///////////////

Chapter Three

//////////////



Scully had bathwater running and her blouse unbuttoned from 
top to bottom when she heard the shrill call of the hotel 
phone.  She stood over it and contemplated whether or not to 
lift the receiver at this late juncture, but decided Mulder 
would probably have used her cell phone.  "Hello?"

"Dana?  It's Ray.  I hope I'm not catching you too late."

Scully glanced at the red numbers on the bedside alarm: nine 
thirty-seven.  "I just got in," she said.  "What's up?"

"I was hoping I could convince you to come back out again for 
a quick drink."

"A drink?" 

"We, uh, we could discuss the case."

"Do you have something new?"  She had left him only two hours 
before.

"I have a little theory I'd like to run past you.  Of course, 
if you'd like to wait until morning..."

"No, I can meet you," Scully said as she tucked the receiver 
under her chin and began re-buttoning her blouse.  "Did you 
want me to call Agent Mulder as well?"

Ray paused.  "I'll leave that up to you," he said.  "I'll 
meet you at Mallory's in half an hour?  It's just a few doors 
down from where we had dinner this evening."

"I can find it."

So Scully redressed, slipped her tired feet back into her 
shoes, and pulled on her heavy winter coat.  She fished her 
rental car keys from the motel dresser and headed out to 
Mallory's bar.

She wedged her Taurus between two old filthy snow banks and 
stepped out carefully to avoid the slush.  Inside, Ray half-
rose from his chair and gave her a little wave.  Scully 
looked around the bar as she crossed the room; half the faces 
were familiar, and she spotted two uniforms.

"Local cop hangout, I see," she said as she pulled out a 
heavy wooden chair.

"We're here in high company," Ray replied.  "That's the Chief 
over there."

Scully turned in her seat to squint across the room.  Sure 
enough, Chief Windsor sat with three shot glasses in front of 
him and a young woman on his left.  "He looks comfortable," 
Scully said as she faced Ray again.

Ray took a sip of his beer.  "I don't blame him for wanting a 
drink.  This whole thing is going to hit the fan in the 
morning -- you can count on it.  I tripped over two reporters 
just on my way in here."

Scully glanced around again, eyeing the men in the bar with 
renewed suspicion. 

"Nah, they wouldn't dare come inside with so many cops here," 
Ray said.  "They'd be recognized in a heartbeat and wouldn't 
get a damn thing out of anybody.  You want a beer?" 

"Whatever you're having is fine."

Ray signaled the waiter and soon Scully had a pint of Blue 
Moon in front of her.  "Mmm," she said as she licked the foam 
from her lip.  "So you wanted to talk about your theory?"

"I was thinking about what Mulder said, how this guy knew the 
house wouldn't be alarmed like its neighbors.  Maybe he's 
been inside before -- delivery man, meter reader, something 
like that might allow him a way to case the place ahead of 
time."

Scully sipped her beer as she chose her words.  This was a 
very basic idea, something the Boston police had no doubt 
considered themselves.  "I think, um, I think that's very 
possible," she said.  "Definitely we should take a look to 
see who might have had access to the house in the past few 
weeks."

"Yeah, but I was also thinking we should check out this house 
painter."

"Excuse me?"

He pulled out a small plastic sign on a stick that read "Owen 
Bros Painting 722-9138."  "Found this as Mulder was climbing 
through the Byrdeks' back window.  Painters would get a real 
good look at the place, don't you think?"

"I do think.  Do we know if the Duponts also had their 
house painted recently?"

"I have my people looking into it right now," he answered as 
he tucked the sign away again.

"Nice work," Scully said, and he shrugged it off.

"You think SAC Tomasi would be impressed?"

Scully smiled, remembering their old hard-to-please 
instructor.  "If it ends up as the key to the case, then 
maybe."

"That old bastard hated me."

"Oh, it wasn't personal.  He hated everyone."

"Mmm, I don't know.  He told me once I wasn't going to last 
six months in the FBI, and that I should get out now and go 
pump gas or something."

"Ouch."

"Yeah.  Jack Willis liked me though."  He looked her up and 
down knowingly.  "Of course, not as much as he liked you."

Scully swallowed quickly to prevent choking on her beer.  
"Jack, uh, he was more easy-going."

"Yeah, especially if you were dating him."  At her look, he 
smiled and ducked his head.  "Relax, I don't think anyone 
else knew."

"How did you...?"

"You don't remember?  I ran into you at the jewelry store."

Scully did recall, now that he mentioned it.  "You were 
picking out an engagement ring," she said, searching to see 
if she could come up with the woman's name.  Nothing came to 
mind.  She had seen him once or twice with a slim brunette, 
maybe been introduced even, but the name had made no 
impression.

