Messiah Josiah

[greenbeing]

Chapter Fifteen

Jim didn’t sleep well that night. He kept waking up, thinking. There were never any useful revelations, leaving him tired, groggy, and frustrated by morning. He rose before Christie, as usual. He could function on little sleep, he knew. He’d never been a great sleeper, and after the shooting, when he’d started having nightmares, he’d been conflicted over whether or not he should try it at all. One the one hand, he was blind, so the less time he spent awake, the better. On the other hand, sleep offered little comfort, leaving him disoriented and often frightened.

The nightmares didn’t come as frequently now, but he still found it difficult to sleep, always plagued with thoughts of how he was screwing up his life, no matter what he did.

The latest thing with Christie had been the problem last night. He just couldn’t get over it. Yeah, he admitted he had enjoyed spending the weekend with her, but there was just something false about the whole thing. He could feel the tension still bubbling underneath, especially at Christie’s birthday dinner, letting him know things weren’t likely to stay okay much longer. It was only a matter of time.

And the Marty thing, that was just… icing. Something to top it all off.

Maybe Galloway wouldn’t question another therapist’s recommendations, but Jim felt he had no choice. He stepped out of the shower and heard Christie get up. Now was as good a time as any, he guessed. That way, even if the discussion went badly, they could both head off to work and cool down.

He followed her into the kitchen half-dressed, pulling his shirt over his shoulders, his tie between his teeth. He shrugged the shirt into place and removed the tie, listening carefully for his wife. She was barefoot and quiet, but he could hear her making coffee.

“Christie?” he asked as he started to button his shirt. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice still rough with sleep. “Is something wrong?” She came over and finished buttoning his shirt, then started to put his tie on. He let her, even though he’d never much enjoyed her fussing over his clothes.

He cleared his throat. “Is something wrong?” he asked her back.

“What do you mean?”

“This weekend, at dinner. And the whole thing with the therapist. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been great, but…”

“But?”

“Did you really just… forget?”

“Forget what?”

Jim bobbed his head to one side, then the other. “Okay, forgive. Did you?”

“Forgive what?”

It was early and his interviewing skills didn’t extend to his wife. It wasn’t like she’d committed some crime by trying to pretend nothing had ever been wrong between them. Couldn’t he just accept it and enjoy it?

But he still had that feeling that everything wasn’t okay, and if they just left it, it would fester, and it would come back.

“Did you forgive me?” he asked. “Because I just didn’t think you were ever going to, and you got mad at dinner over something—”

“If you don’t think I’m ever going to be able to forgive you, then why am I still here? Why are you?”

“I’m still here because I don’t have to forgive me—”

“You don’t?” Her voice had grown cold.

“That came out wrong.” He squinched up his face and moved away a step.

“Jim, I’ve been trying for over a year to forgive you. So why are you bringing this up when I finally did? Do you really think I’m that unforgiving of a person?”

“Christie—”

“No, you do, don’t you?”

“If you’ve forgiven me, why are you so mad?”

“Maybe because you won’t let it go.”

“Then tell me, what did I do at dinner that made you so angry?”

“I wasn’t angry!” She slammed a cupboard. “I am now, but I wasn’t then.”

“Upset, then.”

“I wasn’t. I was fine.”

“Christie—”

She slammed the bedroom door.

Jim sighed. They really needed a mediator.

He fell back on the couch, his good intentions mashed. He sighed again. He could hear Christie getting ready for work and he didn’t dare go in there. He stared at the ceiling, listening, thinking, wondering what they were going to do.

Talking to her was almost like talking to DeLana. He never got anywhere with either of them, but at least DeLana didn’t explode on him.

His stomach turned. He still hadn’t gotten anything useful from DeLana, and he couldn’t help but wonder if they’d jeopardized her safety by going up there. Karen had said she’d make sure they weren’t followed, but she’d been sick, maybe hadn’t been using her best judgment.

Anne jumped into his head. He hadn’t thought about her all weekend. Yet another woman in his life—or out of his life. At least he didn’t have to worry about Anne anymore. He didn’t have to worry about hurting her or keeping her safe or offending her, endangering her. He didn’t have to keep her happy or come home to her at night or get help from her. He didn’t have to rely on her. He sighed, she was sounding better all the time.

Christie, DeLana, Karen, Anne, they swam through his head.

Karen, sick at home. He’d have to manage without her for the first time.

Christie, slamming something on the counter in the bathroom, angry again. Maybe he should have just left it; maybe nothing had been wrong and he’d misread her at dinner. Maybe she’d felt sick and didn’t want him to worry.

DeLana, frightened and worried about her kids and about Artez. She’d been happy to see him the day before, even if she still refused to cooperate. All he could do was hope she lived long enough to see this case solved and to see her kids through college.

And Anne, laughing at him, poking fun at him, telling him to always sit up straight. She’d always been so strong, never clingy. She’d always had this magic pull on him, and this aura of safety. Maybe because she’d never yelled at him but in jest. Maybe because she’d never cared enough to yell at him.

He couldn’t let himself get wistful over Anne.

Jim found himself dozing off. He awoke when he heard the front door slam. He sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, stretching a crick out of his neck. He had to go to work. Christie’d cool off by the time he got home.

But he didn’t get off of the couch. For once, he almost dreaded going to work. The case was falling flat, even as they found information. He felt further from solving it now than ever.

Karen wasn’t there.

Marty was pissed.

He couldn’t rely on the guys. He’d never had to before, not really. Tom had been helpful when Karen had been mad at him that once, but he’d never had to go a full day without her. He’d once thought he couldn’t do his job without Hank, but now he realized, without Karen… he was pretty helpless. So much for being a hard ass detective again. Not when he had to rely on Karen for descriptions, to drive him around, point him in the right direction.

He almost might as well stay home sick without her there.

That cockiness he’d felt the first day back, when he’d told the boss all he wanted was a chance, that was pretty much gone. It had been replaced by the realization that, yeah, he could do his job, but he needed help. He needed good will from the other detectives and his boss.

Fisk had to remind him to be careful.

Karen had to be his eyes.

Marty had to question every move he made.

Jim got off the couch, but the only reason he went into work that day was because he couldn’t watch TV.


* * *


Jim picked up the phone on his desk. “8th Squad, Detective Dunbar,” he said.

“Jim, Karen. I want you guys to check something out.”

“You must be feeling better?”

“Worse, actually, or I’d go over there myself.”

Jim leaned across his desk, resting on his elbows. “What’s up?”

Karen started coughing. When she could talk again she said, “Remember that church down the street from me that I told you’d been closed for years? I’ve been sitting by the window all day watching people go in. No one’s come out.”

Jim laughed. “Is this one of those Rear Window things?”

“Jim,” Karen said, sounding exasperated, “I’m not even delirious. I didn’t take too many cold medications—”

“Karen, I’m sorry. It was just the way you said it—“No one’s come out,”” he imitated.

“Great, Jim, thanks.” She coughed again. “Good to know I have your vote of confidence.”

“Karen…”

“Jim, it’s the church Samantha had written in my notebook. Remember?”

Jim’s mind snapped to attention and he sat up straighter. “Yeah, I remember now. You think she was trying to tell us something?”

“Maybe.”

“So we’ll come check it out. Give me the address.”

Karen told Jim the address and he memorized it, then hung up.

“Hey,” Jim said to the guys.

“How’s Karen?” Tom asked.

“Worse, but she assures me she’s not hallucinating. She gave us an address to check out. An old church that’s been closed down. Samantha told her about it.”

“A church?” Marty asked.

“Karen’s channeling dead people?” Tom asked.

Jim laughed, remembering how Karen had worded everything. “Before Samantha died, Tom,” Jim clarified. “Karen’s been watching people go in there all day. You guys want to hit it with me?” Jim didn’t want to say that if neither of them came, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. He would be able to find his way there, no problem, but as for looking for things… He could ask questions, if there were really people there, but he’d definitely like someone along to lay the scene. He stood up. Even if they didn’t come, he’d check it out, maybe call Karen from his cell phone for a few clues.

“I’ll pass,” Marty said. “I have better things to do than traipse around an old church.”

Jim sighed and put on his sunglasses.

“I’m game,” Tom said.

“Aren’t you relieved,” Marty said as Jim walked past.

“I was going anyway, Marty,” Jim said, pausing momentarily.

“To do what?” Marty asked.

“Look around,” Jim replied, equally snidely. “And ask questions.”

“Yeah, like: where’s the door.”

Jim walked away.


* * *

[greenbeing]

* * *


“You must water the world…” a voice was saying. It resonated across the high rafters, oddly distorted in a place that should have had great acoustics. Tom’s description had merely been “an old church.” Jim’s only addition to the scene was that there were no pews, probably sold off for profit long ago. Probably anything that could have been pilfered or sold had been, nailed down or not. “You must heat the world…” It was standing room only, like a palace on wedding day. They weren’t close enough for Jim to feel the other people around him, but he could tell people had packed up near the front of the church. Presumably, the speaker was the infamous Uncle Josiah. They’d caught a kid on the way in and asked him what was going down. He’d excitedly told them it was speech day, but he was late and didn’t want to miss Uncle Josiah. “You must communicate with the world…”

“Let’s wait outside,” Tom whispered.

Jim put a hand on his arm and shook his head. “Let’s hear him out.”

“He hasn’t said anything about feeding or clothing the world.”

“He might be making an analogy.”

The audience must have been so rapt that no one noticed Tom and Jim whispering in back by the door. Jim crossed his arms to wait it out. Hank lay next to him. Tom shifted uncomfortably.

“I come to you with water and warmth and I teach you the ways of the world. I listen when you speak. That makes you my people; what more do you need?”

Hank yawned loudly.

“A bath,” Tom whispered and Jim shushed them both.

“There is nothing holy and there is nothing sacred. That’s why you’re here. You’re the sensitive beings downtrodden and trodden on by the people out there who just want to get ahead in life. We don’t rise up, but how can we look away? We must help each other or fall to as despicable a level as the heathens outside.

“Stop praying because there’s no one listening.”

Two hours later the human species had been insulted to the point of being lower than demons—where the immortal demons were banished to mortality so their lives could end in an unspectacular manner buried in rotting soil. Being human was a shame.

“Geez, Jim, it sounds like he’s talking them into suicide.”

Jim just nodded, trying to figure this guy out. He didn’t seem like a fighter of the proletariat, defender of the underdog, but he also didn’t seem to be the next Hitler or Koresh. What would he have to gain if it was an elaborate mass suicide? Was he exploiting them?

“Jim, I gotta pee.”

“Go. I’ll be here.” Jim waved him off.

Hank jumped up to leave with Tom, wagging his tail and shaking himself. Jim motioned for him to lie down and Hank sighed. If these people’d been dogs, forced to sit around listening to this guy all day, they’d have done the smart thing—reverted to primal instinct and eaten the bastard. Hank eyed Josiah distastefully—there’d be no love lost between them, he was sure. And dogs are a good judge of character. Hank rolled over on his side, kicking Jim in the ankle as revenge for being forced to stay. Hank sighed again—the big oaf of a master probably thought the kick was unintentional—probably for the best; why endanger the doggie treat rations?

“Ah, I see we have a visitor! The blind gentleman in back.”

Before Jim could blink or comprehend how it happened, the voice that had been booming from the front of the crowd was beside him.

“You look like a very organized and ritualized man,” the voice said quietly. “Bet you didn’t see this one coming, did you, detective? Let’s take you out of your comfort zone. Come.”

Jim took Hank’s harness and followed the dog and the man through throngs of people to the front of the church. He climbed the stairs to the pulpit.

Hank kept an eye on Josiah so closely he nearly ran himself into the makeshift pulpit. He stopped just in time and pushed against Jim.

Jim reached down to pat Hank reassuringly, but his hand was intercepted and he was spun around to face the curious audience that had started muttering. Jim dropped Hank’s harness and Hank backed away. Jim turned to follow Hank’s motions, punctuated by his dog tags jingling and his toenails scratching on the floor; he’d never known the dog to show an ounce of fear, much like Jim himself tried not to. It sounded like Hank was shaking and Jim could feel that fear filling him. If Hank was scared…

“My people, look at this man.”

Jim turned his attention back to the speaker and the audience. If he didn’t keep track of everyone, he was worried about what would happen.

“Look, because you can, and he can’t. Use your gift of sight while he stands up here and listens to you look, and feels you look.”

Jim had never felt uncomfortable in a crowd, but now—even as he reasoned that that was the man’s goal and he shouldn’t give in—he couldn’t keep himself from shifting away from the pulpit. The man grabbed his arm and Jim faced the crowed, relieved for his sunglasses.

The man’s grip tightened on Jim’s arm, making sure he stayed in the here and now. He touched Jim’s forehead, then let go. Jim felt like he was floating, like there was no floor.

“Let’s pray for this man. Let’s heal him.”

Jim tried to focus. He couldn’t hear the crowd. He couldn’t feel the man standing next to him, even though he was sure there was still a hand on his arm. The room felt odd, small, like there were lights shining on him. There was warmth on his face, like a 100 watt light bulb too close to his head.

“Let’s pray.” The voice was suddenly distorted, unrecognizable as the man who’d pulled him onstage.

Murmuring filled the room, making it feel even smaller than before, the sound almost tangible enough to feel.

Hank whined.

Jim blinked.

Suddenly he could feel the floor beneath his feet again and the man standing only a few inches away, no longer holding him captive. Sounds became just sounds again. Jim listened as people prayed fervently for the return of his sight.

He’d prayed for that before. It had been tough, being in the hospital, not being able to see. Voices had come out of nowhere and he hadn’t felt grounded, just like he’d felt he was floating a minute ago. Trying to talk to Christie, to doctors, to hold conversations without visual stimuli… Trying to remember what was going on, remember everything that happened in a day… Images had filled his head then, to the point of driving him mad, he couldn’t keep them out, couldn’t control them, his brain sending pictures of what it thought he should be seeing until he was so confused he cried. Feeding himself by touch… Recognizing noises, recognizing things by touch only… Keeping from crying out in the middle of the night when he awoke to noises enveloping him that he couldn’t identify… It was the only time in his life he’d ever really felt fear and it had become a tangible enemy. Every little worry and fright he’d ever felt had faded into the unimportant. Christie’d been able to do nothing but sit next to him and feel his fear and cry—he’d been able to feel the remnants of tears on her face and her hands every time he’d touched her, until he didn’t want to touch her anymore and had withdrawn.

Here in the church, the fear suddenly dissipated. Hope radiated through him and he didn’t feel even the barest remnant of a fear. He could fly if he chose. It wasn’t coming from him, it was coming from a room full of people hoping for him.

Jim shuddered.

In the hospital he’d finally accepted the fact that it was permanent. That didn’t mean he still couldn’t hope for a miracle, but he’d finally come to terms with what the doctors were telling him.

The man next to him moved and silence suddenly dropped. A hand was pressed over his face and then he was thrust forward so suddenly he stumbled. When he regained his balance he looked out over the crowd. Nothing had changed. He could hear gasps and sniffling.

“You tried so hard! Why didn’t it work? You prayed your hearts out, yet he’s still blind. So you see, no one is listening. There are no more miracles.”

Jim clenched his jaw and turned toward the man. Was there anything worse than taking hope from people? Oddly, he didn’t feel anger for himself, but for all the people who had been duped. He’d already known it was hopeless.

The throng dispersed and Hank lunged to Jim’s side protectively.

He fought for coherent thought. “Sir?” Jim asked. He could hear footsteps walking toward the back of the stage. “You’re Josiah, right?”

“Sometimes,” the man replied, not turning to face Jim, just using the effect of his voice bouncing off the back wall and off the cathedral ceiling to throw a blind man off-balance. “And sometimes I’m just a Messiah.”

The footsteps grew faint before Jim managed to move. “What sort of a messiah offers no hope?”

“You missed the first two hours of this meeting. Come next time and you’ll see the light.” He cleared his throat. “Not literally, of course.” And he was gone.

Someone bumped into him as he walked off the stage and Jim suddenly found himself floating again, that fear returning. Unbalanced, lightheaded.

A hand latched onto his elbow and kept him upright, forcing him to move forward through the emptiness.


* * *


“Hey, Jim.”

Jim just nodded toward Marty and kept walking down the hall. He stopped in the locker room for some aspirin. He felt… odd. The car ride back with Tom had been quiet, but not exactly comfortable. He missed Karen and wished she’d been there. She’d be able to help him sort out whatever it was he was feeling. Insulted, mocked, pitied…

He didn’t want to be an example of anything, much less the example of a person whose life couldn’t be complete. Someone who needed a miracle that could never come.

The weirdest part was he wasn’t full of rage. He should have been slamming doors and lockers and raging about the injustice of it all.

Because, except for the lack of anger, he felt exactly the same as when he’d first lost his sight. Empty, confused, hopeful. Like he should go get a second opinion, and a third. Most of all, like he wasn’t himself and never would be, didn’t know who he’d ever been.

He sat down at his desk and just stared into space. He could have been taking notes or e-mailing Karen what happened, keep her up-to-date.

“Okay,” Marty said, “what happened?”

“This guy does these marathon speeches,” Tom said. “Jim’s probably bored out of your mind, right, Jim?”

Jim barely heard him. Tom cleared his throat uncomfortably and Marty’s chair creaked in Jim’s direction.

“I left and when I got back, he had Jim up on stage and everyone was praying for him.”

“Why’d you get up on stage, Jim?”

Jim didn’t answer. He could barely form coherent thoughts. He didn’t feel sick, just empty. He didn’t need food or sleep, didn’t feel like a full human anymore. No thoughts, no feelings.

Hank put his head on Jim’s knee, but Jim ignored him.

“Okay…” Marty said slowly. “Tom? Care to enlighten me?”

“He’s hardly said anything since the meeting ended. All I know is, I’d just got back. The guy watched me all the way through the door, never took his eyes off me,” Tom said.

“So what’d he do to you, Jim?” Marty tried again.

Jim didn’t answer, still thinking it over himself.

“His proof that there’s no longer a God was that he couldn’t make Jim see. If the blind can’t see and the lame can’t walk, you’re wasting your time having faith in anything.”

“Jim?”

He felt Marty’s hand waving in front of his face. He could feel the air moving around it, could smell aftershave and the anti-bacterial soap from the men’s room here at the squad. He couldn’t get out of his own head, couldn’t blink.

“Jim, you know, it’s weird enough when you go all thinking on us usually, but this is just creepy.”

Someone walked into the squad. Carrying a fresh cup of coffee. Jim could smell it across the room. “What’s going on?” Fisk asked.

“Can you go into a coma if you’re still awake?” Marty asked.

“Jim?” the lieutenant asked.

Someone smelling of spray paint was half-dragged across the room. Pigeons were landing on the windowsill. He could hear them scratching and cooing. The blind clacked against the glass as the central heating kicked on. Someone dropped a piece of paper in the hallway.

Fisk clapped a hand on Jim’s shoulder and Jim blinked. The room was completely silent. “Jim, go home. Get some rest.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jim said, but he stood up, put on his coat, and started to leave. Hank jumped up and ran after him, rubbing against him until Jim found the harness in his hand.


* * *


Christie only waited a moment for the elevator, then dashed for the stairs. It was a long way up, but she couldn’t wait any longer. She kicked off her high heels and ran.

Lieutenant Fisk had called her, sounding concerned and asked her to keep an eye on Jim that night. Karen was sick and maybe he was, too. He’d barely said a word since he’d gotten back from interviewing some guy about the case. Christie knew before Fisk said it, that wasn’t like Jimmy. If he talked to someone about a case, even if he didn’t learn anything useful, he would talk it over and over, speculating on every tiny thing.

Panting, she threw open the door to the apartment, making sure to lock it behind her.

“Jimmy?” she called.

There was no answer. He probably should have beaten her home, though. She was sure it had taken her too long to get there.

He was sitting on the couch, staring straight head. She rushed over and felt his forehead.

Jimmy jerked back and grabbed the TV remote, turning it on.

“Are you okay?” Christie asked.

He upped the volume on the commercial.

She stepped back. He hadn’t looked over at her, just stared ahead. His jaw muscles were clenched tight, one of his hands in a fist.

“Jimmy?” she tried again, quieter, and ran a hand along the hair at the back of his neck.

Again, he jerked out of her grasp, but stayed on the couch.

Was he still mad about that morning? There were things she just didn’t want to talk about, their date being one of them. She’d much rather pretend everything had been great the whole time. She’d spent three days with her husband, something she might have killed for a year ago. How could she tell him she hadn’t enjoyed every second? She couldn’t worship him like she had before she found out about the affair. She knew now that he wasn’t perfect. She just had to accept that. He didn’t need to know any of that.

She grabbed the remote out of his hand and turned off the TV. “Jimmy, look at me,” she ordered.

His head snapped up, he stood, reached out and grabbed the remote before she had a second to back away. He threw the remote violently against the wall, then stood there, looking down on her.

Christie stared back. For a second she thought he could see, the way he’d snatched back the remote, but in the silence, she saw his eyes shift, almost imperceptibly, outside her own gaze. “What’s going on?” she asked, keeping her voice level. She’d spent the past year learning to keep emotion out of her voice the same way Jimmy kept his face unreadable.

He ignored her and sat back down on the couch.

Christie shivered in the silence, then called Dr. Galloway. She made an appointment, promising she would get him down there that evening, even as she wasn’t sure how to get Jimmy to speak or move.

She climbed up next to him on the couch but didn’t touch him. “Honey, your lieutenant called. What happened today?”

Jim didn’t look over at her, but said, “Why’d you call Galloway?” He finally blinked.

Christie’s mouth dropped a smidgen. She hadn’t thought he’d be able to hear that.


* * *


Jim felt like he was fighting himself, like he was locked inside his head with all his thoughts and all his impulses. He could hear, but he couldn’t respond. He still didn’t know how he’d gotten home. The subway itself had been so loud he’d spent the whole ride pressed back in a seat, wondering why he couldn’t see anyone.

It wasn’t until he was back home on the couch that he realized he was blind. His brain felt like it was reliving that moment he found out, that horror and anger. Yet he was still functional, able to get around and do things.

There’d been a dog. It had pressed up against his legs a couple times and he’d wanted it to go away, but every time he opened his mouth to banish the dog, he’d hear a car or a truck go barreling down the street. The dog must have been like some sort of guardian angel.

If he was going to die, it wasn’t going to be by throwing himself under a bus. He needed to talk to Christie first.

And she came home, despite the fight that morning and all the terrible things he’d ever subjected her to, she still came home.

He found he couldn’t say a word. He wanted to ask her so many things, but the words wouldn’t come out.

He heard her talking to him, but he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts, all the things he’d wanted to ask her for years. He wanted to ask why she’d stayed after Anne, especially since she obviously couldn’t forgive him. He wanted to ask why she’d stayed after the shooting, when she’d always worried about his job, fought him about spending all his time and energy on the job. He wanted to ask if she still looked the same, after a year and a half. He wondered if he still looked the same. He could feel creases in his face that had deepened, and the scar at his temple, but other than that, had either of them changed yet? He’d told someone, he couldn’t focus on who at the moment, that when he met people from before, he just pictured them the way they had been last time he saw them. How pathetic was that? People changed. It was ridiculous to try to pretend they hadn’t.

“Why’d you call Galloway?” he found himself asking. He hadn’t been paying much attention to her, and that’s not really what he wanted to know. He reached out with both hands and ran them over her face, feeling as tears suddenly welled up in her eyes and her bottom lip trembled. She felt the same, but there were so many imperceptible things that he wouldn’t be able to feel—

Her lips were on his, trembling and salty with tears. She had pulled him closer and kissed him, hard enough he had felt her teeth press through her lips. It took a moment, but he finally found the strength to kiss her back.


* * *


Jimmy pulled back and Christie found her hands hovering in mid-air by his face. She touched him and he cupped his hands back around her face. The look in his eyes had changed.

He kissed her tenderly a second, then pulled away again, looking lost. “I’d thought I was over it,” he said quietly.

“Over what?” She sat beside him on the couch, curled around him, holding him close. He was shaking, just a little.

He didn’t answer right away. “The anger. The helplessness.” He shook his head. “It was like I was back in the hospital, and I was blind and that was it, like I was drowning in all the things I couldn’t see.”

Christie remembered the times, how she’d walk in and find her husband near tears, unable to comprehend the finality. “You aren’t dead,” she told him now like she had then.

“This morning, why’d you get so mad?”

Christie wanted to escape, but she didn’t want to let him go. She stayed quiet.

“Christie?” He paused. “I asked what happened this weekend.”

She bit her lip and buried her face in his neck. He turned around, reversing their positions so he was the one holding her. “You asked me to forgive you,” she said, her voice cracking. She didn’t raise her head, just spoke into his shoulder. “So I lied and said I did.”

Jimmy’s body tensed momentarily, his grip on her tightening. “So that whole bit about the therapist?”

“I lied.”

“You didn’t go see anyone?”

“No.”

Jimmy sighed and squeezed her tight. “Can you forgive me? Please? It was nice, like we were married again. I really liked it. I liked who I was when I was with you.”

She sniffed. “I’ll try.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. This time, I promise.”

[greenbeing]

Chapter Sixteen

“The power of suggestion can be very dangerous,” Galloway said.

Jim nodded. He had just finished explaining what he remembered from that morning, how empty he’d felt, how utterly blind, how he’d been paralyzed.

