Out of Sight Out of Mind

[Dreamfire]

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

2:00 a.m. Saturday 14th
A man lay somewhat submerged in a gravel heap in a Staten Island landfill. Around him, garbage rose in mounds, mixed with slurry and rocks from a recent foundation dig for a big new building in the city. Behind him, the city looked beautiful; twinkling lights, a bright moon, scattered clouds, silvered and ephemeral. He could have been asleep, he could have been dead. As it was, he was somewhere between the two, unconscious and undreaming. Blood trickled from a rising wound on his forehead and another lump hid in his hair and seeped. He was well dressed; good coat, fairly new leather boots, a charcoal striped suit, expensive blue shirt, and a dark grey silk tie. He’d be about six foot tall, when he was standing and not lying unconscious in the garbage and was handsome for a man in his late thirties, early forties.

His chest rose and fell, lifting the young rat that sat on his shoulder and cleaned its whiskers. The rat tiptoed down an outstretched arm, stopping to sniff at the watch on his left wrist. Moonlight glinted off the face of the watch and the eyes of the rat as it ran down to the neatly manicured hand. Nestled snugly in the cupped palm, the young rat licked at the pale fingertips and salivated, anticipating a nice fresh meal. A high pitched squeak brought the little rat’s head up sharply and he skittered off to join his mother and siblings at a feast of rotting steak she had unearthed for her brood. The image of the hand faded quickly from the little rat brain.

In another hour, a load was scheduled to be dropped next to this one and perhaps the unconscious man would have been discovered, saved, or buried by a decent amount of garbage. But there was a strike. Garbage collectors, barge captains, and landfill workers throughout New York decided the weather was just right to stand in solidarity and argue for the reinstatement of a barge captain who had been sacked for selling tourist trips around the landfill to Japanese visitors.

4:43 a.m. Saturday 14th
Several hours after being dumped, the man finally stirred. He blinked, groaned, and brushed dirt from his face. He coughed and raised his head. His struggles to sit shifted the ground under his hands, and he fell flat on his back again as the hill gave way. His stomach turned as he began sliding backward. Loose sand gathered him up, dragged him downward and sprinkled his face, making him cough and splutter.

Desperately he sought to stop his decent from God knows where to a place even HE wasn't aware of, but there was nothing solid within reach. The man’s struggles only worsened his situation and his body picked up speed, the sharp shards of rock sliced his hands and stung his face. In a final gesture of protection, he drew his hands up over his face, pulled he knees to his abdomen and, streamlined now, his body tumbled, gaining momentum in its slide down the hill.

Bang! He slammed into the unforgiving retainer. The main force of the collision rammed directly in line with the swelling already on the back of his head. The additional trauma sent stars flying through his head, he slammed his eyes shut against the searing pain, and pressed his hands to his face. The collision strained the weak connection of consciousness, and blew the breath from his lungs. He began to slip away. But, even if he couldn’t think to breath, the body has its own survival mechanisms, and his lungs jerked in a load of dust laden air like a weightlifter doing a snatch and jerk. The oxygen rushed to his brain, bringing him back from the inky unconscious and pressing the man into the here and now.

He huddled in the rain of falling gravel, finding that every breath he drew was a shudderingly painful experience and tried to gather his wits. But the competition of sledge hammers and fireworks in his head left no room for logical processes.

The weight of his body kept the man’s head and arms pinned against the barrier. The coat that wound around his legs swaddled him effectively. During the fall, it had saved him broken limbs. Now the tight restrictions held him upside down, contorted, as the weight of his body pressed him into the dirt.

He groaned. It was all he could do to roll over so that his head was higher than his feet. For the moment, his limbs remained tangled. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pains in his head to abate. Finally, the fireworks conceded defeat, and the sledge hammers ruled supreme. The man moved slowly, afraid to bring on more hurt, shook his leg to uncoil the coat and tumbled over onto his side. Finally he sat up to look around him. It was pitch black, silent, cold.

He leaned his head back against the wall, felt gingerly over the swelling on his forehead. Where was he that it was so dark? From the gravel, the air flow, he had assumed he was in the open air, but perhaps he was inside something? What room or container would be filled with gravel, sand, and rocks? Thinking increased the pain in his head. It was too hard, he needed help. Slowly he stood. With one hand on the wall to steady himself, he fought the wave of dizziness that rose, planted his feet firmly and called out, “Hello... hello?”

There was no answering call.

He stepped forward, up the hill of rubble and drew breath to call again, but the pain in his head danced with the dizziness and his stomach heaved. He fell to his knees and retched, bringing up the hot, sour contents of his gut. The rubble began to crumble under his knees. Slowly he backed away until he touched the wall again. He sat against it. It would, at least, hold him still.

The tide of dizziness and nausea ebbed. He felt the back of his head with light fingers; blood, a lump the size of a burger. The ache was both the fuzzy blur of dehydration and the sharp pain of a blow. Holding his head in his hands for a moment, he sighed, it just wasn't fair. How long have I been here, he wondered, and [i]where the hell am I? [/i]

His memory was hazy, worse than hazy. He struggled to recall anything prior to waking here on the rocky heap. What day was it? What time? Slowly he realized that not only had he no idea where he was but also couldn’t remember how he had gotten there. He held his watch up, turning it this way and that, trying to catch some glimmer off the reflective surface. He stood, one hand on the wall he had hit and turned 360 degrees, hoping for a chink of light cutting through a doorway or corner, but there was nothing. Where was he? Perhaps inside a sealed shipping container. Perhaps in a large open bin. He listened for some clue as to his whereabouts, but the effort was enormous, and he sank back to the ground as his eyes closed.


4:50 a.m. Saturday 14th
A dog rose where it had landed on a pile of boxes, shook itself, and looked around. It sniffed the air and the garbage under its paws. It headed off, searching.

5:06 a.m. Saturday 14th
Gulls called as they wheeled and dove from the sky, searching New York City’s waste for morsels of food. A gull can see a meal the size of a cigarette from forty feet in the air, swoop down at 40 miles an hour, swallow it, and swoop off to its next target in under a minute.

“Caw caw.” The bird call, inches from his face, brought the man awake with a snap. “Caw!” He scrambled back, hit the wall, and limped away. The sound of wings, many of them, assailed him. From the confusion, shock floated up, he remembered waking and was surprised he had fallen asleep. Perhaps he was concussed. He stood, knowing that if he did have concussion, sleep was the last thing he needed, that in fact, it was dangerous. He looked around him again but this time, with his head a little clearer, he realized that the darkness was too complete. With birds flying, it had to be daytime. Even if they were some kind of night bird, or even a bat, it meant he was outside. And once his eyes had adjusted, he should be able to see something, anything - the glint in the bird’s eye, a glow on a horizon at the very least.

His breath grew short as panic tried to seize him. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest and he turned wildly, looking up, down, around… nothing. He wanted to run, but where, where was he? What was happening to him? He closed his eyes and took a breath to try and calm himself. His head, he had hurt his head.

His stomach clenched, his jaw closed tightly against the pain as he explored the injuries to his head. Yes, there was a sizable lump on his forehead and one at the back of his head, he’d been hurt enough to temporarily affect his vision. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, hoping to alleviate the headache that stood in the way of his thinking clearly. His throat felt raw and dry, he rubbed the back of his hand across his lips before he licked them. “Think, God damn you, think,” he berated himself. “What do you know?”

He remembered waking previously, here, confused, in pain. Now his head felt heavy, but he wasn’t as confused. Good, whatever injury he had sustained was already healing. He leaned his head back and to the side, it gave a satisfying crunch and he sighed. His hand explored his left knee, no new injury, merely the stiffness that always came after sitting or lying still for several hours. So, he’d been here several hours. He blinked repeatedly and looked around. It was time to find out where he was.

I’m outside, on gravel. There are birds. It fucking stinks. He stopped, sniffed… It was strange, he hadn’t realized before just how bad the place smelled, like a dump. He stood very still and listened. The birds, not so close now, they were sea gulls. He reached out to the obstacle that had stopped his roll down the hill - metal, dirty, cold. It was a wall, standing about five feet high and about six inches thick. He hefted himself up and leaned over the barrier, put his hands to his mouth, and called, “Hello!” He waited. No one answered, it sounded empty out there. He called again, then he tilted his head, water, he heard water lapping, and maybe even waves. Sea gulls, water, garbage… shit I’m in a landfill dump. Well, he thought to himself, I guess it’s better than being trapped in a closed container on his way to God knows where, which had been his best guess when he woke before.

He closed is eyes and focused on listening. A rumble carried over the water, and he got an image of a large ship in his mind. It sounded far away. There was no way his voice would carry that far. He didn’t even try to call.

Landfill… landfill… where would it be? Another image, a barge, a ferry, the Statue of Liberty. New York, he was in New York, a map of the rivers appeared in his mind’s eye. Several rivers had landfill dumps. He listened again. How on earth was he going to figure out which one he was on?

His shoulders shook with the strain of holding him atop the wall. Carefully he lowered himself back to the ground. He leaned his head on his arms, against the wall. What did it matter? He was in a dump, injured and blinded, and he hurt all over.

“You’re in a dump. Why?” He asked out loud. Slowly the man realized there was another question he should be asking himself, who, who was in this dump?

Behind him, a dog barked franticly. Images of vicious junk yard dogs attacked, bringing a jolt of fear that set his heart racing and the man turned toward the sound. The questions of his identity fled his mind. His hands clutched at the metal wall behind him and he wondered if he should scramble over. But he had no idea how deep the water would be, perhaps he could perch on the edge? Five feet, that’d be hard for a dog to climb, as long as the beast wasn't too big. The bark was deep, the man brushed his hands over his eyes, blinked, and shook his head but it was no use, he still couldn’t see a thing. Rubble began to hit his legs and he heard panting. He placed his hands on the top of the wall and strained to drag himself up. The dog rushed him, barking and whining. The man’s feet lifted off the ground and he scrambled, trying to get a leg up and onto the wall without falling over it. He got one foot onto the thin ledge, the other still dangled below, but the dog grabbed his coat rather than his foot and the man hung on, kicking at the dog. “Get away! Get away!” he shouted as loudly, as aggressively as he could and was rewarded when the dog released the coat. But the sudden redistribution of forces meant he swayed, tipping forward toward the water below him. Things tumbled from the pockets of his coat and hit the water with splashes. The sound of them hitting the water sent him backward and he fell in a heap onto the garbage. He hugged his hands to his head, expecting attack.

But there were no sounds of aggression from the dog, just a quiet whine, enquiring almost, and soft footfall as the dog trotted up. It stuck its muzzle in under the man’s arms and licked at his face. He pushed off backward, away from the dog, disgusted by the hot wet tongue. “No!” The dog stopped and whined again. Okay, okay, it wasn’t vicious. Good. “Stay away! Stay!” Maybe it had an owner here, somewhere. The man stood again, listening carefully in case the dog came close again, cursing whatever had brought him here, taken his vision, and left him so vulnerable. “Hello? Is someone there? I’ve been hurt. I need help. Hello?”

But there was no answer, and no indication of a dog owner nearby. The man stood, alone in the middle of the garbage, angry and exposed. He had to get out of there. He searched his pockets for a cell phone but came up empty. “Hello!” he shouted repeatedly, turning and calling in all directions.

Only the gulls answered, and the dog sat and waited, panting. The man put his left hand to the wall; it was his best chance of finding the entrance to the landfill. He listened but the soundscape gave him no clues. He stepped off to the left. He could only hope that he was heading for a dumping station and not away from one close by. Only the cry of the gulls broke the silence, but he was confident that eventually he’d hear the arrival of trucks or barges, the voices of truck drivers, perhaps administrators; help.

He moved off at a swift pace, walking with one hand against the wall, the other held in front of him. Soon the rocks and gravel turned to real garbage. Half of him was pleased he had been right, that he was at a garbage dump, the other half of him wondered if he should have turned the other way. The real garbage meant uneven ground. The man stumbled and fell several times before conceding that he had to revise his pace. Falling badly, adding another injury – he couldn’t afford that. Images of syringes, rusty cans, and sharp edges kept him slow and enforced patience. Still the going was difficult and he couldn’t maintain his feet all the time. He was tempted to try the other direction when he landed on all fours, his left hand breaking through a bag that smelled like it was full of dirty diapers, but he wasn’t the type to give up for such a reason and he continued. The wall turned a corner, perhaps 40 degrees, not much. He hitched himself up over the wall again and called. He listened. The water lapped endlessly. He walked on; the faster he moved the sooner he’d find help.

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Two

7:10 a.m. Saturday 14th
In Queens, Gus had slept past his alarm and was running late. He hurried up the street, his old muscles giving him grief, but Jim usually arrived at the gym just after he opened up or even as he was unlocking the door, and he didn’t want to disappoint the man. He expected to see Jim and Hank sitting by the door waiting, but as he rounded the corner he could see the steps were empty. Gus slowed gratefully and took it at a more leisurely pace.

Thirty minutes later he tipped the second cup of coffee down the sink, perhaps Jim had pulled an extra tour of duty.

9:09 a.m. Saturday 14th
Tired from walking and feeling lightheaded, the man lowered himself to the ground amid the stench of household waste. His face contorted in disgust, and he wondered how long it would take him to get used to it. “Better hope you’re not here long enough to get used to it,” he said out loud. He wished uselessly for a bottle of water, and his stomach growled. The dog settled by his leg and put his head on the man’s knee. The man hadn’t the heart to push it off. The poor thing seemed as lost as he was.

The question of who he was hammered at him with every thump in his head, and he gave himself some time to see if he held clues on his person.

He ran his hands over his face. An image came to mind, fair hair, blue eyes, fair skin. His hair was short and stood up in spikes, but whether that was normal, or from whatever adventure had landed him here, he had no idea. He felt his hands, no jewelry, but there was a watch, round face on a leather strap. He vaguely remembered trying to read it when he first woke and wondered yet again what time it was. He felt certain that it had been night when he first woke and that now it was day. He took a couple of wary steps from the wall, moving his weight only when he knew the ground under his foot was secure. Yes, he could feel the sun warm on his face. He fingered the wound on the back of his head. He blinked, looking around him again, forcing himself to wonder when his sight would clear, rather than if. The birds called endlessly.

He reached out and found the wall again, grateful for the shade, and checked his clothing. Good quality trench coat, it stank, and he wondered for a minute if he was a bum - perhaps he had fallen asleep in a dumpster and been shipped over here? He smiled at his personal joke as he continued his exploration. The fabric of his jacket matched his trousers, his shirt had folded cuffs and he was wearing a tie. No, most bums didn’t wear suits and ties. He loosened the tie and undid the top button of his shirt. Instead of shoes, he wore boots, worn in but not down in the heel. The laces matched, fit properly, and weren’t frayed. There was a pager on his belt. For a moment he hoped for an incoming message but then groaned as he realized he wouldn’t be able to read the screen at the moment. He fingered it wistfully, perhaps even now the screen was lit up with a message, perhaps it started with his name? Even “Hi Jack, where are you?” would be a very welcome message right now. He put the pager back on his belt and continued his search.

Why would he have a pager and no cell phone? Traveling salesman? Health freak who believed cell phones caused brain cancer? He smiled. He hoped the pager was charged, perhaps someone would start looking for him if they paged and he didn’t call.

There were some papers in his pockets, he touched the surface and felt the lines of a handwritten note and one that was smooth - printed he supposed. Both were useless right now and he tucked them back in for later. He found a wallet in his breast pocket. It was fat and heavy, leather by the feel of it. Inside he found several plastic cards, some with raised numbers - credit cards. His blood quickened. Even in the pitch black, he should be able to make out the name on the card from the raised letters. Carefully he ran his fingers over the raised section. There were two distinct lines, name below, numbers above, he could see it in his mind’s eye. One was AMEX, one was Visa, he was sure and his hope rose. He followed the bottom line trying to force images of letters to come to his mind. Nothing. He strained further, emptying his mind, controlling his breathing and trying again and again to picture the name on the card. His jaw clenched and his brow furrowed deeply. They were just too small. His fingers couldn’t even make out where individual letters began and ended. “Argh!” His growl erupted and he hurled the card away from him with a shout. The dog jumped up, whining and pressed harder into the man’s side. “It’s okay, shh, it’s okay Fido.” He ran his hand over the dog’s head a couple of times until it lay down again.

He gripped the wallet and searched it again. Several other cards, all smooth, all useless in the dark. He held the one he found tucked into a plastic sleeve and ran his thumb over the surface. He was probably holding his driver’s license. It would have a picture of his face, his name and address. He bowed his head and the loss swept over him. His head hurt, he was thirsty. He couldn’t read his own ID and had no idea if anyone was looking for him.


9:15 a.m. Saturday 14th
Across the water, the city of Manhattan took a Saturday. Couples went to the market to shop and browse. Mothers dropped daughters at ballet class. Fathers took sons to baseball practice. Cops, released from their weekday tours, passed command to those hauling the weekend shift. And no one missed the man who was weekending at the dump.

~

9:20 a.m. Saturday 14th
The man at the dump sat, not yet ready to tuck the wallet back into his jacket. He wondered if there were photos of loved ones. A wife? Children? He touched the ring finger of his left hand. Nothing, but perhaps he just didn’t believe in wedding rings for men? He shook his head, he had no idea. Maybe a girlfriend? He fingered the plastic sleeves inside the leather trying to bring to mind what must be in them. But it was like straining against the air, nothing budged, nothing knocked up against his battering questions. No images came to mind of the wallet, photo, or people.

He delved into the money compartment, bills only. He smoothed the bills out and counted them. The soft sheaves were well used, nothing like fresh new bills from a bank, and there were ten of them. He tucked them back in, wondering if he had ten dollars in his hand or a thousand, probably somewhere in between.

The wallet fit comfortably back into his jacket.

The man stood again, one hand on the wall. He could do this; he could find his way out of here. He ran a hand over his face and the back of his head. He cupped his hands over his eyes and held them open. Looking up, down, sideways, and seeking some change. He expected the glare of the sun was exacerbating the problem from the blows he had recieved to his head. Whatever had affected his eyes would have to let up soon, and he’d be able to find out who he was and get everything sorted out. He began to walk the perimeter.

The temperature was rising. He took off the coat, loosened his tie further, but was reluctant to take off the jacket. If he was going to go touring a dump, at least he’d be presentable.


2.57 p.m. Saturday 14th
The dog panted beside him. The man sunk to his knees in the garbage. With a grunt, he lifted his leg up and over, finding a more solid stretch of ground in front of him. He was determined to keep walking until he found the gate. The wall afforded no shade now, the sun beat down, and he stared up at it, angry he could feel the heat on his face and not see the light. There was no shelter to be found, unless he wanted to burrow into the filth of Manhattan, but he wasn't that low yet. He used his coat like an umbrella as he walked on along the wall. The dog hadn’t been any trouble, in fact, he was grateful it stuck close to him, he felt marginally less alone.

Just as he was appreciating the dog, the damn thing started to get in his way, planting itself in front of him and refusing to budge. He cursed and tried to move around it but the stupid thing stepped in front of him again as he took his next step and he landed on his hands and knees. “Go!” he told it, pointing away from the wall. If the animal wasn't going to be a help, he’d rather it left. It went and sat, whining a few feet away. The man stood, pleased. His next step landed him knee deep in foul salty water, it splashed all the way to his face and he stumbled, just saving himself from a full dunking by gripping the wall and the dog that had snuck back in and ducked in under his arm.

Gasping he waited for his heart to stop racing while his mind wrapped itself around what was in front of him. The water was seeping in from under the retaining wall. He was reluctant to wade through the foul mix of sea water and detritus. There was no way to tell how deep it would get, and he was aware that he wasn't at his full strength. Finally he gave in, pulled his coat back on and followed the dog, one hand on its back, the other stretched out in front in case he fell.

