a/n: Y'all aren't gonna let this be the first in only fic in my entire history of posting on ffdotnet to not get reviews are you? Don't let me down, friends!
down and out
you found this city has you on your back
you long for her to take you away
Better Than Ezra, "Southern Gurl"
The next morning she was bleary-eyed as she stumbled down for her run, but the upshot was she was much more with it when she appeared for beignets and coffee. She hoped they had chicory. She caught up to Reid on the stairs and cast him a sleepy smile.
"Morning, boy genius."
"Hey," he said. "You got in late last night."
"Um…" Her brows quirked. "You keeping tabs on me now?"
His mouth fell open. "No! I mean—not like that. I just—couldn't sleep, and I heard your door and it was after midnight, but I wasn't—I mean it wasn't—"
"Reid, relax, I'm just teasing." She nudged him a little. "I almost knocked on your door because I figured you'd still be awake, but I decided to err on the side of hope."
"I'm pretty sure this house is haunted," he said, offhandedly. "It kept me awake."
"You don't believe in ghosts."
"No, but I do believe in haunted houses. And this is one. Though it's much more likely there's a carbon monoxide leak."
She huffed out an amused breath as they passed into the dining room. "Personally I hope it's ghosts."
"You hope what's ghosts?" Prentiss said. She filled a cup from the coffee carafe and passed it to Jackson.
"Reid thinks the house is either haunted or has a carbon monoxide leak."
Prentiss made a face. "I hope it's ghosts too. I don't have time for brain damage."
"Ooo, chicory," Jackson said. She added a little more sugar and grinned down at her cup.
Prentiss cast her a curious look. "You look awfully chipper this morning," she said. Her eyes narrowed. "Tired, but chipper."
"Oh, um." She took a hasty sip of coffee, burned her tongue, and cursed. "I just, uh. Really like chicory coffee."
"Uh huh." She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "So we'll talk later, right?"
"There's nothing to talk about," she said.
Reid appeared at Jack's elbow with a plate of waffles. "Hey, what're you guys whispering about? Is Jack telling you why she didn't get in until after midnight last night? Also, there's a waffle bar."
She glared daggers at him while Prentiss let out a low whistle. "We'll definitely talk later."
"Is that a waffle?" Morgan popped up from somewhere to lean over Reid's shoulder and peer at his plate. "No one said there were waffles."
"It's on that little brochure in our rooms, Morgan," Prentiss said.
"Huh. Missed that somehow."
"Some crack detective you are," she said with a snort.
"Kids, don't fight, it's too early," Rossi said. "Where's the coffee?"
Jackson pointed back at the carafes. "Don't get plain chicory; it doesn't have caffeine."
"What is chicory anyway?" he said over his shoulder as he wandered that way.
Reid perked. "Chicory is actually the root of a flowering plant. It's believed it was first cultivated in Egypt five thousand years ago, but it came to be used in coffee in the early nineteenth century during Napoleon's Continental Blockade, when coffee was expensive and hard to come by. People would roast it, grind it, and mix it with coffee to make it go further, or just drink it on its own. Like Jack said, it doesn't have any caffeine, but its flavor is similar to roasted coffee beans."
"Huh," Rossi said. "Glad I asked."
"Really?" Reid said with a hopeful smile.
"Yeah, sure. I've always wondered. The word sounds like it's something burnt. Chicory."
"Or licorice," Jackson said.
"These days most of the world's chicory is grown in South Africa, France, and Nebraska," Reid offered. When Rossi turned away he shrugged and moved closer to Jackson. "I actually got this for you," he said about the waffle. "They have an omelette station, too."
She grinned and took the plate. "That was sweet, Spencer, thanks."
They got settled in at the table and JJ and Hotch joined them. Baskets of hot beignets covered in mountains of powdered sugar were passed around, along with bottles of syrup and a giant plate of bacon and sausage that Jackson waved by her every time.
Once they'd finished eating, they all filled their travel mugs and headed to the station. They settled into their corner and Hotch dialed Quantico.
"Speak and be heard, for you've reached the Oracle of Quantico!" Garcia said.
"Morning, Garcia," Hotch said. "Did you get the information I asked for?"
"Sir! Who do you think you're talking to?!" She sighed. "I admit it took me longer than working my usual magic, but eight women are a lot to dig up information on. I've emailed all of you complete bios of each victim: arrest records, DMV info, everything I could find. How else can I assist my intrepid crime-fighters on this fine November morning?"
"I think that's got us for now, baby girl," Morgan said. "We need to start lookin' for connections between the vics, and then we'll let you know."
