Chapter X
She climbed stiffly out of the rental car and closed the passenger side door with her hip, stretching a little and taking in her surroundings. She'd slept through their flight and dozed in the car, so that Mulder had had to nudge her awake moments before they pulled up to the curb in Belvedere, Ohio. His door closed behind her as she consulted the address, then scanned the house in front of her. An old, three-story wooden house in a row of similarly shabby homes, all backing onto a narrow river that sounded like very quiet traffic in the residential stillness. A path of boards, laid over mud and snow, led back along the house toward the brown water, through a sloping, large backyard. She looked up as Mulder joined her, the sound of hammering chimed in an uneven rhythm from behind the house.
Carefully, they followed the rickety path down into the yard. A huddle of pigeon coops sprawled by the brackish water. The birds cooing mixed with the hammering. With each new thud, the indignant startle of feathers. To the right was a tall, gaunt man in a knit cap obsessively pounding nails into a new coop.
Mulder took the lead in approaching him, and she followed his long stride. The man lowered his hammer to look at them. His watery, blue eyes were red-rimmed either from cold or the ever-present grief of a childless father. His face was deeply seamed.
"Mr. Bimmel?" Mulder asked.
He stared at them warily. She gave him a small smile, which ironed out some of the lines on his face.
"You're here about Frederica, aren't you?"
Mulder nodded.
They went in the house from the back. Inside, they took off their shoes at Mr. Bimmel's request by the back door, then followed him into a simple living room. An old upright piano sat to one side, a black cat curled into a ball on its bench.
"I don't know nothin' new to tell ya," Mr. Bimmel said. "The police been back here so many times already...Frederica went into Colombus on the bus to see about a job. She left the interview fine," he recited, then looked up. "She got the job, too." Then his eyes returned to their murky blue, all brightness gone. "She never come home," he finished.
The black cat slithered down from the piano bench, revealing white paws, and walked gracefully through the room, cutting a wide circle around the men and bumping into her ankles, twirling its tail around her legs. Mr. Bimmel sniffed.
"That's Socks. He always was a ladies' man," he said. She looked down at the cat, whose green eyes glinted up at her in a sort of feline smile. Evidently, this cat had been friendly to Mr. Bimmel's daughter, but not to him. "Her room's just how she left it. First on the right. Just shut the door when you're done."
The banister sagged a bit as they walked up the worn steps, Mulder still ahead of her, the cat at her heels. Along the wall and at the landing were pictures of Frederica as a young girl, toddler, infant, plump and hopeful at each age. Then the now familiar graduation portrait, this one framed.
"Scully," Mulder prompted, and she continued up the stairs to join him as he opened the door to Frederica's bedroom. He moved to the left of the room while she took in the right side. Flowery chintz curtains, posters of Madonna and Blondie, a twin bed with worn stuffed animals on the pillow. There was a big sewing machine across from the foot of the bed. The cat meowed quietly, and she bent down to pick him up, scratching behind his ears as she absorbed nuances. There was a loneliness here, an echo of desperation under the steeply pitched ceiling. She moved to the sewing machine and the closet to the left of it, opening the door and revealing a long mirror. She took in her reflection, the cat quirking its head. She put him down and watched as he weaved over to the bed, hopping up onto the comforter and curling into a black ball, his socks hidden again.
Mulder was kneeling by an old Decca record player, flipping through LPs and singles. He lifted one out and held it up for her inspection, gesturing around the room. Madonna's Material Girl. She indulged him with a sad smile, although she didn't find it funny. Looking further into the closet, she pulled a string to light it up.
"Pretty extensive wardrobe," she remarked, surprised, sifting through dresses with her fingers, standing on her tip-toes. Mulder stood and came to join her. A shelf above the groaning rod of clothes was stacked high with sewing supplies in clear plastic boxes. She continued flipping through the hanging clothes, pulled out one dress on its hanger for a closer look, handing it to Mulder and standing back at her normal height.
The dress was very big, to fit Frederica, looking like a tent when he held it beside her for comparison, then pulling it back against himself.
"Wait a minute," she said, her fingers trailing up some unfinished seams. "Turn it around."
