JULY 3
It should have been summer. She should
have had the car windows open. Instead, freezing rain
pelted against her car and she could barely see out
the damn windshield. 35 degrees someone had said
earlier. Hell, July 4 was coming but it felt like
Christmas. She turned onto her street and the car
lifted under her, floating for a second on a coat of
ice before her tires found purchase. The slight skid
startled her, and it was only after she had regained
control of the car that she noticed the red and blue
lights sliding off the windows of her building and
onto the icy puddles lining the curb.
Now what? Pretty soon her building was going to be
unrentable, but she was almost positive that whatever
this was couldn't be her fault. But it had to be bad,
judging by the police presence. She parked and
hurried toward the front door, sidestepping puddles as
she walked. With numb fingers she dug out her badge
and held it to the officer at the entrance who nodded
and opened the door for her.
More officers crowded inside and a crouching
technician was vacuuming the floor of the lobby for
fibers. "What happened?" she asked.
The officers ignored her. She held out her badge.
"FBI," she said. "What's going on?"
"This isn't a federal case," someone said. "Who
called you?" She followed the voice with her eyes
until she saw a young detective. He had a notepad
flipped open and was chewing on a pencil.
"No one, actually. I live here." She stepped over
the technician and into the hallway, glancing quickly
to see if the police were gathered near her front
door. It was clear.
The detective pocketed his notepad and walked toward
her, rolling the pencil between his teeth like a
cigar. "Murder," he said, nodding toward the hallway.
"Apartment 108."
"108?" Just down the hall. But who? She flipped
faces through her mind but found nothing. Just a
blank, just an image of a door like all the other
doors here with no sense of what or who was behind it.
"We think the victim is a Lauren Callipso."
"You think?"
"Yeah. Her face was blown off." He turned the
pencil horizontally and clamped down hard with his
teeth. This close, she could see that the wood was
pockmarked with tiny indentations.
"You mind if I see the scene?"
The detective shrugged. "Don't matter. Unofficially
though, right?"
"Yes."
"All right, follow me." He walked down the hall with
his head bent, his fingers massaging the back of his
neck. His gait was stiff, forced, and she wondered if
this was his first big case. He couldn't have made
detective long ago. He had the same lanky build as
Mulder but without her partner's loping, casual
stride. "Hey boys," he said when he reached the door.
"Got a fed, wants to take a look. Unofficially." He
glanced back at her and nodded. "Go ahead."
When she passed he held out his hand. "Detective
Fairbourne."
"Agent Scully," she murmured and brushed by him.
It was always strange to see other apartments in the
building. The layout was the same as her own, but the
entire feel of the place had been altered so that she
could barely recognize her home in this one. Original
art nearly covered the walls, and the shelves and
tables were crammed with eclectic sculptures. Even
from where she stood she could see that the couch was
made of expensive fabric, perhaps even custom made.
But the room's most dominant feature was a portrait
hanging above the fireplace. The woman pictured was
young, perhaps her own age, but dark to her light.
Rings of black hair were swept away from the woman's
high forehead, emphasizing a face that was neither
exotic nor commonplace, but yet still somehow
noteworthy. Partly, she supposed, it came from the
painter's use of warm tones that made the portrait
glow. But it was more than that too, an
otherworldliness that seemed from long ago, like a
photograph of an old movie star whose face seemed
incongruous with modern times. The nostalgic glamour
of the past was always more seductive than the seeming
mundanity of the present.
"We think that's the victim," offered Fairbourne who
appeared at her elbow. "You recognize her?"
"No," she said. "I'm hardly ever home. I wouldn't
recognize many people." She hugged herself, feeling
suddenly cold. "Where's the body?"
"Other side of that table over there. Watch out,
it's gruesome."
She ignored him and moved across the living room.
Lauren Callipso lay at an awkward angle, one leg bent
underneath her and one arm stretched toward the door
as if in a grotesque gesture of greeting. Scully
crouched down and closed her eyes, unable for a second
to keep the woman's destroyed face in view. This
close, the metallic smell of fresh blood was
overpowering and she concentrated on breathing through
her mouth before she opened her eyes again. "M.E.
here yet?" she asked.
"No," Fairbourne said.
Shuddering, she rose to her feet. "It's going to
take a little time to get a positive ID on that body.
Looks like the killer used a high gauge shotgun.
Perhaps to purposefully destroy her features."
"Yeah, it looks deliberate to me, too." Fairbourne
began to chew on his pencil again. "You see what you
need to see?" he asked finally.
"Yes, I--"
"Scully?"
She turned in disbelief. "Mulder? What are you
doing here?"
"Sir," Fairbourne barked, "this is a crime scene."
"He's my partner." Fairbourne blinked. "At the
FBI," she amended.
Mulder had changed out of his suit and looked out of
place among the uniforms and ties in the apartment.
Oblivious to this fact, he bent down and studied the
body. "Frohike heard something was going down on his
scanner, so he called me and I wanted to come check it
out. Make sure you were okay."
"You could have called and saved yourself a trip."
"Looks like someone intentionally destroyed her
face," he said, standing up.
