From: DavidB226Morris@aol.com Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 22:01:01 EDT Subject: Third WHeel 3 Source: direct Third Wheel 3---- Fact Or Fiction by DavidB226Morris Classification: XF- Crossover FeedBack: DavidB226Morris@aol.com Summary: Acting on a lead from the Lone Gunmen, Mulder, Scully, and Daniel Torrance investigate a bizarre series of ritual murders in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Rating: PG-13 (some violence) Spoilers: Alpha, The Jersey Devil Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, et al belong to Chris Carter and all the people at 1013 productions. The character of Danny Torrance originated with Stephen King (and I hope he doesn't object to the liberties I have taken with his characters) There are some other characters who aren't mine, and I will reveal who they belong to at the end of the story Author's Notes: For those of you just joining us,this story is the third in a proposed series of adventures that take place in a world where Agents Mulder and Scully have been partnered with Danny Torrance from Stephen King's The Shining. You don't have to have read the other two stories to know what's going on but it couldn't hurt. I haven't thanked Michelle Blankenship for writing "Dark Places" the story which provided me with the inspiration for this version of Danny Torrance, so thank you. OFFICES OF THE MAGIC BULLET April 3 8:11 P.M. Danny Torrance nervously looked around and thought about the circumstances which had led him to this remote outpost of the city at an hour when he should have been sitting at home watching television. He had been sitting around the basement office that had become his place of operations over the past six weeks, writing up the notes on their most recent case. It had been a weird one (though he had begun to realize that by the very definition looking into cases on the X-Files meant that would be investigating cases that were very unusual). Still this one had been weirder then most---it had involved the case of a man who had suddenly been able to transform himself into a dog. Danny still wasn't entirely sure how to write up these kinds of cases, so he had just written down the fact and decided to rely on Scully to change it into a form that would be acceptable to the powers that be. Then the phone on Mulder's desk had rung. For a moment he had stood around not entirely sure what to do. Mulder didn't object when he touched his stuff but he was a little possessive about it. But neither Mulder or Scully was in the office so he picked up the phone wondering who on earth would be determined to reach Mulder at his office rather than calling him on his cell phone. "Hello." he said feeling a little foolish. For a moment there was no answer. In the background he could hear some weird noises --- like someone turning on a recording device. "Who is this?" The voice at the other end sounded surprised. "This is Danny Torrance." He hated when he talked on the phone. He always sounded like such a geek. "Where's Mulder?" Now the voice at the other end sounded guarded and a little out of his element. Danny could sympathize. Fortunately Mulder chose that moment to reenter the office. For a moment Danny had felt oddly ashamed--- like his mother had caught him in the bathroom with a Playboy. He handed the phone over to Mulder without saying a nother word.. "Hello." A pause. "Hey Frohike." Another pause. Danny just stood there,feeling that Mulder should dismiss him. "You sure? OK. I'll drop by after work." As he hung up the phone, Scully had entered the office. "Hey Scully, that was Frohike" It meant nothing to Danny but Scully nodded. There seemed to be something in her mood that he couldn't measure. "What did they want?" "He says that they might have a case for us. Something that called for our kind of labor." "Mulder, the last time we listened to a tip from the Gunmen..." "Come on, Scully." As was often the case when Mulder and Scully were in the same room, Danny felt like he had somehow disappeared from the room. "I don't want to end up in Las Vegas making a fool of myself." "Scully, that was a one time thing and they apologized for it." "Would someone mind filling me in?" Danny was sick of being treated as a second class citizen. Mulder and Scully had looked at each other for a moment before Mulder finally spoke "That was a friend of ours. Scully and me." Danny was surprised. In the brief time that he had known Mulder, he didn't think that he and Scully had a lot of friends. "He and a couple of other guys have done some work for us from time to time." "Other FBI agents?" Mulder hid a smile. "No. I guess you could call them freelancers." "And they have information about a case for us?" Mulder paused. "They didn't say. They just told me that it was something that might call for law enforcement." "Come on, Mulder, they probably just want to show you the Zapruder film again." "Look, you don't have to come Scully. I'll wait till after work and handle it myself." "You mind if I tag along?" Both Mulder and Scully looked up at Danny surprised. Danny didn't blame them. He was feeling a little amazed at his sudden boldness. Scully recovered first. "Why not? He's going to have to meet the Gunmen eventually." So that had been it. He had shown up in the garage that night and gotten into Mulder's car. He had not expected the long drive to the farthest reaches of Washington. He hadn't known that D.C. held