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JJ: H.P. Lovecraft wrote, “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
Even into the 21st Century, Deer Isle, Maine was a quaint village with very few tourists. Just outside the quaint village sat some cliffs and at the top of those cliffs stood a house surrounded by woods. The rays of the rising sun hit it before almost any other house in America. This house, renovated multiple times, was older than the state of Maine itself. It was built in 1813, seven years before Maine would split from Massachusetts. Because it was on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the original builders of the house, the Frammington Family, called it the Finality House.
Nearly two centuries later, the name would come to have a much darker second meaning.
The descendants of the Frammingtons still lived there and maintained it even into the 21st Century, now called the Garrisons, due to a marriage in 1922.
That night, William and Evelyn Garrison went to bed. Their children, Naomi, Denny, and Kyle were in bed as well, and William’s widowed mother Deidra was in the guest room.
For the last few months, Evelyn’s parents Horace and Susanna Whelchel had been living there, too, but they’d been creeped out by…something. They once thought they saw a set of footprints in the snow leading from the nearby woods to their house, but there wasn’t a returning set. They’d wondered if the house had become haunted, and with generations of family members living in the house, it certainly seemed possible. They’d decided to take a trip to Niagara Falls to clear their minds. It was one of the best decisions they would ever make.
It was a cloudless night, and a new moon was in the sky, but at least it was no longer a blizzard. Up in the attic, there was a man with a mattock. The man climbed down the ladder. Tonight was the night. One by one, the man made noises in strategic places around the house, and every single member of the Garrison family was butchered in the basement. It was a brutal, inhumane scene.
Three days later, Horace and Susanna had come back early from their trip to Niagara Falls, having not heard anything from any of the Garrisons after they left. When they arrived back at the Finality House, they discovered a new set of footprints leading away from the house. At that very moment, they called the police before even entering the house. The police searched through the house and found the butchered bodies of six family members strewn across the basement.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said one of the detectives. Unfortunately, the Garrisons weren’t the first. And if there wasn’t anything to stop this monster, they wouldn’t be the last.
Criminal Minds
Behavioral Analysis Unit
Quantico
FBI
Starring:
Joe Mantegna
Paget Brewster
Shemar Moore
Matthew Gray Gubler
A.J. Cook
Kirsten Vangsness
and Thomas Gibson
With:
Jhoanna Flores
Bellamy Young
Daniel Brühl
and Mark Hamill
Created by Jeff Davis
Super Bowl Sunday was still a very fun tradition for the BAU team. Reid’s abduction and drugging shortly after the 2007 Super Bowl hadn’t dampened the team’s enjoyment of the tradition. Over the years, more people had begun to take part in it. Rossi took to it eagerly, as he was much more sociable than Gideon. The team didn’t know this, but Gideon was still visiting the Smithsonian on every Super Bowl Sunday because of his friendship with the curator. Haley had stopped coming after she divorced Hotch, and then her tragic murder. But tonight, someone new was joining the team. Two someones, in fact.
Beth Clemmons was there, and it warmed everyone’s hearts to see Hotch happy with someone again. They’d bonded over training for a triathlon a few months ago, and with some encouragement from Rossi, they’d started dating. She was also excellent with Jack, which solidified all support for her from the team.
Carrie Ortiz was still under the legal drinking age for one more year, but she wanted to hang out with her moms and their friends, which she did. She was almost as good at darts as JJ was, largely because she’d learned from the best. Then, mere moments later, JJ threw her fourth bullseye in a row.
“Sorry boys, I’ve bested you again,” JJ teased the two men who were playing darts with her. It didn’t matter that JJ’s Steelers had lost to the Packers. She was still having fun with everyone who’d shown up.
“And sorry again boys, but she’s mine. Locked down,” said Emily, who came up and grabbed JJ’s hand and pulled her in for a searing kiss. It lasted a solid ten seconds at least. It was far and away the most intense kiss they’d ever shared in the company of others. Not saying all that much by their sample size, but Emily was putting everything she had into kissing JJ and making everyone else in the room (other than Carrie) jealous. Carrie just distracted herself by playing some more darts.
“Come on, JJ,” said Emily. Emily pulled JJ away while Carrie continued playing darts with a few of her friends from college at the next dartboard over. The men were left speechless. They weren’t consciously aware that JJ was married, let alone to another woman.
“You did that on purpose,” she said, laughing.
“Of course I did. I don’t exactly kiss you like that by accident.”
“You drew more attention to us than we really needed. They’ll be thinking about that all night.”
“If they’re thinking about that all night, so be it,” Emily confidently declared. “It’s not our fault that they think you’re hot.”
JJ chuckled again as Emily guided her back to the booth where Rossi, Hotch, and Beth were sitting. Beth seemed really, really nice and the BAU team members were more than willing to let someone into their family if she made Hotch this happy. They’d definitely worried that he’d never be the same after Haley died, but Beth had given the team something they hadn’t seen in a long time: Hotch smiling and happy to be with someone.
“Not going and breaking too many hearts, are you, Prentiss?” Rossi asked.
“Oh I’ve broken many this evening, Dave,” Emily said. “The wedding ring is a great touch that we didn’t have before. Now they know I’m not messing with them.” JJ laughed.
Beth got the people at the table another round, and just after she got back, JJ got a phone call. She looked down and the caller ID said John Curtis, one of her dispatchers.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Can’t this wait until morning?” she said to herself. Everyone at the table rolled their eyes, Hotch included.
“I’ll be right back, guys. I’m going to try and delay this,” JJ said. This had zapped a lot of the fun in the night, and this wasn’t the first time this had happened to her.
“John, this had better be worth it,” she said as she picked up.
“Jareau, there’s been another family annihilation case in Maine. Six dead. You’d better tell me you care about that,” he pleaded, in a way that also sounded a bit smug.
“John, I get that, and I promise you I will care tomorrow, but is there any reason whatsoever that this can’t wait until morning? This is highly inappropriate. It’s 10:30 PM on a fucking Sunday.”
“Another six people died, JJ. Is that not more important than whatever you’re doing right now? I can hear music in the background. Six dead and you’re partying?”
