Title: Cognac and Roses
Author: Paul Wartenberg

Thanks, Peggy Mei-Ling Li

based on a Sept. 1990 LIFE article by Gary Smith

Summary: Waiting in a graveyard to witness a mysterious ritual, Mulder begins to tell Scully stories about Edgar Allan Poe...

~*~

January 18th, 11:21 pm
Baltimore, MD
Westminister Burying Grounds

Scully was bothered not just by the chill in the air but also by 
the chill of the masonry she was sitting on. Even though she was sitting 
inside of a church, she was perched near a window, looking out over a 
darkened cemetery. Next to her was a camera set up with the essential 
night-time photography equipment: infrared film, zoom lens powerful 
enough to focus on a fly at a thousand paces, etc. etc. yatta yatta. In 
the distance, she could hear the voices of the others who had come this 
night sitting at other windows. Mikey was sitting with Frohike and Byers 
on the upper decks, working the video cameras. A noticeable draft was 
coming through the windowsill. Scully wrapped her jacket tighter around 
herself.

"Here. Have something warm." Mulder walked up, offering a cup 
of hot tea, a taste he had acquired during his travels. Scully 
gratefully took the cup and gently sipped it, allowing the heat from the 
liquid to warm her face.

"Mulder?" Scully asked. "What exactly are we doing here?"

Mulder smiled, sat down next to her, and told a tale.

It was my first year at the Academy. I was doing the usual 
training on gunmanship, fieldwork, criminology. I was zooming through 
everything, blowing grading scales everywhere. Half of the trainees 
hated me for scoring so high; the other half were copying notes over my 
shoulder.

I had developed a real attitude about why I wanted to be an 
investigator. I wanted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. I 
didn't take facts straight up, or just those facts related to the cases. 
I dug for every detail. Oh, I kept the messy stuff from the final 
reports, but you should have seen the pile of papers I left in my wake.

One of my trainers took notice. The guy supervising the training 
grounds that year was Cole. You could never sell him any b.s. and he 
knew I had a habit of digging out every detail. He also found out I was 
a huge fan of Poe.

I actually got into Poe because of Doyle. One of my grandfathers 
had passed on some of his Sherlock Holmes books, including the first 
story, "Study in Scarlet." There was a chapter where Sherlock and Watson 
are talking about other literary detectives, including Poe's Dupin. 
Doyle had a bit of nerve to pass some critical remarks about the 
character. It stoked my interest and led me to read "Purloined Letter." 
That led to everything else.

Cole one day told me he was a huge fan of Poe's as well, and had 
even published a critique of his gothic horror stories. Then he told me 
about this place. Poe's burial site. And he told me what happened to Poe.


"What was that?" Scully said, sipping some more tea.

Poe was traveling back north that year in 1849 to New York, 
where he was planning to get on with his life after his wife's tragic 
death. He had stopped off in Baltimore that September to change 
transport, but somehow he disappeared for four days until he was found 
dying in a street gutter. The clothes he wore weren't his own and he was 
screaming the name of a man called Reynolds, which didn't match to anyone 
he had known or written about.

Nobody knows what happened to him those four days.

He was buried here, once in a small grave in a far corner of the 
plot and later at a larger tomb near the center of the graveyard.

The thing Cole told me that got my interest was the event that 
occurs every night on the anniversary of Poe's birthday, which is in 
fifteen minutes. Ever since 1949, a hundred years after his death, 
someone has left three red roses and a bottle of cognac at one of the two 
sites. The identity of the individual has never been determined, nor has 
any reason for the visit been given.

"Well, it's obvious," Scully replied. "It's a tribute."

"Yes, but what kind of tribute?" Mulder asked. "Why three roses 
and why red? Why cognac? Poe wasn't an alcoholic, he rarely drank and 
drank little. Who wants to do it? A literary fan or group of fans? A 
secret society? Fraternity prank? Not exactly Delta House's style. Why 
can it be left at either of the gravesites, and without any discernible 
pattern? And it's been going on for fifty years, maybe longer.

"Anyways, as I was saying..."


I was thrilled. Cole not only told me about it but also gave me 
a chance to be at the cemetery that year to help record the event. I 
didn't want to record. I wanted to capture. I had a mystery to solve.

It was the third time in my life up to that moment I had stayed a 
night in a graveyard. There were five others there, including the 
curator. It was the first time I met Byers and heard of the Lone Gunmen.

