Whoa! Long time no update. Sorry folks, exams kinda happened and everything and I never got much time to write until Christmas break. Leave feedback please! I promise more will be coming soon!
Second Precinct, Cleveland Police Dept.
6:33 p.m.
If at first Mulder and Scully had held any doubts that Detective Preston was through and through an old-school detective, they were dispelled immediately upon entering his office. To Mulder it seemed like something out of a Richard Stark crime novel. To Scully, it was a panel from a Calvin and Hobbes' cartoon; the one in which Calvin was the hard-boiled detective Tracer Bullett.
The office was a fairly small one, but it was difficult to tell if that was because the dimensions of the room were diminutive or if the mountains of papers, cabinets, empty coffee cups and paperclips only made it seem smaller than it really was. In the back center of the room sat Detective Preston's desk and chair, and in it Detective Preston, his feet up on the desktop, his hands clasped behind his head, a toothpick lodged in the corner of his mouth. He appeared to be lost in a daydream for his eyes hung loosely in their sockets and has assumed the glassy, watery appearance of one who had either spent far too much time at a desk or just consumed a copious amount of alcohol.
The door was mostly open and they could have walked straight in, but Mulder made sure to give a quick rap on the glass panel of the door in order to give the detective enough time to assume a more professional demeanor. Instead, his head slowly swiveled towards the two agents and, grunting, he swung his feet off of the desk and down onto the floor.
"Hey there agents," he began, straightening and shuffling the papers which littered his desk. "I didn't expect you'd be here so soon."
"Yeah, us feds are like that," said Mulder, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Do mind if we come in?"
"No, not at all," Preston replied. "Come on in. Just accept my apologies if I seem a little out of it. Unlike federal agents, us mere mortal police officers need a break from time to time."
"We'll make this as quick as we can Detective Preston, but we do have a case to solve so we'd appreciate any help you could give us." Scully crossed her arms as she spoke, fixing the detective with a steely gaze.
"Fine, fine, be my guest," came thee stock reply, but under those seemingly unconcerned words Scully thought she could detect a hint of something darker. While there was certainly nothing new in police-FBI rivalry (Scully herself had borne the brunt of those confrontations more often than she cared to remember), it was hard to get a read to Detective Preston. While on the surface he seemed to exhibit signs of being a gruff, no-nonsense police officer, somehow she sensed something was not sitting well with Preston. Not that he would ever allow himself (or anyone else) to comment on it. Just the same, Scully felt uneasy.
Mulder sat down in the office's only chair, leaving Scully to stand to the side. That was fine with her. The less "female weakness" she exhibited in front of Preston the better, she thought. It would be just like Preston to assume the worst if he caught any trace of her trolling for special favors due to the fact that she was a woman. She had been there often enough and nipped that right in the bud.
Preston's gray-green eyes hovered over the pair before settling on Mulder. Reaching down into his desk drawer, he pulled out a hefty file from the dark recesses of his own filing system and allowed it to flop out of his hand and onto the desk with a satisfying plopping sounds.
"So, agents," he began again, this time with a voice which suggested a far more businesslike demeanor. "Where do you want to start?"
"Well, call me old fashioned but I've always been partial to starting at the beginning." A smile cracked Mulder's face, but it evidentially made little impact of Preston.
"Suit yourself," muttered Preston to himself, eyes glued on the desk. "Ok. So here we go." Leaning back, Preston let out a long sigh which was echoed by the preparatory squeaking of his chair as he leaned back. And with that, he launched into his summary.
"At about 1:00 p.m. yesterday you two left the apartment of Piotyr Yumashev at 1223 Pushkin street. While the techs worked on thawing out the body from the floor and transporting it to the local coroner's office, I headed back here to the office to brainstorm some with Steve, to see if we couldn't get to the bottom of this. Seeing how this was the second victim of this type we'd had and all."
"Steve?" interjected Mulder, pausing momentarily in his scribbling as he looked up from his notepad.
"Steve- well, Stefan actually," replied Preston, scratching his head. "Everyone calls him Steve. Detective Stefan Rybakov is one of the more capable officers we have here in the second precinct. Sharp as a tack and what's more, he speaks Russian so that makes our lives that much easier."
"Is he working on this case as well?" pondered Scully aloud. Preston shook his head.
"Nope. Poor Steve's up to his neck in other stuff right now. We had a big bust a couple of weeks back and he was the lead detective on that, so now that the grand jury has been convened he's spending pretty much his entire life over at the courthouse and DA's office, getting his paperwork filed and his testimony straight." Preston's voice trailed off again and once more he appeared to be contemplating the back of the office wall, evidentially admiring spire-web of cracks which had begun to creep up through the plaster, or merely lost in his own train of thought. Mulder waited several seconds to assure himself that Preston was well and gone before reeling him back in.
"So…you got with Detective Rybakov and had a little chat. Did you make any progress?" Preston let out a slight grunt and yanked his eyes off the wall and back to Mulder.
"Yeah. Anyway, as I was saying, we got together and tried to see if we couldn't figure out what the link between our two victims was. You'll remember that Piotyr Yumashev was the second victim found frozen to death in his apartment. The first was a man by the name of Lev Sobiowski who we found at the end of February. Both of these guys had a arrest and criminal records, but nothing serious. Sobiowski had been arrested half a dozen times in connection with various pretty crimes. He was never formally charged with anything and as such while the Cleveland anti-gang taskforce is fairly certain that he was involved in many more crimes than those he was arrested for, there's no evidence to prove anything."
