Premeditated Chapter 15
While waiting for Hotch and Rossi to return, Reid reached into his messenger bag, retrieved a small red apple, and polished it on his shirt tail. In one fell swoop, he bit into the skin and through the flesh to reach the core. He chewed and swallowed as he built the profile of Technical Analyst Terrence Wood. If everything went according to plan, then "The Fallen Man" would lead directly into "The Fallen Angel". It would be as if Hotch and Rossi had built the profile for themselves. During the process, all Reid had to do was to suppress laughter, for which the urge to do so would be another step, like littering, in the progression of his fall from grace.
In the Bible were described two falls from grace - the Fall of Man and the Fall of Satan. In the chronology, the Fall of Satan came before the Fall of Man, but in the chronicle, the Fall of Man came before the Fall of Satan.
In the Book of Genesis, mankind fell from a state of innocence to a state of guilt when Eve, tempted by the Serpent, ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and Adam, tempted by Eve, ate the same fruit from the same tree. As punishment for their crimes, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden to make their livelihoods on Earth. On Earth, Adam was to till the fields by the sweat of his brow, Eve was to bear children in great pain, and Adam, Eve, and all their descendants, being dust, were to return to dust after all the days of their lives had passed. For original sin, the punishment was death, but after death, there would be salvation, and all that were well would end well.
The Serpent was punished as well, cursed to go upon his belly and eat dust for all the days of his life.
"Reid! Earth to Reid!" came the sound of a disembodied voice from an undetermined location.
At the voice, Reid snapped his head up from the apple. He darted his eyes into every corner of the room before triangulating the giggles to the laptop, within which Garcia had reappeared to laugh at, then with, him.
"Sorry, Garcia!" Reid laughed at himself. "I guess I was sleeping with my eyes open."
"Yeah, you were sleeping with your eyes open alright," Garcia giggled further. "You were also eating without chewing. You were biting off teeny-tiny pieces of that apple and swallowing them whole. I've been watching you do it for minutes now. You looked both cute and freaky at the same time. It was both reptilian and fuzzy-wuzzy. But I had to wake you up when I saw you bite off this really humongous piece, like a quarter of the apple. I was afraid you'd choke on it."
"Oh, thanks, Garcia," Reid chewed and swallowed the really humongous piece. "I guess you saved my life there."
"You guess? You know!" Garcia reached around to pat herself on the back. "I did save your life there! So what does this mean, Dr. Reid? Aren't you dying to analyze the stupendous consequences of this momentous event? When you're ready, you can present, to me, the indubitably brilliant conclusions of your indubitably brilliant analyses. I lie in wait..."
"You're my hero, Garcia," Reid analyzed and concluded.
"I knew you'd see the light one day!" Garcia grinned.
"So I have," Reid grinned back, relaxing in the warmth and comfort of Garcia's attentions. "So, uh, Garcia, My Hero, do you have anything new for us?"
"Not new, but something," Garcia replied. "Basically, I just popped back in to say that I opened up every video from everyday, and I mean every single video from every single day, between the 8th and the 22nd, and I didn't discover any other discrepancies in the CCTV footage. For all the rest of the footage, the last frame of one video matched up with the first frame of the next video. I also checked the timestamps on the files. The operating system keeps track of when files are first created and last modified. For the modified footage, 'last modified' was the same as 'first created'. I'm guessing that the UnSub modified the footage at home or at work or wherever, deleted the original files, and saved the modified files under the same names, with the original timestamps in the filenames. Do you know what this means, Dr. Reid?"
"What does this mean?" Reid played dumb.
"This means, Dear Luddite, that we can recover the original footage from the hard drive of the storage server!" Garcia answered triumphantly. "As all cyber-criminals are or should be aware, deleted files aren't truly deleted unless you run them through a file shredding program, or even better, reformat the entire hard drive to wipe everything clean. The UnSub did such a poor job editing the videos that even I, Little Miss Non-Profiler, can guess that he wasn't competent or careful enough to shred the deleted files. All you've gotta do is to get a tech, preferably one without murderous impulses or homicidal purposes, to retrieve the hard drive from the storage server and restore the files using a data recovery program. It might take awhile, but it should work, as long as the hard drive is undamaged, which it is."
"So we can get our hands on the original CCTV footage this way?" Reid asked.
"Yep! And most importantly, your eyeballs," Garcia replied.
"Wow, thanks, Garcia, this is a huge breakthrough," Reid waved the apple in excitement. "Do you have anything else for us?" he gazed eagerly into the laptop.
"Tsk, tsk," Garcia waggled her finger through the screen. "Don't you think you're getting a little greedy? Greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, you know. Believe me, My Angel, you don't want to get caught up in those! Here, let me help you right the wrong. What you should have said was, 'Garcia, My Hero, I have something new for you.' This is called reciprocity, or 'Tit For Tat'. Ohh, that sounds kinda..." she gazed off in perversion.
