Chapter Two
The Regency Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts
March 30th, 1999, 11:59 p.m.
"You were awfully quiet in the car. Is there something wrong?" Mulder asked Scully as they entered an elevator and set down their baggage.
"I lied when I said that AD Skinner was waiting to speak to us." She dug her cell phone out of a coat pocket and bent down to stuff it into her bag.
"Is that what's bothering you? Don't worry about it. After six years, I can read you like a book, Dana Scully. You're tired, and you need some rest."
"So what's the plan for tomorrow?"
"Well, I'd figure we'd start off with hitting that museum with Katherine. It opens at about eight thirty, so I'd like to get there at that time, if not earlier." The doors opened, and each agent picked up their bag. "And Scully? Next time that you're tired, say so."
"What about the Lone Gunmen? I know that's who you're planning on checking that gizmo out." They unlocked their rooms, but Mulder followed Scully into hers.
"Actually, I was thinking that maybe you'd drop me off at the museum and drive back to Washington." Scully shed her coat and her hands went straight to her hips. "Well, I didn't think you liked her very much from the way you treated her."
"You're right, I don't. But it's a logical instinct, considering how she could, if given the opportunity, manipulate you." Her hands left her hips and went to dismantle the gun holster from her belt.
"Scully, are you worried about me?"
"I just think you need to be very cautious about your next course of action, if it does involve this woman." She placed the holster and gun onto a table by the bed while he sat himself into a chair to listen. "Inasmuch as I would love working with her, I'd feel more comfortable if you were the one to drop me off at the museum tomorrow and see the Gunmen in Washington."
"After the countless times that you've said this to me, Scully, I find it oddly ironic that I'm asking this of you," he chuckled, "but why should I believe you?"
"If you can truly read me like a book by now, Mulder, you should know that I don't take things like this lightly. And I wouldn't be pleading with you to go back to Washington without a good reason." Scully unzipped her boots and placed them on the floor next to his chair.
"I really wanted to see that crime scene for myself--but I do trust your judgment, Scully." An inward sigh of relief hit her like a ton of bricks, and she disappeared into the bathroom. He paused to glance at his watch and arose. "Just out of curiosity, Scully, what were you imagining?" Mulder inquired and strolled over to the open doorway and leaned against it.
"A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste, Mulder."
"Enlighten me." She was apparently uncomfortable with the situation; she stepped out to bring in her makeup kit. "You owe me at least this much. And who said anything about getting dirty?"
"Well, for starters, you're already calling her by her first name."
"So what? Do you want me to start calling you Dana now?"
"I'm enlightening you, Mulder," she chided him as she came into the bathroom again."Sorry, please continue...--Dana."
"It's not like I have a degree in seduction, Mulder, but let's just say there are many ways in which a woman can manifest her charms on you besides outside beauty."
"Hmm, guess you're right. Reminds me of something that happened earlier today."
"What's that?" She removed her earrings and set them onto a ledge near a bar of soap.
"Dominic Williams' observations about his sense of smell. He didn't mention what you were wearing--but he had that woman's description with all his 'i's dotted and 't's crossed."
"Yeah, that is odd. He couldn't have been closer to her than I was to him in that room. But then again, he just might not have known." He had that tranced look on his face--the same one that he had given not so long ago at the police station. "And something else bothers me about this case."
"And that is?"
"Well, what in the hell would make a blind man want to visit of all places...an art museum? What are you thinking, Mulder? I see the wheels turning already."
"At a first impression, I agree with Katherine. This is a case of deliberate deceit. And so the question I must ask myself is 'what would I do to point everyone's attention in another direction'? They made their move; they faked a death and an emergency situation. That we're positive of--and that's what they wanted. Enter the auspicious blind guy; his unexpected presence could very well have been a form of misdirection, too. I'm willing to bet that the other thief or thieves were present during the hostage scenario, and therefore, would not deny that fact to the authorities. His or her motivation for cooperation warrants little suspicion from the police department."
"Okay, I'm following you. So would these suspects tell the truth or lie to the police?"
"Well, a bold faced lie would again draw the focus to that person or persons. He or she would tell the truth, but only enough to give the authorities what they want to hear. In other words, most of the truth, not the whole truth."
"In that respect, they're already ahead of us."
"Ahh, but they underestimate our arsenal. They automatically think that my mind operates on an upper plane of refined morals like yours, Scully. And that's their downfall."
"An upper plane of refined morals?" The skeptical eyebrow that usually gave Mulder a stomach full of butterflies reappeared on Scully's face. "I don't know if this has ever occurred to you, but do you know just how many times I've lied to our superiors about our cases? More than I can even count, Mulder."
"And you do it so well," he grinned roguishly enough to break her sincerity into a genuine smile. "So, what are you wearing?"
"Mulder, I think it's time for you to go to your room and get some rest. You've got a long day of driving ahead of you." He shrugged and retrieved his bag.
"I've already been denied two pleasures to a man's life for one day. What's one more?" Mulder complained and trudged over to his adjoining room.
Isabella Stewart Garden Museum of International Art
March 31st, 1999, 8:45 a.m.
