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10 X 9: REMISSION From Season Eight: Scully must deal with a new partner, an old enemy, and possibly her own mortality... |
Dedicated to my mother, Jean Ross
“The walking wounded are we,” Livia chanted,
low and with a sort of hushed irony, as though I was, uninvited, sharing
a personal epiphany rather than a moment of cynical camaraderie. Without
breaking her brisk but unstudied stride, she reviewed the stream of women
moving past and about us above the black
I’d finally settled on Livia as my walking companion
for the evening, despite my pledged allegiance to the trio of federal agents
who comprised my “team.” The team had neither discouraged nor encouraged
my defection, my free-agent meanderings along the LifeWalk
route. They were good agents and good women, and we shared a fundamental
commitment to the Bureau, but they knew, too, that their sister Dana had
come to walk this route by way of some darkly foreign path
So, as I had over the past several months, I walked alone. But it was Washington
after dark, cancer walk or none, and although my fanny pack held a .38 and
a few bonus rounds, to walk alone in this neighborhood was to flirt with
mortality. The women here had no desire to resume that flirtation.
“They cheated Death, but he kicked their ass a little first,”
Livia mused, adopting the tone of a cheap movie trailer. I chuckled,
obligatorily; Livia mulled a lot, but she asked
no questions, told no tales.
Everyone here had tales, if you’d inquire sympathetically or simply share
your own. Tales of black tragedy, of dark comedy, of
loss, of recovery, occasionally of triumph – or at least of hope, triumph’s
bastard cousin.Livia was like those Alcoholics
Anonymous dropout/dropins, those teetering-but-not-quite-fallen
Catholics (Dana? You there?)
who keep coming back to the well and then complained about the bitter
taste of the water. Livia didn’t share much of
herself, sought no catharsis or empathy. Tonight,
for me, she was perfect company.
At first, I had lamented my inability to share my pain, my loss with the
others. Did you see
After a while, my despair had hardened into anger, and finally into resignation
and acceptance. I walked apart, amid the awkward if frequently caring silence
of others. And now, I walked alone. We, I sharply amended, absently patting
my abdomen.
Thank God I wasn’t showing yet – even in her philosophical self-absorption,
Livia would have felt obliged to ask, and I certainly
wasn’t ready to open that door. Skinner was now my one-man support team;
Doggett would know when he had to, and then, no more than he had to know.
I just couldn’t take the chance that my partner, shadow, babysitter, whatever,
wouldn’t take it to Kersh simply out of his simplistic
view of The Book.
“I mean, even the survivors,” Livia continued,
waving an arm toward a woman and her two teen daughters. “Even they have
the look. The walking wounded. They stared down the Grim Reaper all right,
but he still got in a few good licks. It’s like that book, Red Badge of Courage,
we had to read back in high school. We wear our psychic scar like a badge.
Bet it’s why we pin ribbons on ourselves and have all these walks.”
I wondered if Livia was an alcoholic or a gambler
or a closet communion junkie, trashing The Program with every breath but
terrified of severing the cord and potentially casting herself adrift. “I
don’t know,” I drawled. “I imagine that to a lot of us here, this may be
payback for getting out alive, for getting back those you’d half said given
up on.”
I felt rather than looked at her knowing smile. “That why you’re here, Dana?
Returning the favor to your maker?”
I stopped for a second, glanced at Livia. Her
smile turned into a grimace of regret. “Sorry, Dana.
Spitting Death in the face seems to bring out the bitch in me. Don’t be
mad – I’m probably just projecting. I never was much for the God thing, and
when I went into remission, I guess I felt this was His way of telling me
he’d told me so. So, sorry.”
I gave her a smile. “Don’t worry about it. My calf was just cramping up,
was all.” The truth was, she could’ve been reading
my mind. Or my soul. I’d come to realize no amount
of cosmetic professionalism could hide my scars – and my potential vulnerability
– from others. Until I could find Mulder, others
were free to suspect, but I didn’t have to volunteer. “C’mon back to my team’s
tent – I’ll buy you a drink.”
