NEW: Trace Evidence II: Hobson's Choice (07/10) (X/CRA)

[Vampyres Incorporeal]

Title: Trace Evidence II: Hobson's Choice (07/10)
Author: Saundra Mitchell
E-Mail: v...@netdirect.net
Feedback: Please!

New Berlin, New York
First Bank of New Berlin

Sitting in the uncomfortable chairs, Mulder
played an ersatz game of cats' cradle with a rubber band
while the accounts officer debated the legality of
discussing someone else's financial information with her
manager. Scully raised an eyebrow when the rubber
band slipped from his fingers, flying through the air in an
exaggerated arc. Watching its course, Mulder hunched
sheepishly in his seat as the projectile landed on one of
the teller's counters.
"Smooth," she whispered to him, stifling a grin.

"Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, this is my
manager, Jeff Laurie," the accounts officer said politely,
stepping away from her own desk.
They exchanged handshakes, then Laurie sat.
"Please excuse the delay."
"It's quite all right," Mulder said. "I assume Miss
Wollen explained why we were here?"
"Yes, yes she did," he said, turning to tap at her
terminal. "We don't usually give out this kind of
information to just anyone, you understand."
"We're aware of that, sir," Scully said. "We don't
need any details of Mr. Gilson's financial statement, just
whether or not there is a lien on his property and by
which company."
Laurie nodded, pecking across the keyboard as if
it were an alien autopsy. "Here it is, Andrew Gilson. . .
no lien listed, but hold on a second, there's a note on the
file. Ah yes, here it is. We mistakenly told Mr. Gilson
there was a lien on his property because one of the data
entry clerks transposed the account number of another
patron. An honest mistake."
"Was Mr. Gilson informed of this mistake?"
"Oh yes," Laurie smiled. "As soon as we realized
the error."

"It was a perfectly logical explanation," Scully
said as they walked back out into the noontime sunlight.
"Mistakes happen."
Unlocking the passenger-side door for her,
Mulder nodded. "Well, why don't we go out and make
sure Andrew got the message?"

Sheriff Kusch's Office

Bobbing her head as she listened to Jeff Laurie's
description of his encounter with the FBI agents, she
propped her feet up on the desk. Pushing her nameplate
to one side with her boot, she reclined in her chair until
she was nearly horizontal.
"Some people just can't leave well enough
alone," she muttered. "Thanks for calling, Jeff."
With a heavy sigh, she hung up the phone and
reached into her desk drawer. Pulling out the small
Walther PPK, she shoved it into an ankle holster, then
righted herself. Time to see how old Andy was making
out, she decided.

Washington, D.C.
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Computer Sciences Division

Wheeling around in his chair, Danny punched a
handful of commands into his favorite computer. He
watched as the newly digitized video tape crept along at
half speed, until it reached the mark Scully had told him
they wanted enhanced. He outlined the figure with his
mouse, then keyed through a zoom and resolution.
"Come on, Abby," he said, his voice loving.
"Just a few more minutes, then I'll defrag you."
Manipulating the brightness and contrast, the
indistinct face in the frame suddenly came into focus. He
resized the image, then smoothed it so the picture was
as clear as possible. Danny raised an eyebrow, trying to
place the familiar features, but gave up on it nearly as
soon as he had begun. He was bad with names, faces. . .
pretty much everything but computers. Cropping the
new image, he compressed it into a zip file, transferred it
across his network into his Internet machine, then
mailed it to Scully.

