Summer of Rap Festival, Bangor City Forest, Bangor,
Maine
“This is so awesome!”
16-year-old Aggie Mildred said to her best friend, Ellie Simpson, also 16, as
the pair stood right against the gate that guarded the stage.
“I know,” concurred excitedly
the blonde-haired Simpson to her auburn-haired friend, “Smoove Operator is
amazing live...I can’t believe how much sexier he is in person!” The girls then
swooned as Smoove Operator, a Caucasian male whose real name was Kyle Simpkins,
took off his shirt to reveal his muscular build and his sixpack as he sung one
of his first major hits, “Dirty Girl”.
A few moments later, the
girls- who got into the festival with forged identification- ordered drinks
from the bar, which they drank as Simpkins sung his set. They happily swayed
along, drinking non-stop and enjoying the time of their lives.
Then, Simpkins got to “Fuzzy
Boundaries”, a song blasted by feminists that makes no secret that it is about
exploiting women. The bass-heavy uptempo song, though made the girls
instinctively start gyrating their hips, swinging their buttocks back and forth
and dancing very suggestively.
So immersed were the girls in
the song that when two men, both wearing dark sunglasses, came in from behind,
grabbed them and pulled their dancing bodies up against their own bodies, the
girls hardly noticed. Their kind of dancing, grinding, was meant to have a male
right behind them, since the swinging of the buttocks was supposed to arouse
the male genitals.
Simpson, though, was
especially aroused herself dancing with her man, getting more into the dance
and laying her backside right against the man, leaning into him. The man
determined this was a good time to take things up a step, first putting his
hands on her exposed belly and rubbing upwards until he got his hands on her
breasts, which he played with to Simpson’s delight. Then, he went for Simpson’s
exposed legs, rubbing upwards underneath her short skirt and eventually into
her genitals, where he started fingering her. Simpson was extremely aroused by
this, bending her head back and tilting it so that she could start kissing the
man as he serviced her.
Mildred responded to the
dance by glancing momentarily at Ellie before bending over forward and pressing
her buttocks right against her man’s crotch and wiggling it around, which
practically inserted the man’s penis inside her butt (as both of their clothes
got in the way). Mildred excited the man in this way for quite some time until
he climaxed in his pants, which caused her to turn around and start
passionately making out with him. The man, while kissing her, managed to take
off Mildred’s shirt, allowing him to hold the braless Mildred topless as he was
kissing her. Mildred was only too happy to oblige, holding the man tightly
against her body as she happily placed her doffed shirt in her pocket.
In between sets, the two men
offered to take the two girls to a more secluded area of the festival, of which
the aroused girls were more than happy to comply with. Once they were there- an
area behind the porta potties lined with numerous trees that was deserted- the
four of them got more involved with sex acts. Unbeknownst to the girls, another
man was photographing them through his cell phone camera inside one of the
porta potties, of which he carved a small hole in the mesh windows at the top
so that the camera’s view would not be obscured.
As the man was happily taking
pictures, Mildred happily performed oral sex on her man, while Simpson, with
her skirt lifted, mounted her man (who was lying down) and performed regular
sexual intercourse on him. The men made sure they had the angles right so that
their faces would be obscured but the extent of the girls’ acts- and their
faces- would be in full view. The photographer hence got several salacious
photos, which he would later use to masturbate himself.
Once the men were satisfied
with the sex they received- which was easy given how attracted they were to the
girls- they obtained the girls’ contact information, which included their
Facebook profiles and their cell phone information. After the show, the pair
excitedly recounted their stories as they began the walk towards the bus that
would take them home.
“Oh man!” Mildred said, “what
a night!”
“Those guys,” said Simpson,
“they were so cute!” She then
stumbled to a park bench, practically falling over the railing, which elicited
a laugh from her and her friend. Mildred, in her drunken state, tried to simply
walk her way over to Simpson, but she hit a crack on the sidewalk that made her
stumble and fall on top of Simpson, who laughed at the situation and
instinctively hugged her friend.
Then, in what could only be
described as the influence of alcohol, the pair started to passionately make
out with each other. The two longtime friends then held each other tightly on
the bench before kissing again in glee.
“Aggie,” said Simpson,
overcome with emotion after the event, “don’t ever leave me. You’re the best
friend ever.”
“I won’t Ellie,” said Aggie,
tears starting to flow down her face, which got Simpson to well up as well. “I
won’t Ellie. I promise!” The pair hugged again before kissing a third time,
after which they decided to go to the Terminal to catch their bus home.
FBI Headquarters, Quantico, Virginia
“Girl you leave my mind so
fuzzy,” sang quietly Behavioural Analysis Unit media liaison Jennifer “JJ”
Jareau, her headphones blaring, as she strolled to the photocopier, “but that
just leaves me buzzin’.” Her teammate, Zoe Hawkes, couldn’t help but overhear
her.
“Seriously JJ?” she said to
her as she walked up to the photocopier. “How on Earth can you like such a misogynistic song?”
“I think it’s catchy,”
replied Jareau, “it’s a fun party song…I don’t think there’s anything wrong
with it.”
“The guy had naked models liberally applied throughout the video,”
said Hawkes, who did not try to hide her contempt for Smoove Operator, “not
only that, but he grabbed and groped them at
will, as if they were mere toys
for his pleasure…as a woman, I find that abhorrent…I want a man who seems me as
a person, not as an object he can play with whenever he wants.”
“Please,” scoffed Jareau, “it
just plays to male fantasies…it’s not advocating things like non-consent or
violence…it’s just about a guy who finds a girl attractive and wants to have
some fun with her…I see nothing wrong with that.”
“Besides,” said BAU teammate
Dr. Spencer Reid, stepping into the conversation, “no one seems to complain
about Christina Aguilera objectifying men in ‘Your Body’…or about Madonna when
she did it, or Salt ‘N’ Pepa, or Lil’ Kim…I mean, the list goes on and on.”
“Of course you don’t complain
about women getting objectified,” said Hawkes, “‘cause it’s all about getting
your rocks off, eh Spencer?”
“Not at all,” said Reid, “I
don’t think anything excuses the objectification of women…I’m just saying that
if we’re going to complain about objectifying women we should be equally
horrified when men are objectified, and no one is.”
“Well,” said Hawkes curtly,
“be a member of a gender who has been historically
viewed as the weaker gender, the one that has to ‘submit’ to a man, and tell me
it’s right for society to continue promoting that role.”
“Spence is right Zoe,” said
Jareau, “if you’re going to complain about sexual objectification it should go
both ways, not just one…I mean, men are humans too…we can’t condone actions
against them just because they’ve been historically dominant…if we’re going to
treat everyone equally, we need to treat men equally as well as women.”
“Besides,” interjected BAU
teammate Patrick Jane, “we all know that men are better than women anyway…I
mean, physiology proves it…that’s why there are more men than women as
firefighters, because men are naturally stronger than women.” Hawkes heard Jane’s
remark and was fuming, wanting to rebuke Jane badly, eliciting a laugh from Jane.
“You like being a troll don’t
you?” replied Hawkes, shaking her head once she realized the real reason behind
Jane’s comment.
“You’re so easy to wind up,”
said Jane with a smile, who gave a knowing nod to Reid who confided he thought
Hawkes was cute when she got neurotic.
“Easy now Jane,” said Jareau,
“by your logic, men are dumber than women…let’s not forget who dominates the
universities.”
“Yeah, but might makes
right,” said Jane, flashing a wide smile.
“I think you guys are all missing the point,” said BAU
teammate Derek Morgan, who had his door open, as he emerged from his office and
walked to the floor. “You see, Smoove Operator is just courting this
controversy because he knows he can’t
hold a candle to real rap talent.” He casually strolled towards the
photocopier, gesturing strongly as he continued to speak.
“See, back in the late ‘80s
and ‘90s,” explained Morgan, “the gangsta rappers sung from the heart…they were
all real. They all came from the hood, they all got into some real s*it and
they paid their dues. Biggie, Tupac, Dre, Snoop, Ice Cube, Talib Kweli…heck,
right up to Eminem, when those guys talked about the hood and needing to fight
their way out of it, that was real.
These guys now? They copy that stuff because it ‘sells’, even though they know
they wouldn’t survive in the real hood if they were dropped into it.”
“Yeah, but” said Reid,
“shouldn’t a person’s background not matter when evaluating a song? I mean, the
notes don’t physically change just because you change Snoop Dogg’s birthplace
from Long Beach to San Jose.”
“I think it can mean a lot,”
said Jane. “When someone writes something that’s real to them, you can feel it
in the song. Plus, when you know the person actually experienced what they sing
about, it gives it that much more immediacy…so I think Morgan is right.”
In the distance, towards the
other end of the hallway, a man cleared his throat loudly.
“While I’m sure this subject
is interesting,” said BAU Senior member David Rossi, loudly addressing the
crowd at the photocopier, “we do have something called work to do…and Hotch has a case for all of us…which is what we get
paid for…not to decide if Tupac
really was the baddest MC around.” The team begrudgingly admitted defeat and
headed for the BAU war room, with Rossi pulling Morgan aside. “Besides,” said
Rossi to Morgan, “don’t all those guys owe a debt to Schoolly D?”
“Oh I know,” said Morgan,
“just don’t tell that to the kids…doubt they’d pick him out of a police
lineup.” Rossi chuckled, acknowledging the point, before the two of them headed
to the war room.
“Hello everybody,” said BAU
Chief Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner at the head of the table as his team piled into
the room, with BAU member Emily Prentiss standing in front of the projector.
“While you guys were busy discussing the merits of rap, Prentiss received a
distressing phone call from Newport, Maine. Prentiss, take it away.”
“This,” said Prentiss as she
turned on the projector, “is Agatha Crystal Mildred, 16, of Newport, Maine. She
was found dead this afternoon when school officials found her in the bathroom
after she cut her left wrist and bled herself to death. Two days prior, she and
her friend, Elizabeth Simpson, attended the ‘Summer of Rap’ festival when it
made its stop in Bangor for the Labour Day weekend. They were present at the
front row of the festival, right against the guardrail that separated the crowd
from the stage, and were later seen dancing provocatively with two much older
men. Aggie and Ellie were later photographed involved with the men in various sex
acts during the festival, with those photos later appearing online.”
“I heard about that,” said
Hawkes, “The ‘Maine girls’ as they became called…the guys in the photos were
inexplicably and inexcusably called ‘heroes’ while the Maine girls were
slut-shamed...it’s pretty sad.”
“Reportedly, both Aggie and
Ellie faced many derogatory remarks on social networks and in person upon their
return to school,” explained Prentiss, “which is what police believed caused
Aggie to take her own life.”
“Okay,” said Morgan, “while
that’s disgusting and vile, explain to me how this is a BAU case?”
“Right after the event,” said
Prentiss, “police explained to me that Mildred’s father, Todd, received a
message that tried to blackmail him out of $1 million in exchange for not releasing
the photos online. Since Todd refused, the photos appeared online that night,
and caused a firestorm on Facebook and Twitter where users shared them at will,
with the girls’ identities soon found.”
