Title: Love, Honor, and Obeah
Author: Martin Ross
Email: rossprag@fgi.net
Rating: PG-13
Category: X-Files/The Practice crossover, casefile
Spoilers: Fresh Bones
Archive: Anywhere after two weeks at VS11
Disclaimer: Fox , Chris Carter, the usual suspects.
Summary: When The Practice’s Alan Shore tries to prove
the murder of a shaman was self-defense, he’ll need
some legal magic and an assist from Agents Mulder and
Scully
Eighth Circuit Court of the Commonwealth
Boston, Mass.
10:34 a.m.
“And how does the defendant plead?” Judge Harrod
inquired cautiously, prepared for anything.
Alan Shore smiled blandly. “Your Honor, my client
would like to plead innocent by reason of self-
defense. Specifically, defense of another.”
Harrod frowned. “Approach the bench.”
Shore glanced at ADA Roland Hill, then back at
the stone-faced judge. “Excuse me, Your Honor. Mr.
Hill or myself?”
“Now, Mr. Shore,” Harrod growled, eyes afire.
Shore smiled at his client and strolled past the
stenographer. He peeked over the top of Harrod’s
bench. “Like what you’ve done with the feng shui here,
Your Honor.”
“You are not pleading self-defense, Mr. Shore.”
Shore’s eyebrows rose, and he blinked innocently.
“Well, I believe we just did.”
“Your client shot an unarmed victim point-blank,
in front of more than a dozen witnesses, in the lobby
of a downtown office building.”
“Yes.”
“Where was the imminent threat? And who were the
others your client claimed to be defending?”
“His family, Your Honor. His wife and his 11-
year-old daughter.”
“And they were present at the time of the
shooting?”
“No, sir.”
“They were in the building?”
“I believe they were in Camden, visiting Mrs.
Dutton’s mother. She’s been having a touch of bursitis
– my assumption would be too much fatty fried foods —
and…”
“Mr. Shore, a few months ago, your colleagues
Mr. Young and Mr. Berluti secured the acquittal of a
woman who cold-bloodedly murdered a drug dealer by
convincing a jury to disregard the basic tenets of the
law.”
“That’s just shocking,” Shore tsk’ed.
“You listen to me, Mister,” Harrod leaned in.
“I’ve had it up to here with your firm’s antics and
gamesmanship. You are not pleading self-defense. You
are not pleading defense of others.”
“Mr. Dutton believed his family was in
immediate and imminent danger,” Alan Shore explained
slowly, as if the judge were a child. “Mr. Delacroix,
the victim, was an Obeahman – he practiced a form of
Jamaican mysticism. Mr. Delacroix had threatened my
client’s wife and daughter, and my client shot him
before he could place a spell on them. I’d guess you’d
call it a spell, but then again, I was up watching
Bewitched on TVLand last night. Well, that resolved,
may we proceed?”
Young, Frutt, and Berluti, Attorneys-At-Law
Boston, Mass.
“Alan,” Tara, the firm’s paralegal and de facto
office manager, informed Shore. “Your ‘expert witness’
has arrived. He’s in the conference room. I offered
him some coffee – he preferred some Earl Grey with
organic honey.”
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t use
parentheses when referring to my case consultants. It
implies doubt about their credibility and authority.”
Tara raised a dry eyebrow as she smirked. “And I
would appreciate it if you addressed your comments to
my face, rather than to other portions of my anatomy.”
“Do we even have organic honey?”
The paralegal sighed and turned on her heel. Alan
deposited his Louis Vuitton briefcase on his scarred
desk and headed for the conference room. Gene Young
blocked his way, his expression just a shade cooler
than Judge Harrod’s had been when he’d set a trial
date for Mark Dutton.
“Eugene!” Shore beamed.
“How’d it go?” Gene asked frostily. “I assume
Harrod knocked down your defense. Maybe you could go
for diminished–”
“We’re dandy, actually. Judge Harrod was quite
reasonable. I believe he feels I’ll make a complete
idiot of myself and the firm. The prospect seemed to
delight him.”
Gene’s jaw tightened “And how do you intend not
to make complete idiots of yourself and this firm?”
Shore looked hurt. “You appear skeptical.”
“This case already has a higher profile than we
need at this point. This…voodoo…angle you plan to
introduce…”
“Obeah,” Shore corrected.