My duty was to watch over the large site in the middle of the 
yard. I had read up on his earlier visits and had figured the man would 
go to that site. Instead of waiting inside the church and take pictures, 
I waited outside in the yard, close to the site and eager to physically 
nab the guy. Three hours past midnight, the curator came by to tell me 
the visit occurred at the small site.

Next year, I really planned the whole thing out. I mapped the 
entire graveyard, charted all routes in, out, and between the sites. I 
measured out the best place to view the two sites and waited there. Know 
what? I didn't see him until he was at the large site. I ran there, and 
we had a pretty good chase. I can still picture him, one hand to his hat 
and one to his jacket, with his scarf blowing about in the cold night 
air. We skirted through the graveyard, jumping over the lower stones and 
dodging around the statues. I chased him into the street, where I lost 
him.

Cole was really disappointed in what I was doing, especially 
since I wasn't doing what I was sent to do. I had to admit it was 
frustrating at that point.


"Must still be frustrating, Mulder," Scully replied. "We're 
sitting here, waiting for him. I had wondered how obsessed you can get 
to solve a case, but this is ridiculous."

Mulder smiled and stood. "I'll need to get another cup. It's 
past midnight. Keep a steady hand on the camera just in case." He 
walked off to the kitchen.

Scully yawned and stretched, then glanced at her watch. She sat 
there in silence, as the others have either moved into position for the 
wait or were in the kitchen area.

It was 12:32 when Scully saw some movement in the cemetery about 
three rows of tombstones away from the small gravesite. She opened the 
window all the way and got behind the camera to take some shots. It was 
then a really odd thought crossed her mind. It was silly, really, but 
she couldn't ignore it.

She ran quickly to the nearest door and headed out to the cemetery.

Scully stepped briskly between the rows of gravestones, watching
her step to avoid tripping. Clouds were swirling swiftly across the night
sky, obscuring any moonlight. The church lights were rather dim from this
distance, making the ground uneven and uncertain. She had no flashlight;
one of the curator's rules.

There was enough light from the church and the streets in the 
distance to help Scully see the statues and the higher grave markers. 
She also knew which direction to go through the graveyard; she had seen 
movement at the larger gravesite.

The grass had grown high between the closer stones, and the winds 
blew the reeds across the surfaces of ancient names and symbols. The 
rustling was all about her, and Scully could not be sure if there were 
sounds of person walking close to her.

She suddenly hit her left foot against something hard, and fell 
to the ground. Scully put her hands out to brace for the impact, and 
barely missed hitting her head against the corner of a raised marker. 
She caught the name on the marker in the dim lighting, and shivered; she 
stood up, refusing to believe in coincidences, and slowly stepped away 
from the burial site of an old enemy long dead.

She soon came across the large gravesite for Poe. There were no 
roses or bottles. There was a hat. Scully picked it up, and found 
inside the rim a piece of paper. Holding the paper up to the church 
light behind her, she tried to read the message.

"Take a big bleeping guess."

She gasped and turned quickly. A man in a dark trenchcoat and 
patterned scarf disappeared around a tall statue three rows away.

Scully began running after the man, as fast as she could through 
the dark treacherous passages, between the ancient shapes about her. The 
wind blew her hair across her face, and whipped the collars of her coat 
around her neck. She spotted the scarf, blowing in the wind; but as she 
ran toward it, she realize it wasn't moving away from her. She tripped 
again and fell forward when she suddenly saw someone in front of her.

Mulder caught her and helped Scully to her feet. "Scully, be 
careful where you run around here. Some of these graves have curses for 
those who run over them."

Scully tried to catch her breath. "Mulder, over there. Behind you."

Mulder turned and walked toward the scarf, draped over a memorial 
made of two statues leaning against each other. He unwrapped it from the 
female statue and handed it to Scully.

She moaned in disbelief. "Damn..."

There was a bright flash behind her, and both Scully and Mulder 
turned to see Frohike move in with his camera. "Guys, standing there 
like that with those statues behind you was too easy a shot to pass up."

"Frohike," Mulder scolded him. "Go join the others."

Frohike shrugged and turned away. Scully looked to Mulder and 
noticed he wasn't wearing his coat. "Mulder, what are you doing out here 
without..."

