Title: Canticle

Author: CeilidhO

Summary and Disclaimer: Please see previous chapters.

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Dillon, Montana
October 25
4:07 pm

Scully felt her pulse speed up, the blood run to her face. "Mr. Holderman has been arrested for assault and battery of whom?"

"Of Mrs. Holderman. Jeremy called the police at 2 am today, saying that his parents were fighting and that his mother was screaming. They arrived to find Mrs. Holderman being beaten by her husband with a belt."

Scully squeezed her eyes shut. "Where was Jude through all of this?"

Dan let out a breath. "He'd locked himself in the basement. The police only found him by searching the house. Jeremy told them that he always goes there when their father gets violent."

"Do you need me to come down?"

"No, no. You need to keep going, and we'll do our best for those boys. I'll see if Peg will let them stay at our place, at least for the night."

Scully rubbed her eyes. "All right. Keep me updated, please. I'll talk to you soon." Dan said goodbye, and Scully closed her phone slowly. Mrs. Mortimer looked over.

"What's wrong, Agent Scully? Are you all right?"

She tried her best to smile. "It's fine. Just some upsetting news, but there's nothing I can do about it at the moment." Right then, the door of the bungalow opened, and Mulder came back in. Scully excused herself from Mrs. Mortimer, thanked her, and said goodbye. Mulder did the same, and then followed Scully to the car.

As they pulled away from the house, Scully related the contents of the phone call to Mulder. He swore and slammed his hand against the steering wheel.

"I knew it Scully," he exclaimed, "I knew something was wrong at that house, but I didn't say anything. Damnit!"

"From what I gathered, it's been going on for some time now."

Mulder shook his head. "So what now?"

"Dan and Peggy, his wife, are going to ask if they can take Jude and Jeremy, at least for the night. There's nothing for us to do now, except carry on with the interviews."

Mulder swung the car onto the ramp for the southbound I-15. "Well, it's the Holtz family now. Does your memory need refreshing?"

Scully felt a shiver sweep through her, and she quietly chafed her hands together to warm the suddenly freezing digits. "No, no I don't. I remember them very clearly. Very clearly."

They drove on in silence for about an hour, and then they pulled off the highway into the small village of Cranden. It had barely changed in the last four years, Scully noticed, only now the flag pennants on the lampposts crackled and snapped in the gusting fall wind, instead of drooping limply in the stagnant summer air. The trees in planters along the sidewalk were crimson and gold instead of thick and green, and the occasional stray leaf was borne away in the wind to trip down the pavement.

Mulder turned the car down Oakmount Drive, and stopped in front of the Holtz's home. It was an average big, rural house; broad and wide, with a wraparound porch, it was two and a half storeys, with a driveway, garage and basketball hoop. A large flag stuck out into the slightly neglected front yard, waving energetically in the crisp air. In the driveway, a blond boy of about ten was playing basketball with a friend, but as they heard the car they both started, then sprinted off in opposite directions; one down the street and around the corner, and the blond into the house, slamming the heavy wooden door behind himself.

Mulder looked over at Scully, furrowing his brow. "That was strange," he said slowly. "A bit of an extreme reaction."

Scully, looking carefully at the house, felt uneasiness begin to burrow in her stomach. On closer inspection, the house was not average at all. All of the windows were shut and blocked, the glass painted over in white. The gate to the backyard, which had been blown back by the wind, swung forward with a creak of rust, hanging from one hinge. Next to the house, they could see as they got out of the car and approached, pulling out their badges, weeds were pushing through the wooden siding, cracking it in places.

Scully thought painfully of Mrs. Mortimer, of her calm and composure, and her quiet, unassuming grief, and knew whatever it was that was inside this wreck of a house was as vastly different from that woman as she could ever imagine. As they walked up the porch steps, the wood gave slightly beneath their feet, and the doorbell was grey with dust. When they rang it, a harsh voice came from inside.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

Scully looked over at Mulder, and then stepped forward. "Mr. Holtz? My name is Dana Scully, I'm with the FBI-"

"My son came running in here, yelling that two strangers drove, bold as brass, right into my driveway. You're on my property, and I'm armed, so state your business fast, and get out."

