01 - Goblins (18 page)

There was very little talk.

Mulder and Scully followed their driver around the barrier; Webber and
Andrews were behind them in the other car.

Hawks met them at the foot of a gravel driveway. “Man walking his dog,” he
said, pointing to a young man standing in the street, a terrier in his arms. “He
found him.” He sounded angry.

“Are you sure it’s the same?” Scully asked.

Up the drive two men knelt beside a body in high grass between the gravel and
the porch; one of them was Dr. Junis.

“See for yourself.”

Mulder moved first, but he didn’t have to go all the way before he saw the
victim’s face. “Damn!” He turned to block Scully. “It’s Carl.”

“You know him?” Hawks demanded.

Scully inhaled sharply and stepped around the two men, nodding as Junis
glanced up and recognized her.

“He’s a reporter,” Mulder explained, disgust and sadness in his voice. “A
sports reporter.”

“Sports? Sports, for God’s sake? So what the hell was he doing here?”

“Corporal Ulman’s fiancée was his cousin. He wanted me to come up and look
around. I guess… I guess he was doing a little looking on his own.”

“Jesus.” Hawks clamped his hands on his hips, glowering, breathing heavily.
“Son of a bitch, what the hell’s going on around here? Mulder—” He stopped and
wiped a hand over his face. “Mulder, is there some shit you’re not telling me?”

A man on the porch called the chief, who hesitated before telling Mulder to
stay where he was. When he left, Mulder scanned the growing crowd, and the
shadows the cruiser lights created between the trees, between the houses. It was
bad enough when the victim was a stranger, but this… He crammed his hands into his pockets and stared at the ground until footsteps
on the gravel made him look up.

“Come on,” Scully said gently, her voice trembling slightly.

Hawks called them from the steps, and held out a piece of paper found jammed
into the doorframe. It was a note from Barelli, requesting an interview which,
he promised, would be paid for by a complete dinner at the best restaurant in
town.

“Who lives here?” Mulder asked.

The house was rented by Maddy Vincent. The day-shift dispatcher, Hawks added.
A gesture to figures moving around the inside told him the woman wasn’t home,
and no one knew where she was. “No surprise, it’s Friday night,” the chief said
in disgust. “Shit, she could be in Philadelphia for all I know. Or…”

Mulder checked the porch, the blood on the flooring and on the door. Carl was
attacked here, he thought, and the force of the attack, and his probable retreat
from it, sent him over the railing. Where he bled to death without ever getting
his story.

“Damnit,” he said, and stomped down the steps. “Damnit!”

An hour later, Carl’s body was gone and those neighbors who’d been home had
all been interviewed.

No one had seen anything; no one had heard anything. A call had gone out to Officer Vincent’s friends in the vain hope
she hadn’t left town. A check with the station told them Barelli had stopped in
only a short while ago, specifically looking for the dispatcher.

“But why?” Hawks leaned heavily against his patrol car, his face drawn and
tired, his voice hoarse. Most of the crowd had retreated to nearby houses; two
of the cruisers had left. “What the hell did he think he knew?”

Mulder held up a small notebook. “Nothing that he wrote down.” He handed it
over. “He had dinner with Miss… Ms. Lang, and wanted to see your
dispatcher. All he had were more questions.”

“He’s not the only one,” the chief growled.

Mulder sympathized with the man’s frustration, but it didn’t extend to
telling him about the major. That, he decided grimly, was someone he wanted to
talk to himself, without the complications Hawks was bound to create.

The chief finally mumbled something about getting back to his office, and
Mulder wandered over toward his car, where the others waited. They said nothing
as he turned to stare at the empty house, ribboned now in yellow, a patrolman on
the steps to keep the curious away. The dusting had been completed, but he
doubted they would find any useful prints besides Barelli’s and Vincent’s.

Goblins, he thought, don’t leave handy clues.

He was angry. At Carl, for playing in a game well out of his league, and at himself, for the helplessness he felt for not
knowing enough. It was a waste of energy, he knew that, but there were times,
like now, when he simply couldn’t help it.