“Just,” Gene said through his teeth, struggling
for composure, “just dispose of this case with a
minimum of spectacle. You think you can do that?”
“Absolutely.”
Gene glared at Shore, who smiled brightly back.
Head shaking, the senior partner stalked back to his
office. Alan shrugged at Jamie, who’d jumped at the
clatter of Gene’s door.
“Dr. Romanisch,” Shore greeted, extended a hand
to the rotund man at the conference table. “I’m
delighted you could come by today. You read my report
of the case, right?”
The cultural anthropologist nodded eagerly.
“Fascinating, and while it’s atypical here in the
U.S., I could cite you a half-dozen anecdotal examples
of violence, even homicide, associated with obeah
practices in the Caribbean.”
“Excellent. And these cases are well-documented?”
“Indeed,” Romanisch said. “I plan to include
them in my next book. I’ve established key linkages
between obeah and other Caribbean religious rituals
and the electromagnetic convergences within Bermuda
Triangle by tracking UFO reports throughout the
region.”
“That is fascinating, just absolutely
fascinating,” Shore murmured. He stood. “Would you
excuse me for just one moment, Dr. Romanisch? I want
to check the progress on that Earl Grey.”
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
One month later
“Excuse me, Mr….Shore?” Mulder asked, leaning
forward, his eyes alert. “Did you say obeah?”
Scully, leaning against a nearby file cabinet,
arms crossed, pursed her lips. Mulder studiously
avoided establishing eye contact with her.
“Obeah,” Alan Shore nodded with a Mona Lisa
smile. “I understand you have some experience with
African-Caribbean religion and witchcraft.”
“I wouldn’t call it witchcraft, precisely,”
Mulder corrected. “It’s generally viewed as a sort of
religion or shamanism. Obeah is one of the more
unknown and obscure African traditions of sorcery.
While Santeria, Umbanda, and Candomblè have become
relatively popular in the Caribbean – almost
mainstreamed — Obeah is still veiled in secrecy. Even
the word ‘obeah’ is clouded in secrecy. The Obeahman
is considered something of a cross between a voodoo
witchdoctor, a medicine man, a root doctor, and an
occult spiritualist. And because of the secrecy of the
practice and the alleged power the shaman holds, some
less reputable Obeahmen have used that power as a form
of extortion.”
“Which is where my client enters in,” Shore said.
“The trial begins in three days, and you’re the most
unimpeachable witness I can think of – a federal
government agent who not only validates obeah but has
had actual experience with it.”
“Agent Mulder theorizes about the validity of
obeah,” Scully amended, “and his experience actually
involved alleged voodoo practices at an Army
detainment camp – charges that were less than
definitively proven.”
“Tomayto, tomahto,” Shore shrugged.
“Do you even believe in obeah yourself?” Scully
challenged.
“Oh, God,” the attorney laughed. “No.”
“So this is just some kind of scam, a sleazy
legal tactic.”
Shore’s smile faded. “Mark Dutton believed in
obeah. He believed Robert Delacroix practiced obeah.
And at the time he shot him, he believed Delacroix
posed a direct and immediate threat to his family. I’d
merely ask Agent Mulder to testify to the
persuasiveness of obeah, to the possibility that a
rational businessman might believe in its power.”
“Well, that’s not so unrea-” Mulder began.
“I’ve done some checking up on you, Mr. Shore,”
Scully interrupted. “Until recently, you were an
antitrust attorney with one of Boston’s most
prestigious legal firms. You left that firm suddenly
to join a criminal law firm that, charitably, must be
described as ethically challenged. You then narrowly
escaped disbarment after betraying a client’s
confidence. And let’s not even discuss your getting a
double-murderer off on diplomatic immunity.”
The smile returned. “Agent Scully, has anyone
ever told you your nostrils have a very erotic flare
to them? Sorry, that was very inappropriate, and you
probably could have my last 10 years’ tax returns
audited. So what do you say, Agent Mulder?”
Mulder’s eyes darted uneasily back toward his
partner. “Well, I don’t know how my assistant director
would feel about my testifying about paranormal
phenomenon, especially in a high-profile case like
this.”
“Skinner will have an aneurysm,” Scully
affirmed emphatically.
