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grav_ityChapter 1
Chapter 2
“So I’ve been looking for girls who went missing in the area before 1959 and were never found,” Garcia’s voice sounded from the phone Rossi balanced in his hands.
“Didn’t the police already do that?” Rossi asked.
“Probably,” Garcia allowed. “But all those towns had their own police forces back then, and there was no centralized database. I’m looking outside the area covered by word of mouth, to see if I can connect the dots by myself.”
“How will you know if they connect?” Hotch asked.
“Do you have any idea of the population density where you are right now?” Garcia demanded. Rossi heard Reid clear his throat over the phone. “Reid, don’t answer that. These people drive a lot. The closest mall is forty-five minutes away, and the closest movie theatre is thirty minutes in the opposite direction.”
“So you’re thinking our unsub might have cast a wide net?” Rossi asked.
“You are right on the money, Secret Agent Man,” Garcia said. Rossi saw Cooke’s eyebrows rise in the rearview mirror.
“Garcia, don’t search further back than 1956,” Hotch said.
“Why not?” Cooke asked.
“Stephen DuCette is still our prime suspect. He would have been eleven in 1956,” Reid explained, a brief burst of static obscuring his voice over the phone. “Sexual sadism doesn’t fully emerge until puberty, so his is as far back as DuCette would have been killing. This would help us rule him out.”
“Okay, I’ve got it,” Garcia said. “Eight girls were reported missing and never found in the years between 1956 and 1959.”
“Only eight?” Hotch said said.
“From an area with this demographic at that point in history, that number is not unusual,” Reid said.
“Those were better times,” Rossi said nostalgically.
“Not always for police procedure,” Cooke added.
“Garcia, how many of those girls went missing on or near RAF bases?” Hotch asked.
“DuCette’s father wasn’t transferred until after the trial,” Cooke pointed out.
“No, but travel between bases was common,” Hotch explained.
“Only three,” Garcia said. “And before you ask, all went missing at times when officers from Raglan would have been on leave.”
“Great work, Garcia,” Hotch said. “Call Prentiss and Morgan and fill them in.”
“You got it, boss,” Garcia said. “Mistress of Knowledge out.”
There were a few moments of silence in the car as the men inside digested the information. Farmland slid by the windows, fields so green it was hard to imagine death at all.
“How does she get that kind of information?” Cooke asked finally.
“I don’t ask.”
++++++
Prentiss knew Morgan well enough to know that it would be better for everyone if she got him to vent in the car on the way to the scene. She let him take the front seat and sat behind Officer Broadfoot so he could turn around and yell at her. She waited until they reached the highway and then began.
“What is it, Morgan?” she said bluntly.
“Oh, come on. Are you telling me you didn’t notice?” Morgan obliged her. “Not a person in that room believes DuCette is guilty. It’s the most unobjective operation I’ve ever seen.”
Officer Broadfoot didn’t so much as flinch as Morgan questioned the abilities of the entire task force. Prentiss decided she liked him.
“I’m not going to lie, Agent Morgan,” Broadfoot said. “All of us hope like hell we come out of this by proving him innocent. I’ve lived here my entire life, and so have a lot of the people I work with. Not a few of us became cops because of this case. But we’ll do our jobs.”
“I think Agent Morgan is more concerned about what will happen to us if we do our jobs and find him guilty,” Prentiss said.
“We’re professionals,” Broadfoot said. “We’re just hoping for the best.”
Morgan looked at him, taking his measure.
“This case is already legend, Agent,” Broadfoot said, pulling off the deserted two-lane highway on to an even quieter paved, but not painted, road. “Now we’re part of it. And so help us, we want to be the heroes.”
“Fair enough,” Morgan said.
The car crossed a bridge and then Officer Broadfoot stopped.
“We’re here?” Prentiss asked in a confused tone. There was no other police presence here, and there was no bush.
“No,” said Broadfoot, undoing his seatbelt. “Get out, though. There’s something you need to see.”
