A Voice Cries Out
Chapter 28
Hands in his pockets, Reid set off with a full head of steam, thought and emotion intermingling into a miasma of energy that needed expending. They'd gone six long blocks before he even thought to shorten his stride enough for her to keep up.
"Sorry."
"It's okay," she panted, "I never got my run in this morning." She gave him another half block before asking. "Do you want to talk about it?"
He raised his eyes to the sky, looking for…..something. I don't even know what I need. Clarity? Direction? Wisdom? Grace?
"I don't even know how to talk about it. I….it didn't make any sense. He gave me this big explanation, and it just didn't hold together. But then, he acted like that was okay, like he didn't actually expect it to. So…why?"
JJ thought back to her conversation with William yesterday afternoon. With the arrival of their family, she'd never had a chance to tell Spence about it. But, then, that really was William's story to tell, wasn't it?
"You mean about your Uncle Daniel? About how he reacted to your uncle's death?" The suicide-that-wasn't.
Reid stopped abruptly, causing her to turn and face him. "You knew about that?"
"He told me yesterday afternoon, Spence. I just didn't have a chance to talk to you, remember?" Because he'd gone to walk it off yesterday as well. They hadn't been alone since.
Reid started walking again, this time offering JJ the crook of his arm. Both of them needed the contact.
"What did you think?" Maybe the prayed-for wisdom would come from his wife, as it so often did.
Exercising that wisdom, JJ parried him. "Why don't you tell me what you thought, first?"
"That's the thing. I don't know what to think. Or feel, or anything else. I mean, why tell me this crazy story if he didn't care if I believed it?"
JJ was ready for that one. "Seems like that actually lends credence to it, doesn't it? If there's no other reason to tell the story, it must be because it's the truth."
She'd articulated an idea that had already presented itself to Reid. But he wasn't sure he was ready to go along with it.
"I know, that's the only thing that makes sense. So, okay, maybe I accept that he's being honest about his thought process at the time. But…how could he have thought that? My mother was supposed to be the crazy one, not him."
"He was grieving, Spence. Grief can do pretty strange things to a person." They'd seen it often enough in their work.
"But he didn't leave us until a few years after my uncle's death."
"There's a timetable for grief?"
Reid strode another half block in silence before observing, "You sound like you're defending him."
The last thing she wanted was an argument about his father. The subject had been the only really tender one between them for the duration of their marriage. Especially after I took it upon myself to contact William. But I'd thought we might lose you!
"I'm not defending him, Spence. I'm just listening….to both of you. And, for now, anyway, I'm reserving judgment."
He chewed on that for a moment before replying. "Do you think I should, too? Reserve judgment?" Not sounding at all like he thought it was a possibility.
JJ bit her lip, debating her answer. "I guess I understand that you can't reserve judgment, Spence. I mean, this is your father, and this is your life we're talking about. His role in it. What it meant for you, and your mom. I'm just saying that, if you simply accept the truth of what he told you, you might make one judgment. But if you only accept parts of it, and reject others…..you'll make another judgment."
"So, you're saying that I should just take it all in…..and then decide."
"I think I'm saying that maybe you should take it all in….and then react. I don't know that you can do this intellectually, Spence." Removing his most reliable weapon, and tool.
They walked another block in silence before Reid remarked, "You're not helping at all, you know."
She heard the tease in it, and laughed. Then she extracted her arm from his and put it around his waist. He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer to him.
"Ah…..now you're helping."
They looped a final block and started making their way back toward the hospital. As usually happened, their conversation moved to their children.
"I hope they're behaving. Henry can still get a little wired in a new environment," observed his mother.
"I think he realizes something is up. Did you notice he didn't ask a single question at breakfast?" It was remarkable behavior for the perpetually curious Henry.
"I know. I almost took his temperature. Mom said he didn't have that much to say on the plane, either."
"Henry and his empathy," mused Reid, who'd so often been the recipient of it. "He's a great kid, isn't he? I mean, not just because he's ours…"
She was always touched when Reid ignored the biological divide between himself and his son. "Yes, he's great. He's always been my little heart. And now we have another littler heart…"
"And they both have mine. As does their mother."
They were walking hand-in-hand now, and squeezed their love for one another.
"I know someone might think I was crazy for saying this, Spence, considering all we've been through. But, sometimes, I feel like we're the most blessed people on the earth."
