Mr. Kopeck tossed his copy of "Claudius
the God" down beside him on the couch, and
stared at the gym bag in the center of his living
room. It was no use trying to read over the
demon's steady stream of invective. "Foolish
mortal! I will torment thee beyond
imagining!" snarled the demon in Latin.
Mr. Kopeck frowned. "Yeah, you talk real
big for somebody in a gym bag."
Twenty-four hours of hearing the demon cursing
at him had strengthened his resolve considerably.
He was still afraid of it, but he was damned if
he was going to let it push him around.
"Te exanimabo!" snarled the demon.
"Testiculos tuos dentibus sanguinolentis
conteram!"
Mr. Kopeck put his feet up on the coffee
table. "Kiss my entire ass."
The gym bag fairly shook with rage.
Mr. Kopeck smiled in satisfaction. If he was
going to go to hell anyway, he thought, he might
as well enjoy the trip.
The sound of the doorbell halted the demon in
mid-curse. Mr. Kopeck got to his feet, wondering
who could be at his door. Usually when students
toilet-papered his front yard, they just honked
their car horns.
He opened the front door, and froze.
"Oh my God," he said finally.
"Kandee."
The blonde smiled up at him. "Mr. Kopeck,
you are, like, totally cute when you're
surprised."
She was wearing a short pleated skirt and a
skin-tight top that was just abbreviated enough
for him to see the ring in her navel. Mr. Kopeck
swallowed, and found his voice again.
"Quick," he said, reaching out to haul
her inside. "Get in here before someone sees
you."
Kandee's nose crinkled happily as he yanked
her in and shut the door. "Mr. Kopeck! I was
hoping you'd be glad to see me, but you are sooo
the eager beaver."
His lips thinned into a grim line. He took one
look at the living room, remembered the demon in
the gym bag, and marched Kandee in the other
direction, toward his kitchen. If Principal
Waters got wind of this visit, he thought, there
was going to be hell to pay.
"Sit down," he said, pushing her
toward a dinette chair.
She sat.
"Kandee," he said, stabbing an
accusing finger in her direction, "do you
have any idea how much trouble you've already
gotten me into?"
Blue eyes blinked up at him innocently.
"Me? Like, what did I do?"
Mr. Kopeck clasped his hands behind his back,
and glared at her. "You know very well what
you did! First you proposition me -- "
"Proposition you? Like, no way, Mr.
K." She tucked her chin and looked up at him
through her lashes, a hint of a grin on her lips.
"Or can I call you, you know, Larry,
now?"
"You most certainly may not call me
Larry. And I think 'I'll do anything if you
change that D to a B, Mr. Kopeck. Anything,
anything at all,' is pretty clear. I haven't seen
such a blatant come-on since Ginger found out
Gilligan was judging the Ms. Castaway
contest."
"Since who was, like, what?" Kandee
asked, even more confused than he'd come to
expect from his weakest student.
"Never mind," he half-snarled.
"That's not even the worst of it. Did you
really have to go telling all your friends about
your offer, making it sound like I was actually
considering it?"
"Oh please." Kandee balled her fists
on her shapely hips, pulling her T-shirt even
tighter
He shook his head in confusion. "Look,
that's beside the point. The point is, word of
your little offer got back to Principal Waters.
Only, the way he heard it, I propositioned
you."
Kandee squealed. "Seriously? Oh, that is,
like, totally hilarious!"
"Yes," said Mr. Kopeck dryly.
"When he told me he wanted to fire me, I
thought I was going to bust a gut."
Kandee giggled. "You are sooo funny,
Larry," she said. "That's why I like
you so much."
"Don't say that. And don't call me
Larry."
She grinned up at him frankly, the dimples
deepening in her cheeks. "But I do like you.
For an old guy, you're totally hot."
He was struggling not to notice the shininess
of her ash blonde hair, the pertness of her
upturned nose, the taut muscles of her teenage
body. She had the kind of flat stomach that made
him want to reach out and run his hand over her
smooth skin.
Good lord, he was old enough to be her father.
"What if someone knew you were here right
now, Kandee?" he asked in a strained voice.
"What if your parents knew, or Principal
Waters? Can you imagine what they would
think?"
"No," she said. "What?"
Mr. Kopeck counted slowly to ten.
"Kandee, you should go now."
She leaned closer, her soft lips parted.
