Poison- 1:13
Harita's POV
"State trooper took this before the paramedics showed up. He's unconscious, has four broken bones. He's gonna be in the hospital for a month." The officer said in the video. The guy he was talking to slammed his hands on the table.
"I didn't hurt my son." He pleaded.
"You remember removing the tire iron from the trunk?" The officer asked.
"No! No!" The guy yelled.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"I picked Eric up from school. Friday, for the weekend. What day is this?" Hotch paused the video.
"This happened two days ago in Beechwood, New Jersey. Mr. Fisher, the guy in custody, had ingested LSD one afternoon and didn't come down until 18 hours later."
"The hospital reported 6 other patients who ingested LSD in the last 24 hours. The hospital called the CDC, the CDC called us." JJ explained.
"So, a bunch of people got spiked. What makes it a BAU case?" Morgan asked.
"They each received 10 to 20 times the normal dose." Hotch answered.
"It's enough to kill a small child." Spencer stated.
"Or cause a grown man to kill him with a tire iron." Elle added.
"Of the seven victims, there was one death and one coma. This is from the hospital's security footage the same night Fisher lost it." JJ turned on the TV and played the footage. There was a lot of commotion. Almost everyone in the hospital was having some sort of seizure. JJ paused the clip.
"These people didn't get spiked. These people were poisoned." Gideon concluded as we all looked at eachother.
…
*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.)
...
"Hey, isn't New Jersey your home state." Morgan asked as he sat in front of me.
"Yeah, yeah it is, but my home town is only a little over an hour away." I answered as I chewed on a pretzel.
"Going to see your 'mysterious' parents?" I shuddered at the thought. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hotch glancing at us, ready to step in if the conversion goes too far.
"Nah, I can't. They're out of town." I lied. The truth is, I haven't contacted them ever since I was 16, and I don't plan to in my whole entire life.
"Okay, let's get started." Hotch said, breaking up our awkward conversation, well awkward in my end. I gave Hotch a thankful look.
"Of the 7 victims, Gail Norman was the only death. She was 78. Ran out into the middle of the road, and she was hit by a car. She was DOA." JJ read off from the file.
"The other potentially fatal case is 9 year old Brittany Canon. She fell out of a tree house and fractured her skull. She's in a coma and the doctors don't know if she's going to come out of it." Hotch explained.
"How do you wanna handle the press?" Gideon asked.
"We still don't even know how these people got dosed. I think it would be irresponsible to issue a warning without specifics. It'll just cause panic. I did notify the local PD, though, to be discreet." JJ answered.
"How is it possible that none of these people knew how they got poisoned?" Morgan asked.
"None of them remembers anything about the day it happened." Hotch replied.
"These people were so messed up, it's made it difficult for local PD to retrace the victim's steps." JJ added.
"So, we need to go on precedent. We know there are four types of poisoners who target multiple victims." Gideon said.
"There's the 'True Believer'/'The Political Terrorist'/'Religious Cult'." Hotch started.
"There's 'The Extortionist'. The product tamperer holds the business hostage in exchange for money." Morgan explained.
"Or 'The Prankster', my favorite. Usually a younger offender who doesn't mean any harm and it's basically just a big practical joke." I added.
"And 'The Avenger', someone with a personal vendetta who chooses poison as their weapon." Elle emphasized.
"We need to find out as quickly as possible which type he is. Because with the exception of the prankster, all these types commonly test their poison on a small scale before appearing at a larger attack." Gideon explained.
"Then, let's hope this one was just a prank." Morgan praised.
"I would suggest we split up the victims, see if there's a pattern to the victimology." Gideon ordered.
"Most of them are still in the hospital. I'll call local PD to meet us there." Hotch said.
"I'll check the lab reports. Maybe there's a clue to the unsub's motive in the specific nature of the poison he used." Spencer suggested.
"I can't imagine anybody could want this to happen." Hotch said solemnly.
...
"Well, he's raw, broken, and seriously pissed off." Gideon said as he walked out of the room. He was talking to Mr. Fisher, asking him all kinds of questions.
"He didn't hurt the son to get back at the mother?" Hotch asked as we started walking down the hospital halls.
"Not consciously, no. Rage was real but understandable, and he never apologized. When he lost control, he didn't even say, 'Eric, I'm sorry.' He said, 'Eric, why'd this happen to you?' He never even confessed to hurting the kid." Gideon explained.
"So, the drugs tapped into the rage but didn't cause it?" Hotch questioned.
"Yeah, that's my guess."
"That's consistent with the information we just received from the lab tox screens. They didn't find any trace of PCP or any other drug indicating the unsub was intentionally trying to make people violent. But they did find traces of rohypnol in all the victims." Reid stated as we stopped walking.
"A central nervous system depressant, similar to valium, only ten times more potent. It's commonly known as a 'roofie' or a date-rape drug." Elle explained.
