TITLE: The Port Charles Files 5/8
by Kelso (kelso28@excite.com)
***********
The 10-minute drive to L&B passed in silence. Upon their arrival,
Mulder parked as close to the door as possible. The last thing
he wanted to do was waste time interviewing a wannabe teen idol
when he could be out on Spoon Island. Or trying to get to Spoon
Island, at the least. It didn't appear that Scully was that much
more eager than he was, since she hung back far enough that he
was forced to enter the building first.
No one was at the reception desk. In fact, no one was anywhere in
sight.
"Good, they're closed, let's leave," Mulder said, turning to make
his escape.
Scully grabbed his sleeve. "The door was unlocked. I realize that
fact doesn't mean much in Port Charles, but we're not running
yet."
The words had barely left her mouth when Juan Santiago entered
the room from a back hallway, eyes fixed on a paper in his right
hand as he sang in a whispery voice, "Time after time, I close
my eyes thinking about what the night will bring, dancing alone,
your body next to mi--"
Scully cut him off mid-note. "Excuse me."
Juan's head flew up. "Oh, hi. What do you think of my new song?
My girlfriend Emily originally wrote it as a poem. I told her it
was one of the best I'd ever read, and I wanted to make a song
out of it. Being able to dedicate her own words to her will be so
special, you know?"
Mulder adopted an imposing air. 'Anything to keep this kid from
singing in front of us again,' he thought. He pulled out his
badge and stated, "Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. We'd like to talk to you."
"Yeah?" Juan said with a slight quaver in his voice.
"We already spoke with Emily." Mulder paused, hoping Juan would
volunteer some useful information.
Juan's stance relaxed. "Oh, she told me. You're trying to help
Lucky, right?"
His approach hadn't worked. It was time to get more direct.
"Lucky's behavior isn't the only case we're investigating. For
instance, we wondered if you like going to raves. We hear they're
popular around here."
Juan dropped his gaze and shifted his feet. "No, they're not my
thing. I hang out with a small group of friends, mostly."
"So you didn't go to any rave on, say, June 30?"
The boy made a valiant effort to keep his voice steady but
failed. "Not me. Must have been someone else. Well, look, I have
to go record my song. If you have any more questions, you can
listen until I'm done, and then--"
"No!" Mulder and Scully chorused.
They exchanged sheepish glances, and Mulder went on. "Thank you,
but that won't be necessary. If we need to talk to you again,
we'll reach you at home."
"Great. I gotta go, bye." And Juan nearly ran out of the room and
down the hallway.
Scully looked at Mulder. "I guess that's that. I don't know what
else we can say to Juan."
"It's obvious that he knows something."
Scully opened her mouth, shut it, and then proceeded after all.
"Maybe he and his friends went to a rave this summer. Maybe they
were even at the same rave Ted Wilson was supposed to attend. We
still have no proof that they saw or heard anything that might
help us solve this case. However, I do believe that we should
talk to these kids again and let them know the gravity of the s
situation. Maybe then they'll confess their big secret, and we
can put this matter behind us. I personally don't think it has
anything to do with Ted Wilson, but at least we'll know for
sure."
Mulder nodded. "We should ask Juan and Emily to come to the
police station. A more formal setting should encourage them to
talk."
"You can tell Juan." Scully motioned to the hallway.
Mulder took a step just as the front door opened, and Ned Ashton
entered. He looked surprised to see them, but recovered gracefully.
"Agent Mulder, Agent Scully. We met earlier today, at the
Quartermaine mansion. I'm Ned Ashton. Is anyone helping you?"
"We talked to Juan Santiago. We need to arrange another meeting
with him, though. Mulder?" Scully prompted.
Ned stepped closer to Scully, flashing her a dimpled smile as he
turned his back on Mulder and effectively excluded him from the
conversation. "I want to apologize for my family's behavior
yesterday. ELQ board meetings usually get pretty hectic, but
that's no excuse. Did you find out what you wanted to know from
my grandfather?"
To Mulder's disgust, Scully fell for the act. She smiled back at
Ned and replied, "Yes, we cleared up the matter right away."
"I'll go talk to Juan," Mulder said to no one in particular,
since they were too absorbed in their discussion to notice him.
He stalked down the hallway, feeling more than a little
neglected, and at the far end, rounded the corner to see Juan
talking on a cell phone in the middle of the hall. His voice
carried over the 30-foot distance, and the words made Mulder
freeze. "I'm afraid the cops are on to us...Okay. The docks near
the abandoned cannery, at midnight. I'll be there, Nikolas." Juan
disconnected from the call.