"New for you?" Reid considered. "Um, well, the detective came by and brought in a guy who was harassing a group of tourists, offering to push one of them down the falls. Hotch and Rossi went off to interview him a little while ago. They should be back soon. Morgan and Prentiss are still staking out the UnSub's apartment."
"And yourself?" Garcia asked.
"I talked to the detective, uh, Detective Scott Collier," Reid answered. "Mostly, I filled him in about the CCTV footage, and we both wondered why the UnSub had done such a poor job editing the videos. We wondered, because he's a tech, just like you, so we had expected him to..."
"Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me either!" Garcia finished. "I can't believe that an UnSub would be so careless about the whole thing. About obstructing the evidence, I mean. But you know what's even more unbelievable? That a tech would be so incompetent! He's reflecting poorly upon all techs, and that's unacceptable in my book! You know what else I've been doing? Digging up dirt, or trying to dig up dirt, on this Terrence Wood guy. So far, nothing. No criminal record. Regular voter. Excellent credit. I don't get it. Why the heck would a tech suddenly snap and start killing people?"
"Actually, about that," Reid saw an opening and stepped through. "I've been wondering the same thing, and while I was talking to Detective Collier, I came up with a profile of sorts."
"Oh, do tell, Hyperthreading Overclocker!" Garcia wiggled in anticipation.
"It sounds, um, kind of, uh, crazy?" Reid hesitated.
"Tell, Reid, tell," Garcia pointed through the screen. "You tease. You tell."
"OK, well, um, I call this profile 'The Fallen Man'," Reid began the profile.
"Ohh, 'The Fallen Man'," Garcia ohhed.
"Do you know the story of Adam and Eve?" Reid asked. "The story of 'The Fall of Man' from the Bible?"
"Ahh, 'The Fall of Man'," Garcia ahhed.
"According to the profile, Terrence Wood is kind of like Adam and Eve," Reid said.
"Terrence Wood is kind of like Adam and Eve," Garcia repeated the words, then frowned up at a ceiling far, far away. "Yeah, obviously! Why didn't I think of that?"
"You're mocking me, Garcia," Reid complained.
"Oops, sorry, go on, go on," Garcia urged him on.
"In the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," Reid went on. "Among all the trees in the Garden of Eden, God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat from that particular tree, but Adam and Eve ate from that tree anyway."
"Um, I'm not very religious," Garcia said.
"Well, you don't have to be religious to appreciate the story," Reid said. "It's a universal story. In the Judeo-Christian ethic, it's called 'The Fall of Man'. In Greek mythology, it's called 'Pandora's Box'. In Chinese mythology, it's...Never mind, uh, so whether Pandora opened the box or Adam and Eve ate the fruit or whoever did whatever, what was the significance of the act?"
"The significance for whoever did whatever? Well, duh, they gained knowledge of good and evil," Garcia answered.
"Yes," Reid nodded. "Prior to eating the fruit, Adam and Eve had lived in a state of innocence. In Genesis 2:25, it was stated that they had looked upon each other in their nakedness and were not ashamed."
"Mmm, nakedness!" Garcia exclaimed.
"Uh, anyway, once Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they lost their innocence," Reid ignored the comment. "And, um, covered themselves up with fig leaves."
"Damn fig leaves!" Garcia exclaimed again.
"So, uh, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and as a result, they gained knowledge of good and evil," Reid ignored the comment again. "But why did they eat the fruit in the first place?"
"Wasn't there a snake involved in all of this?" Garcia asked. "A serpent who tempted Eve to eat the apple? Eve ate the apple, then gave it to Adam, and Adam ate it too."
"Well, the forbidden fruit may or may not have been an apple," Reid said. "Apples originated in Central Asia, but the Garden of Eden is believed to have been located in the Middle East. Some theological scholars have speculated that the forbidden fruit may have been a grape, which...Oh, um, sorry for the tangent...Anyway, yes, the Serpent tempted Eve, then Adam, into eating the forbidden fruit. The Serpent promised that the fruit would give them wisdom."
"It did, didn't it?" Garcia asked. "They gained knowledge of good and evil?"
"Sort of," Reid said. "They gained knowledge of good and evil, and in so doing, elevated themselves to the level of the angels, who had been created knowing good and evil. However, what Adam and Eve had really wanted was wisdom. They had really wanted to elevate themselves to the level of God. As a result, they fell from grace."
"All because they wanted wisdom?" Garcia asked.
