Marshaling Enough Empathy – Chapter Three

"What, you didn't like the bourbon?"

Will spun around and found himself face to face with Tim Gutterson. He was at ease in the courthouse lobby, standing like he belonged, arms crossed, smirking annoyingly.

"Actually, I did," Will said, wishing, despite the needed walk, that he'd called over and avoided all the eyes. He took a breath and made the effort to be social. "It's...completely different from scotch. It seems less serious somehow."

"I think maybe you need to be less serious about your alcohol. Are you here to see me?" Tim gestured to the elevator, arrived and open and inviting, stepped around the FBI profiler and held the door.

Will followed him on. "I was hoping for more information about your witness."

"Oh, I think he's yours now," Tim drawled, leaning lazily against the back wall. "In fact, if I find any of his skin, I'll make sure to forward it to you in Virginia."

The casual way Tim spoke of the gruesome murder pushed Jack's suspicions forward in Will's thoughts and he decided to fish around a little, just to prove Jack wrong. "That's kind of you, but wouldn't you rather keep it?"

"What for?" The Marshal was staring at him, clearly questioning his sanity.

"It'd make a nice souvenir," Will suggested, shrugged, used to having his sanity questioned.

Tim looked a bit disgusted at the thought then screwed up his mouth thinking. "I guess I could use it as a rug, put it in the boss's office. Or maybe get it stuffed and prop it up by my desk as a warning: This is what happens when you ignore the rules of the Federal WITSEC program."

Will appeared to be attempting a grin. "I hope you're joking."

"You started it. And I take back what I said – you need to take your alcohol more seriously."

Will's grin did another false start.

The elevator stopped and Tim raised his eyebrows, made a face like the one from the bar the night before then led the way into the Marshals Office and over to a desk near the back. He reached past a computer monitor and pulled a folder from a pile, waved it at Will.

"Everything I know about Alex Crespin, give or take."

He held the information out between them; Will stared at it.

"I was actually hoping to…talk to you about him. I could read that but...but I want…I need more of a feel for the man," Will explained.

Tim dropped the hand holding the file, face unreadable. "Okay," he said, an obvious lack of enthusiasm as he tossed the file back onto his desk. "Uh, but it's not like I played poker with the guy on Fridays."

"But you must have gotten some sense of his routine and perhaps a..."

"Tim!"

Tim turned at the sound of the voice; Will jumped.

"That's the boss," Tim explained, catching the nervous movement. "His bark's worse than his bite – mostly." He pointed to the chair in front of his desk. "Have a seat. I'll just be a minute."

He trotted over to the Chief's office, leaned in the door. Art Mullen was scowling, never a good thing.

"Who's that?" he demanded, nodded at Tim's guest, then turned his attention back to his computer screen.

"Special Agent Will Graham, Behavioral Sciences Unit of the FBI. He's a teacher at Quantico. Does field work on big cases. Good at his job apparently – freakishly talented profiler." Tim paused, not sure he had Art's attention, then added, "He's the one who caught Hannibal Lecter."

Art looked up, suddenly interested. "No shit."

"No shit."

The Chief studied the FBI agent through the glass. "He looks a bit…off."

"Yup, he is a bit off. You try chasing psychopaths for a week and we'll see how you look."

"What does he want?"

Tim pouted, accusing, "You haven't read my report yet and I even came in early to finish it and everything."

"I've been busy, Tim. I have a whole office to run and I've spent most of the morning fielding questions about you from the FBI. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it was a guy from their Behavioral Sciences Unit. I was wondering when they were gonna catch up with you."

"Ha."

Art grinned, said, "I didn't know you were working with Raylan yesterday. What did he do to piss off the Feebs this time? And why didn't you stop him?"

Tim looked back to his desk, caught Will's eye and motioned for him to join them, answered Art's question at the same time, "I was working alone yesterday. And before you ask, I have no idea where Raylan is."

"Well then, what did you do to piss off the Feebs? Whatever it is – stop doing it. I hate dealing with them."

"The Feds are interested in our disappeared WITSEC guy. If you'd read my report, you'd know all this." He paused then, looked directly at Will now beside him in the doorway, and continued conversationally, "Did you say the Feds were asking about me – the Psycho Unit specifically?" He watched for a reaction.

Art caught the cue, directed his attention at Will when he replied, "Yeah, they wanted to know all about you, Tim. What you were doing on specific dates and what your connection was to the WITSEC guy because you're the one that found him dead, and they asked, 'does he normally find people dead?' So I asked them if the guy had been shot and they said 'no, the victim was mostly skinned alive while he choked to death.'" Art paused here for effect. "I told them if it was you that'd killed him he'd have a nice clean bullet hole through his head, so could they please stop bothering me."

"I appreciate the support, Chief."

"Not a problem."

"Yeah," Will breathed out, studied his shoes, the carpet. "We...at the FBI...we're good at making friends."

Tim exchanged a look with his boss then made the introductions.

Art stood and shook hands. "Well, Special Agent Graham, if you're gonna follow Tim around and try and catch him doing something psycho, you gotta be less obvious." A stage whisper: "He's on to you."

Will chuckled nervously, eyes restlessly wandering the office. "You've been talking to Agent Zeller, maybe?"

"For a whole hour. He's a friendly fellow." Art crossed his arms aggressively, said passively, "So you're in Kentucky chasing a serial killer and my deputy is on the list of suspects?"

"He's not on my list of suspects. Jack Crawford is just being…thorough."

"Thorough. Uh-huh. Well, if that's all... What can we do for you?"

"I'm hoping to dig up something on the victim, maybe find a connection to the others."

"What are you looking for?"

