ATTHS_TWICE Because We All Know They Did 😉
Next in the list of prompts: She couldn’t wait to tell him what she’d learned.
Scully sighed as she rubbed her neck and looked back at the microfiche screen in front of her. Drawing in a deep breath, she began to scroll through old newspaper articles, not entirely sure what she was even looking for.
In a small farm town in Baker, Kansas, where the weather was dry and hot, a five year old child had suddenly stopped speaking and began to draw pictures of people and places his parents had never been to or seen.
Davie Piller had been a happy and bubbly child, until one morning, he suddenly stopped speaking, becoming withdrawn and unreachable. When his drawings had turned darker, depicting the possibility of something sinister, Mulder had taken an especial interest.
Davie’s mother had cried as she watched him silently drawing a picture, Mulder attempting to speak to him, but to no avail. It was a man, his figure very black and large, no other color whatsoever, standing beside a smaller figure, also drawn with black, but only ever an unfilled outline.
Over and over, he had drawn the large and small figures, sometimes adding a face and sometimes leaving them blank. Landscapes, buildings, and houses had also been drawn, but none of them were anything his parents recognized.
Mulder had taken the drawings back to the motel, pinning them to the walls and studying them, trying to find the answers to the questions he was certain Davie was presenting to them.
He had grown quiet, like Davie, staring for long periods of time at the drawings, sometimes moving them around like pieces in a puzzle. He had started skipping meals, staying awake for hours on end, his face unshaven and dark. His eyes, when he had actually focused on Scully, were bloodshot and far away.
It had taken her a few attempts to get an answer from him about ordering food for the evening, his response only the shake of his head before he had turned back to the drawings.
Looking at the numerous drawings, she had picked up the most recent one of the two same figures, the larger of which wore a scowl and the smaller appearing scared. Something about the drawing had pulled at Scully, as though she could feel something was changing within them.
A half moon hung behind the figures as they stood beside a house with a red roof and a blue door. Something about it had made goosebumps rise on her arms. Turning to say something to Mulder, she had stared at his back, watching him breathe deeply as he examined the drawing of the ocean, the waves crashing beside the smaller outlined figure.
Deciding to leave him be, knowing he would not notice her absence, she had taken the drawing that made her feel uneasy and left the room. Getting in the car, she had driven absentmindedly until she had seen the local library. Pulling into the parking lot, she had brought the drawing with her and walked inside, asking for access to the microfiche machine.
An hour later, she was still searching. For what, she did not know, but she felt she was being led and she knew the answer was close. It was like a tingle throughout her body, like electricity hovering around the room. It both scared and motivated her.
Scrolling quickly, she suddenly stopped and went back, her heart racing and breath increasing. Stopping on a page, her hand began to shake and she swallowed hard.
There, in black and white, was a picture of the house with the red roof and blue door. Even though it was not in color, she knew it was the right house. Lifting Davie’s drawing, she enlarged the picture on the screen and held the drawing up to it.
“Holy shit,” she whispered as it matched perfectly.
Shaking her head, she set the drawing down and read the reason why that house was photographed in the newspaper.
There had been a kidnapping sixty years ago, of a little boy, four year old Bobby Pullman. He had been taken from his home in the middle of the night and no one ever saw him again. A search had taken place, days and weeks of it, Scully found as she searched further articles. There were pictures of the police officers, hats in hand, their expressions sad and worried.
No news in the horrible child stealing case, the last headline stated and Scully’s heart sank as she shook her head, reading that Bobby’s mother had eventually been taken to a mental institution, her home left abandoned as no one wanted to live in it.
“Jesus,” she breathed, wiping her eyes as she sniffled. “How awful.”
But there was something she was missing. Something somewhere…
Going back, she held the drawing up against the picture again and she examined it closer.
Something…
And then she saw it. A number written so small, and hidden in the drawing of the porch of the house, it would be missed if it had not been matched to the newspaper's picture.
27.
“Twenty seven. Twenty seven,” she murmured with a frown. “What does that mean?”
She set the drawing down and looked at the picture again, skimming the article and looking for a clue.
“Boy taken from his home at eighteen Shaker Street. Eighteen… twenty seven… what if…?”
She jumped up and went to find the librarian, asking if she knew of a resident file of the people who had lived in the area sixty years ago. The librarian lit up and proudly led her to a filing cabinet, telling her that gathering that information about the town had actually been a pet project of her grandmother.
Trying not to appear annoyed at the continued chatter of the woman, telling her more about her grandmother, Scully nodded as she looked through the files, her heart racing as she found the right year. Pulling it out, she opened it and found an alphabetical, detailed list of addresses of the entire town. Names of the people who had owned the homes were there, along with their family. In some cases, there were lists of their family’s family.
Turning until she arrived at the S’s, Scully licked her lips as she searched for Shaker Street. Finding it, she ran a finger down the page until she hit eighteen and saw the Pullman’s name. Letting out a breath, she continued on to number twenty seven and saw one name, with no further entries.
Samuel Wheler.
Breathing deeply, she nodded as she thought, wondering if this could be it, if they had finally cracked it.
