Disclaimer: The characters of Mark Sloan, Steve Sloan, Amanda Bentley, Jesse Travis, Cheryl Banks, Ron Wagner and Captain Newman do not belong to me but to CBS, Viacom et al. Those of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Twentieth Century Fox. All other individuals are the product of my own unbridled imagination, and any dubious resemblance to any living person is totally by accident.

Contains some intense situations, some mildly suggestive language/situations, some unavoidable violence.

For those of you interested in the timeline angle, this takes place after the events of The Longest Road. I would like to thank my friend Marla for her contribution to one of my favorite aquatic scenes. She knows which one!

Steve Sloan pulled to a stop outside one of the less ostentatious Malibu homes overlooking the rocky beach to the Pacific, somewhat surprised to see Amanda Bentley's car already parked in the circular drive. The call had come through as a domestic dispute with probable homicide, which customarily would have been handled by one of the other county medical examiners. Cheryl must have found something unusual, he mused, his gaze sweeping around automatically as he walked up the steps.

His partner glanced up as he pushed the door open and greeted him with her customary enthusiasm. "What have you got?" he asked, flashing a grin back at her.

Cheryl shrugged. "Looks like your garden variety domestic homicide. The neighbors heard a lot of yelling, thumping and crashing around yesterday --"

He raised an eyebrow. "Nice of them to wait until today to call us."

She made a wry face. "Isn't it wonderful when people look out for each other? Anyway -- the husband's in the den. Apparently his body was dragged in there, by the look of the tracks on the carpet. The wife has disappeared --"

"But?" he asked, hearing the nuance in her voice.

"But she left everything behind. Driver's license, clothes, jewelry, credit cards, wallet -- cash included."

Steve shrugged in his turn. "She could have cleared out anyway, it happens all the time. Sounds pretty basic."

"Not quite," said a new voice. Amanda stood frowning in the doorway. "Steve, Cheryl, you might want to come take a look."

Curiously, they followed her into the den. The casually dressed body of a reasonably fit-looking middle-aged man lay near the fireplace, a substantial trough in the carpet leading up to his body. Closer inspection revealed several deep, large gouges on his face, neck and arms, and it looked like his neck was broken, throat crushed, if the bruising in that area was any indication.

Steve raised a questioning eyebrow. "What is it I'm supposed to be seeing, other than he's clutching something in his hand?"

"Certainly looks like he was in a fight," Cheryl contributed.

Amanda held up a plastic bag containing some grey-brown hair. "This is what he had in his fist. I'll see if tests will come up with anything. But that's not what I meant." She squatted down next to the body. "Feel his clothes, Steve."

He fingered the man's pants, then the shirt, with his gloved hand, and swiveled to look at her dubiously. "They're damp."

Amanda nodded. "And so's the carpet where his body was dragged over it."

The three exchanged glances, then Amanda sprang her next surprise. "And look at these stains on his clothes where it's started to dry -- it's salt water, Steve."

While he was digesting this unusual bit of news, Cheryl was investigating the trough. "Steve -- it looks like he was towed in from outside."

He rose and joined her, staring out onto the wood deck and to the rocks below. "Something about this is not making sense." He pushed open the door and wandered outside, where the soft sound of music, high and sad, came wafting over the salt breeze. "I'm surprised the neighbors didn't call this in yesterday," he commented.

"What do you mean?" Cheryl asked as she joined him on the deck.

Steve shrugged. "Considering you can hear their stereo, if they heard the fight yesterday, the noise must have been fierce."

She stared at him blankly. "What stereo?"

It was his turn to stare. "Don't you hear it -- that music?"

Cheryl gave him one of those knowing looks she generally reserved for his less serious moments. "I don't hear any music, Steve."

He tried again. "It's like a flute -- but higher and -- wilder, I guess."

Cheryl shook her head. "You're imagining things, partner. Only music I hear is doo-dee-doo-doo," as she hummed the familiar phrase from an old TV science fiction show.

Steve snorted. "I'm not that crazy." He held the door open for her as they went back inside, but couldn't resist looking back over his shoulder. The phantom flutist was still playing.

