Solo By: afg Rating: NC17 for graphic violence, sex and expletives. Category: Casefile, Scully/other, MSR Disclaimer: Not mine and no money is being made. Summary: While Mulder is suspended and on medical leave, Scully gets assigned to Violent Crimes. Thanks: To audu2, for giving her time and much needed skill, also to Xangel for help and encouragement For: The delightful AnubisKV5. See what your simple request has unleashed! Bet you're sorry now. Feedback: Would be lovely. siggy.63@btinternet.com Website: www.ofnoconsequence.com Note: This story is set season 5 before 'Travellers' but it doesn't follow canon. ~oOo~ Chapter Three Druid Hill Park. Baltimore. Maryland 11:30am There were cars parked all over the small grassy area on the side of the walkway leading to the wooded lakeshore path. Uniformed officers milled around, keeping onlookers and members of the press from crossing the taped off area. As Scully's car pulled up, the officers looked up and two of them approached the car. "I'll wait here for you, Agent Scully." The driver got out of the car and opened the rear passenger door. Scully slipped the folder she'd been reading into her briefcase. "I can probably get a lift back with another agent." "It's no problem. You might as well take advantage of me while I'm around." Smiling at her, he shut the door. "Alright, thanks." She turned to face the police officers. Reaching into her coat pocket she pulled out her ID and held it up. "I'm looking for SAC Prebetich." The larger of the two officers looked her over and leisurely examined her credentials. "All right, Agent Scully." He pointed towards the taped off footpath. "If you head over in that direction you'll find him, just watch where you step." "Thank you." She set off towards the path. The ground was still wet; the sun hadn't dried the grass. Ducking under the yellow tape, she headed towards the woods. Apart from the faint rustling of leaves on branches and the occasional splashing sound as a bird took flight from the lake, the path was quiet and still. Scully had read most of the file in the car so she had an idea of what to expect; the pictures had been explicit and the forensic reports had been detailed, but there was nothing like seeing a scene first hand. Pictures and reports had a distancing effect; she'd written enough of them to understand their clinical detachment from the more sensual aspects of a crime scene. She rounded a bend in the path and saw another uniformed officer standing up ahead. Flashing up her ID again she walked up to the officer. "I'm Special Agent Scully. I'm looking for SAC Prebetich." "Your group is about twenty yards around the next bend." The man looked a little green around the gills. "Thank you." She moved to walk around him. "I hope you skipped breakfast, Agent." "Bad?" She met his eyes and saw a faint sheen of tears in the policeman's haunted gaze. "I've never seen anything like it." His voice was hollow and a little shaky. Scully gave him a brief, sympathetic nod of her head and continued down the path. She realized why the officer back at the car had warned her to watch her step; several pools of vomit dotted the path. Scully carefully stepped around the mess, her nose crinkling slightly at the sour smell. She heard the low rumble of voices ahead of her and as she rounded the bend she saw the agents and uniformed officers moving around a sheet draped body, like planets circling a sun. She caught the eye of one of the agents dressed in a shirt and tie and an FBI windbreaker. "Agent Scully?" The man walked towards her, a small smile on his face "Yes." "Hi, I'm Agent Hicks. The SAC is over there." He pointed towards a big man standing over the body, talking on a cell phone. "Thanks. Has the area been swept?" "Yep, you're fine to walk over there, just watch where you step." She gave Hicks a nod of thanks and headed over to the draped body. As she walked she took in the scene. This part of the path was surrounded by a small clearing; low bushes and saplings graduated further back into mature trees. The body was slightly off the path by a young oak. The ground around the body was dark with blood. She was closer now and the smell of feces and blood and the sharp ammonia stink of stale urine was getting stronger. The sheet that covered the body had become stained with fluids. Curled fingers peeked out from the far right corner. "Agent Scully?" Scully looked up at the sound of the deep voice. "Agent Prebetich?" "Yes. I'm glad you could get over here so quickly." He slipped his cell in his pocket and held out his hand. Scully shook it briefly. His grip was firm but not crushing. "AD Skinner gave me a car and driver. He said that you thought it was the 'Artist'?" "Oh yes, this is his handiwork. I've no doubt about that. An old guy found the body at around seven thirty his morning. He was out walking his dog." Prebetich ran his hand through his dark hair. "It's a hell of a thing to find. He's been taken to the hospital to be treated for shock." "Do we know who the victim is?" "This is Tessa Platt, twenty nine years old, she lives on Howard Street. Her purse was found next to her body. Uniforms have gone over to her place; apparently she shared a house with three other women, all teachers over at Campbell Street Junior High." He looked at her for a moment, his eyes were dark brown his expression, almost