Chapter 4
"This case was eating my daddy up," Will said, looking at the students in the hall. "All unsolved murder cases do that to a detective," Will added. He looked at Morgan. "Agent Morgan will back that up. He's former Chicago PD." Morgan nodded. "But when you know you've got a serial…." Will just shook his head. "I had attended one of the BAU's seminars in Dallas. And I knew they could help.
"Our only problem," Emily said, "was the total lack of previous evidence. We agreed with Detective LaMontagne's and his dad's assessment they had a serial. But with the evidence gone, we were pretty much starting from scratch."
"However," Tara said, "we had Detective LaMontagne's new case. And his memory of what his dad told him."
"The key to this case was the letters sent to Detective LaMontagne senior," Derek said. "When the fourth kill happened, another letter was sent; to Will's dad. Will got that; and it was one of the clues that helped us on this case." Garcia put the letter up on the screens.
"We immediately profiled it was like the letters that Jack the Ripper sent," Reid said. "'Hey boss'- the verbiage was spot on." Garcia put up a comparison letter from the Ripper case.
"In the meantime, my victim count had risen another body," Will offered.
"And the ME, with the second post Katrina victim, gave us our first clue," Hotch said. "Our unsub knew their way around the human anatomy."
"But Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes," Davi astutely pointed out.
"And the team's original profile was a male in his thirties that could have been abused by a parent," Rossi said. "They also knew by the two new autopsy reports that their serial had a medical background given how precise the eviscerations were."
Derek pointed at him. "That's where our girl Garcia comes in," he smiled.
"Doing my usual research of murders that matched the teams' criteria, I found a similar case in Galveston," she said.
"And it was post Katrina," Lewis said. "A lot of Katrina victims were relocated to Galveston following the hurricane."
"Agent Morgan and I took the BAU jet to Houston to interview the victim's fiancé," Emily said. "Her husband to be was murdered on the night of his bachelor party."
"Time out," Davi said. "The BAU jet?"
"Back in the BSU days, we had to fly commercial," Rossi said. "And we worked cases individually. There was no team then. When I returned to the BAU after leaving for nearly ten years, I loved the new perk the team had received. It just took me a while to get used to the team concept of profiling."
Garcia put up a picture of the BAU's Gulf Stream Jet. "While it looks like a luxury ride," Hotch said, "its value is why the Bureau lets us have it. This team can get to a serial crime scene the quickest. Using the jet, compared to standard travel rates and times on commercial air can mean losing another victim." The group murmured again. "This is why we have the jet at our disposal."
"Amid growing budget cuts the Bureau faces, this line item is never in jeopardy," Cruz added.
"Why did you leave Agent Rossi?" Jake asked.
Dave smiled. "Let's solve this case and the second one the team will present and then I'll answer that Jake. Good enough?" Jake nodded. Dave pointed back at him.
"After Agent Morgan and I interviewed the victim's fiancé," Emily said, "a pattern become clearer. Each of the men killed, and what we now knew with our two new victim's had been out partying with a group of men."
"It became profiling 101," Morgan said. "What makes a man separate from a group of his buddies?"
"Our unsub was female," Emily said. "That is the only reason a male would leave his buddies."
Cait stood up. "Time out here," she said, looking at her students. "Are you following this? This is how this team works a profile, following the leads they have. It can evolve with the more clues they find." She looked at Morgan. "I'm sure the first was MO for you."
"Exactly Doc," Morgan smiled. "Oh, sorry Dr. Barkley." Cait waved him off with a smile. "Like a lioness hunts the antelopes for one to separate from the group; only a female would make a male separate from his pack."
"And that addition to our profile was a game changer," JJ said. "Plus, there was one additional clue we had. Detective LaMontagne had taken Agent Morgan and me to his dad's home that was still standing."
"In my daddy's final minutes," Will said, "he took a piece of broken window glass to carve 'Jones' into a wall."
"And Detective LaMontagne senior now had a third victim," Hotch said. "The ME noticed the same precise cuts. And he had a clue following our same line of thought."
"My Padawans are good," Dave smiled.
"And Will's dad, with his last final breath, provided the clue we needed," JJ said.
"My daddy and his partner back in the day before the first murder happened worked sex crimes in the Quarter. They had a case they butted heads over with a female being gang raped. To the point it almost cost my daddy his career. And it happened in a bar called Jones." The students murmured.
"That's how it works," Dave said. "The unsub had a connection to Detective LaMontagne senior. She saw that he was sympathetic. But it the end, she saw she got no justice. Hence the letters to him."
"Why was that?" a student asked.
"Because the two men involved in the rape were influential. And my daddy's partner protected them; especially one because he knew him. I made him give up the name of the suspect he was protecting."
"So how'd you solve it?" a student asked.
Hotch gave his small smile. "When you're a cocky male that thinks you got away with raping a woman, and suddenly you're in the box in a police station, what's the last thing you want to see come in the door?" Cait softly shook her head at the team while smiling at her husband, wanting her students to deduce the answer.
"A female FBI agent," one student said.
"Moesha scores brownie points," Cait pointed.
"Actually two female FBI agents," Emily smiled.
"Emily applied the pressure. When a woman accuses you of rape, no matter how years have passed, you remember her name," JJ said.
"It just took JJ showing the idiot the latest victim pictures," Emily smiled. "I just reminded him that someone was looking for revenge."
"From there, we turned to Garcia," Hotch said. "From the rape suspect, past the statute of limitations to charge him, we knew that our unsub was Sarah Danlen. She matched our amended profile exactly including being a former medical student at Tulane. Garcia quickly provided us with a home address; but Danlen wasn't there."
"But Sir Derek gave me another parameter to check. When the team gets this close, and with their profile, all I need is parameters to narrow down a suspect list. And they are damn good at that."
"So Garcia tracked our unsub to a motel just off the French Quarter by Danlen's credit card usage," Morgan said. "Where she was holding a knife to the throat of a man that would have been her next victim."
"What happened?" Moesha asked.
"Will, excuse me," Reid said, "Detective LaMontagne was able to talk her down bringing up the letters she sent to his dad. Sarah asked where he was. Will told her the 'the storm took my daddy'. Sarah knew she had another LaMontagne to trust. It was great police work on his part." Will smiled at Reid.
"Hey Will," one the Master's students looked at him. "I got to class a little early. Did you get a bonus out of this case?" he smiled.
"Hell yeah Tom. A wife and two sons," Will proudly smiled. He and JJ showed off their wedding rings. Everyone in the room smiled.
So did the rest of the team.
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