The Bicoastal, Bilocated Fly-By Murder Case By Martin Ross fwidsvnt@ilfb.org Category: Columbo/X-Files crossover Rating: PG-13 for language Summary: When America's top horror writer scares up a murderous doppelganger, Lt. Columbo summons Special Agent Fox Mulder to help bring a supernatural killer to justice. Disclaimer: I dedicate this paean to the inverted mystery to Chris Carter and Mssrs. Levinson and Link, the creators of two of my favorite investigators. The Bicoastal, Bilocated Fly-By Murder Case Vista del Sol Hotel Beverly Hills 9:34 p.m. Lt. Columbo meditated as the M.E.'s people hauled away the remains of America's departed New Crown Prince of Horror (New York Times). The homicide detective gazed across the now- deserted deck of the Vista del Sol's Olympian pool at the hotel's luxurious lobby, his eyes suddenly alighting. Raincoat flapping, he corralled the distressed hotel manager, who'd been simultaneously mourning the loss of one of his favorite celebrity guests and contemplating how he'd communicate the attending unfavorable publicity to the Vista's German-French ownership consortium. "Mr. Martel?" Columbo inquired, cautiously. The manager looked up -- the odd little policeman already had asked about his $76 handmade, imported Italian silk designer tie. "You said Mr. Prinze had had dinner in the hotel restaurant about an hour or so before he fell into the pool." Martel blinked away his corporate anxieties. "Yes, yes, that's right, Lieutenant. The maitre'd said he had the canard l'orange, orange duck, our specialty du jour." Columbo looked baffled by what seemed a litany of French. "Ah, yes, sir. Well, let me ask you this." "Absolutely." "See, I had to be in court today, and I didn't get a chance to grab any lunch or nothing. You guys serve chili? Cause I could sure go for a bowl right about now." Martel paled. "I'm afraid today's soup du specialte is a chilled cream of cucumber with tarragon." "Ah." Columbo nodded sadly. "Bacon cheeseburger?" "I believe there's a Jack-in-a-Box a few blocks away, Lieutenant." "Hey, Columbo!" The pair turned toward Sgt. Kramer's gravelly voice. He was standing near the mouth of the Vista del Sol's winding stone drive with a stout middle-aged woman in brilliant chartreuse jogging regalia. "Got a witness here, thinks she mighta seen the perp!" Columbo put his hands to his mouth. "Just a second, Sarge!" He returned to Martel. "You know, chili's real popular. You put it on the menu, you might be surprised how much street traffic you pull in. Just a thought." "And a very trenchant one, too," the manager said dryly. The lieutenant was winded by the time he scrambled down to the street. He held up a hand, and Kramer patiently studied the evening traffic until Columbo was through wheezing and weaving. "Mrs. Flossburton here was out for her evening 'constitutional' when the vic came down," the detective sergeant grunted. "I looked up to see where he'd come from," she breathed in a moneyed British accent. "That's when I saw the killer. He was smiling, mind you, bright as day." "Wow," Columbo breathed. "That's absolutely amazing. Ma'am, I wonder if you wouldn't mind going with Sgt. Kramer down to headquarters. We got a guy down there, you can describe somebody to him and, well, it's like one of those mall artists--" "I don't need any police artist," Mrs. Flossburton said, digging into her Prada handbag. "I have his picture right here." The volume she pulled out was thick and black, a silver skull embossed on the cover. The title was dwarfed by the name slashed above the grinning Death's head: Simon Khan. Mrs. Flossburton turned the book over. A tall man with a broad forehead, large brown eyes, and Fu Manchu moustache glared into the camera. "That's him." Malibu Canyon One day later "Cool customer," Sgt. Kramer grunted, staring at Simon Khan's glass-fronted home. The Maestro of the Macabre waved cheerfully at the pair from his stone stoop. Columbo grinned ruefully. "I guess a fella like that, writing all the time about murder and monsters, probably doesn't get too ruffled about things." "Why would he? Man's got a perfect alibi." "And we got a perfect witness. We just can't make both of them fit together. We just have to work out how they