"That's right.  I asked your opinion on which ring I should 
go with, the diamond solitaire or the sapphire diamond 
combo."

"Which one did I pick?"

"You liked the sapphire."  He spread his hands on the table.  
"Maybe if I had listened to you, she would have said yes."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It was years ago.  Anyway, you were picking out a watch.  
You said it was for your father, remember?"

Scully felt herself color as she recalled the incident.  "I, 
uh..."

"Forget about it.  You didn't owe me any answers back then.  
You still don't.  But when I saw that same watch show up on 
Willis's wrist, I knew."

He was more observant than she had realized.  "It was many 
years ago," she said quietly.

"I was really sorry to hear about his death.  I thought about 
writing you, but I didn't know what the situation was, and by 
the time I found out, two months had passed."

Scully sat back with a shaky sigh. "We weren't... we weren't 
together then."

"I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"You didn't," she said, and meant it.  Time had faded away 
their split and Jack's troubling end; she remembered mostly 
good things now.

Ray raised his glass.  "To old loves," he said, and Scully 
smiled as she touched her glass with his.  

Her smile vanished as she caught sight of the evening news on 
the TV behind him.  A serious-faced anchor was saying 
something as the box to her left read, "Valentine's 
Massacre."

Ray caught her looking and turned to stare as well.  "Hey, 
can we get the volume turned up on that?"

The barkeep obliged him and turned the TV up until the 
anchor's voice could be heard over the chatter.  "...Byrdeks 
were killed in the exact same fashion as Steve and Ellen 
McPherson back on January fifth.  A source close to the 
investigation said that Boston PD has called in the FBI to 
help with the case, and that evidence indicates Boston does 
have a serial killer on the loose."

Across the room, the Chief slammed one fist down on the 
table.  "God damn it," he said, and yanked his coat from the 
back of his chair.  He was already on his way to the door 
when his cell phone rang.

////

Jake's alarm clock went off at six-thirty am, and he slammed 
his hand down on it to stop the awful noise.  His heart 
thudded wildly in his chest, and he wondered if he had been 
dreaming or if this was just how things were now.  He rolled 
out of bed, his feet hitting an empty pizza box on the floor.  
Last year his mother would have given him shit about it, but 
these days neither one of them had the energy.

Jake scrubbed his face with both hands and wandered into his 
mother's room still clad in boxers and a T-shirt.  The shades 
were drawn and his mother slept huddled under the thick quilt 
Grandma Huggins had made for her.  He shook her by the 
shoulder.  "Mom, it's six-thirty.  You gotta get up."

His mother didn't move.

"Ma, it's morning.  Come on."

"Ten more minutes," she muttered, squirming away from his 
hand.

"You've got work.  It's only Friday."  He snapped open a 
shade, which spun around at the top, slapping the windowpane 
with each pass.  Still his mother did not budge.  Jake picked 
up the prescription sedatives from her nightstand and took 
off the lid.  He counted the pills and found four missing 
since yesterday.

She said they helped her sleep.  She said they made the 
stress go away and left her floating on a gentle wave.  But 
Jake pictured her being sucked in by the undertow.

"Mom," he tried again.  "You've got to get up."

"Leave me alone, Jake."

"I've got to go to school."

"So go then."  She tugged the blanket over her face.

"What about work?"  She didn't answer.  "I'm taking your 
pills," he said.  "They'll be downstairs.  You'll have to get 
out of bed if you want them."

Not even his threats seemed to motivate her.  Jake slammed 
the door on his way out, his fury reverberating through the 
wall.  He hurried down the stairs and left without any 
breakfast.  He didn't even make her coffee, the way he 
usually did.

Fuck you, he thought.  Fuck everything.

He took her pills with him.

/////

Mulder waited in the hotel lobby for Scully with two Dunkin' 
Donuts cups in his hands.  She emerged from the elevator 
looking as irritated as she had the night before.  "I thought 
you were going to call me when you were ready," she said.  
"I've been waiting fifteen minutes."

"I thought we were going to meet down here."  He handed her 
the coffee and her frown relaxed just a bit.  He might not 
buy her roses, but he knew to order her coffee with low fat 
milk and two packets of sugar substitute.  "Did you see the 
news this morning?" he asked as they walked.

"I saw it last night.  We knew it was going to come out 
eventually."

Cold air hit them in the face as they exited the hotel, but 
at least the sun was shining.  Mulder paused to take out his 
sunglasses.  "I'm not so sure the news is a bad thing.  Did 
you see the crime scene photos with the bodies?  All of them 
posed spread-eagled.  We already know he likes to admire his 
handiwork, so it's a safe bet he wants us to admire it too."

