A Real Rain- 1:17
Harita's POV
"My text could not send, Strauss what the fuck is up with the wifi!" I exclaimed. Let's backtrack a bit. I was called into Strauss's office, and she had to talk with me about some kind of shit, I wasn't paying attention. Then she told me to text Morgan because he was next, who wasn't at the bureau yet. Even though I was in her office, her door was open, meaning that everyone could hear what I was yelling. "You have this big ass office, and you can't afford a WiFi box out here?"
"It's not about affording, Dr. It's about radiation."
"We're going to die anyways, you understand that? Die with a good text going through!" I yelled. There was a knock. It was Hotch.
"Sorry to interrupt, but we have a case." I stood up and walked towards the door.
"Dr. Harita, we will talk about this after." Strauss warned.
"I won't be talking to you until you get some good WiFi." I followed Hotch into the conference room and sat down in my chair. Finally, Morgan came in. He would have come faster if Strauss had good WiFi.
"Walter Derbin, age 52. His body was found in his cab in east Harlem. He was blindfolded and shot once in the chest. Death was caused by knife stab through his ear. The unsub broke off the handle and put the blade lodged in his brain." Hotch showed the pictures on the TV.
"It's the same signature as two other murders. Rachel Holman, 24, found in her apartment 3 weeks ago on the lower east side. And Kaveh Surrani, 30. The police found him 2 weeks later in his painting studio in hell's kitchen." JJ added.
"Different locations, different victimology. It's possible we're looking for someone who'll hunt indiscriminately."
"NYPD have any leads?" Elle asked.
"Guy's a ghost." Hotch answered.
"He kills at night. There's no witnesses." JJ explained.
"Is the NYPD feeling the strain?" Gideon asked.
"Well, they've withheld details so the press hasn't sniffed out a link between the murders." JJ responded.
"With no discernable victim patterns, the killer's practically impossible to stop." Morgan said, defeated.
"Did you know the original zodiac killer actually continually changed his victims. Young, old, men, women, white, black." Spencer stated.
"Exactly, and he killed for 30 years without ever being caught." Gideon added.
…
*CUE INTRO*
(For one of the 'pictures' in the intro, imagine Harita fidgeting with a pen, looking at a map with her left eyebrow raised.)
…
3rd POV
"Strauss wants to talk to you after the case." Harita mumbled as she stormed out of the conference room. Hotch followed her, right behind her toes. Morgan was confused.
"Okay, one, who or what busted her bubbles, and two, who do I need to beat up." Morgan threatened.
"You'll find out on the plane." Gideon said as he left.
...
"Harita, you know not to say that to Strauss." Hotch said. They were all on the plane, and Morgan was all caught up.
"It's not my fault that she didn't have great WiFi in her office. The WiFi is amazing everywhere else but not in her fucking office. Besides, that gave me a reason to yell at her. We all hate her, and you can't deny it." Harita ranted, as the others were trying not to laugh.
"You know, if you weren't so vulnerable, then Struass would be behind your back."
"Should I be offended?" Harita threw a piece of my Clif bar at Hotch, and held up her iced coffee she was drinking, threatening to throw that at him too.
"Okay! Before Harita attacks Hotch, can someone change the topic." Morgan yelled, who was dying of laughter.
"You know, this is not how I planned to spend a few days home in New York." Elle sighed.
"I'd kill for an afternoon at Barney's and dinner at Il Cantinori." JJ hoped.
"I'm looking forward to seeing New York." Reid stated as Harita choked on her coffee.
"You've never been to New York?" She asked.
"We've never had an unsub there." Reid simply responded.
"I thought you were gonna talk to Reid about taking some vacation time." Hotch murmured to Gideon.
"What's vacation time?" Gideon asked.
"Reid, it's a one hour flight." Morgan exclaimed.
"Well, if we have some time, I'll show you around." JJ reassured.
"It's a 3 hour train ride, man." Morgan added as we all chuckled.
"Ok, here's what we know." Hotch interrupted. "Blitz attackers are almost always male."
"He got picked up in the pouring rain by a New York cabbie, so we definitely know he's not a brother." Morgan replied, chuckling.
"The fact that he kills in a major urban setting without detection indicates he's highly intelligent." Reid stated.
"How intelligent can he be? And blitz attackers are textbook disorganized killers." Elle argued.
"Yeah, but he brings along a murder kit. Blindfold, knife. How disorganized can he be?" Hotch asked.
"We'll split up. We'll take the last two crime scenes. In the meantime, let's talk about what we can agree on. A blindfold likely means one of two things." Gideon reared.
"The unsub might blindfold them initially if he's unsure of killing them and wants to avoid detection." Harita explained.
