Garrison and Adrienne - Aftershocks

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Trigger warning for a few mentions of the R-word.

Garrison talks to Adrienne about the case he left town to work on. As an indicator of how the discussion goes, she starts chain-smoking.

Garrison sat on his couch, rereading the report he'd put together for Duncan to make sure it had all the details. Unfortunately, the killer had escaped without leaving any clue about his real identity behind. Worse, he'd known that the FBI had at least one mutant on staff. There was more to this Scourge character than just his psychopathic fixations, and that worried him.

"Ohmigawd stop chewing on his ear! What?!- Why are you doing that?! No don't pull his tail, you! Fuck, why are you so cute?" Adrienne looked up from her tablet long enough to close the suite door behind her and saw Garrison on the couch in her peripheral vision. "Ohmigawd, babe. You gotta check out these videos Tandy found. There's an actual show on the air called 'Too Cute'. And they have videos on their website. Here's a bunch of puppies." She thrust the tablet at him as she settled next to him on the couch, feet curled under her.

"Um..." Kane paused, looking at the video of a puppy, a kitten and what appeared to be a skunk running around on the floor. It was a sharp contrast to Rooney, who was up on top of the moosehead doing his best one-eyed road kill impression. "Very cute. And no, we can't get a puppy."

"You're the worst," Adrienne responded automatically, even though she absolutely did not want a puppy. Or any animal of any kind. "What have you been doing? Are you practicing for our epic duet of 'We Belong' for the next Xavier's Talent Show Night?" she asked him with a waggle of her eyebrows.

"Huh? Sorry... I'm a little pre-occupied right now babe. After effects of this case in St. Louis."

"Ah, yes. St. Louis. It took me several teeth brushings to get the taste of those ribs you ate there off my breath from kissing you. You wanna talk about it?"

"We got played every step of the way by a serial killer who targets mutants. It's an ugly little evolution." He said with a sigh. "Every step we took was anticipated by his plan. It's like he's a pre-cog or something."

"Maybe he is?" Adrienne mused, frowning. It didn't make sense to her that a mutant would be targeting other mutants, but she supposed anything was possible. "I'd offer to do my groping thing in St. Louis for you, but... y'know..." She really didn't want to. Serial killings were not high on her list to keep inside her head, even if she did have the ability to go into her own brain and trash the images afterwards. Besides, he was a great investigator. "I know you'll figure this out without me having to cheat for you." Because it would be cheating, technically. Her powers weren't admissible in court. Especially in this universe, there was no point in even trying. All she would do if she went to the FBI with what she found, or if Kane took her information and was asked about his sources, would be to expose herself as a mutant and her life as she knew it would be over. Was that really worth catching a serial killer in another state?

"It was too precise for a pre-cog. I know that sounds odd but it's true. If he'd known we'd be coming, there are other, easier ways he could have gone about it. But this was... calculated. Someone who understands both the methodology and the mindset of the people involved so well that he could anticipate everything." Garrison made a few notes to his report. "Adri, that's, like, genius savant level conceptualization. That ability paired with the twisted mindset of a psychopath is... fucking terrifying, to be honest."

Adrienne winced, all thoughts of puppies and talent shows evaporating. "You really think he's a mutant? Maybe if he understands the mindset of the people involved he's just, I don't know... cop or agent gone bad? Unless you're talking about the victims when you say 'people involved'?"

"I'd bet he has police training of some type. The thing is that our methodologies aren't secret, so if he's as smart as I think, his training could be minimal. Which is why I can't use it to try and profile him." Kane said. "And if he's a mutant, is he self-loathing by targeting mutants? Uncommon but not impossible."

"Is there any pattern to the mutants he killed? With their power sets, I mean?" Adrienne asked, pulling a cigarette out of her purse but abstaining from lighting it, not wanting to smoke in the suite. Even just flipping it around her fingers the way she usually did with her lighter made her feel calmer.

"Dark haired young men. But that was also the profile of the serial rapist that was his partner. In fact, I don't think anything beyond being mutants concerned him, especially how he dispatched them without taking trophies or any kind of ritual."

Shuddering at the information, Adrienne pulled her lighter out and lit the cigarette. If Garrison wanted to yell at her, he could.

After a couple drags she felt a little better. "Isn't it pretty rare for these... people to partner up?"

"Almost unheard of. Which only makes it worse." He shook his head. "I have a bad feeling about this one. By the time we got to the victim, he knew our names."