They’d been moving through the garbage for about half an hour when the man stopped, stood, and cocked his head. A motor, a boat, it came closer, approaching the landfill. The man waved his arms, shouted, and stumbled back toward the sound of the boat, but it in moments he lost it, the sound of the flapping coat disappeared in the wind, the gulls, and the panting dog. He rubbed his face, pressed his hands to his eyes, and fought his emotions. He wasn’t going to give up. He was in New York for God’s sake, this he did know, and it was unthinkable that in one of the most populous cities on the planet, he couldn’t find his way back to people, to civilization. He could do anything he set his mind to, he knew that. The boat going past - he should have been at the wall – but here he was well away, following the freaking dog and he cursed it angrily. He needed to go back to the wall and next time - if he met another patch of water - he’d wade, disgusting or not, he couldn’t afford to let another opportunity for rescue go by.

But, even as he turned in a 360 degree circle, the truth hit him. With his eyes out of commission, unless a boat did go by, he couldn’t figure out which way the water lay. The gulls filled the air with noise, and the lapping of the waves was impossible to pick out. His hands trembled with frustration and anger.

The dog sidled back up, seemingly unaware of the blame the man was heaping on it, and tried to continue leading him. “Just get me to the freaking wall,” he muttered to the dog under his breath and, with no alternative in view, he followed it. He tried not to think about hypodermic needles, infections, and the bacteria that was busily devouring the refuse and would happily devour him too, if he stayed still long enough. Surprisingly the dog brought him back to the retaining wall after an hour of scrambling through garbage and rocks. The man kept walking, committing, again, to staying with the wall until he was out of this place.

He allowed himself a rest at what he thought was two hour intervals. He continued walking the retainer of the dump all day long. When the last of the gulls left for their roosts, he continued, his steps slower but no less determined.


10.43 p.m. Saturday 14th
The pool hall sure was alive tonight. Cracker Jack smiled as a shiny new couple entered and stood at the bar, ripe for the plucking. Len dug his elbow into Jack’s side. “They look sweet,” he raised his eyebrows suggestively.

Within an hour, they had the swaggering young fellow betting in the hundreds as his girlfriend watched wide-eyed. Cracker and Len had let him win the first two rounds, and he was confident he would beat them again. Soon he would make the bet worthwhile, and Cracker would open the throttle, clearing the green in one, maybe two, passes.

When it was done, as he tucked his share of the winnings into his sleeve, he looked around the smoky room again. A friendly game would be welcome now. Jimmy D had said he might show up tonight. Cracker couldn’t see the blonde head in the crowd but there was time, maybe he would show later.

10:44 p.m. Saturday
The man shivered. His thirst was rabid and he was seriously hungry now. His head felt heavier than the rest of him. He leaned over to pull the kinks from his back - he hadn’t sat down for several hours. He had begun taking his break standing up and leaning against the wall after he had dozed for a moment, and something had sunk sharp teeth into his hand. He rubbed the spot and fresh blood flowed. He imagined rats the size of small dogs circling and decided to keep walking. How big could a landfill be?


3.05 a.m. Sunday 24th
The dog barked. It lunged, snapped up a small grey body and gave it a shake, dropped the limp form on the ground and snarled as smaller ones scurried away. Their shiny black eyes watched from hidey holes as the dog curled up next to the man again. When the dog’s eyes closed, they scurried forward to nuzzle at their mother but she didn’t move, didn’t give them the comforting squeaks they sought, and soon they left.

The dog was unfailing in its vigil. Tired, hungry, thirsty, still it didn’t leave the man’s side. On and off all day and all night, it walked when the man walked, it held vigil when he rested. Now the man huddled under the cover of the coat, shivering and making fearful sounds as he slept, and the dog left his side only to widen the circle of the sleek fat rats that saw a fresh meal. It killed half a dozen and scared away many more, while the man slumbered oblivious.

When the man finally rose again and began to head off disoriented, the dog steered him back to the wall and together they walked on.

After walking several hours in the night and several more in the morning, the man fell to his knees again. A few more steps and he decided to pitch his tent, rats or no rats he needed rest. He sat with his back to the wall, his knees up, and tucked the coat around him, making a secure little room. He hardly noticed the smell. The dog whined and he opened a flap. “Okay, come in.” The dog scooted in and laid its head in the man’s lap. “You better be a girl dog, Fido.” But the dog was already asleep.

9:10 a.m. Sunday 15th
He had walked for hours since the sun had risen. The cries of the gulls rang in his head, layered over the buzz of a fever and the beat of his heart. He slowed, strained, listened. The buzz in his head wasn’t internal, the sound separated itself and he realized it was a motor. He held himself up at the wall and waved both arms in the air, calling out, but his voice was hoarse and weak. The dog settled down beside him. He wanted to kick the dog. “Bark, you’re a dog, fucking bark for me!” he shouted his frustration at the dog, who gave him a baleful look and began to bark. The man took off his coat and flapped it in the wind over the wall hoping to be seen. The dog barked louder. But the boat was a tug boat, rushing out to rescue some corporate executives who had managed to get stranded in the river within ten minutes of picking up their rented boat. No one saw the man’s desperate attempts or heard the dog. The driver was glancing instead, at the penthouse magazine his predecessor had left on board last night. In the dump, by the retaining wall, the wind gusted and snatched the man’s coat from his hands, flying it up high, like a kite into the air and over toward the city.

The coat was gone into the black abyss, the boat passed and hope was no more than a tattered wish. The man felt hot tears form in his eyes. He blinked them away. He needed to conserve all the water in his body. He set off along the wall. It could not go on forever.

9:15 a.m. Sunday 15th
Across the water in Manhattan, joggers made their rounds of Central Park, stopping at drinking fountains to wet their faces. They took long pulls from bottles of specially formulated water that drove away any chance of dehydration.

10:20 am Sunday 15th
In an apartment overlooking the park, a woman rolled over in her bed and watched her new lover walk into the bathroom. She compared him to the man she’d left only a few weeks ago, too serious by half but a great lover. She wondered idly where he was now and who he had woken up with.

11:59 a.m. Sunday 15th
In the park opposite the landfill, too far for the eye to make out trees let alone individual people, families set out picnic blankets and argued about the contents of their baskets. Kids played ball and dogs romped, enjoying the freedom of the park. Parents smiled, watching their children.


4:00 p.m. Sunday 15th
Lying in the shade of the dump wall, he dozed on and off. He dreamed of walking in the dark through garbage and of dying people. He dreamed of walking through the streets of New York, feeling strong, powerful, gazing up at the buildings, and feeling like he was part of a great thing. He dreamed of guns shooting and people shouting. He dreamed of faces he didn’t recognize. He dreamed of asking someone over and over again, “Who am I? Tell me or you’re going away for a very long time.” He dreamed of priests in pulpits describing hell, and some part of him wondered what he had done to be sent here.


5:23 a.m. Monday 16th
The man woke from a daze with the clash of thunder. His head jerked back and hit the wall, bringing fireworks to his eyes and renewing the thudding ache from his injuries. With the fireworks came a renewed expectation that his sight would clear, and he looked around seeking the lightning that must accompany the thunder. Nothing breached his darkness. “No, no, no.” He held his head in his hands and rocked back and forth. It was so dark he felt like his mind was slipping from his grasp, and he couldn’t see to pick it up. His stomach had long since shrunk to a rock in the centre of his body, now it burned as acid began to attack his own flesh. He was so thirsty he felt he would go mad if he didn’t get some water soon. He’d begun searching the garbage for bottles, containers, anything that might give him some moisture for his rapidly shriveling body. But all he’d gotten for his efforts was cuts on his hands from sharp edges and filth he couldn’t even imagine.

Now he sat, head in hands, and prayed for help. He had no idea how long he’d been here, why he was here, how long this would last. His mind played with the idea that perhaps he would die here. The clash of thunder that had woken him was only the beginning. Crack! Another bolt of lightning lit the sky and reflected off his wide unseeing eyes. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The man smiled to himself at memories that surfaced: dancing, as a child, in a red Indian costume praying to the Rain God, bringing up the dust with his feet, his friends and he so earnest in their game. He blinked, remembering how disappointed they had been that the rain hadn’t come. He couldn’t have been more than four or five, crying to his Mom. Why? Why didn’t the Rain God hear them? He even remembered her answer. Delay is not denial, sweetie, sometimes you get what you ask for only when you truly need it.

Another crash, and then the blessed sound of rain. It fell lightly at first, sprinkling his upturned face lightly. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and washed dirt from his face and hands. When the drops grew larger and he gathered them in his hands and drank. As soon as his thirst was sated, he held his hands out and the dog came to lick gratefully. Finally he sat, eyes closed and immersed himself in the sound, the texture, the wetness of the storm. He slept in between bouts of shivering and woke when the breeze picked up and wove its way between his clothes to find his bones.


6:28 a.m. Monday 16th
The sun rose over New York. Steam lifted from the streets and pearled on car windows.

7:29 a.m. Monday 16th
The hot sun shone on dry pavement. The only sign of the rain was slightly refreshed foliage in the parks and a new fringe of green on the grass.

In the dump, the rats had known to drink their fill during the storm, for now, it was as if it had never rained and so it would be until the next fall of life giving water from the heavens.

The man woke, remembering a dream of rain. He stood on unsteady legs and put his hand to the wall. He waited while the dog stretched and shook itself then stepped in front of him. They continued.

In his weakened state, the man walked quite slowly. Despite the hand on the wall, and the dog beside him, he fell to his knees every twenty or thirty steps. He’d lost his coat, and there was no escape from the relentless sun. His breath came in small, shallow sips. The dog staggered as the man slipped on a plastic garbage bag and came down on top. It turned to aid the man in getting to his feet, but he had slid out of consciousness with his fall and the latest jolt to his head injury. The dog nudged him, anxious, the scent of the rats was close. They still followed, watching, waiting for their chance, and it had been many hours since the dog had managed to catch the last one. Its own legs shook and it laid its head on the man’s leg, closed its eyes to rest.


8:05 a.m. Monday 16th
The man jerked awake and away from the pain in his hand where the rat had bitten him again. He pulled his hand in close and rocked, crying like a child but there were no tears from his eyes. The dog shivered and cuddled in close.

TBC

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Three

8:10 am Monday 16th
Karen came back from getting coffee, but Jim still wasn’t at his desk. She looked out the window but he wasn't coming up the street. The elevator pinged but no man and dog rounded the corner.

“Who’s up?” Fisk called.

“Dunbar, I think.” Tom looked to Karen who nodded.

“Well, where the hell is he?”

The three detectives looked at each other. Fisk rolled his eyes.

“Fine, Tom you take this DOA on 2nd Avenue. Could be suicide, could be homicide. Karen, go find your partner and ask him if he’d like to work today.”

Karen was already dialing but Jim's phone rang through to the answering service. She put in a page.

A few moments later, Fisk stepped up to her desk. “You find him?”

She shook her head, biting her lip. “No, and he’s never been late and not called in so…”

Fisk nodded at her unasked question. “Go. But keep your phone on. I have a feeling this is going to be a fast start week.

8:11am Monday 16th

The dog’s ears pricked up, it sat, barked hoarsely.

The noise pushed through dreams of gunshots, sand, and flies, and dragged the man from a fevered sleep. Unsure what was going on, he fumbled at the insistent beeping at his waist. His fingers found the pager and he pressed the buttons randomly. A small electronic voice spoke up, “The squad.” The squad, the squad… it rang bells in his head but nothing more than that. He roused himself from his doze and pressed again, “The squad.” Cursing, he banged the heels of his hands against his head and pressed them into his eyes. Why couldn’t he remember anything? Why couldn’t he see anything? Who had put him here and where was everyone else? He was sure days had passed, not just hours. He had felt the heat of the sun, the cold of night, several times. Although, with the injury to his head, there had been a long time in the beginning of this ordeal, when he had been confused and had not kept track of time, there had been two distinct periods when it had been cold and he was sure they were full nights. Even at a landfill, there had to be traffic of some kind. But he had heard no one, no trucks, no motors, other than the occasional boat too far for contact. What version of hell had he found himself in and what had he done to end up here? The endless questions rose up to burn his mind, and he was tempted to sink down into the dreams of a war in which he could at least see the barriers and targets in front of him. Instead, he stood again, amid the buzz of flies, the cries of the sea gulls and stepped forward.

The dog rose beside him, on fatigued legs, and rubbed its head against his leg.

He may have been confused about how long he’d been living at the dump, but he knew for sure it wouldn’t be much longer. His lucid moments were few, but one thing was clear when they came; he needed water, and he wouldn’t last another twenty-four hours without it.

8:37 am Monday 16th
Karen banged on Jim's door. There was no answer. “Jim!” she called but all was quiet inside. Not even Hank’s claws, tapping their way to the door.

She found the building super in his apartment on the ground floor and flashed her badge. The man remembered her and handed over the key without question. He said he hoped Detective Dunbar was okay and went back to his daytime TV.

Jim's apartment was empty. No signs of foul play. Everything was exactly in place as usual. She checked the fridge. Three boxes of Hank’s food remained on the bottom shelf. She knew he got one box a day and Jim prepared them on Sunday. That mean Hank had not been fed since Thursday night. Karen pulled up her phone and dialed the boss. Her hands were cold with fear.


10:00 am Monday 16th
“Order, order. The first point of business is our union action to support Miguel in his fight to retain his job. Who’s in favor of breaking the strike?”

A few hands were raised but after glares from their colleagues, they were dropped and heads were shaken.

“Who is in favor of allowing the garbage to build up in Manhattan until they drop the charges against Miguel and give him his job back?”

The men and women of the barge and garbage union took pleasure in being able to rub the noses of the company bosses in their own shit.

“We have a press announcement. The strike continues!”

10:15 am Monday 16th
The man stood again, using the wall to support him, and listened to the waves. It felt like he’d been walking for a week. He’d failed to find the end of the wall, an office, a road through the rubbish. He considered jumping the wall and trying to swim, but he had no idea which direction to go, and he was so exhausted, he doubted he could swim far. His lips were cracked and caked with his own blood. His eyes were sticky and sandy and his skin had no elasticity left. By his own condition, he estimated he’d been lost for three days. The pain in his head had subsided to a pulsing roar, and at times he had been sure his vision was clearing. But now it was black as ever, and it took everything he had to reach out, slide his hand along the wall and take another step in the hot dark hell.

10:46 am Monday 16th
“Thanks for the update, Sergeant Watts.” Fisk put the phone down. The strike continued. He grimaced. Somehow, garbage strikes always meant more DOAs. But, they wouldn’t find them for several days, until the heat brought them to a point where the garbage couldn’t hide its secrets. He wished Sanitation would just give the idiot his job back and let the city get on with what it had to do. But he guessed they would be in for a week or more of rotting refuse in the streets.

10:50 am Monday 16th
Karen and Marty entered the elevator together. “You find Dunbar?”

“No. He wasn’t there. What happened with your DOA?”

“Definite suicide. Sorry note, locked doors, the lot.” Marty was clearly relieved, “Mother turned up, worried because he hadn’t called so I don’t even have to do a notification.”

They walked into Fisk’s office and Tom joined them.

Fisk took Marty’s verbal report and clarified what Karen had explained about Jim, “You last saw him when you dropped him off at 9 o’clock Friday night?”

Karen nodded.

“And where did you go between here and his place?”

“With Tom and Marty, we all had dinner together at that new Thai place.”

“And you saw him go inside the apartment?” Fisk demanded.

Karen closed her eyes and pictured the evening. She shook her head slightly before she answered, “No, I dropped him off, he headed for the apartment and I left.”

“Where would he have gone?” Fisk asked them. “Is he seeing anyone at the moment?”

“Ah, no.” Tom answered. When the others sent him questioning looks, he shrugged. “Hey, we’re both single, we talk about women. Besides, you can just tell when he’s got someone on the go.”

Karen nodded. “There’s been no phone calls or anything since that one that came into the squad a few weeks ago. She didn’t last long.”

“Okay. Okay.” Fisk looked to Tom, “Dump his cell phone records, find out when the last call was made. Karen you call his ex-wife and see if he’s contacted her. If there’s nothing, we call in Missing Persons Unit.”

Karen nodded, her face was pinched and white. “We can still go look for him though, can’t we, Boss?’

“Yes of course. But we need to call in Missing Persons. They do this all the time, and we need to do things by the book, as well as every other way we can come up with.” It was nearly four hours past the time Dunbar would have shown up, and by all reports, no one had seen him for three days. Gary Fisk grimaced, the 48 hour window cops usually relied on to find a perp, a victim, or a missing person had already passed before they even knew he was missing.

“I’ll call the hospitals,” Marty said, avoiding Karen’s eyes.

Twenty minutes later they had all reported back into the boss. Christie hadn’t heard from Jim for months, she’d like a call to say he was okay when they found him. His cell phone had been inactive since Friday at 4 o’clock and was currently turned off, so no way to track its whereabouts. No one fitting Jim's description had been admitted to emergency in any of the hospitals that Marty had called.

“Is there anyone else who might know where he is?” The Lieutenant asked the detectives.

Karen shook her head, thinking about Jim’s life. “There’s a gym he goes to, and that pool hall… he mostly gets his groceries delivered…”

“And I know a couple of places he hangs out, I can check those,” Tom volunteered.

“I’ll start a canvass from his apartment,” Marty said.

“Good. Go.” Fisk called his counterpart at the next precinct over. “Jarrod, I need a favor…” By the time he had hung up, he knew any urgent cases could be fielded, allowing the squad every opportunity to dig up a lead. His next call was to MPU and then the Chief of D’s.

The detectives all headed out, well aware they were possibly working a cold case already.

Karen’s first stop was the park Jim took Hank to every night. Chances were he would have gone there before returning to the apartment on Friday night. On the way, Karen called her long time friend Ann Donnely. “Ann, have you been seeing Jim again?”

Ann laughed, “No, why do you ask? You know I’d tell you if I was.”

Karen sighed, she wished she had found another way to ask, she didn’t want to tell Ann he was missing. Somehow saying it would make it more real.

Her phone beeped, another call coming in, “Ann, I gotta go, it’s the Boss calling me.”

“Bettancourt.”

“Anything?”

“Not yet.”

“I just spoke to Missing Persons, they’re on their way here and will want to see you immediately.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Karen decided to search the park before returning to the squad. The bar and the gym she could call but the park was something she’d have to look at herself. She’d walked here a number of times with Jim and Hank, over the years. She knew his usual route and found the bench where he sat. She could imagine Jim sitting there on Friday night, waiting while Hank hurried around, nose to the ground searching for just the right place to lift his leg. There were boot prints that could have been Jim's and scuff marks that could have indicated a struggle, but it was a park and there must have been dozens of people through here since Friday night. A mother with kids at the swings hadn’t been in the park on Friday. She did say she sometimes saw a blind man and his dog when she brought her children down but hadn’t seen him recently. “He seemed nice, I hope he’s okay,” the woman said, making an expression of condolence.

Karen gritted her teeth and moved back to the bench. The patch of mud behind it contained a few straggly looking bushes and she combed through them. There, a phone. She lifted it gingerly with an evidence bag. Yes, it looked like Jim’s. Was it enough to determine this was a crime scene? She called for a CSU and waited until they arrived before heading back to the squad and the MPU detectives.

12:05 pm Monday 16th

“Yes, Chief, I know. No publicity… Yes, Missing Persons has been called… No, of course I won’t pull my detectives off what they’re doing… No they’re all out on cases… Yes. We’ll leave it with MPU.” As soon as the Chief of D’s hung up, Fisk slammed the phone into its cradle. “Bastard!”

There was a knock on the Lieutenant’s door. “Come in.”

Two men entered.


12:15 pm Monday 16th
Karen raced Jim’s cell phone down to the lab.

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Four

12: 48 pm Monday 16th

“Suicide? Jim? No way.” Tom was adamant. “He’s enjoying life too much to contemplate suicide.”

“What do you mean, Detective Selway, when you say enjoying life too much?” the sloppy white bread man with terminal bad taste asked. He licked the end of his pencil and prepared to make notes.

Tom grimaced, disgusted, but answered easily. “Jim’s newly divorced, his wife left him oh, about a year ago, and he’s been, you know, enjoying the field of roses.” He looked from the fat boy to the one who looked like a mortician’s dream corpse.

“You mean he’s been promiscuous?” the corpse asked.

