To Solve

Chapter 39: Birthright

Parker sat down at the round table in the briefing room, a cup of tea in hand.

"Hey, back to work already? I thought you weren't back for a few more days," Derek wondered.

"Nope. I've been cleared by two Doctors and I'm feeling a lot better. Plus, I need some distraction. Sitting at home almost drove me crazy. And even Spencer gave his okay, so–"

"Are you sure?" Hotch asked and Parker nodded.

They looked around– this time Garcia was also at the briefing– and noticed that JJ was the only one missing.

The young profiler could hardly help but wonder where JJ was when the young woman entered the room.

"Everyone's here. Sorry I'm late."

"Okay. Last night in Fredericksburg, a 20-year-old woman, Molly McCarthy, was abducted. She's the third to go missing in the last six weeks. All disappeared from public places. No one's seen them since."

"Until now."

"Couple days ago, body parts with cigarette burns were recovered from a national park, which was once the site of the Battle of Chancellorsville."

Pictures of the body parts appeared on the screen.

"Were they able to make an ID?"

"It was the first victim taken six weeks ago. Decomp indicated that she had been dead just over a week."

"So, he likes spending time with them," said Parker.

"How'd she end up like that?" Emily asked, pointing to the pictures.

"M.E. found microscopic tool marks on the bone."

"I remember reading about a case like this in Spotsylvania County, similar markings on the bone," said Spencer.

"It was the winter of 1980," JJ confirmed. "So Fredericksburg. Five women, 16 to 24, buried in pieces, same markings, same Civil War battlefield."

"Killed the same time of year and left at the same dump site?"

"It's like an anniversary."

"That case is still open," JJ explained.

Case still open and then this?

Parker remembered what their coach always said: One's an incident, two's a coincidence, and three's a pattern.

"Back then, the victims were drug addicts and runaways."

"If he spends that much time with them, there's a chance these two women could still be alive," said Hotch.

"Wait, we think this could be the same killer?" Emily wanted to know. "That's a hell of a cooling-off period."

"BTK resurfaced after a 25-year hiatus," Derek pointed out.

"True, but he didn't kill anyone. He only taunted the police."

"The marks on the bone and where he dumps them, that's a very specific signature. Hard to copycat details that were never made public."

"Garcia, check the MO against girls missing in other states. It could explain the long absence."

"I'm on it."

Garcia finished the sentence and headed to her 'PennyCave', as Parker called it.

"If this is the same UnSub, what's he been doing for the past 27 years?"

~~~~

The American poet, Anne Sexton once wrote,