XxXxX Chapter Three XxXxX Mulder was driving, but I was no longer sure where we were going. At ten-thirty on a cheery November morning, Tiburton did not seem like the setting for a witch's playground. Sun-dappled trees lined the streets with arching gold and crimson branches, and the local schoolyard teemed with laughing, screeching children. The passing houses were looming Victorian-era structures with sloping roofs, hanging eaves and rounded towers. Mulder pulled to a stop outside one large house, set in from the road on a hill. "We're here," he announced, and I followed him out of the car. "This is a motel?" I asked, wrinkling my forehead in doubt. With the sun at its back and a pointed iron fence at its front, the house cast a formidable and ominous shadow. "The owner isn't named Bates, is he?" Mulder looked almost amused as he slammed the trunk shut. "Duncan." "Duncan? As in the woman who gave you the drawings of Elysian?" He nodded. "Convenient, isn't it?" After a bit of fumbling, he managed to open the catch on the gate and we walked up the path to the house. As the shadows faded, it appeared more welcoming, and I admired the potted copper mums that decorated the stone staircase. The inside was like stepping into the pages of "Anne of Green Gables." There was a generous foyer, with low ceilings and crisp white walls. Dark molding edged the room, and a gold- trimmed oval mirror hung to our left. To the right, a large fireplace sat dark and silent, though the faint scent of burnt pine in the air suggested recent use. There was a desk near the stairs, and a woman with wire- rimmed glasses peeked out from behind a computer monitor. She glanced from me to Mulder, inching her frames downward for a better look. "Agents," she said with perfect confidence, "welcome to Tiburton." I gathered we did not blend in with the local color. "Cathleen Duncan?" Mulder asked. The wooden floors were uneven and creaked as we walked on them. "That's me." She smiled and adjusted the thin black sticks holding her hair on top of her head. "You must be Agent Mulder." "Yes, and this is my partner, Dana Scully." "Pleased to meet you," she said, extending a slim hand to me. I found it warm and strong. She gave us each a form to fill out and watched over the rim of a green mug as we scrawled our information. "Are you here to search for witches, too?" she asked me, and I saw Mulder's pen freeze in mid-signature. "I'm here to try to find out who is setting the fires," I replied. "Which in my experience tend to have decidedly human motives behind them." She regarded me with curious eyes. "Like revenge?" "Well, yes. Revenge could be one possible motive. But statistically, arson is more often motivated by profit, the desire to cover up another crime, or pyromania. I have trouble attributing any of these motives to someone supposed to be a witch." Ms. Duncan smiled as she took our forms. "As do I." "Really." I glanced at Mulder, who looked at me the way our cat Tigerlily used to when she presented me a dead mouse. Instead of a headless rodent, Mulder had found me a fellow non-believer. Good boy. "I told Agent Mulder yesterday I didn't think Elysian was a witch. I think she was a lonely woman in the wrong place at the wrong time." "You said you thought the townspeople just wanted her gone," Mulder broke in, leaning across the counter. "Why did you say that?" She pushed her glasses up on her nose and hit a few keys on her computer, entering our data. "Are you familiar with the term 'mulatto'?" she asked after a moment. Mulder nodded. "It's an old-fashioned name for a person of mixed race." "Exactly. Elysian's father was white and her mother was black. Needless to say, people in Tiburton at the time were not especially forgiving of such unions." "But the Pritchards must have been comfortable enough with her background to hire her," Mulder said. "They brought her all the way from Barbados." "Oh, I'd say Jacob Pritchard was really comfortable with her. He was comfortable with her at least a dozen times before Sarah Pritchard found out." She looked up from her monitor. "Jacob confessed, said he'd been tempted by the devil, and Sarah forgave him because in 1695 she had no other choice." "But she didn't forgive Elysian," I said as the story became clearer. "No." Ms. Duncan's voice grew soft. "They murdered her with the townspeople's blessing." "What about the threat Elysian made? The promise to come burn Tiburton to the ground." Mulder sounded curious, but the question lacked his usual edge. Ms. Duncan shrugged. "The words of an angry woman. I believe she *wanted* to make them pay. I hope they believed it, too. I hope the Pritchards lived the rest of their days waiting for their house to go up in flames." "Ten fires in the past six months with no determined motive or origin," Mulder said after a moment. "What's your theory?" She tilted her head. "Don't know. Maybe it's coincidence. Maybe it's someone obsessed with Elysian's legend." "Know anyone like that?" he asked. "Many folks around here know the story well." "But none so well as you." Her color heightened, and I shot Mulder an appraising look. He would not meet my eyes. "I wish I had the stamina to run around starting fires," Ms. Duncan