"All because they gave in to temptation and disobeyed God," Reid explained. "According to the majority of Christian interpretations, the eating of the fruit was an act of guilty disobedience that brought sinfulness into human nature. After 'The Fall of Man', all humans were born into original sin. Original sin and sinfulness both describe the capacity or tendency of humans to sin, but original sin is used in reference to all humans, while sinfulness is used in reference to individual humans."
"Okaaaaaaay..." Garcia nodded slowly.
"So Terrence Wood is kind of like Adam and Eve before and after 'The Fall of Man'," Reid said. "Think about what he does all the time. Detective Collier tells me that he's quiet, shy, nerdy. Unmarried, no kids, lives alone. Basically, he comes to work, then goes home, then comes to work again."
"Like we all do," Garcia said.
"Right, but what does he do at work? Everyday, Technical Analyst Terrence Wood comes to work at the police station. He's a tech, so he does all the technical stuff for the officers. He runs database searches on criminals and victims. He reads accounts of crimes. He stares at crime scene photos. He indulges in knowledge of good and evil. He accumulates experience of good and evil. However, no matter how graphic the photos or how detailed the accounts, the knowledge and experience are indirect. Wood is a tech, not an officer. Unlike the officers, he has no direct knowledge of good and evil, no direct experience of good and evil. Nor does he have any power over good and evil, neither the power to protect people from evil or the power to enforce good in society. In biblical terms, he's a man, not an angel."
"So he does my job," Garcia said. "I knew that already."
"Right, but what happens after years of doing your job, his job? After years of doing his duties, he feels an urge to gain more knowledge, more experience, more direct knowledge and experience. He feels an urge to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. First, he wants to visit the crime scenes and examine the evidence. Next, he wants to interview the criminals and victims. Then, he wants to use the handcuffs and shoot the guns. Finally, he wants to be like the officers, to protect and enforce, to wield power over good and evil as the angels do for God. It's a gradual progression from one step to another. Deep down, he just wants to wield power in general. Specifically, he wants to wield power over life and death, the power that belongs to God and God alone. That's the ultimate knowledge, the ultimate experience, the ultimate power. What's it like to hold life and death in your own hands? He wonders. In his mind, it's another gradual progression from one step to another. First, what's it like to be an officer? He can imagine that, because he works with officers everyday. But then, what's it like to be a killer? He can't imagine that. He feels an urge to find out. He wants to find out for himself. There's only one way to find out. He knows what it is. It's been staring him in the face for a long time. It's been growing in his mind for almost as long. It tempts him. He gives in to temptation. He kills."
"So his job causes him to snap and kill?" Garcia gaped.
"Well, I'm sure that there are other contributing factors that we don't know about and can't guess at, but yes, killing people is his way of eating the forbidden fruit that he's stared at, but not tasted, during his career as a tech," Reid said. "It's like constantly staring at someone doing something that you wouldn't normally do. Maybe something dangerous like base jumping or cliff diving. Sooner or later, if you've been staring at it long enough, then you're going to want to do it too."
"Reid?" Garcia whispered softly. "You do realize one thing, don't you?"
"What?" Reid asked. "What thing?"
"You're profiling me!" Garcia screeched. "That's a profile of me!"
"No, I'm profiling Terrence Wood," Reid argued. "Terrence Wood..."
"Is like me on a lesser scale!" Garcia cut him off. "He runs database searches on vagrants, burglars, and drug dealers. I run database searches on serial killers! He reads accounts of domestic violence and child abuse. I read accounts of murder! He stares at crime scene photos from that one time when that nice guy we all knew and loved shot and injured his ex-girlfriend in a drunken rage. I stare at crime scene photos from those twenty times when that psychopathic serial killer with narcissistic personality disorder and Zzyzx Syndrome flayed, eviscerated, and decapitated each of his twenty blonde-haired blue-eyed victims! Like him, I have knowledge, indirect, of good and evil! I have experience, indirect, of good and evil! I have power, none, over good and evil! I'm going to snap and kill!"
"No, no, no!" Reid waved his hands back and forth in front of the laptop. "No, that's not what I meant! That's not what I meant at all! Forget the profile! Forget it! It doesn't make any sense..."
"Forget what?" Rossi entered the room, plopped himself into a chair, and tapped Reid on the shoulder. "What doesn't make any sense?"
"Nothing...Nothing doesn't make..." Reid started, but Garcia interrupted, "Dr. Reid here has just profiled Terrence Wood, and by association, me, into a serial killer!"
"You're going to have to explain that one, Reid," Hotch entered the room behind Rossi.
"There's nothing to explain. It's a profile that doesn't make..." Reid started again, but Garcia interrupted again, "Let me explain!"
"Go ahead, Garcia. Explain, but make it quick," Hotch gestured for Garcia to continue.
