TITLE: A Thief's Diet

SERIES: This House is Burning

AUTHOR: Tesla 

RATING: R

ARCHIVE: Let me know so I can dote

SPOILERS: Spoilers: none, but this takes place early in the canon.  Part two of three. Follows 'Blood on the Snow.'

KEYWORD: Casefile, MSR

DISCLAIMERS: Ten Thirteen and Fox and Chris Carter and so forth

St. Louis County Criminal Court St. Louis, Missouri

Mulder sat outside the courtroom, black raincoat folded over his arm, his suit and shirt neatly pressed, his tie knotted for him by the prosecutor's judicial assistant. Scully would be pleased, he thought bleakly. She had offered to take him to the airport that morning, but he told her that he could leave his car in long-term parking. He shouldn't be in St. Louis too long. She had given him the little half-smile she liked to give him these days. He used to think that he couldn't stand it when she rolled her eyes at him; but her genuine impatience was more palatable than this Susie Sunshine act. That, and her yoga classes during lunch. He had asked her to go get a hot dog at the Mall one day, and she looked at him like he'd suggested they eat potted meat on crackers; then she had seemed to catch herself, and, with a smile, said, "Sounds great."

Don't think about Scully. Get your head in the game.

He was used to testifying in court, used to the defense's ploy of invoking the rule against witnesses being in the courtroom until they had testified. He had explained the Bureau's profiling methods for curious juries, and had cultivated a patient demeanor when criminal defense attorneys tried to rattle him, or to make him lose his temper. Back when he did a lot of profiling, he usually had to take his files with him to remember what had happened during a consult. He didn't need notes for this gig, though.

He had seen this murder take place.

Washington, D.C. Six months earlier

Mulder knew he was in deep shit. It was a gift, he told himself. Here he was, Scully-less, sent to verify the profile of a serial killer. He had told his boss that it wasn't the same guy. A first week rookie in Forensics 101 could have done the same.

"I can tell you that, right here and right now and save the Bureau airfare," Mulder said. "Different method, different victims. Different disposal." He sighed. "Why am I going out there?" (Scully was in Tampa at a forensic pathology conference.)

Skinner looked up, wearing one of his familiar Marine expressions. The one that said, "If you were in uniform, you'd be doing fifty laps around the parking lot, you little shit." It never worked because Mulder had never been a Marine; still, he could appreciate the intent.

"Come on, sir, you can tell me. Why am I going to St. Louis? You know, if there's some subtext you're not telling me, I could make some mistake...." Mulder realized he was saying it in an annoying sing-song, but pressed on. "There's something up. I'm not a profiler any longer, and Scully and I have been filling out all our 302s, all our expense reports, even been getting atta-boys from the ASACs. Sir. You're not sending me there because I pissed you off lately."

"No," Skinner said. "You're correct, agent. I realize that the profile doesn't fit the task force profile. And anyone from Behavior Sciences would say the same. The St. Louis homicide division is in a lot of hot water about this case, though. The Post-Dispatch is accusing them of ignoring the killings because the victims are prostitutes."

Well, there was nothing to do but go back to his desk and pack up for St. Louis. Mulder couldn't help but wonder if he being gently nudged away from the basement department. It was a subtler way to shut him down; send him off to the kind of cases that burned him out, or that couldn't be solved. Next thing you knew, he'd be back in hostage negotiation or something. Going to job fairs at colleges.

He shuddered.

**************************

The assistant prosecutor, a placid blonde woman, came out to sit with him. "Nice suit, Agent Mulder," she said. "The tie makes it, of course." He obliged her by smiling. "Anyway, although I know that you know the drill, when I put you on, I'll walk you through your C.V. and your experience, and then ask how you first got asked to consult on the murders, and which officers you talked to, and so forth. This defense attorney will try to make you mad; that's her standard trick."

"It's okay, I took my Zoloft," Mulder deadpanned. She surprised him by winking, and saying, "So did I," before getting up and going back down the hall.

Mulder opened his notebook. He had been met at the airport by Hal Barnes and Jane---Janey---Kerr from the St. Louis Homicide Squad. He had explained to them that he had to view the crime scene photos and the autopsy reports first, before any of the local investigators had a chance to brief him. That was standard operating procedure, and Hal had nodded.

"We thought we would drive you by the actual locations before we take you to the hotel," Hal said. "Janey's got the stuff for you." Mulder, in the front passenger seat of Hal's car, turned around to acknowledge the dark woman in the back. She patted a banker's box beside her. She looked at him, then seemed to really focus on him, before suddenly smiling. Mulder found himself smiling back at her, as if they were sharing a private joke. They were in an unmarked department car and the low, familiar crackle of the police dispatcher came over the radio mounted just above the console.

"Tell the court what happened next."

"I reviewed the crime scene photos and the medical examiner's report," Mulder said. "I then met with the detectives, with my initial conclusions already written up."

"Not the same guy?" Hal Barnes said, unhappily. "Damn."

"Well, you have three women who resemble each other superficially, with dark hair, shoulder length. But one died of an overdose, one was strangled with her own scarf, and the third was pushed out of a moving car. But here's the interesting thing. The overdose victim looks like the middle victim, and she frequented the same geographic area as the second one. The scarf was knotted around her neck post-mortem, or at any rate, very close to death. You may have a copy-cat who wanted the last victim to resemble the first."

"Better and better and better," Barnes said, looking at his partner. "What else?"

"Well," Mulder began, looking sidelong at Barnes' partner---she reminded him of someone. Who?---"Strangling is a personal, very personal crime. Whereas giving someone enough money to overdose, or providing her with very strong drugs, is more cold-blooded. Or squeamish, I suppose."

Jane Kerr looked up. "I thought I had retired my hooker drag," she complained. "Why couldn't they have been blonde?"

"You're thinking of decoying?" Mulder asked, oddly unsettled. "I don't know if there's any pattern to the time frame between murders." He tilted his chair back against the wall. "Since you could have a copycat, are there any more unsolved murders of women----brunettes or not?"

Barnes and Kerr looked at each other. "What?" Mulder asked.

"We have what *could* be a sniper," Kerr said. "A dark haired woman shot as she was outside a liquor store. We thought it was a drive-by----but no one heard the shot. A car with really loud speakers went past at the same time, though, and the music could have drowned it out."