“Well, no, I wouldn’t put it that way. I mean he never saw more than one woman at a time, so far as I know.”

“But he’s blind, how does he ..?” Fat Boy obviously didn’t understand anything about charisma and spoke over his partner in his haste to understand.

“Could you provide a list of names of these women?” Corpse Man said in a monotone, as if his partner hadn’t even opened his mouth.

Tom stopped, his mouth hanging open. Jim and he had compared notes, but names weren’t always part of the notes. With Jim, even the basics of description weren’t always part of the notes. Tom couldn’t help smiling. “I’ll jot down what I can remember but, your best bet would be the phone numbers from his cell dump.” His grin was almost irrepressible as he thought of the list he would make. The girl who screamed when she came. The one with breasts so big Jim needed his cane to find his way around them. The little one he couldn’t invite to his apartment because every time she opened her mouth, Jim imagined a twelve year old. The black girl, Jim said he could tell by her voice and her mouth. But when Tom had finally met her, she’d been as white as the First Lady.

No, his list wouldn’t help these two at all. Tom seriously doubted any of these girls would want to hurt Jim. He’d met a few, they’d all looked lovingly into his face. The partings usually came after a couple of weeks. They’d realize a long term commitment to a man who couldn’t see, and a workaholic cop weren’t their idea of romance after all. Jim seemed happy. He wasn't interested in settling down again. He gloated about having his apartment the way he liked it after all these years, and the joy of knowing nothing in it ever moved unless he moved it. There had been a girl or two who had threatened to stick around a little longer. They seemed to take it in stride that he couldn’t see and assured him the cop thing wasn't a problem. Jim had his own methods of helping them see the light. A few stepped on toes, a couple of inappropriate comments within earshot of someone else, and these two bowed gracefully out of the picture.

“It seems to us, that these continual short term relationships could indicate a deep seated insecurity and depression,” the corpse summed up. “Thanks for your information, you’ve been most helpful.”

Tom left, hoping these two were on vacation if he ever went missing.

~

1: 24 pm Monday 16th
Marty’s interview took two minutes. He took one look at the dead beat and the prick and knew they wouldn’t be any help. Their first question proved that was the case.

“No. Dunbar wouldn’t suicide. He is too fucking stubborn and he fought too hard to get where he is. Besides, he lives for his job.” Marty sat forward and looked around him as if to make sure no one else was listening. “I’ll deny it if you quote me, but truth is, he solves more than his fair share of the cases that come out of this squad.”

The MPU detectives just looked from Marty to each other and thanked him for his time.


1:50 pm Monday 16th
“Detective Bettancourt, Jim's partner,” Fisk introduced Karen. “These are Detectives Wainright and Saunders, Missing Persons Unit.”

Karen shook their hands and sat in the empty chair between the two men. They were opposites in every way. Wainright was a tall thin black man, with a severe visage and unnerving stare. His age could have been anywhere between twenty five and fifty. He wore a dark suit, dark tie, and immaculately shined shoes. He sat straight in his chair and once his eyes caught Karen’s, they never left her face. Saunders was well over fifty, soft, like a dinner roll and overflowing his pale brown casual pants. He wore a collared polo shirt with a tie incongruously knotted at the neck and tucked into his pants. His elbow patched jacket looked like it had been hunting recently. There were no socks inside his boat shoes. He stuttered and missed when he reached to shake her hand and landed back in his chair with a depreciating grunt, as if he’d just attempted and failed a high jump.

These were the men who were going to find Jim? Karen itched to get out of there and go searching the streets. She turned to the Boss. “Canvass?”

“Started. All our available patrols.” Fisk smiled for the benefit of the two men, “The Detectives have some questions.”

The bumbling MPU detective smiled over his thick lenses, “Ah, Lieutenant, do you suppose we could speak to Detective…” he looked toward his note pad, “Bettancourt, alone for a few minutes?”

Fisk was taken aback. If he’d realized they wanted that, he’d have given them an interview room to use. But it would waste time if he moved them now. He had no idea if Dunbar was in danger and if minutes could make a difference.

He nodded and left the office. “Marty, you got that list yet?” He asked the man who was perched on the window sill, his feet on Jim's chair.

“Yep, and all his collars are either in jail or have been in contact with their parole officers. No truants.” Marty read the list again.

“Check the paroles. Someone could have snatched him, and reported in as required.”

Marty nodded. “Like a revenge thing?”

Fisk nodded and Marty considered it.

“Could be. He certainly knows how to piss people off.”

Tom dropped the phone he had been on back into its cradle. “Dunbar’s cell phone? The hair is female and blonde. Blood is his type.”

Fisk nodded. “Anything more from the hospitals?”

“No, Boss.” Tom looked over his shoulder at the closed door. “What are they thinking?”

The phone rang and Marty picked it up at Jim’s desk.

Fisk shrugged. “Covering all bases I guess.” He didn’t want to tell his detectives the majority of his time with the MPU detectives had been spent with Fisk explaining Jim wasn't a suicide risk. The two men seemed unable to imagine a blind man could be happy. In fact, judging by the expressions on the fat guy’s face and the lack of expression on the skinny one, they didn’t believe the Lieutenant when he said Jim was competent. Chances were they were assuming he had either gotten himself lost a few yards from his apartment door, or had finally managed to find the river after three years of searching for it and thrown himself in.

“Boss.” Marty’s voice broke through to Fisk’s attention. “Boss.”

“Yeah?” Fisk pulled himself from his angry thoughts.

“That was Watts. He said there was an arrest in Maryland this morning of an escaped convict.”

Fisk raised his eyebrows, “And…?”

“Marybeth Desmond. You remember? Killed her husband Carl three years ago. He was from vice and one of the first cases Jim worked with us. Remember Jim broke the partner Eric by recognizing his cologne from the apartment?”

“And she’s blonde, like the hair found on Jim’s phone.” Tom added.

Fisk nodded, he grabbed the phone. “Where is she being held? Get there, fast. I’ll call to let them know you’re coming.”

Fisk sat at Marty’s desk where he could keep an eye on his door. He logged into Russo’s computer with his own ID and found out where Marybeth had escaped from. Bingo. Escaped Wednesday night, plenty of time to get to Dunbar near his apartment. He closed the window and picked up the phone.

2:07 pm Monday 16th.
The dog nudged the man again, and he battered at it like it was a fly. “No, let me rest, Fido. There’s a girl.” But the shade of the wall where he was slumped was rat territory, and a pair of particularly big ones had refused to get caught. They’d given the dog several bites and roamed, waiting for the guard to fail so they could get to the prize.

~

2:10pm Monday 16th
Karen shifted uneasily in the chair. The black guy had asked her all sort of irrelevant questions about Jim. His timetable, his habits, how he operated on a case, how he handled himself at a crime scene, did he ever get lost? She answered them for a while but finally stopped the monotone stream from the man’s mouth with a hand in the air.

“This is all very well, but what does it have to do with finding Jim?”

“We need to understand this man if we are to track him down,” the old guy, Saunders, answered for the black man, Wainright. “So did he ever get lost?”

“Yes, once. Jim was undercover and Marty and Tom were supposed to follow the car he got into, but they got cut off.”

“He went under cover?” Saunders spluttered. This time Wainright took control.

“Thank you. And were there other times when you observed Detective Dunbar disoriented?”

Karen lifted a shoulder and looked around, “Yes, but only for a moment, you know, He’d get turned around in a busy corridor, or we’d be in a new place and …” She didn’t want to continue, these were very small things, things the other guys didn’t even see and things which she and Dunbar went to lengths to make sure were unnoticed by other cops, brass, and civilians. But, in three, nearly four years together, yes it had happened and would probably happen again. She shook her head, no these were irrelevant.

“The other detectives and the Lieutenant seem to think Dunbar is a competent detective, is that your assessment? As his partner, working with him day in-day-out, do you find you have to carry him very much?”

“Carry Jim? You gotta be kidding!” Karen was outraged.

“My partner doesn’t mean literally, Detective, he means - ” Wainright tried to calm her.

Karen interrupted, unable to keep the anger from her voice, “I know exactly what he means and no. First of all, Jim’s been a detective for close to fifteen years now, he knows his job inside out. And second of all, the Lieutenant would never sanction anyone who wasn’t pulling their weight.”

“You seem very upset, Detective Bettancourt,” Saunders almost stuttered, trying and failing to look her in the eye as he spoke, “Is there more to your relationship with Detective Dunbar than you have admitted?”

“What?” Karen felt catholic guilt raising its head somewhere in back of her conscience and gave it a very solid whack. “Why on earth would you ask that?”

“Well, you seem very upset, and you’ve used his first name on four occasions in a ten minute conversation. That usually indicates an intimate relationship.”

“What a load of bull! Jim’s my partner I’m worried for his life and you’re sitting here questioning his competence rather than looking for him. Upset doesn’t even get close.”

“Have you ever slept with Detective Dunbar?” Wainright asked the question in his flat tone, overlaid with the authority of his position.

Karen’s mouth was small and tight. No one in the squad or the precinct knew. They had been very careful to keep everything under wraps. She didn’t know if these guys would end that. “Over twelve months ago, we had a relationship for a short time.”

“Who ended the relationship?”

“It was mutual. We decided we had to choose between our job partnership and… the other, and we both chose the job.” Her eyes flashed at them to challenge her and she flared as a smile jerked Wainright’s lips for a micro second.

Wainright and Saunders looked at each other and then turned back to her. Saunders threw the next question, “How do you feel about your partner’s current promiscuity, Detective Bettancourt?”

Oh, no, these guys were complete idiots. They were looking at her now? It was all Karen could do to hold herself in her chair and not storm out the door. “I’m fine with it,” she said trying for an off the cuff attitude and hearing the tremble of unrelieved tension in her own voice. Jim could go chase as much skirt off tour as he wanted, she just wanted her partner back and working cases. If these two were going to go suspecting her of getting rid of Jim, it would just steal the time she had to search. She shook her head and lied, “I’m not into short term flings, so it just seems a little silly to me.” She gave them a smile, hoping to have led them off that particular wild goose chase.

The two men nodded slowly and in unison. Saunders wrote something on his pad and Wainright asked his next question. “Where did you go, after you dropped Detective Dunbar off at his apartment on Friday?”

“I went home, where I live alone. I spoke to my neighbor as I arrived. I did not leave until 10am the next day when a friend picked me up and we went out.”

Wainright kept his eyes on hers, dead eyes she thought, to match his dead voice. “We’d like a short recess, Detective Bettancourt. Would you step outside and return in five minutes?”

Saunders gave her a weak, condescending smile as he wiped sweat from his brow. Karen slammed the door behind her.

~

Karen came back from the rest room. Fisk pulled her aside to brief her, “Russo and Selway-” he began but was interrupted by the MPU detective.

Saunders stuck his head out of the door. “We’re ready for you again, Detective Bettancourt.”

“Boss, these two…”

He looked her in the eye. “I know. But it keeps Tunney off our back, and, although they don’t work the same way as we do, they are the MPU, so give them the benefit of the doubt and your full cooperation.”

She sucked in her breath and went in for round two.

2:30 pm Monday 16th
Dehydration had cost the man most of his clarity now. He’d lost his coat somewhere and shivered continually. He was finding it increasingly difficult to walk, and his chatter to the dog ebbed and flowed. Every time he sat, he took out his wallet and thumbed through the cards. If he was going to die, he wanted to die at least knowing who he was. Somehow it seemed of utmost importance.

…

His wallet slipped from his hand as he fell. His eyes closed and he dreamed of walking into a bar. Friends waved him over, saying his name, but he couldn’t quite catch it. His mother was there, scolding him, and his father held out a glass of beer. The man used every ounce of strength he had left to gain his footing. He stepped toward his father. The man almost cried, reaching for the amber filled glass with trembling hands, not wanting to lose a drop. The wet sides were smooth, and he sloshed some of the precious liquid on his shirt front when his shaking hands lifted it to his mouth. But the beer turned to sand and filled his mouth with foul dryness and he began to retch. His father laughed and laughed.

The man jerked away, his hand went to his shirt front, the beer, maybe he could get some from his shirt, enough to wet his lips at least. But the shirt front was dry and his thirst drew every moment into a long and painful experience. He fell to his knees and looked up at the face of betrayal.

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Five

2:45 pm Monday 16th
“Please tell us about Detective Dunbar’s emotional state.”

The turnaround surprised Karen. “What do you mean?”

“Is he generally a happy go lucky kind of man?” Saunders prompted, “or dour, pessimistic?”

“Well, not happy go lucky. Jim’s kind of serious and intense. But not pessimistic. No.”

“So he’s a glass half full guy?” Saunders clarified.

Karen had to shake her head. “No, I’d say he’d get the ruler out and measure it exactly.” She looked at Wainright who probably shared a similar trait. “I mean he kind of has to be very organized and orderly.”

Wainright lifted an eyebrow, the first facial expression he had admitted.

“Because he’s blind, you know, you put something down, you have to know where it is or you waste a lot of time,” Karen explained.

Wainright nodded. After a prolonged silence he asked, “Is he generally outgoing, forthcoming, or reserved?”

“Reserved. We joke that I carry a can opener next to my gun.” Karen wished they’d ask their questions faster.

Another pause, then, “So, would it be possible for him to hide his emotions from you?”

“I guess, he’s not so easy to read as some people, but I’ve been working with him for a while so eventually I catch on when something’s bugging him.”

“And has something been bugging him lately?” Her words coming from Wainright’s mouth sounded childish.

Karen was about to protest but she remembered Fisk’s request. If she was going to answer, she may as well do it properly. She thought about it. Jim held himself to almost impossible standards, and in the last month, they’d had a couple of cases go south. He’d beaten himself up over them, even though the whole squad was involved, and Marty had joined in, trying to blame Jim. Harping, as always on the white elephant in Jim's corner.

“Maybe, but nothing he wouldn’t get over. You know, sometimes he and Marty don’t get on. He steps all over Marty’s toes and Marty rags on his blindness.”

“Rags on him? As in workplace harassment?” Wainright asked, as if it were implausible.

Karen almost felt like grinning this guy was unreal if he thought that didn’t happen around here. “It’s nothing that hasn’t been going on since he got here. And you know, if the tables were turned, I bet Jim would be just as hard on Marty…” She looked from Saunders to Wainright, “Why you asking that?”

“Our profiling suggests he might be suicidal.” Wainright again, hitting her right between the eyes.

“No. No. Not Jim.” Karen began to get angry, “And you are forgetting I found his cell phone, damaged, with blood on it?”

But it sounded like denial to their ears. Saunders’ cell rang on his belt.

2:50 pm Monday 17th
Within a minute, they were gone.

Selway and Russo were nowhere to be found. The boss was on the phone, by the looks of things he was get reamed out by his boss. He had left a sheet on her desk with some names circled in red. Karen recognized a couple of guys she and Jim had put away who were now on parole. She grabbed her coat and raced out. Someone had to have had both the opportunity and motivation to hurt Jim.

~

Ten minutes after the heated conversation with Tunney, Fisk fielded a call from a reporter. Dunbar was in the news more than any other cop Gary had ever known. Half the time, it was some perverted hero worship, the other half, it was someone trying to boot him off the force. “Is it true that Detective Dunbar is missing? Is it true that his coat was just dragged from the river?”

“No. It was someone else’s coat. Get your facts straight buddy.” Fisk covered, cold settling into his own stomach. He slammed the phone down and looked out over his empty homicide squad. He’d lost detectives under his care before, and it wouldn’t be the last time. But… maybe it was that Dunbar had worked so hard to just get back on the job and despite everyone’s expectations, Fisk included, he’d found ways to adapt and do a great job. Gary didn’t kid himself. Finding Jim’s coat in the river boded ill. But he knew Jim hadn’t committed suicide, and if he was dead, they had three of New York’s finest homicide detectives who would stop at nothing to find the perp who did it.

2:50 pm Monday 16th
Despite the lack of human presence, the dump was a hive of activity. Under the garbage, insects crawled. In the air over the garbage, birds circled and descended on graceful wings to select morsels to their taste. They fought over prizes. In the shade, rats feasted on discarded leavings of the great city. By the wall, a man lay still. A dog jerked awake, snapped lethargically and ineffectively at loud insects, then dropped his head back to the chilled hand he protected. Flies buzzed.

3:00pm Monday 16th
Tom was about to make his regular half hour call to Central Dispatch, checking for news of Jim, when Fisk’s call came through. Saunders and Wainright had just recovered Jim’s coat from the river.

“What makes them think it’s his?” Tom asked.

“His badge, Tom,” the Boss’s answered.

Marty drove at breakneck speed toward the detention centre where Marybeth was being held.

~

The lady in question smirked as she and her lawyer entered the room. Marty waited until she was seated and leaned over the table and into her face. “What’d you do with Jim Dunbar? You fucking serial cop killer.”

She turned to her lawyer and said, “See, I told you they’d be abusive. They framed me the first time, they’ll try it again now.”

Tom watched as the vein at Marty’s temple pulsed faster. He put his hand on his partner’s arm and drew him away.

“Give me a few minutes, Marty,” he spoke so only Marty could hear him.

“Tom, we might not have it.”

“If he’s already dead, he’d rather we put her away than throw the case by being hot headed. If he’s alive, we need a successful strategy.”

Marty looked into Tom’s eyes for a long time, before finally nodding. Then he turned away and stared out the window.

Tom ignored the woman who primped and preened without moving a muscle. He spoke to the lawyer. “I’d rather she didn’t confess, because in Maryland I can ask for the death penalty.”

“You have no evidence, and I won’t let you frame her again.”

Marybeth smirked, Marty was watching her reflection in the window. His blood pressure rose and he let loose.

~

Fisk shook his head. Marybeth had given them nothing and it sounded like Russo had lost it during the interview. Better bring her in, cool her down and maybe he would take the interview himself. “Bring her back here. She’s more likely to break in our house. Then I want you and Russo to get back out and re-canvass. Use her photo, get people focusing on the hour or so after Bettancourt dropped him off. Find someone who saw something around that park, a car, a woman, anything.”

Marty could hear the Boss clearly. He made eye contact with Tom. It was re-scouring old ground but what else were they going to do?

~

5:01 pm Monday 16th
“And here, you can see where the New York City Council is making more land.” Miguel pointed to the landfill and his tourists oohed and aah’d together. These American’s were so brash, so confident in their right to reshape the world as they saw fit that they turned the very sea into land to build on.

One young woman pointed. “Coyote?” she asked, looking at the dog who stood barking from a small mound by the wall that separated the river from the future building site.

Miguel pulled out his binoculars, not a Coyote but a dog. Now, you can think what you will of Miguel, for trying to make extra by showing off the toilet of the city, but he was a good man and went to help the dog.

~

Tom and Marty ran in the door, “Boss, we got a possible lead. Two separate people who were in the park on Friday say they saw a white pickup truck. Between them we got a full license plate number.”

“Well, what you waiting for? Run it, run it.”

Marty was already seated and hooking into DMV. Fisk and Tom waited. Within moments Marty had it. “Bingo. Michael Pale, aged 38, lives in Maryland.”

“Where Marybeth started out.” Tom said.

“Okay, I’ll get an APB out on it now.” Fisk headed back to his office to take care of that. “You two go lean on her with that.”

~

They were getting nowhere with the woman being questioned when Fisk yanked open the door. “Pale just got picked up heading east. You can go get him.” He handed Tom a sheet of paper and gave Marybeth a cold look.

As Marty and Tom drove out to get the guy Tom spoke up, “Marty, we need to take this calm, make sure he doesn’t clam up like Marybeth did.”

Marty look at his partner, anger boiling, he hated to be told to calm down. But he nodded, it was too important they found out what had happened. Dunbar’s life could be depending on it and he made the effort to distance himself.

Twenty minutes later they had the guy shaking in his boots in interview two. Fisk looked on from the observation room. The suspect was tall and brawny, not to bright and very scared.

“No, I haven’t been to any park. It must have been another truck.” The tall man tried to sink lower into the chair. He couldn’t look the detective in the eye for more than a moment. “Hey, can I go to the bathroom?”

