Kadaitcha by Michael Aulfrey Part 3/7 ------------------------------------------------------------------ The police car pulled up in literally the middle of nowhere. Which was not to say that nothing was there. About four other cruisers were sitting in a type of cordon around some dark item in a copse of trees. One or two of them had their lights flashing. Mulder and Scully got out of the car, sampling the cool night air. They walked in past the cordon, the police around momentarily looking at them but not challenging them. Mulder heard the static screech of C.B. radios. "Roger, Delta One Nine. When's that ambulance getting here? Over." "Echo Seven, we think it'll be there in about half an hour, over." "Tell him to take his time, Delta--doesn't look like we've got any live ones out here anyway. Echo Seven over and out." Towards the centre of the minor chaos was Crawford, resplendent in jeans and white T-shirt. He was standing back, plastic-gloved hands on hips, looking at the situation. Mulder's eyes hadn't adjusted to the dim light, so he couldn't see what it was they were staring at. Then one of the police brought out a large searchlight and cast its illuminance across the ground into the copse, throwing tortured shadows across the earth. It was an old utility truck. White, smeared with mud and dust, like every other car in Starkey's Creek. A large searchlight was mounted on a rack over the cabin and a bull bar in front of the grille. There seemed to be bodies everywhere. One hung over the back of the truck, hands trailing onto the ground. Another was flung up against the cabin window, his head on what was left of his chest. Mulder picked out motion about ten metres away. Three officers were clustered with torches around another body, on its stomach, further into the wood. Cautiously, he stepped towards the cabin. Inside was another of the men. This one was so heavily pressed back into the seat only his chest and limp arms could be seen. Bright bits of glass covered the seat, the windscreen broken in one large round hole. Mulder glanced at the hood. And stared at it. There was little other way to describe it than as shattered. The iron had been torn open cleanly, peeled open like wrapping paper. He glanced inside. The engine block had been likewise smashed. It had been hammer punched into the ground. Scully slipped towards the back of the truck, and shone a flashlight on the body thrown back against the window. For all intents and purposes, she might as well have been looking at Frank Mereweather's body in a different position. This one's abdomen was slit open as well from sternum to throat. She bit her lip and was thankful she couldn't see the man's eyes. She flicked a glance to the one next to her. This one had been killed differently; there was a round, small hole in his back, with secondary cuts radiating out from it like a spider's legs. Not a bullet hole; but deadly nonetheless. "You're wondering who they are, I presume," said Crawford from right behind her, making her jump slightly. He pretended not to notice. "We've identified them already. They were out here rabbit-shooting. Another common pastime out here." "Looks like the Easter Bunny speaks softly but carries a big stick," said Mulder, walking back from the front of the truck. "How many altogether? Four?" "I think so. We'll have to check with their friends, I suppose---" There was a sudden commotion from about twenty metres away. Lights wobbled crazily in the night, shouts and assorted curses drifting into the night. Crawford was gone like a night shadow, running towards the source, his gun already out. Mulder and Scully quickly followed, scraping their faces on loose branches as they ran. They emerged on an amazing sight. Four officers were trying to hold down something on the ground--and not doing so easily. There was a harsh crack, and one of them reeled back, clutching his nose. "Let him up! Let go, damn it!" Crawford was shouting, pulling one of the men aside. The others muttered, letting go of what they were holding down and moved back a couple of steps. Scully slowly lowered her gun, even as Crawford's snapped back into its holster. The figure got up, and faced the convergent torch beams. Crawford was shaking his head slowly. "Charlie, you're going to get yourself killed one of these days." The figure tossed his head derisively at the police officer still clutching his nose. "Not if y' keep putting kids like him on the force, Robbie." "This isn't your concern. How did you find out we were out here?" "Anything happenin' on Kaladjuma land concerns me, Rob. You want to know how I found out? The ground talks to me." There was a pause, and an expression on Crawford's face Mulder couldn't see. "Come on, Rob--I've got a wireless like all the others here. How d'you think I found out?" There was a truncated guffaw from one of the officers off to the side, and they began to disperse. The figure's gaze turned to the two FBI officers. "Who's this?" Crawford turned to see them. "Hello again. Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, this is Charles Duggan, one of our officers who should be out minding other things. Charlie, meet Fox Mulder and Dana Scully of the FBI. The American FBI." Scully extended a hand and got her first proper look at Duggan. Her first preconception vanished the moment she saw his skin. Deep brown. Not unlike a Negro's. Which meant he was Aboriginal. A native Australian, here before the English arrived in 1788. Like the American Indian. He was tall; about six feet, maybe an inch or two above Mulder's height. His hair was also a deep brown, curly and wiry and unrestrained by the expected police officer's cap. Instead, there was only a headband with a yellow sun on it set against a red and black background. His face wasn't like a Negro's, either; strangely, it was more European-looking than she would have expected. His eyes were dark, the moon shining like coins in the pupils. "G'day, ma'am." His grip was strong, firm. Mulder shook his hand next, raising his eyebrows to Scully. As if in response to the unasked question, Crawford spoke. "Charlie's the man I was talking to you about. He's sort of our liaison officer with the Kaladjuma tribe, who live in this area. He works with the Aboriginal people and--" "Basically I'm the only voice they have when the cops come round to pick them up when they're drunk. That's what it amounts to." There was an uncomfortable pause. "Are you one of the Kala--Kaladaj--" Mulder stumbled over the words. "Kaladjuma. Yeah." He turned back to Crawford. "You're wasting your time here, Rob. There's nothin' at all." "I think we can satisfy ourselves of--" "Nothin'. Just like Frank's place. No tracks in, no tracks out. You won't find anything." He turned and started walking away. Mulder took a few steps after him. "Mr. Duggan, what is it that makes you so sure--?" He felt Crawford's hand on his shoulder, restraining him. The Aboriginal stopped, turned around. His expression was even with a touch of glimmering fear hiding behind it. "Nothing makes me sure, mate. But I'll tell you one thing. The animals don't like whoever it was that killed those poor bastards in the truck." "Huh? What do you--" But the man was gone, striding off into the brush. Moments later, the engine of an old truck roared and through the trees, Mulder spotted an old, khaki-coloured Landrover heading off into the night. Crawford let his shoulder go. "What's his problem?" asked Mulder as the three of them turned back towards the truck. "I wouldn't take him too seriously. He's normally like that. Thinks anything that happens on Aboriginal land involves him because he's their representative or something like that." "I'm surprised you take that from him," commented Scully. "Oh, don't mistake Charlie Duggan for a fool. He's the best there is, as far as trackers go. Did either of you hear about a case a couple of years ago, where a family of American tourists got lost in the outback? With three children?" Mulder saw Scully's frown, but he remembered. "Yeah, I do. That was a little before your time, Scully. There was an awful commotion in the FBI over that because a senator's son was one of the tourists. They even sent a couple of agents out here to help. They had close to a hundred men searching for them. Planes, dogs, the works. But they found them." "Wrong. Charlie Duggan found them. At least forty-eight hours ahead of any search party." Crawford was grim. "They'd gone off the track onto granite boulders, where their car left no treadmarks. The other searchers lost them at that point." "So how did he find them?" Scully asked. "He followed the trail of ant corpses on the rocks that the car had driven over." Crawford lengthened his stride, heading back towards the site of the killing. Mulder and Scully said nothing for a minute or two. "Tonto is alive and well and living in downtown Starkey's Creek," said Scully quietly. Mulder was silent. She looked at him. His face was thoughtful as well. "What?" "He's right, Scully. Ant corpses or not, the Australians found the senator's boy just before he would have died of dehydration. You want confirmation, ask Skinner. He was on the case." There was another shout from deeper in the woods. Mulder and Scully looked at each other and started walking briskly over to the spot where the torches were now gathering. As they reached the spot, one of the officers--Paul Morris, Mulder suddenly recognised him--pushed past them, holding a hand over his mouth, and knelt down behind a tree. The sounds of his retching were clear in the dark air. The other officers were shining their torches at something up in one of the trees, various expressions of horror or