Barnes took up the story. "But ballistics just came in. She was shot with a high-powered rifle."

Mulder frowned at them. "The psychology and profile of a sniper is a lot different from someone who preys on women---especially women at high risk, like prostitutes."

"She wasn't the only one," Barnes said. "Another woman was shot outside a nightclub across the river in East St. Louis. The crime rate is so high over there, that it didn't get much play, but..."

"Ballistics?" Mulder said, suddenly keen.

"It matches." Kerr said.

The prosecutor had been standing at her table, pulling photos out of manila envelopes. "Do you recognize these photos? One at a time."

"The first is a young woman who died of strangulation." He handed it back to the prosecutor. "The second, a young woman who is also dark haired. She was strangled and stabbed. The next three pictures are of young women who are dark haired and who were all shot with a rifle."

"Was it a sniper?" asked the prosecutor. She had walked back to lean on the railing to the left of the jury box, so Mulder would naturally look at the jury as he answered her questions.

"Objection, your honor, this witness has not been qualified as a ballistics expert, but strictly as a profiler for the F.B.I," shouted the defense attorney. She spat out "F. B. I." like it was an obscenity. The jurors' heads all swerved to her side of the courtroom.

Mulder looked patiently at the prosecutor. She didn't move from her stance beside the jury box. "Witness has gone through his resume and his work experience and the defense didn't object," she said, her voice untroubled. "Judge, on page four of State's exhibit 5, Agent Mulder listed his accredited course work and citations in ballistics and forensics."

Mulder stared down at the pictures spread on the railing before him as the lawyers argued.

When you saw them all together, they did suggest a type, even in the postmortem pictures that Mulder always thought were so sad. You lose all privacy as a victim, as a corpse. Not only does a detective turn out your wallet and read your checkbook with the terribly mundane tiny sums to the grocery store and the dry cleaner, not only are your clothes photographed---and there's that safety pin instead of a button and the old frayed underpants---but there you are, photographed as you are ritually flayed and dissected. In the name of science, in the name of detection, in the name of a justice that often seemed random and capricious and just curious.

God, he loved profiling. He loved it like the addict loved his crackpipe. He kept telling Scully how much he hated doing it and hated getting into the perp's head, but the truth---were they finished yet?

"---Rule 405-"

No. The truth was, that he hated the guy, hated the act, but he got off on the work. Got off on losing himself in someone else, just like an actor in a part.

When he was finally in a conference room with all the evidence photos, he thought immediately that someone had to be killing all these women for some agenda of his own. It didn't matter that the methods were different at first, because he was finding his way to a kill. The first woman was dead, and he saw her, and he enjoyed the thought of---not her death, but of the death of someone who looked like her. Then he started planning how to do it.

"The witness may answer."

"Yes," Mulder said. "The killer began using a gun rather than risk contact."

"In your opinion, are all these deaths related?"

"Yes, because of the similarity of the victims."

"Anything else?"

Mulder leaned forward, picking up the first photo. "He didn't kill this lady, Cheryl Adams, but her death triggered the next death. He went from there." "Tell the jury how you arrived at this conclusion."

"After I was called in?"

"Objection, your honor, the witness is asking himself the questions now."

Mulder glanced up at the judge. He waved his hand. "Overruled. Start from the top, Agent Mulder."

"When I looked at all the photos of the first two victims, I noticed how similar they were in appearance. I asked the detectives to show me the evidence boxes-"

"See how these girls all look like each other? I don't mean, dead, but their driver's licenses. Have you got any photos from relatives, snapshots, portraits? See how they wear their hair? He's after a certain type." He stared at Kerr. She smiled again.

"Yeah, he's looking for Janey," Barnes said, behind him. "Look at her."

"Yeah, I am," Mulder said.

ii.

"Permission to take the witness on voir dire," asked the prosecutor unexpectedly, after a series of objections from the defense. Another long period of argument. Some of the jurors were giving him sympathetic looks. Mulder tried to look as gee-whiz as possible.

"Granted."

Mulder tensed. This meant that the defense had found out something about his many-splendored case work and was going to question him on it to discredit his testimony about this case. There was no telling---

"Do you remember Eugene Tooms?"

Mulder relaxed. This one, he could answer on auto-pilot. He may have sounded silly at the Tooms' parole hearing, but Tooms had obliged him by using the Dirty Harry offense and trying to set him up, and killing his psychiatrist. At least he didn't go after Scully...God. Letting Scully get in bed with him had been one of the bigger mistakes of his life. It was the damned cold medicine, he had been kind of stoned. When they had sex.

She wanted to. She did. She liked it, he wasn't deceiving himself. She loved it.

She just didn't love him.

"Well, Eugene Tooms did eat the liver of his psychiatrist," he said. "So I think I was correct in recommending that he not be paroled. I have a pretty good record with catching serial killers." He shrugged. "That's the bottom line---I recommended that he not be paroled, and he was. And then he killed again."

The prosecutor was smiling. "Your honor, if I could resume my direct?"

"Proceed."

"Based on the similarities of all the victims, and the fact that the victims were similar in their build, coloring, and hair style, as well as living within the general area, the local investigators and I did a rough analysis to see if we could geographically track the murders."

"What would be the purpose of that?"

"To see if there was any patterns formed by pin-pointing the deaths on a map."

"What else do you do, when you, in particular, are asked to consult with a local homicide investigation?"

"It's not too different from the on-site investigators do. I look for patterns in the method used to kill the victims, in the individual characteristics of the victims, in the surrounding crime scene, in order to gain insight on the personality of the killer. I give an opinion based on my training and experience."

"Did you find a pattern in these killings?"

"A forced pattern." He looked earnestly at the jury. "A staged pattern."

iii.

"Most serial killers have a model in their mind. There's a certain type of victim that satisfies their need. Most snipers pick places; they set up a command point and blast at everyone who comes in range. Sometimes they move around in the territory, sometimes they stay up in the clock tower or whatever until they get taken out. It's very weird that the killer switches his weapon, and still has the same victimology."