“The power of the Internet,”
said Rossi with a sigh.
“As far as I know,” continued
Prentiss, “this is the first time an extortion attempt has been unsuccessful. I
had Garcia pull up bank records and see if there are other parents with unusual
payments, and I’ve uncovered five other payments from families of probably
victimized teenaged girls to unidentifiable bank accounts that total $2
million, although there may be other victims and the total could be higher.
There are also pictures floating around of 17-year-old Rachel Person of
Albuquerque performing sex acts with two teenaged boys that may be connected to
this case, as her parents report that they got a call from another set of
parents who said her picture was used to extort them in their blackmail
attempt.”
“Looks like these guys know
what they’re doing,” said Jane. “They’re wearing dark sunglasses making
identification difficult…and, if the Person case is connected, we may have one
UnSub, a photographer, who’s skilled at recruiting several different men to do
his bidding.”
“Smoove Operator played at the
Festival,” said Reid, “has he spoken out about the tragedy?”
“Aside from a generic
statement of condolences,” said Jareau, “he seems to have said nothing.”
“What do we know about the
messages?” Rossi asked.
“Each one was, predictably,
sent from accounts traced back to public computers,” said Prentiss, “and other
than your generic ransom note, they didn’t say anything in particular...it
seemed like all they did was ‘copy and paste’. Plus the team varied the gender
and pictures used to send the messages, so no clear pattern exists.”
“So these guys,” said Morgan,
“and I think this is a team since this seems to be a co-ordinated effort- these
guys scout gatherings and find vulnerable girls to perform compromising acts,
just so they can extort their families later with a huge payday.”
“So is Aggie’s suicide the
only one that is connected to these extortions?” Rossi asked.
“As far as I understand,”
said Prentiss. “Garcia is looking into it now.”
“What do the other victims
look like?” Reid asked.
“Most of the families
targeted were Caucasians,” said Prentiss, “and red hair, like Aggie’s, seemed
to be a common occurrence. That’s what allowed me to narrow down the list to
five, although there are several other instances that fit the endgame of the MO
but not the victimology so those five are far from an exhaustive list.”
“We’ll start in Maine and
take it from there,” said Hotchner. “Morgan, you’re in charge on the field.”
“Me?” Morgan said, pleasantly
surprised.
“Team dynamics have changed,”
said Hotchner. “My responsibilities have changed, and so have everyone else’s,
plus Morgan I think you’ve earned the right for more responsibility. So,
everyone, if you have any questions about how to proceed with the case, go
directly to Morgan. I will answer to Director Black and relay any information
from him to you guys on the field. Wheels up in 45.”
Once on the plane, as much as
Morgan wanted to bask in the glow of his promotion, he knew the team had little
time for that, so he just got down to business.
“Okay, so here’s how it will
work,” said Morgan. “Prentiss and Hawkes, I want you guys to go to Newport and
talk with the Simpson family. JJ, Rossi, I want you guys to talk to the Mildred
family. Reid, Jane- you’re with me. We’re going to the festival and have a look
around.”
Newport, Maine
The Simpson household
“Aggie!” Simpson said, crying
her eyes out as she lay on her bed, face down. “Why did you have to go? Why did
you have to go?! OH WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO?!” She cried some more, her sobbing
reverberating through the whole house. “You promised me that we’d always be
together...why did you lie to me? Why? WHY?!”
Simpson’s mother, Martha,
couldn’t help but be taken by Ellie’s crying so she went in to her room to
check up on her daughter.
“Ellie sweetie,” said Martha,
walking in tentatively. “I’m so sorry, I wish I could bring her back.”
“Go away!” Ellie said,
curling up into a ball and pressing herself against the wall.
Martha sighed, knowing this
would happen.
“You have no business comforting me! It was your rules that got me in this mess in
the first place.”
“Honey...you snuck out of the
house and lied to your dad and I. Grounding you was the least we could have
done.”
“Yeah, but had you not
grounded me, Aggie would have slept over and not have walked to school alone- meaning
I could have saved her from her humiliation.”
Martha stood in her room in
silence, a pit developing in her stomach as she wrestled with coming up with
the best possible answer. She knew in her heart that she did the right thing
but seeing Ellie’s pain and knowing that her actions did cause it was
agonizing.
Martha then closed the door
and paced tentatively before answering.
“I wish I could bring Aggie
back,” she said, sadness tinged in her voice. “However...if you didn’t talk to
those guys, none of this would happen.”
“Oh yeah,” said Ellie, now
incensed. “Blame me, huh? Just like the rest of those idiots!”
Ellie took a magazine and
flung it forcefully at Martha, causing her mother to duck. While her mother was
avoiding the fling, Ellie got up from her bed and hurried out the door, despite
her mother’s best efforts to stop her. She was about to walk out of the house
before she was stopped in her tracks.
“Going somewhere?” Hawkes
said, brandishing her badge in Ellie’s face.
“What do you want?” Ellie said,
sneering. “I’ve already talked to the police...there’s nothing more I can add
to you.”
Hawkes extended her arm and
tried to place her hand on Ellie’s shoulder but Ellie shied away. Hawkes pulled
her hand back and spoke softly.
“Listen Ellie,” she said,
trying to calm the teenager down. “I know what you want to do. I can’t say I’ve
been in the exact same situation as you but I too have lost people who were
close to me. My dad left my mother when I was really young, forcing her to
raise myself and my sister all by herself. She would often take out her
frustrations on us, sometimes even blaming us for what he did. I can’t tell you
how many times I wished my dad was there to help my mother and so that she
would stop blaming us for his leaving but none of that can change reality. I
felt like leaving many times, but I soon realized that it wouldn’t help my
mother- it would only hurt her even more. You need your mother Ellie- as much
as you hate her now, she’s the one that will help you get through this.”
Ellie, moved by Hawkes’
words, began to cry and allowed Hawkes to hug her, which she did, warmly.
“It’s going to be okay,” said
Hawkes, comforting Ellie, “I promise.” After a few minutes in the hug, Hawkes
asked Ellie if she could answer a few questions for her and Prentiss, who had
emerged on the scene after driving around trying to find a parking spot, which
Ellie accepted.
“I don’t know why they have
snow routes year round,” said Ellie to Prentiss after Prentiss explained her
ordeal. “Hope you didn’t have to park too far.”
“Only in the school parking
lot,” deadpanned Prentiss.
“That’s not too bad.
Hopefully the school deer won’t get at it.”
Shock overcame Prentiss, who
stood in stunned silence, not only worried that the car would get pummeled but
also wondering what a school is doing letting a deer run amok in the first
place. She then thought better about worrying, deciding the task at hand was
more important and proceeded inside for the interview.
“Let me just start by saying
that we’re not here to place any blame on you,” said Hawkes softly to Ellie as
the three of them gathered in the family room. “We know that you and Aggie didn’t
do anything wrong- well, besides using fraudulent identification, but that’s
beside the point.” Ellie, still sullen, chuckled at that last point, providing
a brief respite for her as Hawkes continued, “and we know that neither of you
deserved any of the treatment you received from those men. The men are the ones
at fault, not you. We can’t stress that enough.”
“I know you may be blaming
yourself,” said Prentiss, calmly, “but don’t- those nasty men are to blame,
because they took advantage of you and robbed you of your dignity. Don’t listen
to anyone that says you brought this
upon yourself- no one deserves
mistreatment, and remember, those men, they’re nothing but cowards who prey on
the weak to make up for their own inadequacies as humans. The men that
victimized you...they’re not heroes by any stretch...they’re weak and pathetic
who need to prey on others to make up for a self-worth they’ll never attain.”
“You are a wonderful,
wonderful person,” said Hawkes. “Remember, they may have taken your virginity
but they can never take away your
soul.”
Ellie, who had been reduced
to tears, felt momentarily uplifted by the agents’ words. “Thanks,” she said.
“You guys are the first people to say those things to me. It really helps.”
“We have a lot of experience
dealing with situations like yours,” said Prentiss. “We can’t tell you how
frustrating it is trying to combat victim blaming- a rape is never a woman’s
fault, yet that seems to be the only defence a rapist has and it’s horrifying.
The rape victim has already been through enough- they don’t need any more
pain.”
“Listen,” said Hawkes softly
but warmly, “we hate to bring up the memories about the event but in order to
catch these guys we need to ask you about it. Is that okay?” Ellie nodded yes
which allowed the agents to proceed with the interview.
The Mildred household
“We don’t know why someone
would want to do this,” said Todd Mildred, Aggie’s single father, sighing with
incredulousness. “All I know is that my daughter is dead and the world seems
happy about it.” Mildred then let out an audible scoff. “I don’t know where people get off on taking people
down…Aggie didn’t ask for any of this…those men…they took advantage of her…they preyed on the weak…why do they get
celebrated?”
“We don’t understand it
either, Mr. Mildred,” said Rossi. “Despite all the strides society has made in
recent years, we’re still a very ‘macho’ culture and men are still evaluated by
their ‘sexual’ conquests. Unfortunately, teens like Aggie are seen as the ‘cream
of the crop’ to ‘conquer’ because teens are seen as ‘pure’…I wish things were
different, but attitudes are the hardest thing to change.”
“I get all that,” said
Mildred, trying his best not to cry. “I still don’t understand…why Aggie? She
didn’t deserve any of this…she’s a good girl, she just made a mistake, one that
I’m sure she regrets. Yet she’s the
one that all the vile gets pointed towards as if she somehow intended to
corrupt those ‘poor men’. I mean…these people…they’re incredible.”
“Girls, unfortunately, tend
to be held to higher personality standards than men,” explained Jareau. “We’re
supposed to be the ‘fairer’ gender, the ones that are smarter and more
restrained. Plus, girls know they’re the ones the boys pursue…that’s why,
unfortunately, if a girl gets a chance to knock some competition down a peg,
she’ll do it.”
“I know it’s a lot for you to
comprehend,” said Rossi, “and we wish none of this had happened. We thank you
for taking the time to help us out because that will allow us to find out who
victimized your daughter.”
“What drew Aggie to Smoove
Operator?” asked Jareau. “Is she a big fan of hip-hop or was that an anomaly?”
“I think it was all anomalies,” said Mildred with a
chuckle. “I’m an ‘80s kid…I don’t understand music today…I grew up with Prince
and New Order…you know, guys that actually tried
in their music and didn’t rely on lewd stunts to get hits like these guys do.”
Mildred sighed before continuing. “I didn’t really check up on her tastes…she
had a job and she paid for her own music…so all I knew was what was coming out
of her stereo when she’s doing homework or going on Facebook or whatever it is
she did in her room.” He paused to think. “I think she did listen to a lot of
hip-hop…if it wasn’t Smoove, then it was 50 Cent or Drake or…what’s that guy’s
name that sings about dancing with your grandma?”
“Tyga?” said Rossi.
“You know the song?” said
Mildred, surprised.
