Chapter five

"Hey, Jim," Marty said as Jim walked in bright and early Monday morning.

"You live here, Marty?" Jim asked with a smile.

"Fax."

Jim changed course. He abandoned his trip to the locker room. "From the hospital?"

"Looks like a match. Can you read it?"

Jim pulled out his laptop. "If I scan it into my computer." He hooked the scanner up.

"Here."

Jim heard the papers slide across his desk. "Thanks." He quickly started scanning the pages. "What's the name on this?"

"Samantha Wilkins."

"Hey, guys," Karen said.

"Hey," Jim said.

"Dunbar got a match," Marty said.

"There's nothing you can't learn if you talk to Tamika long enough." Jim heard Karen slide up next to his desk and take the papers he'd already scanned. She picked up each one as he finished.

Jim couldn't help but feel jealous. Karen and Marty already knew more than he did, while it would probably take an hour for his computer to regurgitate everything to him.

"I thought your computer couldn't read handwritten things?" Karen murmured.

Jim froze as he pulled the last page from his scanner. "It can't."

Karen snatched the page out of his hand.

"Is it all handwritten?"

"Only half."

Karen pulled up her desk chair. Jim sighed and sat. He listened as Marty scooted up in his chair. "I didn't get to finish," Marty explained when Jim looked over at him.

"I'm skipping the labs, unless one of you went to med school and cares to translate," Karen said.

"Not me," Marty said.

Jim heard Karen sifting through the papers.

"Looks like she had thorough prenatal care."

Jim tossed her a look as skeptical as her voice sounded. "Maybe it's not the same person?"

"Maybe…"

Marty slid his chair back to his desk. "I was running her name. I'll finish that while you two look the records over."

Jim waited patiently, but he had to grip the arms of his chair tightly to gain that patience. Karen was reading the reports silently to herself, picking out bits of information to share. He just had to wait for her to find something she deemed important enough to share.

"Can we have the coroner compare this to Samantha's record? Maybe they can match the blood type or something," Jim suggested.

"Yeah, I'll send a copy," Karen said.

"The coroner already faxed her report," Marty said. "Here."

Karen reached out for the papers, then slid back to her desk. "I'll see what I can compare."

Jim stood and gathered his coat and bag to head to the locker room.

"Where are you going?" Karen asked.

"Be right back."

"'Kay."

Jim sighed. Maybe after he got a look at what he'd scanned into his computer he'd feel better.

"There's no such person as Samantha Wilkins. Insurance company's never heard of her," Marty said when Jim got back. "The insurance number goes back to a Josiah Wilkins. Says in the record that he's her husband. Nothing was ever official legally, though. Not that I can find."

Jim settled into his chair. "Josiah, huh?"

"Tom's looking into him. I'm still digging on Samantha." Marty leaned back in his chair until it creaked. "If that doesn't pan out, we'll have you call that kid again, see what she knows."

"Hey." Karen's chair slid across the floor so quickly she had to grab Jim's desk to stop it. She slid a paper onto his desk and tapped it with her fingernail. "She was diabetic." She snatched the paper back and waited.

"So?" Jim finally asked.

Fisk walked out of his office. "ME just called. The girl wasn't just pregnant. She had a strange substance in her blood, possibly the same as the other DOA, but they can't get a complete match. They're thinking it reacted differently, being different people. Or maybe it had been messed with a little." Fisk stood and waited for someone to pipe up with a theory.

"New street drug?" Marty suggested.

"Boss," Karen said. "If this really is Samantha," she waved the pages of the medical record, "she was diabetic."

"So?" Fisk asked, echoing Jim's comment.

"When Dunbar and I checked her out, I thought it was just chocolate under her fingernails. But if she was diabetic, it shouldn't have been."

"Maybe she was cheating on her diet?" Tom asked. "All women do."

"I don't think so." Karen shook her head. "Can ME run a test on whatever was under her nails?"

"I'll give 'em a call," Fisk said.

"Hey, Karen," Tom said. "You're starting to sound like Dunbar and all his whacked out theories."

Jim found himself grinning.

Karen turned to him. "I don't think that was a compliment," she said quietly.

"So what's your theory?" Jim asked as they walked down to the ME's office to ask her about the substance in their DOAs' blood samples.

"I know how you must feel now," Karen said. "Everyone giving you crap all the time."