"So we're giving him what he wants," Scully said flatly.

They reached the end of the walk, and Mulder veered left.  He 
got five steps before he realized she wasn't following him.  
"You coming?" he asked, dangling his keys at her.

Scully dangled hers back.

"You want to drive?" he asked, dubious.  He knew his way 
around Boston a lot better than she did; they both knew it.

"How about I just meet you there," she called.

Mulder spun in a half-circle, frustrated.  "Okay, fine."

Scully began walking away, but he yelled after her.  "I'll 
pull around front so you can follow me!"

She raised her Dunkin' Donuts cup in mock salute but kept on 
walking.  He saw her blue Taurus pull out behind him from the 
hotel lot, but when he looked back at the first light, an old 
woman in a beige Buick had taken her place.  Wherever Scully 
went, she went in a hurry.  He ended up parking next to her 
at the police station, and Scully was nowhere in sight.

He found her in the large conference room along with Ray 
Peterkin, Chief Windsor, and two dozen other men.  Scully was 
the shortest person in the room, easy to spot, and it was 
moments like this he was reminded that her job was unusual 
for a woman: she was the only female in the room.

"People, can we take a seat, please?" the Chief hollered over 
all the noise.  "I want to make this as fast as possible."

Mulder took the nearest chair, which put him next to the 
young detective he had met earlier.  "You knew this was 
coming the minute you caught the case, didn't you?" he 
murmured to Manny.

Ahuja nodded.  "I knew it was going to be bigger than me.  
Hell, it's bigger than all of us right now."

Chief Windsor shuffled a bunch of papers and then set them 
aside.  "As I'm sure you know by now, our killer has become 
the talk of the town. The city has logged upwards of seven 
hundred calls and it's just eight-thirty in the morning.  
We've got our usual local media to contend with, and the 
national guys are arriving with their trucks as we speak.  
I've got to give a press conference at noon and it would be 
nice if I had something to tell people."

"You got a wife?" Manny asked Mulder.

Mulder shook his head and held up his hand to show a bare 
ring finger.

"My girlfriend is freaking out," Manny whispered.  "She wants 
to go stay with her sister in Buffalo."

"Must be pretty worried to want to go to Buffalo in the 
middle of winter," Mulder whispered back.

"You ain't shitting me. But after what I've seen at the 
Byrdeks, I'm half ready to put her on the plane myself." 

"Now, we're establishing four principle lines of 
investigation," the Chief was saying.  "One, the tip line.  
We'll have the phones ready to go in half an hour, and a good 
portion of you all will be running down leads from that.  
Second, we're going back over old cases and seeing if there 
might be some connection to these homicides.  Third, we're 
going to have a team dedicated to trying to connect the 
Byrdeks to the McPhersons.  Why did he pick these two 
couples?  And finally, we are going to have the forensic 
teams working round the clock on both houses."

"Which straw did you draw?" Mulder asked Manny.

"Old cases.  You?"

"The same," Mulder said, although he didn't have any formal 
assignment.  

He glanced up front and saw Ray lean over to say something to 
Scully, who nodded.  Mulder felt like he was back picking lab 
partners in eighth grade science class.

"She your partner?" Manny asked as he caught him looking.

"We work together, yeah."

"You're lucky.  I gotta look at that all day."  Manny jerked 
a nod to O'Hara, who was blowing his red nose into a 
handkerchief.

"That's it for now," Chief Windsor said.  "If you're unclear 
about your assignment, see Captain Lowell or Agent Peterkin.  
Everyone make sure you have your cell phones and pagers on.  
Barring a significant breakthrough, we'll meet back here at 
shift change.  Let's get to work.  This guy's not sitting 
around on his ass, so neither can we."

"We've got a bunch of jackets pulled in the other room 
already," Manny said, "if you'd like to take a look."

"I would, thanks.  Be right there."

Mulder threaded his way against the flow of bodies to reach 
Scully and Ray at the front.  "I was told to see you about my 
assignment," Mulder said, tilting his head at Ray.

"Aw, hell, Mulder, you know more about running these kinds of 
investigations than I do.  Pick whichever team you like."

"Which team are you on?" Mulder asked him.

"I'm pursuing a connection between the victims," replied Ray, 
and Mulder nodded.

"I'll take cold cases," he said, and Scully looked mildly 
surprised.

"Agent Scully?" Ray asked.  "Which avenue appeals to you?"

Scully looked from one man to the other.  "I'll go with 
Mulder," she said at last, and Mulder was pretty sure he 
looked very surprised.

