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The last person their victim, Henry Tavern, had talked to was a kid named Spencer Reid according to their victims best friend Landon Orne.
“Dr. Spencer Reid,” Gideon would correct the team when they didn’t use his honorific.
“Gideon, Doctor or not, this kid is a suspect and you know it,” Morgan would say.
They had been investigating a case where bodies would be killed with a bash over the head and a word written over their forehead with big red ink. The bodies would then be found dumped behind the casino they were last seen in.
In Henry’s case, that word was, “Liar.”
Landon had told the team that Henry and the kid had gotten into a fight after a game of poker at the Casino they were gambling at. Tavern had a short fuse and started pushing the other after he lost to him, effectively getting both of them kicked out of the building. Landon reported calming the other down before he could actually fight the guy. Not because he was barking up the wrong tree, but because the other guy was shaking but almost had a look of guilt as the other yelled at him that his drunk friend couldn’t notice.
“That doesn’t seem like the behavior of a killer,” Allison Maender says as they go over what they know.
“Maybe he felt disrespected. Powerless,” Morgan suggests, “Hell, the kid has a fake ID and is gambling illegally. Seems like a great way to feel in control-”
“-Until someone bursts that bubble,” Gideon finishes.
“And once that bubble bursts then he kills the person who made him feel lesser than to gain that power back.”
“He’s probably submissive in his day to day life. The casino is where he feels the most confident but he’d still cower when confronted.”
“The anger comes after. Which is why he uses blunt force to catch his victim off guard.”
It was hard to look at Orne’s regretful face as he explained him leaving before his friend. His rideshare had arrived before his and they were going to separate places. He was more worried of his friend hurting someone than someone hurting his friend.
“This kid’s labeled a genius with an IQ of one hundred eighty seven and he’s insecure?” Jahnavi Pradhan remarked as she walked into the room with some files, overhearing their previous conversation.
“You’d be surprised at the amount of things a person can be insecure about. He sure excels in intelligence but there is always a place to fall short in.” Maender replies to the other, “What’s in the files, Jellybean?”
“I got some files on Spencer Reid along with his parents Diane and William Reid!” Pradhan exclaims pulling them out from under her arms and handing them to the profilers for them to read for themselves, “There’s a lot but a little at the same time. I assumed some missing holes would be found with his parents.”
“He’s written multiple articles and has a well respected name in the educational world but doesn’t have a car in his name,” Maender snickers.
“Well, I guess he is only seventeen. Maybe he uses one under his parents name,”.
Hotch takes a sip from his coffee. It was hot despite the hotter weather, “His mother and father both have different living addresses so they’re most likely divorced. “
“Divorce is definitely a way to feel powerless. Imagine watching your parents' marriage fall apart and not be able to do anything,” Derek looks at Allison to tease at her own divorced parents. He knew if Hotch and Gideon weren’t around she would make a quip at his deceased father, but the ball was in his court now.
“His mother lives right here in Las Vegas, and his father is a town over,” Hotch observes, “It also states that his mother is schizophrenic so she may not be able to effectively help us locate her son.”
“She would probably also react badly to law enforcement randomly showing up at her house for her kid,” Maender adds, flipping the page in her hand, “If anything we’d probably find him at another casino.”
“That seems like the best case. We should have officers out looking for him at casinos in or nearby the comfort zone. However we need to be open to the fact that he may be using a different fake ID with a different name. We got lucky this time around to get a real name.”
It luckily didn’t take long to find him. On the second night of looking there was a ruckus at a casino both Pradhan and Hotch were in. They ran up to the second floor where they heard the crash and there stood an older man holding the one they were looking for by the color of his shirt. A broken vase sat in between them, water that was once stored in it to keep the flowers blooming now treads across the table and is soaked into the cards, two lying face up and three lying face down. The man was shaking and yelling at the other. Claims of counting cards were spewed and definitely didn’t stop when Hotch had ripped his hands off of the other and locked them behind their back. Diya went around to put handcuffs around Reid’s wrists, locking them up before both she and Aaron took them into custody.
