Psychodrama- 2:4
Harita's POV
"Over the past two months, the LA field office has been tracking a series of 4 bank robberies in the LA metro area. It's one individual wearing a black ski mask. He's highly skilled. It's his unique MO that puts him squarely in our court. This happened two days ago." JJ pointed to the TV and played the choppy video. There were half-naked people sitting in a circle, and a guy in a ski mask circling around them.
"Is he making them undress?" Hotch asked.
"He takes their clothes and locks them in the vault, then he goes for the cash." JJ explained.
"Smart. Nobody's going to run after him butt naked." Morgan said.
"It's also a psychological advantage. Make the captives feel exposed, intimidated, and much less likely to fight back."
"Yeah, and the Mac-10 they're waving around. Dude's got a lot of firepower." I added to Reid's statement.
"But why is this case for us?" Elle asked.
"Because in the last robbery, two things changed. One, he beat the security guard nearly senseless, and two, after he made everyone undress, he forced two pairs of victims together at gunpoint, then he made them simulate sex with each other." JJ explained.
"It's remarkable. By utilizing a practical MO The unsub has stumbled on to a psychological signature. It's fascinating." Reid exclaimed.
"He's a sex offender now." Elle concluded.
'Fueled by violent rage. Only our unsub doesn't know it yet. If he did, he wouldn't be robbing banks anymore." Gideon added.
"So, he's a violent sex offender in denial." Elle said.
"And a sexual predator who's just escalated his crimes." Hotch read.
"He's a serial killer in the making." Gideon finialized.
…
*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.)
…
"'Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth', Oscar Wilde."- SSA Aaron Hotchner
...
"'Stripping bandit.'" Elle pulled out a paper from the printer, which was about the media that was going on about this guy. "That's terrible. That makes it sound like the bandit's doing the stripping."
"What would you call him?" Reid asked.
"Pervert." JJ answered.
"Scumbag." Elle added.
"Wussy." I replied.
"I'd call him an ass-" Morgan got cut off by Hotch's angsty ass.
"Hey, focus, please. We have the details of the 4 bank robberies to learn before we get to Los Angeles."
"At this point is he more a bank robber or a sex offender?" Reid questioned.
"I'd say we need to know more about how he robs the banks and who he chooses to victimize." Elle suggested.
"Why these banks and why these victims?" Gideon added. "Pairing these specific people together is a fantasy. If we can figure out the nature of that fantasy, we may be able to predict his targets."
"In the last robbery I don't see any photos of what he made the victims actually do." Elle observed.
"There is a problem with this surveillance system. They're working on it." JJ replied.
"We should hit the ground running. How should we break it down?" Hotch asked.
"There's got to be a pattern to the banks. We should run a geographical profile." Reid said.
"That's yours." Hotch assigned.
"And for the sexual aspects, we need to look at the specific victimology." Elle said.
"You and I can go with the victim reports, see whatever surveillance footage they've got."
"Leaves the unsub himself. We'll need his perspective. Morgan, Harita and I will go to the-."
"Crime scene." Morgan finished for him.
…
We arrived at the 'Century Plaza Bank', and if I have to be honest, I got a weird 'vibe' around here.
"The suspect entered around 2:00 PM, and a witness said he saw a man on a motorcycle with a backpack speed by a few minutes after the robbery." The detective said.
"Freeway's just a few blocks that way, right?" I asked.
"Actually, we're within a half-mile of 3 freeways." The detective pointed.
"I don't blame them, this is a perfect location. If they're on a bike, he's got no trouble getting out of here." I suspected.
"Well, first he's got to get to his bike. Where's it parked?" Morgan asked.
"It could be anywhere." The detective suggested.
"No. A guy this good wouldn't risk his bike not being anywhere near when he comes out. He'd park illegally. Probably not in the parking lot, but further down the block, maybe, or or right across the street here." Morgan pointed.
"We need to know if any of these places have security cameras that might have caught the bike. Ready?" Gideon asked.
"Let's go rob a bank." Morgan said.
"At least this time I won't go to jail." I joked.
"This time?" Morgan asked, as I put my hands up in 'surrender' mode. We walked inside of the bank, Morgan and I posing as the robbers. Even though there was one robber, it's good to have two people playing the role so you get two different perspectives/ideas.
"So, he enters and he walks right to this spot." Morgan stood on the spot as I stood next to him, as close as I could.