Galloway had shifted a few things to get him in because of the urgency of Christie’s call. Even if Fisk hadn’t called and asked him to talk to someone, even if Christie hadn’t called Galloway herself, Jim would have made the appointment. He had things he didn’t understand, like what had happened at the church that morning. It was early evening, scant hours since he’d talked to Josiah Wilkins, but it could have been weeks. Jim was already exhausted, but he tuned his attention to Galloway as he never had before.

“What do you think happened?” Galloway asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Some people are very persuasive.”

“I’d been listening to that guy talk for hours and it fascinated me, all the horrible things he was making sound good, all the good things that were bad.”

“And?”

“And I started thinking how Christie was probably going to leave me after our fight that morning because I couldn’t leave well enough alone.

“And I started thinking she shouldn’t have stayed with a guy who couldn’t see her.

“And then I started thinking about how things were falling apart on the case and in the squad, all because I can’t see. I can’t protect my witnesses. I can’t ID people. Marty saw that, that’s probably why he started questioning me again. And with Karen gone… And Fisk telling me I had to be careful I didn’t jeopardize the lives of anyone else…” Jim trailed off. Everything had been compounding that morning even before he got up on that stage and the blindness had closed in around him.

“Jim, you’re a good cop. It doesn’t matter that you’re blind.”

“Without Karen, I’m helpless.”

“Without Karen, there’s someone else. Yes, you need help, but she doesn’t do everything for you. You told me before sometimes her descriptions of the crime scenes leave a little to be desired.”

“I rely on her too much.”

“You need help now, but you’re not helpless, remember that.”

Jim sighed. “Sometimes it feels like it.” He felt like he was back at that place, the edge of that abyss in the hospital, when someone had come in and told him he was verging on depression. It had shocked him then, and now, to find himself back there—he’d been fine yesterday. Was it all because of that morning? Could one man say something so profound that it could push someone over the edge?

“I don’t know what happened between you and Detective Russo, but it’ll probably blow over. It probably has nothing to do with you being blind.”

“Then why’s he questioning my ability—”

“Because that’s the only way he knows to get to you. It sounded to me like he had accepted you as a detective. He’s not going to be able to forget that.” Galloway shifted in the big chair. “As for the lieutenant pulling you aside, maybe you need to be reminded to be careful.”

“I was careful. I didn’t—”

“Did he know that for sure?”

“No…” Jim shook his head. “So this morning?” he asked.

“Jim, you can deny it all you want, but when people talk, you listen,” Galloway said. “You actually listen, even when you don’t want to hear it. That’s part of what makes you a good detective.”

“I know you’re not suggesting I stop listening, so what are you trying to tell me?”

“When it comes to other people, you can weigh the truth and decide what you want to believe. But when it comes to your own life, that’s up to you. I’ve told you before, you need to decide for yourself who you are.”

“You need to check your report? Forget my name already?” Jim joked. He’d heard Galloway before, but he’d never been able to answer the question.

“Jim,” Galloway said, “you need to decide what defines you.”

Jim cocked his head to the side, waiting.

“What do you want people to think first when they see you? The blindness can either be everything, or it can just be a part of your life. That’s up to you.”

Jim shook his head, ready to argue.

“It can, Jim. With the people you know. It all depends on your attitude. Russo, the lieutenant, your wife, they can either see you first as a blind man, or they can see you as Jim Dunbar.”

Jim bit his lip. “I’ve gotta be honest, doc, I’m starting to forget who that is.”

“You need to take time, re-evaluate. You can’t just keep running in place or you’ll end up in a hole.”

Jim leaned back to think it over. What defined him?

Stop fighting everyone. Relax.

Relax, that’s what DeLana had told him.

He used to be able to relax. What had happened?

If he stopped fighting the blindness, if he stopped fighting Christie…

He cracked his neck. Those were two things he could work on. He’d already mostly accepted being blind. Maybe if he could accept help once in a while, let the other detectives know when he wasn’t infallible. He had told Marty he considered Karen and he to be a team effort. He could give that a try.

And he could let Christie be part of the team again. It wasn’t just his decision about their marriage—it was up to both of them.


* * *


Jim remembered one time the blindness had defined him. It had been so overwhelming, when he first found out. Stuck in that hospital, no escape. He couldn’t hide, couldn’t think, could only stare and say, this isn’t happening. He hadn’t been able to break free. This is me, this is what it’s going to be like forever and ever, completely empty, completely helpless, he’d kept thinking. He couldn’t even walk to the bathroom on his own. He had a head injury to boot, almost no balance, couldn’t come to terms, wouldn’t take it slow. Kept thinking, if I could get to the roof, I’d throw myself off. If I could get to the street, I’d throw myself in front of a bus. If I could find the medication cart, I’d take it all. He hadn’t been able to come up with a way to even kill himself, so pathetic, so utterly helpless.

And he’d had so little time alone to think. You’d think, being in the hospital, that you’d have all this time, but as soon as he was out of ICU, he’d been flooded with guests. People from the squad, from different precincts, people he knew and those he didn’t. Well-wishers who didn’t know what they were talking about. That’s why the comment from Midnight Matheson had hit him so hard, that hatred of well-wishers. He knew what Bo had meant. They came to him, two at a time, three at a time, like a Dr. Seuss novel, all these people shuffling past in the dark.

Good job.

You’ll be up and around in no time.

The squad’s not the same without you.

Get well soon.

We all miss you.

Tough break, but you’ll be okay.

You’re a survivor.

Lucky you.

And they’d all introduce themselves, people he’d known for so many years as a cop would come up to his bedside like he was comatose, and they’d say, “Hi, how’s it going, oh, by the way, this is Richard Watson, remember me?”

Jim wanted to punch them. Of course he knew, how much of an invalid did they think he was? Did they think he was brain damaged? Had amnesia?

Get well soon? You’ll be okay? What the f**k did they know?

Jim wouldn’t even look at them. He’d barely listen. He was tired, this wasn’t real. These people wouldn’t be part of his life anymore once he got out of the hospital because he wouldn’t get well soon, wasn’t okay. Sadly, not brain damaged, so he could think and feel everything.

He wanted them to go away, not see him like this. But on the other hand, if they weren’t around, it would really hit him that he wasn’t a cop anymore. He wanted to make the best of the time he had left, but he couldn’t react, could barely talk because he couldn’t think.

Terry had visited only once that Jim was aware of. He’d been nervous, hadn’t even taken a seat. Jim had just stared at him, couldn’t believe he was there. Terry’d mumbled some things, but wasn’t there long, probably couldn’t handle seeing Jim’s blank stare.

After he’d left, Jim had wanted to throw things and scream, but his body wouldn’t take action. Knowing Terry was up, walking around…

Walter Clark had stopped by, a bright spot, talking more about cases they were working and about his family, not bringing up the past or the bank or the future. Just giving Jim time to reflect. Jim had been thankful for Walter’s visits, short as they were, as the other man was always rushing off in search of more evidence. Walter had been one of the few people who didn’t seem unnerved by Jim, the way he looked, the way he didn’t know what to say anymore.

A few other cops he’d known for years had taken Walter’s lead, and Jim had relished those moments. He listened raptly to talk of cases, and soon found he was able to contribute to conversations, bounce ideas back and forth again, like everything was okay.

Someone from the press had snuck in once. That had gone badly. He hadn’t been ready to deal, couldn’t figure out this whole not seeing thing. And there was someone, sitting in the visitor’s chair, telling him what a gorgeous day it was, that the sun was shining through the window and wasn’t he glad to be alive. He hadn’t been able to answer. The man, so chipper and upbeat, Jim had been sure he was part of the hospital staff, come once again to tell him how they’d help him to get his life back on track and how he’d learn to manage.

The guy had asked him, how do you feel, knowing you saved all those men at the bank? How does it feel to be a hero? What are you going to do now? How’s your lovely wife taking it? Can you imagine living your life as a blind man?

Then Jim had heard the unmistakable scratching of a pen on paper.

“You’re writing this down?” he’d asked.

“Boy, you don’t miss anything,” the guy had said.

Jim had realized the man had never introduced himself, just sat down and started chatting. Jim had been trying to be polite, and most of the time he’d just stared straight ahead and shrugged, not really giving an answer, but he knew the press would run with it, whatever little they got or didn’t get, they’d find ways around it. The wounded hero, sitting shell-shocked—

Jim had lunged out during the man’s next question. He’d actually jumped from the bed, pulling the IV from the back of his hand, landing badly and using the chair as leverage as he grabbed the guy, embarrassed as he had to fumble for a proper hold. The man had cried out, but Jim had grabbed him up, made them both stand. He’d fumbled again, spinning the guy around, couldn’t even imagine the look of horror and concentration on his own face as he stood with the man pressed against his chest, one arm around his throat, his own eyes wide. “Head for the door.”

The man had almost bolted, but Jim held him in check. He couldn’t throw the man bodily into the hallway if he ran away first, and Jim terribly needed to throw someone out.

Footsteps were running down the linoleum-covered hallway, alerted by the cry, but Jim kept on his quest. He felt the doorjamb graze his shoulder and he let up the pressure on the journalist’s throat and pushed, still weak from being unconscious and from the medications, but even so, he’d overbalanced the man, heard him stagger across the hall and smack lightly against the wall to keep his balance. It sounded like he dropped his notebook.

“If you print a word about me, I will sue you,” Jim had threatened. “Don’t come back.”

“Detective!” a nurse cried. It sounded like she had a whole slew of orderlies with her, ready to restrain him.

But he was already lightheaded. He hadn’t stood much recently, was still medicated. Only the adrenaline had gotten him this far. He slumped against the wall, holding his hand over the bleeding IV site.

“Detective, what happened?” the nurse asked.

“Keep the press out. Didn’t we tell you that?” Jim turned on her, straightening up to his full height, hoping he looked intimidating and not just sickly.

The nurse rushed over and grabbed his arm, but Jim never would have admitted he was grateful for the support. He shook her off. He hadn’t heard the journalist move and wasn’t about to let anyone see Detective James Dunbar in a weak moment.

“Get him out of here,” he ordered and turned back to his room. He took a step, reached out, groping for the door, but not sure which way it opened. The nurse rushed forward and closed it for him with a satisfying thud. Jim had almost collapsed on the floor as soon as it was closed. He felt weak and disoriented, couldn’t remember which direction the bed was. Or the window the reporter had told him about with the sun—

“Is the sun really out?” he’d asked, finally taking the nurse’s shoulder and shuffling forward until she sat him on the bed.

It wasn’t until she left, closing the door against the world, that Jim had been able to play back the situation. Like listening to play-by-play on the radio.

He’d forced himself to imagine the players. A big burly reporter, himself weak and confused, scared even, only having known he was blind for two days, the nurse, light playing through her hair as she sat him gently on the bed, reassured him it would never happen again, then jabbed a new IV through the skin on the back of his hand, making him wince because she hadn’t warned him she even possessed a new needle.

He’d finally been able to run it all through, from the initial realization, where it felt like he was coming out of a coma, to the end, shuffling back to the bed, utterly spent.

He hadn’t shuffled with the reporter. It had almost been like walking with a perp in front of him, controlling the other man’s movements, Jim had been able to walk normally, even unsure of his destination. Cop instincts, they’d kicked in, saved him a rotten article. Cop instincts, they’d shown him he could move freely, could control himself and his situation. He didn’t feel so helpless. Almost grateful to be alive. Almost smiling, imagining the look on the reporter’s face when Jim attacked him.

It was a good memory, that first smile.


* * *

[greenbeing]

* * *


Jim had never decided whether or not to go back to Morrissey’s. Yeah, Steve had caught him, invited him back. Even though Steve had never liked him.

It made Jim wonder what the other guys thought of him. Before. After.

It was difficult having a Before. So many people seemed to make it through life without being compared to an earlier incarnation of themselves, like he’d been two different people.

He felt that way, though, especially around Christie.

The Jim Before, he used to look on him as the epitome of who he was supposed to be. But when Steve told him he hadn’t liked that guy… A bit of himself had skewed. Christie hadn’t liked that guy sometimes, either. Anne learned to hate him.

Jim Before started losing some of his luster. Jim Before was a womanizer, a jerk.

Jim Now had a second chance. He could change. People would say it was because he didn’t have a choice, because he was blind, but he would know it was partly the near-death experience, the chance to re-evaluate his life, the fact that he’d been given something a lot of people never had—time. Time to think and reassess.

That’s what Galloway had told him he had to do. He’d reinvented Old Jim when he went back to work. Trying his darnedest to be the same man he had before.

Now he thought, maybe that was a mistake. He could use this, his chance to improve, not his chance to be the same.

Galloway had said Jim had become obsessed with his blindness. Keeping it from Christie. Living with it himself. Compensating. Proving to everyone it didn’t matter. It did matter. Jim knew that; he had things he couldn’t do anymore, things he had to do differently. But it was up to him to decide how much it mattered.

This was why he’d been so affected by what Uncle Josiah had said, because he still hadn’t integrated the blindness into his life, was always fighting against it.

It wasn’t who he was. He needed to figure out who he would be with Christie, the squad, his friends. Because he wasn’t going to let the blindness define him.

He hadn’t been back to Morrissey’s partly because he wasn’t sure he had a place there anymore, partly because he wasn’t sure what the guys thought of him. It would be a small step, going back, but he had to do it. Even if Cal and Fos and Steve weren’t his friends anymore, that didn’t mean it had anything to do with him not being able to see, and that didn’t mean he would never have friends of his own, as Jim Now.

He forced himself to head over. It wasn’t like him to be nervous, but then again, it couldn’t be wrong to feel apprehensive about re-evaluating his life. It was a big step to take.

Except for whatever he’d done to piss off Marty, Jim felt he’d pretty much earned his place at the squad. The other detectives respected him and knew he could do his job. He’d been lucky to fall into an open-minded partner like Karen. And even if Marty was going to keep riding his ass all the time, Jim would use that as a gauge to make sure he never got lax. Tom and he had formed an easygoing relationship; Jim felt he could relax around Tom. Even the lieutenant had accepted Jim, treated him the same as any other cop.

Christie and Jim were going to re-evaluate their lives—together. They’d promised. They wouldn’t try to do it alone.

Now all Jim had left to figure out was who he was outside his job and wife. Who Jim Now was when he was alone, when he had time to kick back.

Christie’d nearly fainted when he said he was going out, that he had to think. After the day he’d had, and everything he’d put her through, she wanted him to stay home. But he’d sat down with her and explained, a little. She wished him luck.

He shivered as his hand touched the cold metal handle at Morrissey’s. The moment of truth. It was getting late, but, he hoped, at least one of the guys was bound to be there.

Stale and fresh smoke escaped out the door. Glasses clinked and people laughed and chatted, yelling over each other to be heard.

Jim headed into the warmth and turned right for the bar.

“The usual, Jim?” Gray asked.

“Yeah, thanks.” He leaned up against the bar, took a deep breath to inquire about his old friends.

“Foster and Steve are in the corner,” Gray offered casually.

“Which corner?”

“Back. Left. Under the big screen and that picture of the fish.”

Jim nodded. The picture was of a pike or a musky, Jim wasn’t enough of a fish aficionado to know the difference, a huge behemoth with teeth the size of anchors, oddly distorted by the artist. They looked like they were tinged with blood, making it the talk of all the people when they started getting drunk. It was a hideous picture, but chances were, it would be there forever.

A bottle clinked onto the counter and Jim reached out. “Thanks.” He left the bills on the counter and turned. He ordered Hank to move forward, then right, listening carefully through the din for voices he recognized.

“Hey, Jim,” Fos said.

Jim measured the distance, estimating it to be about five more feet and just to the right. The tables weren’t set up in a perfect grid, so he’d nearly gotten disoriented on the way back as Hank wove in and out.

“Hey, guys,” Jim said. “Mind if I join you?”

A pause. Fos probably checking with Steve to make sure there wasn’t going to be any conflict.

“Sure,” Steve said.

Hank stopped him at the table and Jim let go of his harness so he could have a free hand. “There a chair…?”

“Yeah, just to… uh, your left,” Fos said.

Jim switched the beer to his right hand and reached out. His hand encountered the table first, so he used it as a guide, sliding it along.

“Almost there,” Fos said.

“I got it,” Jim assured them and a moment later his hand touched the chair.

Safely seated, Jim set the beer down and shrugged out of his coat. He leaned his head to the side, reveling in the small crack his neck gave out.

No one moved. A silent corner of a bar, it felt strange.

Jim reached up and removed the sunglasses, thinking maybe they would be a barrier to his quest. “So…” he said as he set the glasses on the table by his beer.

“I dunno, Jim, you kinda always dominated the conversations before, you know?” Steve said.

Jim grinned sheepishly and glanced down. “So I did. Sorry about that.”

Silence again.

“What, you actually want to hear me talk about every case I’ve been working on? Come on, it’s been a long week.” He gestured at them to carry on, rolling his hand through the air. “You don’t need me to entertain you.”

There was a small pause before Foster shifted in his chair and asked, “So you really don’t carry a gun anymore?”

Jim grimaced. “What would I do with it?” he asked, quoting Marty’s favorite line. “So, uh, either of you ever remarry?”

“Nope,” Fos said. “You get a divorce yet?”

“Nope.”

“Think about it.”

“We were. We decided against it.”

“You want me to talk to her? Five minutes with Foster’s charm, she’ll be out of your hair for good.”

“Thanks, but no.”

“She still as good-looking—shit, sorry.”

Jim laughed. “She is. Don’t sweat it.”

“You’re just going to laugh?”

He shrugged. “I guess so.”


* * *


“The last time I saw a guy with that many bottles of beer in front of him, he was singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” and pretending he was a baritone,” Cal said, coming up behind Jim. “Oh, wait, that was you.”

Jim had been staring at the wall, trying to remember every detail of the fish picture, even though Fos and Steve had assured him he was lucky he couldn’t see it and that’s why they let him sit across from the damn picture. He blinked and glanced over his shoulder, but he could already hear Cal moving across the table, so he turned back. He gestured and said, “Have a seat.” He listened, but didn’t hear anything. They were in the carpeted section of the bar and it was pretty noisy behind him, obscuring small things like a moving chair. “Steve and Fos just left. I wasn’t drinking alone.”

“No drowning your sorrows tonight?”

“No need.” Jim remembered how Cal had found him one night, trying to drink enough beer to send himself to oblivion. He’d refused anything stronger, though he couldn’t remember why. Maybe because he really hadn’t wanted to get drunk, just wanted to sit there all night drinking beer.

It had been right after he’d broken up with Anne. Before Christie found out and threatened to leave. He’d really wanted time to just re-evaluate the whole marriage thing then. He’d broken it off with Anne because of Christie. He was married, couldn’t have a girlfriend. But why had he wanted a different girl in the first place? What had happened between him and Christie?

He’d started drinking as soon as he realized just what he could have messed up, how badly he’d acted.

And he vaguely remembered now, halfway through the night, he’d fallen back in love with Christie. He’d remembered something. Promptly forgot it the next morning when he woke up with his head pounding, but for that moment, he’d been totally in love with his wife.

Things had gone to hell shortly after, but for that moment…

“Steve said it was all water under the bridge?”

“Yeah.”

“We were wondering if you were ever going to show back up.”

“Here I am.” Jim put out his hands. He could practically feel the cigarette smoke with his fingertips.

“Your wife still afraid of dogs?”

Jim furrowed his brow. “I forgot about that.”

Cal laughed. “Here. I bought you a beer.” He slid it across the table until it touched the back of Jim’s hand.

“Thanks.” Jim took the bottle. “I can’t believe I forgot. How’d you remember?”

“I’d always hoped you’d divorce her so I could have a chance. Things okay between you two?”

Jim smiled. “You’re married, don’t go putting any moves on my wife.”

“Just keeping my options open.”

Jim shrugged. “Things have been better. But they’re okay.”

“I still remember you telling me about that trip… If my wife and I—”

“Trip?”

“Yeah—”

Jim remembered and didn’t hear another thing Cal said. He’d forgotten the trip. It had been so out of character for Christie, and for him, too. Relaxing. He’d been supposed to meet an old army buddy upstate, the middle of summer, hotter than heck. He and Christie hadn’t been even engaged yet and couldn’t get enough time together, so he’d invited her along to make a weekend of it, rented a little cabin.

They’d got in a fight about directions or something, not having enough matches, needing hair spray to be prepared, something like that. It had turned into a snipe fest, then there’d been the flat tire.

It was an old country road. No spare tire, no traffic, no cell phone service. Jim wasn’t about to leave Christie there; he was a cop, knew what happened to single women alone in the middle of nowhere. But she didn’t want to walk, it was too far, she didn’t have the right shoes, and it was sooo hot.

They’d yelled, argued. Stopped speaking. And in the sudden silence, Jim had heard running water from a nearby creak.

He dragged her over, playfully threatened to throw her in to cool her off. They’d made up, kissed, walked hand in hand along the creek bed until they’d found a lake complete with a tire swing. They’d both gotten rid of their inhibitions, shed their clothes, dove into the water and played like children for hours. Christie’d dunked him. He jumped from the swing into the lake.

They’d spend the night sleeping in the grass next to the car until the owner of the land drove by the next day and gave them a lift.

Peaceful. They’d had peace.

They’d talked a little, about the future, what they wanted in life. They’d watched the stars, saw a couple fall. Christie had said how sad that was, they’d been there for millions of years, but she felt lucky to have seen it at the end. Jim hadn’t told her it was just a tiny meteor piece that had just burned up, nothing too special. Christie had been to college and knew all sorts of little tidbits. She’d probably even taken astronomy, just preferred the romantic view of things.

“I don’t want things to end between us,” Jim had said.

“Then they won’t. As long as we don’t want them to, they don’t have to.”

Jim had taken her hand, linked her fingers in between his, keeping them each safe.

“But if it does, I’d want it to end beautifully,” Christie said. “Shouldn’t that be our goal in life? To just live the best we can, so even when we die, it’s beautiful, not sad, not unfulfilled.”

Jim had stared at the stars. He wasn’t much of one for beautiful. Romantic. He liked to think of the grand scale of the stars, how far away they were, how much work and light and power they had to reach even this tiny planet. Jim liked to look up and feel small because when he looked down, he felt significant. He liked the contrast, the conflict it brought him. He started thinking how he’d want to bring out the next bad guy he caught, set him down to look at the stars, and say, look at how insignificant your actions are, now you’re going to jail so you can be miserable the rest of your days and never see this again.

Christie had turned and stroked a finger down the side of his face, startling him from his reverie. “You’re beautiful,” she said. “The way you help people. You’re not selfish. I like that about you.”

Jim had turned to look at her in the dark, barely a shadow in the grass. He could feel her hair spilling over his shoulder, tickling his neck. He could smell her, smell the grass, how natural it all was. Feel the lake water evaporating. They didn’t get this in the city. He’d never been much of a fan of camping. But this, lying there looking at the stars with Christie lying on his shoulder, this he could get used to. The moon was barely enough to blot out a star or two. “You’re already beautiful,” he’d said.

Jim was flooded with other memories triggered by that first one. Christie smiling an honest smile, not at all with a hint of manipulation like he’d been seeing lately. Christie dragging him to a benefit concert and teaching him about all the different instruments, showing him how to appreciate the music, then feeding him baklava all night while they chatted with the ambassador of a small country in Africa. Jim had been surprised to find that, underneath the upstanding exterior, the ambassador had just been a regular guy.

Christie was great when she relaxed. When he relaxed. With the stress of the past year or so, they’d both been so uptight.

Hank whined and nudged Jim’s foot.

“Oh,” Jim said. “I’d better take Hank out.” He finished his beer and stood up.

“I’ll come.” Cal stood. Jim listened to him slide back into his coat as Jim did the same.

Jim turned and led the way to the door.

“Night, Jim, night, Cal,” Gray called.

“Night,” Jim said with a wave. He pushed open the door and shivered. Hank shook and Jim leaned down to make sure the dog wasn’t covered in peanut shells again.

“So,” Cal said, “you need the dog to, uh…”

“He helps me get around. Or I use my cane.” The words came easier each time he explained. He could notice that now that he was looking. My cane, I’m blind, my dog, where’s a chair, how do I get there, what’s this? He still didn’t like having to rely on people to tell him things he’d always just been able to see for himself, but he could appreciate it when people were willing to give him the answers. “But I still have to know where I’m going.”

“You’re quieter,” Cal said.

“Yeah?”

“Is it weird? Not being able to see anything?”

“Weird?” Jim smiled. “I guess you could call it that. But I can manage.” Manage? He’d said that before, heard other blind people in rehab say it. He wanted to do more than just manage. He wanted to kick back and enjoy life. Not spend all his time worrying or fighting. He wasn’t going to just “manage” anymore.

“You are quieter, you know that?”

“I guess I’m trying to figure some things out still. It’s been a long week.”

“You can really, you know, do your job and everything? Even though you can’t see?”

Jim turned the corner into the small park and stopped on the grass. “Cal, there’s a few things I can’t—”

“Like, you weren’t just not talking because you needed to concentrate too hard on getting around?”

“No,” Jim said, a little confused.

“’Cause I’ve been waiting for a big Jim Dunbar story and you can barely even say hello.”

Jim smiled to himself. “We’re in the middle of a huge case at work. The boring stuff where we just talk to people and make phone calls all day. You always told me that was too boring, so—”

“Are you saying you used to just lie to me?”

“No—maybe once or twice I embellished a little. But I’d only tell you stuff when it was all over.”

