XxXxX

Chapter Nine

XxXxX

Mulder let me have the first shower that morning.  It was a 
small kindness given without thought, without the knowledge 
that it might later cost him his life.  He had some phone 
calls to make anyway, he'd said, his tone businesslike but 
his mouth soft from our kisses.  He wanted to call Tiburton 
High School to ask about Lee-Lee's behavior around the time 
of the murder.  Maybe if I had been there to hear the 
entirety of his conversation, I could have seen the terrible 
conclusion coming in time to stop it.  But it wasn't until 
later that we understood the importance of the information 
he'd received, and by that time it was too late.

So I left him in my room with the phone and stepped into the 
cold, claw-footed tub to wash the last traces of blood from 
my hair.  It was a slow process.  The pelting drops of the 
shower felt like a thousand tiny hammers pounding on the lump 
at the back of my head, and I sucked in painful breaths as I 
worked soapy fingers over my scalp.

When I returned to the room, my bruises washed clean with 
Ivory and masked by a fluffy white robe, Mulder was jotting 
some notes on one of my legal pads.  "Find anything?" I asked 
as I toweled the dripping ends of my hair.

He pushed the pad away from him and sat back in his chair, 
leaning precariously on two legs so that I could only 
concentrate half of my attention on his words; the other half 
was waiting for him to crack his head open on the hardwood 
floor.  "It's what I didn't find that's more interesting," he 
said at last.

"What's that?"

"Well, the Purcells would have us believe that Lee-Lee was a 
teenager on the edge, pushed to near madness by her uncle's 
sexual advances and then plunged over the edge when he was 
executed by her mother.  But I talked to a couple of teachers 
who knew her at that time and not one of them noticed any 
signs of trouble before Abe's death."

I sat on the bed.  "So she was good at keeping everything 
inside but snapped when her uncle was murdered."

Mulder shook his head.  "I've seen incest cases before, 
Scully, and if Lee-Lee was under the kind of stress everyone 
says she was, there would have been indications of that -- 
grades slipping, cutting school, withdrawing from friends and 
activities.  Signs that she was coming unglued."

"You're saying she wasn't abused."

"I'm saying the timeline is off," he corrected.  "Whatever 
caused Lee-Lee Centara's breakdown happened the night of the 
murder, not before.  Her teachers describe her as a good 
student, sociable if not popular, and eager to please.  
Everyone was stunned by what happened."

"Ted Bundy's neighbors were stunned, too, Mulder.  No one 
ever looks across the backyard fence and imagines a murderer 
on the other side."

He looked at me curiously.  "You think she's a murderer?"

"I think the evidence points to that conclusion, yes.  The 
fires started within days of her return to town, she had my 
phone number here and easy access to my whereabouts 
yesterday."

"True, all true," he said, nodding and leaning further back 
his chair.  He waited, watching me, and I knew he was 
anticipating the other half of my argument.  After four years 
together, he could hear the "but" coming before I even opened 
my mouth.  

I tossed the towel on the bed next to me and sighed.  "But 
it's the motive that's troubling me."

"Oh?" he said in an exaggerated tone that suggested it had 
been bothering him, too.  "How so?"

"If Lee-Lee is setting these fires to avenge her mother's 
conviction by murdering those involved, all the while 
attempting to bring to life a local ghost story...well, 
Mulder...she'd have to be crazy."

"Yes," Mulder said flatly, at last bringing all four of his 
chair legs back down on the floor.  I breathed out in relief.

"And she's not crazy," I said as I stood to find clothing for 
the day.  "I think she's lying to us.  I think she's scared, 
confused, and angry.  But I don't think she's crazy."

"Agreed.  But that seems to leave us with three options," he 
said, ticking them off on his fingers.  "One, we're wrong and 
Lee-Lee Centara is the most sane-appearing crazy person ever 
to walk the earth; two, she's got another motive we haven't 
uncovered yet; three, someone else is doing these murders and 
setting her up for the fall."

As it turned out, there was a fourth option, one so twisted 
and terrible we couldn't see it at that point.  It was 
lurking in Mulder's narrative as he relayed the rest of the 
information he'd obtained from the school -- Lee-Lee's brush 
with acting in the school play, Andy's multiple suspensions 
for fighting; Jeff's star quarterback status and full 
scholarship to Harvard.  All ruled by a domineering Carson 
Purcell who appeared to take glee in playing his children off 
one another.

