The Lengths That I Would Go To

[abrightboy]

The killer was moving around the country. Malcolm Bright could see the pattern, but he wasn't working for the FBI these days and they weren't exactly taking his calls. Short sighted of them, but they did fire him on suspicion of being crazy. The NYPD's jurisdiction was New York. With the killer beyond its borders, they handed it upwards and left it at that.

Let it go, Bright, had been Gil's sage advice. You can't catch every killer in America single-handedly.

Challenge accepted, some part of him retorted, though he'd only nodded mutely and forced a smile. Gil knew he hadn't simply let it go, but he wasn't going to have him followed to stop him doing anything stupid, either. He didn't have the will or the resources to keep tabs on Malcolm Bright 24/7 and Malcolm Bright knew it.

His mother, on the other hand, had extensive resources, so he simply didn't tell her he was leaving town. He did arrange for Ainsley to feed his bird, so the truth would come out eventually, but he'd be several states away by then.

He rode the bus. There was something oddly comforting about the anonymity of being in a crowd of strangers who had no interest in him whatsoever. He stared out the window and watched the country go by. When he stepped off the Greyhound in Lexington, Kentucky, he walked to a nearby hotel and checked in, then headed straight to the US Marshals office. There was no point in trying to talk to the FBI. If he was going to stop a killer from killing again, he needed someone in law enforcement to listen to him. The pattern suggested the next murder would happen in one of the rural communities around Lexington and it would be precipitated by a young woman's disappearance. He needed law enforcement with local knowledge, specifically.

He wandered into the Marshals' offices in a tidy three piece suit, charcoal grey with a burgundy tie perfectly knotted at his collar. He got a few suspicious sidelong glances but nobody asked if they could help him. He cleared his throat.

"Um, hello? I'm wondering if there's anyone here I can talk to about murder." He held up his hands. "Stopping murder, specifically, not... like... smalltalk."

Comments

[tinstar]

It was a quiet day in the office - one of the very rare ones when Harlan County wasn't on fire, Boyd Crowder wasn't blowing anything up and the case Art had just dropped on his desk didn't have anything to do with Arlo Givens. Not that Raylan would be surprised if that fact happened to change, as they tended to do around here.

Quiet that was, until a new suit walked in and pronounced himself, earning an exchanged glance to Tim on his right and Rachel on his left in a silent exchange. Tim shakes his head. "All you buddy, I got the last walk-in and I'm not gonna be late for my hair appointment."

Raylan smirks and sighs, adjusting his hat a little as he stands up, one hand propping lazily on his gun out of habit as the other moved to his waist and then up into a similarly lazily pointed finger that was pointed at.. well, nothing, really. Yeah, they had a little fun here.

"Stoppin' a murder, huh? You know we mostly do fugitives around here," Raylan said, one finger swirling like he was stirring a cup of coffee. "Got one of those to go with it? Otherwise, the FBI's got an office on the other side of the building, two floors up. I'm sure they'd be delighted to help."

It was country smalltalk at it's finest - not small talk at all, despite it's tone and the way it was carried. Friendly was the message Raylan tried to give new people, least til they earned something nastier.

[abrightboy]

"Yeeeaaaaah that's... that's not going to work. They don't really... take my calls," he noted, and continued skimming right past that point to quickly add "but there's a certain amount of urgency here and this killer has already crossed multiple state lines and I know - I know - he's going to kill around here because his pattern is... it's impressive in its complexity, really, but that also makes it hard to explain. That's how he wants it. This killer needs to prove he's the smartest guy in the room. Anyway. Three young women are going to get murdered in the rural areas outside of town if someone with some federal jurisdiction doesn't take this seriously, so. How about it? Ready to step outside the box and save some lives or what?" he asked, looking at the man in the cowboy hat expectantly.

[tinstar]

Raylan glanced over his shoulder at Tim. Excitable fellow. "Alright, take it easy," he said, hand shifting again to 'whoa' him down before gesturing him along to follow Raylan towards the conference room across from the front doors.

"I'd offer you coffee but it might kill you instead. Why don't we start with something simple, like say - your name."

Gesturing towards one of the chairs, Raylan pulled out one of his own. "And how you're so sure that this involves my rural."

[abrightboy]

"Bright," Malcolm told him as they stepped into the conference room. He didn't sit yet. "Malcolm Bright. I'm a profiler. I've been working with the NYPD. Do you have a map?" he asked, tracing a square in the air with his two index fingers. "Like, of the whole country? Deputy....?" he left the blank for the other man to fill, raising his eyebrows.