disgust clouding their faces. Mulder dug into a pocket and produced a flashlight, and switched it on, swinging it up into the branches to the source. * * * FILE #185493-X DR. DANA SCULLY EXTRACT: REPORT, 2/12/95 The latest killings at Starkey's Creek have served to illustrate only that Special Agent Mulder and myself are dealing with someone well-acquainted with blades as weapons and a thorough knowledge of psychology. Subjects are five young white males, ages from 18 to 25. Said subjects were found deceased in or around the vicinity of a white Holden Utility. The first three subjects may be categorised simply. Death in these cases involved extreme traumatisation of the lower to upper torso by use of a weapon I have tentatively identified as the same which killed Frank Mereweather (see file #937848-X) -- namely, a heavy blade of some kind with features I can as yet only guess at. This weapon would appear to have a serrated edge of the highest quality of manufacture. Agent Mulder has suggested that I add nothing further on the weapon at this point until the results have come in on the metal slivers I found on Frank Mereweather's body. I would only add that in all probabilityand in all my fervent hope- -death was instantaneous in each case. The cause of the fourth death was puncturing of the heart and lungs, again by use of what I presume to be a hand-held weapon. However, the exact nature of this weapon escapes me at this point, as it for all intents and purposes appears to have been an extraordinarily thick spearhead of some kind. Entry and exit wounds were noted on the body, though traumatisation of the wound suggests the weapon was forced through the victim's torso and then pulled out again. There was also extensive shattering of the ribcage in this instance. Again, death was presumably instantaneous. The fifth death's cause as yet cannot be determined for a lack of material to assess a cause. The final corpse was found some distance from the other bodies, hanging from the ankles in a tree. This corpse was skinned, certain sundry organs found directly beneath the body. The extent of traumatisation of tissue means I cannot hope to try and determine a cause of death in this case. I can only hope at this stage that the victim was dead before the operation of skinning was performed. Agent Mulder was similarly hopeful after recovering himself at the body's location. If this skinning was used to break morale amongst the officers here in Starkey's Creek, it is succeeding. There have already been rumours circulating this morning concerning the killings and the police are very quiet. Officer Crawford hopes the mood will pick up. If it was such a morale-breaking action so as to throw off pursuit of the killer, this would seem to indicate that he-- assuming a connection between Frank Mereweather's death and the instant case--is prepared for a long fight against the law, whose resources it would seem he has assessed carefully. The use of differing weapons is none too encouraging, either; if anything, it suggests a higher element of rationality than is normally seen with serial killers insistent upon the same method of death for each victim. I will add more when greater evidence is available. However, at this point I think it is safe to say we are no closer to putting together a suspect profile than we were at the outset. EXTRACT ENDS. * * * Mulder was, to coin a phrase, mad as hell. "Well, who let the story get out, if it wasn't the local police?" he asked for what seemed like the eighteenth time. And for the sixtieth time, Crawford threw up his hands and replied, "I don't know!" The Australian cop got up from his seat in the police station chief's office and stared out the window at the afternoon glare. "If I did know, I'd be God Almighty and not standing here talking to you! Could've been one of the police on last night, maybe one of the relatives. We'll never find out. Surely there's some way to keep the media from blowing this out of all proportion..." "Any chance we had of containing this went down the toilet the moment somebody called the paper, Crawford. They'll be up here in their thousands within five hours, and we haven't got a hope of getting the killer before he strikes again!" Scully's voice was a quiet whisper of conscience in his ear, though her voice had not changed its pitch. "There's not much we can do about it now. All we can do is try and follow up the leads that we've got. Just get the word out that nobody talks about this." Mulder had a retort on his lips, but forced it back down. He vented his anger instead by wishing the newspaper in front of him a fiery death. KILLING IN THE OUTBACK, screamed the headline of the local paper. Five dead in massacre, added the byline. It was hot off the presses. Luckily, the actual article had been fairly brief and short on details. The