Hubris -- part 3
Back to part 2
*~*~*~*~*~*
The second Sam walked into the J. Edgar Hoover building the next day, Henriksen was waiting for him. He nodded at Sam. “Good. I was just about to call you.”
“Why? What’s up?” Sam automatically changed direction to follow Henriksen back out to the parking garage.
“Got a call last night. Jewelry store robbery out in Milwaukee that matches our MO. Female employee cleaned out the safe, shot the security guard, then went home, took a bubble bath and dropped the hair dryer in with her. A little digging found a bank robbery three weeks ago that also fits. Looks like our guy’s moving north.” Henriksen got into a sedan and started it up as Sam settled in the passenger seat.
“Witnesses?”
“To the bank robbery, yes.” Henriksen held out a file to Sam, who started scanning the contents immediately. “Milwaukee National Bank. Juan Morales, a teller, comes back to the bank at night, beats the security guard unconscious, then robs the place. Got away with about ninety grand between the cash and the safe deposit boxes he broke in to.”
“The Milwaukee field office looked into it?” Sam flipped to the field reports.
“Yep. But they stopped when they found Juan Morales dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in his home.” Henriksen gave a tight smile. “Never found the money though.”
“Of course,” Sam sighed. “So we’re going to interview this . . . Ronald Resnick?”
“Yep. Cleared you with Morgan. Flight for Milwaukee leaves in an hour.” Henriksen spared him a glance as they sped onto the freeway. “I want you in on this interview because apparently this guy went a little nuts after the robbery. The shrinks diagnosed Resnick with PTSD.”
“And you want to know if I think he’s loco or not.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yep.” They spent the rest of the drive to Dulles International Airport in silence, Sam reading through both case files in detail, making mental notes to himself.
Apparently Henriksen wasn’t one of those agents who liked to hear themselves talk, because he pretty much ignored Sam during the whole three hour flight to Milwaukee, pulling out a small stack of files from his briefcase and reading through them in silence. Sam glanced at one curiously; when it was clear Henriksen wasn’t interested in being forthcoming, Sam went back to his own thoughts.
It wasn’t until they were in the rented sedan on the way to Resnick’s house that Sam asked, “You working another case?”
Henriksen glanced sideways at him, then at the dash-mounted GPS. “Maybe. Field auditor spotted something suspicious that correlates with a case with forensic accounting. It could be related to this case, or it could be something else entirely. So far it’s entirely circumstantial. I’m having my partner Reidy follow up on it.” He shook his head and muttered, “This case is driving me nuts.”
“I hear you,” Sam agreed. “There’s a lot that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah.” Henriksen paused, thinking. “You have a handle on this guy yet?”
“Maybe. I’ve been working on a preliminary profile.” Sam gestured at the notes in his lap. “I’m hoping Resnick might give me more to work with.”
Ten minutes later they pulled up outside a small house. Sam scanned the area, noticed the floodlights on the porch, the bars over the windows, and what looked like a pinhole camera above the door. Henriksen’s eyes narrowed, and Sam could tell he’d spotted the same things. Climbing the front steps, Sam knocked on the door. “Mr. Resnick? Ronald Resnick?”
Immediately the floodlight turned on, and they both shielded their eyes with a wince. Blinking away spots, Sam looked up at the sound of footsteps. The door opened cautiously, revealing an overweight young man with wary eyes.
“Ronald Resnick?” Henriksen asked.
“Yeah. Who’re you?” came the reply.
“FBI, Mr. Resnick.”
Ronald’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed them. “Let me see the badge.”
Sam and Henriksen dug out their badges, flipped them open and slapped them against the screen door, displaying their ID cards and badges. Ronald squinted at them carefully, then nodded once. “I already gave my statement to the police.”
“Yeah, about that,” Sam smiled, open and friendly, “there are some things about your statement we wanted to get clarification on.”
“You read it?”
“Yes I did.”
“And you want to listen to what I’ve got to say?” Ronald said suspiciously.
“That’s why we’re here,” Henriksen pointed out.
Ronald sniffed, nodded. “Okay, well. Come on in.” He opened the door and led them through a narrow hallway to a cluttered room. Sam blinked; the walls were covered with alien photos and conspiracy theory paraphernalia. He glanced around with a sinking feeling, seeing diagrams and grainy photos and handwritten signs. One glance at Henriksen confirmed their shared thoughts - this guy was nuts.
Ronald gestured them in, babbling. “None of the cops ever called me back. Not after I told them what was really going on. Uh, they all thought I was crazy. So did the Fed who came here yesterday. First off,” he pointed his finger right at Sam, “Juan Morales never robbed the Milwaukee National Trust, okay? That I guarantee. See, we and Juan were friends, he used to come back to the bank on my night shifts and we'd play cards.”
Henriksen gave him a look. “So you let him into the bank that night, after hours.”
Ronald shifted uneasily. “The thing I let into the bank . . . wasn't Juan.” He shook his head, struggling for words. “I mean, it had his face, but it wasn't his face. Uh, every detail was perfect, but too perfect, like, you know, like if a dollmaker made it, like I was talking to a big Juan-doll.”
Sam scoffed. “A Juan-doll?”
Ronald scowled at him. “Look. This wasn't the only time this happened. Okay?” He handed over a file folder to Sam. “There was this jewelry store, too. And the cops, and you guys, you just won't see it! Both crimes were pulled by the same thing.”
Sam flipped open the folder, skimming it quickly. It bore a strong resemblance to the hunting profiles John used to put together, and for a brief second Sam let himself appreciate the work that went into gathering this information.
“And what’s that, Mr. Resnick?” Henriksen said, sounding bored.
Ronald grinned and reached over to the messy desk, pulling out a magazine and displaying it proudly against his chest, tapping it with one finger. The headline read BIRTH OF THE CYBERMEN.
“Chinese have been working on 'em for years. And the Russians before that. Part men, part machine. Like the Terminator. But the kind that can change itself, make itself look like other people, like in T2. So not just a robot, more of a, uh, a Mandroid.”
Henriksen closed his eyes for a second, clearly drawing on reserves of patience, but couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice. “A Mandroid?”
Sam quickly intervened. “And what makes you so sure about this, Ronald?”
Ronald, smiling a little wildly, reached over and inserted a VHS tape into the player and clicked on the TV. “See, I made copies of all the security tapes. I knew once the cops got them they'd be buried. Here.” He fast-forwarded, sending a uniformed Resnick and what had to be Juan Morales skittering across the screen. “Now watch. Watch. Watch him, watch, watch! See, look! There it is!”
He paused the tape on a clear face shot of Juan, smiling at something off camera as his eyes flared white. “You see?” Ronald exclaimed, pointing at his eyes. “He's got the laser eyes.”
Henriksen glanced at Sam, who gave him a faint nod of acknowledgement.