"That's what I thought too."
"You know, your building's going to have a bad
reputation. Good thing you rent and don't own."
Frowning, he cocked his head and stared at the
portrait above the fireplace. "Is that her?"
"I don't know. I don't remember what the person who
lives here looks like. Lived here."
Mulder walked slowly across the room until he was
directly in front of the painting. It was hung too
high for comfortable viewing, so he stood with his
head tilted back like a tourist among skyscrapers.
"Nice looking," he said.
"The painting or the woman?"
"Both. There's something about the painting though."
Tentatively he reached up and grazed one finger along
the surface. "I always want to do that in art
museums, you know. Art is very tactile. It's a shame
you can't experience it."
"When was the last time you were in an art museum?"
"It looks like she's looking right at you."
"Mulder, this isn't Scooby Doo. There's no one
hiding behind the painting waiting to pull a lever and
send you tumbling into a hidden dungeon." She paused.
"Besides, that's a common illusion in portraits. It
has something to do with the angle of the eyes."
He took a step back and cocked his head.
"Come on," she said, tugging at his hand. "Let's get
out of the way. I'll make you dinner. Let's go."
His body moved before his eyes did and even as he
stepped toward her, his gaze lingered on Lauren
Callipso. "Mulder," she said and his eyes finally
flickered on her face. "You're flushed," she said.
"You are too. It must be hot in here. Come on."
All men are to some degree impressed by the face of
the world; some men even to delight. This love of
beauty is Taste. Others have the same love in such
excess, that, not content with admiring, they seek to
embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is
Art.
--from Emerson's Nature
Consciousness hung over him like clean air, but he
couldn't break free of sleep, couldn't wipe away the
fragments of dreams that hung on him. A woman
speaking, laughing. Dark eyes without depth or
surface, just a black void to fall into. The smell of
paint and the undertone of metal. When he awoke
finally he couldn't remember anything concretely.
Images dissipated when he tried to capture them, fell
like sand through his fingers. He felt like he hadn't
slept at all.
He stared at the ceiling and tried to think of
Scully. This usually calmed him but this morning he
couldn't hold onto the shape of her eyes either and
finally sat up, agitated. The psychologist in him
stirred and the pronouncements rained down. She
reminds you of your sister with her dark hair. Or,
you're bothered by the condition of the corpse and
your psyche struggles to make it whole. Or, you're
guilty because you were attracted to the woman in the
picture.
"Bullshit," he said aloud and picked up the phone to
call Scully.
"Mulder, it's five a.m.," she said when she answered.
"Let me sleep."
"I'm going to be in a little late today," he said.
"I have some things to take care of."
"You could have left me a message at work."
"I know."
"All right, I'll see you later," she grumbled and the
phone clicked.
He drove without thinking consciously about where he
was going. This was easy; he had driven these roads
countless times before. At Scully's, he lingered only
briefly in front of her door before continuing to 108.
The police tape made an X across the wood and he
rubbed the plastic between his fingers, remembering
the X's he used to make on his window. How long ago
that seemed now. He unlocked the door with the key he
had gotten from the super, hesitated just once, then
quickly stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
Inside, the room was silent except for the hiss of
the radiator blowing heat, trying to counteract the
unseasonable chill that pressed up against the window
pane. "Hello?" he called. "Mulder here. FBI." No
answer. Tossing the key from hand to hand he circled
the apartment slowly, this time peeking into other
rooms, paying attention to the details. He lingered
in front of pictures, read the spines of books.
Persistently he ignored the voice in his head that
said this wasn't his case, it wasn't the FBI's case,
he had no business being here.
But that picture. He sat down at a writing desk and
stared up at the painting, at the eyes that stared at
him from beneath half-lowered lids. It was like his
unconscious was trying to tell him something, trying
to reveal a partially glimpsed clue. Absently he
opened up a desk drawer and moved around pens and
pencils. He wondered why he bothered; the police would
have taken everything. He slammed the drawer shut and
leaned back. "This is ridiculous," he said aloud and
stood up. Just one more thing, and then he would
leave. He walked over to the portrait and studied the
signature on the bottom, trying to make sense of its
scrawl. Nothing. Just a series of loops and slashes
that could name anyone. Finally, he dragged a chair
over and climbed up on it, lifting the portrait away
from the wall. Well, Scully had been right. No
secret lever. No compartment or safe. Just the name
of a framing company inscribed on a label on the wood.
Good enough.
It was late afternoon by the time she made it back to
the office, her feet sore from standing in a morgue
most of the day, her fingers chapped from the latex
gloves. Mulder had made an appearance sometime during
the day; his suit coat was thrown over the back of the
chair and she could see that a few more pencils had
been added to the collection on the ceiling.
She collapsed in a chair with a sigh and sifted
through the folders on Mulder's desk. Nothing new.
The voice mail light blinked urgently at her but she
hesitated for a moment, uncertain if she wanted to
hear that Skinner had summoned them, or that Mulder
had pissed someone off again. Voice mail messages
were hardly ever good news. She was still waiting,
staring absently at the red light when the phone rang.