that many alleys and side streets. When they had finally arrived after more than half an hour, Danny wouldn't have been surprised if they were still on the East Coast. "Are these guys that far away or are you that paranoid?" he had asked Mulder half-humorously. Mulder had just looked at him and said. "One from column A and one from column B." Now that they were here at last, Danny wondered what he was going to see when he looked behind the doors of this office that had taken so long for them to reach. Whoever these people were , he could tell that they were very security conscious--- the front door was practically camouflaged into the wall. However, Danny wondered what good that precaution would do if they noticed the fairly conspicuous lens that clearly belonged to a security camera. He nudged Mulder and pointed to it. Mulder merely shrugged his shoulders and said: "Smile, you're on Candid Camera." "Hey, Allen Funt was a great American. I took his passing very seriously." Mulder looked a little surprised at Danny's comment, then he just shrugged again. The door finally opened a crack (Danny wasn't surprised; he had heard at least eight latches being opened before the door finally moved).A man with dirty blond hair, glasses and a Ramones T-shirt peeked through the crack. "Who's the guy with the hat?" he asked. "It's OK, Langly. This is Danny Torrance." The door slammed shut. Danny thought he heard some heated whispering before the door finally opened. "Come in." He looked at Danny for a moment. "Nice hat." Danny then remembered that he was wearing his brown fedora and took it off his head. Danny walked into the room unsure of what to expect. The offices of The Lone Gunmen were filled with all sorts of technological devices that he had never seen before. He was tempted to ask Mulder what some of these devices were for but he had a feeling that he didn't want to find out. The room was also filled with hundreds of newspaper clippings. Some of them were clearly tabloid headlines ---- ALIEN CRASH LAND IN VEGAS was the mildest looking one, SADDAM TESTS MANDROID ARMY IN IRAQI DESERT was the most outrageous. The man with the dirty blond hair--- Langly, thought Torrance walked to the back of the room towards the computers. Sitting near the keyboard of a computer was a tall man with a short beard and a neat brown suit. Next to him was a small man with dark hair and thicker glasses then Langly's. "Come on, Byers. This is your party." The tall man with the beard turned around and faced Danny and Mulder. Danny felt a little nervous as this relative stranger looked at him with one of the stares that all strangers seemed to give him. "So you're Mulder's new partner." Without turning around , he could tell that Mulder had frozen up a little. Danny knew that for some reason the s ituation had suddenly gotten tense. He moved to ease it. "Mulder and Scully are partners; I'm just sharing office space with them." It was the right thing for him to say. He could tell Mulder was relaxing a little by him and the temperature with the three other men warmed up a little. "Speaking of which, where is the lovely Agent Scully?" This came from the short man with the glasses. "At home. She didn't think that your message was as serious as you made it sound, Frohike.So what's the big deal?" "It's Byers' thing. Let him explain it." The tall man with the beard---Byers, guessed Danny, seemed a little nervous to be dealing with him as well as Mulder and the two other men. Eventually, he gathered himself and plunged forward. " A week ago, I received a phone call from an old acquaintance of mine. Her name is Shelly Monarch and she is a magnetic media data recovery specialist." "She's a technology wizard." piped in Langly. "From time to time she gave us help on our work." "Not as good as us, but she has promise." added the short one---Frohike, Danny supposed. "When I asked--- Shelly what she had been doing recently, she told me that she had been hard at work on a project that would reveal a killer." "Did she tell you who was involved?" asked Mulder. Byers shook his head. "She said she didn't want to give details until she was ready to proceed." "And when did she say that she'd be ready to do that?" "A couple of days. " "I take it that something has gone wrong." "You could say that." said Frohike. Byers shot him a look that seemed to indicate that he wasn't taking what had happened seriously "I called her office yesterday afternoon. The police picked up the phone." "According to the police, Michelle Monarch has been missing for two days." added Langly. "Do the police suspect foul play?" asked Danny.Byers looked up at him, apparently surprised that he could talk. "We were---hoping that you could find out for us." Mulder seemed to hesitate for a minute. "We realize that this isn't your normal field of expertise." said Langly. "But whenever a colleague becomes involved in what is a potentially dangerous situation...." "It becomes necessary for some one to take an interest." Danny was amazed at how the three of them seemed able to finish each others sentences. He had seen this happen with Mulder and Scully from time to time, but these guys had it down even colder. "What do you want me to do?" "Mulder, you're not telling me that you're going along with all this?" At that moment, Danny would not have been shocked to learn that he was speaking in atone that mirrored Scully's nearly perfectly.. Mulder noticed it