Two flights and one long drive and nearly a day after first hearing about the case, Scully slammed shut the door of their rental car and stared at the building in front of her.

"I warned you," Mulder said.

She sighed. "I know." Small towns. They'd worked in enough of them during their time together. "Doesn't mean I have to like it," she added.

He shot her a grin then led the way into the funeral home. Owls Head was categorized as an honest to god village and that meant it wasn't set up to handle murder cases. So the body had been moved to the nearby town of Malone. But even Malone was limited in its resources, and the body was currently being stored at the Forest Shades Funeral Home.

It was going to be that kind of case and she had to remind the professional in her that she had certainly worked in worse conditions.

The front room was dark and decorated in warm colors and artificial flowers. Mulder hesitated only a moment before striding passed the public space and opening doors until he found something more practical. Scully hung back in the hallway, content to let Mulder force his way through.

"Hello!" he greeted cheerfully, holding the door open to one of the last rooms. "We're here to see the body. The weird one."

The door must lead into an office of some kind, because there was the sound of a chair squeaking and a voice squawking "I can't-"

"Sure you can," Mulder replied. "FBI," he explained, pulling out his badge and showing it quickly. Scully stepped up to his shoulder and pulled hers out as well. She held it up longer, however, letting the poor man take a close look – and taking a good long look herself. She had learned the hard way to pay attention to people like the gentleman in front of her. When things went sidewise – as they so often did with anything Mulder took an interest in – it was people like this that sometimes meant the difference between surviving or not.

There was nothing remarkable about the man. Late forties, maybe early fifties. Dark hair just starting to go grey, but already well on its way to thinning. He was wearing a long sleeve shirt, buttons done all the way up the collar and tight at the sleeves. He looked at Mulder like he expected the man to try to rob the place. But he listened when Scully started talking.

"We're here to examine the body that would have been brought in this morning. Mr. William Haymond. We were told the body hasn't been transferred yet."

The man suddenly looked a little green just at the mention of it. "No. I mean, yes. It's – He's still here. Bill Haymond. Donald asked me to hold it until other arrangements could be made."

"Great!" Mulder replied. "Where is it?"

The man backed up a little, and looked like he'd happily slam the door in their face if Mulder hadn't been holding it open. "I can't – Donald's not here right now. I can call – "

"Sure, sure," Mulder agreed easily. "I'll want to talk to him eventually too. But we'll go ahead and have a look at the body now," he told him, already moving to peak impatiently into the next door.

Scully smiled stiffly. "I'm a medical doctor and can do the exam alone," she reassured him. "Are your facilities in the basement or off-site?"

"Basement?" the man offered.

"Great!" Mulder called out, already thundering down the flight of stairs he had found. Scully gave the man one last strained smile before following after him. The clinical aspect of the facility was much more apparent below. The finishings were newer but there were still a few personal touches that made it clear this was the domain of only a couple employees. Scully took control of the situation as soon as she took her coat off. She found Mulder a task to keep him out of her way before prepping her station and examining her tools.

The mortician had followed them down, hovering near the wall and watching both of them. He seemed to decide they weren't going to immediately burn the place down because he disappeared back upstairs before she pulled the body out of the cooler.

Or maybe he just didn't want to be around when she uncovered him. She could understand why. Time had done nothing to make the view easier. The body hadn't even been cleaned yet, but the damage was still clearly visible in deep puckered wounds.

Mulder whistled softly as the two of them stared at the body.

"Severe lacerations," Scully started, gathering her thoughts and making sure to get all of her observations out loud for her recorder. "Mostly superficial, but some have penetrated down to the muscular level. Trauma covering approximately – 80 to 90 percent of the visible skin. Nearly everything, including the face, hands, and," she checked, "bottom of the feet. Fingers and toes appear completely intact, no sign of injury. Same with the eyes, nose and mouth. No sign of sexual assault. Lacerations appear deliberate and structured. Possibly writing – "

"Defiantly writing," Mulder added, snapping away at pictures. "I recognize some of them."

