CM Fic: "The Good Boy" (4/7)

[bibliothekara]

Disclaimers: I don’t own Aaron Hotchner, Jason Gideon, David Rossi, or Derek Morgan. They belong to Eddie Bernero and Mark Gordon. But SSA Jenna Plancini, SSA Alex Sheridan, and the various denizens of my fictional version of Waverly, Iowa do belong to me.
Rating: FRT,  due to it being  case-fic
Spoilers: 1.17, “A Real Rain” in particular, up to season 4 in background
Genre: General/Pre-Series/Case-Fic/Ep-Related Characters: Hotch, Gideon, Rossi; one OMC, one OFC, and various townsfolk.
Pairings: None
Notes:  a) This is a completed fic, written back in the fall of 2008 and archived originally at FF.net. My crop of WIPs is kicking my ass. And I suddenly recalled I had never reposted this to LJ! So, thus, a chapter a day, until it's finished.
b) Waverly, Iowa does exist, and I have tried for accuracy in detail, but this version is fictional, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental. Especially since I have never been to Iowa. c) I am completely ignoring the various timeline weirdness and decided to have Rossi, Gideon and Hotch on the team at the same time. If that or the dates bother you, just stop thinking about them. :)
 

Summary: “Waverly, Iowa, 1999, a man kills two boys, only to walk away free and kill another one.”- Hotch, A Real Rain. Every agent has their own ghosts.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two

Chapter Three

 
Bremer County Coroner's Office

  Gideon did not happen to be of the opinion that if you had seen one small town morgue, you had seen them all. But there were certain things that held the morbid comfort of the familiar. That smell, for instance. That tang of formaldahyde and disinfectant. Letting one know that though the living might tarry here a while, this room was the domain of the dead.

          
  Sad then, that too often (once  being  “often enough” in his book), he found himself in these cold rooms, staring down at the small and fragile bodies of children. “Often enough” had first come for him, what, twelve years ago now? Orono, Maine, and three little girls, the oldest no more than seven.  He had learned to manage, then, or soon after. But looking to his side, the realization swept over him that this would be Hotch’s first. The lucky bastard had managed his first 6 months without a child victim showing up on the BAU’s desk.  Alas, et in Arcadia ego.

Sheridan, Jenna and Dave were talking as normal across the metal gurney containing what had once been Ricky Leeward. Gideon noticed Hotch staring over at the far table, at the mortal remains of Mark Brentano. He nudged the young man’s arm gently, and Hotch turned, almost guiltily, to the discussion at hand.  But, before Sheridan began to speak to the room at large, Jason spotted Hotch’s eyes dart once more to the body, and when they returned, they were wider, and more haunted, than they had been only a moment before.

           Sheridan’s sonorous bass voice, as usual, filled the room. “Marin, the coroner, had to step out and make a call, but what he showed me is easy enough to spot , now.”

           Alex Sheridan, at 6’6” and a half, was inarguably a big man. His sheer physical presence had been his calling card during the years he spent in the Secret Service, before coming over to the Bureau. When he needed to, he could play up the fear factor. Woe betide the suspect who tried to mess around with Sheridan inside your average 8x10 interrogation room.  But as he watched Alex move tenderly around the fragile body of Ricky Leeward, Gideon was reminded that inside that seeming hulk lay a brilliant mind, and a supremely gentle heart.  “Mutt”, as he called himself, was the best possible blend of his father’s Minnesotan good will, and  “Ka Malama”, what his Hawaiian mother called a unique sort of island altruism.

“Waverly PD noticed the fine ligature marks immediately, on their ankles, and of course, around both of their necks.  Marin is certain, C.O.D. for both boys is manual asphyxiation assisted with some sort of garrote or wire. But after a few days, other things have started to come to light; look at the tinier scratches on their wrists, and the latent bruising on both kneecaps.”

Jenna  looked over at Gideon. “So they were kneeling for long periods.”  Rossi followed the train of thought: “Hands bound in front, legs out behind.” Gideon’s  stomach lurched as his mind embellished the sick tableaux this unsub had created. “As if in prayer.”