They stuck Reid into an interrogation room and had Allison and Derek sit and watch him for thirty minutes to observe his behavior before Derek would step in and interrogate as Allison would observe on the other side of the one way mirror. Despite Derek being the newest addition of the team, Hotchner had decided that he opposed Spencer the most which would make it easier for the other to feel inferior to him. Hotch was more intimidating than Morgan was; however, in contrast to Spencer’s gawky figure, Derek had a muscular body built from days in a gym. Spencer was uptight and awkward while Derek let loose and was confident.
After time they noticed his nervous demeanor turned more anxious, but also impatient. He kept checking the watch on his wrist as if he was waiting for something. His foot tapped onto the ground and every once in a while he would trill his lips making a sound from a high to a low note.
He jumped turning to the man as he barged through the door. His eyes followed the man as he dropped some files onto the table, jumping again at the other sudden sound. He avoids eye contact from the other man. A sign of intimidation. They sit in silence testing if he would ask any questions, but he just sits there before Derek takes it into his own hands.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“Gambling underage with a fake ID. You don’t consider that illegal?”
His eyes meet the ground before he talks, “No, I just didn’t know you were aware of the information. No need to self incriminate myself.”
“Seems like you know your rights, do you need me to repeat them for you?”
“I knew a lawyer. I’ve read all the books from their law school so no I do not need you to repeat them.”
“That’s right, your father is a lawyer, right?”
“You would know more than me about my father.”
“Alright, let me be direct here,” Derek says, reaching for the files before placing one in front of the other, “Do you recognize this man?”
“I do, why?”
“This man was found dead behind the casino you fought at last night,” He places another picture of the crime scene on the table over the other. Spencer’s face twists in distress as he looks at the man, but he stays quiet.
Derek places two more pictures of the other bodies next to the other, “These two men were also murdered in the same way,” again silence, “Nothing to say?”
“What would you like me to say?” the boy asks, genuinely confused.
“I don’t know, kid, you're not the least bit curious on why this man is dead? Not even a little surprised?”
“I don’t particularly want to know the details if I don't have too. Seeing a dead body in itself can be a traumatic experience and I don’t want to subject myself to more than needed due to unnecessary curiosity.”
“Curiosity killed the cat?”
“I suppose you can use that saying but if you use the complete proverb, ‘Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back,’ then it would no longer fit the situation.”
“Where did you go after the fight?”
“W-well, I went and took a bus home. I had the money, obviously, and the altercation would make the rest of the night unbearable from paranoia, so I went home.”
“Home as in your mothers house?”
“Yes. I was on bus 844. We went straight for three streets down and then took a right. We stayed straight ahead for eleven lights before we took a left and then another right at the next bus stop. The bus driver was a thin bald man with gray eyes.”
“You think I’ll believe that you remember all that?”
“I do?” his eyebrows twist and his forehead wrinkles, once again confused, “I was looking ahead the entire ride in order to avoid interaction with anyone else on the bus, so I can recall the entire drive due to my eidetic memory.”
“Eidetic memory?” This time it’s Derek’s turn to be confused.
“It’s more commonly called a photographic memory. The ability to recall an image from your memory with high accuracy after only seeing it briefly. Like a photograph,” Spencer could tell the other didn’t believe him so he rushed to validate his words, “F-for example, in the previous picture you had shown me, all three victims had blunt force trauma to the head. You would expect that to be the cause of death however the wound would at most be enough to kill you if you were left to bleed out but not enough on its own. However, there isn’t enough blood to conclude the victims died by bleeding out, but there is a singular fresh scar on all of the victims inner arms. This is Vegas and one could conclude that they were all addicts but one could also second guess the cause of death.”
Derek takes a moment to look back to all of the pictures, double checking what the genius has pointed out.
“Aren’t you like seventeen?”
“Yes, why?”
“You noticed that?”
“You didn’t?”
“No, boy wonder, we did not make that connection. The report said blunt force trauma and we didn’t think to second guess it. They probably didn’t do a complete autopsy and went with what could be the most obvious,” Derek looked at the other and laughed, “What else can you tell me?”
“Are there only three victims?”
“So far, yeah.”
