Title: Cold File
Author: Martin Ross
Category: Cold Case/ X-Files crossover 
Rating: PG-13 for language 
Summary: When the apprehension of a missing '60s 
radical reopens a homicide from 1969, Agents 
Mulder and Scully join the Philadelphia P.D.'s 
Cold Case Squad to uncover the truth -- and 
potentially a sinister conspiracy    
Spoilers: Cold Case second season; the films 
Sixth Sense and Philadelphia; VS11
Disclaimer: As always, Mulder, Scully, and their 
comrades are the creation of Chris Carter. Det. 
Lilly Rush and her fellow Cold Case cops work for 
Jerry Bruckheimer, while Cole Sear ("The Sixth 
Sense") is the brainchild of M. Night Shymalan 
and Joe Miller ("Philadelphia") practices his 
profession under the auspices of Jonathan Demme.

July 20, 1969

"There must be some kind of way out of here/Said 
the joker to the thief/There's too much 
confusion/I can't get no relief..."

Hendrix, Billy smiled, knowing suddenly that 
despite his reservations, all would be all right. 
It was the Age of Aquarius, and he was of a time 
and a generation attuned to signs, symbols, and 
portents.

He'd grooved on Jimi just a few months ago at the 
Spectrum, in South Philly. He and Donna had done 
some weed in Rittenhouse Square an hour or so 
before the concert and dropped some acid as 
Hendrix wailed out  "Watchtower." They'd made 
love afterwards, right here in this bed, hanging 
one of Billy's Ts on the knob outside to let the 
others know the room was occupado, por favor?

Too much confusion? Right on, Brother Jimi. But 
Billy no longer felt confused - the answer had 
come through to him like a shaft of purifying 
energy, through all the drugs and sex and chaos. 
There was a way out of here.

"No reason to get exited/The thief he kindly 
spoke/There are many here among us/Who feel that 
life is but a joke..."

Billy glanced out the window. The Horseman was at 
his old stand on the cracked sidewalk below, 
offering Old Testament judgment and hellfire for 
anybody who'd listen. The hippies and dopers left 
him alone -- The Horseman never approached, never 
made contact, and anyway, it was his thing, it 
was cool, if a little bit of a bummer sometimes. 
And even though he was an old dude -- 30s at 
least -- Billy felt a kinship with the man. Out 
of the love only St. Lucy in the Sky could 
confer, they'd invited him up one night, did some 
magic 'shrooms Max had scored in Tijuana, 
listened to The Horseman riff on the old 
prophets.

Billy chuckled, alone in the spartan bedroom. 
Maybe the old dude had made more of an impression 
than he could have imagined. He had seen the 
truth, had seen the light. Until this time, all 
had been hollow words, about love, peace, 
brotherhood. Now Billy was ready to make the 
sacrifice expected of him, purge the poison and 
the lies...

"Outside in the cold distance/A wild cat did 
growl/Two riders were approaching/And the wind 
began to howl..."

As Jimi's strings whined in anguished 
accompaniment, Billy's eyes welled with 
happiness, and he reached for the bedside stand, 
where the key to his salvation lay. As the man on 
the living room TV moved as if through the ocean 
along a barren surface of airless rocks and dust, 
Billy's fingers closed on his destiny...

August 13, 1969

Det. Second Gary Schmid grunted as he hauled the 
packing box down the bleak hallway. Another dead 
hippie, rest in peace, he mused. Schmid was a 
father of three, went to Mass regular, coached 
Police Benevolence League basketball. He was not 
yet inured to the tragedy of youth lost, of souls 
damaged and scattered to the ravages of 
degradation and death. But Schmid knew everybody 
made their choices, made their bed and slept with 
whatever fleas or wolves they invited in, however 
the saying went. Bullets or needles, all the same 
difference, he shrugged, balancing the earthly 
remains in his burly arms, and nudging the door 
to what he called The Warehouse.

Besides, it wasn't like Homicide had busted its 
hump on this one. There had been plenty of 
distractions the last few months in this City of 
Brotherly Love (Schmid's snort reverberated 
through the canyons of cardboard, paper, and 
memories).

Schmid located the appropriate resting place, set 
the box down amid a flurry of dust motes, and 
searched for a wax pencil. Crouching slightly, he 
neatly inscribed the casefile: "W. McHenry/7-20-
69." He hefted the remains of the McHenry case 
onto a metal rack, alongside those of the others 
whose deaths to date had gone unpunished.

"'Night, kid," the cop grunted with a hoarse note 
that embarrassed him even in the solitude of the 
Cold Case archives. 

January 2005
Philadelphia

"...Federal authorities may have solved a 35-year 
mystery with Tuesday's arrest of Elijah Fortson, 
key lieutenant with the '60s radical group Fist 
of Freedom and suspected mastermind in the summer 
1969 bombing of a Philadelphia Marine recruiting 
office. Six people perished after a Molotov 
cocktail was thrown through the office's window, 
and Fortson, an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam 
War, became the object of a massive federal 
manhunt."

The cops of the PPD Cold Case Squad close in on 
the small color set, peering at the clean-shaven, 
lined face of Elijah Fortson, AKA Samuel Robeson, 
framed between U.S. marshals. Det. Lilly Rush 
mentally subtracts 35 years from and adds a 
Pancho Villa mustache to the financial analyst's 
visage, substitutes a dashiki for his stylishly 
conservative Armani and a Panther-approved afro 
for his $40 haircut.

"That manhunt ended when an anonymous tip led the 
FBI to Robeson, who surrendered to authorities at 
the advice of his attorneys but denied his 
involvement either in the recruiting office 
bombing or the murder of a Philadelphia grad 
student three days prior to the bombing. Robeson 
and the victim, Billy McHenry, had been friends 
and fellow dissidents. McHenry had been stabbed 
repeatedly in the apartment he shared with three 
other student protestors..."

"Slam-bam," Det. Scotty Valens states from his 
perch on Lilly's desk. "What am I missing here? 
Seems like a no-brainer. Why we reopening this 
one?"

Lilly -- a paradox of a cop with a blue-collar 
hairstyle, mannish off-the-rack suit, and a 
seraphic face out of a Victorian oil -- merely 
smiles and glances toward the metal detectors 
that shield the detectives from a dangerous 
public. Lt. Stillman, a middle-aged, square-jawed 
eagle of a cop, ushers a pleasant-looking younger 
man and a somber, diminutive redhead through the 
checkpoint.

"Hoo boy," Nick Vera growls, instantly picking up 
the scent every local cop abhors.

"Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, I'd 
like you to meet the members of my squad," 
Stillman begins, shooting his underlings a look 
of caution. "Lilly Rush; this is Scotty Valens; 
Nick Vera; and Will Jeffreys. Agents Mulder and 
Scully will be working the McHenry case with 
you."

Scully, the redhead, senses the hostility in the 
air. Mulder, who looks as though he's wearing his 
black suit as a joke on his parents, smiles 
companionably, neither extending nor expecting a 
hand.

"Whoopee," Vera grunts.

"You, of course, will remain the primaries on the 
local homicide," Scully assures the detectives. 
"Agents Mulder and myself have been asked to 
provide you any assistance you might need on the 
case."

"What's the catch?" Valens asks. "Thought you 
guys had Robeson pretty solid on the bombing. Or 
is that it -- case kinda shaky, so you want a 
piece of the homicide, too? That the reason 
you're so interested in a 35-year-old hippie 
killing?"

"Make sure us idiots don't futz things up, get 
doughnut crumbs all " Vera murmurs.

"Excuse me, agents," Stillman interjects, a note 
of gloved firmness in his voice. "I'd like to 
talk to my detectives for a moment."

"Got any Krispy Kremes?" Mulder inquires with a 
crooked grin, drawing a curious glance from 
Lilly. Scully touches his arm, and the pair 
withdraws to the squadroom coffee area.

Stillman scans his officers. Valens, the youngest 
cop on the squad, appears uncertain and wary. 
Vera, a compact forty-something badger, tenses, 
irritation and resentment clouding his deepset 
eyes. His partner, Jeffreys, a big, graying cop 
with a patience that could only have been 
cultivated by growing up on -- and surviving -- 
Philly's meaner streets, looks on impassively.

Lilly is unruffled by the agents' presence. Her 
deceptively porcelain features are calm. Her Mona 
Lisa smile invites elaboration.

"I know this is a bitter pill," Lt. Stillman 
acknowledges, "but I'd appreciate it if you'd 
work with Agents Mulder and Scully. Their boss, 
Walt Skinner, and I go 'way back. More than 30 
years back."

Understanding dawns in the detectives' eyes. The 
Boss doesn't talk much about the years before he 
took on The Job, and they don't ask.

"Walt is a valued friend, and he has a deep 
interest in this case. Billy McHenry was his 
first cousin -- his uncle's kid. The two grew up 
together -- they were tight. But in the late 
'60s, Walt went into the Marines, Billy went his 
way."

"Brother against brother," Valens muses.

Stillman glances up, nods appreciatively. "That 
about sums up the times, Scotty. War in the 
jungle and fires burning in the streets and on 
the campuses. I dunno, maybe that's why Walt's 
always been haunted by Billy's murder. I realize 
it's unorthodox, but I'd consider it a personal 
favor if you'd deal Mulder and Scully in on this 
one. Fortson's a federal fugitive, and they have 
a jurisdictional claim. But I'm asking you 
personally, as a favor to me."

"Sure, Boss," Vera mumbles, and wanders out. 
Jeffreys, Stillman's contemporary, smiles with a 
curt nod, and Valens joins him.

"Let's start with the casefile," Lilly suggests.

**

The dusty cardboard box is a time capsule of 
sorts, commemorating Billy McHenry's untimely 
death in yellowing paperwork, fading PPD stills 
of the dead hippie and his cheap apartment, and 
the sparse belongings of a young man who'd 
forsaken the trappings of a materialistic 
society. Thousands of such capsules surround the 
cluster of detectives, boxes with names and 
dates, a virtual mausoleum of paper and effects.

Mulder selects a necklace -- a cheap chain 
supporting a broken iron cross encircled by 
rusting metal. He considers the once-ubiquitous 
symbol of an elusive peace. "1969 -- The Summer 
of Love. Free love, cheap drugs, Jimi Hendrix. 
Walter Cronkite, Pol Pot, Neil Armstrong 
strolling on the moon. You know, the Apollo 
landing was the same day your guy was murdered."

"July 20. It was a memorable day all around," 
Jeffreys rumbles, his coffee-brown eyes both 
searching and troubled. "Middle of a 10-day race 
riot, started by a white gang member, 'sposedly. 
Next day, woman named Lillie Belle Allen was 
gunned down by a white mob in York, not too far 
from here. Twenty-seven-year-old preacher's 
daughter from South Carolina, in to visit some 
family. Charlie Robertson was a member of the 
York force back then, they brought him up in the 
'90s after they made him mayor, said he'd handed 
out ammo, told the folks to take out as many 
black rioters as possible." Conscious of the 
silence, Jeffreys breaks out of his reverie with 
a faint smile. "Lot going on that week -- cops 
had a lot on their minds. Not surprising Billy 
McHenry got short-shrifted."

"No DNA analysis, forensics must've been 
prehistoric," Valens adds, drawing an amused 
glance from his older cohorts. "Hey, we still got 
the weapon?" The young detective reaches into the 
box and pulls out a long and heavy manila 
envelope. He gingerly shakes a garden variety 
kitchen knife onto the table. Traces of 
fingerprint powder cling to the blade and handle. 
The wooden handle remains discolored in spots.

"Victim's blood, AB negative," Vera reports, 
flipping through the lab findings. 

"Defense wounds on the vic's hands, blood on the 
blade and the handle," Valens notes. "Killer 
wiped it clean, left it at the scene."

"Knife was from a secondhand set in McHenry's 
kitchen," Jeffreys supplies. "Heat of anger?" 

"I wonder," Scully ventures. "Victim's known 
associates?"

Lilly, Homicide's thin report in hand, picks up 
on cue. "Not much there. McHenry shared a second-
floor walkup near downtown with two other men -- 
Vincent Gillesco, 20, and Ned Squiers, 23. Both 
say they were at a peace rally at the federal 
building, came home and found McHenry on the 
bed." She displays a faded color crime scene 
photo of Billy sprawled on his back on a 
threadbare mattress, scarlet spreading like wings 
on the sheet around him. Mulder appropriates the 
gruesome portrait.

"He was a grad student at the university -- 
anthropology," Lilly continues. "His faculty 
sponsor was a Frederic Hoesch."

Mulder's eyes narrow, then return to the photo.  
Suddenly, he displays it to the group. "This void 
here, to the side of the body. Yeah, see where 
the blood's flowed around something. What do you 
make of that?"

"Looks kinda round," Vera observes. "Know better 
if the blood had flowed all the way around. I 
dunno - a bag, a purse, maybe McHenry's stash. A 
bomb?"

"Fortson was strictly a Molotov cocktail man - it 
was the weapon of mass destruction of choice for 
the fashionable radical back then. But it's 
obvious the killer took whatever it was with 
them."

"Maybe digital imaging?" Scully suggests.

"I'll send a copy of this to this guy I know back 
home," Mulder tells Lilly. "He may be able to 
give us an idea what sitting next to the body."