Mulder took the scarf from her hands and wrapped it around his 
neck. "I saw you had left the window, so I figured you saw the man. I 
chased after you to make sure you weren't getting lost."

He shivered in the blustery wind. "If only there was a big 
floppy hat I could wear." He looked down and saw Scully still had the 
hat in her hands. "Oh, great."

He grabbed the hat and placed it lopsidedly on his head. "Now I 
can go as my favorite Time Lord."

Mulder and Scully walked slowly to the far corner of the 
cemetery. "I guess he left his memorial at the small one this year," 
Scully said.

"Yup," Mulder answered. "Byers won the bet we had."

"I'm sorry if I scared him off..."

"Hey, I mighta chased after him, too..."

"What about you? You're out here without your coat..."

"Byers has it."

They walked in silence for a minute. Scully thought of 
something. "Do you even try anymore? To find out who he is?"

Mulder didn't answer. Instead he asked, "Why did you try to find 
out who he is?"

Scully shrugged. "You weren't at the window. I was...I thought 
you might want me to find out."

"Is it a question of what I might want to know? Maybe you wanted 
to know. Find some answers."

Scully stopped in her tracks. "It sounds like you're accusing me 
of something."

Mulder smiled. "I'm not accusing you of anything, except for the 
possibility of being like a lot of other people who like to solve puzzles 
once in a while." He kept walking, and Scully caught up a second later.

They arrived at the gathering at Poe's smaller gravestone, a 
simple bare rock save for a carved raven in a circle at the top of the 
marker. The curator held in one hand a lantern, while Byers was pouring 
out some of the cognac to those who weren't designated drivers that 
night. Three red roses sat separately on the ground, one almost touching 
the base of the stone.

The curator pulled out a book of Poe's poetry, and began to read 
"Dream-Land." Mulder gratefully took his coat from Byers and put it on. 
Scully noticed Mulder wiping his right hand thumb against his left 
sleeve, and turned to watch the others read from the poetry book. When 
her turn came, she refused the poetry and instead asked for a book of 
stories, from which she "The Tell-Tale Heart," which everyone accepted as 
a good choice.

It was late at night as Scully rode with Mulder back to D.C. 
Mulder had some Bach on his tapedeck. She reached over and turned off 
the radio. "Mulder, pull the car over."

Mulder slowly moved the car to the side of the road. "Scully, is 
something wrong?"

"Let me see your hand," she said, pulling his right hand to her. 
"Turn on the light."

With the dashboard light, Scully could see where Mulder had 
pricked his thumb with the thorn of a red rose.

Mulder looked sheepishly at Scully. "I've heard a wise man tell 
me that admitting you're a hypocrite is the most honest thing you can do."

"You knew...You knew all along!" Scully shoved Mulder's hand away 
from her. She reached into the back seat to grab the floppy hat Mulder 
had kept from that night's adventures. She quickly used it to whip 
Mulder across the back of his head.

"Okay! Okay!" Mulder conceded. "Don't you want to know what
happened?" 

Scully stopped hitting him with the hat, and shook her head in 
disgust. "Yes," she finally said. "I want to know."

Mulder nodded and told her of the third night he waited for the 
man at the cemetery.


I came to the realization there was no way I could catch him in 
the graveyard. He knew the grounds better than I did. The only way I 
could catch him was with help, but the curator refused to let me form a 
team. So I had to figure others ways.

I realized one day he had to drive to the site or at least get a 
ride there. So I knew a good way to find him was to check the cars 
parked near the graveyard.

I was able to borrow some infrared goggles from the academy, and 
instead of volunteering to stay the night in the cemetery I went on my 
own. I walked the streets and scanned the cars to see which had warm 
engines. I also saw a few people walking the streets that night, but I 
knew a direct confrontation would do no good.


"Especially when you were wearing those goggles," Scully 
smirked. "Those things were...spooky back in those days."

"Actually," Mulder answered. "I got three marriage proposals 
that night." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder..."


Anyways, I found five cars that night with warm engines. With 
access to police records I was able to match the license plates to actual 
residences. Then I went to each place, checking to see who might be 
interested in Poe. I found him at the fourth address.

He was actually waiting for me. He saw me strolling the streets 
that night and figured I was looking for license plates. By the time I 
had gotten to his home, it was late, and he invited me in for dinner. He 
was a very good cook, and a gracious guest.