“I got it on my MP3 player…I
love it,” said Rossi with a smile.
“So she listened to a lot of
raunchy stuff,” said Jareau. “What was your opinion about it?”
“Well,” said Mildred. “It’s
not my musical tastes…but I wasn’t
going to tell her not to listen to it. From a very early age, I always tried
explaining things to Aggie instead of sheltering her from them…she’s going to
learn the bad words at some point, I figured I might as well explain to her
about what they mean and how to use them properly. She’s a smart kid…she grasped
things very easily so I knew that if I taught her how to be responsible, she
could be responsible.”
“So you didn’t stop her from
going to the festival,” said Jareau.
“Not at all,” said Mildred.
“I trusted her…as long as she wasn’t going alone, which she wouldn’t be, then I
saw no problem with her attendance there.”
“She still broke the law in
order to attend,” said Rossi, matter-of-factly.
“I believed the law was
archaic anyway,” said Mildred, who took a deep breath and wiped his face before
continuing. “I’m a libertarian…I don’t think the government should have the
right to tell its people how to raise their kids…Aggie might not have been
physically old enough to attend a festival of that nature but mentally, she
was…and I don’t see a problem with her attendance.” Mildred took another deep
breath. “Look, Aggie respected me, so I treated her with respect. I know my
methods are unorthodox…but I see no point babying her when she was almost an
adult.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jareau. “We’re
not here to pass judgment on your methods.”
“I was just merely pointing
out it’s not very ‘responsible’ to advocate breaking the law,” said Rossi, who
then sighed, “but…it won’t help, so I apologize.”
“I’m not asking this question
as a means to justify what happened to her, because there is no way,” said
Jareau, “but I do want to know if Aggie had a lot of boyfriends, just as a
matter of building a victim profile.”
“No,” said Mildred. “I never
saw her with a boy. Not that I would have stopped her…as I said, I taught her
responsibility…if she wanted to have sex, or even lots of random sex, she could
have done so. As long as she was using protection, then I would have been fine
with it. You…you don’t think that because she was a virgin she was selected a
victim, do you?”
“That’s what we’re trying to
figure out,” said Rossi. “Teens matching Aggie’s appearance appear in other
cases, so we’re wondering if the UnSubs knew about her before the festival.”
Mildred wiped his face and
scratched his eyes out of stress. “Give me a minute,” he said, getting up. “I
need some water.” He then left the agents to go to the kitchen.
As he was in the kitchen
collecting himself, the agents analyzed what they heard.
“He’s not a strict parent,”
said Jareau.
“You’ve got that right,” said
Rossi. “He’s got a cavalier attitude towards the rules.”
“You’d think it would rub off
on Aggie though...without being controlled, she could pursue any inhibition she
wanted.”
“Or...she’s been
overexplained everything and that makes her tentative. Todd said that she spent
a lot of time in her room...that doesn’t sound like a teenager who oozed
confidence. It sounds more like a teen who’s overwhelmed by her adulthood and
needed to be eased into it better.”
“He’s a single parent...he
can only do so much. Plus he beat the odds...his wife died in childbirth and
thus had to raise Aggie all by himself.”
“I know...Nickelback
dedicated their ‘Lullaby’ video to him because his story was
inspirational...but I think it only goes so far. At some point, your lack of
parenting skills are going to come
into play.”
“Speaking of parenting...Todd’s
been gone for a while...we should check up on him.”
The agents got up from the
living room couch and made their way to the kitchen.
“Oh dear no!” Jareau screamed
in horror.
“Paramedics here, stat!”
Rossi shouted into his phone after furiously dialing.
There lay Todd Mildred,
unconscious on the floor after attempting to overdose on sleeping pills. The
agents waited for the ambulance in stunned silence, hoping and praying that
Todd would make it through.
The Simpson household
“So why don’t we start from
the beginning,” said Prentiss, beginning the interview with Ellie Simpson. “It’s
August 30...you’re with Aggie at her house and that night you buy the tickets
for the festival. Why then?”
Ellie struggled to keep her
composure, but felt obligated to soldier on, so she did. “We’re both big fans
of Smoove Operator,” she said. “I remember Aggie telling me that night her boss
at work gave her a bonus for winning Employee of the Month, so we decided to
celebrate by going to the Festival.”
“How’d you get the fake ID’s?”
Hawkes asked.
“Aggie has a friend,” said
Ellie. “She pressed them for us...they’re virtually identical to the Maine
license, she’s been doing it for years.”
“We’ve seen her handiwork,”
said Prentiss, acknowledging her point knowing the counterfieter had been
arrested the day before. “She is good. It also helps that the Bostonian Empire
doesn’t put a lot of funds into anti-counterfieting.”
“Were there other people your
age or was everyone else older than you?” Hawkes asked.
“I think there were a few
others,” said Ellie, “but no one we knew.”
“Did you two drink?” Hawkes
continued.
“We had a lot,” said Ellie, chuckling sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” said Hawkes,
rubbing Ellie’s hand. “Like I said, no blame.”
“Did you receive a lot of
attention at the event?” Prentiss asked.
“Lots of looks,” said Ellie.
“There was this other guy I talked to...he was very nice, he didn’t touch me.
Well, we did hug but that was it.” She then hung her head as she continued. “I
tried to add him on Facebook but he never added me back,” she explained.
“We’re going to need that
name,” said Prentiss. “Don’t get too down about him though- if he was worth it
you’d know.”
“You don’t think he was part
of it, do you?” Ellie asked, worry tinged in her voice.
“That’s what we need to
figure out,” said Prentiss. “UnSubs like ours do tend to operate
surreptitiously.”
“I don’t understand,” said
Ellie.
“They’re clever about hiding
their tracks,” said Hawkes. “It’s likely the two men were with another
individual who would act seemingly harmless just so he could ‘screen’ potential
victims. The man you talked to could fit that bill.”
Ellie began to sulk. “I can’t
believe I fell for that,” she said, sighing heavily.
“Hey,” Prentiss said
reassuringly, “no blame. Don’t forget that.”
“Was there anyone else you
talked to besides the perpetrators?” Hawkes asked.
“A couple of people made a
few catcalls,” said Ellie. “Normal stuff...nothing that jumps out at me.
Until...” She then began to cry, which prompted Hawkes to put her arm around
her in an effort to comfort her.
“You’re doing wonderful,”
said Hawkes, rubbing Ellie’s arm. “Your bravery is amazing...just stay strong.”
“Do you want us to come back
another time?” Prentiss asked.
“No,” said Ellie, fighting
back the tears. “I need to be strong...for Aggie.” Hawkes rejoined Prentiss as
Ellie pressed on.
“I remember,” said Ellie,
“when ‘Fuzzy Boundaries’ came on that Aggie and I felt a rush of energy. It’s
our favourite song.” Hawkes smiled, wondering why Ellie would think of that
song in that light, but decided against pressing that issue since it wouldn’t
help. “You know...” Ellie continued through a quiver, “I hear that song a
million times. It’s been No. 1 for what, 16 weeks now? Yet I never get sick of
it.” She then sighed. “Until all this happened.”
“Remember,” said Prentiss,
“don’t blame yourself. Those men hurt you, you did nothing wrong.”
“The song makes us want to
twerk,” said Ellie, “and grind with someone. I can’t explain why.”
“Twerk?” Prentiss asked with
a puzzled look.
“Twerking is simply shaking
your booty by yourself,” said Hawkes. “Grinding is something you do with
someone else.”
“Oh,” said Prentiss,
understanding the explanation.
“So what happened,” said
Hawkes. “The men started to grind with you?”
“Yeah,” said Ellie. “As soon
as I felt a guy behind me I just reacted, as if a switch had been flipped. I
got so into it that I didn’t look at first to see who it was. After I deduced
that he was cute I decided to keep on going.”
“At any point during the
night,” said Prentiss, ”did you get a good look at the perpetrators’ eyes? We
know how else they look like, except that every picture we have of them have
dark sunglasses on.”
“No,” said Ellie, “neither he
nor Aggie’s man took them off...they were quite big too.”
“Oh okay, said Hawkes, “Did
Aggie react the same way you did when the man came from behind her.?”
“Aggie was always the more
cautious one,” explained Ellie, “so she didn’t start to dance until she saw
that I was dancing. I didn’t really pay much attention to what happened to her,
except that I saw her at one point kissing the man with her shirt off.”
“What about your man,” said
Hawkes, “what did he do?”
“I don’t know why,” said
Ellie with a sigh, “but I decided to lean up against him as I grinded with
him...and...” Ellie’s voice trailed off as she continued. “He felt me up.”
“Remember,” said Hawkes, “the
man did this to you...it’s not your
fault that he decided to take things where you didn’t want them to go. He
should have controlled himself.”
“Well...I did...kinda...want
him to do that,” said Ellie, sheepishly.
“...and that’s also fine,”
asserted Prentiss. “As long as you consented fully with the actions then you
did nothing wrong- it’s the man’s fault for taking advantage of you. Listen, we
don’t need the details unless you feel it’s necessary to provide them, but we
would like to know how much of the sex acts you consented to.”
“Well, um...” Ellie said,
trailing off before Hawkes weighed in.
“If you have to think about
it then we already know the answer,” said Hawkes, assertively.
“I wanted to grind with him,”
said Ellie, sheepishly, “he just...took things too quickly. I mean, the next
thing I know, he puts his hands on my legs and runs his hands up my thighs, and
before I could say something, his hands were already fingering my vagina.”
“Listen, I know this is very
sensitive,” said Prentiss, “but we need to know certain details as it will help
us identify your attacker.”
“Okay,” said Ellie, taking a
deep breath.
“When you say that he took
things too quickly,” asked Hawkes, “do you mean that he rushed his hands
physically?”
“No,” said Ellie, “he was
smooth and composed the entire time.”
“Okay,” acknowledged Hawkes,
“when he touched you, how did he do it? Did it feel like he was doing so, say,
in a warming way or in a possessive way, or coldly?”
“ ‘Warming?’ I don’t
understand,” said Ellie, perplexed at Hawkes’ word choice. “He violated me,
right?”
“This isn’t about trying to
make light of it or to mitigate what happened,” said Hawkes. “What we’re trying
to do is understand his motivations, because if we understand how he viewed
you, we may be able to understand why he picked you as a victim and that helps
us understand what kind of person we’re looking for.”
“Okay,” said Ellie, nodding
her head. “It felt like...it felt like...” Ellie started to sob, recounting the
horrors, but pressed on anyway. “It felt like he knew what he wanted and
nothing was going to stop him, but he wasn’t rough...he was tender to the
touch. He...” She hung her head down and started to cry again, soothed back
into the interview by Hawkes’ warm hands. “I feel so bad...he excited me real
good...how could something so vile get me going...maybe I did want it...”
Hawkes continued to rub her
hands. “Ellie...the orgasm is a physiological response...all you need are the
right kinds of sensations on your body and you’ll achieve it, whether you
wanted those sensations or not.” Ellie still gave her a blank look. “Think
about it this way- if you were to take a pen and drag it towards your eye,
instinctively your eyelids close, whether or not you wanted them to. Orgasms
are the same way- if he puts his hands in the right places and moves them in
the right way he’ll cause you to orgasm because that’s how the body is wired.