"We got computers out here in Hicksville," Vera 
sputters, ending the huddle.

**

"I'm getting an uncomfortable Rodney King vibe 
here." Samuel Robeson/Elijah Fortson's attorney 
scans the quartet loosely clustered about the 
prison interview room -- Lilly, Jeffreys, Mulder, 
and Scully. "This turns into a tag team match, 
I'll shut this down in a second."

"Relax, Counselor," Lilly smiles. "Agents Mulder 
and Scully are working the recruiting office 
bombing. Det. Jeffreys and I are looking into a 
local homicide your client may be familiar with."

For the first time, Fortson regards her with 
something resembling real interest. Despite the 
prison coveralls, he appears the picture of 
middle-aged respectability: Graying temples, 
fashionable wire-rims, intelligent mocha eyes 
held in abeyance as his lawyer does the talking.

"Homicide?" The attorney's left eyebrow arches. 
"You going to try to pin the Lindbergh kidnapping 
on my client, too?"

"You remember Billy McHenry, Elijah?" Lilly 
inquires, leaning over the table. Fortson meets 
her gaze evenly, his expression neutral.

"Talk to me," the lawyer snaps. "And we can do 
without the use of the familiar, Detective."

"Sorry. McHenry was murdered only three days 
before you blew those people into oblivion. Did 
he trip to what you were up to, Mr. Fortson? Or 
did he get cold feet before the big day?"

"OK, that's it--" Fortson raises two fingers to 
silence his lawyer. "Sam, you need to..."

"Please, Larry." The former activist's voice is 
velvet ice. He smiles tightly up at Lilly. "I've 
already told the federal authorities I had 
nothing to do with the deaths of those 
unfortunate people."

"Which is why you fell off the face of the Earth 
for 35 years," Jeffreys suggests.

Fortson glances sideways at the huge cop. "I fled 
the jurisdiction for fear of my life, Detective. 
The law enforcement community took an acute 
interest in my sociopolitical views in those 
days, and the memory of what happened to Dr. King 
was still fresh in my psyche. Maybe you don't 
remember what it was like in the day, 
'Detective,' but a young African-American with an 
authority problem didn't get too many invitations 
to the policemen's ball." A crooked smile forms 
on Fortson's lips, a glint of secrecy sparks in 
the eyes. "As for that boy, well, I wasn't the 
only one that fell off the face of the Earth that 
summer."

The room is silent for a second.

"What are you saying, Fortson?" Lilly speaks up.

"Sam," Larry the Lawyer cautions.

Elijah Fortson leans back, temples his fingers. 
"I was Philadelphia Rotarian of the Year back in 
2000 -- I woke up in a cold sweat for a week for 
fear the local newspapers would ask me for a bio. 
Got asked to run for City Council a year or so 
ago -- regrettably, I had to turn them down, you 
understand. I have lived for each day of the last 
35 years with the decisions I've made. But I 
don't intend to live with - or die by -- the 
transgressions of others."

"A name, Elijah," Jeffreys requests, staring 
Larry down. 

"Old acquaintance of mine, name was Donna when I 
knew her. Went underground about the same time I 
did, after Billy died. Spotted her on the news a 
few years ago, some charity fundraiser, and I 
knew it was Donna. You might want to take a 
meeting with her."

"Elijah..."

Fortson smiles beatifically, the radical flashing 
through maliciously. "Calls herself Francine. 
Francine Topher."

The room falls silent, and the sounds of felons 
and lawmen beyond filter in. Jeffreys looks at 
Lilly. Mulder frowns in confusion.

"Hey," Elijah breaks the silence. "You go talk to 
her, tell her I said hi."

**

Francine Topher acknowledges her frosty martini 
with an appreciative nod to the waiter, her 
cornflower blue eyes never leaving Det. Nick Vera 
and Agent Fox Mulder. "There must be a sound 
reason why it was necessary to come to my club."

It's framed as a statement of fact rather than an 
indictment, but both men detect the tightness in 
her already toned face. Francine Topher is 
married to Philadelphia's top neurosurgeon, but 
no one refers to her as "Mrs. Topher" or "Dr. 
Topher's wife." She is one of the city's most 
formidable fundraisers, for mental health, for 
lower-income prenatal care, for AIDS research, 
and although her tennis ensemble likely cost a 
year's green fees at the adjoining Philadelphia 
Country Club course, she is no soft society 
matron.

"We called your home, and they said you were 
playing a set or two," Mulder explains, boyish 
smile in place. "Detective Vera and I have just a 
few routine questions."

"Regarding?"

"Elijah Fortson."

Mulder suppresses a wince at Vera's bluntness.

Topher's brow rises. "Elijah Fortson. The sixties 
radical?" 

"That's the one."

She smiles in bewilderment. "Perhaps you'd like 
to elaborate, Det. Vera?" 

"We understand you were in college here in town 
when Mr. Fortson disappeared, back in '69," 
Mulder interjects.

"You understand incorrectly." Topher sips her 
martini with a challenging look that contains a 
trace of something else.

"How about Billy McHenry, huh?" Vera asks. "You 
remember him?"

Mulder sighs with a smile. The blue eyes above 
the glass's rim lock onto Vera for a second, then 
Topher lowers her glass. "No. This is becoming 
monotonous, and you're beginning to become 
offensive. Who suggested I have any connection 
with these men? Fortson? If so, I suspect you've 
been duped by a desperate criminal. If it makes 
you feel any better, a lot of people were. Now, 
if you'll excuse me..."

Mulder and Vera are silent for a full minute as 
Francine Topher weaves her way out of the 
clubhouse.

"Well," Mulder finally comments. Det. Vera shoots 
daggers across the tablecloth.

"Hey, I got a rise out of her, didn't I?" the cop 
demands, scowling at the busboy as he removes 
Topher's glass.

"It was masterful. I think you're right, though. 
She knew McHenry. But how to prove it? The lab 
found no viable DNA samples for comparison, and 
the murder weapon was wiped clean." Mulder 
studies the elegant barroom glumly, then 
straightens. "The glass."

"Huh?"

"Detective, get Topher's glass, quick, before 
they wash it."

"Why, what--"

"It was the sixties -- McHenry was a protester. 
Maybe Topher got busted a few times, too. Move, 
Detective!"

Vera utters a curse, knocking his chair backwards 
and rushing through the dismayed crowd like a 
linebacker gone to seed. The cook staff freezes 
as he shoulders the kitchen door, glancing wildly 
about.

"Police!" he shouts. "Where's the busboy?'

"Who, me?" Vera follows the disembodied voice 
behind a rack of dishes to the rail-thin boy in 
the white tunic. The cop's eyes shift to the pair 
of martini glasses in his hands, poised above a 
sinkful of steaming dishwater.

"Freeze!" Vera calls frantically. The boy backs 
up a step, fumbling one of the glasses. "Don't 
drop it, kid!"

The busboy swoops with an instinctive dexterity 
and recaptures the glass. Vera wipes his forehead 
with his sleeve and yanks a napkin from a pile 
near the stove.

"Gimme," he pants.

**

"You should pardon the cliche," Ned Squiers 
chortles, "but the Sixties were kind of a blur to 
me."

Presidents Ford and Clinton together couldn't 
forgive all of Squiers' cliches. Metaphors, 
homilies, and nimble twists of phrase are the 
currency of the weatherman's world.

Jeffreys smiles indulgently, as if waiting out a 
recalcitrant child. He is the yin to Vera's hair-
trigger yang. While Squiers assumes his lively 
patter about occluded fronts and storm patterns 
sparks gales of laughter in 32 percent of metro 
Philly homes, he is ill-at-ease with a live 
audience.

"Hey, shit, guys, I'm yanking you, you know?" 
It's five minutes after the 5:30 newscast, and 
the balding meteorologist is itching to grab some 
General Tso's at the joint around the corner from 
the station. He yanks off his crested Channel 3 
blazer; sweat rings mar his professionally-
pressed pinpoint oxford. "This's about Elijah, 
right?"

"Elijah?" Jeffreys rumbles. Only his lips move, 
but the indulgent smile stays in place.

"Media overfamiliarity, Detective. Yeah, OK, I 
knew Fortson slightly back in the day. Probably 
made us feel like big men, hanging with a heavy 
hitter like that. But that was the Cenozoic Age. 
Cops talked to me after Eli-, Fortson blew up 
that recruiting office. At the time, I was on a 
road trip to Cincinnati with a couple of Deadhead 
buddies. Got high on Garcia, then got busted for 
a couple of twigs the Ohio troopers found on the 
passenger side floor mat. My folks' lawyer busted 
me out, and by the time I got back to town, 
Elijah's -- Fortson's -- face was pasted all over 
every post office in the country."

"How about your buddy, Billy McHenry?" Vera 
asked. "You found the body, right?"

"Vince and me. We called the cops right away."

"And your 'acquaintance' Elijah? You know where 
he was when your friend got gutted like a fish?"

Rather than recoiling at Vera's blunt query, 
Squiers smirks. "Billy was a Boy Scout, always 
was. Liked to talk tough about revolution and The 
Man and everything, but he practically crapped 
himself whenever Elijah was around. Hell, we all 
did. Elijah got off on scaring dumb whi--"

He glances anxiously at Jeffreys. The smile has 
never left the cop's face. "Anyway," Squiers 
recovers, "you ask me, the cops should've looked 
harder at that crazy homeless guy who was always 
hanging around the building. Aw shit, uh, The 
Horseman. Hell, Billy and Vince even invited him 
up once or twice to, ah, to...."

"Keep your powder dry, Weather Man," Vera sighs. 
"We know about your little magical mushroom 
tours. We won't tell the network."

"The Horseman," Jeffreys prompted. "You ever 
catch his name?"

"Shit, that was 35 years ago. All I know was he 
was constantly screaming for everybody to repent, 
to give themselves to the Lord. Wasn't exactly a 
seller's market in those days, but I don't guess 
he cared. He was just part of the whole crazy 
scene. I had a hair up my ass, myself. Remember 
one time I chained myself to a table at one of 
the downtown banks, started hollering about the 
moneylenders in the temple or something. Must've 
caught something from the Jesus freaks."

July 20, 1969

Here come old flattop, he come grooving up 
slowly/He got joo-joo eyeball, he one holy 
roller/He got hair down to his knee/Got to be a 
joker he just do what he please...

The Beatles tune played in Ned's head every time 
he saw the Horseman at his post in front of the 
tenement apartments, spitting sulfur and the 
threat of salvation at the working girls, the 
potheads, the occasional suit who came slumming 
for some acid or to take the edge off.

"And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and 
Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very 
grievous, I will go down now, and see whether 
they have done altogether according to the cry of 
it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will 
know," The Horseman called, brandishing the 
Gideon Bible he'd no doubt lifted from some no-
tell motel. Ned grinned: Even the freaks had to 
get some occasionally. Sex was a constant 
preoccupation with Ned, though the coarse, 
aromatic young man didn't do that well even in 
this age of free and easy love.

He moved to the opposite side of the cracked 
sidewalk from the proselytizing bum, keeping his 
eyes rigidly in front of him, aimed at a 
miniskirted bottom strutting toward the bus stop.

"Ned, man!"

Swallowing his annoyance, Ned turned. Vince was 
breathless as he caught up to him.

"Hey, man, I lost you at the rally."

No, Ned reflected, I lost you. Vincent had become 
a real bummer over the last few months - a true 
believer peacenik. "Yeah, I looked for you. 
Figured you'd scored some weed or something. 
Speaking of which..." Ned patted the pocket of his 
army surplus jacket.

Vince's acne'ed face brightened. "Groovy."

As they ascended the stairs to the apartment, 
passing through the urine fumes of the foyer to 
the mock oregano-scented upper hallways, Vince 
prattled on about capitalism and communism and 
about another dozen isms. Ned stepped up his 
pace: The sooner he could get his buddy stoned, 
the sooner he'd shut his face.

"Shit, man," Ned whispered as spotted the sliver 
of light leaking from their slightly jarred 
apartment door. Security was a relative concept 
in this neighborhood, and he debated hauling ass 
back downstairs in case some junkie or armed 
intruder was still making the scene.

The ever-trusting Vincent pushed past him. "Hey, 
Billy! You home?"

"Shut the fuck up!" Ned whined, reluctantly 
following him into the shadowy living room. Vince 
glanced into the kitchen, then Billy's room.

"Aw, Christ," Vince wailed, covering his mouth 
with trembling fingers. "Aw, shit!"

"What, man? What?" Ned yanked him out of the 
bedroom doorway. "Oh, hell."

The pigs arrived about a half-hour later. One of 
the cops, a real crew-cut storm trooper, ragged 
Ned out about ralphing all over the crime scene...

**

Jeffreys' smile flickers for a moment. "You ever 
reminisce about the old scene with your buddy 
Vince?"

Squiers laughs nastily. "Ah, no. He and I travel 
in different circles these days. That it, guys? 
Cause there's a fortune cookie out there with my 
name in it."

"Thanks for your time," Jeffreys murmurs, 
standing. 

"Anything for our men in blue," Squiers calls, 
already heading for the studio door. "Don't 
forget your umbrellas tomorrow, fellas."

