From: mrkeller829@gmail.com   
      
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   "Chermera" by Mary Ruth Keller Part 05  of 45   
   E-mail: mrkeller@eclipse.net, mrkeller829@gmail.com   
   PG-13   X-File: Myth-arc   Disclaimed in Part I   
   Already sent to Gossamer   
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   142 Curie Avenue,   
   University City   
   San Diego, CA   
   Thursday, June 4, 1998   
   6:43 am   
      
   Silence settled over the green space, then a slight breeze set the over-sized   
   Napolitano basil leaves waving. A pair of goldfinches, the male decked in the   
   lemon of summer, was industriously extracting the seeds from the blossom   
   stalks of the one purple    
   basil plant in the far back corner of the culinary quarter Sandra left   
   untrimmed for them. As she relaxed, she heard a different engine advancing up   
   her driveway. {Who is it now?}   
      
   Sandie?" The baritone was rough, whether because the speaker had just risen,   
   or finished a late-night shift, she would shortly discover.   
      
   "Jerry!" She shifted Tuggs onto the mulch ringing the closest lavender, padded   
   along the flagstones, then checked around her before she unlatched the   
   opening. "Be careful."   
      
   He tipped his booted foot up straight to ease it into the opening slit. "The   
   Church is taking his morning's constitutional around the cloister walk, I'm   
   assuming?" Quickly stepping through, he pushed the gate shut behind him.   
      
   "Absolutely." She tossed him a lop-sided grin as she eyed the darkness on his   
   jaw. "What brings you here? Late night?"   
      
   Rubbing the back of his neck, he sighed. "Yeah. We're still looking into   
   Evans's death, a few of us, even though the case is officially closed."   
      
   Falling in step, they began strolling toward her circular bench. "Oh?" She   
   eyed him. "Why?"   
      
   Donato paused, then grasped the tall woman's arm. An ostrich-feather tail,   
   flagpole-straight, was weaving through the Genoa basil not ten inches away,   
   then, as they waited, the Turkish Van pounced onto his shoelace. "There you   
   are, President Roosevelt."    
   He scooped the cat, whose white fur sparkled iridescently in the morning sun,   
   into his arms to scratch between the pointed ears and under the chin. "Bag any   
   elephants in the bush, Brave Sir?"   
      
   Sandra smiled down at the thick-chested detective, who was landing repeated   
   kisses on her charge's forehead. "You can have Tugs, if you would like him."   
      
   Surprised, Jerry looked up at her. "What, the Monsignor won't extend the   
   security of the monastery to another orphan waif?"   
      
   "What do you think?" She pointed. A round ginger tabby was glaring up at them   
   from his perch on the bench.   
      
   The black-haired detective sighed. "It takes time for cats to adjust, but they   
   eventually do. I can understand his not wanting to share you." He took a long   
   moment to enjoy the sight of her loose-limbed, barefoot stroll to her bench.   
      
   Sandra lifted Salazar off the keyboard of her laptop to rest him on her knees   
   after she sat. "So, you still haven't answered my question, Jerry, why?"   
      
   He bent down until the four white paws of the Van contacted the ground, then,   
   as the shimmering white cat walked away, waggled his up-pointed silky tail.   
   {Pangur Ban,} he thought, not for the first time. "It just doesn't smell   
   right, Sandie. I've    
   contacted ASAC Nichols to see if there's something he can do. He said he'd   
   make some unofficial inquiries, but I don't know how much help he's going to   
   be. You see, I think it's somehow connected with your family, which makes it   
   personal for him, too."    
   He straightened to walk over to her. "Not the Silverbergs. I mean your birth   
   family. The Mulders."   
      
   She hugged the tabby close. "Oh. Them. I've been to talk to Agent Nichols some   
   more about *them*." She gazed off at the nearest lemon thyme mound. "My Mother   
   is in Santorini, with her second husband, a Jewish attorney who worked to   
   restore lost treasures    
   to families displaced by the Holocaust. She might be okay to spend time with.   
   He definitely would be. Nichols gave me their number, practically begged me to   
   place a call out to them."   
      
   The black-haired detective bent over her. "You should, Sandie, you really   
   should."   
      
   Sandra buried her face in Salazar's ginger fur, the chestnut waves falling   
   into a curtain over them both. She replied without looking up. "But, my   
   father, my birth father, was killed in his own home. There's never been an   
   arrest for his murder, Jerry. He    
   worked in the State Department, his son is in the FBI, supposedly some   
   hot-shot profiler, and the case has lain, unsolved, with not even an   
   investigation opened, for what, three years?" Her hazel eyes met his brown   
   ones. "Can you believe that?"   
      
   With a grunt, Salazar wiggled out of her arms to stalk the Van. Tuggles had   
   plopped onto the slate to watch a pair of scrub jays pouncing on and around   
   the sunflower seed stalks, the flowers full and bent down heavily, at the far   
   edge of the culinary    
   quarter of her garden.   
      
   The black-haired detective nodded. "Yeah, I can. After reading what happened   
   to them, to him and his partner, especially, I can. With that organiza - "   
      
   "Fah!" Both Sandra's bare soles slapped the slate before she began pacing.   
   "Conspiracy theorists. What a load of hokum."   
      
   He blinked up at her meanderings. "Sandie! What are you saying?"   
      
   All nervous energy, she flung her arms wide. "Oh, all this insanity about the   
   US government in cahoots with the Mafia or the Trilateral Commission or the   
   Masons or whatever. Even little green men, probably, if you look hard enough."   
   She continued    
   stamping around the bench, ignoring the man and the two felines now watching   
   her solemnly. "It's all a giant pile of bunkum, Jerry, designed to lure the   
   gullible masses into some sideshow cooked up by the entertainment industry and   
   a raft of loonies."   
      
   The thick-chested detective sighed. He had heard this tirade from her over the   
   past several weekends, one her razor-sharp intellect had been refining with   
   each repetition. But, it was easier than addressing what was really bothering   
   her. "Why, Sandra?    
   What would it buy them?"   
      
   "Jerry!" She snorted. "You're a cop. You know how to separate truth from   
   falsehood! You had to learn critical thinking to be able to follow a trail of   
   clues and suspects. What it would buy a few lonely, misguided people is the   
   fame and recognition they    
   think life has otherwise and unfairly denied to them."   
      
   He rubbed the back of his neck. They would be treading this path several more   
   times, he could tell. "But, the Tuskegee experiments..."   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)