"They then pull their weapon out and shoot into the ceiling right there." I pointed. "That gets everyone's attention, let's them all know they're dead serious."
"Efficient." Gideon mumbled.
"This is the best spot in the bank. I can see all the tellers, the front door, and that's the back office over there." Morgan said as I looked around.
"So, he knew exactly where to go." Gideon stated.
"He had been here before." Morgan added.
"Next." Gideon orders.
"Next, he turns, aims the gun at the guard." I do the same motions as what Morgan said. "Disarms the guard and handcuffs him to the base."
"Wait a minute. Where's the threat? The guard's disarmed and chained. How's he a threat to the unsub?" I asked.
"He isn't." Gideon said.
"Then why did he take the time to assault? He's got control, he's obviously got skills, the very thing that he doesn't have is time." Morgan added.
"He didn't assault the guards in the previous banks, why? What's changed? What's different about this guard?" Gideon questioned.
"Maybe this guard reminded them of somebody." I suggested.
"What were the guards in the previous robberies wearing? Uniforms?" Gideon asked.
"Black suits." Morgan said, looking through the pictures that were handed to him earlier.
"Our dude's efficient, they're determined. This ain't their first picnic. They got their trade down cold." I suspected.
"Something about a guy in uniform triggers an emotional response." Morgan added.
"Army?" The detective asked.
"No army, you're conditioned to work with people. This guy, he doesn't trust anybody. Prison."
"Best trade school in the country." Gideon said. Morgan took the pictures of the victim's, and laid them onto the ground in the same spots they sat in.
"He knows the kids are theirs?" Gideon asked the detective.
"Witnesses said he checked their wallets first. He would have seen their names." The detective explained.
"So, of all 13 people, my dude puts together a woman in her 60's, and a guy in his 30's, in front of their kids and spouses. Why?" I asked.
"Maybe they were the most inappropriate couples he could think of. He's sadistic. Would explain why he brings them here. He could have taken them behind the teller windows, he could have taken them back into the vault, but he chooses here. It's the most exposed place in the bank." Morgan suspected.
"Like a stage." Gideon concluded.
"Like, it was as important for them to see what was going on as it was for him/her/they. Public humiliation." I added.
"Robbery wasn't about the money. It was about getting off on what he made these people do on this spot. Forcing others to squirm and watch." Gideon stated.
"We got to know what exactly they were forced to do. We need to see the fantasy. Did you ever get a hold of the security videos?" Morgan asked.
"Yes, but they were mostly erased." The detective said.
...
"That's Henderson, the bank manager." We were back at the station, reviewing what was left on the tapes. "Said he was so flustered after what he had been through, that when he was gathering the tapes for us, he hit the wrong buttons and erased part of them."
"You believe him?" Hotch asked.
"No. I told him I thought he was embarrassed about the tapes getting out and he erased them on purpose. He denied it."
"You rule out the possibility he was in on it?"
"Why would he be involved in a robbery when he had to go through something like that?"
"Maybe he didn't know what was gonna happen." Elle suggested. "Maybe he was betrayed by the unsub."
"Or perhaps he was coerced. There's been many documented cases of robbers forcing bank managers to assist them with their crimes." Spencer added.
"None of that is consistent with the MO's of the other robberies." The detective argued.
"Maybe there's a reason this last one was different from the others." Morgan speculated.
"A call from Quantico on one." One of the officers announced.
"Thanks. Garcia, it's Hotch."
"Are we ready for something completely weird?" Garcia questioned.
"How weird are we talking, Pen?" I replied.
"The security footage Hotch gave me, I ran it through my software 3 times…"
"And?"
"And there are weird height issues, i.e., the unsub in the first three robberies is 6 foot 1 and the unsub in the last robbery, he's 5'10"." Garcia explained.
"So what? In the last robbery we're dealing with a different unsub?" Morgan asked.
"An unsub who is somehow able to erase tapes that show exactly what happened at that bank." Hotch said.
'An unsub who may have possibly had inside help." Spencer added.
"I think it's time we sit down with the bank manager." Gideon said to Hotch.
...
Once Hotch and Gideon came back from interviewing the manager, we went over the picture again. Suddenly, we got a call from Garcia.
"Pals, don't be ticked, but I think I may have missed the sort of glaringly obvious here. How would you make yourself taller without being a different person entirely or having some sort of weird chinese surgery?" Garcia asked.