"I really don't want to get cut from the
cheerleading squad. But, like, the grade wasn't
the only reason I offered, you know?"
The shirt she wore was cut low, so low he
could almost see the tops of her nipples. Mr.
Kopeck looked away hastily. "It doesn't
matter why you offered, Kandee," he said
stiffly. "You should go."
"Are you sure?" she asked, her voice
a husky whisper.
Mr. Kopeck swallowed. "Kandee..."
They both froze as the doorbell rang for the
second time that day.
****
Mr. Kopeck lived in an ordinary white
clapboard house on an ordinary street in an
ordinary neighborhood. As Mulder knocked, Scully
noted some flaking paint on the shutters, and a
spectacular display of late fall dandelions going
to seed in the front lawn.
"Agent Scully?" Mr. Kopeck
half-asked, obviously surprised and flustered to
find them on his doorstep. He looked at her,
blinked twice, then shifted his gaze. "And
Agent, um..."
"Mulder," her partner supplied
smoothly, slipping his badge back into his
pocket. "We'd like to ask you a few
questions. May we come in?"
"What? Oh. Of...of course." Mr.
Kopeck stood aside and ushered them, with what
looked like reluctance, into his living room.
"But I told the police everything I could
think of..."
"Routine follow-up, Mr. Kopeck,"
Scully assured him, taking in the sparse
furnishings and minimalist decor. There was a
gray rectangle under the window where the carpet
was still its true color and deep indentations
near the corner where a large piece of furniture
had once plainly stood. A gym bag and some small
weights were pushed under a water-ringed coffee
table that matched nothing else in the room,
newspapers were scattered around, and mugs and
drinking glasses rested on most horizontal
surfaces. The couch and matching chair had seen
better days. The only conversation piece in the
room was a saber-toothed tiger skull on the dusty
mantle.
"Routine how?" Kopeck asked
apprehensively and tucked his hands into the
front pockets of his jeans. "I don't know
what else I can tell you about Mrs. Chernoff's
awful ... um ... accident."
"We're just finishing up the
paperwork," Mulder said easily. He pulled
out his notepad and pen. "I'm sure, as you
said, that there isn't much you can add, but
since it was your classroom, we have to conduct a
formal interview. Shouldn't take more than a few
minutes." He nodded toward the couch.
"May we sit?"
Scully watched Mr. Kopeck's eyes swing around
the room. "Sure," he said. "Sure,
just let me get this junk out of..." He
lifted the bag and weights and took them quickly
into a room she thought must be the kitchen.
"I was getting ready to go out..." His
voice drifted off.
"Nervous," Mulder mouthed to her, as
if he'd made some great discovery.
Of course he was nervous. People almost always
got nervous when you waved a badge in their
faces. Particularly, she'd noticed over the
years, the innocent ones, the ones who thought
they'd never have a run-in with law enforcement
more interesting than a speeding ticket.
"Duh," she mouthed back. That got her a
smile.
"So, um..." Mr. Kopeck was standing
in front of them again. "Can I get you
anything?" he asked her, without so much as
a glance toward her partner.
"No, thank you," Scully replied.
"We don't want to tie up your Saturday, Mr.
Kopeck. Especially if you were, as you say, on
the way out."
"That's right," Mulder continued in
a tone that was entirely too jovial. "I'm
sure you've got plans. If you could just answer a
few questions, we'll get out of your way."
Kopeck perched on the chair opposite them,
looking decidedly uncomfortable. "I was just
going to the gym. But, all right."
Mulder flipped through his notes. "You've
been at Craftsbury Academy for six years, is that
right?"
"Yes."
"And before that, after graduating from
Boston University, you worked for
Art-o-Fax?"
"Yes." Mr. Kopeck nodded. "It
was the family business."
"Specializing in?"
"Reproductions."
Scully arched an eyebrow.
"Reproduction?"
Kopeck shook his head and grinned a little
sheepishly. "Reproductions," he said,
emphasizing the final *s*. "Antiquities.
Coins. Jewelry. Movie models. Fossils, real or
imagined." He nodded toward the skull on the
mantle. "Copies of the Declaration of
Independence, the Treaty of Versailles. That sort
of thing. Mainly mail order."
"And your mother sold the business after
his death?"
"The time was right," Mr. Kopeck
nodded. "Dad started out doing props for
theatre in college, then got into movie work,
doing sets, props, special effects. The business
started out as a sideline, and grew from there.