Alex moved quickly on. “Exactly. But what’s really damning? Ricky’s is still out, but Marin just showed me the tox report on Mark Brentano.”  Hotch looked as if he wanted to object: “Alex, these were ultra-straight edge kids; I mean, Mark Brentano was actually an altar boy.”

“That’s the point, Hotch. They didn’t find any of your average teenage chemical aids.”

“What did they find?”

 “Ketamine; not enough to kill, but enough to make any teenage boy very pliable.”

            That threw all of them for a loop. Dave was the first to speak: “Ketamine, as in the animal tranquilizer Ketamine?”

            “Got it in one, chief. And we’re not going to know for a few more days, but I would bet you’re gonna see it in Ricky Leeward’s tox report too.” 

            Jenna piped up from her corner: “So, let me guess, the stomach contents come next.”

            Alex’s eyes sparked: “Clever girl, keep on going.”

             “Both abducted in the early evening hours, found about 12 hours after; any school lunch would be fully digested, but they found the exact same partially digested remains in Mark and Ricky.”

            “ Mushroom pizza, onion rings, and some sort of diet Cola.”

            “Which is where the Ketamine comes in.”

            Hotch looked over at both bodies. “So, no defensive wounds on either of them, pizza in their stomachs, and dumped in two separate wooded areas at a non-walkable distance from their school.” He paused. “The Ketamine wasn’t how he got them in the car. The Ketamine was how he kept them there. This was a mentor. Someone whom no one would blink at them talking with after school.”  Gideon noticed the young man swallowing hard, but Hotch continued.  “ Someone they would get in a car with for a ride home. This was someone they trusted.“ Hotch suddenly seemed very interested in the laces of his shoes.

            Rossi grabbed hold of the conversation. “We need to get back to PD immediately, tell them we’re not looking for someone on the normal sex offender list. This is not opportunity; this is preference, and he’s been doing this for a while. He wields power over these boys, and when he’s offended before, he’s used his position to cover it up.”             Jenna’s noise wrinkled. “Like Father Fortune in Ireland? Are we looking for a pedophile priest who’s escalated to murder?”

             Sheridan shook his head;  “Not with they were found. This guy is religious, but he wants privacy that even a church can’t give him. Like an ancient mystery rite, and the boys are the sacrifices.”

 “Mark was an altar boy at 9^th Street Episcopal, but what about Janet and Ricky Leeward?” asked Rossi. 

Gideon could answer that: “Polish Catholic, the next town over; Janet Kluszewski may have changed her name for him, but Rick Leeward converted for her.”

 “So we come back to the school again, but they were just less than a year apart; Ricky was a sophomore and Mark was a freshman, so they don’t share any teachers.”

            Hotch looked like he had been struck by lighting. “Not any current teachers, no, but what did you say about Mark, that he been G and T for a while, that he was taking advanced math classes?” Gideon caught Hotch’s glance, and knew where the young man was heading.  “Ricky’s algebra test. He’s regular sophomore, Mark’s on the honors track. What he’s taking now, Mark would have taken two years ago. We need to get back to their school, compare the full class-loads of all that math department’s teachers.”

            Alex, as always, brought it back down to brass tacks: “And let’s not forget the Ketamine. I mean, yes, this is a farm town, but there has to be only a small percentage of people who have access to that class of drug, right? “

            Jenna smiled. “Exactly. And even more than that, this is someone familiar with its effects, that knew how to use it, to put it in pizza and diet Pepsi.  Not enough to kill the boys, but enough to knock them out and make them docile enough for what he had planned.”

            Something else struck Gideon: “And combined with the Ketamine, I’m guessing that fine ligature, the one he bound their ankles and eventually strangled them with? Will be something like baling wire, something you can easily find on a farm.”

            Now they had a profile, now they had something to work with, and the well-oiled machinery of the BAU snapped into action.

            “Cina, there was that veterinarian we met during the Brentano canvass. He’s probably delivered or operated on nearly all of the animals in town, Go interview him. Find out what he knows. Sheridan, you and I will go give the Waverly PD the profile.  Jason, you and Hotch go down to Waverly-Shell Rock, and get that teacher list. We know what we’re looking for now, but we also know that this guy is organized, he is highly motivated, and only waited a week in between Mark and Ricky. We need to get this done, now.”