"Believe the Evidence"
Part 3
Disclaimed, summarized, etc. in Part 1


"Anything I can do?" Scully asked Mulder as the rest
of the agents and criminalists filed out.

"Just make sure nobody bothers me," Mulder replied.

Scully nodded and left, closing the door behind her.
It still scared her a little bit, even after all these
years, to watch Mulder go diving headfirst into the
mind of a madman.

A few hours later, Mulder emerged. "Okay, it's rough,
but I think I've got an idea of what
we're looking for," he said the combined teams.

"What?" Guilbeau asked.

"Not a rodeo cowboy for one thing," Mulder said.

"The evidence would seem to indicate otherwise,"
Grissom snapped.

Mulder gave a weary smile and held up a hand. "I
didn't say our perp wasn't connected
with the rodeo, just that he isn't actually one of the
cowboys who competes in the events.
Help me out here, Briggs and uh," he glanced at the
dark-haired young man from the Las
Vegas CSI unit.

"Stokes. Nick Stokes," he replied.

"You two both seem to know something about rodeos?"

"I did a little barrel racing, back when I was in my
teens," Briggs answered.

"I never competed in any rodeos," Nick said. "But I
went to enough of them while I was
growing up, picked up a bit of the lingo."

"I'm assuming that, in addition to the actual
performers they have vendors, custodians,
clerical staff, people like that around rodeos,"
Mulder said.

"Sure," Nick replied with a shrug.

"Would they travel with the rodeo or would each city
the rodeo visits have its own
staff of people like that?" Mulder inquired.

"Both," Briggs said decisively. "Most places, there
are locals who work in conjunction
with the rodeo. But there's a small contingent of
non-competitors who follow the circuit,
selling things like T-shirts, or hand-tooled belts and
boots or, heck, sno-cones, for that matter."

"Why couldn't it be an actual cowboy?" Willows asked.

"Couldn't is, perhaps, too strong a word," Mulder
conceded. "It's simply highly unlikely."

"Why?" Willows repeated.

"We're looking for somebody who is an outsider. I'm
guessing that rodeo cowboys are a pretty tight group?"

Stokes and Briggs both nodded.

"The killings also indicate a man who's fundamentally
unsure of his own power. Who kills as a way to prove
to himself that he's a man. My guess -- my *educated*
guess -- is that professional cowboy is the last man
in the world who would feel like that. Cowboys are an
American icon. A man who spents his days wrestling
bulls and riding bucking broncos isn't going to have
doubts about his testosterone levels."

"But a man who spends a considerable amount of time
around cowboys, without being able to match their
skills, just might feel inferior," Chan pointed out.

Mulder gave the other particulars of what they were
looking for -- white, no older than
mid-40s, no close family ties or significant others.
"Can we get somebody on the phone
to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, get a
list of vendors who travel with the 
rodeo? Better yet, a specific list of those who were
in all three of the cities where the murders were
committed?"

"Way ahead of you," Briggs replied. "It's right here."

"We have pictures of Maria Garcia?" Mulder asked.

"Plenty," Warrick confirmed.

"Then let's head out to the rodeo arena. We'll talk to
the guys on the list, but we'll talk to the other
vendors, too. See if anyone saw Ms. Garcia around the
stalls of any of these guys," Mulder suggested.

***

It was a long, hot night. The agents and criminalists
crossed and recrossed each other's paths, checking in
with each other to report a furtive look on the face
of one suspect, a postive ID on the victim from a
witness. . .anything that seemed to help.

Eventually, the focus of their suspicions narrowed.
There was one man, a soft drinks vendor, named Guy
Hooks, who had joined the circuit about seven months
previously. . .just shortly after his mother died. The
vendor at the next stall, an older woman, said that a
woman who looked like the victim had spoken to both
her and the suspect during a lull time on the first
night of the rodeo.

"The problem is, we don't have enough to justify a
warrant," Grissom said glumly. "If we could only
search through his trailer, find the knife he used or
the boots he was wearing or maybe some physical
evidence that the victim had been confined there prior
to her death."

"Well, if we can't *look* for clues, we'll just have
to listen for them," Mulder replied. "Keep talking to
the guy, stay on his case, try to get him rattled.
Maybe play a round of good cop/bad cop."

"With you, Mulder, it usually comes across more as
good cop/insane cop," Scully muttered under her
breath.

