Essential listening – The Fear, Ben Howard
0o0
The apartment manager was waiting for them outside Jenny Whitman's place. He was one of those older men who thought that Hawaiian shirts and surf shorts were a good combination. Spencer couldn't tell if he was annoyed at their intrusion or feeling bad about his tenant's death, but either way he seemed a little aggrieved.
"The FBI was already here two days ago," he said, as he let them in. "Didn't find anything."
"We're from the Behavioural Analysis Unit," Spencer told him.
"What's that mean?"
"It means that we – we study – ah – human behaviour," he stammered, still feeling the effects of being stuck in a death trap with Morgan. "We don't just look at evidence. It helps us to determine why this killer chose this particular victim."
The landlord nodded and the three of them spread out, subjecting their victim's possessions to some scrutiny.
"Place has a… lived-in feel to it," said Reid, only just managing to stop the laughter emerging.
There were boxes all over the place.
"Looks like she spent most of her free time here," Hotch observed, picking up a copy of HALO.
"No messages on the answering machine," he said, taking a look.
"Guys," said Morgan, "come and look at this."
They followed him to Whitman's tiny bathroom.
"There's bath products all around the tub, but she never turned the shower on," said Morgan, pointing them out. Spencer frowned, momentarily distracted by the number of bath products Jenny Whitman had felt she'd needed.
"What makes you say that?" the landlord asked.
"It's got nothin' but boxes inside," he told him, opening the shower door. "She used it for storage."
"Uh – did anything ever strike you as odd about Jenny?" Spencer asked.
"You know what," the man said. "When she first moved in here, two – two months ago, she walked up and down those stairs a hundred times." He laughed. "She wouldn't use the elevator."
"Yeah?" Morgan snorted. "Well, I don't blame her."
Spencer nodded fervently.
"Okay," said Morgan, as they moved back into her living room. "We know Jenny Whitman didn't like tight spaces or the elevator, what else do we know?"
"We know that he preys on people that're new to the city, with no strong social ties," he said.
"Jenny fits the model, she's an easy target," said Morgan.
"And he's betting that she won't be missed," Hotch remarked.
Spencer's phone buzzed in his pocket; he took it out as Hotch and Morgan ran a few more questions by the landlord. It was Grace:
Did you just butt-dial me, or have you been abducted?
Spencer frowned, not sure what to say.
Neither. Tell you later.
0o0o0o0
"We have been over the details of this case so many times I could cite it in my sleep," Emily grumbled.
"Nothing like being prepared," said JJ. She could feel her friend's frustration.
"Sorry to interrupt," said Agent Calvert, coming in, "but I just spoke to Jenny Whitman's family."
"Oh, did they give you any insight?" Emily asked, hopefully.
"Well, they weren't what you'd call close-knit," he said. "Looks like she wanted a fresh start, struck out on her own."
"Yeah, Garcia couldn't come up with any connection between the victims," Emily told him, "Different socio-economic backgrounds, different education and areas of work."
"But they all had relocated to Portland," said JJ, "Without any family or friends – one divorced, the rest single.
Emily nodded. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
"They did have that in common," she said. "New to the city and they all lived alone."
"Well that describes me to a tee," said Calvert, cheerily. "I transferred to this Field Office a month ago, I'm thirty, single and don't have much of a social life since I work so much."
Emily chuckled.
"Well," said JJ, seeing a possible means of moving the case forward. "I need to go over whatever evidence you found in the other victim's homes and then I would love to pick your brain about how you got settled into the city."
"Absolutely," said Calvert.
"Hey, you know who else might have an insight?" said Emily. "Grace."
JJ nodded.
"She came to us from London," she explained, on Calvert's look of confusion.
"That's a hell of a relocation," he mused, whistling.
"Yeah," said Emily. "We'll talk to her if she ever gets back from Wildwood Trail," she chuckled. "You know, the way Hotch asked her to go out there made it sound like she was hunting zombies or something."
JJ laughed.
You needed a bit of humour at a time like this.
0o0o0o0
The graves were fairly shallow, considering.