Garcia continued. As she explained the profile, Reid finished the apple, chucked the core towards the wastebasket, missed, and had to slither out of his chair, across the floor, and into the corner to right the wrong. In the auditory channel, he tuned out of the conversation. In the visual channel, he stared down at the floor, not caring to record, to his undeletable files on his unreformatable hard drive, the wild gesticulating in the laptop or the staring and frowning in the room. Everything had gone according to plan, so Reid got to, alternately, sit on his hands and twiddle his thumbs, while Garcia had to explain "The Fallen Man". If Hotch and Rossi didn't like the profile, then they would attribute the blame, subconsciously, half to one and half to the other, when the blame was attributable to one and one alone. This way, the idea that was Reid's and Reid's alone would appear to belong to both Reid and Garcia. In the past ten minutes, what Reid had wrought was a working demonstration of the ad hominem logical fallacy, commonly known as "shooting the messenger". It was too bad that the messenger had to be shot, but the important thing was that the message be delivered. As for the message itself, it didn't even have to be the same as the one from the Mouth of God. The angels, knowing good and evil and right and wrong, could employ another act of logic to extend the chain of reasoning for themselves.
"So," Rossi looked up from the laptop. "'The Fallen Man', huh?"
"A profile of yours truly," Garcia said, calmly for the first time in several minutes.
"Well, it's creative, I'll give you that," Hotch remarked. "But I'm not sure how it helps us at this stage. Better to stick to the evidence for now. Reid, what did you learn from the detective?"
"Also, Reid, what did you do to the detective?" Rossi asked. "When he came in to check on us, he looked...Hotch, how would you say he looked?"
"Shell-shocked," Hotch replied.
"Yes, shell-shocked," Rossi repeated. "What did you talk about, Reid? What did you say to traumatize Detective Scott Collier?"
"I didn't say any...Oh, uh, I guess I did say a lot of things that could have, um, disturbed him," Reid reflected. "You know what? After he left the room, I noticed that the laptop had recorded the entire int...uh, conversation. The video's on there, if you want to watch it. In the meantime, I can get coffee and snacks, if anyone wants any."
"I'm going to need both, thanks," Rossi said. "Coffee, black, no bells and whistles. Snack, snack...Everything's a day old and nasty by now...Get me whatever you get yourself from the vending machine."
"Hotch?" Reid asked.
"No, thank you," Hotch replied. "Is this the video in the player here?" he clicked on the video player.
"Yeah, that's the one," Reid said. "Here, let me just..." he hit play, turned away from his colleagues as they turned towards the laptop, and exited the room.
Outside, in the hallway, he suppressed an urge to laugh. He coughed, then coughed again, the coughs covering up the laughs that threatened to bubble out of his lungs. Slowly, he made his way into the kitchen. More slowly, he poured two cups of coffee, one for himself and one for Rossi, and added several spoonfuls of sugar to his own cup. Within the cup, he swirled the spoon in both directions - prograde and retrograde. He stared at his reflection in the black liquid that reflected nothing. Looking closer, he saw that it reflected something. It reflected his own face upon its dark filmy surface. He stuck his tongue out at his reflection and considered his choices from the vending machine. At the same time, he wondered if his colleagues would be able to make sense of the interrogation. He was confident that they would.
In the vending machine, after he had inserted the bill and pressed the button, the Kit Kat bar stuck on the dispensers. Instantly, he felt a white-hot rage shoot through his chest, took a deep breath to calm himself, and inserted another bill and pressed the same button. The dispensing mechanism whizzed and whirred. The first Kit Kat bar dropped into the bin, but the second Kit Kat bar stuck on the dispensers. In response, he closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and opened his eyes to look around the room, around the corner, and up and down the hallway outside. Confident that no eyeballs and eardrums were within immediate range of the visual and auditory broadcasts, he channeled all his negative emotions and aggressive impulses into a series of kicks, sharp and snappy, that did their duty to dislodge the Kit Kat bar from the dispensers. With a satisfying plop, the second Kit Kat bar dropped into the bin. With a satisfied smile, Reid retrieved both. For several more minutes, he dawdled in the vicinity of the vending machine before picking up the two cups of coffee and delivering them, along with the two candy bars, to his colleagues, glutton and not, in the conference room down the hall.
"Go back, go back," Rossi directed Hotch as Reid entered the room. "Not there, not that part...The part about the impulse-driven and purpose-driven predators...There, that part..."
"On Monday and Tuesday, he encounters no victims," came the sound of Collier's voice from the laptop. "On Wednesday, he encounters a victim and pushes him down the falls. On Thursday, he encounters a victim and pushes him down the falls. On Friday, he encounters no victims. The next Monday, he cuts himself out of the CCTV footage from the previous Monday through Friday. That's the act of..."
"Stop! Stop right there!" Rossi ordered. "Did you hear that? Did you hear what I heard? Are you hearing what I'm hearing?"
