Plain Sight- 1:4
Harita's POV
"Make a wish!" Elle said. It was Reid's 24th birthday. We gave him a birthday hat to wear. More like forcing him. He blew out the candles, but that didn't go out.
"Come on man! Blow, baby blow!" Morgan said.
"I thought you were full of hot air Reid." Elle teased.
"Breathe harders." I said.
"Come on, Reid." Morgan cheered.
"They're trick candles, Spence okay? They're gonna come back on every time." JJ said.
"Oh, mommy to rescue you!" Morgan chaffed.
"Mommy?" Reid exclaimed
"Hope you like chocolate." Elle said as she and JJ leaned in to cut the cake. Reid left to go talk to Gideon.
"Holy… this looks good." I said as JJ handed me a piece. I was about to take a bite when Morgan stopped me.
"Uh uh, wait for the birthday boy." Spencer came over and we all digged into the cake. We only got two bites until Hotch stopped us.
"Sorry, guys, the party's over."
"I'm taking the cake with me." I said as I walked into the conference room.
"We're going to San Diego." Hotch said.
"Not for surfing, huh?" Morgan replied.
"Oh I wish." I added.
"They're calling him the Tommy killer." JJ said as she handed us the files.
"6 women raped and murdered in their homes in the last 3 weeks." Hotch adjoined
"6 in 3 weeks? That's a short fuse." Elle observed.
"And getting shorter." Gideon added.
"The first 2 were 8 days apart then the next 4 in 2 weeks." Hotch explained.
"Rapid escalation. Do you think he's regressing to a psychopathic frenzy?" Reid asked.
"No, he's too controlled for that. See you on the plane." Hotch said as he got up and left.
"Why the Tommy killer?" Morgan asked, stopping Hotch
"You know the rock opera? This unsub glues the victims' eyes wide open." Hotch turned around and left.
"He wants them to see him." Reid said
"And feel him." Gideon added. I shuddered.
...
*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.)
...
"Brenda Samms was found yesterday by her children when they got home from school. She had been strangled with a thin ligature, possibly a wire. No weapon left at the scene." Hotch explained.
"Residue on the wrist and mouth indicate that duct tape was used and then removed." Reid observed, reading the file.
"Also not found at the scene."
"Brought it with him, took it with him." Elle said.
"He also started leaving messages at the fourth scene. This was on the mirrors. 'Fair lady, throw those costly robes aside. No longer may you glory in your pride. Take leave of all your carnal, vain delight.'"
"I've come to summon you away this night." It's a ballad from the late 1600s. A dialogue betwixt death and a lady." Reid finished for Hotch.
"A 17th century ballad?" Elle said
"Essentially, a woman begging death to live." Reid answered.
"What kind of person knows this ballad? Are we looking for a literature professor?" Elle asked.
"Anyone with an internet connection, actually. You should see what comes in when you type the word 'death' into a search engine."
"Normally, that's what I do in my free time sometimes, it is very interesting." I said
"Reid, no wonder you can't get a date. And I'm surprised yours is still with you." Morgan said, as I nudged his side.
"Reid, you stay on the messages. See if there's a deeper meaning." Gideon ordered.
"It definitely looks like he ransacked the crime scene pretty well." Morgan pointed out.
"A lot of damage, nothing taken." Hotch said.
"The eyes are the thing, the signature. The behavior that isn't necessary for the murder, but necessary for the emotional release. That's what he's there for." Gideons stated.
"There used to be a widely held belief that the eyes record a snapshot of the last thing a person sees before they die." Spencer added.
"Yeah, that's right. People used to write poems about talking to death."
"Ballads." Spencer corrected
"Whatever." Morgan rolled his eyes.
"You think they'll ever run out of new things to do with their victims?" Elle asked.
"Well, finding new ways to hurt each other is what we're good at." Gideon said. I sighed.
...
We arrived at the task force headquarters. As we walked through the door, we all separated to do our own things. I went with Morgan to the board with the map. We were trying to figure out the unsub's pattern.