apologetic. "You ready to take a look?" "Yeah." Scully took a pair of latex gloves out of her coat pocket and put them on. She hunkered down next to the body and carefully lifted the corner of the sheet and pulled it down. "God." Her voice was a whisper. "I don't think God had much to do with this." Prebetich was right. As Scully looked at what had become of this once pretty young woman, she found herself slowly shutting her emotions down, there was no other way to deal with it. She felt that shifting of focus that always came when she was confronted with violent crime. Her game face firmly in place, she began to examine the woman more closely. Her body had been laid out in a spread eagle position. Scully looked into the abdomen, the colon and large intestine had been sliced into sections and placed around the gaping wound in the manner of a sunburst pattern, very neat and tidy. The wound in the abdomen was not. This wasn't a surgical incision, she had been gutted. "He used a large knife, probably a hunting knife, from the look of the wound. She was killed here. The amount of blood that's soaked into the ground bears that out. She was alive when he did this, but not for long. From the looks of it he sliced the iliac artery; she'd have died pretty quickly after that." Scully's voice was icily calm "Check out the eyes." Scully looked at he woman's face. She saw blood streaks coming down from below the closed lid of her right eye. She gently lifted the lid. The socket was empty. She did the same with the other eyelid to be met by a soft blue iris that surrounded a dilated pupil; the gaze milky with the patina of death. "Have you found the missing eye?" "No." "The right eye has been missing on all four of his victims, so this not a copycat." "Yeah, we never released that to the press. It's our guy, no doubt." Scully turned her attention back to the body. "Look at her lips, there is skin missing and a sticky residue. Her mouth was taped." She checked the woman's arms. "So were her wrists. We can get an analysis on the adhesive, and find out what tape he used." Prebetich nodded, his eyes roamed the body. "That's probably the only race evidence we're going to find. This psycho thinks he's Martha Stewart. The scene is always pristine. No hair, no fibers, no body fluids. He wears gloves, he doesn't sexually assault his victims, he even sweeps over his footprints or he wears shoes with no tread. "We may find evidence under the finger nails." Scully carefully lifted one of the hands to look at the victim's nails. "Maybe she scratched him." "We've never found anything so far, maybe you'll get lucky. He seems to subdue his victims quickly, not giving them the opportunity to resist." Scully draped the sheet back over the dead woman. "I read most of the file on the way here. It seems our killer is a very smart guy, but surely someone must have seen something? He likes to display his victims, this takes time, the clean up must take time. He has to be incredibly organized or incredibly lucky." Scully stood up and faced Prebetich. "The level of violence bothers me. He obviously has some deep-seated rage going on, why then is there such a big gap between each killing? He seems to have killed four women over a period of four years. Either he must have unheard of control for a serial murderer or else he has another outlet that we don't know about." "The brains over at BSU figured he might be killing one each year as some form of ritualistic behaviour." Prebetich shrugged. "Did you get time to read the profile?" "Yes, it was the standard, white male, thirty to fifty years old; intelligent, socially functional, who probably has some issues with his mother." "Yeah, not a ton of help. I have issues with my mother but I'm not running around killing women." Prebetich looked tired and frustrated. "Look Agent Scully, can I be honest with you?" "Of course." I'm new to this case, in fact I'm new to VCS. A few months ago I worked white collar crimes; I got incredibly lucky and cracked a very big case of fraud and murder which impressed the guys at the top. When the agent in charge of this case was medically discharged due to a nervous breakdown, I was transferred here to help out. I'm not a profiler, I'm a numbers cruncher, I collate facts. I'm no voodoo mind bender, I don't know what evil lurks in the hearts of men. I've got agents in Alabama looking into a serial murder down there; some bigwig's son got in the way of an axe and seeing as the father has political connections then that case apparently takes precedence over this one. I need all the help I can get." Scully sighed, she should have known "This is why you asked for me isn't it? You want Agent Mulder's help and you can only get it by going through me." Prebetich put his hand on her arm. "Agent, I asked for the both of you before Agent Mulder got injured. I need people who can think out of the box, and you two seem to be able to do that. When I found out that you were available, I asked AD Skinner for your services. I realise that Agent Mulder is under suspension at the moment and therefore out of the picture. I've read your file Agent Scully, your skills have been pivotal in the arrest of at least three serial murderers. Your experience and expertise is what I desperately need to catch this monster." Scully looked up at Prebetich, he was taller than Mulder