! Yeah … no sign of her yet. Look, I need that report you wrote up on the Scott family … the one you used to teach Emi from. Yeah I know it's out of date but there's something in it that we need. You did? Bloody hell, that's great. Yeah, I'll try and keep everyone up to speed as I can."
"Mayberry! I need you to pull up a report from the SKDB at Radford. Use my clearance code because it isn't one of the publically available sections."
Mac asked, "The serial killer database?"
"That's right, Joe is the original profiler on the Mortensen Case … the original Ying Yang Case. He just finished uploading all of his old research because of the new crime scenes."
Mayberry called over, "Got it."
"Now if I can just figure out what she meant."
Adam looked at Mac then said, "Diagnoses … that's what she was talking about in the riddle so that's probably what she wants us to look at specifically. Find out what each one was diagnosed with."
Fielding scanned the report quickly the first time then more slowly. "Ok … here it is. Robert Scott … Borderline Personality Disorder, Eudora Scott … Avoidant Personality Disorder that … yeah … uh … in the depressive subset but Joe noted that the psychotic break she had and the corresponding coma disrupted the normal symptoms and hypothesized that she may have usurped some of her husband's behaviors to feel in control. Jeannie Scott was too young to receive a diagnosis but Joe said she exhibited signs of being a sociopath very early; she received a definitive diagnosis after her first murder. Jenifer Scott … another Avoidant Personality Disorder, easily manipulated, but she also has a small subset of characteristics that could mean she had a co-diagnosis but she exited foster care too soon for a full eval. Joe added a note here that it was thought she was young enough that her self-esteem and identity issues could be managed with therapy but no proof that she ever received such has been found. Then … ok, here it is … Jewel Scott … too young to be positively diagnosed but registered extremely high in all three subsets of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory." Fielding was reading Joe's notes he put in the margins when he said, "Houston we found our problem."