Will has been to DC a couple times since moving out to Virginia, though they haven't had a lot of time to go sightseeing. He hates the traffic, and not knowing what the hell is going on, what has happened to JJ and Morgan and Ed is not helping his mood any. He did stop at Mustang and Ed's place as Mustang requested. The bedroom had been well-lived in.
He's a detective, so he couldn't resist snooping a little, but he didn't find anything that in any way suggested that their relationship was anything but normal. He even found a few… accessories, but, honestly, nothing worse than he and JJ had. Which made them a little kinky but in a totally normal way. So he'd stuffed a suitcase in the closet, exactly where Mustang said it would be, and got the hell out of dodge. He wasn't going to get his answers about JJ until he got to Nowheresville, Pennsylvania, and Emily had asked him to stop in DC.
Finding a parking garage, he parks, grabs the laptop bag, then hikes to the library proper. He would have liked to just use the fact he was a cop to borrow some employee parking, but he wasn't local, and it would be a little bit abusive, even as stressed as he is.
Once he gets into the library, he goes straight to a desk. "Hi, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm supposed to meet with Aaron Adelman? William LaMontagne Jr.," he says. He flashes his badge at her, which he figures can only help.
The woman, dark hair, a little plump, surprisingly tall, but with a warm smile, looks up and says, "Oh, yes. Aaron said to expect you. Let me give him a call and make sure he's ready for you, and I can have Jelena take you back."
"Thank you," he says as she picks up a phone at the desk, dials what was obviously a well-known extension, and speaks to him in warm tones.
"I'll send him right back," she assures, and then calls over a young woman. "Jelena, can you take Mr. LaMontagne back to Dr. Adelman, please?" she asks.
The girl nods. "Of course," she says. "Right this way, sir," and starts down a hall. Will follows her, the sounds of her footfalls surprisingly soft on the tile flooring. She knocks on a door with a plaque that just says "A. Adelman" on it, then doesn't wait for a reply before opening the door. "Dr. Adelman?" she asks.
"Come in, come in," he ushers her in. "Detective LaMontagne, I assume?" he greets.
Jelena gives Will a curious look, but she doesn't comment and she doesn't try to hang around. "Yes, but please, call me Will," he says, holding out his hand, which Adelman takes with a firm shake. Adelman is comfortably middle-aged, closer to fifty than forty, though still with a thick head of hair and a welcoming air about him that reminds Will oddly of people at home in the South.
"Then please, call me Aaron."
Not arguing, Will says, "Aaron. Thank you so much for your time. Agent Prentiss called?" Will asks. "I'm sorry, I got roped into this a little late, and I'm not sure how you know her."
"Agent Prentiss?" Aaron asks, confused, sitting back behind a large, very old and ornate-looking desk, and motioning for Will to sit across from him. "No, Roy Mustang called and asked for my help."
That makes Will pause. "Roy Mustang?" He doesn't mean to parrot it back, but he's surprised. Penelope had sent Will the text with the information about who he was supposed to speak to here.
"Yes. He works with my sister-in-law in Virginia. I understand there's been an issue with Edward going missing?"He blinks through small, wire-framed glasses, then adds, "And a Ms. Penelope Garcia called as well? From the FBI? She said it also had to do with Ed being missing."
"You know Ed too?" Will asks, perplexed. If Aaron's sister-in-law works with Mustang, then Aaron knows that Roy is a teacher. But he also knows about Ed?
"Yes. They ran into Levi—that's my brother—and his family, including my sister-in-law, here last month. Well, by 'here,' I mean the Holocaust Museum. Mercedes invited them to have Thanksgiving with us," Aaron explains. He has the quick, clear diction of someone who thinks faster than he can quite get the words out. Fortunately, Will is used to the type from being around Spencer a lot.
"Thanksgiving?"
"We're Canadian, or ex-pats, rather. We do Thanksgiving in October like civilized people," Aaron replies with an easy smile.
Pausing as he reaches into his laptop bag, Will asks, "You didn't find it… at all odd that Mustang is dating a man so much younger than he is?" He doesn't exactly mean to, but he can't resist.
Aaron pauses at that, scratches at the top of his head a little embarrassed, then says, "My mother married my father when she was sixteen and he was only twenty. These days there'd be plenty of people who would look sideways at that," he says with a shrug. "Mercedes—that's my sister-in-law—says Roy's good people. I saw nothing while he shared a meal with us to indicate otherwise. Ed's young, but he's not a fool. Besides…" He takes off his glasses, pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and cleans them for a moment, before putting them back on. "I suspect that the years Ed has lived have some hard mileage on them, if you take my meaning."
Having gotten the same impression more than once from Ed, Will can't argue with the assessment. "Yeah, I take your meaning," Will says, finishing pulling out the laptop. "Do you mind?" he asks.
"Oh, no, of course not," Aaron says. "Roy said that you needed help tracking down if anyone had been studying the alchemy books in recent times?"
That's news to Will, and he pauses in connecting to a secured line through his phone. "Alchemy?" he asks.
Aaron looks at him, surprised, as he was pulling up something on his computer. "Well, yes, that's what Roy asked about, particularly any manuscripts that date from the Middle Ages and might need special handling but maybe not special permission to see them. I'm the Head of Collection Conservation, you see, and if anyone were asking into those sorts of texts, I would have a record of them." He turns back to his computer, turning the screen as the connection on Will's laptop goes through, and Penelope's face pops up on the screen.
"You have reached the all-knowing queen of—" Penelope cuts off abruptly and says, "Oh, Will. Hi. And, uh, Mr. Alderman?"
"Adelman," he corrects with the kind of patience that tells Will it's a common mistake.
"Right," Penelope says. "Sorry about that. I'm the FBI technical analyst you spoke to earlier?"