"The victim knew your names?" Adrienne joked, a hopeful note in her voice. She didn't want to think too much about a mutant-targeting serial killer teamed up with a rapist knowing her boyfriend's name. At least the mansion had the best security known to man. "Did you catch the one? You said 'was his partner' when you mentioned the rapist." She took another long drag of her cigarette.

"Partner. More like his tool." Kane said. "Westcott was a garden variety rapist with a thing for young men. Nasty piece of work, but hardly on this level."

Adrienne was extrapolating by the past tense to believe that the rapist had either been caught or killed, which made her feel slightly better. "How many genius savants are out there, though?" she asked, going back to a point he'd made earlier. "That should help to narrow down the profile, shouldn't it?"

"That's only if he's a prior offender. The most successful serial killers are the ones we never find. Usually because they target marginalized groups that no one cares about or the ability to conceal the connection between their victims is part of their existing pathology." Kane explained. "Do you want to know how to commit a successful murder? Target someone for a random reason - first redhead you see. First male wearing a black jacket, etc. Once they've reached an area without surveillance or many people, shoot them in the back of the head and keep walking. Dissemble the gun and get rid of the pieces in fast food bags along a train line you don't use. Dump whatever you were wearing into a bag of clothes for a donation box. In that scenario, we have nothing to work with."

"We solve crimes like murder because they're usually personal in some way. But utterly random crimes? Unless you get lucky, there's almost never a smoking gun in the crime scene evidence."

Frowning at him skeptically, Adrienne took a long drag on her cigarette. "I think we both know that I don't know how to commit a successful murder. And it's making me incredibly nervous that you've clearly thought about how to get away with a murder." She exhaled smoke in a ring as she thought. "Prior offenders aside, can't you access, I don't know, school records? Those societies for geniuses that they have?" She didn't like the sense of hopelessness she was getting out of Garrison right now. It made her worry that she would have to go use her powers on the crime scenes to find out this guy's identity.

"Adrienne, I'm a cop. We're always discussing our nightmare scenarios regarding crimes. Truly random, motiveless crime is basically impossible to solve." He shook his head. "And it's not as simple as saying he's a genius. He might never have been noticed as being being the pale. There's too many records in the US alone to try that method. If I had all of SHIELD's manpower on this case, it would still be the work of months to try and narrow it down to thousands of potentially similar profiles in the US. If he was born outside of the States, you're looking at decades."

"Fine," Adrienne sighed, finishing her cigarette, stubbing it out on the coffee table and lighting another one. "Just ask me what I know you're working up to ask me."

"I'm not asking you for anything, Adrienne. I don't have a murder weapon or any item that I can tell was handled by the murderer. That's why I'm frustrated. My sum total of evidence is what his voice sounds like and Logan has a vague sense of his scent. That's it."

"You have the bodies, don't you?" Adrienne looked nervous. "Weren't they wearing clothes? Ugh, fuck. Tell me they were wearing clothes."

"I have no evidence their killer ever touched them beyond putting a bullet in their heads. Besides, the bodies are likely interred by now." He said. "I'm not looking for you to dredge through twelve hours of rape on the off chance there's a flash of something that I have no evidence to consider being there."

Adrienne was about to protest about the unlikeliness of murder victims being buried in the clothes they'd been found in, rather than those garments going into evidence, but she decided not to bother. It wasn't like he didn't know that. He was just upset and was speaking emotionally. "That sucks," she stated, in what was most likely a ridiculous understatement. "He used a gun? Isn't that rare for a serial killer? Something so... impersonal?"

"No, it just indicates a different element in the profile. That the method of killing isn't part of his pathology. The act of murder is what is important, as opposed to the method."

Sighing, Adrienne took another drag on the cigarette. "Has anyone ever told you that your job sucks donkey balls a lot of the time?"

"Tell me about it. But... you know... fuck, there's a saying Logan taught me. Uh, duty is... wait- duty is heavily than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather.It was from an old Japanese military manual. So while my job sucks and doing it is hard, it's more laudable because it's hard than if I just... uh, killed myself? I think I screwed that one up."

Snorting in amusement, Adrienne set the cigarette down on the coffee table. "Yeah, that's a bad kung fu movie translation right there, Slick," she agreed. "Are you gonna keep working, or did you wanna take a break to watch the game?"

"The only way I'd watch the game is if the Jays sent at least five all-stars out on to the field for the... oh, yeah. I guess we'll watch the game after all."