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grav_ityAN: I usually love Criminal Minds to distraction. But “To Hell...And Back” left me really cold because I felt they had not done Canada justice. And not just because of their abysmal geography. So this story comes from that. And because these characters have moved into my brain and taken over.
The title of the fic is taken from a book by Julian Sher about the case I am using as a model, which was in turn taken from the original sentence “to be hanged by the neck until you are dead”.
Warnings: I don’t typically warn in fics, because I usually write for Stargate. This, however, is Criminal Minds. Criminal Minds is not exactly cotton candy at the best of times, and I’ve tried to make this story as true to the show as possible.
The case I’ve used as a model is the true story of a 14-year-old boy who was convicted of raping and strangling a 13-year-old schoolmate in 1959. Consider yourself “viewer discretion is advised”.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Thank goodness. Can you imagine the therapy bill if I owned these people?
Rating: Teen, like the show.
Summary: The BAU is called to a small town in Ontario to help in the re-investigation of a 50-year-old murder case after three additional bodies are found.
++++++
Prologue
Raglan RAF Base, Ontario, 1959
It was almost too hot.
Sunlight saturated everything, giving the trees and houses an unhealthy brightness and false vitality. The air was thick with the steam of growing plants, peeling paint and sweaty bodies. The tightly packed houses, austerely regimental, offered no chance of a cooling breeze. As the humidity climbed, so too did tempers.
One by one, the children fled the safety of home for the relief of the school yard, or the bridge over the river. They gathered to play, to try to escape from the relentless summer heat, and to avoid the way their mothers wilted around the house while their fathers were at drill or on assignment.
With so many children around, it was like browsing in a very particular sort of grocery store. Rounded arms peeked out of short sleeves, knees winked from under skirts, and saddle-shoed feet seemed to be everywhere. All he needed was he patience to separate one of them from the pack.
So he waited. And, of course, she came.
He pretended a sympathetic ear as she complained about the fight she’d had with her parents over dinner. He watched the way the evening sun glinted across her shoulders and lit up her hair.
And then he got her alone, in the cool shade of the woods, and it didn’t matter if she screamed.
++++++
“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.” – Mark Twain
Sometimes they don’t have enough time in the air. The flight is over before they’re ready, and their boots are on the ground before they’ve had enough time to fully process what they are about to encounter. Those are the good times. The bad times are when the flight stretches out before them in a silence so profoundly full of horror, even chess cannot entirely dispel it.
The flight to Saltrock, Ontario, the only farm town in a sea of agricultural nothingness to boast a landing strip, is short, but the silence enveloped them almost before they reached cruising altitude.
“Why did they call us?” Reid asked, finally breaking the silence. He was not the only one thinking it. They all knew that both the OPP and the RCMP had their own profiling divisions.
“The Stephen DuCette case set the country on fire half a century ago,” Hotch said, his voice level. “Tensions are running pretty high right now, and the people in charge wanted to call in someone independent.”
“It was fifty years ago,” Morgan said. “And he’s been acquitted since then. How can tensions still be running high?”
“It's true enough
That we cannot brag
Of a national anthem
Or a national flag
And though our Vision
Is still in doubt
At last we've something to boast about:
We've a national law
In the name of the Queen
To hang a child
Who is just fourteen.” Rossi quoted. “Small town, Morgan, and one child convicted of killing another. It’s not something these people can forget.”
“It was a watershed case,” Reid added, looking up from the large book he was reading. “Shortly afterwards, the death penalty was abolished and the young offenders act was completely rewritten.”
“Still, Reid, you’ve got to admit, 50 years?” Morgan asked. “There’ve been other high profile murders in Canada since then.”
“In Canada, yes, my intrepid agents,” Garcia but in over the conference link. “But not on the lovely West Coast of Ontario.”
“West Coast of Ontario?” Prentiss asked.
“Lake Huron, according to tourist brochures,” Garcia replied. “But sadly, you are not there to vacation.”
“What did you find, Garcia?” Rossi asked, leaning forward.
“The local papers have exploded, but it’s mostly opinion pieces,” Garcia replied. “The insistence that he’s innocent is almost overwhelming, but there are a few detractors.”
“I’ve arranged for a press conference at the local high school,” JJ said. “Hopefully that will calm people down a little.”
“Do you think they even know what a press conference is?” Morgan muttered to Prentiss. She pretended not to hear him.
Reid set the book down on the table in front of him. On the cover was a smiling boy, leaning on a bicycle, the words “Until You Are Dead” emblazoned above his head. Prentiss’ eyes lingered on the cover. Morgan looked away.