Jim laughed. Tom had bought a bar of chocolate and left it on Karen's desk. Marty kept making comments about manicures and getting things under his fingernails. "You get used to it."

"I am not obsessed with fingernails, okay?"

"I know." Jim smiled down at her. "What's your theory?"

"Samantha's not that messy of an eater. Do you know how hard it is to get chocolate under your fingernails?"

Jim gave an indecisive frown. "I've never been that much of a chocolate fan."

"It looked more like when people get into a fight and scrape off skin under their nails. I don't know about you, but how many people do you know who—"

"Fight tooth and nail with their dessert?"

"Exactly."

"Maybe she was really hungry."

"Jim," Karen complained.

He grinned. "Karen, relax. I'm with you on this one."

"Really?" she asked.

"Really. But you don't need my approval."

"Here we are." She knocked on the office door.

"My intern has a theory he wants to run by you," the ME said as Jim and Karen gathered around the body.

Jim crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. Karen elbowed him and he glanced at her.

"Don't look so skeptical," she whispered.

Jim made his face blank. He hadn't realized his feelings were showing, but interns had never been his favorite staff members. They were always trying to show off their brilliance, but had no field experience to back it up. He had to give it up to them for enthusiasm, but other than that he could live without them.

"So here's my theory," the kid said. He sounded young, probably still in medical school, which didn't do anything for Jim's confidence. "My brilliant colleague here surmised that whatever the substance is, it starts to dissolve immediately on contact with human body fluid. The stuff under her fingernails? It was half dissolved. Meaning, it came out of her body."

Karen gave a disgusted grunt. Jim almost laughed, but he had to admit, he wasn't sure he wanted to know any more.

"So here's what I'm thinking. Someone jammed this substance in her mouth—it's still in her teeth, a little—and she scraped it off her tongue, trying to save herself. But it dissolved so quickly, she was a goner."

"Astutely put, thank you," the ME said.

The intern moved away.

"But I do concur," she said. "It's the most plausible explanation I can think of. Whatever it is, it looks homemade. Someone with a background in chemistry or pharmaceutics. Someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to poisons. And would have access to the chemicals needed to make them."

"So it's a poison?" Karen asked.

"Looks like it. I still can't isolate enough of it to trace anything. We're sending the rest of it to an expert, but I don't want you to get your hopes up. It's unlikely, given the nature of the material, that we'll be able to learn anything substantial."

Jim took Karen's arm and they headed back upstairs. Karen was quiet while they walked.

"So?" Jim asked. "Your theory panned out."

"I don't know how much good it's going to do us."

"It's something. It tells us we're going in the right direction."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"Josiah Wilkins," Tom said as Jim and Karen walked back into the squad. "There's a chance he's the infamous Uncle Josiah. Age 34. Disbarred. Went to med school for a while, but dropped out. Rumor is he's a kind of genius. Jack of all trades. Good at business and persuasion."

"What's the relation to Artez?"

"None."

"Any other connection to Samantha besides the medical record?"

"Nope. Supposedly he doesn't have any family. Dad died when Josiah was seventeen, mom kicked the bucket the same year, suicide. Both of them. But—" Tom leaned back in his chair. Jim sat on the edge of Marty's desk, waiting. "Only reason I know that is looking up the parents from his birth record. There's no mention of Josiah or any children in either of the obituaries. Can't find any school records after he was fourteen…"

"Doesn't exist?" Karen asked.

"No employment record, nothing until he opened a law practice five years ago."

"What about law school?" Jim asked.

"Apparently he never went. That's why he was disbarred."

"Can you get disbarred if you don't have a degree?" Karen asked.

"Picky, picky. He filed a counter lawsuit, said he home schooled. But he dropped it after a week."

"Then he went to med school," Jim prompted.

"Apparently he's not much for formal educations, but word is, he knows where it's all at. Smart guy."

"And his records at medical school?"

"Faked. None of the info leads anywhere. Addresses never existed. How he even got in without a degree or taking the MCAT, we're still looking into that."

"Does he have any friends?"

"Not that I can find. Never held a job, no co-workers. Family all died. But he's something of a legend in some circles."

"Which ones?"

"Depends. Legal consultant to the rich and the poor. Medical consultant to the poor. Unconfirmed, he's trying to get someone elected mayor, working the background from the underground."

"Where can you find this guy?" Karen asked.

