01 - Goblins (8 page)

Then Andrews giggled, laughed, and said, “I guess I’ve been watching too many
movies.” The rustle of sheets was followed by, “Good night. And thanks.”

“You’re welcome, and good night.”

Another truck drove by, this one in the opposite direction. Scully listened
to the engine until she couldn’t hear it anymore, using the fading grumble to
pull her into sleep.

Her last thought was of Mulder.

She hoped he wasn’t dreaming.

The blue of the previous day turned to thickening overcast shortly after
Friday’s dawn. By the time Mulder and his team were on the road, Webber driving,
a chill easterly wind had begun to coast down the road, sweeping leaves and
brown pine needles in front of the car.

Mulder didn’t like it; it looked too much like late autumn.

Marville itself began a quarter of a mile from the motel, with a handful of
houses squatting in clearings hacked out of the Barrens on either side of the
road. Sandy, pebbled soil served as shoulders, and showed as bare spots on lawns
looking as tired as the houses themselves.

He sensed right away the little town was dying.

The commercial district was five short blocks long, some of the businesses
spilling around the corners. None of the buildings were more than three stories
tall, mostly wood, a few with weather-stained stone or brick facades. He counted
six that were for rent, and far too many whose display windows had been boarded
up with plywood or painted a dead white. A narrow banner sagged over Main
Street, announcing the community’s 150th anniversary, which made him wonder, as
he often did, what had caused this place to attract settlers in the beginning.
There was no river, the trees weren’t lumber quality, and Fort Dix hadn’t been
established until 1917, neighboring McGuire Air Force Base some time later.

Webber snapped his fingers, and jerked a thumb to his left. “Barney’s
Tavern.”

Mulder spotted the corner bar, one of several still operating on the street,
and supposed that, whatever the reason for Marville’s founding, its eventual
life support must have been traffic from the post and Air Force base. And solid
support as well, from the looks of things. He could see, behind the faded paint
and needed repairs, a town that had done quite well for the time that it had
had, especially considering what must have been the fierce competition from
other towns around it.

A stolid granite bank anchored the next corner, on the left. The shops here
were still very much in business, or as much as they were going to get with the
economy the way it was, and the Army post drastically cut back over the past
several years.

“This is depressing,” Andrews said from the back seat. “How could anyone live
here?”

“Cheap housing, for one thing,” Webber supposed, slowing to allow a trio of
old women to make their way across the street. “It’s not near very much. I
remember the map, but I don’t think you can commute all the way to Philadelphia
from here easily. Not and make any money.”

Inertia, Mulder suspected, was the rest of the answer. No place to go when
you can barely afford to live here. Anyone asked would probably give a different
answer, but it no doubt boiled down to, “Why bother?”

“There,” Scully said, the first time she’d spoken since breakfast.

A single-story, long white clapboard building took a third of the block on
the right. A new, gold-lettered sign in front marked it as the police station;
an American flag drooped from a flagpole next to the double-door entrance.

Webber pulled into a space in front, rubbed his hands eagerly, and fairly
leapt from the car, hustling around to open the rear door for Andrews.

Mulder moved more deliberately, waiting until Scully joined him. They didn’t speak, just exchanged quick
are you
ready
glances and started up the concrete walk. Andrews wanted to know why
they had to start here since the senator’s connections were with Fort Dix and
the Air Force.

Scully averted her face from a mild gust. “Let’s just say it’s usually a
little easier dealing with civilians.”

“Their loss,” said Webber brightly.

Mulder looked at him, looked at Scully, and pulled open the door, allowing
the others to precede him into an open room that took up the entire front third
of the building. A waist-high wood rail stretched from wall to wall, and just
left of its center gate a uniformed dispatcher sat at her radio, scribbling in a
logbook; behind her were three metal desks, none of which were occupied.

To the gate’s right a fourth, much larger desk faced the entrance. Behind it
was a policeman whose uniform, Mulder reckoned, had been tailored for him ten
years and twenty pounds ago. His face belonged to a man who spent most of his
time outdoors, and a lot of that time drinking. His hair was brush-cut, and at
one time had been red.

Mulder took out his wallet and held up his ID. “FBI, Sergeant, good morning.”
He spoke politely, with well-practiced due deference. He introduced the others
quickly. “We’re here to see Chief Hawks.”

