Charles Grant - The X-Files - Goblins

Mulder opened his mouth, closed it when she stepped in front of him and put a heel down on his foot to keep him silent.

“Corporal Ulman worked for you, isn’t that right?”

The major grew solemn. “Yes, he did, Agent Scully. A tragic loss. He was a good man. And I’ve been working closely with the Provost—”

“He was going to marry your sister,” Mulder said over her shoulder.

Tonero didn’t miss a beat: “There was talk, yes. But just between you and me, I don’t think it was going to happen.” He sighed. “However, I certainly owe it to her to assist you in any way possible.”

Neither made any mention of the phone call to Senator Carmen.

“Who attacked you?” Dr. Elkhart asked suddenly, sharply.

“There were two,” Mulder answered before Scully could stop him.

“Really?” the major said, grabbing his hat against a gust. “I had no idea.”

Scully was relieved when Mulder didn’t elaborate; she watched instead as Dr. Tymons whispered something to Elkhart and hurried back down the road, one hand massaging the back of his neck.

“Major,” she said, “I’m not sure, it’s too soon, but if Agent Mulder here needs more assistance than I can—”

“Walson is mostly shut down,” the major interrupted stiffly. “We function primarily as an outpatient clinic now, with only a few long-term patients. Cutbacks.” He shrugged a you know how it is before the smile returned as he clapped his hands once. “However, the important thing is that you’re all right, Agent Mulder.” He turned to Scully. “He is all right, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “But he could use some rest now, Major, so if you and Dr. Elkhart don’t mind, I’d like to get him back to his room.”

The major nodded, shook hands all around, and ushered Elkhart away, pausing only to have a brief animated conversation with the MP captain in charge of the search.

“What do you think?” Mulder asked when they were alone.

“I think,” she said without turning around, “that there’s a shooting incident, and the major brings scientists along instead of doctors.”

She checked the car they’d ridden out in, the shattered glass and punctures, at the one shredded, flat tire.

“Hank,” she said quietly, “get us a ride to the motel.”

Then she looked at Mulder, and instantly knew what he was thinking:

You’re not protected, Mr. Mulder, you’re still not protected.

It took a while before Webber was finally able to get them back to the Royal Baron. Once there, as a doctor, not a partner, Scully ordered Mulder to bed with an ice pack and aspirin until she returned from a visit with Sam Junis. He didn’t protest. Just a crooked smile and a phony sigh, and she knew he wouldn’t sleep; he’d be too busy trying to squeeze the obvious so it ended up looking like a goblin.

Licia she found in their room, transcribing her notes from the Radnor interview. “Shorthand,” the agent said apologetically. “Can’t keep up otherwise, and I hate recorders.” As she slipped the papers into a briefcase, Scully asked her what, if anything, she’d found out.

“It was like she didn’t care,” Licia complained, the insult to justice clear in her tone. “And even though she has exercise stuff — says she uses it when she remembers — in that downstairs room off the office, she still drinks like a fish.” Then she smiled. “She knew the corporal, though.”

“How?”

The smile became a smug grin. “It seems the engaged to the major’s sister corporal enjoyed an occasional R&R. Like, nearly every weekend.”

“Did she say who he was with?”

“No name, and she only got a glimpse. The corporal, it seems, was very careful. I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, though.”

Scully agreed before hustling Andrews into her coat and outside. Webber would watch Mulder in case the shooter tried again, or Mulder decided to have an adventure on his own.

They took the second car, and on the way, she filled Andrews in, ignoring the comments and the outrage.

It also helped her think.

It was evident they were dealing with two different suspects. Aside from the fact that Mulder had been attacked by someone other than the shooter, she was certain the murderer of Ulman and Pierce hadn’t suddenly decided to switch to a rifle as his weapon of choice. He was too good with the knife. And a knife was more personal, requiring close range; a rifle was too remote, dispassionate, requiring little or no victim contact at all.

When she had proposed this on the way back, both Mulder and Webber had agreed, but neither could find a reasonable explanation of why, suddenly, they were faced with two opponents.

“Maybe somebody’s protecting the goblin,” Andrews suggested.

“It’s not a goblin,” Scully snapped. “Please, don’t you start, too. Mulder’s already got Hank thinking that way.”

“So what do I do? Call him Bill?”

“I don’t care. Just don’t call him a goblin!”

Andrews laughed and shook her head. “Boy,” she said, “he really gets on your nerves, doesn’t he?”

Scully didn’t answer.

The doctor’s bungalow was in only marginally better condition than those of his neighbors, its saving grace a large front garden whose arrangement and vivid blossoms signaled a great deal of time taken and care bestowed. The doctor himself was on the tiny front porch, sitting on the railing, smoking a cigarette. He seemed to be in his early fifties, his greying hair plastered straight back from his forehead; and despite the wind and the chill, he was in shirtsleeves and jeans. Most of him was lean, but his arms were hugely muscled, all out of proportion to the rest of him.

“Popeye,” Andrews muttered as they took the narrow slate walk toward him.

Scully almost laughed aloud. She was right; all the man needed was a corncob pipe and a sailor’s cap to complete the image.

“Been having a time of it, haven’t you,” he said by way of greeting. Then he nodded to a police scanner on a small table behind him. “It’s either that or Oprah.” He grinned.

Scully liked him immediately, and wasted no time getting into his reports. He took no offense at her questions, and asked no questions about the way Andrews barely took her gaze from the surrounding woodland.

The interview didn’t last long — Junis agreed with her reconstruction of Pierce’s murder, and actually apologized for not getting better photos. He also suggested that the knife used wasn’t ordinary. “Sharp as hell, sure,” he said, “but the cut of it, I think it might have been heavier than you’d find in your average kitchen.”

“Like what?” Scully asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it, but I still don’t know.”

She knew then she had to ask the next question, and for once, she was glad Mulder wasn’t with her. “You had some notes in the margin.”

He laughed as he flicked his cigarette onto the lawn. “Yeah. Goblin, right?”

“What does that have to do with anything? As far as your examinations went, I mean.”

“Not much.” He pulled another cigarette from his pocket and stuck it between his lips. He didn’t light it. “Nothing. I’d just been to see Elly Lang, had to calm her down a little with a mild sedative, and that’s all she talked about.” A sideways glance. “You heard about it, huh?”

“We talked to her, yes.”

Junis followed the wake of a pickup heading west. “Don’t think she’s crazy, Agent Scully. Don’t write her off. I don’t know who she saw, but she’s no fool.”

“She was drunk, Dr. Junis.”

He laughed abruptly, loudly, until his eyes began to water and his face reddened alarmingly. “Sorry.” He laughed again and wiped his eyes with a sleeve. “God, I’m sorry.” He gripped the railing with both hands. “Drunk? Elly? You’ve been listening to Todd Hawks. Nope, never. She goes to that bar for the company, that’s all. She’s outlived her family, has no real friends to speak of. She has one drink, a Bloody Mary, that she nurses until she’s ready to go home, and that’s about it. That woman has never been drunk a day in her life.”