Embers~Criminal Minds 2

The Itch

Garcia: "Bone up on your manners and your vitamin C deficiencies, crime tigers, because we are going to the peachtree capital of America, Atlanta, Georgia."

Reid: "What's in Atlanta?"

Hotch: "Local P.D. has invited us in for an equivocal death investigation."

Garcia: "This is Albert Stillman. He is an investigative journalist for a local paper. 3 days ago he disappeared on his way to talk to a source for a story, and last night he was killed wandering into traffic."

Kate: "Wait. Equivocal death means we help determine homicide versus suicide, right?"

Rossi: "Or death by misadventure."

Kate: "My point. So what happened to Mr. Stillman was tragic, but what's to equivocate? I mean, he had some sort of mental break, end of story."

Watson: "Except that he had no history of mental illness." she looks through the file 

JJ: "Could this have been drug induced?"

Garcia: "Maybe. One of his most recent stories was an expose on an inner city drug ring, and he received death threats for that one."

Morgan: "Dealers wouldn't let him loose in traffic, though. If somebody wanted him killed, why not just shoot him?"

Hotch: "We have to reconstruct his life to answer that question. Reporters like Stillman don't just snap. Something or someone drove him insane."

Hotch: "What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, that rubbing the poor itch of your opinion make yourself scabs?" William Shakespeare."

On The Plane

JJ: "You can see why Albert Stillman was nominated for awards. He wrote pieces on homeless children, police corruption, bankrolling local strip clubs."

Rossi: "My kind of muckraker. Fights for the little guy."

Reid: "Those are also the kind of stories that put him in harm's way, though. Any one of them could have gotten him killed."

Morgan: "It doesn't fit this M.O., though. We need to consider the likelihood that there is no unsub, that whatever happened to Stillman could have just been an accident."

Kate: "What do we know about the source he was going to see the night he disappeared?"

Garcia: "Oy, I have an update on that, mademoiselle. I have been talking and working with Atlanta P.D.'s perfectly lovely I.T. expert."

Watson: "Perfectly lovely" is code for not as good as you, right?" she chuckles 

Garcia: "Moi, throw shade? Never. Let's just say with a lot of my help, we've managed to narrow down the possibilities to a throwaway cell that called him hours before his disappearance."

Kate: "So it's a dead end, then."

Garcia: "Yeah, and not the only one. Stillman's editor has dealt us an "Aw, come on" surprise by filing an injunction to halt the autopsy of the recently deceased body."

JJ: "But we have jurisdiction here. That's pointless."

Hotch: "And suspicious. Thanks, Garcia. All right, when we land, Watson, Kate and I will go talk to the editor, find out what he's hiding. Dave, you and Morgan re-interview the witness who tried to save Stillman's life. And Reid and JJ, let's move forward with the M.E. We're not going to let an injunction stop the investigation."

➰

Editor: "Agents, I appreciate you coming down here, but I have nothing to say to you about the injunction."