"Right, and one of its side effects is amnesia, which explains why none of the victims remember how they were poisoned." Spencer added.
"We compared notes on the victims we talked to. So far there doesn't seem to be any pattern as to who got hit. Maybe the drugs themselves could explain what type of offender we're dealing with." Morgan explained.
"A lot of kids are using LSD and rohypnol these days. Fisher is a high school teacher." I pointed out.
"So it might be a prank after all." Gideon concluded.
"Yeah, one that went horribly wrong." Hotch corrected.
"Yeah, I'm gonna get a list of students from Fisher. See you later." And then Elle left, just as Hotch's phone rang.
"Cops may have figured out where everybody was dosed." Hotch said as he ended his phone call.
...
"Uniforms were on a canvas. Staff here remembers seeing 4 out of the 7 victims here the day they reported symptoms." The chief explained as we walked around the cafe.
"Please tell me your staff didn't mention the canvas was about a poisoning." JJ pleaded.
"They didn't, but I had to tell the owner." The chief admitted.
"Is that the owner?" Gideon pointed to an elderly woman.
"Nell Trucco." The chief, Gideon, and I walked towards her.
"Can you think of anyone who would do something like this? High school kids hanging around?" Gideon asked.
"Honestly, I can't tell them apart. You should talk to Danny." The woman instructed.
"Danny?" I asked.
"A busboy. High school kid. A lot of his friends come in here. His girlfriend was here Saturday night." She explained.
"Is he here today?" Hotch asked as he walked towards us.
"He was supposed to come to work after school, but he called in sick."
"What's his last name?" Hotch questioned.
"Ah, Wallace."
"I'll have Elle check at the school." Hotch pulled out his phone.
"You got a phone number for him?" I asked the woman as she handed me a piece of paper with his number. I tried calling it, but it went to voicemail. I shook my head as Gideon got the message.
...
"You wanna tell us about Saturday night, Danny?" The chief asked. Elle found Danny escaping his girlfriend's driveway. The girlfriend told Elle that she didn't remember anything, only that she was naked and Danny was holding her down. She had bruises around her neck and chest. Elle the chief was interrogating him in the other room, and the five of us were watching the scene unfold.
"I didn't do anything. Samantha doesn't know what she's talking about." Danny bluffed.
"A lot of people saw you at the cafe together on Saturday night. What did you decide to do, Danny? Dose the common milk so that nobody would know you just wanted to roofie your girlfriend?" Elle suspected.
"That's not true." Danny defended.
"Sex was an issue in your relationship. She told me about it. She wasn't prepared to give it up, so you decided to take it." Elle continued.
"No." Danny denied.
"She had bruises all over her body, Danny. You hit her!" Elle exclaimed.
"Well, I didn't mean to. She was freaking out, punching me. She was on something. I was just trying to help her. I was just trying to hold her down."
"She was hitting you, but you still had sex with her?" Elle yelled.
"No!"
"Then, what, Danny?" The chief asked.
"It was after. After, we did it. We fell asleep. When she woke up, she was seeing things."
"What things?" Elle asked.
"Look, she was on something, and if it was acid or something, I've taken that. You give that to someone without telling them, it doesn't exactly set the mood."
"Kid is right about that. If he wanted to slip her a date rape drug, why'd he give her LSD, too?" Morgan asked.
"This boy seems too scared not to be telling us the truth." Spencer profiled.
"So, Samantha was just the 8th victim and the boyfriend working in the cafe was just a coincidence." I concluded.
"But, even so, there may be an explanation why the two drugs; LSD to hallucinate and rohypnol to forget." Gideon said.
"Forget what? What they were hallucinating?" Morgan asked.
"No, how they got dosed."
"Then, the unsub's covering his tracks. It's much too organized for a high school prank." Hotch stated.
"And there still hasn't been any kind of ransom demand." Morgan reminded.
"Which rules out the extortionist." Spencer explained.
"Or any visible political group or cult in the area." Hotch added.
"Which rules out the 'True Believer'." I stated.
"And leaves us with 'The Avenger'." Morgan concluded.
"We can give him a profile." Hotch finalized.
...
"We believe whoever poisoned these people was motivated by revenge." Hotch started the profile that we were giving in front of the officers.
"The randomness of the victimology, average people in an average-sized town, all points to a local resident." Morgan concluded.
"We know that people who poison for the purpose of revenge primarily act alone." Elle stated.
"However, he may have manipulated someone close to him to assist him. The unsub usually disposes of these accomplices when they're of no further use to him." I counter-vined.
"The unsub is like a cautious, deliberate, and highly-functioning male between the ages of 35 and 50." Elle profiled.
"He chose LSD for a reason. LSD is about altering perception. We think that this unsub is striking out because he feels that he's been inaccurately perceived by the community or a subset of it." Hotch stated.
