“He’s right,” Phoebe said. “The case file would have all the details.”
Mulder pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids. “The detectives in charge of the case practically threw me and Gimble out of the station. There’s no way they’ll talk to us.”
“Unless…” Gimble jumped out his chair. “So this one time, Theo—he’s my dungeon master—he came up with a quest where I had to sneak into the royal castle and find out if the king was planning an ambush.” He turned to Phoebe and puffed out his chest. “Gimble—my character in D and D—is a spy, so I do that kind of stuff all the time. But Gimble—my character, not me—doesn’t have a high level of skill when it comes to doing stuff like scaling walls. But he’s a level two—that’s good, by the way—when it comes to deception.”
“Did you really just say the words, ‘my dungeon master’?” Phoebe rolled her eyes. “And I told you that I know how to play D and D. Is there a point?”
Gimble ignored her comment. He was too busy laying out his plan. “All we have to do is stake out the police station and wait until Detective Walker and Detective Solano aren’t around.”
“Or we could call the precinct and find out if they’re on duty or not,” Phoebe said.
“Or we do that,” Gimble said, undeterred. “The point is, we’ll wait until the detectives aren’t there. Then we’ll go in and say we’re witnesses so we can get more information about the case.”
“I tried that already, remember?” Mulder’s mood was getting worse by the minute.
“You told them that you had information, not that you were an eyewitness,” Gimble corrected him.
“What if they don’t offer up anything?” Phoebe asked. “Detectives don’t usually make a habit of telling potential witnesses the details about a case.”
Gimble pulled an octagonal-shaped die out of his pocket. “Then we switch to diversion. Phoebe and I will distract the cop, which will give you a chance to get a look at the case file.”
It wasn’t the worst idea, and Mulder was willing to try anything.
Phoebe frowned. “Why do I have to help you distract the police?”
Gimble waved two fingers back and forth between them. “We speak the same language, like the Fonz and Pinky Tuscadero. You know?”
Phoebe looked at Mulder. “Do we need him? Because I might end up killing him before we get to the police station.”
“You can’t kill him,” Mulder said as he led her out of the kitchen.
“Why not?”
Gimble scrambled behind them. “Lord Manhammer’s Underground Strategy 101. Never kill the guy with the plan.”
CHAPTER 11
Outside the Mulder Residence
10:30 P.M.
X sat in the black sedan, watching Fox Mulder and his merry band of fools. He had a decent view of the living room and kitchen, thanks to the sliding glass doors on the balcony. Not that it mattered. X was more interested in what the three kids were saying, and a few strategically placed bugs in the apartment allowed him to eavesdrop on their conversations. Unfortunately, there was no way to filter out the boring ones, like the one they were having now.
Fox and his friends had formulated a plan to go back to the police station what felt like hours ago, and ever since then X had been stuck listening to a lot of crap about a stupid game.
He almost regretted bugging the place.
This assignment was starting to feel like the organization’s version of latrine duty. Nights like these made him second-guess his decision to turn down a job offer from the CIA two years ago.
At least the radio stations in DC were better than the ones in his backwoods hometown, a place he never planned to see again. He turned up “September,” by Earth, Wind and Fire and closed his eyes.
The passenger door opened and X jumped.
“Sleeping on the job?” the boss asked, sliding into the seat next to him.
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“Sleep on your own time, and give me a report.” A Morley dangled from the corner of the boss’s mouth. “What has Fox Mulder been doing since the last time I saw him?”
“Plenty.” X sat up straighter. “The kid’s smart. I’ll give him that much. Smarter than the DC police department, that’s for sure.”
“Details.”
“Fox has been nosing around the Billy Christian case. The boy they found dead in the crypt.”
“I’m familiar.” Smoke filled the car with every word.
X couldn’t understand how his boss managed to smoke and hold a conversation at the same time without dropping the cigarette out of his mouth. But as X’s grandmother used to say, “The devil has his tricks.”
“Fox thinks there’s a connection between Billy Christian’s and Sarah Lowe’s kidnappings. He claims the Christian boy was wearing the girl’s pajamas when they found him. Fox noticed a distinctive stain.”
“The boy has a photographic memory. Chances are, he’s right.”