Simon stared at Jim, mouth agape. "You're taking Sandburg on the stakeout? Are you serious?"
"Yeah." Jim leaned against the door of Simon's office, his arms folded across his chest, looking glum.
After a few more moments of stunned silence, Simon sighed heavily and began to shuffle through the papers on his desk. "Just don't kill him, OK? We've arranged for you to set up your operation in a vacant house down the street from the suspects. You'll go in as renovators. There's a lot of that going on in the neighborhood, so you shouldn't draw suspicion. The water and electricity have been turned on, but the place is a dump, so be prepared."
"Great, sounds like my kind of stakeout."
"We've been trying to get something on this guy for months and haven't had any success. People in that neighborhood know each other, and our other stakeouts have been complete failures. This house was a lucky break for us."
There was a knock on the door, and Blair came in, grinning from ear to ear, bouncing on his toes. "What's up guys? Are we ready to go yet?"
Simon noted Jim's brief smile and echoed it. Whatever you could say about the kid, he was enthusiastic. Reminded him of the time he'd surpised his son with the toy car from Ghostbusters for Christams. He was pretty sure Daryl was about six at the time.
"Let's hit it," Jim said, gently pushing Sandburg back out the door.
"Ellison," Simon said. "Let's bring the civilian back in one piece, shall we?"
Jim snorted softly in reply as he walked out the door.
Jim and Blair pulled up the street slowly, pretending to look at house numbers.
"See that brick Victorian right there?" Jim pointed to a three story house that had seen better days. "That's the house we're staking out. The guy that lives there, Gregory Jarrell, is suspected of running a money laundering operation for a local drug dealer. We can't tie him to anyone because he rarely leaves his house. Our objective is to keep track of and identify everyone that comes and goes."
"What? That's it?" Blair sounded disappointed. "No bugs? No wire taps?"
"We can't just bug someone's house because of rumor. Judges like something a little more concrete."
Jim rolled the white truck, emblazoned with the logo 'Wood's Remodeling', to a stop a few houses down on the opposite side of the street from the suspect's home. The houses in the neighborhood was predominantly Victorian, with a few random ranch style homes that looked like they'd been built in the late 60's or early 70's. The house they were using for the stakeout had once been blue, with trim in a kaleidoscope of colors. Now the clapboards were the nearly uniform grey of bare wood. A porch swing hung lopsided from a rusted chain. Most of the glass in the house seemed intact, except for a round window in the widow's watch. A huge for sale sign was attached to the rusted wrought iron fence. Apparently this place was a 'fixer upper opportunity'.
Blair looked up at it with a curious grin. "You didn't tell me we'd be staying at the Munster's house."
"Yeah, life's full of surprises. Let's get the gear inside."
The two men were lugging loads of paint cans and other tools inside when three young kids pulled up on their bikes. A girl of about 10, with short brown hair asked, "Whatcha doin'?"
Blair smiled at her, "We're going to fix the place up."
One of the boys spotted the folded cots in the back of the truck. "Are you gonna stay here?"
"Sure, why?"
The kids looked at each other and made exaggerated shuddering motions, then started giggling.
Jim put on his cop face. "OK, kids, spill it. What's up?"
"It's haunted!," they screamed, more or less in unison.
A freckled boy said, "Tell them, Sarah."
Breathlessly, Sarah related the story, "Mrs. Howard lived there. She killed her whole family on Christmas Eve. Her husband, her three boys and their wives, and all four of her grandchildren! She poisoned the turkey! Then she buried them all in the basement, and no one found out until she died!"
Jim smiled, it didn't seem a likely scenario. Someone would have missed the family members. "How long ago did this happen?"
"Before I was born. I think when my mom was a little kid. She told me about it. People see her ghost in the house too! She looks out of the attic window sometimes. The last people that lived there moved because she kept throwing things at them."
"Well, we'll keep a look out for her."
The kids exchanged more looks and rode off, giggling.
Blair looked up at the attic window again. "Remind me not to take any showers in this place."
"Rats!"