“First, I have a life outside of the BAU and it’s essential to my humanity that I maintain it. Second, you told me about this case a month ago and more urgent ones have come up in the time since. The guy has cooldown periods of a month or longer. What the FUCK kind of difference is one night of sleep going to make on a timetable like that?”
“Okay, fine. There’ll be files on your desk when you get here tomorrow,” John replied.
“Thank you,” JJ said, even though this was something not worth a thanks and just common sense. “You know, you shouldn’t be in the office at 10:30 on a Sunday, either. That’s not healthy, John.”
“Crime never rests. But you do. Goodnight,” he said, and hung up the phone. JJ cursed under her breath.
“Mom? JJ?” a female voice asked behind her. JJ turned around and saw Carrie standing there, looking concerned.
“Carrie.”
“Is everything okay?” Carrie asked, walking in closer to the center of the emptier, quieter room, with the party music going on through the wall.
“No,” said JJ. “Something’s happened that’s… similar to what happened to your family.”
Carrie’s entire body language changed in an instant. Her shoulders drooped, her eyebrows went down, and she stood a little less tall than she usually did.
JJ wrapped Carrie very tightly in a hug after that. That was still a tough subject for Carrie, and understandably so. “They’re pulling you away right now?” she asked bleakly.
“No, you’ve got the rest of the night with us.”
“Thank God.”
“I just hope he’s not right and tonight won’t make a difference.”
“I’m sure you’ll get them. You always do. Come on, Mom misses you.”
“I’ve been gone for five minutes at most.”
“So? She misses you.” Whether or not this was really true didn’t matter all that much. It was Carrie’s sentiment that counted.
JJ smiled. Yes, rejoining Emily from being alone was always good, even after only five minutes. JJ sat back down next to Emily and Rossi, while Carrie took a seat next to Beth and Hotch.
“What was that all about?” Rossi spoke first.
“John Curtis called me and said there’s been another killing in that case in Maine I’ve been keeping an eye on.”
“He called you now? Like, now now?” Beth asked. “I know your guys’ job has odd hours but that’s ridiculous.”
“It shouldn’t be normal, Beth,” said Hotch. “John Curtis…doesn’t have a great sense of other people’s personal time.”
“Exactly,” said JJ. “I told him, quote, it’s 10:30 PM on a fucking Sunday.”
Carrie and Rossi laughed.
“You made the right call, if a bit blue,” said Hotch. “Especially since the last time we got pulled away from a Super Bowl that led to Reid having the worst few days of his life.”
Everyone looked over at Reid, who’d brought the handful of Trekkie friends of his to continue their game they’d played at this event. Rossi wasn’t there yet when that happened but he knew the story, and Beth and Carrie didn’t know the story but they didn’t need to. Hotch wasn’t the type of person to say “worst few days of his life” lightly.
“Let’s not do that to him,” said Emily.
“What happened to him?” Carrie asked.
“I’ll tell you some other time, a time that’s not supposed to be fun like now is,” said JJ.
“Then I think I’m going to go beat a few more boys at darts,” Carrie said, and got up from the booth, hugged JJ again, and went off to the dart section of the bar.
“That’s our girl,” said JJ.
“Let’s not tell Reid, Garcia, or Morgan,” said Hotch. “I already feel bad that we’ve put something of a damper on Carrie’s night; we don’t need to ruin theirs.”
Everyone else nodded and they got back to other conversation, but an uneasiness hung over the booth for a while.
“JJ, I don’t want you to worry or be guilty over staying out with us,” said Hotch. “We’re all doing it, so I’d be a hypocrite to ask you to feel guilty over doing so, and it’s not you who’s causing the pain. Unless negligence is clearly shown, we blame the people who actually committed the crimes.”
JJ nodded.
“I know you get at least a dozen calls every day and you have to make the tough decision to choose what case we take. It’s an impossible choice. There’s always an opportunity cost.”
“I know,” JJ sighed. Emily silently put her arm around JJ’s shoulders and gave a reassuring squeeze.
“Thanks, babe,” she said. “And thanks, Hotch.”
Hotch and Beth left at about 12:30. Hotch was the designated driver, and he dropped Beth off at her apartment.
“Well, other than that unfortunate call JJ got, this was a very fun night and I’m glad you asked for me to come,” Beth said.
“And I’m glad I asked,” Hotch replied. He was smiling a lot more with her around than he had for a very long time.
“See you again soon, Aaron,” said Beth, she leaned in and kissed him goodnight. He got back to his house, paid the sitter, who then left, and went to bed. Jack was already asleep. He’d make sure Jessica would be there to watch Jack tomorrow as it was likely that they’d be off to Maine.
JJ, Emily, and Carrie had all gotten a cab from the apartment JJ and Emily shared to the bar, and took another cab home. Carrie decided it’d be better just to stay as a guest tonight, and she took up her rather familiar residence in JJ and Emily’s second bedroom. She hadn’t returned to LA or Denver in the summers since she’d moved to DC; instead opting to live with Emily and JJ full time in the summer.
After saying goodnight to Carrie, JJ and Emily climbed into bed. She tossed and turned a bit while Emily slept.
Six dead in Maine. No matter what her dispatcher tried to guilt trip her with, she did care about that.
JJ opened her eyes. There was Emily, laying next to her in what was probably JJ’s favorite nightshirt of hers. She leaned over and kissed her wife on the shoulder as Emily was lying face down on the pillow, serene as could be. JJ hadn’t worn a top to bed that previous night. For whatever reason (and it certainly wasn’t heat, being February), she just…didn’t want to. Needless to say, Emily wasn’t going to complain.
She looked over at the blue and gold clock on the wall, which said 5:30. It’d been a gift from her mother after the wedding and their ordeal in Atlanta, and shortly before JJ and Emily took their honeymoon in Greece. JJ’s mom Sandy was…kind of annoyed that JJ had gotten married in an elopement, but still embraced Emily as if she were her own. Elizabeth Prentiss was definitely annoyed that her daughter had married a professional partner, and was more than a little surprised that Emily and JJ had semi-adopted Carrie Ortiz, someone they had only met through the job.
“You do need to learn to differentiate between your job and your personal life, Emily,” Elizabeth had told her.
