Essential Listening: Time Alone, by Joshua Hyslop

He was bloodied and weary, but the look he was sending at the camera was all anger and defiance. It was unusual for an unsub to hand themselves in, even in such a dramatic way – unless they had an endgame in mind.

SSA Jennifer Jareau paused the CCTV footage that the Canadian border patrol had sent to the Police Department, and which they had forwarded to her. The rest of the members of the BAU waited expectantly, some thumbing through their files, others frowning up at the screen, trying to read every facet of behaviour from the dark, grainy image.

"His name's William Hightower," she told them, and waiting a beat for everyone to make the mental connection to the character from the Police Academy movies, and then discard it. "He claims that over the last month he's picked people off the street in Detroit, killed them and dumped their bodies across the border, in Canada."

"Has he given up the dump site?" SSA Emily Prentiss asked.

JJ shook her head. "He said he'll only talk to the FBI."

"Could be a power play," mused Pearce.

Beside her, Reid frowned. "Do we even have confirmation these people are missing?"

"Two were reported missing by family, months ago," JJ replied. "But they all appear to be transient. We're having a hard time finding any information on them."

"Garcia?" said Unit Chief SSA Aaron Hotchner, with a glance at their resident and formidable technical analyst.

"Like a bloodhound, sir," Penelope Garcia told him, correctly interpreting the request to use her skills as a technical wizard to find paper trails and next of kin. She picked up her lurid notebooks and fluffy pen, and headed off to her lair.

"So, what do we know about this guy?" asked SSA Derek Morgan, examining the file.

"Until two months ago, he was a sergeant in the US Army," Hotch replied. "He did two tours in Iraq. He lost his left leg in a roadside ambush. He was discharged with a Purple Heart and a commendation for valour."

"And the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are requesting our help?" Reid asked, puzzled.

"Yeah," said Grace. "I thought that was a little out of our wheelhouse."

"They don't have a lot of choice," Hotch told them.

"He manages to get away with ten murders," said JJ, who had been wondering about this since the call had come in. "Why crash the guard post?"

Emily gave a sort of facial shrug. "Could have been an attempt at suicide – and maybe he was trying to take as many people with him as he could."

SSA David Rossi nodded thoughtfully. "It could also be a case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," he postulated.

"I don't know," said Hotch.

"Do we think he's legit'?" Morgan asked.

"I think it's too many bodies to take chances on," said Hotch, with a quirk of his brows.

"Well," said Grace, watching Hightower's car crash into the Border Guard post, "he wants attention now, whatever his motives."

"And he's got it," said Hotch. "Wheels up in twenty."

0o0

If there were no hell, we would be like the animals. No hell – no dignity.

-Flannery O'Connor

0o0

JJ spread the copies the RCMP had made of the files William Hightower had had on his at the time of his arrest. "He documented them all in detail. Names, photos, dates, and the locations that he took them."

"Military background," Morgan pointed out. "He's bound to be organised."

"He definitely doesn't have a type," Rossi remarked, from across the table.

"Yeah, these are all over the shop," Grace put in.

She was perched between Spencer and Hotch on the bench they all always leaned against when they hadn't got a seat at the table for the jet debrief, and occasionally her leg or elbow would jostle his, leading his thoughts right back to the couch in his apartment, and what he would far rather have been doing right now. Still, beggars couldn't be choosers, and with a potential kill count of ten already, they couldn't wait on this one, even if Hightower was already in custody.

A very low percentage of serial killers turned themselves in because they wanted to stop; usually they thought they could outsmart the police, or had something huge and (to their mind) unstoppable in motion that they could crow over. It was something they would have to keep in mind as they moved forward.

The other possibility, of course, was that the whole confession was bogus, either as a result of Hightower's service in Iraq, or an attention seeking exercise. They had seen both before.

"The only consistency is that they were all abducted in the same area," he said aloud.

"Yeah, what do we know about that?" Emily asked.

"It's called the Cass Corridor," said Spencer, spreading out the map. On the table and pointed it out. Everyone leaned in for a closer look and he retreated, feeling a little crowded. "It has an unusually high concentration of drug trafficking, prostitution and homeless people."

"All high risk behaviour," Rossi mused.

Grace nodded. "I'm guessing that's why over half of these disappearances are going unreported. Kind of reminds me of Kansas City*."

"Hmm," said Spencer, in agreement.

"So, for this guy maybe it's more about opportunity than victimology," Emily suggested.

"Morgan, Prentiss, Pearce – when we land, I want you to head straight to Detroit," Hotch instructed, and the three of them nodded. "See if you hear anything in the whisper stream. I wanna make sure we have a crime before we get too deeply into this."

Emily developed a wistful expression. "I hear Detroit is beautiful in the spring," she quoted, and a few people's mouths twitched upwards.

"The rest of us will meet with the legal attaché before we hit the Royal Canadian Mounted Police," Hotch concluded.

"Actually, sir, the officer in charge said that his team was part of a fellowship the BAU gave to train police forces in profiling," said JJ.

Rossi smiled and picked up the file, looking for familiar names. "That was the first one we ever did," he said, with pleasure, then raised his eyebrows when he caught what he was looking for. "Jeff Bedwell."

"You know him?" JJ asked.

"Yeah."

"Is he any good?" Morgan put in.

"He better be," said Rossi, in a typically wry tone. "I trained him."

