* * *

"He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done." - Leonardo Davinci

* * *

They had been on the jet simply twenty minutes before J.J. came back from the fax machine, and handed everyone the latest pictures of the lawyer.

"Jesse Rowlang, 47 years, Caucasian, worked as a lawyer for a big law firm that took on various cases ranging from divorces to medical law suits and everything in between. He was found four days ago in his car, a single gunshot wound to the head. No evidence was left at the scene, save for the note, of course." J.J. said, then dropping another picture of a body splayed out on a carpeted floor.

"This was Judge Anderson Carlos, age 53, Caucasian. Oversaw, once again, many cases ranging from anything and everything. He was found by his housemaid after suffering from a large dose of Sarin. He was dead within minutes of her hearing him collapse."

"So an interview with the housemaid then. Who's she?" Morgan asked, laying aside the file and looking at J.J., but it was Hotch that spoke this time.

"Her name's Meryl Landman. She worked in the Judge's house for eight hours, then went home to a small, one room apartment that she shared with a boy-friend. However, said boy-friend was recently killed in a driving accident."

"Let me guess. The guy was drunk." Prentiss suddenly said, her voice flat, and Hotch replied, somewhat startled,

"No, actually. Regardless, the law-suit against the driver was dismissed."

"That gives her motive; who presided over the case?" Gideon asked, and J.J. was the one to answer this time.

"We don't know that yet; Garcia's still looking into it."

"Still. I think it'd be a good idea to look into Merryl. She seems like a prime suspect right now." Morgan said, sounding bored, but J.J. shook her head, replying,

"That'd be great, if not for one tinsy, tiny little problem."

"What's that?" Prentiss asked, her curiosity peeked.

"She's locked herself in her apartment, supposedly grief-stricken about not being able to save the judge." Hotch said, his tone dark.

Reid continued to take the rest of the information in and sorting it out in his mind as the other agents on the plane discussed other possible suspects and the families and friends of the victims. It seemed like they had a long case ahead of them…

* * *

"Agent Gideon, so nice to see you again!" a large, burly man greeted Gideon with a warm smile, offering his hand.

Gideon took the hand and shook it, saying fondly,

"Deputy Richardson, it's been too long. This is my team, SSA Aaron Hotchner, Agents Jennifer Jareau, Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss, and Dr. Spencer Reid."

Deputy Richardson nodded with a smile, then stepping back and saying,

"I'm so glad to have you all here, and anything we can do to help your investigation, I promise you, we'd be happy to help."

"Glad to hear that, Deputy. Is there… somewhere we can set up?" J.J. asked kindly, and the Deputy nodded again.

"Yes, there's a spot in the back we have cleared out for you. It's not that big, but we hope it's not too small, either."

"It'll be fine. Thanks," Hotch said, and then the team was moving past the Deputy.

Unfortunately for Reid, his reputation, -thanks to Gideon- had proceeded him all the way to Clarksville, Tennessee, and Deputy Richardson stopped him in his tracks with a,

"Wait, hold up, really quickly boy, Gideon said your name was Dr. Spencer Reid?"

Blowing a bit of his breath out his nose quickly, Reid turned around and nodded to the older man, his eyebrows furrowed slightly as he wondered what the Deputy wanted from him.

"So you're the genius, right?"

Reid gave another nod.

"So you basically… know everything there is to know about… knowing?"

By now, Reid had started to attract attention from every other officer on the floor, and felt like just shrinking into nothing even as he shook his head, squeaking out a small,

"N-not really."

But his answer had gone un-heeded by the rest of the officers, and Reid suddenly found himself bombarded by random questions. Turning around and craning his neck slightly, Reid looked for his teammates, but he soon found that they would be no help; Hotch even was watching the commotion with a small smile. He was actually enjoying this…!

The voices around him soon became to loud to shut out, even though their spoken volume hadn't increased, really, and Reid caught one question in particular.

"Do you know who the Chinese Goddess of mercy is…?"

Blinking, Reid opened his mouth when he saw another man hit the one who had just spoken in the back of the head, saying,

"You really think a kid is gonna know all this stuff? How stupid are you?"

Reid's brows furrowed further as he said kind of softly, though he was sure everyone could hear,

"Actually… I do know that. The Chinese Goddess of Mercy calls herself Kuan Yin. But did you know that even though she was regarded by the Chinese as the goddess of mercy, she was originally male until the early part of the 12th century and has evolved since that time from her prototype, Avalokiteshvara, "the merciful lord of utter enlightment," an Indian bodhisattva who chose to remain on earth to bring relief to the suffering rather than enjoy for himself the ecstasies of Nirvana…"

Reid finished his small speech just to find that every single one of the officers crowded around him had gone silent, and was staring at him as if he himself had just transformed into a goddess. Making a strange face at the thought, Reid quickly turned and broke through the throng of people, moving quickly over to where Morgan and Hotch still stood. Though, he didn't stop where they were; instead, he kept moving to where he knew the others would be, trying and failing to ignore Hotch's smirk and Morgan's chuckle. It was the last straw, however, when Morgan teased,

"Making a bunch of new friends, aren't you, Reid?"

Reid shook his head, tempted beyond belief to throw his arms in the air in a show of frustration, even as he muttered,

"Shut up…"

But his comment was met with only chuckles from behind him as Reid came to and opened the door to the BAU's makeshift office, and was met with a grim look from Gideon, which instantly sobered the three.

"They've found another body, and another note."

* * *

"Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden." - Phaedrus

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