A girl scout leaders guide

Murder –what else? — leads to the usual team meeting at BAU headquarters, where pregnant J.J. briefs her colleagues on the latest case. Or series of cases. “Six victims have been killed in a series of burglar homicides all over central California,” she explains.

The latest pair of victims: a couple who resided in Sacramento. J.J. assures the team that each death comes courtesy of the same unsub as the DNA is a match. Also: local cops and press have already come up with a not-so-clever name: the “Highway 99 Killer.”

“What’s unique about this unsub is that after he kills them, he apparently sits down for dinner in their homes,” Hotch points out. Worse, he showers and sleeps in the victims beds. Ew. Creepy.

The team arrives at the Sacramento crime scene. Local law enforcement tells Derek that the male victim had his shirt placed over his head and his pants placed over his legs. “This may be some form of transference,” Rossi theorizes. “He pretends this is all his. He’s playing out his fantasy.” Meanwhile, a neighbor says she spotted a mysterious man on the victims porch around 5:30 a.m. The couple was killed at 1 a.m.

Rossi has an idea. He calls Reid, asking the boy wonder whether train tracks connect the last two murder scenes. They do.

Derek and Rossi walk the tracks with a train-yard operator, who explains that he occasionally sees “hobos” jumping trains. Reid, meanwhile, calls Garcia and asks her to find homes within one mile of train tracks in the area. He suspects there might be more murders than originally reported.

The team returns to Sacramento police headquarters to brief the local investigators. Hotch explains that the killer does NOT travel on Highway 99 — sorry, folks — but makes his way from crime scene to crime scene by train. Reid says that the unsub will have a rash around his mouth. Why? Because along with making his victims’ homes his own, he huffs their household cleaning products.

“If you get close to him you wont miss him,” Emily says. “He will smell like a combination of human filth and paint thinner.”

Cut to the yet unrevealed killer, huffing cleaning product from a bag while riding the rails through farm country. Will our beloved BAU team be able to catch up?

Derek and Rossi will certainly try. They come across a hobo camp, offering food in exchange for information. The hobos are of little help, although Derek notices the complex series of symbols carved and drawn onto nearby rocks and trees. One hobo draws a symbol warning the next group that the cops are looking for someone.

Back at the station, Garcia calls with disturbing news. “I found his DNA in three more cities,” she says. In other words, the killers reach stretches farther than anyone suspected. “It can happen when unsubs cross jurisdictional lines,” Hotch explains.

Garcia has even more news: the killer arrives into towns when the sales of certain crops squash, apples, etc. spike. “So he’s in town for a big harvest,” Emily says. A migrant farm worker, perhaps? Bingo!

Another dead couple has been found — and the team is on the scene. “The first few murders were five to eight days apart,” Reid points out. “This one was just one day from Modesto. If we don’t find him soon …” Yeah, we get it, Reid. The team must hurry — as usual.

And they do. Derek and Rossi, investigating the scene of a previous crime, find a symbol carved in a tree outside. J.J., meanwhile, calls Hotch and the gang. Jewelry taken from the Sacramento crime scene has shown up at the pawn shop in Modesto. Better yet, security cameras have captured a blurry photo of the seller. Dark skin, about 5-foot-8, red rash around his mouth. Hotch tells J.J. to circulate the photo.

Hotch, Emily and Reid are snooping around a local apple-picking operation when Garcia calls with what she refers to as a “triple whammy.” The movement of a group of migrant workers matches that of the killings — up until a certain point. One of its members has a long criminal record. That same workers fingerprints show up in the home of one of the victims. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a suspect.

Hotch, Emily and Reid visit the group with wich the the suspect once worked. They pass out photos of the suspect. One man recognizes the killer. He speaks softly to Emily in Spanish. “It’s his brother,” Emily announces.

She questions the man, who says his brother got the group fired from a big job and has been following them ever since. The suspect has also been giving his brother money — probably from the robberies. “He has been trouble all his life,” the man says of his hermano.