"Heels." Elle answered.
"Right, sunshine, but would have seen heels, unless the unsub had them hidden inside his shoe. The point is, lifts."
"Lifts." Morgan repeated.
"Lifts, all hidden up inside his boot. With a little fancy footwork, pun emphatically intended, Garcia here managed to dig him out." Garcia exclaimed.
"Thanks, girl." Morgan ended the call. "He's trying to throw us off, hide his real height."
"But why would he take the lifts out just for the last robbery?" Elle asked.
"Maybe he's getting careless." Hotch suggested.
"Which means he's also getting more dangerous." Reid added.
"At least we know we're only dealing with one unsub." I stated.
...
"Based on the knowledge that spending a significant time in prison stunts emotional growth while increasing professional skills, we can estimate this unsub went to jail between the ages of 18 and 22 and spent between 5 and 10 years inside." Hotch profiled to the officers.
"That puts him at the approximate age between 23 and 35." I calculated proudly. I took another bite of my Clif bar.
"This guy's much more than just a bank robber though. What started out as a practical MO stripping his hostages, triggered a deep psycho-sexual response."
"In other words, when he found himself in front of a bunch of naked people under his control, he snapped, then he decided to manipulate them." Morgan rephrased.
"And better, or just getting worse, he's attacking banks earlier in the day when more and more people are present." Elle stated.
"This sounds like he's sacrificing the safety of having just a few hostages to contain, for the satisfaction of having more subjects to control." I added.
"He'll be less interested in money and more interested in sadistically manipulating his captives." Reid said.
"In all likelihood, he'll be high on drugs." Morgan suggested.
"It would be wrong, however, to write this guy off as crazy. Bank robbery"The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but that this humiliation is seen by everyone." Milan Kundera. is an ambitious crime and it takes time and planning to pull it off." Hotch corrected.
"What makes this unsub unique is his fractured psyche. On the one hand, a cold, organized bank robber. On the other, a disorganized sexual sadist full of bottled up rage." Gideon added. "The two parts of his psyche have just begun to bleed together, now when they finally converge, we're talking about a criminal with the skills and efficiency of a master bank robber and the rage of a suicide bomber. He will explode."
"Sir, bank robbery in progress. Corner of Washington and Sepulveda. Kid in the back room called 911 on his cell. Said the suspect's started making people undress." I stood up from my seat and we all ran to the SUVs. Morgan, Hotch, the detective, and I in one car, Gideon, Elle and Spencer in the other.
...
We finally got to the bank, after a lot of twisting and turning, trying to get out of traffic. I jumped out of the car and sprinted to the woman, who was a cop, on the ground, her face bloody.
"Call EMS!" I yelled. I crouched down next to the woman. "Ma'am. Ma'am, Can you hear me? She's unconscious. Medics are on their way." I told Hotch, trying to wake the woman up. Morgan crouched down next to me, helping me.
"Gideon, he may be headed your way." Hotch said into his watch.
"You know what the odds are of catching a motorcycle with a car in LA?" The detective asked.
"Try not to think about it." Hotch and the detective ran into the bank.
…
Soon the ambulance arrived and took the woman away. We soon found out that the unsub got away. Gideon met Morgan, the detective, and I at the bank, while Hotch went with Elle and Reid back to the station to meet with JJ.
"It's the first time he's made so many mistakes." Hotch said.
"Hit the bank in the morning which meant more people around. Didn't clear the back room, parked his bike right out front. Didn't bother taking any money. Did almost everything we predicted." I listed all in one breath, I took out a Milky Way bar from my pocket and started munching on that . "Sometimes it sucks to be right."
"Witnesses said he refused to take off his clothes." The detective pointed to the dead guy laying on the ground.
"Damn." Morgan muttered.
"That's enough." Gideon warned.
"It's not the kind of rage you bottle back up." Morgan stated. "This could be the beginning of a spree. How's JJ doing on that suspect list?" Morgan asked.
"I'll call her." I said, pulling out my phone.
"Call Reid and Elle and get them on it, too." Gideon ordered as I nodded. I walked over the side and dialed the phone number.
…
We met up with Roland Lynch's parole officer, a guy JJ told me about. He was a pimp, who started robbing convenience stores before pimping. The good thing was that we met him at a taco stand
"You're Lynch's parole officer. When was the last time you talked to him?" Gideon asked.