"He feels that these attacks will effect and alter a reality that he is caught in, that he perceives to be unjust." Morgan explained.
"He's so self-centered he believes his victims will know the reason for the attack and who did it." Hotch said.
"This individual was savvy enough to use rohypnol to obstruct our investigation, erasing the memories of the victims of how they were poisoned." Spencer stated.
"Hold on." The chief interrupted. "If this guy believes that his victims know who he is, why is he covering his tracks?"
"Because these victims aren't his primary targets." Gideon answered.
"We know from precedent that this kind of offender, 'The Avenger', tests his weapon first. This attack was a test run." Hotch explained.
"A test run for what?" The chief asked.
"We don't know yet." I answered. "What we do know is that this is not the first time that he's aired his grievances. While it's not likely that he has a criminal record, it is possible that he has filed criminal charges or pursued a civil action against his perceived adversaries. And, now, to measure the results of his test, he's watching."
"And he wants to see the results of his test. Once he has them, all those years of pent-up rage will be released in the form of a larger attack. The profile indicates a lot of people could die." Gideon added.
...
After the profile, Morgan and I went to a grocery store so I could get a few more snacks. I ran out and I totally forgot to buy some last week. When we got back, I heard a heck ton of phones ringing, like a hundred of them. We met up with Elle and she explained that the story got leaked, but the news didn't say which store it was, so the public was swarming the phone lines with panic calls. We walked to where the others were.
"I just got off with the hospital." JJ announced. "They're swamped with over 50 potential poisonings from local restaurants, but no hallucinations."
"Another poisoning?" Morgan asked.
"Or maybe more hysteria." Hotch suggested.
"We've looked into any civil or criminal complaints from employees, ex-employees, suppliers, regulars at the cafe, not one good lead." The chief said.
"There's got to be somebody connected to that cafe who pops as a suspect." Gideon said.
"Morgan, Harita, wanna go back there, see if we can find another angle?" Elle asked.
"Sure." I said, after putting down the bags near my 'To-go Bag'.
...
"I can't believe it."
"What?" Elle asks me as Morgan and I sit down at the table."
"They don't sell iced coffee. How hard is it to make?" I exclaimed.
"We can go to Starbucks after this to get you your 17 cups of coffee." Elle sassed
"It's actually two, thank you."
"Okay, ladies chill down. If you're an 'Avenger', you choose your targets for a reason, right? Then, why haven't we found anyone connected to this cafe who fits the profile?" Morgan asked.
"Why hasn't the CDC found any trace of the drugs?" Elle queeried.
"Why doesn't this cafe make iced coffee?" I questioned.
"Okay, enough of your-" I cut off Morgan.
"Wait a minute. What if it's not the profile that's wrong, but the target?" I suggested.
"Not this cafe." Elle added.
"Just because a bunch of victims came to eat here, doesn't necessarily mean they got poisoned here." I explained.
"Then where?" Morgan asked.
…
Morgan and I decided to look around to see if there could be anything else that could have been poisoned while Elle went to talk to Nell.
"No soda machines, hot dog stands, water fountains, or anything else." Morgan sighed.
"Including iced coffee." I angrily said as Morgan elbowed my arm.
"Get anything?"
"Maybe. First New Jersey Federal, right across the street. One of the victims who I talked to said he went to that bank the day that he was dosed."
"How do you get poisoned at a bank?" I asked.
"I don't know. But, I'd like to take a look at the security tapes." Elle said.
...
We went to the security office at the First New Jersey Federal Bank and watched the security tapes.
"Right there. Pause it, Elle." She paused it at the image of Jack Fisher taking a piece of candy from the bowl.
"Jack Fisher. About to have the worst night of his life. That's all of them. Every one of the victims who turned up at the ER three nights ago is on this tape. I'm gonna call Hanover." Elle said, pulling out her phone.
"Bring in the CDC guys, they can test the candies." I said to her.
"I'll call Hotch." Morgan pulled out his phone.
...
"Elle, Harita." Morgan called out our attention. He showed us a picture of a girl, Lynn Dempsey. I looked through the photos of people who went to the bank that we printed out and finally found it. I showed the picture to Morgan and he went back to his conversation with Hotch over the phone. Elle then clicked the rewind button on the tape to see if she was on it. Sadly, she was, but instead of taking a piece of the candy, it looked like she replaced the candy with a few of her own.
...
Lynn Dempey died 5 minutes after we found out it was her who poisoned the candies and put them in the jar. We were all back at the station, arguing if she was the unsub, or someone else.
"Lynn Dempsey was an executive assistant. She has no expertise with chemicals. She doesn't fit the profile of the unsub." Gideon concluded.
"But the CDC found both LSD and rohypnol in the candy she was replacing at the bank." Morgan concluded.
