Author's Note: I do not own Justified, any of its characters or anything else by EL or F/X. This is just for fun. I didn't mean to use your name if I did. Relax. Kick your disbelief to the curb. Review if you'd like; PM if you want to discuss something or comment on the weather. Isn't fanfiction fun? I mean, seriously, it's just plain fun. And it's a cheap hobby, too!
Justice while she winks at crimes,
Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
- Samuel Butler
Stumbling on Innocence – Chapter One
It was just before 2am and Tim was awake and giggling. He'd wrestled himself out of a dream that he wasn't enjoying and had woken to something better, one of his favorite past times – listening to Miljana talk in her sleep. Tonight it was mostly Serbian, and though he hardly understood a word of it, it was still funny. He wanted to cry, it was so innocent.
His phone rang, broke the spell and she rolled over against him and went quiet. He pouted and reached over to the bedside table for his cell.
"Gutterson," he whispered.
"Tim." It was Raylan. "You busy?"
Tim pulled the phone away from his ear and slid carefully out of bed, grabbed a shirt off the floor and padded softly into the hallway in his boxers.
"Tim?"
"Hold on a minute," he grumbled, set down the phone to pull on his shirt. It was late fall and a chilly night.
"Tim?"
He put the phone to his ear. "What, Raylan?" He ran a hand over his head to calm his hair.
"Can you pick me up at the hospital?"
"No. Call a cab."
"Come on, buddy. It's the middle of the night. It's not like you have something else to do."
"Sleep?"
"You were awake when I called. I could tell. A late night drive might be just the thing to settle you down."
A face palm and a hand drag down to his chin, Tim gritted his teeth. He never said 'no', not to anyone, and Raylan knew it. Tim pretended to sometimes, tried it on for size – no, Raylan or no, Rachel – but they just waited for it to turn into a fine, just give me a minute. And it always did.
"Fine, just give me a minute."
"I'll meet you in Emergency."
Miljana never heard no, either. She had called him a sap, lovingly of course, sitting at the table in the kitchen one morning teasing him, coaching him on the forming of the word. She pursed her lips, exaggerated the motion, mouthed no. He played along, the two of them trying not to laugh. "No," he repeated for her dutifully then ten minutes later he was agreeing to help her – help her friend move actually – on his one day off that week. She shook her head in defeat, said, "sap," lovingly of course.
And now Tim stood in the hallway, practicing again, mouthed 'no' at the now-silent phone then crept back into the bedroom and hunted around in the dark for the rest of his clothes. Putting one leg then the other into a pair of jeans, he caught himself repeating the word in his head – sap, sap, sap – idly wondering if it translated into Serbian.
"What happened to you?" Tim leaned against the wall in the Emergency triage area, one eyebrow sitting up awake. He counted the visible stitches on Raylan's face, did an inventory of the scraped knuckles and myriad bruises, formed a story in his head from the clues.
"I fell down a flight of stairs."
"Long flight," Tim commented.
Raylan, too, was doing an inventory. "Sidearm, one backup – or do you have a second?" He pointed to Tim's ankle.
"Knife," Tim corrected. "I left my second in the truck."
"Okay." Raylan started again, "Sidearm, backup, knife, badge." He, too, raised an eyebrow. "You ever get that girl pregnant, don't go to meet her at the hospital like this, okay? I asked for a ride, not an armed escort."
"Raylan, I'm not stupid." Tim paused, looked up at the ceiling. "Okay, so it's 2:30 in the morning, you've been in another bar brawl and I'm here dealing with it – maybe I am stupid." He shook his head. "But that's not the point. The point is, if these were serious injuries," he waved a hand at him, "or this was strictly Marshal business, it'd be Art getting the wake-up call not me. And if you just needed a ride home, you'd have phoned a cab." Tim was on a roll and Raylan let him finish. "So, the big question is, where exactly am I dropping you off and should I have brought my rifle…or maybe some grenades?"
"I got an address on the asshole that threatened the witness in the Frankfort murders." Raylan presented his purpose like a cat smugly dropping half a mouse on the kitchen floor.
Tim wasn't impressed. "WITSEC works, Raylan, and you know it. They can't touch her now."
"Still, I got a tip. I'd like to follow up on it while it's fresh."
"Why don't you pass on the address to the guy in charge of the murder investigation and let me go home and get some sleep? I've got a busy day tomorrow...today." Tim rubbed at his eyes. "Including a court appearance first thing."
"I just want to go knock."
"Give me a break, will you?"
"We're just knocking."
"You mean I'm just knocking. You're not rapping on anything with those knuckles."
"So that's a yes?"
Tim sighed, blinked wearily then threw his arms up in defeat. "Fine, let's go knock."
Raylan grinned, stood and put on his jacket.
Tim led the way out. Looking over his shoulder he asked, "What exactly are you hoping to get out of this – a confession?"
"I just want to talk to the guy."
"You know, I looked up the definition of 'talk' in the dictionary, 'cause working with you, I thought maybe I had it wrong all these years. But no, there's nothing listed in Webster's under 'talk' that says anything about beating the shit out of people."
"Did you try the Urban Dictionary?" suggested Raylan helpfully.
"I'll bet it's the same there unless you submitted a definition."
"I'm tempted. It'd be handy to be able to point to it next time we have one of these conversations."
Tim halted mid-step, squeezed his eyes tight shut, "Shit, there's a next time?"
"Buddy, your imitation of Art keeps getting better and better."
"Life imitates Art, Raylan. That's why everyone listens when he talks – everyone but you."
The house was ugly, dark, uninviting, shifting in a troubling way on its foundation. It sat in an unkempt field a forty-five minute drive out of Lexington. It could be described as a country home in a real estate listing, if any real estate agent would ever be willing to list it.