"Yeah, I'll make book on it, Ace," Vera grunts.

**

"The problem," Joe Miller begins, regretfully, 
"is your colleague here has pissed all over his 
evidentiary chain." The attorney turns to Lilly, 
nods. "Pardon my French, Detective."

When Joe Miller regrets, everybody regrets. It's 
one of the few things the guys at the Cop Shop 
and a majority of the city's Fortune 500 execs 
agree on. Ten years before, few cops even knew 
the personal injury lawyer, and Philadelphia's 
legal community had considered him a bottom-
feeding catfish in the shark tank. Then Joe took 
down one of the biggest firms in town, sparking a 
nationwide flood of AIDS discrimination cases and 
upgrading Joe from The Men's Wear House to Brooks 
Brothers (despite his largely underdog clientele, 
Joe is fundamentally conservative, reads Thomas 
Sowell religiously at the breakfast table, and 
believes in buying American suits).

"I don't see it that way," Vera growls 
defensively, but his regret already is seeping 
around the edges. He's been having some marital 
troubles and hanging out with his old pals Bud 
Weiser and Jack Daniels. "I had my eyes on that 
glass the whole time - I could see the lipstick 
on the rim a mile away."

Joe looks even more regretful as he gathers the 
empty Styrofoam cups littering the interview 
table, digs a quarter out of his tailored pants. 
"Kitchen at the country club's 23 yards, two 
feet, and three inches from the table where you 
were sharing afternoon aperitifs with my client." 
The attorney deposits the coin on the 
interrogation table, over some gangers' loving 
ode to the law enforcement community, and covers 
it with a cup.

"It was ginger ale - I don't do 'aperitifs' on 
The Job, 'Counselor,'" Vera's voice rises as his 
jowls quiver. Lilly, standing behind Miller and a 
silent Francine Topher, shoots him a nearly 
imperceptible warning glance.

"Air quotes duly noted, Detective," Miller 
murmurs with a pleasant smile. He begins 
rearranging the cups, slowly at first. Vera 
struggles not to look at this feat of 
legerdemain. The cups scrape the scarred wood as 
Miller's deft fingers work them. "There's 10 
tables between the kitchen and the table where 
you were enjoying your ginger ale. Four waiters 
on shift that day, all in the same white shirt, 
black slacks, and red coats, and probably all 
named Eric." Miller is not renowned for his 
political correctness at the courthouse bars. The 
cups are nearly a blur now. "You are a man of 
some not inconsiderable girth, Detective, am I 
right?" 

"It's all muscle." The menace in Vera's tone is 
palpable. His eyes narrow, flitting toward the 
flying Styrofoam.

"Have a little trouble keeping the muscle off 
myself," Miller chuckles, patting his own middle-
aged spread. "Detective, tell me like I'm six, 
please. How did you manage from across a crowded 
dining room, in hot pursuit of a waiter named 
Eric, squeezing your muscular frame between the 
tables, glasses and plates jostling on Eric's 
tray, through a solid - mind you, solid - kitchen 
door, around the pots and pans, to maintain 
constant surveillance on my client's martini 
glass?" The cups skid to a stop. "You must be 
eating your carrots, Detective."

Vera's eyes are now locked on the table. He looks 
up; Miller beams, nodding back toward the cups 
with a challenge.

"Phew, that's one effed-up evidence chain," 
Miller concludes, grinning. "It's a problem - I 
don't think any judge in this man's town's gonna 
trust Det. Vera's spidey sense. And I don't see 
any judge putting my client here - an upstanding, 
charitable, responsible member of the community - 
through this kind of sideshow." 

"Why's your upstanding client all lawyered up, 
then?" Vera snaps, face reddening.

"Mrs. Topher has no outstanding warrants, either 
under her own name or as Donna Geistner," Lilly 
interjects smoothly, La Giaconda smile in place. 
She moves around the table.

"Who's Donna Geistner?" Joe queries, mock 
puzzlement on his face.

"Counselor, we will ID your client, with or 
without your cooperation. And you have to admit, 
it does look suspicious, a woman with nothing 
more than a few civil disobedience busts 35 years 
ago hooking up with one of the city's top 
attorneys."

"My," Joe whispers, ducking his head in false 
modesty. "Dish it up for me, Det. Rush - I'll see 
if I can get it down my gullet."

Lilly plants a palm on the table. "Immunity for 
anything she was mixed up with with Fortson. 
We've got a 35-year-old homicide we need to clear 
and a case to prosecute against Elijah Fortson. 
Your client tells us what she remembers about 
Fortson and the day of the murder, and she's back 
sipping Cosmos by afternoon tee time."

Joe chews on it. "My client and I would like a 
little alone time, you don't mind." He favors 
Vera with a benign smile. "And no, we wouldn't 
like any coffee, Coke, gum, cigarettes, or DNA 
swabs, thank you."

Vera's chair squeaks back. Lilly lightly touches 
his arm, and he stalks out of the interview room. 
Joe shrugs regretfully up at Lilly, who reaches 
across and snatches a Styrofoam cup from the 
table. She leaves Joe staring, impressed, at the 
gleaming quarter before him.

**

"Billy and I met at the university about a year 
earlier," Francine/Donna begins. "We had an 
evening lit class together, and one night, a 
bunch of us went for coffee afterwards. I liked 
his shyness, his heart, and, yes, his politics. 
Back then, that was an important component of any 
socially relevant relationship."

Lilly smiles, encouragingly. Joe Miller pretends 
to check his PDA.

"We started going out, then hitting a few 
protests and rallies together. Anti-war, pot 
legalization, civil rights. We were a couple of 
middle-class white kids who were going to change 
the world. Then he and his friends, Ned and 
Vincent, started hanging out with Elijah, 
practically worshipped him. And that's when it 
started getting real heavy."

"Heavy?"

"Elijah was into the real revolutionary stuff, 
talked about burning 'The System' to the ground, 
blowing things up. I begged Billy to get away 
from him, but he kept getting in deeper and 
deeper..."

July 17, 1969

The pair fell silent the minute Elijah spotted 
her coming down the aisle toward their booth. As 
Billy turned, boyish smile tinged with adolescent 
guilt, Fortson took a long draw on his cigarette 
and stared impassively, clinically at her. Donna 
felt a chill.

"What's up?" she asked, sliding in beside Billy. 
Donna didn't try to conceal the suspicion in her 
voice.

Elijah crushed his butt with disinterest. "Later, 
man," he murmured, sliding out. Donna sat rigidly 
until she heard the bell above the diner's front 
door signal his departure.

"I hear hurricanes ablowing/I know the end is 
coming soon," the radio behind the counter 
blares. CCR's lyrics seem an omen, a portent. 

"What was that about?" she demanded. "What's he 
trying to talk you into this time?"

"C'mon," Billy mumbled, burying his nose in his 
coffee. "We were just rapping, you know, about 
that asshole Nixon."

"You c'mon. Elijah's bad news, Baby -- he almost 
got your head cracked open at that sit-in last 
week. That cop could've killed you."

"Look," Billy snapped, with a heat that was 
emerging more and more often these days. "Elijah 
really cares about all the shit that's going 
around. He's willing to do something about it, 
make some noise if he has to."

Donna felt her chest tighten. "What kind of 
noise? What's he trying to get you into? He's 
going to get you killed, Billy."

Her boyfriend slammed his coffee cup on the 
table. The kids in the booths around them craned 
to stare at him. Billy glared murderously back at 
them, then turned to see Donna's ashen, open-
mouthed expression. He shook his head slowly and 
seized her hand.

"I'm sorry," Billy whispered. "I'm sorry, Donna. 
I'm just, you know..."

Donna squeezed his soft fingers. "We have to get 
away from all this, Baby. From Elijah, from 
Hoesch, all of it. Maybe San Francisco, New York. 
We could..."

"No," Billy murmured softly but insistently. "I 
can't just leave right now."

She released his hand. "Why not?"

"Just," he stammered, grabbing his coat, "just 
stay out of it, OK. For your own sake. Look, I 
gotta get back to the lab."

"Billy," Donna pleaded as his narrow back 
retreated toward the street...

**

Francine blinks. "When Billy was killed, I knew 
Elijah had something to do with it. I didn't know 
what to do, so I split -- left town to visit a 
friend. And then, when Elijah killed those people 
in that recruiting office, well, I knew I wasn't 
safe. Elijah would think I knew something and 
come after me. So I just stayed gone. I knew a 
guy who helped kids get away from the draft, get 
to Canada. He turned me into Francine Topher."

Lilly leans back in her chair. "Why'd you come 
back to town?" 

Francine smiles weakly. "I managed to get a 
nursing degree and eventually a job in Boston. I 
met Gerald, my husband, at St. Eligius Hospital, 
and after about four months, we got married. Then 
he got a shot at neurosurgical chief at 
Philadelphia Memorial, of all places. What could 
I tell him?

"The funny thing is, I actually 'met' Elijah a 
few years ago, at a children's hospital 
fundraiser. He'd become some kind of financial 
whiz, was on the hospital board. Hell, he was 
funny, charming. We talked for maybe an hour over 
dinner, and I had no idea. That it was the same 
man who'd forced me to throw my life away."

**

"Detective?"

Vera glances up, a glob of cheese sauce plopping 
onto the open folder before him. He swipes two 
thick fingers through the sauce with irritation 
at the uniform hovering over his desk, licks his 
fingertips, and places his half-Philly steak to 
the side. Then, as he spots the figure behind the 
officer's shoulder, his brow darkens.

"He asked for Det. Rush, but..." the lanky uniform 
starts to explain.

"Yeah, fine," Vera sighs. First Miller, now this.  
"Whaddya want, kid?"

Cole Sear gives Vera the creeps, pure and simple. 
The kid provided a tip on a case a year or so 
ago, led Lilly to a body in a cellar and a 25-
year-old patricide. But Sear's claim to commune 
with the dead, his unnerving, unremitting calm 
chill Vera's blood more than just a few degrees. 
But Lilly seems to like the boy, so...

"I saw him," Cole states simply. "The man on the 
TV last night. The one who was stabbed a long 
time ago."

"Hold on a second, kid..." Vera stops. He suddenly 
recalls last night's Action Team Philly update on 
the Fortson case, the grainy archived photo of 
Fortson's alleged victim. "You mean Billy 
McHenry?"

Cole nods. A goose walks across Vera's grave.

"You saw him? What do you--?" the detective's 
eyes widen. "C'mon, kid, give me a break 
already."

"He said it wasn't him."

"What wasn't him?" Vera's irritation returns.

"I don't know for sure. We didn't get to talk for 
long."

Vera plants his elbows on the scarred wood of his 
desk. "Didn't get to talk? Look, Cole, right? 
Cole, why don't you give me your number? We need 
any help, we'll-"  

"Actually," a polite voice murmurs behind Vera's 
shoulder, "I'd kind of like to hear what he has 
to say now, if you don't mind, Detective."

Vera wheels around to face Mulder, pushing to his 
feet. "Sure, Agent - you two oughtta have a ton 
to talk about." The cop begins to stalk away, 
then returns, reaches across the desktop, and 
snags his Philly steak.

**

Even Mulder is slightly disconcerted by Cole's 
perpetual serenity, but the teen's story holds 
him rapt. "You literally, physically saw him."

Cole pauses, then sees something in the agent's 
face that puts him at ease. "I see them all. They 
need things; sometimes they need me to help them 
make things right, sometimes to move on to the 
next place."

"The dead?" Mulder might as well have said "the 
Lutherans."

Cole nods. "My mom and I have been looking for a 
new apartment -- we had a break-in three weeks 
ago, and she doesn't feel safe any more. So we 
were out looking at places."

"Including Billy McHenry's place."

Cole's face grows serious. "I got bored while my 
mom was talking to the manager, and I wandered 
off. He was in the hallway. He was dressed like, 
you know, like a hippie. And the front of his 
shirt was covered with blood. He looked sad, 
guilty. He said it wasn't him."

"What do you mean? He was the victim, not the 
killer."

"I don't know. He said it wasn't him, that it 
couldn't have been him. He wanted me to tell 
somebody named Donna. Then some people got off 
the elevator, and he disappeared."

"What do you think he meant?"

"I don't know -- we didn't talk any more. But 
then I saw him on the news -- they were talking 
about that man who was arrested for bombing those 
people."

"Elijah Fortson."

Cole nods somberly. "They talked about him being 
stabbed, and when they showed his picture, I 
decided I should tell Lilly."

"Det. Rush?"

Cole smiles, secretively.

**

"The guy's a certified whack job," Vera sputters, 
rubbing his five o'clock shadow. "He's out there 
talking to the Teen Psychic Hotline, who claims 
to have had a rap session with our vic, McHenry."

Lt. Stillman temples his fingers as he eyes the 
agitated badger. "What do you want me to do, 
Nick?"

"I dunno, call your old army buddy, see if he 
can't reel Mulder and Scully back in."

"Deputy Director Skinner specifically assigned 
Agent Mulder to this case. He said Mulder had a 
'special perspective.'"

"Oh, he's special, all right," Vera snorts. "I 
just don't want Barnabas Collins blowing this 
case and leaving us with brown on our faces." 

