"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."
-Stephen King.
On the BAU jet, the team was busy looking at the folders that described the victims, hoping to find some kind of connection, but couldn't find anything.
"These seem to be just random killings," said Hotch.
"But why dump them in such random places?" asked Morgan. "One body's found in a hospital and one behind a talk show. What's the connection?"
As they were thinking, Rossi noticed a small black box sitting on Reid's lap.
"What you got there, Reid?" he asked.
"A little something from home," said Reid, patting the box. "I have a hunch about what our UnSub's murders are based on."
But before Reid could explain even more, Garcia appeared on the computer screen on the table.
"I hate to be the bearer of even more worse news but three new bodies have just been found. Each with the same trademark 'grins.'"
Three photos appeared on screen, each of three older, gruff looking males. One had a baldhead and goatee, another had a black mullet and the last one had a lip and eyebrow ring and buzz cut.
"Duncan Lang, Paul Rose and Steven Down were all found dead inside an old abandoned theatre."
Another photo appeared on the screen, this time of the three dead bodies of the men, which were lying on the ground that was covered with piles of money. Three more photos appeared and showed the faces of the victims, and as Garcia had mentioned, they had large cuts on the sides of their lips.
"What's with all the money?" asked JJ.
"That's what the police still can't figure out," said Garcia. "And that's not all. I did some digging into the other victims to find a connection and found some disturbing things."
"What is it, Garcia?" asked Hotch.
"It turns out these two victims had a few bad run-ins with the law. And we're not talking about something like petty theft or tax fraud we are talking major crimes. In 2002, Thomas Thurston was arrested for "touching "a few of his patients. But he had a good lawyer and was set free three months later. As for Karen Oliver, she was a foster parent for a while but then was accused of abusing her children in 2005. She even threw one kid down a huge flight of stairs, breaking his arm. Luckily, Miss. Oliver was found out and had her children taken away from her, but she didn't serve any jail time. I don't have any news about our three theatre victims, but I'll keep you posted."
"Thanks, baby girl," said Morgan before the screen went black.
"Judging by the victim's backgrounds, you think maybe our UnSub may be a vigilante?" asked JJ. "He might be killing these people as punishment for their past sins."
"We'll look into that as soon as we land," said Hotch. "JJ, you and Morgan investigate the theatre. Reid, you and Rossi are with me. We'll be interviewing the victim's families."
Location: LAPD Headquarters.
Hotch, Reid and Rossi were greeted by Police Chief Mills, who brought them to the waiting room, where three people were sitting down, One of them was a middle -aged woman with short blonde curly hair, another was a young male with short black hair and the last one was a middle -aged man with a bald head and glasses.
"The bald man is Karen Oliver's husband, Greg, " said Mills. "The young man is Chad Down, Steven Down's younger brother. And the woman is Thomas Thurston's wife, Emily."
Each member of the team took one person into a separate room to be interviewed in. In one room, Reid talked to Chad Down.
"Are you sure it was Steven?" he asked.
"I'm afraid so," said Reid. "His body was found alongside a Duncan Lang and Paul Rose."
"I knew those two would lead him into trouble," Chad said under his breath.
"I'm sorry?"
Chad took a deep breath before talking again.
"Steven had been friends with Duncan and Paul since his last year of high school. But those two were bad eggs and they soon started to rub off onto Steven. They were the ones who convinced him to get a buzz cut and get those ugly piercings. I've actually lost count of how many times my parents had to bail Steven out of jail. I actually use to look up to him. When I was a little kid, Steven was my hero. But then he started hanging out with those two punks and I didn't even recognize him."
Reid thanked Chad for his time before leaving the room. He then took out his cellphone and made a call to Garcia.
"Give me some info, sugar," she said.
"Hey Garcia," said Reid. "I need you to look up our theatre victims and see if they have any records."
"Way ahead of you," said Garcia. "Turns out our three vics spend numerous times in prison for a number of robberies. There was even one incident where they robbed a liquor store and shot and killed one customer."
Reid thanked Garcia for that info and hung up.
In another room, Hotch was talking to Greg Oliver.
"Mr. Oliver, I'm sorry about your wife," he said.
"Ex-wife," said Greg. "We divorced years ago."
Hotch then remembered the information Garcia gave the team about Karen on the plane.
"Mr. Oliver. Was Karen a foster parent?" he asked.
