Driven to immediate action by the new victim in the case, both Samantha and Rossi took one of the rental SUV's that were waiting past the airport terminal. Someone must have called ahead of them, since the moment Rossi flashed his FBI badge, they were brought straight to the vehicle they'd be taking. Convenient.
There wasn't any time to dwell on the luxury this job afforded her, however. The unsub's short timetable meant that every second wasted was that much closer to another murder. The rest of the team headed off for the station, leaving the two of them on their own. He drove, of course, having seniority. Sam was fine with that. Knowing her luck, she'd miss a turn or two and delay their arrival.
The road rumbled under the vehicle's tires, the air conditioning on medium since the afternoon sun was out in full strength.
They made it all of two minutes before the questions began.
"So, Agent Auer...you're fresh out of college and straight into the likes of the FBI." Rossi started nonchalantly, but with a clear tone that meant he was implying something. "Not many can say that."
"You can call me Sam, since I'm not an agent just yet." She reminded him gently. She could have guessed that once there was no one else around, the older agent would strike up a conversation. Rossi seemed like the type that enjoyed the sort of social interrogation this was likely to turn into. At her response, he gave a shrug.
"Perhaps not yet, but you're qualified to be here, which should say enough. They normally don't accept fresh graduates into a unit like ours."
Sam didn't recall telling him anything about her before, so she shot him a curious glance. "Let me guess. Agent Hotchner showed you my file?"
"Something like that." His eyes were fixed on the road as he navigated them through a busy intersection in a left turn. The brunette had never been to Colorado, but even knowing nothing about it, she hadn't anticipated so much traffic.
"I honestly wasn't expecting to be accepted, but I figured it was worth a shot to request it. You just so happened to be hiring. Luck had a lot to do with it."
Rossi hummed, slowing the car to a stop at a traffic light. "Psychology majors usually come out one of two ways; self-made Einsteins teeming with superiority complexes, or those humbled by their craft. Someone who understands that just because they can infer what makes a person tick, doesn't mean they know everything. Glad to see that you're the latter."
She gave a huffed laugh. "I thought profiling team members was discouraged? Pretty sure the employee handbook mentioned something about it."
"Eh...force of habit. When you've been in the business as long as I have, you forget to turn it off." He said with a humored smile. "Profilers are a nosy bunch by nature, but I think you've learned that by now."
"Yeah, kind of hard to miss the staring." Sam said with mirth. "I don't mind it, though. I'm just a stranger right now, what with the case coming in so soon."
"Not the most orthodox of first days at work, I suppose. Leaves little time to adjust and really get to know the team before having to work with them. But maybe that's not so bad an introduction either."
"I guess not."
There was a beat of silence, before he sprung back into conversation, shaking his head a little, as if whatever he was thinking had him confused.
"Don't take this the wrong way, Sam, but...why are you here? You could've chosen any place you wanted to use your education. A clinical psychologist, maybe a high-level social worker..." He gestured over to her. "You're young, ready to get your name out in the world...Why pick a career where you see the worst humanity has to offer?"
Sam paused. She'd never been a big fan of pouring her heart out to strangers, or even coworkers for that matter. Even if Rossi could pass as a concerned grandfather all day long, she wouldn't be swayed by his enticing question.
"Well..." She gave a little sigh. "I guess I'm just a little unorthodox myself."
He flashed her an amused grin. Part of her wondered if he saw through her attempt at deflection, but didn't dwell on it long as he directed his gaze back to the road. The car began to slow as they approached their destination.
This part of town was clearly home to those closer to the poverty line. Streets looked unkempt, house faces aging with chipping paint and broken wood steps leading up to the doors. A few curious people were out on their porches, watching with interest at whatever might be going on.
The coroner's marked van and several police cars were already on scene, blocking the entrance and a visual to an alleyway in between two aging apartment buildings. Yellow tape marked the perimeter, keeping any nosy passersby and curious reporters away from the evidence. Uniformed men and women lingered around, taking note of everything they saw.
"Let's see what the unsub has in store for us." Rossi said without excitement, shifting the car into park and taking out the keys. The light conversation had passed. Time to go to work. Sam exited from her passenger side door, waiting for her older partner to round the vehicle before crossing the crime scene tape.
This place certainly fit the description of a 'dump site.' The dumpster was overflowing with trash, a few of the black bags having been discarded on the ground right beside it. One must have torn open, because there was loose garbage strewn about the ground. Old coffee cups, crumpled up tv dinner boxes, soda cans, and so on.