said finally. "But I'm afraid you'd have better luck with Elysian." There was an odd clanking sound as she rose from her stool, and in a moment I understood why. Ms. Duncan wore braces on both legs and used modified crutches to walk. "Please excuse me for not accompanying you upstairs," she said as she retrieved a pair of keys from the back wall. "But I don't think you'll have any trouble finding the rooms. They're on the second floor in the east corner." The key was cold and solid in my hand, its long round body and tiny flagged ending a delicious contrast to the usual plastic card I received. Mulder and I retrieved our bags and moved toward the narrow staircase, but Ms. Duncan stopped us. "Agent Mulder." We turned in unison, and I wondered when it was we began to answer to each other's names. She shifted on her crutches. "Agent Mulder, seriously...did you really come here expecting to arrest a witch?" There was a silence, and I held my breath, as if even the air in the room depended on his answer. He managed to avoid a real one. "John Kazdin seemed to think it was a possibility," he replied. Ms. Duncan twisted her mouth in a parody of a smile and looked at the floor for a long moment. "I'm afraid John believes in many impossible things," she said at last. She raised her head again. "Enjoy your rooms. I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything." Upstairs I found my room was the color of clotted cream, with a thick quilt on the bed and bright sunshine cascading through the lace curtains. It smelled of cinnamon, and there was a painting of sailboats on the wall. I opened the window, tilting my face to the wind. The sea breeze tickled my nose as it tickled my memory, and for a few moments I was ten years old again, running along the wooden pier with my brothers, our shouts mingling with the cries of the seagulls overhead. "Do you like it?" I turned to find Mulder standing next to the cherry dresser. I let my smile answer for me and returned my gaze to the leaves swirling their way down to the backyard. He came to stand with me at the window, leaning out so that his shoulder touched mine through the heavy fabric of our coats. A group of brown-spotted birds flitted back and forth from the trees to the roof of a small well sitting in the yard. "A wishing well," Mulder remarked, his eyes following mine. "I haven't seen one of those in years." "Well, then maybe we should stop by on our way out." The cancer gone, my blood renewed, I was ready to believe in wishes again. He turned his head to me, squinting in the sun. When the wind blew my hair across my face, he brushed it away with one leather-clad finger. "I think I've used up my wishes for this year," he said, his eyes bright. As he pulled away, the sharp wind replaced his warmth. I turned and watched as his black coat melted into the dark hall. It was a long time before I followed. XxXxX We stopped at the Tiburton police station only to find that Detective Kazdin was on break at Kit-n-Carl's Café around the corner. It turned out to be less of a French-style lunch spot and more of an old-style diner. A regular slice of American pie. It was painted blue with a shiny silver base and a faded pink neon sign on the roof. I was willing to bet that it had been years since all the letters lit up. Mulder smiled at me as we approached the door. "Buy you a cherry Coke, Scully?" I had a brief flash of him as a teenager, with gangly legs and an awkward smile. The boy you thought you knew because he made smart-ass jokes from the back of the class. I smiled back. "Vanilla, Mulder. Always vanilla." A bell jangled when we entered, and all conversation ceased as four dozen eyes froze us at the door. A mix of cigarette smoke and black coffee perfumed the air, and the pop of bacon frying echoed off the surrounding Formica while we lingered there -- a black-cloaked contrast to the denim and flannel crowd. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully!" In the back corner, a uniformed cop beckoned to us. Mulder leaned into my hair. "Check it out, Scully," he whispered. "It's the place where everyone knows your name." Mulder and I had worked cases in small towns before, towns where our presence was almost as noteworthy as whatever oddity had drawn us there in the first place. But it was not curiosity that made the diner seem so claustrophobic. The bearded men, the frazzled mothers, the apron-clad staff -- all tracked us in unison as we moved through the room. Their silence seemed incestuous, their eyes daring us to expose the family secret. "Detective Kazdin?" Mulder said as we approached the green plastic booth. "It's John," he said, and his words broke the spell. Our on- lookers at least gave the pretense of returning to their own food. Detective Kazdin indicated the other side of his table. "Please, won't you sit down?" Mulder slid in first. "I take it you don't see many unfamiliar faces in here." Kazdin smiled. "Well, let's just say you and your partner have a particular presence. Did you find a place to get settled?" "Cathleen Duncan is putting us up," Mulder said, already fiddling with a straw wrapper. "You were right to point us in her direction, by the way. She's been very helpful with the