During dinner we talked little. I asked him about his 
profession, his family, other things except for the `why.' I had time, 
and I figured I could ask after dinner. He was very forthright in his 
responses. As far as I know, he never lied to me that night.

After dinner, we strolled to his reading room. Each wall was 
covered with book shelves, except for a few spots where he hung paintings; 
dark, moody pieces of art. We sat and talked.


"Did you ask those questions?" Scully wondered.

"Not really," Mulder answered. "We told horror stories."


"I received a call late one night from a friend," the man 
started. "He was an artist of rather good reputation, known for colorful 
abstracts and portrait works. He was distraught, upset, ranting about 
the loss of his wife and the end of his art.

"I went as fast as I could to his studio, atop an empty, decayed 
building on the edge of the downtown area. In the stairwell, I saw 
streaks of red, blue and black against the walls, where fingers and 
paintbrushes had gone against the surfaces. As I went up the stairs, the 
streaks became abstract forms, and then the forms became 
faces--screaming, tormented faces.

"I found him sitting alone in the large room of the studio, 
surrounded by finished and unfinished works. The floor was covered in 
trash; the refrigerator door was open, the light glaring off the empty 
racks. Above my friend hung a rope, tied into itself with thirteen knots.

"I grabbed a chair and sat with him under the gallows. We talked 
in hushed tones. He said his wife told him weeks ago of an affair she 
had with another man, but she had broken it off when the man's attitude 
was worsening. Even though he was shocked, he still loved her and agreed 
to try and fix the relationship. But the man showed up and demanded she 
go with him.

"I asked what happened. `She...she went with him,' he said. He 
then tried to explain how he tried to get on with his work, and waved 
absent-mindedly at the works surrounding us as we sat under the noose.

"One was an almost pure blue, with black dots in the far left
corner far too small to see individually but with enough of them to darken
that corner. The next was a swirling pattern, a complete mess. The next
painting was more disturbing, that of a face in a shattered mirror, with
each aspect of the face in a shard, with blue tears at the corners of each
shard. The other paintings were too unsettling to describe fully; for I
recognized his wife's face in each one. One unfinished piece had her
grappling with the edge of the painting, and it looked like the edge was 
cutting her hand.

"I asked him if he was responsible for the artwork on the walls 
of the stairwell. He shook his head and looked surprised. He didn't 
know about that, and told me he hadn't left the studio for days.

"I was able to get him away from his seat and took him to the 
hallway. As we came to the more detailed work near his studio, he 
silently put his hand to one of the faces, a black, smeared image. He 
traced the dark lines that came from that face down the hall and into the 
stairwell.

"He never acknowledged anything I asked of him about this work, 
except for the occasional burst of tears that came as we moved down the 
stairs. As we got to the ground floor, we heard a car pull up. We went 
to a window and saw two police detectives stepping out of their car.

"He went berserk then, screaming his wife's name. I began to 
realize then what had happened. I grabbed him and shouted for him to 
tell me what really happened to his wife. `She went with him! I swear 
to God she went with him!' he screamed as he broke away from me and ran 
up the stairs.

"I followed him back to the spot outside his studio where the 
painted faces were staring out in mute terror. His hands were again on 
the dark face and I realized to my horror it was his wife's, her smeared 
blood making an imprint on the wall.

"He told me then what happened. The man arrived one night, 
violently demanding she go with him. She refused. He grabbed her and 
beat her, dragging her from the studio. My friend stood there, finding 
himself unable to move or do anything. His wife cried out his name, and 
he could hear her screaming for help as she was smashed against the walls 
and carried away.

"`I...I...,' my friend tried to speak. I could say nothing at 
all. I heard the police coming up the stairs and I turned to call them 
upstairs. When I turned back around, my friend had run back into his 
studio. I followed him inside and saw him standing on the chair, his 
hands placing the noose around his nack.

"He looked at me for the last time. `I loved her!' he shouted, 
just before he kicked the chair away.

"The police were coming to inform him they had found his wife, 
battered and bloody, wandering the streets of the neighborhood where her 
abusive lover had taken her. She had escaped by smashing her way through 
the door of the basement where she was kept for weeks.

"She never regained any level of sanity, even when I visited her 
years after the incident. She talked rarely, and if she did she asked 
for her husband. No one ever told her what finally happened. The man 
was sent to jail but only served half his sentence. I saw him once, a 
while back.