Mulder ducked into a recessed doorway, but he was in no danger of
being seen. Juan didn't even turn his head as he continued down
the hall. As soon as he disappeared around the far corner, Mulder
emerged from his hiding place and returned to Scully and Ned, who
were engaged in an animated conversation.
"We have to leave," he informed Scully.
She didn't spare him a glance as she said, "All right. Just a
minute."
"No, now." He placed a hand on her arm.
She frowned at him and smiled at Ned. "I'm sorry. We have to
follow up on a lead."
His voice held a mixture of disappointment and understanding.
"I'm glad we had a chance to talk so I could apologize for my
family. Goodbye, Agent Scully, and good luck."
She smiled one last time at him. "Goodbye, Ned."
Ned hurried ahead to hold open the door for Scully as she exited
the building. Mulder, a few steps behind, was left to shove it
open himself, but he had expected that. Outside, he turned to
Scully.
She got in the first words, though, snapping, "Mulder, you were
rude. What was so important that you had to practically drag me
outside?"
"'Goodbye, Ned'?" he mimicked. "You were already on a first-name
basis with him?"
"He was being friendly, and I was in the middle of my first
normal conversation since coming to this town."
He could hardly believe Scully was being so gullible. He had to
spell it out for her. "Ashton was on a fishing expedition, trying
to learn what we discussed with his grandfather."
A flicker of doubt crossed Scully's face, but she countered, "He
was very charming."
"Yeah, well, just because he hasn't come back from the dead even
once yet doesn't necessarily mean that he's normal. Wait until
we research his past. Who knows what we'll learn?"
"Like the fact that Emily Quartermaine was adopted?" Scully
asked.
Mulder nodded. "That explains a lot. But I learned something even
better. When I went to find Juan, I overheard him on the
telephone, arranging a meeting on the docks at midnight tonight.
He's afraid that the police, meaning us, are 'on to' them. What
do you think about that?"
It took Scully only a few seconds to answer. "I think we need to
attend that meeting, Mulder."
***********
Two stops (a gas station and a diner other than Kelly's) after
leaving L&B Records, Mulder and Scully ended up at their final
destination of the evening: the fourth floor of General Hospital.
To the casual observer, it probably looked much like any other
medical facility. But to Mulder, a veteran of hospitalizations
across the country, General Hospital was rife with inconsistencies.
On their way to Tony Jones' office, he and Scully walked down a
corridor of private rooms complete with gingham curtains, glass
vases, and cable television, and dodged a nurse chatting on a
cell phone.
Dr. Jones' unlocked office was another inconsistency. Scully
paused outside the door. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't just go in. But
considering the circumstances, I'll make an exception. And if
anyone questions my presence, they can confirm with Chloe Morgan
that she gave me permission to examine her charts. But I don't
expect any problems. The way this place seems to be run, I'll be
able to walk in and out at will."
"How about getting me A.J. Quartermaine's file, while you're at
it?"
Scully entered and tried the file cabinet. Also unlocked. "How do
you know that his records are even in this office? He might never
have been treated by Dr. Jones."
"Call it another hunch." Mulder watched triumphantly as Scully
pulled out the desired file. "What did I tell you?" He took it
from her and flipped to the first page. Running his finger along
the margin, he located the birth date: November 18, 1972, once
again. It wasn't what he had wanted to see. He snapped the file
shut and returned it to Scully.
She looked knowingly at him. "Ready to admit that Lesley Webber
was wrong?"
"Not yet. Just like Lucky Spencer's dental records that supposedly
proved his death, these records could have been switched. And
we've seen what the Quartermaines are like. It's far more
plausible that A.J. was born in 1979 than in 1972. Why should he
be ordinary if no one else in his family is?"
"Ned Ashton is A.J.'s cousin, and he's a perfectly nice,
respectable man," Scully defended. "As for his family, it's just
a little eccentric."
"If eccentricity includes holding conversations with a portrait,
maybe you're right," Mulder said under his breath.
Scully ignored him. "You're blowing this situation way out of
proportion. Try to keep out of trouble while I check Chloe's
records."
"All right. I'll see if Tony Jones is on duty tonight. We might
as well talk to him if we can." As Scully went back inside the
office, Mulder headed down the corridor to the nurses' station.
A perky blonde woman with a name tag that read "Amy Vining" was
on duty. Maybe she could spare him a few minutes.
**********
Eleven minutes later, Scully emerged from her study of Chloe's
records and looked around for Mulder. It didn't take long to spot
him at the nurses' station, talking with a blonde woman. As she
approached, though, she saw that he was doing much more listening
than speaking, as the nurse rattled on virtually nonstop.
Mulder noticed her and cut into the woman's spiel. "Amy, this is
Agent Scully."
