Previously published in
Sentry Duty. Thanks to Mysti for allowing me
to post this a
couple of weeks early.
Chain Of Blame
By
Annie
"Hey,
Simon, you got a few minutes?" Joel Taggart asked as he opened
the door to Banks' office.
"Sure, Joel. What's up?"
Simon Banks poured a second cup of coffee
and offered it to his
fellow captain.
"I just got this in my mailbox. It's for
Blair. You'd think the mail
room would have worked out by now
that my name isn't Blair Sandburg,"
Joel said, smiling
grimly. "But that's not the real problem."
Banks
took the envelope from Joel's hand and flipped it over. "These
look like letters cut from a newspaper," he said,
frowning.
"Yeah, like something you see in ransom notes.
I guess the mail
people thought it was some kind of joke or they
didn't look at it
all, just flipped it and let it land wherever,
which is how it ended
up in my pigeonhole. I haven't seen Blair
around for a few days,
so I brought it to you."
Simon shook his head. "Might be some sort of joke. Where's Ellison?"
"Not in the pen. He's on duty today, though."
Simon slit the back of the envelope with his
letter opener and pulled
out the note inside.
"Should
you being doing that?" Joel asked. "Mail's supposed to be
private."
"Not when it's addressed like a ransom
note, especially if it
involves Sandburg," Simon said
bluntly. He opened the paper and read
it, then looked up at Joel,
his eyes wide. "Find Ellison," he
snapped.
"What is it?' Joel asked.
"Just find Jim and get him in here.
I'll tell you then," Simon
said. "See if Blair's
around, too. If he is, bring him with you."
He watched
Joel walk out into the bullpen, then read the note again.
The cut
out letters read starkly:
You killed my
wife,
Sandburg.
Now it's your turn to die.
"What's up, sir?"
Jim stepped inside the office and closed the door
behind him.
"Joel said you wanted to see me."
"Where's Blair?" Simon asked.
Jim shook his head. "I have no
idea," he said. "At the university,
maybe. Why? What's
he done now?"
Simon slid the note across the desk and watched as Jim read it.
"Is this some sort of joke?" Jim asked, handing the letter back.
"You tell me,"
Simon replied. "Give the kid a call and tell him to
get over
here. Better yet, get out to the university and pick him up…
just
in case."
Jim's jaw clenched. "Might be better if
you sent Joel or Rafe, sir,"
he said.
"Why?"
Jim
scrubbed a hand over his face. "He's not too happy with me right
now," he said.
"What happened?" Simon asked.
"The last time I saw him, he stormed into the
loft, told me what had
happened was all my fault and took off.
That was three days ago. I
haven't really seen him since,"
Jim said, slumping down into the
chair in front of Simon's
desk.
Simon sat down as well and fixed Jim with an enquiring
look. "The
Dale case?" he asked.
"Yeah."
Jim shook his head. "He seemed to think that I should have
been
able to arrest Jeff Dale for assaulting his wife, keep him away
from
her—"
"But Sharon Dale refused to press charges,"
Simon finished, "so your
hands were tied."
"Yeah."
Jim sighed. "I explained it to him at the time, when he first
brought her to the loft, after Blair found out her husband was
beating her up. We both tried to talk her around, but she was
adamant
that she couldn't have him charged. She was too scared
of him. She said if she did, he'd track her down and kill
her."
"Blair's been around cops enough to know that," Simon observed.
"I know. I think he knew it, too, but when Sharon's body was found…"
"He thinks
you should have done something, anyway," Simon finished
for
him.
"I guess. I've left him alone since he left in the
hope he'd work
through it all, and realize there was nothing
either he or I could
have done to prevent Sharon being killed
once she went back to Dale,
but I haven't heard from him. I
should have called him, gone to see
him—"
"Uh-uh!"
Simon wagged an admonishing finger in Jim's face. "No blame
game. Sandburg's carrying enough guilt now for both of you. Look,
Jim, this might be a hoax letter, a prank cooked up by one of his
students—"
"Or it could be the real thing,"
Jim said, standing up. "The only
thing I can't understand is
how Jeff Dale thinks he's going to get to
Blair. He's been in
jail for the past two
weeks, hasn't he?"
