Data Analysis
Perkins yawns and looks at his watch for the fifth time even though the presenter is only two minutes late to the meeting. He wonders for what seems like the hundredth time how that nerd bitch can be late to her own briefing.
That thought must have lit a fire under the woman's ass, because she hurries into the room before he can check his watch again. She looks quite put together for a change. Her mousy brown/blonde hair twisted up in a polished style, subtle make-up, and neat pantsuit were at odds with her normal costume of hoody and jeans.
She looks around the room and gives everyone a faint smile while she plugs in her laptop. "Thank you for waiting. I was delayed by an update on the case I'm presenting today." The screen behind her whirrs to life, and two mugshots fill it. Before anyone can comment on the two faces pictured, which were rather old and in black and white, another picture, in color, appears on the screen. In this shot the two men look older, but less concerned. They stand on a street corner, each dressed in a suit and tie.
'Look at those smug bastards. How have we not caught them after all these years?' It galls Perkins to no end. They're standing on a street corner in broad daylight, looking like they stepped off the pages of a men's magazine. (He's works out every day, wears nothing but suits, and doesn't look half as good as those fuckers.) They should draw every eye for miles around. No less than fifteen people should have been dialing 911 at the very moment this picture was snapped. Instead, he's willing to bet they walked into the nearest police station and every cop in the pueblo handed them whatever they asked for on a silver platter.
More than ten years the Bureau had been hunting the Winchesters, and all they had to show for it are a hand full of dead agents and an ass load of dead civilians. Twice the son-of-a-bitches had been caught, thought dead, only to be resurrected again.
Two alleged serial killers had eluded capture for far too long. Perkins was just done with being made to look a fool. Rather than throw in the towel and wait until the next administration appointed someone else as director who would almost certainly reassign him, Perkins had asked Stacey Cohen to do her data analysis thing.
He didn't like the data analysis group. Give one of them a topic and three months and you'd get every bit of data about that topic, and pattern recognition if they saw it, but it was never concrete. Perkins missed the days of good old-fashioned police work – evidence, analysis, suspects, interviews, analysis, finish the case, hand it to the prosecutor.
"So, Sam and Dean Winchester. Everyone in this room knows the basics on their origins? Good, I'll just skip to the last couple of years. In 2012 the Winchester killing spree occurs. After a four-state tour the Winchesters are arrested, escape custody within the sheriff's office, are shot there, and their bodies are cremated before the FBI arrives to do its own analysis. All deputies on-duty are killed, so the only witnesses are the sheriff and the coroner. This would seem suspicious, except that the Winchesters disappear for a year and a half after that. Everyone thought they were dead for real this time. No sightings are reported of them, their distinctive vehicle, or any of their known associates, with the exception of Robert Singer who reportedly died in a hospital in (blank) of a gunshot wound to the head. An ER nurse claims that she left the body of Mr. Singer alone with his two nephews to let them grieve. When she came back two minutes later, the body and the nephews were gone."
The door to the conference room opens without a sound, but Perkins catches the movement out of the corner of his eye. It's director Kosinski, and Perkins holds back a growl with all his might.
"Was there a description of the nephews?" King asks.
"Yes, several, but I can't say for certain that it was the Winchesters. There are no photos, and every witness that saw them agreed that they were too young to be our killers."
That jackass Fargenburger raises his hand. "That's a strange thing for the staff to say, isn't it? The nephews were too young? What does that even mean?"
Perkins has to hand it to Cohen; she pulls out the report needed to answer Fargie's question within seconds. "They were both large and good-looking. One was tall and the other was really tall. I'd say early twenties, no later." She sets down the paperwork, "All the rest are like that, and I've got six more. Some give more details, some less, but one even said she thought they were teenagers."
"But then there are new sightings a year and a half later?" Perkins has no time for nitpicking. It probably WAS the Winchesters at Singer's bedside, but who cares? They stole the old man's body and probably gave him a Viking funeral. Better than an over-priced box and a bunch of relatives who don't really give a shit.
"Yes. This actually seems to be a pattern for them. I looked back in their history and two years after the death of their father they both dropped off the radar for nearly six months. Then we get a two-year period of activity, and then the older brother vanishes for just over a year."
"The older brother vanished? What was the younger one doing?"