Among the filth was the body of their latest victim. It was gruesome, the young blonde's face marked with the same slashes present on the previous bodies, her torso littered with red stab wounds. Her jogging clothes were stained a deep crimson from blood, already beginning to dry into the ugly brown stains she had been used to seeing in crime scene photos.
Her chest tightened with an unexpected wave of...grief upon seeing the young woman this way. Not much younger than Sam herself. She'd had so much of her life yet to live, and because some twisted human being got his rocks off by snuffing out other people, she'd never get to see what the years had in store for her.
Seeing it first hand was so much more impactful than looking at the pictures in college. There was no distancing yourself from the reality. It was right there, right in front of her, and it was her responsibly to make sure that this young woman didn't die for nothing, and that there'd be no more after her. No pressure or anything.
It took a considerable amount of effort for her to reign in the onset of strong emotions, but she was here for a job. Damn her if she wouldn't do it the best she could.
The coroner-a stout, bald man with a thick gray mustache-was crouched beside the body to inspect it closer, but stood upon seeing the two smartly-dressed agents approaching. "You're the FBI?"
"Indeed we are." Rossi answered with charm, leading him and his younger compatriot closer to have a look after displaying his badge. "Anything you can tell us about her?"
He gave a sigh. "Not much. The only reason we know who she is this soon is thanks to the driver's license in her wallet. Name's Hailee Gordon, 25 years old, lives about 6 blocks from here." He explained, gesturing down at the body.
"As far as I can tell, cause of death was blood loss from the stab wounds, but after a full autopsy we'll know for certain. Slashes on the face were also post-mortem, just like the others. We're still waiting on a lab analysis of her blood sample to come back for a toxicology screen, but if it's the same guy you're looking for, it should come back clean."
Rossi's head tilted, one eye nearly squinting closed. "No trace of drugs at all in their systems?"
"None that I could find." Was the response.
He continued asking the coroner questions, but Sam took a look at the surroundings. The alley was narrow, room enough for only one car to enter at a time. She peered to the far end, where it met up with the street behind the dilapidated apartments, and noticed a 'one way entry' sign spray painted into the pavement. Past that was the back of a empty lot, full of dirt and rocks and debris, either from the dumpster itself or people littering.
Looking back at the side of the alley that they'd come in through, she peered at the buildings across the way. More housing for the less fortunate, fading paint and chipped stone accenting most homes, but sadly without any cameras in sight. So much for pulling surveillance records from neighboring buildings.
"See anything?" Rossi asked suddenly, finished speaking with the coroner and coming to stand beside her.
"No, and that's what bugs me." She pointed to both sides of the alley. "No security cameras cover this alley from either end. It's a visual dead zone. The residents probably can't afford the cost to install any. Unless someone passed by this spot at just the right moment, no one would see him dump the body."
"You think the unsub was counting on that?" It was just the sort of leading question her professors would ask her in college.
"I can't be sure but...maybe. It just seems too convenient that he chooses this spot to get rid of the body." She gestured to the dumpster again to emphasize her point, unwilling to put too much stock in what she thought was such a small insight. But Rossi nodded as if she'd just shown him concrete evidence that her hunch was correct.
"That would mean the unsub knows the area well. Probably a local. What's more, he's bold enough to dump his victims in broad daylight." The older man's eyes raised to the sky. "Somehow he's able to dispose of his victims without tipping off anyone who may have been nearby to witness it."
"Or he just doesn't care who sees? Comes across as a bit arrogant if you ask me."
"I doubt that." He shot back. "I don't think it's arrogance. He's gone this long without getting caught. Even if he is getting comfortable, he knows not to push it too far and get sloppy. There's a carefulness about it all."
"He must have a vehicle that doesn't stand out, then." She surmised thoughtfully, feeling like they were on the right track. His confidence in her deductions was encouraging. It was something she enjoyed so far that college hadn't offered, a back and forth discussion of theorizing the truth. "We should interview neighbors just in case, see if they noticed anything unusual."
"Looks like the precinct has already got that covered." Rossi nodded towards the end of the alley, and she turned to see officers talking to several people at their doors along the opposite street. The police were nothing if not quick. He turned back to where the coroner was working. "Take a look at the body and tell me what you think."
"You're testing me already?" She asked with a small smile, and he returned it, a fraction of the humor he'd shown in the car returning.
"Fresh eyes are a welcome perspective, Samantha. Let's see what you bring to the table."
Fair enough. Turning her attention back to the victim, Sam moved closer and crouched beside the body, careful not to get her pants too dirty. She tried her damndest not to curl her nose up at the smell. The mixture of trash and decomposition was nauseating. She was expected to stomach this sort of thing without a problem. Sam wasn't squeamish, but pictures on a case file and the in-person thing were truly no comparison.
