Several long minutes of glacial silence
passed. Mulder tried, and failed, to ignore it.
It was hard to ignore glacial silence when you
were alone in a car with a woman and there was
nothing else to look at except falling leaves and
white-washed fences. He was just about to ask
Scully what was wrong when she cleared her
throat. Still looking out the window, she asked,
"Mulder, what was all that about, back at
Kopeck's place?"
He glanced at her, surprised at the tack she
had taken. "What was all what about? The
questions about the family business, or about
Kopeck's father?"
She shook her head. "No, Mulder. The
black widow spider, the praying mantis..."
She turned her face his way and regarded him
coolly. "Is there something you want to say
to me?"
He considered giving her a flippant answer,
then decided against it. He drummed his fingers
thoughtfully on the steering wheel. "Yeah.
I'd like for you to see me as something more than
a sex object, Scully."
She snorted.
The car swept through the bright autumn
landscape. Leaves of copper and gold were falling
on either side of the country road, floating
softly down to the grass.
After a minute she said, "You're
serious."
"It's just..." he began. He sighed.
"I'm getting old, Scully."
She cocked an eyebrow at him. "And?"
"No, I am. I mean, I'm still a decade or
two away from needing Viagra, but the day is
coming. Time marches on. Someday I really will be
gray, and then -- "
"Oh, my God," she said, surprising
him with the incredulity in her tone. "Is
that what this is about? The gray hair in the
shower yesterday morning?"
"No," he said, and gnawed at his
lip. "Or yes. Partially, maybe. The truth
is, I'm not in my prime any more -- "
"Mulder, I was only kidding about
that."
He glanced at her, then away again. "You
didn't sound like you were kidding."
"Unfortunately, there's no laugh track in
your bedroom."
"You think it needs one?" He smiled,
but the smile didn't reach his eyes.
She didn't smile back. "Mulder, don't
start. You have very little cause to complain
when I just found out that you knew damned well
-- "
He opened his mouth to interrupt, but before
he could form the words his cell phone rang in
his breast pocket. "Damn," he swore,
pulling out the phone. "Mulder," he
snapped into the receiver, frustration coloring
his usual flat professionalism.
The voice on the other end was so loud and so
agitated that he flinched and jerked the phone
away before bringing it gingerly back to his ear.
He listened to the excited caller on the other
end of the line, watching the road with only half
his attention now. "Okay," he said
finally. "We're on our way."
"What is it?" Scully asked as he
tucked the phone back into his pocket.
"There's been another death," he
told her, checking over his shoulder before
starting the car into a three-point turn.
"It looks like Mr. Kopeck might not be so
innocent after all. This time, the body's at the
gym."
****
It was just too awful, even for someone like
Eric Noonan, thought Mr. Kopeck. He glanced at
the dead body with a sense of horror. He supposed
death was rarely dignified, but to die naked in a
gym while stealing someone else's deodorant was
the epitome of indignity.
The locker room was streaked with blood: blood
on the lockers, blood on the three wooden
benches. It ran in a rivulet to the little metal
drain set in the concrete floor. Mr. Kopeck
shuddered. The locker where he'd left his gym bag
yawned open, the empty Nike bag inside.
Law enforcement -- the two FBI agents, two
Troopers from the Vermont State Police, and a
detective from the same Derby barracks -- milled
around him. The FBI agents seemed perfectly at
home amid the carnage, the Troopers completely at
sea, and the lone detective somewhere in the
middle. All of them were talking in the language
of crime and death: fingerprints, footprints,
trace evidence, post-mortem lividity. Mr. Kopeck
buried his face in his hands.
"Right Guard," noted Agent Mulder,
observing the deodorant in the dead man's grip.
"Too bad it wasn't the strongest protection
he could buy."
"No," said Mr. Kopeck, looking up.
"That was mine. I think he was borrowing
it."
Agent Scully pinned him with a glance.
"Borrowing it?"
He shrugged. "Stealing it.
Whatever."
The younger of the two Troopers squinted at
him. "So you killed him because he was
stealing your deodorant?"
"No!" yelped Mr. Kopeck. "I
didn't kill anyone. I just found the body. You
can ask Belinda out there. I walked in here and
found him this way."
"You didn't see anything
suspicious?" the detective asked him.
"I didn't see anyone -- any person,"
said Mr. Kopeck scrupulously, wondering which
would be worse, a prison cell or a rubber room.
With the FBI in charge, neither the Troopers
nor the State Police detective had much to occupy
them at the scene. Soon the Troopers announced
they were off to notify the next of kin. The
detective followed.
The fewer people there were in the room, the
more disturbing Mr. Kopeck found the murder
scene. Besides, he wondered, where was the demon?
