Agent of Chaos (The X-Files: Origins #1)(62)

“How did you know where Earl Roy hid the bodies? Did you find something at his house? Like a list? Or did he tell you himself?”

Ressler sat down again and propped his elbows on the desk. “No. We didn’t have anything that concrete. But leaving the bodies in mausoleums fit Earl Roy’s profile.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by his profile.”

“It’s not a term many people use outside of the BSU. A profile is a psychological description of a violent offender based on what we know about their crimes,” Ressler explained. “It’s like putting together a puzzle when you don’t have all the pieces—or the picture on the box to help you. My job is to fill in the missing pieces—ideally, before a killer leaves a trail of victims.”

Mulder sat on the edge of his chair, hanging on Ressler’s every word. “So the profile helped you figure out where to look for the bodies?”

“Exactly. Earl Roy is what we call a ritualistic killer. He engages in specific rituals that have symbolic meaning to him.” Ressler pushed up his sleeves. “For example, he killed Billy after eight days, and he planned to do the same thing with Sarah. He left a bird pierced with arrows that were arranged in the same pattern with each body—it all pointed to a killer who would dispose of the bodies in the same way, and leave them in similar locations.”

“So you started searching crypts?” Mulder pictured Ressler and a bunch of FBI agents wandering around Rock Creek Cemetery with crowbars.

“I let the cadaver dogs do that part,” Ressler explained. “They’re trained to find human remains.”

“In a cemetery? The whole place is full of human remains.” It sounded like trying to find a needle in a skyscraper-sized haystack.

“I said the same thing the first time one of my instructors at the FBI Academy introduced the concept. But cadaver dogs are highly trained. Some only detect old remains, and other dogs, like the ones we took to Rock Creek Cemetery, are trained to detect odors related to certain stages of decomposition.”

“I still don’t get it,” Mulder said.

“This won’t sound very scientific, but we used cemetery records and the process of elimination. Since Earl Roy left Billy in an empty crypt, we assumed he would’ve done the same thing with his earlier victims. So we only searched mausoleums, not graves, and we eliminated the ones without any empty crypts. We started with the mausoleums closest to the one where Billy’s body was found.”

Once Mulder realized that FBI agents weren’t being pulled through the graveyard while they clung to the leashes of a pack of bloodhounds, he was impressed by the scientific nature of it all. “How long did it take the dogs to find the right crypts?”

“A few hours. Daniel’s body was in a mausoleum two plots away from the one where Billy’s body was found, and the girl’s remains were recovered from the mausoleum across from it.”

“The other victim was a girl?” Mulder barely got the words out.

Ressler nodded. “She disappeared in 1972.”

“You’re sure? Could it have been 1973?” he asked, his pulse drumming.

“Normally, I would say maybe. Remains that old take longer to identify. But in this case, we were able to ID the victim because of surgical evidence. She had pins in her hip from orthopedic surgery after a car accident.”

Mulder heard what Ressler was saying, but he felt detached from the words, as if they were meaningless. The girl’s body they had recovered wasn’t Samantha’s. That much had registered. But if Earl Roy had been killing kids as far back as 1972, his sister could’ve been one of them.

“What about 1973?” Mulder blurted out. “Do you know where Earl Roy was, or what he was doing? I’m asking because my sister, Samantha, was kidnapped in 1973, on November 27, from our house in Chilmark, Massachusetts. She was in the living room and the power went out. When it came back on, she was gone and the front door was left open, the same way it happened with the other kids.”

“And you were there,” Ressler said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah. But I blacked out and I don’t remember anything.” Mulder looked Agent Ressler in the eyes. “Do you think Earl Roy Propps took my sister?”

Ressler turned off the tape recorder. “Officially? I don’t know. The truth? It’s possible.”

“Were you involved with the investigation?”

“No. But I asked around after I read the write-up about your background.”

“And?” Mulder’s heartbeat pounded in his ears.

“No evidence was recovered, and there were never any suspects or any leads.” Ressler shook his head. “I’m sorry. I really wish I had more to tell you.”

Mulder nodded. The truth felt heavy and cold, like wearing a wet coat outside when it was freezing. He couldn’t handle feeling this way for the rest of his life. Whoever took his sister must have left a trace—one tiny bread crumb for him to follow.

Somewhere.

Agent Ressler turned the tape recorder back on. “Nothing can make up for what you’ve lost, but you saved a girl’s life. And you saved the lives of all the kids Earl Roy would’ve hurt if he was still free.”

Ressler’s acknowledgment didn’t give Mulder any peace. The Eternal Champion was still out there. “I didn’t do enough. Earl Roy didn’t do this alone.”