Livia nodded cheerfully, but I could see she’d
closed down slightly, chastened by her imagined misstep. The walking
wounded, all of us.
**
“Teri Stevers, Donald Sunderland, Felicia Sunderland,
Mary Szabo….” It was a ritual of The Walk, the
looping, amplified litany of the dead that accompanied each lap. Luminary
candles lined the walk, tagged with cancer victims’ names and littered with
flowers, children’s drawings, and other survivor keepsakes.
My teammates were sprawled on lawn chairs back at our tent, sharing war stories
and sucking on Evian.
I accepted the water. “Livia
?”
“Yeah, kinda parched,” my unofficial “partner”
murmured.
“Livia, meet Helen Danvers,
Rena Fortunato, and Sherry
Kindress.” The agents gestured with the cheerful neutrality
cops reserve for “civilians” and, as I’d learned, colleagues on the fringe
of the force. Livia, in turn, stood stiffly, probably
intimidated by the company of armed government agents. I was instantly sorry
I’d introduced her into the situation.
“They’re wanting everybody to buddy up, stick
to the route,” said Fortunato, Special Investigations,
with a slightly scolding tone. “See the well-concealed guys in the DCPD sweats
over there?”
A mixed male-female team stood before an unmarked tent 20 yards away, garbed
in baggy sports gear clearly designed to conceal weaponry and clearly not
out for an evening of fresh air and introspection. “The locals are here in
force tonight,” she continued. “I spotted at least two more cat-and-dog teams.
I tried to grill one of the she-dicks, but turns out she’s no fan of the
feds.”
My fellow agents smirked. The love lost between the locals and
“Bet it’s those uncleared homicides they’ve
been having,” Kindress, Interagency Relations,
said lazily. “Four or five mutilation murders, all districts, no pattern
yet.” She caught Fortunato’s stern eye. “I
dunno,” she concluded sheepishly.
“Hey, Dana, been a blast, but I got brunch with the family tomorrow morning,”
Livia said with too much energy. “
Gimme a yell some time, we’ll have a drink-and-
bitchfest. Nice to meet you guys.”
The agents stayed planted, nodding, smiling, but doing nothing to discourage
Livia’s departure. I felt the familiar knot draw
about my chest: Livia was no Pulitzer Prize-winning
conversationalist, and her emotional acid level was a few notches high, but
she wasn’t Bureau.
“Saw the latest report at one of Kersh’s staff
briefings Wednesday,” Kindress continued, her
relief unspoken. “DCPD caught the first one a month ago or so, 23-year-old
beautician found in an alley in Southeast. No sign of robbery or rape, but
her abdomen had been sliced wide open and a couple of organs apparently removed.
Week or so later, couple of drunk Georgetown students find another woman,
middle-aged housefrau type, in a dumpster behind
a supermarket in Northwest. MO was virtually identical.”
“Female?” Fortunato asked. We all knew the crime
stats.
“Male,” Kindress pronounced, significantly. “Two
weeks ago, missing Senate aide surfaces in the river here, ‘bout a half mile
downstream, same deal. Then Monday, they find
this van in a refuge just outside of town, incinerated, with a man inside.
Guy, a plant worker from the west side, was pretty crispy, but the burn pattern
left part of him pretty intact, and the M.E. found some incisions similar
to those on the other vics
. They think he might be missing a few giblets, too.”
“Too bad Clarice couldn’t join us,”
I was accustomed to cop humor, and their defensive callousness didn’t bother
me half so much as the cut at Starling. The young Behavioral Sciences Unit
agent had been through the mill with the Buffalo Bill and
Lechter cases, and she’d been under a microscope for an unfortunate
bloodbath that had occurred during a recent drug raid. Like predators in
the bush, we tended to eat our own when we sniffed weakness or the disquieting
odor of the unknown or unfamiliar, and Starling now was meat for my "team's"
table.