But the pieces were still too scattered, and Mulder only 
relayed to me the details he thought were important.  He 
couldn't have known.  No one did.

Not Andy.

Not Jeff.

Not even Lee-Lee could have put everything together at that 
point.

But dead men do tell tales, if you stop long enough to 
listen, and Abe Centara's story wasn't finished yet.

XxXxX

It was overcast outside but the downstairs kitchen glowed 
with buttery warmth, the scent of coffee and blueberry 
pancakes wafting out into the hall.  I heard Kazdin's gruff 
voice and Cathleen's answering laugh coming from inside.  She 
was still smiling when I entered the room.

"Good morning," she said.  "How are you feeling?"

Kazdin turned in his heavy oak chair to look at me, and I 
touched the back of my head in a self-conscious gesture.  
"Better, thank you."  I watched as Cathleen leaned on one 
crutch and flipped two golden circles with her free hand.

"Pancakes?" she asked.

It wasn't my custom to eat a lot in the morning; large 
breakfasts left me feeling bloated and sluggish.  But my 
stomach rumbled around in my mid-section in answer to her 
question, and I remembered that I had skipped dinner the 
night before.  "Yes, thank you.  It smells wonderful."

"They are," Kazdin said, patting his stomach.  I saw he had a 
plate drizzled with maple syrup remnants in front of him.  He 
poured me a glass of orange juice from a crystal pitcher as I 
slid one of the chairs out from the table.  "Mulder, too?" he 
asked.

"He's still in the shower," I answered, and then stopped 
short, feeling my face grow warm at the intimate words.  Not 
a confession, exactly, but my easy reply was suggestive 
enough to make Kazdin grin.  Cathleen just gave me a gentle 
smile.

"We'll keep his pancakes in the oven, then."  She limped from 
the stove to hand me a plate stacked high with fluffy cakes, 
each dotted with a liberal amount of fat blueberries.  Kazdin 
received three more without even asking.

"Do you talk shop over food?" he asked around a mouthful, and 
I almost smiled.  

"I'm an M.E.," I reminded him.  "I have a strong stomach."

He grinned at me again and then looked at Cathleen, who had 
pulled up a chair at the table.  "You mind?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Have I ever?"

Satisfied, Kazdin wiped his hands and stretched a couple of 
folders across the table to me.  "Sorry to say we've turned 
up empty on the guy last night.  The lab boys weren't able to 
pull any prints from the bar, and the note on your windshield 
was clean as well.  As for the garage, it's so dirty that 
there isn't much hope for identifiable evidence there."

I looked through the meager reports and nodded.  I'd expected 
as much.  The folder underneath was thicker, yellowed and 
worn at the edges, and I glanced at Kazdin as I pulled it 
out.  "What's this?"

"That."  He frowned and shifted in his chair.  "That I pulled 
from Andy's personal cabinet early this morning.  If he finds 
out, it's my job.  Or worse."

I opened the folder and found old police reports, from back 
in the days when typewriters were the norm.  The date at the 
top read July 21, 1981, and it appeared to be the original 
paperwork on Abe Centara's death.  "Chief Purcell had these 
in his personal files?"

"Yes, Ma'am.  It's not standard procedure, that's for sure, 
but I guess I can see why he wanted to keep them private.  
Hard to maintain authority when the boys can rifle through 
your dirty laundry any time they want."

I started sorting through the pile myself.

Abe Centara was killed outside the Purcell family home at 
around nine p.m., shot once in the back of the head with a 45 
mm handgun registered to Carson Alan Purcell.  There were no 
witnesses to the shooting itself, but Jeffery and Andrew 
Purcell and Katherine and Lee-Lee Centara were all on the 
premises at the time.  Carson Purcell seemed to have arrived 
later, shortly before the police showed up. 

Included in the folder was a thin manila envelope, and I 
looked at Kazdin as I moved to open it.  He looked away.  
"What is it?" Cathleen asked, leaning toward me.  I let the 
contents spill into my palm.

Pictures.  Lots of them.  Lee-Lee Centara at fifteen, naked 
as the day she was born and posing legs-spread for the 
camera.  Beautiful and horrible frozen in the same shot.

"Oh my God," Cathleen murmured.  I flipped through the photos 
in rapid succession and then set the stack face down on the 
folder.  

"The pictures were in the house that night," Kazdin 
explained.  "Jeff and Andy found them and took them to 
Katherine.  Supposedly that's why she went nuts."

