Scully’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe what you ‘see’ is a way to make people forget what you really are.”
Then she turned and stalked out of the apartment.
Mulder was torn—he should follow her. But Scully wouldn’t be going far, and he still didn’t have a handle on Father Joe here. He would stay and ask a few more questions.
After all, his being here was Scully’s idea, wasn’t it?
Chapter 4
Richmond, Virginia
January 9
Dana Scully, in the cold concrete corridor of what ASAC Dakota Whitney had described as a “dorm” for sex offenders, stood studying the FBI file. Specifically, she concentrated on the photos of the severed arm found in the snow, where “Father” Joe Crissman had led them.
The apartment door opened and Scully looked up, expecting to see Mulder, but instead saw Crissman’s slight, pale roommate, exiting on his way somewhere. His haunted eyes went to her face, but she lowered her view, returning to the grotesque images of the detached arm with its gouged flesh near the wrist.
Someone touched her own arm, and she jumped a little, whirling to face Mulder.
“Jesus, Mulder!” she said. “Talk about materializing.”
He half smiled. “And so much for kissing our psychic’s holy ass.”
“You believe him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Suddenly embarrassed, Scully said, “I’m sorry. I…I’ve been away from this business too long.” She rolled her eyes. “Or maybe not long enough.”
But Mulder was shaking his head. “No, you were good in there, Scully.”
She gave him the you-can’t-be-serious look.
“All I had were questions,” Mulder said. “You went after him. You challenged him. Like old times.”
She liked hearing that but tried not to show it, saying, “Yeah, well, he’s a creep. And a liar. Mulder, he knows who did this, and the abductors are supplying him with information.”
“How would an ex-priest know these criminals?”
“Look where he lives!” She handed him the file with its photos and in particular the last shot she’d been studying. “This arm that they found—it wasn’t severed in a fight with Monica Bannan or anybody else. It was chopped off, Mulder.”
He frowned at the photo.
Scully went on: “Cleanly, judging by that photo. That’s an amputation, not a casualty of war. And tell me how the good father leads them straight to it, when he can’t even muster a guess where the victim is?”
Mulder said nothing.
Scully said, “Two things they’ll find in the next twenty-four hours: a dead FBI agent, and that this ‘psychic,’ this ‘Father’ Joe, is a big, fat fraud.”
Mulder’s eyes rose from the photo to Scully. He had that blank look that could elicit in her both love and frustration, among half a dozen other emotions.
He gave her a tiny shrug and said, “You could be right, Scully.”
Behind them, the apartment door opened and ASAC Whitney and SA Drummy filed out. Bringing up the rear was Father Joe himself, fully dressed now, a gray tweed jacket over a sweater, heavy gray trousers and black snow boots; the man was tugging on brown leather gloves and did not look their way. The little contingent moved down the corridor, presumably toward where the Expeditions were parked.
Her eyes went from the group back to Mulder’s face. “Tell me you’re not part of this…”
“What if you’re wrong, Scully? What if Father Joe is Agent Bannan’s one best chance?”
He started down the hallway after them, and Scully, wide-eyed, fell in alongside him.
“Mulder, what are you doing?”
“We’re taking him for a ride. So we can see just how psychic Father Joe really is.”
She paused and so did he. She sighed. Her eyes closed, and when they opened they were still half-lidded. “Yeah, well. It’s been fun.”
They walked back down to where the Expeditions awaited. At one point, Father Joe came close enough to Scully to give her a shudder. Mulder caught that and touched her shoulder.
He said, gently, “No one’s gonna make you sit with him.”
But Scully was already shaking her head. “Thanks, but I’ve already been taken for a ride tonight. Anyway, Crissman made it clear—he doesn’t want me here. I interfere with his process. Too much negativity.”
Disgusted, she moved toward one of the parked vehicles, the one Father Joe was not climbing into, and Mulder stayed right with her.
“I want you here,” he told her.