Ronald stared at the screen. “Cops said it was some kind of reflected light. Some kind of "camera flare".” It was amazing how mocking air quotes could be. “Ain't no damn camera flare. They say I'm a post-trauma case. So what? Bank goes and fires me, it don't matter!” Sam eyed him cautiously as he continued to rant, emphasized by his increasingly frantic hand gestures.
”The mandroid is still out there. The law won't hunt this thing down, I'll do it myself. You see, this thing, it kills the real person, makes it look like a suicide, then it sorta like, morphs into that person. Cases the job for a while until it knows the take is fat, and then it finds its opening.” Madly gesturing at a map on the wall, he fixed pleading eyes on the two agents.
“Now, these robberies, they're grouped together. So I figure the mandroid is holed up somewhere in the middle, underground, maybe.” He stabbed his finger at a point on the map outlined in red. “I don't know, maybe that's where it recharges its mandroid batteries.”
Sam stared intently at Ronald, taking in the manic look and feeling a faint stirring of pity. He really had no idea what he’d stumbled upon. Henriksen made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, then stood slowly, Sam following suit. “Ronald. I want you to listen very carefully. Because I'm about to tell you the God's honest truth about all of this.” Ronald lit up, looking pathetically eager.
“There's no such thing as Mandroids,” Henriksen said flatly. “There's nothing evil or inhuman going on out there. Just people. Nothing else, you understand?”
Ronald’s face fell, like a kid that just learned Santa Claus wasn’t real. “But,” he stammered desperately, “the laser eyes . . .”
“Only exist in bad sci-fi movies, Mr. Resnick,” Henriksen cut him off, glaring. “Look, I know you don't want to believe this. But your friend Juan robbed the bank and that's it.”
Ronald blinked a couple times, nearly shaking with rage as he yelled, “Get out of my house! Now!”
“Sure,” Sam said calmly. “First things first.”
Ronald frowned at him, so Sam elaborated, “We need to remand the tapes you copied. They’re classified evidence in an ongoing federal investigation.”
“You wouldn’t want to be charged with a federal offense, would you?” Henriksen fixed him with a hard look that made Ronald wilt. Watching him gather up the tapes, Sam almost felt bad for the guy. He’d done some good legwork, even though the mandroid idea was clearly crazy.
Two hours later, Sam and Henriksen commandeered a conference room at the Milwaukee FBI field office. They had files and notes spread out over the table in a semblance of order. While Henriksen took a quiet phone call in the corner, Sam cued up the tape to check out the light-flare eyes again.
Henriksen clicked his phone shut and nodded at the screen. “What’s that?”
“Not a camera flare, that’s what.” Sam paused it and glanced at the agent. “All of the security tapes show the exact same retinal reaction to video. No way is that a coincidence. We’re definitely looking for the same guy in each case.”
“So, what? It’s part of this guy’s disguise? He a mandroid?” Henriksen layered an impressive amount of sarcasm in the question.
Sam snorted. “Said it yourself, there’s no such thing as mandroids. But it is one individual.”
“Okay.” Henriksen sat in his chair and kicked back, listening attentively. “Give it to me. Who is this guy?”
“Okay, but this is just preliminary. I’ll know a lot more if we can attach a face or name to it.” Sam took a minute to compose his thoughts, to put himself in this thing’s mindset while couching it in understandable terms. Whatever it was, it at least had human drives and emotion, and therefore Sam could understand it.
“Whoever he is, he’s smart, dangerous, and well trained,” Sam said slowly, eyes slightly unfocused. “He’s able to impersonate just about anybody somehow, but only for a day or two. He’s probably average-looking, unremarkable, the disappears in a crowd type. Aloof, keeps to himself, lives alone. Anti-social personality, hates people around him, yet he wants at least a facsimile of connection. He’s the consummate actor. He enjoys becoming someone else, not just to get the job done, but because it lets him not be himself around others.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Look at the care he took in blaming others for these robberies. He doesn’t want to get caught, doesn’t want the attention. He has a goal, but overt pride is not a part of that. He’s not a John Dillinger type. He won’t taunt the police or send notes. His pride isn’t in getting away with it; it’s in not being noticed at all. He doesn’t care about personal glory, only in his goals. He’s internally focused, couldn’t give a damn about what others think about him.”
Sam tapped his notes. “His actions demonstrate sociopathic tendencies, completely without empathy for anyone else. He’s not clinically crazy, but he is very cold and calculating. He’s in it for the money. He doesn’t hesitate to kill, but only when necessary. He’s not indiscriminate, but he is escalating.”
Henriksen looked thoughtful, absorbing the information. “You think he’s done this before? Maybe now just stepping up his game?”
Sam nodded. “Very likely. This guy’s too good to have been just starting out. I’ll bet he’s impersonated people before. He likely had a rough childhood, poor, possibly neglected. Probably bullied in school for being poor trailer trash, and nobody stepped up for him. He’s invisible to everyone around him, and he’s angry about that. He hates those with money and therefore have power over him. That rage manifests cold, controlled, gives him focus and drive, and he’s arrogant when he succeeds. Likely started with petty theft, seeing what he could get away with, then escalated. He feels entitled to an extent, that it’s his right to take what he was never given.”
Sam paused for a second, his words ringing an odd resonance with him. It sounded a little too familiar for his tastes. Shaking that away, he continued, his voice slightly distant. “He won’t stop on his own. It’s never enough money. But it doesn’t mean he’ll stick to robbery alone to get it. So far his violence has been calculated, necessary for the bigger picture, but that could change. He won’t kill indiscriminately, he’s not a serial, but anyone in his way is justifiable casualty to his mind. He gets a thrill by outsmarting the cops. He works alone, has acquaintances but never partners. He considers himself superior to practically everyone.”
“Interesting.” Henriksen chewed that over for a few moments. “So, how does he impersonate people? It’s convincing enough to fool their long-time co-workers.”
“Co-workers, yes. But notice that each of the supposed perps have no significant other, no family, almost no one outside of work. No one who knew them intimately, who might pick up on small inconsistencies and confront them. There’s a pattern of a few weeks between each robbery, indicating that he’s taking the time to scope out his next mark, get to know them and their routines.”
Sam tapped the remote. “As for how, I had all the surveillance tapes checked. The initial tech reports indicates that none of them were tampered with in any way. Whatever that flare is, it has to do with the perp.”
“If it’s not a camera flare, what would cause that reaction?”
“Well, nothing like it was mentioned in witness reports, so I think it has to do with whatever he’s using to make his disguise. The video frequency picks it up.”
Henriksen made a face. “What, you thinking a hologram or some shit like that?”
“Possible.” Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture, hating having to present something this outrageous and misleading. Well, a hologram was more believable than a preternatural shapeshifting creature that turned itself into anyone it wanted. “When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Too bad Sam’s definition of impossible was less rigid than Henriksen’s.