Morgan and Prentiss exchanged a glance. Prentiss decided that the two of them could probably take the Canadian officer if he tried anything, and undid her seatbelt. Morgan rolled his eyes, but followed suit.
Officer Broadfoot led them to the centre of the bridge and pointed back towards the highway.
“At his trial, Stephen DuCette testified that he looked back from this bridge and saw Lynne Bard get into a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air. The model was unique because of the tail lights, but the Crown said he was too far away to identify it, and was just describing a car he’d seen previously.” Prentiss found herself squinting at the empty road as Officer Broadfoot spoke. She felt Morgan standing beside her, mimicking her stance, and realized he had finally engaged. “The question you need to ask yourself, agents, is whether you think he really did see that car.”
Broadfoot walked back to the car, leaving Morgan and Prentiss standing thoughtfully in the middle of the road. Prentiss knew the moment had come.
“What is it really?” she asked quietly.
“I was innocent. A victim. Just like they all think DuCette is. I stayed away from Chicago as much as was humanly possible,” Morgan said, old pain in his eyes. “But when justice was finally served, it nearly ruined my entire neighbourhood.”
“We can’t do this job if we think about the outcome,” Prentiss said automatically. “Besides, everyone who was here then is gone. There is no community left to ruin.”
“You saw them,” Morgan said. “Officer Broadfoot wasn’t even born when the murder took place, and it’s why he became a cop!”
“We do the job,” Prentiss said.
“I know,” Morgan replied. He looked back towards the highway. “What do you think?”
“I think he saw the car.” She didn’t hesitate.
Morgan did not reply, which meant he was starting to agree with her.
++++++
The scene was taped off at the road. There was one squad car, a port-o-potty and an OPP trailer. Morgan and Prentiss waited inside the trailer while Officer Broadfoot and his colleague talked outside. After a few moments, the forensic archaeologist arrived. She was younger than Morgan expected, and she was completely covered in mud.
“Dr. Knight?” Prentiss asked.
“No, he’s at the autopsies. I’m part of his team,” she replied. “My name is Meren. I’m going to lead you in.”
Both agents looked at her with questioning expressions on their faces.
“It’s the same as any other scene, agents,” Meren said. “One way in, one way out. The officers who recovered the initial remains did enough damage.”
“What do you mean by ‘initial remains’?” asked Morgan, refusing to take the bait.
“The bodies were buried for more than fifty years,’ Meren explained. “Putting something in the ground doesn’t make it stationary, especially not in a wooded area. Tree roots grow deep and animals are very good at digging things up.”
“How badly were the bodies disturbed?” Prentiss asked.
“The bottom two skeletons were barely disturbed at all, but we’ll still probably never recover and isolate the small bones,” she said. “The uppermost skeleton was only fifty percent recovered. That’s why we’re clearing the brush.”
Meren gestured at the forest floor, and Prentiss noticed that all of the low-growing plants and plant refuse had been removed.
“Thorough,” Morgan said laconically.
“After the OPP recovered Christine Jessop’s body, they took her family to the bush to see where she’d been found,” Meren said. “Her mother found her left femur, a large piece of her skull and the skirt she’d been wearing when she disappeared.”
“God!” said Prentiss.
“That’s how Dr. Knight started consulting with the OPP,” Meren went on. “He teaches training classes, but – ”
“Sometimes you need the specialists.” Morgan finished. “That’s why we’re here too.”
Meren smiled, and they reached the gravesite.
The hole was about a metre and a half deep, and just over a metre long. This meant it had not been dug by a person in a hurry, and that it required a shovel at the very least. There were coloured flags pushed into the dirt at what Morgan first thought were random intervals. When he looked closely, however, he realized that each flag indicated a minute change in soil colour or texture. At the top of the hole were the charred remains of the stump Evan Lawford had been burning when he’d made his gruesome discovery.
“The red flags delineate the upper burial; the orange, the middle; and the yellow, the bottom,” Meren said. “That tree root grew through the pelvis of the most recent burial and the ribcage of the others.”
