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[bunniefuu]

This is it? I just... sign this and it's done?

As soon as I file it with the city clerk.

This pen. She gave it to me.

It was an anniversary present.

I don't remember which one.

Walter, they are expecting the documents...

..by the end of business - ten minutes ago.

I know what time it is. Then you should sign.

What are you doing, Walter? After 17 years, they can wait another day.

Listen, no one knows better than I what an emotional experience this is.

Don't lawyer me, Jane.

I'll do it tomorrow. Why go through another day of this?

I said tomorrow.

Excuse me. Are you holding this for someone?

It's the only open seat.

Go ahead.

Good evening. What can I get you?

Tonic water with lime, please.

Sir, would you like another one?

Sure.

Thanks.

For what? Ordering another drink?

There's a man behind me wearing a red tie.

For some reason, he felt compelled to tell me half his life story.

I was afraid if you got up, he might try to get in the other half.

I guess some people think that you owe 'em something just cos you're out alone.

Does that ever bother you?

What?

Being alone.

OK.

Excuse me, sir.

Excuse me. Thank you.

I'm looking for Detective Waltos. Who's asking?

I work with Assistant Director Skinner. I'd like to speak with him.

After he gives his statement. We'll finish at the station house.

Why don't you just get a statement here? He's suffering from a minor memory lapse.

Yeah. I just got your message.

You said Skinner called in a homicide? It's a little more complicated than that.

It seems like he had a front-row seat. I don't understand.

I don't understand it either. They're not letting me talk to him. Hold on.

Excuse me, sir?

I appreciate your concern, but there's no need for you to get involved in this.

Detective. Detective.

Detective. Can you at least tell me what happened? What does he say happened?

He claims he met the victim in the bar.

After a couple of drinks, they decided to get a room.

All fine, except when he wakes up, he finds her lying next to him with a broken neck.

That's all he says he remembers. You don't believe him?

He refused to take a polygraph test. It's not helping his credibility.

Has the victim been identified? She had no purse, nothing with a name on.

There must be evidence of an intruder.

Agent Mulder, I've been on the job 18 years.

I know the drill. You should be canvassing employees...

I appreciate that he's your colleague, but I want you to understand somethin'.

He's also a suspect.

Detective, when you're done questioning him,...

..I'd appreciate a call.

All right.

Did you get any of that? Most of it. Mulder, I'm on my way.

No, I want you to take a look at that body.

Get down to the coroner's. I'll meet you there.

The conspicuous absence of any contusions or lacerations would strongly suggest...

..that the victim's injuries were sustained without a struggle.

I would have to concur with the county coroner's report...

..that her m*rder was probably a sudden and violent act in a vulnerable moment.

Beyond this, I've found nothing to recommend further investigation.

Beyond what? Her spinal cord was crushed.

The cervical vertebrae was fractured in what appears to be manual trauma.

Were Skinner's the only prints on the body?

So far. They found no semen samples.

There was some irritation, probably an allergic reaction to latex.

At least they were having safe sex.

Have they learned anything more? Yeah. Her name was Carina Sayles.

She was a legal secretary for a criminal defence firm here in town.

Have you talked to anybody there? One of the partners.

She was fired a few weeks ago over an indiscretion.

An indiscretion? She was doing some moonlighting.

A little work for one of the firm's clients. What kind of work?

This client operated an escort service.

She was a prost*tute.

Gimme five minutes here. I'll get the car.

Addendum. Observed what appears to be a residual phosphorescence...

..around the victim's mouth and nose.

Note to have this analysed.

Yes? Lorraine Kelleher?

She's busy right now. Can I help you? Busy or not, we need to speak with her.

I'll tell her you're here.

Lorraine.

Business must be booming. I think you mean banging.

Whatever this is about, can we do it later? I'm running late for an appointment.

We'd like to ask you some questions about an employee of yours: Carina Sayles.

She does work for you, doesn't she?

I'm ten minutes late for a meeting with her.

I don't think she's gonna make that meeting.

Oh? Why not? She's dead.

