Chapter 2
"What is it?" Mulder frowned.
Scully stared at the image in her hand—the resemblance was undeniable: even the clutter of nature around the body reminded of the painting. The woman was drowned in a shallow creek, her light summer dress billowing on the water. Her hands—the wrists were turned up to mimic the figure in the artwork.
"I—just…" Scully sat back down on the couch beside Mulder, forgetting for a moment that her sweats were drenched with spilled orange juice. "I haven't been sleeping well lately. I can't seem to get more than a couple hours a night, and I…"
She set the crime scene photograph back down onto the stack, and pulled her hair back behind her ears. Mulder watched her, eyes focused, attentive.
"Well, do you know the painting Ophelia?" she asked him. "It was done by John Everett Millais."
He shook his head. "I'm not much of an art… enthusiast."
"Me neither. I saw a picture of it once, when I was young, in a book my mother had gotten as a gift, and I thought it was a pretty painting at the time, but it hadn't crossed my mind in years since. I only know the name of the artist because I looked it up two days ago. I went to the library and read all about it."
He nodded, confused still. "Why?"
"I haven't been sleeping because I've been having the same dream every night for almost a week now, and the dream was of that painting." Scully plucked up the photograph and thrust it at him. "Mulder, this crime scene looks just like Ophelia: a woman in a shallow creek, out in the countryside, floating with her wrists turned up."
"You don't say," he let out a perplexed chuckle and zeroed in on the image.
"Mulder…" she narrowed her eyes. "If this is a high-profile case, someone on the task-force would have made that connection by now—immediately, probably. You don't seem to know anything about it. Are we supposed to be prying here?"
He cleared his throat. "It reads on paper like a standard serial murder case: the women were all young, between the ages of twenty-seven and thirty-two. They had a similar build, comparable features—as though they were selected by someone who has a type. Each woman had a history of either substance abuse or prolonged psychological counseling. None of them had ties to their families that they maintained on a regular, intimate basis—they were all vulnerable."
He was stalling—avoiding her question. "Mulder, what exactly did Skinner ask you to do for the case, and why don't you have the original file?"
He bit his lip, avoiding her direct gaze. "He asked me for a favor—a quick sum-up of a typical profile of the killer. You know, that run-of-the-mill, mid-to-late-thirties white male with an above average IQ type character description. I guess they've hit a wall with this, and can't find an out. They want to run local DNA samples, and a profile like that bumps them up, legally. I was supposed to be an outside expert impartial to the investigation—plump up their case for the judge."
"And? You don't think that it's a white male mid-to-late thirties?"
"Actually," Mulder shifted, rustling through the papers. "He is a white male. He's forty-two, but he definitely has an above average IQ." He held a photograph out toward Scully.
It was a mug-shot. The man stared at the lens with a crisp gaze, slightly pinched by the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes. Dark shoulder-length hair billowed about him with thick curls. The skin of his cheeks clutched a pronounced bone structure, catching shadows above a set of thin lips that seemed to be pulling back from a small smile.
"Who is he?" she asked.
"Maurice Lenaghan—a Julliard alumni. He had once composed four symphonies for a class assignment that only required a fragment of original melody. When he graduated, he was offered a multitude of lucrative posts in which to exercise his artistic genius. The faculty was enthralled with him, and called in favors, provided strong recommendations." Mulder plucked the photograph back out of Scully's fingers and ran his eyes over it again. "He refused everything, and spent the next two decades of his life ambling between towns, making his living playing the piano in old-fashioned bars."
"And you think he's the guy?"
Mulder nodded. "He has record of being in contact with each victim. Various bartenders offered witness accounts of seeing him speaking to the women after his performances—his small-paying gigs. The bodies only appearred in towns he had moved to—no incidents prior to his presence, though some after his absence."
"Wait," she frowned. "After his absence? What are you saying—that he drove back for a night?"
"No, I—" Mulder glanced at her, readying it seemed for the wall of logic that was Scully.
