Finishing School (18 page)

Finally Rossi nodded. ‘‘Thank you for your time—and we are truly sorry for your loss.''

‘‘Thank you,'' Mathis said. ‘‘And God bless you.''

‘‘God bless you,'' his wife said.

Coming from these two, the words were not a rote farewell; Rossi sensed the genuine depth of their thanks for the law enforcers' efforts.

Outside, Rossi said, ‘‘We need to check out that church. Who left and when they left. For now, though, let's go talk with your detective. Excuse me, what was his name?''

‘‘Malcolm Henry,'' Mickerson said.

‘‘Let's go meet Detective Henry.''

 
Bemidji, Minnesota

 
The team had come in early this morning and had already been hard at work for several hours when Special Agent in Charge Aaron Hotchner got himself a cup of coffee from the break room. When Hotchner returned to the conference room, he found Reid poring over maps trying to put together a geographic profile. Morgan was on the laptop with Garcia, the two going over the backgrounds of their suspects against the pieces of the profile that were slowly falling into place, like a jigsaw puzzle assembling itself in slow motion.

The BAU members didn't know much, admittedly; but they were sure of a few things.

The UnSub was comfortable in the woods.

On the other hand, he was uncomfortable with confrontation.

He was nonviolent, in his way, despite being a murderer. (Those two facts Hotchner had gleaned from the UnSub poisoning his victims.)

Seemed to be no sign of hatred or anger in his murders.

The use of poison also made Hotchner think that the UnSub was not only uncomfortable with confrontation, but with people in general. This was a person who would avoid confrontation at all cost as well as try to not interact with people any more than necessary.

Hotchner further figured that the UnSub would have a job that would minimize contact with people. That did not, however, make Hotchner believe that the killer might not try to insinuate himself into the investigation to try to find out what the police knew.

Some serial killers would inject themselves into an investigation to gain a feeling of power from being close to the police and knowing that the very people tracking him were unaware of his nearby presence. This UnSub, however, would insinuate himself strictly for intelligence gathering.

The UnSub was smart. The use of barbiturates required at least some education to give the correct dosage, including providing an overdose. If he merely made the victim sick, or gave the victim too severe a dosage, that person might grow suspicious or even vomit. And he would fail.

As both a kidnapper and murderer, the UnSub was highly organized. No one had seen anything of him at any of the crime scenes, and after three abductions, three murders, and three burials, no witnesses at all had come forward. The UnSub had cased at least the first victim of what appeared to be a kidnapping spree.

Granted, the environment had been different when the UnSub started, no AMBER Alerts and the like; but still the UnSub had managed to abduct three girls in a relatively small area, then disappeared for ten years. No small feat, Hotchner allowed.

The more Hotchner thought about it, the more likely it seemed they might well be dealing with multiple UnSubs. A female seemed out of the question, simply because the girls were buried deeper into the woods than a normal-sized woman could possibly have carried them. The lack of witnesses of any kind indicated the UnSub had the ability to be all but invisible.

Since a normal-sized woman could not have carried the girls so far from the road—and since a larger woman probably would have been noticed somewhere along the line—to Hotchner it seemed highly improbable that the UnSub was female.

Which did not mean that the UnSub was a man. That is, the unlikelihood of the UnSub being a woman did not mean that a man
and
a woman weren't involved in this together. They might be, as Reid had surmised, dealing with accomplices—a couple.

Hotchner also felt they were narrowing in on the age of the UnSub. The last two kidnappings could have been done by a young person, except that even for a snatch job, these were pulled off with enough care that no one had seen the kidnapper. The abduction of Abigail Mathis was well thought out—had taken planning and nerve. The murders and disposals of the bodies were done with extreme care, as well.

Well organized,
Hotchner thought again,
showing the patience of an older perpetrator.

The pieces were coming together, but not fast enough. Getting ready to dig further, Hotchner looked up in surprise as Garue and JJ rushed in. The blonde agent was a pretty cool customer and her grave expression told Hotchner something major had gone down.

He asked, ‘‘What?''