Shore brightened. “Well, how about if I
subpoenaed you? Then you’d have to testify, and your
boss couldn’t be angry. It’s a win-win.”
Mulder looked hopefully up at Scully. She
opened her mouth, closed it, grabbed a pile of
folders, and left the office.
“Well, then,” Shore concluded happily.
Eighth Circuit Court of the Commonwealth
Boston, Mass.
9:22 a.m.
“Obeah is a folk religion of African origin
practiced throughout much of Latin America,” Alan
Shore instructed the jury – an ethnically and
economically eclectic group. “In Brazil, they call it
Umbanda, Condomble de Congo, or Angola. In Jamaica,
they often call it Kumina. In Guyana, Muslims, Hindus,
and Christians use obeah to perform powerful magic and
weave spells.
“Those who practice obeah sometimes help
people with problems concerning their work, romance,
their home life, and health. They can also harm people
upon whom they seek revenge or are jealous of. I
consider myself an educated, enlightened man who
appreciates the cultural folkways of others. So when
my client first told me about this fascinating
cultural phenomenon, my reaction, of course, was that
it was complete crap and that Mark Dutton was a total
looney-bird who was one pill short of a prescription.”
A murmur moved through the galley, and the
jurors pulled straight in their seat.
The lawyer sighed. “My problem, as I
interviewed Mr. Dutton, was that he was clearly not a
looney-bird. He was absolutely convinced that Robert
Delacroix was a practitioner of this religion and that
he had the power to bring disease and death upon his
wife and his child. And, worst of all, Mr. Dutton had
compelling personal evidence upon which to base his
conviction. When Robert Delacroix confronted Mark
Dutton in the lobby of his office building and told
him that he would harm his family, Mark Dutton
believed unequivocally that he would.
“You can choose to believe that obeah is complete
crap. It’s natural for us to view other cultural
beliefs with suspicion or skepticism. But come on:
Look at what we believe. We have any Catholics here?
Mormons? Methodists?”
“Mr. Shore,” Judge Harrod snapped.
“We’ll talk later,” Shore winked at the jury
pool. “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that to be
a bona fide religious belief, entitled to protection
under either the First Amendment, a belief must be
sincerely held. In 1985, the District Court of
Virginia ruled that Wicca – witchcraft — was, quote-
unquote, ‘clearly a religion for First Amendment
purposes.’
“We can all scratch our head or chuckle about the
idea of voodoo dolls or chicken sacrifices or part-
time witches chanting Latin. But I’d like you to
respect one thing: Through a very unorthodox series of
events, Mark Dutton – stockbroker, devoted husband,
loving father – became a true believer in obeah. So
much so that when Robert Delacroix threatened his
family with harm, he viewed that threat with the
seriousness of a gun to his wife and daughter’s heads.
Mr. Dutton’s belief was very, very sincerely held.”
ADA Hill watched Shore return to his seat next
to a sober Mark Dutton, rose with dignity, and
approached the jury box with a benevolent smile and a
shake of his head.
“Mark Dutton first became acquainted with
Robert Delacroix in September, when Mr. Delacroix
picked the defendant up in his taxicab downtown,” Hill
began. “Dutton noticed an amulet hanging from the
victim’s rearview mirror, and, being a basically
amiable man, asked Mr. Delacroix about it. Unbeknownst
to Mr. Dutton, that’s when he became Mr. Delacroix’
mark. Mr. Dutton had no way of knowing that Mr.
Delacroix had a lengthy record of arrests for
conducting a variety of confidence games and
occasionally extorting money from poor suckers who
believed his stories of obeah and witchcraft.
“Delacroix began mysteriously encountering Mr.
Dutton on the street, at the local diner the defendant
frequented, in the lobby of Mr. Dutton’s office
building, offering his services, spells to improve Mr.
Dutton’s health and professional fortunes. By this
time, Mr. Dutton’s interest had waned, and he finally
filed a police complaint against Mr. Delacroix. The
victim was visited by police officers at his place of
employment and, as a result, was terminated by the cab
company.
“Now, this should have been the end of the
story. But Mr. Delacroix wasn’t deterred: He began
haunting the office building where Mr. Dutton worked,
calling Mr. Dutton at all hours both at work and at
home. The snappy patter of the conman gave way to more
ominous hints and innuendoes. Finally, the other shoe
dropped: Mr. Delacroix wanted money to leave Mr.
