Chapter 8: Revelations
Police Archives Section
Austin Police Headquarters
Later That Night
8:30 PM (Central Standard Time)
Detective Darnell Willmore had spent the last three and a half hours scouring numerous files and records in the Austin Police Department's Archives Section, which was essentially a giant file room occupying the basement of Police Headquarters. His meticulous albeit very time-consuming search resulted in him accumulating a stack of five suspect files going back to the late 1950's and early 1960's. Looking through the last of the five files, a lightbulb went off in his head. He picked up the phone that sat on the small desk at which he sat and dialed a number.
"John Doggett", Doggett answered from the other end of the line after two rings.
"Hi Agent Doggett", Willmore replied, "It's Darnell Willmore calling from Austin PD. How you doing?"
"Hey Detective", Doggett said, "I'm good. What can I help you with?"
"I was wondering", Willmore began, "Do you guys at the Bureau have any sort of special access to immigration records? I mean, like older ones, going back to the Nineteen-Fifties?"
"Our FBI library in Washington keeps a lot of them archived in a big database", Doggett said, "I can put in a rush request, but what exactly are you looking for?"
"I need the immigration records for a fella named Adrian Wisborg", Willmore replied, "His DOB is November Thirtieth, Nineteen-Thirty-One. I think he may be connected to our case. Can you and Agent Mulder meet me here at our headquarters tomorrow morning? I think I can better explain my theory if I see y'all in person."
"Sure", Doggett said, "I don't see why not. I'll get ahold of Sergeant Lucia at Fish and give her a heads-up as well. What time?"
"How about nine-thirty?" Willmore asked.
"Sounds good", Doggett replied, "I'll call the Bureau library and see if they can send those records through. I'll see you in the morning."
"Cool", Willmore said, "Thanks, Agent Doggett."
With that, Willmore promptly hung up the phone and collected all the needed files before cleaning up his workspace and leaving the room.
Conference Room
Austin Police Headquarters
The Next Day
9:30 AM
John Doggett entered the conference room to find Fox Mulder, Mercedes Lucia, and Detective Willmore all seated at the long conference table. Mulder was on his cell phone, discreetly chatting with Charlie Scully about Scully's difficult medical ordeal that occurred the day before. Meanwhile, Lucia offered Doggett a convivial wave of salutation, while Willmore was busy setting up all the necessary files for the meeting.
"Okay", Mulder softly said into his phone, "Let me know if you need me to drop everything. I can get on a plane in an hour if needed. Okay. Thanks so much, Charlie. Give Dana my love. Bye."
Mulder then hung up his cell and tucked it in his pocket just in time to notice Doggett sitting down in the seat right beside him.
"Everything okay?" Doggett inquired after putting a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder.
Mulder shook his head regrettably. "No", he softly replied, "Charlie had to call an ambulance for Scully yesterday. Apparently, she developed some kind of fast heartrate and passed out. She spent a night in the hospital and she's home now."
"Well," Doggett said, "That's good at least."
"Sure", Mulder replied, "But now she has to monitor her blood pressure and heartrate every day until the baby's born."
"That's rough", Doggett sympathetically said, "But we both know, probably better than anyone else, that she's been through worse. She's a tough lady, Mulder. She'll get through this, especially with her brother there helping her."
A now reassured Mulder smiled back at Doggett in response. Just then, Detective Willmore very loudly and deliberately cleared his throat before standing up from his seat and addressing the room as a whole.
"Good morning, everybody!" Willmore greeted, "Thanks so much for coming." He then flipped open the file folder on the top of his stack and removed a stapled two-page document from inside. "Now", he continued, "As I said to Agent Doggett on the phone last night, I think I may have identified our male skeleton from Harker's Cave."
Lucia nodded with increased interest. "Based on?" she asked.
"After Agent Scully clued us in on that rare disease, she thought our killer might have", Willmore began explaining, "I really got to thinking. Since this 'Nosferatu's Disease' is so distinctive, I acted on my nagging hunch and began sifting through old archived police records from the Nineteen-Thirties all the way to the late Nineteen-Fifties."
By this point, Doggett thought he was putting two and two together. "You thought you could find somebody whose age fit the bill and whether or not they had a criminal record here in Texas", he inferred, "I take it since you called me with a specific name in mind that you hit pay dirt."
Willmore then held up a printed criminal record sheet. The mugshot image on it was in black and white, appearing to be that of a grizzled dark-haired white man who appeared to be in his mid to late 20's. "This is Adrian Wisborg", he said, "He was twenty-three years old in January of Nineteen-Fifty-Four when he was arrested on burglary charges. When I noticed that his birthplace was listed as being in Romania, I called Agent Doggett to see if he could pull his immigration records."
