Chapter 8: Scene of the Crime.
The victim's apartment was swiftly located in a quiet neighbourhood and Mulder and Scully went in search of the land lord to gain access to the young woman's apartment. The short, round man was found, the keys and the apartment number were given and the Agents were left to do whatever it was they had come for. Clearly the old man had not yet heard about the poor young woman's demise or the fact that the killer was still on the loose. Mulder and Scully walked through the quiet building until they found the girls apartment and went inside.
The young woman's apartment appeared pristine. There wasn't a single thing that was out of place. The garbage had been emptied, the bed was made and it even looked like the fridge had been cleaned.
"Do you get the feeling that we are dealing with someone with sever OCD, or has this place been tampered with?" Mulder asked as he peeked into the bed room and found that it looked like a picture from a magazine. "Even the toilet is spotless and there isn't anything left out that she may have used to make herself beautiful."
"There is definitely something going on here," Scully stated as she joined him in the bathroom.
"There isn't anything out of place. Her make up is put away, the garbage's have been emptied, it's like nothing ever happened here," he stated looking around some more. "I mean, I've been to your place and you can tell that someone lives there."
"Are you calling me messy?" Scully asked.
"No, I'm just saying that the things you use every day are always out on the counter." Mulder stated. "Wouldn't you think that a woman who was a social butterfly would have at least tooth paste and a tooth brush that she left out?" he asked.
"I think this place has been cleaned. We should get a forensics unit out here to investigate." Scully stated as she quickly dialed a number into her cell and waited as she wandered through the apartment.
"Hey Scully, what do you make of this?" Mulder asked from a side table that was stationed right beside the apartment door.
Scully walked over, the phone still to her ear and looked at what Mulder was pointing at. In a small dish by the door they found a set of car keys. Scully looked at her partner and raised an eyebrow.
"If the car's keys are here then do you think the car may be as well?" he asked one gloved hand picking up the keys from the dish.
"It's worth a look," Scully said and then was distracted by the voice finally answering her calls.
Finally, once she had given her instructions to get a unit out to investigate, Scully followed Mulder down to the parking garage and began to search for the license plate and the vehicle that was spotted in the armature footage. It wasn't long before they found what they were looking for.
"I think we have stumbled upon the scene of our crime," Mulder stated as he looked into the back seat and then into the trunk of the found car. "It's been cleaned too," he stated as he shut the trunk.
"There will always be trace," Scully stated and peered into the font seat of the car, "we can have this brought back to the crime lab and have our specialist go over it with a fine tooth comb."
"We're going to need to," Mulder sighed, "because, yet again, we have nothing."
"But we may have something," Scully stated as she pulled a manicure set out of her pocket and released from it a small pair of tweezers.
"What have you found?" Mulder asked watching his partner carefully.
"I'm not sure, but I think its gold," Scully stated picking up a miniscule piece of gold from off the back seat.
"How did they get gold on the seat, when the victims organs were turned to gold?" Mulder asked, "And, aside for the devoured fingers and removal of the young woman's hair, there was nothing else done to the body."
"You were really hoping for a James Bond connection, weren't you?" Scully laughed, being very careful with the speck of what she believed to be gold.
"It would make for a good story, don't you think?" Mulder stated. "I could start calling you Money Penny, it could be really fun!"
"I'm content with Agent Scully," She stated rolling her eyes, "but if we are dealing with a James Bond obsessed mutant, then I will start calling you double O." she added playfully.
"Is that what you think we are dealing with?" Mulder asked. "Some kind of a mutant human?"
"I'm not sure what to think as of right now," Scully stated as she placed the speck into the palm of one of her gloved hands and then pulled the glove off turning it inside out and capturing the speck inside the glove, "but I would like to take a look at this under a microscope."
"I'd like to know what else we can find." Mulder stated, "I'll stay here and wait for the forensics team and the tow truck, you go back to the bureau and see what you can pull together."
"You might also want to pull footage from that surveillance camera," Scully stated as she looked past the speck captured in the glove and up at a camera that was pointed right at them and that covered most of the parking area.
"Sometimes you've just got to love big brother," Mulder smiled and left his partner to take her business back to the Bureau.