A/N: Still do not own Criminal Minds
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Gideon had risen shortly after dawn and happened to look out the window, doing a double take when he saw Colleen running from Reid's room to the Rutherford's car and taking off at warp speed. He laughed to himself, now that made things interesting. At least it was he and not Morgan who had seen the young lady making her getaway. If it were Morgan, Gideon knew, Reid would never live it down.
Now he and Garcia were impatiently waiting for Reid by the SUV since he was in possession of the keys. "I wonder what's keeping him," Garcia said.
Gideon had to stifle a smile and said "I'll go see what's up." He knocked on Reid's door and it was opened almost immediately by a somewhat flustered Reid.
"Oh sorry, I was late falling asleep and I guess I overslept a little, I'm ready now and I just have to get my bag, uh here take the keys, I'll be right there." He ran back into the room and grabbed his bag and ran out dropping his room key on the way out. He picked it up and headed for the SUV, then dropped his bag and had to retrieve it as well. Gideon was finding it hard to contain himself.
"He's worse than usual," Garcia remarked. "Do you think he's worried that Colleen will still be mad at him?"
Reid arrived, thankfully, before Gideon had to answer because he doubted his ability to answer Garcia with a straight face. He hoped they could talk about the case on the way to Castleton.
When they arrived in Castleton the team got together with the sheriffs and deputies to make a game plan on how to handle Rafferty and the mortician, Gus. Reid asked Garcia to run a check on Gus Trillby so they would be prepared when they confronted him.
Garcia returned a few minutes later with some interesting information. "Mr. Trillby apparently is heavily into on line gambling and is not very good at it."
"A lot of debts," Reid asked?
"Yes, and it looked like he was really in a lot of trouble until about two years ago when he started making substantial payments towards them. There is no evidence in his income, where this money was coming from but it's not from his funeral home. Now I was just about to make a comparison to when these payments were made and if they correspond to dates when deaths occurred at Bluegrass Valley. I'll let you know."
"I'm going to call Coleman and see where he's gotten with the autopsies on our DB's" Reid got up and pulled out his cell phone, going to the other side of the room.
"Okay," Prentiss pondered, "Say it turns out that Cynthia Rafferty died the same way as Thelma and Edna, how do we connect David Rafferty to the crime. I mean what's to say he wasn't at the nursing home selling pharmaceuticals."
Morgan responded, "We'll probably have to get someone to roll over on him. If we can get the other two, I'm sure they'll roll. You know no honor among thieves."
Reid returned, "Okay the verdict is in. All of our bodies, save one, died of KCl overdose. One died of natural causes and it wasn't Cynthia Rafferty. Garcia, how are you doing with that comparison?"
"Got it right here sweet pea. Substantial payments always made shortly after each one of the deaths occurred."
"Good work Garcia," Hotch stated. "Okay, I think we have enough to pay Mr. Trillby a visit." He looked at Reid, "Who's going?"
"Why don't you and Emily go Hotch. I want to visit the nursing home again and see what I can find out looking through different eyes. Whatever we get from Trillby and the home Gideon and Morgan can use to tag team Rafferty."
"Do you want me to go with you to the nursing home again?" Colleen raised her eyebrows.
"Yeah, you have a really good rapport with the residents."
The two pairs left for their assignments. Garcia was going to continue to find all she could on the principles in the scheme.
Hotch and Emily arrived at the funeral home and identified themselves to the receptionist and asked to speak to Gus Trillby. The receptionist left and returned a few minutes later with a man in his fifties, 5'8", wearing black glasses. Hotch asked if they could speak in private and Trillby led them to a client room with oriental carpets, comfortable expensively upholstered chairs and rich dark furniture.
"What is this about," inquired Trillby.
"Mr. Trillby, we are investigating the deaths of numerous residents of the Bluegrass Valley nursing home. Some exhumations have been done and it has been discovered that these people died of potassium chloride overdoses causing heart attacks. It has also been discovered that these people have had their eyes removed and the families appear to know nothing about this. We believe that you sir have been removing these eyes and selling them on the black market for transplantation. We know all about your gambling debts and that you started to repay them after these deaths started and the money is not coming from your funeral home. We also know that substantial payments have been made after the date of each of the deaths. When we look deeper into the money trail, we'll find out where the money came from and I'm sure your accomplice will give you up to save himself."
When Hotch finished, Trillby was silent, then he said, "I didn't kill them, I only used the eyes. I never hurt anybody and people who needed corneas got them."
"Oh yeah," Emily replied, "You were performing a public service."
"Now Mr. Trillby, you can help yourself out here or not, it's up to you. You can be charged with defiling a dead body and selling stolen property or if you choose not to cooperate we can amend the charges to include accessory after the fact in all these murders. What's it going to be Mr. Trillby? Are you going to give us the person inside the nursing home who was responsible for these murders or are you going to go down for them as well?"
After Hotch had concluded this speech, Trillby was silent for a few moments, and then he said, "Okay, if I give up the guy inside, you promise I won't get charged with any of these murders?"
"That's what I said Gus," Hotch responded.
"Okay, I'll tell you who it is."
As Reid and Colleen entered the nursing home the receptionist looked up with an expression that said, "Oh not again." What she did say was, "You want to see Dr. Price again, I presume."
"No, as a matter of fact," Reid replied, "We're just going to wander around and talk to some people." They headed off down the hallway. The receptionist picked up the phone.
The pair, like Morgan and Prentiss, headed for the nurses' lounge. There were four women in the lounge, a couple reading, one watching TV and the fourth with her head back appearing to sleep. They introduced themselves, saying they would like to ask some questions about David Rafferty.
"Oh him," one of the nurses with a name tag that said Stef replied, "That guy is full of so much hot air, always trying to talk up the nurses and get us to go out with him. The way he talked, you'd think he was some big shot or something, I mean the guy sold Aspirin, but he made it sound like he owned the company.
"Yeah," a nurse named Nancy added, "It was like twice as bad because we had to put up with him coming to push his drugs and again when he came to see his mother. She was a nice lady and I don't mean any disrespect but it was a bit of a relief when she passed because we didn't have to see as much of him, though he still comes and sees some of the residents.
"Is he involved with any of the staff members," Colleen enquired.
"Are you kidding, we can't wait to get rid of him when he's here." Gillian replied.
Reid nodded and thanked them for their time and they headed off to look for someone else to talk to. Colleen looked at Reid and said, "You wouldn't mind if I..."
"Went to see Jim," Reid finished for her. "Should I be jealous of this guy?"
She gave him a coy smile and turned and walked down the hallway, "See you soon."
Colleen turned into Jim's room to see Bud sitting beside his bed. "Well isn't this nice, my two favorite guys togeth…" She stopped dead when she saw Bud had a tourniquet around Jim's arm and was about to inject something.
"Bud what are you doing," Colleen raced into the room to grab Bud's hand away from Jim as Bud reached behind him and pulled out a gun aiming it at Colleen.