chapter 3 enjoy.
Chapter 3: Gathering Our Bearings I
Once the jet landed the team headed over to the central NYPD station to set up base. As expected the station was active and bustling. Uniformed officers moved about in and out of the tall building. They were heading to distress calls, making arrests and the like. Sometimes at desks filling out dreaded paperwork, or questioning witnesses and suspects alike.
Reid trailed behind a bit observing the Manhattan environment he didn't have the chance to observe before. As he pondered on which pizza place he would suggest the team to try on their first break he bumps harshly into an officer exiting the building.
"Ouch! Sorry about that" Reid mumbled to the officer while re-adjusting his satchel. The officer nodded before going on his way outside. Reid regained his footing following his colleagues further into the precinct.
"Agent Hotchner?" A white man in his late thirties with a head full of jet black hair said to Hotch as he entered his office with the rest of the BAU members. He straightened his suit before extending his hand to Hotch.
"Good to meet you, Detective Isles" Hotch shook the detective's hand. He turned to his co-workers nodding in the appropriate directions, "This is SSA agent Jason Gideon, Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan and Doctor Spencer Reid. Also; our media liaisons agent; Jennifer Jareau".
"Oh you brought the whole gang with you?" the detective chuckled. He gave a firm handshake to each of them, with an exception of Reid who just waved. "We have a few things set up for you in the conference room. Follow me"
"Thank you. We appreciate it"
"The sooner you guys get set up the faster this problem goes away" The detective mumbled walking out of the room. The BAU members trailed right behind him with their baggage.
"Pardon me" Reid mumbled upon bumping into the detective trying to leave the room. The detective gave him a sideways glance. Reid in response gave a deer in the headlights look. "You okay kid?" the detective's eyes narrowed in concern. Reid nodded looking on the floor. His eyebrows knit together in anger and embarrassment. He wasn't usually this clumsy and uncoordinated at the beginning of a case.
"The conference room detective?" Hotch pressed. The detective nodded before going back to his mission of directing his guests to the conference room.
The conference room was fairly large. A bulletin board occupied the front of the room, blank for the FBI agents to put up information. A rectangular table sat in the middle. Of which took up a minimal amount of space, seating at least 15 people. In the middle of the table sat a few laptops facing different directions and a FBI shield screen saver occupied the screen.
Reid took to the bulletin board first. He set down his satchel on the table edge nearest to him, taking out his map and markers. He hoped that he could forget about his mistakes earlier by digging into something pertaining to the case. What his objective was to find out any distances and any supposed correlations to each victim's with his markers, Reid also took out files of each victim to find the location of their homes. The rest of the group at the same time had begun settling at different part of the table, taking out files filled with evidence, notes and everything in between.
"Any questions for me?" the detective asked. "We already have your information on the calls that were made by the landlord's wife who found Meribel. What else do you have on your recent victim Marilynn?" Hotch inquired.
The detective let out an exasperated sigh. "Nothing out of the ordinary. My officers reported no clear cut evidence of anything really"
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Morgan, asking what everyone thought at the moment. The detective sighed again.
"Well, no sign of forced entry. The same goes for stolen items of the deceased and all that jazz. No fingerprints. Bastard probably used gloves. We aren't even really sure if he cleaned up anything or not" he said gritting his teeth. "Only recovered one semi-automatic pistol round from the victim's head during autopsy. The same goes for the other vics; Mauricia and Marilyn"
"No trophy taken from the victims? That is a bit odd" Gideon said. The detective turned around with confusion crossing his features. "Usually with crimes such as these, fast killing and then taking a child, a trophy is also taken. Especially since he chose his victims with the letter M for their first names"
"Er…trophies? The name thing is probably a coincidence too. He probably didn't know their names"
"It's something an unsub takes from the victim. Trophies could be jewelry, clothing and sometimes body parts from the crime scene. They take these items in order to relive the crime they committed…their fantasy so to speak" Reid commented from where he was setting up his map.
The detective shook his head saying, "Body parts? Why?"
"Helps to relive the fantasy as I've said earlier." Reid clarified nodding but never taking his eyes off the map.
"But-"
"We can't rule anything out detective regarding the unsub's preferences. Have you talked to Mirabel's landlord, as well as the other victims' landlords?" Hotch interjected. The detective turned his attention back to Hotch.
"Yes. Back when everything first started. First case went cold for awhile because we couldn't ID the victim with the false ID's. We noticed a pattern when the second murder happened. We called you guys for help, but the third victim had already been found"
Reid stopped his geographical duty for a moment to go over the new found information in his. He chewed on his lip in deep thought as the conversation continued on.
"We'll take it from here then. Will it be possible to borrow a few vehicles for my team?"
"My cars are your cars" Isles said, with a deep bellowed laugh. "Need any extra hands, these guys are all yours" he gestured to four officers who appeared behind him.
"Thank you. I appreciate it. JJ? Can you establish contact with Garcia so we could have her search a few things?" Hotch said turning to JJ who sat at the table.
"I'm right on it," she replied, reaching out to one of the laptops to contact Garcia back in Virginia.
"You guys have any idea who we're dealing with here?" The Isles asked.
"We aren't ready to give a complete profile yet until we profile the scene, and the geographical location," Morgan replied, looking over his papers.
"How does that work? Profiling the scene and the geographical location?" Isles inquired. "The same way you profile a serial killer right? If they're psychos or whatever?"
"Something like that" Gideon said smiling faintly. "Can one of your officers to join me and agent Hotchner at the first crime scene right now?"
"No problem. Maurice and Alexander please join these gentlemen" Isles called out to two of his officers. The two of them nodded before heading outside to their cars to wait for the SSA men.
"If you guys need anything, you know where to find us" With that Gideon and Hotch disappeared down the hall in the direction of the officers outside.
"I'll be in my office. Todd, Sully, stick with these guys" Isles said to the officers left behind. They nodded in compliance. He exited the conference room, retreating to his office to presumably catch up on paperwork for the case.
Reid looked up from his project a few minutes later. He stepped about a foot away from it to observe from afar and think about any missing factors. Prentiss walked over, viewing the map thoughtfully.
"Well that's interesting" she murmured. Reid glanced at her to make an attempt at reading her thoughts. She pointed to a particular area of the map that Reid color coded. Reid noted that the apartment of the first victim was about 100 miles away from the second victim's apartment. He also noticed that the recent victim's place being farther out from the two, in a completely different direction and twice the miles from the first two areas. The dots were all close but yet far away.
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