Essential listening: Walkin' Man, by Seasick Steve

0o0

Dave poured out his morning coffee, mindful of the stack of files in his office that needed attention, none of which he could presently start, given how close they already were to the briefing. He'd already leafed through their front pages, and they were all deep-concentration, three to four hour jobs, best suited for flying back from a scene on the jet, or when he couldn't sleep the night through.

A far better use of his time would be destressing with the team. A task that on some days, could be more difficult than others.

Across the room, Aaron Hotchner's office door slammed open with some force.

Clearly, this was going to be one of those days.

Everyone looked up, startled, as the usually collected senior agent stalked out of the room, looking murderous. "Reid! Pearce! In my office, now!" he barked, and stalked back in.

In the silence that followed, every agent in the room turned, files, mugs or phones in hand, to look at their two, stricken colleagues. Both had that wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights look that Dave associated with misbehaving teenagers caught by their dads. All the colour had drained from Reid's face and Grace's ears, just visible under her unruly hair, were going steadily pinker. He saw their eyes lock and Reid visibly gulp.

Emily was clearly about to ask them what the hell was going on when Aaron's voice rang out a second time. "Now!"

Dave watched them go, astonished, as two of the most reliable and least disruptive members of their team hurried into Aaron's office, their heads bowed in shame, more or less the entire bullpen staring after them.

No one bothered to hide that they were watching their senior agent's office, so Dave navigated through them without a second glance and went to sit in his own office, where he could hear the distinct sound of Aaron not quite shouting at the two youngest members of his team. He couldn't, make out many of the words, but he distinctly heard 'You are federal agents!' and the tone was quite obvious. He waited until the door to Aaron's office had opened and closed, and the pair had scurried out, shamefaced, and retreated to relative safety the corridor, before strolling over.

He stuck his head into Aaron's office and found the man leaning with both hands on his desk, clearly annoyed and clearly incredulous.

Dave gave him an inquisitive look.

"I just got off the phone with the Sheriff of Croaker, Virginia," he told him, sounding exasperated. "He detained Reid and Pearce for trespassing on land owned by a man named Hankins, who has a field full of sculptures of giant former presidents' heads."

He sat down, momentarily speechless. "I – I can't even."

"Giant president's heads?"

"They were taking 'atmospheric' pictures, apparently."

Dave stared at him. "Reid?"

"I know," said Aaron, mystified. "The local deputy couldn't get over how polite they were – and seeing as they were federal agents he let them go without charging them. The farmer didn't seem to mind, either."

"But… Reid?" Dave said again.

"Yeah."

"Trespassin'?"

"In a field of enormous, creepy presidents' heads."

There was a moment where both men's mouths twitched, and they were forced to look down, lest the smiles that were threatening actually broke out.

"That sounds like something Reid would wanna do, but Pearce would follow through with," Dave reflected, when he'd got his face back under control.

Aaron nodded, with a slight frown. "Sometimes I wonder whether she isn't a bad influence on him."

0o0

Out in the corridor, where Spencer and Grace were not quite hiding from their early morning, inquisitive colleagues, Grace grinned at him.

"That was so worth it," she said.

"Totally worth it."

0o0

He had given Grace a five minute head start when they decided it was safe to come back out of the corridor, and she was nowhere to be seen. He suspected that she was in the situation room already, where JJ was setting up.

Emily was in the kitchen area, but fortunately, before she could quiz him on his illicit activities, Morgan walked in looking sufficiently baffled to deflect any interest in him and Pearce.

Relieved, he listened with genuine interest to his friend's story of confusion. He couldn't imagine throwing a coffee away to talk to a beautiful woman anyway, let alone her spotting him and calling him out on it – and he certainly couldn't comprehend forgetting someone so completely that he wouldn't recognise them when he talked to them.

"So wait, she knew your name?" he asked, as he stirred sugar into his coffee.

Emily, looking on with some amusement, snorted.

"I don't know how I could forget a face like hers," Morgan admitted, clearly astonished at himself.

"You've been with so many girls, you can't remember all their names?" Spencer continued, halfway between incredulity and winding his friend up.

He started towards the stairs into the situation room, Emily not far behind him.

"Oh, come on," Emily said, joining in. "Are you surprised?"