"What about the man you found yesterday. Yumashev?" Preston glanced at Scully with an impatient 'I was just getting there, hold your horses' look.
"Good ol' Piotyr was a little more promising, but again nothing in the long run. Unlike Lev Piotyr was actually charged in connection with an assault which took place outside a Russian delicatessen about a year ago. He beat the owner to a pulp and the poor guy refused to even press charges on his own. Luckily a patrolman rolled up on the scene as it was happening and caught Piotyr red-handed."
"Anything ever come of that?" Mulder asked, thumbing his pen.
"Nope. Yumashev got 3 month's probation and managed to stay clean long enough for that to run out. He's managed to avoid getting rearrested ever since then, though that's not to say that he hasn't been involved in anything else."
"Sounds like a dead end." Scully tried to mask the frustration in her voice, but wasn't sure how successful she was.
It was…until we dug a little deeper." There was no mistaking the pride in Preston's expression. "With just Lev Sobiowski, we didn't have that much to go on. After all, a single dead body is just a dead body, no matter how bizarre or unusual the causes of death. But when Piotyr Yumashev turned up dead the same way, at least we had a connection. We checked out their employment records."
"Any hits?" Mulder's eyes sparkled as he said this. Preston actually smiled.
"Yeah, Agent Mulder. You could say that. For a period of six months back in 1994, both Lev and Piotyr worked for an outfit called Trans-Rus Shipping, Inc. While that in itself is not particularly unusual, it turns out that this Shipping company doesn't actually exist. It's just a front organization, run by and for the Russian mob."
"For what purpose?" Scully's question was perhaps a bit obvious, but having precious little experience in the field of mob law-enforcement, she felt a little out of the loop.
"Money-laundering, Agent Scully," replied Preston, obviously happy to have a chance to play mentor to what he no doubt thought were the overeager, inexperienced g-men. "Hell, I'd be just about anything under the sun runs out of that place. Cars, jewelry, cigarettes, fur coats, extortion, racketeer, illegal boxing, you name it. Hell, that would explain why Yumashev beat the crap out of that Deli owner. The guy was probably getting late on his payments and needed to be reminded who was in charge." Preston reached down and pulled his wastebasket up to where he was sitting and, completely devoid of decorum, spat out his soggy, bent toothpick. Replacing the trash can on the floor, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a fresh one.
"So," started Scully, trying desperately to avoid sounding disgusted at the sight of Preston's culinary habits, "Lev and Piotyr are tied to the Russian mob, this fake shipping company. And for whatever reason, this involvement has gotten the both of them killed?"
"Exactly." Both men spoke in unison, and then chuckled as they started in surprise.
"That still doesn't explain how the bodies ended up frozen, or any of the scientific oddity surrounding the…deaths," she continued, trying desperately to fall into the trap of calling them murders and thus validating Mulder's theories. A brief silence followed. At length Mulder broke it.
"It doesn't really matter. One way or another, we've made progress on this. If we can figure out why these two men were killed, that will lead us to whom, and no doubt, finally, to how. All we need to do is connect the dots."
"Well put," added Preston, nodding his head in agreement. "Toothpick?" he asked as he extended his little case towards Mulder. Scully was thankful to see Mulder decline. Just the same, Scully had to admit she was shocked. It wasn't like Mulder to suddenly let everything drop. After all, wasn't he the believer? Wasn't he the one who was always dragging them around the country on some harebrained scheme to reveal the mysteries of the universe or prove the existence of the paranormal? Why on earth would he drag her all the way out here in order to investigate something which he himself seemed to have lost interest in? Unless of course…
It was always possible that he was merely putting on a show for the good detective. Scully had to admit that no matter how annoying and rankling she found people of Preston's ilk, the man had done some good, solid work. He had managed to uncover the connection between the two victims. One of the potential connections, she corrected herself. There was still plenty of work to be done on this case. Part of her wanted to be done with this case as soon as possible and be on her way back to Washington as soon as possible. On the other hand, part of her was also genuinely intrigued. What had happened to the two men in their apartments? While Mulder no doubt preferred to see it as a case of witchcraft or shamanism or powers of the occult, she herself quickly dismissed such allegations as ludicrous. However, somewhere deep inside of her a scientific flame had been sparked. What could possibly have caused the two men to fall victim to such strange occurrences? One way or another, she had to admit that she was intrigued. Perhaps this trip out to Ohio would be worthwhile after all.
Suddenly, Scully's mind was jarred out of her scull with the force of an oncoming cement mixer. In the distance she pinpointed the source and surged back to the present tense. The sound in question was that of Detective Mark Preston's telephone ringing. Reaching forward, Preston yanked it off its receiver and in one nimble move placed it between his neck and ear as he simultaneously reached for a pen and pencil. Part of Scully paused to wonder how much practice it had taken Preston to get that move down straight like that. The rest of her focused on the task at hand: listening to half of the Preston-unknown phone conversation.
"You're kidding me. Really?" Preston's words came fast and furious, his pen scribbling quickly over the piece of loose-leaf he had scooped up off of his desk. "Ok. Ok. Got that. Ten minutes ago you say. Uh-huh. Ok. Be right there."
Leaning forward, Preston replaced the telephone in its cradle with a deafening clang and flung his fresh toothpick into the wastebasket. After taking a moment to let the words of the unknown caller sink in, he slowly turned to the two agents.
"Well folks, I don't know how else to say it, so I'll just say it. Grab your stuff and get ready to roll. There's just been another murder."
To be continued…