The Common Fate of All Things Rare - Chapter 3
SUMMARY: Ever wonder what happened between the silence of Never Again and the flowers from Memento Mori? Well, we did...
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Season 4
DISCLAIMER: We read the IWTB novelization, guys. 'Nuff said.
**********
MARYLAND STATE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE
3:42 pm
Karen comes into the room with a stack of printouts in a cardboard box. "I've got some good stuff for you, Agent Scully. He attempted to preserve the heart using plastination, but gave himself nowhere near enough time. Soaked it in acetone and then dunked it in the liquid plastic. That can take months but he wanted to rush things."
"The women were killed about twenty-four hours before being found," I say. "That's barely enough time for the acetone. He bought himself a few extra days by switching the hearts, but still."
Karen shrugs. "Could have been longer. He was keeping them somewhere cold - fridge or something - and you know what that does to estimating time of death."
I think of Donnie Pfaster and shudder. Yes, I am intimately familiar with that MO. "You have a manufacturer for the plastic yet?"
"Blakefield United Chemicals. These are proprietary compounds so the manufacturers put markers in them to identify their products. I got one of Wickham's boys to start making some calls to track shipments."
"Thanks, Karen, this is great work. What about the little particles we found?"
"Exactly what you'd expect. Silica with a little limestone and potash. Also some fragments of glass with a very high index of refraction. Regular glass is about 1.5 and this stuff is 1.7. Lead crystal. It has a pretty unique makeup and if you can link any of this to a suspect, they're gonna have a hard time explaining it away."
I'm feeling a wash of hope. "Anything else on the saw marks or selenium?"
She shakes her head. "Non-specific on the selenium. It'll be circumstantial at best and any first year law student can talk their way out of it. But the glass was a good catch. And I'll let you know what I hear on the plastic and the cuts."
"Your efficiency is impressive. Ever planned to move to DC? I could put in a good word for you."
Karen laughs "No, not really, but thank you." She plays with the charms on her bracelet. "My dad was murdered in Druid Hill Park when I was twenty-two," she murmurs. "Just one of those things, you know? They never caught the guy. That's why I chose this job. The crime in this city is out of control."
"I'm sorry." I know all about loss, Karen.
The young woman smiles ruefully. "Guess you must meet quite a few people like me in your line of work, huh?"
"I'm afraid so."
"So you understand." She leaves me alone with a box full of puzzle pieces and a headache that is screaming like a demon behind my eyes.
**********
"Knock knock," says Mulder. "How goes it, Quincy?" He sets a white paper bag down on the chair next to me.
I smile tiredly and glance at my watch, shocked that an hour has flown by so quickly. "Pretty good, actually. They're making everything about this case top priority, so I've got a big stack of data to go through. What about you?"
"Got a suspect," he says airily.
I almost drop the test tube I'm holding. "Are you serious? Mulder, that's incredible." I place my sample carefully in the rack in case he has any more bombshells to drop.
He shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not. Wickham fast-tracked a search warrant but we turned up a whole lot of nothing. And the guy's criminal history does not fit with my profile."
"Well, maybe he just never got caught for the right crimes." I open a new box of slide covers.
"Could be, he gets off work in an hour. Wickham and I are going to keep an eye on him, see where he goes. We had someone watching him at lunch time, but he just went to Burger King."
"So how'd you find him, Mulder?"
He grabs a piece of Parafilm, molding the clear, flexible plastic over his hand and pinching the edges to seal them. He starts drawing a cat on it with a ballpoint pen. "I saw him at the glassworks making Poe-themed stuff."
I shake my head in wonder. "Remind me never to try and commit a crime that might fall under your jurisdiction."
"You're saying you don't want me to handcuff you some time?"
"To what? Your couch?"
"We could go to your place. I seem to recall a slatted headboard."
"Mulder, the last time you were in my bed, you were drugged out of your mind. How do you even remember such a thing?"
My partner laughs, finishes his drawing, and tugs the Parafilm away. The image of the cat peels neatly from the back of his hand. "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream," he quotes.
He picks up the bag he brought in and hands it to me. "I know you haven't eaten anything. I got you a Cobb salad. Dressing on the side, easy on the bacon."
I open the bag and remove the foil tray. I can smell the grilled chicken and am surprised to discover that I'm ravenous. "Thanks, Mulder." I pry off the plastic lid and head over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water.
"No problem. Well, I'm gonna head out. Just wanted to see how you were coming along. I'll catch you later, Scully."
"Good luck," I say around a mouthful of lettuce, but he's already gone.
**********
"Ahoy," I say as Wickham pulls up in a decrepit Lincoln Continental. "Nice land yacht you've got there."
"Please try to contain your jealousy. It's unbecoming," he scolds, unlocking the door. "We should blend in nicely. Mr. Montaldo, as you recall, does not travel in refined circles."
I settle back against the cracked leather seats, wondering if I should be wearing gold chains. "Onward, Jeeves."
We drive back to the glassworks and park the car behind a dumpster across the street, peering through our binoculars until Montaldo emerges from the building and gets into his old pickup.
We follow him at an easy distance. He stops to get some drive-through food, then meanders through questionable neighborhoods until he pulls up at his house. Our earlier search was extremely careful; his house looked like a tornado hit to begin with and we touched almost nothing. Between the two, he shouldn't be able to detect our presence.
We park across the street and watch him carry in the large bags of food.
"That's a load of food for one guy," remarks Wickham. "I mean, he's pretty big, but that is a hell of a lot of burgers for anybody."
"Indeed," I say. "But none of the victims' stomach contents have shown any fast food. Maybe he has a tapeworm."
We sit in the car for about twenty minutes before Montaldo emerges from the house carrying one of the bags along with a large flowered plate. He picks his way across the patchy lawn and goes to the house next door, ringing the bell once.
"What the hell?" wonders Wickham as he refocuses his binoculars.
The door is answered by a very old woman who stands up on her tiptoes to kiss Montaldo on the cheek before taking the bag and the plate. I roll down the window to hold the Bionic Ear amplifier out.
"…for helping us out, Jimmy," she says to him.
Montaldo shrugs. "No problem Mrs. Remmer," he replies. "And thanks for the cookies. I just want to make sure y'all are okay. I'm gonna get you some more groceries tomorrow, okay? Some fruit and stuff."
She pinches his cheek making him blush like a schoolgirl. "You're a good boy, Jimmy. You stay out of trouble."
"Yes ma'am," he says, lumbering back to his own house.
I shut off the amplifier, roll up the window, and turn to Wickham. "What is he, some kind of renegade Eagle Scout?"
Wickham shrugs. "You think they give out merit badges for grand theft auto?"
"Let's go ask Mrs. Remmer if he was staying out of trouble on Tuesday morning. Boss says he didn't work that day."
We get out of the car and head up the cement steps to her tiny porch. An assortment of wind chimes makes a tinny clanging sound as I brush against them.
"Hello?" she says from inside the door.
"Mrs. Remmer? My name is Jack Wickham with the Baltimore Police Department. I'd like to ask you a few questions if that's okay."
She pulls a lace curtain away from the window to peer out at us suspiciously, dark eyes shining like beetles in her dried-apple face. "Lemme see some identification," she orders.
We hold our badges up to the glass and she scrutinizes them for a moment, then opens the door. "Come on in then."
We enter her tidy little house, which is full of doilies and picture frames and shabby, but clean, furnishings. The air smells of lemon wood polish and tea. The phrase "neat as a pin" springs to mind.
"Go on and sit down," she says, gesturing at the couch. "What can I help you with?"
We sit. "We have some questions about your neighbor, Mr. Montaldo," I begin.
Her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. "He's a good boy," she says firmly.
"Yes ma'am," agrees Wickham. "I can see he helps you out a bit. Did you happen to see him any time between this past Monday night and Tuesday morning?"
She snorts. "Didn't you say you was a detective?"
It's our turn to look surprised. "Ma'am?" says Wickham.
"He took us to the hospital Monday night," she informs us.
"Us?"
"Me and Ashley. My granddaughter. She's having a baby." Mrs. Remmer looks down as she says this, picking at the buttons on her dress.
"Is Mr. Montaldo the father of her child?" I ask.
Mrs. Remmer looks scandalized. "Lord no! Ashley ain't but sixteen. Jimmy wouldn't do that." She shakes her head. "Ashley's been on bed rest for a month now and Monday afternoon she started having the pains and some bleeding and the doctor said we'd better bring her on in. We don't have a car but Jimmy does and he drove us down to Bon Secours and waited with us all night. He's a good boy."
"Is your granddaughter home now?" Wickham asks gently.
Mrs. Remmer nods. "She's upstairs. Sleeps a lot. I stay home with her and Jimmy has been helping out with groceries and carrying the trash and all the things Ashley did before she went and…" She bites her lip, shaking her head sadly.
"Thanks for your help, Mrs. Remmer," I say. "What's the name of the doctor Ashley saw? We'll just need to get his statement so we can put an official stamp on this."
"Cummings," she says. "Lady doctor."
We stand, thanking her for her time and wishing her well before leaving her cozy living room for the biting cold. The dismal rain of the afternoon has morphed into a fleecy snowfall, the tired row houses suddenly looking like a postcard picture in the halos cast by the streetlights.
"Shit," Wickham observes. "There's a chance he paid her off, but the story's too easy to corroborate."
"I think it's legit," I agree. Then I kick a car tire in frustration, brushing at the snow that has fallen inside my collar. "Dammit! I thought it was him." I imagine that I can hear April screaming. I have nothing to go on and no way to save her. My stomach clenches like a fist.
"You think he has an accomplice, maybe?" says Wickham, though his voice is doubtful.
I shake my head. "Tandem serial killers are exceedingly rare."
Wickham rubs his hands over his face. "Let's go see if they've turned up anything at the ME's office," he says tiredly. We climb back into the ridiculous car and slink down Howard Street like a beaten dog.
I call Scully to let her know we're on the way after Wickham confirms that Mrs. Remmer's story checks out.
"No luck?" Scully asks sympathetically, her voice crackling through the bad connection.
"Airtight alibi," I grunt. "You find anything?"
"It's hard to tell right now. We're trying to cross check shipments of the plastic from the heart with the selenium and some other glassmaking supplies, but nothing seems to be coming up. The plasticizing materials went to universities, hospitals and labs. We're making calls to see who has access to the materials, but it's slow going."
I sigh as Wickham turns onto Penn Street. "I thought I had him, Scully."
"Don't beat yourself up," she says quietly. "Any new theories?"