and gave him a smile. "Agent Torrance, a crime has been committed. Miss Monarch may have been kidnapped or murdered. This therefore merits the service of the FBI." Danny sighed. He hadn't known Mulder for that long, but he knew that when Mulder was determined to get involved in something, he always went in full throttle. This person's disappearance apparently qualified. Sighing to himself, Danny turned to the Gunmen. "Where does Miss. Monarch live?" "Elizabeth in Baroake County, New Jersey. BAROAKE COUNTY APRIL 4 2:09 P.M. "You didn't have to come with me,you know." Mulder said to Danny for what was either the third or fourth time since they had left this morning. Danny shook his head again. "Somebody has to keep an eye on you; make sure you don't go off half-cocked." He smiled at Mulder. Mulder gave back a wounded look. It wasn't the same kind of smile that he gave to Scully whenever he got into trouble, but it was close."The police just refused to give any information over the phone?" Mulder nodded. "Its an old act. The guy was one of those tight-ass cop. Just kept saying we can't release any information on Miss Monarch's disappearance. Like I was some snooping reporter instead of an agent with the FBI." "You think that carrying a badge for Uncle Sam would pull more weight. Instead they keep treating us like were second class citizens. " Danny was being slightly;y disingenuous. On the two cases that Mulder, Scully and himself had worked, he had been treated with a surprising amount of respect. Mulder and Scully own the other hand had been treating by other law enforcement agents and by people in general with less respect than people occupying their positions should receive. He didn't know if given enough time in the X-Files, people would starting regarding him with less respect but he figured that eventually would find out. "Here we are." Mulder pulled over. They had finally reached Michelle Monarch's house. It was apparent that some one was still there. A single police car stood in front of the house. Mulder and Danny got out of the car and walked over to Monarch's house. A nervous looking police officer was guarding the door. He looked younger than Danny was . "Excuse me, I'm Special Agent Mulder. This is special Agent Torrance. We're with the FBI. " He showed the office his badge. It seemed to take the young officer a few minutes to take this in before he recovered himself and let Mulder and Danny into the house. A detective in an old raincoat was standing over a desk. He appeared to be looking over Miss Monarch's appointment book. He looked up at Mulder and gave him a firm glance. "Who are you?" Mulder was still holding his badge out and he flashed it in front of the detective. The detective looked at it a moment before turning away. " Paul Donahue, Baroake County Police Department.I should have figured that the Feds would be coming around to stick their nose in this." Mulder paused a moment. Despite not knowing Mulder that well, he knew him well enough to know that Mulder was about to make one of his intuitive leaps. However, Danny had already figured out why the cops were here and decided to cut Mulder off at the pass. "Michelle Monarch is dead, isn't she " He could tell by Mulder's face that the agent had already taken his reasoning that far. The detective showed an equal lack of surprise. He nodded his head. "Six hours ago, her body was found in the Pine Barrens. She had been dead for at least twenty four hours according to the preliminary coroner's report." "How was she killed?" asked Mulder. "Her body was found wrapped in a plastic sheet." Danny looked around the room they were standing in. It had a plastic set of curtains wrapped around the wall of the room. One side of the curtains appeared to have been torn off. His eyes turned back to Detective Donahue, who gave a nod. "We're thinking that the killer attacked her at home, struggled with her and wrapped her body in one of the curtains. "Do you have any suspects?" Donahue shook his head. "No, and were pretty much at a loss as to who could have done it and why. We're a pretty small county, Agent Mulder, and this is the biggest crime to have hit us in a couple of years." "Any clues from Miss Monarch's job?" "I don't follow you." "At the time of her death, I understand that the woman was working on some kind of big project." Donahue shook his head again. " We're looking over the house for some sign of the work that she was doing at the time of her death. Someone trashed her computer. We're trying to put it together so that we can figure out what she was working on." "Is there anything in her appointment book?" asked Mulder. According to it, the last major project she was working on was with someone whose initials are DL. We're trying to work on her phone records, but..." At this point, there was a commotion at the front door. "I need to see the police. Danny walked over to the door. A tall thin man with dark hair was engaged in a serious conversation with the policeman. "Excuse me,sir, who are you?" The tall man turned towards Danny. "My name is David Leigh. I'm a filmmaker." "David Leigh?" Danny turned towards Mulder and mouthed the letters DL. "Mr. Leigh., could you come inside. We have a couple of questions that we'd like to ask you." BAROAKE COUNTY POLICE STATION 3:23 P.M. "O.K., Mr. Leigh. Why don't you just take it from the top." Danny watched the interrogation room. Detective Donahue and Agent