"Can't. No permanent address, no phone number, no cell phone, no FBI file, no driver's license, no hits on his social security number…"

"Nothing," Jim said.

"Precisely."

The more nothing they got, the more it was starting to feel like something.

Jim was tapping a pencil on his desk, trying to think. Finding Samantha dead, realizing he'd never get to talk to her, finding out she was pregnant, poisoned, and shot, he was having trouble thinking.

"Now what?" Marty asked.

Jim stopped tapping the pencil and looked up.

"Well?" Marty said.

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?"

"Nothing, Marty. It's when you can't put anything together. When nothing makes sense." He sighed and rubbed his lip, thinking. "I want to talk to Artez again. Maybe he knew something about this other guy Samantha was seeing."

"Maybe. Maybe there was some jealousy between 'em."

"Or maybe this phantom uncle doesn't even exist. Maybe they just found a way to scam insurance companies with this name. Maybe lots of people have used this name. One went to med school. One set up a law practice… Tamika didn't remember him."

"But," Karen said, "Tamika said the other kids still go see him."

"If he is real, he's been a busy guy," Marty said.

"Let's pull Artez, see what he knows."

"Well?" Artez asked.

Jim motioned for him to sit. He leaned up against the ledge by the window in the interview room, his arms crossed, his shades in place, his face impassive. "Don't tell me you didn't see this one coming," he said.

"What?"

"Your girlfriend, Samantha. Did you know she was pregnant again?"

Silence filled the room.

"I'll take that as a no," Jim said and nodded for Karen to continue.

From the other side of the room Karen asked, "Tell us, who was the father? Clem's father, and the new baby."

"Me," Artez said.

"I don't think so. You want us to run a DNA test?"

"Clem's my son."

"Are you really sure of that, or is that just what you're going to tell us?"

"Clem is my son. And this baby woulda been, too." He sounded dejected, knowing about the dead baby.

"You raised him, so he's yours?" Jim asked. "But he's not your flesh and blood."

"Why d'you think I'm lyin' about this?"

"Because according to the birth record, you're not the father," Karen said.

"What birth record?"

"The one at the hospital Samantha went to. The medical record, the birth certificate, the insurance record."

"Insurance? We don't have—"

"She was a high risk pregnancy, did you know that? Because she was diabetic."

"She was diabetic, but the pregnancy went fine. She didn't need no doctors. She didn't go once."

"Are you sure?" Jim asked.

"We didn't have insurance! How could she 'ave gone? Doctors don't do charity.

If they did, we'd be fine. I'd be able to hold a job. I wouldn't have any episodes."

"So where was Samantha getting her medication?" Karen asked. "Diabetes is life-threatening without daily medication."

"I don't know," Artez said in almost a whisper.

Jim moved to sit on the table next to Artez and leaned over close to his face. "Tell us what you know about Josiah."

Artez shied away. "I can't."

"'Cause he'll kill you if you do?" Karen asked.

"No one knows anything about him."

"We know plenty about him," Jim said. "What do you know?"

"He was helping Samantha. He'd get stuff she needed. He's the pastor of her church, for crissakes."

"And the father of her children?" Karen asked skeptically.

"They're my kids!"

"And his name's on the birth certificate because…?" she asked.

"Because maybe he's more respectable than me? Maybe he helped her with the insurance you said she had. He's a good man. A man of God. He wouldn't want her to suffer, so maybe it was all he could do."

Jim stood up and walked away, back to the window.

"We're still going to run that DNA test," Karen said. "Did you know your girlfriend was poisoned?"

"I thought she was shot."

"That little bullet hole?" Jim said. "That wasn't fatal."

"You know anyone who specializes in poisons?" Karen asked as she got the swab kit ready for his DNA sample.

"The only people I know who've killed, they're not smart enough to bother with poison. They're more the type for a knife in the back."

"My kind of people," Karen said.

"Mine, too," Jim said with a grin.

"Open up," Karen ordered.

"Careful where you stick that thing," Artez said.

"Hold still." Artez moved his seat back so it scraped the floor. "You want the blind guy to do it?"

"No."

"Then hold still."

He's right," Jim said as they left the interview room. His kind of people wouldn't bother with poison."

"Should we drag in her pastor?"

"Right," Jim said sarcastically. "Hey, Reverend, when's the last time you killed someone? And while we're at it, sir, how many people have you impregnated?"