He walked back to the middle of the street and stared at the house, ignoring
the damp wind that whipped hair into his eyes.

Carl was a big man, and definitely not soft. He had to have been surprised. A
single blow, and it was over. He had to have been surprised.

“Mulder.” Scully came up beside him. “We can’t do any more here.”

“I know.” He frowned. “Damn, I know.” He rubbed his forehead wearily. “Major
Tonero.”

Scully looked at him sternly. “In the morning. You’re exhausted, you’re not
thinking straight, and you need rest. He’s not going anywhere. We’ll talk to him
in the morning.”

Any inclination to argue vanished when she nudged him into the car; any
inclination to do some work on his own vanished as soon as he saw the bed.

But he couldn’t sleep.

While Webber snored gently, and murmured once in a while, all he could do was
stare at the ceiling, wondering.

Finally he got up, pulled on his trousers and shirt, and went out onto the
balcony, leaning on the railing while he watched the trees across the road move
slowly in the slow wind.

He thought of Carl and the times they had had; he thought of the man who had
tried to kill him that afternoon, an afternoon that seemed years distant, in
another lifetime; he shivered a little and rubbed his arms for warmth as he
wondered why Carl had wanted to talk to Officer Vincent. Elly Lang was obvious,
but what did Hawks’ dispatcher have to do with the goblins?

“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

He didn’t jump, didn’t turn his head. “The day you figure out how to turn off
my brain, Scully, let me know.” He shook his head, but carefully. “Amazing,
isn’t it.”

“Your brain?” She leaned her forearms on the railing. “It’s okay, but I
wouldn’t call it amazing.”

“Chameleons,” he said. He nodded toward the woods. “Somewhere out there
somebody has figured out a way, maybe, to create natural protective coloration
in a human being. I don’t know what you’d call it. Fluid pigmentation?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s—”

“It was your idea.”

“Yeah, but I still don’t know. Do you have any idea what kind of genetic
manipulation that would require? What kind of control on the cellular level that
would mean?”

“Nope.” He glanced at her sideways. “But if you tell me, maybe I’ll be able
to get some sleep after all.”

She rolled her eyes as she straightened. “Go to bed, Mulder. Just go to bed.”

He smiled at her back, suddenly yawned, and did as he was ordered.

Sleep, however, was still hard to come by.

Aside from the aches in his head and side, he couldn’t help thinking about
the possibility that there could be someone in the room right now, standing
against the wall there.

Invisible, and watching him.

Waiting.

And he wouldn’t know it until a knife tore out his throat.

There was no dawn.

There was only a gradual shift from dark to shades of grey, and a falling
mist just heavy enough to keep windshield wipers working, to raise the sharp
smell of oil and tar from the blacktop.

Mulder was not in a good mood. Following Scully’s orders, Webber had let him
oversleep, and it was close to ten before he finally opened his eyes to a note
on the pillow that told him the others would be waiting in the Queen’s Inn.

He was also not miraculously cured. Although his head seemed fine except for
a small lump beneath his hair, his side felt as if it had been set in cement. Every time he moved, he thought his skin would rip open.

He supposed he ought to be grateful for the extra healing time, and for the
concern Scully showed him, but knowing that didn’t make it happen. He showered
and dressed as quickly as he was able, thinking that he would eat quickly, check
with Chief Hawks on the slim to none chance there had been any new developments
overnight, and then… he smiled mirthlessly as his brush fought with his hair
… then he would have a few words with Major Joseph Tonero.

His stomach growled as he knotted his tie, and he snarled at it to hold its
horses. Then he grabbed his coat, stepped outside, and was pleased to see that
the weather perfectly complemented the way he felt.

I live for days like this, he thought gloomily as he descended the center
staircase.

Scully recognized his mood immediately, and after a quick check to be sure he
was all right, she hustled them through breakfast and outside, with a reminder
that while they were heading for the post, there was also someone else out
there, the shooter, they had best not forget.

Andrews still thought the so-called goblins and the shooting were related;
when no one rose to the bait, she slumped into her corner and glared at the
passing scenery.

