01 - Goblins (13 page)

A dispatch radio muttered static to itself while a gawky young officer flipped through a logbook.

Carl’s smile didn’t waver. “Then perhaps you can help me, Sergeant. I work
for the
Jersey Chronicle.
My name is Carl Barelli, and I’m—”

Nilssen’s boredom vanished. “Barelli? The sports guy in the paper?”

Amazing,
Carl thought smugly;
absolutely amazing.

“That’s right, Sergeant. But today I’m looking into the death of a friend of
mine. Corporal Frank Ulman.”

“Man, yeah,” the sergeant said, grinning. “So you want to hear about the
goblins, right?”

� The smile still didn’t waver. “That’s right. Can you help me?”

The policeman leaned back in his chair, hooked his thumbs into his belt.
“Anything you want to know, Mr. Barelli. All you have to do is ask.”

Tonero remained in the back seat of his staff car, watching as the MPs began
to make their way slowly and methodically back toward the road. His driver was
gone, ordered to sniff around to see what unofficial word he could pick up. It
was better than talking to the captain in charge. Tonero knew the man well, and
knew that the MP wouldn’t give away a thing.

The car rocked a little when the wind slapped it.

He glanced warily out at what sky he could see, hoping he’d be able to get out of here before the storm broke.

This was not turning out to be one of his best days. Tymons was jumpy and
Rosemary was getting pushy; and he knew without doubt that Barelli wasn’t going
to leave until he had gotten some kind of crumb to fill his meager reporter’s
plate.

He sighed for all the injustices dropped on him since waking, and sighed
again when the front passenger door opened and Tymons slipped in at the same
time that Rosemary slipped into the back, beside him.

“We heard,” Tymons said, agitation making his voice too high.

“What’s going on?” Rosemary asked more calmly.

“I’m not sure. Someone tried to take care of the FBI, as near as I could
tell.”

Tymons groaned.

“It wasn’t us,” Rosemary snapped at him. “Jesus, Leonard, use your head.”

“We should abort,” was the answer. “We don’t have any more control. We have
no choice, we have to abort.” He twisted around to look at the major. “Joseph,
the FBI isn’t going away now, you know that. No more just having a look around
and running back to D.C. They’re going to dig. And they’re going to find
something.”

Tonero gripped Rosemary’s leg briefly to keep her silent. “Leonard, I want
you to pay attention.”

“Joseph, we—”

“These people,” and he indicated the MPs, “are looking for a shooter, okay?
Not us and ours. There is no connection, and no connections can be made. Use
your head, Doctor, use your head.”

Tymons jumped as if slapped. “I don’t know. They’re going to ask questions.”

“Well, that’s no problem,” Rosemary answered. “We’ll just make sure there
isn’t anyone around to answer.”

Tonero looked at her in astonishment.

She shrugged. “We may not have complete control, but we still have some.” Her
smile was cold. “Simple suggestions ought to do it.”

“Jesus!” Tymons shoved his door open. “You’re crazy, Rosemary. And as Project
Director, I forbid it.” He slammed the door and stalked away.

Tonero didn’t look, didn’t care where he was going. What he cared about was
this new woman beside him. Something had changed since a few hours ago.
Something drastic. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he liked it.

“You better leave,” he said quietly.

“And the problem?”

He gave her his best smile. “In for a penny, Rosie. In for a penny.” He patted
her knee. “Use your best judgment. Just be sure, all right? Whatever you do,
just be sure.” Then he grunted and took her arm to stop her. Ahead, he saw a man
and woman helping a second, somewhat disheveled man out of the woods.
Shit,
he thought.

“Rosie, I think you’d better stick around a minute.”

“You are not dead, Mulder,” Scully complained. “Don’t lean so hard.”

She couldn’t help a smile, though, at his melodramatic sigh. He might be
different, but he was still a man, not above playing sick and injured to the
hilt.

Someone called to them, and they stopped on the road.

“Well,” Mulder whispered. “Well, well.”

