The X-Files: Goblins

EIGHT

The blue of the previous day turned to thickening overcast shortly after Friday’s dawn. By the time Mulder and his team were on the road, Webber driving, a chill easterly wind had begun to coast down the road, sweeping leaves and brown pine needles in front of the car.

Mulder didn’t like it; it looked too much like late autumn.

Marville itself began a quarter of a mile from the motel, with a handful of houses squatting in clearings hacked out of the Barrens on either side of the road. Sandy, pebbled soil served as shoulders, and showed as bare spots on lawns looking as tired as the houses themselves.

He sensed right away the little town was dying.

The commercial district was five short blocks long, some of the businesses spilling around the corners. None of the buildings were more than three stories tall, mostly wood, a few with weather-stained stone or brick facades. He counted six that were for rent, and far too many whose display windows had been boarded up with plywood or painted a dead white. A narrow banner sagged over Main Street, announcing the community’s 150th anniversary, which made him wonder, as he often did, what had caused this place to attract settlers in the beginning. There was no river, the trees weren’t lumber quality, and Fort Dix hadn’t been established until 1917, neighboring McGuire Air Force Base some time later.

Webber snapped his fingers, and jerked a thumb to his left. “Barney’s Tavern.”

Mulder spotted the corner bar, one of several still operating on the street, and supposed that, whatever the reason for Marville’s founding, its eventual life support must have been traffic from the post and Air Force base. And solid support as well, from the looks of things. He could see, behind the faded paint and needed repairs, a town that had done quite well for the time that it had had, especially considering what must have been the fierce competition from other towns around it.

A stolid granite bank anchored the next corner, on the left. The shops here were still very much in business, or as much as they were going to get with the economy the way it was, and the Army post drastically cut back over the past several years.

“This is depressing,” Andrews said from the back seat. “How could anyone live here?”

“Cheap housing, for one thing,” Webber supposed, slowing to allow a trio of old women to make their way across the street. “It’s not near very much. I remember the map, but I don’t think you can commute all the way to Philadelphia from here easily. Not and make any money.”

Inertia, Mulder suspected, was the rest of the answer. No place to go when you can barely afford to live here. Anyone asked would probably give a different answer, but it no doubt boiled down to, “Why bother?”

“There,” Scully said, the first time she’d spoken since breakfast.

A single-story, long white clapboard building took a third of the block on the right. A new, gold-lettered sign in front marked it as the police station; an American flag drooped from a flagpole next to the double-door entrance.

Webber pulled into a space in front, rubbed his hands eagerly, and fairly leapt from the car, hustling around to open the rear door for Andrews.

Mulder moved more deliberately, waiting until Scully joined him. They didn’t speak, just exchanged quick are you ready glances and started up the concrete walk. Andrews wanted to know why they had to start here since the senator’s connections were with Fort Dix and the Air Force.

Scully averted her face from a mild gust. “Let’s just say it’s usually a little easier dealing with civilians.”

“Their loss,” said Webber brightly.

Mulder looked at him, looked at Scully, and pulled open the door, allowing the others to precede him into an open room that took up the entire front third of the building. A waist-high wood rail stretched from wall to wall, and just left of its center gate a uniformed dispatcher sat at her radio, scribbling in a logbook; behind her were three metal desks, none of which were occupied.

To the gate’s right a fourth, much larger desk faced the entrance. Behind it was a policeman whose uniform, Mulder reckoned, had been tailored for him ten years and twenty pounds ago. His face belonged to a man who spent most of his time outdoors, and a lot of that time drinking. His hair was brush-cut, and at one time had been red.

Mulder took out his wallet and held up his ID. “FBI, Sergeant, good morning.” He spoke politely, with well-practiced due deference. He introduced the others quickly. “We’re here to see Chief Hawks.”

Sergeant Nilssen wasn’t visibly impressed. He said nothing, just pushed away from his work and took his time walking to an unmarked door in the rear wall. Mulder saw the puzzlement in Webber’s expression, the outrage in Andrews’. “It’s their turf,” he reminded them quietly. “They didn’t ask for us, remember?”

“Still,” Webber answered.