Blair looked up at Jim, "What's wrong?"
"Rats. I can hear them running around in the basement."
Blair rolled his eyes, "Oh, lovely... Hey, that's good! Were you focusing, or did your hearing just kick in?"
"It just kicked in. Look, we've got to get something straight. We're not here to conduct experiments on this sentinel thing, OK? I've got a job to do, and that comes first."
"Sure, I understand, but there's no reason we can't spend a little bit of free time on this."
"We'll see. Oh, and another thing: We've got to look busy. We'll attract suspicion if we don't appear to be doing some work here."
"Gotcha, boss." Blair opened a paint bucket and found it filled with ice and sodas.
Smiling, he opened the tool box and found a camera with a telephoto lens inside. "Cool. What's the hammer for?"
"Hammering."
Blair looked at the detective, and decided against a smart remark. It was going to be harder than he thought to get Jim to work on his abilities here. It always confused him when the older man resisted his attempts to help. He knew Jim wanted control, so why did he hate working on it so much? Probably because he couldn't acknowledge his abilities. He'd been cautious ever since he used his sentinel sight to identify a suspect and had been accused of perjury.
Blair set up the cots and left Jim to himself while he explored. Some furniture had been left in the house; a couch and table in the living room, a couple of beat up chairs and a small table in the kitchen. He turned on the water in the kitchen sink and heard a terrible rumbling noise before a gush of brown looking water came out. The electricity was on, so he opened the fridge, hoping they could store some food in it. He was accosted by a horrible smell.
"Ack!"
"Blair!" Jim yelled from upstairs, "What are you doing down there? What's that terrible stench?"
"Sorry, sorry. It's just the refrigerator." Blair caught a glimpse of something black, furry and moist looking as he quickly shut the door, feeling a little queasy. He had no urge to open it again to find out what it was.
"Wow! Jim's senses must be working overtime in this place."
Further exploration of the first and second floors revealed nothing much of interest. Mostly there was a lot of dust and broken furniture. When he found the door to the attic he hesitated.
"She looks out of the attic window sometimes."
The little girl's words rang in his head. Blair sucked in his breath, stood up straighter, and pulled open the door. A narrow stairway led to the attic. Flipping the light switch turned on a bare light bulb at the top of the steps. Even with the light on it looked gloomy up there. Climbing the steps, he thought of every horror movie he'd ever seen. "This is the part where the audience starts yelling, Don't go up there you idiot! "
Jim set up the camera and tripod in a second floor bedroom with a good view of the suspect's house. His senses were especially sharp today, and he'd been tracking Blair's progress through the house. The young man had a habit of talking to himself that Jim sometimes found amusing. If only he wouldn't push the sentinel thing so much. Every time the two men were together, it came up. Jim wasn't too fond of the idea of being defined by his senses. He was a good detective before he discovered his abilities, and there were times when he wished he never had.
"Hey Jim! Come up here!" Blair yelled from the attic.
"This better be good." Jim muttered as he climbed the steps. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by the musty smells of the attic. "Achoo!" He leaned against a wall, grabbing his handkerchief, and continued sneezing for what seemed like forever.
"Fourteen." Blair said, when he was finally under control.
"What?" Jim barked, wiping tears from his eyes.
"Fourteen. Sneezes. Maybe your sentinel abilities caused a more severe than normal reaction to the dust and mildew in the air up here."
"What did you want me up here for anyway?"
"I made a discovery. Sort of. Look over here." Blair guided his friend to the circular window that they had seen from the street. There was a rocking chair next to it.
"So?"
"Well, look at it. Everything else in this attic is covered in an inch of dust and cobwebs, but this chair is polished clean. Someone's been sitting in it!"
"Goldilocks, or the ghost of Mrs. Howard perhaps?"
"Who knows, but someone's been here."
"Look, this house has been empty for a while and I found a couple of broken windows in the back of the house. The local kids probably came up here on a dare."
Blair's face fell, "Yeah, you're probably right."