She opened the car door. “I’m going to be asked to be taken back home. You know, nothing says you have to be part of this, either.”
“Scully…”
“This isn’t my life anymore, Mulder. I’m done chasing after monsters in the night; I’ve gone into my last dark crime scene with a flashlight. I think you’ve done all they asked of you here, too. You don’t have to stay.”
Mulder swallowed, and nodded. He looked back at Whitney and Drummy, piling in the other Expedition with Crissman. She was reminded of a child wanting to go on a sleepover and Mommy was saying no. No sleepovers, not with the likes of Father Joe.
Nodding toward them, Mulder said, “These people need my help.”
Was he echoing her own words back at her, to make a point, or was that just how it came out? Either way the irony was not lost on her.
“And, Scully—I could really use yours.” He handed her back the FBI file. He was not asking her to come along, just to stay involved. To spend more time with the evidence. No monsters, no flashlights, just bring your expertise to the evidence. All of this Mulder said to her in one lingering look from those damn puppy-dog eyes of his.
She nodded, reluctantly, and took the file.
Rural Virginia
January 10
As the Expedition glided in darkness along the country road through a seemingly idyllic snowy vista, dawn turned the horizon pink behind lush firs and naked trees alike, the rest of the sky and the world below washed blue.
Fox Mulder was in the backseat next to Father Joe Crissman, who leaned against the window, slumped in snoring sleep. SA Drummy was driving, ASAC Whitney riding shotgun, and now and then each agent would meet Mulder’s eyes in the rearview mirror, always with the same unspoken question: What the hell are we doing here?
When the Expedition took a sizable bump, Father Joe was jolted awake with a snort.
His eyes startled under gray eyebrows, the ex-priest asked, “Are we getting warm?”
Whitney glanced over the shoulder of her black thermal jacket. “You tell us.” Unspoken was: You’re the psychic, remember?
Father Joe looked out the vehicle’s every window. Still groggy from his nap, he said, “I don’t have the faintest idea where we are.”
Mulder said, “That’s okay.”
Father Joe’s eyes went to Mulder, who gave him a small smile, even as the agents in front glanced at each other impatiently, clearly wondering if they were on a fool’s errand.
Mulder took a small picture of Monica Bannan from the FBI folder and handed it to Father Joe, saying, “Everyone works differently. Take your time.”
Father Joe appraised Mulder skeptically. “And what are you—the good cop?”
“I’m the non-cop.”
The priest thought about that briefly, then fixed his eyes on the photo of the missing agent. “I don’t know this girl. I doubt we ever met. My contacts, as you surely must know, are rather limited these days. I don’t have a clue, the connection.”
“There’s always something, however small,” Mulder said. “Something that binds the two of you.”
Father Joe was shaking his head. “So you believe in these sort of things?”
Mulder hesitated. He wanted to give the ex-priest enough support to encourage him, but needed to stop short of being an ally, much less his stooge.
“Let’s just say,” Mulder said softly, “I want to believe.”
“W
ants to believe,” Drummy said from up in front, with casual contempt, “that his sister was abducted by aliens.”
Mulder found Drummy’s eyes in the rearview mirror and sent his own message of contempt, not so casual.
The priest asked, “Is that true?”
Mulder said nothing.
“Something you don’t care to discuss?” Father Joe was studying Mulder’s face. “A touchy subject, son?”
Mulder wasn’t thrilled, being called “son” by a pedophile; but he said, “It was a long time ago.”
They hit another bump.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” The priest’s features had lost any trace of arrogance; nothing was in the man’s expression but compassion. “Your sister?”
Lucky guess? Or was this wild-haired, wild-eyed former priest truly psychic?
Samantha was at peace now. Mulder knew this, believed it. He’d fought for so many years to find out the truth, and gone down countless false trails pursuing little green men and serial killers and impostors and even had seen his abduction memories discredited, but after all that and more, he had come to truly believe she was in a better place now. That she had been lost to him before his quest had really begun remained a frustration, but she was at peace and he was free of the need to try to save her. This did not mean he cared to have the likes of Drummy dismiss Samantha’s memory, nor did he care to discuss his sister with a sex offender.