"Agent Scully, Agent Mulder," Lieutenant Ashcroft greeted them as Mulder pulled the Le Sabre up to the museum entrance curb. "You got caught in our lovely morning rush, too, didn't you?"
"Nothing can be compared to a day in D.C.," Scully mumbled and exited the vehicle. "Parking's gonna be a bitch--today being Monday and all," Ashcroft noted. "I did happen to see a few spots three blocks from here, Agent Mulder."
"Oh, that's not going to be a problem, Lieutenant. I'm just dropping Agent Scully off; I have a few errands to run back home. Have a wonderful day at work, pookie," Mulder flashed Scully with a debonair smile before pulling the car back into the flow of traffic.
"Here I thought he'd be the one ditching you," Ashcroft sneered while entering the building.
Scully chose to ignore his impolite wisecrack; he didn't even bother to hold the door or wait for her. She had forgotten how good she had it with Mulder. Such gestures of chivalry between male and female officials of the law were virtually extinct, unless there was a furtive agenda.
The two south exhibition wings had been closed off to the public, however, amidst the gaggle of police and a few curious members of the media, the museum remained open. After she passed through the yellow tape and identified herself, Scully found Katherine Lloyd to be at the complete center of everyone's attention.
" Apparently everyone understands the benefit that the pewter fish receives. And then he said next, 'but no one is exactly sure of what the sea cucumber gets out of it'," she recounted.
Numerous eruptions of volcanic laughter shocked Scully a few steps backward. At first, she was unclear about how to approach the situation, but for once in her life, Scully made a rash decision and shoved her way through the male assembly. "Oh, there you are, Agent Scully," Lloyd civilly acknowledged her, "I was expecting Agent Mulder to be with you."
"In the hopes of expediting your case, Ms. Lloyd, Agent Mulder went to have that piece of equipment you gave him analyzed. What kind of fingerprinting's been done here, Lieutenant?" Scully inquired.
"The kind that gives us nonexistent traces of evidence, Agent Scully," Ashcroft remarked snidely and led her over to an empty frame. "I thought you said that that asshole was supposed to meet us here in fifteen minutes," he directed his belligerent tone towards Lloyd. In some way, Scully was relieved to hear that retort and remembered that she was not the only woman in the boys' clubhouse.
"He had to go issue a statement to the media. Sorry if he doesn't fit into your convenient schedule," Lloyd returned. "I seem to recall a certain lag of time before I was permitted to visit the FBI agents and you last night."
"Do you want to be included in this investigation or not? The police department isn't obligated to share information with insurance institutions, you know."
"Fine, I'll go see what's keeping him," Lloyd acquiesced and excused herself.
"You mentioned yesterday that Dominic Williams was questioned for a reason. Now I heard what Mr. Williams thought of himself, but how do you regard him?" Scully asked and exchanged her leather gloves for a pair of prophylactics.
"Sorry to use the pun, but I think there's more to him than meets the eye. I don't know if you felt it or not, but my gut tells me that he's a paranormal freak of nature." He withdrew a notepad from his coat pocket and slid a pen behind his ear. "My captain ordered me to bring in a police psychic to deal with this guy, but I'm not too thrilled with those kinds of people. Call me an orthodox prick and all, but I just don't agree with using vibrations or whatever the hell else they call it to solve cases. So I phoned the Bureau's branch here in Boston, and they informed me that the case had bent sent to Washington to Agent Mulder."
"If your instincts do prove you to be right, I believe you did a very wise thing by contacting Mulder." Scully ran her finger across the front and back corners of the frame. "Are the security measures still connected to this?"
"Yes, but they've been nullified," a voice behind her answered. Both Ashcroft and Scully whirled around to the skyscraper of a man approaching them with Lloyd wrapped around his elbow. "Bernard Stewart. I apologize for my tardiness, Lieutenant. I had to feed the wolves." Stewart's sepia hair had flecks of gray just beginning to show and his eyes were a true dominant brown. "Please, do whatever you need."
Ashcroft immediately figured out what Scully wanted and assisted her to lift the frame off of its mount and to the floor. She pulled out a Leatherman multi-tool from her coat pocket and swiveled it into its needle nose pliers position. As she reached closer to the wires, Ashcroft bent down and touched her arm. "Hold it. What do you think you're doing?" he interrogated.
"Making it easier to be put under a microscope," Scully barked and sharply withdrew herself from his touch.
"Wait a minute, Agent Scully. If you're trying to find out how the canvas was taken, I can tell you that by looking at it myself," Lloyd detached herself from Stewart and crouched down next to Scully. "It's been cut by a scalpel or maybe an Exacto knife."
"Even so, the forensics team in Boston should be able to differentiate if given the opportunity. You said it yourself; the most valuable parts were already stolen."
"Go ahead, Agent Scully. But I think I might have some better evidence for you. I didn't tell you about this, Katherine, because I didn't absolutely need to--withholding evidence is somewhat more forgivable with an insurance company than the authorities. Please follow me." He ushered his company back through the museum to an elevator.
"What's going on here?" Ashcroft demanded.
