S6: Chapter 08: Crossword

A cupcake and balloon was waiting on Dustin when he got in the next morning and everyone congratulated him on his recent nuptial news. “I didn’t get balloons on my birthday, geez. A guy’s gotta propose before he receives the royal treatment around here?”

“Oh this again?” Victor rolled his eyes as Dustin went into his ‘no cake, no banner’ rant about his birthday once more. He refused to let it go even though it happened over three years ago and he had the day off.

“Our sincerest condolences, Dusty,” Brett smiled and shook his hand.

“Hey!” Yvette yelled and immediately punched his arm. “Condolences?”

“What? My Dad said it to me when I told him about our engagement.”

“Oh is that right? Well then I’ll have some colorful words for Daddy dearest next time I see him!”

The team gathered in the unit room, everyone working on various tasks to further the investigation of the Romeo Slasher. Victor had just come up from the crime lab while Yvette finished working over a list of names she had been researching in conjunction with Dustin. Ryan was busy plotting more evidence on the timeline on the bulletin and Brett was emailing the overall progress of the investigation to Scott with the D.A. and Mayor copied.

“The paper the note was written on had indents in the bindings. In other words it wasn’t the first page of the pad he used. The lab ran it through the Electrostatic Detection Device and was able to make out three words: news, college, daily.” Dustin started and turned the page so the team could get a better view of it. “Using our digital imagery software I was able to enhance it a little more and a full sentence emerged: ‘Trinity Daily newspaper editor in college’. Pulling up the paper, I found that their logo was a navigational star which may be what the note was referencing.”

Yvette pulled a page out of the notebook in her hand and moved it towards the group. “Looking back to 2000-2006, I’ve collected the names of the school newspaper editors during that time and came up with the six editors and assistant editors of the paper, seven of them were female. Of that seven, six of them are still residents within the city. The seventh, Veronica Barton now resides in Pomona, California. I’ve alerted local authorities in her area but I don’t think she’s in much danger.”

Brett, Ryan and Victor looked over the names of the other six women Dustin and Yvette had uncovered and Brett sighed as he decided how best to handle the list. “Alright we won’t be able to watch each of these women ourselves so I’ll call the Lieutenant and see if we can position a surveillance detail on all of them. In the meantime we need to figure out which of these women may have a connection with our killer. What did you get back on the print, Murph?”

“I had the lab run DNA on the blood itself and found it was from our last victim Toni Laird. It had already coagulated so the tech remarked it was placed on the note before Toni found her way to the subway station. Now here’s where things get weird, the thumbprint wasn’t hers. After four hours of running it through IAFIS it got a hit. The print belonged to a cold case of a missing collegian from 2002, Shannon Gentry. On the morning of Saturday, August 10^th, Shannon was last seen running through the park on her daily jog near the edge of campus. A witness says a man in a dark blue Honda Civic pulled alongside her but the tint was too dim to make out any of his features. After a brief conversation Shannon willingly got into the man’s car and he drove off.” 

“Three months later, the nude, headless torso of a woman was found floating in the bay behind the college. DNA was extracted and compared with that of Shannon’s mother for a confirmed match. Her head, arms and legs were never recovered. It should also be noted she attended Trinity,” Victor finished.

“Alright so that is confirmed as the Slasher’s second known hunting grounds. Dustin, run a check on every student who graduated from Bloomingdale AND attended Trinity,” Brett ordered as he stood more erect to look over the faces of the team. “We’re also going to need the current addresses and vocations for each of the women from Yve’s list.”

“Wait so if this guy was killing even back then what made him stop? I mean we didn’t begin to see his signature until just recently so why the break?” Ryan asked as he thought over the information presented.

“Well breaks in serial killings usually indicate the person was either dead or arrested. Since we know he’s still out there murdering women we can assume it’s the latter. We should also check the Bloomingdale graduates for criminal records and see who may have been incarcerated between the years of 2002-2013,” Yvette suggested.

“Plus the way Shannon’s body was found it was not noted that he even had a signature back then. She may very well have been his very first kill and he hadn’t thought out the whole ‘X’ on the chest, rose on the corpse thing,” Victor added. “The two killings would not have appeared connected.”

“Right. But he’s shown his hand now. The only way he would have been able to leave Shannon Gentry’s thumbprint on that note is if he was responsible for her disappearance and murder. And now we have to figure out who his next victim is before she too ends up like the others. Vic you contact Boston P.D. to inform them about the cold case connection?”

“On it now,” he responded removing his cell phone from his back pocket as he took a step out of the room. “Maybe they have a suspect’s list they could share.”

“Yvie?” Scott knocked as he entered the room. She stood and moved towards him curiously watching the concerned look on his face. “Are you busy for lunch? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Sure Dad, is everything ok?”