"It's a pleasure to meet you in 'person,' as it were, Ms. Garcia," Aaron says, giving her a smile equally as warm as he gave Will. "If it's involving Ed being missing, I'm more than happy to help in any way I can. I was just telling Will—Detective LaMontagne here—that Roy asked for anyone who might have been looking into alchemy-related resources."
Penelope nods, her fingers moving over her keyboard, eyes off to the side as she typed up anything. "Yeah, that tracks. The older the better."
Aaron leans back a little bit. "I wish I could be more help, but as great as our collection here is, you'd be much better off looking for historical alchemy resources in Europe. We do have a few that have been acquired over the years, but not a lot."
"Whatever you have," Penelope assures him. "More importantly, anyone who has shown any interest in them."
"There haven't been many," Aaron says, "So they're easy to remember. I found some requests. Most of them were refused as we won't let just anyone in to see older and more fragile manuscripts, but there was a, uh, mishap, and this gentleman was allowed in. I had security pull the footage for me after Ms. Garcia called."
Will doesn't recognize the man on the screen. He is tall, lanky, posture slightly hunched, haphazardly shaven, hair a little longer than fashionable and not even, which makes Will think he maybe cut it himself. The woman in the room with him is clearly unsettled, trying to stay out of his reach, checking her position between the exits and him, watching him more than the book. She carefully turns a few pages for him. Then the man grabs his hair in frustration and tugs at it. She pulls the book back and holds it to her chest with care before he can reach for it. He drops his hands in obvious agitation and leaves.
The video pauses. "Is this what you need, Ms. Garcia?" Aaron asks.
"Yes," Penelope says with that undertone she gets when it's something she absolutely does need. "That book, Dr. Adelman—is there any way we can get a copy of it?"
"It's a rare book, but it's in an older English dialect. I took the liberty of taking a look at it, and it's quite difficult to parse if you're not familiar with the conventions. Not unlike Chaucer."
Will winces, remembering trying to make sense of the more modern version of that. He feels better when Penelope winces as well.
"Is there another copy or a transcript?" she asks.
"On this coast? no. In Europe, certainly, but not here," Aaron says.
"What's the title of the book?"
" Book on the Composition of Alchemy, " Aaron says, then adds, "Translated by Robert Chester. It's thought to be the first introduction of alchemy to the English-speaking world. He translated it from Arabic to Latin. It is in English—and is considered exceptionally rare because of it—but it dates to the fourteenth century, so it's hardly modern English, and a layman who picks it up will struggle to make sense of it."
"Are there any more modern translations?" Penelope asks.
"There have been recent re-editions in Latin and Arabic, but none in English, I'm afraid."
Penelope sighs and visibly sags. "It was a long shot anyway. Can you work with Will to get a copy of the video or if you can have your security just send me a copy of this and any other video you can find with that man on it?"
"So it is the man you're looking for?" Aaron asks.
"He was," she says. "He's dead now, so not exactly a big threat. If you need to, you can have your team send me anything from any days Tucker Maes was known to be in the building. We're also looking for an accomplice, and we think they may have met in the library."
A frown creased Aaron's brow. "Of course, Ms. Garcia. We're more than happy to be of any assistance we can."
"Thank you so much."
"Penelope, do you need me for anything here?" Will asks her.
She startles, almost as if she had forgotten about him, but Will is pretty sure that she hasn't. "Uh, unless you want to watch hours and hours of surveillance footage with me?"
He bites back a sigh and says, "I'd rather go see if I can be of help with the rest of the team, if it's all the same."
"Yeah," she says, looking sad in a way that is about as far from comforting as she has. "I get it. Go ahead and head north. I'll text you the address where everyone's staying and the precinct they're operating out of. You can call Emily or Rossi and figure out where's best to go to when you get there," she says, less than her normal, enthusiastic self.
Nodding, he waves to her and closes the lid. He exchanges pleasantries with Aaron, thanking him for his time, and then makes his way out of the library, heading back to his car. As he walks, he calls Penelope back.
"Office of the omniscient," Penelope answers, but if a tone can be pessimistic, hers is.
"You going to tell me why we're looking up old textbooks on alchemy , Penelope?" he asks.
She sighs, not bothering to hide it. "I figured you'd call before you hit your car," she admits. "Yeah, the unsub is obsessed with it, and I… can't explain any better than that. I've sent the addresses you need to your phone." His phone buzzes on cue. "Just… go."
Will stops at a crosswalk, thoroughly unnerved by how defeated Penelope sounds. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing that you're going to believe over the phone," she says. "Look, I know that this is hard for you, but really, you just need to get up to Pennsylvania and to the rest of the team. They'll be able to explain."
The crosswalk light changes, and Will barely checks before half running across the crosswalk, eager to get to his car as quickly as he can. "Is JJ going to be all right?" he asks.
"Roy is absolutely confident that Ed can get them out of the mess they're in," Penelope says, finally a little bit of hope coming into her voice. "So, yes." Her voice gets firmer, as if she's determined to believe it. "JJ and Derek are going to be just fine. Ed too, because he's going to make sure everyone's fine."
Why Ed? Will wonders. Ed is brilliant, there's no doubt of that, but why put all their faith in Ed? Why not in Spencer?
He should ask, but he doesn't. He's almost certain that Penelope will tell him just to wait until he gets to the team, and they'll explain, and having to deflect his questions is just going to stress her out more.
"Thanks, Penelope," he says.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be more help. Thanks for your help."
He snorts. He didn't do anything that she couldn't have done over the internet, but he'll let her pretend he was helpful.
"I'll be in touch," he says.
"Text me when you get there?"
He can't help the little smile that twists his lips at the hope in her voice. "Of course."