“Somehow I doubt Sherlock Holmes was referring to a whack-job with a hologram disguise,” Henriksen said dryly.
Sam quirked a smile. “Yeah, well, right now, that’s as good an explanation as any. Given that it only shows up on video, it seems likely to assume that it’s caused by some sort of gadget. If so, there’s nothing quite like it on the market, so it’s likely self-invented.”
“Tech genius?” Henriksen exchanged disbelief for consideration. “That could explain a lot. Revenge of the nerd, and all that.”
“Also explains how he got past security alarms and into vaults that the people he impersonated shouldn’t have had access to,” Sam pointed out. “An electronic code scrambler isn’t that hard to build, with the right tools and know-how.”
“Think this guy went to school somewhere then? Brilliant sociopathic MIT dropout turns to life of crime?” Henriksen tapped a pen against a notepad.
“Could be, but it’s equally likely that he’s a high school dropout who never went to college,” Sam told him. “A genius intellect born in a low socioeconomic strata is much more likely to never finish school because it bores him. He despises the system and sets his own goals to challenge himself and change his circumstances, usually by making more money.”
“And he wants more of it. He’s definitely going to strike again,” Henriksen commented. “Where do you think he’s gonna go next? Another hit in Milwaukee, or is he going to move on?”
“Hard to say,” Sam grumbled, digging for his notes on the timeframe he’d been compiling.
First National Bank and Harding’s Diamonds, both in Columbus, four weeks apart. Springfield Central Bank in Springfield three weeks later, then a month and a half before the Brinks Armored Truck was robbed outside Indianapolis. Only two weeks between that and the Central Nation Bank and Trust in Indianapolis, but three and a half weeks until Monroe Jewelers in Champaign. A little over two weeks later, still in Champaign, an armored truck with Midwest Savings & Loan was robbed, the driver killed. Then over a month passed before Security National Bank in East Chicago. Took him three weeks to head up to Wisconsin and hit Milwaukee National Trust. Andersen’s Jewelry was robbed three weeks later.
“So far he hasn’t stayed in any one area for longer than two jobs, that we know of anyway,” Sam said. “If he’s still here, I think he’s already scoping out his next job.” He shuffled through the pages until he pulled out a map that Hodkins had made a few days ago when Sam asked him for help on the files. “Resnick was right about one thing though. The robberies and so-called suicides are grouped together. As in a few streets apart.”
Henriksen frowned. “What about the armored trucks? One was hit in practically the middle of nowhere.”
Sam smiled thinly. “Yes, the Brinks truck. Except its pick-up point was a savings and loan two blocks away from Springfield Central Bank.”
“Damn.” Henriksen scanned the maps, marking locations and routes between. “So he’s operating from a central location.”
“Seems that way, but nothing really stands out as a good location. No hotels or motels, apartment buildings, or unoccupied housing.”
“Great.” Henriksen looked at his briefcase, chewing on his bottom lip as he thought.
Sam narrowed his eyes at him, wondering what was troubling the senior agent. “What is it?”
Henriksen brought his gaze up and just stared at Sam for a long moment before nodding to himself. Hoisting his briefcase up onto the table, he clicked it open and lifted out an impressively thick stack of file folders and papers. He rapped a finger against the stack of files. “So our guy - smart, arrogant, mobile, calculating, violent, right? He’s not new to this, he’s too good. So what did he do before he started knocking over banks?”
Huh. Sam hadn’t really given that a lot of thought. “He would’ve started small,” he said slowly, thinking it out. “Given his aversion to attention and skills at impersonation, I think he started with petty theft, pickpocketing and what not. He’s not a scam artist, not charismatic or social enough to pull that off. But he would’ve been attracted to schemes that played the system yet kept him anonymous.”
“Credit card fraud, maybe?”
“Yeah, that’d work. Apply under fake names, have the bills go to general PO boxes, he could use the cards for a month or two, more if he uses money orders to make a few minimum payments on them, then max out the cash advances, ditch them and get fresh ones.” It was times like these Sam was glad John had taught him some of the finer points of scamming money.
Henriksen nodded, smirking slightly to himself. “What about the kinds of people he impersonates?”
Sam shrugged. “Ones that are useful to him. He may have also created fake identities for himself instead of finding someone to mimic. Bonus points if they’re also in a position of authority.”
“Cops, marshals, federal agents, that sort of thing?”
“Yes, if they get him what he wants.” Sam resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably. This was hitting a little too close to areas Sam didn’t want to go. The whole damn case had him on edge, and that irritated him even more. He was a federal agent, damn it. He should have better control over this.
“Interesting.” Henriksen looked at him a second, then seemed to come to a decision. Splitting the stack of files in front of him into two piles, he shoved one towards Sam. “Take a look at those.”
Curious, Sam flipped open the top file and skimmed it. The long columns of numbers didn’t make any sense to him, but he noticed the name at the top of the page. “Angus Young?”
“Yep. Take a look at the next one.”
Sam raised his eyebrows at that one. “Rick Savage?” He thumbed through the rest, which he realized were credit card statements. “John Paul Jones, Bon Scott, James Hetfield, Tony Iommi? These are all names of rock musicians.”
“Yep.” Henriksen gave him a tight smile. “Too bad the person using the credit cards with those names wasn’t any one of them.”
Identity theft and credit card fraud. “Okay,” Sam muttered, not liking the direction this was going.
“These,” Henriksen indicated the five inch tall stack in front of Sam, “are from a case the forensic accounting department has been working on for over three years. The names caught someone’s attention, and since then they’ve traced linked cases of credit card fraud back almost twelve years. Don’t ask me how - it’s all geek to me. Anyway, they figure that they’ve defrauded credit companies almost seven million dollars all told.”
He put a finger down on the equally-thick heap in front of him. “Now, these files are reports of impersonation, all over the country. There are some doozies in this one; ATF, CDC, Homeland Security, lots of FBI. Most also have reports of B&E or harassment, but they’re all one-time deals.”
The senior agent chuckled a bit and shook his head. “Here’s where it gets real good. Rookie field auditor got assigned the impersonation cases to cut his teeth on. He’s making follow-up calls when the witness mentions she already talked to the FBI, about a stolen credit card. The rookie gets the initiative to track down the assigned agent down in accounting, they compare notes, and find a correlation in places and dates. Damndest thing.”
Sam snorted. “Better lucky than good, huh?”
“Yeah. Rookie got all excited, thought he was hunting the next Al Capone. Reported it to his superior, it got kicked up the chain until by the luck of the draw, me and my partner got it.” Henriksen shook his head, lips twisting in a moue of disgust. “Problem is, both these cases, they’re ghosts. We have the crimes, kind of, but no suspects behind them.”