fit." "I don't see how that's possible," Kramer said as they approached Columbo's vintage (his term) Peugeot. The lieutenant wrenched the import's door open with a screech worthy of a Stephen King crypt, and leaned on the frame. "Well, you know what Sherlock Holmes said?" Kramer sighed. "'Why am I wearing this nutty hat?'" "No, Sergeant. He said when there isn't any possible way for something to happen, you gotta consider the impossible. And I know just the fella to help me do it." ** "You didn't tell me this was going to be on the final exam," Special Agent Fox Mulder complained. Mulder had welcomed the Homicide cop's call -- the paranormal investigator collected quirky people like Midwest housewives collected Hummels or pimply dateless twentysomethings ST:DS9 memorabilia. He had been intrigued by Lt. Columbo's receptivity to some of the more unorthodox elements of the Huykendall murder case (see "Murder With a Future" at www.planetpreset.com/murdfut.html.) "There's a killer, real smart guy, who has a perfect alibi miles away from the murder scene," Columbo repeated. "But a witness -- a very reliable witness -- swears she saw the guy in the room with the victim right after the victim went off a 14th floor balcony. And the guy's very unusual-looking." "Wait a minute," Mulder interjected. "Is this the Daniel Prinze murder? The horror writer?" "That's the fella." "So I assume your killer was a critic." "Geez, I kinda like the guy's books. You ever read that one he wrote about the demon who gets elected president?" "Hell to the Chief. An American literary treasure. So who do you think killed Prinze?" "Get a load of this, Agent Mulder. Simon Khan." Mulder leaned forward. "Get outta here. The Simon Khan? He writes circles around that hack Prinze." "Yeah, he's a hell of a writer, all right. But Mr. Prinze's manager, she tells me Mr. Khan's got like, oh, ah, a mental blot." "Block, Lieutenant. Well, I guess at two novels a year over the last 20 years or so, plus seven books worth of short stories, he was bound to tap out. You trying to tell me Khan killed Prinze out of jealousy? The washed-up master and the hack kid?" "We-e-ell, there mighta been a little more to it than that. See, Mr. Khan, he was about to make a big sale to one of the studios. You ever read Kenneth?" "Wow, yeah. Guy convinced he's trapped in some parallel universe, or is he? Classic modern fable of dislocation and alienation in the post-9/11 world. They're making a movie out of Kenneth?" "They were, I guess. Then the studio changed its mind and signed up to do three of Prinze's books. Manager said they got Jennifer Lopez to star in the one, oh, you know, the one about the lesbian zombies?" Mulder groaned. "Ghoul-on-Ghoul?" "Yeah, that's the one. Mr. Prinze just found out about the movie deal the day before he was killed. He lives near San Diego -- he was at the Vista del Sol, fancy-shmancy hotel in Beverly Hills -- for some news conference or something. We traced a call from the hotel to Mr. Khan's house out in Malibu, maybe about an hour before he went off the balcony." "Really? What'd Khan have to say about that?" "Said Mr. Prinze called him to tell him about the big movie deal." "Youch." Columbo chuckled. "Yeah, I guess Mr. Prinze didn't know nothing about Mr. Khan losing out on his movie deal. Mr. Khan says Mr. Prinze wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Uh, that was Mr. Khan's words, Agent. Anyways, Mr. Prinze didn't seem to know Mr. Khan wasn't real crazy about him." "How long had Khan known Prinze?" "The manager says they met right after the Columbine thing, you know, the two boys that shot up the high school? Terrible thing. Mr. Khan got a buncha horror writers together for some kinda teen suicide charity thing. Started a foundation for troubled kids." "Face Your Fears. Heard of it. So you say Khan has a perfect alibi?" "Oh, yeah, a party at his place. We got a hundred or so people will vouch for him." "Then why do you believe he killed Prinze?" Columbo paused. "Well, I guess you could call it a policeman's hunch. Or maybe that Mrs. Flossburton, our witness, swears Mr. Khan was in that room when Mr. Prinze went off the balcony. Or it could be what Mr. Khan said when I went to question