But it was more work than either mom or I wanted
to put into it after he was gone."
"Movie work?" Mulder leaned forward,
a curious gleam lighting his eyes despite the
routine nature of the questioning. "Your
father wouldn't happen to have been Richard Tyler
Kopeck, would he?"
Mr. Kopeck looked surprised. "You've
heard of him?"
Mulder nodded rapidly and scooted even farther
forward, so far that Scully momentarily feared he
was going to fall off the edge of his seat.
"I've seen every -- " he began eagerly.
Just then he seemed to recall her presence,
and that they were in the middle of and interview
with a suspect. He stopped, glanced at her
quickly, and then looked back down at his notes.
"That is, uh..." Mulder flipped a page.
"You did keep a few souvenirs from your
father's business when you sold it, is that
right?"
"Yes." Mr. Kopeck's frown grew.
"Look, I don't see what this..."
"I don't either." Mulder gave a
*what-can-you-do-about-it?* shrug. He was really
playing up the Good Cop routine, Scully thought.
"But I have to ask. For the report. I'm
sure, being a teacher, you can understand about
paperwork."
"Oh." Mr. Kopeck sounded deflated.
"Yes, of course."
"You live here alone?"
His mouth twitched. "I do now."
Mulder nodded in that *been-there-done-that*
way he had. "Children?"
"Just the ones I teach."
"We interviewed a Miss..." Mulder
turned to her. "What was her name, Scully?
Sandy? Mandy?"
Finally, Scully thought, her cue.
"Kandee, I believe. Kandee Caine."
Across from them, Mr. Kopeck's jaw dropped. He
glanced quickly from one of them to the other,
alarm in his expression. He appeared to decide
that she promised a more sympathetic ear, even if
she was supposed to be the Bad Cop.
"Look," he said to her in a rush,
"whatever she told you, it isn't true."
Scully felt her eyebrows climb. Oh, brother.
So he was hiding something after all. "And
exactly which part wasn't true?"
Mr. Kopeck swallowed nervously. "All of
it. Or some of it. Whatever she told you about --
about us."
"About the two of you?" Scully
asked.
Mr. Kopeck had gone absolutely pale. "I
never touched her -- I swear!"
Scully traded a look with Mulder.
"It's just..." Mr. Kopeck shifted
his appeal to the only other man in the room.
"It's just, women today -- " He shook
his head in confusion.
"What about women today?" Scully
asked, a little sharply.
"I wish I knew," Mr. Kopeck said,
with a helpless gesture. "I grew up in this
town. It used to take three dates just to get to
second base, for God's sake. There used to be
rules."
Scully wondered if Mulder was as baffled by
all this as she was. "What does any of this
have to do with you and Kandee, Mr. Kopeck?"
He shook his head. "Don't you see? This
place is one of the most old-fashioned,
traditional little towns you could ever hope to
find - and even so, there are sixteen-year-old
young women with navel piercings jumping out at a
person from behind every tree."
Scully was still in the dark, but she could
see Mulder nodding sagely. "Sexual politics
aren't what they used to be, even in small
towns."
Scully found herself struggling to catch up.
She frowned at Mr. Kopeck. "So you're saying
that Kandee...made a pass at you?"
"I was out of the dating scene for
thirteen years and, frankly, it scares me
now," said Mr. Kopeck with a troubled
expression. "I'm only thirty-seven, but it
seems to me things used to be different. Women
used to be different."
Scully waited for Mulder to set Mr. Kopeck
straight and forge ahead with the interrogation.
Instead he surprised her by nodding
sympathetically. "The sexual dynamic has
shifted," he said. "Women have always
been in charge, but now they don't even bother to
pretend otherwise."
Mr. Kopeck gave Mulder a grateful look.
"That's right. I knew it wasn't just
me."
Mulder stuffed his notepad back in his breast
pocket. "It's unsettling, given that modern
man evolved from hunter-gatherers."
Again Mr. Kopeck looked at him with gratitude.
"Exactly! We're supposed to be the
hunters."
"Of course, we're still better off than
the male black widow spider. The female of the
species kills him after they mate," Mulder
observed, using the rapid monotone he usually
employed when spinning theories. "Or the
male praying mantis. The female mantis is
initially passive throughout the mating dance,
letting the male make all the moves. If he seems
to hesitate, however, she seizes him in her
mandibles and bites off his head, the source of
his sexual inhibitions. Then, as his now-headless
body reflexively proceeds to mate with her like
there's no tomorrow, she continues to devour him.