"I never found out how the walls were painted to cover the 
streaks of blood left by her struggle. It doesn't matter now, for the 
building is gone. My friend's painting were sold at a substantial value, 
except for that one hanging right behind you."

I turned to see the blue painting with the dark corner. I 
noticed there were two dark streaks, like teardrops, in the center of the 
painting, but I didn't ask then how they got there.


"How sad," Scully whispered. "And you say he never lied to you 
that night?"

Mulder nodded silently.

"What was your ghost story?" she asked.

He looked at her with a pained expression. "You already know 
that one."


When I finished telling the nightmares I had of my sister, he 
silently nodded and rose from his chair. He showed me then the books he 
had on the shelves. There was Lovecraft in one corner, and in a glass 
container on that shelf was a book he jokingly said he got from the 
Vatican Library. Another shelf was Doyle, another shelf was Verne.

One entire wall was devoted to Poe. He talked about Poe as he 
waved his hand over those books, gently caressing a few of the older, 
more cherished tomes. He talked about how Poe would recite his poetry at 
gatherings and performances. At one point he pulled a book out of a row 
of Poe's collected literary criticisms and read from them as though they 
were scripture.

When he finished reading from the book, he gently placed it back 
on the shelf and quietly walked from the room. I followed him back to 
the kitchen where he was pouring two glasses of wine. He handed one to 
me and offered a toast. We toasted to absent friends.

When we drank the wine, he finally asked me, "Well, Mr. Mulder, 
do you want me to tell you now why I honor Mr. Poe?"

I suddenly felt guilty, and I didn't know what to say. He asked 
me something else. "I should ask you if know what you're going to do now."

That was when I learned.


"Learned what?" Scully asked.

"I learned the value of truth," Mulder answered. "Here it was, I 
had solved a mystery, but what had I really done? I could have gone from 
that place and revealed everything, who it was, and why flowers and 
cognac were left every year. But I realized it was a private matter for 
this person, who loved Poe more than I could ever love anything else. 
Would it ruin him to reveal what I had found?"

Mulder shook his head. "Before that, I would have gone out and 
solved every puzzle the world would offer me. But I had never put any 
value on those puzzles, or how solving them would affect other people."

"I don't know, Mulder," Scully replied. "You're still pretty 
obsessed about..."

"I know," he answered. "But all those cases where I pushed it 
all to the extremes, I knew what was important, that what we were finding 
and revealing are important. Finding killers, stopping dangerous 
experiments..."

"Hunting UFOs..."

"Yes," he said quietly, "Even that. Because even that is 
important. Finding out we are not alone in the universe would arguably 
change all of humanity, our values, our technology, our lives. That does 
have meaning and I have a high value on that.

"But I had to learn, and I did learn, that I have to judge the 
necessity of finding the truth. And sometimes I may go overboard, and 
take an extreme theory to the limits of possibility, but that's my job, 
my nature. The truth is out there, Scully, but it's the valuable truths 
I have to search for."

"Besides," Mulder smiled as he started the car and pulled it away 
from the side of the road. "There's no harm in keeping a few secrets 
yourself. After all, I do know what the Colonel uses for his secret 
original recipe, and you haven't seen me revealing that little tidbit, 
have you?"

"Did you ever find out why?" Scully asked.

"I never asked."

"So why are you delivering the tributes now? Did he die? Or was 
this some sort of initiation ritual to join some really bizarre 
robe-wearing cult?"

"No. He was ill this year, so he asked me for a little favor. I 
owed him one, since he was the one who recommended I get therapy about 
what happened to my sister."

Mulder drove the car in silence for a few miles, then asked 
Scully, "Well, you know a few secrets now. What will you do?"

"What? You mean, what my judgment is about all these secrets 
you and this guy have about Poe? Whether or not you're an jerk for 
leading me on when you knew all the time?"

"Uh...yeah."

"I've decided to bring a thicker jacket next year."


The End


Once again, thanks to Peggy. Also thanks to Gary Smith, who 
wrote the LIFE article. Happy hellos to all Poe fans (especially 
you-know-who ;-), )

Although based on actual incidents, this story is fiction. Most
characters appear in real life only at conventions and mall events. Any
correlation between these characters and actual persons is purely
coincidental, unless your lawyers can prove otherwise.