Grace looked around. The trail was, in a word, gorgeous. It was the kind of place people took their kids for a picnic, or walked their dogs. The idea that someone had been using it to stash the corpses of their victims galled her beyond belief.
She sighed, glad that she'd thought to bring a pair of sunglasses – and that one of the agents from the Portland Field Office would be driving her back. After this, she wouldn't be road-safe.
She went through the ritual of closing her eyes and holding her breath, feeling the atmosphere around her tighten and become dense.
She took a few hesitant steps forward before she opened her eyes.
"Bugger."
0o0o0o0
"Okay, we know this guy used Wildwood Trail as his personal graveyard for six months," said Morgan. "That site's been blown for him now. Which means that he's been forced to change part of his MO."
"Which won't be easy for somebody who thrive on being in control," Hotch added. The men and women of the Portland Field Office were taking diligent notes, hoping for anything that might help them. "The reason he's gotten away with these first three murders is that he's been meticulous at every stage, from how he chooses his victims to their torture and their burial."
"To us, these victims appear to be non-specific – other than being new to Portland, all they seem to have shared is a tortuous death," said Prentiss.
"But you think the UnSub chooses them for another reason, too?" Calvert guessed.
"We think so," Prentiss confirmed.
"The tortures lack a sexual component," said Reid. "Which is incredibly rare. I think it's more about – uh – not necessarily about exerting power, but more like over-compensating for a lack of it."
"This guy craves control," Morgan explained. "He's comin' from a place of weakness and tryin' to demonstrate strength. Now, we see this a lot in UnSubs who've been abused."
"The lack of sexual assault could be as simple as the fact that he's impotent," said Hotch, getting to his feet. "Something that he's trying to hide."
"A man this obsessed with control likely feels powerless in his everyday life," Prentiss added. "So he would crave stability, security – he's most likely married. Uh – if he is impotent he could keep up appearances by adopting children."
"And someone this methodical had every moment planned," said Reid. "If he is captured he'll most likely take his own life rather than give up any sort of control."
The victims' lack of defensive wounds suggest that they willingly put themselves in danger," Morgan explained. "So, someone of authority, otherwise easily trusted, put them up to this.
"Also the victims' families were led to believe their loved ones were alive and well through emails written by this murderer," Prentiss told them.
"He's calculating and he's intelligent, and we're going to have to do something that he's not expecting," said Hotch.
"Like what?" asked Calvert.
"Like warn his potential victims," he said, glancing up as the door opened, the blinds rattling against the glass. Pearce and her chaperone slipped unobtrusively back into the conference room. "Agent Jareau will take you through the media strategy. Excuse me."
He piloted an unresisting Agent Pearce out of the conference room and into a side office. She was wearing a pair of dark glasses.
"Well?" he asked.
"Multiple victims in eight more graves," she said.
Hotch frowned. She sounded exhausted.
"How many?"
"At least eight, probably ten or twelve," said Grace, with a sigh. "I think Prentiss was wrong about the pattern. He's taking them as they present themselves."
"Are you sure?"
Although her eyes were obscured behind her glasses, Hotch was sure she was subjecting him to a withering stare. He wasn't all that surprised. He didn't entirely trust her methods and she knew it.
"You'll have to confirm it with a slightly more scientific survey, but yes, I'm sure."
She sounded snappy, irritable. It wasn't like her. Even frustrated, Grace had a tendency to bury her feelings. He caught himself wondering whether her usual even temper was an act for the team's benefit.
"Anything else strike you?" he asked, watching her body language. She was holding herself more carefully than she had been earlier in the day; oddly tense.
"They all died terrified," she said, bluntly. "The graves were exactly five paces apart and on the same alignment, along the edge of the riverbank. It's a nice place, peaceful even."
"He won't have chosen it out of remorse."
"No," Pearce agreed. "But maybe he chose it because he liked being out there. He could have been revisiting."
"We'll re-canvas the rangers," Hotch nodded, thoughtfully. He paused. There was a smudge beneath his agent's nose that looked an awful lot like blood. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Pearce appeared to consider this for a moment.
"Well, apart from feeling like someone's trying to drive a railway spike through my left eyeball, fine."
"I have some aspirin in my briefcase," he offered, concerned.