“Not until we know what we want to know.” Marty explained coldly. “You won’t be the first guy to fill his pants in this room.”

Pale blanched further and sweat beads popped out of his forehead. “Do I need a lawyer?” For someone with no priors, the guy was quick to defense.

Tom gave a chilling smile. “Depends, Pale, you done something illegal?”

“No, no I didn’t do anything.”

“Then why deny you were at the park?” Marty said reasonably, neatly pulling the guy away from lawyering up. “Seeing as you didn’t do anything bad?”

“Seeing as you didn’t kill anyone.” Tom prodded.

Michael looked around like a rabbit seeing a way out of the lights.

Marty sat at the table, across from the sweating suspect. He pulled two photographs from his jacket and put them face down on the table. “Just tell me everyone you saw in the park on Friday night.”

“I told you, I wasn't at a park on Friday night.” But Michael’s attention was on the photograph and he didn’t sound as certain about his own whereabouts now as he had been a moment ago.

Marty nodded and sucked at his bottom lip. “So, any security camera photo I have of you is fake is it?”

Michael looked between Tom and Marty. He swallowed, kept silent and nodded.

Marty nodded and smiled to himself. He peaked under the edge of the photos like a bad poker player and suppressed a grin. Then he turned his burning gaze on Michael who couldn’t look away. The suspect’s hands began to shake and he shoved them under the table onto his lap.

“You know Michael, as detectives we are trained to know when someone is lying and you are lying.”

“If you tell us what you know before we show you these, it’ll go easier on you. You wait and you lose any chance you have of us taking it easy. We’ll go you for full murder one and make sure you go to the nastiest cell in the nastiest jail in the nastiest way.” Tom explained from the window where he leaned. He looked cold, mean and confident.

Michael just shook his head.

Marty smiled. He flipped one of the photos. Marybeth, looking mean and bitter in a prison suit glared out at Michael Pale. He had no hope of hiding the recognition in his eyes. Marty read more, trust, betrayal, fear and attraction, just the tools to open up a reluctant man. Marty leaned closer. “She’s in the other room telling us how you killed a cop.”

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Six

“A cop?”

Marty wondered if the guy would faint. Clearly he’d had no idea Jim was a cop. But then that wasn’t really such a stretch.

“No. No, she wouldn’t…” Instant grief showed in Michael’s face.

Marty concealed his smile. “A witness, photos at the scene, what else do you think we need for a judge to throw the book at him? Marty tossed his question to Tom.

Tom leaned over and spoke over Michael’s shoulder, “As long as you don’t confess, Marty can send you away for just about ever. If you confess, you get a lot less, maybe seven to ten.”

“Can I talk to Marybeth?” Michael’s voice shook.

Marty snorted, taken aback by the guy’s stupidity. “Sure, and we’ll let you go on your own cognizance and expect you back after dinner with a confession.” He laughed out loud.

“No, Marty. She’d kill him. Then there’s no one to say he didn’t do it.” Tom explained.

Michael ran his hands through his hair, he gathered his wits and began talking, quietly, without looking at either of the men.

“I met her,” he nodded toward Marybeth’s photo, “in a bar on Friday. We drank a bit, danced, and went back to my place.”

“What time?”

“Early, maybe seven. She was hot for it, so, you know I wasn't going to hold back.”

“Go on.”

“At about eight she said she wanted another drink so we went out again, this time she insisted on a particular bar. One down DUMBO way. I went along, she was hot, she was putting out and it looked like it wasn't going to stop. We went to the bar, drank, danced some more and then she went to the bathroom. She was gone for a long time but when she came back she was all agitated and upset. Said something about some guy had attacked her.”

“In the bathroom?”

He shook his head, “She started getting weird on me crying and hauling me out the door. She dragged me across the street to the park. She was hysterical by then, saying she’d been talking to this guy and he had chased after her and attacked her. And that’s when I saw a… a guy on the ground, lying still. She said he’d grabbed her and she’d pushed him and he’d just fallen. That maybe he’d had a heart attack or something.”

“You expect me to believe this crap?” Marty was disgusted.

“No, really, that’s what happened. She said she’d tried to run away but he’d chased her and ripped her dress. She showed me scratch marks on her breast.”

“So, what’d you do? Why didn’t you call 911?” Tom pushed.

“She said he was dead. She’d checked. And there was a dumpster there and she asked me to put him in it so she wouldn’t get into trouble.”

“And you did?”

Pale just nodded.

Marty looked at Tom who stepped from the room. He returned a moment later with another photo. “This the guy?” He laid Jim’s photograph on the table.

Pale shrugged. “Could be. It was dark, I was half out of my mind with drink and it was so unreal.”

The shrug, the pure carelessness of it, infuriated Marty and all the patience and calm he had mustered evaporated. “What do you mean you can’t be sure? You toss so many bodies that you don’t even remember what they look like?” Marty’s voice rose as he began to vent his frustration by slamming his fist to the table in front of the guy.

Michael jumped, trembling and almost ready to cry. He sat as still as he could, hoping not to provoke the officers any further. “No, I never did this before, it’s just... I didn’t look, I didn’t want to look. You know?”

Tom touched Marty on the arm, beckoning him back before he slammed his fist into the guy’s face. “Listen, Michael, we think maybe the guy is Detective Dunbar, from our squad. We need to know. So take another look.

Michael peered at the photo. A tall man, blonde with blue eyes, serious looking, scary even. Could it have been the guy Marybeth killed? What would these guys do to him if it was? He knew cops protected their own. He suddenly needed to go to the bathroom really badly.

“No. Really I can’t be sure. Look can I go to the bathroom?”

“You can go when we’ve ID’d the man you may have killed.”

“Killed? No, I didn’t kill the guy I just picked him up, you know.” The cold in Michael’s stomach hit a new freeze point.

“If he was alive when you “tossed him” and hitting the bottom or being buried in garbage killed him, then you’re responsible. At least left in the park someone would have found him in the morning, taken him to a hospital or something.” Marty watched the guy’s face as the news sunk in. He guessed that if they kept the pressure on much longer they’d be calling a cleaning crew for the room. But the guy didn’t seem to know the answer.

“What was he wearing?”

Michael was relived; this was something he could answer. “Ah, a long coat, suit and tie under I think, and ah, he was wearing sunglasses, that I remember. I mean, who wears sunglasses at night?”

Tom landed in the chair with a thump. It was as if with that description, any hope that this was not Jim fled. There weren’t too many people who wore sunglasses at night.

Marty asked, “You see a dog around him? A German Sheppard?”

“No, I didn’t see any dog.”

“Okay.” Marty continued. “What happened to the body, Michael?”

“She pointed out a dumpster nearby and I lifted him in. I tried to be gentle, but he was heavy and he hit the bottom with such a thud I knew he must be dead.”

Tom thought of the detective who had become a friend over the last few years. He didn’t know a more dedicated cop. Dunbar lived his life to protect and serve and here this guy had tossed him in a dumpster. Tom’s hands clenched under the table. He didn’t look up, trusting his partner would get the info they needed without strangling the guy, which was what Tom felt like doing right now.

Marty stepped up again, “And he was definitely dead?”

Michael was scared to look up. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” That as much as anything convinced the detectives that Marybeth had been responsible. The guy wasn't even clued in enough to realize that being sure the guy was dead when he first saw him was a step away from a murder charge for himself.

Marty felt like spitting, “Get up, you can take us to the dumpster.”

“Please, can I use the bathroom, first?” The man pleaded like a child.

Tom and Marty exchanged looks, what was it about this woman that enabled her to turn men into such low lifes?

~

Tom and Marty showed their badges to the uniformed officer who was keeping the area secure while CSU did their work.

“You guys find anything?”

The CSI held up a large crow bar. “Blood on one end, and fingerprints on the other.”

“That the crow bar she used, Michael?” Tom almost spat the words out.

Michael shrugged, “I never saw that. I only…” He shrugged.

Marty and Tom looked at each other. Things were looking pretty bad for Dunbar. “Nothing else?” Marty asked the CSI.

“Nope. You got a body?”

“No. We’re looking for a dumpster around here.”

The man pointed. “We haven’t checked it out yet.”

Marty tugged hard on the cuffs on Michael’s wrists and dragged him over to the park bench. He secured him silently.

Tom pulled latex gloves on as he approached the overflowing dumpster.

Marty turned his face away. Neither mentioned the smell, which was overpowering, even from the outside. “Good thing Karen’s not here.”

“Yeah.”

The CSI came over, he shook hands with both cops. “CSI Neville. Want a hand?” He spread two sheets in front of the bin. “Let’s hope you don’t find what you’re looking for.”

Piece by piece, bag by bag of stinking three day old garbage came out of the dumpster. The CSI sorted it as it came, one pile for what appeared to be straight rubbish, a second for anything that could even remotely be connected to the crime. A glove, a hat, a handkerchief with blood on it, were set aside. They were close to the bottom of the bin when the Marty’s phone rang.

“What you got?” the Lieutenant asked.

“We’re still emptying the dumpster, we’re about half way through… nothing yet, but … the smell…” Marty didn’t elucidate. “Hang on, Tom’s found something…Shit.” Marty was silent for a second. “The harness, a guide dog harness.”

Tom handed the sopping harness to the CSI who carefully placed the leather and brass in a large evidence bag.

Detective Selway looked like the weight of the world had dropped on his shoulders. Russo was still angry, fighting something personal. “Here, you shouldn’t be doing this, let me.” Neville held his hand out and helped Tom out of the bin. He climbed in. Tom looked out across the park and waited.

“I’ll wait on line.” Fisk’s voice was harsh.

“You guys looking for a dog?” CSI Neville could see the answer on both cops face.

“You see him?”

The man nodded, sorry to pass on the news. “I’ll need a hand, he’s big.” The CSI asked.

Marty handed the phone to Tom and stepped up and into the bin.

“It’s not Hank.” His words came out quick, as he turned back to Tom. “Tell the boss, it’s not Hank, just some Labrador. And there’s no body in here. Dunbar’s not in here.” Marty’s tongue was loosened by relief. “We’re looking for a fellow detective, Jim Dunbar. That looks like his,” Marty pointed to the harness, “But that’s not Hank. It’s not his dog…” He grinned, aware he was running off at the mouth but past caring.

Tom passed on the message, but he didn’t feel that much relief, it was a stay of execution for Dunbar, not a reprieve.

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Seven

5: 49 p.m. Monday 16th
The EMTs loaded the unconscious man onto a gurney. EMT Troy Trentham turned away, the smell was worse than any street bum he’d ever had to attend. “I’ll go call it in.” He couldn’t get away fast enough.

EMT Carol Makilvoy watched her partner go and shook her head. Alright, so the guy smelled disgusting but looking at his clothes, his hair cut, and his hands - this wasn't normal for him. She took his pulse, it was rapid but not unusual for the level of dehydration she was looking at. Blood pressure was low too. She’d get some fluids into him first and go from there. While she prepped a bag to hang she could hear her partner in the front. “No, he’s just some bum…” Trentham stayed on the phone flirting with the girl at dispatch.

Carol wiped the limp hand with a sterilizer, nice big hands, the nails were dirty but she guessed they’d been manicured less than a week ago. And like many men, he had good veins; even with the dehydration she’d be able to get a needle in there easily. She chose the left hand where there were some small cuts, on the edge but none on the back like the ripped skin on his right…

She prep’d the needle and held it close. As she pushed the thin silvered point into a vein at the back of his hand, suddenly he reared up, and the needle tore out, spraying blood onto her latex gloves His flailing arm hit her in the chest and she stumbled back against the wall of the bus. Supplies rattled and something hit the deck with a crash. The man had gained his feet while she fell, and now he stepped back hard into the barrier between the driver seat and the medical compartment.

His eyes were wide and moving rapidly from side to side, blue irises in red raw whites. “No, no - ” he cried in a ragged angry voice.

Trentham had heard the crash and stepped into the cabin, his face livid. He took one look at Carol on the floor and grabbed the man by the throat. The burly medic pushed the patient back and up onto his toes. “You fucking piece of shit, if you’ve hurt her-”

Carol grabbed her partner’s arm and pulled, “Troy, No! He’s probably hallucinating with the dehydration. I’m not hurt. Just help me get him back down.”

She muscled her way in past Trentham’s body and stood close, kept her voice calm and gentle, “Sir, Sir, it’s okay. You’re okay now.” The man’s eyes moved frantically around, clearly he had no idea where he was.

“Sir, you’re in an ambulance. We’re about to take you to the hospital. You’ve been injured.”

As soon as he heard her voice the fight went out of him. His head dropped. “I’m sorry, I… it’s just…” His knees sagged and Carol couldn’t hold him.

“Troy, help me get him back to the gurney.”

Troy grabbed the man in a rough grip, disgust clear on his face, and pushed him forward. He hit the gurney knees first and seemed to grope for the surface. Carol’s brows closed in a frown. Severe dehydration could affect mental capacity, eyesight, all manner of things. She wanted to get that fluid into him fast. She turned to get another saline bag and cannula.

“Water…”

Trentham ignored him. Makilvoy would have an IV into him in a moment, he could just wait.

“There’s no need…” the man was saying weakly and Carol turned to see Troy jerking tight on the straps they used for violent patients. She pursed her lips. Better to get Trentham in the driver’s seat so she could give this guy some care.

“Let’s get him to the ER Troy, you wanna drive?”

“Sure thing.” Trentham snapped up the offer, grabbing an aerosol can and spraying disinfectant over his hands and around the cabin before he moved forward again.

Carol sat next to the gurney. She laid a firm hand on the man’s shoulder. “Sir, I’m going to put a needle in your hand. Will you stay still?”

The man nodded and asked, “Water?”

“Here.” She soaked a small sponge and held it to his cracked lips, his head lifted, eager to bring as much of the moisture in as possible. He went to lift his right hand but the strap prevented any movement. Looking to make sure Troy wasn't watching, she lifted the buckle and freed his hand. He reached up and took the sponge, squeezing the water into his own mouth. The water mixed with dried blood and trickled from the cracks in his lips and he winced. “Thank you.”

She stepped away to pull the doors closed. The dog that had been found with him was lying on the ground behind the doors, his big eyes looking up at her. “Is the dog yours?”

He hesitated. “Fido? She’s here?”

Carol made up her mind. She snapped her fingers and the dog jumped up. It curled in the corner, never taking its eyes from the man. “Shh, don’t let my partner hear you.”

“I’m sorry, about before.” He seemed very anxious. “I thought it was another rat… you know, from the landfill.”

The horror of the image got through her defenses and she shuddered. She could see blood on his fingers, bite marks on his arms, and realized he had had good reason to imagine the needle had been teeth.

“I’m so sorry. You’re safe now.” She put her hand on his shoulder as the ambulance lurched forward. Troy hadn’t bothered to put the sirens on. “You should begin to feel better soon.”

There was no change in the man’s expression. “Please, check my eyes, something’s wrong. I can’t see anything.”

“Let me take a look.” Carol used the small flashlight, checking for reflex response in the pupils and noting the pupils were unequally dilated. His lack of response was clear she didn’t bother to ask him to follow the light. “When did this happen?”

“When I woke, at the dump. At first I thought it was night, but then there were birds.” He stopped for a moment, thinking. “Must be from my injuries; back of my head and one on my forehead. Blunt force, I’d say.”

She looked closely at his eyes, drew her hand back and forth in front of them. He wasn’t tracking her at all. She brought a finger tip up close to his eyeball, there was no automatic retreat of his head, no flicker in his eyelids. “I can’t tell. We’ll have to get the doctors to look at you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away from her. She touched his hand and took the sponge.

“Can you give me your name, someone to contact?”

His voice was a whisper, and his mouth twisted as if to hold back a sob. “I don’t remember.”

“Do you know how long you were at the landfill?”

She had to lean in close to hear his words. “It was dark all the time, cold sometimes, hot sometimes. Maybe two days, maybe three? I thought…I thought I was dead.” And with that he lapsed back into unconsciousness, spent, his head dropped to the side.


9:00 p.m. Monday 16th
“Alright, that’s enough. Get that guy back here, take his statement,” Fisk ordered the detectives who had been checking dumpsters in the surrounding area all night.

“We want to go see Marybeth and see if we can squeeze it out of her,” Marty said.

Fisk just nodded.

He looked out the window at Karen who sat, ear to the phone, eyes closed talking to a guy in Sanitation. She was trying to find out when the bins had been emptied last and where. With the strike, she was getting no where.

“Karen, I want you to check Dunbar’s apartment again and then go get some rest. We won’t be able to look through transfer stations and things until it’s light anyhow.”

Karen looked like she was going to protest, but the merest possibility that she’d find Jim safe at his home had her nodding agreement.




9:55 p.m. Monday 16th
The emergency attending at Staten Island University Hospital admitted an unconscious John Doe with severe dehydration and blunt trauma to the head. The doctor put in the regular paperwork for a John Doe.

~

11:00 p.m. Monday 16th
Karen closed the door behind her and shut her eyes. The apartment was silent and she just stood there fighting the thoughts that crowded her mind. Was this it? Was her partnership with James Dunbar a thing of the past already? Was the silence in the apartment final?

1:00 a.m. Tuesday 17th
Elise Russo opened the door to the lounge. Her husband sat staring out of the window at the rain. “Come to bed. You need to have your wits about you if you’re going to find him tomorrow.” She kissed him on the head and he followed her back to bed.

5:00 a.m. Tuesday 17th
Tom Selway rolled out of bed and changed into his sweats. He headed down to the gym in his apartment block and began a long work out. His dreams were full of rotting dog corpses and beating up perps, he may as well get the body moving for real.

5:00 a.m. Tuesday 17th
Karen closed the door behind her and walked to the elevator. She’d go scout the streets around the area before heading into the squad. She drove, windows down, looking for Jim and listening for Hank. It was a quiet morning and she refused to give up hope yet. She wouldn’t do that until she saw his body for herself. Missing wasn't dead.


6:00 a.m. Tuesday 17th
The ER admin routinely faxed off the description of the latest John Doe to the closest precinct and to the MPU.

Wainright and Saunders were off duty.

Tom and Marty waited while Marybeth Desmond was brought out from her cell.

6:15 a.m. Tuesday 17th
Sergeant Mathers took one look at the description that came in on the fax from SIUH and placed a call to the Lieutenant at the 8th. He intended to leave a message but the Lieutenant himself answered the call.

Fisk scribbled a note as Mathers described the live John Doe at Staten Island Hospital. Gary glanced through the blinds on his window, Karen was at her desk, phone tucked into her cheek.

“Karen, go check this John Doe at Staten Island University Hospital. Came in yesterday, no ID.”

~

6: 35 a.m. Tuesday 17th.

Karen leaned on her car horn again and cursed the woman in front of her on the bridge to Staten Island. Rush hour was more like rush two hours. She’d called the hospital but not gotten anything more. The doctors seemed to think the blindness of this John Doe was from his recent injury, and New York had thousands of men who fit Jim’s physical description. A space appeared beside her and she squeezed in, a few yards closer to answering her question.

8:02 a.m. Tuesday 17th
Karen pulled up at the emergency door and readied herself for the possibility that this was not going to be Jim. She stepped out of the car and stood by the entrance, strangely reluctant to enter. A low whine reached her ears and she turned. A few feet away a filthy dog struggled to sit up, tied to the no standing sign with a rope too short for it to move toward her any further. “Hank?”

The German Sheppard wagged its tail slowly. She rushed over and held the smelly dog in her arms. “Oh Hank, oh man, I never thought I’d be so glad to see you.” She wanted to rush into the hospital, if Hank was here, it had to be Jim in there, but he’d want Hank looked after, and a moment wouldn’t make any difference to him now. She undid the rope and walked Hank to the car. He was slow and a bit wobbly. She helped him climb up and settled into his regular seat with a sigh. “It’s okay boy. He’ll be okay now.” She patted him on his head but he was already asleep.

This time there was no hesitation as Karen ran in the glass doors and pulled her badge at the receptionist. The woman was too slow. While she answered a call, Karen slipped past and began walking through the ER, pulling back curtains and apologizing to people. A nurse came up, “Who are you looking for Ma’am?”