New Berlin, New York
Gilson Dairy Farms

Mulder knocked on the door again, a little
louder than the last time. With a shrug, he leaned over
to peer into the front windows, but saw no one inside.
"Why don't we check around back," Scully
suggested. "That's where he was yesterday."
As they made their way down the porch steps,
the sound of tires crunching on the gravel driveway
caught their attention. Peering up the road, they saw the
distinctive yellow and blue sheriff's car heading toward
the house.
"That didn't take long," Mulder said as Sheriff
Kusch rolled to a stop, and got out of the car without
cutting off the ignition. "Afternoon, sheriff."
"Agent Mulder," she replied, feigning surprise.
"Forget something?"
"My partner lost a very expensive pair of
sunglasses, and she thought she might have left them
here," he lied smoothly. Scully hid her derision under a
determined nod.
Sheriff Kusch walked up to meet them. "Andy
not answering?"
"No," Scully answered. "We were going to
check the barn next."
"I don't know that that's a very good idea," she
said, adjusting her hat. "We got a report of shots fired,
that's why I'm down this way."
"Gee, I hope Mr. Gilson's okay," Mulder said,
his face perfectly innocent. "Why don't we go check?"
A glimmer of irritation passed across the sheriff's
face, but she said nothing. Walking around toward the
back, she didn't wait for them to follow. Heading
straight for the milking barn, they caught up with her,
matching her long stride as best they could. A hot
breeze circled in the air, and Scully caught a familiar
scent on it.
"Wait," she said, holding her arm out to stop
Mulder and the sheriff. "Slow down."
"There a problem, Agent Scully?" The sheriff
eyed her keenly.
She nodded. "We're walking into a crime scene,
we need to be careful."
Mulder's eyes widened. "Scully?"
Without answering his unasked question, she
made her way into the barn slowly. As the other two
joined her, she stood impassively as they caught sight of
what she had predicted. Andrew Gilson's body was
splayed out on the dirt floor of the barn, surrounded by
the dark stain of blood. She could see the deep gash in
his abdomen, quickly sizing it up in her mind. A smooth,
long blade, a practiced motion upwards into his
sternum. His blood still shimmered in the rays of light;
he couldn't have been dead more than an hour, she
guessed.
"Aw, fuck, Andrew," the sheriff whispered to
the corpse. "I gotta call in one of the funeral directors
from Utica."
Scully stared at the other woman quizzically.
"But this is a murder. There needs to be an autopsy."
"We know what killed him," the sheriff said
disdainfully. "No point in tearing him up more than he
already is."
"I'm afraid we insist," Mulder said, pulling rank.
"This man was a potential federal witness, and
consequently, the exact cause of his death is of great
importance to us."

"How'd you do it," Mulder asked his partner as
two EMTs loaded Gilson's corpse into an ambulance,
the only conveyance they could find for transportation
to Utica.
She shrugged. "I could . . .never mind, it sounds
foolish."
"No, enlighten me," he insisted. "Or I'll chalk it
up to clairvoyance."
She choked out a small laugh. "I could smell. . .
I smelled open intestines."
Wrinkling his face, Mulder shuddered. "You're a
barrel of laughs, Scully."
"Hey, you asked."

Baltimore, Maryland
The Waterfront

"Listen, I can sell it to you or I can sell it to
someone else, I don't care."
Lewis crossed his arms over his chest, and
glanced over at Munch. "We don't want another partner,
and we don't want to buy you out."
Tim raised an eyebrow. "Let's not make this any
harder than it has to be, okay?"
In his most conciliatory tone, Munch leaned
forward. "I know you're having a rough time right now,
but we bought this bar together. Personally, I'd kinda
like to keep you in the mix. You're a lousy dresser, but
you make a mean girl-drink."
Bayliss set his jaw. "I don't want to be in the bar
business anymore."
"You just feeling sorry for yourself," Lewis
announced.
"Really," Tim said sharply. "Thanks for your
diagnosis, Dr. Freud."
"Hey, hey, no need for that," Munch interrupted.
Pulling himself to his feet, Bayliss pulled a sheet
of folded paper out of his pants' pocket. He tossed it on
the table. "These are my terms, what I'm asking, what
my lowest offer is."
"We ain't buying," Lewis frowned, flipping the
paper off the table with his index finger. "And you ain't
selling out."
Strapping his crutches on, Bayliss crossed the
length of the bar. "Think it over."
Munch glared at Lewis, nudging him with a
sharp elbow. Uncomfortably, Lewis stood up, and took
a deep breath. His feelings hadn't changed; he was still
unnerved at the thought of Bayliss bedding down with
another man. He couldn't lie to himself, or anyone else
about that, but he reached into the depths of his feelings,
and found one he could live with.
"You still a cop, Bayliss," Meldrick called as the
other man opened the door.
Turning around, Tim leaned against the door
frame. "So?"
Meldrick rolled his head, pursing his lips. "So as
long as you don't try any of that. . . gay shit on my ass,
you're okay by me."
A half smile crawled along the edges of Tim's
mouth. "You're not even my type, Lewis."
For a moment, Meldrick was stunned into
silence. Without his bidding, his next question surprised
all three of them. "Why not?"
"Just not," Tim shrugged.
"Something wrong with me?"
"You're just too damned pretty," Bayliss
smirked.
Lewis mulled that over for a moment. "Thank
you. I think. We still ain't buying you out."
Staring at the sepia photograph of them behind
the bar, Tim nodded slowly. He hadn't wanted to sell the
bar in the first place. He just wanted out; out of the
scrutiny of Baltimore, away from the cool distance
between himself and the people he'd been the closest to
for the last six years.
"I'll think about it," he said finally, already
knowing his offer was off the table.