"I'm still wondering how he gets them in and out without any witnesses. You know, certain grimoires instruct practitioners of black magic to carry a heart under their right arm to cast a spell of invisibility. What if that's why he takes the hearts? He brings one in to make himself and the body invisible."
Scully coughs. "Well...that's a theory all right. But it still doesn't explain how he's getting them out."
Wickham throws me a sideways glance. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear any of this nonsense, Agent Mulder, so I can still respect you in the morning."
I shrug with indifference. Earning Wickham's respect doesn't rank high on my wish list, but prodding Scully back into her usual amused skepticism would certainly make up for the lackluster holiday season.
Scully's hair is bright against the pristine snow as we pull into the parking lot. "Give me some time," I reassure her. "Your ride is here." She waves and hangs up the phone.
Wickham and I get out of the car. "Wassup, baby?" I drawl, doing my overbred New England best to sound like I have street cred. "Damn girl, you look fine tonight."
She blinks in her Scully-like way, tightening her grip on the large cardboard box she's carrying. "Pardon?"
"Shit," says Wickham, draping his arm over the roof of our ghetto cruiser. "You must be tired, 'cause you've been running through my mind all night."
An embryonic smile is forming at the corners of Scully's mouth. She presses her lips together and stares up at the spiraling snow for a moment before turning her gaze back to us. "Nice car, boys. Did you beat up a struggling pimp and steal his ride?"
"Don't be a hater," I say, holding the back door open for her. She climbs in and sets her box on the seat next to her.
"Your pickup lines could use a little work," she informs us in a businesslike way as she buckles the seatbelt. "From me as a friend."
"If I were an enzyme, I'd be DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes," says Wickham as he turns onto Lombard.
Scully makes a muffled choking noise, like someone murdering a laugh.
"I've been saving that for the right scientist," he confesses.
"I assume I should be flattered," she snips.
Wickham grins in the rearview mirror then makes a right turn into the hotel garage. "Goodnight, Agents." he says as we get out of the car. ""We have all day tomorrow before he kills her. I'm not giving up just yet."
I manage a tight smile while Scully gets her box of files.
"Thanks for the ride," she says.
He waves before driving back out into the snow that has temporarily softened the hard edges of his city.
Scully and I walk into the lobby in silence. I am trying to adjust my profile according to the information about the hearts. I was right to think that these women have been linked together in death.
Why do I swap their hearts?
They're all the same - interchangeable organs - women all have the same heart - dead and cold -
"Mulder?"
"WHAT?"
Scully's eyes widen and her body instinctively presses itself against the wall. I realize that I just snapped at her without meaning to.
"The elevator's here, Mulder."
"Oh."
I walk in and press the button for the seventh floor before I notice Scully's already done it. I cast a quick apologetic look at my partner as the doors slide closed. "Sorry Scully, I didn't mean to - I was just... "
"...in his head," she finishes for me.
"Yeah."
"That's okay."
But in her eyes is the same concern I saw when my head was full of gargoyles and she caught a glimpse of what fills my mind when I do what I do. Probably not the best way to bridge the gap between us, but there's a case to solve.
"I'll order room service," I tell her. "What do you want?"
Her gaze shifts away from mine. "Nothing for me, Mulder. I think I'll go straight to bed."
"Scully…"
"I'm just tired," she says as the door opens.
Scully walks out into the hall and sets her box down, feeling around in her pocket for a moment, then pulling out her key card. She picks the box back up and I reach over to take the card from her. "Let me get that for you."
I follow her to unlock the door, opening it as she walks under my arm and sets her carton of paperwork down with a thump. "Thanks," she says, holding out her hand for the key.
As I drop it in her hand, I catch her wrist. "Wait."
She looks up at me questioningly. Her skin feels hot, her pulse fast under my fingertips.
"Talk to me, Scully."
She gently pulls her arm from my grasp. "Mulder, will you stop worrying? You're getting worse than my mother. I'm still healing and my energy levels are not quite back to normal. Which is why I'm pretty tired right now, but I assure you, that's all it is."
She pats my upper arm and smiles. "I'll see you tomorrow."
I watch her disappear in her room before heading for my own. She's probably right. After all, she's the doctor and being the consummate professional that she is, I believe she would pull herself off the case if she deemed herself unfit for the job.
Once in my room I strip down to my boxers, switch the TV on and sit on the bed, leaning against the headboard. I close my eyes, lift my hand and feel the weight of the blade again.
**********
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23rd
8:17 AM
"...and that's why I think Edgar Allan Poe came back from beyond the grave to sacrifice young virgins so the Ravens could win the Super Bowl."
I push my sunglasses up my nose with a weary finger. "The victims weren't virgins, Mulder. And the Ravens aren't in the Super Bowl."
My partner's eyes leave the road quickly to cast me a quick smirk. I can see by the tension in his shoulders that he is not in the best of moods. "And finally we get some input from Dr. Scully. Here I was, thinking I'd been talking to myself all this time."
He's not wrong about that. I find it hard to concentrate this morning. The headache that is currently burning a hole right behind my optic nerve might have something to do with that.
"I'm sorry, Mulder. I guess I'm not quite awake yet."
The look I get this time is a worried one.
"Scully. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Will you stop asking me that?"
"I'll stop asking when you start acting like yourself again."
I straighten up in my seat and smooth my hands down over the crease of my trousers. "I am myself."
Mulder scoffs as he backs the car into a narrow space in front of the Baltimore Police headquarters. "Listen, Scully, this is how it works between you and me. I tell you my theory, you tell me I'm crazy, you tell me your theory and I tell you you're wrong. Then we put everything together, give it a good shake, and what falls out is pretty much what we need to crack the case open."
I can't help but smile. "That's nicely put, Mulder."
He turns the key in the ignition and pulls it out before shifting on his seat to face me, his eyes dark and serious "Yeah, except that, since we've arrived here, I've been telling you my theories and, well...I'm still waiting for the 'Mulder, you're crazy' part."
"I'm biding my time," I tease. "Besides, you've been right. Mostly anyway. The invisibility thing is...well, you know what I think about that."
"Don't be cute with me, Scully, I need you here to bounce ideas with me but I can't do that if you're going to shut me out every night like you've been doing these past two days."
I am not taking this well and I guess my voice must reflect that. "I'm not shutting you out, Mulder. I told you, I'm still recovering from what happened to me."
Mulder slams the steering wheel in frustration. "And what exactly happened to you, Scully, that is making you lock yourself in your room and avoid talking to me? Now that's something I'd like to know. Because I've seen you roughed up before and you've never been like this afterwards."
I open the door and step out of the car. "Mulder, you're not crazy, you're delusional."
"That's not an answer, Scully," he calls back, his long coat billowing around his ankles as he locks the doors. I head up to the entrance, hearing him follow close behind. As I enter the building and slow down to welcome the change of temperature, I suddenly feel Mulder's hand against my back. I hiss and jerk away from his touch.
Mulder grips my wrist, pulling me back roughly towards him. People are looking at us and I feel embarrassment tingle along my hairline.
"And what's up with that, huh? What did this Jerse do to you that you won't even let me touch you?"
"Mulder, not here," I plead in a whisper.
He blinks, suddenly aware that he is indeed making a scene in full view of the now fairly curious Baltimore Police staff as well as various members of the general public.
Including one very interested Detective Wickham.
He strides over like a game show host. "Who's Jerse?" he asks without preamble.
I'm contemplating the mechanics of ripping Mulder's tongue out through his chest with my bare hands when I realize Wickham actually expects an answer.
"He's nobody," I reply just as Mulder offers, "He's a suspect from the last case Agent Scully worked on." We do not look at each other.
"I see," says Wickham wryly. He cocks his head. "I'm trying to figure out which one of your answers is closer to the truth."
"They're both true," I snap.
"Oh good," he replies. "For a minute there I thought he might be the guy who beat the shit out of you. Guess that was someone else."
I am actually speechless and even Mulder looks stunned.
Wickham shrugs. "Anyway. I have a mound of paper tall enough to rival the Appalachian foothills and it requires our attention."
He lopes over to his desk and Mulder starts to follow until I grab his arm. He blinks in surprise.
"Listen, Mulder," I growl. "Tattoos hurt when they start to scab over, all right? So keep your hands off my back."
"So are you going to show it to me when it heals, or what?"
"Probably not."
"Those are decent odds."
We walk over to Wickham's desk and he hands us each a cardboard box full of beige folders.
"Agent Mulder, these individuals are either professional or hobbyist glassblowers and have immediate family members in the allied health fields. They also have some kind of violent criminal past. We've interviewed them all already, but I'd like you to see if any of them seem to fit your profile. Agent Scully, I have here some close-up photographs of injuries to both soft and hard tissue made by various implements used by hunters to butcher meat. See if any of it matches up to the pictures you took of the victim's wounds. We've checked already, but I always appreciate a fresh pair of eyes. I have a bank of people tracking plastic and selenium and lead crystal and just about anything else you can imagine. There are also three men we haven't been able to track down who all have past or current enrollment in glassblowing classes. I want those bases covered. Divide them up as you will."
I am impressed by his efficiency and take the box to an adjacent empty desk.
Wickham walks off to supervise other members of the task force and I glance at my watch. Time hangs over us like a guillotine and I pray for an eleventh hour reprieve.
**********
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS
10:06 PM
"I know everything in the world about glassblowing," Mulder informs me, pushing a manila folder away from him on the wide conference table. "I'm thinking about quitting the FBI and sculpting precious little animals for old ladies. Also, I've pretty much turned up jack shit and have inhaled my yearly quota of patchouli," he grumbles. He balances on his chair to prop his feet up on the table. "Did you know that as you get closer to the art school, the probability of a glassblowing enthusiast also being a hippie approaches one?"
Mulder smirks as he tucks his hands behind his head, and I think now is not the point to tell him that, once upon a time, my airy-fairy sister had some measure of fashion influence on me. It didn't last. I was never laid back enough to be a flower child. She would coo over skirts in pretty rainbow colors while I tried to guess the chemical makeup of the dye.
"You should write an article on that, Mulder," I tell him while stretching my arms gingerly above my head. "I myself have learned a great deal about butchering and hunting. Are you aware that over one hundred people are injured each year by attempting to field dress bucks that aren't quite dead?"
Mulder pulls off his tie and tosses it onto the chair next to me. "I was not. The world is a fascinating and stupid place."
Wickham comes over and perches on the edge of the table. "Hola, federales."
"I took German," I say. "No habla."
"Right. Well, let me spell this out for you in plain English then. We're up shit creek. I have spent all day talking to unhelpful people who have done nothing but aggravate me. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I hate glass and plastic and selenium and Edgar Allan Poe. You guys find anything?"