"I'll catch you both later then," Ray said, touching Scully 
lightly on the back.

"To what do I owe this honor?" Mulder asked her as they 
walked out of the conference room.

"Ray is right -- you've worked many of these cases in the 
past.  If you want to look at past crimes, I figure there has 
to be a good reason."

"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."

"You know it's funny you should mention that," she said. 
"I've been thinking it a lot lately."

Mulder did not have a chance to reply before they reached 
Manny Ahuja, O'Hara and a handful of others in conference 
room B.  "Dive right in," O'Hara told them.  "We got cold 
murders in this pile, cold rapes in that pile.  Over this 
way, we've got rapes with similar MOs and murders with 
similar MOs.  It's like looking for a needle in a god damn 
haystack."

Mulder took a seat and grabbed the first folder.  That's 
right, he thought, and I'm the magnet.

The detectives and agents drank coffee and pored over 
gruesome crimes by the metric ton.   "What about this one?" 
Manny called out.  "I got a white victim, mid twenties - 
she's a prostitute found unconscious after some john dumped 
her out of a car.  She said he threatened her with a knife 
and tried to choke her to death.  Had sex with her while she 
was passed out cold."

"When was this?" O'Hara asked.

"Last July.  She described the perp as a white male, dark 
hair, late thirties, early forties.  They never got the guy."

"There's enough there for a second look," O'Hara said.  "Put 
it in the pile."

"You can put it near the bottom," Mulder said without looking 
up from his folder.  "I don't think it's him."

"Why not?" O'Hara looked annoyed.  "It's closer than anything 
else we've seen."

"Whoever killed the Byrdeks and the McPhersons ejaculated on 
the women, not in them.  There was no sign of strangulation 
on any of the four victims, and this guy would have moved 
beyond your garden-variety hooker by last summer.  Lauren 
Byrdek worked as a stock analyst and Debbie McPherson taught 
fifth grade at a private school.  We know he didn't pick 
either victim at random, so it's safe to conclude he prefers 
his women a little more upscale."

"Well there's what he wants and what's available," O'Hara 
said.  "This girl would have gone with him willingly."  He 
held up a picture of a young woman's bruised and battered 
face.  Her dark hair had a bad dye job; the ends were frayed.  
She had pock marks on her cheeks and cheap purple eye shadow 
that had been smudged in the fight.

"She's not his fantasy," Mulder said dismissively.

"Okay then, you got a better candidate?" O'Hara asked.

Mulder nodded slowly.  "I like this one.  Unsolved rape from 
two years ago.  A college student who was moonlighting as a 
call girl on the side."

"Call girl, hooker, what's the difference?"

Mulder slid the girl's picture down the table.  "This one 
grew up with three squares a day and parents who paid for 
good orthodontia."

Scully took the folder from him and scanned it quickly.  "Her 
statement says he threatened her with a knife.  He held her 
captive for over three hours and ejaculated twice on her 
stomach.  She sustained superficial lacerations on her 
abdomen."

"Sounds like a pretty good match," Manny said.

"It's not bad," Mulder agreed.  "But even more than the 
similarity, he scared her badly enough that she risked jail 
and her reputation to report him.  This wasn't just another 
kinky john."

"The case is unsolved," Scully read.  "And the victim, 
Annette Crenshaw, is listed as moved -- no forwarding 
address."

"We'll find her," Manny said, taking the folder.

Scully stood up too.  "Where are you going?" Mulder asked.

"There's one way to be sure if it's the same guy, and we 
don't need Annette Crenshaw to get it.  The file says semen 
samples were taken in this case, which means they can be 
compared to the Byrdek and McPherson samples."

"Good thinking," Mulder said.  "Let me know what you find 
out."

/////

Jimmy hung around city hall plaza like the rest of them, 
packed in tight and waiting for the Chief to show up and make 
his big announcement, something they already knew -- a killer 
had taken control of the city.  The high buildings erected so 
close to the water created a wind-tunnel effect, sending 
biting gusts past his ears as Mother Nature roared like a 
demon.

The major press crowded in close with their cameras and their 
microphones.  Jimmy held his small cassette recorder deep 
inside his pocket.  It was about the size of a pack of 
cigarettes, and boy, he could he have used a smoke right 
then.  But the wind made that impossible, and he knew better 
than to light up in a crowd these days anyway.  It was almost 
as bad as being a murderer.  The way things were going, 
pretty soon they weren't even going to let you smoke in your 
own home.

Jimmy imagined a mob scene like this for future smokers.  
"There he is!" they would say.  "There's the dirty bastard 
with his cancer stick!  Give him the chair for poisoning our 
children's lungs."