Dutton alone, and, he implied, to leave Mr. Dutton’s
family alone. Mr. Dutton rejected the offer, and again
called the police. But Mr. Delacroix was good at his
game and there was nothing much the police could do
but once again warn Mr. Delacroix to keep his distance
from Mr. Dutton.
“Then the family cat died. Mr. Dutton’s little
girl came home from school on Halloween, of all days,
to find her beloved pet dead, apparently poisoned.
What frightened the Duttons about their cat’s untimely
death was that the unfortunate animal was found inside
a closed closet within their locked home. Instead of
assuming the animal had ingested some household
cleaner, as was very likely the case, Mr. Dutton
blamed Mr. Delacroix, in fact reported Delacroix had
somehow broken into his home, across town from this
now-unemployed man, without leaving a trace of
evidence. Delacroix had no clear-cut alibi, but the
police had no cause to make an arrest.
“And then, two nights later, the final cruel
twist of coincidence occurred. Brittani Dutton, Mark
Dutton’s 11-year-old child, quit breathing. The
paramedics were called, Brittani was placed on oxygen
and transported to St. Eligius Hospital. She had had
no history of asthma or allergies, and both her
pediatrician and the doctors at St. Eligius were
baffled. And then, two hours later, after Brittani had
become cyanotic, she recovered completely. Later, she
told her parents that it was as if she had forgotten
how to breathe. Whatever happened to his daughter, a
beleaguered Mark Dutton again assumed that his
nemesis, Robert Delacroix, was at the root of it. A
steady campaign of harassment, a stressful situation,
and an unregistered gun Mark Dutton had purchased two
weeks earlier. A recipe for disaster.
“In any event, Mark Dutton had had enough.
With calculation and in cold-blooded rage, he emptied
two .38-caliber bullets into Robert Delacroix’ brain,
then calmly waited for the police.
Roland Hill glanced back at the defendant, a
trim, fit, balding 36-year-old, and shook his head,
this time sadly. “A tragic tale? Certainly. A
cautionary tale for those who would talk too freely to
strangers or who would attempt to prey on the weakness
of others? Absolutely. But people, don’t be taken in
by defense counsel’s fairy tale. Robert Delacroix was
no witchdoctor with mystical powers – he was a
pathetic career felon. Mark Dutton was a fundamentally
decent man driven by urban paranoia to commit murder.
This is neither a religious issue nor a case of self-
defense, as Mr. Shore attempts to assert. The only
constitutional right Mr. Dutton is entitled to is due
process, and the only belief I ask you to subscribe to
that in our basic prohibition on murder.”
Commonwealth Taxi
Boston, Mass.
10:02 a.m.
“And we are here, why, exactly?” Scully
complained as Mulder examined the politically
incorrect, five years out-of-date calendar on the back
wall of the dispatcher’s cubicle. “Mulder, when
Skinner said you were on a tight leash, what precisely
did you think he meant?”
Mulder tore his eyes from the blonde on the
fly-spattered wall. “Look., if I have to testify…”
“Have to?” Scully snorted. “You practically
begged like a schnauzer for a Milk Bone.”
“If I must testify,” Mulder repeated with
dignity, “then maybe it would be good to know if this
is a genuine case of obeah. If it is, then we’re
dealing with an actual X-File. That’s our job right?”
Scully sighed. “I will admit that the
circumstances of the case are very unusual. The
Duttons’ veterinarian could find no specific cause of
death for, ah, Mr. Puffy.”
“And Dr. Erlich at St. Eligius told me they
ran tox screens, allergy tests, blood workups, the
whole routine on Brittani Dutton. Nothing. A healthy
11-year-old suddenly suffers an inexplicable
respiratory episode – after Robert Delacroix hinted
that Dutton’s family was at risk.”
“Down, boy,” Scully breathed as the rail-thin
company manager came back down the hall with a
battered manila folder.
“Bob was bad news day we hired him,” Pat
O’Faolan grunted with a thick, tobacco-filtered Boston
accent, handing Scully the victim’s personnel file.
“The stalkin’ thing, that was just the straw busted
the camel’s balls. He always had some scam workin’ –
shady characters comin’ and goin’, askin’ after him.