Mulder were in their with Leigh. Leigh had been surprisingly calm when the [police had asked him to come with them to the police station, asking if he could bring his camera with him. Apparently Leigh was working on some kind of documentary and he wanted everything to be done according to the rules of film. "Over the past few months. I have been making a documentary on the Fact Or Fiction murders. It was supposed to be a film which explored the crime and gave an explanation... "Excuse me, but I'm not familiar with the Fact or Fiction murders. Would you mind explaining about that to me?" Detective Donahue looked at Mulder with an expression of mild surprise. "Two years ago, three men who went into the Pine Barrens for some public access television show were murdered by the man who guided them there. The man who killed them was arrested and sent to prison. That pretty much what you were going to say" He turned to Leigh. "That pretty much cover it?" "Yes,but..." Mulder looked closely at Leigh. "But what?" "Last January, I received the remains of a tape." "Who sent you this tape?" "I don't know. "What was on this tape? "I didn't know. That's why I came to Shelly with it. I wanted her to restore the tape and tell me if it was genuine.. "Did Shelly restore the tape?" "Parts of it.?" "What was on it?" "It was video footage of the Pine Barrens the night that the men were killed. It showed that the men who were killed were still alive at the time that the police ruled that they were dead." Detective Donahue looked at Leigh with greater interest. "Do you have any of this footage?" "Yes its at my home. But that's not all that the tape revealed." Mulder looked at Leigh. "It showed them being attacked didn't it?" "Yes. There was a frame that showed the face of the killer. Shelly was working to restore that frame of the footage. Three days ago, she said that a face would finally be visible that afternoon. I went over to her house that afternoon and ... She wasn't there." "Do you have any idea who could have killed her?" Leigh shook his head.."I don't have any idea." Mulder got up. "Excuse me a moment." He got up and left. A moment later, he was standing in the antechamber with Danny. "Do you think that he's telling the truth?" he asked. Mulder nodded. "As he knows it, I think he's being accurate. Nit that it really matters." Danny looked up at Mulder, a little surprised. "What do you mean?" "Agent Torrance, you were assigned to my division to help me investigate the X-Files. Unless Miss Monarch was killed by the ghost of the real murderer,this case is not an X-File. It's not even a matter for the Bureau. When Skinner finds out , that we wasted an entire day on non-bureau matter, he'll have your head and mine" Danny paused a moment gathering himself. "You're right, Mulder. There are no ghosts or aliens involved in this case. But you've told me that the X-Files are about getting to the truth. Well, it looks like the truth has been hidden here. A woman has been murdered probably because she was trying to help Mr. Leigh get to it. If we go back to Washington without investigating won't we be allowing this deception to still exist? And these other killings --- from what Mr. Leigh has been telling us, the truth was hidden there as well. We have to do some investigating." Mulder looked at Danny with what appeared to be an equal measure of exasperation and respect. "You missed your calling, kid. You would have made a hell of a salesman." "Besides, if it turns out that we can solve an actual case with a real solution, it might convince some of those higher up that the X-Files isn't a waste of time and money." "Ah, enlightened self-interest." said Mulder with a smile. "Its the best kind." "All right. I'm gonna call Scully and ask for her help with the case. Maybe she can find something in Michelle Monarch' s autopsy that the coroner may have missed. In the meantime, I want you to go and find out everything that you can find about the Fact Or Fiction murders." "Why?" "Shelly Monarch's body was dumped in the same place as the crimes that she was researching. I don't think that its a coincidence. " "You figure that we figure this out, we'll understand why she was murdered?" Mulder nodded. "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to look into the background of our filmmaker. See if there's something that he isn't telling us." BAROAKE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE RECORD DEPARTMENT APRIL 5 8:18 A.M. Danny Torrance managed to suppress a yawn. He had spent most of the previous night up, going over most of the records of the Fact or Fiction murders. When Mulder had asked him to do the research on the murders, he had not known that it would involve going into such elaborate detail. But he liked a challenge and therefore the tiredness that he felt had been suppressed by the adrenaline rush that usually came to him when he was working on a big case. Mulder and Scully walked into the room . Both had a serious expression on their faces. Danny knew that Mulder and Scully always kept a serious attitude towards their work, but he wished that they would smile more often. They always appeared like everything was a life or death matter. Though he had to admit, at least in this case, that it was. "Scully, glad to see you." Danny got up. "Well, I have to admit, I was intrigued. Mulder usually asks me to conduct an autopsy on people who have been victims of vampirism or