He wished he'd made her outline exactly what her body finding method did to her before making use of it. She'd said it took a toll on her, but how much?
"Thanks," she said, wearily. "If I take any more I'll probably OD."
"And the nosebleed?"
Pearce lifted a hand to her face, self-consciously, and wiped away the smudge of dried blood with her thumb.
"Does it happen every time?" he asked, sorry he'd asked her to do this.
"Not every time," she admitted, after a moment. "But most."
"I'm sorry," he said, and really meant it. "I didn't know."
Pearce shrugged.
"I don't mind if it helps us catch 'em," she said.
He nodded.
"Are you fit for field duty?"
"Given a nap and a cup of tea I'll be as right as rain," she said, and he could tell she was lying. She wasn't even making an effort.
"You'll tell me if you're not?"
"Yes Guv'," she said, without thinking.
The unconscious use of her old boss's nominative made Hotch pause for a moment. She was clearly running on automatic right now.
"Tell the others –" he began, but she held up a hand.
"I'll tell them I have a horrible headache," she told him. "Simple lies are the easiest to stick to, especially in a room full of profilers."
Hotch watched her face. There was something furtive about her, he realised.
"What are you hiding?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"I would remind you that I'm not only your colleague and Unit Chief," he said, sternly. "But also a profiler with seventeen years of experience."
The young agent sighed.
"Oh, fine," she huffed.
It struck him as remarkably sulky for a twenty-five year old FBI agent. She removed her shades, though her eyes were still squeezed shut.
Light sensitivity, Hotch thought.
"But don't say I didn't try…"
Reluctantly, Pearce opened her eyes.
Aaron took a slow step backwards. Where normally, Agent Pearce had piercing irises of unsettling blue, they were now entirely pitch black, as if the pupils had expanded to fill the entire lens.
"Does… does it wear off?" he asked, when he found his voice again. It was remarkably level, all things considered.
Pearce nodded, an oddly defiant expression on her now eerie face.
She's expecting me to throw her off the team, he realised. Or at least have her transferred to somewhere more convenient.
He considered the idea for a moment – after all, who wanted to try to keep something like seeing the dead (because he couldn't really deny what had happened to the woman's eyes) out of reports?
"And you can see?" he asked, making up his mind.
Apart from anything else, Grace Pearce was a very good agent, and they'd already lost Gideon this week.
"The shadows are… unusual," she said, apparently assessing his expression. "But I'm trained to use a firearm like this."
It was difficult to gauge what she was thinking, without the usual cues from the eyes. He nodded and glanced out of the door, wondering where the hell you sent someone for training like that. He imagined her stubbornly practicing on the firing range late at night, eyes hollow and black, the blood running down her chin.
Two unsettling orbs of jet were watching him now as she waited to find out what he would do.
"I'd keep the shades on, for the moment," he offered.
She let out the breath she'd been holding.
0o0o0o0
She was flagging and she knew it, but, fortified by several cups of English Breakfast (she'd taken to stuffing packs of various teas in her go bag since the dearth of anything drinkable in Wisconsin), the after-effects of her search of Wildwood Trail were just about bearable.
Grateful that she hadn't had to make such a detailed search here as she had in Nevada*, she suspected this headache would remain with her to the end of the day, but no longer. It had already been with her overnight, but she had slept at least. It was odd how the knowledge that the rest of the BAU were in the adjoining rooms made her feel safe enough to surrender to exhaustion.
Morgan and Prentiss had gone out first thing with Calvert, to a waterlogged corpse on the edge of the river. The scant details they had so far suggested that this was one young man that JJ's broadcast had been too late to save. With any luck, the UnSub would soon be finding his victim pool drying up.
With a care born of knowing that Reid would only do it again if it wasn't exactly right, Grace marked the graves she had observed out at the trail on a detailed map of that part of the park. JJ had put the new 'sites of interest' down to her forensic background, for which Grace was grateful. Having that conversation with Hotch had been bad enough.