"Yes," Hotch nodded stoically. "'The next Monday, he cuts himself out of the CCTV footage from the previous Monday through Friday.' 'The next Monday'? How did Detective Collier know that the footage had been modified on Monday, November 15, if he didn't even know, before Reid told him, that the footage had been modified at all?"
"Oh good, Reid's back," Rossi glanced up to notice Reid returning to his seat. He accepted the coffee and candy before continuing, "Reid, do you remember telling the detective, at any point during the conversation, that the CCTV footage had been modified on Monday, November 15?"
"Uh, well..." Reid replayed the conversation in his mind. "First, I told him that the footage had been modified. Then, I explained to him about the impulse-driven and purpose-driven predators. He asked me a lot of questions about those, so I explained them for quite awhile. But then, he still didn't understand the difference between conscious and subconscious intent, so I gave him an example of those. After that, he applied the example to the case, and he said...He, he, he said that the footage had been modified on the 15th! 'The next Monday'! He shouldn't have known that! I didn't tell him that! I said that the footage had been modified after the first two crimes, but I didn't say anything about the exact date! The exact date could have been any day between then and now!"
"Exactly!" Rossi slapped his hand against the table.
"There's another part that bothers me," Hotch fiddled with the video player. "One little part when he says that the footage was modified that night..."
"A tech should have done a better job editing the videos," came the sound of Collier's voice. "I don't know why he didn't. Maybe he was in a hurry that night? Maybe he was flustered that night?"
"Maybe," came the sound of Reid's voice. "According to the files, he edited all the videos at the same time on the same day. 11/15/2010, 22:18. Did you see anyone in the CCTV control room during your shift that night?"
"'That night'!" Rossi pointed in excitement at the screen. "How did he know that the tech had modified the footage that night? Reid, you didn't tell him the exact date and time until right then, until after he had already guessed both the date and the time of day when the footage was modified. Garcia, didn't you say that Terrence Wood normally worked during the day?"
"Yes, sir!" Garcia answered quickly. "But that night, the night of the 15th, Wood worked a night shift, and so did Collier, who works a night shift every Monday."
"Collier must have known that we had suspected Wood. Dave, do you remember what he said when he first came in?" Hotch asked Rossi.
"Do I remember, do I remember...Why would I need to remember?" Rossi frowned. "Reid, what did Collier say when he first came in?"
"After his speech about picking up the guy at the falls," Hotch said.
"That speech sounded almost like a prepared speech," Rossi remarked. "All that crap about the residents and the media and the economy and the Mayor...Anyway, Reid?"
"He asked us if we had done a psychoanalysis of the UnSub," Reid recalled. "I said no, but that we had identified a person of interest and that Morgan and Prentiss were monitoring him overnight."
"No, you didn't say 'him'," Hotch corrected. "You said that we had identified a person of interest, whom Morgan and Prentiss were monitoring overnight."
"Oh, sorry, you're right," Reid said. "So after I said that, Collier asked if we had agents staking out his apartment."
"His apartment!" Rossi said significantly. "His apartment!"
"Collier shouldn't have known that the person of interest was a he instead of a she or that he lived in an apartment instead of a house," Hotch continued. "I can easily overlook his apartment. We think of most UnSubs as men. But his apartment? We think of most people as home owners or house dwellers, unless they live in a major city. He should have asked if we had agents staking out his house. That would have been the most natural thing to say, assuming that he didn't know better about the person of interest."
"Are you suggesting that Collier knew that Morgan and Prentiss were staking out Wood's apartment?" Reid asked. "Are you...You're suggesting that Collier is the UnSub?"
"If Collier was the one who had modified the footage, then he may have thought that we had thought that Wood had done it instead," Hotch explained.
"Which we had," Rossi said. "Because it made the most sense, considering that Wood was the tech on duty during the night shift. Collier must have snuck in and used Wood's account to modify the footage while Wood was away from his desk."
"And it would only have taken him a minute to do so, because all he had to do was to delete the original files and replace them with the modified files," Garcia added.
"I can't believe this," Hotch shook his head. "It's hard to believe. It's harder to accept."
"And yet there's more," Rossi said. "Did you notice how calm Collier appeared when Reid first mentioned that the UnSub had obstructed the evidence?"
"Yes, he appeared utterly unsurprised," Hotch agreed. "He focused in on Reid's analysis of the UnSub rather than the astonishing fact that the UnSub had obstructed the evidence at the police station. He shifted his eyes several times between Reid and the laptop. I noticed it right away, even before I suspected anything. At the time, Reid, what was on the laptop screen?"
"Frames of video from the CCTV footage," Reid replied.