“It’s nothing to be concerned about really, just something I think we need to discuss.” Handing the files she had to her husband, he gave her a quiet peck goodbye and watched as the two exited the room.

“What was that all about?” Dustin asked and slumped back behind his desk.

“I don’t want to take a guess. Let’s keep working this case,” Brett insisted and took a seat on the couch.

Scott drove an hour away to Hagerstown, a small city in Maryland, and came to rest at a diner a few blocks from the waterfront. The district housed many Bavarian natives and had a nice German atmosphere for the most part. It was also one of the best places to get decent Weißwurst and the purest beer. Mostly a tourist trap because of the beer gardens and annual folk festivals, little Bavaria was a gorgeous and often eventful place to visit.

“How’s Vivica?”

“She’s doing well. She’s been doing a lot of business for her company recently and is hoping for a promotion, one that will allow her to travel more often.”

“And how are you handling that?” Yvette smiled as she saw a slight blush appear on her father’s face.

“It’s going to take some getting used to as I’ve enjoyed finding her waiting for me when I get home. She makes me feel young again,” Scott declared proudly with a swollen chest and full fledged smile on his face. Yvette stepped back a foot and looked at the cheesy expression on her father’s face. It had been a while since she’d seen him so happy and even longer to know it came from a place of true love. She couldn't help but return the look as his arm wrapped around her shoulder and hug him back. “It’s like a natural high.”

“Dad?” Yvette paused and looked up in his eyes as she pulled away slightly from his grip. “You’re not referring to what I think you are, are you?”

Scott’s mouth opened in a boisterous laugh and Yvette freed herself completely of his embrace. “Of course I am Sweetheart. But it’s not as if I’m going to give you a new brother or sister at any rate. My Vivica is well past that point so there’s no chance of that happening; barring a miracle.”

“Come on Dad? Really? Don’t you think having to hear that from Brett’s parents was enough to scar me for life? I’m glad you’re happy but can’t you be happy in a quieter, less expressive way?” Scott laughed again at Yvette’s request and took her hand.

“Come on let’s grab a table inside.”

Pulling out the chair for his daughter, he waited for her to take a seat and beckoned for a server standing beside the kitchen door. “Good afternoon, welcome to Schmankerl Stube, can I start you off with drinks or an appetizer?”

The young man smiled as he placed a plate of Kaese Brot in front of them and pulled a small notepad out of his pocket to take down their order. “We’ll have the Aufschnitt please,” Scott responded without waiting on Yvette to look over the menu.

“Excellent choice, and to drink?”

“Uh we’re still on the clock so better just make it a pitcher of lemonade.”

“I’ll go put these orders in for you and your drinks will be out shortly.”

“Dad?” Yvette started as the waiter excused himself from the table. “We could have gotten a sandwich anywhere. Was there a particular reason you drove 60 miles to come here and order cold cuts and lemonade?”

“I really like the atmosphere here.”

“Dad!”

Scott blew out a breath and did his best to smile but he knew she wasn’t buying it. Leaning forward he took her hand in his and sighed mournfully. “Yvette, I haven’t been completely honest with you about your father. And before you say anything please just hear me out.”

“Your drinks,” Tim smiled again as he interrupted Scott to place a pitcher on the table beside their individual glasses. “Your meal will be out shortly.”

“Thank you,” he nodded at the server and Yvette took the opportunity to retrieve her hand from the table under Scott’s regretful observation. “Over the years Yvie I’ve asked that you trust me and the decisions I make on your behalf and that you listen to my opinion and take my judgment into consideration. Truthfully I never deserved any of that. So much of our relationship has been based on the comfort you took in me after your mother passed. A lot of that was because you believed your father betrayed you and abandoned you as a child when in reality he never left your side.”

Yvette inhaled visibly and Scott cleared his throat as he continued. “Katrina and I both agreed that once you were old enough we would tell you about him and his reasons for disappearing but all that changed for me when she died. Your mother and I knew each other long before she came to Virginia with you. We had worked together on several cases and I had convinced her once Ethan left to move closer to HQ and reassign. She agreed because I’d promised to use every resource I had to help her find him and get the answers she was looking for. It didn’t take long to track him down. At the time he was living in a cottage in the south of France working one of his first missions for the Company.”

“Katrina got the bright idea to go after him and confront him about what was going on. I helped her get into the country below the radar so the Feds didn’t accuse her of going rogue or working as a double agent. She spoke to Ethan about his mission and what he was doing with the Company and learned some heavy details about some government conspiracy and became convinced that he was working to bring the Company down from the inside. She realized he left because there were threats on his life and he didn’t want that to come down on the two of you.” The waiter dropped in, placing a tray of fresh cut meats, bread and vegetables in front of the two and was prepared to ask if they needed anything else until he saw the look on Yvette’s face. He quickly excused himself again and Scott continued.