him about Mr. Prinze's death. I mentioned the off-possibility it coulda been a suicide - which I don't think it was, cause when he had supper earlier, Mr. Prinze asked his waiter about the next day's dooger." "Dooger?" "The thing, you know, like the blue plate special, only fancier." "The specialty du jour." "Yeah. That's it. Seems he was torn between a couple of the dishes on the menu, and so he wanted to know what the hotel restaurant would have the next day so he wouldn't have beef two days in a row, or chicken, or..." "So why would Prinze have been interested in the next day's special if he was going to take a swan dive off a balcony?" Mulder summarized smoothly. "I gotta say, it's a little weak." "Well, there was also an open bottle of champagne in the room - room service brought it up after Mr. Prinze's manager called him with some more details on the movie deal. The hotel sent that bottle up only about 15 minutes before Mr. Prinze was killed. You gonna open a couple hundred dollar bottle of bubbly if you aren't gonna be around to drink it? And, oh yeah, there was no note. Nothing in the room or on his laptop." "That's a little more solid. But why's any of this point to Khan?" "Because," Columbo said meaningfully, "it wasn't me that made that point about the champagne. When I mentioned that we didn't think Mr. Prinze had killed himself, Mr. Khan said that made sense, cause why would he pop open a bottle of Dom Perignon right before he does the dutch? Now, Mr. Prinze ordered that bottle quite a bit after he called Mr. Khan. When I pressed him about how he knew about the champagne, Mr. Khan said he woulda ordered up a bottle if he'd just struck a big deal that was gonna make him rich." "Why didn't he just say Prinze told him he was going to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate? It would've made more sense, and nobody would know for sure that wasn't Prinze's plan." "Exactly!" The triumphant crispness of Columbo's exclamation startled Mulder. "And why say Dom Perignon? Why go into that kinda detail? Why not just say, 'Mr. Prinze was gonna open up some champagne'?" "Because he's playing you," Mulder drawled. "You told him you had a witness who could put him in Prinze's room, but he has an airtight alibi, so why not have a little fun? He's daring you to catch him." "That's why I called you, Agent Mulder. You know all about this crazy stuff. Maybe you could figure out some way he could be in two places at one time. You fly out, I'll show you the town, maybe take you for a burger." Mulder paused, tempted. "Gee, Lieutenant, I'd love to, but my director's suggested I stick around the office for the next few weeks. There was a little incident involving silver bullets and a lawsuit. You'll crack it, Columbo. And you need to bounce any ideas, just call. OK?" "Well, OK," Columbo sighed. "Thanks for taking the time. Good talking to you again." "Same." Scully strolled briskly into the office, inspecting her meditative partner. Mulder looked up and hastily cradled the phone. "Well, Buffy, you lucked out," the petite redhead breathed. "Skinner talked to the brass, and they agreed to let your little misadventure in lycanthropy slide if you get some counseling." "Aw, jeez, Scully, I gotta see a shrink?" Mulder whined. Scully smiled slightly, enjoying her control of the moment. "Relax, Mulder. We negotiated, and it just so happens there's a major Bureau team-building seminar coming up." Mulder came out of his chair. "I'd rather have the inkblots and the electrodes." Scully blinked innocence. "I assumed that given the choice of sharing your affinity for bizarre role-playing games with some Washington PhD or playing Truth or Dare in the California sun--" Mulder's tantrum halted in mid-tant. "California?" "Yup," she nodded gleefully. "La-La Land." Mulder pumped his fist in the air, causing Scully's jaw to drop. "YES!" LAX International Airport 21 hours later Fox Mulder took in a deep breath of Southern California air as he stepped out of the LAX terminal, sneezing as the brown L.A. haze seeped into his nasal passages. He flipped his Raybans back onto his recovering nose, sighing as the L.A. sun caressed his face. Mulder leapt back as a wheeled brushed steel makeup case