Speaking of, the killer scouts another home. A woman sleeps on the couch inside. She awakens to see a news broadcast warning viewers to “lock their doors” and “keep the lights on.” She, of course, has done neither. Just then, she looks outside and sees the killer! She SCREAMS and the killer flees.

The team gets a call: the suspect has been spotted. And wouldn’t you know it? Eye witness accounts put the fleeing suspect in Derek’s search area. Bad luck for the killer, as dedicated BAU watchers well know. Gun drawn, Derek creeps around the train tracks, exploring open box cars. He spots the killer knifing a local cop and gives chase.

Before you can say “inevitable,” the chase moves to the top of a moving train. While Derek fights with the killer, Hotch pulls up alongside the tracks in an SUV. He takes aim and shoots. The killer falls from the top of the train to the tracks below … DEAD.

Back at the station, the team discusses dinner when J.J. enters with a gorgeous young woman. Agent Jordan will be filling for J.J. while she is on maternity leave. Derek has met the woman before. “Briefly,” he says. The two smile knowingly at each other.

Uh oh. Garcia ain’t gonna like this.

Young Ned plays roulette, betting with chocolates that a note in the box told him were from his dearly departed mother. He lost and never gambled again - except by opening a pie shop when love of carbohydrates was out of fashion.

Chuck invents new pies while Olive asks who the strange square-shouldered man in the booth is. Ned says the man gives him that feeling of shivering while you pee. The man is Dwight Dixon, a friend of Ned’s parents. Olive thinks the stranger is cute. Dwight is looking for Ned’s dad. Ned is not inclined to help.

Meanwhile Emerson falls into a food coma from beef balls and cuttle fish. Until he opens his fortune cookie and it says “Help Me Emerson Cod.” He goes down to the dim sum place and runs into Simone, the dog trainer he once had the hots for. They chat and he heads off to find a weeping woman. She’s La Di, married to the chef, who’s dead now. She wants to hire Emerson to find who killed Bao. One night he couldn’t sleep, complaining of “pressure.” Ironically, he was killed by an exploding pressure cooker.

They visit the morgue, where he has a pole through his head. Ned gives him a poke and Chuck questions him in the Mandarin she apparently speaks. The man with the pole through his head pops up, freaking out that someone is going to kill him. He’s not sure how or when, but it’s coming because he lost a bet.

At the restaurant, their daughter Mei thinks her dad died accidentally. She introduces Rubbie Wu, the manager of the Dim Sum and her fiance, who she doesn’t seem to thrilled about. They both deny he had a gambling problem.

Olive’s aglow because Dwight stopped by again. She tries to guilt trip Ned into helping him. Chuck also suggests he give it a try. Ned gives her his dad’s address, which he’s had since he got word at boarding school that his dad had moved on and started a new family.

An elderly Chinese man enters the Pie Hole. He heard Emerson at the restaurant and has information. That place ran an illegal gambling establishment since it opened.

Emerson says he searched the place already, but he returns with Ned and Chuck. At the sight of Simone at one of the tables, Emerson hides behind the curtain. Ned notices no one at the table is eating. Instead they are rotating covered bowls on a lazy susan and betting with soy beans -playing poker with food.

At his office, Emerson talks to Simone, who explains how the game is played. She doesn’t know anything about Bao’s death but gives him the run down on the shady players at the table (and Jim, the plumber). Simone was at a dog show the night of the murder. As she leaves she says he’s denying what’s going on between them. Emerson explains that the more he’s into someone the worse it’ll end, and by that logic, they’d end very badly. In response, she kisses him. He attempts to remake his argument, thinks better of it and then goes against that better judgment.

Meanwhile, Olive and Chuck make a surprise pie delivery to Ned’s dad. A teenage boy welcomes them in and climbs into a box, popping out in another one. But then he pops out of the first as well. Twins, Maurice and Ralston. They’re there alone, dad left a few years ago. But they have Ned’s eyebrows.