“When she returned home, she begged me to help him; to use my position with the Bureau and gain access to some of the vital information that housed these ‘secrets’ proving Ethan’s insane theory. I did but only because I loved her dearly and didn’t want to see her take another route that would have gotten her hurt. I immediately went to work on tracking down information about the Company and what I uncovered made me realize what we were dealing with went far beyond an international arms smuggling scandal. It was something that could bring the very country to its knees. I knew at that point how dangerous it was and I begged Katrina to let me take the mission. I told her she needed to take a back seat because of her relationship to Ethan; people would be looking to exact revenge on him through her. What I didn’t realize was that she had already started an investigation of her own which led to her assignment on Black Veil and her assassination. She was always so damn stubborn. It should have been me.”

“Ethan came back for the funeral. He stayed a few weeks in a hotel and called me up the night he got in asking to see you. I told him to stay the hell away from you. He’d already taken Katrina; I wasn’t going to let him have you as well. But he kept calling. The calls wouldn’t stop until I threatened to have him arrested for terrorism and thrown behind bars for the rest of his natural life. I was just so damn mad at him for bringing this shit to our front door and causing Katrina’s death I just didn’t want him around you ever again. It was then he made me promise to keep you safe; keep you out of the life. And try as I might you still became an agent; convinced you could hunt down those responsible for your mother’s death and get justice.”

“Yvette the reason I am telling you this is because recent events have shown me how big of a fool I’ve been. I kept you from your real father, I’ve lied to you about the facts concerning your mother’s death and I did it all convinced that it was for the best. And all the while I watched you nearly self-destruct.” Tears began streaming down his face as he looked at the confused and hurt expression on the woman he raised sitting across from him. “No amount of apologies could ever be said to make up for what I’ve done. But I want you to know the reason I did it was to try and keep you away from the mess that put your mother in an early grave. Ethan was right. And I fear keeping you from the truth for so long may have caused more harm than good. I am sorry Yvette. And I love you very much.”

A single tear rolled down Yvette’s cheek and she slowly stood from the table and made her way outside. Without looking back she flagged down a taxi on the street and climbed into the backseat. Scott made it out of the restaurant in time to watch her pull off from the parking lot heading to destinations unknown. Rushing through the door to the unit room, Scott quickly looked around and didn’t find Yvette anywhere in sight. With a sigh he motioned for Brett who joined him beside the door. “Have you heard from Yvie?”

“No, was I supposed to?”

“She hasn’t come back yet?”

“Scott the last time I saw Yvette she was heading out to lunch with you. Are you telling me you came back here without my wife?”

“We had a conversation about Ethan and Katrina that upset her and she left; took off without me. I’ve called several times but it goes straight to voicemail. I was hoping she’d made it back here or at the very least called you.”

“Yvette was out with you Scott, she would have only called if she felt she were in danger because she knows I wouldn’t worry otherwise. What exactly did you say to her?” he demanded, growing more and more frustrated at the thought of his wife alone and upset.

“I don’t think we really have the time to get into that right now. My immediate concern is finding my daughter and making sure she’s alright.”

“No, it sounds like you’ve already done enough. I’ll find her.” Brett growled and stormed off down the stairs heading towards his truck. 

Whatever conversation went on between his wife and father-in-law must have been severe if it caused Yvette to up and run away from him. Those two had one of the best father-daughter relationships he’d ever seen and he could only imagine what she must be going through right now if she didn’t even want to be around him. Brett pulled away from the federal building driving hurriedly towards one of the places he knew Yvette frequented when she wanted alone time, hoping he’d find her soon. Peach colored clouds loomed overhead as the setting sun lowered more and more in the sky as he headed towards the beach. It was going to be a long night.

“Have a good night Lee.”

“You too, see you in the morning Rick.” Leona smiled and exited the backdoor of the building heading towards her car. The wind blew eerily around her and she took a look back over her shoulder when the door took a moment to slam shut. “Hello?” she asked stopping in her tracks and brushing her hair back as she looked around her. With her key ready to unlock the driver’s door, Leona started again for the last car in the lot, moving quicker this time as an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.

It was a chilly night but she knew the cause of the hairs to stand on the back of her neck was not due to the weather. The smell of cheap beer and tobacco lingered as a puff of cigarette smoke drifted towards her causing her to fumble with the key in her hand as she tried desperately to unlock her door. Just as the lock lifted and her hand reached for the handle, a deep voice rumbled behind her.

“Hello Leona, remember me?” Her scream rattled in the air and quickly the man reached forward with a right hook, knocking her unconscious. With a sinister smirk, he leaned forward and scooped the woman into his arms before rushing towards his hidden truck and disappearing into the night.

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