A/N: This chapter and part of the next are based on S3 episode Seven Seconds; also written by Andi Bushell. Why she isn't there any more escapes me because the current batch of writers couldn't write their way out of a wet paper bag.
Rant done.
Chapter 5
Cait rubbed Will's shoulder as he walked past her back to his seat with a smile. "Aunt Cait and Uncle Aaron get to occasionally spoil their two year old," she smiled, "while their oldest plays video games with our youngest." Cait then whispered. "And we have a pool." The whole class smiled back.
"Doctor Barkley," Davi asked. "Can I asked how old you and SAC Hotchner's sons are?"
Cait smiled at Aaron and then Davi. "Our oldest turned twenty-four in March; is engaged and is attending Georgetown Law. And getting married next year."
"Thank God for being parents of the groom," Aaron smiled. Everyone laughed.
"Our middle son is twenty-one; graduates next spring from Georgetown with a Chemistry degree. And has already applied to the FBI," she smiled. "Even with his ninety percent hearing loss that is corrected with cochlear implants. He can pass the initial FBI service evaluation test. He hopes to join the Bureau working with the narcotics division with his degree." Cait looked at her students. "And yes, he can do that with his hearing; because he won't be in the field. He'll be in a Bureau lab. And Aaron and I will have another wedding coming up in a couple of years," she said, shaking her head.
"More FBI recruiting?" Davi asked with a smile.
"Absolutely," Hotch smiled. "Honestly, this is why we do this. The BAU is a select unit. Being you have to be selected to join the Unit by the senior profilers. Agent Rossi brought me in and was my mentor. And it does involve a mentoring program as you learn your profiling skills."
"Compared to joining the Bureau," Dave said. "Any course of study can work in the FBI. Like it was mentioned earlier, accounting grads are highly sought after. The Russian mob and their money laundering in the US is one of the Bureau's top priorities."
"And so are graduates that have degrees in languages. Spanish, Arabic and Russian being the top three," Hotch said. "For all the obvious reasons."
"Language arts skills for analysts in the Bureau are highly sought after," Prentiss said. "My mother is a former US ambassador that mainly served in the Middle East. My Arabic skills got me in the door. Even with learning profiling through Interpol. But analysts do not have to serve in the field."
"Sorry Doctor Barkley," Jake smiled. "I gotta back track." She looked at him. "Son number three?"
Cait smiled. "Son number three is the star pupil of his fifth grade class being eleven and a half." She smiled at Jake. "And for now, his favorite female squeeze is our two year old yellow lab," she smiled. The students all laughed as Aaron, Dave and the rest of the team smiled.
"But that brings me to our next case. And the hardest on the team. It involves a child." Cait smiled at JJ. "And since Agent Jareau is no longer the communications liaison, I'm going to present this one to you."
"In the fall of 2007, a young girl, Jessica Davis was abducted from a suburban DC shopping mall. Security cameras at the mall never caught her abductor getting out the door with her. FBI CARD agents, as in Child Abduction Rapid Deployment, found her body four days later. She had been sexually assaulted by a male pedophile before being killed; within an hour of her kidnapping." The students shook their heads.
"We know now, through our studies of cases, that when a preferential pedophile has a child and law enforcement is already involved," Reid said. "That child has an hour or less to live." The students sadly shook their heads more.
"A week later, CARD responded to another six year old girl being kidnapped in another suburban DC mall, albeit a different one. Given the nature of the possible relationship of the two crimes, the BAU was called in as well." Cait looked at Aaron for him to continue.
"The BAU's primary objective is catching unsubs. However, given our specialty of understanding heinous crimes, we are also called in on child abductions. The first 24 hours are critical in finding an abducted child. But as Dr. Reid said, the window could have already been shut."
Dave looked at Davi. "Another reason that fancy jet comes in." Davi pointed at Dave with a smile. "And CARD has the BAU on speed dial," Dave said the students. "But this one was local. The BAU was on scene within an hour."
"Katie Jacobs had been kidnapped within that mall. But all video surveillance did not show her leaving that mall with her kidnapper," Aaron said. "The CARD lead and I both knew that Katie was somewhere in that mall and we had more than a one hour window."