“Never make the mistake of thinking farmers are stupid, Morgan,” Rossi said. “They’ll kick your ass, to start with.”
“The victim’s family refused to cooperate,” Morgan persisted. “Why is no one thinking about them?”
“Should we be thinking of DuCette as a victim as well?” Prentiss said hesitantly, avoiding Morgan’s gaze.
“Let’s hold off on that till we’ve talked to the people on the ground,” Rossi said.
“The case is local mythology now,” Hotch added, catching Prentiss’s gaze. “It needs to be handled carefully. Most of the witnesses were children at the time, and any surviving adult is probably so set in his or her opinion that nothing we say is going to change anyone’s mind.”
Prentiss shifted and broke eye contact.
“Prentiss?” Hotch said, already bracing for a storm.
“The man was acquitted,” she said, her eyes flaring again. “He was tried as an adult as a result of one of the most botched pieces of police-work I’ve ever seen, and sentenced to hang. It doesn’t matter that his sentence was commuted; he was acquitted fifty years too late.”
“And new evidence has come to light,” Rossi said quietly. “It’s messy, we know that, but he’s the one who pushed for our invitation. He doesn’t trust his own country anymore. Can you blame him? He expects us to exonerate him. We do the job and find the truth, whatever that is.”
Prentiss held Rossi’s gaze until the landing announcement was made and they both looked down for their seatbelts.
The descent began.
++++++
Chapter 1
The Saltrock landing strip was paved, but there wasn’t much of an accompanying airport. There was a barn, modified to incorporate the control tower, a makeshift hanger that was just long enough for the jet, and a gravel parking lot. Rossi couldn’t resist snapping a photograph as a tractor towed the jet to its temporary rest place. Morgan gaped at him.
“One for the scrapbook,” Rossi explained, taking a shot of the team’s awed faces for good measure.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure Drew will take plenty of pictures of your plane for his scrapbook,” said the Canadian constable who approached them. “Your plane is a lot shinier than most of what we get around here.”
“Agent Jennifer Jareau,” said JJ, extending a hand. “We spoke on the phone.”
“Special Constable Don Cooke,” he replied, shaking her hand. “I’ve been the primary on his case since the bodies were discovered. The OPP’s been sending in specialists ever since. They all report to me, but I have them report to you instead.”
“Derek Morgan,” Morgan interjected, hand out. “We don’t mess with lines of communication unless we have to. We’re just another team of specialists.”
“Thank you, agent,” Cooke said. “We’ll go directly to Town Hall and you can be briefed on everything at once.”
“Town Hall?” Prentiss asked, one eyebrow arching.
“Raglan no longer has its own police force,” Cooke explained as they approached the waiting cars. “The OPP assigned six full time officers to the region, but base of operations is here in Saltrock. It didn’t make sense to set up here and add twenty minutes to everyone’s drive time.”
“There’s no station in Raglan at all?” Reid asked “Who do people call?”
“The fire, police and ambulance switchboards are all routed through the hospital,” Cooke said. “The police station is a room with a desk and a reinforced closet. We decided to run the task force out of Town Hall.”
The constable got into the driver’s seat one of the cars, missing the look Morgan shot Hotch. The glare Hotch returned was clear and impossible to misinterpret: behave and play nice, they’re doing the best they can.
Morgan sighed, but by the time he was seated in the car, his face was all business.
The Raglan Town Hall was a yellow brick building that seemed oddly close to the street. When Prentiss said as much, Spencer pointed out that it had probably been built before the invention of the car necessitated a roadway wide enough for two lanes plus parking spots. They were shown to a side entrance, which opened off a cobblestone courtyard complete with a bubbling fountain. The whole building felt decidedly sideways as a result.
In a room obviously vacated for just this reason, Constable Cooke gathered the other members of the task force for the briefing. A young officer distributed folders.
“Everyone, these are the FBI agents mentioned in this morning’s bullet.” Cooke waved a hand at the team. “I’ll let you worry about individual introductions later.”
Hotch scanned the room. The uniformed officers were regarding them with professional curiosity and the civilians all looked politely intrigued. At least there was no outright hostility.
“Agents, if you please,” Cooke began. “In 1959 the body of Lynne Bard was discovered in Lawford’s Bush, just outside of what was then the Ragland RAF Base and what is now the town of Anastra. She had been raped and then strangled with her own sweater.”
Rossi flipped to the scene photos. For all that black and white pictures muted some of the details, they made death that much more stark.
“Fourteen-year-old Stephen DuCette was arrested, charged, tried and found guilty of her murder.” Cooke said. “Originally sentenced to hang, he had his sentence commuted to life in prison instead. He was released on parole, and eventually released from that as well. Until four years ago, he lived under an assumed name, but he has since reclaimed his identity.”