Setting the file aside, she looked again, to see if there were any current resident files. Letting out a small laugh of disbelief, she found that there was and she looked at the librarian.
“Your grandmother… she did all this?” she asked as she opened the file and saw that the resident listing had changed and was now by person in the area and not by the property held.
“She did,” the librarian said proudly as Scully turned to the W’s and drew in a breath as she saw Samuel Wheler’s name, listing him at an apartment downtown.
“Well,” Scully said, taking out her notepad and quickly writing down the address. “She may have just solved a very old unsolved case. When it's certain, when I know more, I’d really like to thank her.”
“Oh, wow,” the librarian said, a hand at her throat. “I’ll tell her. She’ll be very happy to hear that, I can assure you.”
“She should be,” Scully said with a happy smile. “I have to go, but I’ll be in touch.”
She hurried from the room, stopping only to grab Davie’s drawing, and then ran out of the library. Taking out her phone, she dialed Mulder’s number with shaking fingers.
She could not wait to tell him what she’d learned.
____________
“Samuel Wheler took Bobby Pullman from his home because he had lost his wife and child in childbirth?” Skinner asked a week later in his office and Scully nodded with a glance at Mulder.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “He had seen the boy many times, living so close to him, and he felt it unfair that he didn’t have a child when Bobby’s mother was alive and healthy with her son. Bobby’s father had died before he was born, but Samuel didn’t seem to take that into consideration. He only saw how he had been wronged and left alone.”
“He saw himself as a savior,” Mulder spoke up, his voice gravelly. He cleared his throat and nodded at Scully. “Thought he was saving the boy, taking him places and giving him what he would have given his own son and what he felt Bobby should have had.”
“By taking him from his mother?” Skinner asked gruffly.
“Yeah,” Scully said softly.
“Fuck,” Skinner breathed and Scully nodded. “And Davie Piller?”
“He was a conduit of sorts,” Mulder said. “He… well…”
“He was of similar age to Bobby,” Scully said, trying to soften what Mulder was about to say.
“I believe he was visited by Bobby,” Mulder stated, clenching his jaw. “But, he’s a child and he didn’t understand what he was seeing. His drawings were the clues and if Agent Scully hadn’t made the connection, I believe he would still be suffering from those images.” He glanced at Scully and she sighed as she gave him a tight smile.
“Samuel Wheler killed and buried Bobby not far from the Piller’s property, which had been large empty fields back then. The Piller’s had recently moved into the home and it wasn’t long before Davie started drawing the pictures,” Scully added and Skinner sighed with a shake of his head. “It seems that, as unbelievable as it may sound, Bobby was leading us to his killer through Davie.”
Mulder shifted beside her but said nothing, his head down as he looked at his hands folded in his lap.
“It does sound unbelievable, and yet…” Skinner said, sighing again. “Why kill him though? Why not stay away? Live by the ocean? Or in a new town?”
“He said,” Scully began, thinking about eighty five year old Samuel, thin and nearly folded in on himself as he sat in the interrogation room, handcuffed to the table, his voice ancient. “He said that Bobby wouldn’t stop crying for his mother. That he had taken him places, showed him things he would have wanted to share with his son, but Bobby only cried and wanted his mom. He grew irritated with him and decided to come back. He had intended to return him and explain why he had taken him. He thought a widow like Mrs. Pullman, would understand the feeling of his deep and lonely sadness. But reality set in when they had come back into the area and driven into the neighborhood. He saw police at her home and he kept driving, not knowing what to do. He knew he would go to jail, or meet a worse fate. So, he drove out past the town and made Bobby drink some of the whiskey he had. When he passed out, he suffocated him.”
“Jesus Christ,” Skinner said, rubbing a hand across his mouth.
“He buried Bobby there along with any evidence that he’d had of him. He sold his house not long after and moved into a smaller home in town. No one ever suspected him of anything. He’d been rather reclusive after his wife and son died, and people felt sorry for him. They never thought for a second he was capable of what he did.”
“All that time though… he lived there. Why didn’t he leave? Go live somewhere else?” Skinner asked and Scully shook her head with a sigh.
“I don’t know. But, I think he was a goddamn coward,” Scully said, her anger rising to the surface. “He never had to pay for his sins, not properly anyway, not the way that was right. All that time… Bobby’s mother suffered and died in that institution. She never found her son, never knew if he was dead or alive, and Samuel sat in silence and let that happen.”
“Well,” Skinner said with a deep sigh and a nod. “He will pay for it now. It’s sixty years too late, and too late for Mrs. Pullman, but at least it’s something.” He smiled kindly at them and they nodded back, Scully glancing at Mulder as she did. “You did good work. Both of you.” Skinner’s gaze rested on Mulder a moment longer than Scully and she watched his jaw clench.
“I’m just glad Davie is free from the bad visions and is back to speaking again. With time, and with his parents' help, he will most likely forget it ever even happened.”
“Hopefully,” Skinner agreed as Scully sighed, looking down at the floor with a nod.
“Hopefully,” she echoed, her heart heavy as the the room fell silent.