Sam winced sympathetically. He had his own share of low priority cases that seemed like they had only the edge pieces of a larger puzzle, but hunches and instincts weren’t sufficient cause for more resources. At least he had his team to help out.
Actually . . . “If you want a second set of eyes, my team’s not that busy right now,” Sam offered. “And Hodkins was an accountant before he joined the FBI.”
Henriksen arched an eyebrow at him. “You think I’m just gonna hand this case over to the BAU, just like that?”
Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m not trying to grab credit,” he snapped. “Just offering to help. It’s still your case, Special Agent Henriksen.”
If anything, that only amused the other man. “Okay.” He scooted the desk phone closer to himself and picked up the handset. “I’ll check it with Morgan. If he wants his whole team on it, I’ll have Reidy send over the files.”
*~*~*~*~*~*
Sam flew back to DC the next day, as there was really no reason for him to stick around Milwaukee anymore.
When he walked into the bullpen in the morning, he noticed that they’d turned one wall into a giant map filled with different colored pins. Hodkins was perusing through several reports while McDowell and Jeffers compared notes and stuck more numbered and color-coded pins in the map.
“What’s all this?” Sam asked, staring at them in bafflement.
Jeffers grinned at him. “Hell of a case you got us, Winchester. Great brain teaser. Better than Sudoku.”
McDowell elbowed him in the side. “I think you’d better stick to Highlights,” she sniped.
Jeffers rolled his eyes at her, but Hodkins spoke up before they could continue. “Seriously Sam, you didn’t tell us we’d be hunting a modern-day Jesse James.”
“What?” Sam shook his head. “I thought you were looking at credit card fraud?”
“Yep, we are,” Hodkins grinned at him. “But it’s more than that.”
“A lot more,” Jeffers interjected.
“Okay,” Sam drawled, plunking himself down in a chair. “Explain it to me.”
McDowell grimaced. “It’s long, complicated, and boring, but essentially, the credit card fraud is linked to the impersonation, which is also linked to a whole bunch of other crimes. And possibly to your bank robberies.”
Jeffers saw that Sam needed more explanation. “Okay, let me show you.” He poked a finger at the map. “Here. Yplansti, Michigan. In December 2008, one of the credit cards on the list was used at a motel, two restaurants, a gas station and a convenience store. At the same time, there were reports of a man posing as FBI Special Agent Bill Ward poking around two missing persons cases, one of which was a clear kidnapping.”
“On December 26th, police responded to a concerned neighbor report, and found Madge and Edward Carrigan murdered in their home,” McDowell read off a report. “In the basement, they found the remains of at least three other people, with evidence of cannibalism.”
“That’s sick,” Sam made a face. His eyes roved over the map, taking in details. Some pins were isolated, some in multi-colored clusters. Some of the pins were connected to others, tracing paths of individual cards. “So you think it’s all connected?”
“Timing fits. Can’t get a good description of the guy, other than white, young, and good-looking, so we can’t circulate a sketch, but it seems way too coincidental.” Jeffers shrugged. “That’s only one example. Burkitsville, Indiana is another.” He flicked a finger towards a pin stuck in the Midwest. “April 2006, guy shows up, claiming to be Jon Bonham. Supposedly he was looking for some friends of his, but he used a fake credit card to buy gas and food, and the sheriff had to run him out of town for harassing people and disrupting the peace. Two days later, the main orchard supporting the town was burnt to ashes, and three people were reported missing.”
“Basically, wherever the credit card trail intersects with an impersonation report, there’s another crime or three at the same time,” Hodkins summed up, typing madly at his computer. “And it might be the same guy as your bank robber.”
He clicked on the larger plasma screen on the side wall and pulled up a map. “Watch this. Red dots are your robberies,” they popped up on the screen, tracing over Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. “Now, blue dots are recent fraudulent credit card transactions meeting our criteria. I’ll pull them up chronologically.” One after another, blue spots appeared - following the robbery trail.
Sam stared at the screen, his heart pounding harder in his ears. “The transactions are within the right time period? And are there any impersonation reports?”
“Yes, and yes.” Jeffers pulled up two reports on the screen. “In Champaign and in East Chicago, when agents went to interview employees they mentioned that they’d already talked to the Feds. And,” he smiled grimly, “in Milwaukee, a female employee at Andersen’s Jewelers gave her phone number to the “dreamy” agent who interviewed her. Which really confused the real agents who had come to get her statement.”
“What confuses me,” McDowell groused, “is this chronology.”
Sam frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t make sense, that’s what!” McDowell laid out some files in front of her. “Sam, you’re the profiler. You know that people tend to follow patterns. Like the difference between a serial killer and a spree killer, organized and disorganized criminals.” Sam nodded, and she continued, “But look at this. It doesn’t fit any sort of profile or classification I’ve ever heard of.”
She nudged a crime scene photo. “Here, B&E and vandalism. Then here, a month later, aggravated assault and theft. Here, arson and what could be a homicide. Escalation, right? Then here. A break-in at an empty warehouse and a report of grave desecration. Nothing stolen, nobody hurt. What, he escalates, then slows down? It doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re right,” Sam mused, furrowing his brow as he pulled the files towards him. “It doesn’t.”
“You really think we might be dealing with a serial killer here?” Jeffers asked quietly.
Sam didn’t answer him, too preoccupied with a name that popped out on the list. Palo Alto. A credit card under the name Hector Aframian was used to purchase gas on October 31st, 2005, then was used two days later out in Jericho for gas and a motel room . . . where the user was apparently picked up for impersonating a Federal Marshal. Based on evidence found in the motel room, he was considered a suspect in a series of disappearances, and they believed his real name to be . . . Dean.
Sam swallowed hard, mind racing. The timing was right, and it fit. He forced himself to keep reading. The suspect escaped custody and disappeared. No mention of another older man.
“So far it’s pretty much circumstantial,” Hodkins interrupted Sam’s thoughts. “I mean, some of this might not even be related. The descriptions are pretty sketchy. But if so, it’s one hell of a coincidence.”
“No such thing,” Sam muttered, shoving the files back on the table and staring at map, feeling a little sick to his stomach. To everyone else, there was no pattern. But to Sam, it screamed out all too obviously. This was a Hunter’s trail. Not entirely random, just driven by circumstance.
For a long moment, Sam let himself entertain the thought that it was Dean. That his brother really was alive, not buried in an unmarked grave in Missouri; that he was out there in the Impala, hunting and blasting his classic rock at top volume. He was surprised at the warm tickle of comfort that thought elicited, which was quickly suppressed by the cold logic that Sam hadn’t picked up a single trace of his brother since St. Louis.
Sam shook himself. No matter who it was, they had just made Sam’s job incredibly difficult. He was tracking two people now . . . or rather, a Hunter and a shifter.