Prentiss surveyed the room, noting that she was not the only member of her team to do so. As Cooke so prosaically summarized several decades of alleged legal travesty, she looked for reactions from those assembled. They were mixed. About half shifted uncomfortably, while the faces of the others hardened into an expression Prentiss recognized as a defense against perceived injustice.
“Three days ago, Evan Lawford was trying to burn out a stump in his woodlot when he discovered human remains. Archaeologists, called in to consult with the OPP, uncovered three bodies. All three were prepubescent, ruling out a scientific means of establishing their sex, but the associated remains indicate that they are female.”
Reid studied the map of the bush that showed the location of the mass interment compared to where Lynne Bard’s body had been found.
“Which of you are the archaeologists?” Rossi asked the room at large.
“They’re still at the scene,” an officer replied.
“Morgan and Prentiss, you should get there as soon as possible,” Hotch said.
“Officer Broadfoot will take you,” Cooke said. “What about the rest of you?”
“We’re here partially at the request of Stephen DuCette,” Reid said. “We’ll be interviewing him.”
“He lives almost two hours away,” Cooke warned.
“Nevertheless,” Hotch said.
“I’ll take you myself.”
“Reid, I want you to stay here,” Hotch said. Reid looked surprised. “There’s a lot of information in this room, and you’re the best equipped to process it quickly.”
Reid nodded and turned his attention to the whiteboard and notes that were plastered on almost every space on the walls.
“JJ?” Rossi said, as he room cleared.
“I have that press conference to set up,” she reminded him. “And then I’ll be here keeping you all on the same page and making sure we don’t get run out of town.”
“Very good,” Rossi said. “Call Garcia and get her started on whatever it is she does to get into the official servers of foreign governments.”
JJ smiled. “She’s probably already started.”
With a final nod, Rossi followed Hotch and Cooke back to the car. He hadn’t shifted fully into interrogation mode, so he couldn’t block out the unobjective thoughts that circled around in his head. He really hoped this one was innocent.
++++++
AN: The poem Rossi recites is called “Requiem for a 14-Year-Old” and was written by Pierre Berton.
Bonus fun fact for the day: “interment” is a burial, “internment” is a confinement. It’s one of those words you only need to know in certain professions, but I didn’t want any of you thinking that it had slipped past me (or my beta!) in the spell check.
Chapter 2
The title of the fic is taken from a book by Julian Sher about the case I am using as a model, which was in turn taken from the original sentence “to be hanged by the neck until you are dead”.
Warnings: I don’t typically warn in fics, because I usually write for Stargate. This, however, is Criminal Minds. Criminal Minds is not exactly cotton candy at the best of times, and I’ve tried to make this story as true to the show as possible.
The case I’ve used as a model is the true story of a 14-year-old boy who was convicted of raping and strangling a 13-year-old schoolmate in 1959. Consider yourself “viewer discretion is advised”.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Thank goodness. Can you imagine the therapy bill if I owned these people?
Rating: Teen, like the show.
Summary: The BAU is called to a small town in Ontario to help in the re-investigation of a 50-year-old murder case after three additional bodies are found.
++++++
Prologue
Raglan RAF Base, Ontario, 1959
It was almost too hot.
Sunlight saturated everything, giving the trees and houses an unhealthy brightness and false vitality. The air was thick with the steam of growing plants, peeling paint and sweaty bodies. The tightly packed houses, austerely regimental, offered no chance of a cooling breeze. As the humidity climbed, so too did tempers.
One by one, the children fled the safety of home for the relief of the school yard, or the bridge over the river. They gathered to play, to try to escape from the relentless summer heat, and to avoid the way their mothers wilted around the house while their fathers were at drill or on assignment.
With so many children around, it was like browsing in a very particular sort of grocery store. Rounded arms peeked out of short sleeves, knees winked from under skirts, and saddle-shoed feet seemed to be everywhere. All he needed was he patience to separate one of them from the pack.
So he waited. And, of course, she came.
He pretended a sympathetic ear as she complained about the fight she’d had with her parents over dinner. He watched the way the evening sun glinted across her shoulders and lit up her hair.
And then he got her alone, in the cool shade of the woods, and it didn’t matter if she screamed.
++++++
“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.” – Mark Twain
Sometimes they don’t have enough time in the air. The flight is over before they’re ready, and their boots are on the ground before they’ve had enough time to fully process what they are about to encounter. Those are the good times. The bad times are when the flight stretches out before them in a silence so profoundly full of horror, even chess cannot entirely dispel it.