[tinstar]

NYPD. Raylan gave a non-commital grunt and pushed back to his feet to turn and walk around the oval table to pull a white board away from the wall and turn it over to show a map of the US, the edges littered with a few notifications of rule changes - leftovers from the last time it was used.

"Raylan Givens," he replied with a little nod of his head as he steps back to lean on the tables edge. "Normally we only see NYPD when it's got to do with gangs. Your guy a thug or gunrunner or something?"

This might be the country, but they had active criminals - not quite gangs in the way Malcolm might understand them, but just as dangerous and stupid in some of their life choices.

[abrightboy]

"Uh no. 'My guy' is a serial killer, actually. A meticulous one. His first twelve victims were thought to be accidents, but he was already leaving clues."

Malcolm moved to gesture to the map. "His starting point was Abbeville, Louisiana. At first I thought it must have a personal significance for him, but it turns out that Abbeville is the first city in the United States alphabetically. That's how he chose it as a place to begin."

He expanded his hands to make a sweeping circular gesture around the map. "Then he moved in what, at first glance seems random and at second glance seems almost like concentric circles but turns out to be concentric hexagons, where each 'side' of the hexagon is a hexagonal number bigger than the last in miles."

He turned to look at Raylan to see if he was following.

"Um... the hexagonal numbers thing is the part the FBI claims not to be 'buying'," he clarified helpfully.

[tinstar]

"Like a honeycomb pattern," Raylan said, nodding a little with his bare understanding. "I don't know about hexagonal numbers, but-" He sighed as he pushed off the table, adjusting his hat back on his head a little. "Crazy will do what it wants, regardless of how much sense it makes to the rest of us. So I assume that you're thinking he's come around these parts now."

The FBI was uptight and he was hard pressed to find one of them that didn't have some kind of stick up their ass. He didn't doubt the story about that.

"You said he's gonna target young women - you got anything more than that or does he just go around.. looking for pretty girls." Which wasn't out of the question either - Crazy would do crazy. "Picture? Name?"

[abrightboy]

"Actually, the resemblance the women have to each other was the first tip off that something more was going on here than a series of accidents. When he got to New York, two women who looked so similar, just outside of the city, falling victim to gruesome accidents within a week of each other.... it was already suspicious, and then there was a third. So we widened our search for other incidents that matched the same basic MO and they're all over the country. Young white women with dark hair that falls to between their shoulder blades. Brown eyes. Curvy. They don't have to be objectively 'pretty'; he's looking for these features. And he leaves a signature that nobody realized was a signature at first, but these women are always found wearing a red silk scarf. Remember that these were all being investigated in rural areas in different jurisdictions by different law enforcement offices at different levels all over the country. Many investigators thought it was just one of their personal effects but.... all of them? The same scarf?" He gave Raylan a significant look. "It's not a coincidence. It's a pattern."

[tinstar]

"Paperwork does fall through the cracks all the time, especially when you get into the country, widespread areas. Hell, we had two hundred thousand dollars down in evidence from a robbery in '86 that was supposed to get sent back and never was."

And hell had broken loose in the department when their attention was drawn back to it. If something as highly valued as money, doubly so in these poorer counties, could fall through, a few murders was nothing.

Raylan raised a finger to the sky, dropping it down to point at Malcolm as he spoke. "Before I go start looking - you got someone at the NYPD that can vouch for you?" The finger turned into an out-turned palm, a 'can you blame me' kind of expression. "Just 'cause you're a profiler doesn't mean you've got the actual backing of an agency and my boss, Art, is real picky about pro-bono work. You understand."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm huffed a laugh. "I thought you were the boss here," he noted, gesturing to Raylan's hat and then to the rest of him. "You have the bearing of a man in charge."

[tinstar]

Raylan glanced up at his hat before huffing a half laughed sound and shaking his head modestly, one eye squinting a little. "Nah, just found it one day. It fit," he shrugged, mouth curling at the edges. "The bearing keeps assholes from bothering me about it."

[abrightboy]

There was something in that body language that hit Malcolm's trained (and personally experienced) eye as the sword and shield of a man who had held his head high on a walk of shame when he'd been sent to slink there in disgrace.

For once in his life, he didn't immediately voice that observation.

"Lieutenant Gil Arroyo," Malcolm said instead. "But be forewarned that he isn't going to be happy about the, um, initiative I've taken." He spread his hands expansively. "But I'm only a consultant."

[tinstar]

"Only a consultant," Raylan echoed with a dubious look. "That come with credentials?"

[abrightboy]

"That depends. If, by 'credentials', you mean a degree in criminal psychology from Harvard and profiling training at Quantico, then yes. If you mean 'a badge'.... then not so much, no. But they consult me all the time. He'll tell you."

