Criminal Minds Page 3

  Every agent on his team was talented, even gifted, but Hotchner knew that Reid—with his triple PhDs in Chemistry, Mathematics, and Engineering from Cal Tech—was a special case, and very likely the most brilliant of them all. The young man had an eidetic memory, and a 187 IQ with a capacity to read twenty thousand words per minute. More important, the wealth of data at the agent’s mental fingertips had over time interwoven with his ever-growing profiling skills. No question, Reid was a key asset to Hotchner’s team.

  Coming into the bullpen from her office was Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, a quietly stunning blue-eyed blonde who served as the BAU’s Media and Local Law Enforcement Liaison. JJ looked typically crisp and professional in black slacks and black pumps with a white blouse under a black waistcoat. A Georgetown journalism graduate, she wasn’t much older than Reid and, hence, the second youngest member of the team. Over the last several years, Hotchner had watched with considerable satisfaction as Jareau’s maturity leapt beyond her youth.

  The newest member of their team was nothing less than a legend in the FBI, and a bestselling author to boot, as well as a top lecturer both within the profession and without. The fiftyish David Rossi had the look of a professor at a small college—black hair, well-trimmed goatee, and casual business attire (blue work shirt with a striped tie under a gray sports jacket and, of course, jeans). When he strolled out of the elevator, as if he owned the joint, his confidence managed to stop just this side of arrogance.

  Maybe he didn’t own the joint, but Rossi had certainly helped build it. Back in the day, along with Max Ryan and Jason Gideon (a Ryan protégé), Rossi had pioneered criminal profiling, which led to the creation of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Of this three-man profiler Hall of Fame, Ryan had retired to a quiet life away from the violence and heartache that accompanied their job, Rossi to the bestseller list, the talk show stage and lecture circuit, and now Gideon was gone, too.

  With Gideon’s sudden and unexpected resignation, Rossi had volunteered to come back, for reasons of his own, and Hotchner had hoped this venerable hero of their field might fill the void left by Gideon. But Gideon had been the heart of the team, its conscience, its spiritual center, whereas Rossi was a loner who—while his value could not be underestimated— as yet showed limited signs of wanting to play father confessor or lead them in a round of ‘‘Kum Ba Yah’’ around the campfire.

  And there had been some friction when Rossi returned—he had his way, the old way, the team had theirs, the new way. The transition had been difficult for Hotchner who had, after all, been recruited to the BAU by Rossi. Now as his mentor’s boss, Hotchner occasionally had to redefine their roles in this new circumstance.

  As he came up the few stairs to the elevated level and passed the window of Hotchner’s office, Rossi gave Hotchner a scampish little grin and a nod, then moved on. There was something both friendly and hostile about it—Rossi reminding the stoic Hotchner that a profiler could actually have a sense of humor.

  The last to show was Derek Morgan, an African-American with short hair and a killer smile, who had the build of the ex-athlete he was. Originally from Chicago, Morgan graduated from Northwestern Law, was an ex-cop (his father had been a cop, too) and had spent some time with ATF before joining the BAU almost ten years ago.

  Morgan had no shortage of brains, but if there was muscle on Hotchner’s team, Morgan was it—in addition to his BAU duties, he also taught hand-to-hand combat at Quantico. Morgan wore a light blue pullover sweater, dark dress slacks, black rubber-soled shoes, his service pistol riding his hip. He strode through the bullpen with a confidence considerably less surreptitious than Rossi’s, headed up the few stairs, and came straight to the door of Hotchner’s office.

  Morgan knocked.

  ‘‘Come in,’’ Hotchner told the closed door.

  Morgan did, leaving the door open.

  ‘‘Morning,’’ Hotchner said.

  Dropping into one of the visitor’s chairs opposite Hotchner’s desk, Morgan smiled easily at him. ‘‘Have a good weekend?’’

  Hotchner nodded. ‘‘I spent Saturday afternoon with Jack at Haley’s sister’s.’’

  ‘‘Nice. That’s one afternoon.’’

  ‘‘Right. Saturday.’’

  ‘‘Hotch, we had two days off.’’

  ‘‘Right.’’

  ‘‘Tell me you didn’t just hole up in your office at home and work the rest of it.’’

  ‘‘How did you spend your weekend?’’

  Morgan lifted a hand. ‘‘I went away with a woman. We danced. Drank some beer. Generally chilled. Now I am refreshed and ready to work.’’