Basking in super-attentive afterglow, Emerson reviews pictures of the restaurant and notices something. He calls Ned. The busboy is wearing an expensive watch. And now he’s on the run. Emerson, Chuck and Ned follow him as Chuck tells Ned about her visit. He knew about the half-brothers, but not their names. He has no desire to know them.

Emerson finds the newly repaired bun steamer about to blow again. A pipe shoots off, nearly beheading Emerson, who shimmies out of the way with a Soul Train move, and it ends up impaling the busboy.

Ned gives him a tap and the busboy turns out to be Perry, and insurance adjuster who was undercover. He’s pleased to have been murdered, because that’s a big payout. He tells them Bao had taken out a $200,000 policy the day before he died. The beneficiary was his daughter.

When they try to talk to her, the poker goons intervene. A waiter brings Emerson another fortune cookie with a note telling him to meet across the street. He finds Mei, who asks why she’d ask him for help if she killed her dad. She says her mom doesn’t know about the gambling. Mei’s afraid of a poker goon named “Shrimp Boy.” She tells Emerson about the bet her dad made: Her dad gambled on credit and bet that if he lost his daughter would marry Shrimp Boy’s socially handicapped cousin, Rubbie. 20 minutes later, Mei was engaged.

At the Pie Hole, Emerson says they need to question Shrimp Boy, but can’t get past the body guards. Ned suggests contacting Simone and lots of middle school giggling about Emerson doing it ensues.

Chuck and Olive apologize to Ned for going behind his back to his brothers’ house. Ned says he doesn’t want to meet them because it might make his dad happy somewhere.

Emerson waits outside the Dim Sum, hiding when he sees Simone. But he gets an idea. Meet the new waitresses: the ethnically dressed Chuck and Olive. They begin with green tea and herbs that make you pee. Chuck serves the body guards, who soon get up to go. Olive locks them in the can.

Emerson and Ned come in. Emerson dressed like Linc from “The Mod Squad” and Ned like a cowboy. They chat up Shrimp Boy about the girl he won. He says Bao tried to win his daughter back but had nothing to bet with. Emerson and Ned whisper at the table with Chuck stopping by. They now think Bao must have tried to bet someone else, possibly Rubbie so he could cash in Bao’s life insurance once married to Mei.

Emerson distracts himself by accidentally winning a hand and Rubbie comes over with a gun on him.

He ties up the Pie folk and Mei as Shrimp Boy and the poker goons watch, thinking Rubbie won Mei fair and square.

The facts were these: Rubbie suggested Bao bet his life insurance policy to try to get Mei back, but he lost that too when Rubbie came up with an amazing hand.

Mei realizes her dad was trying to fix things and Ned realizes he might not know the whole story of his dad abandoning him (it’s a semi-poignant moment that comes with Ned wearing a fake mustache).

Suddenly, in walks Simone with Bubble Gum. No one locked the door. She fails to register the five people tied to chairs and instead chews out Emerson for dodging her earlier. She catches on when the poker goons pull their guns on her.

Rubbie starts to untie Mei when Bubble Gum starts begging from him. Simone guesses he has food in his pocket. Chuck confirms she saw him stuff food in there while she was waiting on him.

Shrimp Boy, able to forgive homicide, kidnapping and illegal poker, draws the line at cheating. He agrees the bet was non-binding and allows everyone to go. Rubbie goes off to jail.

Mei gets the insurance money who gives some to her mother who gives some to Emerson who goes in search of Simone. He suggests she show him her cards and he’ll show his.

Ned and Chuck visit his half-brothers house. He admits it’s harder to admit he doesn’t know why what happened with his dad happened.

The twins answer. “Hi, I’m Ned, I thought I’d stop by because basically we have the same dad.” Group hug.

From a car on the street, Dwight sits with a gun.