Simon
nodded. "Yep, no bail and he's not up for trial til next
month. Jim, just go find your partner and let's see if we can get
to
the bottom of this, all right?"
"You got it, sir."
oOo
Blair leaned back against the rock at
his back and breathed in a
lungful of crisp Washington mountain
air. He tilted his head back and
watched the wisps of white cloud
floating above him, through the pale
blue sky. Wind ruffled his
hair and he reached back, tugging loose
the tie that kept his
hair confined, letting the breeze card through
his curls. Finally
feeling relaxed and at peace for the first time in
weeks, he
dropped his head forward and rested it on his bent knees,
allowing
his breath to ease in and out in a calming rhythm.
This was
he'd needed, he thought. It wasn't that he'd really blamed
Jim
for Sharon Dale being murdered, but with each day that passed
after
her death, and the apprehension of her husband, Blair had not
had
time to grieve. Within minutes of Jeff Dale being picked up,
Blair
and Jim were heading back to the station to write up their
final
reports of the case. Then they'd attended Sharon's autopsy and,
in
short order after that, her funeral.
Blair had tried to put
it behind him then, had tried to focus on
going back to work with
Jim, guiding him in his role as a Sentinel,
but the anger at
Sharon's pointless death had festered away inside.
He could have
asked to see the police psychiatrist, he knew, but
he felt that
would be admitting defeat, admitting he couldn't hack
being Jim's
partner. So, he'd pushed the case to the back of his mind
and
concentrated on whatever job was at hand at the time, be it
teaching
at the university or helping Jim with a case. He'd thought
he was
getting over it.
Then another case had come in. The victim was
unknown to Blair, but
it had hit him hard just the same. This
time there were children
involved. A man had gone berserk and
shot his wife and three small
children to death, then killed
himself. A neighbor said he'd been
beating his wife for months,
but she refused to press charges, even
when the neighbor had
called police, worried about the kids.
It had been too much.
Blair'd gone over it and over it in his mind
and it just didn't
make sense. How could the police sit back and wait
for a
traumatized woman to want to press charges when the evidence of
what
had been done to her was right there in front of their eyes? How
could they expect someone so frightened of retribution to turn in
her
tormenter?
He and Jim had discussed it repeatedly the
night before he left, Jim
explaining the legalities of it while
Blair sat stony-faced.
After a sleepless night, he'd had
enough. He'd stormed out to the
kitchen where Jim was cooking
breakfast; told him Sharon's death was
all his fault and slammed
out the front door.
He hadn't meant it. It wasn't Jim's fault
that the laws were the way
they were, that sometimes Blair felt
that they were written more to
protect the guilty than the
innocent. But Jim was a symbol of all
Blair had come to see wrong
about the system, he was also
Blair's friend and within reach and
so Blair had thrown that in his
face and then left.
He
felt bad about it now. Now that the sun was shining and the sky
was
blue and he was calmer and could think more clearly.
He stood
up and stretched. He'd stay another night, then he'd go back
to
Cascade and tell Jim he was sorry, that he'd felt burnt out and
out
of control.
He picked up his cell phone from the ground at
his feet and switched
it on. Maybe he should at least call Jim
first. Let him know where he
was and that he was okay. Regardless
of the hurtful words Blair had
thrown at him, Blair knew Jim was
probably
worried about him by now.
Jim would have waited
a couple of days before trying to contact him,
wanting to let
Blair have his space, and wrestle with whatever demons
were
attacking him. But he'd be concerned that Blair hadn't called by
now, and Blair hated the thought that he'd caused Jim additional
worry on top of the unfair accusation he'd thrown at Jim before
he left. He punched in speed dial one and waited for Jim to pick
up.
"Hey, Jim, it's me—"
"Sandburg?
Where the hell are you? I've been looking all over campus
for
you!"
"What? Why? What's happened, Jim?" Blair
could hear the tenseness of
Jim's tone, even through the tinny
reception of his cell.
"You got a letter at the PD. I
think it's from Jeff Dale. He's
threatening to kill you. Where
are you?"