Mulder had neither the time nor the inclination for a quick lesson on the politics of competing law enforcement agencies. He kept his attention on the sergeant, who stood in the open doorway, one hand on a cocked hip, the other trying to scratch the small of his back, then his nape. Beefy, maybe, but not very soft. A glance at the dispatcher, who stared back at him without apology. She was in her late twenties, evidently enamored of heavy makeup and the way her wavy brown hair puffed down to her shoulders.

When she finally nodded a greeting, he nodded politely back.

“Slow day?” Scully asked her, looking around the empty room.

She shrugged — her name tag read Vincent—and waved one hand. “Guys are on the road.” A faint smile. “Rush hour, you know?”

Scully chuckled as the woman coughed lightly into a fist.

“Poison ivy?” Mulder said, nodding at the blotches of white lotion on the back of her hand. “I hate that stuff.”

Vincent made a face in agreement. “Yeah, I got it—”

“Hey.”

The sergeant beckoned with a crooked finger.

Webber stiffened, but Scully touched his arm as Mulder led the way through the gate, smiling, always smiling, thanking the sergeant as he stepped aside to let the others precede him.

Nilssen didn’t smile back. After an expressionless, just shy of openly rude once-over, he returned to his desk, leaving Mulder to make the introductions again, this time to Todd Hawks.

The Marville chief was younger than Mulder expected, not much older than his mid-forties, thick black hair brushed straight back from a widow’s peak that pointed at where his heavy eyebrows nearly met across the bridge of a slightly hooked nose. He did not wear a uniform, nor did he wear a tie. White shirt and black trousers, their matching jacket on an antler coat rack in the corner.

His desk was battleship gray, just like the others, the only personal touch a silver-frame triptych Mulder noted held pictures of what must be his wife and three children.

Hawks rose and shook their hands, waving Scully and Andrews to the only other chairs in the room. Webber chose to lean against the wall near the door, arms folded casually across his chest.

The chief picked up a sheet of paper, glanced at it, and frowned. “I have to tell you, Agent Mulder, this fax your man Webber sent kind of took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting any feds to get involved.” He let the paper drop, glanced at the closed door, and fingered a pen in his breast pocket. “To tell you the truth, though, I think I’m glad to see you. This shit’s a little deep for me and my people, and those—” He stopped, lowered himself back into his chair and picked up a pencil he rapped on the desktop. “The gentlemen from Dix aren’t really much on letting us hick boys in on much of anything, even though the corporal wasn’t killed on post.” He used the eraser to scratch at his temple. “Technically, the Ulman murder is ours. Try to tell them that, though.”

Mulder gave him the perfect us against them smile. “That’s what we’re here for, Chief. We’re going to need all the assistance we can get, and we’d definitely appreciate all you can tell us.”

“No problem.” Hawks, like his sergeant, wasn’t awed, but not for the same reasons. “You just let me know what you need, I’ll do what I can.” The pencil tapped as his expression darkened. “The thing is, I didn’t know that corporal at all. Grady Pierce, though, he was a royal pain in the ass, but I could think of a couple dozen guys I’d rather see take it the way he did. The poor son of a bitch.”

“Friend of yours?” Webber asked from the back of the room.

Hawks looked around Mulder at him, shaking his head. “Not really, no. Just known him a long time. Retired drill instructor, wife left him right after the service forced him out.” He looked back at Mulder. “He had no skills to speak of except bending his elbow, and AC.”

Andrews, who had been sitting stiffly in her chair, distaste clear in the set of her lips, said, “AC?”

“Atlantic City, Agent Andrews,” the man explained.

“Oh.” Distaste became disdain. “Gambling.”

Hawks didn’t blink; he only nodded.

“So you think it was a gambling debt or something?” Webber asked, dropping his arms, eagerness creeping into his voice. “Pierce, I mean?”

“Not hardly. When he went, he mostly won.” He grinned. “Nicely supplemented his retirement pay, which wasn’t a hell of a lot.” He opened the center drawer and pulled out a folder. “This is pretty much what we’ve got on both men, Agent Mulder.” He handed it over. “You can see it isn’t much, even after two weeks with Grady.” He shook his head and shrugged. “The trail’s probably dead, if you’ll excuse the expression. You’re welcome to it, though.”