Spencer, who has been almost utterly silent on the subject of ghosts since she'd introduced him to Frank's mother, back in Virginia, had rather shyly approached her at breakfast and bombarded her with questions until the others had joined them. She suspected he was trying to establish how her sight worked, which she didn't actually know herself. It made a pleasant change, now two members of the team knew about part of her more clandestine talents (and didn't appear inclined to report her or make her leave), to be able to make use of a small part of them. It felt good to be trusted again, however tentatively.
She looked up when the conference phone went off. She had taken to calling it 'that thing on the table', much to Garcia's professional annoyance. It reminded her of something out of Star Trek.
"Hotchner," Hotch answered.
"Hey," Morgan's voice was quiet and compressed as it came out of the Polycom, as if it had been squeezed. "That landlady Prentiss spoke to was right to be worried. We just found Patrick Walker dead in the river."
"And – uh – it was exactly what you predicted," Emily added. "He found a new place to dump the body."
"Or just left him where he killed him," Grace mused, eyeing the multiple MOs displayed on the board.
"Fire, hanging, asphyxiation – now we've got a drowning," said Hotch, who appeared to be thinking along the same lines.
"I think it's someone who's afraid of drowning," said Reid, suddenly.
"What do you mean?" Hotch asked.
"Yeah – uh – it hit me when Morgan freaked out when we were stuck in the elevator," Reid said.
Grace met JJ's eyes and smiled.
"You got stuck in an elevator?" Prentiss asked, amused.
"I would pay good money to see that," said Grace. Reid shot her a brief glare as JJ turned away, sniggering at the mental image.
"I freaked?" Morgan demanded.
Grace snorted.
"Well, that's not important," Reid said, hurriedly.
So, you both freaked out, Grace thought, and you don't want us to know.
"Here's what is," Reid went on. "If you look at the MOs of the victims, what do they all have in common?" He looked around before clarifying. "They could all be classified as anxiety disorders – i-it's right out of the diagnostics and statistical manual. It lists five sub-types of phobias."
"Most of those are environmental and situational," Hotch observed.
"Exactly," Reid exclaimed.
"So it's all about fear," Hotch expanded. "These people are being killed by their fears."
"They died terrified," Grace muttered, rubbing her forehead, missing the sideways glances that both Hotch and Reid were sending her.
0o0o0o0
Downtown Portland was baking in the midday heat.
Emily hoped none of its residents had a fear of heat exhaustion. She glanced at the young agent beside her. Reid had said barely anything since they'd set out from the Field Office. He'd been coping pretty well so far, or at least putting on a decent show of it in front of the team. She guessed that Gideon's departure had been weighing on his mind.
"So, Hotch is even more intense now that Gideon's gone."
Reid snorted.
"Tch-yeah, I've noticed," he said.
Unlike the weeks when he'd been 'recovering' from Atlanta, he seemed happy enough to join a conversation if one presented itself, if a little reluctant to start one. As if he'd suddenly realised that he was supposed to be being more animated; pretending to be okay. It was something, at least.
"Do you think that's gonna change?" she pressed him.
"I certainly think we'll find out," he shrugged.
"What about you?" she asked, her head slightly to one side. "You okay?"
"Oh – I'm – I'm great," he told her, smiling brightly and utterly refusing to meet her eyes.
She didn't believe him for a second and his smile, for a moment, became slightly more genuine – an acknowledgement that he knew that she knew.
She gave a hollow laugh.
"Do you wanna talk about it?"
His expression closed off for a second and she was afraid he'd shut them out the way he had before, but he glanced up after a moment.
"What's there to – talk about, really?" he asked, still with that air of false cheer. It was brittle, but as a shield it was just about good enough to prevent her gauging how upset he really was.
"Gideon," she said gently, raising her eyebrows.
"Oh, no," he said, and for a moment she was strongly reminded of a conversation in they'd had outside a soup kitchen in Houston. "He – ah – he left a letter explaining everything. Just like my dad did when he abandoned me and my mom," he continued, brightly.
It wasn't sadness he was hiding, that was plain enough to see on the surface, but boiling anger. She stared at him for a moment, lost for words.
"He addressed it to you," she guessed, and he nodded sadly.
"Yeah – um," he sniffed, compressing his lips. "You know, Gideon stood toe-to-toe with some of the – the sickest people on the planet." He swallowed. "I think that took a lot of courage, right?"