I shake my head. "I tracked down one of your three missing glassblowers. Julius Meltzer has been in Amsterdam for the past five weeks. No luck on Alibek Chalew or Elliot Dunham."
I kick my shoes off to rub my insteps, wishing I were tall enough to feel assertive in more sensible footwear. "Can we get a pizza?" I ask.
"No," says Mulder seriously, rocking his chair on the two back legs. "No pizza for you."
"Why not?" I demand.
"You know very well why not. You're a pain about the toppings and you bitch and moan about the amount of sauce and God help us all if the crust is too thick. Then you blot at the cheese and whine when there aren't enough napkins."
I glare at him while Wickham chuckles. "There's a good Chinese place on the next block," he offers.
"Chinese is okay," concedes Mulder. "She deems all Chinese takeout equally poor, so you get very few complaints."
"I'll go grab a menu," says Wickham, hopping up and rummaging through a cabinet on the wall.
"I hate you both," I inform them. "Intensely."
"Hate is just love disappointed," Mulder says loftily. "You're only mad because you know I'm right."
Wickham passes us each a worn-out, stained menu. I examine mine as though it might contain anything other than the usual suspects. We tell Wickham our selections and he calls the order in.
"Fifteen minutes," he says, peering into a bin full of miscellaneous paper goods and plastic utensils. "Chopsticks or forks?"
"Forks are for barbarians," I tell him. "Chinese food doesn't taste right unless you eat it with chopsticks."
"But they take longer," he says. "Waste of time."
I roll my eyes. "That's such a guy thing to say."
"Why?" Mulder chimes in. "Just because he believes a good fast fork will lead to more immediate satisfaction? There *are* women who feel that way too, you know."
I throw Mulder's tie at him as Wickham laughs.
**********
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS
8:15 AM
I wake up in dire need of a shave, with a severely stiff neck and a crick in my back that feels like it goes down to my spine. I groan then stretch slowly, working out the kinks and knots.
"Morning, sunshine," says Wickham. "You'll be late for the bus."
"Mmmfff," I grumble, rubbing my hands over my face. I look up to see Scully enter the conference room, wearing an expression of benevolent pity.
"I know you miss your couch Mulder, but your near-pathological aversion to normal beds is beginning to worry me. Here, I brought you a toothbrush." She hands me a plastic bag.
"You sleep on a couch?" Wickham says incredulously.
"Most nights," I say, feeling stupid. "It's comfortable."
Wickham studies me for a moment before turning to Scully and then back to me. "I'd say that clears up any lingering doubts I had."
I avoid looking at either one of them by opening the bag Scully brought and extracting the toothbrush and travel size toothpaste.
Wickham turns back to Our Lady of Oral Hygiene. "You know," he confides, "I have a nice firm king-size. Pillow top."
Scully tosses her head, but I can see she's amused rather than irritated.
"Okay, kids," Wickham says, distributing packets of paperwork. "Poe Society members to check out and a few people who weren't reachable last time. Let's get going."
We take our files and none of us observes that wherever she is, April is quite likely dead.
**********
EASTERN AVENUE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24TH
8:18 PM
I circle through Fells Point again, having driven around the city for what feels like the thousandth time. I pull up in front of 1621 Aliceanna, staring at the black eyes of April's darkened windows.
Where are you? I wonder, and who is the next link in the chain?
I fold my arms on the steering wheel and rest my head on them. A moment later, someone taps at my window. I bolt upright, hand at my gun.
It's Wickham.
"I'm armed and testy," I warn him. "Don't sneak up on me like that. What are you doing here, Wickham?"
"Same thing as you," he replies. "We're just going to have to wait."
I slam my fist against the console. "This is bullshit."
Wickham sighs. "Yeah. It is. And we're gonna be the fall guys. Where's Agent Scully?"
"Getting her geek on with a big pile of forensics data."
He looks thoughtful. "There's a decent bar just a few blocks from here. I intend to offer them my patronage. You free or do you plan to go get her geek off?"
"You're an asshole, Wickham," I say, but my heart's not in it.
"Surprisingly, I hear that a bit. I'm going to get in my car and you can just follow me. Too damned cold to walk."
He's only a few cars ahead and I follow him to a bar whose entrance is adorned with mollusks and a skeleton. "The Whistling Oyster?" I give him an eyebrow that would have made Scully proud.
"There's a place called The Bearded Clam in Ocean City," he informs me. We walk in and sit at the bar, where Wickham orders a Killian's. I second the motion.
"The thing is," he says while we wait for our drinks to arrive, "is that we don't even know what to look for. He's going to leave her somewhere, take a new victim, and we don't have the first clue how he chooses them."
The bartender passes us each a bottle and offers to start a tab; a suggestion we take. I decide to let the federal government foot the bill. I lift my bottle. "To...shit. I don't know."
"That'll do."
We drink in silence and then Wickham says, "They're making some headway on plastic shipments. Got a few leads they're following up on."
"Yeah? Anything stand out?"
He shrugs. "Not yet."
I sigh and finish my beer, signaling for another. The bartender brings over two more. "Women trouble?" she inquires.
"Something like that," I say vaguely.
"I'll keep 'em coming then." She saunters off for better conversation.
"Maybe Agent Scully will find something else," Wickham suggests. "She seems like a clever little minx."
I laugh a bit. "She's clever all right. But go easy on the minx talk. She has an itchy trigger finger." I tap my shoulder and Wickham's eyes go wide.
"She *shot* you?"
"Just to keep me in line. It was nothing personal."
He gives me an odd look. "How long have you been working together?"
"Four years."
"Some things always become personal when you're partnered with someone for that long."
"Speaking from experience?"
Wickham takes a sip of his beer, falsely casual. I detect an old wound. "Yes," he says.
"What happened to her? I assume it was a her?"
Wickham snorts a little. "Yes, very much a her. Little blonde pistol named Melinda." His eyes cloud with memories. "She hated her name, made everybody call her Jo."
I raise an eyebrow. "Jo?"
"As far from Melinda as you can go," he laughs. "Her mind worked like that."
"Past tense?"
Wickham reaches out for his next beer, trying to sound light. "Killed in the line of not even duty."
"When did that happen?"
"Three years ago. We'd been at Sabatino's celebrating a major meth lab bust and were fairly drunk. We got mugged on the way home." He points at his scarred cheek. "I was the lucky one."
Wickham takes another long drink from his new bottle and picks at the label with the edge of his thumbnail. I can feel his reluctance to pursue the subject, so I just sit quietly with my beer and the both of us stop talking for a while.
"So, uh…that stuff about the guy being invisible? You really believe that?" Wickham asks, another beer later.
I smile. "Ah, I've been waiting. You must know what Scully and I do. You said you did a little digging."
"I heard a lot of crap about UFOs. The FBI investigates aliens?"
"Technically? The FBI investigates reports of activities that may appear to mimic certain hallmark characteristics of so-called extraterrestrial encounters," I recite.
Wickham rolls his eyes. "Well, that didn't sound rehearsed. You believe in aliens too? Aliens and invisible serial killers?"
"Hold that thought." I ask for two shots of Patron. If ever there were a time for tequila shots, it's tonight.
"Cheers," says Wickham and we gulp the drinks down quickly. The bartender brings over another round of beers, though we're not quite finished with the remaining ones.
I can feel my head starting to hum pleasantly. I should drink more often. "I do believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life," I inform Wickham. "Invisible serial killers I gotta wait and see. Ha ha."
"So you and Scully go around investigating that kind of thing? She didn't really strike me as New Age-y, but appearances can be deceiving. I never would have pegged you as that kind of guy."
I laugh again. "New Age-y? I'm not exactly New Age-y. And Scully's definitely not. Her job is to write long reports detailing what an insane waste of space I am. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things scientific and she will rattle off enormous chunks of jargon at you until you just want to shake her." I smile at the thought of her babbling about glucocorticoids and scolexes and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We once had a heated discussion about whether Bactrian or dromedary camels are evolutionarily superior.
Wickham eats a handful of beer nuts. "I'm going to call her after this is all over, if that's all right with you."
I look up in surprise. "I'm not her father."
"No. But you're also not as disinterested in her as you pretend."
"It's complicated," I sigh. "But you should call her. She could use someone normal in her life. Relatively speaking."
"What does she do? Beyond her Queen of the Dead routine?"
I consider this. "I have no idea. She likes to go to the shooting range. She attends boring seminars. She's Catholic. Maybe you guys could take in a nice Mass or something."
Wickham looks concerned. "Doesn't she do anything fun?"
"Fun? Scully doesn't have fun. I mean, not like normal people." What I should have said is that Scully doesn't have fun with *me.* She has fun with violent psychotic tattooed men. And that didn't turn out very well. Maybe she and Wickham can go get something pierced.
"Does she go dancing?"
I try to imagine Scully dancing and fail horribly, because I can only envision her in a suit and heels with her Very Serious Hairdo. People do not wear things like that to go dancing.
"No clue. She used to have an obnoxious little dog. Maybe you can woo her that way."
He chuckles. "I think it might be a tad early for the puppy-buying stage."
"Well shit, Wickham. I don't know what to tell you. If I were trying to get into Scully's pants I'd bring her a shiny new microscope and a box of ammo because those are the only things that seem to make her happy." I finish my current beer and decide to stop because I am getting close to the degree of drunkenness where one begins to say things that will haunt one for a lifetime.
I make the universal gesture for "bring me the check, please," and when it arrives, I scribble something resembling my name on the receipt.
"I need to get more FBI assistance on my cases," Wickham remarks. "Save me some money."
"I'm-a hold you to those tickets."
"You don't drink much, do you?" he observes.
"'S'bad for my girlish figure."
He laughs and then pulls out his phone. "Well, we're both kind of fucked up. I'm gonna call for a cab. I'll have someone bring your car over to the hotel later." He walks to the door and pulls it open, a whirlwind of snow flurries rushing in.
I nod. "Okay. Hey, Wickham?"
"Yeah?"
"Scully likes cello music."
He grins and I toss him my car keys.
**********
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR
11:40 PM
The cab driver stopped at a liquor store on the way back to the hotel and I overpay him before oozing from the car to the curb by the hotel. The cold slaps me like a B-movie starlet as I lean against a pillar in the freezing air.
Once my motor functions have rallied back to a semblance of organization, I stumble though the lobby and into the elevator, which disgorges me at the seventh floor. I walk to 746 and knock loudly.
"You should come have a drink with me, Scully," I slur as she opens her door.
Scully crosses her arms and gives me a disdainful once-over. "You don't look like you need a drink, Mulder. You need some sleep." She leans towards me and sniffs. "And a shower," she adds. "You smell like a bar."
