Chapter Five
Morgan and Prentiss liked to play games with each other. They would tease one another good-naturedly and find silly things to bet on to lighten the mood on rough cases. They had an easy banter, and each could give as good as he or she got. As they walked through the empty rooms of the Woods' home, however, they were virtually silent, uttering observations only out of habit; saying only the bare minimum of what needed to be said.
Neither could bring him or herself to comment on how, in the living room – with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, stocked with science fiction, collected histories, and a smattering of random novels and mysteries – they were reminded of Reid. Neither would acknowledge aloud that with each family photo, framed on a wall or sat upon a shelf, they saw pieces of Reid in Bill and in Charlie. Neither would admit that they weren't sure whether or not they believed Reid when he said his father had never touched him.
It was strange how knowledge of the existence of a secret changed perspective. Usually, they knew the secret, just not to whom it belonged. Sometimes, the question was whether or not there was a secret to be found. This time they knew there was a secret and they knew who it belonged to, they just didn't know what it was. And thus far, they weren't having much success in finding out.
"They're big readers," Prentiss said, noting not only the bookshelves, but also the library books and subscription magazines that littered the coffee table and sofa.
"Leather sofas, TV's not too big, a couple of quality prints on the wall: things are nice but not flashy," observed Morgan.
"Terrible taste in music," Prentiss said, scanning the CD collection.
There was a chess game in progress on the counter next to a fruit bowl in the kitchen. There was a clutter of files and half-written grants on the desk in Kathy's home office. There was a row of perfectly nice grey business suits in Bill's closest. There were well-tended houseplants. There was a friendly dog. Everything in the house practically screamed: nice, normal family.
As they walked into Charlie's room they were greeted first by a pile of books on the floor. "He takes after his brother," Prentiss said despite herself; it was the first time since they left the conference room that either had mentioned Reid.
"Not entirely," said Morgan, eyeing a chest of drawers topped with Little League memorabilia, a couple of trophies providing the centerpiece, and a well-loved baseball glove and bat leaning against its side.
Prentiss smiled, "Okay," she said, "What do we see?" She gazed around at the unmade bed, the neatly arranged dolls and toys, a map of the solar system on the wall, pajamas on the floor, an open sock drawer that looked as if Charlie had rifled through it in search of a matching pair.
A well-worn teddy bear sat on top of a small box of toys across the room from the bed and Prentiss picked it up, "Trophies in baseball, good grades, no problems at school, no problems making friends, doesn't sleep with this any more," she held the bear up to Morgan, "Nothing here points to abuse. This is the room of a confident, well-adjusted little boy."
Morgan was just about to agree when his phone rang.
CMCMCM
"We might have a witness," said Morgan.
Reid stretched and tried to shake the strange unease he felt. Had he been dreaming?
It was pushing eleven when Hotch insisted that Rossi and Reid get some rest. They'd been at the airport at four thirty that morning, D.C. time, to fly to San Francisco, which meant they'd both likely been awake for at least twenty-four hours. Hotch suspected that for Reid it was even longer. Until Charles Woods was found, the team would catnap in shifts: Hotch had to balance his need for his team, and his team's need for rest. Agents who couldn't think straight because of exhaustion were no good to him.
Reid had doubted he could sleep. He had also doubted he could eat, but when the Chinese delivery finally arrived for the famished agents and officers he had downed three orders of lo mein and half the egg rolls before realizing it. All the salt and sugar and grease must have done him in, because it was barely a minute after he had folded himself onto the small sofa in Chief Herrera's office before he was out. Rossi had ended up on a roll-out mat in the interview room with the busted microphone, and despite the tension in the atmosphere of the station, wearied LVPD officers and FBI agents couldn't help but chuckle when they walked through the hallway and heard Rossi's soft snores broadcast from the other side of the two-way mirror.
"How long was I asleep?" Reid asked Morgan.
"About twenty-five minutes," Morgan replied. "How you doin', kid?"
"I'm fine," Reid lied. He waited to see if Morgan would press the issue, but he didn't. Usually Morgan was on top of Reid like an overprotective older brother the moment he sensed the slightest distress, but Reid suspected that right now Morgan was having a hard enough time dealing with the situation himself. He was horribly ashamed at the relief he felt.
He sat up and rubbed the grit from his eyes. The room was shadowed – dimly lit only by the light coming through from the hallway – but it was enough to irritate him. He didn't want to deal with this. Any of it. He felt totally on edge. Like his skin was too tight and his brain was ready to burst from his skull. He wanted dilaudid. "You said there's a witness?" he asked.