“What does that mean?” Prentiss asked.
“It means we know the bodies have been in the ground longer than the tree has been alive,” Meren explained. “The tree was cut down four years ago, and it was less than fifty years old at the time. That means the bodies were in the ground by 1959 at the latest.”
Prentiss took a moment to catch up on the math.
“Also, we found four coins in the second victim’s associated remains, and the most recent date is 1957,” Meren added. “The Canadian mint cycled out most of those coins for the silver after World War Two. It would be statistically unlikely to find this sort of concentration randomly together any later than 1960.”
It was a mark of their long association with Reid that neither agent was phased by the specificity of her information.
“Where was Lynne Bard’s body found?” Morgan asked.
“Two hundred metres that way,” Meren pointed back towards the road.
“This spot is almost entirely secure,” Morgan said to Prentiss. “The unsub could have stayed here as long as he wanted to.”
“Lynne Bard’s recovery site is relatively exposed,” Prentiss agreed. “Something is different about her murder.”
“He didn’t plan it, and he was in a hurry,” Meren said. Both agents looked sharply at her. She shrugged. “It’s easier to train an archaeologist to be a police officer than the other way around.”
“Thank you very much, Meren,” Prentiss said. She was already going for her phone.
“We’ll show ourselves out,” Morgan said.
“You’re welcome,” Meren called after them as they headed back to the car.
When Prentiss turned to look back, she was already back at work.
++++++
AN: This is my hometown, my friends. This is my hometown. (As such, I've changed everyone's names, including those of the historical figures. It's really not that hard to google, of course, but still. The town names have also been changed.)
Bonus Fun Fact: When we were in ninth grade, most of my friends were in a CBC Documentary for the Fifth Estate about this case. One of my very best friends played Lynne, and another played Stephen. I decided not to do it, as it interfered with my basketball schedule, and I have regretted it ever since (not because I wasn’t on TV, but because I turned down an opportunity to be a part of “the legend”, as it were: they actually got to meet "DuCette", though at the time they thought he was a producer).
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
“So I’ve been looking for girls who went missing in the area before 1959 and were never found,” Garcia’s voice sounded from the phone Rossi balanced in his hands.
“Didn’t the police already do that?” Rossi asked.
“Probably,” Garcia allowed. “But all those towns had their own police forces back then, and there was no centralized database. I’m looking outside the area covered by word of mouth, to see if I can connect the dots by myself.”
“How will you know if they connect?” Hotch asked.
“Do you have any idea of the population density where you are right now?” Garcia demanded. Rossi heard Reid clear his throat over the phone. “Reid, don’t answer that. These people drive a lot. The closest mall is forty-five minutes away, and the closest movie theatre is thirty minutes in the opposite direction.”
“So you’re thinking our unsub might have cast a wide net?” Rossi asked.
“You are right on the money, Secret Agent Man,” Garcia said. Rossi saw Cooke’s eyebrows rise in the rearview mirror.
“Garcia, don’t search further back than 1956,” Hotch said.
“Why not?” Cooke asked.
“Stephen DuCette is still our prime suspect. He would have been eleven in 1956,” Reid explained, a brief burst of static obscuring his voice over the phone. “Sexual sadism doesn’t fully emerge until puberty, so his is as far back as DuCette would have been killing. This would help us rule him out.”
“Okay, I’ve got it,” Garcia said. “Eight girls were reported missing and never found in the years between 1956 and 1959.”
“Only eight?” Hotch said said.
“From an area with this demographic at that point in history, that number is not unusual,” Reid said.
“Those were better times,” Rossi said nostalgically.
“Not always for police procedure,” Cooke added.
“Garcia, how many of those girls went missing on or near RAF bases?” Hotch asked.
“DuCette’s father wasn’t transferred until after the trial,” Cooke pointed out.
“No, but travel between bases was common,” Hotch explained.
“Only three,” Garcia said. “And before you ask, all went missing at times when officers from Raglan would have been on leave.”
