I have a beta! All hail the fantastic PlatypusTVlover!!
Author's Note: I don't own them, but if wishes were horses… oh well. I suppose I should mention that naming names like "Suburban", "Amazon", etc. is not a commercial endorsement but simply an assumption that those names will be recognized by the vast majority of people reading. I have no commercial interest / ownership in any of them either, although the amount of money I send Amazon every month is staggering.
Author's Note 2: Keying… for those of you who had a normal childhood, "keying" is the fine art of scraping one's keys down the side of someone else's car. Makes vicious scrapes in the paint and really annoys people. Sorry if anyone was confused by what I was talking about!
Previously in "Criminal Minds: The Prodigal": Hotchner suggested to Morgan that since the younger man would be juggling talking to Garcia the next day about the victims with combing through police reports in Mariposa county it would be a good idea to have a decent night's sleep.
As the chief's taillights disappeared around the bend in the road, Morgan looked up again at the yawning sky above him. This far out into the country, it was easy to see the Milky Way, and he spent a couple minutes stargazing and picking out planes – or were they satellites? He still wasn't sure he trusted what the sheriff had said about that – coursing overhead. Not even the light from the grim crime scene farther up the hill really detracted from his view, as it was around on the other side of the hill and was barely a faint glow from where he stood.
Finally, though, the reality of where he was started to sink in. Out in the middle of nowhere, alone, standing next to a hulking Suburban, in the dark, on a case where guys with SUVs were getting killed? Suddenly every rustle of branches or unknown clicking noise from the underbrush got on his nerves. Morgan dug the car keys out of his pocket, beeping the alarm off before he had them all the way out, and climbing in quickly to lock the doors behind him. He felt a bit like a fool for doing it, but he was, after all, a city boy. Too much open space could make him nervous. Definitely a good thing JJ hadn't come along, though… scared of the woods wasn't a good way to be out here!
He started the engine up with a comforting Detroit V8 roar, and after a bit of backing and filling on the dark road had the beast turned around and headed for the bright lights of the big city Oakhurst. What to do for dinner? Hmmm. Maybe Chinese? He was pretty sure he'd seen at least one Chinese place in town, and it was at least worth cruising past to check out the menu. The big 6-liter engine made quick work of the short distance, even in the dark, and before long he was pulling up in front of the Jade Parasol restaurant. There were no other customers in the restaurant, and he checked the dashboard clock – 9:15 – against the hours on the door. They were open until 10 at night, so he still had time to get something to eat. He tucked a wad of maps underneath his arm, climbed out, and beeped the locks shut then pushed into the more familiar glare of the little restaurant. Very shortly he was seated at a table on one side of the restaurant, black tea cooling in the cup in front of him and an array of dishes spread out across the table. He alternated eating with going over his mental notes and staring at the maps he'd brought in from the car, thinking through what they knew so far.
There was no real geographic profile yet; the five murders around Oakhurst were scattered all across the hilly terrain. The only thing they had in common was that they were all at trailheads. Was that simply opportunity, or was it part of the Unsub's mentality? In this countryside, only a few miles from Yosemite and plunked in the middle of beautiful hiking terrain, it was likely to be a combination of both. Certainly an isolated trailhead would be easier than a street corner, even in a small town like this one. Maybe tomorrow's trip to Mariposa would give him more information. Morgan was sure there'd have been other similar murders in that jurisdiction, and he made a mental note to call Garcia the next day. She'd be useful in searching records in the surrounding counties and digging out any related cases. But which counties? Looking at the map again, he drew a mental circle around the ones that would be interesting… Madera, where he was, plus Mariposa, Mono, Tuolumne. How about Stanislaus? No, on second thought that looked too flat-land and agricultural. Morgan had a sneaking suspicion that the hills and mountains of the area meant something, somehow, to the Unsub.
Victimology was interesting. All white guys so far, all in or near SUVs, all middle-aged, and all comfortable to well-off. But Garcia hadn't found any links between any of them in the research she'd done before he and Hotch had flown out to Fresno. No business links, no deals gone bad common to everyone's background, no soured relationships for all of them, nothing except for the surface characteristics. White guys out for a hike, shot to death. There was nothing from the bodies as far as anyone was able to tell, either. They weren't all local, either. One each from Fresno, San Francisco, and LA, plus two from Kansas City. But one of the Kansas City victims had grown up in Fresno, and Pen hadn't found any indication that the two men even knew each other, nor had the FBI agents who had interviewed the relatives. Of course this was leaving out today's victim, and maybe something would turn up there. But Morgan didn't think he'd want to risk his government pension on that bet.
Did timing tell them anything? All but one of the victims had been killed since the beginning of September, and in the last seven weeks four victims had gone down. The first guy, though, had been killed in mid-May. No regular interval between the killings, although all but the first September victim had been killed on a weekend. Did that mean that the Unsub worked a day job during the week, or did it mean that his targets crossed in front of his sights on the weekends because of their lives? Coroner's notes in all cases suggested time of death was in the afternoon, but there again, was that surprising? The condition of the hiking boots each man had been wearing suggested that he had been out on the trail, and Morgan was pretty sure people didn't abandon a hike in the middle of the day for no reason. Not if they'd driven all the way out there in order to go hiking, anyway. Of course, today's was different, according to Doc Waters, who'd said he'd been shot in the morning. Important?
