A little more investigating, a little humor... things are moving along... Don't give up, yet, the best stuff is at the end!
"The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended – and not to take a hint when a hint isn't intended."
Robert Frost
oooooooooo
The next morning, during a quick, early breakfast the team wearily exchanged their thoughts about their evening at the Sherwood Club and their plans for the coming night. Then, carrying mugs of coffee with them, they congregated at the police station in their assigned room. Surrounded by billboards covered with crime scene pictures and others from their case, Detective Sorrell introduced them to Officer Mark Jenner. The young policeman had experience with karaoke, apparently, and volunteered to sing and be the bait during their stakeout. His hair colour matched the victims', but his facial expression looked even sterner than Hotch's and he had thirty pounds, at least, on the heaviest of the victims. He also had a crew cut, which gave him a military look.
Reid, Morgan, and the others were looking at each other with dubious looks. They still accepted his help and gave him pointers on how he should dress and behave while in the bar. They asked him about the kind of song he could sing; unfortunately, he was only familiar with country music. They tried to pick one country song that would still be 'pop' enough to attract the attention of the unsub.
Officer Jenner left, and they turned to Sorrell, who realized his man fell short of what was needed. Reid had been stretching his neck and his mouth, looking hesitant, and finally said what they were all thinking:
"Hotch, you look more like the victims than he does..." he pointed to Jenner through the glass door.
Hotch, however, ignored him and tried to lighten up their expectations:
"I talked with the owner of the club last night and he understands that no man fitting the victimology will be allowed to go on, tonight, except for our undercover man. Jenner will have no competition, so hopefully, our unsub will notice him..."
"Or he might switch to blond haired men," argued Prentiss, as she agreed with Reid, "or more likely, he'll wait for another Wednesday to find a better target." Then she figured that Hotch could probably not pull off the singing part of the assignment and regretted speaking up.
"Even if we did provide our unsub with the perfect target, there's no way of knowing if he'll strike today, or will even be there. The best we can do is set up for tonight, train the local police, and they'll have to conduct further stakeouts like this one during the summer." Hotch replied calmly. He turned to Sorrell: "Would you see if you can find a couple of young officers for tonight, men and women who look like they could fit with the university crowd?"
"I'll see what I can do," nodded Sorrell and he left the room.
The team sat at the conference table and started to share a pile of file folders.
"These are the women who used their credit cards all four evenings of the killings?" Morgan asked as he grabbed and opened the first file.
"Yes," Rossi replied. "We got a list of thirteen women from Garcia, and we eliminated five black women as less likely to fit the profile. Of the eight women left, five are Asian-Americans. We got picture IDs and addresses for all eight, and as much background information we could gather in one evening. Two of the Asian-Americans have straight, shoulder-length hair according to their driver's licence and Facebook page, so these two are the firsts we should interview. Hopefully, one of them was with John Sears last week."
"If one of them is our unsub, or knows the unsub, we risk exposing our investigation..." Reid began.
"It's a risk we have to take," Morgan cut him off.
"I agree, but let's be careful. You and Rossi should interview these two women," Hotch told Morgan. Then he ordered: "I want everyone to check the pictures of all eight women. They will probably be at the Club, tonight, so you all need to know their faces, because they will recognize some of ours, so they'll know we're FBI. Then, Reid and Prentiss will interview three of the women, and Seaver, you're with me; we'll take the last three."
Morgan's cell phone rang while everyone was studying the faces on the pictures. He put Garcia on speaker: "I tried doing some more digging about the eight women, but found no connection to anyone with criminal records, except for Judy Lee, a Chinese-American, whose Facebook page lists Shaun Quint as her boyfriend and he..." they can all hear her madly typing on her computer keyboard as she continues: "...has been charged for possession of marijuana last January. No other conviction or charges. He's lead a pretty clean life, it seems, otherwise: football, tennis, at Princeton studying Social Sciences... All these women and their families and friends are really squeaky clean. So I did one more thing...
