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]

"30 minutes ahead of us. Everything depends on how he drives. We might cut a 3 hour drive down into two. Less than if we're real lucky," he replied, glancing in his rearview. "Let's hope our guy takes his time."

By the time they hit Harlan county lines, Raylan's jaw had stayed tensed. It would have been a great time to smoke. It was evident how fast he was going as soon as they touched dirt road, a magnificent plumb of dust kicking up behind him.

"If you won't take a gun, you'll get the crowbar out of the trunk. But make sure you don't lose it, that thing cost me 30 bucks."

[abrightboy]

"What if it gets dirty?" Malcolm said flatly. He wasn't above hitting a man with a crowbar to save two lives.

[tinstar]

"You say that like anything stays clean."

Raylan afforded Malcolm a sidelong smirk before unloading some details. "Place we're going used to be a farm and buchary. Lots of old knives and out of use freezers. Crowbar might come in handy for more than one thing."

[abrightboy]

"A farm with an abattoir?" Malcolm said, sitting up suddenly. "What's the other site? What kind of place is the other site?"

[tinstar]

"A lumber mill. The river that supplied it dried up a couple of decades ago and the trees started dying off; why? They're both set up to handle his style of bullshit, far enough away from others and both abandoned properties, not to mention how close they are comparatively."

[abrightboy]

"His pattern is to stage the deaths like accidents. He'll go for the site with the biggest impact," Malcolm told him. "A lumber mill, a lumber mill. Does it still have equipment? Like saws? Or has it been stripped?"

[tinstar]

Raylan glanced between Malcolm and the road several times as he weighed that. It was the moment of truth. Did he trust the oddly damaged profiler or cover all their bases? The latter would be the smarter option.

"Shit," Raylan spat, turning the wheel and u-turning them violently, town car fishtailing as it gained traction in it's new direction. "You better be sure about this."

[abrightboy]

"My theories are only as good as the information I build them on. I take it there's still equipment there? Does it still work?" Malcolm pressed.

[tinstar]

"You ever seen a sawmill? Things are massive. It would cost more to tear them out than anyone's got and it's abandoned for a reason. All he'd need to do is get power into it and that's not hard. Get you a good sized generator.."

[abrightboy]

"I know it's going to shock you to learn that I've never been in a sawmill," Malcolm said dryly. An abattoir, yes. But this one sounded relatively small and largely equipped with manual tools. No splash. "Is generator easy to get? To transport? Do people leave them unattended around here?"

[tinstar]

"And me without my pearls," Raylan replied, just as dryly. "Yes. Couple hundred bucks even gets you wheels on 'em."

[abrightboy]

"Can someone find out if someone matching the hotel receptionist's description of him bought one? While we're driving?" Malcolm asked.

[tinstar]

Raylan fished his phone off his hip. "Call Rachel. Tell her. She'll know who to hand that question off to."

"You'll find her name under Rachel. R-A-C-H.."

[abrightboy]

"...I know how to spell Rachel," he said, already scrolling through Givens' contacts, pressing her name when he saw it.

"Hello, Rachel? This is Malcolm Bright. No, he's fine. He's right here." A pause. "He's driving. Can you find out if anyone matching the suspect's description has purchased a generator in the last couple of days that's large enough to power the equipment in a commercial saw mill?" A beat. "A commercial saw mill. Yes. Okay, thanks."

He looked at Raylan as he hung up. "She's going to call back."

[tinstar]

He had to break tension. Raylan listened, glancing as often as he could at Malcolm as he spoke.

"Let's hope he didn't buy it outta state," he grumbled as they took another sharp turn. "We'll be there in 5."

[abrightboy]

"He could have, but if he didn't, it's a paper trail. Even if we get the answer too late."

He watched out the window, looking for the sawmill to come into sight.

[tinstar]

It would take Rachel longer than 5 minutes to get the answer and with the way Raylan was driving, it would take them less.

The thing about the South was that the denseness of the trees that managed to survive, (thrive would be too strong a word), hid a lot. All it really took was a good line and the road they were on was heading down the single lane through it. Raylan had enough sense to not speed into the mill, knowing the sound of the sudden stop would make more noise than they could afford.

Malcolm would get his sawmill, looking properly abandoned, slowly being consumed by the plants and discarded stuff around it.