background on Elysian's story." "You're staying at Cathy's?" Kazdin looked at us in disbelief. "She volunteered her place when I contacted her about the sketches," Mulder said. "Is there a problem?" "No, no. Not at all. It's just..." He broke off and looked out the window. "I was just surprised, that's all. She hasn't taken many visitors since the accident. Forget I said anything, okay? I'm sure she'll treat you real nice." His tone suggested the topic was closed. "Why don't you tell us what you know about the fires," I suggested in the silence that followed. Kazdin looked relieved. "Mulder told me your background is in pathology," he said, turning green eyes to me. His lashes were thick and dark, a beauty that was wasted on a man with a ten-dollar hair cut. "Yes, that's right. I understand you've had three deaths connected to these fires." He took a long swallow of coffee as he nodded. "Two in July and one just last week, the night before Halloween. You're welcome to take a look at Joe Bowman's body, if you like, but there's no doubt to the cause of death." "Smoke inhalation?" "Burned. All three of them, over 90% of their bodies." I could feel Mulder watching my face, trying to gauge whether this finding was normal. I hadn't decided that question for myself yet. "Were the fires explosive?" "Well, that's not clear at this point. As I said yesterday on the phone, the state fire marshal has not been able to determine the point of origin of these fires. Some of them have been complicated by the roof falling in, and the one at Bowman's Autoshop blew up half a dozen tanks of gasoline." At this point, a waitress brushed past our table, and Kazdin halted his narrative. "Hey, are you hungry at all? They serve a mean blueberry muffin here." Without waiting for our answer, he touched the woman's sleeve. "Lee-Lee, help these people out, would you? They've had a long trip today." She turned without a word and pulled a pad from her apron pocket. "Yes?" she said, a whisper hidden in the diner chatter. Mulder ordered coffee and a muffin, not sparing her a second glance, but when her eyes met mine I could not look away. She was too gaunt for someone who spent her days surrounded by food; the shapeless blue sweater nearly swallowed her whole. Her hair was short, with wide dark curls, and she brushed her cheek as if to tuck it behind her ear, a habit that suggested she'd recently had it cut. Beautiful and hiding it, I thought, searching her gray eyes for the reason why. She must have felt me probing because she ducked her head and broke contact . The moment I placed my order she slipped away. "Lee-Lee's the best," Kazdin said as she left. "Her stepfather is the mayor and her brother Andy is our Chief, so there's always great service here for the boys in blue." I wondered how the stepdaughter of the mayor and the sister of the police chief wound up waiting tables in a greasy spoon. "What about the victims?" Mulder asked, pulling me back to the case at hand. "Any connection there?" "Well, they all knew each other, but that's not saying much around here. Like I said, Joe Bowman worked at the Autoshop. He was a good mechanic and generally a good guy. Ran up a couple of friendly debts playing poker, but nothing serious. No reason for anyone to want to kill him that I could find." "So you're pursuing this as a murder investigation?" I asked. "We're trying to cover all angles. But the Coroner did say it was unlikely that the bodies would have been burned as much as they were in the fires without some help. They were a little too 'well-done' if you get my meaning." "And the other victims?" Mulder wanted to know. "Any leads there?" "Not a one," sighed Kazdin. "Regina Tuttlesworth was a nurse at the local hospital. Husband died two years ago, kids grown and scattered around the country. Stanley Garber was a defense attorney. He was the first one to die, and we figured maybe he had a client who got shafted and wanted a piece of Garber's hide, but so far nothing has panned out. Besides, why would the perp go after Regina and Joe, too? It doesn't make sense." Lee-Lee returned with our food and would have disappeared again if a broad-shouldered man in a tweed jacket had not stopped her. "Hey, Lee-Lee, how's about a cup of coffee?" "Sure, Andy. Just a minute." She withdrew from his hands with a graceful twist. "Morning, Chief," Kazdin called, and the new arrival sauntered over to our table. "Have you had a chance to meet Agents Mulder and Scully?" "Can't say I've had the pleasure," he said grinning at us, and we did another round of hand pumping. "Chief Andy Purcell. Glad to have you aboard. I'm not much for this witch nonsense Johnny's been selling, but a fresh perspective on the case couldn't hurt. Folks are scared, and I wish to God I had something to tell them. But we've followed almost every damn lead that's come our way, and so far we've got bupkis." Lee-Lee appeared with a steaming cup of coffee and a plastic- wrapped blueberry muffin, which she tucked into the pocket of Purcell's coat. He squeezed her hand. "Thanks, sweetie, I appreciate that. Listen, has Jeff been through here this morning?" "Haven't seen him since last Tuesday." She glanced around his shoulder to see if we