"Some form of satanic symbolism?" she asked, gesturing at one particular mark she thought looked familiar.

"Not necessarily," he answered, "but possibly. Who knows."

"These lines are all clear and precise."

"Steady hand?" he asked.

"Absolutely. I've known surgeons who would have struggled with this."

"Can you determine the cause of death?"

"Not yet. I've just started looking at the body, Mulder. I could probably spend all night here and still find more. But I can tell you he was alive when these marks were made."

Mulder grimaced but kept taking photo after photo. "Would that have been enough to kill him?"

"Possibly," she replied. "But more likely the shock alone did it, if there's no other trauma. But Mulder, based on the bleeding I'm seeing these marks were either made very quickly or he survived for quite some time."

Mulder paused. "I'm not sure which is worse," he commented.

"Agreed."

There was the sound of boots above and Mulder and Scully looked at each other. For once, they had official permission to be here, on an advisory basis. Their request had been granted, most likely, to get Mulder out of the office and annoying someone other than the FBI chain of command. When it came to cases like this, most local authorities were more than happy to hand it over to anyone who would take it.

But the two of them had also learned from experience not to trust in the common sense and good judgment of other people.

"Stall?" she suggested.

Mulder slipped the camera safely into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Scully would need an hour, maybe two, to finish her analysis, and even then it would be rushed and limited by the tools available to her. He took the stairs two at a time on his way up, trying to give himself as much of a head start as possible. No official request had been made to the FBI, so their presence here was going to be a bit of a surprise. They had permission, but not exactly endorsement to stick their noses into this case. And the whole thing would go a lot better if he could keep the local law enforcement complacent – or at the very least out of Scully's hair.

He put on his best bored official face as he stepped out onto the main floor and firmly shut the door behind him. The mortician was standing in the hall with a thick set, shorter man with a military hair cute and a badge and a gun.

"Sherriff's office?" Mulder asked before anyone else could say anything.

"Got that right," the officer answered, stepping to the front. "Can I see some ID?" he opened with.

It wasn't openly agnostic, so Mulder held his out nonchalantly, with the same bored tolerance of getting carded for beer. The other man studied long enough to have checked the name and expiration date. "And you are?" Mulder demanded, though he already had an idea.

"Sheriff Donald Brooks," and at least he had the decency to show his own identification in return. "I wasn't aware there were more of you in town."

"Unusual missing person's cases are always an issue of interest to the agency," Mulder stated, laying out the prepared explanation for why they had come so quickly. "We prefer to be proactive on –" he swallowed the rest of it. "Others?"

"The two gentlemen from this morning," the Sheriff replied with a frown.

Mulder's thought process scrambled. He wasn't so much surprised – he was getting used to his cases being high-jacked and it was usually the sign that he was on the right track – but there were too many possible players to know for sure who was involved or how to handle it.

"We're the specialists," he finally settled on. "Our office had us on a plane as soon as possible."

The problem was, he couldn't tell if the Sheriff had a favorable view of the imposters or not. That made it hard to know how to play this and if he could count on the Sheriff to jump their way if things went bad. He wasn't giving Mulder a lot to work with. His face had the same tight expression he'd had from the beginning. Asking would be too obvious and dangerous. Whoever these fake FBI agents were, Mulder needed to know more before he could act and he certainly didn't want to raise the Sheriff's suspicions and possible send him after these fake FBI agents alone and unprepared. Games within games.

When in doubt, change the subject. "What can you tell me about Mr. Haymond? I've got his missing person's report. Did you interview him when he returned?"

There was a slight shift in his shoulders as the Sheriff settled back on his feet. "No," he answered without hesitation. "My deputy did. At the time, we had no reason to suspect a violent crime had been or would be committed."

That was one euphemism for the mutilated corpse down in the basement. "A stable man goes missing for over 24 hours, returns with no memory of what happened, and you don't find it odd?"

