Lewiston, New York
It was starting to get chilly in the mornings, as Peter and Ellen Macintyre had discovered as they set out on their Saturday Morning jog through Devil's Hole Park just a little after dawn. It was early September, so summer was coming to an end; soon school would be back in session, and their two children were getting set to go into 4th and 7th grade
"Are you ready?" Peter asked as they did their warm up stretches.
"Are you?" Ellen countered. "Do you think you can keep up?"
Peter laughed. "That's some pretty big talk." He said. "The way I remember it, you're always the one lagging behind."
Ellen punched Peter playfully in the ribs. "You better watch yourself; you're about to get embarrassed!"
"Okay, tough girl," Peter countered. "I'll tell you what; I'll give you a ten second head start."
It was Ellen's turn to laugh. "It's your dignity!" She said taking off down the trail they chose in a sprint. The way they chose trails was like this: For one week the trails are chosen by Ellen, the next week Peter did. This week was a Peter week. Peter counted to ten, all the while thinking about how Ellen was just going to burn herself out and make it easier for him to catch up and overtake her lead.
Her ten seconds were up; Peter drew in a deep breath and started an even paced jog along the trail that Ellen sprinted down. He saw no need to rush; he would catch up easily enough.
And that was when he heard her scream.
Peter picked up the pace to full tilt to reach her. As to be expected, she wasn't terribly far ahead. In fact she was even closer than she ought to have been; she had stopped dead in her tracks on the path and stood paralyzed at the site only a few yards ahead of her.
The path was blocked by a man that Peter knew all too well hanging by his neck from a rope tied into a noose and threaded over a branch. Ellen dropped to her knees; she knew the man, too. Everyone in town knew this man; he was on the Town Council, and had been a resident of Lewiston his whole life. His name was Kyle Bernstein.
It was around the same time as Ellen and Peter discovered Kyle on the trail in Devil's Hole Park that Philip Curtis was cruising into town in his Mustang GT. He grew up in Lewiston, but had booked out of this small minded, conformist, All-American-Postcard pile of garbage burg as soon as he graduated and took up an apprenticeship in Buffalo. It wasn't far from his 'home town' but it was far enough. As he was rolling into town in order to take care of a couple of things before attending the 20 year anniversary of his class graduation, a pair of cop cars wailed past him, heading towards Devil's Hole. It was probably some airhead kids passed out high or drunk in the park; Philip figured. It was certainly no concern to him. Depending on whose kids they were, it might make the front page around here, though.
He turned right, and drove right past Cunningham's Garage, est. 2000. One of his clients back in Buffalo recommended the place for good rates on parking while in Lewiston. The poor sap obviously had no clue that Philip knew the asshat that ran Cunningham's and would no sooner be a patron of his establishment than he would give Kenny Cunningham the time of day. Still, the client in question was a good customer, so Philip just smiled, nodded, and thanked him for the tip. As he drove past, Philip saw that a couple of squad cars were parked in front, lights flashing. It was obviously a lively Friday night in Lewiston; two calls early Saturday morning.
"They better call for back up." He remarked to himself. "The Keystone Cops of Lewiston are getting caught flat-footed again."
He wondered briefly what kind of trouble Kenny was in this time, and how he would manage to slip his fat ass out of the sling now that his glory days in high school are ancient history. Maybe he would ask at the reunion; probably not, but it might be good for a laugh- if only because of the irony.
Dismissing that thought, Philip Curtis hung a left and headed towards the Motel 6; it would make for a crappy few nights, but at least not even Lewiston New York could screw that place up. Besides, if memory served right the Motel 6 was now run by 'Topher Larson; who was one of maybe a dozen people in the whole town who were not a complete waste of flesh.
Once he was booked in, Philip had someone to visit in cemetery; that was the real reason he even bothered coming up this way.
Washington, DC
As was ritual, Sergio had hopped up onto Emily's chest to nuzzle her chin while purring loudly and to mewl at her, announcing that it was time for breakfast. This was something that SSA Emily Prentiss had come to appreciate, even love. Rising from bed, she forced Sergio to leap down to the floor and scamper ahead of her to the kitchen and his dish.
Now that Sergio was fed, and Emily had showered and dressed, she was starting to make a breakfast for herself when her phone rang; the call display told her it was the Assistant Director of the FBI.
"Prentiss," she greeted.
"Agent Prentiss, this is Assistant Director Barnes." The voice on the other end of the line replied. "Let me start by congratulate your team on a job well done in California."
"Thank you, Ma'am." Prentiss replied, waiting for the all but inevitable qualifier. That was the thing with Barnes; she always offset everything with some sort of catch. It was either some criticism, or else she was going about the business of trying to micromanage the BAU.
"I spoke with the Director," Barnes continued, "and we agree that a specific assignment requires your team's immediate attention. I have already started the process of contacting the other team members and assembling them, and have provided Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia with the salient information we currently have for the case."
Emily grinned bitterly; micromanagement it was, then. "Alright; I'm on my way out the door right now."
"Of course, Dr Reid will not be active in this case; he's still on leave due the concussion he endured, and there is the mandatory leave clause on him." Barnes quickly added.
"Yes, Ma'am," Prentiss said. "He's doing a lecture today; I believe it's on the science behind geographical profiling."
"I'm sure that'll be fine." Barnes said before ending the call.