Without missing a beat, Amy squealed, "Agent Scully! I have tons
of great stories to tell you! Do you know that you have the same
last name as an infamous mobster? Monica!" She looked over
Scully's shoulder at Dr. Quartermaine, who ignored her and strode
away. Amy wrinkled her nose. "Monica's never been a friend of
mine anyway. She knows exactly what I think of her morals, having
an affair with her own nephew, for one thing."
She paused for breath, and Mulder broke in. "You don't mean Ned
Ashton, do you?"
"Oh, well, Ned isn't a blood relative of hers," Amy acknowledged
before brightening. "But he's her husband's nephew and it's still
stepping over the line in my eyes. I don't care if he *was*
going by a different name at the time. Monica showed her true
colors again when she was sued for sexual harassment by a co-
worker. She got dragged through the mud in court, and she
deserved every minute of it."
'Oh, God, Mulder was right about Ned.' Scully attempted to steer
the conversation in another direction. "Amy, you obviously know a
lot about Port Charles."
Amy preened.
Scully continued, "When did Alan and Monica Quartermaine first
meet?"
"The late '70s." Amy nodded emphatically. "The rest of the
Quartermaines moved here not long after that."
Even as Scully realized that the dates didn't match, Mulder
asked, "Then how could their son A.J. have been born in 1972?"
Amy looked blank before latching onto another topic. "Ned was a
tennis instructor at the spa when he met Monica, but I bet he
hasn't picked up a racket since."
"Yes, but what about A.J.?" Mulder pressed.
Amy went on as if she hadn't heard him. "He became a rock star
under the name Eddie Maine, and was a bigamist who was married to
Lois Cerullo and Katherine Bell at the same time, and later he
was CEO of ELQ before he--"
Scully cut through the stream of chatter. "Is Dr. Tony Jones
working tonight?"
"He isn't in. Did you know that he once kidnapped a baby, and
endangered Robin Scorpio's life by locking her in a cabin without
her medication, and..."
This time, instead of interrupting, they simply walked away and
entered the nearest stairwell.
"Look on the bright side, Scully," Mulder offered as they
descended the steps. "At least we learned some of Ned Ashton's
secrets."
"I just want a definitive answer about A.J. Quartermaine's
evolving age," Scully admitted. "Amy more or less backed up
Lesley Webber's story. But she didn't even seem to hear you when
you asked for more details. And she certainly didn't act like a
very reliable source. I have to wonder if she changed any of the
facts about the town history."
"I seriously doubt she altered even one detail," Mulder said.
"She's a fountain of information. You didn't catch what she told
me while you were checking those records. I now have another
nominee for the weird files: the tale of the Asian Quarter, in
which young Robin Scorpio's doll's eyes turned out to be
priceless pearls much sought after by both the downtrodden Asian
population of Port Charles and their oppressor, the evil Mr. Wu."
"That's interesting. I haven't seen any signs of an Asian
population, oppressed or otherwise."
"I bet they were the smart ones, and left town after that
incident," Mulder suggested. "How did your research go? Did you
find anything in Chloe's records that would explain her psychic
ability to your satisfaction?"
"Not even close. She definitely has a brain tumor, but it
couldn't cause visions such as she describes. Honestly, I think
she's mentally unstable. But for tonight, we should concentrate
on that meeting on the docks. It just might be our big break."
***********
At his surveillance post inside the abandoned cannery, Mulder
sighed and stirred impatiently. Beside him, Scully gestured for
stillness, and he settled down. She was right, of course.
Stakeouts tended to be unproductive under the best of circum-
stances, and it would be pure foolishness to risk scaring away
their targets because he was bored. Scully was far better at
waiting than he was, and it was on her insistence that they had
arrived a half-hour before the midnight meeting. It was just a
five-minute walk from Kelly's anyway. According to Juan's
telephone conversation, the meeting was to take place on the
docks, so they had selected the interior of the building as the
best place to wait.
They remained crouched near the cracked, dingy front window as
the seconds ticked past. It was too dark to see their watches,
but they each held both a penlight and a flashlight. So far, the
lights had been used to help guide them inside, and to sneak an
occasional look at the time. At the last check, it was 11:58.
In the next moment, their patience was rewarded. From the left
came the sound of a vehicle approaching. Peering out the window,
Mulder saw a dark-colored car that drove close to the cannery
until its path was blocked by several piles of debris. The driver
turned off the engine and climbed out. Another figure emerged
from the passenger side. As they moved toward the building, the
moonlight reflected off of their faces, making them clearly
visible.
"Lucky Spencer and Emily Quartermaine," Mulder whispered to
Scully. "They must be waiting for Juan."
