From: mrkeller829@gmail.com   
      
   =====o============================o=====   
   "Chermera" by Mary Ruth Keller Part 07  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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   Hook and Whale   
   30 State Road   
   Tisbury, MA   
   Thursday, 11:14 pm   
      
   Fox Mulder twisted his shoulders against the unyielding driver's seat. With   
   the quantity of material they had acquired, the agents had agreed to leave the   
   containers in the secured Toyota, guarding them in shifts. He turned to face   
   the passenger door as    
   he heard his partner's precise steps approach. The padding stopped, but he   
   waited to move until her single tap on the glass.   
      
   He stretched to flip the lever for the lock. "Couldn't stand the lace and   
   daisies on that four-poster, could you, Doctor?"   
      
   She tossed her head playfully. "I kept expecting a visit from a strange man,   
   Ichabod." Settling in, she waved a hand at his smirk, then sobered. "I just   
   wanted to be sure you were okay with all this, Mulder."   
      
   He fiddled with the steering wheel, rubbing around the outside with his left   
   hand. "Yeah, I think I am." He gestured with his head to the boxes in the   
   back. "Even if these are fakes, we may be able to get something out of them."   
      
   Nodding, she passed him one of the pillows she was carrying, then a blanket.   
   "Get settled, G-man." As she was tucking herself in, she twisted her own   
   bolster into a ball against the window. "My turn in three."   
      
   "If I manage to keep my head, G-woman."   
      
   --o-0-o--   
      
   West Tisbury Police Department   
   454 State Road   
   West Tisbury, MA   
   Friday, June 5, 1998   
   8:17 pm   
      
   Clank. The twisted, irregular slug dropping into a metal evidence pan rang in   
   the small morgue built as an extension to the back of the police station. Dana   
   Scully positioned the forceps on a different steel tray, then examined the   
   projectile thoroughly.    
   This was the bullet that had extinguished Bill Mulder's life. He was trying to   
   tell me something, Scully. Even if her partner had not been fevered and   
   drugged, if he had been able to get his father timely medical assistance, the   
   damage would have been    
   too severe. She could at least offer the tall man that comfort. There was   
   nothing he could have done to save his Father's life, once his killer had   
   wounded him.   
      
   She had, as she had anticipated, been required to open the cranial cavity to   
   remove the projectile. Bill had obviously turned to face his attacker,   
   possibly even recognized him, before being shot, most likely from several feet   
   away. The momentum of the    
   round had been spent penetrating the thick frontal bone, so had not exited   
   through the parietal bone, which suggested a handgun as the murder weapon. A   
   professional assassin would have fired from a distance with a high-powered   
   rifle, or, if required to    
   kill in proximity, have held the weapon close to the victim, finishing him   
   quickly. That Mulder had heard his Father's dying words told her the murderer   
   probably had experience with firearms, but not the familiarity with execution   
   of a seasoned killer.    
   All of which pointed, she agreed with her partner, to Alex Krycek.   
      
   That same entrance had provided an avenue for bacteria to access the   
   blood-rich grey matter, leaving little behind. However, there had been far   
   less deterioration of the organs in the chest and abdominal cavities, so those   
   were resting in their own trays,   
    waiting further examination. After closing the y-incision, she reassembled   
   the skull, suturing what remained of the scalp around it in preparation for   
   re-interment. The lack of powder residue on the darkened skin had meant   
   nothing, of course. The body    
   had been washed before being buried, even if it had not been autopsied. One   
   more pass over the exterior, then she would report her findings to the man she   
   knew to be pacing restlessly outside this confined, yet surprisingly   
   well-equipped facility. I    
   guess money does count for something.   
      
   She reached for her small portable voice-activated tape recorder, rewinding to   
   review her previous findings. The auburn-haired pathologist frowned before she   
   hit the play button. She always sounded so bored on a recording. With a sigh,   
   she depressed a    
   large green lever, hearing, "Dana Scully, physician of record. The subject is   
   an adult male, between 65 and 70 years of age..." She paused the playback. She   
   would have to add the correct age after she spoke with her partner. "Subject   
   has one injury, a    
   fatal gunshot to the frontal bone above the zygomatic process." She continued   
   listening through her description of the external and internal examination of   
   the corpse. When the sounds ceased, she pressed a red button, ready to   
   document any final clues    
   she might have missed. Checking the arms, legs, lifting the body to examine   
   the back, she continued speaking into the black unit as she did so. When she   
   turned over the right arm to check the palm, she stopped. There was a faint   
   mark on the right wrist.    
   The skin had discolored with the time underground, but there was a tattoo, no   
   larger than a dime. Odd. Her partner's father had been an educated man, a   
   lawyer, not a Navy sailor, of an age so she hadn't expected he would subject   
   himself to the artist's    
   needle. She picked up a rectangular hand lens, pushing in a red lever for   
   added light. One auburn brow arched under her surgical cap. Had this been a   
   stranger, she would have exposed the corpse, hauled her grimacing partner into   
   the exam room, then    
   pointed it out.   
      
   But, given whose remains were on the slab, she would make do, instead, with   
   over-sized Polaroids, taken with the blue-bodied OneStep Autofocus SE she had   
   spotted on the open steel shelves by the door. These she could carry out to   
   Mulder. She slipped the    
   recorder into the pocket of her scrubs. She reversed the latex sheaths as she   
   stripped them off, before tucking them in a separate pocket from the recorder,   
   then wiggled into a second pair. She would, she knew, pull on a third before   
   returning to the    
   body, just so any and all trace evidence would be preserved. Before she   
   hoisted the bulky camera to begin photographing the marks, she angled all the   
   autopsy lights in the room onto these few inches of flesh. After making   
   several exposures, she threw a    
   sheet over the body, dropped the slug into a tiny evidence bag, then carried   
   the lot out into the waiting area.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)