A.D.A. JAMIE ROSS’ RESIDENCE
MONDAY, 9:30pm
Jamie is sitting in the livingroom of her townhouse reading The Wall Street Journel when there is a knock at the front door.
“Who the Hell can that be at this time of night?” she mumbles without moving from the chair.
When the knock comes again, louder, she realizes that whoever it is isn’t just going to go away. With a look of annoyance she sets her paper on the coffee table and walks out to the front hall.
“Who is it?” she calls.
“Its me, Jack.”
Slightly baffled, Jamie takes a quick peek through the peep-hole and then opens the door, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing...per say, I guess...I just was in the neighborhood and thought, ‘Hey, when was the last time I visited Jamie outside of work?’”
“Right...And you thought that 9:30 at night was a perfect time to drop in for a chat?”
“Well, I...”
“Jack, I have Katie upstairs asleep and I’m all settled in for the evening and-”
“I’m sorry, Jamie...I forgot you had Katie...God, it’s a school night, too. I hope I didn’t wake her.”
“No, you didn’t. If she were awake now I can guarantee we’d both know it.”
Jack gives Jamie a half-hearted smile in response to her comment, “Well, all that aside...I should let you be. I’m sorry for dropping in so late. Good night, Jamie.”
“Night’ Jack.”
“Night’.”
Jack wanders back into the darkness of the streets. Jamie watches his slumped-shoulder form depart almost as soon as it had arrived on her doorstep. This had to be one of the strangest encounters she had ever had with Jack. She was completely baffled by his sudden appearance.
“Jack!” Jamie runs after him- bare feet and all.
Jack slowly comes to a stop and turns to face Jamie.
“Jack, what’s wrong?”
“Jamie-,”
“Jack, its 9:30 at night and my apartment isn’t exactly on your way home- so what the heck are you doing here? I want the truth!"
Jack responds to her with only a morose silence.
Jamie’s face softens some, “Jack?”
“She’s dead, Jamie.”
“What? Who?!”
“Laura Andrews- about a half an hour ago.”
“Jack...I- But I thought they were thinking that she was going to pull through.”
“She took a bad turn and then she- she was gone.”
“Was her family with her?”
“No...they wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole, let alone come and visited her.”
“She died alone then?”
“No...”
“Who was with her?”
“I was...I just got a feeling and...”
“Jack, its not your fault she died. I think that this is one of those things that was only a matter of time before it happened.”
“I know...But that doesn’t stop from thinking that I might have made a mistake and a young girl died needlessly at my hands.”
“If you hadn’t done what you did, she would have killed Van Buren.”
“I know...”
“So that’s why you came by, huh?”
“Yeah...that and I wanted someone to tell me that I did the right thing.”
Jamie smiles slightly at this, “Are you gonna be okay?”
Jack sighs, “Yeah, I think so.”
Jamie reaches out and places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “Ya done good boss.”
Jack gives her a half-hearted smile, “Good night, Jamie.”
“Good night, Jack.”
NEW YORK CITY
(once again) HOJO'S LOUNGE AND MOTOR LODGE
ROOM 106- SPECIAL AGENT DANA SCULLY'S TEMPORARY RESIDENCE (yup, same room)
MONDAY, 10:01pm
Scully stands in front of the mirror in her bathroom examining the ominous green ting that her face has taken on. She doesn’t feel much better than she looks.
“I’m gonna kill Mulder... I’m gonna KILL him. He says, ‘Lets have some nice Chinese food.’ And me, being the trusting dumb-ass that I am, what do I do? I go right along with him... IDIOT!!!”
A loud knock at the door interrupts her cursing.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” she roars as she stomps out to answer it. Not even bothering to check the peep-hole first, she rips open the door, “WHAT?!”
A slightly frightened Mulder greets her rage, “Hey, Scully. You haven’t been answering your phone.”
“Yeah, I’ve been a little busy relching in the toilet.”
Mulder screws his face up at this visual, but Scully continues without noticing this, “Mulder, what do you want? Do you have any idea how sick I am because of your desire to skip down ‘China Town lane?’ Well, do you???”
“Thanks to your lovely description I do now.”
“Screw you, this damn case, and your sarcasm! Death is looking pretty good right now.”
“Scully, Laura Andrews is dead.”
At that moment, Scully would have given all the Pepto-bismal in the world to take back her “Death is looking pretty good right now,” comment.
Manhattan General Hospital Morgue
Monday, 10:43pm
Briscoe and Logan have been pacing the hospital morgue for the past 25 minutes.