skinning of the fifth victim had somehow been kept off the record. Mulder shook himself. Now he was getting no better than CancerMan or Mr. X himself. He rubbed his temples and tried to think. "All right. Have we got anything back on the metal slivers yet?" "Not yet," replied Crawford. "I rang them this morning and they said they still had to run some further tests on them." "Any time we can expect it by?" asked Scully. "They were talking about tomorrow afternoon, tops. The report will get back here by courier, if you want it that fast. Or so they said." "Well, there goes roughly our only lead," said Mulder. "You've got people checking the site now?" "Yeah. The boys have cordoned it all off, as well. Nobody gets in there." "Let's hope it stays that way. All right. Let's run through it again." Mulder picked up a marker and walked over to the whiteboard in one corner of the office. "First. Frank Mereweather gets killed, suspicious circumstances, alone at his house, seven days ago, right?" "Yes." Crawford had turned back towards them. "The regular police decide to leave it to the federal police, they assign me to the job, I take one look at it and ring you." Mulder scribbled on the board. "Okay. Now. What's strange about Frank's death?" "One, no footprints." Scully was ticking off points on her fingers. "Two, weapon seems unusually sharp and the user unusually large and fast. Three, dead pig found at the site. Four, Frank's gun was loaded but he hadn't fired a shot." Mulder turned back to them. "Fine. Now. The five boys in the truck. Three are killed in exactly the same way. One is killed with possibly a different weapon. One is...done differently again. What am I missing here?" "The truck was smashed. Whoever killed them knew how to disable a truck or set a trap for them. Plus...they were all armed." Crawford was looking intently at the board. Mulder looked at him, catching Scully's eye with a raised eyebrow. Crawford continued on regardless. "We found gun rags and ammunition in Frank Mereweather's closet. It had a layer of dust on it; hadn't been used in some time. Frank probably had no reason to pick up that gun unless he heard something strange. Something like--" "A wild pig being killed outside?" finished Scully. They were all silent for a minute, considering the implications. "He's enjoying it." Mulder was staring at the board again. "The sonofabitch is hunting them. He gets them in a situation where they're armed and then takes them down because it's more sport that way." "Seems to fit," said Scully, her voice barely above a whisper now. "He takes down one man, then several after a few days. He's spreading his wings." "But that doesn't explain the way he gets in and out without leaving tracks," said Crawford. "Always the geographical problems." "What did you say?" Mulder was suddenly staring at Crawford. "I said it's a geographical problem---" "How could I be so stupid!" said Mulder, looking at Scully. "We've been working too much on odd cases, Scully. We've forgotten the old technique. Crawford, have you got a map of this area? Including the two sites?" "You mean the bastard might be centring on one location? I tried it already. And we don't have enough sites to even try and create a perimeter of activity." Mulder chewed his lip while Crawford stared out the window again. "I'll get the map anyway," offered Crawford. "If he does kill again, we might have a pattern turn up. As it is, we've only got pretty flimsy evidence that these murders are connected." "Oh, they are," said Scully quietly. "And he won't stop killing now. Whoever he is, he enjoyed his first kill with Frank Mereweather and now he knows he can kill in large numbers and get away with it." Crawford grimaced. "Right. I'm going. See you shortly." He left the office. "I think the basic nature of the killer is something we have to talk about, Scully." Mulder turned back to her. "I think this is clearly more than your average serial killer at work here." Scully shrugged. "I haven't seen anything unexplainable yet, Mulder. Whoever is doing the killing is just very good at his job. What's your explanation?" "I don't have one yet. But you're blinding yourself to the facts. Look at the truck. The engine was smashed into the ground. After he'd immobilised it, the killer was able to take down five armed men solo, in hand-to-hand combat. And then got out without leaving any tracks. While bearing a good hundred-kilo corpse over his shoulder, skinning it and then leaving it to hang up in a tree." "You're ignoring the possibility of any accomplices. And we don't have to take Charles Duggan at his word, regardless of how good he is at tracking. I'd leave it until we get all the evidence in from the field." Mulder nodded slowly. "All right. But I still think there's something seriously wrong with this situation." END OF PART 3/7.