**

Cole Sear blinks as he steps back into the sunny 
street. He likes Mulder, trusts him to do the 
right thing as he would Lilly. The fat 
detective's hostility doesn't bother him -- Cole 
can read the unhappiness and despair behind the 
policeman's brusque manner.

Just as Cole can feel the man's eyes on him as he 
turns the corner. More curious than fearful, he 
meets the man's look. He's a soldier, his dress 
uniform soiled and scuffed, his face full of 
agony, full of questions.

In a second, Cole knows. He waits for the light 
to turn, and the soldier waits, patiently, for 
him to cross over.

**

"Of course, 1969 was largely a blur for many of 
us," Frederic Hoesch muses, liver-spotted fingers 
riffling through a stack of journals on his 
vintage oak desk. "But this little federal 
intrusion certainly takes me back. In some ways, 
little has changed since the Summer of Love and 
the days of J. Edgar Hoover."

A resigned glance passes between Agents Mulder 
and Scully. Det. Valens suppresses a smirk. 
"Prof. Hoesch, We're just assisting the 
Philadelphia Police in an unsolved homicide 
investigation. We're simply interested in 
anything you can tell us about William Ericksen's 
death and his possible involvement with Elijah 
Fortson."

The anthropologist locates the monograph he's 
seeking, one on Meso-American birthing rites. 
"Yes, I saw you people had finally run Fortson to 
ground. The right-wing media no doubt's breaking 
out the Dom Perignon. Another echo of dissent 
extinguished in the Land of the Free."

"Echo of dissent?" Valens smiles incredulously. 
"Elijah Fortson blew up a military recruiting 
office, killed five people. Including a couple of 
high-schoolers. That's some pretty heavy dissent, 
isn't it, professor?" 

Hoesch beams back with a calculating glint and 
dazzling teeth - despite his advancing years and 
counterculture patois, the dashing intellectual 
about campus shines through. "I wouldn't expect 
the VH1 generation to understand the Fight. Back 
then, we didn't trust anybody over 30. Today, I 
shudder to think one day of leaving this planet 
in the hands of anyone under. The children in 
that recruiting office were as much victims of 
their government's propagandistic imperialism as 
they were of a Molotov cocktail. We were trying 
to expose the lies, get to The Truth. And the 
truth frequently hurts."

"I'm feeling the pain right now," Mulder sighs. 
"You can see we didn't bring our Mace or our 
nightsticks today. Your former graduate student 
may have been murdered, and Fortson may well have 
committed that murder. Can we stick to that truth 
and save the revolution for another day, 
Professor?"

The professor leans back, templing his fingers 
and regarding the trio squeezed into his tiny 
third floor office. "I'll let you know if you get 
too close to my constitutional rights. The truth 
is, I guess I have been plagued by the suspicion 
that Billy was mixed up in some skullduggery with 
Fortson and his group.

"If you look into my record, as I'm sure you 
will, you'll see that back then, I was far more, 
ah, simpatico, with the students than the 
university fathers might have preferred. Things 
were freer in those days --  we were allowed to 
live our lives without administration dictates, 
and we didn't live under the oppressive fear of 
legal liability. Now, even at 70, I have to leave 
my door open when some sycophantic coed comes by 
to wheedle a passing grade.

"I maintained a more casual relationship with 
Billy and my other grad assistants. We often saw 
each other off-campus, had endless debates about 
society, the war, the environment -"

"What else you have 'off-campus'?" Valens poses 
with a mirthless grin.

"Ah, the young Republican," Hoesch cackles. "Do 
you even know who Cesar Chavez was, amigo? No 
matter. Sure, we enjoyed some mind-expanding 
experiences from time to time. Is this when I 
piss in a cup, Officer?"

"Billy McHenry and Elijah Fortson," Mulder 
prompts.

"Yes. Well, I'd suspected something was up for a 
few months - Billy had a sometimes provincial 
sense of responsibility, but the last few months, 
he'd started coming to the lab exhausted, 
distracted, a little jumpy. And secretive. I 
remember wondering if something bad might be in 
the air the day he was killed..."

July 20, 1969

Fred Hoesch tossed his faculty-issue corduroy 
jacket at the nearest table, barely missing an 
Aztec sexual fetish he'd acquired during his most 
recent Mexican excursion. His ears buzzed with 
rage - he'd just been admonished again by the 
department chief, who'd vetoed the next such 
anthropological expedition.

Hoesch preferred to attribute his precarious 
relationship with the university establishment to 
his maverick views on the war, the Sexual 
Revolution, and American capitalism. In fact, the 
professor's exploration of new sexual frontiers 
with the student populace was near-legend, and 
his taste in European loafers and living 
accommodations belied his socialistic 
proclamations. The university had clamped down on 
Hoesch's frequent south-of-the-border "junkets," 
as that buttoned-down department lackey had 
called it.

He'd sat through the scolding in uncharacteristic 
silence - Hoesch couldn't very well explain the 
importance of his research, not at this point, 
not to these people. He felt he was near a 
breakthrough, but this changed everything.

"Yeah, I know it's important!" Billy's angry 
voice reverberated through the anthro lab. It was 
a tone Hoesch had heard increasingly from the 
once cheerful, if somewhat naďve, boy. The 
professor edged closer; Billy was on the phone, 
back to Hoesch, lost in his terse exchange.

"I can't leave right now - Fred's got me 
cataloguing shit," Billy whispered harshly. 
Hoesch had taught him early on that use of titles 
promoted class hierarchy. "I know today's the 
day, you don't have to remind me. Can't somebody 
else...?" The grad assistant ran his fingers 
through his shaggy hair. "All right, OK. Of 
course, it's important. Hang tight, I'll be over 
as quick as I can."

Hoesch retreated as his prodigy loudly cradled 
the phone, hastily grabbing his jacket. As Billy 
finally turned, he re-entered.

"Hey, Fred," the student mumbled, mustering a 
smile. "Uh, you mind if I cut out for a while?"

"A while?" Fred inquired casually. In fact, the 
cataloguing of Incan potsherds had been busy work 
for the grad student, but Hoesch relished the 
opportunity to flex his muscles a bit. Radical 
rhetoric or not, the draft was still in force, 
these punks lived and (quite possibly) died by 
academic whim.

"The rest of the day, OK?" Billy sounded frantic, 
and this fed Hoesch's sadistic inclinations. 
"I'll come in early tomorrow, stay 'til I get it 
all done. Please."

"That's what you told me yesterday, remember?" 
the professor challenged. "What's up, man?"

"I can't - it's a prior commitment," Billy 
blurted. "You really don't want to know. 
Seriously."

Hoesch smiled - Billy was too important to his 
work to lose. "Hey, Billy, my man, talk to me."

The smile faltered as something dark flashed in 
Billy's eyes. Maybe the boy wasn't as naďve as he 
appeared. For the first time in their 
relationship, Hoesch's assurance began to 
crumble.

"Look, do what you gotta do," Hoesch relented, 
trying to sound nonchalant. "We'll get back on it 
tomorrow."

Billy sighed, smiled, grabbing his books and 
headed for the door. "Thanks, man. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Hoesch echoed hollowly.

**

"Except, of course, there was no tomorrow," 
Frederic Hoesch concluded. "I had my suspicions 
about Elijah and the rest of the crowd Billy'd 
fallen in with, but in those days, we didn't 
exactly trust the fuzz - the cops. As if they 
cared about one dead kid."

"Yeah, as if," Valens muses.

"Well, thanks for your time, Professor," Mulder 
smiles, standing. He pauses. "By the way, I 
really liked your paper on psilocybic mushrooms."

A thick silence falls over the office, and Hoesch 
rushes to break it. "Why, Agent, I'm surprised a 
federal functionary like yourself would be 
interested in my esoteric research, much less 
willing to dust off old academic monographs. Why, 
I haven't done any work in that area for, what, 
25 years or so." 

"Actually, closer to 35," Mulder amends. He 
raises his right hand in a dated 'V' formation. 
"Peace, Doc."

**

"What was all that crap about mushrooms?" Valens 
demands, ducking a student biker racing across 
the quad.

"Dr. Hoesch was being uncharacteristically 
modest." Mulder's wheels are turning now -- his 
stride is unbroken.  "I thought the name was 
familiar. See, I have something of an interest in 
anthropology myself. Well, some of the more 
arcane aspects, anyway."

Scully chortles. Valens' sense of falling through 
the looking glass deepens.

"In the '60s, Frederic Hoesch was one of the 
world's foremost experts in Mesoamerican 
religious rites. The Mayans, the Aztecs had some 
fascinating spiritual alternatives to bingo and 
bar mitzvahs -- multiple dieties and universes, 
human sacrifices. during the four-day dedication 
of the Aztec Templo Mayor in 1487, at least 
10,000 captives were sacrificed to the gods. Now 
that's volume. And when it was Miller time, our 
Aztec friends liked to kick back with peyotl and 
teonanácatl, known as the 'sacred mushroom.'

Valens perks. Finally, something his cop's 
sensibility can wrap around. "Peyotl? Like 
peyote?"

"Shrooms, dude. I'm sure that as the Age of 
Aquarius dawned, certain aspects of Hoesch's 
curriculum captured the youthful imagination. 
Teonanácatl was the magic mushroom of choice for 
Aztec, Nahua, Mazatec, Olmec, Mixtecs, Zapotec, 
Mayan and other pre-Columbian shamans across 
southern Mexico and Central America. They called 
it 'God's flesh' -- it contains a compound, 
psilocybin, that's been linked to visions or 
hallucinations in those who consume it. The 
shamans incorporated it into their rites to 
invoke gods and spirits, visit higher planes of 
existence, even link consciousnesses, according 
to some accounts."

"Getting a little out there, Agent Mulder," 
Valens cautions.

"The phenomenon's not confined to Mesoamerican 
culture, Detective. Scientists and travelers for 
centuries have passed on tales of nomadic Russian 
reindeer herders who ritually ingested fly agaric 
mushrooms to obtain contact with the 'spiritual' 
dimension. Gets lonely out there on the steppes, 
I guess. Actually, the word 'shaman' itself comes 
from the Siberian Tungus 'saman' -- diviner, 
magician, doctor, creator of ecstasy, the 
mediator between the human world and the 
supernatural."

Valens blocks Mulder. "I'm beginning to think I 
need a mediator between  the human world and you. 
Look, Mulder -- I watched Altered States on HBO a 
few years ago. William Hurt eats some bad 
mushroom soup and turns into a monkey. This case 
is cold enough without dragging in the ancient 
Aztecs and the Zappa fans and the Mixalots. 
What's all this got to do with Billy McHenry?"

Mulder smiles. "Most North Americans didn't even 
know about teonanácatl up here until a 1957 Life 
magazine article on ethnomycology - the study of 
the cultural and historical use of fungi. You 
think that wouldn't have been catnip for an up-
and-coming anthropologist like Fred Hoesch? Back 
in '69, the Lost Generation smoked, ate, snorted, 
licked, and injected almost anything that would 
blow their collective minds. Even crawdads, if 
we're to put stock in The Beverly Hillbillies. 
What better laboratory for a Mesoamerican 
anthropologist trying to tap the secrets of the 
shamans? A sort of shaman for the 20th Century, 
himself, able to influence young minds with his 
intellect and the powers of academic life, death, 
and military deferment?"

Realization blossoms on Scully's face. "You don't 
think..."

"Wait a minute, hold on," Valens murmurs, anger 
furrowing his brow. "You think that bastard was 
experimenting on McHenry and those other kids?" 
He glares up at Hoesch's office window.

"You heard him -- he hasn't published anything 
about psilocybes over the last three decades. You 
think a man of Hoesch's ego wouldn't have chewed 
our ears off about some of his most impressive 
academic work?"

"Hoesch would have made frequent trips south of 
the border with the university, probably with 
federal research money and under the bureaucratic 
radar screen," Scully muses. "It sounds like he 
was a mentor, even a hero, to Billy and his other 
students. But if this is true, it raises the 
question, Mulder: Was Billy McHenry Hoesch's 
innocent lab rat, or was he his assistant in any 
experiments? My god, could he have been dosing 
his own roommates, even his girlfriend?"

"Not that I'm saying I buy all this," Valens 
drawls, "but what are we gonna do about Hoesch? 
Can we prove any of this?"

"First rule of detective work," Mulder announces 
solemnly, surveilling a clutch of passing coeds. 
"Talk to the squeeze."

**

"I never knew who Billy's dealer was," Francine 
tells Lilly, pouring her another cup of coffee. 
"Elijah generally supplied the pot or the LSD for 
the group. Billy just turned up with the 
mushrooms one night. Said a friend had smuggled 
them in from Mexico."

"We think maybe it was Billy's professor, Dr. 
Hoesch," Lilly suggests. The team agreed Lilly 
and Scully should do the second interview with 
the already-wary fugitive, but the agent sips 
quietly, giving the detective the lead.

"Hoesch," Francine breathes, with an intensity 
and a venom that sparks a look between her 
guests. "I wouldn't have thought of the great 
professor as a drug dealer. I tried never to 
think of him at all. He put the moves on me one 
time at Billy's place, when Billy was late 
getting home from a rally. I let him know I 
wasn't available. In a very definitive and, 
hopefully, painful way." She and Lilly exchange a 
fleeting, sisterly smile. "So he was supplying 
Billy with drugs, too. Wonderful."