bumped over his Italian loafers. The Nordic blonde toting the arsenal glared back at the agent. "Hey, Agent Mulder!" Lt. Columbo flapped his rain-coated arms beside a small foreign compact that appeared to have lost a minor skirmish with a monster truck. Mulder had planned a few Scullyless hours by the hotel pool. "Columbo," he called, limping toward the disheveled detective. "I thought we were supposed to meet down at Parker Center at 2." "We got another sighting!" Columbo shouted as a pair of airport security guards approached. "Sighting?" "Another Simon Khan sighting," the lieutenant explained nervously. "This is a shuttle zone, sir," the larger of the pair rumbled. "You gotta move on." "That's what we're gonna do, fellas," Columbo grinned, finally locating his badge case. "Today, officer," the guard ordered, enjoying his moment of control and turning on his heel. "Bye, fellas!" Columbo yelled. "Gee, they seemed nice. Climb on in, Agent Mulder." "You know, it looks kinda tight in there," Mulder murmured. "Why don't I take a cab and meet you there." "Oh, geez, no. Those cabbies drive like maniacs." Ten minutes later, as Mulder's shins slammed for the fifth time into the dashboard, he gripped the windowframe for stability. "I, ah, researched a few possible explanations for Khan's bilocation." "Bi-what?" Columbo asked. "The road, please? Bilocation - the ability of an individual to be in two locations simultaneously. There's actually extensive documentation of such cases. The most common phenomenon reported is the doppelganger, or 'double walker,' a so-called shadow self. Supposedly, only the owner of the doppelganger can see it, and it can be a harbinger of death. Guy de Maupassant, the French novelist, claimed to have been haunted by his doppelganger near the end of his life." "Demap a...?" "A variation is the wraith, a double an individual can project to a remote location. The double can interact with other people just like the real person. It's kind of like astral projection, except..." Columbo scratched his forehead. "You know, I'm not sure the Captain would really go for that wraith thing..." "OK, how about good old solid quantum physics? Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently proves that an object at least as large as a molecule can be made to act like a light wave. It can be forcibly split into two component waves and separately manipulated, altered, recombined and analyzed." "That's real interesting..." "In other words, the same molecule conceivably could exist in each of the two waves - in two places at once. Then, if you want to get really cosmic, there's mirror matter. Every particle, every atom may have an identical 'partner' particle or atom. The asteroid Eros shows signs of being bombarded by invisible mirror matter. If mirror matter exists, it opens the possibility of parallel universes. Or people." Columbo stuck the cold cigar in his mouth. "Oh, yeah, the captain's not gonna like this at all." ** "Where's Extreme Makeover when you need it?" Mulder muttered as he studied the sunburst mural that adorned the lavish lobby of the Vista del Sol. A huge pewter sun anchored the lobby. Columbo whistled. "Yeah, I'd love to do something like this with my living room, but Mrs. Columbo's got real simple tastes." "Hey," a plump young woman called as she approached the pair. The housekeeper was draped in a sunny canary yellow - the Vista del Sol's official staff color. "You the cops? I'm Consuela. What's up?" Columbo ducked his head. "Hello, ma'am. I'm Lt. Columbo. You told Sgt. Kramer you saw something the night of the murder here?" "When I heard you guys thought that writer guy, Khan, might've killed that other guy, I thought I ought to let you know," Vargas said, nervously playing with the hem of her uniform. Columbo nodded appreciatively. "That was very public-spirited of you, ma'am. So when did you see Mr. Khan?" She pointed vaguely toward the hotel restaurant, La Fête du Soleil ("the feast of the sun," Mulder translated). "See, I was on my break, oh, maybe about a half-hour before that man went into the pool, and I..." "Yes, ma'am?" Columbo invited. Vargas' eyes flitted to the front desk. "Well, see, I been dating Karl, the sous-chef, and I was