Hi! Thanks again for the reviews. Just so there's no misunderstanding, this is my first X-Files fanfic that wasn't abandoned prematurely, and it's the first one I've posted. Anyway, here's chapter 3: I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer still applies
Chapter 3
It was about an hour before I saw Nicole and Mulder again at the police station. My heart dropped when I saw that they had Mrs. Monterale with them. I was being rather unreasonable, I knew, but until I had absolute proof I didn't want to arrest Mrs. Monterale.
I followed them into an interrogation room, and leaned up against the wall while Mulder and Nicole seated themselves across from Mrs. Monterale. She wore a guarded expression, and kept twisting her hands in her lap.
"Should I call my lawyer" she asked tautly.
"We just wanna talk," Mulder answered her in a calm, disarming voice, but she didn't seem to buy it.
"I think I should call my lawyer," Mrs. Monterale said, shaking her head. "I've heard enough and read enough to know that for some insane reason you think I killed my husband."
"Mrs. Monterale," interjected Nicole, "We aren't charging you with anything. We simply want some answers. See, we've been mislead about a lot of things, and maybe you can clear it up for us."
"I didn't kill Philip;" she stated, looking from one person to another. I could see panic in her eyes, and I was even more convinced that this was a mistake.
"Why don't you explain why you never mentioned that Charles Callahan stopped by the birthday party for Heather Bartlow," Nicole continued.
"We just didn't tell you because that would've put Charlie outside of his home for a period of time where he didn't have an alibi."
"Why didn't you tell us that Mr. Callahan drove you home?" asked Mulder.
"It didn't seem like it was important. Besides, I've seen enough cop shows to know that you might've thought it was group effort. It could've hurt us both. But we didn't kill him: I didn't kill him. I didn't have a reason to kill him."
"See, that's another place where you're wrong," Mulder told her, looking up from his notes. "We were told that you thought he was having an affair with another woman."
Mrs. Monterale's eyes widened and her face went white. She opened her mouth, swallowed and closed it again with a gulp. Then she said in a low voice, "How, who told you that?"
"Charles Callahan," Nicole informed her, "and Heather Bartlow."
As Mrs. Monterale heard that her eyes widened even more and her face turned another shade of white. She brought her shaking hands up to her mouth and then clasped them in front of her. I could almost feel the fear and the humiliation coming from her.
"I thought I had told Heather that in confidence," she murmured, then looked up at us. "Please, you have to believe me, I didn't kill him. I loved him. I knew he was having an affair, yeah I knew that. He confessed to me that it was over, that he wasn't going to see her anymore. He said he wanted to start over with me, that we'd work things out."
She was looking at us, pleading with her eyes. Tears started filling them, and then slipped down her cheeks.
"I never killed him," she insisted, as more tears slid down her cheeks and her voice shook. "I loved him. I still do."
"Mrs. Monterale, it just looks a little suspicious that you're thirty years younger than him, sole beneficiary of his fortune now that he's gone, and that he was having an affair. That's two very good motives," said Nicole.
"Yeah, and it wasn't a professional killing," Mulder stated. "It was very definitely a crime of passion. He was shot over and over again. The person who killed him didn't know what they were doing. He was shot six times, but it was the sixth shot that actually killed him."
Mrs. Monterale's face was dead white now, and she was looking from Mulder to Nicole with a horrified look. And then she looked up and her eyes met mine. It sent a pang straight to my heart, and I almost winced visibly. Her look asked, why was this happening?
"Alexis, we have enough evidence right now to arrest you, and with the two motives we have, you know…" Nicole trailed off, not finishing her statement, but it was clear what she had meant. Juries had convicted people with a lot less many times before.
"I'm done here. I can see that's there nothing I can say that will convince you that I did not kill him. I'm calling my lawyer," Mrs. Monterale said, her whole body stiffening as she rose from her seat and started for the door. Halfway there, she gave a little moan and collapsed.
I reached her before Mulder did, and I anxiously felt for a pulse. My fear ebbed a little when I felt a steady one. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mulder and Nicole, and if the situation had been different, I would have laughed at the looks on their faces. They were both clearly frightened that their questioning had caused this.