"Let's try this," Mulder suggested. "First two cops
from the Las Vegas PD confront him, do the good
cop/bad cop thing. Then, if you don't get anything
after a bit, leave him. Just when he's starting to
relax, we'll move in and try it again."

"Okay," Grissom agreed with a shrug. 

"I'll be bad cop," Warrick offered. 

"We'll let Catherine be good cop," Grissom said. "She
exudes that maternal air."

Catherine rolled her eyes at her boss, but walked with
Warrick back toward the stall where the suspect
worked.

"I'll be bad cop for our round," Mulder said. "Chan,
you be good cop."

"You're not suggesting *I* exude a maternal air, are
you?" Chan inquired.

Mulder chuckled. "No, but you do that 'aw, shucks we
just want to get to clear up this
misunderstanding' routine real well."

***

First Warrick and Catherine, then Mulder and Chan
questioned the suspect. Both pairs came back more
convinced then ever that Hooks was their killer, but
with nothing concrete enough to justify a warrant.

"I know he's our killer," Mulder said wearily. "But
it's to the point where I'm afraid we're not going to
be able to catch him here; we may have to follow the
rodeo to the next city it hits and keep him under
surveillance."

"You don't *know*," Grissom said.

"Give it a rest, Gris," Catherine suggested. "The
guy's obviously hiding something. That's obvious even
to me and Warrick, and we're crime scene
investigators, not FBI profilers."

"You know, it is *is* possible that he's hiding
something other than serial killings," Guilbeau
pointed out. "Travelling around the country with the
rodeo would be a great way to distribute drugs, for
example."

"You're making sense," Mulder admitted. "But I just. .
.know. When you've spent more than 15 years of your
life focusing on serial killers, you develop a sense
about them. It's like they lack essential ingredient
of humanity that the rest of us -- even grungy
criminal types like drug dealers -- have to one degree
or another."

"If Mulder knows, he knows," Scully said quietly, with
absolute confidence in her voice. Mulder shot her a
tired smile of gratitude. Of course, nowadays a lot of
people seemed to share her confidence in his
abilities. But he remembered all those long years when
she'd been the only one who believed in him.

"Well, things are starting to shut down around here,"
Grissom pointed out. "I'm hot, I'm tired and I don't
think we want to be discussing the particulars of the
case here on the rodeo grounds; let's go back to
headquarters and rethink our strategy."

"Okay," Mulder nodded.

The group had almost made it to the parking lot when
Sarah put a hand to her ear. "Oops. I think I lost an
earring. And I was wearing my nice ones, the ones my
grandmother gave me when I graduated college."

"I saw something shiny lying on the ground a while
back," Huffman volunteered. 

"Can you show me where?" Sarah asked.

"Sure," Huffman replied. 

They two youngest law enforcement officers retraced
their steps until they were almost in front of Hooks'
stall. "It was right around here," Huffman said.

"There it is," Sarah said. She bent down to pick up
her earring, but lost her balance as she reached for
it and ended up toppling over in undignfied heap.

Huffman chuckled and reached out a hand. "Your middle
name Grace by any chance?" he inquired.

Just as Sarah took hold of Huffman's hand to pull
herself up, Hooks lunged. Whether he'd thought the
young woman was alone or whether he'd been enraged at
the physical contact -- brief and prosaic as it was --
between them, neither was ever sure. 

Grissom and Mulder glanced at each other as the
members of their teams climbed into the
various vehicles they'd brought with them. "Do you
think we should go back?" Grissom
asked.

Mulder nodded and the two team leaders left the
parking lot almost at a run, both seized by a feeling
-- maybe intuition, maybe a subconscious reading of
clues sharpened by their combined 35 years in law
enforcement -- that the rookie members of their teams
were in danger.
  
Hooks lunged at Huffman, the knife coming just close
enough to tear the fabric of his shirt. Huffman tried
frantically to reach his weapon while, at the same
time, staying out of Hooks' range. Sarah was fumbling
for her weapon, as well, when Huffman was caught in
the glare of a high-density flash light. "Freeze," two
deep voices yelled simultaneously.

"FBI!" added one.

"Police!" added the other. "Drop your weapon and step
slowly toward us with your hands in the air."