"Wickham took me to the Whistling Oyster."
"Strip club?"
"I'm wounded, really. Is that what you think of me?"
She pats my shoulder. "No. Good night."
Scully begins to push the door shut but I catch it with my hand. "What, no good night kiss?"
She surprises me by grinning slightly. "You haven't bought me dinner yet."
"I was *trying* to buy you a drink," I remind her.
She rests her head on the doorframe. "You're drunk, Mulder. You're drunk and we have a hideous day ahead of us. Besides which, I'm ready for bed and I don't really feel like getting dressed again just so I can go have a drink I don't need and have to babysit you for good measure."
She's caving or she wouldn't have given an excuse for not wanting to come out with me. I straighten out a bit. Scully needs a reasonable argument for everything, so I give her one. "You're not gonna sleep tonight, Scully. None of us are." I hold up a brown paper bag, dangling it before her eyes like Mesmer. "No dress code at my place. Come on, live a little."
She watches the bag, then gives me a long look and sighs. "Let me get my robe."
**********
I am lying down on the bed, head propped up on one hand, and dozily listening to the wondrous tales of Dana Scully MD, Terror of Quantico.
She points an inebriated finger at me. "I said it was probably arsenic poisoning and someone burned the body to hide it. And he said there was no way to prove it and I had to drop it. So, I told him -" she looks at her empty glass and reaches out for the bottle "- so I told him...what did I tell him Mulder?"
"Your story, Scully," I remind her, handing the bottle over.
She fills her glass and looks in it with a pitiful pout. "I forgot how it ends."
Scully takes a healthy swig. I know I should stop her, but I'm not really sober myself; my muscles have the slow, confused feeling they get when I end up in the hospital pumped full of Dilaudid. I let my head fall on the bed and turn onto my back. Her voice drifts into my foggy brain. "Give me your clothes, Mulder."
Okay. Now I'm wide awake. I raise myself on both elbows and look dumbstruck as Scully stands up somewhat unsteadily and begins untying the knot of her bathrobe. It falls in a terry cloth heap at her feet. "I want to lie down but my pajamas will make me slide off the bed," she explains seriously.
"Scully?"
"It's polyester and I'm in satin and the standard friction equation dictates that um...slippery." She starts rooting through the larger of my duffel bags. "I need to borrow something cotton."
I lack the energy and sobriety required to argue her logic right now, so I just close my eyes and let myself fall back on the bed. Scully wanders past me to the bathroom, clutching a wad of fabric in her hand. I feel myself drifting to sleep as she makes rambling conversation from around the corner.
Some time later I feel the bed shift. I struggle to pry open my heavy eyelids and find myself staring at Scully, who is poured over the bed like a cat. She is wearing a pair of my shorts and my Red Stripe t-shirt, her hair in a ponytail. She looks about nineteen.
"Hey," she says. "See? I'm not sliding or anything."
I turn to look at her and then press my palms against my eyes. "Scully, go to your own room and go to sleep. It's late and you're right. Long day tomorrow."
Scully gives me an accusing look. "You ply me with liquor then kick me out when I hop into bed with you? Gee, Mulder. No wonder you don't get more dates."
"You're drunk, Scully."
"A Scully is never drunk," she informs me indignantly.
"Family lore?"
"Family law. You want me to refill your glass?"
"No, I don't. But thank you." My head aches and the outlines of the room are still fuzzy, but I'm stone-cold sober next to my partner and one of us has to be responsible.
Scully flops back on the bed and pouts. She stretches her arms upwards, causing the t-shirt ride up her torso as she winces. Purple and green bruises bloom like violets on her white skin and I look away, queasy.
"Where's Detective Wickham?" she asks. "You didn't invite him to your little after-party?"
"Wouldn't you have liked that," I say dryly.
"He's an interesting man."
"Is he?"
"Well you should know, you've been hanging out with him more than I have." She sounds slightly defensive.
"Hanging out? He's trying to get advice on how to pick you up, Scully."
"Really? And you've been helping him with this? I'm intrigued." Sarcasm laces every word.
"Intrigued? Does this mean you're interested?"
"I might be."
I look at her again, suddenly irritated by her boozy voice and her bare midriff and my shorts rolled provocatively around her hips. I want her to leave so I can sit in the dark and dream of monsters without worrying about her bruises and her nosebleeds and the way her breasts move under my shirt when she appears not to have a bra on.
"Detective Wickham, huh?" I reply. "Looking for another notch in your headboard, Scully? Is that what you do now, when you don't feel like dealing with a case? Have a few drinks and go screw some poor bastard?" I feel mean and enjoy it somewhat.
She sits up slowly, flinching as she does, and I'm glad when the shirt drops back down to cover her narrow waist. "You're one to talk," she spits.
That is not the reply I expected and, against my better judgment, I ask her what she's talking about.
"You had an HIV test right after I was returned from my abduction," she says, watching me intently. "And another one three months later."
I swallow hard, having been caught violating the Eleventh Commandment. Thou shalt not attempt to hide things from thy personal physician.
Scully leans closer to me and pulls at my tie, which I have only just realized is draped around my neck. "You know what I think?" she asks in a low, throaty way. "I think that I was your sister all over again when he took me. I was another lost girl for you to find. And I think you went out and slept with some woman who looked nothing like me, because what would that make you if she were short and redheaded when some part of you saw me as an eight year old girl from Chilmark?"
Damn you, I think. This is my trick. You play with your knives and saws and I figure out what goes on in people's heads. But that's classic Scully, isn't it? She absorbs everything. I still don't reply, wanting to know what she'll say next.
"I think she was tall. 5'8, maybe? Above 5'6, anyway. Long hair. Probably blonde, but maybe dark." She cocks her head and looks at me, squinting. "Yeah, dark. Phoebe had dark hair. I don't think you go for blondes." She takes a gulp of her drink. "Writer, maybe. Or an art student."
"Accomplice to murder," I say. "Killed herself."
Scully laughs humorlessly. "I knew you had no room to talk. We're too much alike that way, Mulder, for you to really be mad at me."
I take the cup from her hand and empty the remains of it in one long swallow. And my righteous indignation, floating so exultantly only a moment ago, crashes and flames like the Hindenburg.
Oh, the humanity.
Scully stretches out on the bed again, tendrils of hair curling across her concrete face like rust stains. "They're going to find her tomorrow morning," she mumbles. "And he'll have taken someone else and he's going to kill her too." Her voice is still slushy, distorting the vowels and blurring the hard edges of the plosives.
I stretch out on my side and prop my head up with my left hand, looking down at her, wondering if anyone could ever really break her. "No, he's not, Scully. We'll find him now. It'll just take a few more days, but we'll get him in time to stop this one."
"April never had a chance," she remarks to the ceiling.
"No," I agree. "Not really."
Scully rolls onto her side, groaning softly, and then swings her feet over the edge of the bed. She stands shakily, steadying herself before walking around to the other side of the bed. Her back is to me as she pulls the shirt up some. A serpent curls just above the waistband of the shorts, chasing itself in an endless loop as it bites its own tail. An Ouroboros if I'm not mistaken. I could have guessed for a hundred years and never come up with a snake. Scully, unlike Eve, is not the type to blame others when she tastes forbidden fruit, so I wonder what the snake hissed to her when she elected to have it emblazoned on her body.
"Well?" she demands.
I lean closer and she arches slightly away from me when my breath hits her back. The area around the tattoo looks raw and sunburned, but the colors of the ink are vivid and jewel-bright against the otherwise pale canvas of her skin. I want very much to trace it with my finger, but I don't.
"I can't believe you got a tattoo," I say, memorizing every millimeter of it. "But it looks good." I'm close enough to feel the heat rising from her against my cheek. I let my eyes slide shut as I breathe her in.
Scully drops the shirt back down, laughing. A real laugh this time. "Neither can I, actually." She meanders over to the sink where she folds up a washcloth, wetting it before wiping her face. I get up to go into the bathroom, finding a dry hand towel and passing it to her. Then I scoop up her discarded clothes and set them on the counter.
"So does Wickham get to see it, too?" I query.
That earns me a Look. "Mulder," she says testily, patting her face dry.
"No, I'm serious. You were right; he's an interesting guy and he really seems to like you."
Scully shakes her head and gathers the heap of her belongings. "I was kidding. He's not my type." She shuffles to the entryway, tripping a little, and I catch her elbow before she bumps into the wall.
"Watch the fancy footwork there, Ginger Rogers. And what's wrong with Wickham?" I figure if Scully's destined to end up with someone in law enforcement, Wickham's light years beyond a dickhead like Jack Willis.
She starts to open the door, then stops, turning back to face me. "Sometimes I wonder if you're really any good at reading people at all," she says, stepping close enough for me to smell my own cologne on the shirt she's wearing. Close enough for her hair to brush my chin.
She drops the bundle in her hands to the floor.
Step back away from her, close the door and head straight for that shower, says my higher brain to the lower. Make it a nice cold one if you have to. Do not think, do not pass go, do not further contemplate what her mouth would feel like against yours.
Shut up, I order it as Scully moves her hands up my chest and presses her cool fingers to my face. She stretches upwards and kisses me, her mouth sweet under the dangerous varnish taste of the vodka. "That's what's wrong with Wickham," she whispers against my lips.
I tug the rubber band free from her ponytail, her hair tumbling down over my hand. I twist my fingers through it, pulling her closer and sliding my other hand under the t-shirt. Her back is slender and warm to the touch and I keep well north of the tattoo, thereby confirming that she is indeed braless. I let go of her hair and cup her face in my hand, admiring the feel of her rose-petal skin and the lean tendons of her neck. Her tongue slides against mine and she nips my lower lip. I am fighting very hard not to lift her up and carry her back to the bed because I really don't want to break her ribs.
And then the synapses connect and I realize that I am kissing Scully while we are both somewhat drunk, on a case, and waiting with morbid curiosity to see where the latest mutilated corpse will show up. I think the same circuit must have just been completed in her brain because she pulls away. Somewhat reluctantly, I like to think.
She looks up at me and I wonder if the flush on her cheeks is embarrassment or desire.
"Mulder," she says, in a voice like raw silk.
Desire, definitely. I feel like a god.
"Scully," I murmur, not sure of what comes next. She plays with the end of my tie while I will my blood to diffuse back to its normal course through my body.
"You're such an idiot," she says kindly, finally letting go of my tie and picking her things up off the floor. She opens the door and walks out into the hallway. "G'night."