sawed in half ... Or something...." "Spooky?" Mulder finished the sentence with a half smile. "Did the autopsy of Shelly Monarch show anything unusual?" asked Danny. "First things first." said Mulder. "I only know some of the story behind the Fact or Fiction murders and Scully doesn't know anything at all. So fill us in on what you learned. "Where do you want me to start?" "With the basics. Who were these people?" Danny looked down at his notes. " In 1997, two men named Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler formed a public access television show called 'Fact or Fiction' You would have liked it, Mulder, it was a paranormal variety show where they looked into events that were unexplained." "Sounds like my kind of people." said Mulder. "The show was on for most of 1997, but gradually the audience for the show began to diminish. By October, Avkast was desperate to do anything to help recover the shows popularity. So he began turning to viewer mail and suggestion on the Internet. Apparently around this time someone suggested that they do a show about the Jersey Devil." Mulder suddenly smiled and looked at Scully, who also gave a half smile. Danny looked at them both. "Did I say something funny?" "No. It's just that... One of the first cases that Scully and I worked on together involved a some kind of monster that the local people called the Jersey Devil. " "It was in Atlantic City." said Scully "I saw that some kind of creature was disturbing the population. The police eventually killed it, but the autopsy was inconclusive as to what the creature actually was." "But it identified the creature as a female and told us that it has possibly given birth." "Mulder, there was no prove that the creature was a monster---" "Scully, you saw the thing...' Danny thought that it was best for this conversation to be shot down before it developed into a full fledged argument. "Could we possibly have this conversation after I finish this?" Reluctantly, Mulder and Scully both settled down. "Apparently, the Jersey Devil lived in the Pine Barrens and so Avkast decided to go to the Pine Barrens and do a live broadcast on cable and the Internet. This broadcast was there hope to restore the shows popularity and it was such a big deal that they decided they needed help. They ran several ads on TV and did a bunch of interviews and eventually they hired two men to help them with their project: Rein Clacken, an expert when it came to audio recording and Jim Suerd, a supposed psychic who was supposed to lead the group into the Pine Barrens." Torrance paused. "Suerd was the man who was arrested for killing the others, right?" said Mulder. 'Right." "Was Suerd a psychic?" Mulder asked with half a smile. "I doubt it. Suerd 'supposedly proved that he was a psychic on the day that he met with Avkast and Wheeler by performing a card trick and having a psychic fit." "How do you know all this? I don't think that this is the kind of thing that Suerd would just tell the police." "That's the thing about this case Avkast and Wheeler kept extensive videotaped record of their planned excursion into the Pine Barrens. Including their first meeting with the others. Maybe if I show you the tape, it will he lp explain things better than me alone." Mulder looked at Scully and they both nodded. Danny walked over to the VCR and pressed play. The tape show a young man with dirty blond hair----Suerd -- being restrained by a man in a red shirt. Eventually Suerd broke free of the other man and ran towards a pan which seemed to contain ashes. Suerd grabbed at the plate and threw some of the ashes on to his arm. He began rubbing both his arms until finally some writing began to appear on one of the arms. The camera slowly moved in on it.. Danny paused the tape as the camera closed in on Suerd's arm. A date was clearly visible on it. It read 12-13-97. "That date was the proposed first date of the trip. Eventually they changed it to December 15. The state of New Jersey argued that this was a sign of premeditation." "Based on this?" Mulder replied dubiously. "No. On the day of the trip, Wheeler and Avkast kept the same kind of extensive records that they did on everything else. The prosecution edited the videotapes so that they could illustrate that Suerd was the killer." "How?" asked Scully. "They edited the videotape so that it showed that Jim Suerd was leading the party farther and farther into the Pine Barrens away from any access road. The tape also showed that Jim Suerd had a potentially violent streak." "How did they prove that? Torrance grabbed another videotape and stuck it into the machine. The camera showed a picture of Suerd Behind him was a short man with a beard and a white hat and a taller man. Both were bundled in thick coat a The background showed that they were in the Pine Barrens during the winter. The voice of the man holding the camera spoke up. "Jim. Are you a psychic or a psycho?" Suerd clearly got angry at the question and moved forward saying: "Look, man." There was then what appeared to be some static that appeared because Suerd had pushed him. The camera then faced Suerd. "I'll see you back at camp, man !" He said angrily. Torrance stopped the tape. "That was evidence? " Mulder said incredulously. "That's just a single outburst taken after an aggravated event. It doesn't prove anything." "Maybe not" said Scully "But I can see how such an event can be taken out of context to prove that