"Scully," she said when she picked it up.
"Didn't you get my voice mail?"
For a second she had thought it was Mulder, but it
wasn't, and she had no idea who was on the other end.
"Excuse me?" she said.
"I left you a voice mail. Why didn't you return my
call?" The voice on the other end sounded contracted,
the voice of someone clearly angry but trying to be
civil.
"First," she said, "I don't know who this is.
Second, I just walked in the office. I'd appreciate a
little more courtesy than simply yelling at me over
the phone."
The person on the other end took in a deep breath.
Scully imagined he was busily counting to ten, trying
to gain control of his temper. "This is Detective
Fairbourne," he said finally. "I want to know why
you're digging around in my case. This is clearly a
police matter."
"I haven't been digging around anything, Detective."
"Well, someone has. Someone with a badge. One of
our contacts informed us that he had already been
interviewed."
"That's ridiculous, Detective, no one-" She stopped.
Shit. Mulder. She remembered him staring up at the
portrait in the apartment, his eyes glassy and
distant. She had felt something, a pinching in her
chest, and so she had grabbed at his sleeve, trying to
break whatever it was that held him. She had assumed
it was simply another one of his episodes, those
periods where his mind slid somewhere she couldn't
follow, and she had only thought to bring him back.
Never once did she think he intended to make a case
out of it.
"Agent Scully?" Fairbourne said.
"Sorry. I'll look into it." Letting the phone drop
into the cradle, she leaned back and tried not to
think about whatever the hell Mulder was getting
himself into this time. But it was impossible, like
being told not to scratch a bug bite.
"Scully?"
She glanced up. Mulder stood in the doorway, a
manila envelope tucked under one arm. "Speak of the
devil," she said softly.
"What?"
"Are you poking around in the Lauren Callipso case?"
"Yeah, that's what I have to show you."
"Mulder, it's not FBI. It's not even an X-file."
"That's never stopped us before." He held out the
envelope to her and sat on the desk. "I had the aura
photographer take some pictures of the painting, you
know the guy who helped us with Leonard Betts?"
"I remember," she said. She took the envelope from
him and placed it on her lap without opening it.
"Aren't you going to look?"
"Maybe."
"What do you mean, maybe?"
She placed her hand palm down on the envelope,
feeling the contours of the photographs even through
the thick paper. Spreading her fingers, she kept her
eyes resolutely on the shape her hand made. "I want
to know your motives," she said. Her voice was quiet.
"I want to know why you're looking into this."
Mulder leaned forward, forcing her to look up to meet
his eyes. "It's an X-File Scully. What are you
implying?"
"It wasn't an X-file, Mulder," she said, standing up.
"It was a dead girl in an apartment, a dead girl
whose murder was brutal but still mundane. I mean,
it's sad, and shocking, but not an X-file. And," she
added softly, "I've had some training in this sort of
thing." She waved toward the file cabinets, still
slimmer now than they had been before the fire.
"Then you of all people should know they're
uncategorizeable. Listen, I had a hunch and I played
it. Now I want you to look at the evidence."
She looked into his eyes, turning the envelope around
in her hands. "Fine," she said, and opened it.
Inside was a photograph of the wall above the
fireplace. She remembered the knick-knacks on the
mantle, and they lined the bottom of the photo like a
margin. Centered in the wall where the portrait
should have been was a square, a square of bright
blue. It looked like a picture of a television stuck
on its video blue screen.
"Looks like you had a problem with the exposure," she
said.
"Nope. We took several different pictures, and they
all came out like that. Other photos of the apartment
were normal." He tapped the picture with his finger.
"So are these objects on the mantle."
"So what are you suggesting I'm looking at?"
"Energy," he said.
"Energy."
"That's right." He took the picture from her and
held it up. "You can't even make out the image. The
energy completely obscures the physical object." He
dropped the photograph back in the envelope and
smiled. "I knew I was right, Scully. I knew there
was something weird about that painting. I just
couldn't see it with the naked eye."
"That's for sure."
"What?"
"Never mind. So, do you think the painting killed
Lauren Callipso?"
"Mock me if you want, Scully, but this is important
somehow."
She shrugged. "Detective Fairbourne called. He says
you interviewed someone."
"Yeah, the framer. It wasn't important."
"You'd better talk to him. He thinks you're out of
your jurisdiction. Which you are."
"This is an X-File, Scully," he said, pointing at the
photo.
"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself,"
she murmured.
Mulder leaned back, running a hand through his hair.
Scully shifted in the silence, feeling its heaviness,
its immeasurable, liquid weight. Mulder, she
realized, looked tired. His eyes were deep in his
sockets, lined with shadow and he had the nervous
agitation of someone fueled only by caffeine.
She stood up and took his hands, running her fingers
absently against his skin. "What's wrong, Mulder?"
"Nothing's wrong," he said, pulling his hands away.
"Nothing's wrong except your lack of support. You're
acting like this is a big deal, like I'm really going
out on the edge. It's like you're jealous of that
painting."
He blinked after he said it and then suddenly looked
away.