It was beginning to look more and more like a crime of opportunity, he mused, with the Unsub killing hikers for some reason that for now was known only to him. But they'd get him, and then they'd find out what was driving him. For now, though, it was nearly 10, and the waitress was starting to make "time to go home" moves. He tucked the last bit of lemon chicken into his mouth, paid the check, and started out through the door again. As it swung closed behind him, he caught sight of the passenger side of the Suburban and his heart began racing. All down the length of the car, gouges into the black paint showed that someone had keyed it viciously. But when? He'd seen the passenger side earlier that evening at the police station, and it had been fine then. Even though he hadn't been staring at the car from inside the restaurant, he'd had it in plain sight all through dinner, and he knew no one had been near it. In fact, he'd been wondering just where everyone in Oakhurst went after 9 at night, as the only people he'd seen were his waitress and the shadowy cook. Which left –
"Fuck me!" He had his phone to his ear almost before he finished thinking about it, the speed-dial ringing through to Hotch's phone. "Come on, come on," he chanted as he paced the sidewalk beside the wounded car. Finally, after 5 rings, the phone was answered.
"What is it, Morgan?"
"Hotch, the car got keyed tonight. Up on that hill, while we were up at the crime scene, that sick bastard was keying our car."
"What? You're sure it's been keyed, and not just scratched on the brush or something?"
"Look man, I think I know the difference between keying and just a little scratch from a twig. This is keyed from front to back and top to bottom, man. He took his time with it."
Morgan could hear his boss repeating the news, and could hear voices in the background, then some rustling as the phone was apparently handed over.
"Agent Morgan? This is Chief Phillips. Look, you stay put. We're not done up here, especially not now, so I'm gonna have a couple of my guys come and see if they can get any prints off your car. We haven't gotten any off the other cars, but maybe in the dark he made a mistake. Where are you?"
"Jade Parasol restaurant. They're about to close, though. Want me to wait in the car?"
"Oh, you ate there, did you? Should have gone to the one next door, it's much better. Yeah, wait in the car if they've locked the restaurant up, but my guys'll be right over. Here, let me give you back to Agent Hotchner so I can call them."
"OK, thanks, Chief." Morgan heard the phone being handed over again, and Hotchner was back on the line.
"You OK down there, Derek?" Despite himself, Morgan grinned in the dark.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Got a little spooked up on the hill, but now I'm just royally pissed at this guy. I'm really lookin' forward to catching him. You need me to come up there tonight?"
"No, once the local cops release the car again, go on back to the motel. We're gonna be up here a while, getting this guy to open up is almost impossible. I don't know, I think Phillips is halfway to dragging him in to town and putting him in a cell overnight to see if that would work. You have any brilliant ideas over dinner?" Hotchner's voice was full of frustration.
"Not really, no. I'm gonna call Garcia first thing tomorrow and get her started on a couple more counties. I think we need to look at more than just Oakhurst and Mariposa, and see if we can't get a better geographic profile. Then I'll go over to Mariposa myself and see what they've got in their cold files."
"OK. If you're still up when we get back to town I'll come fill you in, otherwise we'll try to sit down tomorrow afternoon and see where we are."
"See ya, boss." Morgan clicked the call off and slipped the phone back into its belt pouch. Further down Highway 41 he could see flashing blue lights, and realized when two cruisers pulled into the lot that Phillips had followed through. The drivers parked at an angle in front of the Chinese restaurant, one on either side of the Suburban, and climbed out of their cars. The blue lights lit up the empty parking lot and brought curious faces to the windows of both the Jade Parasol and what he realized was another Chinese place right next door. So that's what Phillips had meant.
"Agent Morgan? Hi, I'm Officer Culp, that's Officer Webb over there. Hear you got your car keyed tonight." The older of the two officers stuck out his hand as he walked over to Morgan, and the three men exchanged handshakes. Culp, who had parked on the driver's side of the Suburban, whistled when he rounded its hood and saw the damage. Webb had stopped on the sidewalk, his hands on his narrow hips as he stared mournfully at the gouges.
"Now somebody really hated this fine piece of engineering," the younger officer said, shaking his head. "Man, I hope we get this guy just for things like this."
"Come on kid, get a grip. He's killed 6 guys so far, I don't think we really care about the cars he's keyed." Culp had started back to his car for his evidence kit, but stopped to glare at the other man across the hood. "Why don't you get Agent Morgan's statement?"
By the time he had finished giving Webb a detailed breakdown of his afternoon, and Culp had lifted a number of prints from the side of the car, Morgan was beginning to feel the long hours pile up. He snuck a glance at his watch. Almost 11! Too late, or should that be too early, to call Garcia, given the 3 hour time difference. As the two officers drove off, finally shutting down their bar lights, he decided he'd go over everything again in his room. Yawning, he drove down the quiet road to the tourist motel they were staying at. Two hours later, though, he finally admitted he was no farther ahead than he had been after he'd eaten. Morgan held back one last series of yawns as he cleared the mess of papers off the bed and turned in for the night. His last thought was "I wonder how Hotch is doing with his mystery man."