***

Several hours later, Grissom gave a sigh of
satisfaction. The fact that Hooks had attempted to
stab an FBI agent had been more than enough to justify
a search warrant through his trailer. Not that they'd
really needed it. The knife he'd had in his hand when
he lunged at Huffman had minute traces of the previous
victim's blood on it. That in itself should be enough
to put him away for a good, long time. But they'd also
found pictures of all the victims in his possession.
Members of both the FBI team and the CSI team were
working concientiously to make sure all the i's were
dotted and all the t's crossed. 

Grissom gave a little grunt. Despite his personal
belief that criminal profilers practiced something
that he considered more akin to an art -- if not more
akin to voodoo -- than the science of crime solving
using hard data that he and his team worked with, he'd
enjoyed working with Agent Mulder and the other
federal agents. He wished he'd had more time for
conversation with Agent Scully, though. He'd like to
hear more about the technological marvels she had
access to at Quantico. Maybe he could arrange a field
trip or something for himself and his team.

***

Scully was bagging up a final piece of evidence when
Mulder strolled over to her part of the lab.

"Catherine asked me to give this to Greg. Any idea who
that is?" she asked.

"I believe Greg's the Pendrell-type dude. Over there,"
Mulder said, indicating the man he meant with a jerk
of his head.

"What's a Pendrell-type dude?" Stokes asked as Scully
headed over toward Greg.

"Agent Pendrell was a friend of ours who worked out at
the FBI labs," Mulder replied.

"He's no longer with the bureau?" 

"He's dead," Mulder said with a sigh. "Proof, I guess,
that just because some spend more time with a
microscope than chasing suspects, every law
enforcement officer is putting his life on the line
every day he gets up and goes to work."

"That's good to hear," Stokes said. "I mean, not that
your friend died. But sometimes those of us who do
primarily crime scene investigations get kidded about
not being 'real'
cops by the detectives and patrol officers."

"Don't kid yourself," Mulder replied. "You're a real
cop."

"Agent Mulder, are we done?" Briggs asked.

"I think you and Huffman and Chan and Guilbeau can
probably take off," Mulder said. "Any loose ends that
need to be tied up, Scully and I can take care of.
Everybody just be sure to be back at the airport in
time for our 4 p.m. flight."

"If you guys can wait," Nick streched his arm and
glanced at his watch, then smiled at Donna "about half
an hour, Sarah and I though maybe you and Mike would
like to join us for breakfast."

"You don't have to wait," Catherine said, coming in on
the tail end of the conversation. "You and Sarah have
both logged plenty of overtime over the last couple of
days. Go on, take off. Warrick and I will finish up
around here."

The four youngest law enforcement officials left in
such a hurry Mulder kind of thought he saw clouds of
dust spurting out from beneath their feet, like in
cartoons. He turned to Chan and Guilbeau and said,
"You guys can leave, too."

"Want to go hit the blackjack tables for an hour or
two?" Chan suggested.

"I've never gambled," Guilbeau replied. "I'd probably
end up losing my life savings."

"I'll teach you," Chan replied. "Come on, it'll be
fun. Like the one-and-only time you'll be
the one learning from me, instead of vice versa."

"What the hell," Guilbeau said after a moment. "We're
in Vegas, might as well."

Mulder smiled at Scully and said, "Just let me go
confer with Grissom for a minute or two. Then we can
take off, go grab some breakfast and get a couple of
hours sleep before we need to head out."

"Sounds good," she agreed.

Mulder walked into the CSI chief's office and extended
his hand. "Grissom, it's been a pleasure working with
your team. Not all local law enforcement agencies
react so well when we feds move in."

"Our teams meshed pretty well, didn't they," Grissom
agreed.

Mulder was quite for a moment, then he said. "I'm
going to say something that's probably going to screw
up what ever kind of camraderie we've achieved, but I
think you need to hear it. And you're probably never
going to hear it from anybody else. I don't know what
kind of pain or rejection you suffered in your past to
cause you to lock people out the way you do. . .but
stop doing it, Grissom. Let somebody in. Don't let
your work become your whole life."

Grissom stiffened. "You don't know the first thing
about me."

Mulder gave a fleeting smile and shook his head.
"Hell, Gris, I *was* you. First twelve years I spent
with the bureau, my work was my life. I told myself I
had my reasons for that. Some flat-out bizarre stuff
happened to me when I was a kid, and the fact that my
first attempt at a loving relationship with a member
of the opposite sex was with a psycho bitch didn't
help matters. And I'm sure some crap's happened to
you, too. But keeping aloof from people who care about
you isn't going to make the pain go away. It's just
going to make it keep growing. Depending on how much
they care about you, it may spread the pain to them,
too."