The only reason they hadn’t officially adopted Carrie was because she was a legal adult now, and officially didn’t need a guardian. This didn’t mean Emily and JJ didn’t consider themselves Carrie’s guardians; there just wasn’t a way to do official paperwork on it. JJ always knew the paperwork when it came down to something, and there was none to do for Carrie. Thankfully, Elizabeth and Carrie had gotten along well enough at the dinner as people, even if Elizabeth disagreed about Emily bringing in people from her work life into her personal life. The two nuclear families had celebrated a dinner together, cordially enough, shortly after dealing with Damon Walker and Lucy Breen in Minnesota.
The stress of being hounded about a case meant she hadn’t slept well. On the one hand, yes, going out and partying on a Sunday night before coming into work at 7:30 AM on a Monday morning wasn’t great for a sleep schedule, but she still had a right to do it, and the whole team did it, too. Nobody except maybe Strauss would criticize the team for spending the night at a Super Bowl Party. Well, except John Curtis. What was up with that guy?
JJ tried to get back to sleep. She had roughly an hour before the alarm Emily set would go off. She got a little bit more, probably around half an hour, but it was just about as satisfying as the sleep she’d already gotten, which was to put it nicely, not the best sleep she’d ever had. Ultimately, she got up and brushed her teeth so she wouldn’t have morning breath when Emily woke up. She climbed back into bed, still not bothering to put on a top she’d only wear for half an hour at most before getting dressed for real, and just tried to relax in the time before Emily would wake up.
A few minutes before the alarm went off, Emily opened her eyes. They fell upon JJ’s face, her chest, and then her face again.
“Good morning, sweetie,” Emily purred. JJ’s smile got involuntarily wider at the endearment. Stressed or not, JJ did enjoy being Emily’s sweetie.
Emily kissed her good morning as well, and they got dressed for the day, made sure Carrie was up, sent her on her way back to her GWU classes, and prepped their go-bags for their upcoming trip to Maine.
“I’m glad you guys came in quickly this morning,” JJ said as everyone filed into the briefing room an hour later.
“Some of you witnessed last night that I got a call about a family annihilator in Maine. Those of you who didn’t, we didn’t want to ruin your night as well.”
“Someone called you last night? On a Sunday night?” Garcia asked.
“Yeah. Not even the first time,” said JJ.
“That’s…really rude, though I wish I could say it was entirely unique,” said Garcia.
“As for the case itself, five days ago, six members of the Garrison family of Deer Isle, Maine were butchered in their house. The wife Evelyn’s parents Horace and Susanna Whelchel had been away to Niagara Falls and come back to discover their daughter, her husband, his widowed mother, and their three grandchildren had all been butchered with a mattock,” said JJ.
The PowerPoint showed the graphic scene in the basement of the house.
“How do we know it’s a mattock? Those aren’t very common these days,” said Rossi.
“It was left at the scene,” said Hotch. “Wiped clean of fingerprints, though.”
“Was it owned by the family?” Rossi asked.
“No. The Whelchels confirmed that.”
“The whole house was wiped clean of fingerprints,” said JJ. “And Deer Isle isn’t the first community struck like this. Four months ago was the first known case in Exeter, New Hampshire. The five members of the Serrano family were killed with the same type of weapon.”
“Left at the scene as well?” asked Morgan.
“Yep,” said JJ. “Also not owned by the family.”
“Three months ago,” she continued, “the three members of the Rafferty family in Madbury, New Hampshire were killed in the same way. Two months ago, it was the Chambers family of York Cliffs, Maine.”
“And one month ago, the five members of the Dearborn family of Biddeford, Maine met the same end,” JJ finished.
Garcia cringed at every scene.
“So, because the killings happened in both New Hampshire and Maine, it’s already a federal case,” said Rossi.
“There’s a pretty big difference in distance between Deer Isle and the rest of the known locations. Even the ones across the New Hampshire border are closer than Deer Isle. Is there anything we missed?” asked Reid.
“If there has been, it doesn’t fit the timeline the unsub stuck to and local police forces in Maine didn’t find anything else,” JJ answered.
“Well, there’s one advantage we have. He’s got to be getting all these mattocks from somewhere,” said Morgan.
“That’s a rather expensive murder weapon and he keeps leaving it at the scene; that’s a strange part of the signature,” said Prentiss.
“No fingerprints were found at any of the houses, but there was evidence in all of them that the unsub stayed at the houses for multiple days after each murder,” said JJ. “Horace and Susanna Whelchel saw a set of footprints going toward the house but never saw anyone unknown inside. After the murder was discovered, footprints in the snow were seen going away towards the tree line.”
“Creepy,” said Morgan.
“Huh, we’ve got a copycat on our hands,” said Reid.
“A copycat of whom?” Hotch asked.
“In the 1920s in Germany, there was a house called Hinterkaifeck where an assailant lured six members of a family to a barn and killed them all with the same type of murder weapon,” said Reid. “Someone’s copying the Hinterkaifeck slaughter over and over again.”
“Was the Hinterkaifeck killer ever caught?” asked Morgan.
“No,” said Reid.
“Well, fingerprints or no fingerprints, we’re not going to let that part repeat itself. Wheels up in 30,” said Hotch.
On the jet, JJ and Prentiss sat next to each other, JJ leaning on Prentiss’s shoulder as she was still tired from a relative lack of sleep from the night before.
“So there’s a very long cool down period between kills. He probably stays in their attics for a long time. How’s he not discovered?” asked Morgan.
“Squatters usually wait a long time to get food and water; they’re very good at being discreet,” said Reid.
“I know. Why wait so long to kill them? The footprints appeared almost a month before the murders,” said Morgan. “All the murders happen roughly a month apart from one another.”
“All I’ve got so far are hypotheses,” said Reid.
“I got ya, genius,” Morgan said endearingly.
“The unsub might have lost their home; that would be a stressor,” said JJ, who stifled a yawn before it started.
“Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve dealt with someone who killed people in their own home just so they could have a home of their own for a little while,” said Prentiss. “We faced that in California’s Central Valley.”
“But that guy killed his victims on the night he entered, and the footprints were seen at least 5 days before the unsub killed the Garrisons,” said Hotch.
“Morgan, JJ, Prentiss, I want you to go to the most recent scene in Deer Isle; the rest of us will go to New Hampshire and analyze the evidence from the first case in Exeter. That could tell us a lot about what prompted the unsub to switch to murder from another crime, if he started with other crimes,” Hotch laid out.