Bookies lookin’ for him. Even had his girlfriend
showin’ up here at work. Some classy broad – sorry
there, ma’am – classy young babe. Too sharp to be a
workin’ girl, but definitely not Bob’s type.”
“Better,” Scully murmured. “This girlfriend,
did you get a name?”
O’Faolan sucked a molar and shook his head.
“But I think she mighta been in show business or
somethin’. Swear I seen her somewhere.”
“What about obeah?” Mulder inquired, drawing a
look from both Scully and the cab manager.
“Oh, he followed orders good enough, when he
wasn’t drunk or hung over,” O’Faolan said.
“No. Witchcraft. Did Mr. Delacroix ever
mention having a knowledge of magic or spells?”
He looked disgusted and puffed his stubbled
cheeks. “Always talkin’ how his pop and his grandpop
were some kinda hotshot shamuses back on the island.”
“Shamuses?” Mulder murmured. “Shamans?”
“Yeah, yeah. When he came in a few weeks after
I canned him to get his last check, he told me he knew
a witch more powerful than him would mess my ass up,”
O’Faolan’s grunted. “Said he found a way to cash in on
his voodoo bullshit.”
“Obeah,” Mulder amended.
“Yeah,” Scully yawned. “Obeah bullshit.”
Eighth Circuit Court of the Commonwealth
Boston, Mass.
1:11 p.m.
“At first, I thought he just some kind of lunatic
burnout,” Mark Dutton said nervously, eyes scanning
the crowd in the courtroom galley. “He just started
showing up wherever I was, offering to ‘help’ me. I’d
told him I was a stockbroker, which I guess was a
mistake, and he told me he could help me pick the
right investments, the right time to buy and sell. At
first, I told him I wasn’t interested – you know, I
didn’t think it would be good to upset him.”
“But he didn’t take no for an answer,” Shore
prompted.
Dutton sighed. “No. I finally got fed up and
called the cops, the police. They said he hadn’t
really done anything criminal, that I ought to just
ignore him. Then Delacroix came to me, said I got him
fired. He said I owed him, and if I didn’t give him
‘severance pay’ – that’s how he put it – bad things
would happen. I told him to go to hell.”
“But then, bad things began to happen.”
“Well, the next day, a couple of clients called
and cancelled some fairly large orders. They wouldn’t
explain why, just cancelled. My credit card turned up
missing at lunch, and my car wouldn’t start that
afternoon. Of course, I didn’t think Delacroix was
responsible, but then, it just kept going on.
Misplaced files, small things missing from the office
and at home. I was getting less and less sleep, and
even though I was eating regularly, I noticed I was
starting to lose weight.”
“Then Brittani found the cat.”
Dutton nodded, glancing at his anxious wife,
seated behind his chair at the defense table. “I
remember thinking, he did it. Delacroix. I knew it
sounded absurd, but I couldn’t shake it. By this time,
I’d been reading all about obeah, and there were all
these cases of people getting sick, dying in weird
ways. When we took Brittani to the hospital and they
couldn’t find anything, I knew I had to do something.”
“And what was that?”
“I decided to pay him, Delacroix, off. He wanted
$50,000 to leave us alone. I had well more than that
in some assorted funds, so I liquidated some holdings
for the cash. I had his payment with me the day he
confronted me in the lobby.”
“Refer the court to the item marked Defense
Evidence G – a cashier’s check for $50,000,” Shore
called to the bench. “Why, the next day, didn’t you
simply pay Mr. Delacroix his money and part ways?”
“He wanted more — $100,000,” Dutton related. “He
said the check wasn’t enough for him.”
It was a slight change of phrase from his
original interview with Dutton, but Shore caught it.
“Sorry,” he smiled. “At that point, what did you
tell Mr. Delacroix?”
Dutton’s jaw tightened. “That I’d reached my
limit. That it was $50,000 or nothing. That my family
would not be held hostage. He laughed at me, and said
he was going to give me a demonstration of what would
happen to my little girl if I didn’t come up with
another $50,000. Then he started going into some kind
of trance, mumbling something I couldn’t make out. He
reached into his pocket, I assumed for that amulet he
used to have in his cab. I begged him to stop, but he
kept chanting. Then I remembered the gun. I forgot
where I was for a moment, and I pulled it out. I told
him to stop, I was practically screaming. Then he
grinned at me, and said . . .”
“Yes?”