Sergeant Nilssen wasn’t visibly impressed. He said nothing, just pushed away
from his work and took his time walking to an unmarked door in the rear wall. Mulder saw
the puzzlement in Webber’s expression, the outrage in Andrews’. “It’s their
turf,” he reminded them quietly. “They didn’t ask for us, remember?”

“Still,” Webber answered.

Mulder had neither the time nor the inclination for a quick lesson on the
politics of competing law enforcement agencies. He kept his attention on the
sergeant, who stood in the open doorway, one hand on a cocked hip, the other
trying to scratch the small of his back, then his nape. Beefy, maybe, but not
very soft. A glance at the dispatcher, who stared back at him without apology.
She was in her late twenties, evidently enamored of heavy makeup and the way her
wavy brown hair puffed down to her shoulders.

When she finally nodded a greeting, he nodded politely back.

“Slow day?” Scully asked her, looking around the empty room.

She shrugged—her name tag read
Vincent
—and waved one hand. “Guys are
on the road.” A faint smile. “Rush hour, you know?”

Scully chuckled as the woman coughed lightly into a fist.

“Poison ivy?” Mulder said, nodding at the blotches of white lotion on the
back of her hand. “I hate that stuff.”

Vincent made a face in agreement. “Yeah, I got it—”

“Hey.”

The sergeant beckoned with a crooked finger.

Webber stiffened, but Scully touched his arm as Mulder led the way through
the gate, smiling, always smiling, thanking the sergeant as he stepped aside to
let the others precede him.

Nilssen didn’t smile back. After an expressionless, just shy of openly rude
once-over, he returned to his desk, leaving Mulder to make the introductions
again, this time to Todd Hawks.

The Marville chief was younger than Mulder expected, not much older than his
mid-forties, thick black hair brushed straight back from a widow’s peak that
pointed at where his heavy eyebrows nearly met across the bridge of a slightly
hooked nose. He did not wear a uniform, nor did he wear a tie. White shirt and
black trousers, their matching jacket on an antler coat rack in the corner.

His desk was battleship gray, just like the others, the only personal touch a
silver-frame triptych Mulder noted held pictures of what must be his wife and
three children.

Hawks rose and shook their hands, waving Scully and Andrews to the only other
chairs in the room. Webber chose to lean against the wall near the door, arms
folded casually across his chest.

The chief picked up a sheet of paper, glanced at it, and frowned. “I have to
tell you, Agent Mulder, this fax your man Webber sent kind of took me by surprise. I wasn’t
expecting any feds to get involved.” He let the paper drop, glanced at the
closed door, and fingered a pen in his breast pocket. “To tell you the truth,
though, I think I’m glad to see you. This shit’s a little deep for me and my
people, and those—” He stopped, lowered himself back into his chair and picked
up a pencil he rapped on the desktop. “The gentlemen from Dix aren’t really much
on letting us hick boys in on much of anything, even though the corporal wasn’t
killed on post.” He used the eraser to scratch at his temple. “Technically, the
Ulman murder is ours. Try to tell them that, though.”

Mulder gave him the perfect
us against them
smile. “That’s what we’re
here for, Chief. We’re going to need all the assistance we can get, and we’d
definitely appreciate all you can tell us.”

“No problem.” Hawks, like his sergeant, wasn’t awed, but not for the same
reasons. “You just let me know what you need, I’ll do what I can.” The pencil
tapped as his expression darkened. “The thing is, I didn’t know that corporal at
all. Grady Pierce, though, he was a royal pain in the ass, but I could think of
a couple dozen guys I’d rather see take it the way he did. The poor son of a
bitch.”

“Friend of yours?” Webber asked from the back of the room.

Hawks looked around Mulder at him, shaking his head. “Not really, no. Just known him a long time. Retired drill
instructor, wife left him right after the service forced him out.” He looked
back at Mulder. “He had no skills to speak of except bending his elbow, and AC.”

Andrews, who had been sitting stiffly in her chair, distaste clear in the set
of her lips, said, “AC?”

“Atlantic City, Agent Andrews,” the man explained.

“Oh.” Distaste became disdain. “Gambling.”

Hawks didn’t blink; he only nodded.