"Exactly. But since we know the cab driver couldn't have been blindfolded when he drove the unsub, we're looking at reason number two, blindfolding a victim suggests the unsub feels remorse." Gideon added.
…
Harita's POV
"Hey, you guys, check this out." Hotch called out from the hallway. We were at the second to last victim's house, examining the scene. "The cops' theory is that she was home and the unsub broke in through the front window and surprised her. But look. This is the gunshot to the chest. This is the knife to the head." The blood from the gun was near my feet, but the blood from the head was 6.7 feet away.
"So then after she was shot, she tried to run away from him toward the door." Morgan concluded.
"Exactly."
"He was already in the apartment when she got home." Elle added.
"The hallway is the only room in the apartment with no windows." Hotch agreed. "No one could see him, so he just waited patiently."
"So, she comes home, and she opens the door, and she walks in the hallway. She walks down, and then, BAM! He shoots her right here." I acted out what I said and stopped at where the blood from the gunshot was.
"But she tries to run away, and he's on her." Morgan adds.
"So why didn't he just shoot her again? Why stab her and break the blade off in her head?" An officer from the NYPD asked.
"Well, there are a number of possibilities." Elle answered
"Through the ear is the softest path to the brain. Snapping the handle's also common in prison shankings. Break it off, the other guy can't pull the blade out." Morgan explained.
"What's the other possibility?"
"It's possible our unsub is sort of a serial-killer groupie." I added.
"What do you mean?"
"We'll explain that in our profile." Hotch answered.
...
"The profile's just a starting point for narrowing down the suspects." Elle explained.
"For instance, the fact that the unsub shoots his victims first suggests that he needs a quick and effective means of controlling the situation." Morgan added.
"It's possible that he feels he can't overpower his victims. It could be that he has a physical problem. Or that he's not confident just because he's small." I stated.
"We now know he has a high degree of organization. That coupled with the fact he hunts at night means he probably has a steady job." Hotch said. "There's a lot we still don't know, but we do know this, these are not blitz attacks. They're too controlled. These are absolutely executions."
"An unsub's signature is his own extremely rare combination of MO and ritual. An unsub kills to satisfy an inner need or compulsion, and he'll continue killing until that is lived out perfectly. Because reality never lives up to fantasy, this becomes an impossibility." I emphasized.
"In other words, he's not gonna stop killing until we catch him." Morgan explained.
...
"So this is where terror starts." Chief Bennet said. We got a call about another murder at a church. I had to say, I was excited. I have never been in a church before, and it always sounds boring. But what can I say, I love math, and humans say that's boring.
"How'd they find him?" Hotch asked.
"The night janitor."
"Did he see anything?" Gideon asked.
"No, but he remembered a parishioner who was here earlier."
"So there's a potential witness." Hotch stated.
"Right there." Chief Bennet pointed to an elderly woman. Elle, Morgan and I went to talk to her.
"As soon as the police asked me if I'd see anything, I had a sickly feeling." The woman explained.
"So you saw him?" Elle asked.
"Not his face. He had a hood on and he kept his head down."
"But something about his behavior unsettled you?" Morgan asked and she nodded.
"I'm sorry. I should have known."
"Hey, there's no way that someone could know something like this." I reassured.
"It almost felt like he couldn't hear me, like he was in his own world, you know?"
"You spoke to him?" Gideon asked, as he, the chief, and Hotch came over to us.
"I just asked if he was ok."
"And he didn't speak?" Hotch questioned.
"He didn't even look up. I couldn't stop watching his hands. They were moving, like he was playing a piano or fingering a rosary maybe. He could have killed me."
"Unless he's not killing at random." Elle stated.
"And whatever these people have in common is what got them killed." Morgan added.
"I thought maybe he was uncomfortable being in this parish."
"Why would it be uncomfortable?" I asked.
"Because of all that... business." The woman hesitated.
"A year ago, the rector was indicted for pedophilia." Chief Bennet explained.
"A lot of people stopped worshipping here. But father Breeman was tried in a court of law and found innocent. It's not my place to question that." The woman added.
"He's not using just any knife. It's made of flint." Spencer came over to us.
"As in stone?" Elle asked.
"In egyptian mythology, flint was the symbol for protection and retribution. With hieroglyphics, they used to depict dangerous animals like scorpions and snakes being cut with flint knives in order to render them powerless." Spencer explained. Hotch, the chief, Gideon, and Spencer went back to the victim. A few minutes later they came back to us.
"If the victim was blindfolded first, the blood would have flowed over the blindfold. He puts it on after he kills them." Gideon suggested.