There was no sound then but the rhythmic thump of the wipers and the hiss of
the tires.

It wasn’t until they had passed through town that Mulder remembered wanting
to have a word with Hawks. He punched his leg lightly and scowled, and ordered
himself to get with it, or he’d blow it all because he wasn’t thinking straight.

Once this is done, he promised; I’ll talk to him when we’re done here.

Fifteen minutes later they passed between two simple brick pillars that
marked the post entrance. No guards, no guardhouse; a stretch of woods that
quickly fell away to the post’s main complex—barracks, administration buildings,
and on-post housing. A transport plane from McGuire lumbered and thundered
overhead. A squad of troopers double-timed across an intersection, their dark
green ponchos slick with water. They passed a construction site for a new
federal prison twice before Scully finally gave up and made Hank ask directions.
An MP gave them, and within minutes they were on New Jersey Avenue; it didn’t
take them long to find what they were after.

“Brother,” Webber muttered as he pulled up in front of Walson Air Force
Hospital.

It was a seven-story light tan brick structure, but it somehow seemed a lot
smaller.

Because, Mulder realized, it was mostly empty. A lot of empty rooms and
offices, a lot of space for things to happen without anyone being any the wiser.

He sat up and watched the entrance, something quickening inside when he noted
that hardly anyone went in, and no one came out.

“What makes you think he’ll be here?” Andrews asked, rousing herself from her
sulking.

“If he’s working on a project,” Scully answered, “he will. Something like
this doesn’t often hold over weekends.”

Something like this, Mulder thought.

“But do we have any authority?”

Mulder opened the door, slid out, and poked his head back in. “We’ve been
asked in by a U.S. senator, Licia. The senator the major himself called. So if
he wants to argue, he can write his congressman.”

A civilian receptionist sat just inside the entrance, a multiline telephone
and a logbook the only items on her small desk. Mulder wished her a good
morning, showed her his ID and asked directions to Major Tonero’s office. She
wasn’t sure the major was in, and because of her standing orders was reluctant
to give him the instructions until he insisted; then she pointed to a bank of
elevators to their left.

As they moved away, he heard a noise and looked back.

Webber had his finger on the telephone’s cutoff button. “I don’t think so,”
he said politely, with a wink. “Government business, okay?”

Mulder couldn’t believe it when the woman suddenly grinned. “Sure. Why not?”

Pancakes and women, he thought; the guy’s got it made.

The major was in.

But it didn’t look to Mulder as if he’d be there very long.

The office was a two-room suite on the second floor. When Mulder ushered the
others in ahead of him, he saw a handful of packed cartons against one wall, and
an empty bookcase behind what he assumed was Tonero’s secretary’s desk. The door
to the inner office was open, and he gestured the others silent as he approached
it. He could see the major standing in the middle of the room, back to the door,
speaking quietly but angrily to someone seated at his desk.

“Damnit, Rosie, I don’t give a damn who—” He turned and saw Mulder, and
forced a smile. “My goodness, Agent Mulder, what is this, a raid?” He laughed as
he shook Mulder’s hand and nodded to the others.

The person behind the desk was Dr. Elkhart.

Mindful of protocol and egos, Mulder allowed Tonero to direct the
conversation, politely answering questions about his health while he noticed
that Dr. Elkhart, in a lab coat, was not as composed as she wanted him to think.
Although she sat back in the major’s chair, her legs crossed, her hands on the armrests, her cheeks were lightly flushed, and
her attempt at a bland expression was nearly a total failure.

She was, he thought, royally pissed off.

What, he wondered next, is wrong with this picture?

“It’s a real tragedy about Carl,” Tonero said, stepping back to perch on the
edge of his desk, ignoring Elkhart completely. “I want you to know that I am not
going to rest until this matter is solved.”

“I appreciate that, Major,” Mulder said, sensing rather that seeing Scully
take a chair just behind and to his left, while Webber and Andrews flanked the
door. It was a large room, but their positions and attitude now made it seem
much smaller. “I can assure you that we’re not going to let it rest either.”