and more muscular yet he didn't intimidate with his bulk. His touch was gentle and his eyes kind and a little sad. She cocked her head at him and lifted her eyebrow, "The Shadow?" Prebetich smiled and dropped his hand from her arm. "You noticed." "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows." Scully announced in a portentous tone. "You're a bit young to remember that aren't you?" Scully nodded in agreement. "My father was a fan, he used to tell me the stories from memory." "Ah, we have that in common then, so did mine." Scully looked down at the body of Tessa Platt. "I take it you want me to do the autopsy?" She suddenly felt uncomfortable sharing childhood memories over an eviscerated corpse. Prebetich's expression turned serious. "Yes, if you would." He beckoned over Agent Hicks. "We need to get the body ready for transport, have you finished cataloguing the scene?" "Yeah, there's nothing to catalogue, we've gone over the area with a magnifying glass, it's clean." Hicks spoke into his radio, "Okay boys, we're ready to transport." The noise of a helicopter overhead, made the group look up. "It's the News chopper. It keeps buzzing around, trying to get a picture. The trees are getting in the way thank god." Prebetich gestured to the path. "Did you see the number of reporters?" Scully nodded, "There's nothing like a serial murder for getting the press excited. Have her parents been informed yet?" She watched the body being prepped for transport; the hands were covered by clear plastic bags before the body was zipped up in a black bag, and put on a gurney. "No, I want to do that myself. The least I can do is promise them our best efforts in finding their daughter's killer." Scully gave him a sad smile. "Alright, I'll bring the autopsy results over when I've finished." "Good. Do you need a lift?" "No, my car's waiting." "It's good to have you on the team, Agent Scully." "I just hope I can help." He patted her lightly on the shoulder as he walked past her and followed the gurney back down the path. Prebetich seemed like a nice guy, he seemed to genuinely care about this case. She watched as they rounded the bend and disappeared into the trees. Scully massaged her temples. This was going to be a nasty case. Already she felt tired but it was more a weariness of spirit. She wasn't naïve enough to believe that her career choice would be easy, but when she'd first joined the FBI she could never have imagined the impact it would have on her life. Her assignment to monitor Mulder had, at first, almost been a source of amusement for her, but somehow she'd been sucked into his strange universe until it had become her own. Her professional and personal life intertwined until all she had was Mulder and the X files. She'd left her friends and, if she was honest, her family back in the land of the 'normal'. She'd just about given up the idea of a relationship, especially now that she'd become the incredible programmable woman. Vague ideas about leaving the Bureau and maybe getting certified to go into medical practice had recently started niggling at her, but the thought of that, of leaving the job she'd fought so hard to succeed in; even more, the thought of leaving Mulder…her partner, her…what? They weren't lovers or even that close in the way most friends are. She didn't know what his favourite color was or what music he liked to listen to or what books he loved. She just knew him, his spirit, his soul, better than she knew herself. The thought of leaving him released a churning dichotomy of emotions, hope and terror. Hope that she would be out of the mire of conspiracy and terror that she would lose Mulder. A tiny dark part of her hated him for that, for letting her inside, for getting inside her. For showing her things that she would have been happier not knowing, for putting her in a place where things could happen to her, horrible things that she tried so hard but couldn't forget; for making her need him. The sudden take off of a wood pigeon through the trees startled her. She let out a slow breath and focused on the present. She needed to get this case over with and to get Mulder mobile again. The close proximity between them was not helping matters. She just needed to think. She walked back to the car. The driver got out and ushered her into the back seat, before getting back behind the wheel. "Back to the Hoover building?" "Yes," "Sounds like a nasty case." "Yes." "You going to catch this guy?" "I hope so." The car started up and slowly made its way back onto the highway, through the remaining police vehicles and straggling reporters. Scully did want to help, it was in her nature. She just wasn't sure she was good enough to catch this killer. She took out the case file again, wishing that she had just a little of Mulder's talent for crawling through the minds of monsters and this killer was a monster, of that she had no doubt. The agents in VCS had nicknamed him the 'Artist' because of his penchant for displaying his victims in horrifyingly lurid ways. A more appropriate name might have been the 'Invisible Man' He seemed to have knack for covering his tracks. So far they'd found nothing. Scully wasn't over confident that she was going to turn up anything in the autopsy either, but as she looked at the pictures of the previous three victims, she wanted to believe that she would. .