When JJ and Emily went back to the police station, they were intercepted by JJ's old friend, Captain Ryder, who invited them into her office for a quick chat. She was happy to see JJ, and quite thrilled to see that she was expecting. She was also happy to meet Emily, having heard about her from Sandy.
"Before you two go over to the conference room, though," she said as she crossed the small room to a smaller table, near the window. "Take these with you."
'These' turned out to be a sandwich platter, a drink carrying case full of seven bottles of water, and a small box of cookies; it was all catering from a local sandwich restaurant.
While Emily took the sandwiches and the cookies, JJ took the drinks and turned to Ryder, smiling.
"Thank you."
Ryder returned the smile. "I figured you and your team would be hungry, right about now, what with coming all the way down from D.C. on the spur of the moment, so I decided to order lunch for all of you when you were all finally back here."
Emily echoed her girlfriend's earlier sentiment. "Thank you. That is very kind."
JJ tacked on, "I usually take care of that kind of thing, but it must have slipped my mind—pregnancy brain and all."
"I'm a mama, too, as you well know," Ryder winked. "But I won't tell anyone."
Thanking her and then following her directions about navigating through the station, JJ and Emily soon found themselves entering the conference room where the others were indeed all regathering, ready to start the update-sharing part of the case.
"We're back," JJ chirped. "And courtesy of Captain Ryder, we come bearing lunch!"
Everybody was very happy about that because they were all quite hungry.
"Okay, Tinker Bell." Penelope said to JJ, a few minutes into lunch. "Only because I had to, I did some research on Foxworth Hall. How come you've never told us that you come from prestigious family money?"
JJ rolled her eyes. "To avoid having this conversation, but you all might as well know that I'm an heiress to two different family fortunes."
"What about your brother? Is he an heir?"
"Uh-huh, and my sister was an heiress, too, but since she's dead, I inherited her shares. What?"
JJ had suddenly become aware of Penelope, Derek, Rossi, Spencer, Hotch, Rossi, and even Emily looking at her in surprise.
Amused, Rossi broke the silence. "How many language quirks are you packing away, kiddo? First your surprise us on the jet by speaking French without realizing it, and now you've gone and tapped into your southern drawl."
The tips of JJ's ears turned red. "I did?"
Rossi nodded. "Yep, about halfway through the explanation about the money. You're still doing it."
"Sorry." JJ consciously made the switch back to her normal pattern of speech. "This always happens when I see my mom… or come back down here; I spent every summer of my childhood here, and I do mean every summer."
To save JJ from turning any redder, Derek turned to Emily. "What did you two find out at Foxworth Hall?"
"You mean besides the fact that JJ's mother and super protective big brother are there to look after the family?"
"Oh, boy." Derek sighed. "How did that go?"
Emily laughed nervously. "Eventful is putting it mildly, especially because they didn't know about our pregnancies or JJ's arm, but I made it through the visit without Archer pulling me aside to give me a speech about dating his baby sister."
"Then all things considered, it all went pretty okay, huh?"
Emily nodded. "It really did."
Feeling like a kindergarten teacher, Hotch cleared his throat to remind them of his prescence. "Let's get off the rabbit trail and talk about what you and JJ learned while talking to DeLilah Foxworth, please."
Emily and JJ promptly gave the rest of the team a rundown about what had happened out at Foxworth Hall.
When they were done, Spencer said, "I was reading earlier in the files that Tinsley was a dad; how are his kids?"
JJ sighed sadly. "Too little to really understand what's going on, or that their daddy is gone. Hattie Bell is three, Talley Kay is two, and Annalynn is just eight months old."
"DeLilah is also six months pregnant with a baby boy, and she's young, too." Emily looked at JJ. "Do you know how old she is?"
"DeLilah is twenty-five. She and Tinsley eloped when she was twenty."
Taking that in stride, Emily turned her attention back to the others again. "So DeLilah is young, looks like she's closer to the seven-month mark of her pregnancy, is a newly-made widow, and not even thirty yet."
"She was even resting in bed because she literally can't stand up without help right now." JJ added. "I highly recommend not going to talk to her unless it's imperative."
"Understood." Hotch said before looking to Rossi. "What did you find out about Arthur Bradshaw and Nathaniel Xavier?"
"Two extremely normal guys, all around. Their paths never had a reason to cross while they were alive. I want to work with Reid to set up a timeline so that we can have an idea of what we're looking at."
JJ sat back in her seat. "I can make some calls and get Tinsley's parents and the widows of Nathaniel Xavier and Arthur Bradshaw in here after this."
"Excellent." Hotch praised. "I would like you, Prentiss, and Morgan to conduct those interviews."
"We can do that." JJ told him as the other two nodded in agreement. "Did you learn anything from Tinsley's crime scene?"
Hotch made a dejected sound. "No. It's blocked off, but even still, there wasn't anything useful to be learned from it."
Spencer spoke up, deciding to contribute to the conversation. "I may have had something like a breakthrough. At the morgue, I learned that the strangulation tools were chain, barbed wire and rope."