He pulled her closer so he could kiss the top of her head. "We are." It brought a thought back to him, one he'd been trying to ignore. "He wants to meet them."
JJ realized they were back to the subject of William again. "He said that?"
"He said he would understand if I didn't want it, but…..he said he would be grateful."
She waited a few seconds before probing. "What do you think about it?"
"My gut reaction was 'Hell, no!' I mean, look what having him in my life did to me." He seemed to cut himself off abruptly, prompting JJ to take her eyes from the pavement before them to study his face.
"What haven't you told me?" Sure there was something.
"Did he tell you about my mother? About how it was for them? About the pregnancy?"
JJ's eyes narrowed. "He only told me about how losing your uncle had affected him, and how it was such a relief to find out he hadn't committed suicide. Why? What else was there?"
So he told her about his parents' dilemma when they realized she was ill, and how it heightened when they realized she was pregnant. He told her about William's fear of continuing the pregnancy, and Diana's insistence. And he told her about his father keeping distant tabs on the family. The calls to social services, and how they'd gone unrewarded because of a young boy's genius. The continued, if distant, relationship with Diana, extending into her final years.
"Whoa…that was some conversation you guys had."
"Yeah, that's us. The Reid men, world class communicators."
She snorted. "Well, if nothing else, you two made up for lost time." She dropped the teasing tone to add, "So you've been carrying around a lot more than the story of your Uncle Daniel this afternoon."
Quietly, reflectively, "Yes."
"And?"
He heaved a great sigh. "And I don't know. I mean, the fact that he kept up with my mother all that time has to mean something, doesn't it? And, even if he was anxious about her being pregnant with me, he supported her. And he was a father to me when I was young. I do remember that. It was why I couldn't make sense of his leaving."
"But?" She'd heard the unspoken word in his tone.
"But it brings me right back to where we started. How, even if I accept his whole explanation as true, it doesn't hold together. And he even acknowledged it."
"He did?"
"He said I was struggling because I was trying to make sense of it, when it didn't make sense. That all he could tell me was how he'd felt. He said he couldn't even ask for my forgiveness, because he didn't think it was forgivable."
JJ stopped them now. "Really?"
It was new information for her, and seemed to go to the heart of everything. It explained something she'd always wondered about. The reason she was willing to reach out to William, but only to keep him at arm's length. He'd never expressed remorse to either of them, not in his letters nor his cards. But now she understood why. He'd never apologized, because he didn't think it was possible to be forgiven.
JJ pondered all that Reid was dealing with. For so many years, her husband had been able to leave the questions unasked and the answers unsought. But present circumstance had made that impossible. Like it or not, he was in the middle of it now. It wasn't going away unresolved. She drew him into the doorway of an apartment building and put her arms around his waist.
"What are you thinking, my love?" She whispered into his shoulder.
He buried his face in her neck and breathed deeply of her.
"I'm thinking that all I want to do right now…..is what I'm doing right now. He's right. I can't make sense of it. All I can do is to decide to accept it…accept him….or not. It's just the one decision."
She started to pull away, so she could make her point, but he wasn't ready to let her go. So she spoke it into his collar. "You don't have to accept him, Spence. You don't even have to reject him. We can just go home, if that's what you want."
A text from Hotch diverted them to the Las Vegas FBI office. After a quick call to the hospital to make sure William was stable, they took a cab to meet up with their colleagues.
"Hey, Pretty Boy, how's your dad?"
"Stable. He'll probably be discharged tomorrow." No mention of this morning's exchange with William, and no need for his colleagues to know about it.
"Hey, that's great, Reid. I'm so glad he's going to be okay." Emily had been worried about William, and even more worried about his son.
As he took his seat, Rossi offered a quick pat on the back in his own gesture of support. Reid gave him an appreciative smile as Hotch started the meeting. He directed his first words to Reid and JJ, who were the only team members who remained unaware.
"We have two of three generations of Albrechts in custody. Professor Albrecht should be receiving a visit from our San Francisco branch," he looked briefly at his watch, "right about now."
"So you have the grandson and the great-grandson?" asked JJ, for clarification.
Emily nodded. "The state police detained them on the highway until Morgan and I arrived."
"Did they come willingly?" Reid was wondering if they would be able to interrogate the family, or if they would have to negotiate a wall of lawyers first.