Karen flashed her badge again, “You have a John Doe. I believe he’s actually a detective.”

The woman’s eyebrows rose, “Wow, well, he’s in here. We put him in a proper room, he’s been here since yesterday.”

8:10 a.m. Tuesday 17th
Karen didn’t hear the nurse leave. She just stood and looked at him. He was asleep. His cheeks were drawn and grey. It was twenty four hours since he’d failed to arrive for their tour. It felt like a week to her. She’d seen him three days ago, when she dropped him off at his apartment. He looked a decade older. She closed her eyes and sagged, reaching blindly behind her for a chair.

The doctor entered. “Is it the man you were looking for?”

Karen nodded. “Yes, he’s my partner. He’s been missing since Friday night. What are his injuries?”

The doctor spoke gently, he was used to breaking bad news, “He’s received several blows to the head, and he has no vision in either eye. Right now we don’t know if it’s temporary or permanent, or even exactly what has caused it.”

Karen gave the man a wry smile. “He’s been blind for several years, Doctor.”

“Oh,” the doctor was taken aback. “Are you sure?”

Karen just nodded.

“Well, that’s … good I suppose, then his recent injury hasn’t caused this.” He suddenly realized what he had said and changed tack, “Also he’s dehydrated, quite confused, it looks like he had a concussion a few days ago, and his memory is affected.”

“Affected how?”

“He doesn’t know who he is. He knows you well I take it?”

“Yes, we’ve worked side by side for almost three years.”

“That’s excellent news, seeing you might bring it all back immediately… well…” The doctor blushed at his own gaff when Karen raised an eyebrow. “Talk to him, see if you can jog his memory, someone they know usually does it.”

“When will he wake?”

“He’s been sleeping most of the time since he got here, so you can wake him when you’re ready.”

“Thank you.”

~

8:14 a.m. Tuesday 17th
“It’s Jim,” Karen called Fisk a soon as the doctor had left. “It’s him.”

On the other end of the line Fisk was silent. Then, “What’s his condition?”

“He’s asleep. The doctor says he’s dehydrated and confused.”

“Have you talked to him yet?”

“No, I’ll go wake him now.”

Fisk was silent. “Okay, good. Tom and Marty just charged Marybeth with his murder.”

“Marybeth?”

“Carl Desmond’s wife.”

“Jesus! Well, he’s not dead. She thought she’d killed him?”

“Hit him in the head with a crow bar and had him thrown in a dumpster. Hank too.”

It was Karen’s turn to be silent. There were more than a few cops who’d like to do the same to Marybeth, including herself right now.

“Bitch!” Karen shook her head in disbelief, “I guess we’re lucky she’s an idiot. Hank’s here too.”

“Well, that’s a piece of luck.” After three years, the dog felt like one of the squad, even Fisk would have been sorry to lose the pooch. “I’m going to call Russo and Selway. Right now, they think Jim’s dead.”

“Hey, we better tell those assholes from MPU too.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. You stay with Jim.”

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Eight

Karen took several tentative steps into the room. She wasn't sure why, maybe she was afraid to see him messed up, injured. It wasn't her fault he’d been attacked, but still, she was his partner, she should have had his back somehow. He looked thin in the face, unshaven and exhausted. His head was turned toward the window and outside. A white bandage covered the back of his head and another covered the left side of his forehead. His eyes were open and he fingered the IV on the back of his left hand.

On her third step, Jim turned toward her, a questioning look on his face.

“Jim? It’s me Karen.”

“Karen? I’m sorry I don’t remember who you are.” He was being polite, cool, formal.

“It’s okay.” She shivered. “Detective Karen Bettancourt,” she reminded him.

Jim squinted in her direction, cocked his head and asked, “You’re a cop?”

“Yeah.”

“So you need my fingerprints to ID me?”

“Jim, I don’t need to ID you, we’re partners.”

“Partners?” Jim went quiet for a moment, digesting this news, partners, not wife, well that answered the lack of wedding ring. “You know who I am?”

“Detective James Dunbar. Sound familiar?”

He shrugged, “Not really.” Detective, so what sort of partners were they? He hoped she’d give him a bit more and not make him ask for every nuance.

“So, um, what do you remember?”

“Waking up in a dump.” A familiar expression flitted across his face but was gone before she could identify it. “Do you know who did this to me?”

“We do. What do you remember?”

“Will you need my testimony?”

“Probably not, we have some hard evidence and an accomplice after the fact, but I need to know what you remember.”

Jim shook his head, turned away from her, “Nothing. I remember nothing before waking up in the dump.”

“What then?”

“I was injured, I couldn’t see anything. There was a dog there I think.”

“That’s Hank. He’s your guide dog.”

Jim went silent. “Guide dog?”

Karen watched as Jim reacted and then smothered the emotion on his face. What was he thinking? Should she ask? She didn’t know how to react herself. She’d assumed the doctor had explained, but he’d left it to her. Coward.

Guide Dog? He flinched internally. No, it wasn't possible. The doctor had said they didn’t know what had caused this, it must be from the blow to his head, from a few days ago.

The woman was waiting, but still Jim couldn’t pull his thoughts away.

Experiencing blindness over the last few days somehow didn’t compare with the news that this wasn't temporary or new. He really hadn’t considered the possibility that it wasn’t connected to whatever had landed him in a dump. His breath caught in his throat, he must have misunderstood her. “What do you mean?”

“Hank, the dog. He’s yours.”

“I’m completely blind?”

“Yes.” At least the female detective who claimed to be his partner wasn't equivocating.

“I was born this way?”

“No, you got shot a few years back.”

Jim nodded. As he chewed his lip in a very familiar way, Karen felt tears come to her eyes and blinked them away angrily.

He stilled his face. “Why?”

“Why’d you get shot?”

He nodded.

“A shootout.” There was no response from him. “The gunman killed a lot of people. You got the guy who did this to you. Saved four men at least.”

Jim took a deep breath and his head moved around, as if he were avoiding eye contact with her. “Good, that’s good.” He wished she’d leave. He felt like he was under a microscope. He knew she was looking at him, there was no privacy, and the turmoil was building inside.

Karen didn’t know what to say. Jim looked devastated, and she had no idea how to help. When she had first seen him, all she had wanted to do was celebrate his return but now, with him not knowing her, and in such a state, she felt sadness and concern.

“So, you said you know who did this to me?”

“Marybeth Desmond.” Karen waited, looking for a flicker of recognition but there was none.

He frowned, half shook his head and continued, “And how?”

“Crow bar.”

Jim fingered the bandage on his head. “A crow bar, huh? And she just walked up and hit me?”

“We don’t know. She won’t talk. Her accomplice, he put your body in the dumpster, he didn’t see it.” Karen suddenly realized what she’d said and began trying to retract it. “I mean, he-”

“It’s okay, so he thought I was dead?”

“That’s what she had told him, and he put you into the dumpster and that’s how you ended up at Staten Island.”

“And the dog?”

“We don’t know how he got in there. But we’ll find out.”

“The suspect hasn’t said anything?”

“No.’

“So, the accomplice, what’s his name?’

“Michael Pale.”

“Did he say why she wanted to kill me?” Jim gave her a wry smile.

“She gave him some story about you attacking her.”

Jim was silent for a while. “Am I the sort of person who would do that?”

“No, no way.”

“Does she have any injuries?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“And, Jim, it’s not realistic anyhow, you chasing and attacking her.”

Jim looked quizzical.

“Jim,” Karen spoke as gently as she could, “Hank was out of his harness.”

“The dog?” Jim’s expression told Karen that it hadn’t occurred to Jim that he would need the dog.

“Yes.”

Jim was silent but his face told her the whole story.

“Marybeth claims that she ran and you caught her. If she ran, how would you have caught her?”

Jim’s emotions swept back like a tidal wave.

“So we figure, judging by the two head injuries you’ve sustained, that she sneaked up on you and hit you without provocation.”

He grabbed the bars on the side of the bed just to keep upright. What was she telling him? Either he had attacked a woman or he was so blind that he couldn’t. Neither alternative was acceptable.

“Hi, How we doing?” A cheery voice suddenly rang to his left, the nurse, Leslie, coming in for the regular blood pressure and temperature checks.

“I’ll come back in a little while, okay?” Karen touched his arm sympathetically and retreated from the strained atmosphere.

As soon as Karen’s footsteps told him she’d left the room, Jim turned to the woman who had been with him during the night. He touched her hand where she held his wrist. “Nurse, the woman who was in here… I need some time…” Jim was at a loss for words.

Leslie looked at his unsteady hand, the white knuckles where he gripped the bed rail, the strain in his handsome face. It was her first year on the wards, and she was still getting used to the trauma that came through the emergency wards. This man had woken to blindness, full loss of identity, and judging by the rumors, in the Staten Island landfill. She’d thought not knowing who he was would hurt. Perhaps finding out was hurting even more. She’d been checking on him through the night as he tossed and turned with nightmares. She stroked his arm and felt her eyes grow warm. “I’ll tell her you need a rest. You’re temperature is up a little too. I’m going to let the doctor know.”

“Thank you.” Jim fell back against the pillows, exhausted.

Karen turned away from the window of his door after checking Jim once more. He was lying back, eyes closed, perhaps he was sleeping. The doctor had told her she’d need to wait a little longer to talk to him again. Give him a couple of hours. She called the Boss but he had nothing for her. She decided to take care of Hank. He needed a wash and some food. She took him back to her place where he sat unresisting through a bath but he refused any food. Curled on the floor next to the door, Karen knew he was waiting for her to take him back to Jim.

~

Tom and Marty stopped in at the hospital. Jim was asleep but it was enough for them to look through the glass window and see it really was him. They bumped fists, shaking their heads. “This guy must have a head made of steel.” Marty joked as they drove out of the hospital car park.

“Well, there’s still shrapnel in there,” Tom agreed.

“What?”

“Yeah, you know, from the bullet that blinded him.” Tom was serious. “He told me.”

Marty’s grin covered his whole face. “No way! He’s just messing with you again.” Marty shook his head, good detective Tom might be, but when it came down to it, Tom was as gullible as a rookie about some things.

“No, I’m serious, he told me so, after that thing with his brother. Apparently he’s carrying six bullets worth of shrapnel around.”

Marty gave Tom a disbelieving look but began to wonder. After all, this wasn’t the first time Dunbar had come out of a situation that would have seen most cops dead.

Tom grinned. “I for one, am happy he’s got some kind of positive voodoo going. Looking through dumpsters for dead cops is not my idea of a good day’s work.”

~

“You guys finished touring the state?” Fisk jumped on Russo and Selway as soon as they walked in. “You got two DOA’s to go check out in a dumpster behind that new Chinese restaurant on Canal.”

Tom hung his head. Marty looked sick.

“Go, get outa here, we’re understaffed ‘til Dunbar get’s his ass outa the hospital bed but that doesn’t mean we don’t have cases.”

“Where’s Karen?” Marty asked. It was her partner that was sleeping during their tour. She should carry some of the load.

Fisk silenced him with a look and the men headed right back out the door.

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Nine

“He doesn’t want to talk, but it’s the only way to trigger his memories, so you need to go in there and see what you can do,” the doctor explained. “Now that we know who he is, I’ve contacted his own doctors, and they’ll come see him, but from what you tell me, you’re most likely to be of help.”

“Thanks.” Karen felt green at the gills as she followed the doctor back into Jim's room. He was sitting now, and pulled his hands away from his face as they approached, as if caught.

“Good afternoon, Detective Dunbar.” The doctor used a too bright voice and Jim smoothed his face into a neutral expression. Pretending he was back in control again, ready to handle what was thrown at him.

Karen studied Jim's face intently. When the doctor had used his name, there had been no recognition from Jim, no sign that he had identified with the title. She felt herself blanch a little more. He didn’t even remember he was a cop.

“Detective Bettancourt is here. She’ll help you get your memory going. Believe me, you’ll feel a lot better when you start to remember everything.” With that, the doctor left them alone. Karen thought he looked relieved he was allowed to escape. She found herself hoping Jim had been giving the doctor a hard time.

She took a breath and plunged in again, “So, Jim, I’m supposed to help you remember things.” She dropped into a chair by his bed. “Where would you like to start?”

“Let’s start with the perp. Motive.”

Karen marveled. This was the real Jim, flaky in that he didn’t remember things but his attitude, his way of going about a case seemed exactly the same as ever.

“If she fabricated this story of me attacking her, we can assume she came to me specifically to kill me. Why would she want to do that?”

“We don’t know yet. Could be she’s crazy – she hates you enough for putting her away.”

At Jim's puzzled face, she filled him in on the Desmond case.

“Why me, why not the whole squad? A cop killing - I expect the whole squad was in on it?”

“Yeah, but, everyone else started looking at her as a victim. Except you.”

Jim just nodded.

“Any memories coming up?”

Jim shook his head. He’d been thinking about now, not really looking at recovering memory.

“How ‘bout we try something else,” Karen suggested. “Let’s start with the job.”

“Okay.” Jim would have preferred to work on what had happened to him now.

“You joined the 8th Precinct in let’s see, March 05. You work robbery/homicide with me, Marty Russo, Tom Selway and our Lieutenant, Gary Fisk. Sound familiar?”

“Nope.” Jim sat up in the bed with his arms crossed against his chest, the IV tube in his hand snaked over the sheets and up over his shoulder. His head was tilted a little to the right, and his lips were pursed.

His attitude reeked of condescension. Karen felt her anger rising, why couldn’t he at least work with her on this? “Come on, help me out here, you gotta have questions?” She tried a laugh, “You always have questions, Jim.”

“Okay,” he nodded, “Let’s ask the questions then. You say I’m a cop and you say I’m blind?”

“Yep. The only one, so you must be doing something right, as you like to say.”

Jim snorted, “I work back up for you and these others you mentioned?”

“No, you’re a regular detective. First grade actually, you’ve been a gold shield for, I don’t know, ten, fifteen years.”

Jim’s hands were held open, he turned away. “And I work robbery/homicide?”

“Sure.”

His face screwed up with disbelief. “What the hell do I do at a crime scene?”

“Well, you work it. You know, with me. I describe what I see, and you ask a bunch of questions. We toss ideas around and you decide what we do next.”

“I do?” It was clear Jim thought Karen was spinning him candy floss bullshit.

“Yeah. Well, when it’s your case. Or mine. You’re a bit bossy.” She hoped to inject some humor, but he wasn't buying it. Judging by his expression, he was still thinking she was leading him on.

“So I work crimes scenes, even though I can’t see anything?”

“Yes.”

Jim’s façade began to fail, his wall of sarcasm cracked and his face fell. “You sure there’s nothing, not even a little bit?” Jim’s voice wavered at the end and Karen had to dig her nails into her hands to keep from reaching out to touch him.

This was too hard, having to come to terms with total blindness all over again. She had heard a faint echo of hope in his question. Was it like this the first time around? “You mean your vision?”

He just nodded.

“Nothing. Far as I understand it, you can’t even tell night from day.”

His hand rose to his mouth, he fidgeted, biting at his knuckle. Then he took a breath, “And still you say I’m a cop?”

“Yes, Jim.” She tried to be patient, but hell, that was his forte, not hers.

Jim desperately wanted this woman to leave. He needed to be alone. He hadn’t liked it when he was full of questions. He liked it even less now that he was getting answers. Disbelief warred with dying hope. There were holes in this case, big ones, Jim attacked,
“You’re a cop, where’s your evidence?”

“Evidence?”

“Yeah, you going to just repeat everything I say or give me some evidence?” His voice was hard, rasping, and demanding.

“Okay, so you want evidence. Of what? That you’re cop or that you can’t see?” She could hear the sarcasm in her own voice and felt embarrassed.

He turned to her, the expression in his face clearly stating he thought she was an idiot.

“Evidence that this isn’t new.” He touched the side of his face near his eyes, ironically his hand met with the scar from his gunshot injury. “I don’t remember being blind before… and it … it doesn’t feel right.”

Karen didn’t know what to say. Where the hell was Dr. Galloway?

“The cop thing,” he nodded a little considering, “That feels like maybe it’s right, but, the NYPD would never ever keep someone on the job with a … a… disability like that. It’s just unthinkable.” As he said it, the side of his mouth curled up and a disbelieving half laugh escaped. “So one way or the other, it doesn’t add up.”

Karen was exasperated, this was so… Jim; picking up the pieces that didn’t add up and following the trail to find the facts that bound them together.

“Okay, evidence.” Her eyes wandered the room. Then she pulled his badge from her pocket. Saunders had sent it over. Apparently it had slipped through a hole in his pocket into the lining of the coat they had pulled from the river.

His hand lay limp on the sheet. She turned it and placed his badge in it.

He stared down hard, grimaced and then ran his fingers over the face. “Could be anyone’s. Probably yours.” He almost sneered, knowing, somehow, that it was his. “And if I am a cop, well that argues against the “blinded in bank robbery” theory you’re trying to sell me.”

Karen’s eyes grew wide, “If it’s not true, how’d you know it was a bank robbery?”

He chose to ignore that one.

She looked further. The trolley by his bed had a drawer. She looked inside, his pager and watch lay there. She went to take the badge from him, he held it tight, then tucked it away and held out his hand. She dropped the pager into it.

As he explored it, she pulled out her cell phone and hit his speed dial number. “I’m dialing you.”

The pager buzzed and bucked in his hand. It beeped several times. He just held it. She reached over and pressed the answer button. An electronic voice spoke, “Karen Bettancourt.”

He shrugged, still unconvinced, and tossed the pager away.

She sighed and took out his watch.

“Do you recall wearing this watch before anyone found you?” She took the pager and placed the watch in his hand. He brought both hands up and felt it all over.

“I’d need to be able to see to use this,” he pointed out. When she didn’t answer, he hedged, “Feels like the same one.”

“Yes or no, Dunbar?” If he wanted to act like a suspect, she’d treat him like one.

“Yes,” he conceded. It was the same. There was no doubt.

She took his right hand and placed his finger on the button. “Push.”

He hesitated, looked green in the face, and then his jaw clenched. He popped the crystal, his hand knowing the move instinctively, and his fingers floated above the face. Gently Karen pushed him toward the open watch. He resisted for a long moment and felt the face. “Two twenty-five,” he said quietly and bowed his head.

Karen’s pager beeped, there was no electronic voice. “It’s the boss; I have to go make a call.”

~

“How is he?”

After a prolonged wait, Karen took her frustrations out on her boss. “He doesn’t remember me, he doesn’t even remember himself, and he refuses to believe he’s permanently blind. How do you think he is?” she snapped.

It was Fisk’s turn to be silent.

Karen let out a sigh, “Sorry. It was hard. He really doesn’t remember.”

“Does the doc say how long it will last?”

“Couple of days, but they’re hard to pin down. Jim’s questioning me like I’m a perp and when I mentioned the shooting, he brought up the bank robbery so…I’d put money on it not taking too long.”

“You needed there?”

“No, the doctor’s with him again, they’re doing more tests.”

“Okay, get back here.”

Karen was ashamed to admit to herself she felt grateful she didn’t have to go back in to see Jim for now. For all the brave face he was putting on, his pain was raw and she found she had no shield against it herself.

~

The doctor had finished his routine questions and checks. “Are you feeling tired at all, Detective? I’d like you to get some more sleep.”

“Tired, maybe, but not sleepy.”

“Hmm, I need to know what sleep medication you’re on.”

Jim was taken aback. “Why would I be on sleep medication?”

“The trigger for sleep is a lessening in the amount of light hitting the eye and since that’s not a changing factor, most people with no light perception require sleep meds to keep them on a regular pattern. You don’t remember what meds you’re on?” When Jim didn’t respond, he continued, “Could someone go look in your home?”

Jim nodded. “I think I could ask Detective Bettancourt. She says she’s my partner, she can go look for me.”

The doctor put the phone in his hand and he dialed a number that rose from nowhere into his mind.

“Bettancourt.”

“Detective. It’s me,” he hesitated, he still didn’t feel comfortable with the name everyone gave him. “James Dunbar. I have a favor to ask you.”