You can’t control that...so remember, just because you achieved orgasm does not
mean that you wanted what happened to you- the organs react involuntarily.”
“Does that mean I should have
stopped him before he put his hands up my skirt?” Ellie asked.
“Ellie, you were in the
moment,” explained Hawkes. “Like I said, arousal is involuntarily...sometimes
you just can’t control it...and, unfortunately men do take advantage of that.
Again, the man is at fault here.”
“I was so scared,” said
Ellie, “I felt things I never felt before...I didn’t know how to handle them.”
“We understand that,” said
Prentiss reassuringly, “and likely the man knew of that too.”
“I just felt so much
pressure,” explained Ellie. “Both Aggie and I...we have friends in high school
who’ve already had sex and kept telling us about how much more ‘adult’ they
were than us because of it...so when the man felt me up, I felt like I had no
choice but to give in.”
“Ellie,” said Hawkes, “you
didn’t have to. Over half of American teens are still virgins...likely your ‘friends’
were just pulling your leg to marginalize you. You should never feel pressured
into sex...remember that.”
“Be lucky you didn’t get a
baby out of it,” said Prentiss. “When I was 15, I was in love with this boy and
he pressured me into sex...I had to get an abortion. From that day on I wasn’t
going to let guys use sex as a bargaining chip.”
“I still don’t know,
actually,” said Ellie, “I’m too ashamed to get tested, lest my mother find
out.”
“We’ll drive you to the
clinic,” said Hawkes. “I’ll talk to your mother.”
Just then, Prentiss received
a phone call from Rossi.
“Prentiss,” she said, leaving
outside to answer. “What? Oh that’s awful...no, we’re still talking to
Ellie...Rossi, she’s a rape victim,
she needs a lot of comfort and that will take as long as it needs to...look, we
need to get her to a clinic, she hasn’t tested herself for pregnancy and, as I
suspect, for STDs…Rossi, we need to make do with what we have…Randy won’t be
back home for a couple of hours, and we can wait for him…all right, bye.”
Prentiss then hung up the
phone and arranged for Ellie to go the clinic to get her tests with Hawkes,
while Prentiss stayed to interview Martha.
Bangor City Forest, Bangor, Maine
“Ever been to a city with its
own forest?” asked Jane with dry wit as he, Morgan and Reid hiked their way to
the clearing in the Forest where the Summer of Rap Festival was held. Since the
police only learned of the crime a day after the event took place, the Festival’s
equipment had been taken down, leaving the field empty and the agents to rely
on floor plans.
“Actually, a number of cities
have their own forests,” answered Reid almost immediately. “They serve as an
ecological equalizer combating against a urban area’s many different pollutants
by detoxifying the air.”
“Umm…Commander Data?” said
Jane, “can you repeat that in English?”
“He means that the forest
helps clean up a city’s air,” said Morgan.
“Ah,” said Jane, “I see.
Well, I know a lot of cities have forests…but most of those are ‘just for show’.
This seems to actually be a forest.”
“There is a greater amount of
biodiversity in Bangor than there are in other cities, I’ll give you that,”
said Reid.
“Yeah,” said Morgan, “but how
much more could it have if people actually followed the anti-poaching laws.”
“Good point,” said Jane with
a sardonic chuckle.
“Okay,” said Morgan as the
agents reached the massive clearing where the Festival was held. They proceeded
to walk to the north end where the stage was. “So…we’ve got a field that’s
roughly the size of a football field…here is where Ellie Simpson and Aggie
Mildred enjoyed the show, and right in front of us would be the stage.”
“So if it took us five
minutes to walk from one end of the field to the other,” said Reid, “I’m going
to guess by the throng of people that would be present that our UnSubs would
likely need ten to get to the front of the stage.”
“Ten minutes?” said Jane with
an incredulous look. “You don’t get out much, do you Reid?”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Morgan
with a sigh.
“In a concert of this size
everyone crushes towards the front,”
said Jane. “So, at best, we’re talking maybe 15-20 minutes to get from the
south end to the north end…and that’s if everyone is polite…and that’s a big ‘if’.”
“Aren’t we jumping to
conclusions that these guys were at the south end to begin with?” said Reid.
“We don’t have any proof of that.”
“Well, based on the
pictures,” said Morgan, “at the start of the Festival the UnSubs were nowhere
near the front of the stage. They also can’t be seen in any pictures of
Simpkins at the start of his set, but by the time he gets to ‘Fuzzy Boundaries’,
you can already see the girls grinding with the UnSubs.”
“So they were at least at the
midway point of the crowd,” said Jane, “and he was still seen with his shirt on
until ‘Dirty Girl’ came on and that was two songs before he closed his set with
an extended version of ‘Fuzzy Boundaries’.”
“Wait,” said Reid, “Jane, you
said it would take 20 minutes to get from one end of the field to other…so,
from, at least the midway point of the crowd, it would take at least ten
minutes…and that’s precisely the amount of time that elapsed before the UnSubs
met the girls…now, if these guys were simply scouting it would take them a lot
longer than ten minutes to get to the stage…so they had to have had a sign.”
“Reid,” Morgan said, pulling
up his phone, “look where Simpkins was when he played ‘Dirty Girl’.”
“He’s right in front of the
girls, practically standing in front of them,” said Reid. “He gave the UnSubs a
signal.”
“Didn’t he do that series of ‘Nasty
Nubiles’ videos?” asked Jane, analyzing. “It would make sense that he would
team up with these guys so they could score with some pubescents.”
“So while Simpkins is playing
his set,” said Morgan, analyzing, “he’s scouting the crowd looking for girls
that the UnSubs could hit on…and, by taking off his shirt and standing by where
the girls are, the UnSubs know where to go.”
“The girls must have thought
Simpkins was singing right to them,” said Jane with a concerned look on his
face. “Little did they know…”
Morgan then walked towards
the area of the stage. “Okay,” he said, analyzing, doing math in his head. He
then stepped right to where the stage started and made some more notes before
revealing what he found.
“Not only did Simpkins help
out the UnSubs locate targets,” he said, “the stage was calculated in such a
way that Simpkins had a perfect sightline towards the entire crowd. So, whoever
set up the stage did so to help Simpkins pick the perfect targets.”
“So now we’re looking at the
people who set up the stage,” said Jane.
The three agents then made
their way to where the porta potties were, to examine the area the four had
sex. Morgan then pulled up on his phone the festival floor plan and
purposefully paced.
“Okay,” said Morgan, making
occasional stops as he walked. “The porta potties were grouped in threes right
here…here…here…and here.”
“They’re odd places for porta
potties,” said Reid, walking to one of the porta potty spots. “The ground is
sloped…so these had to have been bolted down.”
“This one is interesting,”
said Jane, standing at the second group of porta potties, with the other two
agents joining him. “According to the floor plan, the fourth one is set up just
perfectly. Now, accounting for the height of the stand where the potty’s hole
went and the time of day when the pictures were taken, you’ll notice that the
sightlines are aligned perfectly so
that our UnSubs’ faces are obscured but the girls’ faces are not. What this
means is that Simpkins had to time his shirt removal so that the UnSubs knew
exactly when to strike, meaning likely these guys were good enough at their
seduction techniques that they could coerce the girls into sex within minutes,
aided by the fact they were easily suggestible in the first place.”
“Do you know what else this
means?” asked Morgan. “This means we’re also looking at not just the guy who
set up the stage but the whole festival as well. I’m going to call Garc-”
Morgan let out a huge sigh when he looked at his phone.
“Rossi,” said Morgan,
annoyed, “for the last time, I’m not
challenging you to a rap battle. It’s just not- oh…I see.” A sullen look
overcame Morgan’s face as he continued. “Meet us back at Bangor Police
Headquarters in an hour. Let’s see what we’ve got first.” As Morgan ended his
call, Jane and Reid gave him concerned looks.
“Todd Mildred attempted
suicide halfway through questioning,” said Morgan.
“Oh goodness,” said Reid.
“That’s horrible.”
“Poor man’s been through a
lot,” said Jane. “I hope he makes it. Was it something Rossi said?”
“I need to find out about
that,” said Morgan. “I doubt it though…Rossi and JJ have been doing their thing
for a long time…they wouldn’t deliberately send Todd over the edge. He likely
got overwhelmed by everything and the questioning was the last straw.”
“How’s he doing now?” asked
Jane.
“He’s in the hospital right
now as I understand,” said Morgan. “Critical but stable condition. Let’s hope
for the best.”
St. Clement’s Hospital, Bangor, Maine
“Vital signs are good,” said
Doctor Stan Burke, the lead physician looking over Todd Mildred, “but I wonder
for how long- the drugs are still doing quite a number on his heart. The
digestion has complicated his blood flow.”
“How much longer do you think
he’ll be in here for?” Rossi asked.
“It could be another few
days,” said Burke. “We need to make sure that all the toxins are gone before we
can release him.”
Rossi nodded in
acknowledgment as the doctor went away to tend to Mildred.
Coming down the hallway was a
man, recognizing Rossi right away, with a concerned look on his face. It was
Randy Simpson.
“How’s he doing?” Simpson
said after greeting Rossi.
“He OD’ed pretty badly,” said
Rossi. “The drugs he took reacted negatively in his stomach so that’s given him
a few complications.”
Simpson sighed. “Todd is a
good man,” he said, “he raised Aggie all by himself. I’d hate for these guys to
take them both.”
“Aggie was all he had to live
for...I’m guessing he tried his hardest to move on from her death but he couldn’t
do it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose your wife in childbirth
and then to lose your only memory of your wife later.”
“Linda had a lower back
tattoo and decided to get an epidural...at first the doctor blamed the tattoo
for her death but we later found out the hospital didn’t santize the catheter
properly...so Todd sued and won a settlement of millions. I’m told the doctor
still resents him for that.”
“The doctor lost his license,
right?”
“Instantaneously. Moved out
of the Bostonian Empire entirely almost immediately but he kept sending Todd
threatening letters...he even suggested to him once that Aggie was actually his
daughter, not Todd’s...I couldn’t believe some of the things he wrote.”
“Did he keep the letters?”
“I’m not sure...might have to
ask the police for that.”
Just then, Morgan appeared on
the scene.
“How’s he doing?” Morgan
asked.
“Prognosis is still up in the
air,” said Rossi with a sigh.
“Rossi,” Morgan said
assuredly, “I know what happened...don’t feel too bad about it. There was
nothing you could do.”
“It still sucks,” Rossi
responded with a sigh, a notion Morgan agreed with.
Morgan then turned to
Simpson. “Mr. Simpson,” said Morgan, greeting Simpson. “Derek Morgan, FBI. Do
you have the letter you received regarding Ellie?”