“So you didn’t lie to me?”

Jim shook his head. He hadn’t cared enough to bother lying to the guys. Spending all that energy coming up with stories, he’d saved that for Christie. He only lied to the people he cared about. He bit his lip. He’d have to change that.

[greenbeing]

Chapter Seventeen

Jim was exhausted when he got to work the next morning, but overall he felt good. Things were good with Christie for the first time in years, he’d decided he didn’t give a damn about what was wrong with Marty. He had a job to do and he was going to do it, then he was going to go home to his beautiful wife.

Hank was fairly strutting through the precinct. Jim had apologized to him, too. He knew he’d worried the dog yesterday, he also apologized for occasionally resenting Hank’s help in the past. There was nothing he could do about the past, but from then on, Galloway was right, he could be a better man than before.

Hank sneezed on Marty’s chair as they passed.

“Gesundheit, Mutt,” Marty said spitefully.

“Good morning to you, too, Marty,” Jim said.

“Jim!” Tom exclaimed.

He looked up from folding his coat across the back of his chair. “Morning, Tom.”

“We didn’t think you were coming in.”

Jim checked his watch. “Sorry I’m late.” He hadn’t gone to bed at a decent hour, then Christie’d let him sleep in, and when he finally got up, he’d found her waiting for him in the shower.

“Are you sure you should be here?” Tom asked more quietly, coming over.

“I do work here.” He cocked his head to the side, listening. “Karen still sick?”

“Yeah. She’s been calling all morning—”

“I’m a half hour late—”

“I was an hour early. And she called all last night to see how you were.”

Jim frowned. “She never called me.”

“You couldn’t call us to let us know you were okay?” Tom asked, sounding hurt. “You had us freaked out.”

Jim tried to smile. “Sorry, Tom.” He wasn’t going to admit he was still pretty freaked out himself over what had happened. He’d never thought he’d be that open to suggestion, that a few choice words could alter everything he felt.

“Dunbar!” Fisk yelled. “My office.”

Jim sidestepped Tom and walked over to Fisk’s office slowly.

“Shut the door,” Fisk ordered.

Jim knew there was a wedge propping the heavy door open. He felt along the bottom with his foot until he found it and dislodged it.

Fisk was quiet, so Jim pulled one of the chairs up to the desk and sat, waiting. “What the hell happened?” the lieutenant finally asked.

Jim shook his head. “A lot of things happened. And… if you ask Dr. Galloway… they left me “vulnerable to suggestion.”” Jim grimaced. There was no way Fisk was just going to let this one slide, not after their conversation about him being extra careful.

The office was quiet a minute. Jim kept his gaze even at the boss. If he had to defend himself, he wasn’t going to back down. It was like the first day, trying to convince everyone he was fit for duty.

“So, this guy…” Fisk finally said. “Tom said it was Uncle Josiah, right?”

Jim nodded. “Right. That much he admitted to. He also told me he’s like a messiah.”

“A messiah?” Fisk cleared his throat. “What’s this guy’s story?”

Jim looked down a second. “I really wish I could have talked to him longer. All we know for sure is he runs some church—”

“Tom told me there were a couple hundred people in there. They were just listening to this guy? For hours?”

“Yeah.”

“So you think he’s like hypnotist or something? After what happened to you?”

Jim shrugged. “I can’t say for sure. But I can tell you, definitely, it will never happen again.”

“You worked it all out with the shrink?”

“Absolutely. We know what happened and—”

“You’re not open to suggestion anymore?”

“No.”

“Good. Because Tom said, if he hadn’t been using all his energy thinking about his next restroom break, he was worried about what might have happened.”

Jim burst out laughing. “You’re joking, right?” He didn’t feel the tension in the room anymore or the need to prove he was fit for duty.

“I don’t joke, Jim. You should know that by now.”

Jim tried to hide his smile behind his hand.

The boss got up and opened the door. “Selway, get in here.”

Before the door shut, Jim heard Marty say, “Tom, you really should have kept a better eye on him.” Jim grimaced.

“Pull up a chair,” Fisk ordered. “Let’s compare notes on this guy.”

“Boss, I…” Tom started awkwardly. “About what happened…”

“Yeah, I heard what Russo said,” Fisk barked. “Ignore him. He wasn’t there. I want everything you can give me on this guy. What’s his game?”

“I’d say he almost has cult status,” Tom said. “All those people were just tuned in.”

“The weird thing was, I don’t think it mattered much what he said. He’d go out of his way to prove a point, then contradict himself a minute later and prove the opposite. No one questioned any of it.”

“By the end, when he had Jim up on stage… He’d just been telling them there was no God, then he asked them to pray, and they did it.”

Jim wrinkled his nose, remembering it all, every word, every sensation. “You asked if he was a hypnotist, but I don’t think so. I remember everything, but when you’re hypnotized, don’t you have these big gaps in your memory?”

“So why’d he call you onstage?” Fisk asked.

Jim shrugged.

“And why’d you go?”

Jim shrugged again. “It’s not like I had to. It was like I wanted to get up there and prove him wrong.” He shook his head slowly, thinking it over. “I wanted to show all those people that everything he’d been saying was a load of bull and they shouldn’t listen to him. I just didn’t like the guy.”

“No?”

“But he was very charismatic. Could have run for politics.”

“So why didn’t he?”

Jim leaned back in his chair. “Tom?”

“No idea,” Tom said.

“Me, either,” Jim agreed. “I don’t think he was doing this because he had a calling from God.”

“You think maybe he’s swindling all these people?” Fisk asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“And the connection to the case?”

“Samantha,” Jim said. “She must have been part of this group.”

“And the guy on the roof,” Tom said.

“What’d he say? He was going to save the world “just like Uncle Josiah”?”

“Something like that.”

“So his reach stretches far and wide.”

“You think he had anything to do with any of the murders? Personally?” Fisk asked.

“I dunno. Artez was pretty adamant about him being a good guy. But the kids… they could go see him until they got old enough to ask questions. The oldest daughter said she didn’t remember him.”

“And the mom?”

“Swears she never met the man.”

“You think,” Tom started, suddenly hitting Jim in the shoulder. Jim turned and Tom continued, “That whole thing with the male babies? He was the one who gave Samantha insurance as her husband, but you said Samantha couldn’t get married or something because she gave birth to a male baby. You think he was looking for an heir to the throne?”

“Maybe Uncle Josiah really is the dad?”

“Unless you believe in spontaneous spiritual conception.”

“Can we find this guy?” Fisk asked. “Get a paternity test?”

“We’ll look around,” Tom said.

“Tom, what would he have to gain?” Jim asked.

“If you’re starting your own religion, what do you need?”

“Followers? Miracles? A gimmick?”

“And it can’t hurt to have a son. People love kids. If your own son worships you, they can’t question your motives.”

“So Samantha couldn’t marry Artez—”

“Because she wouldn’t be like the next virgin if she did. Maybe all these kids are Uncle Josiah’s—”

“Tom, I doubt he’s running a harem.”

“Hear me out. Maybe Samantha’s the only one who gave him a son.”

Jim turned away, thinking.

“Sucks to be her, huh?” Tom asked. “Maybe that’s why she got singled out.”

“So who killed her?”

“If you started your own religion and proclaimed yourself Messiah, don’t you think you’d have a little opposition from the sane people left in the world?”

“So it’s sane to commit murder?”

“You always hit where it hurts most.”

“You can never protect the one you love…” Jim looked up at Tom. “Let’s say she knew they were going to kill her. She didn’t want her mom to know where the baby was, so she made a bunch of tapes saying she was okay and had a friend call. That keeps her mom out of danger. The mom’s not worried and asking questions. She didn’t want her mom even knowing about the baby because chances are, whoever wanted her dead was also after the kid.”

“I’d definitely agree that you have to kill the son of the messiah to bring him down a notch.”

“So she snuck out while Karen and I were there, leaving her son.”

“Thinking he was safe in police custody.”

“And if DeLana really didn’t have anything to do with this group besides being mixed up with Artez…”

“Then her son would be safe because DeLana wouldn’t go back to these people.”

“Exactly.” Jim ran a hand through his hair.

“What’s the connection to the Bartlett boy?” Fisk asked. “Why’d you find Samantha hiding in the house with her dead cousin’s body, claiming she didn’t know who he was?”

Jim shook his head. “Maybe the cousin had been staying with them, too. Maybe he was like an example for her.”

“Then why’d they stay in the house?”

“Afraid to leave?”

“So what’s our next move?” Tom asked.

“Look into Uncle Josiah some more,” Fisk said. “Somehow he’s connected to Robby Mulhaney’s son, too. Maybe it is just a whacked out follower trying to stop him.”

“In which case, we have hundreds of suspects,” Jim said.

“Aw, man,” Tom groaned.

Jim stood and pushed his chair back into place. “We got our work cut out for us.”

“Ah, Jim…” Fisk said. “Stay in house today.”

Jim turned back, having momentarily forgotten he’d been called in for a royal ass chewing. Then he grinned and shrugged. “You want to make sure I don’t relapse?”

“I want to make sure you don’t hear the word “shish kabob” and start doing the chicken dance,” Fisk said dryly.

Jim laughed and briefly flapped his arms like wings as he crossed to the door.


* * *


The phone was ringing as he walked out of Fisk’s office and he listened as Marty answered it.

“Jim, it’s Karen. She’s wor-ried about you,” he said with a sarcastic whine.

Jim smiled over at him and said, “Bite me, Marty,” then picked up the extension at his desk. At least the silent treatment was over. He handled sniping better than silence, and this probably mean things were well on their way to being back to normal. “Karen,” he said.

“Are you okay? What happened?” she asked. “I leave you alone one day and—”

Jim laughed. “And all hell breaks loose. Sorry about that.”

“Why didn’t you call? I told them to have you call—”

“I just got done talking to the lieutenant.”

She was quiet a second. “Oh.” She coughed, but it sounded forced, not part of her cold. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Let me run this by you.” He told her the theory he and Tom had cooked up.

“Or what if it is him?” Karen asked when he was done. “If he was really trying to father a son… maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he found out Samantha’d had a kid through someone else.”

“So he killed her for being unfaithful. What about everyone else who died?”

“What if he’s making suggestions to all these people—go jump off a roof, go kill someone. Sounds like they’d do anything he said. It would really explain the erratic behavior.”

“Why would he, though?”

“I dunno. Maybe he’s pissed off paying for the poor in his taxes. Maybe he’s just crazy.”

“Then it’s a good thing he’s not doing little kids’ birthday parties,” he said.

“Yeah, go jam this donkey tail up Susie’s—”

“Karen,” Jim reprimanded, laughing. “You sound like you’re feeling better?”

“I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“And you’ll be careful?”

“I promise. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”


* * *


“Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in years.”

Jim’s ears pricked up. “Walter! What are you doing here?”

“Just visiting,” Walter Clark said, picking his way through the desks.

“Good to see you.”

“Did I actually hear you guys say you were looking for a kid named Pipsqueak?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “A kid, or a man.”

“Or a beagle,” Marty said. “We can’t find anything on the guy.”

“You’re probably not looking back far enough.” Walter sat down at Karen’s desk, his weight making Karen’s normally quiet chair creak like it was on its last legs.

Jim spun his chair and clasped his hands on his chest as he leaned back. “You knew a Pipsqueak?”

“Could be the same guy. Back in the ‘80’s, there was this kid, more an honorary mascot than anything else. We were always looking for Pipsqueak, it was like he was the only lead we’d ever have, only we wouldn’t be able to find him.”

“He was a kid?”

“Yeah, thirteen, fourteen, somewhere around there. He was in with all these tough guys. Even part of two rival gangs for a while. The kid was amazing. Really smart. Great at hiding. Even when we did find him, he’d only tell us what he wanted. He was a tough nut to crack, shall we say.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Marty asked.

“Undoubtedly. But I bet he doesn’t go by Pipsqueak anymore. Everyone has to grow up.” Walter stood.

“Hey, Walter,” Jim said, leaning forward. “I want to get your thoughts on this.”

“Shoot.” Walter leaned a hand on the corner of Jim’s desk.

“We have several DOAs. We had two families that might be witnesses, but the only thing they could give us was Pipsqueak. Now two of the witnesses are either dead or missing. You think maybe he’d kill someone?”

“Maybe. He wasn’t much of a murderer back when we were always dragging him in, but people change, Jim. He always had a chip on his shoulder. He was too short, too smart, too young. But he was never naïve and he was never actually involved in any of the crimes. At least, not that we could connect him to.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Nah, it was a long time ago. Even if he had a name in our files, I’d doubt it was his real one. And I doubt he’d be using the same one now. Brilliant kid, cars, stereos, electronics, you name it. Security systems, getting information from people. But we could never pin anything on him.”


* * *


It had been a quiet day at work, with Karen gone and Marty barely speaking. They hadn’t been able to come up with much on Josiah Wilkins by the end of the day, especially not regarding a criminal history. With Walter’s help, they’d started looking into Pipsqueak the possible poisoner, but hadn’t yet found anything useful.

Christie wasn’t home yet. Jim changed and fed Hank, then pulled out a beer. He pulled a couple Braille practice books off a shelf and cleared the coffee table, then sat on the floor to practice. He’d had so little time to actually sit down and study it, but Christie was right, he’d have to eventually.

A knock on the door startled him. Usually people called up to be buzzed in, so he hoped it was just a neighbor popping by for something. Hank followed him to the door.

“Oh,” a male voice said, then it was quiet.

“Oh?” Jim asked, almost smiling. It was amusing when people thought they needed to play the “guess who I am” game. He waited patiently, his hand on the door. He didn’t feel threatened at all by the presence in the hallway, so he just waited.

The man cleared his throat. “Is your wife home?”

“No, Clay, she’s not.” Jim kept the surprise out of his voice and hopefully off his face. This was the last person he’d expected.

“You remember me?” He sounded surprised.

“Well, I’m sure you couldn’t forget me,” Jim shot back with a little smile, hoping he looked penitent, if not just a little embarrassed, for Clay’s sake.

Clay Simmons, his wife’s chief editor at the magazine. Jim had been convinced he was a womanizing slime—takes one to know one, right—but now he wasn’t so sure. There were a lot of different sides to people.

He cleared his throat again. “I’ve been trying to call her cell, but she’s not answering. So I thought I’d just drop this off. It’s on my way.”

“What is it?”

“It’s not an engagement ring, trust me.”

Jim laughed. “Hey, I’m sorry. Truce?”

“Sure. Here.”

“Like I said, what is it? Big package? Small? One hand, two hands? Is it heavy?” He played the questions nonchalantly, not wanting to let Clay think he had the upper hand, but letting him know he was just human.

“A few pages of notes for her article.”

Jim held out a hand and took the pages in a large envelope.

“And a dress.”

Clay draped it over his arm. “I’ll give them to her the second she comes in.” Jim felt the fabric of the dress, momentarily wondering if it could be some snazzy evening gown and Clay was passing off tickets to a Broadway show with it. But the moment passed—he knew his wife and if Clay was that much of a sleaze, she wouldn’t give him the time of day. “Thanks for stopping by.”

Clay grunted. “Have a good night.”

“You, too.” Jim shut the door. He dropped the envelope on the kitchen counter and laid the dress over the back of the bar stool, exploring the short sleeves, belted waist, long skirt. There was nothing scandalous about the dress, not even a plunging neckline.

The front door opened and Jim turned, one hand still on the dress, ready to tell her Clay had just stopped by.

“It’s calico,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Little squares. The top is calico, the bottom is plain cotton. It twirls if you spin.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Clay was here.”

“I ran into him on the way up.”

“That was a fast meeting.”

“We didn’t have much to say. He’s just my boss.”

“Has he been giving you a hard time since the party? You were worried about his good will, so I apologized.”

She moved up against him to take the dress, so he pulled back his hand and put his hands on her shoulders. She shrugged. “Everything’s been fine. He said he didn’t blame you for being a little jealous.”

Jim buried his face in the back of her hair. “A little jealous?”

She leaned back in his arms. “I sort of like it when you’re jealous. You hadn’t been in so long.”

Jim squeezed her tightly. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Are you feeling better?” She reached up a hand and fluffed the hair away from his forehead.

“Absolutely.”

“You want to stay for dinner?”

He laughed. “You make it sound like an elicit rendezvous. In which case, I’d love to.” He turned her around in his arms. “What time’s your husband coming home?”

She bristled, stiffening.

“Sh*t, sorry. Bad joke.”

She buried her face in his shoulder and held him tight.

[greenbeing]

Chapter Eighteen

Jim stood in front of the mirror going through the intricate motions of forming his necktie. Christie leaned past him and he moved out of her way.

“What have you got going today?” she asked.

“Same.”

“Nothing new?”

He straightened the cuffs of his shirt and she slid his jacket over his shoulders. “Walter was a big help yesterday. He promised to ask around all the old guys he used to work with. This guy couldn’t have just disappeared, but why we’re looking for him under an old name…” He shrugged. “We’ll see.”

“Maybe your witness figured it was the least harmful way to get information to you without endangering his life.”

Jim moved away from her, sat on the bed and slipped into his shoes. “At least our witness hasn’t turned up dead yet.”

“Exactly. You should sound happier about that,” she teased.

“How’d your article turn out?”

“Fine. I tried on the dress, but it’s definitely not my style.”

“No?”

“I’m not Donna Reed.”

Jim smiled at the mental picture. “I’m glad,” he said.

“You don’t want me staying home all day making elaborate dinners?”

“Wouldn’t suit you.”

“It would be hard to be a cop’s wife and sit home all day wondering how long until her husband was shot.”

“You make it sound like it happens every day.” He paused in the doorway of the bedroom, his hand on the doorjamb.

“Don’t get shot today, okay?”

Jim smiled. “I promise.”

She laughed, the sound enveloping him even across the room. “I’ll have to make you promise every day.”

He ducked out of the room, calling, “I’ll see you later, okay?”


* * *


“Jim!” Tom called.

Jim froze a second, feeling like he was being ambushed, like Tom had been waiting for him.

“Where have you been?”

“I’m early, Tom,” he said as he went straight for his desk without stopping in the locker room for once. He sat on the corner, facing the younger detective, waiting. He heard Hank settle down in his usual spot.

“You won’t believe this. We finally dug up something on this Pipsqueak.”

“Tom, come on, enough suspense.”

“I’m getting there. Walter was right. A real brilliant kid. Got into a bit of trouble back in the ‘80’s, but they could never pin anything on him. Learned from some of the shadiest dudes in the city, apparently, but there’s really not a lot in the records. He’s like the stuff of legends.

“Eventually he got so sick of doing other peoples’ dirty work, he broke away and started his own gang—called it the Owls.”

“Owls?” Jim asked incredulously.

“Not a very good name, I know. It was either short-lived or it went underground, never really heard anything else about it. But guess what Pipsqueak’s real name was?”

Jim shook his head and motioned for Tom to continue.

“Josiah Wilkins.”

Jim was glad he was sitting down. “Uncle Josiah, huh?” he finally said, unable to believe it. “So now we have the Owl, and the Pipsqueak—what about the pussycat part?”

“What?”

“The t-shirts.”

Tom was quiet a minute and Jim heard his chair twisting around. “Maybe just playing off the cat and mouse game? Only this time, it’s the cat in trouble?”

“Maybe. Like he’s going after powerful people?”

“No. Like, playing off his name,” Tom said.

“He’s not Pipsqueak the little mouse anymore,” Jim said as Tom’s meaning dawned on him.

“Right. So he developed some elaborate poison and killed that guy on the stairs.”

“Or had one of his henchmen do it.”

“Does he have henchmen?”

Jim laughed. “Just throwing out scenarios. But why would he kill Glenn Bartlett?”

“Make an example of him?”

“Sure.”

“Then he killed Samantha. Or, maybe one of his followers killed her trying to get to him.” Tom shifted in his chair. “Then Josiah retaliates with the people on the roof.”

“Maybe it’s an internal war proving his power,” Jim said.

“He’s definitely powerful enough,” Tom agreed.

“And for some reason, Artez and his sister were at that house. Maybe because Artez was seeing Samantha. Making Josiah a suspect again based on a motive of jealousy.”

“However it lies, Josiah’s coming up the bad guy,” Tom said.

“Let’s run it by Marty and Karen when they get here, okay?”

“I sure wish I’d known who he was at the church the other day,” Tom said.

“Me, too.”

“You feeling better?”

“Yeah. Tom, it was weird.” He crossed over and sat on the edge of Karen’s desk closer to Tom so he could speak more quietly. “You wouldn’t think a few words would have that kind of effect on you, right? But when he touched me, and the way he said everything…”

“What did he say?”

Jim was quiet.

“Jim?”

He shook his head. “Preying on fears and insecurities, I think. Not that hard to figure out with some people.”

Tom laughed. “You have fears, Jim?”

“Everyone does, Tom. I’ll be back.” He stood up and grabbed his bag to go to the locker room.

Jim’s foot struck something and he pitched forward precariously. Whatever it was slid forward, and he reached out, his hands clasping around what turned out to be the back of a chair.

Hank whined.

“You okay?” Tom asked.

Jim righted himself, but didn’t let go of the chair. “Yeah.”

“Looks like the cleaning crew moved some things.”

“Where’s this go?”

“Over by the window, I think. Or maybe it’s from one of the interview rooms. You want me to move it?”

Jim hefted the chair and carried it toward the corner window by Fisk’s office. “Nah, I got it. Does it go here?”

“I think so.”

“Anything else out of place?”

“Eh… I don’t think so. At least nothing’s out of place enough for me to notice. Sorry, Jim.”

“It’s okay.” He never used to pay much attention to mundane details, either, back when he could see them.

Fisk’s office door opened, making him jump because he was too close. He spun around.

“Where’s Karen?” Fisk demanded.

“In the locker room,” Tom said.

“Go get her.”

“I’ll go,” Jim said and lifted his bag. “Back in a second.” He turned and brushed the side of a desk. It felt like it was off by mere inches, but maybe the chair had thrown him off more than he thought.

The couch in the hallway caught his foot. Jim froze, then reached out. He pushed on the couch and found it had been moved away from the wall about six inches. He pushed the couch back gently until it touched the wall, then headed for the locker room at a slower pace.

“Karen?” He stayed in the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“Has anything in here been moved?” He waited while she looked around.

“Someone set up the card table in the corner,” she said. “Why?”

“I think someone’s messing with me.” He moved slowly to his locker. “If I run into one thing, it’s my fault. But three things?”

“Where?”

“Here. In the squad.”

“It looked okay to me.”

Jim laughed almost bitterly. “Yeah. Maybe it looks okay.” He hung up his coat and put his bag away. “Boss wants to see us.” He slammed the locker.

“Okay. I’m on my way.” He heard her head for the door.

“I’m going to get coffee. Be there in a second.” He heard Karen pause in the doorway and turn back as he reached for the paper cups normally next to the coffee maker. They weren’t there.

“They’re on the other side,” Karen said. She sounded a little puzzled.

Jim shook his head and clenched his jaw. If the cups were moved, chances were so were the coffee pots, and he didn’t feel like burning himself that morning. “Forget it.”

“You don’t think Marty would…?”

“I don’t know.” He moved closer and felt her turn away, but reached out to grab her arm. “You don’t mind?” he asked as his hand settled into place.

She laughed. “Of course not.”

Karen paused outside Fisk’s office.

“What?” he asked.

“Someone turned the water cooler. And moved the cups,” she mused.

“Get in here,” Fisk barked.

Jim let Karen lead him in, then let go of her arm.

“What?” Fisk asked, obviously noticing the tension between Jim and Karen.

“Someone’s been moving things,” Jim said, looking up at the boss and keeping all anxiety out of his face and voice.

“Don’t look at me,” Marty said.

“I didn’t,” Jim said, turning toward him now that he knew where Marty was.

“Maybe you didn’t, but they all did.” He grunted. “Come on, I never purposefully moved anything,” he said to everyone, pleading his case. “I just didn’t bother to remember to put everything back, okay?”

Jim nodded. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

Karen snorted. “So all the cups accidentally got moved, along with the water cooler.”

“And the chair,” Tom reminded him.

Jim shifted uncomfortably, feeling everyone staring at him. “Forget it. I’ll just be careful. What’d you want us for, boss?”

“Marty came in early and found someone looking for files,” Fisk said.

“I never saw him before,” Marty said. “He was snooping around, and when I called out, he bolted.”

Jim stared over at him.

“You think the same person would have bothered to take the time to move furniture around?” Marty asked.

Jim sighed, thinking. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m blind, Marty. If it’s related to this case…” He shook his head. “Psychological warfare.” He wrinkled his nose. “Maybe we asked the wrong person the wrong question about Pipsqueak yesterday and they know how close we are to solving the case.”

“You think we’re close?” Fisk asked.

“We have to be. Why else would anyone bother to break in here and move things?”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” Jim waved the question away with a dismissive gesture.

“Then you and Karen go lean on DeLana Artez. If we are close, they might be in danger.”

“Okay.”

“Karen, keep an eye out. We don’t want anyone following you.”


* * *

[greenbeing]

* * *


“You sure you’re okay?” Karen asked quietly as he followed her out of Fisk’s office.

“Fine. It’s a little unnerving, but I’m fine.” He laughed. “It’s almost funny.”

“Almost?” she asked, sounding amused. “Then why are you laughing?”

“It’s almost clever. They should have tried it before I met Uncle Josiah the first time.” He followed her footsteps to her desk and moved past, carefully walking over to Hank.