"Did you ever take any of the mushrooms, Mrs. 
Topher?"

"Absolutely not. Bad enough what the weed and the 
acid probably did to our brains back then. I told 
Billy he and the guys shouldn't be messing with 
that stuff, but he laughed it off, said I was a 
prude."

"You know how many times the guys took them?"

"At least five, maybe six times. I remember, one 
night, when Billy and the boys wanted to show 
Elijah how enlightened they were, they invited 
this homeless guy up to the apartment and they 
all got high together. Some crazy guy, they 
called him The Horseman, could've freaked out and 
killed all of them." Francine returns to the 
present with a defensive expression. "I hope that 
didn't sound racist, but the guys always fell all 
over themselves trying to prove to Elijah that 
they understood the plight of the 'brothers,' 
that a bunch of suburban white bread teenagers 
could identify with decades of oppression and 
struggle. Elijah ate it up, even though I think 
something might've happened, because Billy 
avoided the old bum, the homeless guy, after 
that."

"Along with the mushrooms," Lilly prompts. 
Francine nods. "Were you ever there when they 
used them?"

Francine shivers, drawing her expensive sweater 
about her shoulders. "Just once."

June 4, 1969

"Shit," Donna sighed as she juggled Billy's extra 
key and the sack from the market. Milk sloshed 
and beans rattled -- their so-called "vegetarian" 
diet of rice, legumes, and greens was the product 
not of ideology but of economics. Billy was too 
proud to admit that meat was a luxury on their 
meager combined incomes (although he never turned 
down the flesh of God's creatures when it came 
with special sauce and an order of fries and 
somebody else was buying).

Billy'd been working extra hard and late at the 
lab these days -- he worshiped that pig Hoesch, 
even though if she ever told him how his hero'd 
tried to get into her pants... Anyway, she'd wanted 
to fix him a special meal -- her roommate was 
holding down the fort, and maybe Billy might be 
back in the mood for love and reconciliation.

But the Stones threw cold water on her hopes for 
the evening. Jagger's voice beyond the flimsy 
apartment door taunted her: "You can't always get 
what you want..." The Stones were Vince and Ted's 
favorite mood music for artificial mood 
elevation.

Donna considered leaving, but she remained 
concerned about the company Billy'd been keeping. 
Elijah frightened her -- whenever she was around, 
he studied her. It wasn't like Hoesch's 
eyefucking -- he seemed to be appraising her, her 
intelligence. And what was this heavyweight 
militant doing hanging out with children like 
Billy and Vince and Ned? Elijah was a scary dude, 
but she knew instinctively his wary respect for 
her was the key to protecting Billy from getting 
in too deep with him.

Donna took a deep breath, sucking in the cannabis 
fumes that saturated the hallway, and nudged open 
the door. She awaited Billy's dumb stoned grin of 
recognition, Ned and Vince's lascivious giggles 
as they checked her out, Elijah's reptilian 
stare, appraising and challenging. But there was 
none of that tonight.

The four men sat in a circle on the threadbare 
rag rug in the lotus position, wrists up, fingers 
twitching. Their eyes were open, wide open, but 
they gazed at nothing, or, Donna thought with a 
shudder, something beyond Billy's shabby 
apartment, beyond this world.

"Baby," she whispered, dropping the bag. A potato 
rolled across the floor and ricocheted off 
Vince's right foot. It didn't register. "Billy!" 
Donna gasped, kneeling beside him. He stared 
straight ahead, wonder blooming in his 
expression.

"BILLY!" she screamed, slapping him hard. She 
fell back in terror as four heads snapped. Eight 
eyes began to blink, strain against the light of 
the hallway.

Donna clambered to her feet, stumbling over a 
chair as she backed toward the doorway. Elijah's 
head whipped up, eyes filled with irritation. 
Billy's hand went to his cheek. "Hey, Babe! Hey, 
what's wrong?"

Donna didn't stop running until she hit the 
corner.

**

"Ah, Ned and I travel in different circles these 
days," Father Vincent admits, his battered oak 
office chair groaning as he dips back into time. 
"I've come a million miles from that place, 
spiritually as well as physically. I never see 
any of them any more -- Ned, Donna, Bill-"

The priest's face fills with pain, and for a 
moment, Lilly glimpses the unlined face of the 
young man who'd forsaken sex and drugs and rock 
and roll for a Roman collar, celibacy, and Latin 
homilies. "Sometimes, I forget Billy's dead, 
although I'll never forget finding him like that, 
torn and... You know, beyond the horror of that 
moment, I'm haunted by the regret that Billy died 
without the rites." Father Vincent grins 
guiltily. "The job, I suppose. It's just that we 
were all so confused, made so many bad choices 
back then. But Billy had a certain honor, grace, 
I suppose you could say. Love and peace - it 
wasn't all lip service to him. But he was in such 
turmoil near the end. I guess I'm haunted by the 
idea that he died with his soul still in 
turmoil."

Mulder and Lilly exchange a glance. She breaks 
the connection quickly. "What do you think was 
behind the turmoil, Father?"

"It was an era of turmoil," he shrugs, searching 
the yellowing ceiling of his office. "He was 
under a lot of pressure at school, and, tell you 
the truth, Billy never seemed cut out for the 
liberated lifestyle of the late '60s."

At that moment, Lilly, Mulder, and Scully 
simultaneously know the priest is lying. Eyes 
down, searching for the truth, eyes up, fishing 
for a convenient lie.

"How about Elijah Fortson?" Lilly probes. "Kind 
of heavy company for a choirboy."

The chair creaks as Father Vincent returns to the 
present. Again, his eyes betray him, refusing to 
meet with the detective's. "If you think Billy 
was involved in any way in that bombing, then you 
have no idea how much he revered life, respected 
it. To this day, I can't conceive of any reason 
for anyone killing him."

"There was someone else," Mulder ventures. "You 
remember a man you and Billy used to call The 
Horseman?"

Father Vincent chuckles, surprising both of them. 
"Sorry. It's just, well, you're really barking up 
the wrong tree now. Sure, he presented a pretty 
scary figure at the time, shouting fire and 
brimstone and waving that beat-up Gideon Bible at 
the 'drunkards' and 'harlots' on the street. He 
was stoned out of his mind most of the time, full 
of his own demons, but he couldn't have killed 
Billy any more than I could have."

The priest catches Mulder's small, questioning 
smile, and straightens in his chair.

"Homicide questioned him the day of the murder," 
Lilly notes, "But they never got a name. To them, 
he was just some crazy homeless guy."

A smile crosses the clergyman's lined face. "It's 
astonishing to me the impact God's humblest 
creatures can have. If not for that 'crazy, 
homeless guy,' I might not be here right now. I 
can't explain how, but somehow, he got to me, 
spiritually. You know, it was only a few months 
after Billy's death that I joined the seminary."

Mulder glances at the Virgin Mary on the wall 
behind the priest. "You ever see him after you 
moved back to the neighborhood?"

Three decades seem to fall from Father Vincent's 
face as the corner of his mouth twitches. "You 
might say so. Follow me."

**

"The father, he asked the diocese 'specially to 
get assigned to this parish," Melvin Johnson 
explains, polishing the silver candlestick slowly 
and lovingly as Mulder and Rush hold down 
opposite ends of the front pew. St. Bartholomew's 
sexton surveys his work, a beatific smile of 
satisfaction parting his creased, purple lips. He 
moves onto a chalice, thumb working the chamois 
rag. "By this time, I'd lost my taste for the 
Word. Left Alabama in, oh, musta been '65. I 
lived right down the road from where them two 
little girls got blowed up - had my own church 
then, African Methodist Episcopal, but them girls 
dyin' like that, well, guess it shook me some. 
Found I couldn't climb up in that pulpit no more, 
tell the folks about Sweet Jesus's love and 
everlasting light."

The stooped old man Billy McHenry called The 
Horseman stops rubbing, peers at his young 
visitors through thick lenses. "Got it into my 
head I'd come up north, take the Word to the 
street. 'Cept the body's weak, amen, and I fell 
into some sorry and sinful ways. Spose I was 
drinkin' and druggin' those children's deaths out 
of my head - I forgot about the love of the Lord 
and started passin' my own prideful judgment on 
anybody would look my way."

He blinks, smils sheepishly. "Got to pardon me - 
havin' one of them senior moments. Anyway, that 
poor boy's murder, it's like it just stole away 
what little scrap was left of my faith. Lost my 
taste for the Word, though not for the grape and 
the grain and the weed. Didn't hardly recognize 
Father Vincent when he came to see me at one of 
the downtown missions, oh my, musta been 30, more 
years ago. Offered me some work here in the 
church, three squares, and a warm bed where the 
junkies couldn't cut my throat. I told him where 
he could put all that, but he kept on comin' down 
and keepin' at me 'til I came back with him, most 
probably just to shut him up." Johnson cackled, 
showing crooked but white teeth.

Lilly leans forward. "And you've been here ever 
since?"

"The father, he saved my life - have mercy, I 
wouldn'ta lasted more'n a few years, way I was 
headed." Johnson replaces the chalice with 
reverence, and sat down on the altar step with a 
serious expression. "So what do you two want with 
Father Vincent? This about that boy's murder?"

"The homicide report says you didn't move from 
your spot on the street between the time Billy 
McHenry entered his apartment and the police 
interviewed you about the killing," Mulder 
prompts. "But did you remember seeing anyone else 
go in or out of McHenry's apartment building the 
day of the murder?"

Johnson's eyes flick toward Father Vincent, who 
nods encouragement. "Well, I remembered the boy - 
he'd always been nice to me, give me a buck or 
some supper when he could swing it, even invited 
me to come up and visit with his friends once or 
twice. And that man, fella on the TV last few 
weeks."

"Elijah Fortson?" Lilly offers.

Johnson's eyes narrow. "He was the serpent, that 
man. Tempted them lost children with drugs and 
evil talk about doing violence to others."

"Did you see Fortson the day of the murder?"

"No, ma'am. Just..."

Mulder cranes forward, eyebrows raised.

"It's all right, Melvin," the father smiles. 

Johnson nods, relieved. "'Fraid I wasn't what you 
might've called a reliable witness back then. All 
I remember was the words of Genesis coming out of 
my mouth and the Virgin Mary."

"The Virgin Mary?" Lilly  inquires gently.

Melvin's face wrinkles with mirth. "Had had me a 
taste of the Thunderbird 'fore I went out to 
preach that day. Helped me wind up and give the 
folks what-for. Some times, when I'd had me a nip 
or two, I'd see the Devil hisself holdin' up a 
lamppost, or maybe a chorus of angels in front of 
the liquor store. That day, it was the Virgin 
Mary. Mighta been a sign, maybe. Probably the 
'Bird, though." The Horseman squints lovingly up 
at the Virgin Mother, beaming down from the 
stained glass at her recovered child, Melvin. 
"Praise be."

"Amen," Father Vincent echoes.

**

 "You got my Liberty Bell shotglass yet?"

Mulder grins, wiping the grit from his eyes. 
Scully stirs with a semi-conscious grunt, and he 
silently crawls from underneath the covers and 
pads to the bathroom.

"It's two o'clock, you little Neanderthal," 
Mulder yawns into his cell phone.

"Space: Above and Beyond marathon on the Sci-Fi 
Network," Frohike explains. "Now we've got some 
kinda infomercial for rubber cookware. You want 
to know what I found out, or not? I'm probably 
missing a Kari Wuhrer flick on Skinemax."

"Shoot."

"Disgruntled ex-NSA guy Byers knows says Army 
Intelligence was doing some classified field 
experiments back in '71. Real hush-hush, black 
ops stuff, but they put it on film, and a couple 
years later, he got a matinee showing of a 
bootleg copy.

"The movie looked to be shot in Vietnam or 
Cambodia, in some little Podunk area. It was a 
squad of Special Forces guys on a raid of some 
village. Real My Lai stuff, Mulder - some bad 
shit. Even Byers' ex-spook gets nightmares from 
it occasionally. These guys wipe out a whole 
village - men, women, old folks, even kids."

"God."

"Makes you wonder. But what's creepier, if that 
ain't bad enough, is the way these Special Forces 
guys operated. Byers' buddy says they were 
practically like machines, as if they were all 
plugged into the same X-Box. Total stealth, no 
commands or chatter, but these dozen or so guys 
offed everybody in the village, 40 or so people, 
in less than 20 minutes, without sustaining so 
much as a hangnail..."

Mulder lowers himself onto the toilet lid.

"Mulder? Hey, Mulder?"

"Yeah, sorry," the agent drawls.

"Here's the even freakier part. The guy who 
showed Byers' buddy the film, maybe about 20 
years ago? He was some kind of researcher our NSA 
guy knew from college. Anyway, he said he'd been 
involved in the Army thing, but didn't know until 
afterwards about the massacre. Mr. Science wanted 
to know if he should take the movie to Mike 
Wallace or Geraldo or somebody. Didn't you say 
there was some kind of university geek involved 
in your case?" 
 
"I dunno. Sounds like your guy might have had a 
rudimentary conscience of some kind. Our guy 
makes Rupert Murdoch look like Mary Kate and 
Ashley."

