A/N This was originally written for my best friend. So the two OC's are loose representations of us. She wants toi marry Shemar Moore, but give me Matthew Gray Gubler anyday! Reid girls raise your hands! Anyway, it's totally illogical that anyone would be doing the job that my character does for the FBI and the forensics and crime scene scenes in general are completely bogus. I know this, just in case anyone gets the urge to tell me. I did however google search a road map, so that shouldn't be too horribly inaccurate.
In that vein, this story isn't in a linear order right now. This is chapter one and I would say...three, maybe...is living on my computer but no two yet. Starting out writing this as a romance novel really left me at a loss for the criminal part of Criminal Minds (Which I don't own, FYI)...So, I'm actually hoping you all can help me...Where do we go from here? an autopsy? his last known address? And any advice on how to make an autopsy/investigation read real would be great.
Thx!
"We got a case, grab your kit." Elizabeth said as she walked into my lab. She was dressed like a typical Fed today, in a navy pant suit and a blue button down shirt with a pair of black dress flats.
"You had court this morning?" I asked as I took off my lab coat and slung it over my chair at the microscope and walked over to my work desk to grab my kit, gun and badge. I fastened the latter two securely on the waist of my jeans and picked up the kit.
"Yes, and I really wish I had time to change, but no such luck," she said as I followed her out and down the hall toward the elevator.
"So, what's the case?" I questioned as we entered the elevator. "Is it creepy like the X-files or mildly entertaining like Dragnet? Or is it a serial like all the others we always work."
"Take a wild one, Ali, really, what do you think?"
"Well, I'm going with X-Files, and until I see the body, you just let me keep my happy little delusion, got it?"
We exited the elevator and entered the underground parking garage. Her car was still running by the elevator and we hopped in. I gave her a sidelong glance, "What?" she asked, "They called me while I was still on the stand, for Christ's sake, the judge literally gave me the message after calling a recess and suspending my testimony till further notice."
"Well, shit, that means this is probably another victim in one of our active cases," I sighed as we entered the city streets.
"What ever happened to your happy little delusion?"
"It was shot to hell when you said those three fateful little words, 'till further notice.' Oh well, let's do this thing and make sure that this is the s.o.b.s last victim."
"You got it. I think the bureau is calling in your boy on this one. I got a text from Morgan that he was on his way over."
"Even better," I sighed as we entered the freeway traffic, "that means this is a BAU case now too, which means it's the third victim since it's now FBI jurisdiction but we just now called the BAU. I'm guessing this is the guy that kills the blonde prostitutes?"
"Nope, it's the second, it was our jurisdiction from the beginning."
"Oh, well, that means it's the suspected terrorists then."
"Bingo, the first victim was Assama Blaine, remember, and this is Muhatma Allah, his friend who-"
"Didn't we question him?"
"Thanks for finishing that sentence…"
"You're welcome, do you have any cof-"
"In the cup holder, black like you like it."
"I love you." I sighed picking up the coffee cup and taking a long, hard swig, "Ah, and it's the perfect temperature."
We talked about court and other trivial matters as we left D.C. proper behind us and headed toward Alexandria on Rt. 1.
"So, now probably isn't the time to tell you this, but Morgan set up a date for you on Friday. It's a double date with us. I just thought you should know since someone might mention it." Liz said as she headed off an exit ramp.
"What? Why didn't anyone ask me about it, how do you know I don't have plans?" I asked.
"You don't and if I would have asked you would have said yes, so whatever."
"Ok, you're right I don't have plans, and if it's with Spencer, I would have said yes, but does this mean he's going to be all blushy and awkward when we get there?" I smiled.
"Probably," she laughed.
"Good," I watched the trees pass by the passenger side window, smile still plastered to my face. I was, in fact, in love with Dr. Spencer Reid, socially awkward though he was, we shared a lot in common. We both had genius level I.Q.s, although mine was about 170 and his was well above 200, and we read a lot…even though it took about 5 minutes for him to read War and Peace, and it took me five days. But I liked a guy who was smarter then I was, after all, they were hard to come by.
We pulled off an exit that I didn't even notice at the other side of Alexandria, and drove down some road toward the middle of nowhere.
"Where the hell are we?" I asked.
"Belle Haven Park." Liz answered as she pulled off to the side of the road behind the other black SUVs and the FBI coroners' van.
"What? This is a body dump in the woods? That's not the same M.O. as last time."
"Not quite, but also, not all that different, from what I hear," she said as we got out of the car and I grabbed my kit from the back seat.
Morgan emerged from the trees.