"Good detective work, though. You're catching on, Sherlock" He slapped Blair lightly on the back. "C'mon, let s get the lights hooked up, it s going to be dark soon."
"Shouldn't I be Watson?"
The rest of the evening was spent uneventfully. Blair wrote down his observations about Jim's reaction to the dust in the attic, while Jim sat in a darkened bedroom watching the Jarrell house for suspicious activity.
At around midnight, Blair took over while Jim got some sleep in the other room. A couple of times, when Blair felt like nodding off, he got up and walked around the room, chugging coffee. He didn't want to disappoint his partner by falling asleep while he was on watch. He felt at times as though his partnership with Jim was very tenuous, and that it wouldn't take much for the older man to send him packing.
After sitting lost in his thoughts for a while, Blair began to notice how quiet the neighborhood was. Living in the city, it was not unusual to hear people shouting and laughing, car alarms going off, sirens, slamming doors. Here it was so quiet that he could hear the autumn leaves rustling in the trees and on the sidewalk. There were no lights on in any of the houses he could see from the window. A dog barked somewhere down the street, and he could hear the sound of a train whistle far off in the distance. Nice and peaceful.
"Eeeeeyaaaaaah!"
Blair's heart leapt into his throat. Jumping to his feet he knocked over the camera equipment. He looked all around the room but could see no one, yet the blood curdling scream had sounded as though it were right next to him. Shaking, he fumbled for the light switch. The room was empty.
"Jim!"
Jim had been sleeping soundly when he heard a crash in the other room and Blair calling for him. He quickly grabbed his gun and entered the room.
"What's going on, Chief?"
"Didn't you hear that scream? God, it was so loud! Like it was right next to me." He watched bleary-eyed as the young man walked over to the window and looked out. He was breathing hard and as white as a sheet.
"Maybe you fell asleep and dreamed it? The only thing I heard was you knocking over the $2,000 camera equipment."
Blair's voice was shaking as he glanced absently at the camera, "Oh, sorry about that. No, man, I didn't fall asleep. I've been drinking coffee all night. I was just sitting here thinking about how peaceful it was, and then there was this awful scream. It didn't sound like a frightened scream. It sounded like someone was really pissed off!"
"Look, you're probably jumpy from all the caffeine and the talk about ghosts. Your imagination probably ran away with you."
Blair's eyes were darting around the room, looking in the corners, trying to find the source of the sound. "I know what I heard!" "OK, sport, I believe you heard something. I'll tell you what, I'll have a look around the house and see if I can find anything."
"Let's go." Blair reached for a flashlight.
"No way. You stay here and get that equipment set up again. Keep an eye on Jarrell's house, OK?"
"Yeah, sure. Use your senses, like I showed you."
Jim nodded his assent. Blair didn't look too happy about his assignment, but Jim figured if there were someone in the house, they would be headed out the door by now, and the younger man would be safer upstairs.
Jim crept quietly down the stairs, his flashlight off. He stood for a moment at the bottom of the stairs and listened. He could hear the wind blowing outside and creaking in the house, but he couldn't tell if the creaking was from the wind or someone walking. He looked around the room. The light from the street gave little illumination to the curtainless living room, but he would have been able to see even without his senses in high gear. Movement in the dining room caught his attention and he turned swiftly to look. Nothing. It could have been leaves floating past the window, but he didn't think so. Moving slowly in the direction of the dining room, he listened intently. Was that breathing? It was far darker in this room. He cocked his gun and strained to see into the shadowy corner. Hadn't there been a table there? Or was that a person crouched down? Adrenaline surged, and the only sound he could hear was blood pounding in his ears. Pointing his gun in the direction of the hulking mass, he slowly raised his flashlight. He stood, watching for movement, and then turned the flashlight on quickly. Exhaling softly, he realized it was indeed only a table. Seeing movement again, he focused and saw that the screen in one of the windows had been torn loose, and the wind was causing it to flap back and forth.
