"Thanks, Dean. I was just making sure they didn't miss anything important." Sam said, trying too hard to sound modest, and Dean knew it. Sam was a Zen Master of the 'humble-brag'.
"C'mon, Sammy, you made Boris and Natasha's eyes bug out when you laid your cards on the table. It was a bold move. I liked it! Did you see the look on that guys' face?" He said, before taking a huge bite out of another double cheeseburger. The very same 'gut bomb' variety that Sam was now thankfully free of. It was like Dean could eat roadkill... raw, if he had to, and not so much as a gassy ride to the drug store for Pepto as a consequence. Sam both envied Dean and gagged at the thought.
"Yeah, I guess I kinda did." Sam said, shedding the false modesty he'd worked so hard to perfect. It's hard being the smartest person you know all the time. Which he often found was cold comfort when his plans always seemed to go bad in some way or another. He chalked it up to being a glutton for punishment. Dean chalked it up to him being a dumbass who makes really shitty decisions and always for the wrong reasons. But then, Dean was no role model when it came to good decision making either, it seemed.
"Take a look at this, Dean." Sam said half-excitedly. "I think I've found something." He pushed his laptop around in a semicircle on the card table he was sitting at that came with the room so the screen now faced where Dean sat in the kitchenette eating his normal daily allowance of nineteen thousand empty calories of beef, cheese, beer, and grease. All he was missing was a piece of cherry pie. "According to this, there is a string of dead bodies, just like our victim, that runs across the entire bible belt. But it seems to be most concentrated around farmland. So I cross-referenced the data that Agents Scully and Mulder shared with us, which wasn't much (and let's be honest, who could blame them?), with this site on unexplained phenomenon and all the signs line up. There is something kidnapping people and dropping their headless, cauterized bodies in creeks and rivers and streams all across the area marked on this map." He showed Dean where each of the sixty-three bodies, all matching the vague description of "decapitated body found in stream/river/creek/lake..." on the map that his internet search had turned up. Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, just to name a few. All with unusually complete descriptions and high definition crime scene photos of the event in vivid technicolor. Sam was also a Zen Master of Google-Fu.
Agents Mulder and Scully, whom were currently working with the local Sheriff's Department, weren't having as much luck as the brothers.
"Sheriff Taylor, the scars on her body weren't recently made, or she was born with them, and they weren't scars at all. They were just as pliable as the rest of her skin, and retained the same levels of plasticity. If there's nothing weird going on here, how do you explain that?" Agent Scully said after trying to learn all she could about the little girl they'd been assigned to bring justice for.
"I'm sorry, Agent Scully, but that's all we have on file here. If you want, you can head over to the County Records Office on 5th Street and look through the stacks and stacks of hardcopies until your heart's content, but that's absolutely everything our records have to offer." said the exasperated Sheriff Taylor.
"Not surprising, a Sheriff's office conveniently not having any records on hand..." Mulder quipped, implying he smelt a whiff of corruption or cover-up or both in the air. A scent he knew well. At least, he thought he did. Or at least, he thought he did.
"I assure you, Agent Mulder, our records are kept with as much integrity as any other system's." Sheriff Taylor said curtly.
"What I mean is, why aren't these decapitation cases being investigated as we speak? Why hasn't a nation-wide manhunt been issued for this obvious serial killer? I mean, kids losing their heads sounds like something you'd hear about on the evening news, right? So where are the news vans? The cameras? The candle-lit vigils? You don't find that odd, Sheriff?" Mulder said. He really had a knack for cutting through all the bullshit with his summations.
"Well, Mr. Mulder, I can't speak for the folks on the Channel Six News, but we are doing everything in our power to find whoever is doing this to the good folks of Cross Creek." He said, and turned to enter his office, shutting the door behind him as he crossed behind his desk. "He resisted the urge to slam it." Mulder thought to himself, but what he said aloud was, "Agent. Agent Mulder."
"Antagonizing him isn't going to solve this case Mulder." Scully scolded. But she was right about the apparent 'scar' tissue of the victim. There was a pattern there, she just couldn't tell what it was. Maybe a language of some sort. Maybe pictographs? She didn't know. But she was willing to bet that the Winchesters might.
"I know, but it makes me feel better. Besides, He's hiding something. I can feel it, Scully." Mulder said. What he though he was feeling was an acute case of food poisoning. He would avoid vending machine food for the next couple of weeks just to be safe. He would soon wish he had decided that a day earlier. Fortunately, it was a mild inconvenience to him, at best. He'd basically been traveling the country, investigating strange happenings and weirdnesses for the last few years. Sleeping in seedy motels, living out of a suitcase, eating diner food, paying extra for one-hour Martinizing. He really needed to exercise more. There was no way his paunchy gut was ever going to get back to his washboard abs of his yesteryears at this rate. Portion control just wasn't enough, and eating healthy on the road was nigh impossible. Maybe he'd get a chance to go to the gym before they left Cross Creek for Quantico? Who knows...
"Well, we've looked through these files twice, each, and there's nothing in here that suggests a suspect, a motive, or even a murder weapon. All we know now that we didn't know ankle deep in creek water is the victims' names and addresses. And, unless we can somehow find a connection that links them together, we've got no leads at all."
"We've got this." Mulder said, holding up a frayed and folded business card with a hand written phone number on it that read "Winchester 913-316-6166".
They met at the local diner, Shirley's, to discuss what each of them had found out. The boys, having the only solid leads, did most of the talking, for obvious reasons.
"So, Dean and I found a map that basically shows all the locations a decapitated body has been reported 'dumped in a body of water'." Sam started the conversation off with.
"Yeah, all across the bible belt. Like a weird 'headless rapture' or something. Freaky." Dean said, shaking his head rapidly to clear out the images that he'd just been thinking about.
"And we think the connection is the victims' parents." Sam said, being intentionally vague in an effort to allow the Agents to share their own input, to no avail.
"What do you mean, their parents? You think the parents had something to do with these kids' murders?" Mulder asked, not buying it.
"No, 'Agent Smartass'" Dean said, losing his patience with Mulder's attitude. "What we're saying is that they were killed because their parents all have the same thing in common."
"Dean." Sam said, pleading with his eyes that his brother might shut up before he ended up getting shot by the FBI.
"No. I'm sorry, Sam, but this douchebag has been sassing me since he met me. Now, 'The Incredulous Mr. Fox', here, needs to shut the hell up and pay attention, or we'll work this case on our own."
"But, Dean..." Sam said, hoping Dean hadn't gone too far.
"But nothin', Sammy. Look at them! You bring two folders a foot thick to this dive, no offense," he said to all those within earshot who may have disagreed with him casting the establishment in a bad light, "to discuss a case and they both show up empty handed." He continued, "They got nothin'. No leads. They got squat. And they know it. That's why they called us. They set up this meeting. When we first walked in, I thought they were gonna have the cops surround the place and haul us in for the impersonation thing, then I thought they were stalling so the cops could get into position, but no. They're letting you do all the talking, and they ain't spoken two words between them about this case since sitting down." Dean said, nailing them to the wall.
"Dean, I don't think..." Sam tried.
"That's right Sam. You don't think. They need US. Not the other way around. Isn't that right, Red?" Dean tightened the screws, choosing not to let Agent Scully think she was going to escape his judgment unscathed. He was fed up with having to do all the work all the time while everybody else pussy-footed around trying to be polite with one another so no one's feelings got hurt. They were tracking monsters to kill, for Christ's sake! "Dead weight, both of 'em." he thought.