hoping maybe he was around. So I look in the kitchen, but he ain't there. So I kinda roam around the service corridor - you know, the back way to the ballrooms? -- and I see him." "Karl?" Mulder prompted. "No, man," Vargas sighed. "That writer guy. He ain't supposed to be there, so I thought about telling him he needed to get out of there. But he's like, famous, or used to be, so I don't want to sound mean or anything. Anyway, I figured this big writer guy wouldn't be stealing napkins or forks or nothing, so I just got outta there before he saw me." "How was he dressed?" Mulder asked. "Well, he was kinda in the dark, you know, the shadows. But it looked like he was all in black, like a burglar or Johnny Cash or something. Makes sense, I guess, him being a horror guy and all." "Anything else, ma'am?" Columbo spurred. "Nah, that was about it. That help you? 'Cause it is about my break time..." "You were very helpful, ma'am -- very helpful. You go enjoy your break, and give Karl my regards." The plump housekeeper blushed and smiled coyly before fleeing. Columbo leaned against a lobby table and sighed heavily. "Well, that sure doesn't make anything any easier. Now we got about an hour window when Mr. Khan had to be away from his party. You wanna tell me about that mirror matter again?" ** "Lieutenant!" Simon Khan beamed as Columbo and Mulder approached his table. Several heads turned to glare at the mismatched duo interrupting Khan's signing session. The autograph seekers clutched an assortment of mostly paperbacks, with a few more elegantly attired fans sporting mint hardcovers bearing Khan's amiably macabre countenance. The author himself was wearing his talk-show/public appearance uniform -- a loose- fitting Hawaiian shirt festooned with red hibiscuses, and stonewashed jeans. He waved the new arrivals into the Barnes and Noble. "I was hoping you'd be back," Khan said as he accepted a plump matron's copy of The Autumn People. "Your initial visitation inspired me to explore my first detective novel. Well, a supernatural detective novel. Perhaps Mr. Mulder might be able to counsel me." Columbo blinked, nearly backing into a life-sized cardboard Tom Clancy stoically guarding his latest opus. "You know Agent Mulder, sir?" "Tiny community, Hollywood," Khan grinned. "The studio almost hired me to consult on The Lazarus Bowl a few years ago. How'd you like Shandling's Agent Mulder, Agent Mulder?" "Lot better than Rob Lowe in Lazarus Bowl II: The Pontiff's Revenge," Mulder murmured. "What's your idea, Mr. Khan?" "Kind of a twist on the old astral projection theme," Khan answered nonchalantly, jotting a greeting into a Goth girl's battered copy of Glow. "What they call the 'Janus resolution' in the mystery world. Was a supernatural agent responsible for the crime in question, or has the murderer committed the perfect murder? "There's no such thing as a perfect crime, sir," Columbo countered. "Well, perhaps not outside of fiction," Khan conceded, his grin widening. "What do you think, Agent? Was my good friend Daniel dispatched by a dastardly doppelganger?" Mulder smiled. "Was your good friend into alliterative graveyard humor, Mr. Khan?" The writer shrugged. "Touche, Agent Mulder. But you have to understand the world of horror writers. Most of us were geeks and freaks in high school, even college, and sometimes, sarcasm and eccentricity were our best weapons against a cold world." "Where'd Dan Prinze fit into that scheme?" Mulder posed. "He wasn't actually a geek in the traditional sense. An assistant professor of the classics, a Mensa member, one of the country's top Greek scholars. Even published a mainstream novel." "Icarus Ascending," Khan supplied. "Wasn't a bad read -- Dan probably should've stuck to literature. Problem was, he wasn't content to toil in academic obscurity. When Icarus tanked, he cranked out a quickie paperback under a pseudonym and was astonished -- and probably pretty damned disgusted -- to discover the public ate it up. Then the cable people made that cheesy TV-movie out of it. Dan quit his university gig and became a writing machine, each fast-food book more popular than the rest. "The problem is, Dan didn't have the outcast mentality necessary to fully