She was m*rder*d last night.

How? That's what we're still trying to determine. l, um...

I don't know what to say. Tell us if she was working last night.

If she was, who paid for her company? I'm afraid I can't do that.

I guess that would hurt future book sales. You'd be surprised who some clients are.

I don't think I would be. I doubt they'd wanna get entangled...

..in a homicide investigation. We just need one name from you.

Who hired Carina Sayles?

Let's just say you both work for the government. And so do I.

Cut the crap. Who hired her?

She called me last night.

She said that she'd met someone in a bar who was interested in a transaction.

I took his credit card. Then you have his name.

Walter Skinner.

Thank you.

What the hell was he thinkin'? It just doesn't seem like him.

You'd think he'd be a little more discreet.

The lack of discretion is the least of his sins.

Still not enough to prove anything.

No, but that doesn't mean that we can discount the evidence.

You really believe Skinner did this? I feel the same way as you do,...

..but we were shown a dated record with his credit card number on it.

Credit card fraud happens every day. He was with her at the time of her death.

He's offered us no explanation or alibi.

Truth is, we don't know very much about him.

What he does off duty, who he really is...

We know that he's put his ass on the line for us a number of times.

We owe it to him to find out what happened.

Even if it means proving his guilt?

Yeah. Mulder.

Thank you. Who was that?

Detective Waltos. Skinner's been released on his own recognizance.

Sir. Sir. This doesn't concern either of you.

Of course it concerns us. Why won't you tell us what happened, sir?

Read the police report if you're really that curious.

Does it explain why you refused to take a polygraph test?

Or why there's a prost*tute in the morgue with your fingerprints all over her?

You didn't know she was a prost*tute, did you?

What are you doin', you jerk?

Walter.

I just heard what happened. I was coming to see you.

Walter!

Do you know him?

I used to think so.

I'm Sharon Skinner. I'm his wife.

We were just a little caught off guard.

Neither of us even knew that he was married. He never told us.

One of the things Walter has always been good at is keeping secrets.

We haven't been together for almost eight months.

Has he always been such a private person?

It's more than that. He lives under this misguided notion that silence is strength.

He's built a wall to keep everyone out.

Including you? Especially me.

Is that why you were separated?

Yeah, I just realised one day that we were no longer married.

We'd become roommates instead.

We were paying the bills, taking out the garbage...

And I couldn't live like that any more.

'Scuse me.

Scully.

You were one of the few people that Walter ever mentioned from work.

Not that he said much. But, from the way he talked, I could tell he respected you.

That's probably why I feel that I can ask you.

Ask me what? If Walter really k*lled that woman.

Sorry. Mulder, we've gotta go.

You've got our numbers if you need to reach us.

You still haven't answered my question.

No. I don't think he did it.

What's going on here?

Agents Mulder and Scully? That's right.

I'm Special Agent Bonnecaze.

I've been called up from the Norfolk field office to coordinate this inquiry.

Well, last time I checked, rifling through a man's office...

..was considered an invasion of privacy.

We're operating under guidelines specified by the Office of Professional Conduct.

A protocol you've opted to disregard. What do you mean?

I want you to make yourselves available tomorrow.

Available for what?

A formal hearing regarding AD Skinner's case.

What case? He hasn't even been charged yet.

The hearing is to assess and determine his ability to continue as assistant director.

In the meantime we're appointing our own investigators to pursue any criminal case.

I must ask you to stop looking into this.

In case we turn up evidence that might support his innocence?

Any evidence you may have obtained, you'll be presenting tomorrow afternoon.

At the hearing.

Skinner's not answering his phone.

He's doing everything he shouldn't be. Why? He knows better than that.

The evidence is still circumstantial at best.

He's behaving like a guilty man, Mulder.

The man's marriage is breaking up. He's stressed out.

It's his irrational behaviour that concerns me.

It speaks to a state of mind. If an otherwise stable man is compelled...

..to go out and hire a prost*tute, what else is he capable of?

Please. Give him the benefit of the doubt.