"Yes. But a terrible one," said Greg. "Sorry to sound so harsh, but Karen never cared for those kids. She was only in it for the money. She treated those poor kids like crap. She would beat them, talk down on them, and make them feel like that they were worthless. I remember one time this one girl we were taking care of talked back to Karen and she pointed a knife at her and threated to slice her tongue off if she did it again. Well, I couldn't take it anymore so I filed for divorce and went to the police about the abuse. I was a witness at her trial and was shocked that all she got was community service."
Greg then stopped himself when he saw Hotch looking at him with suspicious eyes.
"I know what it sounds like," he said. "I may have hated Karen for what she did, but I would never kill her. Besides, I was out of town when she was murdered. I was golfing."
He then took out a pen and paper and wrote something down before handing it to Hotch.
"That's the phone number of my caddy. He'll vouch for me."
Hotch then placed the paper in his pocket before leaving the room.
Back in the waiting room, Rossi was talking to Emily Thurston, who was dabbing her teary eyes with a tissue.
"I just can't believe someone would want to hurt Tom," she said. "He was such a kind man."
Rossi soon remembered what Garcia told him about Thomas and felt a bit uneasy about what he was about to say.
"Miss. Thurston, we have reason to believe that your husband may have molested some of his patients."
Emily was silent for a while when she heard that. She then took a deep breath before talking again.
"I knew that would come back to haunt me. Yes it's true. But that was years ago. Tom felt absolutely terrible for what he had done. After the trial, he swore that he would never touch another child again, and he kept that promise for a very long time."
Rossi soon left the room and met up with Reid, who told him about the info he received about the theatre victims. Hotch soon joined them after getting off the phone. He had talked with Greg's caddy, who told him that Greg's alibi checked out. He was golfing around the time of Karen's murder.
"So we got a pedophile, a child abuser and a group of thugs," said Rossi. "I'm starting to believe JJ's vigilante theory."
Location: Abandoned theatre
JJ and Morgan entered the theatre. The first thing they noticed was a large chain dangling from one of the front doors, indicating that the UnSub had used the chain to lock up the doors so the victims couldn't escape. The theatre was filled with a few broken chairs and the floor was covered with hundreds of dollar bills.
"You think maybe they robbed a bank and this was their hideout," said JJ.
Morgan picked up one of the bills. It looked a regular dollar bill, until he flipped it over and saw that the other side was completely blank.
"They wouldn't be spending anything with this money," he said. "Our UnSub probably used this fake money as bait for our crooks so he could lure them in here and kill them."
Morgan then noticed a big black plastic tube sticking out of one of the air vents. He and JJ followed the tube to a back ally just outside the theatre where they found the end of the tube attached to a large gas tank. Morgan lifted up the tank and saw the words "Sulphur Mustard" stamped on it.
"This is mustard gas," said Morgan. "The Unsub filled the entire theatre with this stuff and left his victims to die."
The two went back inside the theatre to look for more clues. They then saw a small television on top of the stage. Morgan turned it on and on the screen was the image of a hooded man. The hood covered his eyes and nose. The only thing visible was the man's mouth, which was smeared with red lipstick. A big smile appeared on the man's face before he started talking.
"And now comes the part, where I leave you, the little people, of the burden of your pitiful and useless lives. But as my plastic surgeon always said; if you gotta go, go with a smile."
He then let lose with an insane laugh. The video the skipped forward to when he said, "If you gotta go, go with a smile," and repeated it before doing it over and over again.
"He wanted his victims to see this," said Morgan. "Wanted it to be the last thing they saw before they died."
"What kind of sicko are we dealing with here?" asked JJ and she imagined the three victims gasping for air as the room filled up with gas and they last thing they saw was a madman laughing at them.
Location: LA Roll, the following morning.
A middle-aged man unlocks the front door to the roller derby to start a new day. As he enters, the whole room is completely dark. In the darkness, the man can hear a strange muffling sound.
"Hello? Is someone there?"
He quickly turned on the lights and was shocked to see a young woman in the middle of the roller rink, sitting on a chair with her hands tied behind her back, and a white cloth wrapped around her mouth.
The man quickly ran to the woman and removed the gag to reveal two large cuts on the sides of her lips.
"Help me, please," she said with tears in her eyes.
"It's okay, I'll get you out," said the man.
He then went behind the woman to untie her hands when he stopped dead in his tracks at what he saw. The ring finger on the woman's left hand had been removed, leaving nothing but a bloody stump.