Had it returned to his desk? His kitchen? Was it
running around loose, a menace to every
unsuspecting citizen of Craftsbury Common? Was it
even now watching him from some shadowy corner?
Mr. Kopeck wiped his damp palms on his
sweatpants. "Can I go now?" he asked
the two FBI agents. "I already gave the
other detective my statement."
Mulder and Scully exchanged looks. "This
is going to take me a little while, Mulder,"
she said, gesturing at Noonan's dead body.
"Take your time." He said it as
calmly as if he were sitting behind a desk
pushing paper, and not standing over a naked,
blood-spattered corpse. He turned to Mr. Kopeck.
"I would like to ask you a few more
questions, if you don't mind."
Mr. Kopeck's gaze slid to the body on the
floor. "Do we have to do it here? It's just
a little hard to concentrate, you know, with Eric
-- "
"If you'd prefer, we can go
outside."
Agent Mulder pulled the locker room door open,
and Mr. Kopeck got up and walked with him out
into the hallway, to where the smell of
established mildew and fresh blood gave way to
the cleaner air of racketball courts and waxed
wooden floors. Mr. Kopeck glanced back and forth,
half expecting to see the demon disappearing
around a corner.
Mulder gestured to a bench against one wall,
and together they sat down. "So how did it
happen?" he asked without preamble.
"I -- I don't know," Mr. Kopeck
stammered. "The last time I saw Eric alive,
he was flirting with Belinda at the desk. The
next thing I knew, he was lying dead on the
locker room floor."
Mulder lifted one eyebrow. "You say the
victim was flirting with the woman at the
desk?"
"Well, I consider it flirting," said
Mr. Kopeck stiffly. "Maybe you
wouldn't."
"Did she flirt back?"
Mr. Kopeck wondered if all FBI agents were so
nosey. What could this possibly have to do with
Eric's murder? "I guess so. She was laughing
at his jokes, anyway. It -- it surprised me,
because..."
"Yes?" said Agent Mulder after a
moment. "You were saying?"
Mr. Kopeck shook his head.
"Nothing."
"No, you said it surprised you. Why did
it surprise you that she flirted back?"
"Well," answered Mr. Kopeck, feeling
foolish, "I realize now I was probably
wrong, but before Eric came in, I thought maybe
Belinda was -- I think she was going to ask me
out."
"Oh?"
Mr. Kopeck squirmed. "Maybe. I don't
know. She talked to me, and she mentioned she was
going to the movies. And then...you know, I was
half-hoping she was going to ask me out, and I
was half-terrified she was going to."
"That would have been a problem?"
"I don't know. Maybe. She's a little
young for me. Plus she always sets the radio here
to the bubblegum pop station from Burlington, and
no offense if you're a Backstreet Boys fan, but
if I have to listen to one more chorus of 'As
Long as You Love Me,' I'm going to drink Drano. I
mean, she's nice, but...I'm not sure I'm
ready..." He shrugged. "Anyway, she
probably wasn't going to say anything anyway.
It's just that I've never been very good at
reading these situations. And I'm way out of
practice."
Agent Mulder nodded slowly. "You knew all
of the people who've died here this week, didn't
you, Mr. Kopeck?"
He swallowed, and wondered how he was supposed
to answer. Outraged innocence? Mournful
agreement? He couldn't decide, so he just nodded.
Agent Mulder was silent. Finally he leaned
back against the wall behind them. "You said
you teach World History?" he asked
conversationally.
Mr. Kopeck had not expected his casual tone.
"Yes, that's right."
"In that case, do you know the story of
Brutus before the Battle of Philippi?"
Somewhat puzzled, Mr. Kopeck nodded. "Yes
-- it's in Plutarch, and Shakespeare too. Brutus
was an ambitious Roman who had joined in the
conspiracy to assassinate Julius Caesar. Civil
war followed. On the evening before the battle in
which he was to die, Brutus couldn't sleep. In
the darkest hour of the night he was visited by a
-- "
Mr. Kopeck ground to a halt.
"Yes?" prodded Agent Mulder.
"By a -- a demon."
Mulder nodded. "Do you know what the
creature said when Brutus asked it who it
was?"
Mr. Kopeck bit his lip nervously. "'Sum
malus tuus genius' -- 'I am your evil
spirit.'"
Agent Mulder regarded him in expectant
silence.
Mr. Kopeck turned his head and asked with
lowered brows, "So what are you implying,
Agent Mulder?"
Agent Mulder folded his arms over his chest.
"Ambition caught up with Brutus. Manifest
ambition in the form a demon, Mr. Kopeck, in the
form of an evil spirit."
Mr. Kopeck's mouth felt suddenly dry. He
swallowed. "It's a story, Agent Mulder. The
demon is just -- WAS just a dramatic
device."