“You want me to help put the squad back in order?”

“Later. Let’s go make sure DeLana and the kids are okay.” He took Hank’s harness and followed her to the car.

“’Kay.”

He let Hank into the back of the car. “Are you feeling better?”

“I knew I’d miss a lot being gone,” she grumbled. He heard her seatbelt buckle click as he pulled his own into place.

“I, uh…” He cleared his throat.

“What?”

“I just wished you would have been there with me instead of Tom, when I met Uncle Josiah.”

She laughed. “What could I have done?”

He grinned over at her. “You’re really good at telling me when I’m being stupid.”

“Well, I’m glad it was Tom and not me.”

“Why?”

“I’m just glad I wasn’t there.”

Jim nodded. “In a way, I’m glad I was.”

“Really?”

“Really. I feel better prepared now. I understand the case better.” He wouldn’t say it, but he also felt like he understood himself better. If someone had started moving furniture around the squad a couple days ago, he would have been angry, frustrated, lashing out, worried about making a mistake and running into something in front of everyone.

“Did you think maybe Marty was the one who moved everything?” Karen asked after a minute.

“I’m glad it wasn’t,” Jim said. “I’d rather think it was some unseen prescence, so to speak.”

She laughed. “Rather than something malicious?”

“Absolutely.” He shifted in the passenger seat, uncomfortable thoughts running through his mind. “I’m really glad it wasn’t Marty.”


* * *


Jim knew the layout of the house better after their last visit and he quickly settled onto the couch with Hank at his feet.

“Can I get you anything?” DeLana asked.

“It’s not a social call,” Jim said, his voice low and serious.

“Oh.” DeLana sounded surprised. “Tamika! Stop lurking in the hallway!” she yelled.

Jim heard Tamika walk into the room.

“Can I stay?” the girl asked.

“Not this time,” Karen said.

Jim waited until she’d gone, then pulled off his sunglasses. DeLana was sitting in a chair just forward and right of the couch. He leaned over so his elbows were on his knees and faced her as squarely as he could.

“DeLana, I’m going to tell you what we’ve learned so far and I want you to listen. When I’m done, I want you to think about your own life, and about your kids, and I want you to stop playing stupid for five minutes and tell me what you know.” Jim shifted on the couch. “I’m a detective. This is what we’ve learned from what you haven’t told us—someone’s out to kill you, and it’s related to your brother, who’s missing, and Samantha, who’s dead. Probably because she was pregnant.”

“She was pregnant?”

Jim nodded. “And it all leads back to Josiah Wilkins.”

“No. If he—”

“Yes, DeLana. See, we know everything about Josiah Wilkins’ past, where he came from and what he’s done. We just don’t know who he is. Who is he now, DeLana?”

“But he wouldn’t—”

“I met him, DeLana! I met him and I don’t understand. Who is he?”

“I’ve never met him, detective. But if he was going around killing people, why would he have so many people who worship him? They think he’s like the second coming or something. He couldn’t be killing people. And he wouldn’t ever kill Samantha.”

“Is he the father of Samantha’s kids?”

There was a pause. “Yeah, I think so. They were… close.”

“Come on, DeLana. Tell me everything you know. If he’s bad, we’ll take care of him. If not, convince me.”

“Detective, I can’t—”

“DeLana!” he snapped. “I don’t know how long we can keep you safe if you don’t start talking. Artez, he’s not your brother, we know that. Who is he? And who killed Samantha’s cousin? Start at the beginning.”

DeLana had left home years before with Tamika in tow. She’d come up here for anonymity and met Rico, whose full name was Richard, but he’d always gone by Rico. He’d changed his last name when he had insurance trouble about his epilepsy, picked the name Artez out of a newspaper. He’d dropped his real last name because the insurance company was after him, and with his history of illness he was having trouble finding a job. Even without a work history or social security number, as Rico Artez, a man with no health problems, it was easier and he found a couple part time jobs.

“Rico was my brother by choice—you can’t get any closer than that. He helped me out a lot after I left home.”

“What’s his real last name?” Karen asked.

“Why do you need to know that?”

“Right now,” Jim said, “even if he’s wanted by the FBI, I don’t care. But if we find his body, I want a real name.”

“White,” she said with a defeated sigh.

“Do you know where he is?” Karen asked.

“No.”

“Come on, DeLana!” Jim said, getting exasperated.

“I don’t know!” She sighed. “Look, I met Rico right after I moved here. He’s a good guy. The only problems he has are health-related.”

DeLana’d still been working. Tamika was in school, DeWanda just a baby, but Rico took care of her most of the time because he was having trouble finding a job. He was an insurance liability, if something happened while he was working, no one wanted to be responsible for workman’s comp.

“Okay.”

“And how’d you meet up with Samantha?” Karen asked.

“You don’t have insurance, you have problems getting proper meds, you know?” DeLana said. “So we did a little black market trading and Rico met Samantha and she said she had connections, offered to hook him up. He said he loved her. I never trusted Samantha.”

Jim leaned forward. “Why not?”

“I dunno. She just never seemed quite human. She was nice enough, but you’d ask her certain questions, and she’d go off on something else, but she didn’t seem like she was intentionally ignoring you or anything.”

“How did she seem?”

“Programmed.”

Jim opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak. Programmed. Brain washed. Maybe like Glenn Bartlett not talking unless he was staring at fire. “So where was she getting the meds? The infamous Uncle Josiah?”

“I think so. He has a thing about drugs. He plays with them, changes them, uses people as guinea pigs.”

“And these drugs, do you know what they are?”

“I never saw them. I’d guess they were just his own generic equivalents? Or maybe the medications he was getting from somewhere else? But Rico said whatever he was taking was helping. Then he lost his job and I said he could stay with me. I owed him for all the help he’d given me, and for always helping out with the kids.

“He brought Samantha with and she was pregnant. It wasn’t ‘til later that I realized all his savings was gone and I never got a straight answer about where they went. Then mine disappeared. Samantha found out she was pregnant with a boy. She carried it halfway to term, then was almost murdered. Her baby didn’t make it. She and Rico left, I lost the apartment.”

“Who tried to kill Samantha?” Karen asked.

“She said it was random, but she was really sick when she got back and she’d been beaten up. She miscarried that night, but wouldn’t go to the doctor. Not like we had enough money to, anyway.”

“And after they left?”

“I went to my bank to talk about where my money went, and they didn’t have a record of me ever being a customer. Samantha found me and Tamika and DeWanda and told me they were staying with friends. We bounced around a couple years. She kept trying to get me to join her church, said it would fix everything that was wrong in my life. We fought a lot, and Rico thought it was just a girl thing.

“Samantha was a church fanatic.” DeLana explained how she held Uncle Josiah in high reverence, like a saint, and how she’d often come back after meetings and proclaim things like an oracle. She would tell them when they had to move on to the next friend. And she was the one who had money, from somewhere, to help ease the burden of all those extra mouths. DeLana kept refusing to go to the meetings and Samantha would almost get violently mad. Rico went a few times, but things were rocky between him and Samantha because he wouldn’t give up his part time jobs.

“She got pregnant again and had another boy. Rico started getting… strange. And he started getting more seizures.”

“No one tried to kill her again?”

“She didn’t give them the chance. We’d been going between her “friends” for a long time—and they were all strange. Right before she went into labor with Clem, we left. We moved in with her cousin for a few months ‘cause she said no one in her group knew about him. We’ve been hiding ever since Clem was born. She wanted to give Clem up for adoption, but Rico wouldn’t let her.”

“And her cousin, what happened to him?”

“We’d been hiding out at his place, then Samantha suddenly took us to this old house. She didn’t say why, just took us. And we found Glenn. He was alone and I didn’t see a note or anything, but I guess someone told her if we left the house, they’d kill us, too.”

“Who?”

“Those people in her big group. No one liked her. And they found us ‘cause we talked to her cousin.”

“Did Uncle Josiah kill her?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“But he’s definitely the one who got her pregnant?”

“Probably.”

“And your kids?” Jim prompted.

“What about ‘em?” she said shortly.

“Who’s the dad?”

“No one.”

Jim raised his eyebrows.

“Rape doesn’t constitute fatherhood.” She got up and moved away.

Jim looked down. He’d never been comfortable talking to women about past rapes. The longer it had been, the less likely he’d be able to help arrest the man responsible, and the better it was for the woman to try to forget.

“Tamika’s daddy, I was young, still in high school. I really liked him and it was my idea to sleep with him. I thought maybe he’d marry me. It was my mistake and I never saw him again. Tamika and I stayed with my momma ‘til she was ‘bout four. I took her and left home after I was raped the first time. A friend of my mom’s, old enough to be my father. I just couldn’t stay there… And I had DeWanda.”

“And Cindy?” Jim prompted. “She’s only two, so that was after—”

“After I lost my apartment, yeah. If you’re a woman staying with those people, you’re fair game to anyone who comes by. I guess I’m lucky I’ve only gotten pregnant once since then…”

DeLana told them things went downhill between her and Samantha after that. DeLana blamed Samantha for what happened, and she kept trying to leave, but she couldn’t get away. She had three kids to think about, to keep them warm and fed. She didn’t even remember giving birth to the last one, just waking up and finding her new daughter already named. Samantha was ecstatic, telling her how Uncle Josiah had performed the delivery without problem.

Jim stood up and stepped away. “What about Uncle Josiah?”

“I never met him.”

“What is he? Your best guess?”

“I don’t know. I’d say he’s not a man of God, no matter what else he is. Extortionist, gang boss, cult leader, hypnotist, politician.” According to Samantha, she told them, Josiah wasn’t only a saint, but he also performed free medical services for the poor and got them free education.

“But you never met him?”

“Samantha knew him. And Rico did. Rico would leave me in this office at the church and take the kids while they were babies. Until they were old enough to ask questions.”

“So he’s an amateur chemist and a pharmacist and—”

“An all-around bad guy, if you ask me.”

“But can we prove it?” Karen asked.

“No one ever says anything bad about Uncle Josiah. Those friends of Samantha’s, she always told me they wouldn’t see the light, wouldn’t follow good old Uncle J and see the error of their ways. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t have nowhere to go. The only friends of hers who had apartments, they didn’t belong to the group so much. As far as anyone’s concerned, Uncle Josiah’s a saint and everyone else is a sinner.”

“What?” Karen asked after a moment.

Jim guessed there was something about the way DeLana was looking that prompted the question.

“Samantha thought she was like a prophet or something. She was always trying to recruit people like it was a religion. Trying to save them. That’s why we stayed with all those horrible people in the first place.”

“A prophet?” Karen finally said in a disbelieving tone.

“Because she’d see things in the future, and she was special to Josiah.

“It was nice staying with her cousin. Things calmed down. She wouldn’t talk about Uncle Josiah around Glenn. She went crazy when he died and wouldn’t let us leave that house with his body. She said we’d all die if we left.”

“But Glenn knew Uncle Josiah,” Karen said.

“Did he?”

“I think so.”

Jim sat up straighter. “I’d say he absolutely knew. Glenn was part of the group. He knew Brian Mulhaney. He’d been poisoned by whatever stuff Uncle Josiah had. And he seemed to be just as brainwashed as Samantha.”

“Samantha swore he didn’t know anything,” DeLana said. “They never talked about it.”

“She was wrong.”

“Then Glenn was keeping an eye on us,” DeLana said, sounding afraid. “And that’s how they found us.”

“Probably.”

“Are they going to kill me, too?”


* * *


Jim’s phone rang. He shifted in the car seat and reached inside his jacket pocket.

“Who is it?” Karen asked.

He held the phone out so she could see the readout.

“The squad,” she said.

He flipped open the phone. “Dunbar.”

“Check out his address,” Fisk said.

Jim repeated the address of an empty warehouse to Karen. “What have we got on it?” he asked.

“Since we focused on finding just Uncle Josiah, we’ve had a few hits. Tom and Marty are at one now. If they don’t find anything, they’ll catch up to you at the warehouse.”

“Do we know anything about the place?”

“Nothing. We were just told to definitely check this place first. I’m guessing it’s an old haunt of Wilkins’.”

“We’ll check it out,” Jim promised. He closed the phone and put it back in his pocket.

“Do you think they’re going to try to kill DeLana?” Karen asked, sounding almost as worried as DeLana had.

Jim turned his head away. “Why else would they have been going through our files? Even if she doesn’t know anything, she could recognize people.”

“But why would they be after her and not all those other people?”

“Maybe there was some sort of trouble, in house, you know? Between Uncle J and Samantha and all those other people. I just wish we knew what Glenn and Samantha were doing in the middle of all this.”

“Sounds like they were being played off each other.”

Jim nodded. “If Samantha hadn’t trusted him, they’d both still be alive.”

[greenbeing]

Chapter Nineteen

“Hank, stay,” Jim said. He patted the German Shepherd on the head through the open window of Karen’s car.

Unbeknownst to Jim, Hank watched his master with mistrust. The mistrust was masked by the tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, but it was there nonetheless. Hank always sat in the car and wondered what Karen and Jim did when they left him. Probably had fun doing people things that Hank was sure he’d have fun doing, too, if they’d only teach him the rules. The suspicions usually only lasted until Jim and Karen were out of sight because he’d get distracted by people walking by and cars passing and low-flying birds and he’d start daydreaming about doing what his master always told people he’d do—go after bad guys. Hank thought he had the ear-markings of a darn good police dog, if he’d only get the chance.

“One of these days I’m gonna call PETA on you, Dunbar,” Karen said good-naturedly as she patted Hank on the head.

Jim took her arm. “I always worry he’ll get tangled up in something bad if I bring him to check on leads like this.”

“So you let him make drug deals out the car window?”

“Whatever helps him pass the time.”

“Big building,” Karen described as she opened the door. “Huge warehouse down here. I think it was a five or six story building, dunno about a basement. Pretty empty. Giant cable spools, some insulation, electrical things, dunno what that is.”

It sounded like she was wrinkling up her nose and Jim smiled. “Any signs of life? Empty food containers, trash cans, clothes?” They wandered in further and Jim could feel the vast space and emptiness, and hear odd echoes off the high ceiling, probably open with metal beams in a building like this.

“None. There’s a few other entrances, and here’s some stairs going up.” She paused and he felt her turning and looking around. “Look, I’m gonna wander upstairs. You stay here?”

Jim furrowed his brow, but he let go of Karen’s arm. She was probably thinking he’d slow her down, and he couldn’t exactly help her look. “I’ll watch the front door,” he said.

She made an affirmative noise and started to walk away.

Jim grabbed the walkie-talkie and quickly held it out. “Here, take this.”

She stopped and turned. “Nah, you should keep it.”

“Karen,” he said patiently, sounding probably a lot like her dad, “you’re the one more likely to see something that needs to be called in.”

“Right…”

“Besides, I have my cell phone, and if someone comes running down the stairs, I’ll take care of it.”

He gave her the walkie-talkie and listened to her go, making a special note of where he heard her reach the stairs, his only knowledge of the dimensions of the room.

He waited a minute to make sure it stayed quiet, then pulled out his cane. He had to do something, make himself useful. He walked the dimensions of the room. Right, left, right, left, he tapped the cane to one side then the other to make sure his way was clear. It was a bit like the community service that time when he was younger, stabbing litter on the end of a stick. If only his blindness could be useful like that at the same time.


* * *


Jim was leaning against the wall by the stairs when he heard footsteps coming from across the room. Karen had been gone 20 minutes or so and he’d taken the time to familiarize himself with the room. It really was a huge warehouse of a room, with high ceilings that created weird echoes, and poles every 20 feet or so.

Those weren’t Karen’s footsteps.

“Hiya, Jim, playing watchdog?” Marty asked snidely.

“Yeah, Marty, I am.” Jim sneered back at the footsteps still ten yards away. “That’s what I do all day, isn’t it? Play cop, play watchdog.”

“Yeah, you’re a real player, aren’t you?”

“Next week I’m gonna be a priest.”

“You should try a brain surgeon.”

“You can be my first patient, Marty, how’s that sound?”

“You know, Jim, you really did surprise me. I didn’t think you’d last past Be Kind to the Handicapped Week, but you really have stuck it out.”

“Geez, Marty.”

“You’re blind, right, Jim?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re handicapped.”

Jim sighed.

“Just tell me, Jim, is it a handicap?”

“You want me to tell you I’m not perfect?”

“I don’t think you were ever perfect. Just tell me, is it a handicap?”

Marty sounded so calm and reasonable, almost chillingly like Leonard Mattis, the convict up at Sing-Sing. Jim sighed. But when he thought it over, he couldn’t deny it in any way. “Yeah, Marty, it is.” He didn’t expect a thank you for his admission.

“Okay,” Marty said. “So tell me, what if something happened to Karen?”

“Nothing’s going to—”

“Tell me, Jim. Or I could go ahead and tell you. See, here’s you wandering around a crime scene while Karen’s off who-knows-where. If something happens to her, can you find her? Can you help? Probably not. So that’s your fault. If something happens to you, I admit, I’d feel guilty. So I’ll take responsibility, even if I’m not there. But if something happens to Karen, I don’t want to feel responsible for letting you be her partner.”

“Letting me—”

“I respect your ability to think, but what are you doing here today, Jim? Do you plan to be a liability if something happens?”

“If I think something’s liable to happen, I’ll stay back, Marty. But we’re just here checking on a lead.” Jim’s fists were clenched. If the other detectives knew he was scared sometimes, if they knew he’d talked to Galloway about that very possibility of something happening to Karen and how helpless he felt, what would they say? He’d learned years ago that if you show fear, it becomes contagious. He’d been terrified when he first found out he was blind. Christie’d felt it, had gone through the hell with him, had coddled him and cried for him. If he showed fear now, then what?

Jim wasn’t ready to have it out with Marty, even if they were alone. They were on a case and needed to act like it. “You been upstairs?”

“Yeah.”

“You seen Karen?”

“No… Was she up there?”

“Yeah, somewhere.”

“I didn’t see her.” Marty sounded worried.

Jim listened carefully for any signs of life, but the building was too big. “You have a walkie-talkie?”

“No, Tom has it. He’s out back.”


* * *


Oh, sh*t, Hank though, watching a couple shady characters walk past the car. Why didn’t I ever pay attention to how they open these doors? He barked a warning to Jim just before the door to the building slammed shut, then he laid down and put one paw over his head. This was so not good.


* * *


“Marty? What do you want from me? You want me to quit my job? Giving up the gun wasn’t enough? Or giving up the gun was just supposed to help me transition into not working anymore?”

Marty didn’t say anything, but Jim could tell from his breathing that he was worked up, wanted to say something.

“What happened? I thought we were over this.”

The breathing quickened.

“Okay, what’d I do? Obviously I offended you again. I’ve tried to be more mellow, I’ve given up the gun, what more do you want from me?”

Marty started to walk away, but in order to leave he had to walk closer to Jim. Jim stood his ground. “Just tell me!” Jim reached for Marty’s arm, but Marty moved away before Jim could touch him.

“Jim, I just want to know—how could you do it? You have a beautiful wife and I thought she was crazy about you. How could you cheat on her?”

Jim’s mouth dropped open as he stared in Marty’s direction. “Is that what this is about?”

“Yes!”

Jim turned away. “I never said I was a nice guy, Marty.”

“Oh, gee, great, Jim, that just makes everything all better.”

“I made a mistake, Marty. I hope you can understand that.” Marty was silent and Jim had no way to gauge his feelings. “DeLana was wrong about you,” Jim said finally. “You’re a good guy, Marty.” Marty still didn’t say anything. “You can’t stand to see anyone hurt, even in something like this. You look out for people.”

“I’m not a saint. I just don’t like you.”

“I know. I wish someone like you had been around when I first started dating Anne—hell, when I first saw her.”

“You still would have done it.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Jim sighed. “I’ve been doing a lot of apologizing lately. Let me tell you I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Because you like to think the best of people.”

“You’re sorry for that?”

“No, I’m sorry I don’t fit into that category.” It made sense to Jim now—Marty’d thought he was a stand-up guy, as he’d once said. Jim had thought it was about his blindness, but Galloway was right; he needed to re-evaluate his attitude, figure out how he wanted to define himself. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think I’m the one you should be apologizing to.”

“I already apologized to Anne. And to Christie.”

They were silent a minute until Marty said, “How’d Karen get over it? I mean, it was her friend.”

Jim shrugged. “She got over it.” He set his jaw. He’d have to ask Karen why she’d told Marty, of all people, about his affair.

Marty shook his head and started to walk away.

A bark pierced the air.

Jim put out a hand and grabbed Marty’s arm as the other detective tried to move past. Marty tried to shake him off, but Jim held his grip, shaking his head. He lowered his voice before Marty could say anything. “Hank doesn’t bark,” he said quietly. “He’s trained not to.”

Marty stopped trying to pull away.

Both detectives froze, listening. Jim let go of Marty’s arm to let him look around freely.

“Karen’s upstairs somewhere,” Jim whispered. He pointed for the stairs, hoping Marty would go.

“Got it,” Marty said.

Jim listened to his footsteps head away quietly even as another set of quiet footsteps came from the direction of the front door. For a moment the steps blended, giving the impression of one person walking in Dolby surround sound, but Jim closed off the sound of Marty’s steps so he could concentrate on the other person.

It would be best not to be caught out in the open like this. He couldn’t be caught unaware. Whoever it was, whoever had Hank worried, they could be armed. They could shoot first and ask questions later.

Jim moved behind a pillar. The support was nearly three feet wide, more than enough to hide him.

Marty’s steps had reached the bottom step, but instead of ascending, they paused.

Go, Jim willed him. Get out and find Karen. If Karen was safe, Jim wouldn’t have any qualms about staying out of the way behind the pillar. They could all get out of there and he wouldn’t risk being a liability.

A footstep paused right behind him and Jim silently cursed himself for turning his attention to Marty for even a second.

“I see a shadow that’s not supposed to be here,” a gravelly voice said. It was a young voice, but lowered and with the words spoken from the back of the throat, like someone trying to sound sinister. Jim shivered, more at the meaning than the planned affect of the voice. There must be windows, daylight. For all he knew, he’d been spotted from the other side of the building before he’d even ducked behind the pillar.

It was better to face the opponent on the offensive than to wait for an attack. Jim stepped out into the open, ready. He faced the place the voice had come from.

And realized Marty still hadn’t moved.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the low voice said.

Jim found himself suddenly doubled up with a fist in his stomach, but he’d managed to keep the wind from being knocked out of him because he’d been prepared, his stomach muscles clenched.

He hadn’t felt his attacker move, so the fist had caught him off-guard. But now that he knew the name of the game, knew the other man didn’t come in peace, he was ready.

“Jim!” Marty called. Already the footsteps were headed back in his direction.

Jim took advantage of Marty as a diversion and lashed out quickly with an uppercut at his opponent, connecting beautifully and with such force he could feel pain in his own hand that he knew would be gravely multiplied in the other man.

“Go!” Jim ordered Marty.

“Yeah, you take care of that,” Marty said. The footsteps hurried away. They echoed in the stairwell for a moment, then were swallowed in the huge building.

Jim’s fist connected again. If he could continue the onslaught, hopefully the other man would be in too much pain to attack back, and Jim could keep control of the situation. For how long, until what, he wasn’t sure, but if he could incapacitate—

Jim suddenly found himself flat on his back


* * *


Marty’s footsteps kept hesitating on the stairs. He couldn’t keep an even tempo. He’d left Jim down there alone—what kind of a cop did that? Sure, Jim wasn’t his partner, so he wasn’t as responsible for his well-being, and he’d been asked to make sure Karen was all right, but that didn’t mean Marty wasn’t worried. He always worried about the other cops in his squad.

And Jim couldn’t see. He wasn’t on familiar terrain. He was open to being ambushed by anyone else who was lurking by an outside door. Who knew how many people were at the building?

Marty shook his head. Jim was a cop. He’d been reinstated, so he must be able to take care of himself. The department would never allow him in a situation he couldn’t handle. Just look at how he’d dealt with that Lyman guy trying to take his gun—Marty’d been glad at that point that he’d backed down from Jim’s challenge himself. Jim could take care of himself.

But Jim didn’t have a gun anymore. Marty felt responsible for that, partly. He’d kept goading Jim, plugging away at him about the gun. But maybe a belly gun in an up-close struggle wasn’t such a bad idea.

And then there was the afternoon at the deli, holding the coffee in front of Dunbar’s face and realizing he couldn’t see it. The time the man in Chinatown had run right past him, had even run into him, and he’d been unable to react fast enough. There were a hundred other little instances just like that over the past several months. And each time, it was usually something small, but it would just stop Marty in his tracks—this guy can’t see.

Jim wasn’t his partner. Marty’s only duty right now was to make sure Karen was safe, then the two of them could go join Jim, help him out down there.

As long as the guy wasn’t armed. Jim had no way to hold his own if the guy was armed.

Marty swore at himself.

Yet, Jim had told Marty to go. That took balls, offering to face a guy he couldn’t size up, couldn’t tell if he was armed.

Jim’s first thought had been of Karen, making sure his partner was safe. Marty had to give him credit for that. He’d sent Marty to check on her, knowing Marty could find her more easily, keep her safe. He put his trust in Marty. Even if it meant sacrificing himself.