On the other end of the line, Karen shivered. Hearing him call her detective rather than Karen was creepy. She reminded him again. But when he used her name at the end of the call, he said it awkwardly and it came out like a foreign word in his familiar voice.

~

Karen brought the pills from Jim’s medicine cabinet and bedside, as well as a supply of toiletries and clothes and gave them to the nurse who told her he was sleeping. The hospital wasn't too far from her apartment and after dinner, she swung by again.

The doctor met her this time. “Try taking him out of his room. He’s off the drip now and a walk would do him good.” He looked at her kindly, but he could afford to, he wasn't the one who was being torn up inside. “There’s a cafeteria next floor down.”

Karen took a breath and knocked on the door. Jim sat in a chair by the window, already wearing some of the clothes she had brought from his apartment. Jeans, a t-shirt, loafers. His hair was wet from the shower, and he smelled like Jim again. Karen smiled at her own thoughts. Before partnering up with him, there was no way she’d even thought of a person having a particular smell. These days, it was almost standard description between them when discussing suspects.

“Come in.” He turned to the door.

“It’s me, Karen.”

“Oh, round three huh?” He smiled a thin smile to take the edge off the comment.

“Well, I thought we could take a break, maybe get some coffee. The doc says there’s a cafeteria next floor down?”

Instead of the relief she expected to see, he looked more anxious and at a loss for words.

“Is there a problem?” she asked. “You love coffee, let’s go get you addicted again.”

He tried a smile. “No thanks.” He shook his head and turned away.

“Besides, you must be itching to get out of this room.” And with that comment, she saw it. Her jaw fell open. He was worried about how to get there. She could see it in his face.

She closed the distance between them and put her hand on his shoulder, holding it there despite his flinch. “Here, I’ll guide you. It’s okay.”

He stood, trying to keep his face neutral but failing. “No. I’m ready for round three.”

“Here,” She took his hand and placed it on her arm. “I’ll make sure the path is clear. Really, we do this all the time.”

She had to take it very slowly. As the elevator dropped, Jim reached out for the wall. She waited a moment after it settled at their floor before walking him out. She began a layout description as they entered the café but wasn't sure he took much in. People rushing past dragged his attention, and she decided to sit him at a table rather than take him through the line.

He sat upright, clearly uneasy in the large space, his head being jerked to the side when someone laughed, and then to the other when a baby started to cry. Karen’s fears rose. Was this how it was for him when he first got shot? This was nothing like the confident and competent man she knew. She brought the coffees over and started chattering to cover the discomfort. He was mostly interested in the cases they were working, and shied away from talking about himself.

After returning to his room, Jim fell into a deep exhausted sleep even before the nurse brought him the sleep meds. Somehow, knowing who he was, who he was supposed to be, hadn’t brought any light to the situation. If possible, he felt worse than he had at the dump.

Leslie was on nights again and spent quite a bit of time in room 24 where the detective, no longer a John Doe, had nightmares and woke in sweats and fear. She watched as he clutched the cold metal of the bedrails and fought to slow his breaths. But when she asked him, he couldn’t tell her what was in his dreams.

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Ten

The next morning, after talking with the admitting doctor, Dr. Kathy Schaefer, Jim's neurologist for the last few years, headed for his room. She looked in the window of the hospital door to see Jim sitting in the chair, dressed in casual pants and a T-shirt. She knocked and opened the door. Jim's head turned as she entered, “Yes?”

“Detective Dunbar? Dr. Schaefer.”

Jim stood and held out his hand. Dr. Schaefer took it. “Do we know each other?”

Kathy Schaefer smiled, his direct approach putting her at ease. From what the attending had said there was a good chance his personality hadn’t been affected. “Yes. We’ve known each other since 2004 when I was called in to consult on your gunshot injury.”

Jim nodded.

“And you’ve called me Kathy for a couple of years now. It’s a lot less of a mouthful than Dr. Schaefer. Now, if you feel up for it, I thought we could go out and have a coffee while we talked.”

“Coffee? At the cafeteria?” Although he had woken feeling much better, he wasn't sure he was up for another trip to the cafeteria.

“Oh no. There’s a proper coffee shop just over the road.” The doctor had taken his question as assent. “Is Hank here or…”

Jim looked annoyed. “The dog? No. Detective Bettancourt took it to the vet to get checked or something,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “She said they’d keep it until we sorted things out.”

“Then allow me.” Kathy tapped Jim on the back of his hand and before he realized it he had reached up automatically to grip her arm.

On the way to the coffee shop, Kathy noted that he accurately read her movements through her arm, kept pace, and when she placed his hand on the back of the chair, he sat properly, checking the height of the seat and table in front of him, rather than assuming either. He seemed fairly at ease, and not as disoriented as his doctor had suggested. Kathy had been given to understand he was operating like someone new to being blind but that’s not what she was observing here. She asked him about it.

“This is easier than it was last night,” Jim admitted with a grimace.

“Walking with a sighted guide?”

He nodded. “Detective Bettancourt took me to the cafeteria. It was … disturbing, but today, this almost feels natural.”

“That’s good news. It means that the dehydration and any effects from the head trauma are reversing.”

Then the waitress came over and they ordered.

The coffee arrived and the aroma of well-roasted beans wafted up. Jim lifted the coffee, breathed deeply and rolled his shoulders. “You were right, this is good coffee.”

Kathy sighed. “We have a choice. We can just enjoy our coffee and then go back and discuss your case, or we can talk here.”

Jim smiled at her. “Looks like as good a place as any.”

While she tried to decide if he was attempting humor, he continued, “Dr. Schaefer, you going to fill me in on why you’re here or do I have to work that out myself?” Jim couldn’t hide the bitterness.

“No, you don’t have to work it out. When patients with acquired brain injury receive further head trauma, the attending neurologists are always called in if it’s possible. I’m here to determine what is new injury and what is from your previous injury.”

Jim nodded. “The shooting?”

“That’s right.”

Jim took a second sip, put the cup down and lifted his head. Kathy found it unnerving, it was as if he were looking her straight in the eye. “Let’s not put it off.”

“Your questions first then,” Kathy said.

Jim nodded. “February 2004. Tell me what you saw.”

Kathy told him as objectively as she could. Jim sat unflinching through the vivid descriptions. "...irreversible blindness but none of the possible mental faculty losses." Jim dropped his head and the back of his hand covered his mouth.

“What are you thinking?”

He shook his head and spoke in almost a whisper. “It’s stupid really, but I keep looking for evidence that it isn’t true.”

“Jim,” Kathy put her hand on his but spoke firmly, “there was nothing I could do to save your sight in 04, and there is nothing I can do to restore it now. But, your mind is another matter. Amnesia like yours is rarely permanent. There are new techniques that are proving very effective. I will speak with your psychiatrist, and we’ll do whatever it takes.”

~

“It just doesn’t feel real. I wake, expecting it to be light and it’s still dark. Yesterday, Detective Bettancourt seemed to think it was natural that she guide me. I felt like I was imposing on her.” Jim turned to where Dr. Galloway sat across from him in a plastic hospital chair in his room.

“But?” the doctor prompted.

“But… the evidence is… compelling. Earlier today, I went out for coffee with Dr. Schaefer. She tapped the back of my hand and I knew it meant I could take her arm, that she’d guide me. How would I know that if I only went blind three days ago? This morning I showered, shaved and dressed in complete darkness and it wasn't hard. My watch has Braille numbers, my pager and phone talk to me, and a fucking guide dog wants to look after me.” Jim’s words had risen fairly close to a shout by the end. He calmed himself and turned away, biting the back of his index finger in frustration.

“And yet..?” Galloway prompted.

“And yet…” Jim searched for words, “… it just doesn’t feel right.”

Galloway watched as the detective in front of him fought the inevitable conclusion, his jaw clenched, his color high. The war raging on his face was the most painful Allan had ever seen on a patient. “You were sighted for, what, thirty-eight years, Jim? You’ve only been blind for three. Perhaps this is how it feels.”

Jim’s breath shuddered in, the blood ran from his face and his hands rose toward his face. His voice was so low that Allan had to lean forward to catch the words. “Have I ever told you that? Before, when I had to see you?”

“No. You never said that, but…”

Galloway didn’t get he chance to finish as Detective Dunbar sprang to his feet and took a step away from the chair. “No, no, it can’t be. There’s no way I could live with this.” He stopped after two steps when his knee hit the wheeled trolley and it rolled, clanging loudly as it met with the bed. Jim squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back with a reverberating groan.

Galloway waited. He watched as Jim deliberately slowed his breathing and calmed himself enough to speak. His steps were slightly unsteady and there was no confidence in his actions as he found the chair, sat and lowered his head.

“When I was alone, in the garbage, I wondered briefly if I had died and it was hell. But, even then I thought the dark was temporary. This is worse.”

Galloway reached out and touched Jim's hand where it gripped the armrest like a vice. “Jim. I want you to know that the Jim Dunbar I know, the Detective Jim Dunbar that came to my office, was very passionate about his job and there was nothing that could prevent him being a damn fine officer, sighted or not. And together we will find that man again.”

Jim closed his eyes and nodded.

“Tell me what memories you have recovered.”

“I’ve managed to remember a few people, old partners, a couple of bosses, some women, but I have images in my mind of what they look like, images of places I’ve been.”

Galloway watched his patient. Jim was more open now than he had ever been, he was easily directed, compliant, and Allan was confident they would recover most, if not all of his memories. “Have you remembered anyone that you’ve known only since you were blind?”

Jim shook his head. “No, Kathy says that’s not surprising, the memories with visual images have more neural connections or something.”

“Can you tell me what you do remember now?”

“I remember bits of my childhood, joining the army. I remember serving, my buddies. I remember joining the police force, getting married. I remember my Lieutenant at the 77th, and the squad. I even remember cases.”

“Not the bank?”

“No, well, yes. There are some memories of Terry. He cracked, he cowered and hid. I had to take his gun from him, the guy was out of ammo, but that’s all. I don’t remember being shot, I don’t remember my sight fading like Dr. Schaefer describes. I don’t remember Christie leaving.”

Jim went quiet. His head dropped.

“How do you feel about that?”

Jim cocked his head, “About Christie leaving?” When Allan grunted assent, he shrugged his shoulders. “Sad, not surprised. I’d…there was a woman…I’m assuming that’s why she left.” Jim chewed his lip. “I wonder what happened to Ann. I don’t know. And I don’t know who I can ask.”

“You remember her name?”

“Yes.”

“Then we could find her, find out.”

“And what? Call her up - by the way, this is Jimmy from a few years ago, my wife left, I’m blind now and I don’t know what happened to us, did we hook up, did it end?” He couldn’t quite pull off the tone for the sarcasm. Jim’s face showed deep distress, “Karen says my apartment is like a bachelor pad, so I obviously live alone… No one reported me missing.”

“Your Lieutenant and your squad turned half of New York upside down looking for you, Jim.” Allan reminded him. He made a note. Jim had once mentioned that Karen and Ann were friends, he could follow that one up easily.

Jim had slid into silence.

“You feel adrift?” Galloway suggested.

“Yes, adrift, that’s the word.”

“How about your job? When we worked together last time, you were pretty connected to your job. Very determined to remain a cop.”

“I’m a cop?” Jim laughed a cold dry and empty sound. “A blind cop? I can’t believe that all you guys are for real. Can’t you see why I don’t believe you? What do I do, trip up fleeing perps with a white cane?”

“Alright, Jim. Instead of fighting about this, we’re going to do some serious work here to see if we can stimulate those memories for you. I’d like you to lie back on the bed. I’m going to sit here next to you. ”

Jim settled down, listening.

“We’re going to use a form of hypnotherapy that is based on sense associative therapy. With your permission, I’ll put you into a stage one trance, that’s one where the conscious mind doesn’t fight suggestion, but where you are fully aware of everything we are discussing. You can also pull out of it at any time you choose.”

“And this will help me remember?”

“Yes. I’ve used it on other amnesiacs. Dr. Shaefer and I have discussed it. We believe that the selectiveness of your memory loss shows the conscious mind is trying to rebuild your world without some of the less positive aspects of it. Hence you remember getting married but not divorced, having an affair but not whether or not you stayed with this woman, being a cop but not being blind.”

Jim nodded, put that way, it did look suspicious.

“This form of therapy bypasses the safe-guards your mind has erected and allows you to access more of your memory. It will feel a little like lucid dreaming, you will have sounds, feelings, and perhaps images. Your emotions and your body’s reflexes will be dampened as if you were in REM sleep. I’ll also record the sessions so that if you feel like re-listening to them, you can do so later.”

“Alright, sounds good,” Jim agreed, “what do I do?”

Allan had Jim lie back on the bed. He took a chair next to him.

“First you relax, as I count, you tap your finger like this.” Allan tapped his finger on the back of Jim’s hand as he counted. “One, two, three.” Jim picked up the beat and began tapping in time with Allan’s voice. “When I ask you questions let the answers come. It’s like word association. You give me a stream of consciousness audio so I can follow along.”

Jim nodded and continued to tap his finger as the doctor counted steadily. Anything would be better than where he was at now, and somehow, even though he didn’t remember him, Jim felt a trust for this doctor.

As Allan counted, he slowed the pace, eventually there was fifteen seconds between counts and Jim’s finger barely twitched. He noted Jim's eyes were closed and his breathing slow, as if he were asleep.

“Return to a joyful incident with Christie…” When Allan saw the barest hint of a smile on Jim’s face he asked, “Tell me about it.”

Jim's voice was quiet, relaxed, fairly normal, “She’s opening a birthday present.” A smile touched his lips and Allan watched as Jim's eyes moved back and forth behind his lids, as if he were in REM sleep.

“Do you see her?” When Jim nodded slightly, Galloway said, “Describe what you see.”

“A negligee. She likes it, dark blue silk. She’s holding it up against her and looking at me from under her lashes.”

“What do you hear?”

Jim cocked his head, “Music, saxophone…” He frowned for a moment. “Traffic on the street.”

“What do you smell?”

His nose flared, “Christie, Dior perfume, red wine.”

“What do you feel?”

Jim just smiled. “Good.”

Galloway smiled, this was going very well. “Now move to a time you were happy on the job.”

Jim shifted a little, his head turned to the left. He cleared his throat. Again his eyes moved back and forth beneath the lids. Color rose in his face.

“What’s happening?” Galloway prompted.

“Surprised. The Lieutenant’s called us in and handed me a paper. I’m upgraded, but…”

“But?”

“It’s too early, I thought another year maybe…”

“What do you see?”

“The guys, all looking at me, Wilson’s jealous, the rest are cool.”

“What do you hear?”

Jim took a while. “Lieutenant’s voice, I can’t make out what he’s saying.”

“What do you feel?”

“I’m worried. A little shocked, it’s so unexpected.”

Once Allan had the procedure working smoothly he went after more recent memories.

“Return to the first time you met your current partner, Karen Bettancourt.”

Jim frowned, shifted, licked his lips. He said nothing.

“What are you hearing?’

Jim shook his head, “Nothing.”

“Any images?”

“No.”

“Feelings?”

“I feel uneasy, but that’s all.” Allan noted Jim had begun to rub his knee.

“No problem, let’s try this another way. You know the Miranda rights?”

Jim nodded.

“Read me my rights.”

Jim rattled off the correct string of words. Allan was satisfied, he’d heard them a hundred times or more from officers on his couch in very similar circumstances.

“Last time you gave them to a perp?”

Jim stiffened on the couch, but said nothing.

“Getting something?”

“Feeling a little out of breath. That’s all. Don’t remember the last time.” His voice was tight and his expression serious.

“That’s okay, no rush.” Galloway took another path. “In a missing person’s case, what are your automatic checks?”

“Hospitals, shelters, an APB.”

“Then?”

“Background checks of all family members.”

“Last missing person case?’

“Ben Crider.”

“Go to the first time you were at the crime scene.” Galloway watched intently as Jim shifted slightly.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing.”

Allan grimaced, stupid question, he berated himself silently. “What do you hear?”

“A child talking, a woman in the background, Detective Bettancourt’s voice.”

“What’s she saying?”

“She’s asking the woman about arguments with her husband.”

“Describe the boy.”

“Young, six, soft spoken, scared.” Jim turned away, emotion began to well in his face.

Galloway steered his attention away, too much emotion here and Jim would shut down. They needed to keep to keep surfing, no diving yet.

“How’d the case go?”

“Good. We got the confession.” The answer came swiftly.

“Who’d you report to?”

“Lieutenant Fisk.”

“Describe him.”

“Tall, tough, got choked up on this case though. Fair.” Jim frowned. “I’m remembering…”

Allan waited, watching Jim face as he scanned the incident.

“Getting chewed out.”

“By Fisk?”

Jim nodded.

“What for?”

Jim grimaced and shrugged.

“Relax, let the impressions come, listen, be open… let me know when you get something.”

Jim waited. Galloway watched him relax and drop a little deeper, the indicators of REM sleep picked up again and soon Jim began talking quietly.

“He’s telling me I have obligations, to go see some shrink. But I’m sure it’s because I called in CSU to see if the kid was buried in the back yard. We found… a dog…” Jim fell silent again, his jaw tightened.

“What’s happening, Jim?”

“There are other people there, Marty, Tom. Marty’s sneering,” Jim’s head turned as if avoiding something, “It stinks and he’s implying we’re wasting time. Karen’s there. She’s quiet. I feel… I feel like an idiot. But I’m not sure why.”

“What can you hear?”

“Plastic rustling, Marty’s voice. Someone crying, maybe the little brother, Jake. Everyone’s too quiet.”

“What do you see?” Galloway carefully placed the question into the scene and watched.

Jim twitched, “I’m not sure, a boy, curled up in the dirt? Yeah. But we didn’t find him until later, at the park.” There was a little questioning mixed into Jim's voice.

Jim went on to describe the boy, brown hair, broken arm, bruises. Galloway was fascinated, as he always was, at how well the mind could gather evidence to fill in blanks, when it needed to.

He drew Jim back and into a couple of more scenes, bringing him all the way up to a few days before his assault. Then Allan looked at the man in front of him, took in the blue smudges under the eyes, the strain in Jim's voice. “When I count to three you’ll move into full awareness and be fully awake. One, two, three.” He watched the subtle changes that told him Jim was fully present.

“We’re done for the day, Jim.”

Jim’s turned his blue eyes to the doctor. “No, I’ve remembered a lot, I want the rest now.” Jim was eager to reclaim his memories, his life.

Galloway laughed out loud. “You need sleep. Resting will help and you’ll wake up with more than you have now. Trust me.”

Reluctantly Jim nodded.

“I’ll be back mid morning and we’ll continue.” Galloway patted Jim on the arm and stood, creaking a little from sitting still for so long.

“That you creaking?” Jim asked, “You sound like an old rocking chair.”

Galloway laughed. “See you tomorrow, Jim.

The nurse came in with Jim's meds a few minutes later. He slept quickly and dreamed.

~

The doctor had been right, after a night of sleep, Jim woke with many new memories. His logic still fought against the blind cop scenario, but he knew in his gut now that he was a cop and he felt a familiarity with the names of people in his life he hadn’t before. He had recovered all his memories of Christie and their breakup.

Galloway laughed when he came in and Jim immediately lay back, ready to start. “You're eager to start?" When Jim nodded and waved his hand imperiously for Allan to get going, the doctor had to laugh. "I'm not sure if your change in attitude toward therapy is from your recent trauma, Jim, but it sure is making things easier."

When Jim turned to him impatiently Allan shook his head, grinning, "You gave me such a hard time, any memories of that?"

Jim shook his head and began tapping even before Galloway began his counting down.

And so Allan popped recovery of memories of his time in therapy a little higher on the list. The doctor had called the Lieutenant and Karen in the morning and gotten some details of cases from them so he could be even more precise in his targeting of specific people. The count in went swiftly and in no time at all they were chasing down memories and Jim was reclaiming his life.

“Recall a case involving a cop.” Galloway continued.

Jim looked confused. “Ronald Johnson.”

“Go to the crime scene. Nod when you’re there.”

Again Jim looked confused but he nodded.

“Where are you?”