"Mulder, call an ambulance," I ordered, and then I felt a little bit of relief as Mrs. Monterale's eyes fluttered open. She blinked a couple of times and looked around with a rather dazed look, and then her eyes settled on me.
"Mrs. Monterale, how do you feel?" I asked gently, and she gave a little moan.
"Woozy, but I think I'll be okay," she said, starting up, but I gently stopped her.
"Don't get up just yet. I think you just passed out, but we called an ambulance to take you to the hospital," I told her.
"I don't need an ambulance."
I looked up as Nicole tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a blanket. Mrs. Monterale shook her head when she saw it.
"I don't need that. I just need to sit down for a little bit. This happened before, and if I just sit for a while, I'll be okay."
"Do you need something to eat?" I asked. "Is your blood sugar too low?"
"Could be. Maybe I should have something."
I turned to Nicole and asked her if she could get some orange juice, and she hurried off to find some. Mrs. Monterale indicated that she was feeling a little better, and she asked Mulder and me to help her to the chair.
"You guys can cancel the ambulance. I really don't need it," she protested.
"Mrs. Monterale, if this has happened before, then you really should get checked out," I advised.
She dropped her eyes and when I looked at her more closely, I could see that she was blushing slightly.
"I'm pregnant," she said, a little smile on her lips, and I found myself smiling back. Murder suspect or not, I was happy for her. And then I felt even more depressed. This baby was going to grow up without a father, and maybe with a mother in prison. I prayed silently that she wasn't guilty.
"Congratulations," I said. "And that's all the more reason to get checked out: just to be on the safe side."
She nodded, and then her eyes filled with tears again. "I didn't murder Phil. I loved him, and I wanted my baby to have a father. See, I grew up without my dad, and I didn't want that for my baby. When I confronted Phil about the affair, he confessed, and then when I told him that I was pregnant, he said he was so sorry that he had cheated on me. He said that he would end it, and that he would do anything to make it up to me," Mrs. Monterale said softly. "He really wanted kids, and he even started buying things for the baby's room. I never killed him. I never even thought about it. Please believe me."
We locked eyes, and at that moment there wasn't any doubt in my mind that she was innocent.
"I believe you," I replied, and she smiled.
"Thank you."
Nicole arrived with a small bottle of orange juice and handed it to Mrs. Monterale, who thanked her with a wan smile. Mulder said he had canceled the ambulance, but that he had called Tiffany Perkins and she was on her way to pick up Mrs. Monterale.
About a half hour later, Miss Perkins arrived and after shooting death glares at all of us, escorted Mrs. Monterale out of the police station.
We grouped at Nicole's desk to discuss everything that had just happened. Nicole shook her head sadly when Mulder told her that Mrs. Monterale was pregnant. I didn't say much, but I did make it clear that I still believed more firmly than ever that Mrs. Monterale was innocent.
"I dunno," Mulder said, rubbing his eyes, "maybe she is innocent. Maybe there's something we missed."
"Maybe we should see if we can find the other woman," suggested Nicole. "I'm mean, it did look like it was a crime of passion. He broke it off with the woman, and she killed him."
I felt like rolling my eyes. Hadn't I said that when we first heard that Mr. Monterale was having an affair? Mulder saw the look on my face, and he shrugged, as if to say, "Hey, what can I tell you?"
"I think we need to go back over our evidence and find what we missed," I said, choosing not to respond to the look. "There's got to be something that doesn't fit, or that we missed. I have a list of names of people that Mr. Monterale worked with; now I didn't find anything in their files, but maybe one of them has a record or something. Maybe somebody assaulted him or something like that."
"Well," said Mulder, "I guess we better get started, 'cause we've got a lot of looking to do."
"Maybe we should split up our resources," Nicole proposed, and Mulder and I nodded in agreement. "I'll get started on running the records for assault of some kind, and you two can start digging on those names."
"Sounds goods," Mulder agreed, and I nodded again. It was going to be tedious and tiring, but at the moment, it was all we had.