Beside him, a thin blonde woman who looked like she might 
blow away in the breeze was trying to elbow enough room to do 
her stand up shot for the camera.  "I'm here at city hall 
where Chief Windsor is set to speak at any moment.  Cut!  
Bob, we need to do that again."

Her cheeks were red, whether from makeup, cold or excitement, 
Jimmy did not know.  He could feel her energy echoed around 
him.  There was a killer in the city and it was show time.

Curtain up, he thought as the Chief materialized at the 
podium.

Jimmy took out his cassette recorder, the one Amy had bought 
him at Target when he said he wanted to be a reporter.  
"You'll need it for interviews," she'd said.  "To make sure 
you quote everyone right."

Just then, the Chief was saying the magic words.  "We have 
confirmed it is the same man involved in both cases."

Flashbulbs went off around him.  The Chief had to blink 
rapidly, making him look like the shy kid who always got 
slapped with a wet towel after gym class.

I know you, Jimmy thought.  I know where you go to drink and 
I know where you get your women.

The reporters descended upon the Chief like a pack of 
seagulls, crying out questions, but Jimmy slipped free out 
the back.

He knew where to get his exclusive.

/////

Manny brought Mulder back an Italian sub for lunch.  For 
himself, he had chosen meatball and O'Hara had the chicken 
parm.  The men cleared off the paper trail of victims from 
one end of the conference table and sat down to eat.

"So how many of these SOBs have you caught, Mulder?" Manny 
asked.

"My share."

"Hey, is it true they're all bed wetters?" O'Hara asked.  
"And they all kill their pets and shit?"

"It varies, but the interest in death generally starts very 
young."

"I'm never having kids," Manny said before taking a bite.  
"Either you fuck 'em or the world does it for you.  No 
thanks."

"Aw, kids ain't all so bad."

"Yours aren't," Manny agreed.  "Thanks to Martha."

"You got kids?" O'Hara asked Mulder.

Mulder shook his head, his mouth full.

"So what's the worst one you ever saw?" Manny asked him.

"Kid?"

"No, serial."

Pfaster, Mulder thought.  The only time he'd ever had a 
victim sob in his arms.

"I, uh..."  He looked up and saw Scully coming towards them 
with a folder in her hands.  "They're all pretty bad."

He dusted the crumbs off on his pants and pulled out the 
chair next to him for Scully.  "I don't have good news," she 
said as she sat.  "It's not the same guy."

O'Hara smirked but said nothing.

"I didn't even have to run a DNA analysis.  The suspect in 
the Byrdek and McPherson cases has type A blood.  The one in 
the Crenshaw case is type O."

"Back to the haystack it is," Manny said with a sigh.  "I get 
the feeling we'll be going down a lot of blind alleys before 
this one is over."

Mulder took the Crenshaw file and flipped it open to see if 
there was a clue he had somehow overlooked.  He wanted to 
minimize the blind alleys as much as possible.  "There's a 
page missing from her statement," he said, shifting through 
the paper to make sure it hadn't been misplaced.

"What?  Give me that."  O'Hara took the file and looked for 
himself.  "What do you know?  He's right.  The last page of 
her statement is missing."

"Could have gotten lost," Manny said.

"Could have."

"Is there a copy somewhere?" Mulder asked.

"Why?" O'Hara wanted to know.  "It's not the same perp."

"I like to be thorough."

"Well, you're out of luck.  We've got the victim and 
perpetrator particulars stored on computer, but this was back 
in 1995.  Unless she handwrote another one, this typed copy 
is all we have."

"You think it matters?" Scully asked.

"Not especially.  I just think it's odd."

"I'm getting a soda," Manny announced, shoving back from the 
table.  "Anyone else want one?"

"I'll come," Mulder replied.  "You want a Coke, Scully?"

"Diet," she answered.

Mulder followed Manny to the machine and fished some coins 
from his pocket.  Manny elbowed him.  "Hey, check it out -- 
another suit."

Mulder followed the other man's gaze across the station and 
nearly dropped his quarters.  "Diana," he muttered.  "Shit."

"You know her?"

"She's FBI," Mulder replied.

"Man, her and Agent Scully too?  You government boys get all 
the luck."

Mulder leaned his head against the machine.  "Yeah," he 
replied.  "Some luck."

/////

End chapter three.  Continued in chapter four.

Thanks to Amanda for the once-over!

You would think writing about winter would make me feel 
cooler, but no!  Please send feedback and I will use it to 
fan myself so I do not melt into a puddle of goo: 
syn_tax6@yahoo.com