But something else was gnawing at me, as well. Something
about the crimes.
“Dana?” Fortunato inquired. From her tone and
concerned/annoyed expression, I could tell she’d repeated herself and that
I’d drifted off. “Your partner was in BSU for awhile, right? What do you
think he’dve made of this?”
Was, she’d said. I looked for any sign of derision or condescension in the
agent’s tone, then chided myself for being overly
sensitive. She’d consulted with Mulder a few
times, and she seemed to be open to at least a wide range of earthly possibilities.
As nominal chief of the X-Files over the last several months, I’d more than
once been called upon to channel Mulder’s investigatory
savvy.
“Well,” I sighed. “Mixed gender victims and no sign of sexual assault, so
this wouldn’t seem to be a conventional sex crime, although some mutilation
murders, particular those where the body has been cut open, can be sexual
in nature. Impotent or repressed killer, it may represent penetrating or
violating the body.”
“Sweet,” groaned
“What’s curious, as well, is the seemingly graduating effort by the killer
to cover himself. The first victim is found in
an open alley, the second hidden in a dumpster. The Senate staffer is dumped
in the river in the hope any surgical insult to the body will be covered
by fish damage and bloating. And in the latest killing, the body is burned
inside an automobile. It’s sort of the reverse of a lot of cases, where the
killer’s lust for violence makes him increasingly sloppy and careless.”
Kindress shoved out of her
lawn chair. “Look, guys, I’m sorry I brought it up. I hear enough of this
shit on the job, no offense, Dana. Let’s say we leave things in the able
hands of the locals, and do a few more laps. The pizzas are supposed to be
here by nine or so, and I want to be able to wedge my ass into my VW by the
end of the night.”
I rubbed a calf. “Let me work this cramp out, then
I’ll catch up, OK?”
I sipped at my Evian, wanting a Diet Pepsi, and mulled over
Kindress’ sketchy information. There was evidence of a psychotic passion
in the murders, but also a degree of growing discipline in the execution
of the crimes.
But why did the DCPD have the Walk staked out? Public place, lots of people,
fairly high level of personal safety, as long as you didn’t wander off the
path too far. Why the small army of cops?
Then it came to me, a coldly frightening revelation that penetrated every
neuron from my brain down. Why the blues were mixing with the dying, the
renewed, the bereaved, the walking wounded. No wonder the nature of the crimes
seemed familiar.
Except it was utterly, fantastically impossible.
**
“Yeah?” the cop demanded, eyeing me suspiciously and glancing at
the rest of her team. She was thin and rangy, with a tomboyish tangle of
black hair, and she looked ready to go for her .38 at the slightest provocation.
She was on The Job, all right.
I don’t know what I’d expected. The communal bond of sisterhood, law enforcement
solidarity, sympathy or (perhaps?) empathy for the walking wounded? I forged
ahead, anyway, pulling my ID from the fanny pack.
“Special Agent Dana Scully, FBI.” I could see her face close down in the
high halogens placed throughout the encampment. “I understand you have a
rather large detail here tonight, and I was wondering
– ”
“And who told you that?” the cop demanded, craning to look past me. “The
First Wives Club back there?”
My temerity vanished with the dig. “We are here for the Walk, but I might
have some light to shed on your case here.”
“How nice,” she said flatly. “Who said there was any case? Maybe I’m here
for the same reason as you, me and the guys. Pay our respects, reflect on
our mortality.”
“That would be great, except you’ve got, what, four, maybe five teams here?
You people in the P.D. sweats, a couple of plainclothes teams.”
“I’m ‘sposed to be impressed by this show of
deductive fireworks, right? Well, thanks, but fuck off. We got things in
hand.”
“I can tell,” I responded neutrally. The momentary confusion over whether
I was being sincere or sarcastic shut her down. “As I told you, I’m not looking
to horn in on your bust. I have some information that could prove valuable.
