Chapter 1 The family business
Robert Luttrell stood looking down at the body on his morticians' table. He donned his thick rubber embalming gloves, ready to prepare the body. He ran his gloved hands down the right arm of the body laid on his table, reaching the bracelet of the handcuff and ratcheted it as far as it would go.
Mave Luttrell, his 26-year-old daughter, ripped the tape gag from the body on the table. He screamed, "LET ME GO. I CAN PAY YOU!" He begged
"Shh, Shh, you should have been more careful who you slept with." Smiled, Mave pointed to the blond woman in the rubber body bag laid on the other mortician's table with a large bullet hole in her forehead. You couldn't tell she had been a beautiful woman as she had taken a horrendous beating before her untimely death.
She inserted two large-bore catheters into his left and right femoral artery's and connected some tubing to them both
"Now, do you see this empty cylinder here?" Robert asked his victim. He didn't get a reply from the terrified man.
"Ok, you are the silent type then. Your blood will fill this cylinder. When it reaches this level, your heart should stop beating, but we will be pumping this lovely blue embalming fluid into your body as we pump your blood out. So what we are doing is embalming you alive." Robert laughed at the hysterical man
Mave walked up and grabbed his tongue with a large pair of forceps and pulled it out his mouth, and pinned it to his bottom lip with a giant safety pin. "That's much better." She smiled and turned on the embalming machine. She started to watch the blood filling the empty cylinder and the man starting to shake violently. Mave enjoyed her job listening to the steady beating of her embalming machine.
Robert Luttrell owned the family-run silent night mortuary and crematorium in Covington, Louisiana. It had been in his family for three generations, The family where well respected in the local community for the charity work they did and how they dealt with the bereaved family's as if they where all family members. The majority of people didn't know about the Luttrell family was they also worked as cleaners to the criminal underworld or anyone that could afford their services. They would remove and dispose of bodies for clients at a substantial cost. They had been undetected for over 90 years which the family prided themselves on.
They kept Incriminating evidence on all clients to ensure their silence. On a few occasions, someone tried to cut a deal with the feds or police after being arrested, but they just disappeared before they could confess, never to be seen again.
EJ
"Mommy! Mommy! I broke my dolly." Cried 18-year-old Angie Luttrell, pushing in her stroller with her brunette doll in.
"Sweetie, what have I told you before? Make sure your dollies have underwear on!" Andy Luttrell told her daughter. She was pulling the bra and knickers out of her dolls throat.
Andy suffered from a dissociative identity disorder. Angie was a girl that still enjoyed dolls and princess tea parties. Nicole, her alter ego, who had hypersexuality with sadistic tendencies, was extremely dangerous to anyone that wasn't a Luttrell. She enjoyed inflicting pain anyway, but her favourite was severe breath control. The 5ft 4inch brunette doll that Nicole had suffocated with her underwear was her latest victim. The 34-year-old was a current member of witness protection who disappeared while out running four months ago. Angie had fallen in love with her at first sight. When not playing with her dollies, she kept them in her dollhouse underneath her bed in a purpose-built secure box. If Nicole was playing, she had a cell hidden underneath the No one body fridge that was extremely well hidden and soundproofed. Her mother was consoling Angie as they slid the body of her dead doll into the crematoria for incineration.
"MOMMY!, when can I get a new dolly? I want a princess tea party. Why does Nicole have to be so mean?" A distraught daughter asked
"You know she can't help it. She doesn't mean to upset you. Come and help me with Mrs Bishop's makeup before her funeral tomorrow." Her mother asked, hugging her daughter
"Okay, Mommy." Angie smiled and followed her mother into the preparation room.
Angie was a magician at makeup on their clients. She could reconstruct damaged faces like an artist. Families often commented she was wasted with the dead and should try working in film or tv.
EJ
Three hours later, Angie's dolls ashes sat in Mrs Bishop's casket pillow. The Male gigolo embalmed alive sat in a casket underneath a huge customer in an exceptionally well-supported casket for burial in the morning.