"Bingo! But his response later, when they were talking about the consult request, was totally different," Rossi continued. "He was flustered the whole time that Reid was blabbing about the act of obstruction and the act of promotion. Then, even more so when Reid was babbling about why the UnSub did such a poor job editing the videos. No offense, Reid."
"None taken," Reid said.
"But he recovered as soon as Reid indicated the tech, not him, as the UnSub," Hotch nodded. "He recovered as soon as he realized that the pressure was not on him."
"As soon as he realized that we were on the wrong track," Rossi nodded back.
"Which we were," Hotch concluded. "But not anymore. It's really hard to believe," he sighed deeply. "I can't really accept it right away. I don't want to accept it, and I don't want to believe it. But the inconsistencies in the conversation...They give us no choice but to suspect..."
"But Detective Collier was the one who had requested the consult from us," Reid argued. "Why would he request a consult for his own crimes? Then, on the same day..."
"Then, on the same day, obstruct the evidence from them?" Rossi finished. "You explained it yourself. In the video, you explained it yourself," he pushed Hotch aside to fiddle with the video player himself. "Here, take a listen."
"I can't get past the fact that the UnSub did such a poor job editing the videos," Reid said in the video. "There's only one possible explanation for his behavior."
"What's that?" Collier asked in the video.
"He wants to be caught," Reid answered in the video.
"So you think that he, or at least a part of him, does want to be caught?" Reid asked. "That he is conflicted?"
"Yes," Rossi replied. "Right after that, you said that the id and the super-ego were in conflict, that they had been in conflict since the 15th and were still in conflict today. He wants to be caught. He wants to avoid being caught. Both at the same time. He's conflicted."
"Garcia," Hotch said abruptly. "Did you ever get around to making up a list of people who crossed the border before and after the fifth crime, the one on the Canadian side of the river?"
"Yes, sir, I did!" Garcia nodded and typed on her keyboard. "I've just been so busy looking through these videos that I haven't gotten a chance to...Ah, here it is!" she gazed into a screen on her left. "OK, let's see. On the 25th, the day that Peter Hoffmann disappeared, also Thanksgiving Day on this side of the river...Checking, checking...Terrence Wood didn't cross the border that day, or the day after, or the day before," she scanned the lists.
"Obviously, because he's not the UnSub," Rossi said.
"But Detective Collier, first name Scott..." Garcia scanned the lists some more. "There's no Scott Collier on these lists either. Not for the 24th, 25th, or 26th."
"Shift schedule," Hotch ordered.
"Checking..." Garcia typed again. "Detective Collier worked a day shift on the 24th, had Thanksgiving Day off, then worked another day shift on the 26th."
"So he didn't cross the border at all?" Reid asked.
"That doesn't make any sense," Rossi said. "Unless...Do you think he obstructed the evidence again? Hacked into the database and expunged his name from the records? Crossing over and crossing back?"
"Ahem, hacker present!" Garcia raised a fluffy pen. "From my unlimited experience, I can tell you that it's not a piece of cake to hack into the Department of Homeland Security databases. I don't see how a guy who sucks at editing videos could possibly hack into high-security databases."
"Garcia's got a point," Hotch sighed. "So according to this information, Collier's not the UnSub. But there's so much conflicting information here. I don't understand..."
"Wait," Reid reached across the table, grabbed the laptop, and took his turn fiddling with the video player.
"Since Monday, November 15, the two parts have been in conflict," Reid said in the video. "As of today, the two parts are still in conflict."
"How so?" Collier asked in the video. "He went on to kill two more victims after the 15th. Didn't the id win out?"
"'He went on to kill two more victims after the 15th," Reid said. "Two more victims? Collier's been working this case since the beginning. He should know that there were three more victims after the 15th - Melody Sanders, Angelina Alvarez, and Peter Hoffmann."
"What are you getting at, Reid?" Rossi asked, confused.
"OK, let's back up for a minute," Reid started over. "This whole time, during this whole conversation, what has Collier been doing?"
"Asking questions," Hotch replied. "He's been asking questions about the profile, about the specific behavior and psychology of the UnSub. He's intensely interested in your answers. He's completely absorbed in your explanations, because all your explanations are about him. Everything you're saying applies to him. You're doing a detailed psychoanalysis of him. He's completely caught up in it. He can't help himself. As you analyze his crimes, he replays them in his mind. He's so engaged and distracted that he makes mistakes. He lets slip facts that he shouldn't know. He lets slip the fact that he committed two, not three, crimes after the 15th."
"I'm sorry?" Rossi raised his hand. "Haven't we just been discussing the fifth crime? The third crime after the 15th? Peter Hoffmann?"
"The fifth crime was not a crime at all," Reid explained. "Peter Hoffmann was killed, or rather died, on the Canadian side of the river. Garcia, did Peter Hoffmann cross the border?"