* * *

[greenbeing]

* * *


Jim stood back up. The other man let him. He opened his mind. It was kind of like opening his perceptions, relying on instincts he never would have trusted before. He’d started karate and other Eastern disciplines after he’d been blinded in order to add to the abilities he already had through boxing and defense classes for cops. He wanted to make himself more valuable, yes, but he also wanted to make sure he never left himself open to attack, make sure he could take care of himself and his partner.

He stared as closely at his opponent as he could, mostly out of habit, but partly hoping the man wouldn’t notice he couldn’t see. He didn’t want the blindness to be perceived as a weakness and used against him. Jim didn’t think that, if the guy knew he was blind, he’d let up a even little, giving Jim the upper hand. That didn’t seem to be the type of guy they were dealing with.

But who was he? The voice hadn’t been that of Uncle Josiah, no one Jim could relate to this case.

“You look very relaxed,” the voice said, still in that purposefully low register. “You know you’re about to die, right?”

Jim shrugged out of his overcoat and tossed it aside so it wouldn’t hamper him. Momentarily the sound of the coat dropping covered the breathing of the instigator, but Jim whipped his head around when he heard the steps moving to his right. He breathed evenly and raised his hands, prepared. He was an easy guy to get a hit on, but the blow would never disable him. He might not be able to catch a swing in mid-air, but he could deflect it so it would cause minimal damage.

The other man laughed.

Jim’s fists clenched. It wasn’t the sound of a man not taking the fight seriously, it was the sound of someone who thoroughly enjoyed physical conflict.


* * *


There were footsteps running down the hallway, stopping periodically to look in each office, then running again.

Karen froze. Jim couldn’t run down a hallway and look in an office, so it wasn’t him. She was glad for a moment that he was downstairs waiting, wouldn’t have to deal with whoever was coming. Though she sure would have felt better if there’d been two of them up there, not just her.

She couldn’t imagine, standing where she was, listening to the footsteps echoing down the hallway, knowing it was only a matter of seconds before whoever it was burst into this room, and then not knowing immediately who it was as soon as they stuck their head in. Jim didn’t have that ability to just look up and know who was there. Her heart beat faster just thinking about it, about not knowing.

She pressed up against the wall, her weapon drawn. She’d only have a second to assess the situation.

Whoever it was was panting. Sounded like they were only a door away.

She was six flights up. Even if she had to fire, if the sound carried, it would take Jim several minutes to climb all the stairs to get to her. She was on her own, she realized. She shouldn’t have left Jim, knowing how big the building was.

Footsteps. They slid to a stop. She leveled her gun at head-height. The door was pushed open, not even carefully, it slammed against the wall.

Marty was wide-eyed and panting as he surveyed the room.

“Marty?” Karen exclaimed.

“Do you trust Jim?” he asked.

The panic in his voice, she’d never heard it before.

“Yeah…” she said slowly, wondering what Jim had done. She knew they were fighting again, but she couldn’t imagine either one doing anything illegal. Maybe they’d finally gotten into a scrap downstairs—

“You think he can take care of himself?”

“I was only going to be gone a few minutes. What happened? I didn’t think if I left—”

“Someone’s down there.”

Karen hurried for the door. “Why didn’t you call?” She held up the radio.

“Tom has it.”

“Where’s Tom?”

“Call him, maybe he’s closer.”

Karen started to ask Tom where he was.

“Maybe Tom can get there, go check on him,” Marty kept talking.

“Geez, Marty, what happened?” she said to him and the radio.

Marty grabbed the radio. “Tom, you see anyone come in?”

“Nah, I’m still outside. You should see all the chemicals in these dumpsters. This guy’s making something.”

“Go inside, carefully. Check on Dunbar.” Then he called for back-up, just in case. Marty thrust the radio back at Karen. “Come on.” They hurried for the stairs.

“Who’s down there?”

“Some guy. Jim can hold his own in a fight, right?”

“Well, he used to box…”


* * *


Jim bent his knees to lower his center of balance. He put all his weight on his left foot and swept out with his right, catching both of his attacker’s feet while lifting the guy’s body and throwing it back. The move was effective, landing them both on the ground, Jim on top, sliding his forearm over the tender part of the man’s throat. He held one of the man’s arms with is left hand, the other he knelt on. “Who are you?”

The man moved to throw Jim off-balance, sacrificing himself to more pressure on his windpipe in order to move Jim. He broke from Jim’s grasp, barely even gasping for air. Grabbing both of Jim’s arms, pinning them to his sides, he rolled. “You look surprised. But you’ll never get anywhere in life if you’re not willing to take chances, sacrifice yourself. I knew you’d pull back and not kill me.”

Jim concentrated on each of the man’s limbs, pinning him down, looking for a weakness.

“I, on the other hand, could easily kill you.”

Jim moved before the man could come down on his own windpipe. They rolled again and the other man jumped up.

“A cop, huh? Detective James Dunbar.”

Jim was at a loss for a second, then the man threw something to the side. Must have taken his badge during the scuffle.

The man was on him again, seizing Jim’s coat, using it momentarily to tie him up until Jim wrenched himself free and listened as the suit jacket was flung aside, fluttering in the air.

The man charged, lowered, hitting Jim with the shoulder like a sumo wrestler, pushing him back. “What kind of cop,” the man asked testily, “doesn’t carry a gun?”

He threw Jim over his shoulder.

Jim landed and rolled out, back to his feet. He’d landed badly and his shoulder stung, but it wasn’t enough to disable him.

“If you had a gun, you’d be dead by now!” he said with barely concealed outrage.

Jim refused to let the talk deter him. He had to take the offensive. While the other man’s voice still echoed, he rushed forward, slamming into him, pushing him back, grabbing his collar in his left hand, getting a right hook in before the man spun away.

Jim followed the spin, countering with his left, then pulling the man down across his knee. He threw him back.

Then realized his mistake. He’d compromised his hold, lost contact.

The man recovered quickly and Jim found himself reeling from a blow to the back of his head. He shook it off, told himself he was lucky, wouldn’t have to worry about double vision, then quickly carried on.


* * *


Marty thought about that guy Jim attacked during that interview right after he’d gotten back from Hoboken. Marty’d known Jim was tense, pissed. Taken him into the interview room, pretending to be a drug dealer. He hadn’t expected Jim to lunge across the table like that. Hadn’t expected his aim to be so accurate. Jim would have done serious damage to that guy if Marty hadn’t pulled him off in time. Marty’d underestimated him then, had actually had to throw Jim up against the lockers, not just pull him back. He still wasn’t sure how much of it was just Jim pretending so the guy wouldn’t suspect he was a cop, and how much was actually him seeing how much he’d be allowed to rough the guy up before being pulled back.

That had been the day Jim really proved his worth to Marty. Not just the grappling, but how he’d managed not to blow his cover, even though they’d taken his dog, how he’d never gotten on the other three about losing him, not ratting to the Chief of D’s, not saying the other three had gotten lax and lost him, that’s why he ended up in Jersey. How he’d kept on the case the whole time, when he must have had other things on his mind. How he’d kept cool, even though losing his dog had to have been eating him. The only time he’d shown it had been when he’d attacked the drug dealer in the interview room. Marty had to admit he’d been impressed by that.

Yeah, Jim could hold his own.

The silence of the stairwell was ripped apart by the echo of a gunshot.


* * *


Jim knew there was blood on his face. Something the attacker had had scratched him pretty good, once on the forehead, once on the cheek. A ring of some sort, he guessed, or a watch.

The other guy kept spitting and Jim started to think maybe one of his punches had dislodged a tooth or cut the inside of the guy’s mouth. Probably he was spitting blood. It was hard to take that metallic, sour taste in the middle of a fight. Jim had almost slipped once in one of the spots the guy had spit, but he’d caught himself.

He tuned in closer. They were both panting. Jim’s ribs were sore, though not broken. Bloodied and bruised, but no lasting damage yet. His shoulder throbbed from being thrown earlier.

The other man had found Jim’s handcuffs and tossed them. Jim didn’t have any hand-to-hand weaponry because he hadn’t been expecting a fight. It would come down to last man standing. But the longer it dragged out, the more Jim hoped Marty and Karen would come running down the stairs and together the three of them could cuff him. One of them could draw their gun and stand back, threatening—

Unless the guy really was prepared to sacrifice himself. Maybe he was the diversion for someone else.

“If you had a gun, you’d be dead by now!”

The other man was an experienced pickpocket. He’d searched Jim for a gun without him realizing. He was probably experienced at disarming people, too. “…you’d be dead by now.”

Good thing Marty hadn’t been around.

Good thing Karen was upstairs.

Good thing he didn’t have a gun.

And really, he didn’t need one. He could finish this, what was he waiting for? Even if he snapped the guy’s neck, so what? Assaulting a cop, Marty’d seen it, it was self-defense if anything happened. He didn’t need to hold back, not when he was the more experienced fighter.

“Hey, detective, this is kinda fun, isn’t it?” the man asked, then spit.

“Highlight of my day,” Jim mumbled. He’d almost caught his breath, but the other man was still laboring, even as he laughed. Jim moved forward and straightened up. He put his hands up to protect himself.

“Aw, you don’t like the friendly banter?” the other man asked, his voice dripping in pain.

Jim reached out and grabbed him in a choke hold. The guy was on his last legs, anyway, wouldn’t be able to fight back, hadn’t even tried to move away.

The guy reacted, though delayed, lashed out, sending them both sprawling, but Jim refused to let go. The guy elbowed him, but it was weak. Jim wasn’t giving him an angle to get a good shot.

The guy wiggled some more and Jim let up just enough so he wouldn’t actually snap the man’s neck. If at all possible, they were bringing him in alive. He resituated, sitting the man up so he’d have less leverage to fight back. He kicked something with his foot.

Metal, not solid, small. His handcuffs.

The man went limp and Jim grabbed the cuffs, slapping them on and pushing the guy away.

“Jim?” Tom called from across the room.

Jim leaned back on his heels to catch his breath. Before he could assure Tom he was okay, a shot rang out, just to his left. A shot at Tom.

Jim was on his feet, running toward the gunshot. It had come just from his left, possibly someone had been coming to help the man he’d been fighting with, but he’d been so preoccupied, he hadn’t noticed. Worry or surprise might have paralyzed him if his brain hadn’t kicked him alert. He couldn’t lose that echo or he’d lose the shooter. If he lost the shooter, they were all in trouble.

His body collided. At first he thought it was a pillar, but then it softened and tipped as he pushed.

“So you’re not dead?” the new man asked.

Jim and he were sprawled on the floor. Most people being right-handed, Jim reached toward his left, to the man’s right. Armed, Jim wasn’t going to take any chances.

The new guy had just been reaching up to shoot him point-blank, though he didn’t have a good grasp on his weapon. Disarmed in a second, Jim heard the gun go skittering.

Footsteps running.

If there was a third guy, he was in trouble. Or if the first one regained consciousness too soon. Jim hadn’t bothered to put him out for long. He got in a couple good punches, kneeling over this big guy. “Tom?” he yelled.

“Right here,” Tom said, sounding out of breath, getting closer. “He missed.”

Jim couldn’t hold the man, bigger than himself. The shooter rolled, got both feet up, and kicked Jim squarely in the chest, throwing him back. Jim landed hard on his shoulder, his head cracking on the floor. He groaned, tried to roll over, too disoriented to sit up until the floor stopped spinning like a merry-go-round.

He blinked and heard a scuffle, sat up quickly to help. He couldn’t tell who was who, so he stayed back.

“Jim!” Tom grunted after a moment. “Cuff him.”

“I used mine,” Jim said as he scrambled over, not bothering to stand straight in case he lost his balance. He could hear the suspect writhing on the ground, and hear Tom’s labored breathing as he fought to keep the guy pinned. Jim touched Tom’s back and could feel him struggling against the guy’s strength. He fumbled with Tom’s coat, then grabbed Tom’s handcuffs from the back of his pants. The familiar apparatus slid into his hands and he got them on the man’s wrists as easily as when he’d been sighted.

Jim sat back. He could feel sweat trickling down his neck. He was starting to shake with relief that Tom hadn’t been shot. He felt Tom pull the guy up. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked. Jim stood with them.

“You’re the one covered in blood,” Tom said.

“I was… lucky,” Jim admitted as he leaned back and let Tom take the guy. “…you’d be dead by now.”


* * *


Jim was sitting on the last stair, looking in the direction of the still-unconscious perp. Tom had taken the second guy to the car, giving Jim a moment to cool down, collect himself, breathe deeply, wipe off the sweat, smear the blood on his face, and think.

“Jim?” Karen yelled.

Jim winced as he turned. He was already starting to stiffen up, could feel the bruises and each cut. He groaned. Christie was going to kill him. And going back to the squad looking like this, the lieutenant was going to have a cow. “I’m okay,” he yelled up the stairs. “Tom’s taking the other guy to the car.”

The footsteps echoed in the stairwell. Jim stood up and waited for them to round the last landing. They hadn’t seen him yet, but when they did—

“Jim!” Karen gasped.

“What other guy?” Marty said.

Karen’s footsteps moved quickly toward him. Jim held his hand up to stop her. “I’m okay. Really.”

“Who got shot?” Karen asked.

“No one. Luckily.”

He’d been lucky. Jim knew that wasn’t always going to be the case. If there was a next time… He’d have to be more careful. Never be alone, never be a liability. He wasn’t about to make anyone feel responsible for his death. Not like Terry had felt responsible for him being blinded.

“So what happened? Who is that?”

“I don’t know. Hopefully we’ll get some answers when we get back.”

“You didn’t get any information?” Marty asked.

“You were here, Marty. I didn’t ask him for his business card.” Jim cracked his neck and stretched his muscles, almost reveling the bruises now. He was okay. He’d held his own. And most fights with perps, there wasn’t a gun involved.

“You get bored waiting for me or something?” Karen joked. “Let’s get you cleaned up before back-up arrives.” She put a hand at his elbow lightly.

Jim nodded. “Yeah. Don’t want any squeamish rookies seeing this.” He put his hand on her arm. “You see my coat?” He turned, like he could look, but he’d been a little disoriented during the fight and wasn’t sure where it had ended up. “And my jacket. And my badge… I think that’s about all I’m missing.”

“How about your brain?” Marty jibed. “You were lucky, you know that?”

“We all were,” Jim answered.


* * *


“Dunbar,” Fisk’s deep voice boomed across the empty gravel parking lot.

Jim could hear his footsteps on the gravel, crunching toward him. Fisk didn’t usually move that quickly. He was pretty laid-back most of the time, trusting his detectives to hold their own and do their jobs. Jim made one last swipe with the alcohol wipe, then lifted his head and turned.

Karen had taken him outside to the car where she kept a first aid kit. He hadn’t even bothered to put his coat and suit jacket back on, just enjoying the cold air on his battered skin. He had blood on his shirt and tie, and a little in his hair from a scratch near his hairline. He’d discarded the tie and opened the top button of his shirt while Karen had rubbed the blood from the top of his head and mumbled something about a huge knot on the back of his skull. Jim had winced when her fingers prodded it, but she’d left him alone to finish cleaning up when he asked her to. She’d sat in the passenger seat, the door open, her feet on the ground, asking him about the fight.

“Lucky,” he told her when she asked how he felt. He’d leaned against the top of the car, looking down on her.

She snorted. “Yeah, right. You didn’t see the other guy.”

“No… I didn’t.”

Then Fisk showed up. “Well?”

Jim could hear a worried note in his voice. “We’re all okay,” he said, standing as straight and confident as he could. “We caught two guys, but we don’t know what their relation is to our case yet.”

Fisk put a hand to Jim’s face, turning his head to get a better look. “Criminy,” he muttered. “If I get a call from your wife…”

“It’s nothing.”

There was silence. Jim pictured Fisk looking at him skeptically, but then Fisk laughed. “Only because you can’t see it.”

Jim gestured toward the building. “The other unit’s going through the place from top to bottom. And we contacted poison control about all those chemicals Tom found in the dumpsters.”

“Good. Let’s get you back in-house, get a doctor to look you over.” Fisk patted Jim on the shoulder.

Jim tried to keep his face blank. Another sore spot, but he didn’t want them to know. “Boss, once you’ve been shot, a little thing like this…” He gestured to his face and shook his head.

“Karen?”

“How am I s’posed to know if he’s okay?” Karen asked.

Jim grimaced, but found the act tugged on the just-closing wound on his cheek. He reached up to feel a little fresh blood seeping under his fingers. He took another swipe with the alcohol pad. “Really, I’m okay.”

“We’ll see,” Fisk said, then walked off.

“Are you sure?” Karen asked quietly.

“Karen!”

“Don’t whine, Jim,” Marty said, walking over from their car. “We’re headed back.”

“So are we,” Karen said. She stood up.

Jim took her place in the car. He slammed the door and kept his face forward and unreadable. The first aid kid had been spread all over the dashboard, so he busied himself clearing everything and packing it away.

Karen didn’t say anything as she climbed into the driver’s seat.

[greenbeing]

Chapter Twenty

Karen settled into the car, but didn’t turn it on right away. She watched Jim carefully organizing her first aid kit, fitting everything into place better than it had been when she first got it. From this angle she couldn’t see any of the cuts or bruises on his face clearly, but she knew they were there.

It seemed amazing, she suddenly realized. She’d never obsessed about Jim’s blindness the way Marty did, even though he was her partner. But as she watched him, his blue eyes following what his hands were doing, putting cotton balls back in the plastic zip lock bag, tucking alcohol swabs in the plastic container, shifting bandages and gauze into place, she suddenly realized how easy he always made everything look. Walking across the squad room, eating lunch, using a computer. She thought of him going after Lyman on their first case. She’d been unconscious for a while at Randy Lyman’s house, coming to to find Jim with his gun leveled at Randy. He’d been completely calm on the way back to the station that day, too, just like he was now. Then later, in the interview room, when Lyman had tried to take Jim’s gun and Jim had slammed him up against the wall. He knew his job and could take care of himself, proving that over and over.

She closed her eyes, thinking of him beating up those guys today. Tom had filled them in on the little of the fight he’d seen, but Jim had kept his mouth shut. The one was a huge guy and it had taken Tom and Jim both to subdue him. Tom had said Jim was already pretty battered by the time he showed up, but the first guy was unconscious.

She heard Jim move and a little groan, but she didn’t open her eyes. She guessed maybe he was running his hands over his head, but she couldn’t be sure. He had a huge bump there, but all he’d say was he landed badly when the second man pushed him off.

Karen thought of all the things that could have gone wrong. If both the guys had been armed—she wouldn’t have a partner right now. She’d be crying—sobbing, more like it—because Jim had sent Marty to make sure she was okay. Jim had been looking out for her. And it would have been her fault if something had happened to him. What had she been thinking, leaving him down there to watch the front door? She’d been thinking the warehouse was empty and they weren’t going to find anything and it was all a wasted trip and she just wanted to get back to the squad and run Richard White through the system. And for that, she could have Jim’s death on her hands.

As it was, he was hurt. She’d heard him groan, felt the bump on the back of his head, seen the cuts and bruises. And those were only the visible ones. She could tell by the way he was breathing that his ribs were giving him pain. She’d watched as he gingerly slid into the car and knew he was sore.

She felt guilty. Behind her closed eyes, she could feel a tear welling up, just a little. Fear and worry and guilt and, ultimately, relief. She was Jim’s partner. He’d had her back, and where was she? He might as well have been there on his own for all she could have done.

“Karen?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“Are we heading back?”

Her eyes flew open and she stared at him a second, having nearly forgotten what they were doing. He was sliding the first aid kit into the glove compartment. He tossed a glance her way and blinked. She blinked back. “Oh, uh, yeah,” she said, but her voice shook.

He turned his head to the side, a look of concern on his face. She could see one of the small cuts at that angle and she stared at it. When she brought him here, he’d been fine. “Are you holding up okay?” he asked.

She didn’t answer right away, just watched him. He was waiting patiently, his eyes not quite focused on her, his hair tussled, he tried to send a small smile to her, but it died after a small twitch of the lips. The silence was getting too long. “Jim, what if something would have happened to you?”

His head jerked away from her and he looked out the side window, but not before she’d seen his lips press together, his eyes narrow. “Karen,” he said, his voice even and low, controlled, almost angry, but she knew Jim wouldn’t let his emotions show that easily. “I’m fine. Why are you questioning my ability—”

“I’m not,” she cut him off as soon as she saw where his train of thought was leading. “I’m questioning myself, Jim. If something would have happened, how would I have been able to live with it?”

“I wouldn’t be a cop if I couldn’t take care of myself,” he assured her.

“And people get shot in the back every day,” she countered.

He just shook his head, staring straight ahead. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Did anything ever happen to any of your partners while you were partnered up?” She swallowed hard, thinking suddenly she shouldn’t have brought it up. She didn’t know what exactly had happened at the bank, but Jim had been the one who’d been hurt. That had to have killed Terry, just like it was killing her to think Jim could have just been hurt badly in the warehouse. Was that why Terry had—she shook her head, refusing to finish that thought. She didn’t want to think Terry capable of shooting himself just because Jim had been shot. And hurt.

She shivered. Jim had a life before he met her, a different partner who hadn’t had his back, maybe he’d even been a different person. She wondered how much he minded that change.

Jim was shaking his head. “No. Terry—” He cut himself off. “No.” He was chewing on his bottom lip.

Karen started the car, just let it idle. She could tell from the expression on Jim’s face that his mind was running along the same lines hers had.


* * *


Jim bit his lip until he tasted blood. It had been split slightly in the fight and now he worried the wound until it opened again. He was still alive. He was okay. He’d been worried at first, the fight, a free-for-all in a strange place. At least the man hadn’t been armed. At least the warehouse had been empty.

“I don’t want you to worry,” he finally said to Karen.

She’d asked how she could have lived with it if something would have happened to him. That was something cops had to deal with every day, but rarely thought about until something actually did happen.

Terry had popped into his head. “What would make a guy shoot himself in the arm?” he’d said. “’Cause I can tell you what would make a guy do that.”

Jim rested his elbow on the door and put his hand up to his forehead.

Terry didn’t want to talk to him again.

Jim really hadn’t thought of that, what he’d have felt if he’d been in Terry’s place. Yeah, Terry’d screwed up and maybe he shouldn’t have ever come back on the job, but—

Terry was a cop. Maybe he hadn’t known anything else he could do except come back.

Maybe he didn’t deserve forgiveness for freezing, but maybe he deserved it for Jim getting hurt. He could have been hurt whether or not Terry’d been doing his job. Jim had been so absorbed with trying to come back to work, he hadn’t thought of anything but Terry already being back at work, how he shouldn’t have been there.

Terry hadn’t been asking for forgiveness. He’d said that. He’d known Jim wouldn’t be able to give it. He knew he couldn’t make amends, could only try to apologize. He’d come the first day, knowing Jim would be there, in public. Probably he’d been scared. He’d never tried to come by the apartment after the shooting, before Jim’s reinstatement.

And when they’d been working on that case when Terry’d shot himself… Terry’d tried to talk. Jim had barely wanted to hear his voice, but now it replayed in his head, unsteady and nervous.

How could Karen have lived with it if something would have happened to him?

How had Terry lived with it? Knowing he could have done more? Knowing how badly he’d screwed up? If he’d been scared at the bank, Jim couldn’t imagine what it had taken to get him to come back and try to apologize. Jim had been so unwelcoming, that’s why Terry had asked the lieutenant if it was even okay for them to work together on the Oliver case.

Terry could tell you what would make a guy shoot himself in the arm.

Jim still couldn’t fathom it.

But he and Terry had been friends. They’d been partners for three years, not just months.

Karen would have been there for him if she could. Terry hadn’t been able to.

Jim found he was shaking. The fight, it was nothing. Getting shot at the bank, that still scared him. Terry had seen it. Terry had seen more than Jim had, seen him lying unconscious, blood gushing from his head. Jim had been unconscious through the whole ordeal, getting taken to the hospital, almost dying. Terry had been there, watching, frozen.

Jim remembered the brief meeting in the park a few weeks ago, when he’d blown Terry off again. He’d said he’d be there, if Terry need anything, but they weren’t friends. It almost touched him, after their last meeting when Terry had practically thrown him out of his house, that he’d come up to him at all in the park. It wasn’t fair, he’d said, to just walk on by. Was that the only reason, that it wasn’t fair for Jim to not know he was there?

Terry might know about fair. He’d known Jim before, so to just walk on by, that would have been cowardly, like hiding.

Karen was driving, he suddenly realized. He touched the cold glass of the window and shivered. The car hadn’t warmed up yet.

What if something happened to Karen? He’d run that scenario through his head countless times. If something happened to Karen… He definitely wouldn’t go shoot himself. But how would he live with it? He couldn’t even think. He’d definitely be off the job. There’s no way it wouldn’t come back to his inability to do his job, no matter what happened. The brass would make sure he was out. Other than that, how would he deal? If he got messed up just losing a perp, what if Karen got hurt? Or killed?

Terry’d at least apologized, Jim had to give him credit for that. But what if he couldn’t apologize?

“Karen?” His voice sounded odd, even to himself. “What if something happened to you? Because I’m your partner?” He felt a hand suddenly gripping his wrist tightly, and he turned toward her.

“I know you would have done everything in your power to stop it, even if you couldn’t,” she said.

Jim turned away. That wasn’t the issue, whether or not he tried to save her. It was whether or not he could.

“Look,” she said, “we’d be watching each other’s backs. Something could just as easily happen to you as me.”


* * *


Marty looked up as Jim and Karen walked in. Jim had his coat and jacket slung over one arm and had Hank’s harness in his other hand. They weren’t talking, both looking pretty exhausted.