There wasn't a reply to a statement like that. She
picked up her bag. "I'm leaving," she said. "Take
care of yourself, Mulder. It looks like you could get
some sleep." She left without looking back at him,
but she was aware of his eyes following, had their
image burned in her mind. Smoky, fevered. Pleading.
The dreams were worse. They were thick, like oil
paint sliding through his mind, warping every image,
every sound. When he woke up, he was drenched in
sweat, and he could feel his pulse thudding in every
vein, against every muscle. "God," he whispered and
stared at the ceiling, relishing its plain whiteness.
He rolled over and grabbed the phone, pressing the
speed dial without even needing to look at the
numbers. He fell back against the bed, the phone
pressed against his ear, counting the rings.
"Hello?" Scully's voice was gravelly and disoriented
but it was grounding. God, why did he feel like he
was losing it?
"Scully," he said, his voice emerging from somewhere
far away. "It's me."
"What's wrong, Mulder?"
"Nothing, I --" He squeezed his eyes shut. It
seemed ridiculous now. What was he going to tell her?
That he kept having nightmares, that he couldn't stop
thinking about Lauren Callipso? "I couldn't sleep,"
he said finally.
She sighed softly. "Do you want me to come over?"
Yes, he thought. Please. "No," he said. "I'm sorry
I woke you."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. I'll be fine. Thanks."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah. Go back to sleep, Scully."
"Good night, Mulder," she said and hung up.
He replaced the phone in its cradle and started to
get dressed.
Driving in the small hours of the morning was always
surreal, but it was usually something he was used to.
The tendency for shadows to blur together into shapes
along the side of the road. The hypnotic hum of tires
against pavement. The harsh sound of graveyard radio
skipping now and then into static. Usually there was
the sound also of Scully's breathing, low and
rhthymic, and the absence of that sound made the night
more alien somehow, more threatening. He rolled down
the window and winced as the icy air bathed his skin
and made his eyes water. It was really too damn cold
but the air helped, helped him stay focused and awake.
He was half-afraid he would drift off and find
himself in a ditch. Hell, he hadn't really slept
since he had first wandered into Lauren Callipso's
apartment.
He used his key to get into Scully's building,
feeling guilty even as he creaked open the door. The
building was still. No light beckoned from under door
cracks. No TV voices chattered in a mumbled blur from
within apartments. Only the lit Fire Exit sign
communicated anything at all. He paused in front of
Scully's door, listening. Hers was as quiet as the
rest, and he imagined her sleeping, one arm thrown
over her head, her face unworried in sleep. He could
go in there now and sleep on the sofa. He could go in
there and talk about the eyes he couldn't stop seeing,
eyes that even now were a translucent image over
everything he saw. He could talk about the
unintelligible voice humming in his brain, the nausea
that clenched his stomach, the blurriness in his
vision that made everything seem slow and unreal.
"Mulder."
He turned. The hall was empty and still silent. But
he had heard a voice. He had. But even as he tried
to reconstruct it in his mind, the sounds eluded him.
Tentatively, he took one step down the hall. And then
another. In seconds he stood in front of #108. His
stomach churned and he felt dizzy. As he stood there,
he became aware of the smell of cigarette smoke
hovering around him, lingering invisibly in the air
around his face. His hand seemed to move of its own
accord and he watched as his fingers flexed and then
curled around the doorknob. His wrist turned and the
door fell slowly open, creaking slightly. Inside all
was dark and he stood on the threshold of that black
rectangle, feeling hollow and drained. For several
minutes he stood like that, arms hanging limply, feet
heavy in his shoes. Then, from inside, he heard the
unmistakable scratch and flare of a match being
struck.
"Who's there?" he said. His voice was raspy, like he
had been screaming. He wiped sweat from his brow and
drew his weapon, trying to concentrate on the coolness
of its grip.
"Don't just stand there," a woman's voice called.
"Come on in."
He took one step over the threshold and stood still,
his weapon extended in front of him. In the darkness,
the first thing he spotted was the orange glow of a
lit cigarette, and he trained his gun on that.
"Oh, please," the woman said derisively. He was
beginning to be able to make out her silhouette
against the wing chair in which she reclined.
"It took you long enough," she said. "I've been
sitting here for hours." Her voice was husky, the
low, resonate voice of a singer.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She reached to the side and turned on a lamp. Mulder
took a step back, unable to speak, unable to even
formulate a thought. The woman smiled, a thin, amused
smile and French inhaled her cigarette, the smoke
rising from her lips like vapor.
"Lauren Callipso," Mulder whispered finally.
She ground out her cigarette and looked up at him.
"You can call me that," she said.
Modern communication was supposed to be
revolutionary, connecting people with a push of a
button, locating individuals even far from
civilization. Most of that, Scully thought, was a
load of bullshit. She dropped the phone and stared at
the wall papered with newspaper articles, diagrams,
and blurry UFO photos. "Damn," she murmured. Where
was he? No answer at his apartment. The cellular
customer was unavailable. E-mail, voice mail, and
answering machine messages had evoked no response.
Nothing since his strange call last night. She should
have gone over there. Should have at least stayed on
the line with him, tried to get him to talk about what
was bothering him.