"Actually, my guy's guy thought breaking the 
story on 60 Minutes might be good for a book 
deal."

"That's our Fred," Mulder concludes. "I assume 
Byers' guy wised him up, had him bury the movie 
under 30 feet of concrete."

"Obviously. What's going on out there, Mulder?"

"I think some seriously bad mojo."    

**

"These days, I have trouble enough remembering 
when I took my last piss," Ray Espinshade 
chuckles, adjusting his bulk in the sunroom easy 
chair to accommodate an ill-concealed colostomy 
bag. There is a tinge of green in Vera's polite 
grimace. "But that certainly was one day I'll 
never forget. Just my luck to have stayed late 
that afternoon doing the books. Hey, kid, you 
wanna hand me that juice?"

The 'kid,' Jeffreys, locates a large teal cup, 
labeled 'Property of  Liberty Manor Care Center,' 
and hands in gently to the elderly ex-jeweler. 
Espinshade sucks noisily at his beverage; Vera's 
feels a roll of the stomach.

"I'd finally made everything come out even, and I 
was gonna take the late Mrs. Espinshade out for a 
steak. That's when that car came screaming around 
the corner like a bat outta hell. When it 
screeched to a stop across the street, I thought 
maybe it was a heist - I usually kept about a 
million in inventory in the office safe. I almost 
made in my pants. Back then, it wasn't as easy as 
it is now, eh?" The fleshy old man cackles.

Vera laughs weakly.

"But then I see they're in front of the 
recruiting office."

"Two of them, right?" Jeffreys clarifies.

"One driving, one with a bottle. It was one of 
those Molotov thingies, you know, with the rag 
stuffed in the bottle? Well, the passenger with 
the bottle, he jumps out, lights the rag, and 
flings it through the window of the joint, jumps 
back in the car, and they screech off, burning 
rubber. I tried to get a peek at the license 
plate, but then, whoosh! The front of the 
building just blows out, like in a movie, and 
there's fire everywhere. I ran back upstairs and 
called the cops. Like I told 'em, though, these 
guys had hoods over their heads - I couldn't see 
nothing." Espinshade places his juice cup on an 
end table next to his wheelchair and looks from 
Vera to Jeffreys. "Hey, you didn't catch the 
guys, did you?'

"We think we've got one," Jeffreys offers.

"Wow, great, great. Damned hippies, always 
blowing up something back then. Burning the draft 
cards, burning the bras, while guys like me were 
busting our asses working." Espinshade sighs, 
reaches for his cup, withdraws. "Well, I guess it 
ain't any worse than now, with the gang kids and 
that hippety-hop crap my grandson listens to. At 
least some of the kids had a little respect back 
then, a little religion. Like the kid with the 
beads."

"Beads?" Jeffreys inquires, drawing an annoyed 
glance from Vera. The clock on Espinshade's 
bedstand indicates it's Miller Time.

Espinshade suddenly seems distracted. "Beads? Oh, 
yeah, the kid with the beads. Yeah, this was 
about two weeks after the Army joint went up. 
They still hadn't cleaned up the rubble, and I 
was watching for a crew to come around. Well, I'm 
working late again - so what else is new? - and I 
look out the window and see this hippie kid 
standing in front of the burnt-out building. He 
like gets down on his knee on the sidewalk where 
the door used to be."

Vera lifts his left buttock from the edge of 
Espinshade's bed. Jeffreys comes to attention, as 
well. "Mr. Espinshade, did you tell the police 
about seeing this man?" Jeffreys asks, gently.

The old man cackles. "Hell, no. Just some kid 
came to pay his respects to the dead. At first, I 
thought maybe he was up to something. I yelled 
out the window, 'What are you doing, punk!,' and 
he drops something and runs off. I high-tail it 
across the street to see what kind of crap he's 
trying to pull. But all he'd done was leave some 
beads in front of the place. You know, like how 
they leave that shit where the Twin Towers were? 
Wasn't anything to tell the cops about. Besides." 
Espinshade raises a puffy hand, waves the 
detectives closer.

"Besides," he whispers. "They were a sweet piece 
of work, these beads. Antique stuff, Italian, I 
made it. So I kept 'em. I'da told those dumbass 
cops, they woulda taken 'em for 'evidence.' You 
know what 'evidence' means, right? Some cop buys 
his girlfriend a new outfit. Hey, don't put that 
in your article or whatever, OK, guys?"

**

"Antique beads?" Mulder scowled, sipping his 
beer.

"Yeah," Vera chuckles, his goodwill toward the 
agent improving with each round. "Tells us flat 
out he stole 'em. Sad thing is, he got robbed a 
few months later, and they're long gone."

A half-dozen similar conversations are drifting 
about the pub along with the smoke and the yeasty 
smell of hops and malt. It's a cop bar, and half 
the PPD's first shift is drowning its sorrows 
over bad busts, dimwitted perps, liberal judges, 
and the new tide of victims the day has washed 
in.

Jeffreys plops a bowl of popcorn on the wobbly 
laminated table and pulls out a chair. "Thirty-
five years, he's sitting on a possible lead, all 
because he was afraid of a petty theft charge."

"More likely, Mr. Espinshade didn't want anyone 
to know he'd stolen from a memorial," Scully 
suggests. "You said he saw the hippie at about 
the same time the recruiting office had been 
bombed two weeks earlier. Don't you think that's 
an odd coincidence."

"It was in the papers, on the news," Lilly notes. 
"It could've been just what Espinshade suggested 
- a simple gesture of respect. But why beads? It 
seems like an awfully personal item."

"Exactly." Mulder began to tear the label from 
his Bud. "Maybe they had some relevance for the 
bomber or the victims. In ancient funereal rites, 
beads often signified..."

"God, give it a rest," Vera growls, slapping his 
bottle on the phony wood grain.
"Kid psychics who talk to the dead, feds who talk 
like some dweeb at a Trekkie convention, freaking 
mad scientists. I'm mean, listen to yourself."

"Nick," Valens cautions.

Mulder is unperturbed. "In the '60s and '70s, the 
Soviets conducted extensive experiments with ESP, 
with remote viewing, in the hopes of beefing up 
military and intelligence capabilities. Why 
couldn't the U.S. military not explore 
psychotropic compounds that might enable spies or 
soldiers to share their consciousness, their 
thoughts? Imagine the implications for ground or 
even air combat of those capabilities could be 
refined."

"Aw, Jesus, you're freaking nuts," Vera says. 
"He's freaking nuts. I can't take this crap any 
more..."

"Nick, man," Valens murmurs. "Thought you said 
you were gonna take it easy on the stuff, right?"

Vera sinks back into his chair, petulant. "Yeah, 
you want me to say a few dozen Hail Marys?"

The silence that ensues is not one of discomfort 
or embarrassment. As realization dawns first 
Agent Scully's, then Lilly's face, Vera blinks.

"What?" he demands.

**

"Was it Elijah's idea, or yours?" Lilly asks. 
When she is greeted by silence, she continues. 
"We found out your brother had been shot down 
over Cambodia six months before the bombing. 
Elijah wanted to make a noise. Did you tell him 
where to make it?"

"How did you ever...?"

"I think you were angry and in anguish over your 
brother's death, but I don't think you're a 
violent person by nature," Mulder suggests. "I 
think this, all of this, was your reaction to 
what you did 35 years ago. You were overcome with 
grief after killing those people. Fortson 
disappeared, but you couldn't. Your conscience 
wouldn't let you. That's why you went back, why 
you left that rosary at the recruiting office."

"It was my grandmother's." Father Vincent 
Gillesco's tense expression eases. Lilly detects 
what appears to be relief on the priest's face. 
"Elijah told me they were responsible for killing 
Tony, for killing all those thousands of boys who 
went over to fight for God knows what." He laughs 
bitterly at the irony of his comment, and his 
fingers stray over his desk blotter. "I shouldn't 
try to dump my responsibility on Elijah - he 
simply channeled the hatred that had been boiling 
up inside me. Billy's death had merely added to 
my anger, my confusion.

"I had no idea those people were in that office - 
it was after hours. We just wanted to make a 
statement. I suppose this is my statement, as 
well. A hollow one, I suppose, for those people, 
their families. I guess taking Melvin in was a 
statement, too."

"Father, we're going to have to take you in," 
Lilly informs him, rising reluctantly. 

The graying priest nods, closing his eyes for 
just a moment, then regarding the cross over the 
door beyond the cop and the agents.

"Yes," he finally breathes. "If I could just..."

Because of the Roman collar, the clergyman's 
subdued demeanor, they fail to comprehend what's 
happening until Father Vincent has pulled open 
the center drawer and hoisted the blue steel 
revolver.

Lilly's weapon is out in a second and leveled at 
the priest. "Drop it, Father!" she yells as 
Mulder and Scully draw down.

Father Vincent smiles sadly, his arm crooking and 
the barrel dimpling his temple. "It's a 
technicality at best, Det. Rush, but I wouldn't 
want this on your soul."

"Father," Scully cautions tersely. "You have to 
know that what you're proposing to do..."

"Is a sin? You know, I took this gun from a young 
man, 14 -- a member of one of the neighborhood 
gangs who's run drugs since he was nine. He was 
going to kill the man who runs the convenience 
store around the corner, because he was 
disrespectful to his mother. The boy told me this 
in confession - wanted me to absolve him in 
advance for the senseless act of violence he 
intended to commit. Thank God I was able to help 
him see, to convince him to give up his gun and 
his plan. Now I wonder if this wasn't part of 
some other larger plan..."  

"You know that isn't so," Scully counters. 
"Please, Father. This isn't part of any plan."

"Perhaps there isn't any plan." The sound of the 
hammer cocking fills the room.

"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have 
called you by name, you are mine..." Melvin 
Johnson's words reverberate throughout the room, 
enveloping its four armed inhabitants like 
amniotic fluid. Lilly's aim remains steadfast, 
but her eyes dart momentarily toward the 
arthritic, nearly blind old man. "When you pass 
through the waters, I will be with you; and 
through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm 
you."

The hand holding the revolver begins to tremble. 
Melvin hobbles past Lilly and the federal agents. 
Despite the deadly gravity of the situation, 
despite he is smiling, lovingly, paternally down 
at the agent of his salvation. "You remember 
that, Father? You comin' down there to read 
scripture to some crazy old drunk druggie? 
Thought to myself, 'Who's this white boy try to 
tell me the word of the Lord, try to save me? 
Who's he think he is?' 'Member what I told you 
you could do with your scripture, Father?" Melvin 
cackled, turning to Lilly and the agents. 
"Goodness, can't repeat it in polite company. But 
you wouldn't leave me, even with me cussing and 
hollerin' at you to get your white ass outta my 
alleyway. Say, why don't you all put them guns 
down? Man my age could have an infarction. You 
too, now, Father."

Eyes ablaze with uncertainty, Mulder lowers his 
weapon. Lilly follows, and Scully relaxes her 
aim.

Melvin nods. "That's better. C'mon, now, Father. 
No place for this in the Lord's house. I ain't 
gonna tell that boy you took his pistol away just 
so you could shed your own blood. Got enough 
bloodshed out there, without you blaspheming His 
house." The sexton's voice takes on an edge. 
"Father? Son?"

"Forgive me," Father Vincent whispers, easing the 
hammer back and placing the gun on his blotter.

"There, now," Melvin murmurs, gnarled fingers 
reaching out to stroke the priest's graying hair. 
"I will be with you, son."

**

Her eyes aching, Lilly sets aside the thick 
McHenry casefile as the doorbell sounds. One of 
the "girls" is draped over her thigh; the 
detective gentle disengages her and peers through 
the peephole.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Detective," Agent 
Scully murmurs as the door swings open. "But I 
had a theory I wanted to bounce off you."

"Sure." Lilly, confused, steps aside and ushers 
her guest into the living room. "I don't mind, 
but why me? And why not in the morning?"

"Well, I think you and I are in a better position 
to evaluate my theory, and-- Oh my." 

Lilly suppresses a smile as the "girls" greet 
Scully, caressing her thigh with low, pleasured 
rumblings. The agent stares down at the one-eyed 
feline and her three-legged companion.

"Are they, um, are they rescue animals?" Scully 
asks, anxiously.

"You want some tea or some decaf, Agent?"

"Ah, tea, but only if you're having some." Lilly 
notices for the first time that Scully is 
carrying a large shopping bag from one of the 
major Philly department stores.

Lilly nods and heads for the kitchenette. "And 
what is my special position, Agent?"

"Dana."

"Lilly."

Scully settles onto the couch as the girls follow 
their owner into the galley. "I got to thinking 
about Billy McHenry's behavior and actions in the 
period before the murder. His fatigue, his work 
in Hoesch's lab falling off. His erratic comings 
and goings and that phone conversation Hoesch 
heard -- McHenry's emphasizing his commitment, 
his realization about what was 'important.' Our 
assumption has been that McHenry was involved in 
some kind of activity most like with Elijah 
Fortson. But there is another possible 
interpretation that explains everything, 
including the forensic evidence at the crime 
scene."

Lilly emerges, a cup of steaming liquid in each 
hand. "And that is?"