“And said he wasn’t finished yet, that she
wasn’t finished yet. That’s when I shot him. I
couldn’t let him kill my daughter.”
Alan Shore nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Dutton.”
**
“Detective McGuire,” Roland Hill asked, “what
precisely did you find in the righthand pocket of the
windbreaker Mr. Delacroix was wearing when Mr. Dutton
murdered him.”
“Objection,” Shore sang. “The prosecution’s just
being juvenile, now.”
“Sustained,” Harrod responded through his teeth.
“And I would like future objections to be phrased more
in keeping with the decorum of this court.”
“Absolutely.”
“When Mr. Delacroix was shot,” Hill rephrased,
“what was in his righthand pocket?”
“A cell phone which I entered into evidence,” the
homicide cop stated. “It had been stolen from a
Starbuck’s downtown two weeks earlier and
reprogrammed. We believe Mr. Delacroix purchased it
illegally from a fence.”
“And that was it?” Hill inquired. “No amulets, no
chicken feet, no eye of toad?”
“Your Honor,” Shore sighed. “I strenuously object
to prosecution’s demeaning and borderline racist
characterization of the victim’s religious practices.
His sarcasm, too.”
Hill held up a palm. “Just the phone, Detective?”
“Just the phone,” McGuire said.
“Thank you.”
Shore strolled to the witness box. “Good morning,
Detective. Mr. Delacroix’ cell phone – did it have a
redial feature?”
“Yes.”
“And did you or any of your fellow officers check
the last number Mr. Delacroix dialed?”
“Yes. It was the number for a pay phone at the
corner of Barrington and Freeman Aves., where a
shopping plaza had recently been torn down.”
“And when was this last call placed?”
“At 8:21 a.m. the morning Mr. Delacroix was shot.
Cell phone records established the time.”
Shore smiled. “And could you refresh me on the
time of the shooting?”
“Witnesses fixed it at about 8:25.”
“You checked records for that phone booth Mr.
Delacroix called?”
“Nobody picked up, so there was no record of the
call going through.”
“Now, why do you think Mr. Delacroix might have
been calling a phone booth in an abandoned parking lot
while he reportedly was about to cast a spell on Mr.
Dutton’s daughter?”
“Detective McGuire is not a psychiatrist!” Hill
snapped.
“Psychiatrist?” Shore questioned, raising a brow.
“Never mind.”
Mark Dutton residence
5:15 p.m.
Boston
“No, hon,” Teri Dutton told Brittani gently but
firmly. “I’d like you to stay close to the house until
this is resolved with your dad, OK?”
Brittani, a profusely freckled redhead, started
to scowl, then glanced at Mulder and Scully and nodded
sullenly. The girl bounded into the hall of the two-
story suburban home and up the stairs. Teri sighed and
waved the agents to a tasteful floral couch.
“This has been tougher on Brittani than it has on
me, I think,” Mark Dutton’s wife told the pair. “She’s
somehow got it into her head that if she hadn’t gotten
sick that night, Mark wouldn’t have killed that
horrible man. I suppose I have my share of guilt, as
well: If I’d only seen how bad things were getting
with Mark, maybe I could’ve gotten him into
counseling.”
“I wouldn’t blame myself,” Mulder said,
scanning a collection of framed photos on the coffee
table. “‘Bad’ obeah practitioners are as adept at
conning their victims as they are at sorcery and
spells.”
“Mrs. Dutton,” Scully interjected, “What do
you think happened to your daughter? Could she have
been poisoned or accidentally inhaled or ingested some
toxic substance?”
“She hadn’t eaten anything unusual at school
or at home, and I called some of the other parents
from her school to see if anything was going around I
can’t imagine what it could have been,” Teri said.
“Nothing.”
“How about the cat?”
“Again, I’m mystified. Brittani finding Mr.
Puffy dead that way was one more trauma for her. He
was like a familiar…I mean, a family member.” Teri
paused. “If you don’t mind, why is the FBI interested
in this case?”
“I’m testifying at your husband’s trial,”
Mulder explained. “I’m sort of an expert in obeah,
witchcraft, the black arts.”
“How interesting,” Teri said uncertainly.
The agent picked a photo from the coffee
table. A younger Teri Dutton was surrounded by a group
of beaming women and an older man. “This your family?”