"Haven't talked to Lynch in a month." The parole officer shrugged.
"What can you tell us about him? Roland?" The parole officer shrugged.
"A real peach. He used to punish his girls by raping them in front of their little sisters." The parole officer shrugged.
"He got a habit?" I asked.
"Which one of mine doesn't? If I'm not mistaken, he probably has about a 10 rock a day monkey."
"If Lynch is our guy, he's going downhill fast, but if he's tweaking, he's going down even faster." Morgan warned.
"His latest drug test isn't back yet, but I'm betting it isn't going to be clean." The parole officer predicted.
"You got a line on him?" Gideon asked.
"Give me a break. You know what my caseload is like?" The parole officer tried to walk off, but Morgan stopped him.
"Hey, come on, man. He might have beaten a civilian to death with a Mac-10, caved in a meter maid's face, and that's just the beginning. That makes the top of your list."
"I'll make some calls."
"Thank you."
…
We got the location of Roland Lynch, a bar called JJ's Paradise. No, JJ doesn't work there. Funny, huh? Yeah, I'll stop the dad jokes, Elle says I am a child.
"FBI!" Morgan announced who was in front of me. "I need Roland Lynch. Talk to me, Roland Lynch. Roland lynch? Hey! Roland Lynch?" Morgan pointed his gun at the guy, and he tried to escape, but Morgan got to him first. "Don't even think about it. Don't move!" Morgan turned Roland around and handcuffed. "You know I can count about 16 different ways you've just violated your parole."
"They send in feds for busting parole?" Roland asked, trying to be all smart-ass.
"We're here for the bank robberies and the delivery man you killed." I answered. Roland looked me up and down.
"Well, pretty lady. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don't rob banks." I stepped closer to him so that my face was inches from his.
"You violated parole, we've got you on possession, you're going down." I sneered.
"You think I'm gonna roll over cause you're a woman and I have to respect you? I took beatings that lasted longer than that."
"If I were you, I wouldn't even worry about the murder charge. I'd worry what happens to you when word gets around you're a pervert." Gideon said, as I took a step back from him.
"Yeah, well, I made my living being a pervert." Roland argued.
"You can tell them that."
"Oh, this is different. Went after little old ladies, kids. Witnesses say you got off when the old lady took her shirt off. Old ladies, kids, inside, think about it." Morgan slapped Roland's cheek lightly.
"Hey, Roland, you're high out of your mind right now, aren't you? Get him in the car." Morgan ordered the other officers.
"Take him back to the field office, spend a few hours with him, he'll sober up." Gideon said.
"Give me a pot of coffee and I'll go all night with this fool." Morgan snickered.
"Oh, I'll join you, as long as mine's iced."
"Get him out of here." Morgan handed him to the officer. Morgan called Elle to let him know the news. A few minutes later, he looked disappointed.
"We got the wrong guy." I sighed and shook my head.
...
The unsub went to a cafe instead of a bank. Instead of killing an older person, he killed a 14 year old. The whole team was watching the tapes of the robbery.
"According to witnesses, he came in and fired into the ceiling. He separated all the kids from their parents. He's forcing the sons to hit their mothers. He started to. When he tried to get the first one to hit his mother harder, he refused, and when he refused." The tape showed the unsub shooting at the kid. There were tears threatening to spill, but I held them back. He was just a child. Out of anyone, why a child? Elle held my hand and squeezed it, a way to show that he's there.
"It doesn't make sense. They're children." Hotch sympathized.
"He's playing out a fantasy." Gideon said.
"Yeah, but it's his fantasy and someone else's children." Hotch muttered.
"They're surrogates of some kind." Morgan suspected.
"No. You don't do this to someone else's kids to get off. You just don't do it." Hotch walked away. Gideon followed him, and everyone went their own ways. Elle and I stayed behind.
"Hey, let's take a walk." I said, rubbing my eyes. "We'll go and get some coffee."
…
"I still don't get how you can drink cold coffee, let alone 2 large cups." Elle joked. We were walking on the streets, our coffee(s)
"Hey, I'm an adult." I argued.
"Yeah, right." Elle scoffed. "Only children drink this kind of crappy shit."
"Rude." I muttered. Elle's phone rang, and she answered it.
"It's Hotch." Elle pocketed her phone. "He's got some news about the unsub."