  ‘‘Fine.’’

  Morgan tilted his head. ‘‘Hotch, you’re working too hard.’’

  Hotchner shrugged. ‘‘Lot to do.’’

  ‘‘You can’t work 24-7. Don’t tell me it’s not my place, because I am counting on you to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as our fearless leader.’’

  Hotchner actually smiled at that.

  Morgan smiled, too, bigger.

  ‘‘Point taken,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘Did you stop by my office just to play guidance counselor?’’

  ‘‘No. I came in to tell you I got a call this weekend. Remember Tate Lorenzon?’’

  Hotchner shook his head, but then said, ‘‘Wait— he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he? From back home?’’

  ‘‘Sweet home Chicago. Grew up on the same block. He’s a detective in the city now. His father worked with mine.’’

  ‘‘I see.’’ Hotchner was wondering where this was going. That Morgan’s cop father had been shot before his young son’s eyes was not lost on the team leader.

  ‘‘Listen, he’s got a case he wants us to look at.’’

  Hotchner worked at not frowning, without success. They had a protocol for these things, and calling in favors from old friends was not part of it. ‘‘All right. And what did you tell him?’’

  Shrugging, Morgan said, ‘‘I told him to go through channels.’’

  ‘‘Good.’’

  ‘‘So he called JJ,’’ Morgan said.

  Hotchner sighed. ‘‘Well, that skips a channel or two, but—’’

  As if she’d been summoned, Jennifer Jareau appeared at the door and knocked on the jamb.

  His eyes still on Morgan, Hotchner said, ‘‘Yes?’’

  Jareau came over to the desk, flashed Hotchner a businesslike smile; usually she’d be bearing a sheaf of papers from an impending case, but now she held only a small stack of photos. ‘‘I think I’ve found our next case.’’

  ‘‘Wild guess?’’ Hotchner said, watching Morgan who was looking around the office as if it were a crime scene and he couldn’t be bothered right now. ‘‘Chicago?’’

  ‘‘Good guess,’’ Jareau said, ‘‘but not exactly.’’

  ‘‘Where, then?’’

  ‘‘The Chicago suburbs.’’

  Hotchner nodded to the other chair opposite his desk. "Explain."

  Jareau sat and said, ‘‘Over the weekend, I got a call from a Chicago detective named Tate Lorenzon.’’

  Morgan seemed interested in something on the front of his shirt.

  ‘‘He e-mailed me these three photos.’’ She reached forward and spread them out on the desk like a grisly hand of cards.

  Hotchner took in the crime scene photos, one at a time. ‘‘What am I looking at?’’

  ‘‘All three of these were sent to the jurisdictions the crimes were committed in,’’ she said. ‘‘The first one, the car . . .’’

  ‘‘Wait a minute—these aren’t police crime scene photos?’’

  ‘‘No. They are photos taken at the scene of crimes, before the police got there. And then sent to the police.’’

  Interested, Hotchner gave Morgan a wide-eyed look and Morgan lifted an eyebrow and nodded, which was as close to saying ‘‘I told you so’’ to Aaron Hotchner as Derek Morgan ever got.

  Jareau picked back up: ‘‘The first one?
The car . . .’’

  She waited until Hotchner shuffled the photos around and looked at the one of a young couple shot to death in a car parked on a rain-soaked blacktop, a crumpled piece of paper on the road near the driver’s door.

  Jareau said, ‘‘Adrienne Andrews and her boyfriend Benjamin Mendoza were gunned down in a car outside her house around one in the morning on April eighteenth, at the corner of Two-Hundred-and-Seventh Street and Hutchinson Avenue. This photo, almost assuredly taken by the killer, showed up at Chicago Heights PD on the nineteenth.’’

  ‘‘Via the Internet?’’

  She shook her head. ‘‘Snail mail. No prints, no DNA, no nothing. The second crime is the two decomposed bodies.’’

  Hotchner flipped to a photo of two skulls and several large bones on the ground in a wooded area.

  ‘‘The bones belong to two women who went missing on June fourteenth from Bangs Lake in Wauconda, a northern suburb in the lake counties. The photos showed up at the Wauconda PD on June sixteenth. Again, snail mail. The bones were found a week later, a few miles away in Lakewood Forest Preserve.’’