Suerd was a violent man. What else did the tapes show?" "Short version? The tapes showed that Suerd was introverted and unlike the others who seemed to be enjoying their trip to the Pine Barrens, Suerd appeared to be angry and scary." "Do they show anything about them being murdered?" "No. According to the prosecution's recordings the last of the tapes shut off at 1 A.M. There was some discussion on the last one about changing tapes, but there was no indication that this was done." "Unless the tape that Leigh received in the mail is accurate." Torrance nodded. "Tell us about the murders themselves. How did the police get involved". "Around 9 AM the day after the broadcast a 911 call was placed by Jim Suerd from a pay phone in which he said that the people he had driven out to the Pine Barrens with were nowhere to be found. Eventually the police went out there and found the dead bodies of Rein Clacken and Locus Wheeler.. Both men had been stabbed to death several times. "What about the other guy--- Steven Avkast?" "His body was never found. All that they found of him was a patch of blood and his hat. They figure he lost so much blood that he must have been killed also." " When did they arrest Jim Suerd?" asked Scully "Suerd was arrested three days later." "Did they have any evidence other then the fact that Suerd was the only other man there?" asked Mulder. Torrance reached for another document. "After they arrested Suerd, they searched his home. They found a shirt that was his that had some blood on it. DNA testing that was done on the shirt proved that the blood belonged to all three of the victims. Forensics did a preliminary test on the wounds and showed that they were made by a man who matched a man of Suerd's height and weight. It also was clear that the wounds were made by someone stabbing with both hands." "Was Jim Suerd ambidextrous?" asked Scully. Danny nodded. "All that evidence is circumstantial. Did they find the murder weapon?"asked Mulder "No." Danny paused. "And the blood on the clothes... That was odd too" "Are you saying that the DNA testing could be wrong?" " Take a look at this.. " Danny handed Scully a picture of Suerd's shirt. "What am I supposed to be looking at?" asked Scully. "How much blood would you say is on the shirt?" "Not a great deal.What are you getting at?" "The doctors said that there was the equivalent of fifteen eye droppers full on the shirt. If Suerd was really the architect of the murders, how come there was so little blood found on his shirt?" "He's right Scully. By all rights, his shirt should have been soaked in blood." "Mulder,blood spatters funny. It's possible that he could have killed the men without getting much on him." Mulder turned his attention back to Torrance. "Did Suerd have any explanation as to what happened?" Torrance shook his head. "He said that he really wasn't paying attention to what was happening at the camp site. He claims that he was on Internet Relay Chat all night." "Do the computer records bear that out?" "Yes and No. The computer records have him on line from 8 PM until around 3 in the morning." "But..." said Mulder "According to the IRC logs there was a forty minute gap between the comments that Suerd made online. The prosecution argued that Suerd could have used that gap to kill the others." "And all of this played with the jury?" said Mulder. "Apparently so. The defense tried to raise all these points at trial but none of them seemed to really stick with the jury. The only victory that they really managed was getting the murder of Steven Avkast dropped from the indictment. Suerd was convicted of the murders of Clacken and Wheeler and was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment.." For a moment, the three agents all sat in silence as they absorbed the implication of what they had just gone over. "Do you think Suerd is guilty?" asked Mulder. Torrance thought it over for a moment. "I don't know. A lot of the evidence that the police gathered seems shaky at best. I can see how the police would believe that Suerd did it, but I think that the evidence is shaky enough for him to be innocent. I'd like to talk with Suerd himself." "That's not possible." said Mulder. "Why not?" "Because Suerd is dead." "What?" said Danny genuinely shocked. "On January 6 of this year, he was found dead in his cell." "Was it another murder?" "The death was put down to causes unknown." As Danny took this in, Mulder added. "That's not the only odd thing that I found about it. Two days after Suerd's death, David Leigh received the remains of the video tape that he asked Shelly Monarch to restore." "Hell of a coincidence, wouldn't you say?" "I don't believe that in this kind of coincidence. Danny shook his head. "Did Shelly Monarch's autopsy reveal anything out of the ordinary?" he asked Scully. Scully shook her head. "Cause of death was asphyxiation do to suffocation. Based on the position of her arms and legs I am assuming that she put a struggle. My guess is that she was taken by surprise and tried to put up a fight before she died." "Did you find any fingerprints any skin under the fingernails, anything that might lead us to the killer?' Scully shook her head. "Plastic doesn't contain finger prints very well. We found a couple of prints on the sheet, but they don't match any that are in the system." "So you've got no idea who could have killed her?"