were listening. "He must be off on some story...you know how it is." "Yeah." The word was gruff and laced with steel. Chief Purcell was not pleased. "Well, if you see him, tell him I'm looking for him, will you?" Lee-Lee nodded and vanished into an arriving party of five. After a pause, Purcell turned around again with his fake smile back in place. "Now where was I?" "Following leads," said Mulder. There was a new edge in his voice, as well. "You said you followed 'almost every' lead. Which ones didn't you pursue?" The smile faltered a bit, and he waved the air with his hand. "Well, you know. Sometimes we get calls from obvious crackpots ­ the kind who say they saw Elvis setting the fires. I can assure you we followed every *real* lead. But this is a small town, with limited resources. We can't be answering every fruitcake looking for attention." "You have a record of these crackpots?" Purcell shot Kazdin a hard look. "Well, sure we do, but..." Kazdin broke in. "You can check the files if you want, Agent Mulder, but the Chief is right. These individuals are either confused, lonely people or kids playing tricks. We had one old woman call in and say her cat was starting the fires." Mulder gave a smile I recognized -- quick and bright and three steps ahead of everyone else. "Perfect," he said. "Let's start there." XxXxX Mulder and I traveled the twenty-five miles to the Spaulding Home for the Elderly and the Infirm alone, as Purcell and Kazdin remained unconvinced that a cat could be connected to the fires. We found a plump woman at the front desk, answering the phone in front of a wall plastered with smiling Turkeys and shiny Pilgrim hats. Her eyes softened when we told her our business. "I'm sorry, but Mary Centara is no longer with us. She passed on about a month ago. Heart failure." Mulder looked disappointed. I wondered if he really believed the nonsense about the cat. "Mary called the Tiburton Police Department on September 12 in response to a news program about the fires taking place there. Do you know anything about that?" "I'm afraid not. There is a phone available on the floor, but I don't know if Mary used it. I can't imagine what kind of information she would have had about those terrible fires." "She said she knew who was setting them." Mulder was going all the way with this one. I watched the woman's face for her reaction as he named the suspect. "She said it was her cat." "What?" She chuckled and gave Mulder an indulgent look. "For land's sakes, dearie, you came all the way out here for that? Mary was a sweetheart, but she didn't follow reality very much at the end. She mistook me for Elizabeth Taylor and thought Bill the laundry man was stealing her undergarments. Besides, Mary didn't have a cat, a fish or any other kind of pet. It's not allowed." "Oh." Mulder frowned but made no effort to leave, so I took over the reins. "So then you have no idea what motivated Mary to call the police about the fires?" "And say it was her cat? No, it seems to me...oh, wait. This is Mary Centara you're talking about, right? Then she probably meant *Kat* not 'cat'." "Excuse me?" The woman sighed. "Well, of course. That makes a little more sense anyway. Kat was Mary's daughter, short for Katherine. If I remember correctly, Kat got into some trouble over a fire when she was a teenager. Poor Mary must have seen the report and gotten mixed up." Mulder straightened at my side, listening intently now, and I felt my own pulse quicken. Maybe Mary was not as confused as everyone thought. "What happened to Kat?" I asked. "Is she still in the area?" "Well, loosely speaking, yes she is. Kat died about ten years ago." She lowered her voice and leaned closer to us. "She was in prison. For murder." "Murder?" "Killed her own brother, that's what they say." She paused and began rustling around on the desk. "I think Mary kept a picture of her someplace. We've called a half dozen times, but we can't anyone to come fetch her things. Ah, here it is!" She held up a silver key. Mulder and I stared at the drooping red and brown streamer in the hall as she disappeared into the backroom. In a few minutes, she returned with a small box. "There's not much. Just some costume jewelry, a nice watch and a few photos. Here...this would be the one you're interested in." She handed me snap shot of a young woman leaning against a tree. It was black and white, but I recognized the eyes immediately. "Mulder, this is the woman from the diner. Our waitress." His breath tickled my cheek as he leaned down for a closer look. "Sure looks like her, doesn't it?" "Lee-Lee," I said, remembering her pale face and trapped expression. The woman at the desk shook her head. "No, that's Katherine," she corrected. "Lee-Lee is her daughter, Mary's granddaughter. Course, around here Mary used to call her by her given name -- Elysian." Mulder jerked his head up. "Elysian?" "Yeah, you know...like that old witch story. Sad name for the poor child." The wind howled, rattling the doors behind us, and the picture fluttered from my hands to the floor. XxXxX Continued in chapter four. All feedback is welcome at syn_tax6@yahoo.com Sorry for the longer than usual delay between chapters. I've been recovering from the flu.