"What happened?" Grissom asked, intrigued in spite of
himself.

"For me, Scully happened. The bureau assigned her as
my partner and eventually I realized that all I had to
do was trust her. . .love her. . .let her in. . . and
all the pain would go away. But I was a slow learner.
She suffered a lot due to my obsessions."

"The Las Vegas Police Department hasn't been kind
enough to supply me with a partner who wants to become
my wife and bear my children," Grissom commented
dryly. 

"And maybe the role of husband and father isn't meant
for you," Mulder conceded. "Not everyone wants that
out of life. All I'm saying is let *somebody* in. Make
a human connection. Start treating your colleagues
less like employees and more like friends. Or
reconnect with your parents, your siblings. .
.anybody."

Mulder turned and walked out. He doubted he and
Grissom would be exchanging friendly e-mails and if
his team ever had to return to Las Vegas the reception
would probably be downright frosty. But he knew that
if he'd never said anything, it would have nagged at
him; not incessantly but doggedly, like a toothache.

***

"So did you want to go out for breakfast or just have
room service bring us something up to the room or
what?" Mulder asked Scully as they headed back to
their hotel.

"What I want is for you to stay down in the casino for
about ten minutes when we first get back. Then I'll
join you and we can go to breakfast. Then we can back
to the room and," she smiled softly at him as her
voice dropped to a husky purr, "sleep."

Mulder grinned at her. He had no idea why she wanted a
few minutes alone in their room, but he was happy to
indulge her. He had a feeling they would be using the
bed for purposes other than sleep once they returned,
which was fine with him. They could always nap on the
airplane.

After agreeing where to meet, Mulder dropped Scully
off at the front entrance and parked the car. He
decided to amuse himself at the slot machines while he
waited.

Scully took the briefest of showers when she returned
to the room, then hurriedly put on the dress she'd
brought with her. It was of a silky material that
looked black in some lights, green in others. She'd
brought it with the intention of going out to dinner,
not breakfast, but what the heck? She added the dangly
opal earrings Mulder had bought her a few months
earlier to complete the outfit.  

Mulder had just dropped another quarter in the slot
machine and was watching the wheel
spin when he caught a whiff of a familiar perfume. He
turned to see his wife standing behind him, wearing an
iridescent dress, her opal earrings and what he
privately referred to as her "fuck me" shoes. . .the
black ones with high spiky heels, tiny ankle straps
and open toes.

"Wow," he breathed out. "I just hit the jackpot."

"I guess this dress looks sort of silly to wear to
breakfast," Scully began, but Mulder shook his head.

"Scully, there are lots of words I could use to
describe the way you look in that dress, but trust me.
. .silly would not be one of them."

Mulder and Scully drifted into one of the restaurants
connected with the hotel; not the main dining room,
but a smaller, intimate eatery. When the waitress came
to bring their menus and take their drink orders,
Mulder said, "Two glasses of orange juice and a bottle
of champagne."

"Mulder, nobody drinks champagne for breakfast!"
Scully protested.

"Sure they do," he replied with a shrug, "at wedding
breakfasts."

"This isn't a wedding breakfast."

"Anniversary breakfast; close enough."

Scully smiled and quit arguing. Actually the idea of
getting just slighty tipsy was not without a certain
amount of appeal.

Almost an hour later, Mulder escorted a somewhat
giggly Scully out of the elevator and into the
corridor on their floor. When he reached their door,
he bent down and swooped her up into his arms to carry
her into the room. "Fox, what are you doing?" she
asked between giggles. 

"Carrying you over the threshold. Dramatic reenactment
of our wedding night, remember? Minus the Krycek
factor."

"You didn't do this the first time," she said.

"And you wouldn't let me order a bottle of champagne,
and it was just past sunset, not just before dawn," he
pointed out. "So we've made a few minor adjustments."

"Well," she said as they entered the room and closed
the door, "as long as we get the main
event accurate, I guess the details can be altered a
bit."

Mulder tumbled her down to the bed and kissed her
long, slow and deep. "We've got too many clothes on,"
Scully muttered when they came up for air, reaching
for the buttons on his shirt. 