"I think he's the killer, but I don't think he's doing the act in the… conventional sense."
"Mulder…" She tensed, herself readying for the fantastic—illogical angle Mulder always favored. The relocation matching the body count, and the witness accounts of the man in contact with the victims was certainly a red flag, but— "What did Skinner say exactly when you suggested Maurice Lenaghan?"
"They, um," he shifted. "They'd already dismissed him."
"Because…?"
"He was perfect in questioning—very accommodating, and he… had an alibi for each case. He," Mulder cleared his throat again, "was playing the piano when each victim was seen leaving the bar—alive. And he was still playing the piano, when the woman turned up several hours later, dead."
"Mulder!" Scully let out an exasperated sigh, and tossed the few photo-copied pictures she had picked up back onto her coffee table. "Then he's not the guy." She stood, remembering that her sweats were drenched. "I have to change—and take a shower. Mulder, this is my day off."
"He's the guy, Scully," he called after her as she walked away toward her bedroom.
"So, that's the reason for the illegal paperwork you've brought into my apartment?" she called from her bedroom as she scrunched out of her running gear. "Skinner took back his request when you wouldn't play ball and say it was a different white male with an above average IQ?"
"Technically," he cried back. "Yes."
She sighed and unclipped her bra. "I'm taking a shower, Mulder. I have to run some errands later, too." She meant that as a final note to their conversation.
"Okay," he called, rustling through the papers, his tone distracted. "Do you still buy those little yogurts that have fruit at the bottom?"
A smile jerked at the corner of her lip, despite herself. "Yeah," she said. "Help yourself." She stepped onto the bathroom tile, and hesitated. "Leave me one at least, this time," she called, and closed the door.
She turned the knobs and stepped into the sharp, hot beat of the spray. The shower head pulsed, gushing water with a scent that was unique to DC—a lingering metallic scent that seemed to work hard to mask the dank swamps that were around them, outside of the city. Scully hated that part of living by Virginia. She'd taken plenty of motel showers across every state in the nation, and in DC, the water always smelled like it was lying—covering something up.
It ran clean, though, pumping fast against her shoulders with its pressure. She lathered the shampoo through her hair—a new, more expensive, brand the check-out girl convinced her to purchase. The shampoo was drenched with lavender. The sweetness of the smell was thick. Scully felt it permeate the steaming bathroom; it was calming, just as the small-name label promised.
Scully turned the knob and stood for a moment under the gush of cool, letting the pink of her skin subside back to pale goose-bumps.
She climbed out, toweled off, and stepped back into her bedroom. She pulled on a silk bathrobe, and walked back to the living room, thinking that Mulder had left. She was tussling her wet hair, and drying her ears with the terry-cloth towel in her hands, when she faced him on her couch, mouth full of yogurt.
"So, I'm thinking," he perked up, swallowing fast. "Since you're off anyway, we could go get a read on the guy."
He spoke like there had been no interruption in their earlier conversation.
Her shoulders slumped. "Mulder," she groaned. "It's my day off—I have errands."
He bit his lip, running his eyes over her, gaging her. He would win, she knew. Mulder always won the debate of whether or not to bother with a fantastic hunch.
"It wouldn't take long—just one trip."
Scully brushed back a wet strand that fell across her forehead. "The Bureau won't approve flight tickets on this."
"That's the beauty of it," he beamed. "It's not far—Maurice Lenaghan is bunking it out in Canfield, West Virginia, as of the past seven months." He gave her his best irresistible smile. "We can drive."
She shifted, thinking about everything she would have to postpone.
"Scully," he urged. "You said yourself that the photo struck you odd—that you've been dreaming about that painting. Don't you think that's at least a sign?"
She studied him. Mulder was eager as always, on the edge of his seat. She bit her lip. "Why do you want me to come anyway?"
"Why do I—" he frowned. "Scully…" he chuckled, still frowning.
"Alright," she sighed. "Okay."
"Great," he lurched up, gathering his photocopied file. "Get dressed."