“Sounds good,” said JJ.
“Given the number of crime scenes I anticipate we’ll learn enough from them to create a preliminary profile, so we’ll regroup in Bangor or Portland depending on what information we find and we’ll tell the state police who to look for. Given how far he went between the known fourth and fifth crime scenes, he could realistically be anywhere in Maine.”
The jet landed at Bangor International Airport and then JJ, Prentiss, and Morgan hopped into an SUV and took the more than an hour long drive to Deer Isle. Reid, Rossi, and Hotch stayed on the jet as it took off for the Hampton airfield near the New Hampshire coast.
The Maine countryside was snowy and gorgeous. It wasn’t snowing today, so the sky was royal blue, speckled with clouds, and the pine trees had snow on their branches like something out of a Bob Ross painting.
“JJ, we should come back here on our own sometime, this is beautiful,” said Prentiss. “Maybe like a weekend away or something.”
“JJ doesn’t like the woods, though,” Morgan said. “Were you on the team when she told Reid and I the fake story about the counselor?”
“No, but I know what you’re talking about,” Prentiss said. “JJ got me with the same trick.” JJ smiled, but didn’t say anything.
“No wonder you’re the media liaison, JJ. You’re such a good communicator that you can fool multiple smart people with the same story.”
"I just use my powers for good, not evil," she said cheekily.
When JJ, Prentiss, and Morgan arrived at the Finality House, the two women were grateful that they’d been put together for this case. Since they’d been married, the rate of which they were together versus on different mini-teams had been slightly more in favor of them together, but not so much that Strauss would notice. It was an especially gruesome scene this time.
The snow hadn’t melted yet, therefore the tracks were still available to examine, and that’s exactly what the local detectives were doing this time.
“Detectives, my name’s Special Agent Derek Morgan, and these are Special Agents Jennifer Jareau and Emily Prentiss.”
“Thanks for coming, agents,” said the detective. “Mark Seward.”
“I guess I only wish we could have come sooner,” said JJ.
“You’re here now,” said Seward.
“Have you followed the footprints into the woods?” Prentiss asked.
“There was a big debate between my colleagues about whether that, which would leave our own footprints, would contaminate the crime scene, so we focused on the other details of the scene at first,” Seward explained.
“I understand that, but it’s essential that we follow the footprints to see if the unsub left anything behind in the woods,” said Prentiss.
“What else did you find in the house?” JJ asked.
“Nothing that wouldn’t have been in the files you’ve already read, unfortunately.”
“He’s definitely organized enough to not attract the attention of the occupants of the homes until he wants to, barring the footprints,” said Morgan, as the four of them started following the footprints. They examined the unsub’s footprints to get a sense of his shoe size, and by extent, an estimate of his height and weight. After that, they took a blue spray paint can and marked the unsub’s footprints so their own would be known to be separate by anyone who followed them later on.
“The footprints; he probably couldn’t avoid leaving, so why does he strike places where he can leave them?” Prentiss asked.
““I don’t have access to the other case files, them being from other police jurisdictions, so I don’t know if he left footprints at the other scenes. If so, he must be just as comfortable in these woods as he is squatting in people’s homes. Us Mainers usually are,” Seward answered.
“That feels so foreign to me,” JJ said while laughing at herself a bit.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Agent Jareau, how come?” Seward asked, trying to make conversation as they approached the edge of the clearing.
“I grew up in a small town in western Pennsylvania; woods always scared me as a kid. They just do. And being in the land of Stephen King doesn’t exactly assuage it.”
“You get used to it, Miss Jareau,” Seward said, as they reached the woods.
“Mrs. Jareau,” JJ corrected, though left out that her wife was a participant in the conversation.
“Forgive me,” Seward acquiesced. “Anyway, here we are.” The unsub’s footprints continued into the woods themselves and away from the cliffs overlooking the sea. The four stopped talking as they followed them deeper into the woods, where they found something they didn’t exactly expect. Footprints became car tracks on what looked like it used to be a road.
“Did you know about this road, Seward?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah, it’s an old logging road that doesn’t get used anymore. There’s nothing further this way.”
“That means he might not be homeless after all,” said Morgan.
“There’s only one set of footprints in each direction, and there’s a noticeable dip of the snow under where the car was. So, he was outside of his car for long enough for snow to have not accumulated under there as much,” JJ puzzled out.
“He may not be homeless, but he doesn’t have a regular job, either. Not if he’s staying in people’s houses for multiple days,” Prentiss continued. “I think he’s likely a transient of some sort.”
“This connects back out to the road you guys came in on,” said Seward.
“So why didn’t you guys notice the car tracks coming out of the woods?” Prentiss pressed. This was a major miss.
“After the Whelchels called in the crime, we had plow crews come in and clear the road for the police to have easy access to the house. This road is the only way out here, because of the cliffs.”
There were large piles of snow at each edge of the main road, which would have covered up the car tracks coming out of the woods. After they examined this, they turned to the house itself.
The scene in the basement of the Finality House had been cleaned up but it was still very, very, very bloody. There was still a smell of iron in the room that would no doubt make it difficult to sell the house after the case was over. The house, as old as it was, would have had a hard time being sold, but maybe the land would be and the buyers could build a new house. But of course, what mattered was human life.
“Never gets easier, seeing kids senselessly slaughtered,” said Morgan. He let out a deep sigh. He internally wished this had been or would be the most gruesome thing he’d see happen to children, but he knew better.
“How long do you go until the nightmares go all the way away?” Seward asked. “I’ve seen their slaughtered bodies every night for the past three days.”
“I’m afraid we’re not good people to ask that question to,” said Prentiss, “Given how often we keep seeing new horrible things.”
“There’s terrible cases that come across my desk as the intake agent that we don’t even end up taking, but I still see the images from them sometimes,” JJ expounded. “It’s a constant influx of nightmare fuel, but it’s the job.”
But other than the footprints and car tracks in the snow, there honestly wasn’t much to gather from the scene at the Finality House.
The Serrano family’s murder had been four months ago so the scene in Exeter, New Hampshire had been long since cleaned up before Rossi, Hotch, and Reid got there. The neighborhood had begun to heal in the wake of the horrific crime.