"See you in the morning." I slouch against the doorframe and watch her head into her own room, trying to decide if I'm an idiot for wanting her to stay or for letting her go.
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Season 4
DISCLAIMER: We read the IWTB novelization, guys. 'Nuff said.
**********
MARYLAND STATE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE
3:42 pm
Karen comes into the room with a stack of printouts in a cardboard box. "I've got some good stuff for you, Agent Scully. He attempted to preserve the heart using plastination, but gave himself nowhere near enough time. Soaked it in acetone and then dunked it in the liquid plastic. That can take months but he wanted to rush things."
"The women were killed about twenty-four hours before being found," I say. "That's barely enough time for the acetone. He bought himself a few extra days by switching the hearts, but still."
Karen shrugs. "Could have been longer. He was keeping them somewhere cold - fridge or something - and you know what that does to estimating time of death."
I think of Donnie Pfaster and shudder. Yes, I am intimately familiar with that MO. "You have a manufacturer for the plastic yet?"
"Blakefield United Chemicals. These are proprietary compounds so the manufacturers put markers in them to identify their products. I got one of Wickham's boys to start making some calls to track shipments."
"Thanks, Karen, this is great work. What about the little particles we found?"
"Exactly what you'd expect. Silica with a little limestone and potash. Also some fragments of glass with a very high index of refraction. Regular glass is about 1.5 and this stuff is 1.7. Lead crystal. It has a pretty unique makeup and if you can link any of this to a suspect, they're gonna have a hard time explaining it away."
I'm feeling a wash of hope. "Anything else on the saw marks or selenium?"
She shakes her head. "Non-specific on the selenium. It'll be circumstantial at best and any first year law student can talk their way out of it. But the glass was a good catch. And I'll let you know what I hear on the plastic and the cuts."
"Your efficiency is impressive. Ever planned to move to DC? I could put in a good word for you."
Karen laughs "No, not really, but thank you." She plays with the charms on her bracelet. "My dad was murdered in Druid Hill Park when I was twenty-two," she murmurs. "Just one of those things, you know? They never caught the guy. That's why I chose this job. The crime in this city is out of control."
"I'm sorry." I know all about loss, Karen.
The young woman smiles ruefully. "Guess you must meet quite a few people like me in your line of work, huh?"
"I'm afraid so."
"So you understand." She leaves me alone with a box full of puzzle pieces and a headache that is screaming like a demon behind my eyes.
**********
"Knock knock," says Mulder. "How goes it, Quincy?" He sets a white paper bag down on the chair next to me.
I smile tiredly and glance at my watch, shocked that an hour has flown by so quickly. "Pretty good, actually. They're making everything about this case top priority, so I've got a big stack of data to go through. What about you?"
"Got a suspect," he says airily.
I almost drop the test tube I'm holding. "Are you serious? Mulder, that's incredible." I place my sample carefully in the rack in case he has any more bombshells to drop.
He shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not. Wickham fast-tracked a search warrant but we turned up a whole lot of nothing. And the guy's criminal history does not fit with my profile."
"Well, maybe he just never got caught for the right crimes." I open a new box of slide covers.
"Could be, he gets off work in an hour. Wickham and I are going to keep an eye on him, see where he goes. We had someone watching him at lunch time, but he just went to Burger King."
"So how'd you find him, Mulder?"
He grabs a piece of Parafilm, molding the clear, flexible plastic over his hand and pinching the edges to seal them. He starts drawing a cat on it with a ballpoint pen. "I saw him at the glassworks making Poe-themed stuff."
I shake my head in wonder. "Remind me never to try and commit a crime that might fall under your jurisdiction."
"You're saying you don't want me to handcuff you some time?"
"To what? Your couch?"
"We could go to your place. I seem to recall a slatted headboard."
"Mulder, the last time you were in my bed, you were drugged out of your mind. How do you even remember such a thing?"
My partner laughs, finishes his drawing, and tugs the Parafilm away. The image of the cat peels neatly from the back of his hand. "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream," he quotes.
He picks up the bag he brought in and hands it to me. "I know you haven't eaten anything. I got you a Cobb salad. Dressing on the side, easy on the bacon."
I open the bag and remove the foil tray. I can smell the grilled chicken and am surprised to discover that I'm ravenous. "Thanks, Mulder." I pry off the plastic lid and head over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water.
"No problem. Well, I'm gonna head out. Just wanted to see how you were coming along. I'll catch you later, Scully."
"Good luck," I say around a mouthful of lettuce, but he's already gone.
**********
"Ahoy," I say as Wickham pulls up in a decrepit Lincoln Continental. "Nice land yacht you've got there."
"Please try to contain your jealousy. It's unbecoming," he scolds, unlocking the door. "We should blend in nicely. Mr. Montaldo, as you recall, does not travel in refined circles."
I settle back against the cracked leather seats, wondering if I should be wearing gold chains. "Onward, Jeeves."
We drive back to the glassworks and park the car behind a dumpster across the street, peering through our binoculars until Montaldo emerges from the building and gets into his old pickup.
We follow him at an easy distance. He stops to get some drive-through food, then meanders through questionable neighborhoods until he pulls up at his house. Our earlier search was extremely careful; his house looked like a tornado hit to begin with and we touched almost nothing. Between the two, he shouldn't be able to detect our presence.
We park across the street and watch him carry in the large bags of food.
"That's a load of food for one guy," remarks Wickham. "I mean, he's pretty big, but that is a hell of a lot of burgers for anybody."
"Indeed," I say. "But none of the victims' stomach contents have shown any fast food. Maybe he has a tapeworm."
We sit in the car for about twenty minutes before Montaldo emerges from the house carrying one of the bags along with a large flowered plate. He picks his way across the patchy lawn and goes to the house next door, ringing the bell once.
"What the hell?" wonders Wickham as he refocuses his binoculars.
The door is answered by a very old woman who stands up on her tiptoes to kiss Montaldo on the cheek before taking the bag and the plate. I roll down the window to hold the Bionic Ear amplifier out.
"…for helping us out, Jimmy," she says to him.
Montaldo shrugs. "No problem Mrs. Remmer," he replies. "And thanks for the cookies. I just want to make sure y'all are okay. I'm gonna get you some more groceries tomorrow, okay? Some fruit and stuff."
She pinches his cheek making him blush like a schoolgirl. "You're a good boy, Jimmy. You stay out of trouble."
"Yes ma'am," he says, lumbering back to his own house.
I shut off the amplifier, roll up the window, and turn to Wickham. "What is he, some kind of renegade Eagle Scout?"
Wickham shrugs. "You think they give out merit badges for grand theft auto?"
"Let's go ask Mrs. Remmer if he was staying out of trouble on Tuesday morning. Boss says he didn't work that day."
We get out of the car and head up the cement steps to her tiny porch. An assortment of wind chimes makes a tinny clanging sound as I brush against them.
"Hello?" she says from inside the door.
"Mrs. Remmer? My name is Jack Wickham with the Baltimore Police Department. I'd like to ask you a few questions if that's okay."
She pulls a lace curtain away from the window to peer out at us suspiciously, dark eyes shining like beetles in her dried-apple face. "Lemme see some identification," she orders.
We hold our badges up to the glass and she scrutinizes them for a moment, then opens the door. "Come on in then."
We enter her tidy little house, which is full of doilies and picture frames and shabby, but clean, furnishings. The air smells of lemon wood polish and tea. The phrase "neat as a pin" springs to mind.
"Go on and sit down," she says, gesturing at the couch. "What can I help you with?"
We sit. "We have some questions about your neighbor, Mr. Montaldo," I begin.
Her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. "He's a good boy," she says firmly.
"Yes ma'am," agrees Wickham. "I can see he helps you out a bit. Did you happen to see him any time between this past Monday night and Tuesday morning?"
She snorts. "Didn't you say you was a detective?"
It's our turn to look surprised. "Ma'am?" says Wickham.
"He took us to the hospital Monday night," she informs us.
"Us?"
"Me and Ashley. My granddaughter. She's having a baby." Mrs. Remmer looks down as she says this, picking at the buttons on her dress.
"Is Mr. Montaldo the father of her child?" I ask.
Mrs. Remmer looks scandalized. "Lord no! Ashley ain't but sixteen. Jimmy wouldn't do that." She shakes her head. "Ashley's been on bed rest for a month now and Monday afternoon she started having the pains and some bleeding and the doctor said we'd better bring her on in. We don't have a car but Jimmy does and he drove us down to Bon Secours and waited with us all night. He's a good boy."
"Is your granddaughter home now?" Wickham asks gently.
Mrs. Remmer nods. "She's upstairs. Sleeps a lot. I stay home with her and Jimmy has been helping out with groceries and carrying the trash and all the things Ashley did before she went and…" She bites her lip, shaking her head sadly.
"Thanks for your help, Mrs. Remmer," I say. "What's the name of the doctor Ashley saw? We'll just need to get his statement so we can put an official stamp on this."
"Cummings," she says. "Lady doctor."
We stand, thanking her for her time and wishing her well before leaving her cozy living room for the biting cold. The dismal rain of the afternoon has morphed into a fleecy snowfall, the tired row houses suddenly looking like a postcard picture in the halos cast by the streetlights.
"Shit," Wickham observes. "There's a chance he paid her off, but the story's too easy to corroborate."
"I think it's legit," I agree. Then I kick a car tire in frustration, brushing at the snow that has fallen inside my collar. "Dammit! I thought it was him." I imagine that I can hear April screaming. I have nothing to go on and no way to save her. My stomach clenches like a fist.
"You think he has an accomplice, maybe?" says Wickham, though his voice is doubtful.
I shake my head. "Tandem serial killers are exceedingly rare."
Wickham rubs his hands over his face. "Let's go see if they've turned up anything at the ME's office," he says tiredly. We climb back into the ridiculous car and slink down Howard Street like a beaten dog.
I call Scully to let her know we're on the way after Wickham confirms that Mrs. Remmer's story checks out.
"No luck?" Scully asks sympathetically, her voice crackling through the bad connection.
"Airtight alibi," I grunt. "You find anything?"
"It's hard to tell right now. We're trying to cross check shipments of the plastic from the heart with the selenium and some other glassmaking supplies, but nothing seems to be coming up. The plasticizing materials went to universities, hospitals and labs. We're making calls to see who has access to the materials, but it's slow going."
I sigh as Wickham turns onto Penn Street. "I thought I had him, Scully."
"Don't beat yourself up," she says quietly. "Any new theories?"
"I'm still wondering how he gets them in and out without any witnesses. You know, certain grimoires instruct practitioners of black magic to carry a heart under their right arm to cast a spell of invisibility. What if that's why he takes the hearts? He brings one in to make himself and the body invisible."