"What is it?" Mulder asked, flipping the hanger around. A blue dressmaker's pattern was still pinned to the back.
Something nagged in the back of her mind, but she shook her head and took the dress back, hanging it up and leaving the door to the closet ajar.
Mulder pulled out the chair in front of the sewing machine and sat at it, running a palm over the cool metal. "I've always wondered how these things work," he said, endearingly serious.
Billy wants to change, too, Lecter's voice echoed in her head, but there's the problem of his size, you see.
She suddenly opened the door to the closet again, fishing through for the dress, then looking at it intently. On the printed pattern, down at the lower back of the outlined dress were two bold black elongated diamond shapes. She gasped, seeing their West Virginia floater's back flash before her eyes, then turned back to Mulder, trembling.
"What, Scully? What is it?" He put a hand on her shoulder.
Even if he were a woman, he'd have to be a big one…
She looked at him. "Sewing darts. Oh, thank God for home-ec."
He shook his head a little, confused.
"He's making himself a 'woman suit', Mulder," she explained, "out of real women." She watched his face shift from confusion to horrified realization. "And he can sew, this guy. He's really skilled -a tailor, dressmaker."
"That's why they're all so big," Mulder said, taking his hand off her shoulder and standing from the sewing chair. "Because he needs a lot of skin. He keeps them alive so he can starve them for awhile, so he can loosen their skin!" She nodded emphatically.
They hurriedly put Frederica's room back in order, and she scooped the cat off the bed, closing the door behind them as they hurried back downstairs. Mulder helped himself to the phone in the hall without asking as they heard the continued hammering from outside, holding the receiver between their heads again so they could both hear.
"Patch me through to Crawford," he said to whoever picked up.
"Who is-"
"It's Mulder, I need to talk to Crawford!" he insisted.
After a pause, Crawford answered, his voice bright. Mulder launched into their explanation.
"Calm down, Mulder, calm down," Crawford said. "We know who he is, and where he is. We're on our way now!" There was a droning in the background, and she assumed he was taking the call in the air.
"Where?" Mulder pressed.
"Calumet City, edge of Chicago. I'll be on the ground in forty-five minutes with the Hostage Rescue Team," he said. "I'm back in charge, Mulder. He's mine."
Her happiness for Crawford was suddenly tinged with disappointment at so suddenly being out of the hunt.
"Sir, that's great news, but-"
"Johns Hopkins finally came up with a list of names for us. We fed them into Known Offenders, and he lit up like a Christmas tree," Crawford chuckled. "Suspect's name is Jamie Gumb, AKA 'John Grant'. Lecter's description was accurate, he just lied about the name. This Gumb's a real beauty. Slaughtered both his grandparents when he was twelve, and did nine years in juvenile psychiatric. Where, Mulder, he took vocational rehab, and learned a useful trade."
"Sewing," she said under her breath, scarcely believing their luck.
"Take a bow," Crawford continued. "Customs had some paper on his alias. They stopped a carton two years ago at LAX -live caterpillars from Surinam. The addressee was a 'John Grant'. Calumet Power & Light's given us two possible residences under that alias. We're hitting one, Chicago SWAT's taking the other. Is Scully there with you?"
"She is, sir," Mulder said, wincing.
"Well, technically you should have her back at Quantico in three hours, but I have a feeling you two are nowhere near there, so there probably isn't any use trying. Am I correct in that assumption?"
Mulder smiled. "Yes, sir."
"Let me talk to her."
She held the receiver and spoke into it eagerly. "Chicago's only about four hundred miles from here. We could be there in-"
"No, Scully, there isn't time," Crawford said. "And you've still got crucial work to do in Ohio. We want him for murder, not kidnapping. I'm counting on you two to link him to the Bimmel girl, before he's indicted."
She tried hard to swallow her disappointment.
"Yes, sir. We'll do our best."
A pause during which she only heard the drone of the aircraft, then, "Scully, you've earned back your place in the Academy," he said. "We never would have found him without you, and nobody's ever gonna forget that. Least of all me."
"Yes, sir," she said quietly, looking at Mulder. "Thank you, sir."