*~*~*~*~*~*
On to part 4
*~*~*~*~*~*
The second Sam walked into the J. Edgar Hoover building the next day, Henriksen was waiting for him. He nodded at Sam. “Good. I was just about to call you.”
“Why? What’s up?” Sam automatically changed direction to follow Henriksen back out to the parking garage.
“Got a call last night. Jewelry store robbery out in Milwaukee that matches our MO. Female employee cleaned out the safe, shot the security guard, then went home, took a bubble bath and dropped the hair dryer in with her. A little digging found a bank robbery three weeks ago that also fits. Looks like our guy’s moving north.” Henriksen got into a sedan and started it up as Sam settled in the passenger seat.
“Witnesses?”
“To the bank robbery, yes.” Henriksen held out a file to Sam, who started scanning the contents immediately. “Milwaukee National Bank. Juan Morales, a teller, comes back to the bank at night, beats the security guard unconscious, then robs the place. Got away with about ninety grand between the cash and the safe deposit boxes he broke in to.”
“The Milwaukee field office looked into it?” Sam flipped to the field reports.
“Yep. But they stopped when they found Juan Morales dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in his home.” Henriksen gave a tight smile. “Never found the money though.”
“Of course,” Sam sighed. “So we’re going to interview this . . . Ronald Resnick?”
“Yep. Cleared you with Morgan. Flight for Milwaukee leaves in an hour.” Henriksen spared him a glance as they sped onto the freeway. “I want you in on this interview because apparently this guy went a little nuts after the robbery. The shrinks diagnosed Resnick with PTSD.”
“And you want to know if I think he’s loco or not.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yep.” They spent the rest of the drive to Dulles International Airport in silence, Sam reading through both case files in detail, making mental notes to himself.
Apparently Henriksen wasn’t one of those agents who liked to hear themselves talk, because he pretty much ignored Sam during the whole three hour flight to Milwaukee, pulling out a small stack of files from his briefcase and reading through them in silence. Sam glanced at one curiously; when it was clear Henriksen wasn’t interested in being forthcoming, Sam went back to his own thoughts.
It wasn’t until they were in the rented sedan on the way to Resnick’s house that Sam asked, “You working another case?”
Henriksen glanced sideways at him, then at the dash-mounted GPS. “Maybe. Field auditor spotted something suspicious that correlates with a case with forensic accounting. It could be related to this case, or it could be something else entirely. So far it’s entirely circumstantial. I’m having my partner Reidy follow up on it.” He shook his head and muttered, “This case is driving me nuts.”
“I hear you,” Sam agreed. “There’s a lot that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah.” Henriksen paused, thinking. “You have a handle on this guy yet?”
“Maybe. I’ve been working on a preliminary profile.” Sam gestured at the notes in his lap. “I’m hoping Resnick might give me more to work with.”
Ten minutes later they pulled up outside a small house. Sam scanned the area, noticed the floodlights on the porch, the bars over the windows, and what looked like a pinhole camera above the door. Henriksen’s eyes narrowed, and Sam could tell he’d spotted the same things. Climbing the front steps, Sam knocked on the door. “Mr. Resnick? Ronald Resnick?”
Immediately the floodlight turned on, and they both shielded their eyes with a wince. Blinking away spots, Sam looked up at the sound of footsteps. The door opened cautiously, revealing an overweight young man with wary eyes.
“Ronald Resnick?” Henriksen asked.
“Yeah. Who’re you?” came the reply.
“FBI, Mr. Resnick.”
Ronald’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed them. “Let me see the badge.”
Sam and Henriksen dug out their badges, flipped them open and slapped them against the screen door, displaying their ID cards and badges. Ronald squinted at them carefully, then nodded once. “I already gave my statement to the police.”
“Yeah, about that,” Sam smiled, open and friendly, “there are some things about your statement we wanted to get clarification on.”
“You read it?”
“Yes I did.”
“And you want to listen to what I’ve got to say?” Ronald said suspiciously.
“That’s why we’re here,” Henriksen pointed out.
Ronald sniffed, nodded. “Okay, well. Come on in.” He opened the door and led them through a narrow hallway to a cluttered room. Sam blinked; the walls were covered with alien photos and conspiracy theory paraphernalia. He glanced around with a sinking feeling, seeing diagrams and grainy photos and handwritten signs. One glance at Henriksen confirmed their shared thoughts - this guy was nuts.
Ronald gestured them in, babbling. “None of the cops ever called me back. Not after I told them what was really going on. Uh, they all thought I was crazy. So did the Fed who came here yesterday. First off,” he pointed his finger right at Sam, “Juan Morales never robbed the Milwaukee National Trust, okay? That I guarantee. See, we and Juan were friends, he used to come back to the bank on my night shifts and we'd play cards.”
Henriksen gave him a look. “So you let him into the bank that night, after hours.”
Ronald shifted uneasily. “The thing I let into the bank . . . wasn't Juan.” He shook his head, struggling for words. “I mean, it had his face, but it wasn't his face. Uh, every detail was perfect, but too perfect, like, you know, like if a dollmaker made it, like I was talking to a big Juan-doll.”
Sam scoffed. “A Juan-doll?”
Ronald scowled at him. “Look. This wasn't the only time this happened. Okay?” He handed over a file folder to Sam. “There was this jewelry store, too. And the cops, and you guys, you just won't see it! Both crimes were pulled by the same thing.”
Sam flipped open the folder, skimming it quickly. It bore a strong resemblance to the hunting profiles John used to put together, and for a brief second Sam let himself appreciate the work that went into gathering this information.
“And what’s that, Mr. Resnick?” Henriksen said, sounding bored.
Ronald grinned and reached over to the messy desk, pulling out a magazine and displaying it proudly against his chest, tapping it with one finger. The headline read BIRTH OF THE CYBERMEN.
“Chinese have been working on 'em for years. And the Russians before that. Part men, part machine. Like the Terminator. But the kind that can change itself, make itself look like other people, like in T2. So not just a robot, more of a, uh, a Mandroid.”
Henriksen closed his eyes for a second, clearly drawing on reserves of patience, but couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice. “A Mandroid?”
Sam quickly intervened. “And what makes you so sure about this, Ronald?”
Ronald, smiling a little wildly, reached over and inserted a VHS tape into the player and clicked on the TV. “See, I made copies of all the security tapes. I knew once the cops got them they'd be buried. Here.” He fast-forwarded, sending a uniformed Resnick and what had to be Juan Morales skittering across the screen. “Now watch. Watch. Watch him, watch, watch! See, look! There it is!”
He paused the tape on a clear face shot of Juan, smiling at something off camera as his eyes flared white. “You see?” Ronald exclaimed, pointing at his eyes. “He's got the laser eyes.”
Henriksen glanced at Sam, who gave him a faint nod of acknowledgement.