“On a roof.”

“Who are you with?”

“Bettancourt.”

“What’s happening?”

“I… I’m not sure. She’s looking for something but she’s being stubborn… wait, we found, we found the handkerchief.”

“This when Terry shot himself?” Galloway asked.

“Yes. Yes. But…” Jim began to look agitated again, Galloway steered him away from the bigger issues, aiming to get Jim connected up to memories of his partner.

“Karen found some evidence?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“What’s your impression of Karen’s detective skills?”

“Good. She didn’t want to look… maybe it was a long shot… I guess she had a point. We butted heads a bit back then.” Jim was relaxed again, his breathing even, no sign of the earlier emotions.

“Butted heads? About what?”

Jim grinned, “She says I’m like a bull in a china shop, I think she pussy foots.’

“Best thing about her?”

“Her ass.” Jim blurted, then he went silent, his face reddened. “I... I …”

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Eleven


“Jim, anything said in this room is completely confidential.” Allan looked closely at Jim's face, there was more than surface embarrassment here, but it wasn't grief, a better memory to dive into. “What are you remembering?”

“We must have… had an affair. But, she’s my partner, I wouldn’t…” Jim’s memories surfaced, Allan could see the progression on his face. “Christmas, it was just after Christmas. I was alone, she was lonely, we… It was good. Unplanned.” Jim was quiet for a long time. Galloway watched his eyes scan back and forth as he retrieved and examined memories faster than he could talk. Galloway waited as he’d done with patients before. It was like a computer doing a download, you could only wait and watch and be ready when it was available to view.

Finally Jim turned back to the doc, a grin trying to emerge on his face. “I’m good. I remember. I remember a lot.”

“Okay, tell me some.”

“She’s a great partner. She’s tough, relentless, and there’s no one I’d rather have my back than her.” His brows furrowed. “Okay, okay, I’m remembering some arguments. She’s upset, I can hear it in her voice, and I’m angry, cold angry, you know?”

“Distancing yourself?”

“Yes, and telling her that if she can’t-” Jim cut himself off. He lay very still for a long time. Allan waited. Jim squirmed, like a child refusing medicine, then sighed, shook his head and spoke very quietly. “I’m telling her that if she can’t guide me properly, I’d rather go it alone. I’d rather use my cane. There’s nothing, no image, no light. I can hear her voice, the footsteps of people in the street cars, going past, I can smell the car fumes, but I can’t see, and I’m not even thinking about it, all I want is to get inside and do the interview. It feels…usual.” Again he was quiet for a while, digesting, accepting.

Allan waited.

Jim reached to his knee, rubbing it as he remembered. After a while he said, “I think she walked me into something on a street.”

A weak smile managed to break through. “I remember thinking, I can do this now, and I can do it with you as a partner or without.” He dropped into silence again for a long time.

Over the next fifteen minutes Allan brought Jim closer and closer to the present, not allowing him into any more heavy memories. Finally he brought the session to a close. “…fully awake.”

“So, Jim, what do you know now?”

“I am a cop, and being blind, it’s just an inconvenience. A fucking big pain in the ass one, but it hasn’t stopped me.”

“You ready to go home?”

“Oh yeah, the food here is awful.”

Allan laughed. “I’ll go talk to the doctor. Paperwork will take a while. You should rest, that was hard work.” He said as Jim yawned.

“Thanks, Doc.” Jim held out his hand.

Allan took it and enveloped it in both his own. “You’re welcome, Detective.”

~

Karen arrived at the discharge desk, breathless. “Detective Dunbar, room 24, he hasn’t left yet has he?”

“Oh, his paper work is done. The OC was assigned to take him home. I think you just missed them.”

Karen’s shoulders dropped. She knew he’d hate going home with a stranger. When she’d gotten the call from Dr. Galloway, she’d phoned the hospital and said she’d pick him up. She turned away, well I guess I’m a stranger too. The thought was depressing but unavoidable. She wondered if she’d ever get her partner back, or if she was just fighting uselessly for a partnership that had already ended.

Something drew her attention around the corner, two people standing near a payphone. A robust woman in her fifties, grey hair and with her hands on her hips, trying to stare down the man who stood in front of her.

“No, I’d like to make a call first.”

“It’s very late to be calling people,” a woman argued.

“Just take me to a phone.” Jim sounded exasperated. “Please.” He added, still managing to sound like he was issuing an order.

Karen grinned and walked up.

“Hey, Jim.”

His head rose up and his eyes searched, the frown deepening on his face.

“It’s me, Karen.”

Jim nodded, the relief on his face was clear and Karen felt her heart lift.

“Hi, I’m Karen Bettancourt, Jim's partner.” Karen gave a charming smile to the fifty something woman who held onto Jim's arm as if she were going to drag him home whether he wanted to go or not.

“Partner?”

Jim stepped into the gap between them. His hand brushed her breast as he reached for her arm and she gave the woman another smile, cocked her head and giggled. “Need a lift, Jimmy?”

“Thanks, Beverly, see, I’ll be fine from here, really.”

“But the doctor said I was to make sure you were okay on your own.”

“No need for that.” Karen made big round eyes and gazed adoringly at Jim.

“Oh, right, I see, I thought…”

“Night.” Jim turned Karen away from the woman. “Can we get outa here?” he whispered.

In the elevator, they burst out laughing. “Oh, that was close.” Jim said. “She even mentioned she might have to stay with me if I couldn’t ‘get along’ on my own.”

“Ew. That is a gross thought.”

“Who were you going to call?”

“You,” Jim said. “I thought I’d ask you for a ride so I didn’t have to let her into my apartment.”

“Now, that’s the sort of team work we do,” she said happily.

When the elevator doors opened, and she felt the familiar push as he started to move forward, her arm in his hand. Waves of emotion washed over her. She’d been waiting for some sign of affection from him since he’d woken the day before, and now, as small as it was, his hand around her arm set off a tingling throughout her body. She put her hand on his, her voice small and unsure. “So, you alright with this now?”

“Sure,” he nodded. “A lot has come back since I saw you last. And thanks for having my back there.”

“It’s a pleasure to return the favor, Jim.” They headed for the car where Hank waited.

~

They remained in their own worlds on the drive over to DUMBO. Karen tried to sort her emotions, to shove the unwanted ones away, and focus on how glad she was to have her partner back. He seemed deep in thought. Every now and then Hank would poke his head over the seat and Jim would jump. In some ways, Karen found it saddest of all that he had no memories of the dog. People would understand, not take it personally, but Hank? To him it was as if his best friend suddenly disliked him.

At his apartment door, she opened it, handed him his keys and cleared every room before allowing him in. Logically she knew Marybeth was behind bars again, but she wasn't taking any chances. “It’s clear. Come on in.”

Jim entered and put the keys on the stand in front of the door. Hank loped in and went straight to the kitchen where he sat patiently in front of the fridge.

Jim took a couple of steps inside and stopped.

“Do you need me to show you around the place?” Karen asked, feeling uncomfortable all over again.

Jim cocked his head to the right. He pointed to the left, “Kitchen, beyond that …” He shook his head and pursed his lips in distaste, “four steps left and the door to the bedroom is on the right.” He stepped into the room. “There’s a support here” He put his hand on the steel pole near the dinning table. “And here past the couch.” He was a foot or so off, reached out and found it. “When I first came back from rehab, and kept bumping into it, Christie used to say she saw it move. She taped padding around it.” He found a spot at about head height where the paint was chipped and fingered it.

Sadness filled his face, then the tide shifted. He turned confidently toward the kitchen. “How about coffee?” He opened a cupboard and took out the coffee jar. Karen raised her eyes upward, giving thanks that he hadn’t forgotten how to make coffee.

“That’d be great but didn’t the doctor say you needed to sleep?”

“Sleep? Feels like morning to me.”

Karen relented. Jim made good coffee and God knew she could use a cup. All this memory stuff was dragging her emotions around too. To see Jim so vulnerable was strange, and strangely comforting. They’d been partners for over three years now and more often than not he’d kept her out of his personal life, not shown much emotion. When they’d been together, for that short while, she’d gotten a glimpse, and the man in front of her reminded her more of what she had loved in him than she cared to admit.

She thought of her chat with Ann earlier in the day. She’d phoned her friend when Jim had been found and explained everything, including his condition. Ann had been worried, mostly about how Karen was coping. Karen had unloaded all her feelings about what was happening and about how Jim was finding out he was blind as if it were brand new. Ann had said something strange. “Pity you two aren’t together any more. I bet Jim needs someone to hold him like never before. And you could probably do with that too.” Karen looked at Jim as he stood, sipping coffee and wondered if perhaps…

Hank whined from in front of the fridge, dragging Karen’s thoughts back to the present. Jim appeared not to notice the poor dog. “Ah, Jim, you have to feed Hank. He probably hasn’t hand anything since Thursday night.”

“Okay,” Jim turned. “I don’t suppose you happen to know what she eats?”

“Yeah,” Karen opened the fridge door. “Come here,” Jim went over and she placed his hand on the food. “Hank’s food is always on the bottom shelf, you prepare it once a week and he get’s a tub each night.”

Jim fingered the tubs. There were three. Karen had said she couldn’t get the dog to eat, so Fido must be pretty hungry. He pulled out two, shut the fridge door, and pulled the lids off. He placed the tubs on the floor and waited. Hank sat and looked up at Jim who turned his head. “She’s not eating. You sure these are the right ones?”

“Yeah. You have to give him the eat command.” Karen waited, hoping his memory would trigger on its own. Finally he shrugged. “You can eat it, Fido.”

Hank squirmed, drool began to drip from his muzzle and he looked from Jim to Karen and back.

“Tell him SUP.” Karen copied the intonation she’d heard Jim use. “And you better stop calling him Fido, he’s very confused.

Jim didn’t mention he’d thought Hank was a female dog. “Sup,” Jim said. Before the word was fully out of his mouth, Hank was scoffing the contents of the two bowls. He finished in just under a minute and looked adoringly at Jim before plodding off toward the bedroom. Jim found the bowls and lifted them into the sink with obvious distaste.

“Will you remember to take him for a walk before you go to bed?”

“A walk?” Jim was surprised. “Can’t he wait until morning?”

Karen rolled her eyes. “No, he’s a guide dog, Jim. He has set routines and a very controlled schedule.”

Jim shook his head, Fido had been welcome company at the dump, but now, Jim just wanted to get back to some kind of normal, and looking after a dog wasn't his idea of life. He turned back to the coffee which gurgled and beeped, indicating it was done. He opened a cupboard door and pulled out two mugs. “You wanna get the milk?”

Karen put it in his waiting hand and watched as he poured just the right amount into one mug and then held the milk out for her to put back in the fridge. He remembered how she liked her coffee, and his. “Thanks. There’s cake in the fridge, can I have some?”

“Yes, of course, chocolate. It’s good. You’ll like it. Hey, Marty likes chocolate cake right?’

“Yeah,” Karen chuckled, “It’s amazing you remember something useless like what sort of cake Marty likes but not that you gotta walk the dog. Go figure?”

Jim walked back to the front door. In the corner, beside the hall stand, he put his hand on a long white cane. He nodded. “There’s a park down the street, a block to the left?”

“Yep.” It was the closest, the one he usually took Hank to at night. Karen suddenly realized Hank had no harness. “Do you have a spare harness?”

An image came to mind of a yellow lab with a leather harness. Jim shrugged, “I don’t know. I don’t think I know how to use it now anyway. But you say she’s been here for a few years?”

“Yeah, about four.”

“Well, she probably knows the way then. I’ll manage.” After all, he thought, we managed at the dump.

Karen eyed Jim, unsure. His brow furrowed as he ran his hand down the length of the cane. She was pretty sure he didn’t know how to use it. No, she’d take them both to the park, and bring them safely back here this time.

She turned back toward the kitchen to put her mug on the island and bumped into Jim who had stepped up to the counter at the same time.

“Sorry, I…” She tried to move out of the way but with the island in front of her, and him behind, she was trapped.

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Twelve

He didn’t move away but leaned the cane against the bench, freeing his hands to run through his hair and hold his head. “Wait…your fragrance…I remember…” Karen turned and looked at his face, only inches from her own, as he drew in long breaths of the perfume he had given her for Christmas last year. His head moved slightly side to side, his eyes too, as if searching for a memory that was hard to gather up. He breathed in short, hot breaths, biting his lip and frowning on and off. Then he stepped back abruptly and turned away. She thought she heard an indrawn breath.

“Jim, are you in pain?”

He half turned back to her. “No, the opposite, it’s like…when you’ve been searching for a word on the tip of your tongue, and suddenly it comes in a rush. Like a relief.”

The hint of a smile played at his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Music, laughing, you were mad at me for…” the smile broke across his face, “your Christmas present. I couldn’t understand why you were so mad and then, when you opened the box, you went quiet, and I thought I had wrecked everything, broken some taboo. Giving perfume to my partner.” He paused again, gathering details to hand over. “Christmas night, here.” Jim’s head turned toward the couch for a moment. “You gate crashed.”

She nodded, not wanting to interrupt the flow of returning memories. ‘Hmm...”

“You… cut your hand. We were eating…” His frown returned and he had a pained expression in his eyes.

“Sandwiches, we made sandwiches,” she prompted him.

“Yeah, skyscrapers of ham and salad and mayo and every filling in the fridge.”

It looked to her like he was playing the evening back in his head. “And you drank like a fish.”

She punched him playfully in the arm. “That’s about enough remembering then, time for Hank’s walk.”

~

“Here, take my arm.” Karen stepped up to Jim only a few steps out of the apartment building and took the cane from his hand. With Hank on a regular leash, he was trying to use the white cane but his discomfort was apparent. Again she marveled, he could remember how to run a case, he could remember Christmas and sandwiches but not how to use one of the most basic tools of his life?

He nodded and took her arm. They walked in silence to the park where Hank looked at Jim for a long time before finally running off to take care of business. Jim sat, chewing his bottom lip, quite oblivious to Hank’s movements and perhaps even Karen’s.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“Hmm. Nothing.”

She turned to him. “I’ve known you too long for you to get away with that, Jim. I know all your tells. Right now, Marty would say, ‘Dunbar? You asleep?’ Classic Jim Dunbar for thinking deep thoughts.”

He nodded, “Okay, I’ll buy it.”

She waited. She could tell by his breathing that he was working up to an answer, choosing his words carefully.

“I’m still trying to get my head around how this fits in.”

“What you being a cop?”

“No, yes.” He sighed, “Being a blind cop.”

“Well, you manage amazingly well. On the job, I mean, and in your life. Obviously it bugs you sometimes but… it seems to me that you accepted it, and we find ways to accommodate on the job. In fact there’s so little you can’t do, and honestly, sometimes we forget.”

“We?’

“Me, the Boss, Tom and Marty.”

The frown had settled into Jim’s face, and Karen could feel the tension in his shoulder had increased.

“Is that what you meant?”

“No. Not really. Just, it feels so new. I’m a bit scared to go to sleep because every morning since the dump, it’s been a shock waking to pitch black again.” Jim’s voice had dropped to a whisper, as if he was scared someone else would hear this confession. “I feel like there’s been a mistake. Everyone is acting like I’m blind, and the evidence is everywhere from talking clocks to being able to do things in the dark that I shouldn’t be able to do unless I had done all the rehab and stuff you tell me about. But… in my gut, I still can’t believe it.”

“Have you recovered any memories of being blind?”

Jim didn’t answer. He got up from the bench, took a step out and then stopped, closing his eyes against the dark in front of him. He didn’t want this conversation, although he knew it was inevitable. He couldn’t even pace here, to move like he felt was natural, while he thought. He’d always been a pacer, moving helped him think, now he was trapped. The frustration built, even as he stepped back, hit the bench with is knee and put his hand on the back of the seat. He walked carefully around and then paced behind it.

“But you remember me, and we met a year after you were blinded.” Karen tried to reason with him.

“I know, and I can’t work out why I don’t have a picture of you in my head, or Marty, Tom or the Boss. It just feels … wrong, like I just haven’t remembered yet. Like it’s on the tip of my tongue.”

Karen turned to watch his face, the turmoil was frightening, there was a trace of fear she had never seen in him before and it worried her. This was far bigger for him than the fact that he had been assaulted and left for dead in a dump.

The man in front of her was a strange mix of the Jim she knew and someone she had never met. Familiar and unpredictable at the same time. The old Jim had never opened up to her like this, had never admitted to any vulnerabilities. While it was gratifying that he had chosen her to speak to, she also knew he had no one else. Dr. Galloway would be back tomorrow, but there was no wife to go home to, no family that she was aware of.

His voice trembled and his he shook his head as if to deny his own words, “I keep turning my head and being surprised I can’t find someone. Even though my hand knows to reach out, my mind is surprised that I have to feel for things.”

He felt for the seat of the park bench as he said the last words, sitting heavily and putting his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. They were quiet for a long time. Whenhe finally continued, Jim’s voice sunk so low that Karen had to strain to pick up the individual words. “What if it always feels like this? What if I never feel normal ever again?”

“Jim, you’re the sort of guy to keep things to himself, usually. But, we’ve become pretty close over the years.” Karen didn’t elaborate. “And you never said anything like that to me before.”

“I’ve never told you?” He seemed surprised. “Karen, it’s so… so … heavy. How can anyone live like this?” He closed his eyes against the darkness, somehow it wasn’t so bad if he had them closed.

She watched, scared to say the wrong thing but knowing he needed to hear the truth. “Jim, I don’t know how it normally feels for you, but I can tell you how you deal with it.”

He turned toward her, his eyes opening and he listened.

“You’re proud of your competence, your ability to do your job well and you act like this is nothing more than an inconvenience. You are sarcastic with people who like to point it out to us and you get angry when people underestimate you. You get embarrassed if we occasionally think you can do something you can’t.”

“Go on,” Jim demanded.

She chuckled, “Like this one time, we were investigating a rape assault, and I went to draw you a picture of the wounds.”

Jim tilted his head, “Marlin Condell.”

“Yeah, you remember?”

“As you say it, yeah. He shot himself. I was worried about you, Marty was too.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re feeling it so heavy right now,” Karen suggested.

“How’s that?”

“Well, if you keep forgetting, and then getting reminded…”

Jim nodded, his mouth drawn down while he thought. “Yeah, I guess that’s possible.”

But Karen wasn't convinced. The memories were coming back thick and fast but there was a strangeness to him, a distance that she had never seen before.

Hank came up and put his head in Jim’s hands. Jim jerked up in surprise, gasping and disturbed. He had forgotten Hank again. Karen looked away, she decided she couldn’t leave them alone like this. “Come on, Hank’s ready.”

She led him back to his apartment, and as they stepped through the door, she let out a loud yawn. “Jim, I’m going to gatecrash on your couch.”

He looked surprised. “Sure, but…”

“Great, you remember where the spare blankets are?”

He nodded and turned to the bedroom.

While he was gone she checked the drawer under the window, the revolver she knew he kept, was nestled there. She’d check it wasn't loaded once he was asleep.

He emerged a moment later with pillows and a comforter. “I’ll be fine if you want to go home, Karen.”

“I know, but it’s a long drive home for me. Really we do this all the time,” she lied.

~

The next morning Karen rose early. She peeked into the bedroom but Jim was still asleep. She oscillated between waking him to let him know she was headed out and finding a way to leave a message.

Hank sat looking at her hopefully, and she realized that unless Jim had recovered some very specific dog memories over night, she was going to have to take Hank out for his walk. That made up her mind, she’d do Hank and hopefully sleeping beauty would have woken naturally by then.

As she took Hank to the park, she worried about how Jim would cope if he didn’t get those Hank specific memories back fast. He’d probably have to redo guide dog training, which was a whole month. She arched her back and stretched while Hank found just the right place to relieve himself.

What if he didn’t recover them? Jim seemed somehow reluctant to get back on the job. His memories of police procedure and his investigative skills were unaffected, but it took more than that. It took wanting to do the job, especially for someone in his situation. She toyed with the idea for a while that he might retire instead.

