A Voice Cries Out
Chapter 20
Hotch accompanied Reid for his second hourly five minutes with William. The unit chief wanted to bring a relatively dispassionate eye to the examination of their latest victim. It wasn't lost on him that Reid kept his distance from his father, making no attempt to so much as touch his hand, or pat his arm. The context might have led someone to think Reid was simply respecting the various tubes and wires protruding from William. But Hotch recognized it as evidence of the remaining chasm between father and son.
When he saw the two men at the bedside, one of the attending physicians made his way over to the bay.
"Is one of you the son?"
"I am." Reid introduced himself as he shook the doctor's extended hand, and Hotch did the same.
"I'm Dr. Casagrande, one of the intensivists. I'm so sorry about your father, Doctor…..wait, I thought they said you were an FBI agent?"
Reid explained, in minimal terms, about the PhDs.
"Wow. My parents were thrilled when I got my MD. I can only imagine how yours felt about your getting three doctorates!"
No, you really can't. Aloud, Reid said, "Can you tell me anything about his condition?"
The physician's face sobered immediately. "He was in bad shape when he came in. They gave him a couple of liters of fluid in the ED, just to give his heart something to pump. But now we need to be more careful. It looks like he had an extended period of dehydration, which damaged his kidneys. Until or unless we get them working again, we have to be careful not to fluid-overload him. It's a delicate balance, and one we have to monitor constantly."
Reid nodded. He had no degrees in the biological sciences, but he'd read extensively. Of course.
Satisfied that his audience had absorbed the first piece of information, Casagrande continued.
"His heart actually seems pretty good, and his lungs are working pretty well. We think we'll be able to get rid of the oxygen by morning. His liver….we'll have to watch that as well. It has to process some of the byproducts of his muscle breakdown….that's one of the effects of the dehydration….so it's working overtime right now. His vitals are stable, but we'll be watching his blood pressure, given the problem with his kidneys, which help control it. And his head injury wasn't too bad. Probably a concussion, and a hairline fracture of his skull, but no bleeding in the brain."
The two BAU agents exchanged a startled look at the last piece of information. Hotch spoke for both of them.
"Head injury? We weren't aware he'd been injured." None of the other victims had shown any sign of trauma. Toxicology studies were still out on them, but it had been presumed they'd been drugged.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you knew. Yes, he had an open wound on his occiput….that's the rear part of the skull." The doctor demonstrated by touching that part of his own head. "It was a pretty deep laceration, and it looked as though it had rounded edges to it. Like he was knocked out with something."
"Something like a rock?" Reid wondered if William had been rendered unconscious via the same unknown mechanism as the other victims, and perhaps fallen to the desert floor. But Casagrande's information didn't synch with that.
"No, it was too well rounded. I put myself through medical school working as an EMT. Back then, I used to see your dad's kind of injury all the time. Only then, it was usually somebody being bashed in a bar fight, with a pool cue or the bottom part of a stool or something. Round like that."
If the unsub had an accomplice or fan, that person was straying from the script. Or maybe William's attempted murder had been at the hands of someone entirely different. Hotch needed to assemble his team. They needed to re-work the profile. Or come up with an entirely new one.
"Doctor, the rest of my team is on their way here. Is there some space we can use…..private space?"
They'd been granted use of a small conference room, but been told they'd have to vacate from time to time, to accommodate teaching rounds. The four already at the hospital were just settling in when Morgan and Rossi joined them.
Morgan pulled Reid into a one-armed hug. "I'm sorry, man. But I'm glad he's still alive. At least he has a chance."
Rossi added his own condolences and then filled the others in on what they'd learned at the scene.
"We profiled that the unsub was staying with the victims, watching them die. We'd even figured out how he provided shade and hydration for himself. But there was none of that here. The area was too open, too flat. There were no boulders or ledges that might provide shade."