imagine the basest human fears. But the more popular he became, the more he wanted to hang out with the geeks. I found him sort of amusing. Hell, I even invited him to my party the other night. But Dan was too busy crowing about his movie deal." The Maestro of the Macabre glanced at his watch, a Mickey Mouse model. "Hey, gotta run, fellas -- drinks with some audio book folks. Sorry, Lieutenant, but I can't be two places at once. Right?" Five minutes later, the cop and the agent gnawed pensively on mall pretzels, Columbo noisily sucking on a Coke. Suddenly, he stopped in mid-suck. "Mr. Khan knows some folks in the movie business, right?" Columbo inquired. "Yeah, I guess he would." "Think he might know any doubles -- you know, stunt doub--" "No," Mulder responded simply, ripping into a salty rope of dough. "Just a thought," Lt. Columbo sighed. The detective stared back into the bookstore, where a clerk was removing all evidence of Simon Khan's visit. Within minutes, an unsmiling Tom Clancy was replaced by a cardboard tombstone loaded with Daniel Prinze's latest novel. As the cop watched the clerk and Clancy disappear into a stockroom, he slapped his forehead. "You want to drink that slower," Mulder suggested. "I got it," Columbo announced. "I got the how." He sobered, respectfully. "You might not like it though, Agent Mulder. I'm afraid there wasn't any doppler-gangers or nothing." "Tell me." Columbo's brow furrowed. "First, you got one of those cell phones on you? Thanks." Mulder walked him through the intricacies of dialing in the new millennium, then listened as he was bounced between several parties. "Yeah, Consuela? This is Lt. Columbo -- yeah, the murder guy. Sorry to take you away from your work. Huh? Yeah, that's how I feel, too. Anyway, I just got two questions to ask you. You got any big horror fans work with you? Somebody likes scary books, Simon Khan?...Really, yessss. Well, thanks, Consuela. You mighta just busted the case wide open." ** "Hey," Vincent Carmody mumbled, stretching and blinking at the cop and the agent in his apartment doorway. His carrot-hued hair was in disarray. "You're the dude that came out to the hotel after that writer guy got offed." "Yes, sir, that's right," Columbo nodded. "And this is Special Agent Mulder with the FBI. I hope we didn't wake you up, Mr. Carmody." "Naw, man," the bellboy yawned. "I was watching Chainsaw again. Hooper's no Carpenter, you know?" "Mind if we come in, swap notes on Freddy vs. Jason?" Mulder asked. Vincent glanced anxiously back into his darkened apartment. Mulder caught a glimpse of Leatherface pursuing a distraught adolescent. "Aw, you know, it's kinda messed up. I ain't much of a housekeeper. That's why I'm a bellboy." He snorted at his wit. "Oh, come on, Vince," Mulder urged. "We just want to come in and see your collection. Or at least one item. OK?" "Hey," Vince protested, blocking the doorway. "I watch The Practice. You guys can't just come in here without a, you know, one of those search things..." Columbo smiled. "That's true, sir. I'll go to go downtown and talk to a judge I know, then come back here with a search warrant. Meanwhile, Officer Schmidt will keep you company." "Officer Schmidt?" Vince looked past Columbo and Mulder, to the patrol unit at the curb. A crewcut halfback leaned against the passenger door. "Yeah," Mulder said. "We wouldn't want anything to get 'lost' while we're getting that search warrant." Vince slumped against the doorjamb. "Shit, man." "Yup," Mulder grinned. ** Simon Khan stepped off the elevator with a sense of trepidation. Columbo had been particularly solicitous when he'd called out to the house. Did he suspect the truth? And why was he supposed to meet the cop and his fed friend in Dan's room? Simon fingered the plastic keycard Columbo had left at the desk for him. The corridor was empty, and as the author approached Room 1413, he listened for voices within. Silence. He slipped the card into the lock, waited for the green light, and pushed in. For a second, Simon's breath was taken away. His feet froze to the carpet, and his eyes locked onto the figure across the room. Simon Khan stared at Simon Khan for a moment before his eyes acclimated to the darkness. The Simon