Out of the corner of her eye, Scully saw Mulder smoothly flick open the snap on his holster. Fear starting to prickle her skin, Scully tried again. "Our office called you. We just need to talk to you and your family. Please, we've got our badges to show; we're not here to do any harm. We just want to talk." When there was no answer from inside, Scully tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and continued. "Do you remember us, Mr. Holtz? We came to talk to you once before, four years ago. We're the ones who found Jamie's killer."

The door creaked open slowly, and Mr. Holtz came into view. He held a rifle by his side, but loosely and pointed down. He squinted at their badges, and then gestured them inside. "I'm sorry," he said roughly. "It's just we're very careful." He looked at them again. "Last time, weren't you with another guy? A young one."

"That's right," Mulder said. "Alexander Paring. He was the one who was supposed to call you, to let you know we were coming. Did you get the call?"

In response, Mr. Holtz leaned over the banister of the staircase in the front hall and yelled "Mary!"

A moment later, a pretty, brunette girl of about sixteen appeared at the top of the stairs. "What?" she called down.

"Did you pick up a call from the FBI, some guy called Paring?"

"Yeah. I left a note on the counter."

"Damnit, Mary, you know we never see those. Get down here now, anyway. These FBI people need to talk to us all. Call Teddy, and I'll lever your mother out of bed."

Without another word to Mulder and Scully, he ran heavily up the stairs and disappeared onto the second floor. They turned to each other, and Scully raised her eyebrow. Mulder smiled faintly. "This place is spooky, all right," he joked weakly.

"It's wrong," Scully responded in a strained murmur. "It's… off. It's obvious that the family is still grief stricken, but still. Something is wrong here, and more than just on the surface."

Mulder stepped into the living room, and called back: "Well, for one thing, there design taste is horrific."

Scully followed him, and her eyes widened at the sight before her. She remembered the Holtz's living room as ordered and homey, but now as she stepped through the chipped doorway her gaze was met by chaos and nightmare.

The walls were coated in newspaper clippings, yellowed and dry, covering every square inch of the peeling wallpaper. The clippings fluttered in the draughts from a shattered window, and the ceiling was mottled with mildew and water damage. The only clean light came from the broken window; the rest was murky and thick, straining through the painted over windowpanes. The whole room smelt of rot and dry paper.

Disbelieving, Scully stepped closer to the walls and looked more closely at the clippings. "UTAH BOY STRANGLED, MURDERED" screamed one. "CHOIRMASTER CLAIMS SIXTH VICTIM" trumpeted another. Scully wandered along, her breath caught in her throat. She could see that in the places where there were no clippings, the wall was instead covered up with a yellowing, discolored photograph of Jamie Holtz. She made her way towards the front of the room, taking in fragments of articles here and there. Killing rampage… No leads…Wings carved… Mutilated body found…

When she reached the front mantelpiece, she was greeted by a dusty framed photograph of the little boy next to an old issue of People magazine, which shouted 'UTAH KILLER CAUGHT: HIS OWN SON THE ONLY SURVIVOR'. The by-line, almost smudged out from the passage of time, read 'George Hoffman wreaked havoc on the Four Corners states for nearly six years. Now, his only surviving victim, his own 9-year-old son, tells us his story.'

Scully remembered the article, which had been shown to her by many when it was first published, mistakenly believing that the publicity would gratify her. But, more than the magazine, she remembered the photograph beside it. She remembered first seeing it here, on this mantelpiece, in this room, four years ago.

…Scully continued on into the living room, walking over to the mantle over the gas fireplace. A familiar photo stared back at her there, one of a blond haired boy of about nine, grinning at the camera, his hair slicked back, his best tie cinched tightly around his neck, tucked into the collar of a crisp white suit shirt.

She tried not to remember that that was how he had died, from something cinched around his neck just too tightly; she tried not to see his little lips blue and gasping for air, blood running down his back from the wings already carved there. She didn't want to, but the images came unbidden. Someone spoke sharply behind her.

"What are you doing?"

Behind here, someone spoke the same words, so sharply and suddenly that she started hard. Scully turned around, and a boy stood there. For a moment, she thought she was hallucinating; the boy was Jamie, it seemed, exactly like him, a ghost standing before her in the flesh. After the rush of adrenaline was gone, she realized that the figure before her must be Teddy, Jamie's younger brother, who was ten now. She felt incredibly foolish, but put out her hand to him anyway.

"You must be Teddy. I'm Dana."

The boy stared at her, incredulous. "Get out!" he cried. "Get out of this room! Now!"