Ronald stared at the screen. “Cops said it was some kind of reflected light. Some kind of "camera flare".” It was amazing how mocking air quotes could be. “Ain't no damn camera flare. They say I'm a post-trauma case. So what? Bank goes and fires me, it don't matter!” Sam eyed him cautiously as he continued to rant, emphasized by his increasingly frantic hand gestures.
”The mandroid is still out there. The law won't hunt this thing down, I'll do it myself. You see, this thing, it kills the real person, makes it look like a suicide, then it sorta like, morphs into that person. Cases the job for a while until it knows the take is fat, and then it finds its opening.” Madly gesturing at a map on the wall, he fixed pleading eyes on the two agents.
“Now, these robberies, they're grouped together. So I figure the mandroid is holed up somewhere in the middle, underground, maybe.” He stabbed his finger at a point on the map outlined in red. “I don't know, maybe that's where it recharges its mandroid batteries.”
Sam stared intently at Ronald, taking in the manic look and feeling a faint stirring of pity. He really had no idea what he’d stumbled upon. Henriksen made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, then stood slowly, Sam following suit. “Ronald. I want you to listen very carefully. Because I'm about to tell you the God's honest truth about all of this.” Ronald lit up, looking pathetically eager.
“There's no such thing as Mandroids,” Henriksen said flatly. “There's nothing evil or inhuman going on out there. Just people. Nothing else, you understand?”
Ronald’s face fell, like a kid that just learned Santa Claus wasn’t real. “But,” he stammered desperately, “the laser eyes . . .”
“Only exist in bad sci-fi movies, Mr. Resnick,” Henriksen cut him off, glaring. “Look, I know you don't want to believe this. But your friend Juan robbed the bank and that's it.”
Ronald blinked a couple times, nearly shaking with rage as he yelled, “Get out of my house! Now!”
“Sure,” Sam said calmly. “First things first.”
Ronald frowned at him, so Sam elaborated, “We need to remand the tapes you copied. They’re classified evidence in an ongoing federal investigation.”
“You wouldn’t want to be charged with a federal offense, would you?” Henriksen fixed him with a hard look that made Ronald wilt. Watching him gather up the tapes, Sam almost felt bad for the guy. He’d done some good legwork, even though the mandroid idea was clearly crazy.
Two hours later, Sam and Henriksen commandeered a conference room at the Milwaukee FBI field office. They had files and notes spread out over the table in a semblance of order. While Henriksen took a quiet phone call in the corner, Sam cued up the tape to check out the light-flare eyes again.
Henriksen clicked his phone shut and nodded at the screen. “What’s that?”
“Not a camera flare, that’s what.” Sam paused it and glanced at the agent. “All of the security tapes show the exact same retinal reaction to video. No way is that a coincidence. We’re definitely looking for the same guy in each case.”
“So, what? It’s part of this guy’s disguise? He a mandroid?” Henriksen layered an impressive amount of sarcasm in the question.
Sam snorted. “Said it yourself, there’s no such thing as mandroids. But it is one individual.”
“Okay.” Henriksen sat in his chair and kicked back, listening attentively. “Give it to me. Who is this guy?”
“Okay, but this is just preliminary. I’ll know a lot more if we can attach a face or name to it.” Sam took a minute to compose his thoughts, to put himself in this thing’s mindset while couching it in understandable terms. Whatever it was, it at least had human drives and emotion, and therefore Sam could understand it.
“Whoever he is, he’s smart, dangerous, and well trained,” Sam said slowly, eyes slightly unfocused. “He’s able to impersonate just about anybody somehow, but only for a day or two. He’s probably average-looking, unremarkable, the disappears in a crowd type. Aloof, keeps to himself, lives alone. Anti-social personality, hates people around him, yet he wants at least a facsimile of connection. He’s the consummate actor. He enjoys becoming someone else, not just to get the job done, but because it lets him not be himself around others.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Look at the care he took in blaming others for these robberies. He doesn’t want to get caught, doesn’t want the attention. He has a goal, but overt pride is not a part of that. He’s not a John Dillinger type. He won’t taunt the police or send notes. His pride isn’t in getting away with it; it’s in not being noticed at all. He doesn’t care about personal glory, only in his goals. He’s internally focused, couldn’t give a damn about what others think about him.”
Sam tapped his notes. “His actions demonstrate sociopathic tendencies, completely without empathy for anyone else. He’s not clinically crazy, but he is very cold and calculating. He’s in it for the money. He doesn’t hesitate to kill, but only when necessary. He’s not indiscriminate, but he is escalating.”
Henriksen looked thoughtful, absorbing the information. “You think he’s done this before? Maybe now just stepping up his game?”
Sam nodded. “Very likely. This guy’s too good to have been just starting out. I’ll bet he’s impersonated people before. He likely had a rough childhood, poor, possibly neglected. Probably bullied in school for being poor trailer trash, and nobody stepped up for him. He’s invisible to everyone around him, and he’s angry about that. He hates those with money and therefore have power over him. That rage manifests cold, controlled, gives him focus and drive, and he’s arrogant when he succeeds. Likely started with petty theft, seeing what he could get away with, then escalated. He feels entitled to an extent, that it’s his right to take what he was never given.”
Sam paused for a second, his words ringing an odd resonance with him. It sounded a little too familiar for his tastes. Shaking that away, he continued, his voice slightly distant. “He won’t stop on his own. It’s never enough money. But it doesn’t mean he’ll stick to robbery alone to get it. So far his violence has been calculated, necessary for the bigger picture, but that could change. He won’t kill indiscriminately, he’s not a serial, but anyone in his way is justifiable casualty to his mind. He gets a thrill by outsmarting the cops. He works alone, has acquaintances but never partners. He considers himself superior to practically everyone.”
“Interesting.” Henriksen chewed that over for a few moments. “So, how does he impersonate people? It’s convincing enough to fool their long-time co-workers.”
“Co-workers, yes. But notice that each of the supposed perps have no significant other, no family, almost no one outside of work. No one who knew them intimately, who might pick up on small inconsistencies and confront them. There’s a pattern of a few weeks between each robbery, indicating that he’s taking the time to scope out his next mark, get to know them and their routines.”
Sam tapped the remote. “As for how, I had all the surveillance tapes checked. The initial tech reports indicates that none of them were tampered with in any way. Whatever that flare is, it has to do with the perp.”
“If it’s not a camera flare, what would cause that reaction?”
“Well, nothing like it was mentioned in witness reports, so I think it has to do with whatever he’s using to make his disguise. The video frequency picks it up.”
Henriksen made a face. “What, you thinking a hologram or some shit like that?”
“Possible.” Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture, hating having to present something this outrageous and misleading. Well, a hologram was more believable than a preternatural shapeshifting creature that turned itself into anyone it wanted. “When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Too bad Sam’s definition of impossible was less rigid than Henriksen’s.