"Who went nuts?"  Mulder entered the room at that point, and 
Cathleen got up to get him breakfast.  He took the plate from 
her with a smile and pulled up a chair alongside me.  The 
hairs on the back of his neck were damp, and I could smell 
the sharp, clean scent of his shampoo.  "What's going on?" he 
asked, nodding at the pictures.  I handed them to him, and he 
looked them over as Kazdin filled in the details.

"The background there is from Abe's studio.  He was a 
professional photographer, which explains the high quality of 
the prints.  It's also how the family figured out he'd been 
messing with Lee-Lee."

"How did the photos get in the house?" Mulder asked.  "Did 
Lee-Lee have them?"

I consulted the reports in front of me.  "Apparently.  Jeff 
found them first, in an envelope in the family room, and he 
took them to Andy.  The boys decided to take the matter to 
their stepmother."

"Not their father," Mulder observed.  "Interesting."

"It says here that Katherine was furious when she found out 
and summoned Abe to the house, where neighbors say they had 
an impressive fight.  Around nine, as Abe was leaving, 
Katherine took the gun from Carson Purcell's study and shot 
him in the driveway."

"Gun powder residue on her hands?"

I scanned the pages and shook my head.  "No tests were run.  
She confessed shortly after the police arrived."

Mulder looked at the pictures again for a long, silent 
moment.  "No wonder they didn't want Lee-Lee on the stand.  
She looks like she's having the time of her life."

"Maybe that's the answer to her breakdown," I suggested.  
"Her mother shot her lover, and she just didn't know how to 
process that.  It could also explain her guilt over the 
murder."

"Could be," Mulder answered, sounding distracted.  He was 
studying one of the photos with interest.  "What do you think 
this is?" he asked me after a moment.

I squinted at the proffered image.  It was black and white 
and showed Lee-Lee spread out on a couch, the slopes and 
curves of her young body captured in a perfect "V" of light.  
I looked in the corner that Mulder had indicated, behind her 
head, and saw a rumpled piece of dark clothing draped over a 
chair.  There was a white blur at the edge of the cloth that 
I could not make out.  "I don't know," I said.  "Why?"

He shrugged.  "Could be nothing.  It's in a few of these 
shots, though.  I'd like to know what it is."

"I can probably have the guys at Ritz Camera Shop blow it up 
for you," Kazdin said, taking the photo.  "They do stuff for 
us all the time."  He glanced at his watch.  "Look, I've got 
to get going.  My shift starts in ten minutes, and if I'm not 
there Andy will kill me."

As Cathleen walked Kazdin to the door, Mulder picked up one 
of the photos left behind.  "Kill him," he murmured.  "Funny 
choice of words."

"What?"

"Well, call me crazy, but..." He handed me the picture and 
tapped the white blur.  "...I think that just might be an 
'A.'"

"'A' as in 'Abe,'" I pointed out.

He nodded. "Or as in Andy."

XxXxX

At eleven-thirty, Mulder and I stood behind Kit-n-Carl's 
Café, next to the dumpster's stench of rotting melon rinds 
and coffee grounds, waiting for Lee-Lee Centara to make an 
appearance.  It was cold.  The wind from the ocean was damp 
and sharp, whipping past my coat to scrape along my bones.  I 
shifted from one foot to the other while Mulder chewed a 
sunflower seed he had unearthed in his pocket.  "She said 
*behind* the diner, right?" he asked as he spat out the 
shell.

"Yes, Mulder.  The blow to my head wasn't so hard that I 
can't remember a simple phone call."

"Hey, I was just..."

"Agent Scully!"  A voice hissed at us from behind a nearby 
shed, and I turned to see Lee-Lee peeking around the corner.  
She beckoned us toward her.  

Once we were hidden between the shed and a high wooden fence, 
she turned to face us, arms wrapped around her middle in her 
customary pose.  Her eyes flickered over my face, then away, 
and I knew she had checked out my bruises.  For my part, I 
had trouble looking at her thin frame and shapeless green 
sweater without seeing the seductive teenager pictured in 
Abe's photographs.

She cleared her throat, hugging herself tighter.  "Andy and 
Jeff don't know about this, right?"

"That's right," I said.  "It's just us.  What did you want to 
talk about?"

Lee-Lee scuffed her sneaker in the dirt.  "It's her," she 
said, her whisper swallowed by the wind.  "I...I didn't want 
to believe it at first.  I mean, how could it be, right?  
She's dead."  She broke off in a hysterical, disbelieving 
laugh.  "But then after Andy told me the names of the people 
who burned in the fires, we knew.  We knew it had to be her." 