She took a moment to really look, pushing the sad thoughts to the back of her mind for now.
"...He's switched back to his original victim type; young, blonde, pretty." Sam mentioned. "Zander may not have been his intended victim, after alll. Maybe he was simply in the way?"
It was hard not to phrase her thoughts as a question. Old habits died hard, she supposed. All that classwork was showing through.
"That's looking more like the case." Rossi neutrally agreed, careful not to interject too much and throw off her train of thought.
The poor woman's face was a mess, paling blue skin littered with cuts. Her hair was matted with blood, coloring the blonde locks a sticky red shade. Her eyes were half open, staring upwards with a thousand yard stare. The brunette couldn't help but wonder the last thing she saw before dying. Morbid, surely, but it was a hard thought to shake.
"No ligature marks, and the coroner said they usually don't have drugs in their systems..." She muttered thoughtfully. "Either he's charming enough to lure them where he needs them to go, or he doesn't give them a chance to put up a fight.
"And she wasn't killed here. There's blood on her, but nowhere nearby. This was just the dump site." Sam felt like that was already a known fact, but felt better by saying it out loud, like they were putting the pieces together as they spoke.
"Are there any signs of trauma on the body, other than the stab wounds?" Rossi asked aloud, catching the coroner's attention again.
"Some bruising on the arms and legs; classic defensive wounds. She put up some sort of fight before she died. And there is a blow to the back of the head, right here." He reached down and gently tilted the woman's head to the side, revealing the back of her skull. With her hair in the way, they couldn't see much, but he indicated a circular area behind her ear. "The damage wasn't severe enough to kill her, but would most likely have rendered her unconscious. Probably caused by a blunt instrument."
Sam looked up at Rossi. "Blitz attack?"
"That's what I'm thinking. He takes them by surprise and by force."
With a nod from her companion, she kept looking, hoping for something that was possibly left behind that the unsub didn't know about. Some DNA evidence, some mistake that might lead them to him and save anyone else from being killed. The brunette pulled from her knowledge, everything she could possibly think of that they covered in her classes. Surely something had to stand out.
Further down her neck, along her collarbone, something made Sam frown. She peered closer, but the edge of Hailee's top covered whatever it was.
"Can you...lift up the edge of her tank top? Right there." She pointed, garnering the coroner's attention. He did so carefully with his gloved hand, revealing the mark completely without tampering too much.
The word 'bitch' was inked into the woman's skin, the skin still raw and fresh. Patches of the ink were lifting and blotching on the surface. There wasn't any particular style or art to the piece, which was why it stood out so much to her.
"Is that a tattoo?" Sam could feel Rossi hover behind her, peering down to take a look for himself.
"Yeah. But this doesn't seem like something she'd willingly have done."
"All of them had some derogatory word etched into their skin. The words varied, but they were all similarly insulting." The coroner provided helpfully, leaving the two agents silent for a moment.
"The unsub is tattooing them..." Sam pondered, unsure what exactly that meant, before finally glancing upwards at her partner in confusion. "That wasn't in the files we received."
"You're right. It wasn't." Rossi appeared somewhat irritated, frowning down at the victim in thought. She watched expectantly He must have noticed. "If there was one thing missing, there might be others. We need to know everything in those original files."
The police station was rife with officers and detectives going about their general business. Privy to how most police officers disliked interference of federal agents, the brunette expected sidelong glares and irritated whispers as they passed. To her pleasant surprise, most the general feeling was of relief that they were getting some help in solving this tough and worsening case. It was nice to be appreciated, though admittedly there wasn't much she'd done to deserve of it on her first day.
Rossi and Samantha both stepped past the main bullpen to meet at the open space towards the back. Set up beside a round conference table was a large, clear plastic board. Pictures of the victims and what information they did know were stuck to the top, along with a map of the area on the far right side.
Several open case boxes sat on the desk, and Morgan and Prentiss were currently going through them with concentration. Reid stood at the board, eyeing the map with interest and dotting specific points that were important to the case. Broad circles were drawn around the dots he did create.
"What did you find at the crime scene?" Morgan asked curiously when he noticed they'd approached.
"Discrepancies." Rossi gestured to the pictures of victims on the board. "The newest victim had a derogatory tattoo on her chest. The coroner said they all did, but there wasn't any mention of them in the files."
"Tattoos?" Prentiss frowned, grabbing a few files and opening them to display the pictures attached. Her eyes squinted, combing through the images in concentration. "Huh...Yeah, you're right. Why omit that detail, though?"