Mulder retrieved the photo of the missing agent from the priest’s grasp, and his eyes went to the pleasant face of a young woman who might be alive or might be dead. Mulder did not see Whitney watching him in the rearview mirror, nor did he see the ASAC shift her attention to Father Joe, jumping a little because the man was staring right at her.
“This,” the priest said, his voice shifting into a more commanding tone, “is where she was taken…”
Mulder glanced up from Agent Bannan’s picture at Father Joe to find the man suddenly sitting forward, intense, cords standing out in his neck.
“This,” the priest said, almost shouting, “is where your agent was attacked!”
Mulder found Whitney’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and his expression asked her, Is it?
And hers replied: Yes.
Up ahead were the lights of a small housing development, looking yellow in the Maxfield Parrish blue of early morning.
Mulder said, “I want him to see the crime scene.”
Drummy, at the wheel, exchanged a glance with Whitney; some hidden meaning was there, but Mulder couldn’t find it. Not the contempt Drummy had shown him earlier. This was something else…
Soon the Expedition had turned off into the small settlement of single-story houses, then pulled up and stopped at the foot of an unplowed driveway. Drummy, putting up the hood of his black parka, came around to join Whitney. Mulder and Father Joe got out of the back just as the two FBI agents were heading up the snowy drive. Mulder fell in behind them and took half a dozen steps, his boots sinking deep, before he noticed the priest wasn’t alongside him.
Mulder glanced back. Then, so did the agents.
Father Joe stood halfway up the driveway, frozen like a scarecrow against the blue sky.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, strands of hair wiggling like Medusa’s snakes. “It’s…this isn’t right…”
The big man in gray looked from side to side, as if trying to get his bearings. His eyes were unblinking and wide.
Then Crissman looked toward ASAC Whitney and said, frankly accusatory, with just a little of the Glasgow music, “You brought me to the wrong house.”
And he turned and headed back down the drive and began crossing the road.
Mulder grinned back at the two agents. “Kinda pulled that one right outta his ass, huh?”
And Mulder followed.
So did the two agents.
The father’s path angled across to another house where the carport was X’ed with yellow crime scene tape. Perhaps the priest had noticed that tape from the Expedition and they had just witnessed a little impromptu piece of theater. But Mulder didn’t think so. After all, Mulder hadn’t noticed. And he was paying attention.
Father Joe beat them there by half a minute, Mulder next to arrive, with Whitney and Drummy making a more tentative approach. The priest ducked under the wind-fluttered yellow tape and gazed at Monica Bannan’s car, still parked there. Mulder ducked under the barrier, but, for the moment, the two agents kept their distance, their eyes glued to their would-be psychic.
Who was looking at all the right things—the driver’s side door of the vehicle, the back wall of tools, from which Agent Bannan had surely selected a makeshift weapon, the path to the house where the struggle had begun. Agent Drummy came around to follow Father Joe, heading into the backyard.
Mulder sensed Whitney at his side and turned to her.
“Dis mus’ be the place,” Mulder said.
She shrugged. “There were news crews out here, covering the scene—pictures of the neighborhood. He could’ve recognized it from TV.”
“Yes. But why?”
She blinked at him, those distinctive eyes a cool blue but nonetheless warm. “Why?” she echoed.
Mulder moved out from under the carport, watching as Agent Drummy followed Father Joe across the snowy landscape beyond the backyard, past which woods awaited that were about as inviting as what Snow White encountered.
“Why do it?” Mulder asked her. “Why go to such lengths and fabricate such an elaborate story?”
Whitney gave him a smile that said he was being naive—it was not unlike a couple thousand smiles Scully had given him.
“Expiation,” she said. “Forgiveness of his sins.”