"Thanks, Garcia," Hotch said.
"You're very welcome, good sir. Garcia out!"
"Wow," Prentiss said as she scrolled through the files, "this is a lot of info."
"JJ, get this printed out for us?" Hotch said. He cast a glance at Reid, who stared down at his phone with a vexed frown.
"On it," she said and hurried away.
Hotch opened his mouth to issue further orders when Deputy Verret stood up from her desk and rushed into the Sheriff's office. A few moments later Sheriff Willett emerged, a scowl contorting his friendly features, and approached them.
"Looks like we might have another missing woman," he said. "Monica Dupré didn't pick up her son last night. She'd left him with his grandparents, like she did every day, and they say she's never late gettin' him without callin'. They went by her apartment this mornin' and she's not there. Didn't call in to work. No one's seen her since yesterday evenin'."
"Dammit," Hotch said with a grimace. "The delay between the most recent victim and Monica's abduction is too long. It means he either waited for some reason, or he already had a victim in hand and killed her."
"Let's hope it's the former," Morgan said.
"I'm gonna send my deputies down to canvas the apartment building and her job. Y'all comin' too?" Willett said.
Hotch gave a tight nod. "Reid, EJ, Morgan, head to her apartment. Prentiss, Dave, you're with me. We'll take her job. JJ will stay here and work on getting those files ready for us by the time we get back. Morgan, call Garcia and ask her to pull the same info on Monica Dupré."
He already had his phone to his ear and was relaying Hotch's request to Garcia within seconds. Jackson and Reid grabbed their coats, and the three of them followed Deputy Verret to their SUV.
On the way there Jackson was skimming some of what Garcia had sent about the other women, and as they turned onto a particular street she peered out the window. "That's where Anne Marie Broussard lived," she said, pointing. "And…Yvonne House and her boyfriend." She frowned. "Monica Dupré's building is two blocks from here."
"Hmm," Reid said. "Sounds like the beginning of a geographical profile. I can't wait to get back and look at all those files."
She gave him a look. "You could always join the rest of the us in the twenty-first century."
"I could," he said, "but I'm fully adapted to my luddite ways. Even Garcia's starting to give up on me."
"Nah," Morgan said. He pulled the car into an empty spot and cut the engine. "She's just switched tactics. Penelope Garcia does not know the meaning of the word defeat."
Deputy Boudreaux met them as they crossed the sidewalk to the apartment building. "Agents, hey. Monica lived on the third floor. Follow me."
The building was older, a little run-down, and inside the linoleum floors were worn and stained. There was no elevator, so they climbed the steps, and by the time they got to the top only Morgan wasn't winded.
"Did you know her?" Jackson asked, a little breathlessly.
The deputy nodded. "Sure, yeah, she grew up in St. Martinville. Went to high school with my little sister."
"What about the other victims?" Morgan said.
He shrugged. "I arrested a couple of 'em once or twice. My brother dated Yvonne House for a few months like five years ago. It's a small area; even if you didn't know one of them personally, you probably know somebody who knows somebody, or maybe your tante goes to church with their mama, somethin' like that."
He stopped in front of an open door and his expression was troubled. "Ain't no good, what's happenin' here. My sister and my mama are scared to leave the damn house. They made me install new locks on all their doors. Some-a these women might be what you call troubled, but it ain't right anyhow."
"We're gonna do everything we can to find this UNSUB," Morgan said. "Hopefully before he kills Monica Dupré."
Boudreaux crossed himself and muttered something in French, then waved them into the apartment. "It's not too big, so I'll wait out here. Yell if you need me."
The place, as Boudreaux had said, was small, but it was neat as a pin. Just one bedroom, with a double bed and another, toddler-sized bed in the corner. It had Captain America sheets. Childish drawings of superheroes and one labeled "MOM" in big, scrawling letters adorned the fridge. There were family pictures everywhere: her parents, her son, aunts and uncles and even grandparents.
"This is not a woman who was lookin' to take off," Morgan said.
"Especially not leaving her son behind," Jackson agreed.
"Hey, guys, look at this," Reid said. He pointed to the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. "Her son had a dentist appointment today. She went to the trouble of writing it in the calendar, but then didn't show to pick him up?"
Morgan shook his head, his mouth twisted in a frown. "Nah, the locals are right. He's got another one."
"We have no idea how long he's holding them before he kills them," Jackson said. "She could already be dead."
"We don't think like that, pint size. You know that."