But Jim as someone other than a cop, was a Jim she couldn’t reconcile. She found herself uttering his words from last night. “It just didn’t feel right.” It would be a big step backward for him. She made up her mind to help him with whatever it took to get back to the job as soon as possible.

~

Jim was showered and dressed when she returned his dog. He stepped out of the bedroom and she alerted him that she was there, “I brought you a gift Jim. A brand new dog. You like?”

Jim squatted and ran his hands along Hank’s back. He shook his head. “Well, I hope you didn’t pay much, ‘cause this one smells like it came from the dump.”

“Haha. Well, you can give him another bath, seeing you have the day off. Unless you want to come in with me?”

“No. I’m speaking to Allan at 8.” Jim felt a little different this morning, the bleak desolation of last night had lifted a little. He’d dreamed a lot and more memories had surfaced. He still felt uncomfortable in this life he was supposed to be living, but Galloway was coming this morning and he was confident they would make more headway today.

Karen watched Jim make his way to the kitchen. He knew the layout of the apartment but didn’t seem quite at ease yet. This was more how he moved in a crime scene after they had been working it for a few days than how he usually moved in his home or the squad.

The phone in the kitchen rang and Jim picked it up. “Dunbar.”

“That sounds like a man who knows who he is,” Allan said, his pleasure clear in his voice.

“Yes, well you were right. This morning, I woke with even more pieces to the puzzle.”

“Remember the dog yet?”

“No.” What was it with this dog? Everyone seemed to think he couldn’t live without the thing.

“I’ve contacted your training centre. They’re in the middle of a group right now and so it’s not going to work to go up there. But they’ve mentioned an O&M you’ve apparently done a lot of work with, Tracey someone. Ring any bells?”

Jim waited but nothing slipped into place in his head. “Not yet.”

“Okay, well, she’ll be at your place first thing. She’ll help you re-access your mobility skills.”

“Okay… Yes… See you soon.” Jim couldn’t argue that he needed the skills. He’d thought he’d be fine getting to the park yesterday but truth was, without Karen he didn’t know how he would have managed.

“Yes, on my way.” Karen put her cell phone down. “I got a homicide to go to. But I’ll see you later, okay?”

~

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Twelve continued

Within an hour of Tracey’s arrival, Jim was competent with the cane again. The techniques returned easily as Tracey took him through the excersizes he had spent months mastering the first time around. It was as if she just opened the doors and he stepped back into competence. Recognising that, he redoubled his effort to push away a feeling of resentment, a feeling of embarrassment.

“A neon advertising sign,” she said as she watched the play of emotions on his face.

“What?”

“That’s what you called it.”

“This?” Jim held up the neatly folded cane she had brought for him.

“Yep. You hated it from the moment one was put in your hand. Do you still feel that way?”

Jim licked his lips. “Yeah. But I was hoping it was temporary, that I’d stop feeling that.” He sighed. It was bad enough hating the dark, but the tools he needed just to get around?

“Mind you, by the time we worked to get your job back, you had Hank, and he changed everything. It’s amazing what six months can do. You’d accepted that your blindness was permanent and just focused on gaining the skills you needed to get your job back and be competent.”

Jim listened to the stories she told him of the man she had worked with. He laughed with her at tales of stubbornness and ways they had found around what could have been job-killers. The story of how she had set up a fake crime scene to convince him he couldn’t just blunder through it with a cane was so funny, he was sure she was exaggerating. But, when she assured him that not only was it real, but it had worked, he’d been on the job for three years now, he felt something beginning to change in his head. All the stories Karen had told him seemed somehow less fantastic and at least possible, if not probable.

They were sitting on the couch laughing and Jim felt more relaxed than he had for a long time. She wore a fruity perfume which wafted when she laughed, and Jim found himself wondering what she looked like. He imagined her hair was long and wanted to reach out to touch it. He turned away.

This was so hard, she was completely at ease, she said they’d been friends for years now, and yet without either visual cues or memories of their relationship to guide him, he couldn’t make the move he wanted to for fear of causing an upset. There was no doubt he was attracted to her, he must have been before, but had he acted on it? Where had it led, did she rebuff him or…

“What are you thinking?”

“I was wondering what you looked like.”

“Here, maybe this will help you remember?” She picked up his hand and brought it to her face. He ran his thumb along her cheekbones and into her hair. He frowned for a moment.

“What?” she asked.

“I thought, for some reason, that it would be longer.”

“It was. The last time we did this.” And with that she leaned forward and he felt cool lips on his. He returned her kiss, the intimacy finally answering a vast emptiness that had sat clawing at his insides since he had returned from the dump.

“Do you remember my lips?” she moved his hand from her hair, down her neck and to her breast, “Does this bring back memories?” The smile was clear in her voice and he needed no further invitation.

~

“So, why did we, um, stop doing this?” Jim asked, running his finger down to her belly button.

“’Cause there are plenty of fish in the sea and neither of us likes a diet with only one taste in it.” Her ironic tone and the way she ran a sharp nail down his back brought goose bumps.

“Don’t stop.” His voice was almost harsh.

She watched his face and knew memories were surfacing. She smiled to herself, glad that she had managed to open that particular box. The way he had greeted her when she first came in, like she was a stranger, had been most uncomfortable for her. So she smiled and kept scratching his skin, he’d always loved it when she did it hard, a bit too hard so it almost hurt.

“I remember bars, and music, drinks, dancing, lots of dancing.” He shook his head and questioned her, “That was hard right?”

“Yes, for some reason you were so self-conscious dancing, as if the whole world was watching you.”

“Well, it felt like that.” He’d moved on, remembering more, “Oh, the trial crime scene, I remember it now, Garner, Garner was there. Oh my God, How could I have forgotten him?”

Jim went quiet again. He looked sad almost.

“What’s up, JD? Why the sad face?”

“I’m just realizing that I’m not alone. After... after I woke I felt so alone. That I could have been lost for three days and no one was looking for me. Oh!...”

“Someone else?”

“Yeah, Gus at the gym, he’ll be worried. I need… I need to call these people, and I need to ask Karen if there are more.”

“Well, before you get busy bringing all these other people back into your life, do you think you could feed me?” Her hands were warm and soft, she pushed him back on the bed and rolled on top.

“Sure, how about lunch at Giorgio’s?” he said remembering her favorite spot.

“Great, you’re doing so well remembering I think it might even be time to get Hank back into harness.”

~

He took Tracey out for lunch. Hank accompanied them, dressed in the harness she had brought. Jim carried the dog leash in his left hand and the cane in his right. He found it fairly easy to follow the walls of the building, the sound of Tracey’s chatter or her boot heels on the pavement and confidently found his way to the restaurant. At the door, he took her arm and she led him through a maze of tables without incident.

By the time they had finished their meal, he was feeling quite cocky.

“How about you give Hank a run for his money now?” Tracey suggested as they finished paying for the meal at the counter and she saw him unfolding the white cane.

Jim squashed the uneasy feeling that rose. “Sure, why not.” He replaced the cane in his back pocket and leaned down. He patted the dog’s head and then followed the line of his back until his fingers met with the harness grip. “Ah, what do I do with this?” he asked holding up the lead.

“He wears both, so here,” Tracey took it from Jim's hand and wrapped it around the harness the way she’d seen Jim do countless times. She made Jim follow the lead up so he could see what she’d done.

He nodded and picked up the grip, feeling somewhat uncomfortable and wishing they were doing this somewhere less public.

“No, you need him on the left.” Tracey corrected and waited while Jim moved the dog around.

“Okay, I’ll go first, just tell him ‘follow’ and trust that when he takes a step it means the one in front of you is clear.

Jim nodded, taking a breath and giving the command. When the dog stepped off he followed, listening for Tracey’s steps to be sure the dog went where she should. Soon the dog stopped and Jim waited.

“We’re at the door, you can reach out now.” Tracey had stepped back and to Jim's side. She was amazed. He looked like this was the first time he had ever done this.

He found the door easily and opened it to the street. There were no stairs and he motioned the dog forward, “Go.” Nothing.

“The command is ‘forward’, Jim.”

“Forward.” Jim tensed up as the dog stepped out and turned to the left. He hesitated and the dog stopped. Tracey ran into Jim's back. “Sorry, she stopped. I…” he said.

“It’s fine. He’s reading your hesitation. You need to be quite decisive.” Tracey took Jim's arm and they moved a few steps down the street, out of the way of the door. She noticed Jim was very tense and wondered if she should just lead him home. No, he needed to remember this, she reminded herself, I’ll just have to push him through.

“Okay. You’re ready to go. Give him the command and let’s get back to your apartment.”

Tracey stepped away, her last words came from several feet behind him and then Jim heard people come between him and where he thought she was. “Where’s the building?” he asked, but she either didn’t hear or expected him to find it himself. He thought about pulling out his cane and finding the wall but figured that would be cheating. He resisted the urge to reach out with his hand to find it, what if it wasn’t where he thought it was?
He knew it should be there on his left. A moment later, someone walked past him right where the building should have been, he’d lost his orientation already and without the cane, he didn’t know how to regain it. He couldn’t simply walk over to where he thought the building was, for all he knew he was near the curb and could step off into traffic. The cars seemed louder than they had a moment ago, although he could have sworn he hadn’t taken a single step since Tracey had put the harness in his hand and stepped away.

Jim began to get angry. He couldn’t fathom how someone could trust a dog with their safety. “Forward.” The dog moved a step and Jim took one. There suddenly seemed to be a lot of people around him, he kept moving, following the dog, but with no idea of where he was going. Someone brushed too close on his right and he stumbled, catching himself easily. But now his breath was high in his chest. Memories of falling in the street, of being shouted at, being lost, began to crowd him, and his hand grew sweaty on the grip. The people around him seemed to have disappeared and he stopped completely. Tired screeched close by and he wanted to run but he couldn’t move. He had a death grip on the harness but couldn’t even picture a dog at the end of it. It seemed he was hanging in space, alone.

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Thirteen

Someone grabbed his arm, close. A voice made it through his panic. “…Jim. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, I just ...” Jim's embarrassment was acute. He felt frozen in the moment. A confusion of cars honking, the feeling of eyes on him, his heart pounding and his breath catching in his throat.

“It’s okay. Jim, here take my arm.” She pulled the grip from his hand and tucked his hand into her elbow.

He walked like an automaton, he’d lost the confidence and grace he had regained earlier. Hank looked up at her worried, and she felt guilty.

“I’ve pushed you too fast, Jim. I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”

He didn’t answer, just held her arm tight and put one foot after the other. Back at the apartment, in the elevator, she tried again, “Jim, please… talk to me.”

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” He patted her arm absently and traced the bricks with his hand as they walked to his door. Inside he went through the motions of making coffee, even though they had just had one after lunch.

She didn’t want to leave him alone, but Dr Galloway arrived and assured her he was in good hands. Before she left, Tracey took Jim aside, “Jim, I’d really like to come back tonight, would that be okay with you?”

“I’d like that.” Jim held her in his arms again, kissed her softly on the side of her neck. “I’ll be counting the minutes.”

~

With Jim reclined on the red couch, Allan picked up the hypnosis where they had left off the previous day. New information came up, but Jim was disassociated, disconnected and answering with accuracy devoid of any care.

By two thirty, Allan decided Jim had had enough. He gave him his sleep medication and called Fisk.

~

Tracey called at six, waking Jim from a deep sleep feeling refreshed and relaxed. Soon they were ensconced on the couch with a movie on the TV, she’d brought take out Italian and they ate from a common bowl. “Are you allowed to drink at the moment?” she asked.

“No one said I couldn’t.”

“Good, how about you break open your stash of reds?”

He cocked his head. “I have a stash of reds?”

“Yes, come see.” She took his hand and led him to the cabinet behind the foyer. She opened the lower drawers to reveal aging bottles of red, settled into oak nests. “Down here.”

Jim dropped into a squat and reached out to the low cupboard.

Jim felt the smooth glass of the bottles, the labels and remembered scents and tastes. Snatches of memory bubbled up, laughter, the sound of a cork escaping its confines and from nowhere, the image of Christie as he poured champagne. He shook himself free of that one. The label at the end of the first row intrigued him, in the shape of a shield, and made of some soft metal rather than paper. The words were raised on its surface, The name rose up in his mind “Australian, Tempus Two” and he felt a sudden wave of nostalgia as he remembered the woman who had given it to him. “Asha.”

He smiled, that was a sweet memory he’d work on, but not now, now was time with Tracey. He moved his hand to the next one along, a French one with a jaunty name, what was it?

“Arrogant Frog.” Tracey read over his shoulder.

“Ah, that’ll go nicely with the Italian.” He pulled the bottle from its cradle and closed the drawer.

~

Jim woke suddenly, he sat up straight before realizing where he was. Tracey sat too. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was dreaming and…”

“You remembered something?”

He nodded, “A lot. The job, the squad, you, … a lot.”

“Wanna share?”

And Jim told her how he remembered working out how to do his job and fighting in the courts and winning and Karen sniggering at me on my first day when Fisk walked him into her desk. He trailed off and went quiet.

“That’s good,” she said yawning. But he was pensive. “Something else?”

“I remember giving up my gun.”

“So it’s not all roses?”

“No, but, even the thorns feel right in my head now.” He settled back and pulled her close. “This has been good Tracey, thank you.”

“My pleasure entirely.” She sounded smug. A while later she asked him, “Do you think you’re ready to go back to work?”

He nodded, his words incongruent, “No, Fido’s still a mystery to me, and I think I need him before I can manage. But other than that, hell yes.”

~

Jim dreamed. Impressions of challenge, a calm certainty, a goofy reliable presence that didn’t get rattled. A warm pressure against his knee. The first time Hank had disobeyed an order, prevented him from stepping off a curb into wide open drain. A voice next to him. “Wow, that’s a great dog. You could have broken a leg in that hole, it’s at least five feet deep.” The feeling of the harness grip in his hand, a steady pull forward, pause, a wait for a command. Forward, and the feeling of certainty that the way forward was safe.

Jim woke with a start. His heart pounded and he was clammy with sweat. Tracey slumbered undisturbed. “Hank.” He called quietly and the dog padded over. Jim checked his watch. 4 am. He pulled sweats, shoes and a jacket from the wardrobe. He motioned Hank out of the bedroom and followed him to the living room. Names, Artie, Pete, Sonny, and others rang in his head. Sonny had an image, the others were voices, impressions. But the most solid was Hank. He sunk his hands into his dog’s fur and rested his head on the furry shoulder.

Moving silently through the apartment, Jim found the harness on the stand in front of the door and buckled it under Hank’s chest. In his hand the grip felt right. There was no resistance left in his mind. He ran his hand over the new leather, smiled ruefully to himself, he even knew where it would wear down first, and missed the comfort of the old grip that he had used for years. But Hank and the harness in his hand meant freedom and independence. He no longer felt trapped in the dark. The doctor had been right, remembering hurt much less than he expected. Jim closed the door behind him and followed Hank out into the night.

The fear was gone, an old familiarity settled into place, and Jim sighed with relief. They walked familiar routes for an hour. Finally they headed for the park. He sat on the bench and remembered Friday night. The first blow had come while he sat right here, on this bench. He had fallen forward with the momentum, landing on his hands and knees and stunned so badly he hadn’t been able to call out. The second blow was to his forehead, his fingers touched the wound, and he had known nothing more. Hank returned from his foray, put his head on Jim's knee. Jim stroked him gently, the vet had said Hank had a very hard head, most dogs would have been killed by the blow he had received. Jim shook his head, why hit Hank too? Attacking him, he could understand, he’d seen a lot of desire for revenge in his time on the force, but a service dog?

“Well. Hank, we’ve both been to hell and back. Guess that means we can go anywhere now.”

The birds had begun to call. They headed home.

~

On Thursday, Marty and Tom were in interview one with Marybeth when Jim arrived back in the squad. He joined Karen and Fisk in the observation room. Fisk brought him up to date, “…so, we haven’t told her you’re alive Jim. We want a murder confession so we can make attempted murder stick, and not just assault.”

Jim nodded, “Good. She talking?”

“No. Not a word.”

The voice of her lawyer came through from the speaker, “My client says there is no evidence of what Michael is saying. It’s his word against hers and besides you don’t have a body, you can’t charge her.”

“And if we produce a body?” Marty asked mildly.

“And a crow bar with her fingerprints and his blood?” Tom added, smiling.

Marybeth’s face closed down, her gloating expression melted off.

“Boss?” Jim asked, in the observation room.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Karen touched him on the arm as he stepped out of the small room. “She’s on the chair directly in front of the door, Jim.”

“I wish your wayward Detective were here, so he could tell you himself that I had nothing to do with this.” Marybeth said, sounding innocent.

Fisk and Karen watched closely as the door opened behind the cop killer.

Before Marybeth had a chance to turn, Jim put his hand on her shoulder. “You sure about that, Marybeth?”

[Dreamfire]

Chapter Fourteen

“I want a psych check before he goes back on active duty.” Tunney ordered.

Fisk nodded, already thinking forward to his call to Dr. Galloway. He could probably have one on his desk before the end of the tour.

“And not that doctor that gave him the go ahead before.”

“What?”

“Well, clearly Dunbar has some kind of death wish going.”

“Based on what evidence? The MPU were way off mark with their theory.” Fisk was disgusted.

“Dunbar gets into more scrapes than any other detective in the NYPD. Now the way I see it, that’s either because his disability is getting in the way, or because he’s not overly concerned with sticking around. Which one do you think it is, Lieutenant?” Tunney baited both ends of his arguments.

“Neither. If his percentage of scrapes is above average, it’s no different than his years on the job before he lost his sight.”

Tunney shook his head and looked pityingly at the 8th’s Lieutenant. “Protecting him, it’s going to end up costing you big time.”

Fisk met his gaze with a steady look. His detectives sometimes met hostility in the streets, Fisk met in the halls.

“Look, Gary, a female almost killed him this time, a single female acting on her own. His disability, it’s showing up as a major liability.”

“That single female killed a sighted cop last year, Chief. Anyone can be hit in the back of the head, blind or not.”

Tunney was unconvinced. “I don’t think he’s got what it takes to defend himself, let alone take down suspects.”

They stepped out of the office, just in time to see Tom and Marty wresting with an angry perp. The guy stood six three and strong. His head was shorn down to an inch of blonde, and tattoos traced the curve of his muscles proclaiming him modern day KluKluxKlan. Tom shoved him toward the holding cell, and he turned back with a sneer in his face, “Get out of my way, boy.”

“You watch your mouth-” Marty began but the guy surprised them by shrugging both detectives from his arms with a roar. Tom hit the floor ass first and Marty stumbled into the holding cell.

With speed that belied his size, the tattooed man made off, his boots thumping a fast staccato down the corridor.

Both Tunney and Fisk pulled their weapons. “Freeze!”

But he laughed as he zigzagged down to the end of the hall.

In the same moment, Dunbar stepped around the corner. He dropped his right shoulder and ploughed into the guy’s centre, then lifted him up and over.

The man hit the floor with a thud. “Aghh! You broke my fucking shoulder!”

“Shut up.” With his knee in the man’s back, Jim pulled his cuffs out with one hand while following the guy’s arm down to his hand with the other. Finding the guy was already cuffed he abandoned his cuffs and applied upward pressure. “Get up.”

“Aghh!”

“Then get up and it won’t hurt so much.” Dunbar hissed.

The perp scrambled to his feet, trying to relieve the pain that drained the blood from his face.

“Tom? Marty?” Jim called out knowing the guys were close but needing a direction after the scuffle.

“Here, Jim, holding cell’s open.”

With Dunbar directing him, the man hit a file cabinet and the water cooler on the way to the cell. “Oh, sorry. Oops.”

As Jim pushed the perp face first into the heavy bars Marty took over. “I got him, Dunbar.”

Tom dusted himself off and grinned at Jim, while Marty shoved the swearing criminal into the cell and pulled the door shut. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Jim straightened his jacket and his glasses, and turned back to the corridor. “Hey, Tom, can you see my cuffs?”

Tom chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll drop ‘em off for you.”

Jim returned to his desk and lifted his earpiece.

Tunney turned a sneer on Gary Fisk before stalking off.

Fin