Mulder and I worked together, going through any and all records we could find on my list of names. I glanced at my watch when we started; it was about nine in the evening, and when I looked at it again, the hands were saying that it was going on one in the morning.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. A headache was pounding a steady rhythm behind my eyes: I just wanted to lay my head down a moment and rest. I looked at Mulder and sighed. He looked as tired as me. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was sticking out in all the wrong places, as if he had been pulling at it.
"Geez, I hope Nicole's having more luck than we are," he muttered flatly.
"Yeah, so do I," I sighed my agreement. "There's nothing here. You'd think that out of all those people that one of them would have something to give us a nibble."
"You'd think."
Suddenly Nicole popped in with a folder in her hand. She was tired and disheveled looking, but there was excitement there as well.
"I think I might've found something," she announced. "Five years ago, in 1994, Peter Monterale was arrested for aggravated assault on Philip Monterale. Philip pressed charges, but Peter only got probation. And just three days before Philip was killed, he and Peter had a huge fight in the plaza of Impo-Expo. It actually came to blows, and they had to call the cops to separate them. According to witnesses, Peter struck the first blow, so Philip pressed more charges."
"This does sound good," Mulder said, sitting up in his chair. "Got anything else?"
"Well," Nicole went on, "Peter was released on bail, and he was scheduled for a hearing tomorrow, but since his brother was killed, his lawyer got the court date was pushed back, and it's probable that the charges will be dropped."
"Well, since they don't have the "victim", Peter's lawyer is probably going to go for dismissal," said Mulder.
"Yeah, but if Philip was alive, and Peter was convicted, he might end up spending some time in jail because of all his other charges," Nicole remarked.
"What other charges?" asked Mulder, taking the file so that he could make copies.
"He's got several other dropped assault charges, one disturbing the peace charge, several drunken disorderly charges, and four reckless driving charges. He's gotten fined on just about all of these, nothing more, but it goes to show that he's a loose cannon with a temper," Nicole told us.
"So was Peter in Atlanta at the time of the murder?" I asked.
Nicole nodded with a grin and said, "Yes he was. I contacted the Westin Hotel, and they have a record showing that he didn't leave Atlanta until the morning after his brother's murder."
"I think we might have a new lead," Mulder remarked.
"Where's Peter living right now?" I asked.
"He lives on the family estate near Bond Swamp."
"Okay, we need to go talk to him," I said.
"Yeah, but it's a good day's drive out to where he lives, and we all need some rest," Nicole said. "I think we better get some sleep before we drive out there and talk to him."
"That's the best idea I've heard all day," chuckled Mulder, and I smiled. Sleep was a very good idea, and I wasn't going to argue with anyone on that point.
"Okay, we'll meet at the Patrol Café at eight in the morning."
"Right. Night Nicole."
"Night Mulder, Agent Scully."
I nodded sleepily and followed Mulder out to our car, and sank exhausted into the seat. My body felt like it had been through a fight, and I couldn't want to get into bed and go to sleep. I had trouble keeping my eyes open on the short drive back to our motel. My vision swam in and out of focus and when we walked into the building I swayed slightly. I saw Mulder looking at me, but he didn't say anything. I think that was best anyway, because if he had said anything I might have ignored him.
There was an uncomfortable silence between Mulder and myself while we rode up in the elevator to our floor. I felt like maybe I should apologize to him, but my pride kept telling me that it had been stepped on and that I didn't have to be the first one to make an overture for peace. Let Mulder be the mature one for a change. Why did I have to be mature and professional?
My sensible self kept yelling that I had to act professional and mature because I was, and even if Mulder's head got turned by every good looking woman that came down the pike, that didn't mean I should let it affect how I felt about the woman.
We didn't say good night to each other when we reached our rooms, but when the doors closed, I half expected a call from Mulder. When it didn't come, my heart sank. I hated being on the outs with Mulder. I got to thinking that maybe I should call him. It would be the right thing to do, and I knew I would feel better if I did. I lay there, fighting an internal battle and I almost came to a decision to call him, but before I could I was asleep.