“I deleted it right away
without a second thought,” said Simpson. “I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t let
someone else tell me what to do, so I wasn’t going to fall for a ransom
attempt. I also thought this was some kind of sick Internet prank so I avoided
it...but, unfortunately, I miscalculated badly.”
“When did you know the
pictures had come online?” Morgan asked.
“I received the message on
Facebook...and the guys must have been online because an hour after I deleted
the E-Mail I suddenly got this post on my Facebook News Feed that purported to
be a video of the ‘Maine Girls’. I was curious so I opened it up...only to be
horrified at what I saw. I went to confront Ellie about it only to find her in
front of her computer crying incessantly. I looked and I saw one of her ‘friends’
put her down on her wall for her behaviour. That was only the beginning.
Apparently on Read It or something some guy posted all of our contact
information, so that night and into the day we kept receiving phone calls,
E-Mails, texts...you name it...about the incident. We were all rattled.”
“Reddit is what I think you
were referring to...that site...those guys like to do all kinds of different
things.” Morgan sighed before continuing. “What do you remember about the
letter? Even the littlest detail can help us out.”
“Okay...” Simpson paused to
think deeply. “Well, I don’t remember the letter much...but the Facebook
account...it was a picture of a fisherman, out on Moosehead Lake, where Ellie and
I like to go on ‘father-daughter’ trips. I thought it was odd that the picture
they used was that...it can’t be a coincidence.”
“That’s what we need to
figure out. Something is connecting all of these girls together...we just need
to know what.”
Newport, Maine
“Okay,” said Prentiss to
Hawkes after the two of them returned Ellie Simpson back home from the clinic.
She then started the car and began to drive off. “So according to Morgan, one
of the guys helped co-ordinate the placement of the equipment at the festival,
since everything was aligned just so the pictures could be easily taken. We
also know Kyle Simpkins helped them out.”
“I knew Smoove Operator had
to be involved in this,” said Hawkes with a scowl. “He’s too much of a scumbag
not to be. So our next step is to question him and the festival co-ordinator,
right?”
“Simpkins is using his
lawyers to avoid speaking to us...and more than one person helped out with the
layout.”
“Well, all those guys could
be part of the team.”
“I suppose...though, as I
pointed out to Morgan, it’s the stage manager’s job to make sure the stage is
positioned in such a way that Simpkins can see the crowd in the first
place...and anyone working at the festival could have moved the porta potties.
So we’re almost back at square one.”
“Almost...what we do know is
that Ellie said her attacker was tender to the touch...he was controlling, but
he was caring.”
“Controlling but caring...he
sounds like a father.”
“Or a boyfriend.”
“I think the age difference
is too great for the man not to see Ellie as anything other than a surrogate
daughter.”
“Unless Ellie reminded him of
a young love...I find it odd that, if he was fatherly, his sole objective was
sex...if he were fatherly, the sex would have been a corollary...instead, sex
was the goal. It points to a young love to me.”
The pair stopped the car
momentarily having come to a stop sign, although it didn’t slow their
conversation. “So in being controlling the attacker is saying that he does not
want to lose his love again.”
“Exactly.”
“Hmmnnn...I think that
works.”
Just then, a loud bang could
be heard outside of the car. Prentiss let out some obscenities in disgust and
went out to take a look with Hawkes. Prentiss then let out some more cussing.
“I think the deer got your
car,” said Hawkes with a sardonic chuckle.
“Hotch is going to be so
mad,” said Prentiss, wiping her face with stress before calling a tow truck.
Billings District Court, Billings, Montana
“Your Honour,” said Hotchner
to Billings District Judge Kenneth Baylor, “we are not suggesting that by
bringing him in for questioning that Mr. Simpkins is a suspect. He is a witness
to an incident subject to a Continental investigation and we merely want to
understand what he saw.”
“Agent Hotchner,” said
Simpkins’ attorney, Frederick Gregaros, “if he is simply a witness, then why
are you compelling him to talk? A witness has a right not to come forward, and
Mr. Simpkins is simply exercising his right.”
“We find it odd that as soon
as we ask him to come in for questioning he throws up a legal roadblock...that
tells us that he has something to hide.”
“If he does have something to
hide, it’s his right to hide it. You forget, Agent, that the Montanan Empire is
not a member of the North American Union and you have no jurisdiction there.”
“However, since the incident did occur in Union territory, we do have
a right to issue a subpoena.”
“...and we have the right to
contest that subpoena. Agent, unless he’s committed a serious crime, we cannot
compel him to release him your custody. We just can’t. Montanan law is very
clear about that.”
“We have proof that he aided
the crime in question. The stage in Bangor was structured in such a way to give
him a view of the crowd, not to mention he moved to the section of the stage
where the victims were located and removed his shirt mere moments before the
UnSubs attacked them.”
“Coincidences...you still
have no physical proof he was involved.”
“Agent Hotchner,” said
Baylor, interjecting authoritatively. “Mr. Gregaros is right. Unless you’ve
actually got proof that he’s committed a serious crime we cannot discuss
extradition. I’m denying the motion.” Baylor then loudly struck his gavel and
adjourned the hearing.
Hotchner then placed a
purposeful call outside of the courtroom.
“Garcia,” said Hotchner to
his Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia.
“Yes Captain America?” Garcia
said in a perky tone while taking a sip out of her fountain pop.
Hotchner let out a sigh
knowing he needed to talk to Garcia about decorum, though now wasn’t the right
time. “Garcia, I need you to look into Kyle Simpkins. I can’t get his
involvement in the case without finding proof that he’s committed a serious
crime so dig, and dig deep. Even if we can uncover an outstanding arrest
warrant it would be good enough.”
“Aye aye Captain! I’ll be
right on that!”
Bangor Police Headquarters, Bangor, Maine
“Okay,” said Morgan, as the
team gathered in a conference room, “I spoke with the festival organizers…no
one knows who exactly set up the porta potties the way they were…which means
our UnSub did it at night when no one was looking, and probably right at the
end of the shift so no one could suspect what he was doing. So, we’ve got one
option left…let’s work the profile.”
“We know the photographer is
an experienced guy,” said Jane, “because he got the sightlines from the porta
potties perfectly.”
“So that probably means our
photographer is at least in his mid-thirties,” said Rossi. “That gives him the
time to develop his skills.”
“He’d likely also be friends
with the other two UnSubs,” said Reid, “as their plan worked out extremely
well.”
“They’ve also got some kind
of tie with Simpkins,” said Prentiss. “To what extent we don’t know- it’s too
early to tell, especially if he’s not going to talk with us.”
“Do we assume that the
photographer is the ringleader?” Hawkes asked. “I think since everything is set
up entirely for him then he’s got to be the one calling the shots.”
“I don’t know about ‘ringleader’,”
said Rossi. “Simpkins seemed to be the one who led the men to the girls...I
think of the photographer as more the ‘brains’ behind the operation.”
“That still makes him a
leader of some kind,” said Morgan, “since the other two UnSubs- and even
Simpkins- listened to his directions.”
“Do we look at him as the ‘controlling’
type?” Hawkes asked.
“He seemed to let his
partners do what they liked,” said Morgan. “From what we understand about the
attacks on Aggie and Ellie, the men seemed very willing to go after them- if
the photographer was controlling, the men might have been tentative in their
approach, and they were not.”
“He also wasn’t in any of the
pictures,” said Prentiss. “Witness reports and what pictures we do have from
this attack and others tell us that the attackers were always the same, and
that the attackers communicated very little with the photographer, if at all-
no one saw the three of them conversing, just the two attackers. If he was
controlling, I think the photographer would have wanted to be a part of the
action at some point, not just a distant spectator.”
“Perhaps, also,” said Reid as
a thought came to him, “he didn’t get in on the action because he did not feel
his looks were good enough to be in the action to begin with. The attackers
were described as ‘cute’ by Ellie...I’m sure if she saw the photographer she
wouldn’t call him cute.”
“Also,” said Morgan, “if the
photographer is the ‘director’ then he’s also likely the one who has the
connection with Simpkins. Meaning we’ve got to look at festival photographers
who have done work with celebrities.”
“In that case, do we surmise
that the photographer works professionally?” Reid asked.
“Probably,” said Jane, “but
only as a freelance photographer. He likely works in festival setup.”
“He could just be a
volunteer,” said Hawkes.
“Money seems to be motivating
the group to continue doing what they’re doing,” said Prentiss, “so they’re
likely not rich to begin with. Full-time photographers, especially ones with
celebrity links, don’t need ransom money.”
“What about the two
attackers?” Morgan said, changing the focus of the conversation.
“We don’t have much except
that they’re white males in their thirties,” said Prentiss. “We can’t even
gauge their hair colour or facial hair style since they keep changing them. All
we know is that the pictoral evidence suggests that each set of attackers were
a pair and that this pair shared the same facial structure which tells us they
were the same in each attack but that’s all we know.”
“If they’re quite skilled at
changing their appearances,” said Reid, “then perhaps they have experience in
fields that deal with changing appearances- and since we’ve deduced the
ringleader is an avid photographer, and, we presume, they’re not using makeup,
they’ve worked in costume design or fashion design.”
“Which doesn’t narrow it down
too much,” said Morgan. “As we all know, despite popular belief, there are many
male fashion designers who are not gay.”
“I think the sex acts are the
answer,” said Rossi. “The one that attacked Aggie had her give him fellatio,
while the one that attacked Ellie wanted sex. Although forcing someone into sex
is still a selfish act, the actual act itself requires both partners to
participate to get something out of it, plus sex itself can provide
gratification for both parties. Fellatio, no matter how you look at it, is a selfish act, since only the man is
getting serviced and the woman is doing all the work. This jibes with what we
already know, meaning Ellie’s attacker was certainly reminiscing about a lost
love while Aggie’s attacker was all about control and dominance.”
“Yeah, but the acts were not
consensual,” cautioned Hawkes.
“Realistically and
technically,” said Rossi, “yeah you’re right...but these were not your
stereotypical ‘forced’ rapes. Neither were beaten or threatened with a gun or a
knife, nor were they drugged by the UnSubs...these were, at the time, ‘willing’
acts, in that the men only proceeded with the acts once the girls actually said
‘yes’ to them. That those ‘yesses’ were engineered is immaterial in this
analysis- in the UnSubs’ minds, those girls actually did say ‘yes’, even though we all know better about that. That
holds the key about who the attackers were.”
“Prentiss,” said Reid, “were
the other attacks similar to this? We can’t make generalizations based on one
incident.”
“Not all of the other sex
acts were recorded,” said Prentiss. “The other victims refused to share their
experiences with the police, perhaps out of embarrassment. All we’ve got are
witness reports, and they’re pretty sketchy...although the only confirmed acts
we have suggest that Ellie was the first one to have vaginal intercourse with the
attackers.”
“So Ellie was special,” said
Rossi, “because our UnSub wanted to ‘share’ something with her, whereas with
the other girls it was all about servicing him.”
“What do we make about Aggie?”
asked Morgan. “Girls like her seem to be the most consistent target…and Aggie
was controlled.”