Khan by the balcony curtains was clad in black and grinning mischievously, as if he were savoring the horror in his doppelganger's eyes. Then Simon's heart slowed as he understood, and he laughed, briefly. Then the curtains flew open, and he blinked. "And that, Mr. Khan, is how a man can be in two places at one time," he heard Columbo announce. The compact cop came into focus, followed by a taller silhouette. Mulder. The good lieutenant walked over, reached behind the second Simon Kahn, and effortlessly picked him up. He carried the two-dimensional author over and placed him before the three- dimensional one. "You've seen one of these before, haven't you, sir?" Simon was silent. "It's one of those cardboard standup displays like they put in the bookstores. I almost knocked one over yesterday, remember? Tom Clancy, I think. Columbo examined the standup. "I think Agent Mulder here's actually a little disappointed. He was hoping there was some kinda supernatural reason for Mrs. Flossburton and Ms. Vargas seein' you here at the hotel when you were sposed to be at your party. That's what you wanted us to think. But it was just a mistake - a mistake you decided to take advantage of. "See, Mrs. Flossburton saw you from, geez, musta been at least two football fields away. And Ms. Vargas, the maid, she saw this thing in the dark. Turns out the bellboy - big fan of yours - had this standup in his van. He bought it at a comic book store a few days ago. "But the night Mr. Prinze died, Vincent, the bellboy, he snuck it in the employee entrance when he thought nobody would notice. That's when Ms. Vargas saw it - while Vince was checkin' to see if the coast was clear. Then it wound up in this room - that's where Mrs. Flossburton saw it, thinking it was you. "You heard on the news what'd happened to your friend, Mr. Prinze, and when I came to visit you with that story about Mrs. Flossburton seeing you up here, you decided to let me believe you really were here. What harm could it do? You had a perfect alibi, and since you didn't kill Mr. Prinze, you knew I'd never crack it." The detective turned to the author - the real one. "One thing bothered me. Why would you try to take the blame for a murder you didn't commit? I get murderers, they like to play games. Sometimes, somebody'll try to protect the real killer - a friend, a family member." "But I don't think it was a friend or relative or lover you were trying to protect," Mulder picked up. "When Prinze called you that night, he was depressed, wasn't he?" Khan smiled inscrutably. "You gotta be kidding. He was riding high." "I don't think so," Mulder said, calmly. He pulled a small brown, safety-capped bottle from his slacks. "I think the true impact of his newfound fame came home to him. Prinze was a associate professor, familiar with classic literature, unsuccessful at his own try at the Great American Novel. He was good at literature, but he knew down deep he was a failure at horror fiction. A popular failure, but a failure. He called his mentor, you, and I think you talked him through it. Then you invited him to your party." Khan laughed. "You must have a touch of psychic ability yourself, Agent." "Not really. See, that's why this standup was in the room. After talking to you, Prinze came out of his funk. He ordered a bottle of champagne, and bragged to the bellboy - Vince - that he was going to a party thrown by the great Simon Khan." "Great, yeah. I haven't published in three years, and I can't get even any hack producers interested in doing one of my stories. I'm on the downhill side in an age when people are more interested in a good beach read than serious gothic scares." "To Daniel Prinze, you were a master in a genre where he felt like an imposter. Then the bellboy comes back, armed with his little collector's item here." Mulder studied the cardboard figure. "Prinze is already in a vulnerable state, and Vincent the Sensitive asks Prinze if he could get the Great Simon Khan to sign it for him. Prinze says OK." "Then why didn't he show up at the party?" Khan challenged. "I think Prinze sat here for a while, staring at 'you' and realizing he'd never be you, no matter how much fame or money he got," Columbo suggested. "Then I think