Mulder was sitting in an interrogation room with Janey and Hal, late that day. The evening shift had taken over. Outside the barred windows, evening traffic hummed as commuters left the city. The two detectives looked as though they had all the time in the world. That was good, because Mulder's moment of interest in their personal lives was almost over.

"You have a couple of killers here, not a single one." He kept pausing, waiting for Scully to say something. But she wasn't in St. Louis with him, even though he kept thinking she was sitting behind him. It would have been nice, actually, to have Scully looking over the autopsy reports to make sure he hadn't missed anything. Not that he had, but he just---missed----he coughed, and picked up his notepad.

"Number one: strangled." He looked up. "Someone that knew her, maybe a customer, her boyfriend---no struggle. Auto-erotic asphyxiation, maybe? Because it's like she had done it before. Like she was expecting it. But he went too far. She had sex with someone, because there was a small amount of a lotion commonly used with lubricated condoms. But nothing else was disturbed. This could have almost been an accident; he didn't intend to kill her, and when she didn't respond, he panicked and dumped her body." He put Cheryl Adams' photo on the table between them. "This is not connected in any way with these two earlier murders of the other women; they were found in crack houses and the methods are completely different." He put down two more pictures, the new ones that the homicide investigators had given to him as possible victims. "These women were killed by two different people. Not part of this investigation right now."

He looked up. Hal and Janey were nodding, their eyes on the pictures, as if he were a magician. He always liked this part, the part when he made believers out of the home team. "Then, here's Geneva Pratt. She's not a prostitute, but she still worked at a high risk job, at a convenience store. She wasn't taken out at the store, but as she walked to her car. There's no security camera outside. She was strangled and stabbed." He paused, for just that theatrical moment that Scully would stop him from doing. "Or, really, stabbed. Then our guy came along and strangled her. He tried to make it look like the Adams murder, but couldn't quite do it. She was stabbed and her purse was taken, and then she was finished off by strangulation---or, even, post-mortem. It's a thought. The death was caused by blood loss, not strangulation."

He looked at Janey. She was staring inwardly, seeming to calculate something. Hal wasn't there yet. Mulder put the photo of the Mendez girl. "At first, these girls seemed to be drive- bys, but again, she had a record for soliciting. So did Beverly Parker. And when you have their drivers' licenses or booking photos, you can see how they look alike."

Hal sat back, tugging at the knot of his tie. "A vigilante? He's targeting hookers?" He picked up the last photo. "Or his paraphilia---" he grinned at Mulder. "Am I way off base?"

"He could be the Bundy type," Mulder agreed. "I can see why my boss wanted me out here, because we had a Bundy-type not too long ago. Bundy wanted to kill women with long dark hair, parted in the middle, who were kind of upper middle class, and who reminded him of a woman who had rejected him. That kind of killer has appetites that are so strong that he may take risks in order to satisfy them. He's usually organized, works, puts on a good face to the world. I don't think he killed the two girls in the crack houses, because they were too messed up. Look at the autopsy report and the pictures; they were wearing clean and neat clothes, their hair was clean and neat. Now, if this was a textbook case, this guy would be trying to find the woman that most fits his inner model."

"Why isn't this a textbook case?" Janey asked shrewdly. "Because you think it's someone who saw Cheryl Adams?"

"He's not killing because killing gets him off," Mulder said. "I don't quite know why, but he's not your typical killer. Sure, he doesn't think these women's lives are worth anything, he thinks he has the right to do exactly what he wants to them, but I'm not....quite....sure..." They were staring at him, wide-eyed. "Can we go get a steak somewhere? I'm starving," he said plaintively.

iv.

"What are the X-Files?" asked the defense attorney on cross- examination.

Mulder smiled patiently. "Kind of a cold case department. Cases that come in for the Bureau that have no logical explanation."

"About UFOs and the like, right?"

"A few. Mostly, we get cases because the local authorities don't have the resources. My partner and I have a very high closed case rate in our department, one of the highest in the Bureau."

"Profiling?"

"Profiling comes into it."

"But you don't currently profile fulltime?"

"No. My current department is the X-Files." He spelled it for the court reporter.

The steakhouse was on the other side of a shopping plaza not too far from the homicide division offices, and conveniently in the same block as Mulder's hotel. Mulder was cutting into steak when Hal asked, "So what are the X-Files, again?"

He opened his mouth to answer, and paused, editing his thoughts.

Janey looked up. "No, wait, don't tell us until I get back from the restroom." She picked up her bag and stood, threaded her way through the diners.

"Smallest bladder in the department," Hal said. Mulder stared hard at him, surprised by the indulgent look Hal had given his partner. "What?" Hal asked defensively.

"You're very close to her," Mulder stated, forking a mouthful of meat.

Hal flushed. "She's a married lady."

"I didn't see a ring," Mulder said, realizing he'd struck a nerve. One day, someone was going to kick the shit out of him when he was in this Great Bwana Profiler mode. That hadn't stopped him yet, though.

Hal was swallowing his mouthful of steak, and Mulder waited for him to answer.

"She and Doug have separated. He's an investigator in the next county; they have a special federal grant. Drug task force."

"And you don't like him," Mulder said.

Hal rubbed his face. "What are you suggesting, Mulder?"

Mulder kept his _expression bland. "Nothing."

"No, I don't like him. He's a ass."

"Good thing that's not a crime," Mulder said with a wry smile.

"Sometimes, though, you do," Mulder said, half to himself.

Hal looked startled.

Janey was back. "So, tell us about the X-Files?" she asked lightly.

"Weird stuff," Mulder said. "Unexplained cases. Crimes with unanswered questions. I get loaned out for this kind of profiling, but I've done a lot of it. Did it fulltime for years."

Hal nodded. "So, where do we go from here?"

Mulder set his steak knife and fork on the plate, and dabbed at his lips with a napkin. "Dessert, I hoped," he said blandly.

"Good call," Hal said as their waitress cleared their plates.

"As far as the case goes," Mulder said, "we need, if possible, to cross-reference the victims with each other, and with their family members, and with any witnesses involved in the discovery of the body or any who are the last to have seen any of the victims alive. There's going to be a connection in this. I don't think these murders are random."

Janey was writing furiously on the notepad she always seemed to have within reach. She raised her eyes to his without raising her head or taking her pen from the pad. "Should we---" she began, and then stopped, her focus now on a spot somewhere off to Mulder's left.