Startled, Scully did, quickly, bumping into Mulder where he stood at the door of the house. The boy slammed the living room door behind them, glaring at them with equal venom.

"That room," he said menacingly, "is none of your business. You're not to go in there, ever! No strangers!"

"Teddy?" came a soft voice from the top of the stairs. "Why are you shouting?"

When they looked up, they saw Mrs. Holtz at the top of the stairs, wrapped in a dressing gown. "Mom," Teddy murmured, his manner suddenly different. "Mom, they were… It was nothing. Just come down, mom, don't be upset."

Hesitantly, Mrs. Holtz came down the stairs, followed a moment later by Mr. Holtz and Mary. Mr. Holtz ushered them into the kitchen, where they sat around the table in the dim yellow light that leaked through the curtained glass doors.

"Why are you here?" Mr. Holtz asked again. "What do you want from us?"

Scully leaned towards him across the round vinyl table. "We're investigating a series of murders that may be linked to the murders of George Hoffman." Mrs. Holtz gasped, and Teddy put his hand on her arm. "As part of this investigation, we need to speak to the families of all of his victims. We've already spoken to the families of Peter Laurence, James Mortimer and Jude Hoffman, and now we need to speak to you."

Mr. Holtz frowned, and spoke in an accusatory manner that Scully remembered clearly. "What can we possibly have to do with some other sicko? Haven't you people put us through enough?"

Mulder and Scully shared a look, and he said levelly: "Look, sir, let's remember that we're the good guys. We're the people who found, caught and ultimately killed the bad guy. We're just doing our job, just finding out all we can about the background emotional elements of this horrific crime, these horrific crimes, past and present."

Mary spoke up, raising her eyes from the surface of the table. "What can we do? As you can see, it's ruined our lives."

"Mary!" hissed her father.

"Well," Mulder answered, keeping his tone carefully neutral. "As just a matter of procedure, we're going to need to know where all of you have been for the last three weeks. Once that's established, we just want to talk about the sort of stuff that went on in your family after you found out what had happened to your son, when you found out that Hoffman had been caught, about the aftermath of that."

"We're sorry to have to dredge up old emotions," Scully added, "but it really is necessary. Lives could be saved by it."

What emerged was an account so terrible that it made Scully's stomach churn just to watch them tell it, haltingly and reluctantly. After they were notified of Jamie's death at the hand's of a serial murderer, Mr. Holtz ground out, Mrs. Holtz locked herself in Jamie's room for twenty four hours, only coming out about an hour before Mulder, Scully and Paring had arrived. After the agents had left, insinuating a connection with the church, the family had gone and collected the other children- John, Mary and six year-old Teddy- from their grandparents' and stayed inside the house with the windows and doors all locked. Mrs. Holtz, Mary admitted with a sidelong glance at her dishevelled mother, had been nearly crazy with fear that one of her other children might be taken too.

When, only a few days later, news reached them of the killer's death, they had gone on a camping trip to the mountains to avoid the press. Fifteen year-old John had begged that they stay at home so he could watch the news coverage, but Mr. Holtz had adamantly refused, saying it was unhealthy. While camping, it emerged torturously and with much evasion that Mrs. Holtz had tried to commit suicide by hanging herself from a tree. When going off to use the washroom in the woods, John had found her and saved her by ripping the knot apart barehanded. He still had the scars on his hands, Teddy informed them with some awe.

"After we got home, things didn't get better," Mary mumbled. "Mom doesn't come out of her room much, and Daddy's really busy with work. I'm trying really hard to keep my grades up, but it's not easy. Things just really never got any easier."

Mr. Holtz, who had been sitting silently for most of the interview, his arms folded and a frown etched into his face, suddenly stood up. "All right," he snapped. "That's about enough of airing our dirty laundry. This conversation is over. I'm taking my wife up to bed, because she's sick right now and none of this pointless talking is good for her."

"I don't want to," Mrs. Holtz whispered, but her husband ignored her.

"Yeah, right, Dad," Mary said witheringly. "Mom's sick right now. When has she not been sick in the last four years? When has anything been right around here for the last four years? It's not airing dirty laundry, it's the-"

"Shut up!" Mr. Holtz roared, slamming his hand down on the table so hard the entire thing jumped and Mrs. Holtz let out a shrill whimper. Scully felt her heart crash into her throat, but before she could act, he bellowed: "When have I not put food on your table? When have I not done everything a man usually does? There is nothing wrong with this family! Nothing!" Struggling to control his breathing, he turned to the agents, red in the face, a vein standing out on his temple. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave now. Right now. You are no longer welcome on my property. I'm within my rights." He marched them down the hallway to the door.