“You must be Agent Hotchner?” asked the Exeter detective, when they got to the Exeter PD. “Laurie Dacy.”
“Indeed,” said Hotch. “These are Special Agent David Rossi and Dr. Spencer Reid.” Each shook Dacy’s hand.
“I’m sure sharing files with the detectives in Maine is difficult, but were you able to share information with Madbury?” Rossi asked.
“Yes. We exchanged our notes a few months ago when it was noticed how similar our two cases are.”
“So you’d be okay with us making copies of those notes and exchanging them with the detectives in Maine?” Reid asked. “We’re probably the only ones with authority to do that because he’s crossing state lines.”
“If that helps you guys get this bastard, do what you need to do.”
They didn’t expect to get much else from the two scenes in New Hampshire, so they made liberal use of the Exeter PD’s copy machine so there could be copies for JJ, Prentiss, Morgan, and the Maine state troopers.
“Garcia?” Hotch said as he, Rossi, and Reid left the station.
“What do you need, boss?”
“I want you to check unsolved cases from around New England. If there’s anything else outside Maine and New Hampshire that’s similar to this M.O., I want to know about it.”
“I’ll take a look. How far back do you want me to look?” Garcia said as she opened up her database.
“Maybe a year? Maybe a bit more?” Hotch suggested.
“I’ll see what I can find, friendo,” and then Garcia hung up.
“You think that’s long enough ago?” asked Rossi.
“That’s what I’m leaning towards,” Hotch said.
“I feel like if this went back a whole lot further, these cases are gruesome enough that they would’ve been on our radar sooner,” said Reid. “JJ’s only heard about this starting a month ago, right?”
“That’s right,” said Hotch. “She told Rossi, Prentiss, and myself that last night after she got the call.”
“I understand not wanting to come in at 10:30 PM on a Sunday, but is there a reason we didn’t take this case back a month ago?” Reid asked.
“Other cases were moving more quickly,” said Hotch.
“I see,” said Reid. “I just hope that we don’t lose any more lives in the meantime. Opportunity cost during this job is brutal.”
They got on the jet and flew back to Bangor. Meanwhile, Morgan, Prentiss, and JJ left Deer Isle and drove back.
The BAU team regrouped in Bangor so that the Maine state troopers wouldn’t have to make it to the rather difficult to get to Deer Isle.
“We’re looking for a white man somewhere between 30 and 50. His shoe size has been analyzed and it puts him at roughly 225 pounds. Overweight, but not dramatically so,” Morgan started.
“He’s left a different mattock at each crime scene, wiped down of any fingerprints each time, as are the entire houses of each set of victims, so he’s very meticulous,” said Hotch.
“This unsub does not hold a regular job,” said JJ. “He spends far too much time waiting to commit each annihilation that any regular job would notice and not tolerate such long absences. We know he has a car, so that might be where he sleeps when he isn’t in victims’ houses.”
“He commits the same murder in a different town each time and has gone further up the Atlantic coast each time, so he’s likely a transient. He spends too much time in each set of victims’ houses and has been doing this for at least five months,” said Rossi. “Our technical analyst is looking through any and all unsolved cases in New England in the last year or so to see if the one in Exeter was truly the first, or if there were others before. It’s quite common that we find out that the unsub committed more murders before we were aware of them.”
“If Garcia finds that there’s anything outside the pattern he’s developed of one family of victims per town, we’ll have a good sense of where to find him,” said Prentiss.
“There’s one other line of inquiry that’s worth taking,” said Reid. “Each time the unsub has left a mattock at the scene. Anything else could be a much easier and less unwieldy murder weapon, but he chooses to use this every time. So, if there’s a possible way to track purchases of mattocks from hardware stores, that could lead us to our unsub.”
“This unsub is most likely mission-based,” said Morgan. “He finds a target and then will do everything he can to make sure that he kills them.”
“It’s unlikely that he’ll have a ton of friends right now, either. He’ll have lost the more stablizing influences in his life,” said Rossi.
“But beyond that, anything else is speculation,” said Hotch. "Please get into contact with one of us if you find anyone who you think fits this profile, as this is still a federal investigation with crimes having taken place in two states."
The police dispersed and returned to their hometowns to begin canvassing.
After reading out the profile, the sun had long since gone down even though it was maybe 6 PM. The team had dinner from Angelo’s Pizzeria in Bangor. More snow was expected later that night, so they hurried off to hotels to avoid getting trapped outside.
Emily and JJ checked into their hotel room at Fairfield Inn, and as soon as the door was closed, JJ collapsed onto the bed. Emily had been going to give her wife some rather hot kisses to distract from the horror they’d dealt with, but quickly cast that thought aside when it was clear JJ would not be in any sort of mood for that.
“Could we have prevented this?” JJ asked.
“Not by leaving the party last night; the crime was already a few days old then,” Emily reassured her.
“Or if I’d decided to take the case a month ago when he first brought it to my attention,” JJ suggested.
“If only John Curtis could see you now; then he’d have no doubt that you care. Of course, I’ve known that you care for as long as I’ve known you.”
“I’d… rather he not see me now. Not while I’m in a hotel room with you, even in a moment as chaste as this.”
“Heh, good point.” Emily kissed JJ on the forehead and then on the lips. JJ smiled. The two of them showered (together this time) and went to bed.
The next day was relatively uneventful, other than going through the case files and evidence of the other murders in Maine and New Hampshire, and the team stayed in Bangor, which became their de facto headquarters. Garcia called in with some news of her own.
“You’re on speaker, Garcia. Everyone’s here,” said Morgan.
“So doll, I looked through every case in New England in the past year before the case in Exeter,” said Garcia, “and not only did I not find anything that matches our unsub’s M.O., there weren’t any family annihilations at all in New England. The closest family annihilation to Maine in the whole last year before the first case was in the Bronx and it was determined to be mob-related.”
“Did any other unsubs use a mattock as a weapon?” asked Hotch.
“No. Unsurprisingly, such an unwieldy weapon isn’t common.”
“It feels more and more to me like the unsub is intentionally copying Hinterkaifeck,” said Reid. “If they wanted to kill more families, they’d use a weapon that’s more convenient to actually use, and they certainly wouldn’t leave it behind.”