"Janey?" Mulder looked from her to Hal; she was pale, he was reddening. He followed their gazes and saw a tall man in khaki trousers and an oxford cloth shirt entering the restaurant. He disappeared into the bar, with that faint swagger that showed he was as handsome as he thought he was.

"Someone you know?" he asked.

Janey looked back down at her notes. "No one important."

Hal shook his head in a way that suggested Mulder should drop it.

The waitress reappeared, took their dessert orders, and Mulder rose. "Excuse me," he said, and went to the restroom.

When Hal came in the men's room a moment later, Mulder was washing his hands. "I take it no one important back there was Janey's soon-to-be-ex?"

Hal frowned at himself in the mirror over the sink. "Yeah, that was him. Complete asshole."

"Why's that?"

Hal looked around, as if he was making sure the coast was clear. "Thinks he's a hotshit investigator. Fast track to the top, in his mind, at least. Hates that the little woman is smarter than he is. They split up when she was doing that hooker decoy duty. From what she says, they've never really got together to talk or resolve anything." He sighed.

Mulder studied the other man. Was everyone in love with their partner? "What does Janey say about him?"

"She won't talk to me," Hal said gloomily. "I don't know what happened, exactly, but I think she caught him cheating and she's just in shock."

"Does she know how you feel about her?" Mulder asked, crumpling his paper towels and making a rim shot into the trash can.

Hal looked pale. "She's my partner."

Mulder gave a half-shrug. "I hear it happens."

"Not around here." Hal glared.

"She didn't, say, leave him for you, right?"

"Look, Mulder, Doug is a hound. That's why she left. And yeah, okay, so maybe I wish she had left him for me, but she sure as hell didn't. She treats me like her big brother. Period. End of story."

Mulder nodded. He knew that feeling all too well. "Okay," he said. "I'm just being thorough." He tried to soften the statement with a self deprecating smile.

"Whatever."

When they emerged from the steakhouse a little over half an hour later, the last of the sunset was hidden behind clouds, and the lights were up in the parking lot. There was a faint crack, and a far-away rumble.

"Thunderstorm coming," Hal commented as he unlocked the door on his side of the car. "We really get hammered, here."

Mulder heard something. What it was didn't consciously register, but he threw Janey to the concrete beside the car and flung himself on top of her. Her elbow caught him in the solar plexus, knocking the air out of him.

"Wha-" she began, just as the car window burst into pebbles and the car alarm went off.

"Are you down!?" Hal screamed, looking at them from under the chassis.

"I'm okay." Mulder felt the woman beneath him move. "You okay, Janey?"

Janey nodded.

"We're both okay," he called to Hal.

Hal had his weapon in one hand, and the microphone to his police radio in the other. "Shot fired---shot fired outside the Mall steak house, possibly from the office construction site." Hal got to his feet, remained crouched behind the car.

"It came from over there," Mulder said, and pointed, rolling off Janey. Hal agreed. "Yeah. I see - I see tail lights leaving on the other side of the building."

"Jesus Christ," Mulder said, when he caught his breath. "Shit." He sat up, rubbing his face. "You okay, Janey?" he asked again.

She nodded, blinking. There was a raw patch on her cheek, a cut on her forehead, and a rivulet of sweat ran down her face into her neck. "That wasn't-" She swallowed. "He was aiming at me, wasn't he?"

"I don't think he was trying to get me," Hal snapped as he rounded to their side of the vehicle, gun still drawn, still on the lookout. "You're bleeding, Janey. I'll call for am ambulance."

She shook her head. "It's just where I scraped the pavement," she said. "I'm okay. Really."

Hal frowned, then seemed to reach a decision. "Fine. Mulder, you get her out of here now. We don't need anyone to know the Feds are here."

Mulder stood up, and reached for Janey's sleeve. "Come on."

Janey followed.

They walked quickly, almost race-walking, through the crowds in the mall parking lot. No one glanced twice at them, as the place was filled with shoppers trying to get in and out of their cars before the rain started falling. Mulder was aware that his hand had moved from the custodial grip on her wrist, to clasping hers. Her fingers opened and closed against his, the only outward sign of agitation she had shown so far.

They were just outside the hotel as one and then another squad car passed. Mulder tugged her inside, and she followed him through the lobby to the elevator. Mulder stood with his free hand gripping hers, until they reached his floor.

The room was just as he left it, which he found oddly reassuring. The thing about lone killers, even crazy lone killers, is that they just didn't have the same resources as say, the government. Now all he had to do was barricade the door, and call Hal. He sat down on the edge of the bed, turning on the television, looking for any sign of a breaking story.

The toilet flushed, and the bathroom door opened. Janey came out, having washed her face. When she lifted her face from the towel, he suddenly knew who she looked like. With no make-up, she had Scully's fair complexion and the same shape of eyes, the same jut of jaw, just in darker tints.

"It's a cop, isn't it?" she asked.

Mulder considered his answer for a moment. "Yeah, it's a cop," he finally said. He pulled the paper lid from a hotel glass, and put it under the tap.

"But the others were all hookers. Is it because I did decoy duty?" Her tone was calm, but her hands were trembling. Mulder took them in his own and guided her to sit down on the edge of his bed.

Mulder shook his head. "No. Janey, is there any one who wants to kill you?" he asked. "Like your husband?"

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Mulder waited.

"Doug? He's a cop, a detective. He wouldn't kill me. He doesn't even want to divorce me. No, Mulder. No, he wouldn't kill me. This has got to be someone else. I just, I just fit the victim profile. You said it yourself."

Mulder deliberately put on his most sincere _expression, used his most neutral tone of voice. "Why are you separated?" Mulder asked.

Janey closed her eyes, sighed. "I found some stuff on our home computer. Stuff he had encrypted. I was trying to get into it when he came home. I think it was a woman. Doug said it wasn't, of course, but he wouldn't let me see it, either. Then he started acting suspicious of everything I said. He said I was trying to pry-" she caught herself. "It's just the same old tedious story, Mulder. We've been married seven years. We're not friends any more. Neither one of us is happy, but I asked for the divorce and I guess I wounded his pride. He says he wants me to come back, but-" She sighed again.