Scully coughs. "Well...that's a theory all right. But it still doesn't explain how he's getting them out."
Wickham throws me a sideways glance. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear any of this nonsense, Agent Mulder, so I can still respect you in the morning."
I shrug with indifference. Earning Wickham's respect doesn't rank high on my wish list, but prodding Scully back into her usual amused skepticism would certainly make up for the lackluster holiday season.
Scully's hair is bright against the pristine snow as we pull into the parking lot. "Give me some time," I reassure her. "Your ride is here." She waves and hangs up the phone.
Wickham and I get out of the car. "Wassup, baby?" I drawl, doing my overbred New England best to sound like I have street cred. "Damn girl, you look fine tonight."
She blinks in her Scully-like way, tightening her grip on the large cardboard box she's carrying. "Pardon?"
"Shit," says Wickham, draping his arm over the roof of our ghetto cruiser. "You must be tired, 'cause you've been running through my mind all night."
An embryonic smile is forming at the corners of Scully's mouth. She presses her lips together and stares up at the spiraling snow for a moment before turning her gaze back to us. "Nice car, boys. Did you beat up a struggling pimp and steal his ride?"
"Don't be a hater," I say, holding the back door open for her. She climbs in and sets her box on the seat next to her.
"Your pickup lines could use a little work," she informs us in a businesslike way as she buckles the seatbelt. "From me as a friend."
"If I were an enzyme, I'd be DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes," says Wickham as he turns onto Lombard.
Scully makes a muffled choking noise, like someone murdering a laugh.
"I've been saving that for the right scientist," he confesses.
"I assume I should be flattered," she snips.
Wickham grins in the rearview mirror then makes a right turn into the hotel garage. "Goodnight, Agents." he says as we get out of the car. ""We have all day tomorrow before he kills her. I'm not giving up just yet."
I manage a tight smile while Scully gets her box of files.
"Thanks for the ride," she says.
He waves before driving back out into the snow that has temporarily softened the hard edges of his city.
Scully and I walk into the lobby in silence. I am trying to adjust my profile according to the information about the hearts. I was right to think that these women have been linked together in death.
Why do I swap their hearts?
They're all the same - interchangeable organs - women all have the same heart - dead and cold -
"Mulder?"
"WHAT?"
Scully's eyes widen and her body instinctively presses itself against the wall. I realize that I just snapped at her without meaning to.
"The elevator's here, Mulder."
"Oh."
I walk in and press the button for the seventh floor before I notice Scully's already done it. I cast a quick apologetic look at my partner as the doors slide closed. "Sorry Scully, I didn't mean to - I was just... "
"...in his head," she finishes for me.
"Yeah."
"That's okay."
But in her eyes is the same concern I saw when my head was full of gargoyles and she caught a glimpse of what fills my mind when I do what I do. Probably not the best way to bridge the gap between us, but there's a case to solve.
"I'll order room service," I tell her. "What do you want?"
Her gaze shifts away from mine. "Nothing for me, Mulder. I think I'll go straight to bed."
"Scully…"
"I'm just tired," she says as the door opens.
Scully walks out into the hall and sets her box down, feeling around in her pocket for a moment, then pulling out her key card. She picks the box back up and I reach over to take the card from her. "Let me get that for you."
I follow her to unlock the door, opening it as she walks under my arm and sets her carton of paperwork down with a thump. "Thanks," she says, holding out her hand for the key.
As I drop it in her hand, I catch her wrist. "Wait."
She looks up at me questioningly. Her skin feels hot, her pulse fast under my fingertips.
"Talk to me, Scully."
She gently pulls her arm from my grasp. "Mulder, will you stop worrying? You're getting worse than my mother. I'm still healing and my energy levels are not quite back to normal. Which is why I'm pretty tired right now, but I assure you, that's all it is."
She pats my upper arm and smiles. "I'll see you tomorrow."
I watch her disappear in her room before heading for my own. She's probably right. After all, she's the doctor and being the consummate professional that she is, I believe she would pull herself off the case if she deemed herself unfit for the job.
Once in my room I strip down to my boxers, switch the TV on and sit on the bed, leaning against the headboard. I close my eyes, lift my hand and feel the weight of the blade again.
**********
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23rd
8:17 AM
"...and that's why I think Edgar Allan Poe came back from beyond the grave to sacrifice young virgins so the Ravens could win the Super Bowl."
I push my sunglasses up my nose with a weary finger. "The victims weren't virgins, Mulder. And the Ravens aren't in the Super Bowl."
My partner's eyes leave the road quickly to cast me a quick smirk. I can see by the tension in his shoulders that he is not in the best of moods. "And finally we get some input from Dr. Scully. Here I was, thinking I'd been talking to myself all this time."
He's not wrong about that. I find it hard to concentrate this morning. The headache that is currently burning a hole right behind my optic nerve might have something to do with that.
"I'm sorry, Mulder. I guess I'm not quite awake yet."
The look I get this time is a worried one.
"Scully. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Will you stop asking me that?"
"I'll stop asking when you start acting like yourself again."
I straighten up in my seat and smooth my hands down over the crease of my trousers. "I am myself."
Mulder scoffs as he backs the car into a narrow space in front of the Baltimore Police headquarters. "Listen, Scully, this is how it works between you and me. I tell you my theory, you tell me I'm crazy, you tell me your theory and I tell you you're wrong. Then we put everything together, give it a good shake, and what falls out is pretty much what we need to crack the case open."
I can't help but smile. "That's nicely put, Mulder."
He turns the key in the ignition and pulls it out before shifting on his seat to face me, his eyes dark and serious "Yeah, except that, since we've arrived here, I've been telling you my theories and, well...I'm still waiting for the 'Mulder, you're crazy' part."
"I'm biding my time," I tease. "Besides, you've been right. Mostly anyway. The invisibility thing is...well, you know what I think about that."
"Don't be cute with me, Scully, I need you here to bounce ideas with me but I can't do that if you're going to shut me out every night like you've been doing these past two days."
I am not taking this well and I guess my voice must reflect that. "I'm not shutting you out, Mulder. I told you, I'm still recovering from what happened to me."
Mulder slams the steering wheel in frustration. "And what exactly happened to you, Scully, that is making you lock yourself in your room and avoid talking to me? Now that's something I'd like to know. Because I've seen you roughed up before and you've never been like this afterwards."
I open the door and step out of the car. "Mulder, you're not crazy, you're delusional."
"That's not an answer, Scully," he calls back, his long coat billowing around his ankles as he locks the doors. I head up to the entrance, hearing him follow close behind. As I enter the building and slow down to welcome the change of temperature, I suddenly feel Mulder's hand against my back. I hiss and jerk away from his touch.
Mulder grips my wrist, pulling me back roughly towards him. People are looking at us and I feel embarrassment tingle along my hairline.
"And what's up with that, huh? What did this Jerse do to you that you won't even let me touch you?"
"Mulder, not here," I plead in a whisper.
He blinks, suddenly aware that he is indeed making a scene in full view of the now fairly curious Baltimore Police staff as well as various members of the general public.
Including one very interested Detective Wickham.
He strides over like a game show host. "Who's Jerse?" he asks without preamble.
I'm contemplating the mechanics of ripping Mulder's tongue out through his chest with my bare hands when I realize Wickham actually expects an answer.
"He's nobody," I reply just as Mulder offers, "He's a suspect from the last case Agent Scully worked on." We do not look at each other.
"I see," says Wickham wryly. He cocks his head. "I'm trying to figure out which one of your answers is closer to the truth."
"They're both true," I snap.
"Oh good," he replies. "For a minute there I thought he might be the guy who beat the shit out of you. Guess that was someone else."
I am actually speechless and even Mulder looks stunned.
Wickham shrugs. "Anyway. I have a mound of paper tall enough to rival the Appalachian foothills and it requires our attention."
He lopes over to his desk and Mulder starts to follow until I grab his arm. He blinks in surprise.
"Listen, Mulder," I growl. "Tattoos hurt when they start to scab over, all right? So keep your hands off my back."
"So are you going to show it to me when it heals, or what?"
"Probably not."
"Those are decent odds."
We walk over to Wickham's desk and he hands us each a cardboard box full of beige folders.
"Agent Mulder, these individuals are either professional or hobbyist glassblowers and have immediate family members in the allied health fields. They also have some kind of violent criminal past. We've interviewed them all already, but I'd like you to see if any of them seem to fit your profile. Agent Scully, I have here some close-up photographs of injuries to both soft and hard tissue made by various implements used by hunters to butcher meat. See if any of it matches up to the pictures you took of the victim's wounds. We've checked already, but I always appreciate a fresh pair of eyes. I have a bank of people tracking plastic and selenium and lead crystal and just about anything else you can imagine. There are also three men we haven't been able to track down who all have past or current enrollment in glassblowing classes. I want those bases covered. Divide them up as you will."
I am impressed by his efficiency and take the box to an adjacent empty desk.
Wickham walks off to supervise other members of the task force and I glance at my watch. Time hangs over us like a guillotine and I pray for an eleventh hour reprieve.
**********
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS
10:06 PM
"I know everything in the world about glassblowing," Mulder informs me, pushing a manila folder away from him on the wide conference table. "I'm thinking about quitting the FBI and sculpting precious little animals for old ladies. Also, I've pretty much turned up jack shit and have inhaled my yearly quota of patchouli," he grumbles. He balances on his chair to prop his feet up on the table. "Did you know that as you get closer to the art school, the probability of a glassblowing enthusiast also being a hippie approaches one?"
Mulder smirks as he tucks his hands behind his head, and I think now is not the point to tell him that, once upon a time, my airy-fairy sister had some measure of fashion influence on me. It didn't last. I was never laid back enough to be a flower child. She would coo over skirts in pretty rainbow colors while I tried to guess the chemical makeup of the dye.
"You should write an article on that, Mulder," I tell him while stretching my arms gingerly above my head. "I myself have learned a great deal about butchering and hunting. Are you aware that over one hundred people are injured each year by attempting to field dress bucks that aren't quite dead?"
Mulder pulls off his tie and tosses it onto the chair next to me. "I was not. The world is a fascinating and stupid place."
Wickham comes over and perches on the edge of the table. "Hola, federales."
"I took German," I say. "No habla."
"Right. Well, let me spell this out for you in plain English then. We're up shit creek. I have spent all day talking to unhelpful people who have done nothing but aggravate me. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I hate glass and plastic and selenium and Edgar Allan Poe. You guys find anything?"