“But if they’re sticking so close to the pattern so far, it could be like a month before he strikes again. We need to find a way to not wait that long to catch him,” said Prentiss.
Well, they didn’t have to wait a month. But not in the way they wanted to.
That night, the unsub received a text message. “The FBI is here. Kill your next family tonight.”
The Shaw family of Damariscotta, Maine went to bed that night. They’d been planning to drive to Boston to take a flight to Tampa to get away from the snow for a week, but they would ultimately never leave their home.
Dennis and Lorraine Shaw heard a window break, and then noises coming from their basement and Dennis grabbed a hammer he kept under his bed for situations exactly like this.
“Stay quiet. Don’t wake the kids if we don’t have to,” Dennis said.
Stealthily, they snuck down to the basement hoping to catch the intruder off guard, but in their effort to stay as focused on the task at hand as possible, Dennis forgot that the third step from the bottom creaked when you put weight on it, and boy, did it.
Dennis instinctively cursed under his breath, and as he did, footsteps came toward him out of the darkness. A man with grayish hair and a big, bulky weapon came out of the dark basement. Dennis got in one swing with the hammer and connected with what was probably the man’s cheek, but the man with the mattock connected at the same time.
Lorraine screamed and lunged at the intruder, knocking him down, and also took a big hit to the top of her head, knocking her unconscious. The unsub hit Dennis over the head as well, knocking him out, too. From there, he beat them savagely until they didn’t ever get up again.
“Scheisse,” he said to himself. He couldn’t easily lure the kids down to the room with the boiler now, he’d have to take care of them separately, and so he did, leaving a gruesome scene in each bedroom. From there, he left. This was by far the shortest length of time he’d stayed in any victim’s house.
It took two hours for the BAU team to drive to Damariscotta from Bangor. Nobody said much of anything on the drive; everyone was still too tired from the night before. Back in Quantico, Garcia hadn’t even shown up yet until they drove through the town of Belfast, Maine.
Hotch drove Prentiss and JJ, who decided to sit in the back seat together for two hours of holding one another close and sleeping. There wasn’t anything else to do right now, and no danger was expected on the drive, so this was a perfectly okay time to be like this on a case. Morgan hadn’t slept well the night before, so he also dozed on the drive to Damariscotta.
“First time he’s gone southwest, not northeast,” said Rossi as they arrived at the house in question. They soon discovered it was the first time for many things on this case.
“This is new, the children were completely separate from the parents and each other and there’s a lot of defensive wounds on Dennis and Lorraine,” said Morgan.
“They probably investigated the noise together, and came prepared with this,” Reid said, and pointed to the hammer. It had blood about the head. “The unsub had to kill them here and knew he couldn’t lure the rest of the occupants to the basement so he just went upstairs and killed them where they lay.”
“And there’s no evidence of him staying a long time this time,” said Hotch as he rejoined the group.
“The window was broken and it was snowing two nights ago. If he had broken it even two nights ago, there’d be water on the floor next to the window from snow falling in and melting,” said Prentiss.
“He’s devolved severely. He’s not waiting for anything anymore,” said Morgan.
“And that only makes him more dangerous,” said Hotch.
With this information in hand, the team made the long, snowy drive back to Bangor.
“So, it had been a month, now it’s been less than a week,” said Prentiss. “He’d been very consistent with his timetable before, and now he speeds it up four-fold.”
“What’s changed?” Rossi thought aloud. “It’s not the weather; that’s not different from January, December, or November.”
“Could he have had another stressor?” Morgan asked.
“Not sure what stressor would make him move his timetable up from a very stable one before,” said Rossi.
“What if it’s us?” Morgan thought. “I wonder if he’s been keeping track of the investigation and he knows the FBI is here.”
“But none of the detectives or police fit the profile,” said Hotch. “They all hold steady jobs and their colleagues would’ve absolutely noticed if they’d spent even three days in someone’s attic away from work, let alone more than a week.”
“Maybe there’s some other source of information that he’s getting that’s telling him our progress. Would any of the detectives have the means to do that?” asked JJ.
“We haven’t met with all of them, and even when we have, that isn’t a guarantee that we see it coming. Deputy Boyd from Terlingua, among others, taught us that,” said Morgan.
“I think we need to profile the houses in question, to see how he picks his targets,” Reid said.
“They were all relatively on the outskirts of the towns they were in, but not so rural that they’re impossible to get to. Most of them didn’t have their exterior lights on, and none of the families had dogs. Those are two classic things burglars look to avoid,” said Prentiss.
“Seems like a slam dunk for that; we’ve definitely seen those vulnerable types of homes get attacked before,” said Rossi.
A little while later, Garcia called in to the Bangor office.
“With the help of Kevin Lynch, I’ve looked at security footage for every hardware store in Maine and New Hampshire over the past five months,” said Garcia. “I focused on stores within a twenty mile radius of each of the six crime scenes, particularly Damariscotta.”
“And I’m assuming you found something, Garcia?” Hotch asked hopefully.
“Absolutely I did,” said Garcia. “Someone purchased…wait for it…a mattock, 2 days before the murder of the Shaw family. It was at the Hammond Lumber Company hardware store in Damariscotta, his name was Heinrich Sauber.”
“What do we know about Sauber?” asked Prentiss.
“He was born in Ingolstadt, Germany in 1979. He moved to Boston in 1998 to get away from his father, according to his immigration forms. Thanks to how slow the US immigration process is, he’s living on a green card-”
“Wait, he’s German?” Reid exclaimed, interrupting Garcia. Reid ran over to a computer and opened up Google maps, searching for where the Hinterkaifeck farm used to be, and then where Ingolstadt is.
“Ingolstadt is only a thirty minute drive from Hinterkaifeck, guys,” he said.
“I’m going to need more than a short drive time in another country to confirm he’s our guy, Reid,” said Hotch. “You said he was still on a green card, Garcia?”
“Yeah. His last known address was an apartment building in Exeter, New Hampshire, that he apparently stopped being able to pay rent on in 2008. According to work records, he’s done freelance construction work up until a bit less than a year ago, including a renovation project the Boston field office did. He has a driver’s license in Massachusetts, so we’ll likely be looking for Massachusetts plates.”