Jim looked quickly around the rest of the first floor, and then went outside to take a look. There were no lights on in the other houses. No sign that any of the neighbors had heard a scream. Looking at all the first floor windows, he could find no sign of forced entry. The two men had boarded up the two broken windows this afternoon and Jim could see that they hadn't been tampered with at all. One last walk around the house, this time shining his flashlight in the bushes, revealed nothing. Blair had just freaked out, riding high on too much caffeine and an overactive imagination. He glanced up at the attic window before he went in, and saw movement.
"It must be Blair. Dammit I told him to stay put!" Jim thought, and strained his eyes to look. The light spilling from the second floor bedroom interfered with his ability to see what was in the window. He remembered Blair's admonitions, and took several deep breaths, closing his eyes and centering his thoughts on seeing what was in the window. He opened his eyes again and looked up. His heart skipped a beat. Moonlight cast a bluish glow on the face in the window. It wasn't Blair!
Blair took a few minutes to breath deeply and center himself. The scream that had almost scared him to death a few minutes ago seemed to be fading from his mind now. It was so unreal! Well, maybe it was, maybe he had fallen asleep. No! No way, man. He was wide awake when it happened. But how had Jim not heard it? He was in the next room, he couldn't have been sleeping that soundly.
Doubts plagued him as he began picking up the equipment. It made him a little angry that Jim had dismissed him almost immediately. If Jim had awakened Blair and told him that someone had screamed, Blair would never have doubted it, yet the older man just brushed off his claims as imagination .
His indignation grew. "Caffeine my eye!" Blair muttered, grabbing a flashlight and heading for the attic. If there had been someone there before, they were probably there now.
Jim had made him doubt his own ears. Why did he let the man do that to him? Granted, the detective had more experience in police work, but sometimes he treated Blair like he was a little kid. Fuming, he opened the attic door, flicking on the light switch. Nothing. He tried again a few more times just to make sure before he started up the stairs. Just as he reached the top, he heard rhythmic creaking. Backlit by the moon was a shadowy figure sitting in the rocking chair moving back and forth. He stood frozen to the spot, not believing his eyes. Suddenly, the rocking stopped and the figure turned towards him. Speechless, he tried to make out who was sitting there, but the light from the window only revealed the outline of the tall thin person standing and walking towards him.
Blair had to force out the words. "Who are you?"
"You already know, don't you boy?" A woman's voice. Old by the sound of it.
"N-no."
"Guess. I bet you're good at guessing." Her voice sounded too sweet, too friendly. She continued walking closer to him.
"Mrs. Howard?" As he spoke, he realized that he had been holding his flashlight the whole time, pointed towards the floor. He raised it and was greeted with the specter of a haggard old woman. She wore a ragged, dirty dress, and her tangled and matted hair was grey streaked with white. Her face was deeply lined, and reminded Blair of an apple doll.
"You win the prize, boy." She smiled, and Blair noticed she was missing several teeth.
"I thought you were dead..."
As he continued to back away, the woman lifted her hand. "Want to see what I've got?" She held a grimy, clenched fist forward.
"Ummm, not particularly."
She opened her hand to reveal several small bones. "Do you know who these belong to?"
Blair shook his head, wide-eyed.
"My husband. I killed him you know. He annoyed me. I think you annoy me."
Blair bumped his head against the rafters. He'd backed up as far as he could. Where was Jim? "Look, we're only going to be here for a week or so, then you can have the whole place to yourself."
The old woman grinned, and in a menacing tone said, "This is MY house. I didn't invite you in."
Blair put his hands up, palms out to keep her at a distance, and maneuvered around the woman. "OK. OK. We'll go if it will make you happy. We didn't think anyone lived here."
"This is MY house."
"See, I'm leaving." He shuffled sideways, keeping one eye on the woman as he moved towards the steps. She was obviously deranged. Jim would know who to call. Blair's flashlight flickered momentarily, and when he looked toward the woman again, she was gone. He shined his light all around the room and saw nothing.
"Blair?" Blair almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of his name. Jim was at the bottom of the steps flashing his light up. "You OK up there?"
