"This place wasn't nearly as hard to find as I thought it would be." JJ climbed out of the SUV and looked around at the assortment of weather beaten structures she and Morgan had discovered at the end of an unmarked dirt road.
"I think we have a welcoming committee." Morgan suggested as he nodded towards a man dressed in a faded plaid flannel shirt and jeans, and sporting a short grey beard and long grey hair walking towards them.
"Can I help you folks with something?" he asked when he got closer.
"I believe so," JJ smiled at him. "Are you – Trout?"
"That's me," was the ready reply. "And you are?"
"Agents Morgan and Jareau of the FBI," Morgan told him as he displayed his credentials. Standing beside him, JJ was doing the same.
"Kilgore Trout?" he added belatedly.
"Another Kurt Vonnegut fan." Trout didn't seem to be offended by the reference. "And, I will admit that he did influence my choice of a name."
"Now, I'm sure you didn't come all the way out here to comment on my taste in literature," he continued. "However, before we go any further, let me assure you that we are doing nothing illegal out here. The owner of this property knows we are here and we are just living our lives peacefully."
"We believe you," JJ assured him. "We just want to talk to you, and probably to some of the other people who live out here, about several things that have happened in the area recently. The first is the transfer of ownership of this piece of property and whether anyone here had a problem with that."
"You mean Larry buying the lake and everything?" Trout asked. "Of course when we heard about it we had questions, but then he came out here himself and told us about it."
"He assured us that he wasn't planning on changing anything," a woman wearing a battered pair of jeans and an oversized man's shirt, with a bandanna tied around her head, had joined the group. "And we trust Larry."
"Wildflower," she introduced herself.
"You call him Larry," JJ observed.
"We all know him from way back when," was the explanation. "His parents owned the general store in town and growing up he and his brother and sister worked there behind the counter. They always treated us fairly. We have no beef with them."
"His parents sold the store to their younger son and retired a couple of years ago," the story was taken up by another man who had limped over to join the discussion. "I'm not quite sure where they are living now. Probably on a tropical island somewhere," he grinned.
"Hemmingway," he introduced himself.
"Quite the literary group," Morgan observed dryly.
"Either Larry or his second-in-command, a woman named Krystall, have been stopping by from time-to-time to keep us updated on the status of this property," Wildflower concluded. "So, no, I wouldn't say that any of us have any complaints."
"This has to do with the deaths, doesn't it?" Trout asked. "That's really why you are here."
"That is one of the things," Morgan began. However, before he could say anything further, JJ's cell phone rang.
"Excuse me," she said as she checked the screen and then moved away from the group.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
"Okay, Garcia, what have you found?" the tech had called Hotch with an update on her computer searches.
"Well, Oh Great Captain, I have unearthed much information that needs to be shared with the team," Garcia began. "Beginning with some background information on that group of people living off the grid."
"Why don't you start by telling me and Reid?" Hotch asked. "I am putting you on speaker."
"Not a problem," was the reply. "Let me begin with my researches into the Social Security System's recipients. And, you won't be surprised to know that your favorite deputy was right. Several of those individuals are drawing benefits. I now have their legal names and am forwarding them to you. Let me add that I haven't come up with any serious lawbreakers. Just a couple of DUI's and possession of marijuana charges."
"However, I did go a step further and did some research into the Veteran's Administration Benefits System. I figured that since that settlement began during the Vietnam War era maybe there were some veterans from that conflict out there."
"I assume you found something," Hotch stated.
"Indeed I did," was the reply. "And, it is not good. It seems that one of the residents out there was deemed a potential danger to society and was only released from the psych wing of the VA hospital on the understanding that he take his meds on a regular basis."
"The name, Garcia, the name?" Hotch insisted.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
"Okay, thanks," JJ ended her phone call and walked back to the group.
"Do you have an Alan Sims living here?" she asked Trout, Wildflower, and Hemmingway.
The only response she got was a blank look.
"He served in Vietnam," she added helpfully. "And, apparently, he is still suffering from a severe case of PTSD."
Still no response.
"We think he may have another victim," JJ was starting to get impatient.
"Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way," Morgan broke his silence as he pulled out his cell phone and held it up. "All I have to do is make one phone call."
"Trout," Wildflower spoke up. "We all know he has problems."
"And, it's getting worse," Hemmingway added. "The news about this property being sold really shook him up. He needs help. We can't protect him forever."
He gave a discrete glance towards a battered concrete pad, which seemed to mark the place where a structure had once stood.
"You're both right," Trout took a deep breath. "We can't keep this up. We haven't seen him in a week and we have no way of knowing what he has done or what he will do next."
"You have to realize that we are generally a pretty peaceful bunch," he told the two agents. "If it were to become public knowledge that we are harboring a potential killer out here, we could all be evicted from our homes."
"And do you know what assisted living is like?" Wildflower asked.
"Just tell us what you know and we'll do what we can to make sure you can stay out here," Morgan promised.