Finally there's nothing left except his
still-twitching sexual organs."
"But back to your meeting yesterday, Mr.
Kopeck, we -- " Scully began, trying to
bring the conversation back to the investigation.
"Yes," Mr. Kopeck replied glumly,
ignoring Scully altogether, "at least we're
better off than that. I sometimes think we're
headed in that direction, though."
Scully clenched her jaw, biting back her
growing irritation. Mulder's apparent inability
to stay on topic was annoying enough all by
itself. Not only that, but she sensed he intended
his little side-trip into entomology as a veiled
jab at her.
Enough, she thought. If Mulder was the Good
Cop, that must make her the Bad Cop. She'd just
put an end to this conversation. "So Mrs.
Chernoff found out about your affair with
Kandee?"
"No!" said Mr. Kopeck, his gaze
darting to her wildly. "No, you have it all
wrong. There was no affair. Kandee was worried
about her grades, and rightly so, and,
and...well, she propositioned me. Her exact
wording was 'a lay for an A, Mr. K.'" He
blushed slightly, and shot Scully an apologetic
glance. "I told her in no uncertain terms
that I wasn't interested, that I AM not
interested, but the next thing I know I'm being
called down to Principal Waters' office to
explain the affair Kandee and I never had."
"I see." Scully nodded slightly.
"Mr. Kopeck, when we spoke with her, Kandee
implied that Mrs. Chernoff was not well liked by
the students...or the staff."
He was silent for a second, absorbing this
information, and then a look of horror dawned on
his face. "Oh my God. You think -- don't
tell me you suspect Kandee and I planned --
"
"Just routine questions, Mr.
Kopeck."
"I thought you said it was an
accident." He didn't look at her, instead
choosing to pick at a spot on the arm of his
chair. "The coroner here said it was."
"It seems to have been," Mulder
reassured him. "We're just tying up a few
loose ends."
"Because I would never kill anyone, and
as for Kandee...well, if you knew her, you'd
realize she's hardly the criminal mastermind
type."
"I can believe that," Scully said
dryly.
Silence fell. Then, from the kitchen, she
heard a faint rustling. She could tell Mr. Kopeck
heard it, too, because he sat bolt upright.
"Is there someone else here?" she
asked.
"No!"
"Because I thought I heard something --
"
"It's a rat," said Mr. Kopeck
quickly.
"A rat?"
"A rat. Absolutely."
They all looked at one another.
After a moment Mr. Kopeck sighed and said,
"Okay, I admit it. I have a confession to
make. Kandee was here earlier. I hustled her out
the back door when you rang the doorbell, but
it's not what you think. I never expected her to
drop by, and I asked her to leave as soon as she
arrived. Absolutely nothing happened. If I seem
jumpy, it's just that this has been a tough week
for me. My job is on the line."
Mulder, the Good Cop, nodded. "Thank you
for telling us."
Mr. Kopeck stood up. "Now is there
anything else you need to ask me? Because I'd
really like to get to the gym."
Scully shook her head. "Nothing
else."
"Good."
She and Mulder both got to their feet, and Mr.
Kopeck ushered them the few steps to his front
door. "I'm glad you understand about
Kandee," he said, with a nervous smile.
"Even a false accusation of
impropriety..." His voice trailed off.
"It's the sort of thing that could ruin a
career," Mulder agreed with a nod.
Mr. Kopeck sighed. "Even if it is only a
teaching career."
They shook hands and he closed the door behind
them.
A few seconds later, as she and Mulder were
getting in the rental car they'd left parked in
the driveway, Mr. Kopeck's garage door opened.
The man must be a regular fiend for working out,
Scully thought. She could see him hurrying into
his Camry, his weights in one hand and his blue
leather Nike bag slung over his shoulder.
"Did you ever work out, Mulder?" she
asked.
He shot her a strange look. "I still
do."
She raised an eyebrow. "Do you?" she
said, fastening her seatbelt. "Huh."
****
End 04/10
Plausible Deniability &
Amanda Wilde (MaybeAmanda)
Address: pdeniability@hotmail.com / maybe_a@rocketmail.com
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