“Mulder said they would be right over when I called him. Where are they?”
“Lennie, take it easy. Maybe they got caught in traffic.”
“Yeah, well I just hoped that they haven’t decide to ditch us.”
“Why would they?”
“Because this case is now at a dead-end...No pun intended,” he pauses for half a second and then finishes his thought, “I mean, she’s dead and you can’t put a corpse on trial.”
“Seems to me that the case is solved. We got the bad guy-er- girl and the fact that she is now dead is simply a footnote.”
“I suppose so. I just don’t want us to get left holding the bag for these people and having to explain to the public on our own what happened.”
“Don’t worry, Lennie. You heard Mulder at the start of this investigation- he likes cases that don’t end with a proper solution. He’ll eat this up.”
As if on cue, Mulder and a surly looking Scully enter the morgue.
“How did this happen?” Scully demanded.
“The closed-head injury combined with her already unstable health was just something she couldn’t fight back from,” Lennie answered, regretfully.
All seem at a loss for words as they reflect briefly on the events that have brought them to this very moment.
Mulder finally voices what everyone else is thinking, “We started this whole thing off with death and it ended with death.”
Scully turns to Briscoe, “Does McCoy know about this?”
“He was with her when she went,” breaks in Logan.
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
Briscoe clears his throat, “I know this may not be the best time to bring this up but... what do we do from here?”
“We don’t do anything.”
The startled group turns to see McCoy standing in the darkened doorway of the morgue.
“What do you mean?” challenges Mulder.
“I mean, that no matter where you go money always talks louder than the truth.”
Logan takes a step toward the A.D.A. “And by that, you are saying-?”
“The Andrews family has called in favors from all over this great country of our’s. As of now the case is closed and Agents Mulder and Scully are to head back to Washington A.S.A.P..”
No one knows what to say. Briscoe and Logan look at McCoy unable to believe what they are hearing. Mulder and Scully look at each other and then at the floor. Unfortunately, this was how most of their cases went.
McCoy turns and leaves as silently as he had come. Briscoe and Logan look to the Agents for some explanation. Mulder can only shake his head.
Exasperated and desperate, Briscoe runs after McCoy.
“Jack! JACK!”
McCoy stops but doesn’t turn around.
“What the Hell are you doing, Jack?”
“I have no control over this now, Lennie.”
“Don’t give me that! You can’t actually be letting these people push you around!”
“It wasn’t my decision.”
“Then who does Schiff think he is?”
“It wasn’t his decision, either.”
“Then who’s was it?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you.”
“Don’t you go all top secret on me! This case isn’t solved yet! Someone else had to be involved and we have to try and track them down!”
Jack whips around and faces Lennie for the first time in the conversation, “ Don’t you get it? There is no case any more! No files, no pictures- NOTHING!”
“But... how... Jack, that’s just not possible. Who would have that kind of clearance to remove police files and records?”
Jack gives Lennie a meaningful look as he turns and walks into the shadows of the vacant morgue.
“Oh no... I refuse to believe in some conspiracy theory.”
“Believe what you want to but someone has stolen all of our evidence, gotten rid of our witnesses, and has told us that none of this ever really happened.”
“But we still have one witness- Arthur Macy!”
“Arthur Macy’s wife reported him missing yesterday. Apparently, he went out to get some milk and bread and never came back.”
“But...Jack, this is so wrong.”
“I know... But we can’t do anything. Unless some new evidence suddenly drops out of the sky we have nothing else to go on.”
“This is unbelievable... It just doesn’t...”
A cough from behind.
Lennie looks to see Logan, Mulder, and Scully all standing a few feet behind him. From the looks on their faces they have heard everything.
“I wish I could do more but I can’t.”
“What about Arthur Macy? He deserves more than to be forgotten under a pile of paper. He had nothing to do with this!” Logan roars as McCoy starts to leave.
“I never said stop looking for him. I just think that at this point given what we’re dealing with now he’s probably dead.”
“McCoy’s right,” interjects Mulder, “Macy said too much to us... whoever is playing clean-up here couldn’t let him live because he is a liability.”
“So because he’s dead because of us,” Briscoe quietly states, “God, and I thought the Mob was bad.”
Scully nods her agreement, “What will happen to Laura Andrews?”
“Well, after the autopsy her family has 48 hours to claim the body- which isn’t freakn’ likely- so she’ll probably be buried in an unmarked potter’s field,” Briscoe explains, “What do you think, McCoy?”
But only emptiness answers Briscoe’s question- Jack is gone.