She hung up the phone and the quiet of the now anticlimactic house fell over them again. "Well, we better link him to the Bimmel girl," she said, and Mulder followed her to put on their shoes by the back porch. They walked out the door and down the porch stairs, back to the yard, both taking in this new information. It was over, they had won. Once on solid ground she looked up at Mulder and smiled, jumping into his arms with a happy Yes!. He chuckled, then set her down. She followed his eyes to see Mr. Bimmel looking at them, confused. He was now sitting by the coops, smoking a pipe. Somewhat embarrassed, she followed Mulder, taking a notepad out of her bag.
"Mr. Bimmel," Mulder began, "did Frederica ever mention a man named Jamie Gumb, from Calumet City? Or John Grant?"
Mr. Bimmel shook his head.
"Did she know any men that sew?" she tried.
"She sewed for everybody," Mr. Bimmel said, shrugging his shoulders. "Stores, ladies, whatever. I don't know about men."
"Who was her best friend, Mr. Bimmel? Who'd she hang out with?"
He thought for a moment. "Stacy Boyd," he said finally. "She was workin' at the diner downtown. About ten miles west, you can't miss it. Don't know if she's still there, though."
They thanked him and went back to the car.
When they found the diner and asked for Stacy they were met by a perky, frizzy-haired brunette in her early twenties who was thrilled to get an unexpected break midway through her shift. She brought them coffee and narrowed her eyes at them for a moment.
"Wait, this isn't about Michael, is it?"
Dana shook her head next to her, smiling. "Why, is there something we should know about him?"
Stacy snapped her gum, relieved. "Oh, no. Just wonderin'."
"Stacy, we're here about Frederica Bimmel. Her father said you two were friends," Mulder said, sitting across from them.
She nodded. "Oh yeah, best friends." She shuddered visibly. "Freaked me out. Get your skin peeled off. Is that a bummer, or what?" She looked at her chipped nail polish. "They said she was just rags...like somebody'd-"
"Stacy, did Frederica ever mention a man named Jamie Gumb, or John Grant?" Mulder asked.
She squinted, trying to remember, and shook her head.
"Do you think she could've had a friend you didn't know about?" Dana asked.
Stacy scoffed, smiling. "No way! If she had a guy, I'da known, believe me. Sewing was her life, and she was really great at it. Poor Freddie."
"Did you ever work with her?" Mulder asked.
Stacy nodded. "Oh sure. Me'n Pam Malavesi used to help her do alterations for old Mrs. Lippman." Dana jotted down the two names. "Lots of people worked for her. She had the business from all these retail stores, you know, and even Capaccio Textiles on the other side of town. But she was like, totally old. It was more than she could handle."
"Where does Mrs. Lippman live?" Dana asked. "I'd like to talk to her."
"Oh, she died. She went to Florida to retire like two years ago. She died down there, Mom said."
A beat, then Stacy looked from her to Mulder shyly. "Is that a pretty cool job, then? F.B.I agent?"
Mulder nodded. "I think so."
"You get to travel around a lot?" Stacy asked Dana, then smiled. "I mean, better places than this?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes you do."
For the first time, Stacy looked very sad. "Freddie was so happy for me when I got this job. I mean, this. She thought it was really hot shit. Big dummy." Her eyes filled with tears, and she leaned into Dana, who embraced her gently while Mulder went to pay the bill.
On the way back to the car, Mulder yawned. "We should have gotten something to eat in there."
"I told you to get a slice of the apple pie," she said, putting a hand up to cover her yawn.
"I was going to until Stacy started talking about rags."
She chuckled. "So, now what? The textile place?"
He nodded. "I'll go to the factory, but I'm pretty sure Mrs. Lippman's address is right next door, only a couple miles away. What if we divide and conquer? You can do some digging to see if she left around any records or contact information, and I'll see what I can find at the factory."
She nodded. "Sounds good. Any plan if both of those end up being dry leads?"
He opened his door and hesitated. "We'll have to go looking for some wet ones."
She wrinkled her nose and opened her door, climbing back in the car.
Mulder dropped her off on the curb of a street similar to the Bimmel one, only the yards were larger, the houses more spread apart and set back from the one-lane road. The grass, even with the moisture of snow, was dull, the leaves dead on the trees, even the bushes in front yards looked a little sad. The curtains were drawn on both floors of the old Lippman house, and no light seemed to be coming out from the windows, but the lawn was neat and a package rested on the doorstep. Clearly, someone lived there.