"Did he come clean?" Mulder asked.

Her face hardened, and Janey did look uncannily like Scully. "No." She stopped picking at the scuffed skin of her palms, and looked directly at him. "Do you see conspiracy and betrayal everywhere you go, Agent Mulder?"

"Pretty much." He shrugged. "I work the X-Files."

After a startled look, Janey laughed. She ran her hand over her face in much the same gesture her partner had, and said, "Well, let's get back to the salt mines. Our lieutenant will want to know what the hell happened." She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. "It's more likely that he was after you, you know. The outside investigator. Not me."

Mulder grimaced. "That had occurred me. That's why I thought it was someone in the know, that heard I was here." He scratched his chin. "The local field office was advised, too. That's standard."

"This case gets more complex," Janey grumbled, opening the door.

Or simpler, Mulder thought, eyeing her rigid shoulders.

v.

"Isn't it a fact that there was a confession to the shooting?" the defense attorney barked.

"Yes, someone walked in and confessed that he had shot at Detective Kerr, and that he had shot all the victims."

"What led you to ignore this confession and go after someone else?"

"Well, he didn't have a weapon. No weapon was found where he had claimed he had dumped it. And nothing other than his confession linked him to the murders."

"Didn't he know substantial details of the shootings?"

"He was friends with a morgue attendant. The friend admitted that he discussed details of the autopsies with him."

"Isn't it true that you preferred to lock my client into your preconceived profile?"

"Since I was endeavoring not to have any preconceived ideas, no."

The homicide lieutenant was unhappy. "This guy walks in and you already don't like him?" he asked Mulder.

"He doesn't really know anything. He can't articulate a reason why he's doing it." Mulder, the lieutenant, and Hal were standing behind the two way mirror watching the interrogation, at the downtown precinct. Janey was still at homicide division, writing her report.

"He said he didn't like hookers." The lieutenant didn't try to sound hopeful. He sighed after he said it.

"Come on, lieutenant. You know a lot of nuts walk in off the street. He came in right after the evening news."

The news trucks had shown up, probably due to someone monitoring the police band transmissions. Hal had refused to comment, looking red and angry as he wound yellow crime scene tape around his car. St. Louis crime scene investigators were trying to determine the caliber of the slug they found in its dashboard. The news had run with it at every station break before the ten o'clock news, and by ten thirty, the Christopher Richard Johnson had walked in off the street.

Johnson was the kind of middle aged man no one noticed. Never married, no children, he had a small chin, a receding hairline, and watery, red rimmed eyes. He was wearing khaki pants, and a v- necked sweater over a gray tee shirt. Mulder smiled to himself. At the rate I'm going, that could be me in a few years, he thought.

"That guy's probably never had a date on a Friday in his life," the lieutenant said.

Inside the interrogation room, a Detective Cooke was quietly taking the man through the details of his confession. Although it was an intellectual pleasure to listen to him, the more they talked, the more obvious it was that the man had come to confess the latest shooting, and didn't know about the connected cases.

"I'd rather go out on Saturday," Hal said morosely. "I'm too tired on Friday."

The lieutenant shrugged. "I'm married. I don't know the concept of date night."

"Apparently, that doesn't stop some guys," Mulder said, leaning against the wall and eyeing Hal.

"Look, just because someone is running around on his wife doesn't make him a killer," Hal said quickly. The lieutenant slewed around in his seat, his eyebrows raised. "Agent Mulder saw Doug Kerr at the steakhouse," Hal said reluctantly.

"We all saw Doug Kerr at the steakhouse," Mulder corrected.

"Kerr? What? You think Kerr wanted to kill Janey, and was copying the sniper?" the lieutenant said quickly.

"You look at the person closest to the victim," Mulder said. "Sometimes the easiest answer is the right one."

"Kerr's a cop," Hal said flatly. "He's a shit husband, but a good cop."

The lieutenant looked up at Mulder, and almost immediately looked away.

Mulder removed his shoulder from the wall, standing straight, all tiredness gone. "I didn't mean to slander a friend of yours," he said.

The lieutenant grunted. After a moment, he said, "We might as well cut this guy loose."

"He had a history of mental problems?" the defense attorney said.

"Yes, and he had been hospitalized at the time of one of the murders," Mulder replied.

"But you didn't look further?"

The District Attorney was on her feet, her face as placid as ever. "Objection, your honor, asked and answered. Several times."

"Sustained. Move on, counselor," said the Judge.

"Weren't you sent to St. Louis because you thought the killer here was the same one that you failed to catch in Colorado?"

First blood, Mulder thought, but what he said was, "No." He said it a little too quickly for the district attorney, who was objecting again.

"Agent Mulder has already explained why he came here," she said.

"Opened the door on direct, your honor," responded the defense attorney. They went closer to the bench, and Mulder realized that it would be some time.

"This would be a good time to take a recess," the judge said finally. After he cautioned the jury, he took the lawyers into his chambers with him, and Mulder stood down and went out to the hallway outside the courtroom, to stretch his legs. He saw Hal, sitting on a bench reading the newspaper. They started to speak, and then saw a woman with the large yellow "JUROR" stick-on badge on her blouse and fell silent. Hal folded the newspaper so the front page was hidden.

"I still haven't seen the Mississippi," Mulder said, just to say something. Hal looked like he had lost ten pounds since they first met.

"By day, you mean. We took you by the riverfront," Hal said, his _expression lightening momentarily.

In the end, the powers that be were reluctant to let the confession go too suddenly. A lawyer was called, and the suspect was taken to a holding cell. The Captain of homicide was coming in to look over the transcript of the confession.

"Yeah, that's gonna impress him," Hal grumbled. "Captain Walker prob'ly had an early tee time tomorrow." He stretched and yawned. "Well, we're off the clock, Mulder. Third watch came on at eleven. Let's go grab a beer." At Mulder's look of surprise, Hal said, "It's Friday night. Most of my shift has beer call at a bar. Not a big drinking thing, but kind of winding down."

"Were you going anyway?" Mulder asked.

"Yeah, but I can take you to the hotel, first, it's no big."

"No, I'll ride with you to beer call," Mulder said. "Knicks are playing the Lakers tonight. I was going to watch it."