Why don’t we quit wasting each other’s time, and I’ll talk to your boss?”
I didn’t like playing that card – I knew how it was as a woman trying to
gain any credibility from the males in blue, and I didn’t customarily rank
out other cops. But she needed to learn how to wield real authority, and
I wanted to get this out of the way and get back to my Walk.
“I’m Lt. Hedger,” a huge, clean-headed cop interrupted behind her. “Sgt.
Resnick, you want to check in with
Lammert, over by the stage?” The cop nodded curtly and swaggered off
without a final glance at me. “Be a little pissed, myself
, you rank me out that way. And another sister.
Tsktsk. But I guess she was busting your
ass pretty good. Now, what’s your story, Agent…?”
“Dana Scully. Let’s make sure we’re on the same
page here, first. You’re working a series of homicides, mutilations,
a little more cleanup with each victim?”
Hedger looked thoughtfully down at me for a beat, then
pulled a radio from his windbreaker. “See that ID for a second.
Gonna do a credit check, you don’t mind.”
I sighed, but surrendered my credentials. He began rumbling into his radio,
and in a few minutes, handed my ID back.
“OK, you're the goods,” Hedger acknowledged, as if it didn’t mean a lot.
“What’s your interest?”
“You’ve got two details working the Walk. You and the others in the cop
gear, I’m guessing to keep a public presence. And the
plainclothes ‘walkers,’ who’re ready to grab the perp
if he shows. You have some reason to believe the killer is targeting
what, cancer victims, survivors, what?”
Hedger’s face didn’t change, but he nodded. “Got it in one, huh? You don’t
tell this to J. Edgar himself, even if he shows up wearing a pretty prom
dress, but, yeah, M.E. says all the
vics so far were in some stage of cancer.
A couple out of the closet, getting treatment, some Senate aide with a prostrate
bomb waiting to blow. Friends said he didn’t even know.”
“So how did the killer?” the ice sloshed at the bottom
of my gut. Hedger kept his poker face. “Lieutenant, I had a case several
years ago, a killer who targeted cancer victims. A very
dangerous man.”
“What’s the motive, killing a bunch of – ” Hedger
caught himself, gave a casually apologetic shrug. “Why would he want to harm
people who’ve been through something like this? Some
kindasicko, what?”
I took a breath. “Survival. He did it to survive.”
Hedger jerked his head toward his “team’s” tent. “Feel like I’m
gonna want to be sitting down for this.”
**
The story of Leonard Betts, aka Albert Tanner,
flooded effortlessly back into my head. Why not? Most of the survivors here
had faced their impending mortality in sterilely tasteful offices and exam
rooms, coming to grips amid a miasma of medical jargon, hushed compassion,
and shocked denial. I had wrestled Death in the back of an ambulance, prevailing
only to realize I’d won merely the first round.
I briefly related Betts/Tanner’s astonishing skill as a
Hedger studied me for a minute. “Man could’ve gotten away clean, sounds
like. But he attacked you. You’re here for real, right?
You and your friends?”
Our eyes locked. “Yes,” I nearly whispered. “Yes, we’re here for ‘real.’”
“You, um…?”
“Complete, ah, complete remission,” I lied, suddenly aware of the implant
of unknown origins that kept me among the walking wounded.
The lieutenant nodded. “Well, that’s quite a story, Agent Scully, and it
seems to me it didn’t end any too happily for our Mr. Tanner. You want me
to put out an APB for a dead man.”
“I know it sounds absurd, but your killer apparently is killing cancer victims
who don’t even know they have the disease.”
Hedger looked out into the night, at the milling crowd of victims, survivors,
and supporters. “Look, Agent Scully, I’ll pass this on. But I want you to
think about something. I ain’t here for real,
thank the Lord, but it don’t mean I’m made of
rock. I can feel what goes on here, and I can hazard a half-ass guess what
it means for you. You came out alive, and maybe it’s a little tough to face
that you’re out in the clear now, that nobody or nothing’s gunning for you.
