Plastic Wrap and Duct Tape
Setting: "An Inconvenient Lie"

Batista opens the briefing room door when we reach it and holds it for me. "Thanks," I say automatically, and he nods, follows me inside.

Lundy looks up from his computer. As usual, he's the only one who's still here this late. The local agents he brought in for the investigation are already spending more and more of their time back at the field office, mostly working on other things. As far as I know, Matthews negotiated with the feds to keep the BHB case as much in Miami Metro's hands as possible, with our department taking lead under Lundy's command, so it's not a surprise that there aren't any other agents here.

That being said, the old guy's almost always the last to leave.

"You're back," he says. "How'd it go?"

"She agreed to give us his DNA," Batista says, waggling the paper bag he's holding.

"Good." He stands up as we walk over to his desk, takes the bag. "And with any luck we'll have another name to put on our board."

"Doubt she'll see it that way," I say.

"Yeah, probably not," Batista agrees.

We just came from seeing Jill Donovan, the wife (or, potentially, the widow) of Mike Donovan, for whom IAFIS spit out a potential match when we re-ran his prints with a lower threshold for matching points of comparison. The reason his name caught our attention was because his prints were in the system as a suspected pedophile up in Kentucky, and because he'd been reported as missing last October— which matches our corpse's TOD.

We didn't tell the wife anything about the kind of people Mike's body was found with, if it even is his body. She'll find out eventually, especially since that might mean her husband will be tied to an unsolved homicide or two. Or, fucking who knows, maybe twenty.

"Well, there's nothing more we can do here tonight," Lundy says. "Good work today. Now I suggest you both get out of here and enjoy your weekend."

"Don't need to tell me twice," Batista says. He stretches his back. "Have a good weekend, Agent Lundy. Deb."

"You too," I say.

Lundy nods at him, and the detective turns and heads out the door. He was telling me half the drive here all about his plans with his daughter tomorrow, so I'm not surprised by how fast he's going.

But I don't move, for whatever reason. Maybe it's because unlike him I'm not really looking forward to tomorrow, with my shrink appointment bright and early in the morning.

Fuck…

"Something else you wanted to discuss?" Lundy asks.

"Nothing on my end." I shrug. "What about you? Anything new come in since we left?"

He nods, leaning back against the desk. "Masuka submitted a few of his trace reports. He'll be coming in tomorrow to finish up more of them."

"God I hope that's going to cut into his plans," I say, then remember Lundy has yet to really be exposed to the pervy little lab freak. He gives me a weird look. Hastily, I continue, "Anything interesting?"

"Nothing so far that might be identifying. But he thinks he knows how our killer restrained his victims."

"Oh yeah?"

Another nod. "He found traces of plastic around their bodies and in their wounds. It looks like he stripped them and tied them down with plastic wrap before he killed them."

My heart stops mid beat. "What?" I ask. "Plastic wrap?"

"Yes."

I stare at him.

"Unfortunately there's nothing unique about the plastic. He could've picked it up at any hardware store. Could've even ordered it off Amazon."

Plastic wrap.

And suddenly it feels like the air is compressing. "Did he find anything else?" I hear myself asking. I sound weirdly calm.

"Glue residue around their mouths. Possibly from—"

Duct tape, I finish with him.

Compressing to stone. It's hot.

"Everything alright?"

I try to focus on his face, grab hard to the ground. "Yeah," I say. "You mind if I take a look?"

"Go ahead." He reaches behind him, picks up a couple folders, holds them out to me.

I take them. And then without saying anything I open the first one, start trying to sift through the meaningless technical bullshit. Try to find something in fucking English.

"Anyway, I think I'm going to take my own advice," Lundy says, barely pulling my attention up from the report. "I'm going to go back to the hotel, maybe take a dip in the pool before I go to bed." Distantly I register his smile. "I'll see you on Monday."

"Yeah," I say, already forgetting what I'm agreeing to.

Plastic wrap and duct tape.

"Have a nice weekend, Debra."

The response is automatic, "You too, Agent Lundy."

Still smiling, he heads for the door, bringing Mike Donovan's toothbrush with him.

Before he's even quite gone, I walk to the other desk, the one he doesn't use. Sit. Put the folders down.

And even though I'm finally starting to pick words out of the report, everything's fading to a white haze. As the words repeat in my head like there's a needle stuck in some internal groove.

He stripped them and tied them down with plastic wrap.

Traces of glue around the mouth.

He stripped them and tied them down with plastic wrap.

Plastic found in the fatal chest wound.

He stripped them and tied them down with plastic wrap.

I close my eyes. Exhale. Slowly. Feel it tug me away.

He knocked me out. And when I woke up I was lying on that table, nude and wrapped in plastic, still gagged with tape. He undressed me, took all my things and folded them neatly, stacked them in a Hefty bag. And then he left me there in the dark. To wait. For him to saw me apart.