“Both attackers seemed to
have targeted Aggie-like people,” said Prentiss. “This means that they both
know a girl like Aggie…and they both sought to control her.”
“Schoolteachers, perhaps?”
said Jane. “That might be the only explanation for how two different people
could have issues with the same teenage girl- they’d have to both have regular
interaction with her, and the only way to do that is at a school.”
“They could be family friends,”
said Rossi, “whose families thus interact on a regular basis.”
“Yeah,” said Reid with a
disagreeing look, “but usually family friends don’t seek to control another
person’s family members…they stick to their own. It may still be possible, but
schoolteacher would be the easiest explanation.”
“Plus being a schoolteacher
allows them to work summer festivals,” said Morgan.
“…and since they were quite
proficient with the Internet,” said Rossi, “we can assume that one of them
teaches computer science.”
“Another question,” said
Hawkes, “do we assume that they live here, in Bangor, because that was their ‘final’
stop on the festival circuit?”
“Normally I would say yes,”
said Reid, “but I think if they were locals, they’d be recognized by someone,
plus Ellie and Aggie would likely know them. The Festival also ended at such a
point that would allow them to fly home.”
“So we’ve got to search
flight records and see which schoolteachers flew out of town on Labour Day,”
said Morgan. “I’ll get Garcia in on that.”
FBI Headquarters, Quantico, Virginia
“Hey pretty lady,” said
Technical Analyst Kevin Lynch, walking in on his girlfriend, Garcia, a coffee
firmly in his hand.”
“My goodness!” said Garcia,
startled by Lynch. “You don’t knock?”
“I can’t pay my girlfriend a
visit and give her a coffee?” said Lynch with a warm smile.
“You got me a coffee?” said
Garcia, taken by Lynch’s kindness. “Right when I needed one? Aww…you’re so
sweet.”
She then got up and kissed
Lynch and looked at him lovingly into his eyes before a thought came to her.
“Wait,” she said, concerned.
“What did you do now?”
“What?” said Lynch,
perplexed. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You never bring me a
coffee…therefore, something’s gotta be up.” Garcia then folded her arms and
glared intently at Lynch, who started to get nervous.
“What? Can’t a guy get his
girlfriend a coffee without it meaning anything else?” The intensity of Garcia’s
glaring soon got to Lynch, who panted heavily.
“Honey…you forget…I work with
profilers. Nothing gets by me.”
Lynch began to stutter.
“I…I…uh…swear I didn’t do
anything…um…I promise!”
“You forgot to take out the
garbage.”
Lynch’s panting got heavier.
“Oh come on…I had to get to work for 5AM today…I…you…I mean…you know I couldn’t
do it…”
“I know.” Garcia let a
chuckle, smiled and kissed him again, which relieved his stress. “You keep
forgetting I love seeing you squirm…it makes you so cute…and you fall for it every
time.”
“I gotta work on that…” Lynch
soon regained his composure and then turned his attention to Garcia’s screens.
“What are you working on
there, babe?” said Lynch, staring intently at the screens.
“Kyle Simpkins,” said Garcia.
“Hotch is having difficulties just getting him to agree to questioning, so I
have to dig into his background and see if there something we can use to
extradite him.”
Lynch was surprised to hear
that. “Extradite him? Seems extreme…can’t we just issue him a subpoena and he
has to testify?”
“It’s not so easy…Simpkins is
from Billings…so he’s outside of our jurisdiction. Remember, the Montanan
Empire is not part of the North American Union.”
“Right…oh that is a quagmire.
How do you know he doesn’t have a clean criminal record?”
“Come on…the guy sings about
girls as if they’re nothing but sex toys. Guys like that are not clean.”
“Doesn’t he have a wife and
three kids? How can you say he treats women poorly? Besides, don’t you know all
those guys sing those songs just to generate controversy?”
“ ‘Dirty Girl’ contains a
reference to flunitrazepam…how could he not
have been up to something before?”
“Flunitrazepam?”
“You
know…Narcozep…rohypnol…roofies?”
“Ohhhh! Okay…yeah…he seems
like a creep.”
“Thing is, he keeps on
burying all of his crimes in all this red tape…court cases against him get
caught up in a mess of procedural motions and other delaying tactics that
ultimately lead to the prosecutors just deciding to give up…and a judge in 2011
signed an order clearing his record, burying his past even more.”
“Well, he did get sued a lot
for ‘Nasty Nubiles’, didn’t he?”
“Red tape…red tape…red
tape…though all I’ve seen so far have ultimately been thrown out, since
Simpkins digs up the contract each of the girls are asked to sign and judges
see that they consented, so the cases get thrown out. Except for this one
case…” Garcia clicked through the links on her screen some more, digging deeper
into the motions. “A girl by the name of Jane Doe didn’t have her case
resolved…the prosecution just gave up after Simpkins’ motions and I need to get
to the bottom of it.”
“Why not just search for Jane
Doe in the database? Her name has to get connected with the court documents,
even if they don’t release it.”
“Usually, though, I can just
search for the name via the court record number and her ID shows up…however, in
this case, Simpkins’ motions prevented even that
from happening, so all I’ve been getting is roadblocks.”
“It’s tied to a police
record, no?”
“Wait…you’re right…why didn’t
I think of that?”
“Because you’re
frazzled…sometimes fresh eyes is all that’s needed.”
Garcia then clicked away for
the police records and celebrated.
“Ha!” she said, excited,
kissing Lynch. “It worked. Thanks honey.” She then focused back on to her
screen. “Okay…so what’s the name?” Her focus then turned to shock, then
disgust. “Oh goodness…I can’t believe this man.”
Lynch saw the name and also
shook his head in disbelief. “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he said,
also sharing the same disgust.
The next day, Bangor Police Headquarters, Bangor,
Maine
“You thought you could get
away, didn’t you?” Morgan said to Simpkins in the interrogation room, sneering
at him with disgust. “You’re looking at a long time behind bars for producing
child pornography.”
Simpkins, his brown hair
tightly woven into cornrows and wearing an oversized T-Shirt that quoted N.W.A.’s
classic, “F*** Tha Police”, chuckled at Morgan sardonically.
“Oh you think this is some
kind of game don’t you?” Morgan continued. “What, do you think it would be ‘cool’
to go to prison, just so you can enhance your ‘street cred’? Well let me tell
you something- prison ain’t no game, and they don’t take kindly to child
predators like yourself.”
“That’s because you don’t
know the tricks I do,” sneered Simpkins in his Montanan drawl. “I’ll be just
like the other rap stars who claim they’ve been to jail and only be there for
but a day...and no longer will anyone say that I’m a joke.”
Morgan scowled in his reply
and started to pace around the room, looking at Simpkins the entire time. “Your
whole personna is a joke. Just by you even thinking that you can use prison for
your own benefit shows what kind of a person you really are. Did you really
think that Calvin Brodaus enjoyed going to jail all those times for selling
cocaine? Or do you think Eric Wright enjoyed having to sell drugs just so no
one would murder him in the projects?”
Simpkins looked at Morgan
with a confused look. “Eric Wright? Calvin who?”
Morgan chuckled and shook his
head and continued his pacing. “Wow...you can’t even recognize Eazy-E and Snoop
Dogg...and you call yourself a gangster. How pathetic of you.”
“I don’t need to know people
to be a real gangsta. I went through some tough s***. I paid my dues.”
“Really? Was it tough being a
straight A student at the Richfield Private Academy, where it’s known you were
suspended a few times for being a bully?
Not very gangster of you there, picking on people who are weaker than you. Was
it really tough growing up in The Foothills of Boise, where your parents had a
house that even many of the wealthy could only dream of? Was it really that
tough getting not just a Hummer for your 16th birthday, but a Porsche as well?
All on daddy’s dime too...must be nice being a spoiled little brat.”
Simpkins responded angrily
while beginning to quiver. “I resent that! I...I...”
“Got no answer for that do
you?” Morgan couldn’t help but smile smugly. He chuckled before continuing. “Oh
yeah...I forgot...you were on The Y
Factor too. Not just that, but you were the judges’ pick right from the
beginning, and audiences loved you. You hardly broke a sweat...and you only
signed up on a whim. You didn’t spend years struggling in the underground, like
real rappers do.”
“Hey man...it ain’t ma fault
if I got talent! All those other n**** are just jealous of my mad skills,
yo...and you are too...you just don’t like it when a cracka shows you people
up.”
Morgan chuckled and simply
shook his head, knowing what Simpkins was trying to do.
Simpkins was surprised by
Morgan’s lack of action and did his best to hide the fact he was rattled by it.
“What? You’re just going to sit there and take it? I thought you’s was a real
gangsta.”
“I don’t fall for cowardly
acts. Trying to anger me into hurting you just so the courts can throw out
whatever confession you give is cowardly- because you won’t fight fair.”
“A’ight...Imma take a leak. I’ll
see you later.” Simpkins got up from his chair and proceeded to the door, where
Morgan stopped him.
“No no no tough guy,” said
Morgan, who stood in the way of the door. “You don’t get to take a leak without
me coming with you.”
“I don’t need no n****’s
supervision! What, you can’t trust me?”
Simpkins then reached for the door before Morgan caught his hand and propelled
it away, which caused Simpkins to use his other hand and try to punch Morgan in
the face.
Morgan reacted quickly,
dodging the punch deftly and grabbing Simpkins by the scruff of shirt collar
and slammed him against the wall. Morgan then spoke menacingly. “You don’t even
think of trying that again. Or I’ll
show you how a real gangster deals with losers like you.”
Outside of the room, Reid and
Hawkes watched intently.
“I can’t believe Simpkins
used Rachel Person’s video for ‘Nasty Nubiles’ against her,” said Hawkes,
shaking her head with disgust.
“It’s a sad tale,” said Reid.
“Commiting suicide after the prosecution dropped her case, believing that even
justice let her down...it’s why we need to get this guy.”
“I never thought you’d be
this invested in taking down Simpkins. I guess it has something to do with
Alexa Lisbon.”
“Bullies hit a nerve...and
Simpkins is the biggest one I’ve seen.”
Hawkes continued, analyzing.
“So Simpkins videotapes Person and some of her guy friends, all of whom are
minors, and Person sues to get the videotape destroyed and tells the prosecutor
she wants to press charges against Simpkins. Simpkins, using his lawyers, sues
the prosecutors for harassment and wins a gag order on the Person proceedings,
delaying the process of pressing charges against him and extorts the Person family
into dropping the charges by threatening to release the video. Even though the Person
family complied, one of Simpkins’ cronies leaked it online anyway, and since no
one could trace the source...the prosecution drops its case.”
“Plus, since Simpkins himself
didn’t release the video all we had were whispers, with no evidence being shed
because Simpkins skillfully hid it all…and, thus, he could get out of it with
plausible deniability.” Reid continued as something clicked in his mind. “So
that means…” Reid walked into the interrogation room and pulled out Morgan.
“Morgan,” said Reid, “Kyle
Simpkins is extorting one of his teammates.”
