It surprisingly wasn’t hard asking Sheriff Hollar for help on the case. I always thought, that with a small town, the enforcement would be less willing to take outside help, and I thought I would have had to trade in some of my days off in order to get the FBI in. But he nodded, scratching his graying goatee.
“If you think it’s what the case needs, then I trust you. I gave you this case, remember?”
He looked up at me and suddenly I felt like a schoolgirl, standing there, afraid of him rejecting my plea.
Not that I considered it a plea at the time. We’d just never seen anything like it in Leweys. Of course he would want help. He wasn’t doing anything to help me really solve the case- he was just letting me have access to resources that I would then use to solve it.
“I know Sheriff. Thank you. I’ll send in the paperwork now.” I turned and walked out of the office, still feeling his eyes on me.
I breathed out a sigh of relief when the BAU spokesperson called to tell me they would come right away. I needed new eyes on the case, someone outside of Leweys, and who had never heard of the urban legend my case had suddenly become attached to. Not that Jennifer’s identity had been revealed yet. Only the coroner couple and I knew. People had still seen the body though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it hit the papers the next day.
“Couldn’t handle it yourself, could yah?” Officer Nash spoke up, seeing me at my desk.
“Shouldn’t your ass be somewhere else right now? On your patrol?” I looked at him with disdain.
“Been noticing my ass lately?”
I didn’t respond.
“Just got off my shift, brought our weekly guest,” he pointed at old Mr. Rouge, our town drunk.
“What’d he do now?” I watched the man be escorted to our cells; one he had become very acquainted with over the past few months.
“Pissed in Georgie’s fountain.”
“Ugh, god. Well, finish your paperwork and stop watching me while I work,” I glared at him, then returned to my case file, preparing all the facts and notes to start an info board.
He continued to watch me until he figured I wasn’t going to entertain him anymore and then moved on. I knew he wanted to get into my pants, but he would have to travel the world, find religion twice, and become a different man before I would ever consider that happening.
I stood and made my way to a small conference/break room. This is where the BAU would set up shop. I wheeled in a large whiteboard and started posting a timeline, from the estimated year the first victim was killed, the crime scene at the lake eighteen years ago, and then finally the discovery of the bodies. The lack of information was daunting.
Four hours until the BAU would land.235Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCf2junK5sE
I went to the last places we assumed Jennifer and Daniel had been. Georgie’s diner, with its a cracking large fountain in the front, was still stuck in a strange mix of 80’s and the classic diner style. They had been seen having breakfast at the diner the day we had come back from the lake. Then they disappeared. Daniel’s car had been recovered at the lake. I had gone over the facts of the cold case three times after discovering it was Jen.
Daniel’s car was found with him at the lake and there had been signs of a struggle. Scrapes were on his hands, as if he had tried stopping his fall to the ground. He had been hit before being killed- the shooter possibly had to fight him to overcome him. Daniel had played football.
He had been shot after hitting on the ground, looking up at his attacker. Why hadn’t the killer just shot him immediately? Why get into a struggle if they could have just shot him from a distance?
Three hours until they arrived. I returned to the station, added some more notes to the file.
Two and a half-hours. The waiting was making me antsy, and I couldn’t sit still. I drove out to look at the burial site one more time.
No more bodies had been found, but I looked at the trees and the distance from the road to the site. It hadn’t been a short trek. Whoever dumped the bodies had to have carried them the whole way, so they were strong.
Two hours. I started the drive to the airport in my patrol Hummer, another officer following my car. It took an hour and a half to get to the closest airport, this one closer to the city up north. It wasn’t a large runway and most people used the more commercialized one to the south, but this one had been a faster route.
We arrived, twenty minutes before their jet was scheduled to arrive. I and Officer Yates, a middle-aged married man who was fine with taking orders, waited in the building next to the runway. I drank the first of many cups of coffee that would help me get through the case.
The humming of a plane started to grow and we both exited the building to watch the jet land, its wheels barely making a scuff mark on the runway, smoothly sliding into port.
“Imagine having to ride that beauty every time you worked a case,” Yates spoke up and whistled wistfully.
“You’d have to spend a lot of time away from your kids, did you think of that?” I turned to him.
He laughed and rubbed his neck, “Maybe a day or two wouldn’t be too bad.”
I thought of his two teenagers and chuckled.235Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfIr5wvztP3
The airport workers had finished hooking up the staircase to the jet and the passenger door finally opened, and the BAU finally walked out into the fresh Montana air.235Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIEGOCpRDrs
We walked closer and I observed the different members of the team, each having their own FBI look to them.
A darker-skinned man walked out and approached us first, cleanly shaven and bald, his features sharp. A younger man followed him, talking quietly to him, almost nonstop, short brown hair with a little wave to it.
“Welcome to the Treasure State,” I said, watching them pick up their bags.
“Glad to be here,” an older man said, though I could tell they all were ready to get straight to the case. No matter if they were called to the Bahamas or the rural south, any case that needed them wasn’t a cause to celebrate.
“I’m SSA Hotchner, Unit Chief of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. This is Agent Rossi…” Hotchner walked up to us and started introducing his team. They all shook our hands, except for the younger man, Dr. Spencer Reid, who only nodded towards us.
“Hello Agent,” Yates said, his goofy smile still on.
“We’ll drive you to the station if you’d like, or is there anywhere else you’d like to go?” I asked the man, having to look up at him from our height difference. He was almost a full foot taller than me, my head barely rising above his shoulders.
“Agent Prentiss and Morgan will observe the burial site, Dr. Reid and Rossi will observe the bodies and JJ and I will go to the station to meet with the Sheriff.”