Will shrugged, "I'll let you know when I find it. I know that sounds like I'm evading or…but…it's the truth. I really don't know what I'm looking for. Could I borrow your deputy for a few hours? I'd like to trace his investigation." He turned to Tim then, hands out to smooth any ruffled feathers but still not making eye contact. "I'm not…I'm not suggesting you missed anything, it's just…you probably weren't thinking like a…a serial killer when you were following him."

"You hope," said Art, mischief and a grin.


"You don't look surprised," Tim said glancing over his shoulder at Will's face, "at all." He led the way further into the condo, into the main living area. "The place shocked the hell out of me first time I saw it."

Will slipped on his glasses, stood in the center of the main room and turned in a circle, taking it all in. It was a spacious penthouse, sparse, but the sparseness of elegance and expense not poverty. "I was expecting it," he said. "Hoping, actually. It fits our pattern so far."

"Doesn't fit any pattern I know. Me, I'm used to seeing squalor – especially with folks involved in the shit this asshole was into. Crime really doesn't pay all that well."

"You're stereotyping."

Tim kept walking, stopped at the window with a view of the city. "Isn't that what you FBI profilers rely on – stereotypes?"

"No. It's more about personality types."

Tim turned around, a mocking smile, "Oh, sorry – refined and educated stereotypes then."

"Fair enough," Will replied, unruffled, conceding the point and continuing his visual tour of the room. He huffed as he watched Tim flop down on the leather couch and drop his feet on the glass coffee table. He felt a compulsion to comment. "I'll bet Alex Crespin never put his boots," a scolding finger, pointing, "on that table."

"Some people just don't know how to appreciate the gifts given to them," drifted lazily back over.

Will huffed again, but this time with humor and the feeling that this was something they shared, he and the Marshal, a disregard for appearances and presentation. But Tim's reply struck a deeper chord too, a dissonance, and Will reacted to it, said, "Does anyone really ever appreciate a gift? I mean, seriously. Do you?"

"I wasn't given any. I earned everything I got."

"Grew up poor." Will nodded, getting a picture. He decided to poke, "And would you consider that chip on your shoulder a gift?"

"Nah, that's just me sucking at doing laundry." Tim wiped an imaginary spot and got a chuckle for his effort at humor. Then he poked back. "And what's your problem? You grow up poor too, or just don't appreciate yours?"

"My…?"

"Your gifts."

"Oh, I grew up poor, too. Small town Louisiana."

Tim raised his eyebrows and grinned with a bit of comedy, the same face he made at the bar the previous night. "Not all gifts come in a box," he said.

"Which means what?"

"Means nothing. I'm just trying to figure why you always look so miserable." And there was that face again. "Your girlfriend dump you?"

Will tried to puzzle out what that face meant – disdain, blunt and honest, or a mask to deflect any closer scrutiny? He turned away eventually, undecided, and wandered into another room.

"Just 'cause it's a gift doesn't mean you have to like it – just means it's free," Tim called after him, a farce of Kentucky twang.

"Nothing's free," Will muttered and stopped short at the sight of the chess board set up in the bedroom, pieces familiarly placed, the black queen at her starting position. He took a deep breath, possibilities hanging in the air, dialed Jack and recommended a forensics unit go over the apartment. He hung up and let his eyes drift around the room, hunting for some piece of evidence that might suggest company. He closed his eyes then and let his imagination loose, let it too drift around the room. Nothing.

"Forensics is a waste of time." Tim was leaning on the door frame, arms crossed, watching.

"I know. He wasn't here. Jack would've ordered it anyway though and I…I have to appear like I know what I'm doing. I didn't…I didn't go through the FBI training – didn't get past the front door, actually."

"But they'll let you teach there."

"Less involved entrance exams for that."

"Well, that means you probably failed the 'dick test' that my boss likes to think all Feds have to take. If it makes you feel better, we'll be more inclined to like you. I'll make sure everybody knows." Tim nodded at the chess board. "Recognize the game?"

"Yes. Yes, why didn't you mention it before?"

"It's in my report." Tim paused and waited for an acknowledgement, finally shrugged. "Nobody reads anymore. It wasn't that long." He pushed off and headed toward the door. "And I typed it. We done here? There's nothing to see really."

Will followed him, caught up in the hallway. "Yeah, we're done here."

He wondered what else the Marshal might have noticed in his first pass through the apartment. He seemed very aware of details. He reached out to stop him, a light hand on his shoulder to get his attention. The reaction was immediate and violent. Tim jerked away and spun around, tensed, hands up and defensive. He dropped the aggression quickly and looked down at his boots but not fast enough to stop Will getting a glimpse beneath the glib façade.

Will took a couple of quick steps backward, the few breaths of silence advertising his surprise at Tim's reaction. "Sorry, I...I, uh... What else is in your report?" he asked finally, too late to pretend he hadn't seen.

Tim wiped a hand across his mouth, eyes still on the floor. "He was logged into an online chess game when the landlord let me in. Same board moves." He spoke quickly, unemotionally, filling the awkward void with words. "It's a famous match, right? Karpov vs Kasparov, 1985. Can't remember which game. I dunno, maybe it's a coincidence – there aren't an unlimited number of options for starting off a board – but it looks like your guy's just recreating a game that's already been played. Makes you wonder if he's really much of a chess player or if he just likes to one-up people. I know lots of folks like that."

Will pushed his glasses up with one finger and unconsciously mimicked the face he'd seen a few times already on the Marshal. "Are you sure you don't want my job?"

Finally looking up again, Tim said, "That'd mean working with dicks every day, right?"

Tugging itself up at the corners, Will's mouth managed another smile. "Right. Forget it. The job sucks."


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