The flight to Saltrock, Ontario, the only farm town in a sea of agricultural nothingness to boast a landing strip, is short, but the silence enveloped them almost before they reached cruising altitude.
“Why did they call us?” Reid asked, finally breaking the silence. He was not the only one thinking it. They all knew that both the OPP and the RCMP had their own profiling divisions.
“The Stephen DuCette case set the country on fire half a century ago,” Hotch said, his voice level. “Tensions are running pretty high right now, and the people in charge wanted to call in someone independent.”
“It was fifty years ago,” Morgan said. “And he’s been acquitted since then. How can tensions still be running high?”
“It's true enough
That we cannot brag
Of a national anthem
Or a national flag
And though our Vision
Is still in doubt
At last we've something to boast about:
We've a national law
In the name of the Queen
To hang a child
Who is just fourteen.” Rossi quoted. “Small town, Morgan, and one child convicted of killing another. It’s not something these people can forget.”
“It was a watershed case,” Reid added, looking up from the large book he was reading. “Shortly afterwards, the death penalty was abolished and the young offenders act was completely rewritten.”
“Still, Reid, you’ve got to admit, 50 years?” Morgan asked. “There’ve been other high profile murders in Canada since then.”
“In Canada, yes, my intrepid agents,” Garcia but in over the conference link. “But not on the lovely West Coast of Ontario.”
“West Coast of Ontario?” Prentiss asked.
“Lake Huron, according to tourist brochures,” Garcia replied. “But sadly, you are not there to vacation.”
“What did you find, Garcia?” Rossi asked, leaning forward.
“The local papers have exploded, but it’s mostly opinion pieces,” Garcia replied. “The insistence that he’s innocent is almost overwhelming, but there are a few detractors.”
“I’ve arranged for a press conference at the local high school,” JJ said. “Hopefully that will calm people down a little.”
“Do you think they even know what a press conference is?” Morgan muttered to Prentiss. She pretended not to hear him.
Reid set the book down on the table in front of him. On the cover was a smiling boy, leaning on a bicycle, the words “Until You Are Dead” emblazoned above his head. Prentiss’ eyes lingered on the cover. Morgan looked away.
“Never make the mistake of thinking farmers are stupid, Morgan,” Rossi said. “They’ll kick your ass, to start with.”
“The victim’s family refused to cooperate,” Morgan persisted. “Why is no one thinking about them?”
“Should we be thinking of DuCette as a victim as well?” Prentiss said hesitantly, avoiding Morgan’s gaze.
“Let’s hold off on that till we’ve talked to the people on the ground,” Rossi said.
“The case is local mythology now,” Hotch added, catching Prentiss’s gaze. “It needs to be handled carefully. Most of the witnesses were children at the time, and any surviving adult is probably so set in his or her opinion that nothing we say is going to change anyone’s mind.”
Prentiss shifted and broke eye contact.
“Prentiss?” Hotch said, already bracing for a storm.
“The man was acquitted,” she said, her eyes flaring again. “He was tried as an adult as a result of one of the most botched pieces of police-work I’ve ever seen, and sentenced to hang. It doesn’t matter that his sentence was commuted; he was acquitted fifty years too late.”
“And new evidence has come to light,” Rossi said quietly. “It’s messy, we know that, but he’s the one who pushed for our invitation. He doesn’t trust his own country anymore. Can you blame him? He expects us to exonerate him. We do the job and find the truth, whatever that is.”
Prentiss held Rossi’s gaze until the landing announcement was made and they both looked down for their seatbelts.
The descent began.
++++++
Chapter 1
The Saltrock landing strip was paved, but there wasn’t much of an accompanying airport. There was a barn, modified to incorporate the control tower, a makeshift hanger that was just long enough for the jet, and a gravel parking lot. Rossi couldn’t resist snapping a photograph as a tractor towed the jet to its temporary rest place. Morgan gaped at him.
“One for the scrapbook,” Rossi explained, taking a shot of the team’s awed faces for good measure.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure Drew will take plenty of pictures of your plane for his scrapbook,” said the Canadian constable who approached them. “Your plane is a lot shinier than most of what we get around here.”
“Agent Jennifer Jareau,” said JJ, extending a hand. “We spoke on the phone.”
“Special Constable Don Cooke,” he replied, shaking her hand. “I’ve been the primary on his case since the bodies were discovered. The OPP’s been sending in specialists ever since. They all report to me, but I have them report to you instead.”
“Derek Morgan,” Morgan interjected, hand out. “We don’t mess with lines of communication unless we have to. We’re just another team of specialists.”
