Murder in the Forest, Chapter 31
By 11:00AM, the road crew had arrived and in about an hour, had cleared a path wide enough for people to walk through the landslide. Hotchner, Morgan, and Jareau walked through, with Ford and a paramedic carrying an emergency bag, in case the stranded persons had been injured.
Blacklaws and Seaver drove the Toyota over to meet them, having seen them approach through binoculars. They eased concerns that they had any wounds or other trauma and Blacklaws even offered to set up his stove and brew coffee.
"We have some peanut butter crackers, too," he offered. "But when Chris gets here, we need to get a boat across the river and find tracks where we saw that Bigfoot. This may be the scientific find of the century, animal-wise."
Reid appeared now, with a large box of donuts and a deputy with Thermoses of coffee in a large canvas shopping bag.
"Let this be our treat," said Hotchner. "We thought you might want donuts and weren't sure what food you had. JJ said that she was afraid that Ashley had to eat sardines or something equally unappealing to the feminine palate. But they'll have that road cleared soon and we can eat lunch in town. The donuts will have to do until then. Now, you're quite serious about this monster sighting? Ashley, did you personally see that and how would you describe it?"
"I did and it was a big animal, sort of like an upright gorilla. It kept looking around, as if expecting to find something or was afraid that it was being pursued. But it could have been looking for food, I guess. I don't think it saw us. We got really good looks at it through those expensive German binoculars for almost a minute. I'll never forget what I saw. It was like something out of a movie or a Bigfoot TV show, but this was real! "
"Probably some tall guy in a gorilla suit," grumbled Morgan. "How can you two believe something like that? And are you okay, Ashley? Everything go okay up here last night?"
He glowered at Blacklaws, who gave him a cool, studied look in response.
Seaver was afraid that the two men might have a confrontation and was tired of Morgan's parental attitude, anyway.
"I don't think it was a man in a suit, Derek, and we had a fine night. We slept in the car so the bear didn't get us and we got along really well and you do not need to be further concerned with my chastity. ..DADDY! I'm a big girl now and Peter was a perfect gentleman."
Jareau laughed. "What bothers Derek is that he's heard the old description of a gentleman as being a man who leans on his elbows. Supposed to come from a showgirl who told that to a reporter years ago. Seriously, I'm glad that you two had a nice night, considering, and if what you saw was actually a real Sasquatch, wow! Does that mean that you think it could really be involved in these murders? We know that humans got the missing girls. Bigfoot sure didn't make them record those phone videos! So how significant is it to this case if there's a hairy monster up here?"
Blacklaws was stunned. "Well, it may or may not be significant to the case otherwise, but if that Bigfoot scared off the bear and may have fed on a human corpse, it's certainly part of that case, and people may be in danger. That has to be considered as well as anything else we're working."
Hotchner said that they should let the sheriff's department and the state Game & Fish people handle the killing and partial consumption of the bear victim. "The Bureau's responsibility is to the missing women and their families and then to solving the earlier murders. This bear thing isn't really a homicide, per se. I admit that the Bigfoot angle is fascinating from a personal standpoint but if we can rule the latest death up here attributable to an animal, I need to take my team back to Elk Pass and determine how to proceed on the case that concerns us. The federal judge has reluctantly authorized warrants to search any properties that we can show a reasonable suspicion are involved. But he told Phillip Gaines in Seattle that he thinks it's pretty tenuous to suspect Bamka of kidnapping just because he bought some pretty lingerie and ordered some restraints like are often used in B&D play. It's not illegal for him to be kinky, unless he crosses the line into crime. The judge told us to proceed with care and to try to document our reasons for surveillance before we do anything not backed up by more solid facts. In the meantime, he did authorize checking phone records in case that might give us real leads, and we can tap Bamka's phones, all of them. And we can initiate flights to see if we can spot any unusual activity around these properties that may infer that the kidnappers are there.
"So Ashley, Peter: do you want to stay with my team and follow this case or remain up here and look for a killer bear and a beast that may turn out to be a hoax? If you two work together, each of you can be the liaisons between FBI and the Sheriff. But Grant and I are already communicating well on that, so I'm really offering you two the chance to be where you feel you can make the best contribution. Sheriff? Do you need Peter back with your unit?"
Ford looked carefully from Seaver to Blacklaws and shrugged. "I have a lot of faith in Peter and he seems to work well with Seaver. Like Aaron, I'm going to let you two float where you can do the most good. But don't make me regret that. I want you two to do some detective work, not just hang out and enjoy one another's company."
"Hey!" exclaimed Seaver. "Okay, so Peter and I like one another. But we didn't get stuck up here last night just to be alone together. That landslide was legitimate and we nearly got caught in it. We'll work this case as hard as anyone, but I would like to stay with Peter if I can."
Their supervisors nodded, and Hotchner told them to greet the biologist and the state hunters and then to rejoin his team in town once they had seen the wildlife end of the matter get well underway.
"If you can follow that bear and kill it, okay, but don't take more than a few hours before returning to town. Chris or the Washington wardens will tell us if they kill the bear later. We're only interested if you turn up some angle that suggests that Bigfoot was involved in the serial murders, and I doubt that."
They got into the donuts and poured coffee and Seaver and Blacklaws went over again what they had seen that morning. And then, the other teams arrived with Dr. van Reenan and they repeated it still again.
"Hotch, can I stay with Ashley for awhile?" asked Jareau. "I want to be up here in the woods and clear my head of some stress cobwebs and looking for the bear will let me do that. We'll all be back in town by late this afternoon right, Peter?"
The tall deputy nodded, surprised that Jareau, the woman uneasy about bears, would want to stay and look for one that was a known killer. But if it got Hotchner to cut him some slack about hanging out with Seaver, he wasn't going to complain. And he wondered whether Jareau might want to talk privately to him or to Seaver. He had a feeling that this day was going to get more complex as it wore on.
Hotchner agreed for Jareau to remain and the agents and deputies sorted out what they'd do in town. The main FBI team less Jareau and Seaver went back to their cars and returned to Elk Pass, speculating about Bigfoot being real, or if not, what had their friends really seen? The evidence track impressions in Blacklaws's Toyota had greatly impressed all. Hotchner and Reid were astounded by what they must mean. Even Morgan had been subdued, shocked at what he saw.
They passed a TV van and a car they recognized as belonging to a newspaper reporter and Morgan rolled his eyes.
"Looks like the press is here," he murmured. "I don't envy our team members who stayed. They can deal with that part of this thing. I'm not diplomatic enough or patient enough."
"I'm a little short of patience today, myself," admitted Hotchner. "We had to come up here to show the Bureau's presence and interest. But we really accomplished little and need to do more. And soon!"
"Maybe Garcia has found all the property listings," suggested Reid. "If we have those, we can start to figure out which to monitor or raid."
And on that note, they accelerated down the road once they reached the paved highway leading back to Elk Pass. Little did they know what JJ Jareau would soon discover back in the dark forest.