...
"He apologized?" I asked.
"Sadists don't apologize." Elle added. "They gloat, maybe, but they don't apologize."
"Our guy's not a sadist. We got that part of the profile wrong." Gideon corrected.
"He doesn't derive any sadistic pleasure from these fantasies, they're more like a compulsion." Elle snapped her fingers.
"Compulsion that's literally life or death? I mean, if anyone interferes, he kills them. It's like he's compelled to direct these fantasies using these people as actors." Reid stated.
"Actors on a stage, it's a play." Morgan added.
"If this is a play, it's the most twisted, darkest, Shakespearean play I've ever seen." I scoffed.
"It's a psychodrama." Reid said.
'What's that?" JJ asked.
"It's a form of psychotherapy whereby actors serve as surrogates for actual people in the patient's life." Reid explained. "Incorporates many elements of theatre, including an audience. There's a very famous pilot program at the San Luis Obispo county jail in the mid-nineties."
"Isn't that just a couple hours away from here?" Morgan questioned.
"Let's go over the suspect list and see how many of them did time in San Luis Obispo." Hotch ordered.
…
"The answer is 4." Garcia said, over the phone. We called her a few minutes later.
"Come on. Tell me you narrowed it down a little more than that." Morgan pushed.
"Only two live in the state, but only 1 lives in LA."
"Ha, that a girl." Morgan congratulated.
"Caleb Dale Sheppard, last known address 236 Harbor Lane, Inglewood."
"Thanks, mama." Morgan ended the call.
"That's only 1.6 miles from the last restaurant that he hit." Reid exclaimed.
"If he's been attacking that close to home, he's given up any interest in protecting his identity." Hotch said.
"We need to all go down there and split up, half to his address, half patrol in the area around the restaurant in case he's on the hunt." Gideon ordered.
…
Morgan, Elle, and I went to the hotel, and Gideon, Hotch, and Reid went to the house. We were halfway to the hotel, when hotch called us, telling us Sheppard lives at the hotel. We sped to the hotel, and once we got there, we ran to the front desk. Morgan showed the front lady his FBI badge, and Elle showed a picture of Sheppard. The lady handed me his key, and we ran to his room number, 117. Morgan pounded on his door, announcing our arrival. We got no response, so we drew our guns and barged in, scanning the room. The whole room was clear. On the bed, we found a map of LA, and a bunch of pictures of buildings. We found meth spilled on his night-stand. He was so high, he left his ski mask and bike behind. Morgan went to call Hotch
...
"'"The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but that this humiliation is seen by everyone.' Milan Kundera."- SSA Aaron Hotchner
...
3rd POV
The BAU team got the unsub once again. Sheppard was at a kid's party, high on meth. Pretty easy to take down, got a bullet in the arm. I guess you could say that Karma is real. The team was on the jet, on their way home. It was night and everyone was sleeping. Reid was laid on the couch, a blanket covering his legs, Morgan sleeping up-right next to him. JJ was in a chair while Elle was right across from her. Harita was squished into a ball, but comfortable like she said earlier, her head was on Elle's lap, and she had a blanket on top of her, half covering Elle. Gideon and Hotch were in the back, the only ones awake, talking.
"You okay?" Gideon asked.
"I was showing those trainees around the offices the other day. They all want to be in the BAU. I told them what a great job it is. And they even applauded when the tour was over." Hotch ribbed his forehead.
"I heard." GIdeon chuckled.
"Yeah, but I didn't really tell them the truth. I didn't tell them what it's like to spend your days in this hell."
"It's fun, huh?" Gideon joked.
"I mean, who's to blame for somebody like Sheppard? His mother? Broken home? Society? All of it? None of it? It gets worse and worse with each case."
"Save one life, we save the world."
"Yeah. Well, the one thing I didn't tell the trainees." Hotch sighed.
"What's that?" Gideon asked.
"We do not get paid enough." Gideon laughed as quietly as he could.
"You got that right."
School just feels like a chore than 'school'. It's like the difference between 'poh-ta-toe' and 'poh-tA-toe', a big one. BTW, this chapter is not proofread, so if there are any errors, please let me know. Also, thank you guys so much for 2k views! Well, I hope y'all's week has been fine, if not, you choose the mood. Hope you all have a wonderful day/night!
Toodles,
HernameisBurrito