Karen snorted. "One of these days, I'd love to get a preacher in here and ask him that. But not today."

"Jim," Tom said, "I've seen you beat up suspects. I've seen you lie to them, yell at them. I just never thought I'd hear you plan to abuse a man of the cloth."

"We have to plan ahead, Tom," Jim said. "You never know who you'll get in here."

Jim stopped when he got back to his desk. Marty and Tom had been talking when he walked into the room with his bag, but they started whispering when they saw him. Jim listened a minute, then shook his head. He grabbed Hank's harness and turned toward them, keeping his face as blank as possible. "Guys," he said, "you need to learn to whisper quieter. I can still hear you."

Tom started to protest.

Jim nudged Hank to go. "Goodnight."

"Night, Jim," Marty said.

"Just how much did you hear?" Tom asked.

Jim stopped and turned back. "You got Simone's phone number. You haven't asked her out yet, though."

"I just… Since you warned me about her and all…"

Jim shook his head. "I warned you to keep you hands to yourself while you have a girlfriend. I don't even remember Simone."

"Look, but don't touch," Marty said. "Guess that leaves you out of the game, huh, Jim?"

"Guess so." Jim turned away. "And for future reference, I can't read lips."

It wasn't often Jim came home early from work, but there'd been nothing else to learn—he wanted to change and get to the gym, work off some of this excess energy that was building up. He wrinkled his nose when he walked through the door of the apartment, the stench of nail polish hovering in the air.

"Christie?" he called, then waited. No answer.

He left Hank in harness, just going to drop off his bag and the box the doorman had given him that had been delivered for Christie, then change and leave. The box was heavy, only about two feet by one foot, but it could have held a solid block of silver, or maybe a bunch of old issues of Christie's magazine with her by-line. He decided to put it on the coffee table where she'd be sure to see it and he wouldn't trip over it.

He dropped the box on the table and slid it over a little. It sounded like something small fell over, but the table was often littered with tiny candles and other decorative items Christie got from her interviewees as thank you tokens. He just left it. He hated knick-knacks. He always had—useless and meaningless, he wasn't the most sentimental guy when it came to things like that. Pictures, souvenirs, sometimes they were okay, but decorations he could do without. And pictures now had also lost their allure, he had to admit.

"Hi," Christie said when Jim walked into the bedroom. "Is it that late already?"

Jim froze. Sounded like she hadn't been expecting him. "Nah," he said with a nonchalant shrug. "I'm a little early. Thought I'd stop by the gym."

"Okay, have fun."

Jim nodded. "The doorman gave me a package for you." He shrugged out of his suit jacket and laid it out on the bed, then started on his tie.

"Oh, good!" She brushed past him on the way out of the room. "I was just about to run down to pick it up." Jim followed slowly as she talked so she wouldn't have to yell across the apartment. "I was on the phone when you got home. We're having problems scheduling a client." She gasped. "Jimmy!"

He jumped forward and hurried across the room.

"Can't you be more careful? Didn't you notice you—" she cut herself off.

Jim wracked his brain, but it didn't take much of a genius to realize the smell of nail polish had gotten stronger. He was getting light headed from the fumes at this close of a proximity. The small clatter—he must have knocked over a bottle of nail polish. "Sorry," he said. "I'll get it." He hurried for the kitchen as Christie moved things off the table.

"Paper towels!" she yelled when he grabbed the hand towel.

Must be nice to be able to see what someone else is doing from across the room, he thought bitterly and tossed the towel on the counter. He reached under the sink for the roll of paper towels. It took a minute—he didn't have much use for the cleaners under the sink so Christie didn't try to keep a consistent order.

Her anger was contagious. He'd had to touch everything in the cupboard, carefully so he wouldn't knock anything over, because she didn't keep things in order. He'd spilled something—but she was the one who'd left it out. It couldn't all be his fault and he hated it when people got mad at him because he couldn't see and they'd been negligent. It wasn't fair. Wasn't he punished enough just by being blind that he didn't need people yelling at him? Besides—"Wasn't the lid on?" he snapped.

"The phone rang," she said, flustered. "I set it and left. I wasn't expecting you home so early."

"I'll call before I come home," he said coldly. "That way you know." He knelt next to the coffee table with a few towels in hand.

"Jimmy!" she warned.

But he already knew. His knee slid in something wet.