With that, Doggett held up a file folder to show everybody. "I've got them", he said, "They arrived from the FBI library in DC an hour ago." He then flipped open the huge folder and began looking at the contents. "Adrian Wisborg was born in Calafat, Romania on November Thirtieth of Nineteen-Thirty-One", he explained, "According to this document, he immigrated here to the US in Nineteen-Fifty-Three at the age of twenty-two."
"…And roughly a year later", Willmore cut in, "He evidently broke into a basement store room at Travis County General Hospital. He was caught a few hours later, but it wasn't long before he was released on a legal technicality."
"And you think that this Mister Wisborg is the skeleton that I found in Harker's Cave?" Mulder asked.
Willmore nodded. "I already shared this theory with Doctor Jerritz and her colleague Doctor Green", he clarified, "Everything fits. The physical description, his age, all that."
"Not to mention", Mulder cut in, "Lieutenant Murnau said that the name 'Adrian' was heard from inside that rundown house. So, unless our killer likes to do a spot-on 'Rocky' impression after attacking people…" He trailed off before humorously shrugging his shoulders.
Doggett chuckled in response to his friend's witty comment. "Anyway", he said after regaining his composure, "When I realized how strong the detective's hunch was on this guy, I decided to dot all my Is and cross all my Ts on this. I ran a search on Adrian Wisborg using our FBI database to see if he had any other charges from other states. He was under investigation later on in the summer of Fifty-Four as a suspect in a series of residential burglaries. Care to guess where?"
"Idaho", Mulder said.
Doggett nodded. "Bingo", he replied, "Not more than ten miles from the town of Burley. The Cassia County District Court swore out an arrest warrant on him based on the fact that his fingerprints were found at each of the burglary scenes, but he took off before they could track him down."
"And I'll bet he hasn't been seen since", Willmore said.
Lucia then raised her hand. "I agree with y'all that a lot of the pieces fit with this fella", she said, "But I have a few irritating questions of my own. First off, do we know if he even had this rare disease?"
"Honestly", Doggett replied, "As far as I can tell, Adrian Wisborg never saw a doctor a day in his life."
"True", Willmore cut in, "But Doctor Jerritz thinks it's entirely possible that he died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at some point, since that's a common thing that can potentially happen if the disease goes untreated or unmanaged."
Lucia nodded. "Okay", she replied, "But do we know if he even had a child or another relative that could potentially be our killer?"
"That's the thing, Mercy" Willmore said, "I actually anticipated one of you posing that question, so I asked Doctor Jerritz to isolate the human portion of the DNA profile she detected from the bite saliva on Boyd Aikens. She's running a low-allele analysis on it to see if our killer has any relatives in the database."
"Has that yielded anything?" Doggett asked.
Willmore shook his head. "Nothing that specific as of yet", he replied, "But it did confirm that our skeleton is a direct genetic relation to our killer."
Taking in all the information, Mulder took a moment to think. "Here's my theory", he finally said, "Adrian Wisborg gets a woman pregnant at some point between the time when he first comes to America and when he starts committing those Idaho burglaries. He then consequently passes on this exceedingly rare genetic disorder onto his child. In the case of this child, the disease is so extreme that he's actually born half-human and half-bat."
"And at some point", Lucia added, "Dies of this ruptured aortic aneurysm. I guess this 'son', if you can even call him that, must've kept the body in Harker's Cave because he saw this Mister Wisborg as a father and wanted to keep watch over it. We must've accidentally disturbed things somehow…and that's why Boyd was killed and I was attacked."
A now profoundly impressed Mulder nodded sympathetically. "Nice theory, Sergeant" he said, "If this whole Fish and Game thing doesn't work out, you'd make one hell of an X-Files agent." Lucia's mood then changed on a dime as she smiled back at Mulder.
Doggett was then struck with an idea. "Willmore?" he inquired.
"Yeah?" Detective Willmore replied.
"You said that Adrian Wisborg had broken into a hospital store room way back when", Doggett said, "What hospital was it again?"
"Travis County General", Willmore said, "It's the big hospital about five blocks from here. It's where they sent Mercy here to be treated after her attack that night."
"And where Officer Brixton is still recuperating as we speak", Lucia commented.
Doggett nodded knowingly. "Who says history can't repeat itself", he said, "We need to put that hospital on alert as soon as we can."