"Jeff Dale? Why would he…?" Blair
blew out a breath and wiped a hand
over his face, trying to
school his thoughts to some sort of
coherence. "I'm in the
mountains, about an hour from Cascade. I'll
head back
down—"
"All right, use the usual route," Jim
interrupted. "I'll meet you on
the way."
"Okay.
Shit!" Blair instinctively threw himself flat to the ground as
the cell phone was jerked out of his hand accompanied by the
sound of
gunfire. A second later, another shot kicked up dirt
near his face
and he rolled to his side, one hand snaking out to
grab the phone. He
made it to his feet and took off in a
doubled-over run for the
shelter of the boulder he'd been sitting
against before. He'd almost
reached it when a bullet punched into
the back of his arm, sending
him forward to land in a crumpled
heap at the base of the rock, the
phone falling from his numb
fingers.
oOo
"Blair!" Jim yelled into the
phone as the connection went dead. He
pressed down harder on the
gas pedal, then dialed Banks' number one-
handed as he kept a
precarious watch
on the road ahead.
"Jim, I was just
about to call you," Banks said as soon as he picked
up.
"Blair's in trouble. He's in the mountains. I'm
heading up Highway 54
to meet him, but his phone went dead,"
Jim said tersely.
"Rafe and Brown spoke to Jeff Dale. He
said Sharon had been married
to a guy named David Dwyer before
they hooked up. Apparently, Dwyer
tried to get her to come back
to him when he found out Dale was
mistreating her. He's the one
who convinced her to go to the cops and
file a complaint,"
Banks said.
"Look, I need backup and an ambulance just in
case," Jim
replied. "I'm halfway there."
"On
its way," Banks replied. "Jim, be careful. Wait til backup
gets
there. If you're going to help Blair, you need to be in one
piece to
do that."
"I know. I can't promise I'll
wait for backup, though. It's going to
be at least a half-hour
behind me. Blair's in trouble now. Simon, I
gotta hang up. I need
to concentrate on driving." Jim thumbed off the
phone and
tossed it down onto the passenger seat.
oOo
Blair
managed to roll to his back, cradling his injured, heavily
bleeding
arm against his side. He lifted his head warily, unsure if
any
movement from him would bring a hail of bullets his way. When
nothing happened, he pushed himself to his uninjured side and
crabbed himself further into the shelter of the boulder.
A
bullet chipped the rock inches from his head and he ducked
instinctively, yelping in pain as the sudden movement caused a
bolt
of lightning-like pain to flash down his arm.
Peering
cautiously around the rock, he saw a tall, beefy man standing
about
twenty feet away, a rifle aimed in his direction. "Who are
you?" he yelled. "You shot me, man!"
"That's
just what I was trying to do," the man replied casually as if
he wandered the mountains, shooting people every day.
"Why?"
Blair asked, honestly perplexed. He didn't recognize the man,
though
his vision was a little blurry from the effects of shock and
blood
loss right now. Even so, he thought he'd recognize someone who
hated
him enough to want to kill him. It couldn't be Jeff Dale. The
guy
was still in prison... wasn't he?
"You're Blair Sandburg,
right?" the man asked, dropping to hunker on
the ground, the
gun still aimed unerringly in Blair's direction. "You
might
as well admit it. I followed you here from your home. I've been
watching you for a while, anyway."
"Yeah, I'm Blair Sandburg. Who the hell are you?"
"Name's David Dwyer."
Blair riffled through his memory, but came up
blank. "I don't think I
know you," he said finally. He
glanced down at his arm. His shirt was
red with blood all the way
down to his wrist, and he clamped his
other hand around his
bicep, trying to plug the small hole in the
back with his
fingertips.
"You don't," Dwyer replied, "but you knew Sharon."
"Sharon— Oh, God," he said,
understanding suddenly dawning. "You knew
Sharon
Dale?"
"She was my wife before she divorced me and
took up with that scumbag
Dale."
"Oh, man, I am so sorry."
"Not as sorry as you're going to be. You didn't get my note, I guess?"
Blair shook his head, his
brain trying to keep track of the surreal
conversation. He was an
academic, he told himself. He was good with
words. The Great
Obfuscator, Jim called him. He could do this. All he
had to do
was keep talking, keep Dwyer from shooting him again and
give Jim
time to get here. His vision clouded over momentarily
and he felt
bile rise to bitterly coat his tongue. He swallowed it
down,
gagging as it touched the back of his throat, then coughed,
clearing
his throat. "No, I didn't get your note. You didn't answer
my
question. Why did you shoot me? I tried to help Sharon, tried to
stop her going back to Dale."