"This has never happened to me before!" Morgan exclaimed, following them.

"It hasn't happened to me before, either," Spencer remarked, suspecting that it didn't happen to many people, really.

"It can't happen to you, you have an eidetic memory," Emily pointed out.

"And besides, you only got one name to remember," Morgan added, neatly turning the tables.

Spencer gave a sarcastic laugh. Like it was some kind of contest. He shook his head.

JJ, who was setting up the presentation, turned, amused. "Anyway, you wanna tell us why you and Grace were in trouble this morning?"

Spencer looked up and met her gaze for a moment. "No," he said. "No, not really."

"What…" Morgan – obviously interested – trailed off as Hotch, Rossi and Pearce walked in, the latter giving her unit chief a wide berth.

"Okay, uh – six victims have been killed in a series of burglar-homicides, all over central California," JJ told them, sitting down. In order: Bakersfield, Fresno, Chico, and – two nights ago – Alan and Brenda Paisley, in Sacramento."

"Big area," Rossi remarked. "Are we sure it's the same unsub?"

"His DNA was found in all the homes," JJ confirmed.

"They hadn't connected it because he crossed jurisdictional lines," Hotch explained.

"Smart," Grace reflected.

"The head of the Sacramento field office has established a multi-agency task force and he wants us to run point," JJ said.

Morgan raised an eyebrow, running his eyes down the list. "Looks like we got a lot of investigators on this one."

"We'll streamline it if we need to," Hotch decided.

"You should know," JJ began, with the air of someone who knows they're about to be extremely unpopular, "that they've already named him the 'Highway 99 Killer'."

Around the room, everyone shifted in their seat. That had 'bad idea' written all over it.

"We'll deal with that when we get there," Hotch told them, stemming any possible grumbling.

"What's his M.O?" Grace enquired.

"He targets one to two person households, he kills the victims while they sleep," JJ summarised, as Spencer flicked through the autopsy reports.

"Blunt force trauma with objects found at the home, multiple bashes to the head," he read aloud, grimacing

"After he kills the victims, he ransacks the homes for valuables," JJ added.

"Which is not unusual for a night-time burglary-homicide," Hotch said. "What's unique about this unsub," he continued, looking up at the crime scene photos on the screen, "is that after he kills them, he sits down to dinner in their homes. They found his DNA all over the food and the table."

Next to him, Grace scanned through the forensic report for a few moments, a frown on her face; it relaxed once she'd finished, and Spencer guessed she had been worried that human flesh might have been on the menu.

"Are these burglaries that turn into homicides, or homicides that turn into burglaries?" Dave pondered.

"Well, between the two offences, it seems the primary motivation is homicide," Morgan speculated. "I mean, otherwise he woulda just stolen the items and fled."

"But he stays there for hours," JJ argued. "He eats their food, tries on their clothes, showers – he even sleeps in their beds."

"It's like Goldilocks became a serial killer," Emily remarked.

"So he's trying to take over their lives, maybe? Inhabit them somehow?" Grace mused. "A kind of transference."

JJ sighed. "They've got plenty of DNA, but they found no fingerprints."

"He doesn't take their cars," Emily observed, reading the file. "So how does he get there?"

"No witness reports strange cars on the street," said JJ.

"No prints, no gun, no noise, no car, no witnesses," said Rossi, counting each one out on his fingers. "This all adds up to prior experience."

Grace nodded. "This guy is a ghost."

Spencer glanced in her direction, hoping she's not being literal. "There's a record on him somewhere," he said.

"And by the time we find them, he's moved on to another town," Emily complained. "Which could be anywhere."

0o0

Plenty sits still, hunger is a wanderer.

– Zulu proverb

0o0

As soon as they'd heard about the new scene in Modesto, they'd split up. Rossi, Morgan, Emily and Grace had headed to Modesto, while the others had continued to the Sacramento Field Office, where the core of the task force was busy being established.

Today it was a bustling hive of people; too many people.

Spencer eyed them warily, privately wondering how they'd take being sent home early. There was no order in the room, no organisation – just a lot of genuinely concerned people, desperate to catch a killer who had strayed into all of their territories. He made sure he had enough of a smile on his face to stop the agent making a beeline for them thinking he was displeased with the general clamour, and waited for his colleagues to do the customary nod-and-handshake routine that apparently had to happen wherever they went before anyone could do any work.