Give yourself a break, Agent.”
I peered at him in the harsh halogen light, could see the lines of sympathy
the hard cop couldn’t erase from his features. I couldn’t get mad, but neither
could I get through.
“Please pass it on, Lieutenant,” I murmured, and slipped out of the tent.
**
I stalked angrily along the path, willing myself not to knock knots of strollers
and striders out of my way. Skinner was at a conference in
I had but one alternative, a leap of faith. I reached into my fanny pack,
withdrew the cell phone, and punched in a programmed number.
“Doggett,” a gravelly voice barked. He’d told me was going to spend Saturday
evening scanning Mulder’s last several
casefiles. I knew little of Agent Doggett, wanted him to know as little
of me as possible, but I couldn’t imagine the former cop doing anything else
with his Saturday night.
“It’s me,” I plunged. “Look, while you’re at the office, I wonder if you
could check something for me?”
“Guess. Everything OK, Agent Scully?”
“Yes. Something just occurred to me, something I’d like to confirm.”
“Shoot.”
“I know it’s Saturday night, but could you check
all the local ambulance services, maybe two or three counties around. We’re
looking for a Leonard Betts or an Albert Tanner, though that won’t be the
name he uses, white, five-six, maybe five-seven, bald, brown eyes, slight
build. And if it’s possible, check any biomedical waste disposal services
in the area.”
The line was silent for a long moment. “Agent Scully,
it’s Saturday night. That doesn’t mean I can’t do it, but I do have
to wonder why we need to roust folks on a Saturday night just to settle,
what, your curiosity?”
I knew Doggett felt my mistrust – it bothered me -- but like a good soldier,
a good cop, he was tactful about it. “The ambulance services don’t close
down for the weekend, probably not the med waste companies, either. Just
trust me, Agent Doggett.”
“OK. I get something, you want me to bring it
to you? Where are you?”
I was asking his trust; I had to give something back. I told him about the
Walk. “But just call me at my cell number, OK.”
“Yup, soon as I know anything.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure.” We disconnected.
I glanced back at the temporary tent village. Coworkers, friends, families
shared coolers and reflections and laughter. The cops were trying to simulate
the others, but the effort was an utter failure. My teammates were still
on the trail. I caught sight of Livia tying her
shoes, a man standing above her.
“Keith Hansen, Brittany Hazell, Kay Heaton,
Lori Heberden…” The man stretched, looked around.
My knees nearly buckled as he faced me. I was frozen to the spot, and a group
of walkers split around and past me.
And while I stood, Leonard Betts walked away, into the crowd.
**
“Livia,” I greeted her, as calmly as I could.
She turned with a guilty start. “Dana. Hey. Well, I guess you caught me
in a lie, huh? I’m sorry to split on you, but your, uh, your friends…”
I smiled. “I guess we can be a little much to take, especially four at a
time. And we tend to be even more cliquish than male cops. Don’t worry about
it. Say, who’s the guy? Boyfriend?”
Livia relaxed. “Ah, yeah,
kinda. We just started dating, and he
decided to come support me.”
“Wow, a sensitive one,” I joked. “Better hold on to that one. You know,
he looked kind of familiar to me.”
“I don’t think Ray’s ever had any federal warrants, even though he’s so
quiet, I probably wouldn’t know if he did,” Livia
laughed nervously.
My heart quickened. “So, where’d you meet Mr. Sensitive?”
“Oh, a bar. Hey, you want to do another turn?”
“Let’s go.”
**
“So you had it, too, huh?” Livia ventured after
we’d walked in silence for a while.
I nodded reluctantly.
“How’d you find out?”
“Um, I started having these constant nosebleeds, and I went to see a doctor.
You?”