"He strikes during the day in upper-middle-class neighborhoods." Morgan says to Gideon and I.
"Extremely high-risk victims at a high-risk time." Gideon replies
"So he's confident in his skills." I add
"Looks to be about a 5- square mile radius." Morgan remarked.
"So he probably has a vehicle."
"You wanna see that crime scene?" One of the officers asked. "It's still taped off. The husband won't go back inside."
"Let's go." Gideon said as Morgan and I followed him.
...
"This profiling really works?" The officer asked, who was driving the car.
"It's a tool." Morgan replied, who was sitting in the front, even though I called shotgun.
"You can tell all about a guy from looking at the scene?"
"Well, the scene's part of it. Victimology and precedent are the other parts. With those we can usually get a fairly clear picture of the person." I answered..
"Our guys went over it pretty well."
"I'm sure they did."
"Local officers aren't trained to look for the things we look for." Gideon said.
"What's that?" The officer asked.
"Hate, insecurity, fear, anger." Gideon replied.
"That's all at the scene?"
"It's all in his behavior." Morgan answered.
"You know anything about our guy yet?" The officer questioned.
"Yeah. He isn't gonna stop until he's caught." Gideon said.
"Gusher?" I asked Gideon, who politely declined, though Morgan snatched the whole bag. Luckily, I had extra.
We arrived at the house and got out of the car.
"You increased patrols in these neighborhoods when the pattern was identified?" Gideon asked. "After the fourth victim. Bosses cancelled days off, vacations. Neighborhood full of cruisers, and he still struck 2 more times." The officer answered.
"He blends." Gideon said as his phone rang. He walked to the side and talked into the phone. After a couple of seconds he came back.
"Suspect?" The officer asked as we heard Gideon say that word.
"There might have been another attack not far from your station." Gideon replied as the officer tried to leave.
"Hey. Hey. Hey. Where you going?" Morgan asked.
"Over there." He answered, with a 'what-else' face.
"Well, units are already heading that way. We can get more accomplished here." Gideon said. "You're kidding me, right?"
"No. If there's an arrest what we find here will help you prosecute." Morgan said
"The scene won't be pristine forever." I added, chewing on a Gusher.
"Guys, knock yourselves out." The officer handed a key to Gideon.
"Thank you."
"Hey, wait a minute." Morgan said, stopping the officer once again. "The unsub went through the back, right?"
"The family room. It's the window full of print dust." The officer replied, running to his car. "Hey, Harita, come with me. Gideon, we're going around the house." Morgan yelled. We got to the back and found a small window.
"I'll go first, just cause I'm shorter." I said handing my bag of Gushers to Morgan. I climbed through the window and hopped onto the chair. I then reached the ground and Morgan handed me my bag of Gushers. He then did the same thing I did, but lingered on the chair for a bit,
"Ok, not that easy to maneuver." Morgan said.
"Athletic." I replied. We headed towards the kitchen.
"All right. I messed with something in here." Morgan opened the file as we approached the counter.
"Cappuccino machine was broken." I said.
"Took the appliances, which are upstairs. Why? Why would I take the time?" Morgan asked.
"Here's where I got the china." I said, pointing towards a cabinet in the dining room.
"The silver." Morgan pointed to the table. "I didn't take it, I broke it. Why wouldn't she hear me?"
"Because I did it after." I said. I walked upstairs, Derek following me. We walked into the bedroom where the victim was found, and saw Gideon looking at the TV.
"She had a workout video on. Step aerobics." Gideon said.
"Step aerobics? With the platforms?" Morgan asked.
"The step up, step down, step up, step down thing?" I asked.
"Where's the platform?" Gideon asked. He walked over to the bed and looked under. "He spent a lot of time here."
"What, so he vacuumed?" Morgan asked.
"You can't see the marks of the platform, and she would have kept it here." I said, pointing with my foot around 5 feet away from the TV
"A lot of time." Gideon replied.
"The broken things. She must have already been dead or incapacitated when he did that. Cappuccino maker from the kitchen, dishes, vases, broken jewelry." Morgan remarked.