0o0

The RCMP Headquarters, Windsor, Ontario was a bustling, well-organised place and Dave passed his eyes over it all approvingly. Not that their one training course could be responsible for that – but it was nice to know they had contributed. He remembered the officers on that first initiative as kind, clever detectives. It had been their receptiveness to the program that had allowed the department to expand it.

Spotting Jeff Bedwell moving through the desks towards them, Dave felt a rush of nostalgia, and strode forward to meet him. He was a jovial man in his forties with a buzz-cut and the easy demeanour that had made working with him and his team a pleasant experience. It could be deceptive, he recalled, because the other thing Jeff Bedwell was, was a very good detective.

"Dave!" He looked very pleased to have back up – particularly back up he recognised.

"Jeff, how've you been?," he said, shaking his hand.

"You mean besides having serial killers trying to take out our border agents?"

Rossi smirked. "Jeff Bedwell, agents Aaron Hotchner, Spencer Reid, Jennifer Jareau," he introduced as everyone either shook hands or (in Reid's case) avoided doing so.

"I appreciate you being here," said Bedwell, and ushered them beyond the front desk and into the office proper. "We have a victim board and timelines set up on monitors in the conference room. Anything you need. You've got the run of the place."

"We appreciate it," said Hotch, pleased.

The conference room was exactly what they needed it to be: separate, with sufficient but not too much tech, reasonable chairs and a coffee maker so they didn't have to cross the office to get to the kitchen.

"Don't thank me, thank the unsub," said Bedwell, with a trace of wry amusement. "He's the one that put you all in charge."

Dave flashed him the same smirk. Bedwell wasn't territorial, and he was clearly enjoying the opportunity to work with the BAU again. He turned his attention to the victim board, which was on a large interactive screen on the wall. Each photograph had all the pertinent information beneath it: names and aliases, age (if known), state of origin, last known location, whether they had been reported missing and by whom, and the date they had gone missing.

"I see you paid attention in class," he remarked.

"I need to go talk to Garcia, see if she had any luck locating the family members," said JJ.

Hotch nodded. "And check records for multiple border crosses. See if we get any hits for the days the victims went missing."

"Got it," said JJ, and went out to make her call.

Dave watched her go out of the corner of his eye. She needn't leave the room to do it, which meant she was also scoping out the people in the office and a place she might be able to use as a private space for family members when they started to trickle in.

"Do you believe he killed all these people?" Reid asked, examining the victim board.

Jeff gave a half-shrug. "Fits the profile."

"How so?" Dave asked, and Jeff referred to his files.

"Well, you got a recent physical trauma, could be a stressor. Wide disparity of victims, no bodies. Possible border cross, two entirely different terrains. To pull that off you'd have to be smart, you'd have to be organised, mobile, physical."

"Military background gives you all that," Dave agreed.

But when is it ever that easy? he thought.

"Exactly," Bedwell agreed.

"It appears as though he clusters his victims into men, then women, then back to men again," Reid mused, frowning at the board.

"Well, what does that tell you?" Bedwell asked, interested.

"At the moment, nothing," Aaron told him, thoughtfully.

"Has he contacted family?" Dave asked, running through his internal checklist of things they needed to know before deciding how to proceed.

Bedwell shook his head. "Refuses a lawyer, too."

Interesting.

"He's in interrogation?" Aaron enquired.

"Waiting for us," Bedwell confirmed.

Dave shared a look with Hotch, who gave a little facial quirk of acknowledgement that would have been impossible for anyone off the team to read.

Alright, he thought. I've known Jeff a while, and I know he'll do what's best for the investigation – and he won't feel like we're railroading him. The direct approach.

"This guy's US Army," he said aloud. "He demanded to speak to the FBI. He's not gonna want to talk to anyone but the person he thinks is in charge."

Bedwell narrowed his eyes for a moment, then smiled. "Of course. I'll take you to him."

0o0

William Hightower sat erect and controlled in the seat in the dark interrogation room. He hadn't moved a muscle in the seven minutes since Aaron had entered the room, directing a considerable amount of anger and focus into glaring at the glass partition. He had been doing it even before they had come in, and Aaron was reasonably sure he would be doing it until he surrendered to sleep if they left him to his own devices.

And that just felt… wrong.

If handing himself in was part of his endgame, then he ought to be calmer, more collected – ready to give the performance of a lifetime. That's what the kind of unsub who handed himself in truly wanted: an audience, and preferably an adoring or horrified one.

Hightower, on the other hand, radiated anger. If he had killed this many people purely out of rage – even with a sexual component – he would have tried a lot harder to kill the guards at the border post. He wouldn't have given himself up – he would have opted for suicide by cop.

From the man in the interrogation room, mostly what Aaron could read was fury and training.

Something else was definitely going on here.

"Has he been agitated?" he asked.

Detective Bedwell's shook his head. "Hasn't flinched."

"He knows we're here?"

"We told him."

"Good."

There was a pause as Aaron watched the man behind the glass, and Bedwell and his junior colleague watched him.

"You're not gonna interrogate him?" Bedwell asked.

"If I go in now, he's in charge," Aaron explained. "If I wait and gather information, it's my interview."

Bedwell nodded, understanding. "So, you're going to make him sweat."

Among other things, Aaron thought, wondering whether the rest of his team were making any headway in Detroit.

0o0

*See Moments of Grace – Season Two, Act Three: No Mortal Lock.