he went out onto the balcony for some fresh air. And that, Mr. Khan, is when he jumped." Mulder glanced out toward the balcony. "Kurt Cobain." Khan looked up. "What?" "You weren't protecting a killer. You were protecting what you and Prinze had tried so hard to do with Face Your Fear. What would happen to your teen anti-suicide campaign if one of the founders, a celebrity, the height of his career, was found to have killed himself? Guys like Kurt Cobain have already glamorized the idea of suicide. You'd rather have had people wonder if you were a killer rather than let Daniel Prinze become some kind of romantic hero to disaffected kids." Khan stared silently at Mulder, then at Columbo. "You think you can prove this?" "Vince was at poolside when Prinze jumped," Mulder said. "He didn't want be implicated - or, I suspect, to have his collector's item confiscated as evidence - so he rushed up before anybody could identify Prinze and removed the standup of you. He's confessed to doing that." "But he didn't see Prinze go off the balcony," Khan said evenly. "This still doesn't prove Prinze wasn't murdered." "You're absolutely right, sir," Columbo agreed, thoughtfully. "We're pretty sure Mr. Prinze jumped off that balcony out there, but the only solid evidence we have, well, I'm not so sure a jury would buy it. See, I figured out the how, but Agent Mulder worked out the why. He's what you call a profiler - he gets into a killer's head and figures out how he'd think, what he'd do. But in this case, he got into the victim's head. Mr. Prinze's head." "You know what Vista del Sol means, don't you, Mr. Khan?" Mulder posed. "I live in California, Agent," Khan smiled sardonically. "View of the Sun, or something like that, right?" "Close enough. The hotel's decorators and owners have taken the name literally. You've seen the sunburst in the lobby, the staff's uniforms, the name of the restaurant - French for 'Feast of the Sun.' "Prinze's first novel, the one that flopped so badly. Icarus Ascending. You know who Icarus was, I assume. The tragic Greek hero who made wings of feathers and wax and tried to fly to the sun. Only the sun's heat melted the wings, and he fell to his death. Prinze drew on his knowledge of Greek mythology for his story of a young man whose dreams exceeded his talents. "Mr. Khan, Lieutenant, would you two come out onto the balcony?" Columbo pushed past the heavy drapes and, after a moment, Khan moved out into the warm California night. The sounds of music and partying wafted up from the hotel pool. Mulder grasped the railing. "Prinze already had been fighting feelings of insecurity and depression. Then Vince showed up and reminded Prinze that he'd always be a pale reflection of the Master of Horror, Simon Khan. I think Prinze came out here to reflect, to be alone with his dark thoughts, whatever. He comes over here, looks down and... Well, Mr. Khan, would you look down at the pool, please?" Khan moved to the rail and willed himself to glance down. "What am I suppose to be see-?" The writer gasped sharply and stepped back. Columbo placed a hand on his shoulder, and Khan looked back into the shimmering blue water. Beneath the surface, vivid tiles of orange and yellow and red and white were arranged into a large, seemingly incandescent circle. Tiled rays emanated from the circle. "You see, sir," Columbo said quietly, "When Mr. Prinze looked down there into that pool, he musta thought about that character in his first book, about how his talent would probably never live up to his dreams..." Washington, D.C. 15 hours later "It must have seemed like an omen," Mulder suggested, rolling onto his side to face Scully. He'd seemed subdued when she'd picked him up at Reagan Airport, so Scully didn't razz him about his no-show at the Bureau seminar. She placed a palm on her partner's chest, and pushed her pillow closer to his'. "But what a horrible, hopeless decision." "We all want to imagine ourselves the hero of our own drama - or, in Prinze's case, his own Greek tragedy. When he looked over that balcony rail and saw what was at the bottom of that pool, it must have seemed, oh, just right, I guess. He climbed onto the railing and, just like Icarus..." "He flew into the sun." end