"Symbols. 'Your riches, gold, garments, jewels bright. Your house and land must on new owners light.' Her riches. Right. Ever feel like there's something obvious right in front of you, you just can't see it?" Gideon asked.
"Yeah, usually right before a woman dumps me." Morgan replied. I shook my head and patted his shoulder. I also handed him a Gusher out of pity.
...
"The verses." Reid said as we walked out of the elevator and headed to the boards. We left the crime scene, getting the information we needed.
"Found something?" Gideon asked.
"Not an answer, a question. I found the full text. He's pretty much following it to a t, at least the death side of the conversation."
"But?" Gideon asked.
"Why didn't he leave them at the first 3 murders? I mean, this ballad is 10 verses long just on the death side. He's got plenty to work with. But, what if it's not part of his signature it isn't something that he has to do for an emotional reason then, I mean, why start?"
"JJ, find out when the press ran the first story on this unsub." Gideon said.
"When?" JJ asked.
"After which victim." Gideon replied.
"Yeah, you got it."
"What're you thinking?" I asked.
"He wasn't getting enough attention." Gideon simply replied.
"The police department sometimes don't even realize they're looking at a pattern." Reid remarked.
"Yeah, until somebody tells 'em." Morgan added.
"The first story ran the morning after the fourth victim was found." JJ yelled.
"The increased patrols didn't begin until after the fourth victim, either." Morgan said.
"Yeah, the police didn't realize what was happening, he writes his verse, and-"
"And everyone knows that he was there." Reid finished for Gideon.
"The offender in this new attempt is a black male." Hotch said as he and Elle returned.
"Black male? That's cross racial. That doesn't happen." Morgan replied.
"What about Herbert Mullin? He killed 14 different people of completely varying ages, races, and creeds." Reid said.
"But there was no sexual component to his crimes. And he wore a ski mask. This attacker wore a ski mask." Elle argued.
"Tell 'em we're ready." Gideon said.
"For a profile?" I asked.
"We're gonna make Tommy contact us." Gideon replied.
We gathered the officers and started delivering our profile.
"The unsub brought the weapons with him tape, glue, wire. He did not leave them at the scene. He took them when he left. He has a kind of killing kit that he carries." Gideon said.
"Organized killers usually have a skilled job, likely technology related which may involve the use of the hands." Hotch added.
"The crime scenes are far enough apart that he needs a vehicle, which is obsessively clean, as his home is too. He's diurnal, the attacks occurred during the day so the vehicle may be related to his work, possibly a company car or truck." I said.
"We believe he watches the victims for a time, learns the rhythms of the home, knows his time frame." Morgan stated.
"You're not gonna catch him accidentally." Hotch said,
"He destroys symbols of wealth in the victim's homes. He harbors envy of and hatred toward people of a higher social class. He feels invisible around them." Gideon added.
"Class is the theme of the poem which he left at the various crime scenes. At one point in the poem, the women attempts to bribe death but he doesn't accept it. He says this is the one moment when riches mean nothing when death comes, the poor and the rich are exactly alike." Reid explained.
"So he's poor." The officer asked.
"Probably middle-class. A decidedly lower-class person would stick out in a highly patrolled neighborhood. This guy appears to belong there. He blends in." Hotch answered.
"Why does he glue the eyes open?" Another officer asked, the same one who drove us to the crime scene.
"The unsub is an exploitative rapist. Most rape victims close their eyes during the attack, turn their heads. For some rapists, this ruins the fantasy. For this type of rapist, the goal is more related to the victim watching him than the act itself." Elle explained.
"The verses, the staging, the aggressive language, 'I am death', this is a guy who, while being in control of the crime scene almost certainly feels inadequate for the rest of his life." Hotch said.
"That's why he couldn't wait for you to figure out what he'd done. Why he needed to make sure all his crimes were counted. His victims, they represent whatever it is that's controlling him and he wants that control back. He is under the thumb of a powerful woman who frightens him. And a final point. He is white." Gideon said.