"Potential," Morgan corrected. "The uniforms canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses spoke to a woman who reported seeing a man fitting the UnSub's description hanging around the park a lot over the past few weeks, always watching the kids. She said the way he looked at her sons made her uncomfortable," Morgan was speaking just slightly slower than usual, Reid observed, being wary and precise, and now he was hesitating as if choosing his next words very carefully. This isn't going to be good, Reid thought. "She didn't see him with Charlie," continued Morgan, "And she never got up close to him, but she gave a fairly thorough description…" Morgan sighed, Reid waited expectantly. "She identified a photo of your father, Reid. She wasn't certain, but said she thought it was him."
Reid didn't feel anything.
He wanted dilaudid.
Just before he and Rossi were ordered to take some rest, Reid had filled in the team on his progress.
"There are one thousand, seven hundred, and sixty-four registered sex offenders in the Las Vegas Metropolitan area," he'd begun, "Of which, two-thirds committed crimes against minors under the age of eighteen, twenty-six percent of those crimes were against victims between the ages of nine and twelve, and eighteen percent of those victims were male. Of those fifty-four, nineteen committed offenses against victims of Charles Woods' physical type, twelve of whom are currently serving time, three are dead, and the remaining four have no connection to the family that Garcia or I could find."
Hotch nodded soberly. It was a long shot: it was estimated that only about thirty percent of sexual assaults against children were reported.
"I then looked at open cases involving a similar victimology," Reid continued, "And I had Garcia expand the search to all missing children, open murder investigations, and open sexual assault cases in the greater metropolitan area, extending to Arizona, for the past sixteen years." The entire team caught the slight crack in Reid's voice as he spoke the last sentence: the significance of the sixteen year time-frame was not lost on any of them, though none had the will to acknowledge that fact out loud.
"There are three cases that are possibly connected," Reid continued, trying to distance himself from what he was about to say. "The similarities in victimology extend not only to age, gender, and ethnicity, but socio-economic status, personality traits, and hobbies: three boys, all between the ages of eight and ten, light brown hair, small for their ages, glasses, avid readers, regulars at their local libraries, in Little League. One was known for playing chess tournaments in the park, just like Charlie." And just like me, he thought. His hands shook a little, so he hid them in his pockets. "Garcia's sent the cases to your tablets: Theo Talbot, age ten, reported missing fifteen years ago while walking home from school through a park in the suburbs of Prescott, Arizona, never found." The smiling, bespectacled face of the boy appeared on a half dozen tablets, framed in shaggy brown hair. "Jeremy Todd, age eight, abducted from the same park nine years ago," Jeremy's freckled face now lit up their screens, with a familiar oversized grin, oversized glasses, and big brown eyes that gazed up at them innocently, only to be demolished in the next photo: "His body was found three days later. He'd been dead for approximately thirty-six hours. Sexually assaulted, stabbed, and bludgeoned." The devastating image of the boy's lifeless body illustrated Reid's monologue.
"His face is completely bashed in," said Prentiss.
"The beating was done post-mortem," said Reid, "Without the use of a weapon… " He took a moment to let everything sink in. Even with all they'd seen, the picture of the mutilated body of such a young child was difficult to handle. He took a breath and continued, "Finally, David Cook, age eight, abducted from his neighborhood just outside Flagstaff." Another smiling boy, loose brown curls, glasses, gap-toothed grin, gazed up at them. "His body was discovered four days later, also sexually assaulted, stabbed, and beaten post-mortem. He had been dead only twenty hours when he was found."
"He beat them until they were unrecognizable; that's serious overkill," said Morgan with disgust.
"It's an awful lot of rage to be taking out on a child," said Rossi.
"He feels extremely ashamed of the sexual assaults," said Prentiss, "It's not enough to just kill them after, he has to destroy them."
"What made you think to expand the search to Arizona?" Hotch had asked.
Reid had tried to swallow before he answered, but his throat had been too dry. "A few months before my dad left," he began, "His father… my grandfather, passed away. My dad grew up outside Prescott. I went with him and my uncle to visit my grandfather's property when they took care of his funeral and estate. They still own the property, and he visits it regularly for upkeep."
Now, for the second time that day, Reid stood with his nose almost pressed to the glass of an interrogation room. He thought about the conversation he'd had with his team barely an hour before, as he watched his father through the one-way mirror. Could his dad really have done those things? Molested those little boys and beaten them so brutally? Left their broken bodies almost unrecognizable? Hotch and Morgan sat across from his father, and he seemed fragile compared to the two sturdy, solemn agents: he was pale and sweaty, with deep purple rings around his eyes, and his tall, thin frame was shaking slightly. He looked as if a tap on the shoulder from Morgan would knock him over. But then, you didn't need much physical strength to subdue a skinny eight year old boy.