“Somehow I doubt Sherlock Holmes was referring to a whack-job with a hologram disguise,” Henriksen said dryly.
Sam quirked a smile. “Yeah, well, right now, that’s as good an explanation as any. Given that it only shows up on video, it seems likely to assume that it’s caused by some sort of gadget. If so, there’s nothing quite like it on the market, so it’s likely self-invented.”
“Tech genius?” Henriksen exchanged disbelief for consideration. “That could explain a lot. Revenge of the nerd, and all that.”
“Also explains how he got past security alarms and into vaults that the people he impersonated shouldn’t have had access to,” Sam pointed out. “An electronic code scrambler isn’t that hard to build, with the right tools and know-how.”
“Think this guy went to school somewhere then? Brilliant sociopathic MIT dropout turns to life of crime?” Henriksen tapped a pen against a notepad.
“Could be, but it’s equally likely that he’s a high school dropout who never went to college,” Sam told him. “A genius intellect born in a low socioeconomic strata is much more likely to never finish school because it bores him. He despises the system and sets his own goals to challenge himself and change his circumstances, usually by making more money.”
“And he wants more of it. He’s definitely going to strike again,” Henriksen commented. “Where do you think he’s gonna go next? Another hit in Milwaukee, or is he going to move on?”
“Hard to say,” Sam grumbled, digging for his notes on the timeframe he’d been compiling.
First National Bank and Harding’s Diamonds, both in Columbus, four weeks apart. Springfield Central Bank in Springfield three weeks later, then a month and a half before the Brinks Armored Truck was robbed outside Indianapolis. Only two weeks between that and the Central Nation Bank and Trust in Indianapolis, but three and a half weeks until Monroe Jewelers in Champaign. A little over two weeks later, still in Champaign, an armored truck with Midwest Savings & Loan was robbed, the driver killed. Then over a month passed before Security National Bank in East Chicago. Took him three weeks to head up to Wisconsin and hit Milwaukee National Trust. Andersen’s Jewelry was robbed three weeks later.
“So far he hasn’t stayed in any one area for longer than two jobs, that we know of anyway,” Sam said. “If he’s still here, I think he’s already scoping out his next job.” He shuffled through the pages until he pulled out a map that Hodkins had made a few days ago when Sam asked him for help on the files. “Resnick was right about one thing though. The robberies and so-called suicides are grouped together. As in a few streets apart.”
Henriksen frowned. “What about the armored trucks? One was hit in practically the middle of nowhere.”
Sam smiled thinly. “Yes, the Brinks truck. Except its pick-up point was a savings and loan two blocks away from Springfield Central Bank.”
“Damn.” Henriksen scanned the maps, marking locations and routes between. “So he’s operating from a central location.”
“Seems that way, but nothing really stands out as a good location. No hotels or motels, apartment buildings, or unoccupied housing.”
“Great.” Henriksen looked at his briefcase, chewing on his bottom lip as he thought.
Sam narrowed his eyes at him, wondering what was troubling the senior agent. “What is it?”
Henriksen brought his gaze up and just stared at Sam for a long moment before nodding to himself. Hoisting his briefcase up onto the table, he clicked it open and lifted out an impressively thick stack of file folders and papers. He rapped a finger against the stack of files. “So our guy - smart, arrogant, mobile, calculating, violent, right? He’s not new to this, he’s too good. So what did he do before he started knocking over banks?”
Huh. Sam hadn’t really given that a lot of thought. “He would’ve started small,” he said slowly, thinking it out. “Given his aversion to attention and skills at impersonation, I think he started with petty theft, pickpocketing and what not. He’s not a scam artist, not charismatic or social enough to pull that off. But he would’ve been attracted to schemes that played the system yet kept him anonymous.”
“Credit card fraud, maybe?”
“Yeah, that’d work. Apply under fake names, have the bills go to general PO boxes, he could use the cards for a month or two, more if he uses money orders to make a few minimum payments on them, then max out the cash advances, ditch them and get fresh ones.” It was times like these Sam was glad John had taught him some of the finer points of scamming money.
Henriksen nodded, smirking slightly to himself. “What about the kinds of people he impersonates?”
Sam shrugged. “Ones that are useful to him. He may have also created fake identities for himself instead of finding someone to mimic. Bonus points if they’re also in a position of authority.”
“Cops, marshals, federal agents, that sort of thing?”
“Yes, if they get him what he wants.” Sam resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably. This was hitting a little too close to areas Sam didn’t want to go. The whole damn case had him on edge, and that irritated him even more. He was a federal agent, damn it. He should have better control over this.
“Interesting.” Henriksen looked at him a second, then seemed to come to a decision. Splitting the stack of files in front of him into two piles, he shoved one towards Sam. “Take a look at those.”
Curious, Sam flipped open the top file and skimmed it. The long columns of numbers didn’t make any sense to him, but he noticed the name at the top of the page. “Angus Young?”
“Yep. Take a look at the next one.”
Sam raised his eyebrows at that one. “Rick Savage?” He thumbed through the rest, which he realized were credit card statements. “John Paul Jones, Bon Scott, James Hetfield, Tony Iommi? These are all names of rock musicians.”
“Yep.” Henriksen gave him a tight smile. “Too bad the person using the credit cards with those names wasn’t any one of them.”
Identity theft and credit card fraud. “Okay,” Sam muttered, not liking the direction this was going.
“These,” Henriksen indicated the five inch tall stack in front of Sam, “are from a case the forensic accounting department has been working on for over three years. The names caught someone’s attention, and since then they’ve traced linked cases of credit card fraud back almost twelve years. Don’t ask me how - it’s all geek to me. Anyway, they figure that they’ve defrauded credit companies almost seven million dollars all told.”
He put a finger down on the equally-thick heap in front of him. “Now, these files are reports of impersonation, all over the country. There are some doozies in this one; ATF, CDC, Homeland Security, lots of FBI. Most also have reports of B&E or harassment, but they’re all one-time deals.”
The senior agent chuckled a bit and shook his head. “Here’s where it gets real good. Rookie field auditor got assigned the impersonation cases to cut his teeth on. He’s making follow-up calls when the witness mentions she already talked to the FBI, about a stolen credit card. The rookie gets the initiative to track down the assigned agent down in accounting, they compare notes, and find a correlation in places and dates. Damndest thing.”
Sam snorted. “Better lucky than good, huh?”
“Yeah. Rookie got all excited, thought he was hunting the next Al Capone. Reported it to his superior, it got kicked up the chain until by the luck of the draw, me and my partner got it.” Henriksen shook his head, lips twisting in a moue of disgust. “Problem is, both these cases, they’re ghosts. We have the crimes, kind of, but no suspects behind them.”