"The investigators might not have thought it relevant." Reid stated lightly, eyes never straying from his map.
"Makes you wonder what else they didn't think to include." Morgan muttered disappointingly, setting down the case file in his hand and leaning back in his chair. He let out a long sigh. "On top of that, there is one major difference between the first vics and our newest ones. We should have seen it when we first saw the case files."
"The first 7 women all had their hair cut." Prentiss provided, pointing to the board where the pictures were displayed. Sam and Rossi stepped closer to take a look. "The cuts are jagged, crudely done without thought or care."
"It's probably the unsub's way of humiliating his victims." Morgan summarized. "Destroy their esteem and self-image. For women especially, hair is an important part of their identity."
"So, he's a hairstylist gone postal?" Rossi joked.
"We shouldn't rule it out just yet, but this new MO doesn't exactly lend it credence."
Sam looked between the photos on the board, this time paying special attention to the victims' hair. Like Morgan said, they all had their hair cut, in some cases almost to the scalp. They were choppy, done with a regular pair of scissors, perhaps. It didn't necessarily leave out hairdressers in their subject pool, but it definitely suggested an alternative.
The sudden switch in MO, a lack of attention to the victims' hair, the tattoos, and the slashes on the face...Sam tried to put the seemingly random pieces of the puzzle together, chewing the corner of her lip in thought.
Something was bugging her with their current assumption.
Prentiss finally shook her head. "Have they ruled out the possibility of a copycat?" "Not entirely, but the detective doesn't seem to think it is one." Morgan said. "The fact that all the victims had tattoos, which weren't even mentioned in the case files...how would a copycat know about them?"
"He would if he was close to the unsub, if he watched it happen..."
"You think there's a partner?" Rossi added curiously, turning to Prentiss.
"I wouldn't discredit it so soon." She replied flippantly. "It's hard to say. Though the shift in MO does point to something. I'm just not sure if it's a psychological change in behavior or another individual taking up the mantle"
"Studies speculate that more than 20% of serial killers operate with a partner." Reid suddenly started, now shifting his attention from his board to his team members, "Generally they choose someone they can hold a clear dominance over, often times exploiting persons with submissive tendencies, insecurity, mental illness, or low intelligence."
Sam was impressed that he could recite such a statistic at will, wondering how many times he'd read it in a college book to have memorized it. Reid looked studious enough, though. Maybe he was just really into his work.
Their speculation was interrupted by JJ and Hotchner joining the rest of the team, lead by someone clearly in charge. The uniformed man walked over to her and Rossi. Above average height and physically fit, the black-haired man looked all business and definitely a little on edge with the investigation going as it was. No wonder he asked for the FBI's help in the matter.
"Detective Matt Latimer." Hotchner introduced with a raised hand to indicate the man they had been walking with. "These are Agents Auer and Rossi. They just returned from the newest crime scene."
"Hello, both of you." The shiny nameplate pinned above his breast pocket identified him as such, and Sam shook his hand after Rossi. "We're very grateful for your help. I'm hoping we can solve this thing before any more people are found dead."
"We'll certainly do what we can." The older profiler promised, nodding his understanding of the detective's urgency. They all had a wish that Hailee would be the last to die at this killer's hands. And after seeing her discarded like that in the trash, Samantha especially.
He stood with hands on his hips, eyes flicking to stare at the board of evidence they'd compiled so far, a glumness settling in his gaze at the sheer number of victims. "I've had officers ask neighbors if they saw or heard anything suspicious this morning, but no one seems to have any information. Figures, though. People around those parts tend to keep to themselves."
"Not a tight-knit community?" Sam guessed, but the officer shook his head.
"The opposite, actually. When someone stirs up trouble, they tend to solve their own problems because everyone's in each others' pockets. Drugs, prostitution, you name it. They don't like it when we start knocking on doors asking questions."
"And yet nobody saw anything?" Prentiss asked incredulously with a shake of her head.
Latimer sighed. "From what we've gathered, that's correct. This guy either knows how to blend in or paid someone to keep quiet about it."
"No, that leaves too much to chance. He's too cautious to risk someone ratting him out." Hotchner noted evenly, stern eyes scanning over the board alongside the team. "Most likely he's one of the community. Someone they trust."
"That's just gonna make it harder to find him. It the locals don't suspect him, they won't feel too inclined to disclose important information about him." Morgan pointed out.
"Then we need to keep digging, find something that clearly identifies him. JJ will coordinate a press conference with the media this afternoon, make sure the narrative the public sees is the one we push." Hotchner continued. "Chances are he's already on the hunt for his next victim, so we need to work fast."248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ3ItsH8CuI