She was used to him taking off, rushing after fool's
errands, but not like this. Not so -- unavailable.
She tapped her fingernails against the desk, thinking.
Then she jumped up and grabbed her coat. Time to go
home.
She swallowed nervously as she stood outside Lauren
Callipso's door, her fingers hovering above the door
handle. He wouldn't be here. Why would he be here?
But she couldn't deny the way her hand shook slightly.
One thing she had learned was not to ignore her
instincts, and her instincts were buzzing now. She
drew her weapon and pushed the door open slowly, the
muzzle of the gun centered in the dark space between
door and frame. "Hello?" she called. "Are you in
there Mulder?" Silence. She pushed the door open all
the way and stepped inside. "Mulder?" she called
again. Then she heard something, a rustling. With
her gun stretched out in front of her she stepped
toward the sound. "Mulder?" she whispered.
He was there, curled into a fetal position on the
floor, his knees drawn to his chest, beads of sweat
dotted on his forehead. He shifted slightly,
groaning. She holstered her weapon and crouched next
to him, trying to ignore the fear and dread that
ballooned in her chest. His pulse beat solidly under
her fingers and her hand lingered for a moment too
long on his neck, feeling his life thud against her
skin. But he was hot, feverish. She checked him
quickly for injury or signs of infection but could
find nothing. God, she hoped this was just a bad flu.
With trembling fingers she smoothed back his hair.
"Mulder?" she said. "It's me."
His eyes opened slowly, squinting painfully even in
the apartment's dim light.
"She's not dead, Scully," he said.
"You have a fever," she said softly. "Can you get
up?"
He nodded and struggled to a sitting position. His
skin was gray and slick with sweat. "Come on," she
said and wedged herself under his arm. They stood
together, and her legs strained slightly as he leaned
heavily on her.
She got him into her bed and took his temperature.
"102," she told him, but he had already fallen asleep,
his forehead furrowed in worry. She stared at him a
long time and then called the office to say that
neither of them would be in.
When he awoke a few hours later, his fever had gone
down but she didn't like the glassiness in his eyes or
the clenched set of his jaw.
"You should probably go to a doctor," she said.
"You are a doctor."
"Unfortunately, most of my patients aren't alive,"
she said, handing him a glass of water.
"Not a very good track record," he murmured. He took
a sip of water and looked up at her. "Lauren
Callipso's alive," he said. "I saw her last night."
"Mulder, you had a fever. It was high enough for you
to be delusional."
"I know what I saw, Scully."
She sighed. "I contacted the police. The victim has
been confirmed as Lauren Callipso. If you saw her,
you saw a ghost."
"Don't get me excited, Scully." He rubbed his neck
and grimaced. "I'm sure I saw the woman in the
picture, Scully. She was smoking. She knew my name.
I must have fainted or something. I don't know."
"I believe you believe you saw something."
"Don't give me that."
"We'll talk about it later." Mulder looked at her,
then sat up and swung his legs over the bed. "No you
don't," she said and pressed her palm against his
chest to keep him from rising. She could feel the
fever heat radiate from his skin in waves.
"Scully," Mulder said. His voice was quiet. Tired.
"I have to find out some things."
"I'll look into it."
"I don't want you to," he said. "I don't know why,
but--" He shook his head and looked away. His eyes
were rimmed with red. "I don't know," he said.
"Rest some more," she said softly. "I'll make you
something to eat in a little bit." He lay back down
and she pulled the covers over him, ignoring the catch
in her throat. "You can stay here tonight if you
want," she said. He nodded, his eyes intent on her
face.
She watched him in silence for ten minutes, listening
to his gurgling, thick breaths. Eventually he fell
asleep again but he twitched and clenched his jaw in
his sleep and she couldn't shake the feeling that he
was fighting something other than the flu.
Finally she left and went back to Lauren Callipso's
apartment. In an ashtray on the coffee table, three
cigarette butts lay crumpled and stained with
lipstick.
She took Mulder back to his apartment the next
morning, despite his protestations that he would be
left there without a car. "You're in no condition to
drive," she told him as they got into the elevator.
"Besides, this will force you to stay at home and
rest."
"Scully, what about Lauren Callipso?"
"I told you, she's dead."
"Then who did I see?"
"I'll look into it Mulder. It does look like there
was someone in her apartment. Your fever probably
caused you to confuse that person with the victim."
She pushed the button for Mulder's floor and leaned
back against the railing.
"I don't want you looking into it, Scully."
"Why not?"
"I think it's dangerous." She rolled her eyes and
exited the elevator as the doors slid open.
"I'll be fine," she said. "You're just getting
maudlin because you're sick."
Mulder shook his head and opened his door. "No," he
said. "I can't explain it. I--"
"Mulder."
He looked down at her, his eyes swollen, his lips
cracked. She reached up and touched his fevered skin.
He jerked slightly under her fingers and closed his
eyes. "Don't go," he said.
She frowned. "I'll be back in a few hours to check
on you," she said. "I think I'm going to bring you to
the hospital. I don't like this fever. Put a cold
cloth on, okay?"