"Unless we have strong evidence otherwise, we always assume they're alive," Reid said. "Right now we need to figure out when and where he took her. It might help us figure out how he picks them."
"From what Deputy Boudreaux said in the car, it's gonna be nearly impossible to learn anything from victim overlap. Area this small, people are going to overlap," Morgan said.
"'Scuse me, Agents?" a voice said from the living room.
They turned that way, and Jackson bit back a smile at the sight of Deputy Mendoza. "Deputy Mendoza," she said, voice neutral. "How can we help you?"
"We got a witness. We're thinkin' he might be the last one who saw Monica Dupré before the abduction." His mismatched eyes skimmed over Jackson without even a flicker of recognition or acknowledgement.
"Reid, Jack, go talk to him. Call Hotch after and see if he wants you here or back at the station. I'll get Deputy Boudreaux to help me with the apartment," Morgan said. "You mind takin' Dr. Reid and Dr. Jackson to your witness, Deputy Mendoza?"
"Sure. This way." He gestured for Reid and Jackson to follow him, and they headed for the stairs and back down to the ground floor.
An old man sat in a folding lawn chair outside his apartment door. It was the one closest to the bank of mailboxes, and he had a view of anyone coming and going from there. He looked probably seventy, with light brown skin and snow white hair. His gaze was sharp, and he didn't seem to have a tooth left in his head.
"Mr. Guerin," Mendoza said, "these are the folks from the FBI I was tellin' you about. This is Dr. Reid and Dr. Jackson. Agents, this is Paris Guerin. Why don't you tell the agents what you told me about Miz Dupré."
The old man barely spared Reid a glance, but he looked Jackson up and down with a troubled frown creasing his lined face. "I know your look. Where your people from?"
She blinked, momentarily taken aback, but then she fell into the familiar rhythms of Southern conversation. "Up Pointe Coupee way. New Roads."
He grunted. "What'd he say your name was?"
"Jackson. But that's not—" She muffled a sigh. "The name you're looking for is Aguillard."
"Aguillard, Aguillard…" His eyes widened before he pinned her with a sharp glare. "Dat Camille Aguillard?"
She bit the inside of her lip. It might take a while to get anything useful out of him at this rate. "Mais oui, Camille était mon grandmére. My mother's mother."
"Hoo Lawd! My people's from that way. We all knew Tante Mille from way back when she was Ti-Mille. My very own maman went to her mama, Defunt Mille, for every li'l ache and pain, and she delivered all the young'ns in town. They chasse-femmes et les dames blanches. Deliver a bébé, make a mean gumbo and a meaner gris-gris. I even courted tâ grandmére for a bit." He sniffed. "Your mama then Ti-Mille?"
Reid shot her a look, eyebrows working. Jackson just offered a strained smile.
"That's right, my mom's Camille too. She moved to Mississippi when she married my daddy. Camille is my middle name." For nearly anyone else it would be pointless info, random sharing too much with a stranger, but she knew the best way to get this man to talk to them was to make a personal connection.
He shook a finger at Reid and Mendoza. "You don't know, mê gens, but les femmes Aguillard…" He gave a philosophical shrug that could mean any number of things. "Farouche, non?"
She made a face. "That's a strong word." It meant wild, and it was because of what he'd said earlier: the women in her family were considered witches, of a sort: les dames blanches. Chasse-femmes was a little less fraught; it just meant midwives.
"Eh," he said. He gave her a broad wink. "Stories I could tell, but you ain't got time to veiller."
Reid cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I'm confused. You knew Dr. Jackson's grandmother and her great-grandmother?"
"He's a Yankee," she said in a low voice. "Actually from Las Vegas, as if anyone is really from anywhere that far west."
Guerin let out a low, rusty chuckle. "Mais ya, Las Vegas ain't even a real place!"
"I assure you it is," Reid said.
"My great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother were all Camille. Tante Mille means Aunt Mille, a term of respect. Ti-Mille means little Mille, like junior sort of, but for a girl. Defunt Mille means…well. Dead Mille."
Reid's eyes widened a little. "Your great-grandmother is called Dead Mille?"
She smiled. "It's respectful. Like she passed on, and she's someone whose memory we cherish. I guess technically my grandmother is Defunt Mille too, but that's confusing, so she's still Tante."
"I see," he said.
"Now that we've explored the intricacies of familial relations in the bayou, maybe you could answer a few questions for us, Mr. Guerin?"
He gave another noncommittal shrug and waved a liver-spotted hand. She glanced back at Mendoza, whose mouth twitched in a minute smile.