  The third photo showed a fifty-five-gallon blue plastic barrel sitting in the hallway of what appeared to be a vacant apartment.

  ‘‘This is the only crime that took place in Chicago proper,’’ Jareau said. ‘‘This barrel with a body in it was found in a vacant apartment on Twenty-fifth Street in Chinatown on July twenty-second.’’

  Hotchner stared up from the photo at Morgan, who finally met his eyes. They both knew what these photos represented, and it was more than just three disparate crime scenes.

  ‘‘Let’s get Lorenzon on the phone,’’ Hotchner said.

  With an embarrassed smile, Morgan said, ‘‘That won’t be necessary. He’ll be here in about ten minutes."

  "Here?"

  Morgan nodded. ‘‘He and an associate flew out. His chief was eager that he do so. And I think we’re past talking about protocol and proper channels, Hotch.’’

  Hotchner could only agree. He said, ‘‘As soon as Detective Lorenzon gets here’’—his eyes on Jareau— ‘‘I want the team in the conference room.’’

  Jareau appeared slightly puzzled at the rush, but her nod said she would make it happen and she left the office.

  Turning his gaze back to Morgan, Hotchner said, ‘‘Why didn’t you call me at home with this?’’

  ‘‘Lorenzon told me about it over the phone on Saturday,’’ Morgan said. ‘‘He and another detective flew in on Sunday—strictly his idea, Hotch—and we didn’t sit down until I got back to the city . . . since some of us actually know the meaning of R and R . . . and we had dinner last night. Tate didn’t know what he had.’’

  ‘‘Not at all?’’

  ‘‘Well, he figured they may have a serial killer on their hands. But he didn’t understand these MOs being all over the map. But of course, we have a rough idea.’’

  Hotchner nodded. ‘‘Did you explain it to him?’’ Morgan shook his head. ‘‘Hell, Hotch, I knew we’d end up taking the case, and it would wait till then. I mean, could anything be more up our alley?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Hotchner admitted.

  ‘‘I figured Tate could find out today and have one last good night’s sleep before we turned his world upside down.’’

  Hotchner, with no sarcasm whatsoever, said, ‘‘Considerate.’’

  Morgan shrugged.

  ‘‘How did you sleep?’’

  Rising from his chair, Morgan said, ‘‘You really don’t want to know. You’d send my ass home for an all-day nap.’’

  By the time the pair marched through the bullpen, two men were exiting the elevator. One was older and Hispanic, maybe Rossi’s age, the other younger and African-American. The Hispanic was shorter, balding, with full cheeks and sleepy brown eyes, dark hair showing signs of gray at the temples. He wore a tan sport coat, blue jeans, a brown button-down shirt open at the collar and brown loafers with no socks.

  The African-American had an easy smile, sharp brown eyes, a wispy black mustache and goatee, and close-cropped hair. He wore a black T-shirt under a black suit and had the build of a former athlete, maybe one who still took time out for hoops.

  Morgan said, ‘‘This is Chicago Detective Tate Lorenzon.’’

  Hotchner shook hands with the black detective, who had a firm grip and eyes that met Hotchner’s.

  ‘‘Thanks for seeing us, Agent Hotchner,’’ Lorenzon said. ‘‘I know we’re kind of barging in.’’

  ‘‘Not a problem,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘My friends call me Hotch.’’

  ‘‘And I’m Tate.’’ Then, turning to his companion, Lorenzon added, ‘‘Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, meet Detective Hilario Tovar, Chicago Heights PD.’’

  Grinning and extending his hand, Tovar said, ‘‘It’s Hilly, and we really do appreciate your time. I mean, we know all about the BAU—you’re the first team, and you don’t waste time on the small stuff.’’

  ‘‘Hilly,’’ Hotchner said with a nod, shaking the man’s hand. ‘‘We’re happy to help, if we can.’’

  ‘‘That’s good to hear,’’ Lorenzon said. ‘‘There are plenty of cops back our way who think Hilly and me are off the rails on this one. You say ‘serial killer’ to a cop and he thinks you’ve seen too many movies.’’

  A needle of apprehension jabbed Hotchner. ‘‘You both know we can only enter cases where we’ve been invited.’’

  ‘‘You and vampires,’’ Lorenzon said.

  The remark was one, in seemingly endless variations, that Hotchner had often heard before; he hid any irritation and said, ‘‘Be that as it may . . .’’