He nodded. She brushed his damp hair away from his
face and then left, troubled. Something was
definitely going on. Every logical synapse in her
brain refused to accept Mulder's premise that Lauren
Callipso had been in the apartment last night, but
someone had, and something about this case was
bothering Mulder deeply.
From her cell phone she called Detective Fairbourne.
"What's the latest on the Callipso murder?" she
asked.
"We've got him."
"Excuse me?"
"We nailed the murderer. Turns out it's her
boyfriend." His voice was confident on the other end,
inflated from the high of nabbing the suspect.
"Do you mind if I talk to him?"
"We've got a pretty tight case, Agent Scully."
"It's related to something else, Detective."
"All right. He's in lock up at County."
She thanked him and exited the freeway so she could
change direction.
Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.
--Walt Whitman
The prison was cool inside, the kind of damp cold
that emanated from concrete and cinder blocks. She
had been in County countless times, interviewing
witnesses, talking to inmates. Always the smell
bothered her, the smell of must and disinfectant. It
was a little like an old hospital, but here there was
the scent of desperation and hopelessness.
She was led to a small interrogation room. She
didn't enter right away but stood looking at the man
inside through the small window in the door. He sat
with his hands in his lap, his head down. His hair
was fine and childish and from the slope of his
shoulders she could tell the fight in him was long
gone. "Eric Ridles?" she said as she opened the
door.
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
"Agent Scully. I'd like to ask you a few questions."
"I've already confessed," he said. "I did it. I
killed her."
She took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. "I
need some more information," she said.
He nodded.
"The police report mentioned that you were having an
affair? A relationship with someone other than Lauren
Callipso?"
"I guess you could call it that."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know," he said miserably. "I thought I was
in love with her. I couldn't stop thinking about her.
I followed her everywhere like a puppy. She asked me
to kill Lauren and I did, without even thinking about
it."
"What happened then?"
Ridles shrugged. "She disappeared."
"Did she give any reason for wanting Lauren dead?"
"Just said she needed it to happen. I don't know."
He rubbed his temples and sighed. "I don't remember
very much. It seems unreal, like a dream." He looked
up his face contorted. "I can't believe I did it. I
loved Lauren. I wanted to marry her. I was going to,
and then -- Angelina."
"Angelina who?" she said gently.
"Angelina Mattioli."
She wrote the name down. "Can you describe what she
looks like?"
He stared at her.
She repeated her question.
His eyes widened and he shook his head. "No," he
said. "I just see these eyes, these blue eyes. And
she had hair--" he absently touched his own head.
"Long hair. Black. Fair skin." He looked up at her.
"It's all so hazy, so hard to remember."
"What did Angelina do for a living?"
"Art. She was an artist."
"Did she paint the portrait in Lauren's apartment?"
"Yeah. That's how I met her. I wanted to give her a
painting for her birthday and I commissioned Angelina
to do it." He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and
closed his eyes. "I'd like to be left alone now," he
said.
Scully nodded and stood up. "Thank you for your
time," she said.
Ridles didn't answer.
In the hallway Detective Fairbourne was waiting. "A
real nutcase, huh?" he said.
"Did you check out this Angelina he mentioned?"
Fairbourne grinned. "Oh yeah," he said. "I'd love
to charge her for accessory to murder only she's been
dead for a few months."
"Could I get her file?"
Fairbourne's smile faded. "Why?"
"It's unrelated, Detective."
"Somehow I don't believe that," he muttered. "Ah
well," he said, brightening. "I've got my confession.
I don't give a shit about an old, solved case. Be
right back." He returned moments later and handed her
a thick file. "Have fun now, Agent," he said.
"Thanks," she said dryly. "I will."
She read the file in a corner booth at the local
deli, trying to reconcile Ridles' statements with the
information now before her. Like Lauren Callipso,
Angelina Mattioli was a murder victim. And, like
Lauren, her boyfriend had been charged with the crime.
But there, however, everything fell apart. Nowhere
did it mention that Angelina was an artist by trade.
She was, in fact, a lawyer. Her picture, stapled to
the corner of the folder was consistent with Ridles'
description, but the smiling woman in the photo hardly
looked like a scheming, manipulative murderess. Of
course, appearances could be deceiving, and there was
no way to explain away the fact that Mattioli had been
dead long before Lauren Callipso was murdered.
Perhaps she had been the catalyst who drove Ridles to
his psychosis, but nothing seemed to fit. Perhaps
Mattioli was simply a faintly remembered name that
Ridles had attached to his delusion. But what about
the artist? What about the portrait? Mulder had been
right. It all came back to that.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from
the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung, without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
From Eliot's Four Quartets, "Burnt Norton"
It was becoming cumbersome. The weakness was
accelerating, the energy fading. The high wore off
too fast now. She needed something that would last,
that would give her a year or so of intense vitality.
She dabbed her brush against the palette and began to
work the hair, brightening it, lifting fire from the
red. It would be amusing to be a redhead, she
thought. Of course, the appearance was optional, but
it entertained her. Now, she had long ago forgotten
what she had once looked like. Plain, she remembered.
