Chapter Text
October 30th 2018
Rutland, Vermont
The door opened and Bernard Green stumbled drunkenly into his house.
“The money’s on my bedside table, love,” he slurred as he grabbed onto the doorknob, “Let me get it.”
“I’m not a prostitute.” The woman with him scowled and looked around the front room carefully. Her hands tingled inside of her gloves, determined to not leave any fingerprints.
She had to make this look like a robbery, however. Otherwise people – namely the police – would be suspicious. A single man, last seen drunk of his mind with an attractive younger woman, found mutilated on his bed? It would definitely cause attention.
And she knew all too well the consequences of being found out.
“Can I have a coffee?” she asked him.
Bernard mumbled something and staggered into the bedroom. She took that as a yes. Besides, if she was careful then the whistling from his old kettle would drown out any noise.
Flipping her red ponytail over her shoulder, the woman looked underneath the sink for a suitable cleaning fluid. They weren’t just useful for contaminating a crime scene. Sometimes she used cleaning fluid as a murder weapon.
But Bernard was out of cleaning fluid. Never mind.
Taking a knife from the rack, the woman held it behind her back as she made her way to his room. Bernard might be old and drunk, but she was still skinny and small. She wasn’t sure when she had last eaten a square meal. But she would be quick, as she always was.
These idiots were always taken by surprise. Filthy, disgusting, cruel men who only had sex on their mind. She knew that it was a myth that men thought about sex every seven seconds. But some men thought about sex at least once a day.
And it was those men who were the most dangerous.
She had seen Bernard a few days earlier, drinking with another young woman at the bar. Laughing, hugging, smiling. How old had his ‘date’ been? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Bernard was close to seventy. He had looked at his ‘date’ with lust in his eyes, that was for sure.
It disgusted her.
If the woman had been in the right mind, of course, she would have noticed that Bernard’s ‘date’ from a few days ago had been his niece. There had been a clear familial resemblance. There had been no ‘lust’ in the slightest.
This woman simply saw rapists wherever she went. Old men out with their daughters and granddaughters became perverts. Shy, quiet young men who were mentally disabled became Jeffrey Dahmer. Men with stammers became potential rapists. Men picking up their children from school or childcare became pedophiles that needed to be disemboweled. Boyfriends having a quick romp with their sweetheart in the back of a car automatically turned into violent rapists, the screams transforming from innocence to fear when there was none.
Of course, this woman had murdered genuine rapists and pedophiles ever since she had started her mission all those years ago. She had used people’s computers or Internet cafes to look up the sex offender registry. The only problem with this was that she had attacked men who had urinated in public as well as those who had savagely destroyed people’s lives.
But ever since she had set out to rid the world of rapists, the woman had killed twenty-one perverts.
Unfortunately, she had also killed twenty innocent men.
Bernard would make twenty-one.
November 10th 2018
Quantico, Virginia
“We have a case of breaking and entering in Rutland, Vermont,” Garcia pulled the picture up on the screen, “Bernard Green, sixty-three, was stabbed to death in his bedroom and his – trousers had been pulled down and a broom handle shoved up his rectum.”
“It sounds like a revenge killing,” JJ suggested, “Did he have any enemies?”
“No,” Garcia pressed another button on the remote, “But we have one, possibly two, similar murders over the border in New York State. Lester Davison, forty-seven, was last seen in his home on the eleventh. His young son woke up the next morning and found him gone. There was no evidence of a break-in, but money from the man's wallet was missing. Lester’s body was found in the woods behind his house. He had been shot through the eyes with a .44.”
“It sounds like someone on a mission,” Lewis mused, “And the third murder?”
“A truck driver,” Garcia twisted the remote in her hands, “on the second. He was found dead in a parking lot near Hope. He had also been shot between the eyes and a magazine – the paper kind, not the gun kind – had been found in his rectum.”
JJ’s eyes widened. Reid had placed the file on the table and was leaning over it, deep in thought.