"I'm Agent Liman," said the tall, earnest man who had spearheaded the creation of the task force.

He shook hands with JJ.

"Agent Jareau. These are agents Hotchner and Reid."

"We – uh – reserved this room for you," said Liman, once he had shaken hands with Hotch too.

The agent led them to a reasonably sized situation room with a table and some chairs in it. There was a large, detailed map of California on the wall, along with smaller ones relating to each town or region the unsub had struck, decorated with the usual horrific crime scene photos and data. It was extensive and useful, and he very much approved. It was perfect for them – except for the walls, three of which were entirely windows. It gave Spencer the slightly unsettling feeling of being inside a fish bowl.

He glanced at the sign someone had put up in the centre of the map, which read 'Travel Pattern: "Highway 99 Killer"' and tried not to pull a face.

"Who named him this?" Hotch asked, keeping his tone light.

"I did," Liman admitted, looking faintly confused.

"I'm… gonna go get started on that memo," JJ said, reading Hotch like a book.

Spencer felt that she had the right idea. "Uh… I'm gonna help you…" he said, and made himself scarce.

Having nothing better to do, he followed JJ to the departmental kitchen and chatted idly about geographic profiling with a couple of agents from Fresno for a few minutes, before pulling out a file in an attempt to look busy and hovering near the door to the situation room. Sadly, the design of the situation room made Liman's discomfort clearly visible to several agents in the main room; even without looking up he could feel observation and concern rolling around the people clustered in the task force control centre, as it was currently being referred to.

He winced. Normally, none of them wanted to tread on anyone's toes, but the BAU had been asked to run point, and as such they were in charge. Liman had already made several decisions that were threatening the efficacy of the investigation, the large number of people milling around behind Spencer being one of them. The other mistake – and this one was huge – was naming the killer. The problem with names, apart from giving the murderer the kind of notoriety that some of them craved, were they detrimentally influenced the investigation, in this case pushing bias towards the highway and away from any other possible pattern of movement or mode of transport. You only had to look at how long it had taken authorities to connect the remains of any of Gary Ridgway's victims that were found outside the immediate vicinity of Green River to see where that kind of narrow thinking could lead.

Not meeting the older agent's eyes, Spencer walked back in as Liman began explaining to a room full of disgruntled agents why they had to go home, looking chastened and annoyed at himself.

They would be more help on the ground in their own towns than here anyway, Spencer reflected.

"How'd he take it?" he asked.

"He'll get over it," said Hotch, taking down the sign.

They could feel the eyes of the task force – good, professional agents who were now annoyed and disappointed at having to travel all this way and just go home again – on the back of his neck. The feeling receded as he focussed on the map. That was one of the benefits of being able to narrow his mind to only the task in hand; he might miss the odd line of conversation, but at least he could block out unwelcome distractions.

He scratched the back of his neck, thoughtfully. It was a skill he could have probably used in high school. While he and Hotch assimilated the information in front of them, looking for anything new, it really came in handy.

He had completely zoned out, his mind lost in a tangle of coordinates and behavioural patterns, that it took two whole rings of his cell before he noticed the buzzing sensation in his pocket.

He answered it, his mind still half on the crime scene photo he had been studying. "Yeah?"

It was Rossi. "Reid, are you in front of a map?" he asked.

"Yeah, I am now," he said, moving to the big map of California that occupied half of one board.

"I think I know how the unsub's getting around," said Rossi. "Do you see tracks linking Bakersfield and Sacramento?"

Spencer nodded to himself, frowning as his eyes followed the railway lines up and down the state. Suddenly, it hit him.

Oh. Well, that made a lot of sense.

"He's hopping trains…"

0o0

They had spent much of the previous day absorbing information and reshuffling the task force. Spencer had gone to bed late and, in the absence of someone to talk to until dawn, dreamed of grumpy blonde witches catching trains.

When he and Hotch got back into the task force control centre, they'd found it staffed at a much more reasonable and useful level, with JJ (who was finding sleep harder to come by the closer to her due date she got) marshalling everyone with the skill of a general. It was a good feeling, knowing that things were finally rumbling forward in roughly the right direction – particularly with his friend's skilled and able hand on the tiller.