“So you think it was a gambling debt or something?” Webber asked, dropping
his arms, eagerness creeping into his voice. “Pierce, I mean?”

“Not hardly. When he went, he mostly won.” He grinned. “Nicely supplemented
his retirement pay, which wasn’t a hell of a lot.” He opened the center drawer
and pulled out a folder. “This is pretty much what we’ve got on both men, Agent
Mulder.” He handed it over. “You can see it isn’t much, even after two weeks
with Grady.” He shook his head and shrugged. “The trail’s probably dead, if
you’ll excuse the expression. You’re welcome to it, though.”

Mulder nodded his thanks and handed it to Scully, who flipped through it and
frowned. “I don’t see any body diagrams in this autopsy report. Just
photographs, and not much commentary.”

Hawks scowled. “You’ll have to ask them on the post about that. It seems they cared as much about old Grady as we did.”

Well, well, Mulder thought. No love lost between Marville and Fort Dix. He
wondered if that extended to the merchants as well.

Scully held a sheet of paper closer to her eyes, frowning in confusion.
“What’s this say here in the margins? Gablin? Goblin?”

Mulder looked at her quickly. “Goblin?”

“Go see Sam Junis,” the chief suggested as she slapped the folder shut. “He’s
the local doc, did the work on both men. He scribbles a lot, half the time
nobody can read it but him. He lives in the first house west of where you’re
staying. He knows you’ll be dropping in.”

“How did you know where we were staying?” Andrews demanded.

Mulder didn’t turn, but he hoped the chief wouldn’t take offense.

“Miss,” Hawks answered with a lazy smile, “you maybe have noticed we’re not
exactly the metropolitan Washington area around here. And this time of year,
Babs out there at the motel doesn’t get hardly any business except on weekends,
and not much even then. Hell, if you want, I’ll even tell you what you had for
breakfast.”

“What?” Webber asked, as if the chief were a magician about to reveal an
ancient secret.

Hawks looked at Mulder—Is this one for real?—and stood. “You’re the redhead,
so you had more pancakes than you ought to, gonna need a new notch on that belt, son, before long. Agent Scully had toast and
coffee, bran cereal, orange juice. Agent Andrews had tea, toast, corn flakes.
And you, Agent Mulder, had toast, bacon, two eggs over medium, coffee, orange
juice, and blueberry jam.”

Mulder grinned his appreciation as the chief came around the desk and ushered
them to the door.

“And I suppose you know what side of the bed I slept on?” Andrews asked
coldly.

“Beats the shit out of me, Miss,” he said. “Damn drapes were closed too
tight.”

Mulder couldn’t help it; he turned away and laughed as the chief asked them
to wait outside while he cleared a couple of things up before taking them down
to the first crime scene. Although it looked as if Andrews was about to object,
Mulder agreed immediately and shook the man’s hand, thanking him again for his
cooperation. Then he herded the team into the outer office, nodded to the
sergeant—the dispatcher was gone, replaced by a man who stared at them,
bewildered—and didn’t stop again until he was on the front walk, but
unfortunately, not before Andrews made a deliberately loud comment to Hank about
the “insufferable hicks in this damn burg.” Mulder, hands in his open topcoat
pockets, looked up the street, seeking patience and inspiration, and a way to
heed Scully’s silent warning not to lose his temper.

“Look,” he finally told them, “we have to work with these people, you
understand? We need them on our side so we can do our job and get back to
Washington as quickly as we can. I don’t care what you think of them
personally,” he said to Licia, “but you keep your comments to yourself from now
on, understood?”

She hesitated before nodding, and he made a note to have Scully Dutch uncle
her later.

Webber, chastened even though he hadn’t been the one scolded, cleared his
throat. “Uh, Mulder? Who’s Babs?”

Mulder nodded toward the far end of town. “Babs Radnor. She’s the owner of
the motel.”

Webber frowned. “How did you know that?”

Without looking at Scully, he said, “Spooky, Hank. I’m just damn spooky,”
turned and pointed to a brick-faced diner across the street. “We’ll meet there
about one for lunch, okay?” He told Hank and Andrews to canvass the area around
Barney’s, talk to everyone they could find about the dead men, the bar’s
reputation, the night of the murder, anything at all that might yield them
information the reports hadn’t told them.