She Penned my Dreams

The Case

Spencer

            I stared at the map on our board. It’d been staring at it all night and all morning. It was easy to see where his hunting and dumping ground was. And I knew he didn’t live there. So where did he live? And how could I figure it out? Just then the head officer of the Detroit police department poked his head into our conference room.

            “He tried to take another girl,” Officer Barnes said hurriedly.

            “Tried?” Prentiss asked, picking up on it immediately.

            “Hooker, named Clarice. He got her in a dark stationwagon and drove for a bit before she got free and maced him. She bailed from the car and ran for help,” he said. “We’ve already got a squad car bringing her in. She’s shaken up, but not enough to share too much with my guys so far.”

            “Morgan and Prentiss, run the interview. JJ, try to keep this out of the press. We don’t know how he’ll react to this just yet.” Hotch said, moving quickly out of the room, talking to Officer Barnes as he left. As Morgan and Prentiss prepared for the interview, Morgan shouting a “Bye, Lover Boy” over his shoulder as he went, it was just me and Rossi left in our borrowed headquarters.

            “You know what I don’t get?” Rossi said, thinking out loud.

            “Hmmm?” I prompted, still staring at the map in front of my, tapping an Expo marker against my lips.

            “Why dump them where he does? He’s a clean freak, he keeps them for days, and he must have his own vehicle. So why run the risk of dumping their bodies in almost the exact same place he takes them from?”

            “Maybe,” I said, finally truning around and sitting with him from across the table. “He’s telling a story. And it has to end where he starts it.”

            “How do you figure?” Rossi asked.

            “Well he keeps each prostitute for 3 days. Their feet are cut and dirty, they have ligature marls around their wrists but not their ankles. Like they were forced to walk, drug around by bonds around their wrists. But there are no major parks or stretches of land around here that could offer that kind of privacy.” I said, turning around to look at the map.

            “Most sexual sadists don’t allow their victims the freedom of walking about outside, even in remote places. And after 3 days of torture, starvation and repeated sexual assault, it’s unlikely they’re walking willingly wherever he’s keeping them.” Rossi said, sitting up in his seat, considering my idea. Suddenly I remembered something, flipping open the file just to be sure.

            “All three women had bits of concrete and ceramic tile embedded in their feet. Like they were led around in an empty warehouse. Call Garcia, tell her to look for abandon tile factories.” I asked, turning back to the ME’s report.

            “You see something else?” Rossi asks, standing up and pulling out his phone.

            “Maybe,” I mused, staring at the file, thinking. “Look at the way they were dress,” I said, after Rossi got off the phone.

            “They’re wearing what witnesses last say them in,” Rossi said, looking over my shoulder at the pictures.

            “But they’re clean,” I said. “An unsub with this strong of an aversion to dirt would either have to wash the girls clothes everyday, or give them clothes to wear.”