"I looked for boyfriends, friends, family in their thirties, forties. All these women are in their early twenties and I could not find anyone fitting our age profile in their entourage... I can't find any lead, I'm sorry."
She sounded disappointed and tired, as if she had had a long night, working on those files.
"Thanks, Baby Girl, we appreciate you looking after this," Morgan affectionately acknowledged her contribution before she hung up without a word. He sighed; she sounded down, again, and that renewed his concerns for her.
The team went off to do their interviews with the eight women, and upon their return, each duo shared their findings, or more accurately, their lack of any new useful information. Some of the women had recognized the victims, but they had never talked to them as they were usually accompanied by a male friend, or were part of the groupies that liked to hang out with younger singers. Even the two women Morgan and Rossi interviewed more thoroughly, especially about John Sears, had nothing to offer. All the women were genuinely shocked and horrified to hear that the men on the pictures were dead and many seemed too scared to want to return to the Club that evening.
oooooooooo
They had just finished presenting their partial profile to the police officers at the station, the ones who would be on duty and patrolling the area of the Sherwood Club all evening. Sorrell had also found two young officers who would be joining them, in civilian clothes; they would be getting some tips and training on this type of operation. The team had then returned to the small private room by themselves and figured out their plan of action.
They were still sitting at the conference table, it was late afternoon, and they knew they had run out of time. The profile they had given was incomplete; they still did not know why the unsub had specifically targeted those men. The mood around the table was restrained; they were about to leave to get something to eat and change before going to the Club.
"Reid, can you sing?" Hotch had his usual stance: elbows resting on the table, holding his palms together, but his gaze was down, as in a sort of prayer. The unexpected question startled the young man, who began to stammer and lose his countenance.
"D-do I...? I?... I'm... No! I... well,... No! I don't... I can't... You can't... You can't ask me to..." he was quickly trying to find a way to dissuade Hotch from picking on him for this assignment. "I don't have dark hair!... What about Morgan?" Reid desperately struggled to refocus the amused looks he was receiving from everyone onto Morgan. Morgan snorted and shifted in his chair.
"Reid, I don't have any problem with singing, but my shade is a tad too dark... And the hair..." he stated the obvious and they all agreed. Rossi looked at Hotch:
"Can YOU sing?"
"I'm too old," Hotch stated plainly.
"To sing?" mocked Rossi.
"For the victimology," Hotch was annoyed he had to explain himself.
Prentiss' mouth was pouting a little as she ventured a comment:
"You don't really look older than John Sears, and if you were to just relax a little, loosen the tie..." She stopped when Hotch glared at her. Seaver agreed with Prentiss, but did not know how to be helpful; yet, she had to offer a suggestion:
"Maybe a little make-up? I have my concealer, here, for dark circles..." She, too, stopped dead in her tracks the moment her innocent doe eyes looked up from her belt pouch and met Hotch's glacial stare.
Morgan jumped on the bandwagon: "It's obvious you are the only one here who fits the victims' profile. Can you sing in public? Any karaoke experience?" He sounded as if he was interviewing Hotch for a job and that approach was better received than the previous suggestions of make-up and relaxation.
"None in twenty years," admitted Hotch.
Seaver, puzzled, looked to Reid: "Is karaoke that old?" she asked, discretely, but everyone heard her and could not hold back chuckles. Reid clasped his lips together, and avoided answering her question.
Hotch sighed and shook his head: "I'll think about it; but let's wait and see how Jenner does tonight."
oooooooooo
"You're kidding? She said that? To Hotch?" Garcia could not believe her ears. Morgan was pleased to hear her cheerful giggles as he was telling her the conversation that had happened earlier. It had been a good idea to call and check on her before he entered the Club.
"She did... Got to go! Wish us luck!" Morgan hung up.
According to their plan, he was going to act as the new bouncer for the bar. He had dressed up appropriately for the role: black t-shirt and pants. His muscular arms and pectorals were ideal for his part. He had borrowed Hotch's ankle holster for his gun, so he could hide it from view, as the tight shirt and pants did not withhold anything.