I shake my head. "I tracked down one of your three missing glassblowers. Julius Meltzer has been in Amsterdam for the past five weeks. No luck on Alibek Chalew or Elliot Dunham."
I kick my shoes off to rub my insteps, wishing I were tall enough to feel assertive in more sensible footwear. "Can we get a pizza?" I ask.
"No," says Mulder seriously, rocking his chair on the two back legs. "No pizza for you."
"Why not?" I demand.
"You know very well why not. You're a pain about the toppings and you bitch and moan about the amount of sauce and God help us all if the crust is too thick. Then you blot at the cheese and whine when there aren't enough napkins."
I glare at him while Wickham chuckles. "There's a good Chinese place on the next block," he offers.
"Chinese is okay," concedes Mulder. "She deems all Chinese takeout equally poor, so you get very few complaints."
"I'll go grab a menu," says Wickham, hopping up and rummaging through a cabinet on the wall.
"I hate you both," I inform them. "Intensely."
"Hate is just love disappointed," Mulder says loftily. "You're only mad because you know I'm right."
Wickham passes us each a worn-out, stained menu. I examine mine as though it might contain anything other than the usual suspects. We tell Wickham our selections and he calls the order in.
"Fifteen minutes," he says, peering into a bin full of miscellaneous paper goods and plastic utensils. "Chopsticks or forks?"
"Forks are for barbarians," I tell him. "Chinese food doesn't taste right unless you eat it with chopsticks."
"But they take longer," he says. "Waste of time."
I roll my eyes. "That's such a guy thing to say."
"Why?" Mulder chimes in. "Just because he believes a good fast fork will lead to more immediate satisfaction? There *are* women who feel that way too, you know."
I throw Mulder's tie at him as Wickham laughs.
**********
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS
8:15 AM
I wake up in dire need of a shave, with a severely stiff neck and a crick in my back that feels like it goes down to my spine. I groan then stretch slowly, working out the kinks and knots.
"Morning, sunshine," says Wickham. "You'll be late for the bus."
"Mmmfff," I grumble, rubbing my hands over my face. I look up to see Scully enter the conference room, wearing an expression of benevolent pity.
"I know you miss your couch Mulder, but your near-pathological aversion to normal beds is beginning to worry me. Here, I brought you a toothbrush." She hands me a plastic bag.
"You sleep on a couch?" Wickham says incredulously.
"Most nights," I say, feeling stupid. "It's comfortable."
Wickham studies me for a moment before turning to Scully and then back to me. "I'd say that clears up any lingering doubts I had."
I avoid looking at either one of them by opening the bag Scully brought and extracting the toothbrush and travel size toothpaste.
Wickham turns back to Our Lady of Oral Hygiene. "You know," he confides, "I have a nice firm king-size. Pillow top."
Scully tosses her head, but I can see she's amused rather than irritated.
"Okay, kids," Wickham says, distributing packets of paperwork. "Poe Society members to check out and a few people who weren't reachable last time. Let's get going."
We take our files and none of us observes that wherever she is, April is quite likely dead.
**********
EASTERN AVENUE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24TH
8:18 PM
I circle through Fells Point again, having driven around the city for what feels like the thousandth time. I pull up in front of 1621 Aliceanna, staring at the black eyes of April's darkened windows.
Where are you? I wonder, and who is the next link in the chain?
I fold my arms on the steering wheel and rest my head on them. A moment later, someone taps at my window. I bolt upright, hand at my gun.
It's Wickham.
"I'm armed and testy," I warn him. "Don't sneak up on me like that. What are you doing here, Wickham?"
"Same thing as you," he replies. "We're just going to have to wait."
I slam my fist against the console. "This is bullshit."
Wickham sighs. "Yeah. It is. And we're gonna be the fall guys. Where's Agent Scully?"
"Getting her geek on with a big pile of forensics data."
He looks thoughtful. "There's a decent bar just a few blocks from here. I intend to offer them my patronage. You free or do you plan to go get her geek off?"
"You're an asshole, Wickham," I say, but my heart's not in it.
"Surprisingly, I hear that a bit. I'm going to get in my car and you can just follow me. Too damned cold to walk."
He's only a few cars ahead and I follow him to a bar whose entrance is adorned with mollusks and a skeleton. "The Whistling Oyster?" I give him an eyebrow that would have made Scully proud.
"There's a place called The Bearded Clam in Ocean City," he informs me. We walk in and sit at the bar, where Wickham orders a Killian's. I second the motion.
"The thing is," he says while we wait for our drinks to arrive, "is that we don't even know what to look for. He's going to leave her somewhere, take a new victim, and we don't have the first clue how he chooses them."
The bartender passes us each a bottle and offers to start a tab; a suggestion we take. I decide to let the federal government foot the bill. I lift my bottle. "To...shit. I don't know."
"That'll do."
We drink in silence and then Wickham says, "They're making some headway on plastic shipments. Got a few leads they're following up on."
"Yeah? Anything stand out?"
He shrugs. "Not yet."
I sigh and finish my beer, signaling for another. The bartender brings over two more. "Women trouble?" she inquires.
"Something like that," I say vaguely.
"I'll keep 'em coming then." She saunters off for better conversation.
"Maybe Agent Scully will find something else," Wickham suggests. "She seems like a clever little minx."
I laugh a bit. "She's clever all right. But go easy on the minx talk. She has an itchy trigger finger." I tap my shoulder and Wickham's eyes go wide.
"She *shot* you?"
"Just to keep me in line. It was nothing personal."
He gives me an odd look. "How long have you been working together?"
"Four years."
"Some things always become personal when you're partnered with someone for that long."
"Speaking from experience?"
Wickham takes a sip of his beer, falsely casual. I detect an old wound. "Yes," he says.
"What happened to her? I assume it was a her?"
Wickham snorts a little. "Yes, very much a her. Little blonde pistol named Melinda." His eyes cloud with memories. "She hated her name, made everybody call her Jo."
I raise an eyebrow. "Jo?"
"As far from Melinda as you can go," he laughs. "Her mind worked like that."
"Past tense?"
Wickham reaches out for his next beer, trying to sound light. "Killed in the line of not even duty."
"When did that happen?"
"Three years ago. We'd been at Sabatino's celebrating a major meth lab bust and were fairly drunk. We got mugged on the way home." He points at his scarred cheek. "I was the lucky one."
Wickham takes another long drink from his new bottle and picks at the label with the edge of his thumbnail. I can feel his reluctance to pursue the subject, so I just sit quietly with my beer and the both of us stop talking for a while.
"So, uh…that stuff about the guy being invisible? You really believe that?" Wickham asks, another beer later.
I smile. "Ah, I've been waiting. You must know what Scully and I do. You said you did a little digging."
"I heard a lot of crap about UFOs. The FBI investigates aliens?"
"Technically? The FBI investigates reports of activities that may appear to mimic certain hallmark characteristics of so-called extraterrestrial encounters," I recite.
Wickham rolls his eyes. "Well, that didn't sound rehearsed. You believe in aliens too? Aliens and invisible serial killers?"
"Hold that thought." I ask for two shots of Patron. If ever there were a time for tequila shots, it's tonight.
"Cheers," says Wickham and we gulp the drinks down quickly. The bartender brings over another round of beers, though we're not quite finished with the remaining ones.
I can feel my head starting to hum pleasantly. I should drink more often. "I do believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life," I inform Wickham. "Invisible serial killers I gotta wait and see. Ha ha."
"So you and Scully go around investigating that kind of thing? She didn't really strike me as New Age-y, but appearances can be deceiving. I never would have pegged you as that kind of guy."
I laugh again. "New Age-y? I'm not exactly New Age-y. And Scully's definitely not. Her job is to write long reports detailing what an insane waste of space I am. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things scientific and she will rattle off enormous chunks of jargon at you until you just want to shake her." I smile at the thought of her babbling about glucocorticoids and scolexes and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We once had a heated discussion about whether Bactrian or dromedary camels are evolutionarily superior.
Wickham eats a handful of beer nuts. "I'm going to call her after this is all over, if that's all right with you."
I look up in surprise. "I'm not her father."
"No. But you're also not as disinterested in her as you pretend."
"It's complicated," I sigh. "But you should call her. She could use someone normal in her life. Relatively speaking."
"What does she do? Beyond her Queen of the Dead routine?"
I consider this. "I have no idea. She likes to go to the shooting range. She attends boring seminars. She's Catholic. Maybe you guys could take in a nice Mass or something."
Wickham looks concerned. "Doesn't she do anything fun?"
"Fun? Scully doesn't have fun. I mean, not like normal people." What I should have said is that Scully doesn't have fun with *me.* She has fun with violent psychotic tattooed men. And that didn't turn out very well. Maybe she and Wickham can go get something pierced.
"Does she go dancing?"
I try to imagine Scully dancing and fail horribly, because I can only envision her in a suit and heels with her Very Serious Hairdo. People do not wear things like that to go dancing.
"No clue. She used to have an obnoxious little dog. Maybe you can woo her that way."
He chuckles. "I think it might be a tad early for the puppy-buying stage."
"Well shit, Wickham. I don't know what to tell you. If I were trying to get into Scully's pants I'd bring her a shiny new microscope and a box of ammo because those are the only things that seem to make her happy." I finish my current beer and decide to stop because I am getting close to the degree of drunkenness where one begins to say things that will haunt one for a lifetime.
I make the universal gesture for "bring me the check, please," and when it arrives, I scribble something resembling my name on the receipt.
"I need to get more FBI assistance on my cases," Wickham remarks. "Save me some money."
"I'm-a hold you to those tickets."
"You don't drink much, do you?" he observes.
"'S'bad for my girlish figure."
He laughs and then pulls out his phone. "Well, we're both kind of fucked up. I'm gonna call for a cab. I'll have someone bring your car over to the hotel later." He walks to the door and pulls it open, a whirlwind of snow flurries rushing in.
I nod. "Okay. Hey, Wickham?"
"Yeah?"
"Scully likes cello music."
He grins and I toss him my car keys.
**********
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR
11:40 PM
The cab driver stopped at a liquor store on the way back to the hotel and I overpay him before oozing from the car to the curb by the hotel. The cold slaps me like a B-movie starlet as I lean against a pillar in the freezing air.
Once my motor functions have rallied back to a semblance of organization, I stumble though the lobby and into the elevator, which disgorges me at the seventh floor. I walk to 746 and knock loudly.
"You should come have a drink with me, Scully," I slur as she opens her door.
Scully crosses her arms and gives me a disdainful once-over. "You don't look like you need a drink, Mulder. You need some sleep." She leans towards me and sniffs. "And a shower," she adds. "You smell like a bar."