"Is it?"
"Of course it is," Mr. Kopeck
replied, trying to look appalled instead of
terrified. "Are you...are you seriously
suggesting...?"
Mulder cleared his throat. "You're just
recently divorced, aren't you, Mr. Kopeck?"
Mr. Kopeck looked down at his shoes.
"It's not final yet. My wife left me two
months ago."
"Left you for another man?"
Mr. Kopeck flushed, and glanced at Mulder
resentfully. "Not that it's any of your
business, but yes."
Beside him, Mulder nodded sympathetically.
"I imagine that's been hard to get used
to."
"You could say that."
"So, then..." the FBI agent
continued, "I suppose this has been an
eventful couple of months for you. Recently and
quite unfamiliarly, you've been propositioned by
one student, probably found yourself eyeing
others, and had reason to wonder if the woman at
the desk outside might be interested in
you."
Mr. Kopeck turned and regarded him
apprehensively. "Yes."
"And three people have died."
Mr. Kopeck sat for a moment, wondering what
Agent Mulder was getting at. "So what are
you suggesting? Are you trying to tell me my evil
spirit is...lust?"
Mulder tilted his head thoughtfully, looking
off into the distance. "Maybe it would be
more accurate to call it a manifestation of the
conflict you've been feeling lately about
sex."
Mr. Kopeck snorted.
"Or I could just be nuts," Agent
Mulder said lightly.
"I think that's more likely."
"Still," Mulder said, "it makes
an interesting theory, don't you think?"
They heard voices in the hallway intersection
beside them, and both turned their heads. A
second later Belinda strolled past in the
tight-fitting uniform of an aerobics instructor,
spandex shorts and a sports bra. She was talking
to another woman in similarly body-hugging
workout gear. The two men watched the women go
by, listening until the soft sound of their
voices faded.
Mr. Kopeck sighed. "Sex used to be so
much fun," he said sadly. He shook his head
in confusion. "How did it turn so
complicated?"
"Forget needing glasses or starting to go
gray," Agent Mulder said. "That's the
real sign of encroaching age."
Mr. Kopeck frowned. "I think you're
right. I remember when I was a teenager, it was
all I could think about. I wanted to do it all
day. Hell, when I was twenty-one, I did do it all
day."
"I did it all day when I was
fourteen," said Agent Mulder. "Of
course, those were all solo flights."
Mr. Kopeck leaned his chin on his hand and
sighed. "I think it's unfair that men are in
their sexual prime when we're nineteen. That kind
of potential is wasted on a nineteen-year-old. I
mean, did you have your sexual act together when
you were nineteen?" He turned and looked at
Mulder questioningly.
"I'm not sure I have my sexual act
together now."
Mr. Kopeck nodded. "I certainly didn't
when I was nineteen, I know that much. At that
age I considered the evening a swaggering success
if I didn't end up scrubbing at my date's sweater
with a handkerchief and apologizing for my
over-enthusiasm."
"Assuming you could get a date at
all."
"Exactly," agreed Mr. Kopeck.
"I was skinny, I had zits. Whereas,
women...women don't hit their peak until their
mid-thirties. They've got motive AND
opportunity."
"They out-live us, too," Agent
Mulder pointed out helpfully.
Mr. Kopeck shook his head. "Life is so
fucking unfair."
They both lapsed into silence.
A few minutes later they heard the brisk tap
of high heels, and Agent Scully appeared, trim
and efficient-looking, tugging off a pair of
surgical gloves as she approached. "All done
here, Mulder," she said.
Agent Mulder stood.
"Is that it?" asked Mr. Kopeck,
looking up hopefully. "Are we
finished?"
"For now. But think about what I
said," Agent Mulder told him. "I have a
feeling you're not going to solve your problem
until you face up to what's causing it."
Mr. Kopeck nodded, and watched as the two
agents turned and walked away. Agent Scully
paused to throw her gloves in a nearby trash can,
Mulder adroitly stepping aside for her as if the
move had been choreographed.
Mr. Kopeck stared after them. It was easy for
Mulder to talk, he thought bitterly. He'd seen
the way Agent Scully looked at her partner. He
had a feeling Mulder was getting some on a
regular basis. Everyone seemed to be, except him.
"Hey, Mr. K."
Mr. Kopeck turned at the sound of a familiar
voice. "Brittany," he said with some
surprise, getting to his feet. "And
Kandee." Both were standing before him in
their blue and gold cheerleading uniforms,
pompoms at the ready. The day, he reflected
sardonically, just kept getting better.
****
END 06/10
Plausible Deniability &
Amanda Wilde (MaybeAmanda)
Address: pdeniability@hotmail.com / maybe_a@rocketmail.com
|