"Not exactly," voiced Morgan. "They've already demanded counsel. Or, I should say, the grandson has. If I had to guess, I'd say the great-grandson is our best bet."
"Yeah, he started to get chatty on the ride in, but his father shut him up," added Emily. "I knew we should have taken them in separate vehicles."
Hotch broke into the conversation. "Reid, do you think your father might be able to identify them? Has he regained enough of his memory?"
And then some, thought Reid, remembering all the ground they'd covered today. Aloud, he replied, "I think he can probably tell us who he went to meet with, but I don't think he knows what happened after that."
"All right. Rossi, can you put together a photographic lineup and show it to William? Prentiss, you and I will handle the interrogations after our guests meet with counsel."
Hotch knew he couldn't have either Reid or JJ involved in this aspect of the case.
Three hours and a quickly downed fast food supper later, the team prepared for the interrogations. William had identified Claus Albrecht as the man he'd gone to the science building to meet with. Both grandson and great-grandson had met with their individual counselors. Now it was time for Hotch and Prentiss to see what they could get from the men.
Acknowledging Morgan's intuition about the great-grandson, they decided to get the grandson out of the way first. The others watched through a one-way mirror as the BAU agents took their seats.
"Mr. Albrecht….may we call you Karl?" began Emily.
"You may not."
She took that in without reacting. "All right, Mr. Albrecht, we have some questions for you about a meeting that took place between your father and another man."
"Was I at this presumed meeting?"
Emily recognized the feigned aristocracy from the many ambassadorial functions she'd attended with her mother. All of the watching BAU agents recognized the hostility of his tone.
"We don't know, Mr. Albrecht. That's why we're questioning you." Hotch countered with his own imperious tone. "Now, do you recall being present at the UNLV Science Building on the evening before the lab's dedication? It would have been the night of the University President's reception."
They already knew they could get independent corroboration of his attendance.
Albrecht threw a sideways look at his counsel, who issued a brief nod. "Yes, I was present."
"Were you with your father prior to the reception?" Hotch began bringing his old prosecutorial skills to the exchange.
"Not the entire time but, yes, I was."
Emily asked, "Were you with him when a man named William Reid met with him?"
"There was no one with him when I was."
She tried a different tack. "Were you aware that he was meeting with someone? Or had met with someone?" She'd hurriedly added the latter question when she thought she saw just the slightest change in the man's expression.
The attorney must have seen it too, because he tried to get Albrecht's attention. But whether it was ego, or just plain innocence, Karl Albrecht kept his gaze steady on Emily's.
"I never saw him with anyone."
The two BAU agents bumped shoes under the table, adequate communication that they'd just been told a lie. Hotch decided to try a different approach.
"Were you aware of a dispute about the patent rights for the sonic lens? You know, the discovery that earned your family a few million dollars?"
"Make that a few billion, Agent." Karl Albrecht literally couldn't keep his mouth shut, much to the consternation of his attorney.
"All right, a few billion. I should think the logarithmic increase in the family's earnings might be a potent motivator to keep the patent under your grandfather's name." Hotch pointed out the obvious.
Karl was agitated. "It was my grandfather's discovery. He holds the patent. No one else has a right to claim it!"
Emily jumped on it. "Are you saying that someone else did try to claim it? Who was that, exactly?"
But it was too late. Seeing that his client was in danger of making an unretractable statement to the FBI, Albrecht's attorney shut down the interrogation.
Wisely or unwisely, the family had decided to go with separate attorneys for each of the men. When he saw Karl's lawyer leaning toward obstructing the interview, Hotch was grateful that they'd be speaking to the great-grandson under different counsel. He and Emily waited patiently as the first pair of men were escorted from the room, and replaced by the second.
She started in much as she had with the first interview. "Mr. Albrecht…..may I call you Kristian?"
The younger man was far less formal, and far less imperious, than his father. "Of course."
"Great, thanks. Let's start with some basics. How old are you, Kristian?"
"Twenty-six."
"Twenty-six. And what do you do for a living."
"I'm a student, in my second year of medical school. I'm planning to be a surgeon, like my grandfather."
"Ah, I didn't know. He was a surgeon, then?"
"Yes, he was a urologist."
Hotch caught the implication of it. "Did he use the sonic lens in his work, then?"
Kristian smiled. "Yeah. My great-grandfather invented it, and his son put it to use."