“Thank you, agent,” Cooke said. “We’ll go directly to Town Hall and you can be briefed on everything at once.”
“Town Hall?” Prentiss asked, one eyebrow arching.
“Raglan no longer has its own police force,” Cooke explained as they approached the waiting cars. “The OPP assigned six full time officers to the region, but base of operations is here in Saltrock. It didn’t make sense to set up here and add twenty minutes to everyone’s drive time.”
“There’s no station in Raglan at all?” Reid asked “Who do people call?”
“The fire, police and ambulance switchboards are all routed through the hospital,” Cooke said. “The police station is a room with a desk and a reinforced closet. We decided to run the task force out of Town Hall.”
The constable got into the driver’s seat one of the cars, missing the look Morgan shot Hotch. The glare Hotch returned was clear and impossible to misinterpret: behave and play nice, they’re doing the best they can.
Morgan sighed, but by the time he was seated in the car, his face was all business.
The Raglan Town Hall was a yellow brick building that seemed oddly close to the street. When Prentiss said as much, Spencer pointed out that it had probably been built before the invention of the car necessitated a roadway wide enough for two lanes plus parking spots. They were shown to a side entrance, which opened off a cobblestone courtyard complete with a bubbling fountain. The whole building felt decidedly sideways as a result.
In a room obviously vacated for just this reason, Constable Cooke gathered the other members of the task force for the briefing. A young officer distributed folders.
“Everyone, these are the FBI agents mentioned in this morning’s bullet.” Cooke waved a hand at the team. “I’ll let you worry about individual introductions later.”
Hotch scanned the room. The uniformed officers were regarding them with professional curiosity and the civilians all looked politely intrigued. At least there was no outright hostility.
“Agents, if you please,” Cooke began. “In 1959 the body of Lynne Bard was discovered in Lawford’s Bush, just outside of what was then the Ragland RAF Base and what is now the town of Anastra. She had been raped and then strangled with her own sweater.”
Rossi flipped to the scene photos. For all that black and white pictures muted some of the details, they made death that much more stark.
“Fourteen-year-old Stephen DuCette was arrested, charged, tried and found guilty of her murder.” Cooke said. “Originally sentenced to hang, he had his sentence commuted to life in prison instead. He was released on parole, and eventually released from that as well. Until four years ago, he lived under an assumed name, but he has since reclaimed his identity.”
Prentiss surveyed the room, noting that she was not the only member of her team to do so. As Cooke so prosaically summarized several decades of alleged legal travesty, she looked for reactions from those assembled. They were mixed. About half shifted uncomfortably, while the faces of the others hardened into an expression Prentiss recognized as a defense against perceived injustice.
“Three days ago, Evan Lawford was trying to burn out a stump in his woodlot when he discovered human remains. Archaeologists, called in to consult with the OPP, uncovered three bodies. All three were prepubescent, ruling out a scientific means of establishing their sex, but the associated remains indicate that they are female.”
Reid studied the map of the bush that showed the location of the mass interment compared to where Lynne Bard’s body had been found.
“Which of you are the archaeologists?” Rossi asked the room at large.
“They’re still at the scene,” an officer replied.
“Morgan and Prentiss, you should get there as soon as possible,” Hotch said.
“Officer Broadfoot will take you,” Cooke said. “What about the rest of you?”
“We’re here partially at the request of Stephen DuCette,” Reid said. “We’ll be interviewing him.”
“He lives almost two hours away,” Cooke warned.
“Nevertheless,” Hotch said.
“I’ll take you myself.”
“Reid, I want you to stay here,” Hotch said. Reid looked surprised. “There’s a lot of information in this room, and you’re the best equipped to process it quickly.”
Reid nodded and turned his attention to the whiteboard and notes that were plastered on almost every space on the walls.
“JJ?” Rossi said, as he room cleared.
“I have that press conference to set up,” she reminded him. “And then I’ll be here keeping you all on the same page and making sure we don’t get run out of town.”
“Very good,” Rossi said. “Call Garcia and get her started on whatever it is she does to get into the official servers of foreign governments.”
JJ smiled. “She’s probably already started.”
With a final nod, Rossi followed Hotch and Cooke back to the car. He hadn’t shifted fully into interrogation mode, so he couldn’t block out the unobjective thoughts that circled around in his head. He really hoped this one was innocent.
++++++
AN: The poem Rossi recites is called “Requiem for a 14-Year-Old” and was written by Pierre Berton.
Bonus fun fact for the day: “interment” is a burial, “internment” is a confinement. It’s one of those words you only need to know in certain professions, but I didn’t want any of you thinking that it had slipped past me (or my beta!) in the spell check.
Chapter 2