Sam winced sympathetically. He had his own share of low priority cases that seemed like they had only the edge pieces of a larger puzzle, but hunches and instincts weren’t sufficient cause for more resources. At least he had his team to help out.
Actually . . . “If you want a second set of eyes, my team’s not that busy right now,” Sam offered. “And Hodkins was an accountant before he joined the FBI.”
Henriksen arched an eyebrow at him. “You think I’m just gonna hand this case over to the BAU, just like that?”
Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m not trying to grab credit,” he snapped. “Just offering to help. It’s still your case, Special Agent Henriksen.”
If anything, that only amused the other man. “Okay.” He scooted the desk phone closer to himself and picked up the handset. “I’ll check it with Morgan. If he wants his whole team on it, I’ll have Reidy send over the files.”
*~*~*~*~*~*
Sam flew back to DC the next day, as there was really no reason for him to stick around Milwaukee anymore.
When he walked into the bullpen in the morning, he noticed that they’d turned one wall into a giant map filled with different colored pins. Hodkins was perusing through several reports while McDowell and Jeffers compared notes and stuck more numbered and color-coded pins in the map.
“What’s all this?” Sam asked, staring at them in bafflement.
Jeffers grinned at him. “Hell of a case you got us, Winchester. Great brain teaser. Better than Sudoku.”
McDowell elbowed him in the side. “I think you’d better stick to Highlights,” she sniped.
Jeffers rolled his eyes at her, but Hodkins spoke up before they could continue. “Seriously Sam, you didn’t tell us we’d be hunting a modern-day Jesse James.”
“What?” Sam shook his head. “I thought you were looking at credit card fraud?”
“Yep, we are,” Hodkins grinned at him. “But it’s more than that.”
“A lot more,” Jeffers interjected.
“Okay,” Sam drawled, plunking himself down in a chair. “Explain it to me.”
McDowell grimaced. “It’s long, complicated, and boring, but essentially, the credit card fraud is linked to the impersonation, which is also linked to a whole bunch of other crimes. And possibly to your bank robberies.”
Jeffers saw that Sam needed more explanation. “Okay, let me show you.” He poked a finger at the map. “Here. Yplansti, Michigan. In December 2008, one of the credit cards on the list was used at a motel, two restaurants, a gas station and a convenience store. At the same time, there were reports of a man posing as FBI Special Agent Bill Ward poking around two missing persons cases, one of which was a clear kidnapping.”
“On December 26th, police responded to a concerned neighbor report, and found Madge and Edward Carrigan murdered in their home,” McDowell read off a report. “In the basement, they found the remains of at least three other people, with evidence of cannibalism.”
“That’s sick,” Sam made a face. His eyes roved over the map, taking in details. Some pins were isolated, some in multi-colored clusters. Some of the pins were connected to others, tracing paths of individual cards. “So you think it’s all connected?”
“Timing fits. Can’t get a good description of the guy, other than white, young, and good-looking, so we can’t circulate a sketch, but it seems way too coincidental.” Jeffers shrugged. “That’s only one example. Burkitsville, Indiana is another.” He flicked a finger towards a pin stuck in the Midwest. “April 2006, guy shows up, claiming to be Jon Bonham. Supposedly he was looking for some friends of his, but he used a fake credit card to buy gas and food, and the sheriff had to run him out of town for harassing people and disrupting the peace. Two days later, the main orchard supporting the town was burnt to ashes, and three people were reported missing.”
“Basically, wherever the credit card trail intersects with an impersonation report, there’s another crime or three at the same time,” Hodkins summed up, typing madly at his computer. “And it might be the same guy as your bank robber.”
He clicked on the larger plasma screen on the side wall and pulled up a map. “Watch this. Red dots are your robberies,” they popped up on the screen, tracing over Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. “Now, blue dots are recent fraudulent credit card transactions meeting our criteria. I’ll pull them up chronologically.” One after another, blue spots appeared - following the robbery trail.
Sam stared at the screen, his heart pounding harder in his ears. “The transactions are within the right time period? And are there any impersonation reports?”
“Yes, and yes.” Jeffers pulled up two reports on the screen. “In Champaign and in East Chicago, when agents went to interview employees they mentioned that they’d already talked to the Feds. And,” he smiled grimly, “in Milwaukee, a female employee at Andersen’s Jewelers gave her phone number to the “dreamy” agent who interviewed her. Which really confused the real agents who had come to get her statement.”
“What confuses me,” McDowell groused, “is this chronology.”
Sam frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t make sense, that’s what!” McDowell laid out some files in front of her. “Sam, you’re the profiler. You know that people tend to follow patterns. Like the difference between a serial killer and a spree killer, organized and disorganized criminals.” Sam nodded, and she continued, “But look at this. It doesn’t fit any sort of profile or classification I’ve ever heard of.”
She nudged a crime scene photo. “Here, B&E and vandalism. Then here, a month later, aggravated assault and theft. Here, arson and what could be a homicide. Escalation, right? Then here. A break-in at an empty warehouse and a report of grave desecration. Nothing stolen, nobody hurt. What, he escalates, then slows down? It doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re right,” Sam mused, furrowing his brow as he pulled the files towards him. “It doesn’t.”
“You really think we might be dealing with a serial killer here?” Jeffers asked quietly.
Sam didn’t answer him, too preoccupied with a name that popped out on the list. Palo Alto. A credit card under the name Hector Aframian was used to purchase gas on October 31st, 2005, then was used two days later out in Jericho for gas and a motel room . . . where the user was apparently picked up for impersonating a Federal Marshal. Based on evidence found in the motel room, he was considered a suspect in a series of disappearances, and they believed his real name to be . . . Dean.
Sam swallowed hard, mind racing. The timing was right, and it fit. He forced himself to keep reading. The suspect escaped custody and disappeared. No mention of another older man.
“So far it’s pretty much circumstantial,” Hodkins interrupted Sam’s thoughts. “I mean, some of this might not even be related. The descriptions are pretty sketchy. But if so, it’s one hell of a coincidence.”
“No such thing,” Sam muttered, shoving the files back on the table and staring at map, feeling a little sick to his stomach. To everyone else, there was no pattern. But to Sam, it screamed out all too obviously. This was a Hunter’s trail. Not entirely random, just driven by circumstance.
For a long moment, Sam let himself entertain the thought that it was Dean. That his brother really was alive, not buried in an unmarked grave in Missouri; that he was out there in the Impala, hunting and blasting his classic rock at top volume. He was surprised at the warm tickle of comfort that thought elicited, which was quickly suppressed by the cold logic that Sam hadn’t picked up a single trace of his brother since St. Louis.
Sam shook himself. No matter who it was, they had just made Sam’s job incredibly difficult. He was tracking two people now . . . or rather, a Hunter and a shifter.
*~*~*~*~*~*
On to part 4