Jim followed Hank to his desk and Marty turned his attention to Karen. Her hair was slightly mussed and she looked almost sick. She probably was still feeling under the weather. Knowing her, she’d have definitely come back before she was completely well.

Jim tossed his coats on his chair, but didn’t sit.

“Coffee?” Karen asked.

“Yeah,” Jim said. He closed his eyes a second, then opened them and turned toward her. “Yeah.”

“Me, too,” she said and walked off, peeling off her coat as she went.

Dunbar still didn’t sit down, but went to stand by the window. His dog was staring at him.

“Hey,” Tom said, hurrying up. “They’re bringing up the second guy. The first one’s being looked over by a doctor first. He’s awake, but he’s pissed.”

“Is he hurt?” Marty asked.

“I don’t think so. Just really banged up. Hey, Jim,” he called over, “nice work. I got to see him conscious and all battered and it’s a beautiful sight.”

Jim half-turned with a small smile of acknowledgement.

“Dunbar,” Marty said, “the guy you beat up, he’s the one I caught in here this morning.”

Jim just nodded, silently absorbing the information. The silence stretched between the three of them.

“So who gets to interview the big guy?” Tom asked. “Jim? You want a shot at him?”

Jim shook his head. “You two can take him.”

Tom looked quizzically over at Jim, probably surprised he would pass up a chance to talk the guy straight through to a confession, but then he shrugged and headed over to his desk.

Karen came back with two cups of coffee in hand. She’d shed her jacket and looked a little better than when she’d come in, more collected. She touched the back of Jim’s hand with one of the cups and waited for him to take it.

“Hey,” Marty said to her, “Tom says they’re bringing one of the guys up.”

“Great,” she said quietly. “I’m gonna go get settled in the observation room. Jim?”

“Be there in a few minutes,” he said, blowing on his coffee.

Marty wondered if they’d talked in the car about who would be interviewing, then figured they’d probably had better things to talk about, like what the hell Jim was thinking, splitting up from Karen like that.

“Quite a show down there,” Fisk said, walking up. “That one guy’s giving the doctor a heck of a time. We had to give him a bit of a tranquilizer.”

Jim turned. “Will we get to talk to him today?”

“Maybe.” Fisk was looking Jim up and down. “They think his wrist might be broken, so it’ll be a while if they have to set it. But the drug isn’t going to knock him out.” Jim was nodding. “How about it? Need that doctor?”

Jim gave over a slight frown and shook his head. “I’m doing great.”

“Marty,” Fisk said, “this isn’t a tennis match.”

Marty snapped his head back to his computer instead of looking between the two. He heard Jim chuckle and he almost chuckled himself, but caught himself in time.

Fisk headed for his office. Marty heard footsteps and looked up to see a uniformed officer bringing in Perp Number Two. Jim was looking back out the window, so Marty leaned back and told him the guy was there.

Jim nodded. “I’m ready.” He set down the coffee and pulled his cane out of the pocket of his overcoat. Marty watched him shake it out and tap it on the floor to make sure it was set.

Marty looked around the squad. He’d forgotten that things had been moved that morning, but guessed it was in Jim’s best interest not to forget. He surveyed the room. Jim had sworn things were out of place, but it really didn’t look like it.

Jim walked up the aisle, his cane tapping back and forth. It hit a trashcan and Jim leaned down and moved it under a desk. He straightened and continued walking, the next desk slightly out of place. Watching Jim and knowing how he usually easily moved down that aisle between the desks, Marty could see now how they were slightly off.

He got up and followed.

Jim paused outside the interview room door.

“You change your mind?” Marty asked brightly, clapping a hand on Jim’s shoulder.

Jim grimaced, his knees actually buckling an inch under the pressure. Marty pulled his hand back and watched pain flash across Jim’s face.

Jim cracked his neck and the look was gone. Both hands on the top of his cane, he turned to Marty. “Don’t do that,” he said quietly.

“You sure you’re okay?” Marty asked before he could stop himself. He hadn’t been planning to ask because Jim seemed to hate that question so much, like people thought of course something would always be wrong with him, using it as a sort of put down.

“I’m sore, that’s it. I was just wondering what this guy looked like.” He nodded his head at the interview room door.

“He’s a big guy,” Marty said. “Six-five or something, muscley—”

“I know.” Jim waved the description off. “That much I know.”

Marty nodded. Yeah, Jim had fought this guy briefly, Tom had told him. He was big enough and strong enough he’d kicked Jim a few feet away.

“He looks…” Marty shrugged, glancing through a small gap in the blinds. “Like my Aunt Ethel, but young. She’s my great aunt, really.”

Jim’s face was screwed up, looking over at him.

“You know how old people get all distorted? He doesn’t have her wrinkles, but he’s ugly enough. His nose is sort of drooping and his mouth looks like he always frowns. He’s got short hair, brown. And he slouches.” Marty looked back at Jim to find him with an odd smile.

“Thanks, Marty. That was enlightening.”

“You don’t have to make fun of me, Dunbar—”

“I’m not.” Jim waved a hand in the air to cut him off. “Honest, that’s the best description I’ve ever gotten. It’s like I know what he looks like.”

“Oh.”

“Kind of scary, isn’t it? Finding a family resemblance in a perp?” Jim smiled teasingly.

“Watch it, Dunbar. My Aunt Ethel likes to hit people with her cane.”

He hefted his cane in one hand. “So do I.”

“We almost ready?” Fisk asked. He clapped a hand on Jim’s shoulder.

Marty saw Jim’s eyes blink, but other than that, he held his ground, even as Fisk squeezed his injured shoulder. Marty had to give him credit, even as he grimaced for Jim. Never show the boss you might be hurt. Jim looked a little paler than he had a moment ago, and he couldn’t keep the relief off his face when Fisk let go, but other than that, he was a silent mask.

Fisk turned toward the observation room.

“I’m ready,” Tom said, coming up on the other side of Jim. Tom reached up to put a hand on Jim’s shoulder, maybe to move him aside so he could open the door to the interview room. Marty grabbed it before he could touch Jim. Jim moved away, following Fisk. Tom gave Marty a confused look, but didn’t say anything, even when all Marty gave back was a shake of the head.

[greenbeing]

* * *


Jim slid into the observation room and folded his cane.

“What are we going to do about that?” Fisk asked.

“What?”

“You getting around the squad?”

Jim kept his face blank as he looked up at the boss. “I learned my way around once, I can do it again. I’ve already moved some things back.”

“You need any help?”

“Nah. I got it.”

He guessed Fisk to be nodding in the silence. He felt Karen touch him lightly on the arm and he turned toward her.

“I grabbed an ice pack, if you want it,” she said quietly.

“Oh.” He shrugged nonchalantly, like he was fine, but the movement jarred his shoulder. “Sure.” He put the cold pack on his shoulder. It felt good, numbing.

“What’d you do to your shoulder?” Fisk asked.

“Yeah,” Karen agreed. “I got that for your face.”

“It’s nothing. I just landed wrong.” He’d been so preoccupied with the pain in his ribs and his shoulder he hadn’t paid any attention to his face. Now he slid his cane into the back pocket of his pants and gingerly touched his face.

“You’re probably going to have a black eye tomorrow,” Karen said. “There’s a little bruise already.”

Jim’s fingers tenderly explored his right cheek and under his eye, next to the cut that ran down the side of his face. “Doesn’t really hurt,” he said, pressing the ice pack to his shoulder.

Karen laughed. “You want me to take a look at your shoulder? I took some first aid classes.”

Jim held up a hand. “Don’t touch.” He waved her back.

“Okay.” She laughed at him again.

He smiled back.


* * *


Jim heard the door to the interview room click shut and he leaned carefully against the wall, avoiding bruises and sore spots. He tucked the ice pack between his shoulder and the wall and tucked his hands under his crossed arms to warm them back up.

“What’s your name?” Tom asked.

“He didn’t have any ID?” Jim asked.

“None,” Fisk said.

“Santa Claus,” a deep voice said, the same one that had inquired of him that he wasn’t dead yet. It almost sounded like the guy Jim had talked to on the phone to set up the deal for the poison, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to waste time looking for connections where there weren’t any if it was just wishful thinking.

“Yeah. Right,” Tom said.

“Or maybe it’s the Grim Reaper,” the guy said.

“What’s your name?” Tom said.

Silence answered. It stretched as Tom and Marty alternated questions.

Karen sighed from the other side of the mirror. Jim glanced over at her.

“Tom’s taking his fingerprints,” she said after another minute.

“Are you working for Uncle Josiah?” Marty finally asked.

“Who?”

“Damn,” Fisk said. “I hope the other guy’s more talkative.” He moved past Jim toward the door. “I’m gonna go see if we can get him in the other room.”

“Why’d you shoot at me?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jim groaned.

“There was a gun. We have it. Your fingerprints are on it. We found the slug. We have witnesses.”

“I was coming to check on my friend, who was getting his ass kicked. I didn’t have no gun.”

Jim heard two hands slapped against the table in the interview room. “You trying for an insanity plea?” Marty asked. “You want to play stupid?”

“You assaulted a police officer,” Tom said. “Two, actually.”

“I didn’t see a badge. Or two badges, actually.”

“Geez, he almost sounds sincere,” Karen said. “He’s a jerk, but it’s like he’s telling the truth.”

Jim’s head snapped over toward her. “You’re right. Glenn Bartlett wouldn’t talk about Brian unless he was looking at fire.”

“So?”

“So, if he was doing this by suggestion, maybe he needs to hear a keyword or something.”

“What?”

“Like those parties where they hypnotize people to respond to certain words—like you say the word “duck” and someone belts out “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” then they don’t remember doing it?”

“Oh… So he’s working for Uncle Josiah?”

“I’m guessing they both work for Uncle Josiah. They were at the building with all the chemicals, maybe they were finishing cleaning up.”

“You think Josiah suggested to this guy to come after you because we were getting too close? And he told this guy to kill you if he heard the word “duck.””

“If it’s true, we’re never going to get anywhere asking him questions.”

“Then what?” Karen moved closer to him, leaning against the mirror.

“We’ll never get anywhere, but maybe someone, like a shrink, could get through to him. Or maybe, I read once where the only way they could get through to some girl who’d been under the influence of suggestion, was to get another hypnotist in who could break the code. We can’t guess, but if we get a professional in here to work with him…”

“It’s worth a try. You want me to go run it by the boss?”

“I’ll go. I need to walk.” He straightened up, his muscles protesting. He unfolded his cane and switched the ice pack to the same hand so he could open the door. Once outside he held the pack to a particularly sore rib as he crossed to the lieutenant’s office, his cane outstretched for obstacles.

Fisk was talking when he got there, so he stood outside the open door, waiting for him to get off the phone.

“Jim?”

“Karen and I have a theory.” He stepped into Fisk’s office.

“You want to sit down?”

Jim shook his head. “If I sit, I’m never getting back up again.” He ran the boss through the theory.

“I’ll make some calls.”


* * *


Jim found himself heading back to his desk instead of the observation room. It was getting late. He picked up the phone and was surprised Christie answered when he called the apartment. He’d expected her to still be working.

“Hi, hon,” he said.

“Jimmy? What’s the matter?”

“Why d’you think anything’s wrong?” he asked, laughing. It was nice to hear her voice, even if she was worried about him.

“Because you never call me pet names anymore,” she said.

“Oh.” He heard the interview room door open and guessed Tom and Marty had given up. “I was just calling to let you know I’m gonna be late. We got a break in the case, so we’re interviewing two suspects.” He listened to Christie talk and three sets of footsteps head back for the desks. Karen was running the deprogramming theory past the guys.

“That’s great! You don’t sound overly thrilled, though,” Christie said.

“We’re not getting anywhere yet,” he said.

“Oh. Maybe they aren’t involved after all?”

Jim almost laughed. “Trust me, they’re involved.”

“Everything else okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re okay? You didn’t get shot? You promised.”

Jim laughed despite knowing how close he’d come to being shot. He’d never let Christie know that, how he’d reached up and felt the gun leveled at his face before disarming the guy. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Except for getting your ass kicked,” Marty said loudly, leaning toward his desk.

Jim quickly covered the mouthpiece, but it was too late.

“Marty!” Karen said.

“Jimmy, what happened? What was that? Was that Marty?”

Jim glared over at Marty, then moved back as the other detective invaded his space. Marty grabbed the phone and Jim pulled it back, but Marty had the advantage of surprise.

“He’s okay,” Marty said into the phone.

Jim leaned against his desk, still not wanting to sit.

“I just figured he wouldn’t tell you… Yeah, he’s fine, just a little beaten up… Yeah, sure.” Marty jabbed him in the chest with the phone.

Jim took it. “Thanks, Marty,” he said sarcastically.

“No problem. Jim, she’s not blind. She’d figure it out eventually.”

Jim wrinkled his nose.

“But you’re making her worry now,” Karen said.

“Jimmy?” Christie said.

“Yeah?”

“What happened?”

“I got in a small scuffle with one—okay, both—of the perps. Karen said I’ll probably have a black eye tomorrow.” He touched his face again gently, feeling it getting puffier.

“How late are you going to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have to see for myself, make sure you’re okay.”

He turned his back on the other detectives, talking quieter into the phone. “I’m okay,” he assured her.

“You’re going to miss dinner, right?”

“We’ll order in.”

“I’ll bring it up.”

“You never bring dinner.”

“I do tonight.”

“Stop worrying.”

“Jimmy!”

Jim put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Christie’s bringing dinner—what d’you guys want?” He talked to her, trying to reassure her while the detectives batted ideas back and forth.

“Happy, Marty?” he asked when he hung up.

“Yeah,” Marty said happily.

Jim couldn’t help but laugh. “Karen? You got any make-up?” He gestured at the bruises on his face.

She laughed. “We don’t exactly have the same complexion.”

“So?”

“So I’d say you’re more of a winter…”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means you’re a pasty white boy.”

Jim laughed and eased himself into his seat. He let out a breath when he was down. One of his knees was starting to smart, as well as the small of his back. The knee didn’t surprise him much, he’d injured it enough times before. He reached up to touch the knot on the back of his head, but winced when his fingers brushed the hair over it. He pulled a bottle of aspirin out of his drawer and swilled three down with cold coffee.

“Hey,” he said suddenly. “Did anyone search this guy for aspirin? You know, the deadly kind?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “I searched him when I took him to the car earlier, and I had them do a more thorough job later.”

Jim nodded. “The other guy?”

“Dunno. I told them to, but they might have been more worried about examining him. You worked him over pretty well. He even lost a tooth.”

Jim winced in sympathy. “So what all’d you find at the warehouse?”

Tom’s chair creaked. “You should have seen it. The mother load,” he said. “I don’t know what any of that stuff’s for, but I bet you our Uncle’s making some illegal stuff to make all his followers feel good that he made their lives all sh*tty.”

“Did it all get taken into custody?”

“Every last container. And they were scouring the building to see what else they could find.”

“Karen?” Jim asked. “Did you find anything before you were so rudely interrupted?”

She grunted at him. “There was a filing cabinet upstairs on the second floor, but I skipped over it so I could search the whole building. I didn’t recognize any of the names on the files. The officers are supposed to be going through it. Other than that, the place was spotless.”

“And all the chemicals were in the dumpster?”

“Yeah,” Tom said.

“Why would someone scour the place, and throw all their chemicals away?”

“Because they were expecting us?”

“Obviously.” Jim’s hand went to his face again. “They knew we were coming.”

“Then why’d they leave a filing cabinet?” Karen asked. “If there’s any useful information in there, anything that will incriminate Uncle Josiah… Would he even be keeping files?

“Maybe there’s nothing in there,” Marty said. “Maybe it’s left over from the last business.”

Jim nodded.

“Or it’s starting to sound like planted evidence.”

“Which is theory number two,” Tom said.

“What’s number one?” Marty asked.

“Number one is Uncle J’s a bad guy and he’s out to kill everyone. Number two is he pissed someone off and they’re out for revenge, but he’s still a bad guy.”

“Number three?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Tom said.


* * *


“Jimmy?” Christie called.

Jim pushed himself up out of the chair. The aspirin had taken affect, leaving him more mobile. He walked just past Marty’s desk, the only route he was sure of in the department, to meet her, then stopped. He heard her heels clicking as she hurried over and listened as she dropped a few bags of food on Marty’s desk.

“Jimmy?” she asked quietly. She pulled off his sunglasses, which he’d put on specially right after she’d called.

“I’m okay.”

“I’ll bet you are. Where doesn’t it hurt?”

He leaned down and kissed her. “Right there.” He held out a hand and led her back to his desk where he cleared away his laptop and pulled up a second chair so she could sit next to him. “You all remember Christie, right?” She handed him the sunglasses and he dropped them out of the way in his desk drawer.

Marty opened all the wrappers and passed sandwiches around, quiet again. Jim swallowed hard, hoping Marty would have the decency not to say anything about Anne. If Christie knew that Marty knew… It was bad enough when she found out Karen knew.

“Here, Dunbar,” Marty said, stretching back to lay a couple sandwiches on the corner of his desk.

“Thanks, Marty,” Jim said and stretched forward to grab them.

“I brought coffee for everyone,” Christie said, sounding almost shy.

Jim reached over and found her hand. He squeezed it and she passed him a coffee. He let go of her hand and situated his dinner on his desk. Christie was sitting close enough he could feel her moving things around next to him. He touched the wrapper, feeling for the folds, turned it upside down and unwrapped it to get to his toasted meatball sub. He inhaled, suddenly starving, smiling as the spicy aroma hit his nostrils. He took a huge bite.

Christie hadn’t moved, even though he could hear the other detectives chewing in the after workday silence. They were pretty much the only ones left in the department.

She was sitting on his left and he looked down at her. She reached up with a napkin and took a small dab at his mouth. “I guess I’ll just have to sit on this side of you for a while, huh?”

Jim knew most of the damage was on the right side of his face. He shrugged. “You used to like it when I got into fights,” he said quietly. He leaned closer to her. “The last time I had a black eye, you told me it was sexy.” He winked at her.

Tom snorted. Karen burst out laughing. Even Marty chuckled.

Jim took her hand again. “I thought you liked the tough cop, the guy with the gun.”

He bit his lip. It had been out of his mouth before he’d thought it through. He forced himself to smile even as his heart twisted painfully. “Like you said, maybe I don’t need the gun anymore.” He turned back to his sandwich, as if it didn’t matter.

Christie squeezed his hand.

Marty cleared his throat awkwardly. “Maybe, if you’d had the gun, you could have ended it sooner and not gotten all banged up,” he said slowly.

Jim shook his head. The thing the guy had said had plagued him all evening and he couldn’t wait to talk to him. That guy, he wanted to interview him.

“Yeah,” Marty said. “It would have been over sooner.”

Jim gave a short laugh. “Yeah, it would have, and I’d be dead.”

Christie’s hand tightened around his, not letting up the pressure. Jim leaned back in his chair and looked past her to Karen and Tom.

“The first guy, he was experienced at disarming people,” Jim said slowly. “He told me, if I’d had a gun, I’d be dead by now.”

“Geez,” Karen said so quietly it was almost a whisper.

Marty and Tom were both quiet. Christie was holding his hand tighter so he reached over and put his other hand around the back of hers. He smiled down at her. “Sorry. I wasn’t going to tell you.”

“Were you going to tell us?” Tom asked.

Jim looked up.

“Yeah, but that was just one time,” Marty said.

Jim laughed. “You trying to get me killed, Marty?”

“No. I’m just saying, so this one time—”

“Marty, we’ve been through this.”

“And you got your ass kicked.”

“So what? Let’s say it was some other guy and I had a gun. I would have had better control—unless I was disarmed.” Jim shook his head. “If they managed to separate me from my gun… what would I do then? It’s better this way.”

“If he’d caught me upstairs…” Karen said quietly. “Or, Marty… if you’d stayed to help…”

“Yeah, Marty, it’s a good thing you’re a hard ass,” Jim said with a grin.

“Sh*t,” Marty said.

Tom laughed. “That’s why you told me we were all lucky, huh, Jim?”

Jim just turned away and picked his sandwich back up.

“You think we wouldn’t be grateful?” Tom asked. “You weren’t going to tell us?”

“I wanted to talk to the guy first,” Jim said.

“Finish up,” Fisk ordered, popping his head out the door of his office. “They’re gonna bring the first guy up within the half hour.”


* * *


Jim stood up and grabbed just his overcoat. “I’ll walk you out,” he told Christie. She helped him into the coat. He lightly slapped his thigh, afraid of finding another sore spot. Hank jumped up. “I’ll be back,” he told everyone. Christie slipped her hand into his.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked when they were alone in the elevator.

“I’m sore, I won’t lie,” he said, facing straight ahead.

“Other than that?”

“Even my pride’s in tact.”

She leaned closer to him, but stopped short of cuddling. “I’m glad you’re okay…” she said.

“But you’re still worried.”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“You wouldn’t be if I could see.” The elevator doors opened and he walked her out of the building.

“I’m more worried about what you told me about that guy, planning to kill you. Come on, Jimmy!”

He stopped her on the sidewalk and turned toward her. “Then I’m lucky I’m blind.” He pulled her roughly to him with one arm, keeping Hank’s harness in his other hand. “Right? Maybe being lucky isn’t so bad.” She was quiet, but she carefully wrapped her arms around his back. “This is my job, Christie.”

“I know.” She sniffled.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Don’t cry.”

“I already did. After Marty said you’d been hurt…”

“Yeah, well, damn him. It wasn’t his place. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You can’t protect me from everything, Jimmy.”

“But I can protect myself.” He spoke close to her face to make sure she looked at him. He could feel her breath. “Even if I get a few black eyes and bumped shins in the process.”

She took his hand and started walking toward her car again. “I’m glad,” she said after a minute. “Really. I just—I don’t want you getting hurt again. Jimmy, that was so hard. And this case…”

Hank stopped at a curb and Jim felt the edge with his foot, listening for traffic. Christie sighed. She was probably thinking of how things kept going wrong with the case, how he’d been practically out of his mind just a couple days before.

“I’ve learned a lot, this case,” Jim said when they were safely across the street. He shook his head, imagining the dark street and the streetlights, headlights whizzing past, and stars standing still. Dots of light in windows. The city, a place filling the darkness with points of light. There were a few bright spots in his own darkness. “Maybe you don’t learn by playing it safe.”

“Here’s my car.” She stopped him.

“It’s all the easy stuff from here,” he told her.

“Be careful.” She stood up on tiptoe to kiss him, then stepped into the street.

Jim stood there until she pulled away. He held up a hand in a wave, then headed Hank in the direction of the park. He needed to think a few minutes before heading back into the thick of the case.

[greenbeing]

Chapter Twenty-One


Jim headed Hank into the locker room. He felt he could drink a whole pot of coffee. Someone else was in the room, but Jim didn’t say anything. If they didn’t know to say something by now…

Just the vibe, maybe a whiff of aftershave, the fact that there were only four other people in the department that late, only one of whom would be enough of an ass to ignore him… It was definitely a guy, Jim could tell by the movements. Fisk didn’t usually come in here. And from the location of the locker—it was probably Marty.

Jim dropped Hank’s harness and carefully touched the handles of the coffee pots. He reached into the cupboard and immediately was rained on by tiny packets of sugar when his hand hit something other than the coffee can. He pulled back, hearing the pattering of packets falling onto the counter and the floor. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath then started picking up the packets and piling them to the side.

“Marty?” he called over. “Where’s the coffee?”

“You can’t even find the coffee?” Marty asked.

“Someone moved it, do you understand that?” Jim tossed a pack of sugar onto the counter and turned.

Hank whined at Jim’s tone of voice.

Marty stalked up, pushed past Jim and grabbed something out of the cupboard. He slammed the metal coffee container on the counter. “How’s your wife?” Marty asked coldly.

Jim turned away.

“Last week…” Marty started, sounding bitter.

Jim cleared away the sugar and put the coffee can back in its normal spot. “What?” he asked, not looking back.

“At the bar—I was just playing into your hands, wasn’t I? Almost gave you permission to put your hands all over Karen.”

“I didn’t—”

“You sure looked cozy to me.”

“But I didn’t. Ask her.” Jim finally turned.

“Like she’d tell me.”

“Marty, I’m not going to take advantage of Karen! I’m not going to let her get hurt, either.”

“You swear?”

“Yes! You want it written in blood?” He held a hand out.

“I don’t think you have enough left.” Marty pushed past him into the hallway.

Jim shook his head and decided against the coffee. The best thing to do was just get the case over and done with.

Hank yawned as he settled back behind Jim’s desk. It had been a long day. Hank watched his master a moment, fighting to keep his eyes open. He didn’t know much about humans, but he knew Jim was starting to limp, probably needed a trip to the vet.

Jim reached for his cane, which he’d pushed aside with his laptop, but his hand froze and clenched into a fist. Even with half the room slightly off, making him feel like he was drunk and misjudging distances, he knew his way around the squad. He wasn’t going into the interview room cane in hand. He wasn’t even going to wear his sunglasses. He pulled back and headed over.

“Jim?” Karen asked from the door to the interview room.

He held up a finger for her to wait, concentrating on the slightly skewed distances from his last trip this way. His pace was slower than usual, but it was better that way, taking pity on his battered body.

“Yeah?” he asked when he joined her.

“Christie okay?” she asked.

He knew that’s not what she was going to ask, but he let it go. “Yeah. She’s still worried.”