Scully reaches into the bag and withdraws a stack 
of videotapes. "I wanted to see if I could get 
some kind of confirmation, so I stopped by the 
local TV stations and had them dub off some news 
footage for roughly a year prior to McHenry's 
death. Do you have a VCR?"

Lilly nods. "I guess there goes C.S.I., huh?"

**

" 'Donna' came to Philadelphia in October 1967 -- 
she and her parents had had a falling out, and 
she left Bucks County to come to school here." 
Scully punches the "Play" button, and she and 
Lilly are transported to a slightly discolored 
era of love and peace and discontent. A solid 
blue line of uniforms stand rooted silently 
before a mass of young people chanting their 
displeasure at the war a world away, at the 
corruption of absolute power. Scully hits 
"Pause," and the chanting stops. "See, there's 
Donna, Mrs. Topher. In the white tank top and 
bellbottoms and the granny glasses. McHenry's 
right behind her. This is in August 1968."

Lilly peers at the willowy, unfocused young 
woman. "OK..."

Scully stops and pops the tape and shoves another 
into the Panasonic, glancing momentarily at the 
cyclopean creature rubbing her forearm. "This 
tape is from three months later -- it's a sit-in 
at the university student union. There's Donna, 
next to the man in the dashiki near the bulletin 
board."

"Plumped up some over the winter," Lilly murmurs. 
"Guess the bra-burning must've been a huge 
success."

"Remember that."

"Huh?"

"OK, let's fast-forward to February 1969 -- Nixon 
protest at City Hall. Donna's once again in 
attendance, with McHenry."

"Where? I don't see her?"

Scully shakes her head. "No, you just don't 
recognize her. She's changed her fashion 
statement and gained some more weight. Look in 
front of the podium -- the girl in the poncho and 
the flower girl dress."

"She was getting into the role," Lilly suggests.

"I don't think so. That's a heavy wool poncho, 
and according to the U.S. Weather Service, this 
was one of Philadelphia's warmest Februaries on 
record."

Lilly sinks back onto the couch, scrutinizing the 
flower child who would become a society matron. 
"I don't see where you're going, Dana."

Scully pauses the tape and turns to the cop. "I 
searched all the archives of the three major 
affiliates in town, and this apparently was 
Donna's last on-camera appearance until May 1969, 
at a peace rally downtown. Look at her." She zips 
ahead to Philadelphia in the spring.

"Ah, the braless look returns," Lilly grins. "She 
must have shed a few for the tank top season."

"I don't think so," Scully counters quietly. 
"That's why I wanted your perspective. A woman's 
perspective." 

**

"We lost another one last night," Janice Grey 
sighs, riffling through the hospice pantry for 
the Celestial Seasonings. She locates the Red 
Zinger, and turns to Lilly and Scully. "Twenty-
six, he was. Astonishing. War was killing them 
then, now its AIDS and the gangs. If I wasn't 
such a hard-bitten atheist, I'd almost believe 
there was a perverse design at work - a sort of 
cosmic bent toward our own extinction. Sugar, 
Det. Rush?"

"No, thanks, Doctor." At a crucial point in her 
life, Janice was an outlaw, a criminal, in some 
people's view, a villain. She and Lilly had met a 
year or so ago, when the latter was investigating 
a '69 double murder linked to Philadelphia's 
underground abortion parlors.

Dr. Grey lowers a teabag into each of the three 
mugs on the breakroom table and then her thin, 
arthritic frame into a chair beside the cop and 
the agent. "I assume you're here about my former 
practice. No violent death here - at least no 
violence within the context of your job. You want 
to know about one of my girls?"

"This one would've been different," Lilly 
murmurs. 

**

"It was 1969," Lilly begins. "Chaos and confusion 
everywhere.  A war over there, battle lines being 
drawn here. People dropping out, running away, 
searching for identity. It was a lot easier back 
then to just disappear, to fade into the 
background. Wasn't it?"

Francine Topher stares impassively at the 
detective across the interrogation table, as 
Mulder, Scully, and Valens hang back. She's come 
in without Joe Miller this time, but she's not 
volunteering anything.

"Donna Geistner vanishes, Francine Topher comes 
whol into the world. Even today, shredding one 
identity and creating another one's no easy task. 
But back then, kids were being shuttled to Canada 
under the radar screen, drug distributors and 
dealers were networking before Microsoft even 
burned its first piece of software, and 
underground clinics were popping up all over the 
city to clean up after all the free love going 
around."

Francine's eyes flicker away for a nanosecond. 
Lilly kneels beside her. "Something was upsetting 
Billy, occupying him, those last few months 
before his death. We thought it was something 
criminal, maybe something to do with Elijah 
Fortson. We were wrong."

"McHenry was distracted," Scully takes the ball. 
"He was tired, and his studies and work were 
suffering. A phone would ring and he'd leave the 
university lab, abruptly, with no explanation. 
Dr. Hoesch overheard him talking to someone, 
agitated, guilty, defensive. McHenry had some 
kind of appointment or obligation he clearly 
viewed as a burden." 

Lilly rises to her feet, retrieves a folder from 
the head of the table, and opens it for 
Francine's inspection. She leafs through the 
photos of the girl who would become Francine 
Topher, and looks up, baffled.

"We took these from news footage of events you 
participated in from August 1968 to May 1969," 
the detective explains. "During that period, you 
went from willowy slimness to buxom 
voluptuousness to ponchoed plumpness, 
disappearing from the public eye for about two 
months before  re-emerging, once again a willowy 
wisp of a girl. You know where we're heading, 
don't you, Mrs. Topher?"

Francine's hands are now clutched on the 
tabletop, knuckles as pale and exsanguinated as 
her face.

"It's all there in these photos - a gradual 
weight gain, increased breast size, the attempts 
to conceal your abdomen the last few months," 
Agent Scully murmurs. "With the braless look that 
became so popular in the sixties, I can even see 
the symptomatic darkening of the areolae 
surrounding your nipples. Billy wasn't 
disappearing from the lab to plot with Elijah and 
Vincent. He was babysitting."

The room is still. Suddenly, with a slow, 
tremulous expulsion of air, Francine remembers to 
breathe.

"Janice Grey helped you give birth in April 
1969," Lilly continues, softly. "Helped you have 
Billy McHenry's baby. It was Billy's, wasn't it?"

Francine nods absently.

"You carried that child to term, and went to an 
underground abortion clinic to bring it into the 
world. You and Billy were living hand-to-mouth, 
and yet you kept the baby, worked your schedule 
around it. And Billy's. 

"There was an object on the bed when Billy died. 
I think it was the baby. What happened to that 
child, Francine? Why did you kill Billy?

July 20, 1969

"Billy!"

Billy turned to find Donna towering above the 
bed, eyes alight with horror, crocheted handbag 
clutched in her white fingers. He smiled, 
clutching the tarnished carving knife absently.

"What are you doing?" the girl whispered, 
glancing anxiously at the parcel on the bed. 

"It's all right," the boy assured her in a voice 
all the more frightening for its fatalistic calm. 
"It's going to be all right. It's what he wants."

"He?" Donna moves forward, cautiously. "Why would 
you do this, Billy? You said you were cool with 
it. Please, give me the knife."

"This is the only way out. The only way to save 
us." 

"No, no, it's not. I'll split, we'll split. 
You'll never see us again. I promise. This is not 
the way, Billy."

Billy nodded, then turned. The hand rose and the 
knife's blade glittered in the afternoon sun. 
Donna lunged, seizing Billy's arm. He turned, 
grabbed the hand clamped around his, and Donna 
yelped as he applied pressure.

The weapon slipped, and a thin line of blood 
erupted from Billy's palm. He didn't seem to 
register the pain, and Donna wondered if he was 
high on something serious. He yanked at the knife 
as Donna twisted it away from her chest.

Her energy was waning as a sudden cry pierced the 
stale air of the tiny bedroom. The infant on the 
bedspread began to mewl, and as Donna's attention 
was diverted, Billy tugged the knife free.

It sunk to the hilt beneath his sternum. Donna 
screamed, but no sound would come out. Billy 
looked down, then, with apparent amazement, up at 
the mother of his child. His eyes filled, but his 
lips spread in a wide, grateful smile.

"Praise be," Billy whispered before he crumpled 
to the mattress...

**

Francine Topher's immaculately manicured fingers 
worries her empty coffee cop. "I took Lucas - 
that was what we'd named him - bundled up in a 
poncho so no one would recognize me, and 
just...left."

Lilly looks to Agent Mulder, who'd guessed the 
truth behind Melvin Johnson's "vision" of the 
Virgin Mary and child outside Billy's apartment 
building.

"I knew I could never give Lucas a good home as 
long as there was a possibility you people would 
find me, so I left him at a hospital ER and 
disappeared. It was easy, back then. The rest?" 
Francine smiled wearily up at Lilly. "Well, the 
rest just doesn't really matter now, does it?"

Lilly leans across the table, her hands resting 
only an inch from Donna's. "It was self-defense, 
Francine. You were defending your child. I'm sure 
the court will understand. It was a long, long 
time ago."

Francine's smile was bitter. "The Summer of Love. 
It was all about freedom. Billy didn't want any 
commitment, any strings. He would have killed our 
child, my child, to win his freedom back."

Mulder comes off the wall, speaking for the first 
time. "I don't believe Billy intended to murder 
your child," he suggests.

Francine's dead eyes try to focus on the agent. 
"He was standing over my baby with a knife," she 
recites dully. He told me it was the only way 
out. What do you believe was his intention?" 

"I guess what I should say is, I don't believe 
Billy meant to kill your son as a matter of 
convenience. In fact, I don't think he was 
capable of thinking rationally at that moment. 
What Billy meant was not that killing the boy was 
the only way out of an unbearable burden, but 
that it was the only way he could gain 
salvation."

"I don't..."

"You told us Prof. Hoesch was supplying Billy 
with psilocybic mushrooms. Remember the night you 
walked in on Billy and the others, their odd 
behavior? The way they were acting almost as one? 
Well, I think Hoesch was experimenting on them. 
There have been reports of Meso-American rituals 
where groups that have taken fungal extracts 
experience a sort of collective consciousness. 
They share thoughts, visions, experiences.

"I think that's what happened that summer. Billy 
and his friends began to share a common 
consciousness. But Billy unwittingly invited a 
diseased, tortured consciousness into the group." 
 
Francine's eyes search Mulder's, then widen. "The 
Horseman," she murmurs.

Mulder nods. "My guess is Melvin Johnson had a 
severe case of survivor's guilt -- you see it a 
lot in post-9/11 New Yorkers. In 1963, a KKK bomb 
killed four young girls in Alabama, near where 
Johnson had lived and preached. Johnson was a man 
of deep religious conviction, but those 
children's deaths damaged his faith, twisted it. 
He came to Philadelphia to get away, but also to 
try to change his world. When he found he 
couldn't, he turned to drugs and alcohol, layered 
with Old Testament proselytizing. Retribution and 
original sin, the fires of Hell burning eternally 
for all souls. And sacrifice." 
 
Francine's fingers now have stilled.

"'After these things God tested Abraham, and said 
to him, 'Abraham!' And he said, 'Here am I.'' He 
said, 'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom 
you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer 
him there as a burnt offering upon one of the 
mountains of which I shall tell you.' Genesis 22: 
1-2. According to the story, God spared Isaac at 
the last moment, but I think to Melvin Johnson, 
those four dead girls represented some kind of 
blood sacrifice to a dark god, a message of the 
world's growing depravity and inhumanity. I think 
that's how Johnson had come to see the world, and 
I think Billy became infected with that world 
view when his consciousness melded with The 
Horseman's.

"Look at the other members of Hoesch's 'tribe,' 
the impact their experimentation had on them that 
Summer of '69. The allegedly atheistic Elijah 
Fortson's social diatribes were sprinkled with 
biblical parables and admonitions. Ned Squiers 
created a public scene in a downtown bank, 
chastising the 'moneylenders.' Vincent Gillesco 
entered the priesthood, spurred in part by guilt 
over his role in the recruiting office bombing. 
They were weak young men, directionless and 
confused. I think Johnson's will was too strong 
for any of them, especially for Billy, who was 
looking for some fundamental answers."

"And his answer was to murder our child." 
Francine's response is nearly inaudible.

"He wasn't himself. Billy was acting under the 
unwitting influence of a madman and a 
manipulative opportunist. He was insane. I 
thought you ought to know that, that it might 
offer you at least some solace."

Francine Topher looks up, meets Mulder's eyes 
with her own steady, critical gaze, causing him 
momentarily to glance away. A smile forms -- a 
mirthless, possibly pitying thing.

"It was a time of madness," she informs the 
agent. "Injustice and violence transformed that 
poor man -- what did you say his name was, 
Johnson? -- into a shell-shocked ghost spouting 
God's vengeance. Vincent's grief over his brother 
allowed him to murder those innocent people in 
that recruiting office. The madness of war and 
intolerance and disillusionment infected all of 
us. And even if it's as you say, that Billy was 
trying to sacrifice our baby to redeem his soul, 
what solace should that offer me? I killed my 
baby's father, sacrificed my child so he might 
have a chance at some kind of better life. I lost 
my innocence and a lot more in that apartment 
that day. I want that innocence back. Can you 
offer me that, Agent Mulder?"