"Yeah. You didn't see an old lady pass you down there?"
"No, I haven't seen a thing."
"She was just here a minute ago, I swear to God. I was talking to her." Blair braced himself for Jim to claim he'd imagined it.
"I believe you. I saw her in the window. She has to be up here somewhere. Let's find her. By the way, I thought I told you to stay put?"
Blair shrugged innocently, "I heard a noise."
As they searched, Blair related his short encounter. Jim said, "I'll call Brown and have him look into the history of the house, see what he turns up."
Blair shuddered. "She really creeped me out, man."
The men spent several minutes searching the small attic, looking for loose floorboards and other places she could hide, turning up nothing. Blair had Jim use his sentinel powers, but he couldn t make out any noise that indicated another person was up there with them.
"She must have passed me, but I don't see how." Jim shook his head. He would have noticed it. "It's only a couple of hours until dawn. We'll turn this place upside down when it's daylight."
The next morning they did just that, but no sign of the woman could be found. Blair figured they'd spooked her off. His curiosity had been sparked, though, and he left Jim for a few hours to do his own research on the house.
Blair found articles about an incident there in old issues of the local paper, and the librarian remembered the story well. There had been a murder committed in the house. The name of the family that had lived there was Howard, a husband and wife with no children. They had been a quiet couple, although Mrs. Howard was known to be somewhat overbearing. One day Mimi Howard, upset that her husband was watching too much baseball, snapped. She beat him to death with his Johnny Bench autographed baseball bat. She then proceeded to bury him in the back yard in broad daylight. When the police arrived she told them that it was none of their business who she buried in her vegetable garden, and besides, that's where he belonged. She held the cops at bay for an hour by threatening them with a garden hoe. No one wanted to hurt the woman, and finally they talked her into surrendering. After a short hearing, she was declared insane and unfit to stand trial. She was committed to a state institution, and released after ten years. Blair could find no other information about the woman, but the incident had happened 23 years ago, and she was either dead or very old by now.
As old as the woman in the attic?
Jim listened as Blair told him the results of his research. Brown had confirmed the story earlier. Still, he'd opened up all of his senses and there was no sign of any living creature in the house that was bigger than a rat.
"It's pretty unlikely that the woman we saw is Mrs. Howard, don't you think, Chief? I think we're dealing with a transient."
"You heard what she said to me, Jim. She said it was her house."
"This house has only been vacant for three years. Before that it was continuously occupied. There are no records of any disturbances here during that time. By your reckoning, Mrs. Howard was released from the state hospital nearly 13 years ago. Why hasn't she bothered anyone else here?"
"Good point, man. But she's the right age and..."
"What reason would she have to come back?"
Blair drew his hands through his hair. "She doesn't need a reason, Jim, she's insane."
"I don't buy it. You scared off a homeless woman last night, Blair. That's all there is to it. I haven't detected anyone else in this house this morning but the two of us. She's gone. It's over." Jim was getting exasperated, "Look, we're here to do a job, let's do it."
Turning back to the window, he chastised himself for snapping at Blair. Jim hated inaction, so he had been in a bad mood since this assignment started, and now he was taking it out on the kid.
After a few minutes of guilty silence, Jim spoke. "Things are pretty slow at Jarrell's right now. Why don't we work on some of those exercises you were talking about?"
His friend visibly brightened at the words, and the next few hours were spent on various drills intended to give Jim more control over his sense of touch. Blair had several items in a box which Jim couldn't see. It vaguely reminded him of a kindergarten game, because he had to identify the items inside. Admittedly, this was more difficult than deciding which was the feather and which was the piece of felt. Blair had chosen things which would seem the same even to the naked eye. Paper of subtly different weight and weave, metals of different density, and similar experiments. He spent most of the day learning how to differentiate between the items, and before he knew it, it was evening.
Jim sent Blair to get some Chinese food and sat in the darkened bedroom watching the house down the street. All quiet. It had been that way since they'd arrived. Jim began to doubt the veracity of his informant.
"This is MY house!"