Another minute or so ticked past. All four people remained so
quiet that when low voices became audible from somewhere to the
right, the sound stood out in sharp relief. Lucky and Emily
tensed and looked in the direction of the noise, as did Mulder
as best as he could through a three-inch hole in the glass. He
was able to identify two people, one on either end, carrying a
dark object about six feet in length. Next to him, Scully leaned
forward to get a better view.
"It's Nikolas Cassadine and Juan," Mulder informed her.
"But what are they carrying? It looks like it's wrapped in a
garbage bag."
Mulder shook his head, at a loss for an explanation. They watched
as Lucky and Emily moved past the jumble of boxes and garbage to
intercept Juan and Nikolas. The teenagers were so close that
their voices drifted through the various cracks and holes in the
window.
"It took you long enough," Lucky complained.
"You had the easy part," Nikolas shot back.
Juan adjusted his grip. "Can we get moving again? He's pretty
heavy."
'He?' From the way Scully shifted beside him, Mulder knew she had
also caught the telltale use of that word.
"You want to go out now?" he whispered.
In answer, she quietly stood and moved toward the door. Mulder
followed, equally silent. As they reached the doorway, Lucky
handed Emily his keys, and she turned toward the car. In doing
so, she faced the cannery, saw the agents, and cried out. In turn,
Nikolas gasped, Lucky swore, and Juan jumped and dropped his end
of the mystery object, which hit the ground with a thump.
"My God, Mulder," said Scully. "That's really a body."
There was little doubt about it. The odor of rotting flesh
hit them from a dozen steps away. Scully crossed the short
distance, knelt beside Juan's end of the plastic-wrapped object,
and tugged away the covering to reveal a pale face. She
automatically felt for a pulse, but almost immediately jerked her
hand away. "He's inside a garbage bag, and he's dead. The only
question is whether this is Stefan Cassadine or Ted Wilson."
"This isn't my uncle!" Nikolas blurted.
"Shut up!" Lucky hissed. "Don't say anything else. The more you
talk, the more trouble we'll be in."
Scully looked at Mulder. "Call the police. Tell them we've got a
decomposing, semi-frozen body and four murder suspects."
***********
They had barely herded the teenagers away from the body when the
first police car arrived.
Mulder consulted his watch. "Not a bad response time for a
midnight call in a small town. Especially for a police force
that rarely arrests the real criminals on its first try."
They moved out of the way to let the officers do their job, and
Mulder was relieved to see that one of them immediately read the
kids their rights. Another, a dark-haired Hispanic man, walked
over to him and Scully.
"Agents Mulder and Scully? I'm Detective Garcia. You're the ones
who found the body? How did that happen?"
Mulder looked questioningly at Scully, but she nodded for him to
proceed. "Basically, we witnessed unusual behavior on the part of
those kids," he waved toward Nikolas, Lucky, Emily, and Juan,
"and overheard a conversation in which they agreed to meet
tonight on these docks. Since this area is a well-known hang-out
of the criminally inclined, it shouldn't come as any great
surprise that we caught them in the act of transporting a body."
"And?" Garcia waited expectantly.
"That's it. Right, Scully?"
"In a nutshell," she agreed.
"Wait a minute," Garcia objected. "You've been in town for all
of two days, and you found a guy we've been looking for for two
months. You must have had more to go on."
Scully shook her head. "Sorry."
Garcia sighed. "Taggert's gonna have a fit when he finds out
about Juan's involvement."
"Isn't that him over there?" Scully pointed to a newly arrived
police vehicle.
Garcia excused himself and went over to the car, presumably to
fill the lieutenant in on the action. In the span of about 10
seconds, Taggert's expression changed from curious to shocked,
and he stalked toward Juan.
Mulder watched with a faint feeling of sympathy. "I almost feel
sorry for that kid, having Taggert to deal with."
"The lieutenant ought to be removed from the case, seeing that he
has a personal stake in the outcome," Scully noted.
Mulder looked at her. "Admit it, the odds of him voluntarily
stepping away are slim to none. But Garcia looks reasonably
competent, by Port Charles standards. If he helps Taggert and
they keep Hannah out of it, they might eventually straighten out
this mess."
Scully covered a yawn with her hand. "If that's a suggestion that
we leave them to our own devices, I agree. It's late, and I'm
tired. I think we had a productive day any way you look at it."
"No question about that." They set off for Kelly's, and as Mulder
had anticipated, no one showed any signs of registering their
absence. "What do we do for an encore? Solve the mystery of
Stefan Cassadine's disappearance?" He was only half joking, of
course.
end 5/8