Heurism | Spencer Reid¹

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE AVENGER

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."

     — Confucius

——————

In the musty back-office of the bank, we sit and watch the recordings. I swivel slightly in the chair, my elbows resting against the desk. My eyes remain fixed on the screen. Elle in front of it, Morgan leaning against the desk. On the screen, people pass by, many of them familiar. A table is situated right in front of the camera. A few people stand around it to sign their cheques. My eyes narrow at the sight of two people approaching. "Hang on. Pause it right there."

It's a father and son. The father takes a few candies from the bowl in the middle, just as every victim had done before him.

Elle looks back at us. "Jack Fisher."

"About to have the worst night of his life."

"That's all of them. Every one of the victims who turned up at the ER three nights ago is on this tape. I'm going to call Hanover."

He nods. "Have him bring the CDC guys, they can test the candies."

"I'll call Hotch," I offer, already taking out my phone. He answers promptly. "Yeah, we have a development over here."

Even in his usually-measured voice, I hear Hotch's relief. "So do we. One patient seems to have been truly poisoned, though with a blend of Rohypnol and something else."

I hum in interest. "So LSD isn't a key ingredient for our UnSub. Well, I've got news. It's not the café, it's the bank."

"The bank? Are you sure?"

"We've got security footage of the victims. They took candy from a bowl."

Taking in the information, he gravely suggests, "Then you should look for Lynn Dempsey, 45. Garcia's e-mailing a picture right now."

I look to Morgan and repeat the information, just as his phone beeps. "Yeah, I got it. Lynn Dempsey. Elle?"

Having already obtained screenshots of most victims on the footage, she sifts through them. There, on one photo, is the same woman from Garcia's email. "Yeah, that's her."

She starts to play the tape back, fast-forwarding. I study the faces of each person. "Right there," she says. "That's her."

The footage pauses on a woman with a blonde bob. She is dressed entirely in black, her expression equally sombre. Something about Dempsey's body language is off. She appears stiff, cautious. We watch as she waits for another patron to leave the table before slipping her hand into the bowl. "She was there all right," I huff. "Caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Hotch, we've got her on tape replacing the candies."

"She could be the UnSub," Morgan suggests, leaning closer to the phone which I now hold between us.

"Or working with him."

——————

Back in the police station, we meet with the others once more. Off to one side, a couple of agents from the CDC examine the candies. I'm having a hard time figuring out anything now that the drugs have changed — shortly after our discovery, Dempsey died in the hospital, not as a result of the LSD but rather botulism brought on by a toxin. The poisons seem so unlike one another.

Gideon reads through her file, stern as ever. "Lynn Dempsey was an executive assistant. She has no expertise with chemicals. She doesn't fit the profile of the UnSub."

Sat beside me on the edge of an unmanned desk, Morgan frowns. "But the CDC found both LSD and Rohypnol in the candies she was replacing at the bank."

"She must have been an accomplice," Hotch reasons. "And when the UnSub finished using her to further his attack, he killed her with botulism."