Emily followed up with, "It was quite the invention, wasn't it? Didn't it kind of create your family fortune?"
Kristian nodded. "It's putting me through medical school."
Hotch felt it was time for the small talk to end. "Do you know why you're here, Kristian? Do you know why we're talking to you and your father?"
"Not really." It was the first time their subject had tried to mislead them, and he hadn't done it very skillfully. He'd failed eye contact, and there was a bloom of red rising from his neck to his ears.
Emily decided on a sympathetic approach. "Kristian…..I think you do know what this is about. And I think you really want to tell us." She chanced a quick glance at Albrecht's attorney, who'd twitched, just a little bit.
"Kristian?" Emily asked him again.
The young man asked for a moment to consult with counsel and was granted it. The two men whispered back and forth for a full minute before turning back to the interview table. Albrecht's attorney spoke first.
"On my advice, my client is asking for an assurance of immunity before he speaks any further."
Emily's eyes went to Hotch, who seemed deep in thought. He'd formed his own impressions of both the younger and the older Albrechts, and needed to weigh the possibilities. Having come to a conclusion, he cleared his throat.
"Only the state attorney can, ultimately, grant immunity. But I am willing to give my recommendation for it."
Kristian turned once again to his lawyer, who seemed to shrug a message of 'it's up to you'.
"All right. If you're sincere about your recommendation."
Hotch assured him, "The only thing any of us want is justice. If granting you immunity will lead to justice for our victim….then you'll have my recommendation of immunity. You have my word on that."
Kristian nodded, seemingly relieved. Apparently he'd been holding information that troubled him greatly.
"All right. Then, yes, in answer to your question, I think I know why we're here. You found that man, didn't you?"
"Man?" Emily feigned ignorance.
"The man in the desert. He was right near the visitor's station. I was sure someone would find him."
This was unexpected. They'd thought the young man simply had knowledge of what had happened, but this sounded like he might have actually participated in it.
Watching through the one-way, Reid stiffened. Kristian Albrecht had clearly had something to do with his father's nearly dying in the desert. Standing next to him, JJ rubbed his arm in support.
Inside the room, Hotch probed. "Are you saying you put the victim there?"
"I moved him there. He was too far out, and I didn't think anyone would find him."
Emily represented the confusion rising in all of them now. "I don't understand. Are you saying someone else assaulted him? Someone else left him in the desert?"
"He…..I…oh, God." Kristian's head fell into his hands. When he raised it again, there was a plea in his eyes.
"I don't suppose I can ask for immunity for someone else…..can I?"
Emily began to see where they were going. "Sorry, no."
Hotch was less sympathetic. "And your own offer will be off the table if you withhold anything from us at this point."
Kristian nodded in resignation. "All right. Just tell me….is the man all right? He didn't die, did he?"
He seemed so distressed at the thought of William's possible death that they all began to believe Albrecht had been sincere in his attempt to save William by moving him. Hotch assured him that the victim would survive.
"Oh, thank God. Thank God."
Gently, Emily reached across the table and touch Kristian's hand. "You need to tell us now."
The young man nodded. "I will. It's just…he's my father, you know?"
"William Reid is someone's father as well." Hotch was using his quiet voice. "Tell us about your father…..and William Reid."
From there, things unraveled quickly. Kristian's story implicated his father, whose resistance succumbed to further questioning. Before long, the older Albrecht was talking, now seeming to want to reduce the implications of his son's guilt.
They learned that William had, indeed, gone to see Claus Albrecht, Danny's former professor and mentor. What had started out as a simple inquiry about Daniel's discovery and Albrecht's using it for his own profit had quickly escalated to an accusation, all overheard by Karl Albrecht.
When William indicated to the professor that he had proof of Daniel's work, Claus had conceded, but said "What good will it do? It won't bring your brother back. I'm an old man, they won't waste government money on prosecuting me."
William fired back, angry. "It was my brother's discovery. I want it known that he made this contribution to the world. I don't want him remembered only for taking his own life. I want my son to know, and be proud."
Those in the corridor reacted to hearing William's words recounted, and Reid felt both JJ's and Morgan's hands on his shoulders. Inside the room, the story continued.
"It wasn't until I heard them talking that I realized the discovery had never been my grandfather's, " said Karl Albrecht. "That's when I realized that all of our family money had come from a lie. That it really didn't belong to us."
"Why didn't you just confront your grandfather?" asked Hotch.