“I was having these really bad pains in my gut, and I was just getting weaker
and weaker. My family finally coaxed me into going to the hospital, and they
told me there I had a whatchacallit, oh, you
know, you’re a doctor… Anyway, I started on radiation, and luckily, Death
decided I wasn’t his kind of chick.”
“Ray know about your cancer?”
“Yeah, he’s really intuitive that way.” I nearly stopped in my tracks, but
I caught myself. “We’ve talked about it a lot.”
A finger of ice penetrated my chest. Why was Betts, if it was Betts, interested
in Livia? You have something I need – his words
sank in, and I felt a wave of both fear and intense sorrow for my new friend.
There was only one thing Betts now needed from any relationship, and
Livia had no idea she possessed it.
“Oh, hey, Ray,” she suddenly called out. I jumped, then
spotted the man about 40 feet ahead of us. Our eyes locked, and all doubt
evaporated. I’ve looked Death in the eye numerous times, but this particular
incarnation had been different, special. Betts had pointed the way to Hell
for me, and with Mulder’s aid, I’d barely found
my way back.
“Betts!” I shouted, fumbling with my fanny pack.
“Tanner!”
“Dana, what the fuck are you doing?” Betts’ potential victim railed beside
me.
Betts/Tanner/Ray bolted into a thicket near the path, and I yanked my weapon
free. Where were all the cops? He’d disappeared into the wood by the time
I’d cleared the first maple.
My gun was locked in both sweaty palms as I reconnoitered the near-inky
darkness. “Tanner,” I rasped. “There’s an army of police here to get you.
I don’t know how you came back, but those killings had your mark all over
them.”
I heard a short, sad bark of laughter ricochet off the trees. Then I nearly
dropped my gun as my cell phone trilled. Doggett.
Without removing my eyes from the dense bush, I tightened my grip on my
weapon and wrested my cell phone out of the pack.
“Yeah?” I said, tensely.
“Agent Scully, you all right?”
“Yeah.” I was shocked by my own lie, but I now
was determined to face down my own personally assigned Reaper for the final
time.
“Look, a guy at Georgetown MedSafe described
a waste-disposal employee fitting your outline. And get this: Guy’s name
is Hyde, Raymond Hyde.”
“Yes?” I snapped.
“A tanner is a guy who takes the hides off animals, Agent,” Doggett patiently
explained. “Whatever reason, these guys always seem
to like to keep a link to their past lives. Guy faxed over Hyde’s personnel
records – MedSafe wasn’t any too careful about
checking his background; this guy just dropped onto the scene maybe four
months ago, recommendation of his partner.”
That brought me to sharp attention. “Recommendation?”
Then I recalled a recent conversation. “Partner’s name?”
“Yeah…Goddamn company keeps lousy records, and this guy wanted to get me
off the phone as fast as he could. Here! I got an initial-O
Guttwein. Hold on, I’m just--”
The conversation came to an abrupt halt as a large branch slammed into my
arm. My gun and phone went flying, and I was propelled to the ground by a
second blow.
I looked up at the feminine silhouette of my club-wielding assailant. “Olivia
Guttwein?” I inquired.
I felt the pause in the dark, despite my tingling arm. “How’d you find that
out?” Livia hissed.
“Well, before you interrupted us, my partner told me Ray – Leonard, Albert,
whatever – had been recommended for his job at the biomedical waste
company. Your boyfriend needed a constant supply of cancerous tissue
to stay alive. Plus, I never told you I was a doctor as well as an FBI agent.
Your brother must have supplied that information.”
Livia began to laugh, manically. “You’re a real
Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you, Dana?”
“Olivia.” His voice was calm, admonishing, parental
. Leonard Betts kneeled beside me, my gun in his grip. “Agent Scully, Olivia’s
not my girlfriend. She’s my sister.”
“More like your prisoner,” she pouted, like a child rather than a woman
in her mid-30s.
“There wasn’t any mention--”
“Mother and Olivia had a falling out after Olivia went to college.
Mother’d disowned her, wouldn’t even let me talk about her in her
presence.”