“Everything lines up with the Hinterkaifeck theory,” said Reid. “Relatively rural isolated houses, family annihilations, the weapon of choice, even a German unsub. Well, German-American in this case. The question is: why replicate Hinterkaifeck?”
“I don’t know, but I hope we can catch him alive so we can find out,” said Rossi. “Prentiss, how’s your German?”
She mildly scoffed. “If he’s been living in the US for over a decade at this point, I’d assume his English is way better than my German.” She unexpectedly yawned mid-sentence.
“Modest, are you?” JJ mildly flirted.
“I’m way more comfortable in Spanish, Arabic, and French,” Prentiss replied.
Morgan chuckled. “Yeah, she’s modest alright.”
“JJ, let’s set up a press conference and tell the local authorities to start looking for Sauber,” Hotch declared, putting a capper on the humor.
“Maine’s not a great state for media coverage,” JJ said. “The northern half is completely remote and there’s a million places Sauber could hide up there. At least we can send his picture to Canadian border crossings, but I’m much more worried about him just finding a spot in the thousands of square miles of woods and us just never being able to find him.”
“We’ll check every inch of Maine for him if we have to,” said Morgan. “Nobody who kills kids gets me to give up.”
“I’ll get it set up,” said JJ. “I’ll get it sent to the Boston media, see if we can get into contact with anyone who knows him.”
About an hour and a half later, reporters were gathering outside the Bangor PD waiting for JJ’s press conference.
“The FBI is releasing to the public who we believe to be the perpetrator of the killings of six families in New Hampshire and Maine. We believe he is this man, Heinrich Sauber.”
Sauber’s picture flashed on the TV screen.
“We urge anyone who sees him to contact the FBI at this number on screen, and if Sauber himself sees this, we urge him to turn himself in so that nobody else is harmed.”
After that, the BAU team dispersed and returned to their hotel rooms for the night. Emily and JJ went to bed together, and then eventually to sleep, though Emily would have to wipe JJ's lipstick off her cheeks before they went back into work the next day. They had a prime suspect and they’d begin their hunt for him in earnest tomorrow.
In the Bangor police station the next morning, everyone took their coffee and started looking around land records of other towns in Maine to profile the most likely next houses the unsub, whether it was Sauber or not, would strike. It was relatively boring work that produced very little in the way of results.
Nothing interesting happened until about 11:30 AM.
“You are looking for me?” said a timid voice in a German accent. Everyone turned their heads towards the door of the Bangor police station, and there was a man in his young thirties with his hands over his head. Yeah, this was Sauber alright. He had a circular mark on his left cheek that looked a lot like he’d been hit with a hammer recently.
“Heinrich Sauber?” asked Rossi.
“Ja? I will come quietly,” Sauber said, his accent becoming very strong.
“Put your hands on top of your head and don’t move,” said Morgan, none too kindly.
“I can’t believe that worked,” JJ whispered to herself and Hotch.
Sauber let the police cuff him. He didn’t have anything in his pockets. The BAU team had many, many questions for him.
Morgan and Rossi took Sauber into the interrogation room while Hotch, Reid, JJ, and Prentiss waited outside. Sometimes they wanted to ease in on the good cop/bad cop routine, but not today.
“Sauber, I’m Special Agent David Rossi and this is my colleague Special Agent Derek Morgan. We have a hell of a lot of questions to ask you.”
"Agents, I hope that you will forgive me for waiting so long-"
“You think I’m gonna go even remotely easy on you because you turned yourself in?” Morgan said, slamming his hand down on the table next to Sauber’s.
“That’s what the nice blonde lady asked me to do on the TV.”
“Yeah, Kemper turned himself in, too and they didn’t go easy on him, either. You still butchered children, Sauber. And I absolutely despise people who do things like you did to kids.”
“Why replicate Hinterkaifeck?” asked Rossi.
“Ah, so you know about Hinterkaifeck,” said Sauber, now getting a bit interested.
“I take it you do from growing up so close to it,” Rossi pried.
“It’s a scary story from my childhood; one we told around campfires. Then I grew up and learned it was real, and it’s affected me ever since.”
”But most of us who hear scary stories don’t replicate them, do they? Why did you?” asked Morgan.
“I have been told to say that I am ze second of many,” said Sauber.
“Second?” Morgan questioned nonchalantly. “Who was the first, then?”
“Nathaniel Brent was the first,” Sauber answered.
Out beyond the one way mirror, the other four profilers looked at each other with astonishment. Nathaniel Brent, the bomber who had nearly killed JJ in Atlanta, had given absolutely no indication that he was working for anybody and Daisy Ramsden had made clear that Brent really loved to be in control. The idea of him being someone else’s pawn didn’t make sense. But, how would Sauber have any knowledge of him at all?
“So, you’re a pawn in someone else’s game,” said Rossi calmly. “Whose?”
“He said that I could only call him JC when you caught me,” said Sauber. “He never gave me more than that.”
“JC. Who’s JC?” asked JJ. “Some sort of Christ symbolism and a God complex?”
“Thousands, wouldn’t surprise me if there’s even a million,” said Reid. “J is the most common first initial in the US and C is the fifth most common last initial. What I’m saying is, it could be anyone. Could even be from a fake name so Sauber doesn’t reveal it to us even if he wants to.”
“We should call Daisy Ramsden, see if we can find out any more about Brent that would lead us to the mastermind,” said Hotch.
“I met someone while working in Boston, who knew my circumstances and promised me riches if I did what he asked.”
“And why did they want you specifically?” asked Rossi.
“He wanted someone who is German to carry out this; he has a fascination with unsolved murders and tasked me with replicating one. Hinterkaifeck. And then he kept pushing the goalpost; said I didn’t quite do it right, until the one from two ago. But then he told me to do it again once you showed up. Wanted you to see what I could do.”
“And what you did was kill over 20 people,” Morgan growled. “You’re lucky that neither New Hampshire nor Maine have the death penalty, Sauber. Because there are other states where you would absolutely get it, even as the mere pawn you describe yourself as.”
“Stay focused on me, Sauber,” said Rossi.
“He paid me only for each weapon,” said Sauber. “He never lived up to his end of the deal.”
“Yeah. Do you expect a man like him to keep a bargain?” Morgan asked.