Albrecht shook his head. "I have too much debt. Or, I would have, if the money was gone. I've got an ex-wife and a sizable settlement from that marriage. Not to mention three homes, cars, a yacht. We've lived quite a nice lifestyle on my grandfather's money."
"Except that it wasn't really his money, was it?" observed a very wry Emily Prentiss.
"But I was the only one who knew that, besides my grandfather. Well, and Mr. Reid."
Hotch provided his anticipated synopsis of the rest of the story. "So you thought you needed to preserve the family fortune by silencing the only one who could speak out about it?"
"I just…..I don't know what came over me. Before I'd even thought about it, I had a paperweight in my hand, and I came into the room….he was still with his back to me, arguing with my grandfather…..and I hit him with it."
That didn't sound quite right to Reid, who pressed the intercom to convey his message. "Ask him if he used anything else."
When asked, Albrecht admitted, "I dragged him to my car, but he started to come around a bit, so I grabbed one of the golf clubs from the trunk and hit him a few more times." Thus explaining the cylindrical-shaped injury to William's skull.
Karl Albrecht had left an unconscious William Reid in his trunk throughout the laboratory dedication ceremony and into the following day. That's when his son, Kristian, began to hear a thumping sound coming from the trunk of the car, and investigated. Kristian had been shocked when he opened the hood of the trunk, and more shocked still when he learned his father had been responsible.
He'd begged his father to let him get help, said he could pretend to know nothing about how the man had come to be in the trunk of their car. It was a rental, after all. But Karl had been adamant. The family couldn't afford to lose its fortune, and his grandfather couldn't risk losing his good name so late in life. Karl had insisted on taking William to the desert.
"They've been finding bodies in the desert for weeks now, Kristian. No one has to know."
"But, Dad, I know! And so do you!"
"My son, there is so much you don't know. Don't be such an innocent. I'll take care of this."
The senior Albrecht had driven William into the desert and left him there. Kristian had the presence of mind to follow from a distance. He knew only the general vicinity of where William had been dumped, so took an extra day to locate him, and another to move him.
"I thought he might still be saved. I prayed for it."
"Well, it looks like your prayers were answered, Kristian." Emily had lost much sympathy for the young man who'd colluded in the crime, yet she understood his dilemma.
"Not all of them."
"What do you mean?"
"Not all of my prayers were answered. Mr. Reid was saved. But my dad is lost."
It was another day before the Albrecht patriarch, located in San Francisco, was convinced to confess to his own crime. He'd been vital to the success of the Manhattan Project, yet had gone completely unrewarded for his government work. He'd felt entitled to financial compensation, and saw an opportunity when his graduate student told him of his discovery of the use of sound waves to effect small, controlled explosions. Before Daniel Reid had a chance to formally submit his thesis on the topic, Claus Albrecht invited him to go hiking in the desert, and only Albrecht emerged.
Although Claus Albrecht admitted all of this during questioning, he'd refused to acknowledge his role in Daniel's death. That changed when he was confronted with the evidence indicating the physical impossibility of Daniel having fired the shot that ended his life. After almost thirty years, Daniel Reid's name was cleared. He was a victim, not a suicide. His death would be avenged.
"Does it bring you any relief, Spencer?" Dave Rossi knew that the concept of 'closure' was actually pretty obscure for the families of most victims. But, sometimes, they expressed a sense of relief from having some of the unknown become known.
"Not me, so much. But it might help my dad. He always felt responsible for his brother."
"Well, then, I'm glad you'll be able to give him some good news."
"Yeah…right."
Rossi picked up on it. "Things are still difficult between you, I take it?"
"I don't think they'll ever be anything but, Rossi."
"There's a thing about fathers and sons, Spencer. Look at the Albrechts. Three generations of them. The young kid probably wasn't so bad, until he felt like he had to protect his dad. He couldn't even consider doing anything else, for right or for wrong."
"That's because he knew his dad all along."
"Did he?"
"You mean because he was so shocked at what his father did? Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe we never really know one another. Still, I don't get why he felt like he had to support him."
"Maybe it just took him a while to figure out what 'supporting him' really needed to look like. And that it didn't look like 'covering up'. In the end, young Albrecht gave his father to us. His great-grandfather, too."
"Because it was the right thing to do."
"Yes, because it was the right thing to do. He figured it out, Spencer. You will, too."