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe. He wasn't going to get angry. But no oxygen was reaching his brain untainted by the smell of nail polish, no thoughts untainted by the anger in Christie's voice. It wasn't fair. She could see and he was the one kneeling in wet nail polish and getting reamed.

He ignored the polish on the floor and gently touched the table, feeling for the spill.

"Let me help," Christie said after a moment, her voice quiet and soft.

He didn't want her feeling sorry for him. Maybe the anger had been better. He didn't know what it was like for her, standing up there watching someone carefully trying to clean up a mess he couldn't see. But he did know how it was for him, his knees wet and ruined, his lungs burning with the smell of chemicals, having to struggle to clean up a mess that wasn't all his fault, of a substance that didn't want to come up and was probably leaving behind a thick residue, and having his wife standing over him feeling nothing but pity. "It was my mess," he said. "I'll get it." He swept his hand over the table. The box was gone. "Go ahead and open your package."

"But—"

"Go!"

"Jimmy, I'll help—"

"Because you know I won't be able to get it all up on my own? You're afraid it'll ruin the table?"

"No," she said in almost a whisper. He hadn't heard her move, still standing there in whatever designer clothes she'd worn to work, and her fancy high heels. "Because there's two of us."

Christie was perfect. Christie was infallible. He scrubbed the floor over and over until he felt no residue of polish. Christie had left him alone when he insisted. Now he wouldn't be able to yell at her for leaving an open bottle of nail polish on the table in the first place, because she had offered to help clean up. It was his fault. It had taken the two of them to make the mess, but he'd refused her help in cleaning up.

Because he didn't want her standing there watching him. Because he didn't want her pity. Because he was angry at himself for knocking it over and not checking to see what it was right away, before the mess could spread.

Oh, poor Christie, how do you handle it? He'd heard her friends and co-workers asking how she put up with him, with his blindness. They, at least, didn't feel an ounce of pity for him. But they didn't help anything by making Christie into a martyr.

Just how bad could it be? He was the one who actually was blind, after all. How bad could it really be for Christie? All she had to do was stand back and watch, while he lived it, day after day after day. She could go out and do the same things as always, talk to the same people without problem. He, on the other hand, had a different job, he was on modified assignment pretty much, he couldn't even find his friends, didn't know who they were anymore. He couldn't walk around without Hank.

He paused in the scrubbing. He couldn't resent Hank. Hank was there for him, helped him more than anyone, listened, kept him from getting run over by buses. No person had ever saved Jim's life, yet Hank did it repeatedly, pushing his furry body against Jim's legs to keep him out of harm's way. Jim had no doubt that if Hank had been at the bank, he would have sacrificed himself, throwing himself into the hail of bullets.

But Jim could resent having to rely on Hank like he did.

Maybe he didn't want to need Christie's help and wouldn't accept it so he wouldn't have to resent her. He wished he could tell her that, how he felt about her and him and Hank, might make her feel better. But these feelings, he couldn't put them into words, just a momentary anger at the dog who tried to make his life easier, then remorse, and feelings of pity for his wife for having to put up with him. He'd never been an easy man to live with.

Christie was no saint. She was still Miss Perfect, the lady guys stared at and drooled over when they realized her husband couldn't see. He wondered how often she flirted back.

He missed himself. He used to be as outwardly perfect as she still was. Crowds of friends, though none exceptionally close—Terry'd been the closest he'd had to a best friend since he'd been a kid. He still didn't know how Terry had managed to wheedle his way past Jim's normal defenses. They'd been partners for three years, not very long it seemed, and suddenly Jim was a godfather. He had a buddy to watch the games with and go out with after work.

Yet he'd never opened up to Terry. Christie and Terry were the two closest people in his life, yet they were also the two he kept most at an arm's length, never talking about his feelings or problems. They'd been drawn to him, to his strength, they'd come into his life and he barely knew how they got there.

Jim stuffed the soiled towels in the garbage, along with the mostly empty bottle of nail polish. He didn't bother to change, because that would have meant going into the bedroom, where Christie had taken refuge. She was probably in there, crying about him yelling at her to leave him be. He left the top two buttons of his shirt undone and slung on his coat. "Hank," he said quietly and tapped his thigh. He grabbed the harness and left, thinking of slamming the door on the way out, but caught it at the last second. He shut it quietly; let her cry and wonder if he was still out there, too scared to come out and check.