"All 3 charged with a felony. All 3 found innocent." Hotch stated.
"And that didn't show up on your men's radar?" Elle asked the chief.
"Acquittals? No. Why is it important?"
"Because we have a new profile." Gideon answered.
...
"We now believe these killings aren't random. We might be dealing with a vigilante. The unsub first shoots his victims in order to subdue them. Flint knife then provides both an efficient kill and symbolic retribution. Finally, the victim is blindfolded, like the statute of lady justice. This particular unsub, he displays both a heightened, well it's actually almost a poetic sense of right and wrong." Gideon stated.
"Serial vigilantes are extremely rare. The exaggerated drama of these killings suggest that they're somehow personal. He, or someone close to him, is likely the victim of a violent crime. His first killing was possibly against his original attacker. And since then he's developed an overblown sense of justice in order to justify that killing to himself." Spencer explained.
"Because he chooses the imagery of lady justice, it's possible we're dealing with someone who works in or around the criminal justice system. Lawyer, paralegal, bailiff, even a judge." Gideon said.
"We'll cross-check unsolved murders against suspects in assault cases and victims who work in the system." Chief Bennet ordered.
"Whatever the unsub's job, he's someone who's a cog in the machine. He's overworked, undervalued. He's used to not being noticed. His sense of theatrics is a way to enhance his own self-esteem, convince himself he has a higher purpose. And he also knows that people look right through him. Being faceless is his best defense against protection. He's everyone. One last thing. We need you to close ranks. The more details slip out, the more he'll feed off it. We don't want him believing he captured the public's fear or imagination." Gideon also ordered.
"Too late." JJ delivered. "The afternoon edition's leading with the vigilante story."
"How did they get it?" The chief asked.
"I don't know."
"You were worried about this guy becoming another son of Sam. Now we might be dealing with a vigilante folk hero like Bernhard Goetz." Gideon explained.
…
It was lunch time, and we all went out to a chinese place. If I had to be honest, Chopsticks aren't my thing. I was doing that thing where people would take a pencil and stab it between their fingers, like on the gaps, really fast and they would go back and forth. I was doing that instead of eating my food, well because I can't eat with chopsticks. But this time, I was using chopsticks. I was really great at the game, considering I used scissors and knives before without stabbing myself.
"So you know there was a big hole in the profile you presented back there." Hotch stated.
"Can you pass the Moo Shoo, please?" Gideon asked.
"What's the hole?" JJ asked.
"I left out the possibility our unsub might be a cop." Gideon answered.
"Well, they do know the system. They're definitely overworked and underpaid." Morgan explained.
"They see so much injustice every day they can easily take matters into their own hands." Hotch added.
"When someone like our victim is killed, police refer to the murder as a public-service murder." Spencer tried to eat his food, but also failed. Chopsticks are nightmares. I really don't understand how everyone else is able to do it but not us.
"You know how many rapists I saw walk during my sex-crime days? None of the victims, they didn't want to press charges. Or the juries, they said that she was asking for it. It was enough to make you explode." Elle stated.
"It's a long way from feeling like that and actually committing murder, don't you think?" JJ questioned.
"Not really." Hotch answered.
"Excuse me. Can I get a fork, perhaps?" Spencer asked one of the servers. "Did you know that experts credit Confucius with the advent of the chopstick? He equated knives with acts of aggression."
"Well, what else are chopsticks used for?" I asked, bringing the attention to my little game.
"They are used for eating, not for stabbing your fingers." Hotch took the chopsticks away from me.
"You two don't know how to use them, do you?" Morgan asked.
"It's like trying to forage for dinner with a pair of number 2 pencils." Spencer replied. We all laughed.
"Besides, they are better used for stabbing- I mean playing." I corrected myself. We all laughed again, well besides Hotch.
"Harita." Hotch warned.
"Ok, here, let me help you." JJ took the chopsticks from Reid and tied a rubber-band at the end of it.
"Oh, the rubber-band trick." Morgan realized.
"Yeah, rubber-band trick. Harita?" JJ asked, holding up another rubber-band. I was about to answer until Hotch did it for me.
"She is now not allowed to have chopsticks." I pouted. The server came over and gave the utensils to Reid, who handed them to me, which I thanked him for.
"Well, New York city cops do have a lot of pressure on 'em. Every move they make is scrutinized." Morgan stated.
"You know, the first cases of criminal profiling happened when a New York city cop asked a criminal psychiatrist friend to help with the mad bomber case." Gideon recalled.
"The mad bomber was a major inspiration for the unabomber. He eluded cops in New York for 16 years, starting in 1940. But he kept his promise and never set off a single bomb during the second world war." Spencer explained.