Mulder nodded his thanks and handed it to Scully, who flipped through it and frowned. “I don’t see any body diagrams in this autopsy report. Just photographs, and not much commentary.”

Hawks scowled. “You’ll have to ask them on the post about that. It seems they cared as much about old Grady as we did.”

Well, well, Mulder thought. No love lost between Marville and Fort Dix. He wondered if that extended to the merchants as well.

Scully held a sheet of paper closer to her eyes, frowning in confusion. “What’s this say here in the margins? Gablin? Goblin?”

Mulder looked at her quickly. “Goblin?”

“Go see Sam Junis,” the chief suggested as she slapped the folder shut. “He’s the local doc, did the work on both men. He scribbles a lot, half the time nobody can read it but him. He lives in the first house west of where you’re staying. He knows you’ll be dropping in.”

“How did you know where we were staying?” Andrews demanded.

Mulder didn’t turn, but he hoped the chief wouldn’t take offense.

“Miss,” Hawks answered with a lazy smile, “you maybe have noticed we’re not exactly the metropolitan Washington area around here. And this time of year, Babs out there at the motel doesn’t get hardly any business except on weekends, and not much even then. Hell, if you want, I’ll even tell you what you had for breakfast.”

“What?” Webber asked, as if the chief were a magician about to reveal an ancient secret.

Hawks looked at Mulder — Is this one for real? — and stood. “You’re the redhead, so you had more pancakes than you ought to, gonna need a new notch on that belt, son, before long. Agent Scully had toast and coffee, bran cereal, orange juice. Agent Andrews had tea, toast, corn flakes. And you, Agent Mulder, had toast, bacon, two eggs over medium, coffee, orange juice, and blueberry jam.”

Mulder grinned his appreciation as the chief came around the desk and ushered them to the door.

“And I suppose you know what side of the bed I slept on?” Andrews asked coldly.

“Beats the shit out of me, Miss,” he said. “Damn drapes were closed too tight.”

Mulder couldn’t help it; he turned away and laughed as the chief asked them to wait outside while he cleared a couple of things up before taking them down to the first crime scene. Although it looked as if Andrews was about to object, Mulder agreed immediately and shook the man’s hand, thanking him again for his cooperation. Then he herded the team into the outer office, nodded to the sergeant — the dispatcher was gone, replaced by a man who stared at them, bewildered — and didn’t stop again until he was on the front walk, but unfortunately, not before Andrews made a deliberately loud comment to Hank about the “insufferable hicks in this damn burg.” Mulder, hands in his open topcoat pockets, looked up the street, seeking patience and inspiration, and a way to heed Scully’s silent warning not to lose his temper.

“Look,” he finally told them, “we have to work with these people, you understand? We need them on our side so we can do our job and get back to Washington as quickly as we can. I don’t care what you think of them personally,” he said to Licia, “but you keep your comments to yourself from now on, understood?”

She hesitated before nodding, and he made a note to have Scully Dutch uncle her later.

Webber, chastened even though he hadn’t been the one scolded, cleared his throat. “Uh, Mulder? Who’s Babs?”

Mulder nodded toward the far end of town. “Babs Radnor. She’s the owner of the motel.”

Webber frowned. “How did you know that?”

Without looking at Scully, he said, “Spooky, Hank. I’m just damn spooky,” turned and pointed to a brick-faced diner across the street. “We’ll meet there about one for lunch, okay?” He told Hank and Andrews to canvass the area around Barney’s, talk to everyone they could find about the dead men, the bar’s reputation, the night of the murder, anything at all that might yield them information the reports hadn’t told them.

Webber almost saluted as he led his partner off, leaning close, whispering urgently.

“Hello,” Mulder said quietly as Scully came up beside him. “My name is Agent Webber, FBI. Tell me all you know or I’ll smile you to death.”

She slapped his arm lightly. “Give him a break, Mulder, okay? He’s not all that bad.”

He agreed. “But it’s not him I’m worried about.”

He looked at the sky, at the lowering clouds, and smelled the first hint of rain as the wind strengthened, snapping the tired banner, scattering debris in the gutters. At that moment, nothing moved on the street.

No pedestrians, no cars, not even a stray dog or cat.

“Ghost town,” Scully said.

“Graveyard,” he answered.