"Hotch, as usual, assigned all of us various jobs," Morgan said. "Garcia was sent, naturally to the mall security office to see what she could dig up on their video systems. JJ and Emily took statements from Katie's family. Reid and I worked with the mall security chief to plan out a search pattern of the entire mall."
"Agent Morgan's specialty with the team is tactical," Cait said.
"Through JJ and Emily's early interview," Reid said, "we found out the last person with Katie was her thirteen old male cousin Jeremy."
"Hotch and I separately interviewed Katie's parents, Richard and Beth. We needed to know if there was a connection between Katie and Jessica," JJ said. "But there was none. And while that questioning can be tough on the parents given the situation and our questions, Hotch and I both immediately ruled them out as suspects."
"The parents are suspects?" a student asked.
"More than likely not in these situations," Dave said. "But the quicker we narrow things down, the faster and hopefully, we can find that missing child."
"Garcia, going through the mall security cameras found a seven second image of Katie walking away from the arcade she was in with Jeremy," Hotch said.
"But I and the team couldn't make out who Katie was with given the mall's archaic video security system," Garcia said.
"The team had seven seconds of a lead," Dave said. "That didn't pan out. So they had to do it old school; by profiling."
"While that was happening," Reid said, "Morgan and I did an initial interview of Jeremy; which ended with him having a panic attack."
"That told us something," Morgan said. "Jeremy wasn't telling us everything. His guilt manifested itself into a stress disorder." Cait looked at her students already making their deductions and slightly shook her head at Cruz.
Davi noticed. "Dr. Barkley?"
"Davi, the last thing you do with criminal psychology is jump to conclusions before you have all the facts. This team has perfected that rationale, growing on what Agent Ryan, Agent Gideon and I started," Dave said. "Please hear them out. Profiling is more about reading the signs about each case you work along with knowing criminal psychology. Yet, it's the little details that matter as much as the big picture. In your world it's the big picture. In our world, it's the little details. They are our biggest clues."
"JJ, working with the parents found out that Beth Jacobs had Katie's sweater in her purse," Hotch said. "That discovery gave us another one of our small clues. The K-9 dog picked up a scent to a trash can. Inside we found a necklace of Katie's. It matched the one that was in a picture on her mother's phone that mall security and CARD members were using to circulate flyers to patrons that were in the mall that was shut down. In addition, it was a twenty-four carat gold chain with a genuine gem on the end. And the clasp had been broken off in rage and put into the garbage can. A preferential pedophile would not do that. We were looking at a completely different suspect from the Jessica Davis murder." Cait smiled as her class looked around at each other.
"With Beth and Richard's permission, I sent Morgan and Reid over to their house to search it," Hotch said.
"Doing their initial search," Lewis said, "they found a very happy, normal family existence; until they searched Katie's room."
"I found evidence of Katie wetting the bed; which can happen with six year olds," Reid said. "They don't want to get up in the middle of the night because they are afraid of the dark."
"But Agent Morgan found something more," Tara said.
"I found one of her Barbie dolls; mutilated. I knew the sign."
"Katie Jacobs was being abused by a male family member," Lewis said. "And since Hotch and JJ had already ruled out Katie's parents that left two suspects."
"The uncle or the cousin," Jake proudly said.
Cait looked at him, prowling the stage in full teacher mode. "As the abuser: yes. But I didn't pick this case because it was easy. I picked this case to make you all think; like the BAU did."
Dave smiled at her. "Hotch immediately called for separate interviews of Jeremy and his father Paul."
"While my interview with Jeremy revealed a normal thirteen year old growing male, I quickly determined that he was not Katie's abuser. Yet, by his actions of scooting his chair away from me and biting the inside of his cheek that he had done earlier in Morgan and I's cognitive interview in the arcade, I knew he was still holding back something."
"It was Hotch and Emily's interview of Paul Jacobs that provided that one small key," Dave said.
"We knew he was Katie's abuser," Hotch said, "from the moment he sat down. It was just getting it out of him to confess. When I called him out on his age preference he confessed. But given that," Hotch said, "I also profiled that he was not Katie's abductor. He wasn't ready to give that up his victim, and yes his niece, yet." The students looked at him. "That's how they are. It's all about age."
"But we had an idea who Katie's abductor was," Emily said.
Cait's students looked at each other.
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