"Hello, Mother." Nicole greeted
"Hello, sweetheart, please try and not kill your sister's dollies. You know how she gets. Just play with them using your plastic bags and masks. You promised last time, remember?" Her mother replied
"I get carried away. I can't help myself. I can only try, mother. I don't do it on purpose." She smiled, hugging her mother
"I know, sweetie. I love you." her mother. Smiles
EJ
Twenty-five miles down the road, two police officers had just arrived in a cemetery. A flood from a burst above ground pool had caused the ground to be washed away, partially revealing part of a buried casket. The casket was partially open, showing more than one occupant and what looked like a set of spindly legs. Once the officers had fully opened the casket's lid, they noticed five plastic bags of what looked like ashes.
"We need to let the detectives see this." The officer told his partner.
The detectives looked at the casket and its occupants and handed it over to the Medical Examiner. The medical examiner had confirmed both bodies had been embalmed, so most likely had died of natural causes. He informed the detectives the contents of the bags could be human ashes, and there was no way to identify them as all DNA was burnt away. He took prints from the two bodies to confirm identity and a DNA sample from some remaining marrow in the bones.
"The chief of detectives want us to contact the local FBI office and get their opinion on this." Detective Jim Kline told his partner Clare Cato
EJ
At the precinct, detective Jim Kline had finished talking with David Rossi on the phone about the find in the casket.
"He said he would talk with his unit chief about our find. He suggested it might just be funeral homes cost-cutting and stuffing as many bodies and ashes in one casket as they can get away with. He suggested waiting to find out what the M.E has to say and keep them informed at the BAU." Jim tells CC his partner
CC smiled and told him the M.E had phoned whilst he was on the phone to Quantico. The female body Margaret Max died in 2008, aged 71, of a heart attack. She was the actual owner of the casket buried by Knox funeral homes they went bust in 2015. The male body's prints are not on the national police computer system. The plastic bags did contain human ash of approximately 14 people plus or minus. The DNA sample will take 2-3 days as they are busy, which is not a priority case.
"About as helpful as a beer mug with holes in it." Laughed CC." At least we know Margaret Max died of natural causes 12 years ago. You can talk with the fed again tomorrow." She smiled, knowing he hated the FBI
EJ
"Mrs Trout at the store told me they had found a casket unearthed with multiple occupants in. That must be one of ours. We will need to keep an eye on the situation. The police might investigate and possibly call in the feds. " Andy Luttrell told her husband
"There is nothing to tie us to them. We will watch from afar. If we insert ourselves into the investigation, it makes us suspicious, I think." He hugged his wife, giving her a loving kiss.
He carried on crushing the remains of a recently cremated legal customer for the ashes to be interned tomorrow afternoon.
EJ
Emily and JJ had just parked up at Quantico to start another day at the BAU Tonight was date night. It was JJ's turn to arrange, JJ had decided it was to be a surprise, and Emily had done nothing but complain on the journey into work, causing JJ to shout at her in annoyance and was not speaking to her at the moment.
"I'm sorry that was childish and annoying, please, please tell me where we are going. You know I hate surprises." Emily begged her wife.
JJ just smirked and about turned, walking to the main entrance ahead of Emily, smirking, not want her wife to know she was utterly enjoying her frustration in not knowing tonight's plans.
"Jennniiiifffer, please!" Emily asked, almost childlike
JJ turned and laughed at her wife's latest plea. "Now you will find out where we are going tonight and if you ask me again, I will be going alone," JJ told her wife.
Emily looked sad for a moment. Then she started smiling.
"That includes Morgan asking Garcia and me. So suck it up and be a good girl and wait for tonight; it will be worth the wait." JJ smiled
"You are a mean, mean woman Jennifer Prentiss."