"The same mayhem as before, but often much more brutal, and involving a huge increase in casual sexual partners for him. Dean, the older brother is by far the more violent and the more promiscuous of the two, unless the younger brother, Sam is alone, and then he puts his brother to shame." Her slide changes to, again, more recent pictures of the brothers, with a list of the charges they've accumulated and the corresponding dates. She points at the screen with her pen. "You can see here that before 2011, Sam doesn't have any formal charges involving physical violence. However, the first time we see him without his brother, he's charged with assaulting a police officer. He's suspected of shooting a bartender the following month, and there are close to a dozen other violent incidents."
"Have you found any explanation for this sudden uptick in violence besides the absence of the brother?"
"None. Both men seem to hold each other in check. In both cases where Dean is suspected of murder, he was alone if only briefly." She switches to a new slide with graphs. She has two baselines. The first is the number of Winchester sightings. The second is the number of times they've impersonated FBI agents. That number is significantly high.
"How the hell do the fu-, uh damn Winchesters manage to impersonate the FBI so many times? Does no one verify anything anymore?" Cheryl Beauchamp nearly jumps out of her chair.
Perkins isn't any more thrilled with this information either, but he keeps his cool. "It's my understanding that not only do the Winchesters usually visit small towns, but they often follow our procedures by calling local law enforcement first."
"That's exactly right, Director." Cohen switches to a new slide with another bar graph. This graph shows the number of reported impersonations of FBI agents total, the number of times those impersonations were the Winchesters, the total number of sightings of the Winchesters, and the number of times they impersonated some other type of official.
Before she can continue presenting Jayapal speaks up. "I had no idea there were so many instances of false agents in one year."
"Those numbers come from a side project I've been investigating on my own." She clicks on the total impersonations bar and a new graph appears. "While working up data for another case, I noticed that the suspect had impersonated an agent twice before he was caught. I looked into why he wasn't reported and discovered that most of these cases go unreported." She nods to Perkins, "When I was tasked to look into the Winchesters, I already knew they'd been part of this trend." She points to the graph, "Last year there were 25 cases of civilians impersonating agents. Three were FBI wannabes, four were of unknown civilians, the other 18 were most likely the Winchesters."
Dead silence greets this information. Even when he was a field agent, Perkins himself didn't get out that often. His shock almost outweighs his fury.
"Why are they doing this," Jayapal asks.
Fargenburger cuts in again. "Because they get off on it of course, it's part of their sick game." Perkins makes a mental note to have a conversation with the douchebag.
"The evidence doesn't support that theory." The next slide is a still from a police station security camera. It's the suits again. Dean is chatting with a deputy in uniform – even in a small-town sheriffs' department video feed Perkins can see that he's turned on the charm and the deputy is hooked. He looks at the other staff in the photo and notes that every one of them is turned towards the Winchesters.
Cohen continues, "Even when Sam went on his solo year there was no sexual deviance in his behavior. He had multiple sexual partners at nearly every case, but it was all consensual."
"Ok, fine, but why take this risk over and over again? They have to know that most police stations have security cameras, and even small town sheriffs will likely follow up with the us. Why are they doing this?" Beauchamp repeats.
Perkins waits. The data analysts never draw conclusions. They present the facts and let agents draw conclusions.
Stacy surprises them, and that is of course why Perkins chose her. "The Winchesters aren't serial killers, they're vigilantes."
Just as before there's a moment of stunned silence, then the room erupts.
"Oh, that's bullshit!"
"What about Baltimore and St. Louis?"
"Henricksen said they were killers, with the same information."
The sound of Dean Winchester's voice breaks through the babble. The interview from Baltimore plays on the screen.
XX
"The data indicates that while his ideas are delusional, he's not wrong about being impersonated. Baltimore detectives confirmed that detective X, who wanted Dean for the murders there, was the real murderer. Not only did he admit as much to his partner before trying to kill her, but he also left a shoeprint at the scene of Mrs. Giles' murder, is on video going into Mr. Giles' office right before his murder, and left evidence on the body of a former drug dealer found in the building on the street Dean refers to in the video. We even have hard evidence that the Winchesters were nowhere near Baltimore at the time of Mr. Giles' murder."
For the first time Director Kosinski speaks up. "Your data supports this?"
"I've looked at every single case since we started the file back in 2006. I've even looked at earlier cases when the Winchesters were teenagers, and their father was still alive. The pattern is always the same: a series of strange deaths, disappearances, or animal attacks are reported in the news. After the second or third death, the Winchesters are seen by witnesses or at least their car is seen. Often there's another death, but rarely two. They spend no more than a week in town, and then disappear. If it's murders or animal attacks, they stop. If it's disappearances, an anonymous tip leads law enforcement to the bodies, or those abducted are found."