Just Outside New Berlin, New York
Mathiasen Slaughterhouse

Staring at her surroundings, Scully shook her
head. For an impromptu morgue, they had done a fairly
good job at supplying the things she needed to do a
minimally effective autopsy. The only thing she was
waiting for now was her partner to return with a
camera. Making the most of her time, she started her
visual examination of his body, making notes on a legal
pad of unusual markings, and general condition.
Normally, she would also take fingernail scrapings, but
since his hands had been encased in heavy work gloves,
she knew there was no point in that.
"I had no idea how much blood was in a cow,"
Mulder panted as he stepped through the door. "Damn,
it's cold in here."
"It's a meat locker, " she responded. "What did
you expect?"
"So where do I start?"
Scully directed him around the table, getting
shots of Gilson's face, chest, hands, feet, and legs,
before taking detailed pictures of the stab wound itself.
Once they had all that, she began her autopsy in earnest,
pulling blood samples, and ignoring Mulder's audible
wince as she drew some of the vitreous humor from her
patient's right eye.
Grabbing a scalpel, she made sure her face mask
was in place, and started the Y incision. Looking up at
Mulder, she nodded toward her notes. "Could you
please?"
"Sure," he said, picking up the pen and paper.
She went through the process slowly, examining
the serrations in the sternum and noting the path the
knife had taken through his organs. Her steady stream of
words formed a medical soliloquy that Mulder hurried
to write down.
"Stomach contents. . . partially digested poached
egg, orange juice, and Canadian bacon," she murmured,
collecting some of it into a baby food jar. She moved on
to cataloguing, taking samples, then removing his other
organs and weighing them one by one on a butcher's
scale.
"Oh, that smell," Mulder said softly as he
recorded the weight of the man's small intestine.
"Bet you won't miss that again," she replied,
snapping on a new pair of gloves. With delicate,
choreographed motions, she cut through the flesh
around his face with a scalpel. Slowly peeling from the
forehead down, Scully adjusted and pulled until his face
hung like a rubber Hallowe'en mask around his neck.
She heard Mulder mumble something incoherent, but
ignored it as she picked up the bone saw.
Deftly, she sawed through his skull, ignoring the
cloud of blood and dust that rose from the process.
Once she had gone the entire way around, she used an
awl to pry the pieces apart. Carefully, she started to
remove his brain when she noticed something. Stopping,
she picked up the scalpel again.
"Mulder," she exhaled. "Come take a picture of
this."
He took his own sweet time walking to the table,
hoping the sickness he felt in the pit of his stomach
wasn't evident in his face. He'd seen plenty of autopsies,
but he'd never quite gotten used to them, especially the
ripe pop when the cranium was forced to give up its
protective consistency.
"What am I looking at," he asked.
Pulling a pen from her pocket, she pointed out a
mass at the front of the brain. It was greenish-grey, and
veined with thick purple lines. "It's a tumor."
Mulder stopped. "You mean cancer?"
"I won't know until I can do a biopsy," she said.
"But in my opinion, yes, it's probably malignant."
Taking aim with the camera, Mulder felt weak.
He knew enough anatomy to figure out where that
tumor had been located before Scully had displaced its
usual state of order. He suddenly had the urge to talk
about it, and about its similarities to Scully's cancer, but
he couldn't. They- she had faced that demon and beaten
it; to bring it up now would be tantamount to tempting
fate.
"I am loathe to say it," she murmured. "But I'm
beginning to think something is rotten in the state of
New Berlin."

(End Part Seven)