Mulder jogged up the hill and rounded the bend, debating whether to take a break and check out the warrior angels, when he noticed the police cars. He stopped and took in the scene below. A row of mausoleums was sectioned off with yellow crime scene tape, and a white coroner’s van was parked inside the perimeter.
Behind the tape, uniformed officers were talking to a groundskeeper and a well-dressed man consulting a map and a bound ledger. Nearby, two detectives stood in front of an older brick mausoleum speaking with a middle-aged woman wearing funeral attire. The woman glanced at the mausoleum, inching farther and farther away from it, but her high heels kept getting stuck in the grass.
One of the detectives was tall and thin, with squinty eyes, and the button-down under his suit jacket was wrinkled as if he’d slept in it. The other detective was short, and his gut hung over the waistband of his slacks. His face glistened with sweat beneath a black fedora. They reminded Mulder of Laurel and Hardy.
Police squad cars and a news van had parked across from the taped-off area. Two cameramen toting boxy video cameras were trying to talk their way past a cop, who seemed to be in charge of keeping them away from the crime scene. Behind the officer, a group of people dressed in black huddled together just outside the yellow tape, not far from reporters vying for prime spots.
Something serious must have happened to attract this much attention. Mulder could hear Phoebe’s voice in his head, saying, Whatever’s going on is none of your business, Fox.
But other people were hanging around. Did it really matter if he stayed to check things out? Wondering what happened would drive him crazy, and for an insomniac, that guaranteed another sleepless night.
Phoebe always says I should get more sleep, he thought, mentally preparing his defense.
Mulder followed the footpath around to the side of the taped perimeter, then walked down the hill. As he moved closer, a reporter called out to the detectives, “What’s going on over there? Give us something.”
A uniformed officer approached the tape, waving his hand at them as if he were scattering gnats. “Nobody’s talking to you, so have some decency and get outta here. The family’s been through enough this morning.”
Mulder noticed a guy around his age leaning against a tree, looking bored. He was wearing a black suit, with an untucked gray button-down shirt, as if he was dressed for a funeral like the other people in the group near the crime scene tape. Maybe he knew something?
Mulder walked over and stood next to the tree. “I wonder what happened.”
The guy sighed. “We showed up to say some prayers while they put my grandmother’s casket in the crypt, and a little kid was already in her spot.” His eyes darted to a huge weeping angel on top of another mausoleum. “I’ll probably be stuck here all day now. I hate cemeteries. They give me the creeps.”
“Was it a mix-up?” Mulder already knew the answer. Interring someone in the wrong crypt wouldn’t warrant detectives and a coroner.
“Nah. The cops are saying the kid was murdered.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t see the body, but my mom and the dudes from the cemetery did, and they flipped out.”
“That still sucks. Sorry about your grandmother.”
The guy shrugged. “Don’t be. She was mean as hell. She used to spank us with a plastic hairbrush. I just feel bad for the kid they found.”
“Me too.” Mulder nodded at the guy and walked over by the crime scene. He inched toward the trees between the taped-off area and the next mausoleum.
A bald man wearing a jacket with CORONER on the back signaled to a uniformed police officer. “Let the detectives know that we’re bringing out the body. And get the family out of here.”
“Sure thing.” The cop followed the instructions, and Laurel and Hardy trudged over to the coroner.
The detectives lowered their voices, and Mulder only caught snippets of their conversation. “What kind of sick—?”
“I’ve never seen anything like—”
“—the kind of thing that keeps you up at night.”
Something had them rattled. What was so disturbing?
“Can you tell us what happened?” someone called out.
The police officer was holding up the crime scene tape for the family, and the reporters had descended on the woman wearing the black dress and heels.
“What did you see?”
“I heard an officer say there’s a child in there.”
“Can you confirm that information?”
“Back off.” The cop threw his arm up between the woman and the reporters who were grilling her. “I said, back up now, or I’ll arrest you.”
It took another cop to clear a path for her and the rest of the family.
The coroner’s van was parked with the back facing the row of mausoleums, which ranged in size from a storage shed to a garage. The spaces between them offered the perfect hiding place. He could easily slip into one of the gaps and eavesdrop while they loaded the gurney back into the van.
Mulder looked around. The guy in the black suit had taken off with his family, and half the reporters had followed them, while the other half were still giving Laurel and Hardy the third degree. Everyone was preoccupied.
It’s now or never.