“Father Joe thinks he can fool God?”
“Not God. He’s written dozens of letters to the Vatican, pleading reengagement with the church.”
Mulder’s eyebrows went up and he half grinned. “Playing psychic to the FBI—rather odd way to impress the Holy See.”
She shook her head. “Not really. Voice of God speaking through a man? That one’s been a winner a few times.”
“Got Joan of Arc burned at the stake. So you think he’s a sham?”
She said nothing.
“You think he’s involved? That he’s guilty in this, somehow?”
Her eyes, like his, were on the two figures out on the snowy vista. “We have to consider him a suspect, yes.”
“And yet you’ve found no connection to the crime.”
She laughed, once. “Don’t think my guys have stopped looking. They’re turning over every stone in Father Joe Crissman’s colorful life. And they think they’re going to find something.”
Mulder looked at her, engaged those blue eyes, realizing he’d been wrong just now. “But you don’t—you think he’s for real.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah. Or I wouldn’t be here.”
She glanced at him. He could tell she was impressed by how he’d corralled her, clever devil that he was.
And when she spoke, something less professional and more human came in: “Let’s just say I’m not the most popular girl at the FBI right now, for calling you in—believe me.”
“You had me at FBI. Hey, I was Mr. Popular at the bureau myself. You should see the storeroom they stuck me in. Spooky Mulder? Ring a bell?”
She smiled, shook her head; but her voice held undeniable respect, as she said, “You’ve dealt with psychics before—Luther Lee Boggs, Clyde Bruckman, Gerald Schnauz…I went through those cases, Mulder, and that work was extremely impressive.”
“Yeah, well.” He cocked his head. “I’m only half of the team, you know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You mean that, don’t you? That’s not false modesty.”
“No. Scully keeps me honest. When she’s not around, you better keep an eye on me.”
“Okay.” She smiled again. Lovely woman. “Understood. And Dana Scully’s record is impressive, too. But it’s your insights I need. Want to join the dance?”
So they headed out across the snow toward Drummy, who had planted himself and was watching Father Joe wander in the snow like a drunk looking for his car keys.
“This is ridiculous,” Drummy said to Whitney.
She and Mulder were standing several yards away.
Mulder responded but not to Drummy, saying to Whitney, “No it isn’t.”
He was watching the priest, studying him the way a research doctor studies an organism on a slide.
“There’s a specificity to his visions,” Mulder said. “The straightforward way he presents them is a positive indicator. In my experience, most psychics are prone to dramatization, even if they’re hot, and things are coming easily. They don’t want it to seem too easy. So don’t be put off by—”
Mulder stopped short. Both Whitney and Drummy, who’d been looking at their consultant, now followed Mulder’s eyes to the priest, who was no longer wandering, and had stopped in one place.
And now, as if seized by an urge for prayer, Father Joe dropped to his knees.
Mulder began to run, his boots churning through the nearly knee-high snow; behind him, the two FBI agents were doing their best to keep up, footsteps crunching.
The priest, still on his knees, looked up at them as the three came to sudden, snow-stirring stops.
Crissman’s features were even longer than usual, his eyes sorrowful, pain in every groove of his face. “She ran…she tried to escape.” He looked to one side. “There were two men…but she couldn’t…” His head came back to its original position. “He pushed her down!…Here.” He nodded to the snow. “Right here…And then they put her in…in the back of…”
Whitney leaned forward, hands on her knees. “Where? Back of what?”
“In their car…no, a truck.” His eyes did not blink. He was looking straight ahead and yet seeing somewhere within him. “A truck with something…something on it.” He squinted. “I don’t know what…”
“We need more, Father,” Whitney said desperately. “We need to find her…”
His face tightened. “She’s in pain…in great pain…”
Whitney said, “Tell me where.”
He shook his head. His eyes were half closed now. His expression seemed almost frightened. “I don’t know. I can’t see…”
The X-Files: I Want to Believe Page 4