They went to a tavern at the restored riverfront along the Mississippi. It was filled with customers watching hockey on all the televisions. Somehow, Mulder didn't think he was going to get to watch the basketball game from the west coast. He took his bottle of beer and wandered out through a glass door to the deck. He had it practically to himself, although a couple was sitting and smoking, talking in low voices, just beside the door.

Mulder leaned on the deck rail, his untouched beer clasped in both hands. He wondered what Scully was doing. Funny how he hadn't heard from her. It used to be that if one of them was off on vacation or solo on a case, they would call constantly.

That had stopped after they got back from Black Mountain.

Unbidden, the memory of Scully's hot hands on him came back so that he could almost feel her, almost smell her. He was grateful that he was leaning into the dark, facing the river.

He had rambled like he was in a porn movie. He hadn't known what he was saying to her, because he was so startled to wake to find Scully crawling on top of him. He had thought he was having one of his dreams, until she put her teeth on his nipple. That was when he usually just woke with a hard-on. The hard-on was there, but this time, Scully was stroking it.

When he actually was inside her, he had blurted out that he loved her. She had ignored what he said, and ridden him like he was a rodeo pony, the whole encounter more raw and animal that his soft-porn fantasies.

The fact is, he told himself, you're a hopeless romantic, and Scully is far more earthy and practical. She wasn't mooning around. He probably was getting on her nerves. That's why she was all business, now. He was her best friend - shit, he knew she was his - and he was messing up the dynamic.

The wind from the river, a vast, deeper darkness in the moonless night, was too chilly to be pleasant. It kept him from getting a hard-on, which was what usually happened when he let himself think about having sex with Scully.

I could be her fuck buddy, he thought.

No, you can't. She's backed off so far you're afraid to touch her. Better leave it all alone, and try to act like it never happened.

Like that's worked so well before.

A door opened behind him.

"Mulder," Hal called. "Your game's on."

Mulder turned, setting the beer bottle on a table.

He was so cold and he had so much to do.

vi.

"Didn't you lose the suspect in Colorado?"

"We didn't capture him, no."

"But you summarily rejected the Colorado suspect in these cases?"

"The Colorado suspect liked to kidnap women and rape them." Mulder said quickly, trying to get it all out before the attorney cut him short. "This killer wasn't interested in rape."

"Well, didn't that suspect attack an agent in Colorado?"

"Yes, he attacked a female decoy agent."

"Weren't you attacked here? And put in the hospital?"

Mulder kept the sarcasm out of his voice. "I wasn't dressed as a decoy."

"Wasn't that agent attacked at the hotel? And weren't you attacked at the hotel?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that part of the same profile?"

"No, since I wasn't raped and killed." Several jury members stifled snickers, and the judge snorted. The prosecutor raised her eyes from her legal pad.

"Asked and answered, your honor. Agent Mulder has explained the profile and he's said why it's not the same suspect."

"Sustained."

Mulder had typed up his recommendations on his laptop, and was sitting on the bed, fully dressed with his zippered folder and raincoat in his lap, surfing through the early morning news shows, when the phone rang.

"Agent Mulder, your ride is here," said a voice.

"Okay," he said. He had that familiar feeling of being hung-over from nights without sleeping.

He never actually got any sleep in hotel rooms. Except-

No, don't think about sleeping with Scully, and how amazing it felt to have her relying on him to keep the nightmares away.

That was it, wasn't it, Mulder? That why you felt like a hero. Scully hated relying on anyone, but she'd come crawling to you-

Stop it.

He scooped up his raincoat and portfolio, and went out to catch his ride.

He was standing at the end of the hall, waiting for the elevator, when he felt rather than heard someone come around the corner into the alcove. He had automatically turned to see, but was blindsided by a blow on the head. He lost his vision for a second, and flung himself at his attacker, clawing for his weapon as he threw a punch. Something smashed into his hand, making him drop the Glock, but he felt fabric tearing as he fell glancingly against the man. He tried to get up, to avoid the next blow, when the elevator bell rang. Something thudded by his head, and then there was the whoosh of the doors opening by his head.

"What the hell?" someone said above him, as he lay on the carpet, and far away he heard the slam of a metal door. The darkness swallowed him up.

A long while later, after he opened his eyes to see the ceiling of an ambulance, then closed them, then to reopened them again in an emergency room, he was very close to the surface. He was in a hospital bed, and someone was talking.

"-ur boss is here," someone---the lieutenant? a doctor? said to him. "He called in from the airport."

"Mguh," Mulder said, coughing.

Skinner silently followed the resident to Mulder's bedside. "We put him out to set the bones," the resident explained, gesturing at Mulder's swollen hand. "He broke the fingers."

"Yes," the A.D. said. "Any problems?"

"No, pretty clean fractures, no bone splinters. He shouldn't be coming around for a while yet." The young man closed the chart, and dropped it into the pocket at the end of the bed. "I'll check back with you later."

Skinner stepped to Mulder's bed.

"Sir," Mulder said in a thready voice, fighting the anesthetic. He tried to smile at his boss. "Why you here?"

"I have a four hour layover. I'm going to Los Angeles for a conference. The ASAC called my office, and they called me on the plane. You can go home after you're discharged, Mulder," Skinner said awkwardly. "You've been made, obviously, and they tell me that you've done the profile."

Mulder closed his eyes, nodding, and sank back into the sedative.

When Mulder awoke, he was conscious of the scent of a woman's hair beside his pillow. "Scully?" he whispered.

He felt the brush of long hair, and opened his eyes. Jane was sitting close beside the bed, leaning over him, her hands holding his good hand.

"It was a baseball bat," she said, as if they had been having a conversation. "We found it beside you. Handle taped. No prints."

"Does-" Mulder couldn't remember the name. "Does your ex play baseball?"

"No. Doug was a running back at Illinois."

Jesus, his hand and his head hurt like motherfuckers.

"Did he get my folder?" Mulder asked. "The profile is in there."

"All your stuff is in here," she said, gesturing at the closet. "I went back and packed you up. Your suit is pretty messed up, with the blood and all. I brought your other clothes. All you brought was two suits, and a leather jacket and jeans?" She pursed her lips. "Very butch, Mulder."