A sister. It began to sink in. Betts, Tanner
had used his cover as a med tech to secure the material he’d needed to assure
the long-term survival of what Mulder had deemed
his new species. He’d resorted to murder only after that cover had been blown.
This was more like vampirism, a hunger for the human
lifeforce, and if that lifeforce appeared
to be in rapid decline, then so much better Livia’s
self-rationalization.
“This was a trap, wasn’t it?” I asked. “You led me into the woods to kill
me.”
Tanner didn’t flinch under my gaze, but his eyes were tortured, always would
be as long as he staked a claim to immortality. “I saw no choice. I was blown
away when Olivia mentioned your name – I assumed, mm, I was sure you’d be
gone by now. I’m sorry you managed this miracle only to have things end this
way. I really am. But what’s in the blood is in the blood.”
“How’d you survive?” I asked. I’d called him right in the field.
Tanner smiled in a joyless irony. “At first, I thought you were in with
them, your friends in the government. I don’t
die easily, Agent, and they had enough to bring me back. I’m only guessing,
but I think they were thinking along military lines. The old sci-fi cliché:
You find the secret of immortality, and all you can think to do with it is
conquer the world. Well, they couldn’t even keep one little mild-mannered
mutant under control. After I escaped, I went looking for Olivia. When I
found her, I discovered she’d been born with the same curse.”
“But it’s not a curse to you, is it?” I asked Livia
. “You did all the killings, didn’t you? Big Brother found out, and began
cleaning up after you. It’s not a curse to you.”
Livia leaned down. “It’s a fucking permanent
Rave party, Day-na. Talk about living on the
razor’s edge. If I have to take a few cattle out to stay at the party…”
I looked at Tanner, resigned horror creasing his face. He’d traded one nightmare
for another, and he’d traded yet again.
“I’m sorry,” he choked, looking perhaps for some secret in my eyes. I’d
kicked Death’s ass twice, but in the end, he – or she – has stamina to spare.
The shot echoed through the trees, and I was hit with a wet spray. I’d closed
my eyes, and it took me a few minutes to will them open. I finally registered
Tanner moaning as tears streamed down his cheek, his sister dead on the grass
beneath his feet.
“Albert Tanner!” a voice screamed, a familiar
gravelly voice. “Drop the weapon or I will fucking blow a third eye in you.”
Tanner looked curiously at Doggett and the half-dozen D.C. cops behind him,
but didn’t lower the gun. Then, my other senses kicked in, and I smelled
a new, acrid presence on the wind.
“Agent Doggett, don’t,” I yelled. Livia had
the same pungent perfume.
Tanner leveled the gun directly at my head. I no longer feared for my own
life, and as he looked pleadingly down at me, a calm
settled within my soul. Doggett stood steady.
“I’d ask you to take care of us, Agent,” he smiled. “I trust you, but you’re”
– he laughed – “you’re only human. As apparently your new partner is.”
Leonard Betts swiftly placed the barrel against his head, and the smell
of cordite for one millisecond joined that of the lighter fluid with which
he'd doused himself, before the flaming man threw himself on his sister’s
body.
**
“I called you from the parking lot,” Doggett explained dully as we walked
back along the path. “I read the Tanner file and put two and two together
with this cancer walk, and figured maybe you could use a hand.”
“You figured correctly,” I admitted.
“Hey, why don’t you go home?” he suggested. “I’ll handle the locals, and
tell Skinner you got a case of the blue flu for the next couple days.”
“Just one more thing, please, Agent.” The luminaries, white paper sacks
with votive candles anchored in sand, lined and lit the Walk way. You bought
a luminary, the money went to cancer research, and you labeled it with the
name of a lost loved one. They were arranged in alphabetical order, and I
scanned the “T”s.
Nestled in amongst too many others was the glowing sack that stood as an
impermanent memorial to Elaine Tanner. How Betts had retrieved the paramedic
shoulder patch that now lay at the base of the luminary would remain just
one more of the man’s secrets.