"We have witnesses that identify him as a black male." The chief insisted.
"The attacker was black. He is not the Tommy killer." Gideon said.
"Mrs. Gordon's husband came home at the same time that he always does. The Tommy killer would've known that." Hotch expounded.
"And Mrs. Gordon's attacker wore a ski mask. The unsub knows when he walks into a house he's going to kill the woman who lives there. If you're not leaving any witnesses, why wear a ski mask?"
"And he wants the victim to see him anyway." Morgan and Elle added.
"Your attempted rapist is a garden variety disorganized young man." Hotch said.
"Normally, as the victim's age goes up, the attacker's age goes down." Elle stated.
"Mrs. Gordon is about 60, which, doing the math, it puts her rapist at about 20." I said.
"And it takes years to develop the level of calm and sophistication that Tommy displays at a crime scene. The rapist is far too young for that." Gideon exclaimed.
"Mrs. Gordon told me that there's a young man who delivers groceries to their home. He fits a lot of what we're describing here." Elle proved.
"Great. So we're back to zero on Tommy." The chief outburst.
...
"FBI. You're under arrest." Elle yelled, pointing her gun at the man who tried to rape Mrs. Gordon. Right after giving the profile, Gideon and Hotch told Elle and I to go and arrest him, which I gladly accepted. The reason being that if he saw two girls putting him away, it would be such a shame. The guy instantly stopped what he was doing, and turned to run, but I was on the other side. I pushed him against the side of the truck and handcuffed him. He kept on struggling, but I handled it. He wasn't that strong after all.
"You're under arrest for the attempted rape of Marcia Gordon." I said. I dragged him to the car, and right before Elle opened the door, he confessed.
"You dirty son of a bitch." I muttered, then shoving him into the car. We got to the police station and the officer who drove the car parked close to where JJ was giving the press conference. I opened the door and got out. I grabbed onto the guy, who was still struggling, and pushed him to the station, Elle leading the way. Reporters were asking questions like 'Is he the Tommy killer' or 'Did you murder those women', but we kept silent. As I walked through the doors, I saw Morgan and nodded at him. He instantly grabbed the rapist and took him away.
"He confessed to Mrs. Gordon's attack before we even got to the car." Elle said.
"Thanks, Elle and Harita." Hotch replied. And now we wait.
"God, I hate waiting like this." Elle said.
"Do you think it's weird that I knew that ballad?" Reid asked.
"I don't know how it is that you know half the things you know but I'm glad you do." Elle responded.
"Besides, if people think that's weird, then I can't imagine how they would react if they knew I had to eat something every hour." I said, eating on some chocolate dipped pretzels, handing one to Reid and Elle.
"Do you think it's why I can't get a date?" Reid asked.
"You ever asked anyone out?" Elle responded.
"No."
"That's why you can't get a date."
"The question is, if you're so good at giving dating advice, why don't you have someone?." I asked. Elle just sighed.
"Hey. Hey." Detective Martin called out to us, signaling that he got the unsub.
"You stupid, incompetent sons of bitches! I don't make mistakes! I am death! You hear me?! I am death! You'll see now. Tomorrow, mark my words, you will see. And while I'm taking her, I'm gonna be thinking of you." The unsub said.
"Anything?" JJ asked into the phone, which Garica was on the other side, trying to triangulate the location of where the call came from. After a few seconds of incoherent sounds, JJ finally got back at us. "She said she got nothing."
"Nothing?" Morgan exclaimed,
"We missed him?" Hotch asked. I just shook my head and sighed.
...
It was the next day and we had a plan.
"We have an undercover car for each of your teams and the entire damn department out there, too." The chief said.
"Remember, a truck. Maybe a work truck in excellent condition." Gideon recalled.
"Everyone knows."
"All right, he might make a mistake today. He's angry, and he probably hasn't done the kind of surveillance he'd like." Hotch said.
"Yeah, well, neither have we. Let's go, Reid." Morgan said as he and Reid left.
"I'll bring the car around." Elle said as Gideon handed the keys to her.
