coffee | s. reid [discontinued]

07 | two spencers

COFFEE

07 | two spencers

     Madlyn sat silently across from Spencer, looking at the file. She closed it, setting it down on the seat beside her and turning her attention to literally anything else.

     "Brenda Sams was found yesterday by her children after they got home from school," Hotch announced, walking through the plane. "She had been strangled with a thin ligature, possibly a wire."

     "No weapon left at the scene."

     "Reaidue around the wrists and mouth indicates duct tape was used and then removed." Spencer held up one of the pictures for a brief moment, lowering it once again to look at another.

     "Also not found at the scene," Hotch pointed out.

     "Brought it with him, took it with him."

     "He also started leaving messages at the fourth scene." Hotch turned the picture to Elle, telling her it was written on one of the mirrors before reading it out. "Fair lady, throw those costly robes aside. No longer may you glory in your pride. Take leave of all your carnal vein delight-"

     "I come to summon you away this night," Spencer finished. Madlyn wasn't surprised Spencer knew it. "It's a ballad from the late 1600s. A dialogue betwixt death and a lady."

     "A seventeenth century ballad?" Elle asked.

     "Essentially, a woman begging death to live," Spencer answered.

     "What kind of person knows this ballad? Are we looking for a literature professor?"

     "Anyone with an internet connection, actually," Spencer answered Elle's question. "You should see what comes up when you type the word death into a search engine."

     "Reid, no wonder why you can't get a date," Derek laughed.

     Gideon disregarded Derek's comment. "Reid, you stay on the messages to see if there's a deeper meaning."

     "Well, it definitely looks like he ransacked the crime scene pretty well," Derek said, holding up a picture of the items strewn on the floor.

     "A lot of damage, nothing taken."

     "The eyes are the thing — the signature. Not necessary for the murder but necessary for the emotional release," Gideon told them. "That's what he's there for."

     "There used to be a widely held belief that the eyes record a snapshot of the last thing a person sees before they die," Spencer chimed in.

     "That's right," Derek agreed. "People used to write poems about talking to death."