"Psychiatrist James Brussels, he developed a profile so accurate he predicted that when they caught the bomber, he'd be wearing a double-breasted suit and it would be buttoned." Gideon added.
"You guys, we're here in New York and even when we're not talking about our case, we end up talking about another profiler." Elle chuckled.
"You're right. So, Elle... are you seeing anyone?" Hotch asked, jokingly.
"Uh, Gideon... why didn't you tell the cops that it might be one of their own?" Elle asked, changing the subject.
"If we're gonna catch the guy, we need all the help the cops can give us. The last thing I want to do is accuse one of them of murder." Gideon answered.
"How's it going there." JJ asked Spencer.
"Awesome." Spencer replied as Gideon's phone rang.
"And you?" JJ asked.
"I would rather be stabbing my eyes if I have to use chopsticks ever again, thank you very much." I chuckled.
"It's absolutely incredible. 1.3 billion people stay nourished using these things." Spencer recited.
"At least we know we aren't part of the 1.3 billion." I nudged Spencer as we all laughed.
"He just took out a cop killer." Gideon said, ruining the mood.
...
"More bad news." JJ reported, handing Gideon a newspaper. We were back at the station after we heard the news. "It's the same reporter every time. Nancy Wagner. He's practically deifying him."
"'I'm not even happy with the results when God plays God'." Gideon quoted.
"You know, a few of the men were talking about making him a wish list of other dirtbags." The chief said.
"'Some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets'." Hotch read.
"Taxi driver." Spencer added.
"This town loves a psychopath." The chief stated.
"Why hasn't he contacted the press yet?" Reid asked.
"Reid's right." Hotch added. "He's got the symbolism, the inflated sense of duty. He should be seeking out acclaim."
"Maybe it's not about acclaim with him. He's on a mission. Maybe it's about the work." Gideon suggested.
"Yeah, but the last 2 cases were a cop killer and a pedophile priest." Hotch argued. "Those are higher profile cases."
"He's getting more confident." Spencer added.
"He's grown into his role of the city judge and executioner." Gideon stated.
"I'll check the press archives for controversial acquittals. Maybe we can target the victim before the unsub, have the police waiting on him." JJ said.
"Hey, guys. Listen to what came off the tip hotline." Elle announced.
"I got a tip." The recording said. "Let the guy be. How come the NYPD wants to catch this guy? Are you jealous he's doing the job better than you?"
"It goes on for half an hour." Elle stopped the recording.
"He's a hero. The exact same thing happened with the Goetz-New York subway shooting in the early eighties." Spencer recalled.
"You weren't even born." Gideon said.
"I read a lot." Reid sassed.
...
"Do you have any idea how many cases-"
"122,998 cases a year." Morgan answered. Morgan said that, according to Garcia, all of the five victims all went to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse at 100th Centre Street.
"We'll check it out." Gideon ordered. "Maybe there's someone with a history of erratic behavior who worked in the building. Crime groupies. A security guard that fits the profile. Get with JJ see what you can make of her case list." Gideon told Morgan.
"Ok." Morgan responded.
"I'll go with you." Elle followed him.
"Hey, wait up! I'm coming." I ran after them.
...
"The reporter is not a vigilante." Chief Bannet told us. The reporter was a suspect, only because he was getting the information about the killings before the NYPD.
"Yeah, we know. How do you know?" Elle asked.
"There was just another shooting in central park."
"You say shooting. What about the rest of the signature?" Morgan asked.
"Officers heard the shot, but he ran off before they got there. The victim was an undercover cop."
"I think you're looking for me." A man said, in a gray hoodie. He put his hands up, a gun in one hand.
"Put the gun on the ground!" I yelled, readying my gun. "On your knees!" He did as told and the officers arrested him.
"No, you don't understand. I did this all for you. We're in this together." The guy stated.
...
"His name's Will Sykes. He's a security guard at a boutique in soho." I said, walking into the room where JJ and Reid were. Sykes was in the other room, facing the one way window.
"He was a mugging victim last year. Spent 2 days in intensive care." Morgan added.
"Fits the profile." Spencer responded.
"How's it going in here?" Elle asked.
"He just confessed to all the murders." JJ answered. "Why would he confess to murders he didn't commit?"
"Because he has narcissistic delusions. He wants the glory. He wants to be a star." Morgan answered.
"He went into the park hoping that somebody would mess with him." Elle added.
"He killed your undercover officer but not the others." Gideon said, coming out of the interrogation room.
"So where does that leave us?" Chief Bennet asked.
"We know our unsub has a heightened sense of right and wrong. If he knew that he inspired a would-be vigilante to murder an undercover cop, he might feel remorse." Spencer suggested.