“The first and third murders sound like sexual killings, but none of the victims were assaulted,” he twisted his fingers as he spoke, “Lester and Bernard could have invited a prostitute home and she murdered them. Were there any signs of robbery?”
“No,” Garcia shook her head, her pigtails flying, “And the magazine was a vehicle magazine, not the icky kind.”
“Whatever’s going on, our Unsub is acting fast,” Emily reminded the team, “Wheels up in twenty.”
On the plane, the team discussed the oddity of the case.
“I would say our Unsub is a woman,” JJ was the first to speak, “They all seem sexually motivated and a man would let his guard down around a woman.”
“She seems to kill her victims with whatever she has at hand,” Rossi agreed, “The broom belonged to Bernard and Lester had a .44 registered to him. It’s still missing.”
“Why didn’t she use the gun to kill Bernard?” Lewis asked.
“She might be keeping it as a trophy,” Rossi suggested, “Or perhaps she’s low on ammunition.”
“Our Unsub might be transient,” Reid frowned in concentration, “The truck stop and Lester Davison’s house are an hour apart, but Lester and Bernard’s homes are another hour away from each other. She must have spent a lot of time spying on the victims – or looking for suitable victims – before she attacks.”
“But why kill these men in particular?” Emily asked, “Bernard and Lester were very different. Bernard was a retiree who lived alone in a one-storey house, Lester was a family man in a two-storey house and worked at a firm in Glen Falls. They look nothing like each other.”
“She could be after men in particular,” Simmons piped up, “She may be a transient or a prostitute and she’s using her vulnerability to trick men.”
“A father wouldn’t let a stranger into the house where his child is sleeping,” JJ argued, “Lester could have mislaid his keys, or she stole them.” She then looked at the screen and asked Garcia, “Had either of the men been drinking?”
“Yes,” Garcia examined her information, “Bernard had had more to drink, but both men had visited a bar on the night they were murdered. Oh, this is interesting. The bar that Lester visited, The Frog and Nightdress – and I guarantee that you will not be able to find another tavern with that name – is next door to a homeless shelter.”
“So our Unsub visits bars,” Emily spoke her thoughts out loud, “She finds drunk, older men and either accompanies them home or follows them home.”
“But the sixty-million dollar question is,” Rossi exhaled, “Why does she go after them?”
Jessie sat in the driver’s seat of her car, looking out at the passersby.
She wondered how many of them were criminals. How many of them were victims. Had that woman been raped, or that child? Had that man been able to carry out his filthy perversion and attack someone already?
Of course, Jessie did not see how paranoid she was. When she had lived back in Oklahoma she had believed that man had been stalking her because he lived on the same street and was committing the unfortunate crime of being within fifty yards of her. She had turned around, screamed, “Stop stalking me, you pervert!” and sprayed bear mace into his eyes.
Another time, back in Bakersfield, another man had been close behind her when a car had driven up. A woman had been inside, stopping to ask for directions, but Jessie’s mind immediately flew to thoughts of a killing team. Jessie had pulled out her latest weapon – a baseball bat – from her bag and hit the woman square in the face. Once the man had come up to help (although in Jessie’s mind he was coming up to pull her into the vehicle) she had assaulted him and screamed, “You won’t rape me!”
Now Jessie looked at the address in her booklet. This particular booklet was vital in her mission. It contained the names and addresses of every man she had robbed, tortured and murdered. What she had stolen from them and later pawned. She could never let this booklet fall into the wrong hands. She would face the death penalty if she lost this precious item.
“Ash Seymour,” Jessie read aloud, “Known wife-beater. Arrested eight times but his wife chose not to press charges.”
She placed the booklet back in the glove compartment. Smiling to herself, Jessie gripped the steering wheel. Tomorrow Ash was going to pay.
Jessie had been sloppy with Bernard. He had been more sober than she had originally thought and he had hit her when she tried to take his wallet. She had had to think fast, stabbing him as he lay on the bed.
She did not seem to notice she quickly she was devolving.