Jim snapped his head around so fast he felt the muscles in his neck twinge. His heart was racing. He could see nothing in the faintly lit room. "Concentrate!" he told himself. Several deep breaths later he stood slowly with his back to the wall.
He listened. The only heartbeat in the room was his own. No sounds of breathing from the hallway. No retreating footsteps.
He looked. No one lurking in the corners. No light or reflections out of place. No movement of any kind.
He smelled. There were many smells, but none were human except Jim's, and a faint memory of Blair.
He felt. A slight, cool breeze was blowing past him. Somewhere there was a door open.
He tried to locate the direction the breeze was coming from, but it was difficult. If Blair were here, he'd be able to help Jim focus. Taking a wild guess, he headed for the attic door, leaving the lights off so that he would have the advantage. Still, he heard no sign of the intruder. It was darker in the hallway, but he could make out the door frame. The attic door was ajar. It hadn't been left that way, had it? Jim felt the breeze become stronger as he approached. When a dark shadow suddenly loomed in front of him and pain and darkness engulfed him, his last thoughts were, "But there's nothing there."
Blair pulled in front of the house and parked. Jim had turned all the lights were out in the house, which was unusual given the early hour. They were trying to keep up the appearance of working long hours on the renovations.
Juggling several small white boxes, he headed for the front door. Something made him stop and look up at the attic window. He felt butterflies in the pit of his stomach as he gazed up. Was there something up there? It seemed as if there was a human shape there, but he couldn't tell in the darkness. At times like this, he wished he had some of Jim's abilities. Deciding it was nothing he headed inside.
"I hope you're hungry!" Blair flicked the light switch in the living room and nothing happened. Blair pulled the flashlight from his pocket and dropped the boxes of food down on the card table they'd set up there.
"Jim?" Blair climbed the stairs to the bedroom they were using for surveillance and opened the door, expecting to find Jim's silhouette in the window. When he saw nothing, the butterflies returned. He stepped out and shined the flashlight up and down the hall. He saw a small pool of blood near the attic door.
"Oh, my God!"
Blair's heart began racing . He returned to the bedroom, snatched up the cell phone and dialed Simon. After informing him of the situation, Simon told him, "Sit tight, Blair, and don't do anything. We're sending backup. If you've got a room that you can lock yourself in, do it. Understand me?"
"Yes, sir." Blair hung up the phone, and reached for the door, intending to do as he was told, when he heard a scraping sound downstairs. As scared as he was, he began to think about Jim. Someone could be killing his friend right now, while he cowered in the bedroom like a frightened child. Summoning all of his courage, Blair edged cautiously towards the stairs.
Realizing as he descended the steps that he had no weapon, Blair began to look for one. There hadn't been much left in the house, except for furniture. Of course, that moldy looking thing in the refrigerator might kill someone...
He giggled to himself nervously, and felt in danger of laughing hysterically. "Get a hold of yourself, man. This is no time to fall apart." Wishing for sentinel abilities, he breathed slowly and listened again for the scraping sound. He had thought that it emanated from the first floor, but now that he was downstairs, it sounded muffled and far away. No, not far away, below. The basement! Jim said he heard rats in the basement, but they'd been all over the first floor and had never seen a cellar door. Unless...
Jim opened his eyes slowly. His head throbbed, and he was finding it difficult to focus. Wherever he was, it was dark and smelled of damp earth. He tried to move, but for some reason his limbs wouldn't obey him.
There was a dim light in the room, and sounds of crunching and metal on stone coming from somewhere to his right. Wood beams held up the ceiling, and he felt dirt beneath his hands. He was underground. "What's going on?" he asked.
The only answer he got was a kind of mumbling. At first he thought it was in his head, but as things became a little clearer, he realized it was a woman.
"My house. My house. I didn't say they could come here. Bury him in the earth, just like the other one. I didn't invite them. I'll bury one then I'll bury the other. No more uninvited people in my house."