“I will make a guilty plea,” Sauber said. “I am tired of running and I do not want to fight in the courts of law.”
“Well, we’ll have to keep speaking to you to see if you know anything else. But you’re still going away for a very, very long time,” said Rossi. Morgan and Rossi left Sauber in the interrogation room where the Maine state troopers would take him away to the Maine state prison.
“We’ve got a long road ahead of us,” Rossi said to the other four profilers outside the room.
“We’ve dealt with stuff like this before. Foyet, Brietkopf, how I took down Ian Doyle a long time ago, Billy Flynn, Vance Tatham, et cetera,” Prentiss said confidently.
“I think we’ve done all we can here in Maine for now,” said Hotch. “Let’s go home.”
( House of the Rising Sun plays over a shot of the jet.)
Prentiss: the screenwriter Terry Hayes said, “The world doesn’t change in front of your eyes; it changes behind your back.”
The flight back to DC was uneventful. They’d solved one mystery but had unearthed the beginnings of another; one that they’d already dipped their toes in once before without even realizing they’d done so.
Right as she and Emily got home, JJ got another phone call.
“JJ, just today the HSK database added three new victims in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Similar M.O. to each other. Please tell me you care about that.”
JJ hung up on him.
“I need to talk to Strauss about this as soon as possible. He’s using our job as an excuse to contact me whenever he wants.”
“What I don’t get is what the fuck does he get out of this?” Emily said.
“I honestly don’t care what he gets out of this,” said JJ. “I’m stopping this now.”
Now, of course, meant as they came into work tomorrow. This was the first time Prentiss and JJ had talked with Strauss by themselves since they’d gotten married. They’d let Hotch do the talking about that. It’d been months of time that they avoided being alone with her. Fortunately, Strauss had apparently woken up on the helpful side of the bed this morning.
“Agent Jareau, I believe you, and I understand, and I’m willing to help you. Give me an hour, and I’ll have the paperwork ready to make sure he doesn’t bother you anymore. Though, come to think of it, I haven’t really seen him since before you guys left for Maine.”
Strauss may have tried to promote JJ to Minneapolis away from the team, but she was effective at drawing up no-contact orders. She then ordered JJ and Prentiss to go to Garcia’s office where they wouldn’t be bothered.
“I will guard you two with my life,” Garcia had said, half-joking but also deadly serious.
“Our hero,” said JJ.
“You already did the same for me, you know,” Garcia said gratefully. They spent their time being “guarded” by watching cat videos Garcia had found online. Garcia was almost always the go-to gal for cheering others up, as she'd mastered the art of keeping herself more or less cheerful the majority of the time despite what she had to deal with.
But, when Strauss went to Curtis’s office one floor down, he wasn’t there. It looked like absolutely everything had been cleaned out of his office overnight. Everything, that is, except for a note on his desk.
Strauss pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and called Hotch.
“Agent Hotchner, I need you and your team to come to Agent Curtis’s office right now.”
Hotch expected to be Strauss’s reinforcements to help get him out of the building, so he wasn’t expecting to find the office vacated.
Everyone gathered in Curtis’s office and they all observed the resignation note. It said “Remember Hinterkaifeck?” It was written in red pen, but it absolutely called something else to mind: Nathaniel Brent's "Remember Alfred Murrah" note.
“Oh, son of a bitch,” said Morgan. “How long has he been planning this under our nose?”
“That’s why he wanted me to look into this case so badly,” said JJ. “He was behind it and he wanted us to see it.”
“We need to go to his house immediately,” said Hotch. Strauss authorized it at once. They went to a judge and got a warrant to raid Curtis’s house.
He would at least be guilty of accessory to murder, and that’s based on what they knew from Sauber. They were nervous to find out what else he was hiding that they didn’t know.
But when Morgan broke in the door, they found that Curtis’s house, like his office, was completely abandoned and empty, except for a single piece of paper, on which was written six words.
“Now you care. See you soon.”
“We’ve got another Foyet,” said Prentiss.
That same day, Curtis left the Arkansas Valley correctional prison in Colorado. He’d gathered almost everyone he wanted to his side: Vance Tatham, Gary Scott, Vincent Shyer, and a few other non-prisoners. Most of them were just as willing to get revenge on the FBI as Tatham, others were willing to do whatever he asked for money he didn’t guarantee up front. He still had one last person to convince and supply and if she accepted, even though he’d just shown his hand in Maine, he’d still have an ace up his sleeve, and the BAU couldn’t do anything about it.
JJ and Emily returned to their apartment without saying much. Both of them immediately deleted Curtis’s number from their cell phones and blocked the contact. Emily made dinner for the two of them in relative silence while JJ fed Sergio. They didn’t often say nothing when they were home together, but here they were.
They sat across from each other at the dinner table with the simple penne pesto Emily had made before Emily finally substantially spoke.
“You know, we don’t have to live in fear of this guy. Even if we’re worried about what he’ll do, if we stop being happy in our daily lives and our relationship, he wins.”
“So what are you suggesting?” JJ asked, not feeling great about having to deal with someone like George Foyet again, but liking Emily’s idea of getting out of their self-imposed doldrums.
“Let’s have a ton of fun tonight. Make our love a complete act of defiance. We’ve done that before; we can do it again.”
“Uh huh, keep going,” JJ said, a grin forming at the very edges of her mouth.
“He said to you, ‘6 dead and you’re partying’ as if we don’t deserve our personal lives. I honestly don’t care what he said to you on the phone last night. We are going to party hard tonight, and when we come into work tomorrow, we’ll be just as good at it as we always are, and prove that we are girls who can do both,” Emily declared. She even stood up from her dinner as she said this.
JJ gave Emily a small applause as she sat back down.
“You’re sure this isn’t you just giving a morally amazing excuse for being turned on by me?” JJ teased.
“It…could be,” Emily admitted. “But I don’t much care, do you?”
“Nope,” JJ said, and kissed her wife sweetly.
The two women put their bowls in the dishwasher and then Emily led JJ back to their shared bedroom, where they lived up to their wedding night with how long they went. John Curtis was a threat and he would definitely still be a serious problem to deal with in the future, but that was absolutely not going to stop Emily Prentiss and Jennifer Jareau from loving on each other as much and as intensely as they could.