"Don't get yourself shot if you can help it," Raylan said as he turned off the car and slid out, popping his trunk with his keys before drawing his gun. A few seconds later, Tim and Rachel dusted up behind them.

"Y'all ready?" asked Tim, eyes squinting against the light of the day. Rachel, for her part, was subtly looking Raylan and Malcolm over, no doubt making sure that Raylan hadn't done something stupid already.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gave Raylan a look at that instruction. Had he been talking to Gil again?

"I haven't managed to get shot yet," he deadpanned back.

Once they'd met up with Tim and Rachel, he glanced at Raylan and then at Tim. "Time's of the essence," he told them. "How long this victim has only depends on how long it takes him to set up his showpiece. And he may kill his final victim in the same location, once she's seen the show."

[tinstar]

"I feel like 'yet' is the operative word," Raylan muttered under his breath as he shut the door.

All three Marshal's nodded and started towards the barn, their usual gait traded for the slight hunker and quickstep taken by almost all Law Enforcement when they were coming into a place. Raylan pointed Tim and Rachel at the side door opening further away as he and Malcolm headed towards the closer one.

The mill was dark, opening room lit only by the door they were going into that clearly didn't connect to whatever door Tim and Rachel were heading towards. Somewhere, deeper in the building (and likely connected to the other open entrance on the far side of the impressively long mill), the sound of a saw buzzed to life.

Raylan's short quick steps turned into a run.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stayed in the middle of the group, like he'd been trained to do by his own team. When they split up, he stayed just behind Raylan the way he would stay behind Gil, running when he ran at the sound of the saw.

A woman was tied to a large log. The saw was running. The log was about to be fed into the machine.

Another woman was bound nearby.

They were both screaming.

A man was at the controls.

The only piece of luck was that all the screaming was covering up the footsteps of law enforcement and a wayward profiler advancing on them from two sides.

[tinstar]

"US MARSHALS, FREEZE," Tim called, sending the scene into a flurry of action. The suspect abandoned the controls, fleeing away from the lot of them into the darkness and over another roller.

There was no time for instructions; Rachel headed towards the women to stop the saw and free them, while Raylan headed with Tim to follow the suspect. Raylan naturally assumed the Malcolm would follow Rachel's lead and help with the women while the gunslinger and Marine Sniper deal with the running crazy.

[abrightboy]

That would have made sense with what they knew about Malcolm - an unarmed, assumed non-combatant - but that was not what Malcolm did. He ran after Raylan and Tim, staying behind them for the time being. However, when the suspect ran out of ground, he pulled a gun out of his pocket and spun on the officers.

"DON'T SHOOT!" Malcolm shouted from the back at literally everyone, holding out a hand, then holding up both hands. "Don't shoot!" he said again, more firmly, stepping in between the marshalls and the suspect.

He stepped towards the suspect, keeping his hands non-threateningly in the air.

"You've been busy," he noted, his tone deliberate, keeping his eyes on the man. "Trying to purge your pain." He studied the man's face. "And you've had a LOT of pain."

[tinstar]

"Malcolm," Raylan hissed as they were passed by him. "Malcolm!"

Tim glanced sidelong at Raylan, a whole opinion shared in a single look and Raylan shook his head as they spread out for a better view. This is not what he'd signed up for but now that Malcolm was there, the only thing Raylan and Tim could do was support him.

What the hell was Malcolm doing?

He was going to get his ass shot.

[abrightboy]

The suspect looked at him just as oddly as the marshalls were looking at him.

"My name is Malcolm," he said, putting one hand on his chest. "What's your name?"

"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" the man shouted.

Malcolm stopped walking, keeping his hands visible. "Whatever you say. What's your name?"

The man looked around, from the marshalls to Malcolm and back and back again.

"Nick," he said uncertainly. "What do you want?!"

"I want to understand," Malcolm told him. "I want to understand why you did what you did. This is your chance to tell your side of the story, because if you shoot me, then they're going to shoot you and you won't get to tell your story or finish your work and nobody will understand what this has all been for."

[tinstar]

So long as the man didn't move, Raylan and Tim held their spots, far enough away to not be any more intrusive and close enough to be effective if needed. They'd both been trained; they both knew that yelling or 'helping' would only make 'Nick' more nervous and amped up.

They were well powered muscle and perfectly fine with that. Had Malcolm not been there, Nick would have already been down.