It was nearing one in the morning when Hotch decided to give the profile. He had sent Morgan and Prentiss to check in at a nearby motel whilst retaining Rossi and JJ.
"We're looking for a white male in his mid-twenties to early forties," Hotch addressed the small crowd of officers and detectives gathered before him, his confidence only threatened by the sheer exhaustion he felt. The number of officers that had turned up to hear the profile was significantly lower than Hotch would have liked, but he was aware that it was essential to have a large police presence on the streets tonight if they had any hope of catching their UnSub, so the small number was to be expected.
"He blitz attacks his victims," Rossi effortlessly took over. "A sledgehammer is his weapon of choice – he usually kills on first impact to the back of the head and then continues to demolish the head."
"We think his target is the brain," JJ cut in. "This UnSub is dumping his victims' bodies outside places of education. John Usher was found underneath the window of a tutoring company, Ben Garrett was found outside a school and from the list Detective Simmons compiled for us," she gave a brief and small smile to the detective, "we identified that the building across the road from the park Rachel Sanders was murdered in is an Adult Education Annex."
"Given the nature of the victims, the dump and kill locations and condition of the bodies, it is likely the UnSub is making a statement about the American education system," Hotch said. "The complete destruction of the brain indicates that he perhaps blames the education system for failing the victims academically."
"The overkill in the victims suggests that this UnSub has a lot of rage," JJ continued. "But because Ben Garrett's body was transported after the first blow to the head – the blow that killed him – and before the UnSub destroyed the brain, we can determine that he is in control of his emotions."
"This makes him very intelligent, methodical and mission-oriented," Rossi cleared his throat. "It also makes him dangerous. He won't stop until his mission is complete."
"And when will we know when that will be?" a blonde haired officer asked.
"There's no way to know," Hotch answered sternly. "Which is why we have to act quickly. He's already crossed state lines once, we don't want to lose him."
"Well then how will we know if he will even kill again?" the same officer queried.
"He will," Rossi said confidently. "He accelerated his time frame for a reason. There will be another body tomorrow morning."
"So we're looking for someone who's pissed off with the education system?" this time a black haired officer asked the question, his face holding a contemptuous look. "That could be any parent in town."
"We think this UnSub has no connection with the education system," JJ replied. "He doesn't work in it, he has no kids that attend school. It is unlikely that if he did have children, he would send them through the system. They are most likely home-schooled. We think this man was scorned by the system as a child and hasn't been able to move on."
Rossi quickly took over. "The nature of the troubled relationship between the UnSub and the education system can be hard to ascertain, but considering characteristics of the kills, it is most likely that the UnSub felt that he was underappreciated in school or was not allowed to reach his full potential for some reason."
"It is also unlikely that these three are his first victims," Hotch said. "We have our technical analyst going through ViCAP at the moment."
"Thankyou," Rossi said, indicating to the group of officers and detectives that they were finished giving the profile. He turned to his two colleagues. "I don't know how helpful that can be," he admitted quietly.
"It's a start," Hotch assured. "I need to ring Garcia and then we'll head to the motel."
Rossi and JJ nodded and went to grab their go-bags which they had stored in the conference room. Hotch pulled out his phone and quickly dialled Garcia.
When the call was answered, Hotch heard the end of a yawn and a quick clearing of the throat before, "Garcia."
"Garcia, have you found anything on ViCap?"
"Uh...uh," Hotch heard her voice deepen as she stifled another yawn. "Unsolved murders, right, no I haven't found anything yet, sir."
"Widen your search to the entire country," Hotch instructed. "In the morning," he added.
"Oh thankyou sir," Garcia gushed, her relief obvious.
"Put Reid on," Hotch said.
"He, um, he went home already," Hotch noted a rushed and frenzied hint in her voice.
"Tell him I want the geographical profile in the morning," Hotch repled.
"He ate Thai," Garcia blurted suddenly.
There was a pause.
"Garcia..."
"Right, tomorrow morning," Garcia rambled, sounding frazzled. "Geographical profile, got it."
Hotch ended the call, shook his head and remembered the promise he had made to himself to never question the oddities of his technical analyst.
Xxx
Garcia had gotten a total of three hours sleep that night, so when she trudged into her computer lab at six-thirty the next morning, she was armed with a steaming mug of coffee and a box of Tylenol. She took a generous sip of her coffee, placed her bags on the floor underneath her desk and sat in front of her computer. In mere minutes she had it up and running and searching through the data that it had collected.
She huffed in annoyance. Her search of ViCap had returned hundreds of unsolved murders from across the country and she knew it was impossible to sort through all of the results before her next conference with the team.
As if answering her unvoiced plea for help, her computer made a ding-ing noise, signalling that an email had just be sent to her. She opened it and smiled.
"Thankyou Chocolate Thunder," she muttered, reading the profile Morgan had just sent her and adding the extra parameters into her system.
Xxx
"Anything?" Hotch directed the question at Detective Simmons as he walked into the conference room where the team had gathered for the morning, going over the profile again.
"Nothing," he said. "I thought you guys said there'd be another body."
"It's still early," Morgan glanced down at his watch: it was seven o'clock. "It might be that the UnSub hasn't dumped the body yet."
"You said the UnSub is accelerating his killing time," Simmons objected. "If he was then we should have found another body already. The more time moves on, the less likely it is that we'll actually find a body, right?" He sounded hopeful.
"Detective, all we can do now is trust the profile," JJ said.
Simmons snorted. "Well the profile better be right then," he snarled, before walking out.
"He's right you know," Morgan addressed his teammates. "If we haven't found a body yet..." he left the rest unsaid.
As much as they hated to say it, they needed another body. Another body would give them more clues, more evidence. Without another body to examine, another crime scene to scrutinise, they weren't any closer in identifying the UnSub.
"None of the surrounding counties or states have reported any murders," Rossi said from his position at the table beside JJ. "We could be looking at an unsolved."
"Maybe he flew out," Prentiss suggested. "He could have flown out yesterday after he dumped Rachel Sanders' body, reached the west coast and still have enough time to kill and dump another victim."
"But the PD didn't turn up any cars matching the description given by Sasha Jones," JJ pointed out.
"He could have hidden it in a garage," Prentiss said.
"It's only ten past seven," Hotch said. "Morgan might be right: the UnSub might not have dumped the body yet," he turned to Morgan. "Call Garcia. Have her keep an eye out for any bodies turning up with our UnSub's M.O. If he did fly out, I want to know where."
Xxx
A/N: Thanks all for the reviews! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!