"Every case?"
"All of them. In the cases where they don't contact law enforcement; where they are only seen by locals, they show up, ask witnesses about crimes, talk to loved ones, and are never heard from again. I have sightings of them just on the road. They hustle pool, darts, or poker. Sometimes Dean works as a mechanic, Sam fixes small appliances, plumbing and maintenance."
She changes the slid again and it shows a video of a parking lot, probably outside a bar. The Winchesters, dressed in jeans and flannel shirts instead of suits, exit the building and head for the cars. Five more men come out after them; two armed with pool cues. The Winchesters turn at the sound of the door and freeze. They look at each other and then relax, taking a single step away from each other. After less than a minute of conversation, the group of five charges them. The two with the pool cues lead, but this turns out to be a mistake. The Winchesters disarm them, knock them to the ground, and beat the next two onto their backs. The fifth one turns and runs before his friends are horizontal. The brothers go to their car. The car stops on its way out of the lot and Sam jumps out with the pool cues, which he sets by the door. He gets back in the car, and it drives away.
"Only one of those four men sustained enough of an injury to require medical attention. I have dozens of reports of physical altercations like this, no one has ever sustained a life-threatening injury."
"So what? We should back off and let them keep spreading mayhem around the country?" Fargenburger asks in disbelief.
"I'll accept the explanation for Baltimore, but what about St. Louis? The older one is on video, dead to rights." Beauchamp says.
"During the Baltimore killing spree in 2012 Dean's supposed body was exhumed from the cemetery in St. Louis. Only the skeleton remained. All soft tissue turned to dust, and it went through the standard embalming process. The DNA report officially says 'inconclusive', but it has the same anomalies found in the duplicate body at the bank job. By the way, the bank job, they didn't take anything." She changes to another slide. "Here's the real evidence."
Before she can hit play Kosinski stands up. "I've seen enough." Cohen opens her mouth to object, looks at the director's eyes, and clicks off instead of play. "I'm going to look into this further, but at this time I'm going to recommend that the murder charges be dropped. We'll keep the Winchesters on the wanted list for impersonating FBI, but I think we've spent enough blood, sweat, and tears on a case that really isn't a case."
Everyone in the room exchanges looks, including Cohen who looks shocked, and Perkins who can barely keep his rage contained. Everyone files out, nodding to the director on their way, except the two of them. While the case might be frustrating, most people know better than to argue with 'The Rock of Warsaw', as the director is known. She doesn't change her mind.
The director looks between them, then sighs and steps closer. "Go ahead, Cohen, play the tape, Perkins needs to see it."
She presses play, and another parking lot appears, this one from a motel. The two men are standing at the back of their car with the trunk open. One of them has his hand on the lid, about to close it, when some…thing lands in the parking lot beside them. Giant bat wings fold against the thing's back and now it looks like an enormous man. The video zooms in and Perkins can see that the attacker looks like a man but goes for the nearest brother, probably Dean, with hands that end in huge claws. He ducks and hits the thing with a powerful uppercut. The thing reals back, and Sam beheads it with what can only be a sword. There's a flash of light and smoke that obscures the picture for an instant, then the body drops to it's knees, then topples to the side.
Both brothers should be covered in blood, but the sword has somehow cauterized the wound. In minutes they have the body bagged and stowed in the trunk of the car. They head off into the surrounding trees on foot, each now armed with a sword. The video ends.
Perkins stares at both the analyst and the director, before falling back into his chair.
"Tell him the rest." The director says.
Cohen nods, "Three women had disappeared in this town in North Carolina. A fourth was in the hospital after being attacked at night by something she described as having 'batwings and claws'. I read all the interview notes and spoke to two of the women on the phone. All three of the missing women were virgins." She looks down at her computer screen and taps something.
Another video opens. This one shows the inside of an empty warehouse. A woman is tied to a post. When the sound comes up, she's crying and pleading with someone just off camera. An average-appearing man comes into the field of vision. He turns his head enough to grin into the camera, and, as Perkins watches, his teeth grow long and sharp, and his eyes turn yellow. He tilts his head to lock eyes with the woman and when she sees his face all the blood drains from hers in an instant. Her eyes go so wide Perkins thinks that if she leaned forward, they'd fall out onto the ground. No sound comes from her mouth, it just opens and closes a couple of times before she faints dead away.
"Jesus fucking Christ." Perkins whispers.