I am, Mulder. Believe me. I'm not trying to convince myself.

When I mentioned that hooker to him, he didn't even seem to know.

Maybe he doesn't remember. Either he remembers or he's a liar.

Not necessarily.

This man's running away from a train.

He sees it coming straight at him. He hears its whistle.

Several times a month he ran away from that train.

Until one night he broke his wife's arm when he threw her to the floor.

Night terrors? No. Night terrors and sleepwalking...

..occur during slow-wave non-dream sleep.

The clinical term is REM sleep behaviour disorder.

Though rare, dozens of cases of sleep-related v*olence have been attributed to it.

But what does it have to do with Skinner?

This video came from the Bethesda Sleep Disorder Center,...

..where Skinner has been receiving treatment for three months.

For running away from trains?

Same disorder, different dreams.

According to Skinner's psychiatrist, he's been experiencing a dream...

..in which he's confronted by an old woman.

She speaks, but he doesn't understand.

Sometimes she straddles his chest, suffocating him.

So you think Skinner may have k*lled the victim in his sleep.

A lot of patients have no recollection of their activities,...

..which might explain Skinner's amnesia.

It's not such a strange story. It isn't?

It's ancient, actually. You may have heard it. Although not in such clinical terms.

In the Middle Ages a visitation like Skinner's...

..would have been attributed to a succubus.

It's a spirit that visits men in the night, usually in the form of an old woman.

Visits them for sex? Usually. But sometimes the succubus...

..becomes so attached to the man that she'd k*ll any woman competing for his affection.

What's that?

Luminous phenomena have been associated with some succubus encounters,...

..according to the mythology. Why? I feel strange saying this,...

..but I found something during my postmortem exam I think you should see.

There's a circular patch around the mouth and nose, approximately 11cm in diameter.

It retained light energy. It glowed in the dark.

I know what I saw, Mulder. It was here.

This phosphorescence required no UV or infrared light?

No. It was definitely visible to the naked eye.

Did you get a sample? Yeah. I sent one over to Chem Tox.

And? My hunch was that it was fungal growth,...

..but the only substance that they detected was amylase, which is found in saliva.

So I had them send over a sample to the elemental analysis unit.

The results should be back...

This is Agent Scully.

I'm calling to find out the lab results on a tissue sample that I sent in this morning.

Thank you. What did they say?

That there was no analysable substance in the sample container.

Are you sure you saw something? This isn't exactly something I'd make up.

Maybe that's it.

Maybe that's why Skinner's running.

He's afraid. That he did it?

That he doesn't know he didn't do it.

Hi.

You didn't answer your phone.

I unplugged it. I haven't been sleeping too well lately.

So, are you going to invite me in or should I start building an ark?

Come in.

You still haven't gotten around to unpacking.

Yeah, well, you know... Work.

So what are you doing here, Sharon?

I'm not sure. After I saw you today, I didn't know what else to do.

If you want to satisfy some morbid curiosity...

That's not why I came. I just... I just wanna make sure you're OK.

I'm OK. Except right now, company's about the last thing that I need.

I'm not company. I'm your wife. Ex-wife. You asked for the divorce.

Only because you didn't have the guts to ask for one yourself, so don't put it on me.

Fair enough.

So what else do you want me to say?

Nothing.

I don't want you to say anything.

I just want you to let me in. Just this one time.

Why?

Because I know you.

I know that you're scared and that you could use some comfort.

I also know that you'll never let me give it to you.

Just take care of yourself, OK?

What's this about? Wanna grab your coat and come with us?

We'd like to ask you a few questions. What's going on?

It's your wife. She's been in an accident.

Is she all right? Someone ran her off the road.

You're gonna have to come with us.

We'll also need to see the keys to your car, sir.

How is she? The CT scan shows a subdural haematoma.

She's in surgery right now to relieve pressure on her brain.

Scully's trying to get more information. I have to see her.

You can't do that, sir. Why not? They said I wasn't being charged.

Not yet - but they're building a pretty convincing case.