"Wickham took me to the Whistling Oyster."
"Strip club?"
"I'm wounded, really. Is that what you think of me?"
She pats my shoulder. "No. Good night."
Scully begins to push the door shut but I catch it with my hand. "What, no good night kiss?"
She surprises me by grinning slightly. "You haven't bought me dinner yet."
"I was *trying* to buy you a drink," I remind her.
She rests her head on the doorframe. "You're drunk, Mulder. You're drunk and we have a hideous day ahead of us. Besides which, I'm ready for bed and I don't really feel like getting dressed again just so I can go have a drink I don't need and have to babysit you for good measure."
She's caving or she wouldn't have given an excuse for not wanting to come out with me. I straighten out a bit. Scully needs a reasonable argument for everything, so I give her one. "You're not gonna sleep tonight, Scully. None of us are." I hold up a brown paper bag, dangling it before her eyes like Mesmer. "No dress code at my place. Come on, live a little."
She watches the bag, then gives me a long look and sighs. "Let me get my robe."
**********
I am lying down on the bed, head propped up on one hand, and dozily listening to the wondrous tales of Dana Scully MD, Terror of Quantico.
She points an inebriated finger at me. "I said it was probably arsenic poisoning and someone burned the body to hide it. And he said there was no way to prove it and I had to drop it. So, I told him -" she looks at her empty glass and reaches out for the bottle "- so I told him...what did I tell him Mulder?"
"Your story, Scully," I remind her, handing the bottle over.
She fills her glass and looks in it with a pitiful pout. "I forgot how it ends."
Scully takes a healthy swig. I know I should stop her, but I'm not really sober myself; my muscles have the slow, confused feeling they get when I end up in the hospital pumped full of Dilaudid. I let my head fall on the bed and turn onto my back. Her voice drifts into my foggy brain. "Give me your clothes, Mulder."
Okay. Now I'm wide awake. I raise myself on both elbows and look dumbstruck as Scully stands up somewhat unsteadily and begins untying the knot of her bathrobe. It falls in a terry cloth heap at her feet. "I want to lie down but my pajamas will make me slide off the bed," she explains seriously.
"Scully?"
"It's polyester and I'm in satin and the standard friction equation dictates that um...slippery." She starts rooting through the larger of my duffel bags. "I need to borrow something cotton."
I lack the energy and sobriety required to argue her logic right now, so I just close my eyes and let myself fall back on the bed. Scully wanders past me to the bathroom, clutching a wad of fabric in her hand. I feel myself drifting to sleep as she makes rambling conversation from around the corner.
Some time later I feel the bed shift. I struggle to pry open my heavy eyelids and find myself staring at Scully, who is poured over the bed like a cat. She is wearing a pair of my shorts and my Red Stripe t-shirt, her hair in a ponytail. She looks about nineteen.
"Hey," she says. "See? I'm not sliding or anything."
I turn to look at her and then press my palms against my eyes. "Scully, go to your own room and go to sleep. It's late and you're right. Long day tomorrow."
Scully gives me an accusing look. "You ply me with liquor then kick me out when I hop into bed with you? Gee, Mulder. No wonder you don't get more dates."
"You're drunk, Scully."
"A Scully is never drunk," she informs me indignantly.
"Family lore?"
"Family law. You want me to refill your glass?"
"No, I don't. But thank you." My head aches and the outlines of the room are still fuzzy, but I'm stone-cold sober next to my partner and one of us has to be responsible.
Scully flops back on the bed and pouts. She stretches her arms upwards, causing the t-shirt ride up her torso as she winces. Purple and green bruises bloom like violets on her white skin and I look away, queasy.
"Where's Detective Wickham?" she asks. "You didn't invite him to your little after-party?"
"Wouldn't you have liked that," I say dryly.
"He's an interesting man."
"Is he?"
"Well you should know, you've been hanging out with him more than I have." She sounds slightly defensive.
"Hanging out? He's trying to get advice on how to pick you up, Scully."
"Really? And you've been helping him with this? I'm intrigued." Sarcasm laces every word.
"Intrigued? Does this mean you're interested?"
"I might be."
I look at her again, suddenly irritated by her boozy voice and her bare midriff and my shorts rolled provocatively around her hips. I want her to leave so I can sit in the dark and dream of monsters without worrying about her bruises and her nosebleeds and the way her breasts move under my shirt when she appears not to have a bra on.
"Detective Wickham, huh?" I reply. "Looking for another notch in your headboard, Scully? Is that what you do now, when you don't feel like dealing with a case? Have a few drinks and go screw some poor bastard?" I feel mean and enjoy it somewhat.
She sits up slowly, flinching as she does, and I'm glad when the shirt drops back down to cover her narrow waist. "You're one to talk," she spits.
That is not the reply I expected and, against my better judgment, I ask her what she's talking about.
"You had an HIV test right after I was returned from my abduction," she says, watching me intently. "And another one three months later."
I swallow hard, having been caught violating the Eleventh Commandment. Thou shalt not attempt to hide things from thy personal physician.
Scully leans closer to me and pulls at my tie, which I have only just realized is draped around my neck. "You know what I think?" she asks in a low, throaty way. "I think that I was your sister all over again when he took me. I was another lost girl for you to find. And I think you went out and slept with some woman who looked nothing like me, because what would that make you if she were short and redheaded when some part of you saw me as an eight year old girl from Chilmark?"
Damn you, I think. This is my trick. You play with your knives and saws and I figure out what goes on in people's heads. But that's classic Scully, isn't it? She absorbs everything. I still don't reply, wanting to know what she'll say next.
"I think she was tall. 5'8, maybe? Above 5'6, anyway. Long hair. Probably blonde, but maybe dark." She cocks her head and looks at me, squinting. "Yeah, dark. Phoebe had dark hair. I don't think you go for blondes." She takes a gulp of her drink. "Writer, maybe. Or an art student."
"Accomplice to murder," I say. "Killed herself."
Scully laughs humorlessly. "I knew you had no room to talk. We're too much alike that way, Mulder, for you to really be mad at me."
I take the cup from her hand and empty the remains of it in one long swallow. And my righteous indignation, floating so exultantly only a moment ago, crashes and flames like the Hindenburg.
Oh, the humanity.
Scully stretches out on the bed again, tendrils of hair curling across her concrete face like rust stains. "They're going to find her tomorrow morning," she mumbles. "And he'll have taken someone else and he's going to kill her too." Her voice is still slushy, distorting the vowels and blurring the hard edges of the plosives.
I stretch out on my side and prop my head up with my left hand, looking down at her, wondering if anyone could ever really break her. "No, he's not, Scully. We'll find him now. It'll just take a few more days, but we'll get him in time to stop this one."
"April never had a chance," she remarks to the ceiling.
"No," I agree. "Not really."
Scully rolls onto her side, groaning softly, and then swings her feet over the edge of the bed. She stands shakily, steadying herself before walking around to the other side of the bed. Her back is to me as she pulls the shirt up some. A serpent curls just above the waistband of the shorts, chasing itself in an endless loop as it bites its own tail. An Ouroboros if I'm not mistaken. I could have guessed for a hundred years and never come up with a snake. Scully, unlike Eve, is not the type to blame others when she tastes forbidden fruit, so I wonder what the snake hissed to her when she elected to have it emblazoned on her body.
"Well?" she demands.
I lean closer and she arches slightly away from me when my breath hits her back. The area around the tattoo looks raw and sunburned, but the colors of the ink are vivid and jewel-bright against the otherwise pale canvas of her skin. I want very much to trace it with my finger, but I don't.
"I can't believe you got a tattoo," I say, memorizing every millimeter of it. "But it looks good." I'm close enough to feel the heat rising from her against my cheek. I let my eyes slide shut as I breathe her in.
Scully drops the shirt back down, laughing. A real laugh this time. "Neither can I, actually." She meanders over to the sink where she folds up a washcloth, wetting it before wiping her face. I get up to go into the bathroom, finding a dry hand towel and passing it to her. Then I scoop up her discarded clothes and set them on the counter.
"So does Wickham get to see it, too?" I query.
That earns me a Look. "Mulder," she says testily, patting her face dry.
"No, I'm serious. You were right; he's an interesting guy and he really seems to like you."
Scully shakes her head and gathers the heap of her belongings. "I was kidding. He's not my type." She shuffles to the entryway, tripping a little, and I catch her elbow before she bumps into the wall.
"Watch the fancy footwork there, Ginger Rogers. And what's wrong with Wickham?" I figure if Scully's destined to end up with someone in law enforcement, Wickham's light years beyond a dickhead like Jack Willis.
She starts to open the door, then stops, turning back to face me. "Sometimes I wonder if you're really any good at reading people at all," she says, stepping close enough for me to smell my own cologne on the shirt she's wearing. Close enough for her hair to brush my chin.
She drops the bundle in her hands to the floor.
Step back away from her, close the door and head straight for that shower, says my higher brain to the lower. Make it a nice cold one if you have to. Do not think, do not pass go, do not further contemplate what her mouth would feel like against yours.
Shut up, I order it as Scully moves her hands up my chest and presses her cool fingers to my face. She stretches upwards and kisses me, her mouth sweet under the dangerous varnish taste of the vodka. "That's what's wrong with Wickham," she whispers against my lips.
I tug the rubber band free from her ponytail, her hair tumbling down over my hand. I twist my fingers through it, pulling her closer and sliding my other hand under the t-shirt. Her back is slender and warm to the touch and I keep well north of the tattoo, thereby confirming that she is indeed braless. I let go of her hair and cup her face in my hand, admiring the feel of her rose-petal skin and the lean tendons of her neck. Her tongue slides against mine and she nips my lower lip. I am fighting very hard not to lift her up and carry her back to the bed because I really don't want to break her ribs.
And then the synapses connect and I realize that I am kissing Scully while we are both somewhat drunk, on a case, and waiting with morbid curiosity to see where the latest mutilated corpse will show up. I think the same circuit must have just been completed in her brain because she pulls away. Somewhat reluctantly, I like to think.
She looks up at me and I wonder if the flush on her cheeks is embarrassment or desire.
"Mulder," she says, in a voice like raw silk.
Desire, definitely. I feel like a god.
"Scully," I murmur, not sure of what comes next. She plays with the end of my tie while I will my blood to diffuse back to its normal course through my body.
"You're such an idiot," she says kindly, finally letting go of my tie and picking her things up off the floor. She opens the door and walks out into the hallway. "G'night."
"See you in the morning." I slouch against the doorframe and watch her head into her own room, trying to decide if I'm an idiot for wanting her to stay or for letting her go.