“Reid,” said Morgan, calmly
but sternly, “let’s not jump to conclusions. I know you don’t like this guy,
and I don’t either, but we don’t have any evidence of that.”
“Think about it Morgan,” said
Hawkes, “the Rachel Person photos didn’t come out because Simpkins himself
released them…one of his cronies did. So Simpkins has to be extorting his crony
in some way to keep the crony’s identity hidden.”
“Simpkins isn’t acting in all
of this like he’s the leader of all this,” said Morgan after a brief pause. “He’s
acting like a willing participant…as if, at the very least, the crony that
leaked the video and him are working together. So, at the very least, they’re
both extorting each other in some way.”
“In a team dynamic, usually
one half of the partnership is the weaker partner,” said Reid, “judging by his
actions, throwing up all these roadblocks, it seems like Simpkins lacks the
confidence to tackle problems head on.”
“Or,” said Morgan, “Simpkins
is crafty, knowing all the tricks and how to best apply them. Simpkins was
confident enough to try a trick on me…that’s not someone who is weak.”
“So we’re not going to get
him via a direct interrogation,” opined Reid. “We need to get the two attackers,
who probably are the weak ones…then
we can nail Simpkins and the photographer.”
“Babygirl,” said Morgan,
giving Garcia a call. He spoke with anticipation in his voice. “Tell me you’re
going to make daddy proud.”
“Oh right, the
schoolteachers,” said Garcia, fighting off a yawn. “It’s been a long day…here’s
the thing.”
“Garcia, we don’t got time
for excuses man.”
“Right…right.” Garcia took a
deep breath and a sip from her coffee before continuing. “See, on Labour Day
there were seven schoolteachers that flew out of Bangor, five of whom went to
Summer of Rap…and they’re all over the country…I can give you the information
but there’s still a lot of work to do.”
“How many of them teach
computer science?”
“There was only one…his name
is Randy Mark Traverse…lives in Minneapolis…and facial analysis shows that he’s
essentially a match to one of the attackers in the photo. Unfortunately I
couldn’t match the other one.”
“That’s okay. As long as we
got one…we can get the other. Get Minneapolis PD to send him to us.”
19:09 local time, Bangor Police Headquarters, Bangor,
Maine
“Hawkes,” said Morgan as the
police brought in the plane-weary Traverse into the interrogation room. “I want
you to start the interrogation. You’ve got red hair, just like their main
victims, and that could trigger a few things in him.”
“Will do,” said Hawkes,
nodding her head confidently and walking into the interrogation room.
“Randy, Randy, Randy,” said
Hawkes as she walked in. “What is it with you and red hair?”
Traverse, as predicted, saw
Hawkes’ own auburn locks and was fixated by them. “Red hair is beautiful,” he
said, still in shock at the turn of events for him. “However, I still don’t
understand why I’m here.”
Hawkes took a seat from the
table on the side opposite Traverse. “Randy.” She paused to touch his arm. “I
understand you’re confused right now...maybe even a bit angry...but remember, I’m
not here to bury you...I’m on your side...I’m here to help.”
“You’re...you’re with the
police though...how can you be here to help?”
“Because we’re both after the
same thing...justice. Contrary to popular belief, the police isn’t always out
to destroy people...all we want is the truth, and we’ve only brought you in
here because we think you can help us find the truth.”
“You’ve formally arrested
me...you must think I’m some kind of a bad man.” Traverse sighed before
continuing. “I may have made mistakes but we all do.”
Hawkes grabbed his hand and
held it, feigning warmth. She sensed that she had him right where she wanted
him. “Randy...even good people do bad things. I’m sure you meant well.”
Traverse began to cry. “I
didn’t mean to hold her down...but Patrick and I...we had no choice.”
“Who? Who are you talking
about?”
“Jenny...Jenny Marquis...she
was a redhead just like you. Always a troublemaker...I had her in my Grade 10
class...she was either talking to her friends, loudly, talking back to me and
frequently uploaded porn to the school servers, just to get a rise out of us. I
remember one day I was talking to her after class and she was chewing bubblegum
which she loudly snapped, which was the last straw for me. I took her outside
of the class and Patrick just happened to walk by...so we took her to the
school’s boiler room, held her down, put on condoms and took turns raping
her...then Patrick put on some latex gloves and strangled her to death. We then
just left her there. Fortunately for us, one of the school’s maintenance people
came by and checked her pulse, pinning her murder on him.” He started to rub
his face with stress, wiping away tears fruitlessly as they still fell down his
face. “I can’t believe I admitted all that...I just...couldn’t keep it any
longer.”
“So you two worked together?”
“Yeah, yeah we did. Patrick
said he saw her write a message on the school’s bulletin board denigrating
Tabitha, my high school sweetheart, who died two years ago...from that point
on, we had it in for her.”
“Patrick...is he in
photography?”
“No...no he isn’t. He teaches
math.” Traverse took a loud, audible gulp before continuing. “I remember
Patrick met this guy...Jack Norris...he works in the Minneapolis nightclub
scene...always takes pictures of the nightlife and festivals...even works with
celebrities sometimes. I remember telling Patrick that I didn’t like killing
Jenny but loved the rape...but we didn’t have the opportunity or know-how not
to get caught...until we met Jack...and Jack taught us how to coerce girls to
do our bidding...Patrick and I, we felt like kings.”
“So Ellie reminded you of
Tabitha...that’s why you had sex with her instead of just fellatio.”
“Yeah...Tabitha had this
Debbie Harry vibe about her...and so did Ellie. So I wanted to make love to
Tabitha one last time.”
“...and what’s Patrick’s last
name?”
“Silvers. Patrick Silvers.”
“Thanks.” Hawkes flashed him
a warm smile. “You did a great job.” She then walked out of the interrogation,
all smiles getting congratulated by her teammates.
“That was pretty easy,” said
Morgan.
“I figured I’d go soft with
him to see if he was the one who was the romantic,” said Hawkes. “I figured his
partner, Patrick, was the more aggressive one and would likely not be capable
of compassion...whereas Randy would be.”
“I guess this means all we
have to do is get the police to round everyone up and our jobs are finished,”
said Reid, patting Hawkes on the back.
“I’m ready for a burger,”
said Morgan, putting his arm around both of his teammates. “How about you
guys?” The other two nodded in agreement as they headed out.
22:12 local time, Bangor Hotel, Bangor, Maine
“Man,” said Hawkes to
Prentiss, Jane and Rossi as the four of them walked to their rooms, “Morgan
sure knows how to eat.”
“Morgan’s always been a big
eater,” said Prentiss after a chuckle. “It’s why he works out so much...so that
he can enjoy foods like that.”
“Oh, the joys of youth,” said
Rossi sarcastically. “Man, if I ate one of those Double Pound Burgers, I think
I’d clog all of my arteries.”
“Oh come on Rossi,” said
Jane, playfully tapping his shoulder, “you’re still pretty fit...you could have
at least one pound.”
“Heh,” said Rossi, “you go
first.”
The three laughed at Rossi’s
reply. After a brief pause, Rossi got poignant.
“Hey, Zoe,” he said, “good
work kiddo.”
“Thanks Dave,” she said, with
a sheepish smile.
“Silvers was just picked up and now they’re working on Norris,” said
Prentiss. “All thanks to your work
Hawkes. You’re really coming to your own
as an agent. We’re proud of you.”
“Because of you, now Ellie
has some closure,” said Jane.
“Closure...” Hawkes said
quietly, her face stricken with worry. “Wait...something’s not right.”
“Hawkes, what is it?” Jane
asked, as now the other three got concerned.
“I don’t know,” said Hawkes,
starting to get petrified, “but as soon as Rossi brought up closure something
clicked in my head.”
Jane stood pensively while
Rossi and Prentiss gave each other concerned looks. After a few moments, it
finally dawned on Jane.
“I think I know what it is,”
said Jane. “You said at the restaurant that Traverse wanted to ‘make love to
Tabitha one last time’...we all knew that was an odd statement...but now we
know why.”
“He’s gonna...he’s gonna,”
said Hawkes, starting to breathe heavily. “Oh no...” She then slumped against
the wall, taking a seat, fear taking over her body.
“Zoe,” said Rossi, putting
his hand on her shoulder. “Relax. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Traverse’s
statement could mean many different things.”
“Why,” said Hawkes,
hyperventilating, “why was there a finality to his statement? He spoke like he
wasn’t going to get Ellie again…why would he said that if…oh goodness…I held
that girl…” Hawkes lowered her head and folded her legs against her, sobbing
uncontrollably.
A few seconds later, Morgan
emerged from his room.
“Guys,” said Morgan, with a
strong sense of urgency.
“Let me guess,” said Jane,
“Jack Norris wasn’t in Minneapolis today.”
“How’d you know?” Morgan
asked, with a quizzical look.
“Hawkes just deduced the same
thing you probably are,” said Jane, “that Ellie Simpson is in trouble.”
“Well, I didn’t think of
that,” said Morgan. “I just know that Garcia called me and said that Norris
manipulated the database…Minneapolis PD picked up the wrong person because the
address was wrong. What makes you guys think that Ellie is in trouble?”
“Randy Traverse said in his
interrogation that he wanted to make love to Tabitha (represented by Ellie) ‘one
last time’,” said Prentiss, “leading, as I think, Hawkes to conclude that
Norris is going to kill her.”
“Why, though?” said a groggy
Reid, emerging from his room, awoken by Hawkes’ sobbing. “Norris found a way to
control all the girls without killing them…he doesn’t need to kill them.”
“Reid, think about it,” said
Jane. “Three girls stood up to him- Rachel Person, Aggie Mildred and Ellie. Two
of them are dead. One is still alive. I think the dots connect themselves.”
The agents were interrupted
by a loud voice down the hall.
“Hey bozos!” screamed a
portly man, dressed in nothing but a nightcap and his underwear, barely visible
due to his overhanging gut. “I don’t care who’s
in trouble! I need to get some sleep!”
“Sir,” said Morgan,
approaching him. “We’re sorry to have awaken you, but right now we have a
delicate situation and we couldn’t avoid this situation.”
“I have a 4AM flight tomorrow morning!” yelled the
man. “I don’t care what your
situation is!”
“I wonder where he’s going,”
said Jane to Rossi with a smirk, “the
Cheesecake Factory?” The rest of the agents, even Hawkes, couldn’t help but
laugh.
“Oh, you think you’re funny, eh?” said the man, walking
menacingly towards Jane while brandishing his fist. Jane didn’t flinch at all.
“I’ll show you a thing or two, stick man!”
“Oooh, ‘stick man’,” said
Jane, feigning offence, “you really hurt me there. Of course, it’ll be nothing
like your arteries and the angioplasty you’ll have to go through in a couple of
years.”
“At least I’m proud of what I eat! This took years of hard work!”
“Hard work? Looks like you
didn’t exercise anything other than your jawbones…I doubt that blubbery mass
you call a body couldn’t walk two more feet without you passing out due to
exhaustion. Oh, and, uh, once you’ve hit nine months of pregnancy, isn’t the
baby supposed to get born?”