"We recovered some security footage of the event," Stewart replied sincerely.
"Odd that a group of professionals like this would be so careful as to not leave any traces of evidence but leave a surveillance system completely alone," Scully observed.
"Oh, they didn't, I assure you. But there was a fluke in the process, and hopefully, it'll give you a place to branch out all your theories," the curator remarked. Once they stepped into the lift, Stewart inserted his identification card into a slot and pressed the third level button. "Identity accepted," a synthesized female voice stated. "Please remove card." An awkward silence passed between the passengers for a few moments, and it soon disappeared as they arrived at their destination.
Oliver Nazinsky and another security officer spun around as Stewart and his entourage journeyed inside the 'Authorized Personnel Only' office. "Good morning, sir," Nazinsky meekly welcomed his employer.
"How're you doing today, Oliver?" Stewart acknowledged the officer and motioned for Ashcroft to shut the door behind him.
"As well as can be expected, sir. Anybody want some coffee?" He nervously stood and walked over to the drip pot not ten feet away from the desk of camera monitors.
"Yeah, I'll take some," Ashcroft volunteered and Nazinsky cringed. He had purposefully made the offer to accommodate his superior, but he dutifully fulfilled the task and retreated to hand the mug to Ashcroft. "Thanks.
You were working here yesterday when it happened, weren't you?"
"Yes, sir, I was," Nazinsky nodded in reply and lowered his eyes. His colleague took the opportunity to grab his jacket and dash out the door. "Cigarette break--be back in ten minutes," the guard announced.
"How could you tell?" Nazinsky fidgeted in his swiveling chair and his fingers began to drum lightly on the desk.
"I can smell fear," Ashcroft responded perniciously and drank some coffee.
Scully already knew what the review with this witness would entail should Ashcroft be able to keep him struggling like a piece of live bait under his thumb and assertively spoke her mind. "But we're not here to blame you for that which occurred yesterday, Mr. Nazinsky. Why don't you tell us how it happened, through your eyes?"
"Okay. Well, we close early on Sunday nights, and I got back from my dinner break at about six thirty. I found Hiram here, hard at work. He'd been drinking some coffee, from that mug as a matter of fact," Nazinsky pointed to Ashcroft, "when he spilled it. And uh, that explains why you see the stain here, sir. I'm sorry."
"It wasn't your fault, Oliver. Go on, finish your story," Stewart assured him and disappeared into another room next to the coffee maker.
"The accident was kind of a good thing, actually. Hiram probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise. As soon as he bent over to mop up the mess, a woman on number eight, which is here," Nazinsky wheeled the chair to his left and signaled to a stained monitor, "pulled a gun. Then she took a hostage and things got ugly. Real ugly."
"You should be a narrator for the Discovery Channel," Ashcroft cut in sharply. "You wanna cut to the chase, here?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to bore anybody. Anyhow, Hiram went to deal with the situation and told me through the radio that she was demanding to see Mr. Stewart. I called the cops like I was supposed to, and just when they got here, I had to call them off...to give her what she wanted. Hiram seemed pretty shaken up through the radio, so I figured that she definitely wasn't bluffing. I dialed Mr. Stewart's extension, and nobody was picking up; so then I tried his home phone number. We're not really supposed to do that, but, it was an emergency. The kidnapper got impatient, and I was trying to tell what I'd done to Hiram over the radio, but he just kept yelling and screaming orders. Then she shot herself and the power went out. At that point, I wasn't really sure of what to do...guess I kind of chickened out," he muttered and set his head into his hands.
"I believe this disc will give you what you need," Stewart came back from the archiving room and gave it to Scully. She accepted it graciously and slipped it into her pocket. She thought for a few moments and placed one hand onto her hip. The other leaned on the bureau next to Nazinsky.
"Where were you during the robbery?" she inquired.
"On my way here, of course. Before that, I was cooking dinner for myself and my wife." Stewart's eyes locked with Scully's. "That disc that I gave you is a compilation of what went on in that room. Four different angles, right, Oliver?"
"That's correct, sir," Nazinsky responded and watched Ashcroft drain the rest of the coffee from the maker into his mug. "I believe that Hiram-"
A distinctive chirping interrupted the conversation, and Lloyd sheepishly retrieved her cell phone from her attache case. "Excuse me, I apologize," she said and exited the office to take the call. "Well, if it's okay with you, I'd still like to have that frame examined," Scully urged him persistently. It seemed more like a statement than asking for permission, but Stewart knew that she was just being polite.
"It's really up to the insurance company...Katherine's say-so. But so far as I'm concerned, I'm all for it."
"Good, then it's settled. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Stewart. You've been very helpful," Scully reached out and shook his hand.
"What do you mean 'it's settled'? Didn't you just hear the man?" Ashcroft jeered. "This is my case, too, you know. I don't think that there's anything more you can learn from that antique other than the type of wood it's made out of."
"Mmhmm, and I plan on finding out what kind of varnish was utilized on it too. Don't make me remind you that you called us. And if you don't like how I work, then you can just get the hell out of my way." She brushed against him on her way out, and Stewart gave Ashcroft a nod of approval.