“Me, too. I keep thinking, what if something had happened. Especially after what you told us about the gun.”

Jim sighed. “Don’t worry so much.”

“Why not?” Marty asked, walking up.

“Because it’s not productive,” Jim said stiffly without a really good reason. It was okay to worry, just not about him. “Ready?”

“They set his wrist,” Karen said.

“Which one?”

“The broken one,” Marty muttered, then headed for the observation room.

“What’s up?” Karen asked.

“Nothing. Which one?”

“The right one. So he has a cast.”

Jim followed Karen into the room.

“You look like hell,” the young man from the fight said.

“You should talk,” Jim said, trying to develop enough rapport to get the guy talking.

Jim walked over to where a chair usually was, but found himself holding onto an empty table. The interview rooms had been messed with, too, but he wasn’t going to let it get to him. He’d just be careful walking around. He didn’t like to make mistakes around people he was interviewing. If they didn’t respect you, they were less likely to talk.

“What’s your name?” Jim asked.

“Michael.”

“Michael what?”

“I renounce attachment to worldly things like the people who supposedly gave birth to me,” he said in a wry tone of voice, like he was smirking. The kid had probably rehearsed answers to half the questions they were going to ask him.

“And your allegiance is to…?”

“My only ally in life is Uncle Josiah.”

“Why?” Jim couldn’t help saying.

“Because he’s a god. You don’t disobey God.” Michael chuckled. “Have a seat, detective,” he offered with an imperious tone.

Jim moved back and sat on the ledge that ran under the window. “Do you feel better now?” he asked.

“I moved the chairs.”

“I know.” There was a moment of silence before Jim spoke back up. “You haven’t done much we don’t know about. Now all we need to know is why.”

“Who cares why anything happens?”

“What were you doing in the warehouse?” Karen asked.

“Looking for you. Uncle Josiah knew you’d be there. He instructed me to take care of you. Why don’t you carry a gun?”

Jim ignored the question. “So you came after me because Uncle Josiah told you to.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Where’d you learn to disarm people?”

“Junior high. Catholic school. Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Because we need information and you have it. Will you cooperate?”

“What choice do I have?”

“You’ll tell us everything we want to know?”

“Yeah.”

“About Uncle Josiah?”

“The world would be a better place without him.”

Jim glanced in Karen’s direction, wondering if she was catching the same vibe he was. Uncle Josiah’s follower, swears he’s loyal, yet offers them information. “You don’t seem as… difficult to talk to as the other people we’ve dealt with.”

“How so? Because I’m cooperating?”

“No. Because you speak in full sentences.”

“Because I’m not brainwashed, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Uncle Josiah’s right hand man. I’ve helped him take care of everything.”

“And you’re helping us because…?” Karen asked.

“Pang of conscience? When I lost that fight I realized Josiah couldn’t be a god or I wouldn’t have lost. David and Goliath and all. You can do anything with God on your side. I had a little time to think while they bandaged me up. I re-evaluated my life.”

“How old are you, Michael?”

“Age doesn’t matter. That’s just counting backwards—being alive a certain number of years. It’s especially extraneous because no matter how many years you’ve lived, the chances of you having done something important enough to warrant counting the years is slim.”

“Okay…” Karen said slowly.

Jim blinked.

“What matters is how long we have left. Count forward. Do something with the time before you die.”

“What do you plan to do with the rest of your life?” Jim asked.

“I plan to save all those people just like Uncle Josiah said he would. Only I do it by releasing them.”

“Why’s Uncle Josiah killing people if he’s pretending he’s such a great guy?”

“To show his power. He likes to flex his muscles. People are just guinea pigs to him anyway. He needs to test his new drug—the one that kills without a trace.”

“Does he just give that to anyone who asks for it?” Karen asked.

“If it’s for a good cause.”

“How does he know if it’s a good cause? What is a good cause, to him?” Jim asked.

“Death is a good cause. It’s the greatest one there is.”

Jim cracked his neck. He wanted to talk to Josiah about all this personally. Getting theories second hand? It was creepy enough. He was sure if he heard them straight from the horse’s mouth that he’d shudder, have to lock the guy up just for being so twisted.

“Let’s talk about you for a while,” Jim said.

“Why? I thought I was just your golden egg, something to get you everything you need to lock up Josiah.”

“I never go into anything that focused. Tell us about yourself.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Sure there is,” Karen said. “You’ve obviously lived a fascinating life, tagging around after a messiah, learning the tricks of the trade, helping kill people.”

“Nothing much special,” he said with a shrug in his voice.

“you don’t call any of that special?”

“There’s hundreds just like me. You saw them in the church the other day,” he said, turning to Jim.

Jim paced back to the table. “You sound young,” he said. “Early twenties? 21?”

“Nineteen and a half if you want to be that way. Born of Sylvia and Russell Hershach of Trenton, New Jersey. They’re dead, by the way. Josiah put them out of their misery. My mother had cancer, runs in the family, only a matter of time before I succumb. My father was on his third heart attack. Also runs in the family, so I’m screwed. They were some of the first guinea pigs and Josiah’s been experimenting on me. Preventive medicine. Will he save my life? Or will he kill me in the process? All in the name of science.”

“What were you doing in the squad this morning?” Karen asked.

“Brian failed.”

“So?”

“So Josiah wouldn’t just give up.”

“What was Brian looking for?”

“Samantha. Josiah didn’t know where she was.”

“And what were you looking for?”

“Information. I wanted to know how close you were to figuring it out.”

Michael was starting to sound like a snob. Jim cocked his head to the side, listening carefully to Michael’s tones of voice. He still had that superior air, like he was doing them a favor. Jim was surprised at the lack of fear in his voice.

“How close were we?” Karen continued.

“I don’t know. I’m not good at hacking into files like Brian was,” he said sheepishly, like it was his one shortcoming.

“Are you aware that wasn’t Brian Mulhaney?” Karen asked.

“No. Who was it?”

“I was hoping you could tell us. That wasn’t his real name.”

“Josiah once called him Harvard, but I think that was just a nickname.”

“Does Reg Schmidt strike a bell?”

Michael laughed. “See? I knew you’d know who he was.”

“Why’d you move the chairs?” Karen asked.

Michael laughed again. “Nice. She’s sticking up for you.” He reached over and patted Jim’s hand. Jim didn’t move, just let it run its course. Michael would get to the end of his charade eventually, then they’d be waiting for him.

“Just answer the question,” Karen said.

“Brian told me there was a blind detective working here. Obviously, I didn’t know it was you at the warehouse, not right away. But I’m glad now. I’m glad it was you. Maybe I lost the fight, but I still got to you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Jim said, “you really got to me for a minute, but I figured it out.”

“Only ‘cause I got caught by that other detective. That tipped you off, didn’t it? Having an intruder in the building? Proved you weren’t just imagining it. Brian thought it would be funny.” Michael laughed. “I went for a little more subtlety.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah, it was kinda funny. I laughed.”

“Did you?” Michael asked, sounding surprised. “Did he?”

“Yeah,” Karen said.

“Oh. I don’t think Brian wanted you to find it funny.” He leaned over confidentially. “He was kinda mad at you.”

“How long had you known Brian?” Jim asked.

“About three months. New recruit.”

“You never met the other Brian Mulhaney?” Karen asked.

“Nah.”

“Your group isn’t much for originality, is it?”

“How d’you mean?”

“Everyone we’ve met, none of them have been going by their own name.”

“Why should they? Just because you were born to be a certain person, born into a family and a life, that doesn’t mean you need to be loyal to that. When things go bad—we’re people, we’re versatile. All we have to do is move, change our name, and poof, we’re someone else. There’s so many people, it’s easy to lose yourself.”

“Yeah, but you’re picking people who exist. Or who died.”

“What can I say? Like you said, we’re not very creative, right?”

“Tell us about when you first met Josiah,” Jim said.

“Like I said, he killed my parents.”

“Before that.”

“You want me to start “once upon a time,” too?” he asked snottily.

“If you want,” Jim said with a smile.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not some little kid you’re humoring. This is serious.”

Jim sat on the edge of the table next to Michael, his arms crossed. “Believe me, I know how serious this is.”

“When did you meet Josiah?” Karen asked.

“About three years ago.”

“Where?”

“Michigan. I was staying with my uncle while my mother went through chemotherapy. The parents didn’t think I could handle it. I went to the airport—I was bored. I missed my own school, was thinking of trying to catch a flight back... I was just wandering around and there he was. Turns out he was from pretty much the same place and we got to talking. Science and philosophy especially. Next thing I knew we were on a flight to New York.”

“You’d known this guy a couple hours and you invited him home?” Karen asked.

“No. He invited me home. I stayed with him a couple months before I took him to meet my parents. You mind if I say they were dying to meet the man who’d saved my life?”

“Saved your life?” Karen asked. “Aren’t you getting a little melodramatic?”

“There are many different levels of living. It’s all philosophic.” Michael lowered his voice, making it sound almost wimpy and sad. “How would you feel if you were sixteen and both your parents suddenly died? This way it wasn’t sudden; I knew exactly what was coming and—” He raised his voice and said, “I rejoiced!”

Jim looked away, shaking his head. After a minute he looked back. “You were still a minor,” Jim said. “Didn’t social services have anything to say about both of your parents dying?”

“I slipped through the system. Lucky me,” Michael said.

“When did you meet Samantha?”

“Samantha? I really barely knew her. I met her a couple years ago, I think. But Uncle Josiah’s such a popular guy—girls throw themselves at him all the time. Hard to keep them all straight.”

“So she was sleeping with him?” Karen asked.

“He’s the messiah. He sleeps with everyone. Female, that is.”

“She wasn’t anything special?”

“He liked her, sure.”

“Did he kill her?”

“Sure did. When you’re favored by the messiah, you don’t go sleep with another man.”

“He was jealous?”

“He doesn’t get jealous.”

“How’d he kill her?”

“Poisoned her. Then he had me shoot her.”

“If the poison’s untraceable, why shoot her?” Karen asked.

“She wasn’t dead yet. It still hurt.”

“You said earlier he didn’t know where she was,” Jim said.

“Her body. He wanted her body.”

“Then why’d he leave her?”

“That was my fault. Something came up and when I went back to collect her, you all were there.”

“You in trouble for losing her body?”

“It’s just a body. Meaningless,” Michael said with a shrug in his voice.

“Then why’d he want it?”

“He just did. I don’t know why.”

“And her cousin?” Karen asked.

“Cousin?”

“Glenn.”

Michael made a questioning grunt.

“Glenn Bartlett. We found him on the stairs of an old mansion, wearing a t-shirt that said, “Owls aren’t pussycats.””

“Sh*t. That was her cousin?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know that.” Michael cleared his throat. “Josiah asked me to clear him out. Thought Samantha was sleeping with him. But if that was her cousin… and not the right guy… too bad.”

“So you killed him,” Jim said.

“I didn’t have any choice. You don’t question Josiah or you don’t see daylight ever again—no offense. Bad euphemism.”

“You’d testify to all this?”

“Yeah.”

“You know where we can find him?”

“Sometimes.”

Jim listened as Karen passed him the notebook across the table.

“It’ll be a few days before he’s available.”

“You his secretary?” Karen asked.

“No. I just don’t know where he is until Monday and Tuesday.”

“So, Michael Hershach, what were you doing at that warehouse this afternoon?” Jim asked.

Michael laughed a little. “I’m the one who called you and told you to go there. Josiah knew you were looking for him. He thought it best to head you off.”

“Why the warehouse?”

“Because he’s cleared out of there.”

“Not entirely,” Karen said. “What about the chemicals?”

“So he’s just human. He can make mistakes or just not think of everything, right?”

“But to set us up to go there—he’d have to be pretty sure of what he was doing.”

“He trusted me too much. I lost the fight.”

“And now you’re in trouble?”

“I’m in trouble either way, right? But if you get to Josiah first, I might live.”


* * *

[greenbeing]

* * *


Marty stretched as he walked out of the observation room, relieved to take a break. He couldn’t imagine how Dunbar was holding up after the beating he’d taken, then this long interview.

“Hey,” Karen said, “this kid. I think I saw him hanging out on the sidewalk when Samantha disappeared.”

“You sure?” Jim asked.

“We were eight stories up, but his mannerisms… Hair color… I think it’s him.”

Karen ran off for coffee while Jim locked the door to the interview room. Marty fell into his desk chair, hitting his knee in the process. He swore under his breath and rubbed the sore spot, even as he kicked the offending desk.

“Hey, Marty,” Jim called over. “Do me a favor?”

“What?”

“What’s this guy look like?”

Marty rolled his eyes. He moved over toward the door of the interview room and peeked in. Tom sidled up next to them and Marty looked over to see Tom watching, curious. Mary didn’t want to be the object of anyone’s curiosity, so he just grunted.

Jim was rubbing his eye, carefully avoiding the bruise that was forming. “Too much to ask?” Jim said. He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“He’s young,” Tom put in. “Skinny. About six foot—”

Jim waved Tom off. “Forget it. That much I know.”

Marty closed his eyes briefly, fighting his better nature. He listened as Jim started to walk away. It sounded like he was limping. Marty’s eyes flew open to confirm it. Yeah, Jim was limping, but he wasn’t about to let on if he was really hurt. Marty wondered if he was okay. First the shoulder, now limping… Was he really taking it in stride, or was he trying to be a hero and prove to them still that he could do his job?

Then again, he had thought first of Karen at the warehouse. He could have just assumed Karen was okay and asked Marty for help, but he didn’t. Karen’s safety was Marty’s main concern, seemed to be Jim’s main concern, too.

“Dunbar,” he said and waited for Jim to turn back. “He looks like the guy from Happy Days.”

One of Jim’s eyebrows crooked up. “The Fonz?”

“Nah, the other one. Ron Howard’s character. The face is a little rounder, more wholesome, even. He looks like a little cherub,” he said with a small dose of sarcasm.

Jim nodded, his head to the side, thinking it over.

“This kid’s kinda geeky and well-meaning, you know?”

Dunbar laughed. “He meant well while he was fighting me?”

“I don’t know if he meant well, but we all know you deserved it.”

Jim sighed and walked away back to his desk. He pulled out his chair, holding onto a rib while he sat.

Marty bit his lip. The words had been out of his mouth before he thought them through. “You can tell he thought it was for a good cause,” he amended, too late. He’d meant to just keep an eye on Jim, not go back to being an ass all the time. They had to work together. The comments kept coming, even though he tried to stifle them.

“Great.” Jim’s face was blank as usual. He pulled out a bottle of aspirin.

“He looks better than the other guy,” Marty tried.

“How?”

“Like he’s actually here.”


* * *


“So when Samantha was in protective custody,” Karen started, “what were you doing at the building?”

“Delivering a message.”

“But you barely knew her.”

“Messages. I saw a lot of her. We didn’t talk. We weren’t friends.”

“What was the message?” Jim asked.

“Come home.”

“Did she?”

“Must have.”

Jim took his time walking to the far corner of the room where Karen had told him a chair was sitting. He’d asked her before they went back in and now he needed to sit.

“Is Uncle Josiah trying to father an heir?” he asked as he walked.

Michael laughed. “He thinks the world is overpopulated.”

“Does he father a lot of kids?”

“He’s protected, I’m sure, detective. What’s this have to do with anything?”

Jim pulled the chair over across the table from Michael.

“I’m glad you finally found that,” Michael said. “Doesn’t do to have you standing for hours when you’re so obviously in pain.”

“Michael,” Jim said, slamming the chair onto the floor then sitting. “Who would have tried to kill Samantha for getting pregnant?”

“I dunno. Maybe it was just some random person.”

“Uh huh, that’s what she said, too.”

“See?”

“Coincidence?”

“It happens.”

“Twice?”

“This is New York…”

“Do you know anything about her family?” Karen asked.

“No. She rich?”

“Do you know why she’d make a bunch of tapes to make her mom think she was going around Europe with Josiah and a church group?”

“She’s always been a little storyteller. She liked to talk. She loved to lie.”

“And?” Karen asked.

“And I don’t know.”

“What do you know about Pipsqueak?”

“Just a street name. You gotta go incognito sometimes,” he said with a grin.

“Don’t give me that look,” Karen said.

“You think I’m too young for you, is that it?”

Jim almost laughed, but he kept a straight face and said, “Michael, on topic. What’s this poison?”

“I don’t know. It kills people and dissolves in the blood. Josiah invented it.”

“Yeah? What forms does it take?”

“I dunno. I’ve never seen it before. Josiah always administers it.”

“Who’s your friend?” Karen asked.

“Antoine?”

“The guy we arrested with you.”

Michael stood up and stretched. “Antoine. He’s pretty harmless. Dumb as a post, you know. Half the time he can’t remember his own name,” he said almost smugly. “Can I go now?”

Jim found himself laughing. He shook his head with a big grin. “Sit back down and stay a while; you’re not going anywhere.”

“But I told you everything—”

“You admitted to killing at least one person and being an accessory to others. Even if it wasn’t your idea, even if your own life was in danger, you’re still responsible for their deaths. Do you understand that?”

“But—”

“Sit,” Jim invited casually.

Michael didn’t seem overly thrilled to hear they weren’t going to let him go. He shifted in his chair, over and over. Jim waited patiently and was glad Karen did the same. “You know, you worked me over pretty good,” Michael finally said. “Can I get an aspirin?”

Jim glanced over at Karen. He stood up. “Yeah… I’ll go get you a glass of water, too.”

“You don’t have to,” Michael said. “She can go.”

“Nah.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I can get an aspirin. You stay put.”

Jim opened the door to find Fisk waiting for him. “What’s his game?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want Tom and Marty in there?”

“Karen can watch him, you guys keep an eye on him from the observation room, if he tries anything, we’re ready.” Jim held a cup under the water cooler and pressed the button over the spigot.

“He was awfully quiet before he asked for an aspirin.” Fisk followed Jim back to his desk.

“Wouldn’t you be quiet for a minute while you decided whether or not to kill yourself?” Jim tapped two aspirin into his palm.

“You think that’s what he’s planning?”

“Is it a coincidence he asked for aspirin?” Jim held up the bottle, tilting it so the pills jiggled, then tossed it back in his desk. Suddenly he froze while closing the desk drawer and thrust his hand out toward the boss, open to reveal the aspirin. It was the same bottle he’d used earlier, but… “Aspirin, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Take a good look. ‘Cause if this kid was looking for files and moving things, it’s not that hard for him to slip a few things into a bottle that look like aspirin.” Jim couldn’t believe how fast his heart was racing, keeping pace with his mind as it ran through scenarios.

Fisk grabbed his hand and took a good look. “These are.” He pushed past Jim to the desk and removed the bottle, dumping the contents onto the desk. Jim listened to him sifting through, dropping pill after pill into the bottle. He shuddered as each pill dropped hollowly into the container. “Let’s just hope he never thought that way,” Fisk muttered. “You all keep an eye out.” He screwed the lid back on and dropped the bottle back into the drawer, slamming it shut. “These are okay.”

Jim let his eyes close with relief that washed over him so thoroughly he wanted to melt onto the floor.

“You took some?” Fisk asked.

Jim nodded.

“We’ll search this place top to bottom tomorrow, just in case. You’re right, if they were looking at files, it’s not much of a stretch that they could be covering their tracks, trying to get us off the trail.”

“I better get back,” Jim said.

“We’re ready, if you need help.”

“Thanks.” Jim clasped the pills tightly.

Jim stepped into the room behind Michael. He reached over the kid’s shoulder and set down the cup. “Here.” He held out his hand.

“It’s okay, I have one.”

“Watch!” Karen yelled from the other side of the room near the two-way mirror. “The watch,” she clarified, moving quickly around the table.

Jim grabbed the kid, pinning his arms down. The cast thunked against the chair. He heard the cup drop, hitting the table as he yanked Michael to his feet. Water spilled and dripped slowly to the floor.

“It’s hollow,” Karen told Jim.

Jim felt her take the watch from Michael’s wrist and pat him down.

The door opened behind him and Tom, Marty, and Fisk hurried in.

“We’ll take him down to the Tombs and keep him on suicide watch,” Fisk said. “You’ll have officers watching you all night. Don’t get any ideas.”

“I got him,” Tom said just to Jim’s left.

Jim felt Tom’s hands taking Michael’s arms and relinquished the kid. Two years before, he never would have given up custody to a younger detective, but now he let go and stepped out of the way.

He let his hand explore the two cuts on his face that had probably been made by that watch.


* * *


Jim leaned against the wall outside the interview room.

“It’s a good start,” Fisk said.

“I think he’s a prime candidate for an insanity plea,” Jim said.

“Insanity or no, we’ll get his statement in the morning when he cools down.”

“We’re lucky he’s still alive,” Karen said. “Jim, if you hadn’t broken his wrist, he’d have had those pills out of that watch a whole lot faster.”

Jim shook his head. “I should have broken his other wrist. Then maybe he wouldn’t have had the watch anymore at all.”

“You still holding up okay?” Fisk asked. “It’s been a long day.”

Jim tried to pull himself away from the wall, but his body wouldn’t move. “I’m good,” he said. He grinned up at the boss. “I thrive on this stuff.”

Fisk chuckled. “Right.”

“I don’t like him,” Marty said, walking back up after dropping Michael down in the Tombs.

“We’re not asking you to take him to a tea party,” Karen said.

“I don’t believe a word he says.”

“Good for you.”

“You know what he did on the way to the Tombs? He cried. He asked me for a hug.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re such a sympathetic guy, Marty,” Jim said.

“Then the kid started yelling out Bible verses, you know the one about “now though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”? Only he ended it with, we’re all doomed ‘cause Uncle Josiah’s gonna kill us all.”

“If anything he’s saying is true, it looks like it all goes back to Uncle Josiah,” Tom said. “Looks like Gandhi’s gone bad.”


* * *


Jim leaned against the windowsill behind Karen.

“Michael Hershach, 23,” Karen read. “Didn’t he say he was 19?”

“And a half,” Jim added.

“That’s a pretty specific lie,” Tom said.

“Keep reading,” Fisk ordered. “We’ll hash out the details later.”

Karen dropped something, causing Jim to jump in the silence. She swore. “He went to the same high school as Samantha Whittleton for about a year.”

“If he knew her, why’d he give us his real name?” Tom asked. “’Cause I’m not so sure he really was just Josiah’s right hand man.”

Jim sat back in his chair. “You know, I think he honestly thought we were going to let him go, and not look into his background.”

“Why?” Tom asked skeptically. “He had to know we wouldn’t take it all at face value.”

“I think because he was cooperating. Because Uncle Josiah’s the big fish here. If he thought all we wanted was Josiah, he wouldn’t be too worried about covering himself.”

“Hey, boss,” Karen said. “They took DNA from this kid while they were fixing him up, right?”

“Right.”

“Can we run a paternity test on Samantha’s kid? I just have a hunch…”

“Sure. What else?” Fisk asked.

“No criminal record. Studied chemistry in college, but never finished. Looks like he won a lot of debate awards, good at arguing. A couple awards for young entrepreneurs. No real job history. All his knowledge is in theory, no practice.”

“What’s his status? Missing? Dead?” Fisk asked.

“Nothing reported.”

“I’ll get in touch with his family tomorrow morning.”

“Uh…” Karen started awkwardly. “His parents really are dead. He was an only child. Mom died of complications to cancer, dad of heart disease. Looks like his grandmother’s still alive, though. And an uncle.”

Fisk grumbled. “That’s my favorite part of this job, calling the grandparents of some overachiever and telling them their perfect kid has gone off the deep end.”

“Glad it’s you and not me,” Tom said.

“Let’s call it a night,” Fisk said. “We all need some sleep.”

Jim shook his head. “One last order of business,” he said.

“Yeah?” Fisk almost sounded annoyed.

“I have to run Richard White through the system or it’ll drive me crazy all night.”

“Richard White?” the lieutenant asked.

“AKA, Rico Artez. We finally got DeLana to talk.”

“Oh. Good. I’m heading out, though.”

“Night, boss,” Jim said.

“See you tomorrow.”

Jim settled into his chair. If he was sore now he couldn’t imagine how he’d feel after a night in bed. He stretched before putting in his earpiece and getting to work.

“Richard White, convicted felon,” Jim said quietly a few minutes later. He wasn’t sure what the other detectives were up to, just that they’d stuck around with him for a while.

“What?” Karen asked incredulously.

“That’s what it says.”

“What for?”

“Murder.”

“No,” Karen said.

“If that’s what it says,” Marty argued.

“No,” she argued back. “He wouldn’t kill anyone.”

“Karen,” Jim said calmly. “You never can tell with some people. They don’t all come with a rap sheet a mile long.”

“Just read the rest,” she said.

Jim recited from memory instead of playing the file over. He gestured to the computer. “Says he murdered some old lady and died in prison.”

“We know he’s not dead, so who says he was ever actually convicted of anything? What if the file was tampered with? Like our files?”

Jim nodded. “I’ll give you that much.” He turned off his computer. “That’s enough for tonight. I’m headed home.”

“You want a ride?”

Jim checked his watch. It was after eleven; he wasn’t sure of the train schedule from the precinct to home that late at night, and he really didn’t want to wait around, not in the condition he was in, so he nodded. “Sure, thanks.” Jim slid his laptop into his bag. He’d have to fix the rest of the squad tomorrow, move the furniture back into place then.

“What do you think?” Karen asked in the car.

“About Rico?”

“No, about Michael.”