It all began to come back to him. The crazy woman that Blair had spoken to in the attic had attacked him. He'd been hit with something heavy, a stick or...a baseball bat. Maybe his partner had been right about Mrs. Howard returning. Nothing made sense. He hadn't felt or heard or seen her, even with all of his senses on high alert. Why? He turned his head and the pain increased. As Jim lost consciousness again, he saw with horror that the old woman was digging a grave.
It hadn't taken Blair long to find the door to the basement, once he realized that it must have an outside opening. It was easy to miss, buried in weeds as it was. Almost perfectly camouflaged. As he lifted the door, he noticed that someone had carefully twined vines and weeds around the handles, so that when someone entered and closed the doors, they would remain concealed.
Basements like this weren't usually very large. If anyone was down there, they knew about Blair by now. Again, he looked around for a weapon, finally finding a rusty rake leaning against the house. When he picked it up, the head fell off. He raised the handle over his head and swung it experimentally. It would have to do.
As he took the first step, Blair realized that he really needed the men's room. He began to giggle again, and forced himself to suppress it. Taking another step, he stopped and listened. There were no scraping sounds now, just an unearthly quiet. The cellar was pitch black. He tried to think. If he used his flashlight, then whoever was down there would see it and know where he was, but he might not be able to see them.
It didn't matter. The moonlight from outside would illuminate him quite nicely as he came down the steps. Blair was going to be seen, regardless. Flipping on the switch, he shined the light down and descended with his back to one wall, rake handle raised above his head.
The floor of the cellar was dirt, and the first thing his light flashed on as he reached the bottom was a pile of it in the center of the room. Freshly dug.
"Please don't be dead," Blair whispered.
As he reached the bottom step, Blair sensed movement to his right and swung the rake handle hard. He felt it connect with something soft just as his wrist was hit with a sickening crack. He cried out as the flashlight was knocked from his hand. As the light rolled, he caught a brief glimpse of Jim lying near the mound of dirt, blood covering his face.
"Jim!" He yelled, and moved toward his friend. It was then that he realized that his wrist was broken, that he wouldn't be able to pick up the flashlight. The woman was somewhere in the darkness. He could hear her gasping for breath. He knelt down next to the injured man and laid his hand on Jim's chest. Still breathing. His friend had a huge lump over his left eye and blood caked where the skin had split open. He was white as a ghost.
Blair felt relieved, but he also wished that Jim were awake to tell him what to do. The detective had had a lot of experience in the military. Blair's combat experience was limited to trying to talk the school bully out of pounding him into a bloody pulp. It hadn't exactly been a resounding success.
Still holding the rake handle, Blair used the same hand to grab Jim by the shirt and drag him towards a corner of the room. All that he had to do was hold the old hag off until Simon arrived with the cavalry. He knocked his useless hand against the wall as he struggled to move the larger man. "Ouch! Dammit Jim. Wake up, man, I need you." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he heard the woman scream.
"Get OUT of MY HOUSE!!" She was barreling towards him wielding the baseball bat in both hands over her head. Blair had no time to use his weapon, so he dropped it and lunged for her, aiming his head at the middle of her body. They collided heavily and he knocked her backwards. Both of them fell hard. Stunned for a moment by the incredible pain in his wrist, Blair was motionless.
"Sandburg!" Simon was yelling his name and Blair looked up to see what seemed like dozens of flashlights pointed down the cellar stairs.
"Down here!" Blair pushed himself up with his one good hand. The old woman lay below him, dazed. They had fallen into a shallow hole in the ground. It took a moment for Blair to realize that it was the grave. Shaken, he backed out of it and sat heavily on the floor. The woman began to scream at the police officers who were helping her up and confiscating her baseball bat.
"I didn't invite you! Go away or I'll bury you too!" Blair tried to block out her rants as the officers led her to a waiting cruiser.
"You OK, Sandburg?" Simon sounded concerned.
"Jim's hurt." He nodded his head toward the motionless man. Blair realized that he was shaking uncontrollably.
"So are you. The ambulance is on its way. Let's get you out of here." He reached down, grabbing the young man's arm.