"Want me to wait to make sure you get in?"
She shook her head. "If there's no one home I'll do a door-to-door. Come back in thirty minutes?"
He nodded. "Good luck."
She got out of the car and swung her bag over her left shoulder, feeling like a real agent as she felt the weight of Beaumont's gun in its holster against her. When she shut the door behind her she heard Mulder drive off, and set down the cement path to the former Lippman house.
She rang twice, waiting thirty seconds between each ring, and was just about to give up and move on when she heard noise from inside the house. The door opened and she was met by a tall, unassuming man wearing jeans, a faded shirt, and no shoes.
"Good afternoon," she said, "I wonder if you could help me. I'm looking for Mrs. Lippman's family."
He looked down at her feet and, puzzled, she followed his gaze until she realized it was the package. He leaned down and picked it up, then looked at her, frowning.
"They don't live here anymore."
He started to close the door, only to have her push back gently against it, politely but firmly. She held up her ID.
"Excuse me, but I really do need to speak with you," she pressed. "This was Mrs. Lippman's house. Did you know her?"
He shrugged. "Just briefly. What's the problem, Officer?"
"Well, we're investigating the death of Frederica Bimmel. Who are you, please?"
"Jack Gordon," he said.
She took out her notepad. "Mr. Gordon, did you know Frederica when she worked for Mrs. Lippman?"
He shook his head, then stroked his chin, smiling a little. "Oh, wait. Was she a big, fat person?"
She nodded, tight-lipped. "Yes, she was a big girl, sir."
Mr. Gordon glanced briefly over his shoulder, toward his kitchen, then turned back to her with a friendly smile.
"Mrs. Lippman had a son. Maybe he could help you," he said. "I have his card somewhere. Do you want to step inside while I look for it?"
She nodded. "Thanks."
He held the door open for her and closed it once she'd stepped inside, then went to a desk down the hall, taking out a small book of addresses and flipping through.
"That was a horrible business," he said, "I shiver every time I think about it."
She glanced around the musty room to the left. Overstuffed furniture, porcelain figurines on the mantle, newspapers on the table. One archway went off onto the front hall, another onto a dining room, and through there a kitchen.
"Are they close to catching somebody, do you think?"
"I think we may be," she said with a decided nod, looking back to him. He set the small book down and reached into a desk cubby for a Rolodex, and she moved further inside, still taking in her surroundings.
"Mr. Gordon, did you take over this place after Mrs. Lippman died?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I bought the house from her two years ago."
"Did she leave any records here?" she asked. "Tax or business? Maybe a list of employees?"
He continued rummaging, turning his back to her. "No, not at all. Has the F.B.I learned something? Because the police around here don't seem to have the first clue."
She watched curiously as a brown smudge crawled out from under his shirt, making its way up the man's back. A moth. It fluttered its wings. Unsurprising, given the muggy heating inside the house.
"Do you have a description yet, or fingerprints?" Mr. Gordon continued, oblivious.
She opened her mouth to give him the standard answer -that she couldn't divulge case specific evidence- then froze. Her mouth went dry as the moth continued to crawl up and, even ten feet away, revealed the white of a skull on its back -a Death's Head moth. Struggling tremendously to keep her voice even, she answered,
"No. No, we don't."
Very carefully, while his back was still half turned, she dropped the notepad back into her bag and lowered it to the floor. With her fingertips she brushed back the edge of her coat, loosening its drape. Suddenly, Mr. Gordon turned back to her, cheerfully holding out a business card.
"Here's that number!"
She didn't move, painfully aware that she was completely alone with no backup. She smiled tightly. "Very good, Mr. Gordon. May I use your phone, please?"
With a flutter, the moth flew up from behind him and went to the lamp, climbing under the shade. Mr. Gordon looked at his dear moth, back at her, then smiled again. "Sure, you can use my phone. It's in the kitchen," he said. "I'll show you."
The instant before he turned around, she whipped out the gun, gripping it in both shaking hands.
"Freeze!"