"We didn't disturb anything, just looked, and photographed, everyone is waiting for you," he said and I smiled at him knowingly as Liz playfully punched him.
"That's right or else?" she said as he led us into the woods.
"Or else I'd personally be a dead man," he answered.
We headed down an incline toward a barely visible clearing, Morgan helping Liz whose court shoes were not made for such things. I was in hiking boots, I'd learned that lesson about 4 cases ago.
"Hey," Spencer said as we reached the clearing and he smiled at me, blushing.
"Hey Spencer, what we got?" I asked seeing the crime scene behind him.
"Well, everything has been photographed and is ready for processing but we didn't want to touch anything till you saw it. I have noticed one curious thing however," he asked, following behind me as I approached the victim. My eyes focused on the knife and fork in his hands as he slumped over his dinner in his camping chair outside the tent, a single bullet hole right between his eyes and no back to his skull.
"The fact that he was a lefty who has a knife poised to cut in his right hand?" I asked.
"What? No, the fact that he is using a knife and fork on pork and beans," he blinked and shook his head, "How do you know he's left handed?"
"Well, I know because I mentally noted it when we questioned him a year ago, it's a rare enough trait I figured it might come in handy to know someday, But, if I hadn't, I would still be able to tell by the nails on his left hand. They are dirtier, shorter, and jagged compared to his right, an excellent indicator of the dominant hand."
"Wow, I really need to remember that," he sighed.
"You will," I laughed, "You remember everything, besides, you probably already knew it and are just placating me." I laughed "Liz!" I shouted to her as she spoke with my coroner's assistant and another agent on the out skirts of the clearing. She hurriedly walked over to me.
"Someone staged this scene, he wasn't killed at dinner, nor do I think he was sitting in this chair, there is no brain matter or skull fragments on it or around it. This is not the primary crime scene." I cocked my head, "Also, this man has been dead for at least 24 hours and not a single scavenger has fed on him, he couldn't have been here more than one or two before he was found. Who found him?"
"A hiker and his dog," Spencer nodded toward a man in outdoors wear with a black lab on the edge of the clearing with two officers. "He says the dog suddenly stuck his nose in the air and started barking then ran off the track and led him to the clearing."
"Well, we need to question him," Liz sighed. "Do you really think this is all staged, Ali?"
"I don't think at all, Liz, I know it was, and you do to. We need to find out where this man was actually murdered, and a crime scene like that will not have been easy to clean up. The un-sub is probably just now going to sleep. As for now, we bag and tag and make doubly sure the chain of evidence and everything else is impeccable, this could be connected to terrorism. And we need to get a team to his house as soon as possible."
"They are in route and we will be joining them when we're done with this scene." Liz said and wandered over to the tent.
"Hey…ah…Ali," Spencer started as his hands made their way into their pockets and he stared at the ground at my feet.
"What's up, Spencer?"
"What are you doing Friday night?"
"I have a date with a really smart, hot guy."
"Oh…ok…never mind then…"
"I was talking about you, Dr. Reid!" I laughed.
"Oh!" He smiled and blushed deeply. "Good."
"Spencer, honestly," I laughed and stood up, shaking my head, "If we weren't in the middle of a crime scene, I would kiss you."
"Well, that would be awkward in two ways because Morgan and Liz think this will be our first date," he laughed.
"Well, if it makes them happy. You coming by after the meeting tonight?"
"Yeah, definitely." he rocked back onto his heels.
"Good," I smiled and discreetly grabbed his wrist and squeezed as I walked by. Another thing that Spencer and I had in common was narcotic addiction and we had met at the bureau's N.A. meetings sometime back, ended up going out for coffee after each meeting and then dinner and then eventually back to one of our houses. Given the fact that most agents don't talk about their problems, let alone the other agents' problems, we couldn't just say we met at the N.A. meeting, so we came up with a plan to have our partners, who were dating, set us up with each other. The problem was going to be pretending it was a first date and not tried and true, I knew, personally, I would end up telling Liz.
She was the cop, she would eventually figure it out whether I told her or not. It's hard to hide something from someone you know so well. I was a "crime scene analyst" a sort of one part C.S.I., one part victim profiler and one part coroner. I'd been with Liz since kindergarten and with the bureau for 8 years. Before that I was a Chicago CSI to put myself through medical school and become the Cook County Coroner and went on to get a Ph.D. in psychiatry (I was 18 when I graduated with a BS in Forensics and Pre Med and 22 with my MD). That along with speaking 4 languages fluently had the FBI knocking on my door, and after 9 years and 6 promotions (including Detective by the age of 26) in the Chicago P.D. they offered Liz a job as well.