JJ shuddered. "All items that can be found at hardware stores, although if the unsub is using things like barbed wire, they'll had to have also purchased some heavy-duty work gloves, too. And something barbaric like barbed wire shows anger."
"Those items could also be used at a place like a construction sight, or even an abandoned building, so as to keep trespassers out." Spencer mused before he addressed female counterpart. "Penelope?"
She responded with one of her feather-topped pens poised just above the notepad in her purple binder. "Yes, wunderkind?"
"Perhaps you can look for all of those kinds of places, as well as anyone who recently purchased work gloves, chains, rope, and barbed wire in one go." he suggested to her. "Start with a local radius."
Penelope nodded, repeating the keywords of Spencer's instructions to herself as she made a bullet point list on her notepad.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Everyone who wasn't Penelope instinctively checked their phones and tablets to see if one of their devices had a new text.
"What was that?" Derek asked.
"It's my computer making noise to let me know that the rendering software is done cleaning up the software footage." Penelope explained. "Will you unplug it and bring it here so I can hook it up to the projector?"
While Derek obliged his fiancée's wishes, Hotch went and found Captain Ryder so she could watch the footage, too.
"Everybody ready?" Penelope asked when everybody needed was finally accounted for. "Here we go."
She pressed play on her laptop, and on the wall ahead of them, the projector showed them an image of Tinsley Foxworth, on his morning jog. According to the timestamp, it was fifteen minutes past five in the morning, which was what accounted for nobody passing by him as made his way down a sidewalk of what looked like a business district.
And then it happened: as Tinsley stopped at the mouth of an alleyway to take a breather, he didn't see the unsub sneak up behind him, but he definitely noticed the unsub sticking something weapon-like in his back.
Now, Tinsley Foxworth had been a big guy, but also very strong and fit, having joined the army the moment he was old enough to enlist, so most people knew not to take him on in a fight. That being said, the unsub didn't seem to care because they were of the same size and build as Tinsley. They all watched as the unsub whispered something into Tinsley's ear and then march him away down the alley and out of sight.
"Penelope," JJ said to her glasses-wearing friend after they watched the footage twice (it had been very short). "Will you rewind it to unsub's first appearance and freeze it? The unsub isn't wearing a mask."
As Penelope did that, Hotch asked, "JJ, do you think you might recognize the unsub?"
The communications liaison bobbed her head in confirmation. "Oh, yes. This is the kind of county where everybody knows everybody."
"Okay, JJ." Penelope called. "I did as you asked, and I even zoomed in, too."
"Thanks, PG."
JJ studied the frame carefully carefully as did Captain Ryder.
Both women recognized the unsub and turned to each other, speaking in unison.
"Oscar Lee Bismarck."
JJ nodded. "That's totally him."
"It is." Ryder stood. "I have a file on him, and I'll go get it, but you should go ahead and fill your team in since they're non-locals."
JJ nodded again and as Ryder exited the room, the others gathered around JJ for answers.
"I haven't seen or thought about Oscar Lee in years and years, but he's from the wrong side of the tracks, and he had a habit of beating me up when we were kids, even though he was three years ahead of me."
"How did you know him?" Spencer asked. "I mean, since you didn't go to school here?"
"We were in the same sports camp for our entire childhood, and he also never took too kindly to the fact that I only came around once a year, or that my family has as much money as it does. He also picked on me for being the short kid."
Emily remarked, "Oscar Lee sounds like he was your bully."
"He was until I was eight."
"What happened?"
"He actually jumped me and thought he could beat me up. I took a beating, but I got him back."
Emily's mouth dropped open in surprise and exclaimed, "He had to have been eleven, at the most!"
"He was, but Archer and Rosaline intervened and they both beat him up for me when they saw me defending myself. All of us got in trouble, but it was worth it because Oscar Lee never touched me again."
"I hope our children become that close. Wow…"
Speaking to the room at large, JJ said, "I'm not surprised that Oscar Lee never left Montgomery, but I can't figure out why he would go after two other people before Tinsley, considering that his parents are the source of the family fortunes. That's the only part that feels… off."
Derek raised an eyebrow at JJ. "You make it sound like you don't think it's about the money."
"Don't you?" she asked him. "If it was, there would have been a ransom demand, and we would have been here a lot sooner."
"Touché. Do you think Oscar Lee will go after anyone else in your family, considering the beef he had with you when you were kids?"
"His behavior so far doesn't point to that, but honestly, I wouldn't say that it's out of the realm of possibility."
Before any of them could brainstorm ideas about how to keep JJ's family safe, Captain Ryder came back (only five minutes had passed since her departure) and she had the case-file with her. She handed it to Hotch, and he immediately invited her and Rossi to look it over with him.
As they sat together and did that, everyone else began to clean up the remnants of lunch, as they'd all eaten their fill by now, before setting about their previously-set tasks.
All of them had the same thought: this was going to be a long day.
