Thursday March 9th 2006
3:45 PM
Northeastern Unit, Las Vegas Nevada
Greg Francis, while pacing around his temporary desk hit the redial on his cell for the twelfth time, getting the voicemail of Eric.
While his police issue had virtually no cell service in the Spring Mountains, his personal phone had the best service no matter where it was and Francis was not only surprised, but frustrated that he couldn't reach his friend and fellow captain. The lab techs had found a partial print on the PSP found with Grant Dennerson and had sent the print to Quantico for the FBI's computer tech to compare to her database.
Francis was about to try yet again, when Eric walked in, followed by all the agents. Running his hand through his graying hair, Francis greeted his friend with a head shake.
"Eric, I've been calling you for an hour, what gives?" Raising an eyebrow, Williamson reached to his holster and unclipped his police issue.
"You know there's no service in the Spring Mountains,"
"Yeah, but your nokia usually handles that middle of nowhere pretty well, it just goes straight to voicemail." Williamson reached into his pocket where his personal phone usually sat and was surprised to discover it was gone, before remembering…
"Damn, I gave it to Paris." He thought this over "he should've picked it up…you said it kept going to voicemail?" Francis nodded, Williamson rolled his eyes "He is determined to worsen my migraine today…" he paused "give me a second to retrieve my phone from the kid."
But when Eric pushed his office door open, he was surprised to see it was empty; Paris's book bag sat in the same chair it had when he had left his foster son and on his computer was the game Paris had been playing, but there was no sign of Paris.
Frowning, Williamson huffed out of his office, hoping that he wasn't jumping to conclusions as he headed to the restrooms.
"Eric what's wrong?" Francis asked, confusions spread across his face. Gideon, who had been watching the discussion between the two captains, now watched with a worried thought on his mind.
"Probably nothing," Eric replied walking into the men's room, exiting a few seconds later, his face in a permanent scowl. "Rob," he called to the young rookie. Gage looked up at his boss, wondering what he did. "You didn't happen to see Paris leave did you?"
Gage nodded slowly, looking around for help, by now, everyone in the station was watching.
"He was at the water cooler getting a drink last I saw him."
Williamson's scowl softened into a confused look
"When?"
"About an hour sir I wasn't paying attention, I assumed he went back into your office. I'm sorry sir."
Williamson nodded
"It's all right, not your job to babysit him." Williamson turned to Francis, "I'm going to kill him…all this going on and he pulls this again."
"Captain,"
Both Williamson and Francis looked up as their title was called, another rookie, this one from the Downtown district stepped forward. Williamson and Francis exchanged a look
"What Mitch" Francis said, impatiently, Eric had enough stress going on right now and Paris was pushing it badly.
"I probably should've said something earlier, but I saw Paris talking to someone at the entrance, about an hour ago."
Williamson and Francis exchanged a look, and Gideon looked at Hotch quickly
"Why didn't you say something?" Francis bellowed "Mitch we have a nut-job running around the city kidnapping and killing kids! Paris is a kid! What the hell where you thinking!"
"They were talking about school work and classes, I assumed he was a teacher or something." Williamson fell into an empty chair, feeling dizzy. "It was that older guy that was in here the other day, talking to Brown."
Now Williamson looked up quickly,
"James? He was here?" Williamson asked…as he rubbed his temple
"Yeah, he had a briefcase, told Paris he was dropping off some paperwork for you."
"What in the world would he have left to show me?"
Mitch was about to answer, when Hotch's phone rang loudly, his eyes still on the conversation between Williamson, Francis, and the rookie, he answered it.
"Yeah Garcia?"
"Sir, I found the connection between Paris and Grant, the adult connection." Hotch took a deep breath
"I'm putting you on speakerphone Garcia," he paused "can you hear us?"
"Yes sir,"
"Good, repeat what you just said." he finished a hard look at Williamson, Gideon and Hotch exchanged a look, Gideon knew that what they had been worried about had happened, the Angel of Mercy had Paris and it was only a matter of moments before Williamson would have no choice but to admit it.
"I found the adult connection between Paris and Grant." Garcia repeated. At first Williamson's worried look shifted to one of anger, he had made it clear that Paris was just causing his own trouble and had nothing to do with the case, but as Garcia's words sunk in, that shifted back to concern.
"Go ahead,"
"Grant's guidance councilor, he works part time at Adam's Elementary school as a Middle School representative."
Williamson's eyes went wide as he exchanged a look with Francis Gideon watched the pair carefully.
"What else Garcia" Hotch pushed
"Guys, I was able to find a way to connect this guy to almost all the kids, minus Mike King, but even so I can hazard a guess how he knew Mike King. Cramer spoke at Josie Marshals' school about middle school and her parents were in the process of moving so Josie could attend Hoover Middle School because of the guidance councilor there."
"James Cramer," Williamson breathed, holding his head in his hands "he worked for DCF for like 20 years before he retired to be a guidance councilor, he was Philip Carlson's caseworker, he's the one who seized Philip from his birthparents."
Gideon narrowed his eyes at the weary captain
"That's three of the victims, four if you count Paris. Paris did not wander off Captain." he said shortly.
"I cant believe Cramer is the one…he loves kids, we went to high school and college together, he's dedicated his life to kids…he'd never do this."
"I think I found the stressor," JJ called rushing into the room holding a printout from a newspaper "Captain does this look familiar?" she asked handing the sheet to him. Williamson looked it over and nodded
"Angie Potter…" he said softly "she killed herself last year, 15 years old…"
"Did she know Cramer?" Williamson took a deep breath "Captain," Hotch said more forceful
"She lived in this district, she went to Hoover Middle for Junior high. The coroner ruled her death a suicide, but I had to know why, so I grilled James, Angie was a happy kid until she entered seventh grade, she was the target of bullies and teasing, it only escalated through eighth grade. James tried to help her before things spiraled out of control, but the school refused to admit it was anything more than kids being kids. She lasted through ninth grade, but a week into her first semester as a sophomore." his voice trailed off
"Apparently these so called kids took teasing to a whole new level. The girls she had gym with waited until the teacher wasn't in the locker room, convinced the boy's gym class to go into the locker room while Angie was in the shower, the girls pulled all curtains exposing her to the everyone in the locker room. Every one of those girls who had a cell phone snapped pictures and videos and posted them online. Angie…well, she went into her parent's medicine cabinet and took everything pill like she could find and washed them down with bleach, she wanted the job done quickly." Francis finished hanging his head. "It hit Cramer especially hard, he had tried so hard to protect her, but that idiotic school wouldn't listen to him when they could have helped, while she was at the middle school."
"If anyone values the life of a kid it's James, he would never do this." Williamson said, more forcibly then before, though the surety in his voice was gone.
"The profile," Gideon replied "he's protecting them, he doesn't want to experience another Angie Porter, end their suffering gently before they can be hurt or hurt themselves." Gideon looked at his team, before giving Williamson a hard look "and it is very likely that he will do the same to Paris."