"And nothing in the ground that indicated a tent or even a lean-to," added Morgan. "The other locations were out into the desert more, they gave the unsub privacy, the abiity to hide himself. This one was too near the visitor's center. Granted, there's not much traffic in general, but that area has a lot more hikers passing through than the others. There was no way the unsub could be sure he wouldn't be seen while he was watching his victim." Watching him shrivel to death. He wouldn't say those words aloud. Wouldn't plant that image in Reid's head.
"But couldn't that be why William survived?" posited Emily. "That the unsub chose a spot too close to civilization, and he had to flee before he was discovered?"
Hotch had decided to wait for the others to arrive before filling all of them in on what they'd learned from Dr. Casagrande.
"The location wasn't the only deviation from the pattern. William suffered a head injury."
Reid's voice entered the conversation. "It was inflicted, likely from a long object with rounded edges."
"Like a baseball bat?" asked Morgan.
Reid nodded. "Maybe. Or, according to the doctor, like a pool cue, or the leg of a chair….I guess it could even have been a golf club."
JJ saw the subtle wince with each of the projected possibilities, as though each one created a visual image inside Reid's head. She needed to move his mind away from it.
"So, what are we thinking? That we've got an unsub who revised the scenario? Or that we've got a completely different case?" She was pretty sure she knew what her husband was thinking.
Rossi was quick to voice his opinion. "We profiled this as a single unsub. Given the possibility of an accomplice, we profiled him as a submissive, a 'fan' of the dominant. There's no way a submissive would take it on himself to change the script."
"Unless he's just incompetent," mused Emily. "Maybe he just didn't get it right." Maybe he failed 'Serial Killer 101'.
Hotch had an opinion as well. "I think Rossi's right. I think we've got a completely different case here. Reid, do you agree?"
It was vitally important to have their young genius on board with the theory, for a host of reasons.
"Before my dad was found in the desert, I was leaning toward his disappearance having something to do with my uncle, and with the university. Given what we know about the location where he was found, and his injuries, I have to go back to that. I think my dad may have confronted someone about something, and paid a price for it." Hoping it wasn't the ultimate price.
"All right." Having reached a decision about which direction to take the case, Hotch was ready to make assignments. But first he wanted to make sure they were all starting from the same point. "We have some indication that William may have been upset with Claus Albrecht, and gone to confront him. If Reid is right, the argument may have been over William's suspicion that Albrecht claimed a discovery made by Daniel. But we don't have whatever evidence William may have seen that convinced him of the stolen property."
Morgan chimed in. "And we do know that Claus Albrecht is ninety-five years old. Unless he's spent his free time as a body builder, I doubt he could have lifted anything high enough to hit William in the back of the head."
"Which means," contributed Emily, "that he had to have an accomplice. Logic would point us at either the grandson or the great-grandson."
JJ was nodding. "They'd have the most to lose, if the 'family money' came from the stolen discovery."
"But why," wondered Emily, "would it have taken your father all this time to decide to go after them, Reid?"
He could only shake his head. "I don't know. My guess would be that he either didn't know how to reach them….or maybe he just recently figured it out."
Rossi found that intriguing. "If this was new information to your dad, it's probably around somewhere, isn't it?"
JJ fielded the question. "But we've looked everywhere. My new friend Officer Guidry and I even pulled every book out of William's bookshelves."
Her husband's eyes lit up. "But you only looked between the books. You didn't actually go through them, right? We were talking about how time consuming that would be. You didn't look inside the books."
And she didn't really want to now, either. "Spence…that could eat up a week, easily. You saw how many books he owns. We don't have that kind of time. The Albrechts could be long gone before we find anything."
Knowing they couldn't hold the men without evidence, nor even put them under surveillance. And, whether ill-gotten or not, the Albrechts had money. That made it even easier to disappear.
Morgan had a thought. "Didn't you say you found those two threatening notes tucked into your father's case files from the last six months? Maybe we only have to look at books he's acquired since then. I can get Baby Girl…."
Reid interrupted him. "Never mind. I know. I know exactly where to look. I know exactly where he would have put it."