"Mr. Holtz," Mulder said, his eyes wide and his tone disbelieving. "We're conducting a federal investigation. It's a felony to impede us, and-"

"I've played my role in your investigation, I've done my part. Now leave." With that, he slammed the door and they heard the bolt slam home.

"Mulder," Scully said urgently as they reached the end of the driveway. "What if he's going to harm the children for what they told us? We have to do something."

"I know," he replied anxiously. Right at that moment, Mary came running around the side of the house, her expression satisfied but urgent.

"I can answer the rest of your questions, I can tell you things, but only further from here. Don't worry, my father never hits us, only the furniture."

A few minutes later, at the café around the corner, Mary told them about John over a milkshake.

"He's at college, but only a cheap one in Utah. He's nineteen, but he still has so much trouble with everything that's happened. Me, I just want to move on. I mean, I was closest to Jamie in age, but I get that life has to go on. Teddy barely even remembers Jamie, but John had the hardest time, next to Mom."

Scully tilted her head. "Why was that, Mary?"

"Well, if you think about it, John was always there when the worst happened. He was the one who answered the phone when the police called to say Jamie's body was found. Since my dad's name is John too, and my brother's voice was deep, they thought he was the father and told him everything. By the time they figured it out and got him off the phone, John had already heard all the details of the way Jamie's body was… treated."

"But the police don't usually go into that when they call," Mulder interjected with a frown. Mary shrugged.

"When they told him that it was murder, John asked for the details. They supplied them."

Scully felt a shudder run through her. A fifteen year-old, asking for the details of his baby brother's mutilated body? One look at Mulder told her he was thinking the same thing.

"Also," the girl continued, "John was the one who talked mom out of Jamie's room. Probably worst of all, he was the one who found her, y'know, in the woods. He tore his hands to shreds trying to rip open that knot. He even snapped a tooth trying to cut it with his teeth. The only part I remember is when he stumbled back into the campsite carrying her, both of them drenched in his blood." She took a moment, her eyes glazed as she gazed into her drink, absently stirring the thick mixture. "After that, he never left her if he could manage it. They did the living room together, with the newspaper clippings. Every time he comes home from college he puts up new ones he's found from the college library and the internet. I just thought you would want to know. He's got tons of emotional stuff to help with your investigation."

Scully took a moment to collect herself, then smiled at the girl. "You've helped us very much, Mary. Thank you for having enough courage to tell us this."

"No problem," she replied nonchalantly.

Mulder looked at her with concern. "Are you sure that you're safe at home?"

"Totally. I'll just say I went to the neighbors' till he cooled off. He cools off towards me and Teddy really fast, and he'll understand that I needed some space. I'll just get another safety, no-leaving-the-house-alone lecture. It'll be fine."

They dropped her off at the disintegrating house, and as they got back into the car Scully took the driver's seat. They pulled away fast through the town; Scully got onto the southbound I-15 and pulled out her cell phone at the same moment. She dialled rapidly, and Paring answered on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Alex, it's me. I need you to get on the state records site right now and find me the college enrolment information."

After a minute of silence, he said: "I'm there."

"I want you to find out where someone is enrolled. Are you in the right place?"

"Yes."

"Okay, good. Find the location of John Francis Holtz. That's Holtz, comma, John Francis. Francis with an 'i'."

"Okay… Give it a minute… Got him. There is a John Francis Holtz at the College of Eastern Utah in Price. He's in second year."

"That's it. Thank you, Alex. I'll call you back in a minute to explain."

Scully accelerated to 95 mph, and Mulder looked over. "Price? Where's that?"

"East, slightly southeast, of Salt Lake City. We flew right over it this morning."

"So we're going?"

Scully nodded grimly. "Let's go get our killer."

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A/N: Hey everybody. I hope you enjoyed this latest installment. It's possible it may be the last one for a while, since I'm going away on holiday again (for two weeks), and I'm leaving very soon. I will try my best to write a chapter in the next few days, but I can't guarantee. Thanks so much for sticking with me, and for continuing to review so wonderfully.

Talk to you soon (I hope)

Ceilidh