"We'll find him." Hotch told Gideon and I, as he left, me following him.
We got into our cars, Gideon and Elle in a gray, Derek and Spencer in a red, and Hotch and I in a classic 'that screams feds' car. Hotch drove the car to the other side of the neighborhood. Once he parked, I took off my seatbelt and grabbed my bag of walnuts. I threw a few at Hotch, who kept his stern face, but once in a while would smile.
"So, did you pick a name for my godson?" I asked as Hotch sighed.
"It's like trying to find that one small piece of string in a pile of strings. I pick a name, Hailey doesn't like it, Hailey picks a name, I don't like it, we both find a name we like, but then we find another one. The list of names just goes on and on."
"As long as you don't name him Bernard or Sky, you'll be able to see your child grow up." We both laughed.
"So, you and Saline. How's it going?"
"We're doing great. Well, with the fact that we don't see each other that often."
"Isn't she home for at least a few months?"
"She was supposed to be, but yesterday she called me saying that she had to fly to England. It sounded important, but she didn't tell me how bad it was."
"Well, I know it's going to be okay in the end."
"I know, dad." I said, emphasizing dad. Hotch smiled, and was about to say something but was cut off by his phone ringing.
"What you got?" After a few minutes, Hotch ended the call and told me the know who the unsub is and where.
...
"Fan out. Go through yards. Look at telephone poles. He's around here." Gideon said as we ran out of the car. I turned to the left and sprinted through the houses, trying to find suspicious behaviour. Some families are really weird. Like, super weird. I had to gag at every other house. One of the houses was the worst. I can't get the image out of my head. Suddenly, my phone rang. I checked the ID and it was Gideon.
"875 Orange, back door." Gideon said. I put my phone away and turned around to see where I could go to get to the house. As I scanned the area, I found that the house was just around 6 or 7 houses down. I sprinted down the road, which I thank my clothes for. I was wearing a gray, long-sleeved shirt, with black pants, and gray converses. My hair was in a ponytail, and I'm so glad I decided to put my contacts in. In less than 15 seconds, I got to the house. As I approached the back door, I pulled out my gun and walked slowly. I heard some obnoxiously loud crying, and turned to see a baby. I crouched down and tried to shush the baby so it would cry quieter, which worked. I got up and saw Hotch and Elle come in. He pointed his gun towards the stairs and I nodded, getting the message. I walked up the stairs, my gun ready to shoot the unsub, with Hotch and Elle following right behind. As I got to the top of the stairs, I heard Gideon trying to negotiate the unsub in the door that was right ahead of us, which was slightly ajar. I slowly walked towards it, and lightly kicked the door. I got in and saw Gideon, who put his gun in his pocket, hands in the air, trying to negotiate with the unsub. I held my gun directly at him. After a few moments of Gideon say that if he put his gun down, he would get the fame he wanted, the unsub finally dropped it. I walked over to him, grabbed my handcuffs and handcuffed him. I then shoved him to Hotch, who grabbed him and shoved him downstairs into the police car. Morgan and Spencer finally decided to show up.
"You're late." I said to Morgan, who ruffled my hair in response.
…
"Remind me that not all families are perfect the next time we go house snooping." I said as I sat down next to Hotch, handing him a cup of coffee.
"Why, what did you see?" I shuddered.
"Okay, I know my childhood life wasn't 'perfect' at all, but that doesn't mean I don't know what is weird and what isn't. I saw these two people, who were outside. They were kissing, which I don't have any problem with, but the thing is that they looked like each other. I was a little skeptical, but I really didn't care. Until the mother called them in and the boy said, and I quote 'Come, on sis, we have to go inside, we don't want to get caught'. And that right there, is incest."
"Aww, you poor child." Hotch teased.
"Shut up." I threw my Clif bar at him.
I really didn't plan for this to happen, but I swear, it was coincidental that I posted this on Reid's birthday. It was not my intention at all, and I really didn't know today was his birthday. When I found out, I literally died of laughter.
Toodles,
HernameisBurrito.