‘‘AMBER Alert,'' Garue said.

Morgan and Reid looked up from their work.

Jareau said, ‘‘A three-year-old blonde girl was just abducted from the back of her mother's SUV in Hibbing. Grabbed right out of her car seat in broad daylight.''

Reid asked, ‘‘Where's Hibbing?''

Garue said, ‘‘Hundred ten miles east of here.''

Morgan asked, ‘‘Is it our guy?''

‘‘Only one way to find out,'' Hotchner said. ‘‘You and Garue get there now.''

‘‘On it,'' Morgan said, rose, and tossed on his jacket.

Turning to Jareau, Hotchner said, ‘‘Call Rossi and Prentiss and tell them the clock may be ticking even faster.''

‘‘Yes, sir.''

‘‘Reid, tell Garcia what's going on. Get her on this, too. If this is our UnSub, we're closer than we've ever been. Let's move!''

 
Jesup, Georgia

 
Retired detective Malcolm Henry lived in a formidable two-story farmhouse just beyond the city limits on the far south side of town, a gravel lane leading up to the spread. Mickerson parked in front of a small but well-kept barn, and Rossi got out and looked around at something out of a Grant Wood painting.

A knock on a side door was answered by a short, thin woman in jeans and a gray sweatshirt with the words HILTON HEAD over the left breast. Seeing Mickerson made her smile and she invited them in.

They entered into a huge yellow kitchen dominated by an almost Arthurian-sized round oak dining table with matching chairs. Big windows on the south wall let in plenty of sunshine to make the room warm and inviting.

Mickerson asked, ‘‘How're you doing, Mrs. Henry?''

‘‘Fine, fine,'' she said, with a wide smile. She was a petite woman who had stayed physically fit and appeared younger than the early sixties that Rossi figured her for, her hair color a shade of blonde unknown in nature.

After names had been exchanged and they'd all shaken hands, Mrs. Henry waved them to the table, saying, ‘‘Have a seat, have a seat. Would you like some coffee?''

Rossi said, ‘‘Sure, thanks.''

Prentiss, Carlyle and Mickerson were game, as well.

When their hostess had given them all huge mugs of coffee, she said, ‘‘I expect you'll be wanting to talk to Mal.''

‘‘Yes, ma'am,'' Mickerson said. ‘‘Please.''

She nodded. ‘‘I'll go and get him. He's—''

‘‘He's right here,'' said a deep voice from the doorway off a dining room.

They all turned toward the basset-faced, barrelchested, medium-sized man with the piercing brown eyes; his short dark hair was graying at the edges.

‘‘Tim,'' Henry said as he strode in to join them. ‘‘How's my favorite bonus baby?''

‘‘Bonus Baby's good, Mal. How's my favorite retiree?''

Henry gave up a single-shoulder shrug. ‘‘Gettin' by. This doesn't look like a social call. . . .''

Soon, the friendly Mrs. Henry having taken her leave, they were sitting together at the big table talking about the Abigail Mathis kidnapping.

‘‘Figured it had to be that,'' Henry said with a husky sigh. ‘‘There are days when an old broke-down cop like me misses the job. But there aren't any days I miss
that
one.''

Rossi asked, ‘‘What can you tell us?''

Henry sipped his coffee, then set the cup down. ‘‘I'm glad somebody finally found the poor thing. I suppose you're after the perp now.''

‘‘Yeah. Who called and told you the girl had been identified?''

‘‘Nobody,'' Henry said. ‘‘Made the local news—but there wasn't much in the way of details.''

Rossi filled the retired detective in.

Henry chewed on the information awhile.

Rossi said, ‘‘The other girls buried with Abby could have been her sisters, they looked so much alike.''

‘‘That is plain goddamn weird.''

‘‘Yes, it is. But it's true—we've seen photos of each of the victims. They were all blonde girls abducted at age three or so, and killed between the ages of twelve and fourteen. All dressed nicely, all well taken care of.''

‘‘Took care of is right,'' Henry said gruffly. ‘‘All buried?''