"We wanted to ask about Monica Dupré. I guess you know she's missing," Reid said.
"The Mendoza boy tole me, ya." He clicked his tongue. "She was a bon fille, she, never any trouble. Her li'l one okay?"
"He's fine," Jackson said. "He was with his grandparents. They're the ones who reported Monica missing when she didn't come pick him up."
"Good, dat's good. I saw her yesterday 'round…" He mumbled something in French, shook his head, mumbled some more. "Close on five 'clock. Was 'bout to go in watch the news, me, when she came by. We had us a veiller and then she went upstairs. Came down few minutes later changed outta her work clothes and left. Hadn't seen her since."
"She was supposed to pick up her son at six," Jackson said to Reid. "She must've come home to change before heading that way." She turned her attention back to the old man. "You've been very helpful, Mr. Guerin. Merci beaucoup."
"Mais ya, cher. Tell tâ maman ol' Nonc Guerin say bonjou."
"I will, sir. Au revoir."
"Soignez vous-autres."
She gestured for Reid to follow her, and they wandered down the hall a bit. "How far is her parents' house from here?" she asked Mendoza.
He shrugged. "Five minutes or so. Her parkin' spot's right out back, but her car's not in it. Maybe she stopped for gas or a cold drink? Got nabbed there?"
"It's possible," Reid said. "Does the building have security cameras?"
Mendoza gave him an are you serious? look, but just said, "No."
"A gas station probably would. And there'd be people around.…" Jackson trailed off, her face scrunched as she thought it over. "Mr. Guerin said he first saw her just after five, and she was only upstairs a few minutes. Long enough to change. She was supposed to be at her parents' by six, and it's only five minutes away."
"She was going somewhere else first," Reid said.
"We figure out where that is, we might have our abduction site."
Her phone rang and she fished it out of her blazer pocket. "Hotch," she said to Reid. "Hotch, what's up?"
"EJ, I just spoke to Morgan. Did your witness give you anything interesting?"
"He says he saw Monica Dupré a little after five yesterday evening." She told him what Mr. Guerin had said, and what they'd hypothesized about the abduction.
"We need Sheriff Willett to put a BOLO out on her car."
"Good," he said. "I'll tell him." He paused, and the voices in the background faded. She heard the squeak of a door. "There's something I need you to do."
"Okay…" She held up a finger at Reid and Mendoza and stepped down the hall for some privacy. "What's up?"
"Yesterday, out at the dumpsite, I know it was crowded. I want you to go back today, now that CSU's wrapped up."
Her brow furrowed. "Hotch—honestly, I'm not sure how much good it'll do. A dumpsite doesn't usually have nearly as much…baggage as the actual murder or abduction site."
"I know," he said. "I know it's probably grasping at straws, but we don't know how long we have to find Monica, and the only contact we have with the UNSUB is that dumpsite. Maybe he's been back there."
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yeah, okay. I guess it can't hurt."
"Thank you," he said. "Have one of the deputies drop Reid at the station, then head to the swamp. I want Reid and JJ to speak to Monica's parents, then start working their way through the files."
"I'll let him know. Did you tell Morgan all of this?"
"I did. He'll get a ride back when he's done there."
"Okay." She paused. Bit the inside of her lip. "Is there something you're not telling me?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then, "You know what I know."
Why didn't she quite believe him? He wouldn't lie to her. Why would he withhold info about the case? There was no reason for him to do so. "I'll see you back at the station," she said.
"Be careful."
He hung up, and she hit the button on her phone and tucked it away. When she returned to Reid and Mendoza, her expression was troubled.
"What's wrong?" Reid said.
She gave a slow shake of her head. "Nothing, really. Hotch wants us to drop you off at the station to interview Monica's parents and start on Garcia's files." She glanced at Mendoza. "Could you take me out to the dumpsite?"
He ran a hand back and forth across his short dark hair. "What, now?"
"Yes, please. Unless you're needed elsewhere? I can ask someone else."
He looked as confused as she felt, but he shook his head. "Nah, it's fine. Your boss clear it with mine?"
"He told me to ask one of the deputies, so I assume so."
"He wants you to go to the dumpsite in the middle of investigating an abduction?" Reid said with a frown.
She lifted her hands in a shrug. "That's what he said. He's worried we missed something." Their eyes met. "It was so crowded yesterday. Noisy and busy."
He gave a slow nod. He still didn't quite get why Hotch wanted her to do it now, but he understood the point. "Then I guess let's head to the station," he said.
comments? thoughts? anyone? Bueller?