Desiderium: longing for something that has been lost

chapter 4

there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.-- arthur conan doyle.

O.o.O.o.O.O.o

Las Vegas Police Department 

February 15, 2008.

7:30 a.m.

O.o.O.o.O.O.o

Much to Prentiss's disappointment, Hotch called every one in early the next morning. She wasn't all too surprised, but still, she and Morgan didn't get back from the crime scene until late, and she didn't go to bed until really late. Now she was forcing the poor excuse for coffee down and hoping that the caffeine would come and give her a good solid wake up call. 

Morgan sauntered over, his own Styrofoam cup clutched in his hand. "Well, you look dead." 

"You don't look so hot yourself." She countered. Pointing to a map pinned to the board, she nudged him. "Did we finally get our addresses?" 

"Yeah, Garcia pulled them out of the files and we plotted them last night. Looks like all the victims were located in a lower class setting. Bad part of town anyway." He took a sip, his lips curling back as he tasted the sludge. "Ah, that's nasty." 

Prentiss propped her head up on her hand. "Maybe he had a financial reason for all of this. Some skewed sense of justice. In the back of his mind, he's liberating the families from their poverty. Do we know what everyone did for work?" 

Hotch walked in, a hand pressed up against his temple. "Yes, we have that list right here." He slumped down. "Rossi and JJ went to go look at the houses on the list of addresses." 

Morgan scanned the list. "Martinez, day care teacher and mechanic. Nelsons, waitress and teacher, Taylors, a lawyer just starting out, Harris, worked at the local insurance company, Martins, waitress and mechanic, Reid's, mom had a pension, and lawyer, and the Petyr's, both teachers. So they're all on the lower side of the economic scale. What else do we know about them?" 

Hotch sighed. "Hardly anything else. I don't know what it is, but documentation in the 80's must have been a nightmare because I don't have much to go on here. What I do have is the Petyr's relevant information. They are first generation Russian immigrants, moved here in 1998. The father taught Russian at a local high school and the mother taught history there as well. They had two children, Natalie and Ivan Petyr age seven and nine. I'm having their records pulled from every school and hospital to see if there are any crossovers with the older victims." 

"The school records might be a good place for a crossover. I'm sure the victims were in the same school at some point."

Prentiss nodded. "Yeah, Hotch we can go to the public schools and see if they have any records that reach back twenty years or so." 

"That would be great. You asked for those additional ME reports right?" When the two nodded, he sighed. "Great, ok. I'll look over them when they get here." 

Once again the two set out. This time Morgan graciously let Prentiss drive. 

"So, going to the Las Vegas public elementary school?" Prentiss swerved to avoid a gaping pothole. 

"Yeah, most of the kids weren't in middle school. So we should probably check out the elementary schools first, unless one them managed to skip all of elementary and move right to middle school." He laughed. "Which would be impossible." 

The elementary school had seen better days. The paint was flaking off and there were noticeable cracks in the walls. With a quiet damn, Morgan pushed open a creaky door and walked in the quiet halls. 

A thick man, balding on the top came out to greet them. "Agents, so glad you could make it. I'm the principle, Mr. Reynolds." He smiled and shook their hands. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Morgan looked around, he really hoped they had saved their reports. "Actually yes, we are looking into the murder of the Petyr family and believe it may be related to the family murders twenty years ago. Do you still have records from back then?" 

The smile on his face somehow managed to freeze. "Ah, no. See we have a rule here to throw out old records every few years, I'm dreadfully sorry." 

Prentiss rolled her eyes. "What about yearbooks?" 

"Excuse me?" 

"Yearbooks. I did one when I was in elementary school. Safe to assume, so does this school. Now, is there a storage room we can look through, or do we need to come back with a warrant?" 

The man paled and nodded. "Of course, no of course, the room is right over here." 

Morgan gave her a nudge that she interpreted as good job and she allowed herself a small smile. Upon entering the dusty space, she immediately sneezed and cursed her allergies. Grabbing a box and trying to examine the date scrawled on the top, she sneezed again. 

Morgan laughed at her. "Oh great, Prentiss keep this up and I'm just gonna walk out of here." 

She snorted, sneezed and laughed. "Just keep looking for a 1985 box." 

A solid hour passed before they finally found two boxes: one for the classes of 1985 and on for the classes of 1986. Morgan hunted down Mr. Reynolds to inform him that the year books were being taken back to the station. 

He flipped through one on the way back, and quickly found several of the kids. "Alright Prentiss, we got a lead. Looks like a majority, actually almost all of the kids went to school here. We're actually just missing one, I think." 

"And the Petyr's kids went to school there?" 

"Yeah, second and fourth grade." 

As they pulled into the parking lot, Morgan sighed. "You think Hotch is ok, he seems a little agitated."

Prentiss heaved a box up. "It's probably this case, Morgan, you know how he is, he worries about being away from Jack and Haley. And this case is about families being murdered, I'd imagine that can't sit too well with him." 

They met Hotch inside going over the coroner's files, a thin line on his forehead. 

"Hey Hotch, so good news, most of the kids, except for Spencer Reid, went to the local public elementary school."

Hotch nodded, seemingly distracted as he looked between the board and the files in his hand. "That's great, we'll have to check out the staff at the time, see if any suspicious behavior was logged, run checks, you know the drill." 

Morgan nodded. "I'll have Garcia see if she can get anything." 

Before he could go, Hotch called him back. "Morgan, you asked for all the coroner's reports correct?"

Morgan looked at Prentiss who shrugged. "Yes?" 

"Huh, well I'm just going through the files, and they seem to be all here, except for the Reid's. We have Diana and William Reid, but we don't have their son, Spencer." They looked at each other. 

Morgan felt disbelief well up in him. "Nah man, that's too big to keep out of the files, if a victim survived, we would have to know."

Hotch looked down at the files and reached for the phone.  "Hello, Dr. Tyler? Yes I had a question about the files you sent us." He was tapping his foot. "Yes, we were expecting for there to be three files for the Reid family, but we only got the parents, Diana and William Reid." His tapping stopped and he slowly looked up at Morgan. "Are you sure, do you know where? I see, yes of course, no thank you." As if he was in shock, he placed the phone down slowly.

Morgan bounced up and down. "What, what did he say? Hotch."

Hotch looked up. "We have a survivor."