‘‘Next to each other,'' Rossi said. ‘‘The graves couldn't have been neater in a cemetery.''

‘‘All between twelve and fourteen, you say?''

‘‘Yeah . . .''

Henry stroked his chin in thought, then turned to Mickerson. ‘‘When was that girl found in Bockman?''

‘‘Oh, hell,'' Mickerson said, and grimaced. ‘‘Goddamn, I never even
thought
about that.''

‘‘What girl?'' Prentiss asked.

The retired cop turned to her. ‘‘A blonde about the same age as your dead girls was found buried in the woods, outside Bockman.''

Eyes flaring, she asked, ‘‘What and where is Bockman?''

‘‘It's a town, sort of. Really only about seven or eight houses out the end of Sansavilla Road, on the south bank of the Altamaha River.''

Rossi asked, ‘‘When was this?''

‘‘Ten years ago,'' Henry said. ‘‘Never woulda even found her, but the river flooded that spring, and when the water went down, well, the grave was exposed. She was just sort of sticking up out of the ground. Wrapped in plastic like a goddamn sandwich.''

Turning to Prentiss, Rossi asked, ‘‘How did we not get this information from Garcia?''

Henry held up a hand. ‘‘Ain't gonna be no record of this in VICAP, CASMIRC, or any of those kind of places.''

The retired detective was referring to the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and the Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigations Resource Center.

Henry was saying, ‘‘Bockman is . . . rural. It ain't like here in town. They don't operate on any big scale. Hell, the sheriff thought he was lucky they called at all. Back there, in the woods, sometimes the dead get buried without a lot of . . . fanfare. ‘You came from the earth, you shall return to the earth.' If the girl'd been from around there, they probably never would have called anyone. The mere fact that nobody recognized her, or her bracelet, was enough to get them to call the sheriff.''

‘‘Bracelet?'' Prentiss asked.

‘‘She was dressed nicely—I remember that from the photos I saw. Even though the water and the time in the ground had pretty much wrecked them, you could see the girl was wearing nice clothes. She also had a bracelet on her left wrist. Gold—sort of a really delicate ID bracelet, but instead of the girl's name, it had engraved in script ‘Mommy's Little Sweetheart.' ”

Rossi asked, ‘‘Was she ever identified?''

Frowning, Henry shook his head. ‘‘Nope. Sheriff called the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and they did all they could, but the girl never got a name.''

‘‘Was there an autopsy?''

Henry shrugged. ‘‘I never heard of one. Being the county seat, we knew the sheriff and his department pretty well. That's how I found out as much as I did. Bockman's not anywhere near our jurisdiction. Once the state was involved, we sort of got shut out. The only thing I know for sure is the girl was never ID'd. You'd have to talk to the GBI to know for sure.''

Rossi nodded. ‘‘We will. Hers was the only body found?''

‘‘Far as I know.''

‘‘They didn't look for more graves?''

With a little shrug, Henry asked, ‘‘Why would they?''

Good point,
Rossi thought.

They thanked their host for the time and information, and thanked Mrs. Henry, as well, who offered pie that they reluctantly turned down.

When they were out in the yard, Rossi turned to Mickerson. ‘‘How far is Bockman?''

‘‘Maybe twenty miles.''

‘‘Is there somebody over there we could talk to? Somebody who would know where the body was found?''

‘‘Sure, lots of folks.''

Rossi frowned. ‘‘I mean
exactly
where.''

Mickerson shrugged. ‘‘The sheriff would. He'd have been out there.''

‘‘Call him. Lead us out there, and we'll call the Georgia Bureau of Criminal Investigation on the way.''

Mickerson asked, ‘‘What are you thinking?''

Rossi said, ‘‘I'm thinking I've just learned a blonde teenage girl was buried in the woods in Georgia. And I've learned this when I've come around investigating the deaths of blonde girls who disappeared from around here, ten years ago, who wound up buried in the woods of Minnesota.''

‘‘Doesn't sound like a coincidence.''

‘‘No. It doesn't. We need to see if there are more graves. There were three in Minnesota. Why would there only be
one
here? We have to look.''