A man in uniform fairly marched toward them, and, when he was close enough,
quietly demanded a report on Mulder’s condition. When Scully balked, he ducked
his head in apology. “Sorry. Major Joseph Tonero, Agent Scully. Air Force
Special Projects.” His smile turned to Mulder. “This incident happened on my
watch, so to speak, and I apologize for being slow getting here. A late lunch
with an old friend. But I don’t have to tell you how concerned I am. Is everyone
all right?” Before she could answer, he rubbed his hands together. “Good, good.
I’d hate to think what would happen if we lost an FBI.”

His smile was intended to be warm, but Scully didn’t buy it. The man was less
a career soldier than a politician, she decided as she briefed him; his medical knowledge doesn’t go much farther than using a
bandage.

As soon as she was finished, two others came up behind him—a tall, balding
civilian, and too nervous for her peace of mind, and a striking, hard-edged
blonde whose bearing was military, but she too was civilian. Neither spoke much
save for a perfunctory mumbling of sympathies.

The major introduced them as part of his team, offering their services should
the need arise. Scully assured him matters were well in hand, but thanked the
officer for his concern.

“As a matter of fact,” she added, “we were going to see you this afternoon,
when we were done.”

Mulder opened his mouth, closed it when she stepped in front of him and put a
heel down on his foot to keep him silent.

“Corporal Ulman worked for you, isn’t that right?”

The major grew solemn. “Yes, he did, Agent Scully. A tragic loss. He was a
good man. And I’ve been working closely with the Provost—”

“He was going to marry your sister,” Mulder said over her shoulder.

Tonero didn’t miss a beat: “There was talk, yes. But just between you and me,
I don’t think it was going to happen.” He sighed. “However, I certainly owe it
to her to assist you in any way possible.”

Neither made any mention of the phone call to Senator Carmen.

“Who attacked you?” Dr. Elkhart asked suddenly, sharply.

“There were two,” Mulder answered before Scully could stop him.

“Really?” the major said, grabbing his hat against a gust. “I had no idea.”

Scully was relieved when Mulder didn’t elaborate; she watched instead as Dr.
Tymons whispered something to Elkhart and hurried back down the road, one hand
massaging the back of his neck.

“Major,” she said, “I’m not sure, it’s too soon, but if Agent Mulder here
needs more assistance than I can—”

“Walson is mostly shut down,” the major interrupted stiffly. “We function
primarily as an outpatient clinic now, with only a few long-term patients.
Cutbacks.” He shrugged a
you know how it is
before the smile returned as
he clapped his hands once. “However, the important thing is that you’re all
right, Agent Mulder.” He turned to Scully. “He is all right, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “But he could use some rest now, Major, so if you and Dr. Elkhart
don’t mind, I’d like to get him back to his room.”

The major nodded, shook hands all around, and ushered Elkhart away, pausing
only to have a brief animated conversation with the MP captain in charge of the
search.

“What do you think?” Mulder asked when they were alone.

“I think,” she said without turning around, “that there’s a shooting
incident, and the major brings scientists along instead of doctors.”

She checked the car they’d ridden out in, the shattered glass and punctures,
at the one shredded, flat tire.

“Hank,” she said quietly, “get us a ride to the motel.”

Then she looked at Mulder, and instantly knew what he was thinking:

You’re not protected, Mr. Mulder, you’re still not protected.

It took a while before Webber was finally able to get them back to the Royal
Baron. Once there, as a doctor, not a partner, Scully ordered Mulder to bed with
an ice pack and aspirin until she returned from a visit with Sam Junis. He
didn’t protest. Just a crooked smile and a phony sigh, and she knew he wouldn’t
sleep; he’d be too busy trying to squeeze the obvious so it ended up looking
like a goblin.

Licia she found in their room, transcribing her notes from the Radnor
interview. “Shorthand,” the agent said apologetically. “Can’t keep up otherwise,
and I hate recorders.” As she slipped the papers into a briefcase, Scully asked
her what, if anything, she’d found out.

“It was like she didn’t care,” Licia complained, the insult to justice clear
in her tone. “And even though she has exercise stuff—says she uses it when she
remembers—in that downstairs room off the office, she still drinks like a fish.”
Then she smiled. “She knew the corporal, though.”

“How?”

The smile became a smug grin. “It seems the engaged to the major’s sister
corporal enjoyed an occasional R&R. Like, nearly every weekend.”

“Did she say who he was with?”