The smile froze on her lips. “Yes.”
“Six sisters? That’s a lot for the Baby Boomer
generation,” Mulder grinned.
“We’re a very prolific family,” Teri supplied.
“You the baby?”
Teri stared at Mulder for a moment. “You’re
very observant. Hey, I better see what Brittani’s up
to. Would you excuse me?”
“Certainly,” Mulder said, watching her move
swiftly to the stairs.
Scully turned to her partner suspiciously.
“What was that all about? The family interrogation?”
Mulder glanced at the now empty staircase, and
grabbed a small 3X5 photo of Teri and Mark from the
table and pocketed it.
“What are you doing?” Scully gasped.
“Possibly getting me out of having to go to
court.”
Eighth Circuit Court of the Commonwealth
Boston, Mass.
Three days later
11:45 a.m.
“We’d like to call Pat O’Faolan,” Alan Shore
announced as his forensics expert left the stand.
“Pat O’Faolan?” Roland Hill posed, flipping
through his legal pad. “I don’t see any Pat O’Faolan
on the list.”
“Yes, Mr. Shore,” Judge Harrod said, a gleam
materializing in his eye. “Who is this O’Faolan?”
Shore didn’t look up from his own pad. “Mr.
O’Faolan would be Robert Delacroix’ former employer.
My apologies for just springing him on the
prosecution, but a boy has to have a few secrets.”
“Mister, you are flirting dangerously with
contempt,” Harrod warned.
The attorney looked up. “And I hoped I was
flirting coquettishly. I believe Mr. O’Faolan should
be able to cast some light on the true nature of this
case, if the court would indulge me.”
“Any other surprise witnesses?” Hill asked.
“Just one of the Duttons’ neighbors, a Tod
Moraine, and then I plan to recall Mrs. Dutton.”
Mulder, sitting in the back row of the galley,
watched Teri Dutton’s head pop up. He quietly exited
the courtroom.”
“All right,” Harrod sighed, grudgingly. “Bring up
your witness, Mr. Shore.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” Shore scanned the galley
and frowned. “The only problem seems to be that Mr.
O’Faolan is not present. May I have a brief recess to
check on him?”
“It’s close to lunch. I want your witness on the
stand at 1:30, or we move on. Clear, Mr. Shore?”
Shore smiled. “Bon appetit.”
As the courtroom cleared, the lawyer corralled
Teri. “Mrs. Dutton, I’d like to have a word with you
in the conference room at the end of the hall. OK?”
“Sure,” she drawled, eyes narrowing.
**
“Hi, Teri,” Fox Mulder greeted as she entered the
dusty conference room. “Have a seat.”
She studied the agent. “Where’s your partner?”
“I sent her on an errand,” Mulder confided. “Just
you and me for a minute or so. We can talk about Tod
Moraine.”
“What are you talking about?” Teri asked
unconvincingly.
“I think you know. In a few hours, that courtroom
will know about you and Tod Moraine. Tod’s already
told me, practically bragged about your little affaire
du suburbia once the cat was out of the bag. Which
reminds me, how did it feel to kill your child’s pet
and then send her to the E.R.?”
“You’re insane. So what if Tod and I had a
relationship? You’ve seen how emotionally unstable
Mark is, how easily manipulated he is. Adultery’s no
crime.”
“But that’s what it was all about. You wanted a
divorce from Mark, but you knew the affair would come
out and screw up your chances of taking him to the
cleaners. That’s when you hatched your little plot
with Robert Delacroix.”
“That two-bit conman?”
“Pat O’Faolan told me Mr. Delacroix’ ‘girlfriend
was an attractive, classy woman who seemed familiar to
him,” Mulder continued. “My guess was he’d seen you on
TV – your husband’s trial has gotten a lot of sweeps
month coverage. He recognized you immediately when I
showed him your photo. What he didn’t realize was that
you and Delacroix weren’t up to hanky-panky, at least
of the romantic kind. You hired him to pick up your
husband, to start up a relationship with him. He was
to harass your husband and then put a little scare
into him.”
The agent took a long breath and loosened his
tie. “The problem, Teri, is that Robert Delacroix is a
complete and utter fraud. His brother, his father, the
detectives who’ve dealt with him, swear the magic gig
is a total con. Before he came to this country,
Delacroix was a busboy at an island resort. I was
right about this case involving genuine witchcraft,
but I didn’t know which witch was which.