"Odd? Sure. But I try not to waste my time on gossip." The Sheriff sighed and rubbed at his face. "Or what I thought was going to be nothing more than gossip, at least. It looked like some kind of fling, you know? My deputy had him checked for drugs, which was our first guess, but it came back clean. Sharon's did as well."

Mulder nodded along, not terribly surprised that a small town law enforcement office found nothing quantifiable. "Wait. You tested someone else too?" he asked, surprised at how thorough they had been.

Sheriff Brooks gave him a look like he was an idiot. "Sharron Howard."

"Who's Sharron Howard?" Mulder demanded, trying to figure out the connection.

The Sheriff frowned. "One of our other missing person reports."

"One of? Just how many do you have?"

"Three."

"Three?" Mulder demanded. Surely, he hadn't heard right.

The Sheriff scowled. "That's what I said."

"And what's your average?" Mulder fired back.

"About three a year," he replied crisply. But then he sighed. "But it's only March now and mostly it's runaways or somesuch. Not people like Bill. He's got a good job. Doesn't – didn't drink much. Not in excess at least. Reliable. Same with Catherine Maxwell."

Mulder hurried to pull out a pen and his pocket notebook. "Maxwell?"

The Sheriff nodded. "Nice lady. Lives just south of here and works admin at the high school. Lives alone, but's probably never been late to work a day in her life so her co-workers got all spun up when she didn't come in one day. I sent someone around the house and her dinner was still on the table. Oddest damn thing. My men checked the area, couldn't find her. About five o'clock at night she comes wandering down the street. Couldn't remember a damn thing. We figured a stroke or somethin' but then Sharron Howard did the same thing."

Mulder was on his second page and still scribbling away, his notes a mixture of all of the information the Sheriff had given him and half formed questions as they came to him. 'Weather?' was a quick reminder to check the conditions of that night. A middle aged secretary wasn't going to go wandering far in the cold up here. 'Food?' was an important question to ask her when he did his interview. If she left during dinner and didn't return until the next day, she'd likely be rather famished. Unless something happened during that time. There'd been a case of that in Mississippi a few years back. A person was gone nearly 48 hours in the wild but showed no interest in food or drink.

"When you say the same thing," Mulder asked. "How same is the same? The exact same, or similar? Did she leave during dinner? Did she return on foot? Did she say anything, maybe something similar to something Ms. Maxwell said?"

To give him credit, the Sheriff thought about it for a moment. "No," he said slowly, seeming to gather his thoughts. "Sharron left from work, in the middle of a shift. Caused some hoopla at work. A girlfriend of hers went by to figure out why and said she wasn't home and her car was missing. More than a day later, Sharron calls, says she woke up in a hotel room with no idea how she got there. That was about four hours after Haymond went missing."

Mulder's eyebrows shot up and he quickly scribbled out a timeline in the margins of his notes.

Sheriff Brook clenched and unclenched his jaw and his tone was sharp and curt when he continued. "It didn't look good, at all. Either one or both of them were up to something they shouldn't have been. I had a girl that didn't remember anything, a man that claimed he didn't but had clearly been out of town without tellin' the wife. I honestly thought I was about to have a real shit-storm on my hands, if you'll pardon the language. But Sharron backed off real quick. No charges and suddenly didn't want to talk about any of it. I expected as much from Haymond, but there was no question he was at work when Sharron went missing."

The Sheriff trailed off. There was no good explanation, at least not at the moment. And that probably bothered him quite a bit. Mulder flashed him a genuine grin. He was much more familiar with events that didn't add up. It was the pieces that didn't fit that told you the most. And this case had quite a few.

The Sheriff just frowned back. "Most logical answer," he said firmly, as if willing it so, "is that the two of 'em were having some kind of affair and arranged things to make it look like they weren't."

This time Mulder really was impressed by the jump of logic. "By pretending to have been kidnapped and suffering from amnesia? Not exactly subtle."

"You have a better explanation?"

Mulder grinned but kept his mouth shut.