“Great work, Garcia,” Hotch said. “Call Prentiss and Morgan and fill them in.”
“You got it, boss,” Garcia said. “Mistress of Knowledge out.”
There were a few moments of silence in the car as the men inside digested the information. Farmland slid by the windows, fields so green it was hard to imagine death at all.
“How does she get that kind of information?” Cooke asked finally.
“I don’t ask.”
++++++
Prentiss knew Morgan well enough to know that it would be better for everyone if she got him to vent in the car on the way to the scene. She let him take the front seat and sat behind Officer Broadfoot so he could turn around and yell at her. She waited until they reached the highway and then began.
“What is it, Morgan?” she said bluntly.
“Oh, come on. Are you telling me you didn’t notice?” Morgan obliged her. “Not a person in that room believes DuCette is guilty. It’s the most unobjective operation I’ve ever seen.”
Officer Broadfoot didn’t so much as flinch as Morgan questioned the abilities of the entire task force. Prentiss decided she liked him.
“I’m not going to lie, Agent Morgan,” Broadfoot said. “All of us hope like hell we come out of this by proving him innocent. I’ve lived here my entire life, and so have a lot of the people I work with. Not a few of us became cops because of this case. But we’ll do our jobs.”
“I think Agent Morgan is more concerned about what will happen to us if we do our jobs and find him guilty,” Prentiss said.
“We’re professionals,” Broadfoot said. “We’re just hoping for the best.”
Morgan looked at him, taking his measure.
“This case is already legend, Agent,” Broadfoot said, pulling off the deserted two-lane highway on to an even quieter paved, but not painted, road. “Now we’re part of it. And so help us, we want to be the heroes.”
“Fair enough,” Morgan said.
The car crossed a bridge and then Officer Broadfoot stopped.
“We’re here?” Prentiss asked in a confused tone. There was no other police presence here, and there was no bush.
“No,” said Broadfoot, undoing his seatbelt. “Get out, though. There’s something you need to see.”
Morgan and Prentiss exchanged a glance. Prentiss decided that the two of them could probably take the Canadian officer if he tried anything, and undid her seatbelt. Morgan rolled his eyes, but followed suit.
Officer Broadfoot led them to the centre of the bridge and pointed back towards the highway.
“At his trial, Stephen DuCette testified that he looked back from this bridge and saw Lynne Bard get into a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air. The model was unique because of the tail lights, but the Crown said he was too far away to identify it, and was just describing a car he’d seen previously.” Prentiss found herself squinting at the empty road as Officer Broadfoot spoke. She felt Morgan standing beside her, mimicking her stance, and realized he had finally engaged. “The question you need to ask yourself, agents, is whether you think he really did see that car.”
Broadfoot walked back to the car, leaving Morgan and Prentiss standing thoughtfully in the middle of the road. Prentiss knew the moment had come.
“What is it really?” she asked quietly.
“I was innocent. A victim. Just like they all think DuCette is. I stayed away from Chicago as much as was humanly possible,” Morgan said, old pain in his eyes. “But when justice was finally served, it nearly ruined my entire neighbourhood.”
“We can’t do this job if we think about the outcome,” Prentiss said automatically. “Besides, everyone who was here then is gone. There is no community left to ruin.”
“You saw them,” Morgan said. “Officer Broadfoot wasn’t even born when the murder took place, and it’s why he became a cop!”
“We do the job,” Prentiss said.
“I know,” Morgan replied. He looked back towards the highway. “What do you think?”
“I think he saw the car.” She didn’t hesitate.
Morgan did not reply, which meant he was starting to agree with her.
++++++
The scene was taped off at the road. There was one squad car, a port-o-potty and an OPP trailer. Morgan and Prentiss waited inside the trailer while Officer Broadfoot and his colleague talked outside. After a few moments, the forensic archaeologist arrived. She was younger than Morgan expected, and she was completely covered in mud.
“Dr. Knight?” Prentiss asked.
“No, he’s at the autopsies. I’m part of his team,” she replied. “My name is Meren. I’m going to lead you in.”