"Nope!" Garcia answered immediately.
"Peter Hoffmann disappeared from Niagara Falls, Ontario and plunged to his death over the Horseshoe Falls," Reid continued. "All the other victims disappeared from Niagara Falls, New York and plunged to their deaths over the American Falls. Peter Hoffmann was not a victim. He was probably a suicide, one of the people who try, and usually succeed, to kill themselves at Niagara Falls, on both sides of the river. This happens every couple of weeks. On average, I mean," he added for accuracy, "Not every two weeks like clockwork."
"The body was recovered from the American side of the river," Hotch said. "On Friday, November 26, Collier responded to the scene. He was lucky that Peter Hoffmann had chosen to kill himself at that time. Collier included him as a victim in the series of crimes. It was an act of..."
"Obstruction," Rossi finished. "That fits in perfectly with what Reid was saying in the video about obstruction and promotion. On the 22nd, Collier killed the fourth victim. The fourth victim was reported missing on the 23rd. That was the day that Detective Dylan requested federal assistance. Collier knew that. On the 24th, Reid, you called to say that we were prioritizing the case. Collier knew that too. That was why he stopped killing. He didn't kill anyone after the 22nd. He knew that the feds were coming to investigate the case, so he decided to give it a rest, at least for awhile. Then, on the 26th, during his day shift, a body was recovered from the river. The heavens were smiling down upon him. Here was a body from the other side of the border. He designated Peter Hoffmann as a victim in the series of crimes. Detective Dylan agreed. The Canadian authorities agreed. There was no reason not to agree. If Peter Hoffmann was a victim, then the feds would have to look for the UnSub in the DHS databases. Collier didn't cross the border, so his name wasn't in the databases. Everything worked out perfectly for him. He got to obstruct the evidence again. This time, by adding to it. Again, an act of obstruction followed an act of promotion, but this time, the two acts were performed by two different people - first Dylan, then Collier. It all makes sense now."
"It makes perfect sense," Reid nodded. "As an investigator in the case, Collier was in the perfect position to obstruct the evidence - by adding to it. Let's suppose that a detective wants to commit crimes. He's a detective, so he can abuse his position to obstruct the evidence of his own crimes. There are two methods for doing so. Method Number One: Add his own crimes to another series of crimes. That buries his own crimes under a pile of other crimes. Method Number Two: Add other crimes or so-called crimes to his own series of crimes. That also buries his own crimes under a pile of other crimes. Either way, his acts of obstruction have the same effect."
"They divert attention away from him and towards someone else - an UnSub," Hotch summarized. "In the first case, the authorities focus in on the person who initiated the series. That doesn't apply here. In the second case, the authorities focus in on the people in the DHS databases. He's not one of those people. In addition, the inclusion of the fifth victim introduces a plethora of inconsistencies into the series of crimes. So many that if we had never taken the case, then the case may never have been solved. There's no way that the detectives at the local PD would have suspected one of their own."
"Just like you'd never suspect me, right?" Garcia asked. "Even though you have a profile of me now? Even though you know exactly how and why I'm going to snap and kill one day?"
"Garcia, please don't take that profile seriously," Reid held out his hands in a pleading manner. "I'm sorry I ever mentioned it. It was just a stupid spur-of-the-moment profile that made no sense."
"But it does make a crazy kind of sense," Rossi said. "Both for Terrence Wood and for Scott Collier."
"How so?" Hotch asked.
"Well, if we extend the chain of reasoning one extra step..." Rossi began, then hesitated.
"What? What step?" Garcia prompted. "You tease! You tell!"
"What if the profile wasn't called 'The Fallen Man'?" Rossi asked.
"What's it called then?" Garcia asked.
"What if the profile was called 'The Fallen Angel'?" Rossi asked. "What would you say then?"
"That you're crazy?" Garcia suggested.
"Well, I had a Catholic upbringing," Rossi defended himself.
"I see where you're going with this, Dave," Hotch said. "In the world of the profile, Wood is a man, and Collier is an angel. Collier is a police officer, a detective, a protector and enforcer, just like the angels in the Bible. Compared to Wood, Collier is closer to the crimes. He's closer to..."
"To the level of God, to use Garcia's terminology," Rossi finished. "In the same terminology, he wants to elevate himself to the level of God. He wants more direct knowledge and experience of good and evil, right and wrong, life and death. He wants to wield the power over life and death that belongs to God and God alone. What's it like to be a killer? He tries to imagine himself as a killer. He can't imagine it. He feels an urge to find out. He wants to find out for himself. There's only one way to find out, he knows what it is, and it tempts him. He gives in to temptation. He kills."