"I should have clean boxers," he said primly. "Where's my Glock?" As a reply, she held up what would look like a grocery sack to the uninitiated, but which Mulder recognized as a standard evidence bag.

"Hal and I took charge of your stuff. It looked like he hit you from behind, but you were able to draw. I guess he broke your fingers knocking it out of your hand." She opened the bag, and began to methodically array his possessions on his sheet: shoulder holster, gun, ammunition clip, wallet, checkbook, keys, badge, pack of chewing gum, sunglasses, reading glasses, belt, and watch.

"What's this?" she frowned, picking up the watch.

Mulder squinted at her. There was something dark snagged in the links of the watchband.

"I swung at him." He found the control for the bed, and raised it so he was sitting up. "Do you have a baggie?"

Janey swung the bed table up from the foot of the bed, and put the watch on it. She felt around in the pockets of her jacket, and pulled out a couple of evidence bags, and a small zippered cosmetic bag. She opened it, and shook out a pair of latex gloves and tweezers. She stepped to the door and opened it.

"Jim, can you come in here a second?" A serious young uniformed officer followed her back to the bedside. "Watch me do this, please. This is Agent Mulder's watch."

"Nice to do business with a professional," Mulder said. "Get that chain of custody nailed."

She smiled grimly, pulling one glove on and slowly teasing the piece of material out of the link. She dropped it in the bag, and sealed it, initialing the label and having the officer initial it. "Get someone else to take it to forensics," Mulder said. "We don't want anything to happen to you."

"Nothing's going to happen to me," she said, but she nodded at the officer, and he keyed in his shoulder mike.

"Sergeant, can we get someone to run some evidence to the lab? It's from Detective Kerr, and you told me---yes ma'am." He raised his eyebrows at Janey.

Janey said, "I can stay here until your relief comes." She turned to Mulder. "The local Special Agent in Charge is breathing fire and brimstone about an attack on a federal agent. Must be nice to be so important," she added, as the officer left the room.

"Aagh, they just don't want anyone to think federal officers are pussies," Mulder. "Can you give me some water?"

"Sure." Her back to him as she busied herself with the water pitcher, Janey's voice came out strained. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Are you ready to tell me about why you don't think anything is going to happen to you?" He raised the bed until he was sitting up. With his good hand, he took the cup of water and drank it. Janey reached for the empty cup, and Mulder caught her wrist. "Talk to me."

She sat on the bed next to his knee. "It's kind of complicated."

"I've got all night."

vii.

Washington, D.C. Two days later

Mulder's telephone rang just as he entered the office, and Scully, who was sitting at his desk, answered it. "Agent Scully," she said automatically. "Sure," she said, reaching for a pen. "Give me the number and I'll give it to him as soon as he comes in."

She carefully wrote out the message and hung up. "Hey," Mulder said.

Scully looked up. "Hey, yourself." She picked up the message slip and thrust it at him as he walked to her side, as if to touch her shoulder. Mulder, after a moment when he looked at her outstretched hand, the message between two fingers, took it and turned away to the other chair.

Missouri forensics lab, he read. Fabric results.

Mulder sat down heavily, good hand buried in his jacket pocket. He propped his bandaged hand on the edge of the desk. "They thanked me kindly for my time and trouble, and took the description of my assailant, and sent me home, Scully," he said. He stretched his legs out, and crossed one ankle over the other. "I---shit." He sat up, peering at the sole of one shoe. "There's a nail imbedded in the sole," he said, flicking at it with his fingertip. "I wonder if it has anything to do with the subject? I should get the lab---"

"Let go of it, Mulder. You just said they sent you home. So go home."

Mulder stared at her, still holding one ankle. "What?"

"You can let some of them go, Mulder," Scully said, staring him down.

He set his foot carefully on the floor, and hesitated, lips parting to speak, then thinking better of it. "Yeah," he said. "Guess I will," he said, and gracelessly shambled out of the chair.

He really should go home, he thought. Now that he had seen her, alive and apparently well, wearing her hair in yet another way, he should just go home. Once, he thought, just once, he would like to put his hand out and brush the hair behind her ears, without first having to go through the ten minutes of calculation that always ending in him not doing it. Just once.

He turned and stared at the closed door.

God, he was like a dog that wasn't sure of his home, he thought, bitterly amused at his own pathetic behavior. He could go to sleep now that he had his head-pat and been told to lie down.

After a long moment, he got into the elevator, feeling in his pocket for his car keys. He found the message, and read it twice. Okay, so he would sleep on the plane back to St. Louis.

St. Louis, Missouri, the next day

Mulder had had just enough time to go home, dump out his dirty clothes and throw in some clean boxers and socks in his carry-on before his flight. He didn't dare go to sleep, or take the pain prescriptions he had. He was tired verging on exhausted, but while he was in the hunt, he felt like life was worth living.

After leaving before dawn, flying forever with nothing but crappy connections, he finally landed. He didn't want to let anyone know he was there yet, so, groaning to himself at the expense, he hired a cab, and spent the entire ride to the homicide division trying to raise either Hal or Janey on their cell phones.

They had just gone to lunch at a downtown cafe, the desk officer told him. "You can walk there, it's a straight shot. They just now got out of a meeting."

"Thanks," Mulder said. He loped through the crowded lunchtime sidewalks, his broken fingers and concussed skull protested at every hard jog.

He finally saw Hal's broad shoulders, his hand at Janey's elbow.

"Barnes! Kerr!" he shouted. They turned, the surprise in their faces turning into grins. Slowing his run, he pushed past a sidewalk newspaper stand, and caught up with them.

Janey looked up at him, her grin fading and an _expression of grief filling her face.

"Mulder! 'The X-Files' can suddenly spare you? We're honored," Hal said.

"The X-Files can get along fine without me for a while," Mulder replied. He wanted to get Janey and Hal someplace private, and looked around to see if they were near any restaurant. "I need to talk to you. Privately."

The pedestrians battered them, standing as the were in the middle of the sidewalk. "Let's go in here-" Mulder began.

A man in a barn coat brushed past them, his head down, almost running into Janey. Mulder heard something like a plastic bag popping.