"You're talking about your mother, about Katherine," Mulder 
said.

Lee-Lee nodded.  "The first place she burned was the old 
police station out on Sheffield Road; it took them all night 
to get the flames out, and Andy said they couldn't tell what 
caused it.  It was like the whole place just lit up all at 
once.  You should have seen Andy shaking when he told me.  I 
think he must have guessed it was her from the start."

"Ms. Centara," I said, "if those are your stepbrother's 
suspicions, he's never mentioned them to us."

"Of course he hasn't," she replied.  "Carson would probably 
have his badge if Andy ever opened his mouth on the subject.  
And Jeff, he hasn't written about it in the paper, either, 
but we all know it's true.  Stan Garber, Regina Tuttlesworth, 
Joe Bowman -- they were all involved in her trial and now 
they're all dead."

"Killed by your mother," I said, and Lee-Lee nodded, looking 
stricken.  I took a deep breath.  "Okay, let's suppose for a 
minute that she could come back from the dead.  Why set the 
fires and kill those involved in her trial?  It doesn't make 
sense.  She confessed to Abe's murder and the trial was fair.  
What is there to avenge?"

Lee-Lee hesitated.  "Andy said her lawyer did a bad job, that 
he should have gotten her off."

"That might explain Stanley Garber's death, but it doesn't 
account for the others."

"You don't understand," she whispered, shivering.  "You don't 
think it can happen, but I've seen it." 

"Seen Katherine?" Mulder asked intently.

Lee-Lee's tone was hushed, her expression caught between awe 
and horror.  "No, the other.  Elysian.  When I was seven, my 
mother took me at night to this place in the woods.  I 
remember clutching her hand so hard my knuckles hurt because 
it was dark and I couldn't see.  It seemed like we walked 
forever, and she wouldn't tell me where we were going.  She 
just smiled and started humming.

"When we came to a clearing I could see the moon.  I stared 
up at it as my mother gathered logs and piled them high 
inside a stone circle.  After a while, she added a match and 
sat with me on her lap while the logs began to burned.  The 
flames made my face hot, and the smoke watered my eyes.  I 
wanted to get up, but she held me tight and talked to me as 
the flames climbed higher into the sky.  That was the first 
time I heard the story of Elysian.

"Mom finished with the threat, about how Elysian would come 
back to burn everyone in the town, and just as she stopped 
the fire made this...kind of exploding noise.  I screamed 
because I thought it was reaching out to burn us.  But Mom 
yelled, 'Look, look!' and she was laughing, so I peeked out 
from my hands and saw her there in the fire."

"Elysian?" Mulder asked.

"Yes.  She had long, dark hair -- it was a mess hanging all 
the way to her waist -- and her skin was smudged with dirt 
and ashes.  Her dress was torn, and her hands were tied 
behind her back with rope."

I looked over at Mulder, whose cheeks were pink and eyes were 
bright with interest.  Remember the sketches, Mulder, I 
willed him silently.  These details of Elysian are straight 
from those drawings, right down to the rope around her hands.  
It's a fairytale, not evidence.

But Mulder did not seem to be receiving my frequency.  "What 
happened then?" he asked Lee-Lee.

"Nothing.  She just stood there, flickering in the flames, 
and then was gone."  Lee-Lee's gaze was fixed past me, her 
dark eyes shining as she relived the fire.  I glanced at 
Mulder and saw that he was looking, too.

"Ms. Centara," I said.  They both turned.  "Two days ago 
someone called my room and threatened me.  Last night, I was 
attacked in a parking garage after finding another threat 
tacked on my windshield.  I assure you that the force behind 
these acts is 100% human."

She curled her fingers into the cuffs of her sweater.  "Yes."

Mulder moved closer and touched her sleeve.  "Lee-Lee, do you 
know who is responsible?"

"N-no."

"I think you do," Mulder said softly.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.  "No. I don't know."

"But you suspect," I said, catching on to the vibe Mulder had 
sensed.  She glanced over her shoulder.

"It's my fault," she whispered.  "I'm the reason she killed 
him.  I should have testified, I should have told them she 
was..." She trailed off with a small sob, clasping her wool-
covered hand over her mouth.  "It might be Jeff."

"Jeff attacked Scully?"