As I straightened up, I was struck by an uncontrollable impulse. Doggett
chased after me, seemingly alarmed, as I riffled the luminaries several yards
up from Tanner’s.
“Hey, agents,” I heard Hedger call in his unflappable cop manner. I examined
the sacks madly, sorted through the souvenirs others had left those who’d
left them.
It was placed carefully off the path, lettered in Betts' intelligent, painstaking
hand: Dana Scully.
Doggett stared at me as I sank to the grass beside the bag, but didn’t attempt
to approach. I made a sound, then a more prolonged one, and my partner moved
rapidly to place a hand on Lt. Hedger’s shoulder.
“Hey, Lieutenant, she’s been through a lot tonight. You got some
questions, I’ll try to answer them, OK?”
The cop grunted, and I guess they left, though I was unable at that point
to see or hear anything. For the next 10, 20, 30 minutes, the walkers left
me alone. Raw, ragged, spontaneous grief – even for one’s self – was no stranger
to them.
**
I walked Doggett back to his sedan. Solid, unadorned,
a no-shit car for a quietly no-shit man.
“Didn’t even know they were holding this thing tonight, didn’t know you
were walking,” he murmured, keying the driver door’s lock. “Ran
outta the house so fast, I forgot my cash. Monday, I’ll write you
a check, OK?”
“Thanks,” I said, “But I think you’ve done your part this evening.”
“No, please, I want to. Had a’ aunt with liver
cancer, Jeez, when I was just a kid. Doc told my folks after the fact it’d
grown damn near to the size of a grapefruit. Lived up in
“My mom, she got her nose all outta joint about
it, said Teresa was puttin’ on airs,
you can believe people talked like that back then. They’d had some
big siblin’ rivalry when they were
kids, and it all came back. Teresa was actin
’ different, didn’t want nothin’ to do with the
family. Course, she couldn’t tell the family this was cause she was
dyin’ slowly from the inside out.”
Doggett leaned against the open driver’s door. He blinked, and his head
jerked up, as if he was suddenly conscious of his regression into thick New
Yorkese.
He smiled with one side of his mouth. “Long story short.
It was almost a month before any of us swallowed our pride or discomfort
long enough to check on why Teresa hadn’t talked to anybody. She’d been dead
in bed at least two weeks, the coroner said. My mom, at the funeral, she
says, ‘Couldn’t even tell her own sister she had troubles.
Always thought she was too good to ask for a little help.’ Thought
that was pretty awful at the time, my mom sayin
’ somethin’ like that about her own sister. Now,
a few shrink books later, I know that was guilt talkin
’, maybe some anger at Aunt Teresa for not giving her the chance to be there.
Who knows?
“But I guess we all owe Aunt Teresa somethin'.
So if I can’t do this for you, lemme write you
a check for my aunt. Please.”
I gave him a weak smile. “Thanks, Agent.”
Doggett nodded. Deal done, business concluded. He tapped the top of his car,
then turned again.
“These things, men are allowed, too, right?”
I frowned. “The walks tend to draw more women, especially breast cancer survivors,
but yes, male cancer survivors and family members are welcome.”
“Mulder come on these walks with you?” my partner
inquired, cautiously.
I held my face immobile. “Yes. For the past three years, he’s walked with
me.”
Doggett nodded again, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Wish
you’da told me about this.
I’da been happy to help, maybe even put
on a pair of sneakers and come out.” His eyes pulled sharply into focus.
“You don’t have to walk alone, Agent Scully.”
I couldn’t come up with anything to say, either in response to his statement
or the meaning drifting beneath its surface. After a beat, Doggett climbed
into the driver’s seat.
“Won’t expect to see you 'til Wednesday the earliest,” he called before rolling
out. I watched him reenter the Saturday tangle of
And then I started walking, alone, back toward the light, to buy a couple
of candles.