"You think you might be able to mend fences with the reporter, Wagner?" Gideon asked.
"If it played to his ego, yeah. We might be able to draw the unsub out." JJ answered.
"That's a good one."
...
We were watching the funeral for the cop on the TV.
"Wagner said this morning that the cop's blood is all over the vigilante's hands." Spencer stated.
"How did JJ get him to cooperate?" Hotch asked.
"The unsub may feel a need to be there, to physically mourn for what he caused. If that article lures him, Wagner gets to claim he caught a murderer. It's the ultimate scoop." Gideon answered.
"Will they know how to spot him?" Chief Bennet asked.
"I briefed your men. If the unsub is there, he'll be alone, out of place, not speaking to anyone else, probably not even making eye contact. Hopefully, he'll panic, draw attention to himself." Gideon responded.
"I can never get that sound out of my head." Bennet said. "Wakes me in the middle of the night. If there was any justice, cop killers would have to hear it for an eternity." Hotch's phone rang, in which he answered.
...
We got our guy. He was the transcriber for all of the victim's cases. His parents were killed in an attempted robbery in 2004.
"Marvin Doyle. FBI. Open up." Gideon said. No response. We kicked down the door. I went in and turned left into the room. There was tinfoil on all the windows.
"Hey guys! I got something." I yelled.
"Tryna keep the voices out." Gideon observed. "He sound-proofed the entire place."
"He ripped the speakers out of the television and the radio. And here is a life insurance check for $250,000. It's 2 years old. He didn't cash it." Elle handed the check to Gideon.
"He won't accept blood money." Gideon responded.
"Here's a box full of flint knives. There's got to be a hundred of 'em." Hotch dropped the box.
"Hey, guys." Morgan called out. "Come take a look at this. It's a stenograph machine. Look at the keys. They're all worn out."
"It's like he was trying to transcribe the voices in his head and he couldn't keep up." Gideon added.
"Looks like hieroglyphics." Elle suspected.
"It's called steno." Reid corrected. "It's basically a phonetic series of syllables. No court reporter takes notes the same way so no one can translate them but the reporter himself."
"He's getting paid overtime to study potential victims." Gideon added.
"He knows we're onto him. He's racing us now." Hotch reminded.
"Someone in these boxes is targeted to die. We need to get inside his head and figure out who so we can stop him. Let's go. Start fishin'." Gideon ordered, as I took one of the boxes. I opened it up and started reading the files.
"This is a lot of boxes. How are we supposed to narrow it down?" Morgan asked.
"Check and see if it ended in acquittal. If it didn't, toss it aside." Gideon responded.
"It has to be a capital case. He's escalating. The more brutal the better." Hotch added.
"Why not go by the most recent?" Elle asked.
"Judging by his elaborate filing system, Doyle obviously has obsessive-compulsive disorder. People with OCD often finish tasks then go back to the beginning and start over." Spencer responded.
"So he continually goes through the transcripts and the first one to trigger him becomes his next victim." I stated.
"Here's one. This is a liquor store owner who was shot with his own gun." Elle read.
"Flip to when they present the defense. Did the defendant testify?" Hotch asked.
"No."
"Stick with the ones where the accused took the stand. This is personal. He hears their voices."
"Doyle's victims all claimed to be a type of victim themselves. The first two threw themselves on the mercy of the court, pleading alcohol and drug dependency. The priest said he was a victim, victim of recent hysteria." Gideon recalled.
"Look for key phrases: victim, mercy, anything that signifies they thought their crime wasn't their fault." Hotch ordered.
"I think I might have one, guys." Reid called out. "Ted Elmore. He shot and killed both his parents after claiming self-defense for years of physical abuse."
"Doyle lost his own parents. Hearing someone get away with killing their own, that would haunt him." Gideon added as he went to call the number. "Come on! We have to go!"
...
"He's there." Chief Bennet pointed to the sixth window up.
"I think I can talk him out." Gideon said.
"I have snipers up high. If they get a clean shot, they have my order to take it."
"We might be able to reason. We rushed him. He doesn't want to have an innocent hostage. He has an exaggerated sense of right and wrong."
"And so do I."
"Talking's worth a shot."
"I'm coming with you." Hotch followed behind Gideon.
...
Hotch and Gideon got Marvin, well, dead. Hotch shot him, since he was about to kill his almost sixth victim. The family was safe and sound.
Credits to the show, 'Keeping up with the Kardashian' for the inspo at the beginning. Also thank you guys for 1,000 views! 1,000. 1,000 views. 1k. I am screaming now. I can't not express how much I love you guys so much.
Toodles,
HernameisBurrito