Lee-Lee's shoulders sagged and tears filled her eyes.  "I 
don't know, I don't know anything.  But he's been kind of 
crazy since this started happening.  He, he..."

"He what?" Mulder pressed.

Lee-Lee gurgled a choked laugh, though her face was drawn 
with horror.  "He thinks he might be next."

"What the hell is going on here?"

Lee-Lee jumped as Andy Purcell appeared around the corner.  
Mulder ignored him, grabbing her elbow in a tight grip.  
"What do you mean, Lee-Lee?  Why does he think he might be 
next?"

She shook her head vaguely, her eyes on Purcell.  "I'm sorry, 
Andy," she whispered.  "They had to know.  They have a right 
to know what they're dealing with."

"Shut up!" he roared, yanking her from Mulder.  "Just shut 
up!"

"Hey!"  I moved toward them but Purcell held up his hand.

"I told you not to bother her."  He ground out each word from 
his gut.

"She contacted us," I replied, watching Lee-Lee's face.  She 
looked defeated but not in any pain, so I kept my distance.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he muttered near her ear.  
She winced.

"It's her, Andy.  You said it yourself."

"Shut. Up."  He glared from her to us.  "I believe my father 
already requested that you direct all further questions to 
our family attorney."

"She's free to speak with us any time she wants," I said.

"Yeah, well, she knows better now, don't you?"  He gave her a 
slight shake, and Lee-Lee nodded, her eyes filling with tears 
again.

"Sorry," she said, and I wasn't sure which one of us she was 
addressing.

"Are you going to be all right?" I asked, my eyes on 
Purcell's purple face.  She nodded.

"I have to get back to work."  She slipped from Andy's grasp 
and walked toward the edge of the shed.  "It's the truth, you 
know," she said, her back to us.  "Ian McNairney knew it, 
too."

Purcell scowled.  "Get on with you," he said.

"Who's Ian McNairney?" I asked.

"The prosecutor on Katherine's case," Mulder answered.  "He 
left town two months ago."

Lee-Lee turned, her fingers on the corner of the shed, her 
eyes wide and dark as she met our gazes once more.  "After 
Regina died," she said.  She looked toward Andy.  "He knew 
the truth."

And then she was gone.

XxXxX

Mulder and I tried all afternoon to find Jeffery Purcell, but 
he seemed to have disappeared.  So eight o'clock found us 
camped outside his apartment building, hoping he might show 
up there.  "What do you think Jeff meant by 'he might be 
next'?" Mulder asked.

"We don't know he did say it," I pointed out.  "It's only 
Lee-Lee's word, and for all we know, she has him marked next 
on her list of victims."

"Yeah, but suppose it's true.  Suppose he does think it's 
Katherine out to get him.  Why?"

I looked at him for a moment.  "You're asking me why, if 
Katherine came back from the dead, would she target her 
stepson along with the people who helped convict her?"

"Uh-huh."  He tossed a shell into the ashtray.

"Well, he did find the photos that put everything in motion.  
If he'd just kept quiet about the affair, none of this would 
have happened."

Mulder sat up in his seat.  "That's a good point, Scully.  I 
wondered earlier why Andy and Jeff took those photos to 
Katherine.  Why not confront Lee-Lee or Abe directly?  Why 
bring out the affair at all?"

"They thought she was being abused."

"Okay, so why not go to their father, who was on the police 
force at the time?"

"Maybe they thought Katherine would handle the matter more 
delicately."  Even as I said the words, I had to doubt them.  
Katherine Centara had had a fireball temper that landed her 
in trouble often.

"Maybe."  Mulder didn't sound convinced, either.  "Or maybe 
they wanted her to handle it just the way she did.  Maybe 
they wanted Abe dead."

He had no sooner said the words when a siren call wailed in 
the distance.  Fire.  Mulder rolled down his window and 
sniffed the air.  "It's close," he said, and I shivered.

Getting out of the car, we saw how close.

The smoke was coming from Jeff Purcell's home.

XxXxX

End Chapter Nine.  Continued in Chapter Ten.

All feedback is welcome at syn_tax6@yahoo.com

Many thanks to my eagle-eyed team of beta readers, Alicia, 
Jerry and Jintian, for saving me from myself. :-)

Thanks also to the patient readers who have kept with me!  I 
apologize for the long delay between chapters this time and 
promise to keep 'em coming faster now that I'm settled in my 
new home.

PS.  You're still the closest guess, Joanne.  Everyone's got 
a secret all right, just not the same one.