With fresh confidence, the team was chasing down every lead in every town, double and triple checking all their information, just in case. Sometimes, it was the extra legwork that really counted.

Morgan and Rossi had called fairly early to say that they were staying on in Modesto and heading down to the local homeless 'jungle', where the railway cop they had spoken with had told them the modern day 'hobos' congregated. Having assessed the crime scene, Emily and Grace were heading to Sacramento to join the rest of the team – a couple of hours' drive at this time of day, and weren't due in until at least lunchtime.

Hopefully, by then there would be something more for them to act on.

Spencer was engaged in another silent sojourn in front of the evidence board, examining every facet of the case so far, when his cell chirped noisily on the table. He looked down from the map to see that it was Emily.

"Hey."

"Hey, you got a minute?" she asked.

"Yeah – where are you?"

"We're just off Highway 99," Emily replied, and Spencer ran his finger over the map, tracing the line of their journey. "The whole drive up from Modesto – all I see are crops. Rows and rows of crops."

"Farmlands," Spencer told her. "You can't see that from standard maps."

"The railroad track runs parallel to Highway 99 most of the way. I think we're seeing a lot of what the unsub saw."

He nodded. "Most of central California's one big valley. A flat basin completely surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides, fed by rivers, lakes and aqueducts. It's ideal for farming."

Grace, who was obviously listening, piped up: "What if we're looking at a migrant farmworker? Someone working those farmlands who has to stay mobile to survive."

Even with his mind on the case, Spencer couldn't stop the smile that graced his lips at the sound of her voice. Reminding himself that he ought to be more serious in a room full of pictures of horrific murder, he forced a frown.

"Or someone who used to be one?" he pondered aloud.

"Yeah – if he's hopping trains up and down this region, and all of them are in or near farmland, he could be moving from job to job."

Spencer nodded slowly. It made sense.

"It's worth factoring into the conversation," Emily added.

"I agree…"

Emily sighed. "Alright, we'd better get back on the road."

Spencer could hear Grace grumbling about discomfort and inconsiderate, wide-ranging unsubs and smiled again.

"See you later!" Grace called, presumably over Emily's shoulder.

"See you…"

As soon as they hung up, he dialled Garcia's number.

"Go ahead guys, I'm listening," she responded, sounding wide awake and (he suspected) grossed out by pictures of corpses.

"Uh, Garcia? I need you to look into small farm towns all over central California," he said. "Track all unsolved homicides that involve night time burglaries and homes within a mile of train tracks."

"Oh," groaned Garcia, and he heard the dismay in her voice. "You think there's more?"

"I – yeah, I don't know…"

0o0

They'd given the profile and the task force was filtering it out to their regional posts, where all the agents who had been sent home the day before were eager to get tracking this guy. Liman, who had unknowingly steered the initial investigation away from train tracks, was still a little grumpy, though only really with himself, and was driving everyone hard to make up for it.

Grace and Emily had got back around late morning, and were being brought up to speed by Hotch while they unwound their backs and legs from the long drive. Meanwhile, Spencer was sitting with JJ, combing through the most recent crime scene report while she composed another press release. They needed as much help as they could get on this one, particularly given how mobile the unsub was, and that meant reaching out.

Abruptly, he heard JJ shift in her chair, wince and rub her belly. "Oof. Hah, he's kicking a lot today!"

Spencer looked up, amused. "In the third trimester there's an average of thirty foetal movements per hour. Babies kick to explore movement and strengthen muscle."

He smiled. He'd looked it all up when he'd found out his friend was pregnant, carefully keeping all his reading material away from Grace in case it upset her. He glanced up again to see JJ regarding him with a particularly sardonic expression on her face.

"What?"

"Have you ever actually felt a baby kick?" she asked, grabbing his hand.

Before he could object she had pressed it to her belly, where the baby was having a great time exploring movement. It was bizarre, like an alien parasite had taken up residence in his friend's body. The fact that he could feel it moving through her skin made him very uncomfortable.

"You feel that?" she asked.