"You told her the
cops would stop him hurting her and when they
didn't do anything,
he tracked her down and convinced her to go back
to him and he
killed her, you asshole!" Dwyer screamed the last
words,
standing up again and cocking the rifle.
Blair tried to duck
deeper into the shelter of the boulder, unable to
stop a moan
that seeped past his lips as his wounded arm protested
the sudden
movement. His fingers, slippery with his blood, slipped
off the
wound and the blood began to drip more freely
again. He fought
the fog clouding his thoughts and focused on Dwyer's
voice. There
was honest emotion there—not just anger, but real grief…
He
moved forward again and spoke gently. "You really loved her,
David, didn't you?"
"I still love her,"
Dwyer screamed back. "You think I'd do something
like this
for someone I didn't… didn't…" The rifle barrel drooped to
the ground as Dwyer sank to his knees, his face contorted with
emotion, tears running down his stubbled cheeks.
"Why'd
you two divorce?" Blair asked, hoping to find a way into
Dwyer's mind and heart, edging further out from his sanctuary
even as
he kept his blurry gaze fixed on the rifle's direction.
"I only knew
Sharon for a few months. She was a TA in the
same department as me. I
didn't know she'd been married before.
She helped me out a lot, you
know. Covered classes for me when I
was in the hospital once when I
got hurt."
"Sharon
was always helping people," Dwyer said, his voice soft now,
too. "That's how Dale suckered her in. He told her he had
cancer and
that he needed someone to look after him… Told her
he'd give her the
sun and moon if she'd move in with him."
"What
about you two, though?" Blair went to his knees, his hand now
wrapped firmly once more around his wounded arm. "What
happened? I
can see how much you love
her…"
Dwyer
looked over at him, then he put the rifle on the ground and
shoved
it toward Blair. "Take it," he said. "Shoot me. I
don't want
to live in a world without her in it, anyway. I'd
always hoped we'd
get back together, but…."
Blair
scrambled awkwardly to his feet and stepped over to the gun,
picking
it up. He clicked the safety on, then turned and placed the
rifle
on top of the boulder. Turning back to Dwyer, he took a few
steps
forward until he was right in front of him, then dropped to his
knees so he was on the same level as the other man. He hissed
with
the pain of the descent, but reached out his blood-covered
hand and
placed it on Dwyer's shaking shoulder.
"Sharon
wouldn't want you dead," Blair said. "Tell me about you and
her, okay?"
Dwyer slumped back onto his backside in
the dirt and Blair moved to
sit along side him.
"Not
much to tell," Dwyer began. "We met in high school, fell in
love
and got married right after graduation. I was all tied up in
my
career. I'm a finance consultant. I was going places. Sharon
wanted
kids, I wanted to wait. Eventually we just stopped talking
to each other. Every time we tried, we'd just end up arguing. In
the
end, she asked me for a divorce. I was so wrapped up in my
work that
I just agreed. Anything to have peace and quiet, you
know? But we
stayed friends, talked on the phone all the time."
He turned his head
and gave Blair a shaky smile. "I was so
proud of her when she went
to college. I thought, when she gets
her degree, maybe we can talk
about getting back together, have
those kids she wanted so badly…"
"But before that could happen she met Jeff Dale?"
Dwyer nodded. He looked
down at Blair's arm, seemingly suddenly
horrified by the state it
was in. He pulled his shirt out of the
waist of his pants and
ripped off a strip, then used it to fashion a
bandage around
Blair's arm. "You need to get to a hospital," he
said.
"You can take my car."
Blair shook his head. "I'm
not going anywhere without you, David.
We'll go back to Cascade
together. We'll talk to the cops together,
too."
Dwyer
shook his head and Blair watched as his gaze shifted to the
rifle
lying on the rock a few feet away. He grabbed Dwyer's arm and
shook
it hard. "That is not what Sharon would want, David. Besides, I
feel like I'm about to pass out any time and I can't make
it
back to town on my own." As if to lend credence to his words,
Blair was struck by a nauseating head-spin and he slumped
forward,
trying to force himself to take deep, calming breaths as
his pulse
thundered in his ears.