"Yeah," she said, wondering where this was going.
"So – um – why'd he do this?" he asked and pulled out the letter.
Emily realised it must have been in his pocket all along.
"It's addressed to me, but I'm – I'm not – I'm not the only one he abandoned."
"But why is it addressed to you?" Emily asked.
He gave her a blank, angry look. He kept negative things so well hidden the rest of the time. She realised that the ease with which they all could normally read his emotions was almost a cover in itself.
"I think you need to read that letter again."
There is was, that look that said she had no idea what she was talking about. He declined to say it out loud this time, though.
"I have an eidetic memory, Emily," he said, instead.
"Yeah," she nodded, "I know, and an IQ of one hundred and eighty-seven, but what do you remember about your father?"
He frowned; she'd caught him off-guard.
"What do you mean?" he asked, and the confusion had made him calmer – or at least, chased the anger further beneath the surface, where it was less visible.
"Well, he gave you ten years before he left, and yet you've erased all those memories," she said. "And, it's too painful, I get it – but then Gideon leaves…"
He looked vulnerable now, a side of her friend that he hadn't shown her (or any of them, as far as she knew), since before Thanksgiving. She hoped that meant she'd got through to him.
"I think you need to read that letter again, and ask yourself why of all the people he walked away from, did he only explain himself to one person? You."
She walked off, hoping that this time he would listen, instead of pushing them away.
0o0
"Morgan said this was the Laundromat closest to Patrick Walker's apartment building," she said, walking in the door. The smell of laundry detergent and hot metal hit her, taking her right back to her college days. She brushed the memory off. "So, we have washers and dryers – and – oh, we have a bulletin board."
She scanned it; this looked more hopeful.
Spencer had reverted to his cheery, 'I'm okay', holding pattern again.
"Snack machine," he said, holding up a bag of something.
She marvelled at the speed with which he had got them.
"Yeah," she said, sarcastically. "I don't think he's luring them with pretzels."
"Mmm," he agreed, through a pretzel. He read the ads; "Babysitter, buy a car…"
"Ooh, look at this baby," said Emily, pulling down a bright yellow notice. "Participate in a controlled research project and you'll receive one hundred bucks to get over your anxiety," she read aloud.
"You only have to attend two sessions?"
"Two hours of your time? One hundred bucks?" Emily remarked. "Easy sell."
"Just one stub's taken," said Reid, reaching over her to point it out.
"Hey," said Morgan, joining them. "Well, Patrick Walker just joined a pretty sweet boxing gym, but that's about it. You guys find anythin'?"
Emily passed him the flyer.
"Woah," he said, running his eyes over it. "Alright, I think we should go over to victim number two's coffee shop, see if any of these are hangin' round there."
"If all our victims saw these flyers, we just figured out how he casts his net."
"Let's do it."
0o0o0o0
They had swung by the grave site to see how the excavation was progressing, finding Pearce perched on the rocks overlooking the site, watching the meticulous work below. There had been something distant about her face that had kept Morgan from disturbing her and he and Prentiss had spoken to Agent Calvert instead. He had twelve more bodies to worry about, making it even more important to get this guy – and soon.
Calvert had taken him aside at a quiet moment and asked him how Pearce had known. She had been so sure that there would be twelve, he'd said, obviously spooked. It had made Morgan uncomfortable, though he had told Calvert that it was something to do with her background in forensics. Hotch had been keeping an eye on Pearce the evening before, and that concerned him too.
Right now, however, he had other things to worry about.
"Babygirl, there is nothin' to know," he said, into his phone. "I hit a couple of buttons, it got stuck. There's nothin' to know." He groaned inwardly at the speed at which gossip travelled at the BAU, particularly anywhere near Penelope. "That's it, what do you want?"
"And?"
"Okay, I freaked out," he admitted, aware he was going to get nowhere until he did. "A little bit."
Garcia giggled.
"Look-it you little busybody," he said, too amused to be really irritated. "I know you traced that number for me five minutes ago, so give it up."
0o0
*See Moments of Grace, Season Three, Act Three, No Mortal Lock.