Reid didn't know what to think about him anymore. He'd been battered by wave after wave of emotion since they got word they were heading to Vegas, each crashing wave punctuated by a detached numbness that seemed to only further drain him. He set his coffee on a shelf nearby, unable to stomach the bittersweet liquid, and gazed back through the glass. At his side Rossi stood, quietly sipping his own coffee in an attempt to reenergize himself after his all too brief nap.
Reid tried to ignore the older man's presence. He knew Rossi was still watching him, catching every detail of his behavior. He also knew it was out of genuine care and concern for his wellbeing. Nevertheless, it was pissing him off.
"I didn't hurt Charlie," said Reid's father. His voice was quiet, and it cracked when he spoke. He sounded on the verge of tears.
"We're done with the secrets, Mr. Woods," said Hotch. "Just tell us the truth, and maybe we can help you."
"I am telling the truth, I don't know where he is, and every second you're in here talking to me is another second he is with the bastard who took him!" The anger was starting to creep into his voice again, and Reid noticed in a detached sort of way that his father's voice was rising, both in volume and in pitch, just like his own voice did when he was angry. He scratched at his inner arm, realized he was scratching his inner arm, realized Rossi wouldn't have failed to notice him scratching his inner arm, and became even more pissed off.
"We have a witness, man!" Morgan said, pushing himself aggressively into Bill's face. "She's seen you at the park, watching the little boys. You made her so uncomfortable she stopped taking her sons there!"
"What? No!" Said Bill, anger seemingly replaced by shock. "I swear, I haven't been to that park in ages. Not since Charlie's Little League moved venues!" He seemed to grow even paler, his bloodshot eyes were wide and unblinking.
"I know you didn't want to hurt him," said Hotch calmly, "You're a good man. You would never hurt a child if you could help it, especially not your own son." A beat of silence, then, "It's why you left Spencer, isn't it?" God, it sounded weird when Hotch said his first name, Reid thought. "Spencer was getting older," Hotch continued, "Getting nearer and nearer the age that you just can't resist."
"No…no…" Bill said, shaking his head, he was losing it. They were breaking him.
"You knew you couldn't resist the urges. So you left, isn't that right?"
Reid's father continued to sit in wide-eyed silence. Rossi put down his coffee, and his eyes darted back and forth between the interrogation and his fellow observer. Reid stood frozen, unable to tear his attention from the scene on the other side of the glass.
"Or did you leave because you didn't resist?" Hotch pressed.
"You gave in to the urge," Morgan said, "And you couldn't handle the shame of what you'd done, so you left. Is that it?"
"I don't…I never…did he tell you that? Did he tell you I abused him?" said Bill. "Spencer?" He looked in disbelief at the mirror, to where Reid stood on the other side, unseen, staring back through the glass and into his father's eyes. "Is that what you told them?"
Morgan slammed both his fists into the table, causing Bill to start back in surprise, and Reid knew that the anger wasn't just an act. "He didn't have to tell us!" he practically yelled in Bill's face. "You've got no alibi, man. You leave work early, you go out on evenings without telling your own wife what you're up to. You have no alibi for the time of Charlie's abduction! What did you do to him? He's your own kid, man! What did you do?!"
"Nothing! I didn't do anything to him, to either of them!" he said. "I didn't hurt my sons!"
"You have no alibi!"
"I do!" he was desperate now: the shaking wracked his entire frame, "I do. I just can't…I can't…"
"You can't what? If you have an alibi then just tell us where you were!"
"Enough with the secrets, Mr. Woods," said Hotch, "It's time to tell the truth."
"I was at my support group!" Bill yelled. Then he slouched in his chair, defeated, frozen but for the continued shaking of his hands. His eyes were downcast. "Drug and Alcohol Abusers Anonymous. Please...no one knows. Kathy doesn't know. My sponsor and a dozen others can confirm that I was there." He reached into his pocket and without looking up he retrieved something and placed it on the table. "I've been struggling, but I earned it today." He lifted his hand to reveal a small coin, "My Ten Year Medallion."
Reid reached into his pocket and clutched his One Year Medallion, and as he rubbed his thumb against it's engraved surface, he realized his own hand was shaking.
Like father, like son, he thought.