You think I did this to Sharon? I don't, but I'm in the minority.

What about Agent Scully?

Scully...

She doesn't understand why you're not trying to defend yourself.

Defend myself against what?

Don't you think if I knew what was happening to me that I would try to...

I don't know what to believe any more.

What about the old woman in your dream?

Who is she?

It's gonna come out.

Look, if you don't start trusting someone, you don't stand a chance.

A few months ago I started... seeing her again.

Again?

I told you once what... what happened to me in Vietnam.

That I was caught in an ambush. Yeah, you were the sole survivor.

You also described what sounded like a near-death experience.

There was nothing near about it, Agent Mulder.

I was a dead man. That's when you first saw her?

I saw lots of things over there.

I didn't give much credence to any of 'em. Why not?

I got through that experience like most 18-year-olds.

By numbing myself with whatever was around. I was no choirboy. I...

I inhaled.

So you just dismissed her as another hallucination?

I tried. But you couldn't?

She was there with me.

Watching me...

..as I was watching myself dying, my blood spilling from a hundred different places.

Until she lifted me up and carried me back.

Away from the light. Well, maybe she was trying to protect you.

Maybe she's trying to protect you now.

Protect me from what?

That's a question only you can answer.

I don't know.

I don't have a clue.

Number five. This is Skinner's car?

According to Waltos, the hood was still warm when they got to Skinner's apartment.

Look at the left front panel. They match the paint in the dent of Sharon Skinner's car.

Waltos's people finished going over the interior?

The only prints they found were Skinner's.

Can I borrow your flashlight? Sure. Why?

I don't know what you're expecting to find, but Skinner's hearing is in half an hour.

I'll meet you there. What are you doing?

Collecting evidence.

Know how an air bag works? You hit something, a bag fills with air,...

..you don't die. Not air. Nitrogen.

The latent image, the one we're interested in, is found in the by-product of that expl*si*n,...

..in the finely dispersed sodium metal that coats the interior of the air bag.

This pattern was created by whoever was behind the wheel when the air bag deployed.

It doesn't look like a face. Not yet. First I'm scanning the pattern.

Then I run it through software which translates its densities...

..into a dimensionalised likeness.

After that, it's a matter of fine-tuning.

How long does that fine-tuning take? You need this in a hurry, it sounds like.

I'm not the only one who needs it.

We're still waiting for Agent Mulder?

Yes, sir.

We're finished waiting. We're going to begin without him.

Have a seat.

Let's go over the physical evidence again.

You say you found nothing damning?

No, sir. None of the physical evidence we recovered...

..directly connects the assistant director to her death.

You re-examined the victim's body. Did you find anything of note?

I took a sample of an extraneous substance that turned out to be unidentifiable.

How's that?

A naturally occurring enzyme around her mouth and nose.

And do you have any idea why it was there?

No.

If you are withholding something...

Sir, I feel reluctant to say, or to speak for Agent Mulder.

To say what?

Agent Mulder had a theory that the substance could have come from a visitation.

But you have another explanation.

No. I'm sorry, I don't.

Do you believe in paranormal phenomena, Agent Scully?

Whatever extreme cases I have encountered, I have viewed through the lens of science.

I believe that is why I was assigned to the X-Files and to Agent Mulder.

And has AD Skinner always been as discriminating as you?

Excuse me, sir? I don't understand. Would you say that, like yourself,...

..your direct superior has been affected by or enchanted by Agent Mulder's notions?

No, sir. Not at all.

And yet he continues to sign off on whatever extreme cases...

..you and Agent Mulder elect to investigate.

I believe the assistant director has protected us out of a respect for the work.

Just as you might protect him...

..by trumping up unidentifiable evidence?

No. That is not true.

Thank you. That will be all. Sir, if I may...

That will be all. I'm not finished.

Yes, you are, Agent Scully.

Hello? Mulder.

Hello.

You missed it. Not that it would have made a difference.

What happened? Where's Skinner? Out of a job.

They dismissed him? He didn't have a chance.

They used us. They used the X-Files.