Even as Prentiss was leaving her DC apartment, SSA Matt Simmons was arriving at the BAU in Quantico. Assistant Director Barnes appeared to be once again using her stroke within the Bureau to once again dictate which of their cases took priority. After her last attempt to 'streamline' the team to her liking, Simmons did not like or particularly respect Barnes. That was actually the second time he ran into trouble with her; the first time was when she dismantled the Beyond Borders Division of the BAU that Simmons was on previously. Still, he supposed, this was just something he would have to put up with; though after her last PR bungle, Simmons had to wonder how she kept her job.
He got to the conference room. Already there were Alvez, JJ, Lewis, and Rossi. Reid was on mandatory leave; doing a lecture on Geographic Profiling. Simmons noticed that Rossi's arm was no longer in a sling; it turned out that the sprain caused by Rodriguez was considerably more serious than originally thought.
"Hey, Dave," Simmons greeted. "I see your wing is out of the sling."
Rossi raised his arm and clenched his fist a number of times. "It's good as new." He replied. "It seems my arm wrestling career is going to be safe, after all."
Garcia came into the conference room, her files already ready to go. Matt took a seat at the table as Penelope made quick work of getting ready with her presentation.
"Emily is on her way." Garcia commented. "I've already briefed her on what I'm about to show you, and she said to get started without her and she'll catch up when she gets here, so... here goes."
"Prentiss being the last one in the room, that doesn't happen very often." Rossi noted.
"I know, but apparently Barnes had just contacted her." Garcia commented. "I can't say for sure, but it sounded to me like Emily was the last one to get the call, and considering that everyone else besides Reid is here, I'm guessing that I'm right."
"That's strange. You'd think the Unit Chief would be the first to get the call." Tara Lewis said.
"Well, it's no secret that Barnes still has some kind of issue with Emily," JJ said. "Maybe this is about that."
"I don't like it." Simmons commented. "I know Barnes; and this feels like she's setting up to make a move. I'd advise we all tread very carefully until we find out what's really going on."
"That's probably wise." Alvez agreed. "The best thing right now would be to carry on, and see what we can do to brace ourselves for whatever's coming our way. Meanwhile, let's let Garcia have the floor with whatever it is that Barnes wants us to prioritize."
"Thank you, Newbie," Garcia said, clicking her clicker to put the first image on the monitor; it looked to Simmons like a postcard of small town America. "Our next destination is Lewiston, New York. If ever there was a place in the country that qualifies to the postcard town of the mythical American Dream, this is it. However, even places like this have their share of nightmares."
She clicked again. The image changed to a split screen of two white men, both looking to be in their late thirties. The one on the right Simmons recognized; Kyle Bernstein was a relatively fit man who had been the news once or twice. Garcia went on to announce that the member of the Town Council was found hanging from his neck early this morning by a couple of joggers in Devil's Hole Park. Simmons did not recognize the man clearly heavy-set of about the same age as Bernstein on the left hand side of the screen.
"At approximately the same time, Kenneth Cunningham, age 38, was found in his place of business by an employee; Cunningham, owner of Cunningham's Garage, was also hanging from his neck."
"We have two hanging deaths in one night?" Rossi inquired. "I take it we can rule out a double suicide."
"According to Barnes, both men were highly successful, well respected and considered iconic figures of the town. Neither of them had any reason to kill themselves; neither were experiencing any undue stressors or significant life changes, and neither had any history of depression or any mental disorders." Garcia replied.
"Coming from a small town myself," JJ chimed in, "it does seem unlikely that two people would commit suicide on the same night unless it was some kind of pact. That said, there's a chance the rest of the town may be willfully blind; something like this might be too much for them to even think about."
"Then we should acknowledge that it's unlikely, we can't entirely rule out suicide." Lewis suggested. "Of course we'll investigate, but we might want to keep that in mind."
"Agreed," Alvez said, "unless there's something else about these deaths to rule out suicide."
"As little as I like to bring it up, I'm actually glad you mentioned that." Garcia replied. "Both victims suffered a blunt force blow to the back of the head."
"Then we're probably looking at a blitz attack followed by homicide by hanging." Prentiss said, entering the conference room. "While this is a Barnes case, almost certainly chosen for political reasons, it deserves our full attention. We can continue this conversation on our way to Lewiston; wheels up in twenty."
Lewiston, New York
In his supply shed out back of his home, he perused through his old graduating year annual; specifically through the headshots of the graduating class. He had already drawn a red 'X' through the photograph of Kyle Bernstein, so he flipped the page and found Kenneth 'Kenny' Cunningham so he could do the same to that photo. He had taken two down, two to go; or so he thought. That was until he saw that he showed up.
He had to be added to the list; he ran away. He did nothing. He let the evil in this town continue to grow and flourish. He let them get away with it. He had to pay, just like the rest of them. Now the question was; would he be next, or should he be saved for last?
Flipping the pages, he paused briefly at the photograph of Stan Evans: Mr. Big shot. Mr. Captain. Mr. Hero. It was all he could do to keep from tearing the page out of the book and ripping it to shreds. Twenty years later, the big football hero is coming home to coach his old high school team. Soon, they'd all see that truth and justice will always prevail. Their lies will be revealed. Soon, they'd all learn that nobody is immune; nobody is beyond reach.
He'd waited twenty years for this chance; he could hold on a few more days. He gently closed the annual and turned to look at the framed picture of Christine 'Tina' Larson, around which he kept a fresh wreath of her favorite flowers. Very soon, now, the wrongs against her would be set right. He'd see to that.
But to make it so, he didn't have just two more to pay back; he had three. That meant he had another noose to prepare; a task he was more than willing to begin right away...