“Slut, coward, cheater,” he quotes off the heads of the victims, “The position of their bodies almost feel like it’s purposeful because of how similar it is. All of them laid on their stomach with their arms out. It’s like they’re positioned in a cross. Revelation 21:8 ‘But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.’ Did you know that a mixture of crack cocaine and methamphetamine has the street name, ‘fire?’”
“Are you suggesting that these are religious killings?”
“I’m stating my observations.”
“You’re like a mini profiler,” Morgan smiles, “Get a little more confidence and you’d be unstoppable.”
“I have confidence in my words,” Reid says to Morgan insinuating that he didn’t.
“You’re cowering in on yourself, man! Hold your head up, you don’t even meet my eyes.”
“I just don’t like making eye contact. I find it overstimulating at times and the lights are kind of bright but not bright enough to tip me over the edge. It’s normal for autistic people to avoid eye contact.”
“You’re autistic?”
“Technically I’m diagnosed with aspergers, but the differentiation between aspergers and autism was coined by Hans Asperger, a nazi, who had done research on certain types of children. One category was children who had abnormal behavioral patterns but also had ‘superior’ abilities of some kind which made them ‘savable’ or ‘useful.’ However, children who had more obvious needs due to their autism were deemed ‘loss causes.’ So in summary a group of better more socially acceptable forms of autism and another group of less socially acceptable forms of autism. The term asperger's syndrome is seen as a superior diagnosis, so I don't really use it since it’s only use is to differentiate that my needs are less annoying than others.”
“That makes sense. The fact that you can deem children as lost causes is terrible. Basically, you’re confident but some things just make you uncomfortable?”
“Exactly, I don’t like to shake hands which is weird for some people. Apparently I’ve been told it’s ‘rude’ even though I just don’t like to. For one, it’s unsanitary to shake everyone’s hand you meet because the amount of germs that can pass is an abundance, but also sometimes it’s overwhelming and I don’t like it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Please do not tell me the amount of germs because I’m sure you have the exact amount somewhere in that brain of yours and I do not need to be thinking about that all day.”
Derek Morgan continues on with the interrogation, however it’s less of an interrogation and more like interviewing a witness. Even that falls short when the air doesn’t flow tense and sometimes Spencer’s lips twist up into a smile about a quip Morgan made. Spencer rocks back and forth to process how comfortable he feels in this situation. It’s one of the most satisfying stimulatory movements he uses. Morgan checks in to make sure nothings bothering him which was heavily appreciated despite being unneeded.
At some point Morgan has to leave the interrogation room. Maender looks at him with a teasing expression as they both walk out to the team.
“What did you gather?” Aaron asks them as they walk out.
Morgan goes over the interrogation with the team, explaining what the kid had observed the best he could recall.
“Are you sure he’s telling the truth? He could be trying to insert himself into the investigation, it’s profiling 101.”
“I asked Jahnavi for any confirmation on his bus ride. Usually it would take longer but thankfully we had a connection to whoever was driving bus 844 that night and it gives him an alibi,” Alliison interjects.
“The kid didn’t seem too keen on sharing before he felt like I thought he was lying to me.”
“Boy was he a chatterbox after though, there is so much in that brain I could barely keep up behind the glass.”
Aaron contemplates this information for a moment, “Well if what you’re saying is correct we’ll need to redo the autopsy. This could change our profile completely. I’ll request a drug test for the bodies for both cocaine and methamphetamine even if it may be too late for the result of it. Even if it is too late, these are mission based killings. We are bound to get another body soon and we can at least have an accurate report on that.
“Maender, you and I are going to reinterview some of the victims' friends and family to get some backstory on what the words may mean. Cheater is most likely not revolving around a game of poker but instead infidelity. Morgan, try to put together a profile with this new theory. Gideon will join you after he takes the kid home.” Aaron orders before he and Allison leave the room.
“Keep an eye on that kid, Gideon,” Morgan states, “He has the potential to be one hell of a profiler. Have a conversation with him, he has a lot to say.”
Gideon doesn’t answer, but five years later, a twenty two year old Spencer Reid walks into the Bureau on his first day on the team. His eyes don’t meet Derek’s and they don’t shake hands but there’s a fondness in the reunion that they both can detect by being in each other’s vicinity. It’s then that Derek Morgan knows that Gideon was listening.