The man raises a furry, clawed hand and runs his fingers through her hair, slicing away big pieces that float to the floor. Lightening fast he buries the hand back in her hair, yanks her head back, and that mouth full of razors descends towards her throat. Like any good horror movie, that's when the sound of a door banging open reverberates through the room, and a voice shouts, 'Stop!'. The creature rears back, growls, and reaches for the woman's chest with his other hand. He doesn't make it. Instead, his body jerks to the left then right, as two bullets slam into his chest.
Perkins is not at all surprised when the Winchester brothers run into the scene and shoot him twice more. While Dean keeps his gun out and covers the area, Sam puts his away, unties the woman, and lifts her against his chest.
"Why do you get to rescue the damsel in distress?"
"Because you got to do the rescue last time."
"Yeah, but that was a dude."
"I offered to rock, paper-"
"That's not an offer, you always win."
"That's because you always go for scissors." That's where the video ends.
Perkins looks between the two women, then back at the images of the retreating brothers. "Did they just leave the body?"
"No." Cohen answers. "We assume they made sure Ms. Wallace was safe – she appeared at the closest emergency room where she claimed to remember nothing after she was abducted. They must have come back, bagged up the body, and cleaned up any evidence of themselves, aside from this video, from the scene. There weren't even any tire marks."
"Ms. Wallace led our team to the warehouse where we almost didn't find this camera." Director Kosinski puts in.
"We wouldn't have known to look for it except we found videos of his previous victims on his laptop." Cohen shakes her head. "I still have no idea how the Winchesters found that warehouse. The bureau should hire them."
"We have, in a manner of speaking."
Perkins flips his gaze to the director. "We have!?"
She nods, gesturing to the screen. "This video is from two years after they were supposedly killed during the 2011 killing spree." She stands and paces. "The public thinks that's when the Winchesters died for the final time. We let them believe that. What we didn't make public was the disappearance of the sheriff, his daughter the coroner, and the two FBI agents assigned to case." Kosinski pins Perkins in place with her gaze. "There were hundreds of disappearances that year of people who would never have just vanished."
"Yeah, I worked a couple of those cases…that was a weird year." Perkins doesn't like remembering how he felt sort of drugged for an entire month that year.
"It was weird for almost everyone." Cohen says. "Because of the big mouths." She goes to her computer and cues up another video. She looks up at the director who nods before she hits play.
If Perkins thought reality had taken a hard left onto Elm Street in the first two videos, it now jumps on board a roller coaster in the mind of Stephen King. The screen shows a slight-built man stopping two women in what looks like an airport parking garage. He points off to the side, and when the younger one looks where he points, his entire head turns into a mouth full of sharp teeth and bites the older woman's head off in one snap of shiny teeth. The other woman barely has time to open her mouth in horror before he devours most of her neck and right shoulder. In less than five minutes there's nothing left but a few drops of blood on the side of a car.
"That's, but that's not, how-"
"Hold on, it's not over."
Suddenly the slight man sort of…liquifies…and then becomes solid again in the form of the older woman. She-he-it shakes all over, liquifies again, and becomes the man again.
"What the actual fuck?" Perkins whispers. His mind suddenly makes the connection. "The killing spree. It was these…creatures impersonating the Winchesters?"
"Yep." Cohen pops the P. "We think they must have stopped some kind of monster take over."
"Our forensics team found both Winchesters' prints at Sucracorp after their offices were destroyed. There was evidence of both these big mouth creatures, and targeted mind-altering chemicals." The director gestures to the screen. "Afterwards the disappearances stopped." She puts one hand on the table to make sure she has Perkins' full attention. "When all the data and forensics were put together, I made the decision to close the case, and to halt any further investigations into the Winchesters."
"But-"
"If anyone brings them up or starts building a new case, I'm alerted and put a stop to it. When necessary, I read the agent in and make them aware of what's really going on."
"And if they impersonate us again?"
"As of two weeks ago when you got Cohen actively involved, she takes those reports, reassures local law enforcement that we are 'aware and have started our own investigation', and adds it to the list." The director smiles for the first time. "You two have actually done me a favor. It takes way too much of my time to run interference for these guys." She stands up. "Congratulations Perkins, you're now the agent assigned to work with Cohen on my new classified creature investigation unit. I'll be sending you over your new clearances and Cohen will get you up to date on all our information."
When the door closes behind her Perkins turns to Cohen. "Is this real?"
Cohen nods, "Oh yeah, everything is – well not Bigfoot, that's a hoax, probably."