He lounged at Amanda's desk a few hours later, sipping hospital coffee and watching her intently as she lifted the sheet off their latest case. She was frowning again. Intrigued, he asked, "So what didn't you want to tell me over the phone?"

Amanda looked at him grimly. "What I'm going to make sure you see now so you don't give me a hard time."

Steve grinned at her. "I value my own skin too highly to take that kind of chance, Amanda."

"Hmpfh," she grumbled, but she couldn't help returning the smile before her expression darkened again. "Mr. Tallon received a mortal blow to the epiglottis."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "But?" he inquired patiently.

"But that's not what killed him," she continued. She gave him a sharp look to make sure he was paying attention. "He drowned. In the ocean."

Steve choked on his coffee. "Excuse me?" he spluttered.

Amanda gave him another critical look. "There's seawater in his lungs. He wasn't dumped in the ocean later; he breathed it in, and drowned. Then his windpipe was smashed."

Steve stared at her in disbelief. "Let me get this straight. You're saying somebody or somebodies held Tallon under, in the ocean, till he drowned, then whacked him in the throat, and then dragged him ashore and into his house, which is a considerable distance above a beach full of rocks?" He took a gulp of coffee and narrowly avoided burning his tongue. "And just how did they get him up there, anyway? With a crane, or did they just grab his feet and pull?" he asked, with understandable sarcasm.

"That's not quite what I'm trying to tell you," Amanda said acidly. "His pharynx and epiglottis were crushed -- manually. From the looks of the marks, by one very large hand."

Steve suppressed an involuntary shiver; his last encounter with massive fingers had been highly unpleasant and, he hoped, his final one. He pushed the thought away firmly, and waited, watching Amanda's face carefully.

Amanda pointed at one of the gouges on Tallon's arms. "And, if it weren't for the fact that it sounds crazy, the dimensions of these, which coincidentally were made while he was in the water, I presume while fighting for his life, are similar to the marks on his throat."

Steve was thoroughly bewildered, unsure exactly where Amanda was heading. "So what are you saying, then? He was mugged by a gigantic aquanaut?"

Amanda smiled at him pityingly. "I'm not done yet, Sherlock."

He waved a hand at her airily. "Pray, continue," he declared with a truly dreadful attempt at a British accent.

She smacked the hand, then sobered. "The scratches have little bits of shell in them."

"Couldn't he have gotten those from the beach?" he queried.

She shook her head. "He wasn't dragged face down, see? No other marks on his face or his chest. And his clothes were ripped down the back, not the front." She looked even more perturbed. "I had some of the shell analyzed. It's not local."

Steve laughed. "Amanda, the Pacific's a big ocean."

She made a face at him. "And one of these is from a bivalve which has only been found around the North Sea, which, the last time I checked, was halfway around the world and attached to a different ocean altogether."

"Still, Amanda -- if that's the only thing bothering you other than how Tallon got into his den --"

Amanda shook her head once more. "No, Steve," she replied sweetly, "it's not. Remember the hair sample?"

Steve sat up. "You got a match?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well?" he demanded. "Who is it?"

Amanda had a very peculiar expression on her face. "Not so fast. It's definitely an it. We matched it, but not with a person. It's seal."

"Seal," Steve said blankly.

She nodded. "Seal."

He gave her a skeptical look. "You mean, seal, like, aaurrpp, aaurrpp ---" he offered, clapping his hands together rhythmically.

She shuddered. "That's the worst imitation of a seal I've ever heard."

He grinned at her. "Wait till you hear my dolphin."

"Forget it!" Amanda said hastily. "To repeat -- the hair is seal, specifically harbor seal."

"So what?" Steve asked, still puzzled. "There are harbor seals all up and down the coast. As a matter of fact, it's almost mating season, so the rocks are full of them."

She gave him a superior look. "Pacific harbor seals, yes. But this hair came from an Eastern Atlantic harbor seal -- they happen to hang out, among other places, in the North Sea."

Steve stared at her, debating whether she could be pulling his leg, but she was obviously serious. Somewhere in the recesses of his brain, he heard the lone whistling again.