JJ leaned across, whispering into her ear, making Emily turn bright red just as they entered the BAU
"Oh, look at the princess's face. It looks like JJ's being a naughty girl." Laughed Morgan stood next to Rossi and Penelope Garcia
Emily just turned a deeper shade of red, with JJ having a colossal shit-eating smile on her face. JJ leans in to whisper in Emily's ear, "now remember your treat if your a good little agent all day" kissing her cheek, she left a flustered Emily stood opened mouth as she watched JJ walk away to her office.
Emily sat and worked diligently until Hotch called her and JJ to his office.
EJ
"We have a request for help/advice from Covington, Louisiana. They found a semi unearthed casket after an above ground pool burst. The casket contained two embalmed bodies, a set of spindly legs, and eight bags of human ashes contain approximately 14 bodies worth of ashes. The M.E has sent a sample off for DNA testing from the bones and should have a result in 3 days. I want you both to fly down tomorrow and look into things to see if it's a serial or just corner-cutting undertakers. My gut tells me it's just cost-cutting, but we will cover the bases." He told the pair, then very uncharacteristically smiled and looked at Emily "have you found anything out yet?"
Emily looked dejected and took $20 out of her pocket and handed it over to Hotch. "NO! Jennifer has been tight-lipped. I'm under threat now, so you win."
JJ just turned to her wife smiling, and winked at her. As they walked out of the office, Morgan, Garcia, Rossi and Reid, all handed over $20 to JJ. Emily just looked on in shock at the giant shit-eating grin on her wife's face. She was not living this down for a while.
EJ
JJ had sent Emily to their room to change into what she had left on the bed for her. Emily, as instructed, didn't open until she had showered. She had been asked to put her hair into a high ponytail. Emily finished adjusting her ponytail and just smiled at the royal blue negligee in the bag. As instructed, she slipped it on and sat on the bed. JJ walked in wearing an emerald green negligee and slipped a blindfold over her eyes, and escorted her downstairs.
Emily had her blindfold removed, and she gasped before her sat an awe-inspiring selection of sushi and condiments. Emily just kissed her wife as she had just made one-off her dreams come true. The sushi was laid out on a gold-covered, green-eyed red-haired naked beauty lying atop their dining table.
"Hi Emily, my name is Josephine, and I'm here to talk you through your date night sushi feast. Might I direct your attention to my right hip for your start? Your sake is warming in your flasks by your plates." Smiled Josephine
Over the next two hours, Emily and JJ feasted on sushi as directed by their naked host. After finishing the empty golden dinner plate, showered in the guest bathroom and left the condo with a huge tip and a definite booking for JJ's birthday next month.
The two ladies retired to the bedroom to finish date night.
EJ
The two very tired ladies slept the whole flight in their double bed in first class on the plane. They were met by the detectives from the Covington police department
"Hi, my name is SSA Jennifer Jareau, and this is SSA Emily Prentiss; it's good to meet you both." Smiled JJ
"Hi, my name is detective Clare Cato, but they call me CC, and this is my partner Jim Kline. I'm glad they sent you both down to cast your expert eyes over what we have." CC greets them
"Detective Kline, you know we are profilers and are only here to help you. We aren't here to take over and order you about." Smiled Emily
Detective Kline smiles "that obvious Ha, bad experience in the past that's all agents."
They walk out of the airport to the detective's car and start at the police station.
EJ
"Has the M.E had any luck with the prints of the second body?" JJ asked
"No hits on any system. I have sent a copy to your 'strange' analyst." Smirked CC "we have two days before the DNA comes back. The M.E has a backlog due to his lack of funding. A sign of the time." She sighed
Emily and JJ reread the Covington police file just in case something hadn't been sent to them at Quantico. After two hours, they still had no evidence of wrongdoing. Emily and JJ called Hotch and filled him in on their initial feelings on the case. Nothing they had seen so far had changed their minds that there was anything more than greedy undertakers. They told him they would wait for the two DNA results to come back before they returned to Quantico.