Once inside, he saw the place was already busy with a youthful crowd. There was a lot more excitement in the air than on the previous night. Karaoke night attracted a more expressive and enthusiastic group of people than the usual bar patrons, although university students always dominated the scene. He quickly located Reid and Seaver, acting like a couple of students on a date, sitting at one of the tables nearest to the bar. Prentiss was on her own, at one end of the bar, and Rossi was at the other end. They were both dressed in black shirts, but Prentiss' was sexy, while Rossi's was more the sports look. Despite the heat, Reid and Rossi were wearing jackets, so they could hide their gun holsters. They were all smiling and looking like they were at the bar to have a good time.
"Hello, gang," Morgan almost whispered in his wrist microphone, and the two women nodded to him: they were wearing their earpiece, hidden by their hair falling loosely on their shoulders. Reid and Rossi could not hear him: they had their earpiece hidden under the collar, not yet in place so as to not reveal their identity.
Morgan then spotted the two police officers in plain clothing: they were trying to blend in, but they looked tense and jumpy. Morgan sighed and shook his head, but felt that they would probably distract the unsub's attention from his team, so it was not such a bad thing.
Morgan went down the hallway to the main office. He found Hotch with Rick Lemmon, the owner of the bar; they were discussing the details of the karaoke night with Sorrell and Jenner. Lemmon, a friendly fifty year old man, wore long dark hair and small purple glasses; he looked like the lead singer of the rock band Rush, Geddy Lee.
"We don't want any dark-haired male on your roster, tonight. Have you found an excuse for taking them off the list?" Sorrell asked him.
"Don't worry, I took care of it. And any newcomer tonight will be told we're fully booked... But I have concerns for the coming weeks: I won't be able to keep them away forever, so I hope you will be able to find that creep, sooner rather than later..."
"We will do our best to stop him, sir, that's why the FBI is here," Sorrell assured him, "and that's why we have Officer Jenner on your roster. We're hoping to bait him into exposing himself."
"I'll cooperate with anything you want, as long as we can keep people safe, and hopefully keep it quiet, too..." Lemmon expressed with deep worry.
"Our priority is the safety of your patrons. And discretion will work for us, too, so we're all on the same page, here," Hotch reassured him.
"Hotch," interrupted Morgan, "I can see you've removed your tie, but what are you doing wearing your suit? That's not bar attire!"
"I'll stay in the back, don't worry, and I need to cover my gun, so..." Hotch hesitated, "I'll take it off if necessary. Garcia, you're picking up everybody?" he inquired in his wrist mike.
"I'm receiving all of your signals, sir, loud and clear!" Garcia's voice sounded muffled in his earpiece. Detective Sorrell also heard her in his borrowed earpiece, but Morgan wasn't wearing his, as he could not hide it from the public eye. Hotch continued:
"What about Officer Jenner? Say something, please, so we can test your wire," he asked Mark Jenner, who had been fitted to wear a wire under his shirt.
"One-two-three, testing, testing, one-two-three," Jenner complied, using a normal tone of voice.
Hotch nodded to him as he heard Garcia's confirmation, as well as Prentiss' and Seaver's. "We're set. Please go hang out, relax, mingle, enjoy yourself. We'll be keeping an eye on you and everyone around you. Mr. Lemmon will call you out when your turn to sing comes. The barman has been instructed to serve us all non-alcoholic drinks, but they'll look like the real thing, so it won't matter what you order, you won't be drinking tonight."
"Understood, sir," acknowledged Jenner, and he departed for the main area, followed by Morgan.
Hotch and Sorrell were soon left alone in the office, as Lemmon needed to attend to his duties. They listened to what was going on while watching two security camera feeds on two small TV screens: the first showed the outside entrance and part of the parking lot, and the other showed the main room, with the bar in the foreground, and stage in the background. The images were small and blurry, of poor quality because of the low lighting, but their eyes got slowly used to the conditions, and they soon were able to recognize Jenner, Rossi, and Prentiss. The others were hidden by other people, or too far away to be seen.