How'd you know? Skinner's been outmanoeuvred.

They found a weakness and are exploiting it.

Why? To put us in check.

You remove Skinner and you weaken us.

What am I looking at? The man that stole Skinner's car...

..and tried to k*ll his wife.

I don't understand. Why orchestrate such an elaborate scheme to set him up?

Why not k*ll him? They tried that.

A second attempt would be too obvious, even for these thugs.

Skinner's probably worth more to them alive and disgraced than dead and buried.

Who is this guy? Danny couldn't find anything on him.

So how do we find him? This guy is a pawn.

Pawns always make the first move. So he must have hired the prost*tute.

What happened here? Jumper. Happens whenever it rains.

He got to her first.

Mulder, look.

Usually there'd be something set up in the room.

To get pictures, tape, whatever.

Judy, we need you to identify somebody.

Is this the man who hired Carina?

He said that nobody would get hurt. He lied.

Skinner's not the only person he set up.

Are you saying he k*lled Carina? And Lorraine. He's cleaning house.

We need you to arrange a meeting.

I can't. Lorraine's the only one who ever really talked to him.

Unfortunately Lorraine can't get to the phone right now.

Please don't make me do this. Look what he did to your friends.

We're your only chance of coming out of this OK.

Mulder's right. I'll stay with you, if you want, until we take him into custody.

I want you to call him.

Tell him you're scared because we questioned you.

Tell him you want money to get out of town.

You'll meet him at the Ambassador Hotel bar.

OK?

Hello?

Hi.

This is Judy Fairly. You may not remember me, but I work for Lorraine.

One moment, please.

Yes?

Some FBI agents came to see me about what happened to Lorraine.

What did you tell them? Nothing.

I didn't say anything.

But they scared the hell out of me.

Look... I need some money.

That can be arranged. Can you meet me?

Where would you like to meet? The Ambassador Hotel at...

In an hour? I'm close. I'll see you in an hour.

I had to tell you, Sharon, before anything else happens.

I'm not signing those papers.

For a lot of reasons, most of them I'm just...

..realising myself for the first time.

Some of the things I've seen.

The v*olence and the lies that I've witnessed men inflict on one another -

I could never tell you that.

Not that I ever stopped believing in the work.

But there were contradictions that I couldn't reconcile,...

..which meant shutting down part of myself just to do my job.

I never told you what I should have told you.

That what really got me through each day was...

..knowing that I'd be sleeping next to you that night.

Knowing that I had a reason to wake up in the morning.

I'm not sure if you can even hear me now,...

..or if it even makes a difference to you any more.

But I at least wanted you to know that.

Sharon?

Somebody!

Listen to me.

Did you get him? No. He hasn't shown up yet.

He should have been here 15 minutes ago. What's goin' on?

Nothing.

Great.

Maybe it's the rain. He isn't about to let a little rain stop him.

Mulder, hang on a second.

Judy? Scully, what's going on?

Mulder, get up here right now.

He's upstairs.

Judy?

What the hell are you doin'? I'm sorry. I called, but you didn't answer.

What's the matter?

You OK? Mm.

Sir? Come in.

This is our report. You'll see, though, that several questions remain unanswered.

The identity of the man I sh*t?

We ran his face and fingerprints through every database. There's still no matches.

And we're doing a dental-record search, but that'll probably be a dead end too.

Regarding the other man, the telephone number we had for him...

..has been disconnected and there's no record of an account.

Don't waste your time, Agent Scully. You won't find him.

Just get whatever forensic evidence you need off the body you have and bury it.

Is there a problem, Agent Mulder? There's something else you'll find missing.

An explanation for how you knew to be at the hotel last night.

I was hoping you could fill in that item yourself.

I'm afraid I can't. Not at this point in time. Why not?

Because whatever I believe may have happened,...

..it has no place on an official report. Well, then why don't you just tell me?

Off the record.

If you'll excuse me, I have some catching up to do. The OPC did a number on my office.

But I wanna thank you for the quick turnaround on this.

I made this!