"In a minute," Mulder said, grabbing her hands with
his and holding them on either side of her head. "I
want to tell you something first; before we get
naked."

"What?"

"Just that. . .when we got married three years ago I
already loved you so much, I didn't think it would be
possible to fall any more deeply in love with you than
I already was. But you would think I, of all people,
would know better than to discount extreme
possibilities. Because I have, Dana. As much as I
loved you before we got married, these past three
years -- sharing our lives together in every way,
having a child together -- it just keeps getting
better. I keep falling deeper and deeper in love with
you."

Scully smiled at him and blinked tears out of her
eyes. "I know, Fox. I feel the same way. That's sort
of what I was trying to express yesterday morning.
Every time I wake up with you beside me, it's like a
dream come true."

Mulder was still for a moment. This moment felt almost
too sacred for sex. Almost. But his body was having
other ideas. "Want to undress me now?" he whispered,
his voice a teasing murmur in her ear.

"Mmmhmm," Scully said, her deft fingers making quick
work of his shirt buttons, then sliding it off his
broad shoulders to land in a pool on the floor. She
reached for his belt buckle and got the rest of
clothes off in record time.

"Turn around," Mulder said, turning to Scully to face
away from him. He began to inch the zipper of her
dress down slowly, taking time to kiss and caress her
back every time a bit more flesh was exposed. 

"Mul-der!" Scully groaned after a few minutes, "are
you trying to drive me crazy? We've got a 4 p.m.
flight to make remember?"

Mulder chuckled and finished undressing her in a more
speedy manner. Then he rolled her onto her back and
begin to enter her, going exquisitely slowly.

By the standards of those videos Mulder used to own --
the ones that weren't his -- it wasn't particularly
exciting sex. Making love to your own wife, on a bed,
in the missionary position wasn't the stuff of which
porn fantasies are made. But he couldn't ever remember
it being better.

Scully moaned and tried to keep the feelings swelling
inside her from reaching their crescendo too soon.
Simultaneous orgasm wasn't something they achieved
often; usually she came first. In all honesty, she
rarely even made an effort to hold her own climax at
bay, because she enjoyed watching her husband come
without being distracted by the haze of her own
desire. But, tonight, she wanted it to be mutual.

Scully was beginning to whimper, to quiver, to arch.
Mulder smiled down into her passion-dazed eyes and
gave one final thrust. Their moans mingled together.
When they'd both stopped throbbing, he slid out and
spooned her beside him. Murmured, "I love you"s were
exchanged before they both fell into a contented
sleep.

***

"Where is everybody?" Grissom asked as he walked into
the labs.

"Define everybody," suggested Warrick.

"Nick. Sarah. All those FBI agents who have been
swarming around here."

"Agents Briggs and Huffman went to go eat breakfast. I
told Nick and Sarah they could leave early to
accompany them," Catherine answered.

"What was it, like a double date?" Grissom inquired.

Warrick shrugged. "Catherine and I didn't ask for the
particulars," he said. "Agents Chan and Guilbeau also
left, but they were going to hit the casinos then get
some sleep."

"Mulder and Scully left, too," Catherine added. "They
said they were going to go to bed for a while before
their flight left. And, no, we didn't ask *them* for
particulars about what they were
going to do there, either."

"Although, judging by the way they were looking at
each other, we could make an educated guess," Warrick
said.

"I realize I'm not the best person in the world to
make judgments on what's normal, but aren't those two
kind of. . .odd for a married couple?" Grissom asked.
"I mean they seem awfully. . ."

"To be that hot for each other after three years of
marriage and a baby is a tad bit unusual," Catherine
agreed. "But if that's the weirdest thing going on
between them, they're a lot luckier than most people."

"Our shift's officially over," Grissom said. "You two
can take off."

"I promised Lindsey I'd take her to breakfast at the
Mirage, then we could look to see if the white tigers
are awake," Catherine said. "She told me my 'police
mans' friends could come with us, if they wanted.
Either of you gentlemen interested?"

"Sure, I'm up for it," Warrick answered.

"I," Grissom began, intent on saying that he had
paperwork that needed finishing up. But then he
remembered Agent Mulder's words and graced his two
long-time co-workers with a smile, changing it to,
"I'd love to. Let's get going."


Author's e-mail addy: tapw63@yahoo.com