A mattress lay in the front yard, torn, its guts spilling, a rusting set of rims were stacked to one side of the driveway next to a pile of old tires, and six vehicles in total, from a camper van to an old Gremlin, were scattered around the property. The backyard fence was a patchwork, some chain link, some old pressboard swelling with moisture and an attempt at a gate with proper wood slats. The garage door was mostly rust and peeling paint, and the paint was peeling on the frame too, and on the door frame, and any window frames that weren't covered over with plywood. A two foot spike embedded in the yard, a chain attached, advertised dog, as did the piles of dog shit visible on the front walk in the dim spread of light from the bare bulb over the door. The smell completed the picture.
A sign read: BEWARE OF DOG. BE AFRAID OF OWNER.
Tim wrinkled his nose, stopped at the edge of the road reluctant to take another step. "Fucking dog owners."
"At least this one has a sense of humor." Raylan pointed out the sign for Tim's amusement.
Tim didn't even smirk. "This place is depressing."
"My God, Tim, when did you get so sensitive?" Raylan teased and took a few cautious steps up the driveway wary of land mines. Tim followed, not daring to take the shorter route over the grass.
"Just how friendly do you think they're going to be when we knock on the door at this hour?" Tim asked, unclipping his sidearm. "Did you get a name?"
"Billy."
"Billy…" Tim stretched out the last syllable, rolled his hand hoping for more.
"Yep, Billy – you got it."
"So it might be Billy the Kid and he might shoot as soon as we manage to navigate through this mess. I don't want to die in a pile of dog poop."
Tim was getting peevish and Raylan ignored him, stopped in front of the garage and eyed the rest of his path in consternation. "Shit," he expressed their dilemma succinctly.
"Well, no shit."
"No, Tim, shit," he pointed. "And lots of it." Up closer to the house, he could see more.
Tim caught up. "Big dog."
Raylan took his hat off and scratched his head, his face screwed up in distaste. "Come on, let's just go knock."
Before they could take another step the side gate opened and someone turned a hose on them. It was surprisingly good pressure for a country well and the two Marshals were soaked in seconds. Raylan turned to the attacker, was blinded by the beam of a flashlight. He held out a hand, a futile attempt to stop the deluge, yelled out angrily, "Hey, turn that off before one of us shoots you."
Tim had his sidearm out and must have looked serious about Raylan's threat because the water sputtered off.
"And the flashlight!"
The beam flickered down.
Raylan stared annoyed at their assailant, a tiny wisp of a woman in a beater and sweats, barefoot.
"Goddammit, what did you do that for?" he snapped, wiping at the water dripping into his eyes.
"Who are you?" she demanded, husky little voice. "What are you doing sneaking around my house at three in the morning?"
Raylan pulled out his Marshal's identification. "We're US Marshals. Just want to ask a few questions."
"At this hour?" She appeared even smaller with the bewildered look on her face.
"Yeah, Raylan," Tim piped in, "at this hour?" He was still holding his Glock level.
"Tim, put that away," Raylan ordered.
Tim flicked his eyes from Raylan to the woman and back again, lowered his weapon but held on to it.
"Tim," Raylan repeated the order with a look.
"It's wet. I'm going to let it dry."
There was a lot of space between each word in the short reply. Tim was telling him no – a rare occurrence. Raylan let it drop, turned back to the woman.
"Ma'am," he started, trying to get her attention, but she was engrossed, watching Tim intently, nervously eyeing the water dripping off the muzzle of his Glock.
"Tim, please, would you…"
Before he could finish his sentence, a snarling dog, teeth bared, easily a hundred pounds, came running at them from around the other side of the house. Tim put it down with one shot as it lunged for Raylan.
At the sound of the gunshot, the woman dropped the hose and the flashlight and sprinted back through the gate. Tim followed her. Raylan paused a moment, looked at the dog, cursed, "Shit," and ran after them.
The fence, it turned out, was only a blind for the yard which was open to the forest beyond. Raylan stopped just clear of the back corner of the house, pulled his sidearm and cautiously turned in a circle, letting his eyes inspect the dark corners. It occurred to him that the dog had appeared rather suddenly and rather belatedly in the exchange. Someone other than the woman had to have let it loose.
Tim pulled up short when he realized Raylan wasn't running with him and cast a glance back to see what was holding him up. Raylan caught his eye and nodded for him to carry on, so Tim did, trotting after the woman, slowing down in the trees. He could hear her struggling in her bare feet through the undergrowth and followed the noise. Up ahead the forest seemed to glow suddenly in a weave of shadow and whiteness that looked unearthly. The moon was full tonight, hidden until now behind the trailing of clouds from yesterday's rain. Clear of its coverings, it cast its eerie light around the woods, shades and contrasts, like a black and white movie. It made Tim's job easier. He could see the woman clear as day but white-washed of color. She dodged around the trees then broke into an opening lit up like a stadium by the moonlight.
Tim picked up the pace, on her heels as she sprinted into a small crop field. As he cleared the tree line it suddenly registered what the crop was, at least the important one. He realized too that she had a plan, wasn't just running blindly, and more importantly, that she had friends. Three men were standing at the opposite end of the field against a shack, each with a rifle over his shoulder. The woman yelled out to them and Tim dove to the ground as they turned. He stayed down and wove his way quickly through the rows of dead corn, moving to the center of the plot to the marijuana plants waiting to be harvested.
He felt safer among the still-green pot, it rattled less than the dry corn, and he lay still listening. The men were splitting up, dividing the field. He pulled his phone and started texting Raylan, moving his thumbs urgently. He gave up before he sent it, figuring Raylan was getting the message loud and clear when the men started shooting randomly into the rows.
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