"No, I'll wait with Jim." Blair shrugged away Simon's hand. He wasn't sure he'd be able to stand at the moment anyway. Looking at his stricken friend, Blair tried to block out all of the negative thoughts he was having.
"He'll be OK, Sandburg. He's tough." Simon had reached over to check Jim's pulse.
"Yeah, I know. His ego would never allow him be killed by an old lady."
Simon laughed. "Very true."
"Are you sure you don't need anything else Jim?" Blair nervously hovered over Jim, who was reclining on the couch in the loft. "I've got this great herbal remedy for headaches."
"No. No more of your remedies , thank you very much. The last one almost killed me."
"Hey man, just because it tastes bad doesn't mean it won't work."
"Yeah, but it does mean I won't take it. Give me good old-fashioned modern medicine."
Jim thoughtfully touched the bandage on his head. It was still sore, but the swelling had gone down. In another week he could have the stitches removed. On the other hand, the bruise under his left eye had just turned the most amazing shade of purple. He began to reach for the remote control, but Blair beat him to it.
"Here you go." He handed it to Jim.
Jim flicked the TV on. A blonde actor whose name he couldn't remember was pounding on the inside of a coffin, trying to get out. He sighed. "I could have got it myself, Chief. You've got to stop hovering or you're gonna drive me nuts." He changed the channel.
Bette Davis had just served a rat to Joan Crawford.. Jim turned the TV off in disgust and tossed the channel changer onto the coffee table.
"The doctor said you've got to have complete rest for two weeks. You almost died, you know." Blair was fixing Jim with his concerned stare.
Jim had awakened in the hospital after three days of unconsciousness to find Blair asleep in the chair beside his bed. Simon said that his friend had to be forced to go home and take a shower and a nap each day.
Gently, Jim said, "There's a big difference between almost and dead. I feel fine. Why don't you go to the University and grade some papers or something?"
The phone rang, and Jim didn't even try to go for it. Blair answered and talked for a short while. Jim guessed from the way he was talking that it was his captain.
"That was Simon." Blair plopped down on the arm of the couch. "They gave up on the stakeout. I guess we drew too much attention to ourselves."
"No kidding."
"Also, Mimi Howard has been officially re-institutionalized. The DA didn't even try to fight it, since she was obviously nuts."
"Great. We don't have to worry about her for another 10 years. Maybe."
Jim was philosophical about the whole thing. He had no doubt that she was unfit to stand trial. "Did anyone find out where she's been for the last ten years?"
Blair had inserted a pencil into the opening in his cast and scratched absently. "Nope. It's a complete blank, and Mimi isn't talking. Who knows what kind of havoc she wreaked during all that time. They dug up the basement, though, and didn't find anybody."
"She had a helluva good swing for an old broad." Jim said thoughtfully.
Both men were silent for a moment, remembering the events in the house. Smiling slightly, Jim fixed his ice blue eyes on Blair's. "It took a lot of guts to go down into the basement like that."
Blair raised his eyebrows in surprise and grinned, "You're welcome."
"I still don't get it."
"What?"
"How the woman could have sneaked up on me like that. I had all my senses going, and I didn't see it coming. It's not possible for her to have been that quiet."
Blair became more animated, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. "I've been thinking about that. You know the first time you went up into the attic?"
"Yes."
"Well, you had a sneezing fit. Maybe there was something in the air up there that affected your allergies. She got you near the stairs to the attic. Maybe there was some type of mold or fungus that inhibited your senses."
Jim shook his head slowly. He had heard and seen lots of things that night. Except for Mimi Howard. "How sure are you about this?"
Blair's face fell, and he ran his hand through his hair. "Not at all." He lit up again. "But we can do some experiments to test it!"
Jim sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. "I should have seen that coming."
~~~The End~~~
This story contains violence. It was written in October, 1996 and modified slightly in August, 2009. It was my first attempt at fan fiction.
Way back when, my beta readers were Tigg and BlairBabe and I will forever be grateful for their help.