“No name, and she only got a glimpse. The corporal, it seems, was very
careful. I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, though.”

Scully agreed before hustling Andrews into her coat and outside. Webber would
watch Mulder in case the shooter tried again, or Mulder decided to have an
adventure on his own.

They took the second car, and on the way, she filled Andrews in, ignoring the
comments and the outrage.

It also helped her think.

It was evident they were dealing with two different suspects. Aside from the
fact that Mulder had been attacked by someone other than the shooter, she was
certain the murderer of Ulman and Pierce hadn’t suddenly decided to switch to a
rifle as his weapon of choice. He was too good with the knife. And a knife was
more personal, requiring close range; a rifle was too remote, dispassionate, requiring little or no victim contact at all.

When she had proposed this on the way back, both Mulder and Webber had
agreed, but neither could find a reasonable explanation of why, suddenly, they
were faced with two opponents.

“Maybe somebody’s protecting the goblin,” Andrews suggested.

“It’s not a goblin,” Scully snapped. “Please, don’t you start, too. Mulder’s
already got Hank thinking that way.”

“So what do I do? Call him Bill?”

“I don’t care. Just don’t call him a goblin!”

Andrews laughed and shook her head. “Boy,” she said, “he really gets on your
nerves, doesn’t he?”

Scully didn’t answer.

The doctor’s bungalow was in only marginally better condition than those of
his neighbors, its saving grace a large front garden whose arrangement and vivid
blossoms signaled a great deal of time taken and care bestowed. The doctor
himself was on the tiny front porch, sitting on the railing, smoking a
cigarette. He seemed to be in his early fifties, his greying hair plastered
straight back from his forehead; and despite the wind and the chill, he was in
shirtsleeves and jeans. Most of him was lean, but his arms were hugely muscled,
all out of proportion to the rest of him.

“Popeye,” Andrews muttered as they took the narrow slate walk toward him.

Scully almost laughed aloud. She was right; all the man needed was a corncob
pipe and a sailor’s cap to complete the image.

“Been having a time of it, haven’t you,” he said by way of greeting. Then he
nodded to a police scanner on a small table behind him. “It’s either that or
Oprah.” He grinned.

Scully liked him immediately, and wasted no time getting into his reports. He
took no offense at her questions, and asked no questions about the way Andrews
barely took her gaze from the surrounding woodland.

The interview didn’t last long—Junis agreed with her reconstruction of
Pierce’s murder, and actually apologized for not getting better photos. He also
suggested that the knife used wasn’t ordinary. “Sharp as hell, sure,” he said,
“but the cut of it, I think it might have been heavier than you’d find in your
average kitchen.”

“Like what?” Scully asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it, but I still don’t know.”

She knew then she had to ask the next question, and for once, she was glad
Mulder wasn’t with her. “You had some notes in the margin.”

He laughed as he flicked his cigarette onto the lawn. “Yeah. Goblin, right?”

“What does that have to do with anything? As far as your examinations went, I
mean.”

“Not much.” He pulled another cigarette from his pocket and stuck it between
his lips. He didn’t light it. “Nothing. I’d just been to see Elly Lang, had to
calm her down a little with a mild sedative, and that’s all she talked about.” A
sideways glance. “You heard about it, huh?”

“We talked to her, yes.”

Junis followed the wake of a pickup heading west. “Don’t think she’s crazy,
Agent Scully. Don’t write her off. I don’t know who she saw, but she’s no fool.”

“She was drunk, Dr. Junis.”

He laughed abruptly, loudly, until his eyes began to water and his face
reddened alarmingly. “Sorry.” He laughed again and wiped his eyes with a sleeve.
“God, I’m sorry.” He gripped the railing with both hands. “Drunk? Elly? You’ve
been listening to Todd Hawks. Nope, never. She goes to that bar for the company,
that’s all. She’s outlived her family, has no real friends to speak of. She has
one drink, a Bloody Mary, that she nurses until she’s ready to go home, and that’s about it. That woman has never been drunk a day in her life.”

“Then what about the spray paint?”

Junis watched another truck pass. “Because she believes it, Agent Scully. She
believes it as sure as you believe there ain’t no such thing. That doesn’t mean
she’s certifiable.”