(but that doesn't make sense that doesn't make sense we know the Ice Truck Killer didn't do this why would he have done this we know it wasn't him we know)

I open my eyes, look at the pictures on the board. Body parts. Sawed into pieces and stuck into Hefty bags, weighted with rocks and thrown into the ocean.

Plastic wrap and duct tape.

(we know we know we know we)

I look at the report again. The one below it. Tear through them. Try to find something, anything. They all say the same shit. None of it makes sense.

Fragments of clear polyethylene found under the fingernails.

I feel the tape around my lips. I open my mouth, just to make sure I can.

Heat presses down.

(we know we know we know we know we know)

For the first time in a long time I don't fight the memory, or maybe I can't. It swallows me whole. In a breath.

He kicked me in the knees and I fell hard on the mat. I couldn't think, barely had any connection, everything melting down, every nerve screaming. He blindfolded me after he took me out of the trunk, dragged me into the garage. Let me loose to bounce off the walls.

(I was so scared I was so scared jesus god I thought I knew I was going to die I knew I'd never leave that room I knew)

And his voice, light and conversational. He didn't give a fuck about me.

Terror burns white hot. I let myself remember. Something I never understood.

("I don't usually work this way.")

(oh god oh jesus oh fuck)

("Call it an homage to a fellow traveler I greatly admire.")

My breath is trapped in my throat. Comes out strangled.

("Call it an homage")

The needle in my neck. Time tipped sideways. Fell away.

And I woke up on the table.

Plastic wrap and duct tape.

("Why are you doing this?")

("I don't want to spoil the surprise.")

He stripped them and tied them down with plastic wrap.

("Call it an homage")

A surgical tray with knives and an electric saw. Pliers and shears to break me apart.

I can feel the plastic wrapped around me, pinning me down flat and helpless.

His voice in my ear, arms tightening around my throat.

("How did you not know who I was?")

I open my eyes. Stare down at the folders. Somewhere far away a siren blares, then fades.

(what the fuck does this mean what the fuck was he talking about)

("Call it an homage to a fellow traveler I greatly admire.")

I remember Monique Santos hanging upside down in the rack, watching as he cut her throat open and her blood poured down her face. Plastic tubs filled with blood and neatly labeled. Sherry's fingertips hanging suspended in the ice. Body parts drained and frozen, carefully wrapped in butcher paper. Always bloodless and clean and exact. He never made a mess. He never drugged them.

But he drugged me. Wrapped me up like a fucking chicken and left me tied down on that table, over a mat to catch the blood. My blood. Left me there.

Like Tucci.

(why)

("I don't usually work this way.")

I look up to stare at the pictures again, at the rows and rows of names. And suddenly I realize. Know it for certain.

They knew each other.

("Call it an homage")

Somehow he knew the Butcher. Or at least knew of him. And he wanted to kill me the same way.

I stare at the body parts. At the saw marks in shredded skin and bone. Bloody and precise. No evidence of hesitation marks.

After he killed them he unwrapped them, then dismembered them and put them into bags— arms with arms, legs with legs, head with trunk. Took them out to the bay and threw them in the water.

And somehow Rudy was what? Fucking inspired?

Why?

(what did he think it'd be fucking poetic killing a cop and dumping her with a bunch of murderers or would he have put me on display for him)

(like some kind of sick fucking suggestion like he was telling him he knew what the Butcher was doing and maybe he should expand his horizons)

(fuck a cop kill a stupid fucking cop what's the fucking difference)

I bury my fingers into the bridge of my nose, suck in a breath.

(jesus fucking christ)

Feel something hysterical push up my throat. Let it out in a bark of griefy fucking laughter.

(and I never knew I never saw it I just walked onto that boat he lured me there to take me)

(and I loved him I said yes)

(I'm such a fucking moron)

(and he fucking knew it too)

My chest spasms as I laugh, as I sob. As I feel his breath against my ear.

("Call it an homage")

A/N: This is the juncture where my fic finally hits up against what I think is probably the most significant plot hole in the series: how the hell Deb apparently never made a connection between the BHB's MO and how she was set up on the ITK's table. I had two options in dealing with it: pave over it and ignore it, or address it. I went with door two. The only problem with this is that it's obvious to me that the canon never intended this. I'm not sure why this was never a plot point, because for me it changes a lot about s2 (and beyond it) and it was really interesting to block out— maybe because it would've (and does) significantly complicate Deb's stuff this season, and they didn't feel like devoting the screen time. Or maybe they really didn't consider it. I don't know.

But when it comes down to it, this is my fic, and this fic exists for Deb. It doesn't make any sense at all to me that this wouldn't have happened, so it's happening. Canonical intention be fucked. They didn't do enough with her this season anyway.