All grays and dirty whites. Plain except for a
single gift, a single genius.
She toyed with the skin tone, trying to match the
color on the canvas to the color etched in her memory,
her memory of the woman with the gun staring into
Lauren's apartment. This one would be a good one,
like capturing an arc from the sun and embedding it
within herself. She would live what this one
squandered. But the man -- the man was difficult.
Fighting her, fighting that boiled down essence she
had learned to salvage from the depths of the women
she captured here in her art. She had learned to
extract it and own it, distill it into something
irresistible. Yet he resisted. No matter. The game
was interesting, more challenging than usual. It
would make her murder all the more engrossing, and his
submission all the more meaningful. This game of life
and death was the only thing that gave her true
pleasure anymore. She had stolen her immortality and
now she stole the power of divinity by designing who
would live and who would die. She really was a
goddess now, but she never dreamed worship could be so
tedious. She stepped back and looked at the painting,
at the hot reds and the cold blues that wrestled with
each other to define the work. It was like cold fire,
cold fire she would soon contain within herself. A
smile played at the corner of her lips. This one was
going to be very good. Very good indeed.
Scully glanced at her watch. She should really check
on Mulder, but there was one more lead she wanted to
follow. After signaling for the tab, she placed a
call to the prison. There was one more person she
wanted to talk to.
James Steadman was a tall black man with a shaved
head and a solid build. There was no doubt his large
hands would have been capable of the violent marks on
Mattioli's neck. His demeanor, however, was something
else. Soft-spoken and polite, he rose from his cot
when the guard brought her to his cell.
"Ma'am," he said after she had introduced herself.
The guard moved slightly down the corridor to give
them privacy and she reached forward and shook
Steadman's hand through the bars. "I need you to tell
me about the murder of Angelina Mattioli," she said.
Steadman's face darkened and he looked away, his lips
pressed tightly together.
"I pleaded not guilty," he said. "Temporary
insanity. It was like I was possessed." He shook his
head and looked down at his hands. "The jury didn't
go for it."
"What do you mean, 'possessed'?"
He sat back down on his cot and stared up at rows of
books lining the gritty prison shelf inside his cell.
"I know I'm not mad," he said softly, "but I can
barely remember that time period. Everything is hazy,
like I had been drugged. I felt -- I don't know --
compelled. Compelled to go places, to do things. The
compulsion got worse and worse until one day I just
reached over and strangled Angel over breakfast like I
was in a trance. It's only recently that my mind has
begun to clear, but I still can't remember everything
clearly." He closed his eyes and rocked slightly.
"God, it's awful. Awful to know I did something like
that. awful not to have a reason for it. On the
outside men like me would drink to forget." He nodded
up at the books. "I read."
"Mr. Steadman, did Angelina paint?"
Steadman blinked, surprised at the question. "No.
Why do you ask?"
"She wasn't interested in art at all?"
"I wouldn't say she was uninterested, but she
couldn't draw or anything."
"What did you do for a living, Mr. Steadman?"
Steadman's eyes roamed once again to his books. "I
was a writer," he said softly.
Scully remained silent for a moment, allowing James
Steadman a moment of private grief. "Were you ever
unfaithful to Angelina?" she asked finally.
Burying his head in his hands, Steadman nodded.
"Just once. The temptation was so strong. This
woman-- God, she didn't seem human. I fought it for a
long time, but then I just gave in." He looked up at
her with red-rimmed eyes and smiled ironically. "I
guess that's why the jury didn't buy it, huh? In
their eyes, I had motive."
"This woman, was she a painter?"
Steadman nodded. "Portraits," he said.
"Mulder?" she called. "Mulder?" She knocked hard on
the door and called his name again. Finally she
opened his door with her keys and walked inside. The
blinds were all pulled and she blinked uncertainly in
the darkness. "Mulder?" she called again, but she
knew the apartment was empty. She walked through
slowly, looking for signs of struggle out of a deeply
entrenched paranoia. It wasn't paranoia if they were
really after you, she thought. Wherever Mulder had
gone, he had taken his gun and badge, at least. They
weren't in any of their usual places. She took a deep
breath and tried to figure out what to do. There was
a murderer afoot, or at least someone who could make
other people murder. Someone like Robert Modell, but
with a pattern of getting men to kill their lovers.
Someone who used art to get close to her victims. How
she convinced the men to do her bidding was hard to
explain, but there were ways. Certain drugs, perhaps
combined with mind-control techniques. And, for some
reason, this woman assumed the names of her victims.
Scully frowned, thinking of the cigarettes in Lauren
Callipso's apartment and the woman Mulder claimed he
had seen. Mulder would be a plausible victim except
he was single, who would he -- oh, shit. Scully
grabbed the phone and stabbed out numbers. "I need
the last number called from this location," she said.
There was a pause, and then a woman calmly recited the
phone number of a taxi company. When she called the
company, they told her the address requested by the
fare. Her address. Christ.