Janey looked surprised, and put her hand on her chest. Her palm was bloody, and as she stared at it, she dropped on one knee. Hal caught her, his mouth contorting.

"Mulder," she breathed, falling on the other knee. She struggled to hold his gaze.

"Call 9-1-1!" Mulder left her drooping in Hal's arms, and ran back, his eyes on the man with the barn coat. "FBI! Stop!" he yelled, but he knew he couldn't fire on him in this crowd, not with a bad hand. The man began to run, and he was swallowed up in the traffic, behind a commuter bus.

"Shitfuckgoddamn," Mulder said to himself, defeated. He swung around and ran back, dropped to one knee.

"Hang on, Janey." He took her hand.

Hal was frantically trying to apply pressure to the wound. Blood was welling up, flowing between his fingers. Someone from the crowd passed them a handkerchief, and Hal pressed it into the spreading ooze of red, and Mulder took over, adding his own two pocket handkerchiefs, which he knew wouldn't be enough. He knew gunshot wounds.

"X---" Janey gasped. "Mulder," her lips said soundlessly.

"Hold on," Mulder said. "The ambulance is coming."

She was trying to talk, her lips moving again, her eyes frantic. Her fingers gripped his bloody ones, and he put his ear to her lips. "X--," she whispered.

He raised his head, and was looking into her eyes as the light went out of them. Her hand released his.

"Was that an ID?" Hal shouted. "Did she make him? Jesus, Mulder, is she---"

"Yes," Mulder said, and smoothed the dark hair from Janey's forehead. With the same gesture, he closed her eyelids. He sat, holding her, shielding her from the staring eyes of the crowd, until the ambulance came.

The paramedics gently tapped on his hands. "Let's get her out of here," one said, in his ear. Mulder let them drag her out of his arms.

He felt Hal's hand on his shoulder. Mulder peered up at him; he was weeping steadily. "She's dead, isn't she?" Hal said.

viii.

"I was standing there when Jane Kerr was shot with a silenced handgun," Mulder told the jury.

Mulder stood at the washroom sink watching Janey's blood rinse off Hal's fingers and swirl down the drain.

"Janey used to talk about all this New Age stuff about karma and dharma and soul mates. She said we were soul mates." His eyes were bloodshot and swollen and he folded the paper towel stained with Janey's blood as if it were a memento, then looked up. "I guess that's what you say now instead of 'I think of you like a brother.'"

"Karma," Mulder said, just to say something. How much luckier I am, he thought, that at least I'm usually the one getting shot.

"She told me that I was in her life for a purpose." Hal stared down at the tap water, and after a second, turned it off.

"That's what you say to a guy so he doesn't lose hope while you sort out your divorce, Hal," he said as gently as he could.

"Maybe," Hal said, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. "We were partners. You know how it is with your partner. I would have taken that bullet for her."

"I know," Mulder said. "You loved her." 

"She died in your arms," Hal said desolately. "I never even got to hold her. She died in your arms."

"She was trying to tell me something," Mulder said. "Janey was a good cop. She saw him. I know who it is."

"And you thought the killer was Douglas Kerr because he was separated from his wife?" sneered the defense attorney. "Isn't it true that he didn't want a divorce? That Jane Kerr told you that, herself? Isn't that in your own report?" "Janey Kerr discovered that her husband had been selling drugs that he did not turn in to the evidence room. She discovered that her husband was gambling, and was in debt."

"Your honor, unresponsive."

"Answer the question, Agent Mulder."

"Doug Kerr killed Janey because, as his ex-wife, she could testify against him. Once she filed for divorce, he lost the privilege that keeps a wife from testifying against her husband," Mulder said. "That's why he didn't want a divorce. Janey Kerr discovered that her husband was a bad cop. There were two killers; the man that killed the first woman, who looked like Jane Kerr, and the man who decided to hide his wife's murder as a the work of a serial killer."

There was a silent moment in the courtroom.

"Nothing more at this time," said the defense attorney.

"Re-direct?" asked the judge.

"Just a couple, your honor. Agent Mulder, once again, when you were assaulted, were you able to gather any evidence on the assailant?"

"Yes, there was a clothing fragment caught in my watch band, from a police issue windbreaker."

The defense attorney stood up again, objecting. The judge allowed it in because the forensic technician had already testified.

"And were you the closest to Jane Kerr when she died from a gunshot wound?"

"Yes, she died in my arms."

"Did she say anything?" Foreseeing an objection, the prosecutor said quickly, looking up at the bench, "Dying declarations are allowed, your honor."

The defense attorney was on her feet, but just shrugged as the judge looked at her and said, "Yes, they are. You may answer."

"She said, 'ex'," Mulder said levelly, looking at the jury. "As in ex-husband."

The jury only stayed out forty minutes before coming back with guilty verdicts on all counts.

ix.

Hal took Mulder to the airport. He didn't say much, until Mulder got out of the car, and got his suit bag from the back seat. "Go back and tell your partner you love her, Mulder," he said. "Life's too short."

Mulder was too surprised to say anything for a moment. He closed the car door, and decided to tell the truth. "I did," he said, bending over to look at Hal through the passenger window. "She ignored me."

Hal smiled sadly. "Where's there's life, there's hope."

Mulder shook his head. "No," he said, "not really," and waved good-bye.

Expect Nothing By Robert Graves

Give, ask for nothing, hope for nothing 
Subsist on crumbs, though scattered casually 
Not for you (she smiles) but for the birds.
Though only a thief's diet, it staves off 
Dire starvation, nor does she grow fat 
On the bread she crumbles, while the lonely truth 
Of love is honoured, and her word pledged.

Note: This story was begun long before the Washington, D.C. area sniper shootings of fall of 2002. Thanks to MaybeAmanda for her most excellent beta, done with the DemonArm (tm). Also thanks to Sybils, Jennifer, Fran the Wonderhorse, Cindy, bcfan, the X-OK crowd, and the Havenites for encouraging me to keep writing.

Notes: Anyone who wants to read about the remarkable Richard Feynman could do worse than to read his two books of anecdotes, and James Gleick's excellent biography, "Genius".

As far as I know, there is no Black Mountain Resort in Colorado, but I spent time at a similar resort west of Colorado Springs.

Part 2: A Thief's Diet