Skin : the X-files by Ben Mezrich Read Free Book Online

X-FILES
    door—and the windows are more than twenty feet above the parking lot.”
    “A long way up,” Mulder commented from a crouch in front of the door. “And an equally long way down.” Scully glanced at him. He had his hand out in front of the indentation in the wood, his fingers mimicking the deep marks from a few inches away. Scully turned away from him and watched as Barrett crossed to the shattered windows. The detective pulled up a corner of the yellow paper. “The way down’s a lot easier than the way up.
    The trick is in the landing. Stanton got lucky and hit some shrubs at the edge of the parking lot. We found torn pieces of his hospital smock in the branches, along with more of Teri Nestor’s blood. Our manhunt is progressing rapidly through the borough—but so far, we’ve been unable to pick up his trail.”
    “So the professor woke up from an operation,” Mulder said out of the corner of his mouth. “Tore up a hospital room. Crushed his nurse’s skull. Then fell out of a second-story window into a shrub. And he’s still managing to evade a police search?”
    Mulder had aimed the question at Scully, but it was obvious from the red blotches spreading across Barrett’s face that she had misinterpreted Mulder’s tone. She turned away from the window, crossed her thick arms against her chest, and set her mouth in an angry grimace.
    A heavy Brooklyn accent suddenly dribbled down the edges of her consonants. “Hey, you want to bring in your own forensics people? I’d be happy to hear an alternative 46

    Skin
    story. Because the media’s already crawling up my ass on this one. We’ve got the pathologist redoing the autopsy, we’ve had the fingerprint team in here a dozen times—
    and it’s still coming up the same. One perp, one dead nurse, one manhunt. And I don’t care how fancy you fibbies think you are—you’re not going to find anything different.”
    Scully stared at the woman, stunned by her altered tone.
    Frustration was one thing—but this was outright hostility.
    Barrett obviously had issues with control and a temper to match her size. Not a pretty combination. Scully decided to intervene before Mulder could aggravate her further.
    “We’re not here to get in the way of your manhunt, Detective Barrett—just to assist in catching the perp. As for Professor Stanton—is there anything in his history that could explain the sudden outbreak of violence?” Barrett grunted, her anger slowly diffusing. “Model citizen up until the transplant procedure. No priors, not even a speeding ticket. Married sixteen years until his wife died last February. Teaches European history at Jamaica University, volunteers two days a week at the public library in midtown—an adult-literacy program.”
    “No history of alcohol or drugs?” Scully asked.
    “An occasional glass of wine on weekends, according to his daughter, Emily Kysdale, a twenty-six-year-old kindergarten teacher who lives in Brooklyn. According to Mrs. Kysdale, her father is a shy but happy man. He is most content in the basement library of the university—
    which is where he got burned in the boiler accident.” 47

    THE X-FILES
    “Certainly doesn’t fit the psychotic profile,” Mulder commented. He was standing by the horizontal IV rack, trying to gauge how deeply it was embedded in the wall.
    “According to the police report, he is five-four, weighs one hundred and eighteen pounds. Scully, how much do you think this IV rack weighs? Or that mattress?” Scully ignored Mulder’s questions for the moment.
    She couldn’t tell whether he was baiting the detective—
    or merely curious. She nodded toward the clipboard in Barrett’s hands. She recognized the hospital-style pages under the heavy metal clip. “Is that Stanton’s medical chart?”
    Barrett nodded, her eyes on Mulder as she handed over the chart. “The plastic surgeon—Dr. Bernstein—has gone through this with me a few times already. He says there was nothing