The woman who currently went by the name of Lauren
Callipso didn't bother to talk. She had made her
desires known and now she simply let the rest do its
work. It would play out. It always did. She lifted
her new painting and leaned it against the wall. This
one, however, was moving along a little too quickly
for her taste. Things didn't feel quite ready. Some
of the paint was still wet. She touched a finger to
the portrait absently and glanced at the small dot of
red it left on her skin. Like blood she thought.
Hot, living blood that would cool rapidly, leaving the
more -- ethereal-- qualities of life for her to take,
to make tangible, to own. Always, she thought,
artists had struggled to instill life into their
canvases, but they hadn't known the secret. They
tried to represent life's essence instead of using the
essence itself. They didn't realize that the painting
was just a shell, even as their own bodies were just
husks for their spirits. They knew art was power, but
they had no idea how much. Because if you can capture
life, you can control it. Art always belonged to the
artist.
"It's stunning, don't you think?" she said, breaking
the silence at last.
The man sitting on the couch only looked at her
darkly, sullenly.
Still fighting, she thought. But he was already
breaking. He had come here, hadn't he? He had not
tried to warn away the pretty redhead. She turned
away from the portrait and stared hard at him,
summoning from Lauren Callipso concentrated allure and
control and vitality. Her veins surged with it and
she grinned, its rush through her body almost sexual,
if sex could be adequate to describe this euphoria.
He screwed his eyes shut and pressed his hands against
his ears and she had to smile. "I'm not the Gorgon or
the Siren, sweetheart," she said. "You can't protect
yourself against me." She leaned over and stroked his
cheek, smiling at his shudder. "You're no Odysseus,
my dear," she whispered.
He stared angrily at her, but his hand betrayed him
and pulled his weapon from his holster. "Won't be
much longer now," she said, and sat down to wait.
Scully stood in her hallway, breathing heavily, both
hands wrapped around her Sig Sauer. She had heard a
voice from her apartment, feminine and lilting, and it
had chilled her. She had spent so many hours in
situations like this, knowing a murderer was lurking,
knowing that each breath she drew could be her last.
Always there was fear, but it was quiet, huddled back
in the corner of her mind. Just enough to stay alert,
just enough to be extra sensitive to sound and shadow.
But now the fear had gathered in her throat and she
felt physically sick, and there was no explanation for
it. No reason why she should be afraid now when she
hadn't been all those other times. She flexed her
fingers one at a time against her weapon, moving them
as others might play a scale on a piano. It was a
calming mechanism and her breathing finally evened
out. She flattened herself against the wall and
counted to herself. On ten she spun and threw open
the door. "FBI!" she shouted.
In that short moment she saw the woman from Lauren
Callipso's portrait sitting in her chair and smiling
languidly. She saw Mulder clutching his weapon, his
knuckles white. He seemed to be struggling to keep
the barrel pointed toward the ground. The last thing
she saw was a large painting of herself. "It doesn't
look like me," she murmured absently, dazed for a
minute.
"Scully," Mulder barked and the woman looked at him
sharply.
Scully hesitated, her instincts afire in her mind.
She knew what she wanted to do, but it went against
every logical thought in her brain. "Damn it!" she
yelled, and ran out the door. She kicked down Lauren
Callipso's door and aimed her weapon at the painting.
Down the hall she heard a muffled gunshot but she
steeled herself and fired a full cartridge into the
portrait. Even as her finger squeezed the trigger,
she knew she would have a hard time explaining why she
was shooting at a painting. She ejected the cartridge
and loaded another, aiming more carefully this time.
When she was done, the painting was nothing more than
a series of charred holes.
"There goes your damage deposit," Mulder said behind
her.
She turned and hugged him, clenching her teeth to
keep from sobbing in relief. "What happened?" she
asked.
"I'll show you," he said, and led her by the hand
back down the hallway.
In the center of the room a woman lay curled into a
fetal position, her skin yellowed with age, her lips
curled into a hideous death sneer. There was almost
nothing of the beautiful woman who had sat in here
only minutes before. Scully crouched beside her,
careful not to touch the body. A single gunshot wound
was centered on her forehead. She glanced up at her
partner. "Are you sure this isn't what killed her?"
she asked. "I heard your weapon before I started
shooting."
Mulder shook his head. "She kept coming at me. She
was enraged. I don't think anyone's ever resisted her
before." He held out his arm. Parallel lacerations
marred the skin. "Fingernails," he said. "She didn't
stop coming at me until after you expelled your second
cartridge."
"Mulder, sometimes even with a gunshot wound to the
head a person can have enough time to-"
"Scully," he said softly.
She fell silent and nodded. "You're okay, though? I
mean beside the scratching?"
"Yeah, I'm okay."
"How did you--" she frowned, searching for the right
words. "How did you resist her?" she asked finally.
"I don't know." He glanced over at the portrait
leaning against the wall. It really was a remarkable
piece of artwork, capturing something in his partner
that could not be articulated with words. "I found a
hidden reserve of strength I guess," he said, looking
up at her.
Scully leaned forward and picked up the painting.
"It's just a piece of art," she said quietly. But,
when she set the painting down she was careful to turn
in so that all they could see was stretched canvas and
wood.
THE END