Suppressing a shudder, he nodded. "Does that freak you out?" he asked, softly.

"No, not at all…" JJ frowned, taking in his expression. "Why, does it freak you out?"

"Very much so," he told her, reclaiming his hand.

JJ laughed. "Okay…"

Her phone began to ring, saving him from further comment, and she answered it.

"Hey Garcia."

"Bad news alert!" the tech responded.

Whatever it was, it sounded urgent, and Spencer figured that was something they all needed to hear. "Uh, hold on one second," he said, turning and beckoning to the others through the glass. "Guys…"

Hotch, Emily, Grace and Agent Liman ducked out of the main office and into the situation room.

Liman asked, "What is it?" preparing himself for the worst.

"I had Garcia look into all unsolved burglary-homicides in central California, paying particular attention to small farm towns," Spencer explained.

"I found his DNA in three more cities," Garcia told them, heavily.

Everyone winced. Grace, possibly envisioning another long drive in her future, sank into the chair beside him, looking resigned.

"How did I miss this?" Liman asked, sounding beaten.

Spencer guessed he was feeling less and less competent by the hour. "Small towns don't always link their evidence up to state or national DNA databases," he said, in an effort to make him feel better.

This wasn't his fault, after all.

"It can happen when unsubs cross jurisdictional lines," Hotch added, nodding.

"What are the cities, Garcia?" Emily asked, ready to note them down.

"Tehachapi, Vacaville and Orange Cove. All farm towns, all super far away from Highway 99."

Liman sighed.

Grace was already at the map, searching out the names. They were widespread. Hotch had not been wrong about them logging a lot of miles on this one

"Garcia," she said, "see if the farm towns have seasonal specialities that peak around the time of the murders."

Hotch asked, "What are you thinking?"

"Well, if it is a migrant farm worker, he's got to have a reason to be in town that week," she theorised.

JJ got to her feet. "I'll update Morgan and Rossi. What's the timeline?"

0o0

The task force was scattering to the new locations, to help the people on the ground pick up the pieces of some very cold trails. Everyone left was trawling through anything they could find about migrant farm workers – how they worked, where they stayed, their work patterns.

Taking a brief break from the never-ending (but still enjoyable) paper trail, Spencer watched JJ out of the situation room window. She was tired today, and that alone held his attention, as concerned as he was for his friend's health, and that of her unborn parasite. She was reviewing stuff with Grace, holding her bump and fanning herself with a file. Autumn in California was hot – almost hotter than Nevada.

Distracted, he wondered what it would feel like to have his whole body taken over by an alien being.

"You considering it?" Emily asked.

Puzzled, he turned to find her watching him, curious. Grace, on the other side of the desk, looked up from the autopsy file in front of her.

"Considering what?"

"Having baby geniuses, one day?" Emily grinned at him.

Spencer paused and thought about it for a moment. In that moment, all the things that could go wrong for a child flashed through his head, all the what-ifs: health problems for a baby and their mom; all the connotations of his mom's condition; bringing a child into a world full of serial killers; the horror of losing them…

Briefly, his eyes met Grace's, who was watching him as curiously as Emily.

Also, I'd have to have a partner, he thought, taking in that mess of golden hair and those piercing blue eyes.

His treacherous mind led him to lock eyes with Grace again and he frowned, hoping fervently that neither she nor Emily could read that particular emotion right off his face

Before he had to answer, however, the phone went. Intensely relieved, he reached to answer it at once, his voice a bit more desperate than usual.

"Hello?"

Emily, apparently noticing his discomfort, smiled privately and looked down. He didn't dare glance in Grace's direction again.

Garcia sounded excited. "I looked into what Grace said about regional specialities, and I've noticed that in the cities, including the new ones we've discovered, there is a spike in the sales of certain crops during the times when the unsub is there!" she announced. "Last week of august, apples in Tehachapi. First week of September, tomatoes in Bakersfield. Second week of September, fall squashes in Fresno. Huh?" she finished, inviting their applause.

"So he's in town for a big harvest," Emily observed.

Spencer sat back, thinking. "An unsub riding trains from town to town between big harvests, who doesn't have a car or a permanent residence."

"Migrant farmworker," Emily agreed, nodding. "There's gotta be a way of tracking that."