**

Melvin Johnson lowers himself painfully from the 
last step of the bus, feeling the unspoken 
impatience of the wives, parents, and survivors 
behind him. He holds no animus toward these 
pilgrims as he moves slowly toward the visitor's 
gate at the Pennsylvania Federal Men's 
Correctional  Facility. Melvin knows the Lord 
works in mysterious ways and that these walking 
wounded must find their own way out of the 
darkness of their misery and anger.

The new priest is a kind and charitable - if 
somewhat detached -- man who wants to continue 
the good works of his predecessor. Melvin has 
agreed to stay on as sexton -- he has known no 
other world for three decades. Father Vincent 
remains keenly interested in the doings of the 
parish and its souls.

Melvin will never know how his moment of madness 
cost one life and irrevocably altered at least 
three others. It is his faith in a kinder god 
that ties him inextricably to St. Bartholomew's, 
that brings him every Saturday to the state men's 
facility and Father Vincent, arthritis and the 
mass transit permitting. 

**

Ned Squiers doesn't see her at first: He's 
focused on his single malt Scotch - the first of 
his ritualistic evening drinks following the six 
o'clock cast.

"I'm sorry."  The woman on the next stool is too 
young, with too much of her freshly-scrubbed 
flesh oozing out of a black killer dress. Ned's 
eyes adjust about 11 inches to the north and 
shows his capped teeth. "You're Ned the 
Weatherguy, right?"

Meteorologist, you empty-headed little tramp. 
"Yep. That would be me."

"Wow, you are soo funny," the girl chirps. She 
wiggles on the stool, and Ned nearly spills his 
Scotch. "Hey, you knew that protestor guy, didn't 
you? The guy on CourtTV?" 

"Back in the day," Ned acknowledges, checking his 
look in the bar mirror. What he sees brings him 
up straight: A lanky, long-locked young man with 
the light of rebellion in his eyes and a world 
ahead of him. He blinks, and the stool once again 
is occupied by a paunchy 58-year-old weather 
forecaster who peddles used cars during the break 
between sports and the stock report.

"God, this is like meeting some historical guy or 
something," his new friend gushes. "It's so hard 
to believe you used to be a hippie? That's so-o-o 
cool."

"You want a fresh-up?" Ned asks, too quickly.

She nonetheless beams. "Well, sure. That's so 
sweet..."

"Groovy," he quips, sucking at his gut.

**

Deputy Director Walter Skinner closes the thick 
manila folder, placing it carefully on his 
blotter and looking up at the two agents who have 
been waiting so patiently for him to study their 
conclusions regarding his cousin's death.

"It's hardly the outcome I was hoping for," the 
burly ex-Marine sighs. "But I appreciate all the 
hard work you two put in on this." 

Mulder nods, and he and Scully rise. Skinner 
clears his throat, and the pair freeze 
expectantly. His glance moves from one to the 
other, across a mental landscape of rice paddies, 
jungles, and waves of angry and hopeful faces, 
and waves dismissal.

"Thanks -- that's all," he murmurs, returning to 
his desktop.

**

Ted McElvoy glances at his watch: He's been 
sitting at the curb at the edge of the rolling 
lawn now for close to an hour. Shelley had warned 
him repeatedly this would be difficult, perhaps 
even traumatic, but he'd laughed it off. He was a 
35-year-old businessman - he'd faced down the 
post-9/11 recession, angry clients, takeover 
threats.

Ted had stared down two-ton quarterbacks both in 
high school and college, hammered a childhood 
learning disability into an MBA, produced two 
bright, happy children both with two arms and two 
legs. He had suspected this day would arrive, and 
when the attorney had called, he had been calm, 
clinical, rational. Ted had thanked his parents, 
his wife for their concern and assured them it 
was misplaced.

Ted bolts upright - he thinks he's spotted some 
movement at the front door of the sprawling Tudor 
home. Just a cat, he realizes, sinking back into 
the driver's seat.

It's not that he holds any grudges or misgivings. 
He's read the news accounts, knows what was 
sacrificed on his behalf, recognizes the price 
she paid those many years ago to assure his 
happiness. 

But here, in his Maxima at the curb at the edge 
of the lawn maybe 50 yards from her, Ted cannot 
will himself to move. It has been 35 years; a few 
more days, weeks, months, won't make any 
difference.

Abruptly, he jams the key in the ignition. "I'm 
sorry," Ted whispers, the Tudor house and the 
manicured lawn blurring. He rubs his face with 
the sleeve of his $300 jacket and cruises away 
from the curb, failing to notice Francine Topher, 
his mother, emerging from the darkness beyond the 
second-floor curtains...

**

"You really expect to gain any kind of respect in 
the field with this kind of incoherent rambling?" 
Frederic Hoesch smirks, tipping his head at the 
essay on the corner of his desk. He doesn't touch 
it, doesn't dignify the girl's apathetic effort.

The blonde, athletic, a ring through her navel, 
doesn't even look at the paper bloodied by 
Hoesch's scarlet criticisms. "It's an elective, 
and I'm taking it pass-fail. I'll take my chances 
with the anthropological community. And if you're 
thinking at all about failing me based on this 
one grade, let me warn you: I'm a law student, 
and my dad's with one of the biggest firms in 
Pittsburgh. I've heard about you, and if there's 
even a hint you tried anything, it'll be you 
trying to get back your 'respect in the field.'"

She retrieves her paper, and slips out the 
pebbled glass door. Hoesch, dumbstruck, watches 
her silhouette as she is joined by a second 
figure. The sound of laughter dopplers down the 
hall outside.

In the old days, she'd have begged for mercy, 
been brought to tears -maybe even her knees - by 
his condemnation. Hoesch reaches for his mug; his 
hand freezes as he notices the liver spots for 
the first time.

His heart leaps nearly into his throat as the 
phone warbles. After scaring away five 
secretaries in four years, Hoesch now answers his 
own line.

"Yeah, Fred?" Gerard, the department head. 
Despite his familiarity, his voice is chilled, 
threatening. "You need to come down to my office, 
ASAP. The Faculty Ethics Committee wants some 
answers to some fairly grave charges the FBI has 
raised."

"FBI? Charges." That man, Mulder. Hoesch gulps 
for oxygen.

"Charges you conducted illegal drug 
experimentation with students back in the 
sixties. Charges you had a hand in developing 
some kind of military weapon without the 
university's knowledge. Charges that you may have 
some kind of complicity in the deaths of several 
dozen Southeast Asian civilians. You may want to 
get in touch with your attorney, Fred. In fact, I 
would strongly advise it."

"This is absurd, Gerard. You must know that."

"Just get down here ASAP," Gerard murmurs with a 
touch of frost.

The phone remains locked in Hoesch's fingers even 
as the dial tone shrills in his ear, even as a 
tingly numbness spreads seemingly from the 
handset up his left arm...

**

"You keepin' your nose clean, boy?" Aunt Mary 
inquires with a severity that belies her 
diminutive size and the sweet smile that once 
healed many a scraped knee and bruised psyche.

Will Jeffreys keeps his own smile inside - to 
Aunt Mary, this huge, graying detective is still 
13, struggling with angels and demons on the 
Philly streets, in darkened project stairwells. 
"Yes, ma'am," he responds, dutifully and 
sincerely.

He is rewarded with that healing smile, and 
momentarily, the smell of urine and 
pharmaceuticals, the greenish cast of the 
fluorescents, the omnipresence of Death 
disappear. Will is one of the last of Aunt Mary's 
nephews to keep up a weekly visitation schedule, 
and even if she never sees her 98th birthday, he 
will be here every week until her days here end.

Every week, she asks him the same question, every 
week, he respectfully reassures her. Time has 
stopped inside the corridors of Liberty Manor 
Care Center, just prior to that awful day more 
than 30 years ago. 

"Talked to your Cousin Helen the other day." 
Helen has been in the ground for 23 years now. 
Will smiles encouragingly. "Lillie Belle, you 
know, from Carolina on your daddy's side, is 
coming up for a visit. Ain't seen that girl in an 
age."

Will recalls the preacher's daughter solely from 
an old black-and-white his father had displayed 
at the breakfast table that somber morning in the 
Summer of '69, when the world seemed temporarily 
to end.

He takes his aunt's hand, leathery and webbed 
with age, and gives it a squeeze, gently. 
"That'll be nice." 

July 20, 1969

The boy turned from the set to which he had been 
glued for the last several hours. "Mom!" he 
yelled. "Tell her to quit buggin' me!"

Teena appeared in the kitchen archway, blouse 
dusted with Blue Ribbon flour, a pretty smile 
brightening her routinely worried features. 
"Samantha, are you bothering your brother?"

"I'm tryin' to watch," the boy complained. "This 
is important!"

Teena suppresses a smile. Everything is important 
to seven-year-old Fox, who knows Vulcan 
philosophy better than his English homework, who 
can name every man in the Apollo space program. 

"I wanna play Chutes and Ladders," his little 
sister pouted. "He's been watching this stupid 
show all day, and you said his eyes would go 
bad."

"Show!" Fox mumbled disgustedly.

Teena kneeled before Sam, brushing back a lock of 
her long hair. "This is special, Baby. Your 
brother's been anxious to see this. Let's go in 
the kitchen and make some sugar cookies. OK?"

Sam clapped her tiny hands. "Yeah!" She turns to 
her big brother, who she normally worships. 
"That's all fake anyway. Linda's big brother says 
they ain't really on the moon - it's all a 
movie."

Fox whipped around, a look of sheer malice 
passing through his deep, close-set eyes. "Shut 
up! Linda's ree-tard brother got held back twice 
in the third grade."

"Fox!" Teena snapped.  

"We went to the moon to build a remote outpost," 
he continued, grinning meanly. "So we can fight 
the aliens. You think The Invaders is just a 
show?"

"Mom," Sam whispered, her pretty features growing 
pale.

"Fox, stop it this second."

"They live among us, Sam. They take little kids 
like you to do science experiments on. They take 
out your eyeballs and - "

"NOO!!!" Sam shrieked. Her face goes instantly 
from white to scarlet, and tears streak her round 
face. "MAKE HIM STOP! TELL HIM TO STOP!"

Fox's face crumpled in alarm. He looked to his 
silently reproving mother and his screaming four-
year-old sister in shame. "Hey, Sam, c'mon."

"NOOO!!"

Suddenly, Walter Cronkite and Buzz Aldrin and 
Neil Armstrong were as distant to Fox as the 
airless face of the moon. He scrambled to his 
feet and seized his sister. Sam fought him, but 
soon she surrendered. Fox rocked her, stroking 
her hair, tasting his own tears.

"It's OK, Sam," he pleaded, suddenly uninterested 
in Man taking his first small step on an airless 
orb. "It's not true. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, 
please. I'll never let anything hurt you. Never. 
Never..."

**

Lilly spots him on the bus bench across from the 
station. Watching her, waiting. Smiling, she 
crosses, dropping onto the graffiti-scarred wood 
beside him. The Beatles emanate tinnily from a 
nearby hotdog stand.

"Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly 
melting," Lennon sings, alive again, voice ripe 
with renewal and redemption. "Little darling, it 
seems like years since it's been clear... Here 
comes the sun...Here comes the sun...And I say, it's 
all right..." 

"Cole."

Cole Sear glances up, the serene smile 
illuminating his cherubic face.

"It's over," Lilly reports. "We found out who 
killed Billy McHenry."

"That's good, really great."

"You were right. Billy wasn't himself, I don't 
think. You may hear something different on the 
news, but I wanted you to know you helped point 
us to the right answer."

Cole nods, not with vindication, but merely with 
a calm acceptance. Unlike the others in the squad 
who find the boy's somber, accepting demeanor 
unsettling or sad, Lilly feels a connection with 
Cole, who is cursed, blessed, endowed, whatever, 
with feeling and healing the pain others can't 
see.

Cole pauses, then looks at her shyly. "That lady, 
the FBI agent?"

"Agent Scully?" 

"Tell her..." he hesitates. "Tell her Bill wants 
her to be happy. She'll know who that is. He 
loves her, and he says he's sorry for not having 
enough faith. He said he couldn't tell me 
everything, but he doesn't want her to give up. 
Her or her friend."

Lilly is silent for a moment, then nods. She will 
never know if Cole's message is inspired by 
insight or insanity, but she will pass it on to 
Scully, hoping somewhere inside it will bring 
light to dark corners. Even as she looks to her 
own communion with the dead to shed some 
illumination on her life. 

The day is warm, and Lilly lingers on the bench. 
Across the street, another boy catches her eye - 
the solitary still figure in a sea of late 
afternoon congestion. His hair is long, his 
clothes bright, and around his throat is a broken 
cross encircled by metal.

Lilly smiles at Billy McHenry, at least Billy 
McHenry as she sees him in his last summer of 
love, of innocence, of life. Smiling, Billy 
raises a fist, extends two fingers in a familiar 
gesture of peace.

A belching Metro bus passes between Lilly and 
Billy, and he is gone. She then remembers Cole, 
seated beside her, and glances self-consciously 
at him.

The boy is staring across the street, at 
precisely the spot where Lilly gave mental form 
to Billy McHenry. Not wishing to disturb his 
communion, Lilly gathers herself and returns 
silently to the world of the living.

*end