"Wow, so 'The Fallen Angel' is just like 'The Fallen Man', except it's about one of you instead of me," Garcia gloated. "You're the ones who are going to snap and kill! You're going to snap and kill before I snap and kill! Do you know what this means? By the time I snap and kill, there won't be a BAU to stop me! I'm going to get away with my crimes! Ahahahahahaha!"
"Garcia's got a point," Hotch sighed.
"Thank you, Head Hotcho!" Garcia clapped joyfully. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you! There's a way for you to put the nail in the coffin, so to speak. As I was telling Reid earlier, you can recover the original..."
Reid tuned out as Garcia explained the data recovery process. He took a sip of his coffee, now lukewarm after sitting on the table, untouched and untasted, for the duration of the conversation. He peeled open the candy wrapper, broke off a piece of the Kit Kat bar, and popped it into his mouth. Looking across the table, he noted that Rossi's coffee and candy also sat, untouched and untasted as well.
In silence, Reid stared down at the floor and considered his next move. His fingers twitched slightly. His face flushed a little. He felt his fingers twitch and his face flush. He was aware of the movements and sensations, and he knew what had created them. He no longer felt an urge to laugh. Whatever had created that urge had vanished to be replaced by something else that had created another urge. As he stared down at the floor, all Reid felt was a gnawing sense of shame. He was ashamed, because having come up with and carried out the plan, everything had gone according to plan.
Everything had gone according to plan. For themselves, Hotch and Rossi had built "The Fallen Angel". Being profilers, they had built the profile in the same way that he had eaten the apple, from the outside in - from the skin to the flesh to the core, and from the evidence to the behavior to the psychology. That was why the profile was so shallow. As expected, they had built the profile, but only at the most cursory level, from the most cursory parts, with the most cursory understanding, and only as an extension of an existing profile. They were profilers. It was the best that they could have done with the knowledge and experience that they had.
The existing profile, "The Fallen Man", had been built differently. It had been built by a killer. Being a killer, Reid had built the profile not in the same way that he would kill the person, from the inside out - not from the skin to the flesh to the core, but from the psychology to the behavior to the evidence. Like "The Novice Killer", "The Fallen Man" was a simple profile. It was accurate, but it was simple as simple could be.
By extension, "The Fallen Angel" was complex. It was the brain and the heart of the case. It came in two versions - the profiler's version and the killer's version. The profiler's version was shallow. The killer's version was deep, rich, vibrant, informative, all the words that described the world at large as they described the world of the profile. Between the two, the difference was that between the shadows on the wall and the people who cast them, the study of the mind and the existence as the mind, the knowledge and experience, indirect and not, of good and evil, right and wrong, life and death.
"No matter," Reid thought to himself. "It doesn't matter how deep the profile is, as long as it helps us catch the UnSub..."
At the thought, he winced and cut himself short. It was not the mention of the UnSub that bothered him. The mention of the UnSub hit close to home, because he was now used to thinking of himself as the UnSub. By now, he was so used to it that the thought no longer bothered him. He wasn't like Garcia. He wasn't going to freak out if one of his colleagues profiled him into a serial killer. He was only going to pretend to freak out, only a little and only within the confines of his profiler persona.
About the thought, what bothered him was the assumption, by his own mind, that he was still one of them. He had thought it himself. He had thought that the depth of the profile didn't matter, as long as it helped "us", including him, catch the UnSub. In his mind, he was still one of them. In reality, he still was, but in fantasy, which was, in this case, truer than reality, he knew that he should not have been.
As his colleagues conversed with each other, Reid replayed the thought in his mind, again and again and again, until he discovered another aspect that bothered him. He had thought that the depth of the profile didn't matter, but the truth was that it did. The depth of the profile mattered, because Reid was a romantic. For himself, he wanted to understand for the sake of understanding. For others, he wanted the same. He wanted them to understand the profile of "The Fallen Angel", all of it in its depth and complexity, but he couldn't fill them in on the parts that they had missed - on each of the crimes within each of the profiles and on each of the steps in the progression of his fall from grace. That was the plan that he should have come up with. That was the plan that he should have carried out. If he had carried out that plan, then at this moment, he would not have been ashamed. Instead, he would have been proud. Carrying out that plan would have taken the ounce of courage that he did not have and had not yet found. He wondered if he would ever find it. He hoped that he would. He tried to imagine a day on which he would find it. Maybe it would be the same as the day on which he found out the answer to the question. He hoped that it would. He tried to imagine the day, now doubly glorious. Try as he might, he could not imagine such a day. He could not imagine it, so he would have to find it. He would have to find the day, and the answer, for himself. In the meantime, he took respite in the knowledge that fallen and graceless as he had now become, he had finally felt something. With his will and against his will, an urge to laugh had vanished to be replaced by an urge to cry. Even for the fallen angel, all was not lost, because, even for him, in pride was there shame and in shame pride.
Master Post