Of course, we had made quite a name for ourselves in all of Illinois by that time, the papers called us the "ultimate crime fighting team," "the real life Rizzoli and Isles" (aided by my own pension to dress in high fashion for court dates), and my personal favorite "better and more deadly then Batman and Robin." So we packed ourselves up and moved to D.C., We had first shared an apartment outside the city, then we moved into neighboring townhouses. No one quite understood how we could work together so much and still want to be that close to one another, but somehow, we had a magic ability to turn it on and off. When we weren't at work, other than the occasional brilliant revelation about a case, we didn't really talk about it with each other.
I figured Morgan would end up figuring it out too, he was a profiler after all, trained to detect the nuances of human behavior, hell, he probably already knew, and just hadn't said anything out of respect for the rest of us.
"Hey, Liz!" I shouted as I approached the tent, "What do you make of this?" I bent down and studied the post which had been driven into the ground for the stabilizing rope of the tent as she approached, "Have any of our people tripped over this? Or the man who found the body?"
"Is that fabric?" Liz asked bending over the post to stare at the threads that clung to it.
"I'm going to say it's blue denim fibers," I said as I used my tweezers to extract the tangled fibers and deposit them in the small evidence bag.
"Well, our vic is wearing blue denim, the person who discovered the body is in jogging pants, and none of us are in denim besides you."
"This many fibers suggests it was a substantial snag, I didn't notice any such snag on or victims pants."
"How do you notice that stuff?"
"Well, while I don't have an eidetic memory like the dear Dr. Reid, I do have the same acute attention to detail."
"It's borderline eidetic," Spencer said as he approached me from behind. You don't remember everything going on in the picture, but whatever you were focused on is in there like a steel trap."
"Well, that's true," I shrugged and lifted the tent flap and stepped inside while Reid and Liz peered in. "The sleeping bag looks like it has been slept in. I want the team to process this for hair and fibers before moving it, and also, make sure they process underneath the tent."
I exited the tent, "Is the van ready to take my body back to the lab?"
"Yeah, I'll ride with you, I want to get that file from the Blaine case and get it summarized and to the BAU team ASAP as well as refresh my memory." Liz said following me as two assistant coroners loaded the body into the van and we hopped back into our SUV.
"So…"Liz trailed off and studied me a moment before starting the engine.
"Yes?" I raised an eyebrow.
"This will not be your first close encounter with the Reid kind on Friday, will it?"
"No," I sighed as we got safely on the road, "If you weren't spending so much time at Morgan's you would probably have known that." I laughed. "He's at the house all the time."
"Well," Liz smiled. "Morgan thought it was fishy that Spencer so readily said yes to going on a date with you since he's been acting like he's had a steady girlfriend for about eight months."
"Damn profilers. I knew you'd both figure it out eventually but not so soon, what gave it away?"
"Someone you'd met in passing would not know that much about your steel trap brain." She laughed and I did too.
"Good point, we're generally so good at hiding it!"
"Maybe to the average agent, but I'm your best friend and Derek is a world class profiler and senior supervisory FBI agent, and Reid's close friend. You didn't really hide it from us. How did you two meet?"
"You two set us up, that's the story we're going with if anybody asks." I said and stared at the passing trees out my window.
"Fair enough, I'll assume it's something you don't want me to know about Reid and that I already know about you and we won't speak of it."
"Good," I nodded and a smile crept onto my face. "He's so perfect for me though."
"Yeah, your babies will all be Mensa IQ level kids who graduate college at 14 and are all slightly socially awkward and only wear Chuck Taylor's."
"Damn straight, and yours and Morgan's kids will come out toting guns and have black belts by the ripe old age of seven"
"We can only hope," she laughed.
"This is the kind of conversations that scare men shitless, you know that right?" I giggled.
"What, it's not like we actually expect them to marry us and father our children, it's just something that women consider."
"We know that, they don't." I watched out the window, "You can tell Morgan that you put two and two together. He already knows about Reid and I don't care if he knows about me. And you can also tell him that the story we're sticking with is you two setting us up."
I shot Spencer a text that Liz figured it out which apparently sent off a chain reaction because about 5 minutes later I got one back saying "I laughed, Morgan asked if my gf told me his figured it out, and I said yes, lol" I read it to Liz who laughed.
"I told him it was fishy that you both were so insistent on wanting us to set you up," she said with a smirk. "One of you insisting would have been normal but both of you was a bit much."
"Good to know, even if this is probably the first and last time I'll ever need to know it."