Jim shook his head. “I’m not done with him yet. Not by a long shot. What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t trust him.”

Jim grinned. “Of course not. You never trust a criminal.”

“Do you think he’s telling the truth about Uncle Josiah? And how he killed Michael’s parents?”

Jim thought it through over several blocks, listening to the car and thinking. He could hear the tires on the street, feel the pot holes, hear other cars passing. “I think that man is capable of anything. But did he actually do it?” He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said slowly.


* * *


Jim got home and reached for the light switch out of habit. He was surprised to find the light already on. “Christie?” he said quietly, trying to scan the apartment for sounds.

“Yeah?” she mumbled, sounding half-asleep.

“You didn’t have to wait up.” He dropped his keys off and went to the couch without taking off his coat or Hank’s harness.

“I wanted to,” she said.

“It’s late.” He helped her stand, exhausted himself. She snaked an arm around his back and he winced as she put pressure on one of his bruised ribs, but she didn’t seem to notice. His free hand explored what it could reach, finding her already in a nightgown with a robe over the top, the silk robe, long and red if he remembered correctly. She’d bought it for Valentine’s Day one year.

“How’d it go?” she asked, burying her face in his shoulder.

“I’m tired and so are you. We can talk in the morning.”

“Okay. Let me go get the light.”

“I’ll get it,” he offered, sitting her on the bed and pulling off the robe. “I need to take care of Hank.”

He turned the light off first before unharnessing Hank and getting him a fresh bowl of water. Some days he didn’t even think of light switches, others he found himself turning lights on and off out of habit, his hand on the switch before he realized what he was doing. He must really be tired, he thought, to be trying to turn on the light now. It had probably been a month since the last time he’d done it.

Hank lapped at the water. It was a clumsy sound and Jim knew he should wait for the dog to finish, then wipe up around the bowl, but Hank had been napping on and off all day. The dog was awake, but Jim could feel the extra hours of interrogating, along with the beating he’d taken, and all the energy he’d poured into it in concentration, not to mention the psychological repercussions of having someone move things around the squad. He needed sleep.

Jim crawled into bed a few minutes later, having changed and checked for other lights, making sure the apartment was dark. Christie was already asleep and he gathered her close, kissed her neck, and fell asleep easier than he had in years.

[greenbeing]

Chapter Twenty-Two


Jim awoke to his phone ringing. The sound was faint and he realized he’d left it in his coat pocket when he’d come home. He groaned as he sat up, muscles aching and bruises sore. His knee snapped as he put it over the side of the bed, but it felt better after that. He limped into the living room slowly, the phone still ringing.

“Dunbar,” he mumbled when he fished it out.

“It’s Karen. Get ready. We found Artez.”

“You’re joking, right? Isn’t it still dark out?”

“So what?” she asked.

“What time is it?”

“4:12. I’ll pick you up.”

“Where’d they find him?”

“Hospital. He had another seizure.”

“But he’s still alive?” Jim asked incredulously, his mind finally waking up and wrapping around the new information.

“Yep.”

“Okay.” He groaned as he stretched the sleep out of his body. “Come get me, I’ll be ready.”

“You know, you shouldn’t party all night if you can’t get up in the morning,” Karen said, then hung up.

“Don’t I wish,” Jim mumbled and limped off for a hot shower.

He groaned under the pulsating water. He turned his back away from the spray, but that didn’t help, as it hit one of his ribs. He thought of counting every sore spot, but decided he didn’t want to know.

Was it worth it?

He opened his eyes and stared at the sound of water coming from the shower head. He turned his head away, thinking it over carefully.

It was definitely worth it. This is what he’d wanted, this was what he’d been afraid he’d never have again. Not so much fighting a perp, but having control over a bad guy and making the world a better place. Getting a low-life off the street. Making himself useful. Even when he’d started back at the precinct, he’d thought he’d never have a chance to prove he was useful. Even if it had scared Karen, even if it had scared him, he’d proven he could do it. Even if it scared his wife, even though he was a little banged up, it was worth it. Back on the job, locking up guys like Michael, trying to help girls like DeLana and her kids. What better way could he spend his time? Sitting around the apartment, getting his pension for not doing anything? Going out and trying to find a different job? That wasn’t for him. Cases like these, no matter how difficult, were what made the job worthwhile.

And now he was almost excited, even as he avoided the lump on his head while he shampooed his hair, that he would get to talk to Artez again. The guy wasn’t dead.

He yawned. A couple more hours of sleep might have been nice, but he was ready.

He tiptoed into the bedroom. He used to have to turn on the closet light to match his clothes before a middle-of-the-night case like this, and Christie would always wake up, worried about him going out, fussing over him. He didn’t need the light now; always look on the bright side of life, he thought. Jim felt the little Braille labels and pulled out a suit, matching shirt, and tie. He dressed in the dark of the bathroom with the door closed so Christie wouldn’t hear. She didn’t need to worry right then, not after she’d been up waiting for him so late.

Hank had fallen asleep somewhere. He’d jumped up and followed Jim when Karen called, and again when Jim went in to take a shower. But now… Jim listened carefully. He didn’t want to wake up his wife by calling the dog.

At the desk he reached into the drawer for his badge, but found nothing. He paused, thinking. It must still be in the pocket of his overcoat. Along with his cane. He let his keys jingle when he picked them up.

Jim heard Hank rise and shake himself in the bedroom, then come padding out, his toenails clicking on the floor as he came to see what was going on. Jim picked up the harness and Hank bounded over, raring to go. He licked Jim’s hand, then waited patiently for Jim to click the harness in place.

Jim paused at the door, thinking of leaving a note for Christie, then decided it was early enough there was a chance he’d be back before she even woke up.


* * *



“I got coffee,” Karen said when Jim climbed into the car. “Are those bags under your eyes or just another bruise?” she joked.

Jim smiled. He reached for the cup holder by his left knee. Karen had only had to direct him there the first time she brought coffee. “Thanks,” he said.

Hank yawned in the back seat.

“Sorry, Hank,” Karen said, glancing over her shoulder, “no coffee for you.”

“We’re all going to deserve a long nap when this is all over,” Jim said, staring out the side window, his head against the headrest. Karen glanced at him again in the darkness and saw his eyes were closed.

She poked him. “Don’t fall asleep on me.”

He grimaced. “Ow.”

“Another bruise?” she asked sympathetically.

“There will be now.” He smiled a little, though he didn’t turn toward her.

Karen smiled as she drove through sparse traffic on her way to the medical center.

“Tired?” he asked.

“Nah, you?”

“Not at all.”

Karen yawned.

“I heard that,” Jim said, laughing.

She glanced over at him, then stopped at a stoplight. “You don’t seem much worse for wear,” she said.

He shrugged. “What do you want me to look like?”

“I didn’t say you don’t look worse for wear.” She watched him smile, glad she could barely see the scratches on his face. “I just meant, you must be feeling better?”

Jim was shaking his head, pondering the question as he set the coffee cup back in the holder. He rubbed his hands together. “I wasn’t feeling that bad to begin with,” he admitted.

She laughed. “I don’t believe you.”

“No, really,” he said. “I’m sore, yeah, but Karen…” He turned in his seat, struggling against the seatbelt so he could face her. “I can do my job.”

He sounded happy. She wanted to look at him, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn her head. She just concentrated on the light traffic. “I know,” she finally said. He was grinning when she turned finally to look at him.

“Any doubt I had…” He shook his head. “Especially after giving up my gun.” He turned forward and leaned his head back against the headrest.

“Good,” she said shortly, “but meanwhile, we’re working a case and my partner can barely move.”

He laughed and she joined in.


* * *


“May I help you?”

It sounded like a nurse. Jim waited for Karen to speak up. She usually introduced them, but Jim suddenly found he wasn’t even sure Karen was next to him. He quickly pulled out his badge and flashed it. “My name’s Detective Dunbar. I’m looking for one of your patients.”

“Let me take you to the desk. The secretary can look up the room number for you,” she said. She sounded like a seasoned nurse, older than Jim. “But it’s best if you leave your dog in the hall, or the nurse’s station.”

“Right, I know.” He followed her, listening for Karen, but he still didn’t hear her. He could feel his muscles tensing as he wondered what had happened to her.

“Here we are,” the nurse said.

“Thanks.” He could hear people moving to both sides of him.

“To your right,” she said, then walked off.

Jim turned and reached out, feeling the counter, smooth like marble, but not as cold. It felt shiny. He held his badge out again. “My name’s Detective Dunbar, I’m looking for a patient.” He waited for someone to acknowledge him.

“Oh,” a girl said. “Let me get my supervisor.” She sounded young and nervous, like some of the candy stripers he’d met when he was in the hospital.

“Fine,” he said and listened to her get up out of a chair that popped when she rose. Probably a swivel chair that didn’t work right anymore.

“Detective?” a woman asked.

Jim showed his badge one more time then slipped it into his pocket. “I’m looking for a patient who could be going under either Richard White or Rico Artez.” He heard her start typing.

“Richard White is in room 212.”

“Thanks.”

She cleared her throat. “Uh, detective…”

“Yeah?”

“You know,” the woman said, “we didn’t refuse him treatment. We’re not just going to let a man die.”

“But?” Jim prompted.

“But when we ran his name and social security number, looking for insurance—”

“He doesn’t have any.”

“He’s dead.”

Jim tilted his head to the side. “I really can’t tell you for sure whether or not he’s alive, not at this point.”

“Well, I can tell you, the man who’s here? He’s alive.”

Jim nodded with a small smile.

“Jim!” Karen called from down the hall.

He thanked the lady once more, then turned to wait for Karen. “Where’d you go?” he asked when she caught up.

“I stopped to talk to one of the officers who found him. I told you to hold up. Didn’t I?”

“No.” Jim thought back, then shook his head. “At least, I don’t think so.” He grinned. “It’s five in the morning, who knows.”

Karen chuckled. “They found him in an alley. He fell against a trashcan and kept kicking it.”

Jim grimaced. “He’s lucky, then. That someone heard and called an ambulance.”

“He’s just down this hall up here,” Karen said.

Jim followed her and chuckled to himself. “I was wondering if you fell asleep in the elevator. Or maybe you were kidnapped by Uncle Josiah’s henchmen.”

“And you just kept going?”

“You can take care of yourself, right?”

“Right.”

“And someone has to finish this case.”

“It’s about time. I can’t wait.” She paused and touched his arm. “Uh, here it is.”

Jim took a step back and made Hank sit. He stretched a little.

“Double espressos when we leave,” Karen said.

“I’m game. Either that or a nice scotch.”

She giggled. “That’s not funny.”

He smiled. “Shall we?”

“Yeah.”

He followed her footsteps into the room. She excused an officer from watching Artez. “Remember us?”

“How could I forget?” Artez asked hoarsely.

“Jim, chair,” Karen said quietly.

Jim moved to where she was standing and reached out. He gingerly eased himself down, having forgotten to take any pain killers before he left. The relaxing shower was wearing off and he found he was stiffening up again.

“You don’t look so good,” Artez said.

Jim nodded. “I feel worse. How about you?” He listened as Karen pulled up another chair.

“I think I look great.”

Jim nodded. “You up for a conversation?”

“What the hell, you only live once, right? Go ahead.”

“Where’d you go?” Karen asked. “And how’d you get out of jail and did you know the guy who got you out and why’s Uncle Josiah trying to kill you?”

“You owe us some answers,” Jim said.

“I know. But Uncle Josiah’s not trying to kill me.”

“He killed Samantha,” Karen said.

“No, he didn’t.”

“And he ordered you to be broken out of jail.”

“No…”

Jim sighed. “Don’t do this, Artez.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands over his face for a second. “We’re not stupid.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Then why’d you tell us he did?” Jim looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “You told us to look into Pipsqueak, which is the name Uncle Josiah used on the street for years.”

“No…” Artez sounded genuinely confused. “I told you to look into Pipsqueak, yeah—”

“And that’s Uncle Josiah.”

“No. It’s some kid. He worked for Josiah, but he stopped.”

“Who is he?” Karen asked.

“Pipsqueak.”

“Yeah, who is he?”

“That’s all I know.”

“What’s he look like?”

“He’s this skinny kid, young, in his twenties, reddish-blond hair.”

“Michael,” Jim said.

“I never knew his real name.”

“Why’s Michael—Pipsqueak—trying to kill you?”

“I don’t know exactly. I’m guessing ‘cause I was seeing Samantha.”

“Did he kill Samantha?” Karen asked.

“Yeah. Then he sent some guy to break me out of jail. I don’t know why. I thought he’d kill me, but I never got to see Pipsqueak. They told me to stay away from you and maybe I’d live. They were gonna be watchin’ me.”

Jim looked over at Karen. “You don’t think it was just to keep us from talking to Artez and finding anything out, do you?”

“I dunno,” she said.

“What could I tell you?” Rico Artez asked, shifting in his hospital bed.

Jim looked back at him with an incredulous look. “That Uncle Josiah isn’t Pipsqueak.”

“So?”

Jim turned back to Karen. “What’s his game, you think?”

“I think he’s crazy,” Rico said. “Anyone who’s trying to frame Uncle Josiah and bring him down, that’s crazy.”

Jim nodded. “So this guy broke you out of prison. Did you know who he was?”

“Yeah. His name was Reggie, but he told me to call him Brian. I’d met him a long time ago, but he told me I was wrong. I know faces, though. It was him. I think that’s why he let me go, instead of taking me straight to Pipsqueak.”

“Reg Schmidt?” Karen asked.

“You know him? I dunno, I don’t really remember names as well as faces.”

“Okay, so Reggie,” she said, “breaks you out of jail on orders from Pipsqueak, who’s trying to bring about the fall of the greatest messiah of our age. Then what?”

“Then I’ve been bouncing from shelter to shelter. Some of them I couldn’t get in because there were people there what knew me, you know. They knew I wasn’t friends with Uncle Josiah anymore, so I wasn’t welcome.”

“Tell us about Samantha,” Jim said.

“What do you want to know?” Artez asked.

“How’d you meet Samantha?” Karen asked.

“In the hospital. I was going through a little rehab—I’d gotten hurt during one of my episodes and my insurance wasn’t gonna cover me anymore and I was pissed and throwin’ things and then Samantha was there, offerin’ to help. She said her Uncle offered mental, physical, and financial aid and how could I pass it up.”

“What was she doing there, in the hospital?”

“She said she was volunterring. Helpin’ people like me. She said she was like that nun… what’s her name.”

“Mother Theresa?” Karen supplied.

“Yeah, her.”

“You believed her?”

“Sure. Especially when she got me free meds to help with the seizures. She wasn’t just lyin’ and saying she wanted to help. She was helpin’.

“We started sleepin’ together, but she said I shouldn’t start thinking of us like an old married couple, cause’n she was spoken for. She said she had a duty to God.”

“To God or to Uncle Josiah?”

“I kinda think she thought he was God.”

“What about her family? Did you know anything about them?”

“No. She said she di’n have a family.” He sounded like he was getting tired.

“Do you know anything about any tapes she made? Short messages?”

“No.”

“Or why she’d have someone call up her mom and play them, even though she’s dead?”

“No… She’s callin’ her mom still?”

“Yeah.”

“Samantha’s not mean like that, detectives. She wouldn’t…”

“Okay, one last question, then we’ll let you rest,” Jim said.

“’Kay.”

“Rico—Richard,” Jim said. “We know your real name.”

“Good for you. But that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a name.”

“What about the felony?”

“What felony?”

“The time you spent in jail?”

“I ain’t never been arrested.”

“You never killed an old lady and died in prison?”

“Wha—are you messing with me?”

Jim shook his head. “Just thought you should know about your record. If this really is you, someone has you listed as dead.”


* * *

[greenbeing]

* * *


Jim opened the door and stepped out, running into a body. He put out his hands to steady it. “Excuse me,” he said, pulling back when he felt something soft. He’d have to remember to not reach out and touch people when he didn’t know how tall they were, or if they were male or female.

“I know you…” a girl said. She sounded like she was in her mid-twenties, but Jim couldn’t place the voice. “You get in a bar fight?”

Karen stepped up behind Jim.

“Yeah, I know you!” She made a confused noise. “You both look a little… different.”

Karen laughed. She slapped Jim in the arm. “It’s that waitress you were flirting with!”

“What waitress? Oh!” He felt his face getting hot. “In the bar.”

“Yeah,” the girl said.

“Sorry,” Jim said with a little smile. “Good to see you again, how are you?”

Karen poked him. “Enough small-talk.” She turned back to the girl. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see Rico. Is that okay?”

“What do you want with him?” Jim asked, his suspicions rising. Rico was still an important witness; he wasn’t going to let anything happen to the guy.

“I’ve been seeing him,” she said.

“For how long?” Karen asked.

“About a year, on and off.”

“So before his girlfriend was killed.”

“Karen!” Jim reprimanded.

“You don’t want her to know he was cheating? It’s okay for guys to see more than one girl at a time?”

“Karen…”

“It’s okay,” the girl said quickly. “I knew.”

“Did she?” Karen asked.

“Is he cheating on you?” the girl asked.

Jim blushed, but Karen laughed. “Not on me, he’s not,” she said emphatically.

“Enough about our dysfunctional relationship,” Jim said.

“Yeah,” the girl said slyly, “’cause it looks like you’re married. But you’re not,” she said, turning to Karen.

Jim slid his left hand in his pocket. He turned to Karen. “This is awkward.”

“You’re married?” Karen asked, sounding mock-outraged.

Jim laughed.

“Nice dog,” the girl said.

“He is,” Jim answered.

“You mind if I ask what’s going on?” the waitress asked.

“Come on.” Jim reached out carefully and took her arm, turning her toward Artez’s room.

“You’re not going to feel me up again?” she asked.

Jim shook his head quickly.

“Jim!” Karen said.

“I didn’t—I ran into her on the way out the door. That’s it.” He opened the hospital room door. “Rico?” He pushed the waitress in front of him.

“Lila!” Rico exclaimed, sounding happy.

“Are you okay?” She rushed forward toward the bed.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Rico,” Karen said, “did Samantha know you were cheating on her?”

“We weren’t exclusive, I tol’ you that. She kept trying to set me up on dates so I wouldn’t get too attached to her.”

“Does your dear friend here have anything to do with Uncle Josiah or Pipsqueak?” Jim asked.

“No.”

“She safe?”

“Yeah.” His voice softened as he said, “It’s good to see you.”

“We’ll be back,” Jim said. He turned to take Karen’s arm, but she grabbed his hand out of the air.

“Be careful where you put that thing, Casanova,” Karen said.

“Are you two going to be okay?” Lila asked. “I didn’t mean to make any trouble.”

“You didn’t,” Karen said.

Jim settled his hand on Karen’s arm and turned for the door.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Lila asked Rico. “Is that why they were asking all those questions at the bar?”

Jim turned back and pulled his badge out. “Lila, we’re trying to keep him out of trouble. And he needs a place to stay, if you have any room.”

“Yeah. Of course,” she said, suddenly nervous. “Everything okay?”

“We hope so. We’ll be back later.”

Karen opened the door and he followed her back into the hallway. Hank jumped up.

“Is it still dark?” Jim asked when the doors to the hospital slid open.

“Yup,” Karen said.

He checked his watch after he let Hank into the car. “You going home?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. You?”

“Let’s just head down to the squad.”

“Okay. The lieutenant wanted us to call when we were done here.”

“I’ll give him a call.”


* * *


Marty and Tom walked into the squad a little after six.

“You get anything good?” Tom asked.

“Yeah,” Karen said, “Michael’s a name-dropper. It was him using the name Pipsqueak.”

“Artez said he killed Samantha. He swears Uncle Josiah didn’t have anything to do with it,” Jim put in.

“Meaning maybe he’s trying to frame Uncle Josiah,” Tom said, “knowing the name would go straight back to him.”

“And our cop friend, Reg Schmidt, we looked into him more. Artez gave us some more information. He used to work in jewelry, but got fired for tampering with the computers at the store and stealing money. He’d hack in and change the numbers after a big sale, take home the difference. Josiah found him straight from prison, but it looks like he was better friends with Michael.”

“How’d he get Brian Mulhaney’s badge?” Marty asked.

“No idea.”

“I’d guess Michael stole it from Uncle Josiah,” Jim said. “He had access to everything, right, if he’s telling the truth. If he really was Uncle Josiah’s right hand man, he’d learn a lot, he’d get ideas of his own, and he’d have access to anything he needed,” Jim said.

“Great,” Tom said. “I love it when they tell half the truth and doctor up the rest.”

“The lieutenant wants to be here when we bring the kid back up,” Jim said.

“Where is his sorry ass?” Tom asked.

“Tom,” Karen reprimanded, laughing.

“We’re here. Where’s he?”

“Making phone calls,” Jim said. “From home. In his pajamas.”

“Good mental picture, thanks, Jim,” Tom said sarcastically.

“He’s seeing when we can get Artez released so we can talk to him in-house. And he said we need to expect Mrs. Whittleton this morning. She called him at home.”

“Why?”

“She got another message from Samantha.”

“That’s cold, whoever’s doing it.”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed.

“Karen’s sleeping on her desk,” Tom said. “Gonna start drooling any second.”

“’M no’,” Karen mumbled.

“Not such a bad idea,” Jim said. He leaned back in his chair and slid down so he could rest his head on the back. He closed his eyes.

“Not you, too,” Tom said.

“It’s gonna be a long day, Tom,” Jim said quietly. “We need to be able to think, don’t we?”

“Is this kindergarten?” Fisk asked, stomping up. “Nap time?”

Jim groaned. “Five more minutes, Mom.”

“Call me that again, I’ll have your badge.”

Jim heard him slap something on Marty’s desk.

“What’s that?” Jim asked without opening his eyes.

“My notes from my nice phone call with Samantha’s mother.” Fisk groaned and peeled off his coat. “Now I get to go call Michael’s grandmother, too? Hell of a day.”

Jim struggled to sit up and adjusted his tie. He ran his hands over his face and tossed his sunglasses on his desk. “Let’s get it over with.”

“You two talked to Artez? Was he any help?” Fisk asked. “I want some good news here.”

“Yeah, he was helpful,” Jim said.

“You’re not just saying that?”

“You can’t handle the truth? Yeah, he was helpful. Really.”

Fisk pulled out a chair and flopped down. “Good.”

“Sh*t,” Marty said, flipping through the notes. “That is bad.”

“Care to share with the rest of us?” Tom asked.

“It’s not your normal phone call, not like before.”

“Needless to say, Mrs. Whittleton was very upset,” Fisk said. “She’s on her way down here right now with a copy of the tape.”

“Incoherent screaming?” Marty asked.

“Prepare yourselves.”

“Why would Samantha make a tape of herself screaming in the first place?”

“Let’s wait ‘til we hear it before we begin speculating,” Fisk said.

“You two gonna share?” Tom asked. “Or is this a private party?”

Jim heard Marty pass a paper over to Tom.

“Come on,” Jim said. “There’s two more of us.”

“Patience, Dunbar,” Marty said. “You’ll get your chance.”

“I can barely read this,” Tom muttered.

Jim bit his lip.

“It was early, I was tired,” Fisk said, then ran them through the gist of the conversation so they wouldn’t have to struggle with his handwriting.


* * *


“Jimmy!”

Christie’s voice was plaintive. He was afraid she’d been crying, but what for he couldn’t tell. It was almost seven—her alarm would have just gone off. She would have rolled over, seeking a warm body beside her, eyes still closed, felt a cold and empty pillow.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He pushed himself out of his chair and hurried down the hall to the locker room for a little privacy.

“Where are you?”

“We found our missing witness.”

“You went to work?”

“It is my job. We’re in the middle of a case.” He leaned against a locker.

“But you’re hurt!”

He straightened up. He wasn’t going to let anything support him, not even a locker. “I’m not hurt,” he said as quietly and authoritatively as possible.

“You couldn’t take one day—”

“No, I couldn’t. I have a job to do!”

“If they can’t let you take one day—”

“This has nothing to do with whether or not they let me do anything. You know me, Christie. As long as I can move, I’m not going to sit at home when there’s a case to solve.”

“It’s getting too dangerous for—”

He pulled the phone away from his ear like it was trying to bite him. He wanted to swear at her, couldn’t believe she was telling him—

“—without a gun,” she finished.

“Excuse me? Not having a gun is what saved—”

“Once, Jimmy! Russo was right. This one time maybe not having a gun was a good thing, but it proves nothing. The rest of the time, without a gun—”

“Damn it, Christie, stop it. You and Marty both thought it would be best if I didn’t carry a gun and now—I gave it up.”

“A cop needs a gun.”

“So I shouldn’t be a cop anymore?”

“No! You shouldn’t.”

He swore again.

“I know you can’t see yourself as anything but a cop, Jimmy, and I tried to be supportive.”

“It’s not like I never got a little banged up before,” he said evenly after a minute. He’d been going to yell at her, ask how she’d been supportive, plead his case for going back to work—but he’d spent a year doing that with her and the city and the department. The only reason she’d ever supported him was because she was sure higher powers would prevail and he’d get his pension and—then what, he wasn’t sure. But she’d been sure he wouldn’t get his job back; he’d been sure he would be able to get her to come around once he was back at work.

“Jimmy, I love you—”

“You’re a cop’s wife, Christie.” He hung up and turned the phone off.

Jim turned around and suddenly realized he wasn’t alone. “Hello?”

“Just me. Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Marty said.


* * *