\ "I have a theory." said Mulder. "You're not going to tell me that the Jersey Devil is the killer are you?" said Danny sarcastically. "No. The only monster that is here is the man who committed these murders." "Do you believe that the murders are connected?" asked Danny. "It would be a pretty big coincidence if they were not." Before Mulder could precede any further with his theory Mulder's phone rang. He answered it. "Mulder." There was a long pause. "Are you absolutely sure?" Another pause. "All right sit on him until I get there." He hung up the phone. "The police matched one of the prints found on the plastic bag that Michelle Monarch was suffocated in." "How come they couldn't match it before?" "Because they just took the fingerprints of the man." "You mean its...." "Our friend the filmmaker." BAROAKE COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT 10:13 A.M. David Leigh sat in the interrogation room with what appeared to be an enormous amount of patience. Danny had no idea what Mulder was about to do but he had an inclination that it would not be pretty. "Mr. Leigh, would you mind explaining how well you knew Michelle Monarch?" Mulder sounded very polite. "I hired Shelly to do the data recovery on the tape that I found." "You didn't know her before you found the tape?" "She was an acquaintance. The friend of a friend.." Leigh paused. "What is all this about?" "I'm just trying to gather background information. Trying to make sense of this. " Danny turned to Scully who was watching with him in the antechamber. "Do you have any idea what Mulder is up to?" Scully shook her head. "When was the last time that Mulder did this?" "Did what?" "Led an interrogation of a suspect." Scully thought for a second, then shook her head a second time. "It's not that often that Mulder has a chance to interview a real person." Danny looked at Scully for a second. The statement that she had just made had implications which he did not want to explore. He turned his attention back to Mulder and Leigh. "Why did you begin this project anyway? Why did you want to explore the Fact or Fiction murders?" asked Mulder. Leigh still seemed perfectly calm as he answered. "Originally I wanted to see if I could discover the reason that Jim Suerd committed these horrible murders. And I thought that it was interesting that the murders were all what you might call children of a digital age." "How so?" "Everyone involved in the Fact or Fiction murders were involved in the world of the media. " "That's all very interesting, David----you don't mind if I call you David, do you? "No , you can go on ahead." Mulder moved closer to Leigh. "Did you ever see Fact or Fiction?" Leigh seemed a bit surprised at the question. "Of course I did. I watched several episodes while I was making my documentary..." "No , I mean did you watch any episodes before you got the idea to make this documentary." Leigh paused for a long minute . "What's all this about?" "Why do you think the murders took place? I mean if Jim Suerd isn't the real killer, who do you think the killer is?" Leigh seemed to relax. "I don't know . In my documentary, I have a segment where I ponder on those same possibilities. Steven and Locus ---the hosts said that there was a suggestion made from IRC and also that someone mailed in a suggestion. But its almost impossible for an IRC call to be retraced back to the source." "Yes, it would be almost impossible. And even if you could there's no guarantee that the computer this 'person' used even belonged to whoever it was who came up with." Mulder gave off a sigh. "It seems that it would be near;y impossible to track down the man who committed those murders. "He got up and walked closer to Leigh. "So lets talk about a murder that we can solve." Leigh grew tense again. "We dusted the plastic sheet that Shelly Monarch was wrapped in. And we got a couple of solid prints. When we ran them through the computer database to see if we could come up with a match, you know what we found?" "Since you're talking to me, I guess that you found my prints." "That's right." "Agent Mulder, I was at Shelly's house at least half a dozen times or more. I imagine that my prints are all over her house." "They might be., David. But I find it very hard to believe that it was pure chance that you put your hands at the exact same spot where Shelly Monarch was suffocated. " There was a long pause. Leigh twisted in his seat. Danny turned to Scully. " Is that true?" Scully shook her head. "They found a lot of prints on the plastic but most of them were smudged. " "Did they find his prints anywhere?" "They were in the house, but he's right. Those prints could have been there for weeks." "Hell of a bluff." Scully looked at Leigh, who was now noticeably uncomfortable. "It looks like its working". "How do you explain that, Mr. Leigh?" By now, Mulder was looking Leigh directly in the face. "Agent Mulder, why would I kill this woman? She was going to help me solve a crime." "Wrong. She was going to reveal your crime." Danny turned to Scully. She was surprised but not astonished. She was used to Mulder's amazing leaps in logic and this was one where you didn't an Oxford education to make the connection. "What are you saying?" "The face that Shelly Monarch found on that tape---- the face of the killer---- it was yours." "You're out of your mind!" "No." said Mulder calmly. "You are, David. " When Leigh didn't respond to this comment, he went on." You sent in the email to IRC that suggested