"Dwyer! Put your hands in the air and stand up slowly!"
Blair looked up
and watched through a filmy haze as Jim stepped out
of the
scrubby bushes to his left, his Sig Sauer pointed unerringly
at
Dwyer.
A sudden scrabble of movement brought his eyes around
to Dwyer and he
saw the man stand, then make a movement forward
toward the boulder
where the rifle lay.
"No!"
Blair yelled, sidestepping so he was in front of Dwyer,
blocking
both Jim's shot and Dwyer's way forward. "Jim, don't shoot.
He
wants to give himself up. David, don't do this to Sharon's memory.
You have to live for her. Someone should remember her,
honor
her life, and make the world better because she was in it. You
can
do that. You say she wanted kids? Then devote your life to them,
make the world a better place for a kid somewhere…"
Dwyer
stared back at him and shook his head, then without a word, he
dropped to his knees and laced his fingers behind his
head.
Blair let out a sigh of relief and sank down onto the
ground beside
him as Jim came over and handcuffed Dwyer, then
moved him away from
Blair.
Minutes later, Blair heard
sirens approaching and soon Dwyer was on
his way back to Cascade
in a patrol car.
The next thing Blair was completely aware of
was finding himself flat
on his back on a gurney, a
worried-looking Jim standing at his side
as a paramedic placed a
pressure bandage on his wounded arm and
started an IV in the
other.
"I'm sorry," Blair mumbled out, feeling
overwhelmingly tired now, as
if all that had kept him upright
until now was adrenaline, which had
leached away along with his
blood.
"We'll talk about it later," Jim said
tersely, but his gaze was
concerned.
Blair thought that
maybe he was forgiven for his hasty words in the
loft. He nodded
and felt Jim's big hand clench around his own, a
gesture of
reassurance so obvious that Blair finally gave in to the
darkness
enticing him and closed his eyes.
oOo
"I'm
sorry." Blair repeated the words he'd said on the mountain. "I
know it wasn't your fault. I knew it back when I said it, too. I
was
just angry at the system and…" His voice trailed off
and he shifted
uncomfortably in the bed, fixing his eyes on the
back of his
hand where the IV needle punctured his skin. His arm
wound throbbed
distantly, the pain held at bay by the narcotic in
his system. He
felt woozy and vaguely nauseous as if he'd had one
too many beers.
"I was a symbol of that system," Jim
said. "It's okay, Chief. You're
not the first person to
blame the cops for what looks like an
injustice of the
law."
Blair looked up into Jim's eyes, seeing the
forgiveness there. "It
was like a chain of blame," he
said after a moment. "I blamed you,
David blamed me…"
He shook his head. "The only person who was really
to blame
was Jeff Dale—"
"And he's in jail," Jim reminded him.
"What about David?" Blair asked. "I
don't think he ever really meant
to kill me. He could have easily
taken me out with a head shot,"
Blair shuddered a little as
he said the words, "but he didn't. It was
like he
deliberately aimed for my arm, as if he couldn't go through
with
what he thought he wanted to do."
"David Dwyer is a
registered marksman at his firearms club," Jim
said. "If
he'd wanted to kill you, he could have. He's going to be
tried
for shooting you, of course, but I'm pretty sure his lawyers
will
go for a temporary insanity defense."
"So he'll get
some help, right?" Blair asked. "He loved her so much…"
He shook his head as he remembered Sharon the last time he'd seen
her; her pretty face bruised and streaked with tears. "She
was
special."
He slumped back down on his pillows and
rolled to his side away from
Jim, willing the burning in his eyes
not to spill over into
tears. "I'm fine, Jim," he said
as steadily as his emotions would
allow. "Why don't you go
home and get some sleep?"
A warm hand gripped his
shoulder, then softened into a pat. He heard
ruffling as Jim
shifted in the chair then the unmistakable sound of a
newspaper
being unfolded.
"I'm fine where I am," Jim said.
"Get some sleep, Chief. Tomorrow
we'll both go home."
End