“That’s it” The man now
aggressively pointed his finger into Jane’s chest multiple times. “You’ve done
it now!” The man then clenched his fist and prepared to strike at Jane, but
before he could, his feet got kicked out from underneath it. The man lay there
on the ground, face first and taking a lot of deep breaths, trying to recover
his composure.
Jane could only smirk. “First
thing I learned in the FBI’s self-defence program: bigger men have low centres
of gravity. Especially when it’s all concentrated in the middle.”
Ellie Simpson’s house,
Newport, Maine
Jack Norris stared at Simpson’s house with intent. He was slender man
who bore more muscles than his appearance let on, slicking his prematurely
greyed hair back into a ponytail. The 39-year-old wore all black today,
contrasting with his pale white skin with his T-Shirt and jeans ensemble making
him slimmer- and, he hoped, less dangerous- than he actually was. As he smoked
his third cigarette from his pack, he mapped out his plan for attack, and once
he figured out how he was going to approach the Simpson house, he finished his
cigarette and walked up to it with purpose.
He walked up to the back of the house, scouting for possible openings
until he found one, as the entrance to the basement had been left unlocked. He
found the telephone line and cut it, and pulled out his cell phone jammer and
activated it. He then carefully opened the door to the basement, ignoring the
sign that said the house was protected by a home security system- this one was
connected to the phone, and without the phone, the system wouldn’t work.
He fumbled around for a bit in his pocket, feeling his way for two
syringes. Each one was meant for Ellie’s parents, who Norris figured he needed
to get out of the way if he wanted to have his “fun” with Ellie. Each syringe
had enough ketamine to tranquillize ten horses and thus would kill each parent
almost instantly.
As soon as he found the syringes, he made his way, purposefully but
quietly, up the stairs into the Simpson parents’ bedrooms. As he suspected,
they were fast asleep, allowing him to easily inject both. In five quick
minutes both were knocked out cold by the ketamine, and in another five, they
would be dead. Ellie, alone in her room listening to her music through her
headphones, was left.
“Hey!” Ellie said, shouting at Norris after he cut the cord of her
headphones. “Those were-” Before Ellie had a chance to finish, Norris had
pulled out his knife.
“The rules here are very simple,” said Norris to Ellie, ominously. “You
do as I say and you won’t get hurt.” Ellie, gripped with fear, nodded her head
in agreement, allowing him to bind her wrists together behind her back with
rope and to affix a scarf that served as a cleave gag upon her mouth. He then
grabbed her arm and instructed her to come with him. He then walked down the
stairs and purposefully opened the door and walked out of the house with Ellie,
still clutching to her arm.
“Let go of the girl!” Morgan hollered at Norris as he came upon the
house and drew out his gun. “This is Derek Morgan of the FBI! Let go of the girl!”
“Oh,” said Norris, chuckling, pulling Ellie towards him and placing his
knife right against her jugular vein. “You’re with the FBI, eh? So I guess I’m
famous now. Heh.” By now the rest of the team joined Morgan and drew out their
guns as well.
“We’re not playing around, Jack,” hollered Prentiss. “Let go of Ellie.”
“Or, what?” Norris snickered. “You’ll shoot? I mean, seriously...do you
think I’m worried? Ellie’s got no one left...I took them from her...and since
you won’t let Randy have her...then I will. I’m all she’s got.” Ellie turned to
look at Norris with her face gripped with fear, wondering what Norris meant by
his statement.
“All right,” said Morgan. “You want to be in control? Okay...you’re in
control.” The team instinctively lowered their guns.
Norris could only laugh. “Do you think I’m going to fall for that?” Norris said, snickering. “I
know you guys have a sniper in one of these houses with his gun trained at
me...I’ve seen way too many documentaries and cop shows for that to work.”
“Well what do you want Jack?” Rossi asked, pleading with him. “We care
about Ellie just as much as you do...we’re here to help in any way that we
can.”
“Well...you can start by letting Ellie and I go to...enjoy ourselves,”
Norris said with a smirk.
“I’m afraid that’s just not going to happen,” said Jane, raising his gun
just like the rest of the team. “You didn’t even think to ask Ellie if she
wanted to come along, did you?”
“She wants me,” Norris cackled, “she just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Jack,” said Hawkes sternly. “I know you have a wife and three
kids...they don’t deserve this. You have a life to go back to...don’t do this
to yourself.”
“I don’t have a life to go
back to!” Norris said defiantly, taking his knife and slashing Ellie across the
throat, dropping her to the ground and causing the agents to shoot him dead.
Ellie quickly lost consciousness, although she didn’t realize it. In the
distance, high above her as the hail of bullets whizzed by her and the din of
the agents’ voices overwhelmed an otherwise peaceful night, was Aggie, whose
face took over the entire night sky.
“Aggie!” Ellie said, excitedly. She was ready to get up before Aggie
spoke.
“No, no, don’t get up,” she said. “You’ll need your energy.”
“Are...are we going somewhere?” Ellie was taken by the sight of her
friend, as tears started to flow from her eyes.
“I am...but you’re not. It’s too soon for us to reunite.”
“...but...but Aggie...you said we’d never be apart. Why did you leave me
Aggie? Why can’t you take me with you?”
By now Aggie had descended from the sky to appear as a human, sitting
down next to Ellie, who was still lying on the ground. “I understand how you’re
feeling Ellie, and I know that no amount of apologies can make up for what I
did...but, Ellie...you know me...I’m not strong like you are...I wished you
could have been there to help me, but, as always, your parents got in the way.”
Ellie spoke through her tears. “I know...they always do. They always
sheltered me...never let me do what I want and let me learn on my own.”
“They never liked my father...it may be why it was so difficult for us
to hang out lately...why you’ve always had to sneak out just to see me...gosh
Ellie, I wish things were different.”
“I wish things were different too. I wish I could have held you one last
time. I wish we could just erase what happened at that festival and go back to
the way we were, talking about boys and 50 Cent. I wish you were here
Aggie...oh gosh, how I wish you were
here!” Ellie then began to cry uncontrollably, unleashing a torrent of tears
that only stopped when she experienced a sharp pain in her chest.
“Ellie...I know all that...but you need to know that death isn’t the
answer.”
Ellie by this point had gone into random convulsions while still laying
down. “Aggie...if I die then we’re back together and we can have those memories
again.”
“Death isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I have a lot of sins to atone,
so much so that I may be in Purgatory forever. Plus, there’s so many things in
life that I never got to experience...college...being a mother...having a real
boyfriend...living on my own...these are all things you will get to
experience.”
“...but it will be a life without you...and I don’t want that.”
“That’s not true. Put your hand in your right pocket and dig out your
keys.”
“Yes?” Ellie dug out her keys and leafed through them, but she was still
confused about what Aggie was referring to.
“See the green rock keychain?”
Ellie gasped with excitement. “That’s the emerald you gave me for my
14th birthday! How did I forget about it?”
“That’s because you didn’t...because I wasn’t going to let you forget.
Now you know that I meant what I said, that we’ll always be together...not even
death can keep us apart. All you need to do now is just hold on. Stay strong
Ellie, stay strong...stay strong.”
Aggie’s voice would soon fade as Ellie woke up from her trance to hear
the voice of Reid saying the exact same thing Aggie was saying.
“Stay strong Ellie,” Reid pleaded, “stay strong. Come on...you can do
this...come on!” Reid, shirtless, lowered his head and knelt down behind Ellie’s
bed, cradling his head in his hands as the nurses fought to completely revive
Ellie. After a few short moments, Ellie had firmly awoken from her daze, the
nurses’ efforts fruitful, to find Reid’s shirt around her neck, as Reid used it
as a tourniquet, as well as some empty blood sacks attached to her arm that had
replenished her blood.
“Where,” said Ellie, still confused. “Where am I?”
Reid let out a huge sigh of relief, as did Hawkes, clutching Reid’s hand
right beside him. “Ellie, you’re safe now,” said Hawkes. “You’re recovering in
the hospital...if it wasn’t for Reid’s quick thinking you wouldn’t be alive
right now. I’m so glad you held on.”
“Well,” said Ellie, “Aggie paid me a visit and guided me through it. Now
I know, we’ll always be together.”
Hawkes started to cry tears of joy. “Never forget that,” she said,
through the tears, as Ellie grabbed her hand and squeezed it, thanking her for
her help.
The next day, Bangor Hotel,
Bangor, Maine
“Well,” said Morgan to Reid as he packed their suitcases into their car
for the drive to the airport. “Ellie is going to make it...she’s still in
critical condition but she’s improving. I just wished we could have saved Todd
Mildred and Ellie’s parents.”
“Nothing we could do about that,” said Reid. “Todd had his mind made up
that day. At least we brought him some closure, so that he and his daughter can
rest in peace. As for the Simpsons...Norris was quick. Fortunately we got to
him before he got Ellie.”
“That was some quick thinking kid. You saved her life.”
Reid hung his head sheepishly while smiling. “Thanks.” He then raised
his head and continued in his normal tone. “Do we know what she will do from
here?”
“Her grandfather is taking her with him to Buffalo, as I understand.
Whether or not she stays there we don’t know...she’s mentioned a desire to
travel the world, but right now it’s more ‘pie in the sky’ than doable for her.
We’ll see though.”
Morgan’s phone started to ring. It was Hotchner.
“Hey Morgan,” said Hotchner. “How’s it going?”
“Well, we had some hiccups...and a lot of twists,” said Morgan with a
sigh, “but...we got the job done.”
Hotchner smiled. “Yes you did. Just heard the reviews...you did a great
job out there. Keep it up.”
Morgan smiled. “Thanks Hotch. That means a lot.” The two then said their
goodbyes and ended the call.
Reid, for his part, couldn’t help but be taken in by a note left on his
side of the windshield. Worried about what it could be, Reid picked it up to
read it. He muttered a few choice words and angrily crumpled up the sheet of
paper and threw it to the ground. Morgan couldn’t help but notice Reid’s
frustration and unfurled the sheet of paper.
“You lose?” Morgan said, perplexed. “What’s this about?”
“It’s Jane, being a pain,” said Reid, angrily shaking his head. “He told
me about this mind game simply called ‘The Game’ where the only rule is that
you can’t think about it, and once you do...well, ‘you lose’. Those playing The
Game can induce others to think about it with suggestive notes...like the one I
just got.” Reid let out a frustrated sigh.
Morgan chuckled and put his hand on Reid’s back. “I understand how it’s
torture for you, someone who forgets nothing.”
“...and I was doing so well too...would have been two weeks tomorrow
that I hadn’t thought of The Game.”
“Don’t worry kid...we’ll get him back. He needs to remember who he’s
messing with.”
“Even in the face of great losses, you never forget
that you’ve got something left…and that something is all you need to fight
back.”- Nerva II, writing about the Fifty Years’ Struggle after finally
evicting the Lombards from the City of Rome that they had been so close to
taking years prior, A.D. 760