He gestured at him to phone.

Leaving this open so you can fill in what Gil might or might not say

[tinstar]

"Then yes," Raylan replied with a faint pull of his smile and a nod. "You stay right here, I gotta make a phone call. Gil Arroyo," he repeated, just so Malcolm didn't think that he'd forgotten or would overly mangle the name with unfamiliarity.

The walk to the outside office was a short one and Raylan had Tim looking Malcolm Bright up online as he pulled up the number for NYPD and punched it into his cellphone.

"Yeah, I'm looking for a Lieutenant Gil Arroyo?"

[abrightboy]

Givens was put on hold and a few moments later a clipped voice answered "This is Arroyo."

[tinstar]

"Yes hello, this is US Deputy Marshal Givins. I've got a young man here by the name of Malcolm Bright, that's B-R-I-G-H-T, who says he's a consulting profiler to the NYPD. Are you familiar with that name and person?"

[abrightboy]

Gil Arroyo let out a breath that wasn't quite a sigh, but it was long suffering nonetheless.

"Yes, Bright's one of mine," he conceded. "'Got him' where? What's he done?"

Gil assumed Bright was being detained by the Marshals Service. He was mentally preparing to go pick him up somewhere with apologies for the profiler's eccentricities.

[tinstar]

Raylan smirked. He'd heard that kinda sigh from Art more than a few times.

"Good, good. Well, we are down here in Lexington and your Bright came in with a.. very interesting story and clearly no time or love of the FBI. or hell, maybe they've already told him no already but either way, here he is. I just needed to verify his story before I start pulling any man hours off 'other' cases."

While he spoke, Raylan lazily looked through the case file that had been dropped on his desk. and the casual slant of his expression tightening as he glances at the conference room Malcolm was standing in.

"Anything I need to know about him?"

[abrightboy]

Oh, God, Gil thought. It was going to be one of those days with Bright where he wished the kid had been arrested.

"Lexington. ...Kentucky? Great. Well. He used to work for the FBI but they didn't quite... mesh with his approach, let's say. He's very good at what he does. He honestly wants to stop killers. He honestly wants to help. Nobody gets in the mind of a murderer like he does. A little quirky as a person, though. Bit of an acquired taste, I usually warn people. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?"

[tinstar]

"Unless you know of another one around," Raylan confirmed with a note of amusement. His accent alone would do any other confirming that Gil might need.

"Something like that, yeah. We'll make sure he gets back up your way with as few holes in him as possible once this is taken care of. Thanks for your time." Harlan was full of killers and Raylan was one, but he only shot people who made him shoot them. It was a complicated balance, but it meant that he was used to dealin with and talking about death.

After he hung up, Raylan grabbed his case folder and ambled back into the conference room.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked from the map to Raylan when he entered the room again. If Gil didn't ask to speak to him, he was surprised, but when he noted the folder in Raylan's hand, he assumed it was a case file related to the murders and sat down at the table as originally offered.

Obviously Gil had vouched for him.

[tinstar]

To be fair, Raylan hadn't given Gil much time and figured if the man wanted to talk to his consultor, he'd call Malcolm directly. No reason to put that on the Marshal's quarter.

"Looks like you have got some fan-tastic timing, Mr. Bright," he said, dropping the file on the table in front of him. "This-" he said with a finger and a sigh as he sat down, "Came across my desk about 15 minutes before you showed up. Now, I'm not saying it's your guy but.."

His hand flared out lazily in an invitation for Malcolm to open the file. "Let's see what you make of it."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm flipped through the file. The man fit the profile. He'd been to university but was expelled for selling term papers. "Hence the need to prove his intellectual superiority," he murmured, more to himself than Raylan. There were previous arrests for assault but not murder. "Escalation...." And one arrest for stalking a local woman who'd broken off her engagement to him after one of his arrests. A picture from the evidence suggested she looked like the women he murdered.

Bright looked up, holding up the photograph. "He fits the profile. This woman. We need to talk to her. And protect her. These killings weren't for posterity or the press, they were a message for her. Personally. Likely he'll kill two other.... substitutes, for lack of a better word. And if he succeeds, then he'll kill her."

[tinstar]

"Came into our laps because his parole county can't find 'im or keep 'im." Not surprising, considering its small size, but Raylan didn't hold it against them.

"Most people who come around to these parts of Kentucky aren't normally looking for press and prestige. Most of 'em just haven't got anything better to do then get drunk and get in trouble." Raylan nodded slightly as he continued, tapping the table with his index finger as he spoke.

"I can go and talk to her. See if we can't get a beat on him before he 'escalates' anything. You check into a hotel here yet?"