"She must have been an accomplice and when the unsub finished using her to further his attack, he killed her with botulism." Hotch said.
"So, what does that tell us about the unsub?" Gideon asked.
"He's far more sophisticated than we realized." I answered.
"Why is that?" Elle questioned.
"The botulism toxin is the deadliest substance known to man. It blocks acetylcholine receptors, paralyzing its victims until, basically, choking you to death. Without a, uh, antitoxin, a lethal dose will kill you in 36 hours." Spencer explained.
"How many people have access to this stuff?" Elle asked.
"In New Jersey, quite a few." Spencer replied.
"It's the pharmaceutical and chemical capital of the US." I added.
"Exactly. So, the toxin can be ordered in the form of botox through any chemical or biological lab or botox clinic. It has to be purified, but any chemist or lab assistant has that capability." Reid continued.
"So, we're looking for chemists and sophisticated lab assistants?" Elle asked.
"Basically." Spencer confirmed.
"Ok, wait a minute. If the unsub is a chemist with access to the toxin, what'd he need Dempsey for?" Morgan asked.
"Well, we don't know yet. But, she worked for a, she worked for a company, called," GIdeon sat up in his chair and looked through his papers. "Hichcock Pharmaceuticals. I think there's a good chance the unsub worked there, too."
"Well, let's start with people who fit the profile who've had a recent stressor." Hotch ordered.
"Like, anybody fired from Hichcock in the past 6 months." Morgan added as he pulled out his phone to dial Garcia.
"Our guys acting like a workplace mass murderer." Hotch stated. "He'd stay close, seething, and he'd plan his revenge."
"Well, if he is a workplace killer, what else does that tell us about him?" Elle asked.
"Well, for one, they don't give themselves up. He's lost his empathy, his moral compass. He's capable of anything."
"All those innocent people at the bank." I murmured.
"They meant nothing to him. He'll take out anybody to forward his cause." Gideon sternly said.
"Like Dempsey." I added.
"Like Dempsey, and eventually, even himself, until he finishes taking out his primary targets."
"We have no idea where he's going to strike next. For all we know, he could poison the local reservoir." Morgan exclaimed.
"Elle, the local cops haven't gotten any leads out of Dempsey. Why don't you go to Hichcock and see if you have any luck." Hotch ordered as Elle stood up and left.
...
Garcia got the address of our unsub, so we went over to check it out. It was your local friendly garage. Once we arrived, we all got out of the car and stood behind it as SWAT opened the garage door a tiny bit, and threw a smoke bomb in. Once it was activated, SWAT went in to check to see if the area was clear, which it was, so we went in. Morgan found a guy looking out a window, which was pointed to the cop cars, and we brought him in for interrogation. The only problem was that he didn't kill himself, meaning that he didn't fit the profile. When we got back to the station, I decided to help Reid check the witness reports, forensic evidence, and anything else that might be a clue to the guy's plan. A few minutes later, Morgan told us that they knew the unsub's plan. We all got into the cars and Morgan explained that the unsub poisoned the punch at this party. We got into and yelled at everyone to drop whatever they were holding and not to drink/eat it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, listen up." Morgan yelled. "We are FBI. I need everybody to remain calm, but there could be some contaminated food here that could make you sick."
"Please put down whatever it is that you're eating and drinking, and please just take it easy." Elle shouted.
"We're going to be coming around and asking you some questions." I added.
"OK, the CDC is here with three dozen doses of anti-toxin. We're going to make sure everyone gets some just in case. Ah, whoever may have gotten sick, we should have caught it in time." JJ announced.
…
And just as we thought, the punch tested positive for Botulism Toxins. About a dozen of the partiers reported symptoms, but were treated with the anti-toxin. The only issue was that he targeted the lower office workers, not the higher management types. Morgan and I found out they were on a trip away somewhere in the woods, the kind of 'No Cell-Phones Allowed' trip. We also found out that not only did Dempey and Ed, the unsub, poison the candies, she also poisoned the envelopes. The only reason it wasn't found was because they would have been shredded. Gideon, Spencer, and Hotch got a helicopter to fly across the woods to see if they could find where the upper class workers, which they did, and all were safe. In the end we saved the day once again.
…
"Hey, I know it's been a while, 2 years to be exact, since I last talked to you. A month ago was your 17 anniversary, and if I have to be honest, it was kinda hard. Especially with Saline's G-Ma passing away. But in the end, with my family, the ones from the BAU, reminding me that I didn't have to mourn on my birthday, I guess it got better. I got you your favorite flowers, a red rose, an orange marigold, a sunflower, a green dianthus, and an iris. I hope you like them. I do miss you dearly, and I love you." I placed the bouquet in front of Mahika's grave stone and stood there.
You know what, kiwi's are good and I will fight anyone if they disagree. Also so is pineapple on pizza. That's also good.
Toodles,
HernameisBurrito.