that they do a show about the Pine Barrens. You knew when and where they would be there because they advertised it for weeks in advance . Then on December 15, you waited in the woods . You killed Steven Avkast first. And then when Locus Wheeler and Rein Clacken came out following him you killed them too" "I didn't kill anyone!" Leigh's voice was becoming more frantic as if he was trying to convince himself as well as Mulder. "Then why are your prints all over the house? Why are they all over Shelly Monarch's computer?" Leigh just paused. Danny could tell from his face that the filmmaker was weakening. "You know what bothers me the most. The killings in the Pine Barrens, they were so well planned and carried out... " Mulder paused again. "But the killing of Shelly Monarch, that was done so damn sloppily and haphazardly. Why did you do such a poor one?" Mulder paused deliberately. It was as if he knew that he had reached the critical point of the interrogation. Leigh just stared at Mulder. "She caught me by surprise. I went over to her house to .... do it. I didn't even knock. But she took me by surprise. When she saw... that it was my face on the tape, she slugged me and ran. I caught her foot and tripped her. I wrapped her in the plastic because it was the closest thing there.. I didn't know she'd put of such a struggle. Even when she was dying.... she kept fighting me. " Leigh stopped. "She just kept fighting me. That's all." Another paused. Leigh then just stared straight ahead. "Could I get something to drink?" EPILOGUE April 8 9:17 AM Washington D.C. Danny and Scully entered the basement office. Mulder was on the phone. "So that's where you were. " said Scully. It may have been Danny Torrance's imagination, but he thought that Scully seemed more cheerful than usual. He knew that the upcoming ceremonies would have put a smile on his face "Come on Mulder. They're going to start without us." Mulder paused and then hung up the phone."I find it highly unlikely that they would do that. Its hard to give a commendation to three agents without the agents to be honored about to be present." " I can't believe it. Skinner's actually smiling." That brought a smile of disbelief to Mulder's face. "That I gotta see." He walked towards the exit. "Who were you on the phone with?" asked Danny "The district attorney for Baroake County. David Leigh is going to plead not guilty by reason of insanity." "Interesting strategy." said Scully "The argument is that Leigh suffered from a psychopathic obsession with 'Fact Or Fiction" which caused him to plan and commit the murders in the Pine Barrens. That same obsession also caused him to take the tape from the cameras of the Fact or Fiction crew and mail it to himself anonymously, and then went to the trouble of having Shelly Monarch restore the tape." "Did he also kill Shelly Monarch while he was supposedly insane?" Mulder paused. "They didn't explain to me how it was going to work." "Do you think its true?" asked Danny. "I think that David Leigh is a very disturbed human being. Who committed a very disturbed crime. He is insane in the same sense that all killers are insane but I don't know if that qualifies as a legitimate mental defect." Mulder paused again. "That's one of the things that I hate about these kind of crimes." "What kind?" "It's one thing to look into paranormal and unexplained events. Those are by their definition very difficult to understand. But in order to understand the workings of the human mind, I could spend years studying it and never come close to finding a legitimate explanation why certain people commit heinous crimes. That's one of the reasons that I started investigating the X-Files in the first place. I'll take the paranormal crimes over normal ones any day " Both Scully and Danny turned to Mulder in surprise--- Scully because she wasn't used to hearing him philosophize about the criminal mind, Danny because he wasn't used to hearing him philosophize period. Danny recovered first. "Well, investigating a normal crimes does have its upside." "Yeah, we don't normally get congratulated for solving an X-File." said Scully. "Maybe not now, but after we take our bows for the camera, I've got a classic X-File that'll put us on the front pages." "Of what? The National Enquirer?" said Danny humorously Mulder paused. "How did you know?" "How did I know what?" "Where I got the lead?" Danny rolled his eyes. Even though he'd known Mulder for over six weeks, he had begun to feel that he had already understood how his mind worked. "Come on, let's have our moment of glory." THE END Feedback is welcome at DavidB226Morris@aol.com. As I said before, several of the characters in this story do not belong to me. You know that Mulder, Scully, Danny Torrance and the Lone Gunmen don't belong to me. What you probably didn't know was that David Leigh, Shelly Monarch, Locus Wheeler, Steven Avkast, Rein Clacken and Jim Suerd don't belong to me either. They are the property of little-known film called "The Last Broadcast" by Steven Avalos and Lance Wheeler. If you have enjoyed this story(or even if you haven't) I highly recommend that you see it. Some people who see it may say that it reminds them of the better known film "The Blair Witch Project." However, this film came before anyone had ever heard of that movie. And though I have revealed several of the secrets of the film in this story, it still remains an entertaining film to see.