“Alright Yates, you heard him, take those two to the site,” I told the officer, and he led them to his patrol car.
“The four of you will have to come with me, and I’ll drop off you two at the morgue. Our rental cars for you will be there by the time you’re done with your examination of the bodies.”
They all agreed and started towards my hummer. Dark-haired Agent Hotchner sat next to me in the front and I could feel the aura of authority around him. They all seemed to respect him as a leader. If only some of my officers felt the same way about me.
Once we all settled in the car, I started driving back to Leweys, ready to solve the case of my long-lost friend.
“I’d hate to disappoint you, Agent Hotchner- “
“Please, call me Hotch,” he asked, turning to me.
“Alright, Hotch, I know it wasn’t clear when we sent the case over to you since the Sheriff had to request it himself, but I am in charge of this case, not him.”
“That wasn’t mentioned.”
“Nope. He dumped it on me. Don’t tell him this, but I think he’s getting old. Two years away from retiring in fact. I’m his Deputy, but some of these days I feel more like his Sheriff-in-Training.”
“You mentioned that this body was connected to an old cold-case?” David Rossi spoke up from the back.
“Yep.”
“Well since he’s close to retirement, it isn’t unusual for him to not want to be involved in a cold case- trying to make it an easy transition out, I’d assume.”
I sighed and continued to watch the road.
“Do you all go by your last names?”
“It’s usually the case,” the young Dr spoke up, “I do go by Spencer though. And you already heard JJ.” I saw his small smile in the back mirror, and I smiled back.
“I’ll try and remember. If you want, you can call me Deputy, but everyone knows me as Lynn.”
The rest of the ride was full of small updates on the case and me figuring out how much they already knew. Apparently, a four-hour plane ride was long enough for them to get well-acquainted with the case.
I dropped the two off at the morgue, and called one of my officers, making sure the rentals were in fact on their way to the station. I didn’t want the team to have to rely on only our cars for transport. We didn’t have the usual FBI standard SUVs.
We arrived at the station five minutes later, as it was a short drive between many locations in Leweys, except, of course, to and from the burial site. Already there was a small group of reporters, most from surrounding cities, who had probably heard of the bodies and the FBI arriving.
I parked and they spotted us and started making their way over. I recognized one local journalist. We all exited the vehicle.
“Don’t give them anything. JJ’s our Media Liaison, she knows how to handle it,” Hotch whispered to me, noticing me tense up seeing the small group of journalists approaching us, hungry for stories.
I had already experienced my share of nosy reporters, wanting the juicy details of Daniel’s murder way back when. Finding out two of your childhood friends were gone and then being crowded and pressured into interviews? It left a mark on me, and the thought of being crowded again wasn’t a calming thought.
I had planned on leading him into the sanctuary of my police department, but it felt like it was the other way around now. We entered and closed the door behind us, leaving JJ for the wolves.
Hotch noticed me looking back towards JJ outside, and kept leading me inwards, “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.”
We finally made it into the conference room and JJ soon joined us.
“This is everything you have?” He looked up at the board, and the empty white showing through made me wanted to shrink under the table. He looked at me, waiting for my answer. He had dark eyelashes.
“Yes.” I held my breath.
“I think it’s rather good, considering how little you had to work with concerning the cold case.” He sat down next to me, opening a folder and looked at the pictures of the bodies.
“Victim number 2 is the younger one. Do we have an identity yet?”
“Y-yes.” I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry, “Jennifer Kable, disappeared and died age 19, eighteen years ago.”
“Was she from Lewisville?” JJ asked.
“We went to High School together. She was with me and a few others before for two whole days, just before her disappearance.”
“Lynn, you have to tell me now that you aren’t compromised in this case,” Hotch spoke up. He didn’t sound accusing. He looked at me as if he understood and his voice was soft and gave me time to answer.
“It won’t be a problem,” I answered, staring back into his brown eyes.
Satisfied with how I carried myself, he moved on to the next topic, on trying to figure out the victimology. Luckily, Prentiss and Morgan returned after observing the crime scene, and they were able to discuss it together. I didn’t have any background in criminal psychology, so I decided to listen and take notes.
The rest of the team arrived shortly after, Spencer and Rossi filling us in on what else they had learned from the coroners, from Jennifer as well as the older victim.
“There isn’t a lot to work with concerning the first victim except for the time range in which she was killed, and that she was killed in the same manner as the newer one. It was definitely the same Unsub. It’s going to be hard to figure out the identity though since the dental area was actually damaged, most likely postmortem to obscure any traces to find out who she was.”
“That’s odd,” I spoke up, and they all turned to me.
“What is it?” Prentiss asked.
“I’m guessing you both saw it already,” I looked at Spencer and Rossi, “We were able to discover Jennifer’s identity through dental work. Why destroy the first victim’s and not hers?”
“Maybe they knew the first victim more personally, so getting rid of the identity would better hide the Unsub,” Spencer answered, making perfect sense.
“Still, why not make Jennifer unidentifiable? Why not take that precaution?”
“People already know about Jennifer’s disappearance, right?” JJ asked.
“It’s the local urban legend. People assumed she had killed Daniel like some twisted love story and then ran away.”
“Maybe,” Spencer speculated, “the unsub knew this and wanted her to be identified. To solve the mystery.”
Hotch spoke up, his voice grave. “If that’s true, then he must have followed the case somehow. Not much press was released about it when Daniel was killed. We should assume that the Unsub is either a local or from surrounding areas, where he’s still able to keep tabs on it and where it would be easy for him to hear that she had been discovered. He could still be in town after all these years.”
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