Both agents looked at her with questioning expressions on their faces.
“It’s the same as any other scene, agents,” Meren said. “One way in, one way out. The officers who recovered the initial remains did enough damage.”
“What do you mean by ‘initial remains’?” asked Morgan, refusing to take the bait.
“The bodies were buried for more than fifty years,’ Meren explained. “Putting something in the ground doesn’t make it stationary, especially not in a wooded area. Tree roots grow deep and animals are very good at digging things up.”
“How badly were the bodies disturbed?” Prentiss asked.
“The bottom two skeletons were barely disturbed at all, but we’ll still probably never recover and isolate the small bones,” she said. “The uppermost skeleton was only fifty percent recovered. That’s why we’re clearing the brush.”
Meren gestured at the forest floor, and Prentiss noticed that all of the low-growing plants and plant refuse had been removed.
“Thorough,” Morgan said laconically.
“After the OPP recovered Christine Jessop’s body, they took her family to the bush to see where she’d been found,” Meren said. “Her mother found her left femur, a large piece of her skull and the skirt she’d been wearing when she disappeared.”
“God!” said Prentiss.
“That’s how Dr. Knight started consulting with the OPP,” Meren went on. “He teaches training classes, but – ”
“Sometimes you need the specialists.” Morgan finished. “That’s why we’re here too.”
Meren smiled, and they reached the gravesite.
The hole was about a metre and a half deep, and just over a metre long. This meant it had not been dug by a person in a hurry, and that it required a shovel at the very least. There were coloured flags pushed into the dirt at what Morgan first thought were random intervals. When he looked closely, however, he realized that each flag indicated a minute change in soil colour or texture. At the top of the hole were the charred remains of the stump Evan Lawford had been burning when he’d made his gruesome discovery.
“The red flags delineate the upper burial; the orange, the middle; and the yellow, the bottom,” Meren said. “That tree root grew through the pelvis of the most recent burial and the ribcage of the others.”
“What does that mean?” Prentiss asked.
“It means we know the bodies have been in the ground longer than the tree has been alive,” Meren explained. “The tree was cut down four years ago, and it was less than fifty years old at the time. That means the bodies were in the ground by 1959 at the latest.”
Prentiss took a moment to catch up on the math.
“Also, we found four coins in the second victim’s associated remains, and the most recent date is 1957,” Meren added. “The Canadian mint cycled out most of those coins for the silver after World War Two. It would be statistically unlikely to find this sort of concentration randomly together any later than 1960.”
It was a mark of their long association with Reid that neither agent was phased by the specificity of her information.
“Where was Lynne Bard’s body found?” Morgan asked.
“Two hundred metres that way,” Meren pointed back towards the road.
“This spot is almost entirely secure,” Morgan said to Prentiss. “The unsub could have stayed here as long as he wanted to.”
“Lynne Bard’s recovery site is relatively exposed,” Prentiss agreed. “Something is different about her murder.”
“He didn’t plan it, and he was in a hurry,” Meren said. Both agents looked sharply at her. She shrugged. “It’s easier to train an archaeologist to be a police officer than the other way around.”
“Thank you very much, Meren,” Prentiss said. She was already going for her phone.
“We’ll show ourselves out,” Morgan said.
“You’re welcome,” Meren called after them as they headed back to the car.
When Prentiss turned to look back, she was already back at work.
++++++
AN: This is my hometown, my friends. This is my hometown. (As such, I've changed everyone's names, including those of the historical figures. It's really not that hard to google, of course, but still. The town names have also been changed.)
Bonus Fun Fact: When we were in ninth grade, most of my friends were in a CBC Documentary for the Fifth Estate about this case. One of my very best friends played Lynne, and another played Stephen. I decided not to do it, as it interfered with my basketball schedule, and I have regretted it ever since (not because I wasn’t on TV, but because I turned down an opportunity to be a part of “the legend”, as it were: they actually got to meet "DuCette", though at the time they thought he was a producer).
Chapter 3