“The other day, when I was talking about obeah
and sorcery, you committed a small Freudian slip. When
you told me Mr. Puffy was a member of your family, you
accidentally said she was a ‘familiar’ – a common term
for a witch’s companion, usually an animal. When I saw
that picture of your and your six sisters, I became
curious. And then you told me you were the youngest in
the family, and that your family was very prolific. A
few calls and I found out your mother was also the
youngest of a large group of siblings.”
Teri Dutton stared at Mulder, mute.
“The seventh daughter of a seventh daughter,”
Mulder stated, swallowing. “Seven is a very
significant number in the occult world. According to
ancient myth, the seventh son of the seventh son or
the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter possesses
supernatural powers. It’s a common legend in several
cultures and religions.
“The little misfortunes that befell your husband
after encountering Robert Delacroix were your doing –
who else had the access to his office and home
necessary to sabotage his car and his accounts? But
when you needed the stakes raised to force Mark to
cough up some marital ‘severance pay,’ you needed a
beard, somebody who’d appear to have the power to kill
your pet and make your daughter ill without showing
any detectable medical symptoms. That cell call
Delacroix sent to that phone booth as he was talking
to your husband was a signal to you, to conjure
whatever curse you two had planned next. But Delacroix
finally decided whatever petty percentage of the take
you were offering him wasn’t enough to merit him
losing his job. He thought he could bluff your
husband, but you two had done too good a jo-”
Mulder’s eyes popped as his words choked off.
Suddenly, he stopped breathing. He simply forgot how
to inhale or exhale. The agent looked desperately to
the woman at the other end of the conference table.
Teri smiled serenely at him.
Mulder’s face was turning blue when the door
clattered open and Scully leveled her gun at Teri
Dutton.
“Mrs. Dutton!” Scully yelled. She caught Mulder’s
eye. Even as he struggled for oxygen, her partner
nodded. Scully’s eyes widened momentarily, but she
caught herself and cocked the trigger. “If I have to,
Mrs. Dutton, I will kill you. Let him go. Now.”
Teri’s focus on Mulder broke, and she glared up
at Scully. What she saw made her turn back to Mulder.
He gasped, and oxygen rushed hotly back into his
lungs. Mulder leaned back and gulped gallons of air as
Scully cuffed Teri.
“You think you can sell this fairy tale in
court?” Mrs. Dutton sneered, her cheek on the table.
“Actually,” a voice said from the doorway, “all I
have to establish is that you conspired with Mr.
Delacroix to victimize your husband and that you
somehow tried to poison Agent Mulder here the same way
your daughter almost died.” Alan Shore kneeled next to
Teri’s face. “Jury nullification – when they hear what
you two did to Mark, what you drove him to, the jury
will simply ignore the court’s instructions and bring
in an acquittal.”
The attorney sighed as he looked to a recovering
Mulder. “What a waste: A hot young suburban housewife
who cheats and is into asphyxiation. By the way, how
was it for you?”
Young, Frutt, and Berluti
Two days later
8:23 p.m.
“Voluntary manslaughter, time served,” Ellener
Frutt nodded, settling before Shore’s desk. “I can’t
believe Hill went for a deal this late in the game.”
“He knew there was good odds the jury would cut
Mark loose after Teri confessed,” Alan Shore
suggested. “At the same time, my confidence in jury
nullification was beginning to wane. All in all,
what’s Eugene’s favorite expression? Good outcome.”
The phone warbled, and Shore plucked the receiver
from its cradle. “Pep Boys Attorneys, Shore
speaking…What?…When did–…Do they think…? Yes,
I’ll be right down.”
Ellener regarded Shore’s now-pale expression with
concern. “Alan? Alan, what is it?”
Shore blinked at his friend. “That was county
lockup. They just found Teri Dutton dead in her cell.
It looks like a heart attack.”
“The stress…” Ellener ventured. “You think she
might have been poisoned? Maybe one of Delacroix’
family?”
Shore shook his head. “She only had one visitor
today, about an hour ago. Mark didn’t want to talk to
Teri, so he waited for her.”
“Who, Alan?”
Shore pushed absently from his chair. Ellener
could barely hear him mumble, “Brittani…”
Virtual Season X 