  Tovar held up a hand. ‘‘Listen, both our departments may think we’re gonzo, but Tate and me have pretty good track records, so to shut us up, if nothing else? They’ve agreed to extend you an invitation . . . if you think the two of us are on the right track. On the other hand, maybe they just wanted to get us out of town where you could talk some sense into us.’’

  ‘‘So you know what you have,’’ Hotchner said flatly—a statement, not a question.

  ‘‘We think so,’’ Lorenzon said, and sighed. ‘‘But like I say, nobody else wants to believe it.’’

  Morgan said, ‘‘Who’d want to?’’

  Jareau came up to them. ‘‘Everyone’s ready.’’

  Introductions were made and she shook hands with both men.

  ‘‘We appreciate your time,’’ Tovar said to her.

  ‘‘It’s our job,’’ she said. ‘‘If this develops into anything, I’ll be working media.’’

  "From D.C.?"

  ‘‘No, if we come to Chicago, I’ll be part of the team.’’

  Hotch saw Morgan smile, just a little. The two out-of-town detectives could hardly have failed to notice just how striking a young woman Jareau was, and having her around wouldn’t be the worst fate in the world.

  Jareau led them into the conference room, giving Tovar and Lorenzon seats on Hotchner’s left, Rossi on his right, the rest of the team fanned out around the large mahogany table that was the room’s center-piece. Morgan and Reid sat to Rossi’s right, Prentiss to the left of Lorenzon, Jareau remaining on her feet as she made the introductions.

  A picture window with venetian blinds occupied the wall immediately to the right of the door, a twin to the window in Hotchner’s office. To the left was a cupboard and counter with a copier, a fax machine in the corner beyond. The wall to the left had three narrow bulletproof windows that served only to let in light, a brown sofa under them, a potted tree beside it. A wall-mounted whiteboard had been cleaned.

  The sections of corkboard on either side of the whiteboard still held tacked-up notes, photos, reports, and other detritus from their previous case. The wall opposite the door contained a HDTV flat screen on which could be displayed PowerPoint presentations and videos from cases.

  ‘‘The reason these detectives came to us,’’ Hotchner said, ‘‘is these photos you are abou
t to see. JJ?’’

  Jareau pushed a button on the remote and the first crime scene photo popped up on the HD screen. They all took a good look: a young couple in a car on a blacktop road next to a house, wadded piece of paper on the rain-soaked street under the driver’s door.

  No one said a word.

  Then Jareau spoke. ‘‘This photo was sent by snail mail to the Chicago Heights Police Department and turned over to Detective Tovar. Does it remind you of anything?’’

  Morgan, who Hotchner knew already had the answer, said nothing. The others also stayed mute, but Reid seemed focused on something in the photo and Hotchner knew the young man was close to seeing what he and Morgan had long since picked up on.

  Hotchner gave Reid a hint. ‘‘Detective Tovar, could you tell us the date of the crime and intersection where it took place?’’

  ‘‘April seventeenth,’’ Tovar said, ‘‘or actually early April eighteenth, one a.m. Corner of Two-Hundred-and-Seventh Street and Hutchinson Avenue.’’

  Almost before the words were out of the detective’s mouth, Reid quietly said, ‘‘Berkowitz.’’

  ‘‘David Berkowitz?’’ Prentiss asked, eyes and nostrils flaring.

  Nodding rapidly now, Reid said, ‘‘Son of Sam. On April seventeenth, nineteen seventy-seven, two lovers— an eighteen-year-old actress, Valentina Suriani and her tow-truck driver boyfriend, twenty-year-old Alexander Esau—were necking in a parked car near the Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx when they were shot to death by Berkowitz. Though they were the ninth and tenth victims he shot, they were only the fifth and sixth to die. One of the police officers at the scene found a letter addressed to the lead detective on the so-called case of the .44 Caliber Killer— Captain Joseph Borelli. It was the letter where Berkowitz gave himself the name ‘Son Of Sam.’ ’’

  Lorenzon spoke up. ‘‘You’re talking about the guy who got his marching orders from a damn dog?’’

  ‘‘A Labrador retriever named Harvey,’’ Reid said in his lilting, matter-of-fact way. He might have been answering a question in a round of Trivial Pursuit. ‘‘Was there anything on the crumpled piece of paper?’’