Chapter Eight
"Jim? Everything okay?"
Fisk's voice sounded far away.
Jim knew he was dreaming, but to have the lieutenant make an appearance? That had never happened before. He never dreamt about the people he worked with now. He wasn't sure if that was because he hadn't spent much time with them yet, or because he'd never seen them. He liked dreaming in pictures. He didn't even mind dreaming about mundane things, like sitting on the couch and watching TV.
"Jim?"
Jim tried to roll over, then realized he was sitting up, his head back, partially slumped in a chair. His work chair, that's what it felt like. Which would explain why Fisk was there.
"Hey, Dunbar!"
Jim's eyes flew open. He was definitely in the squad. It smelled like the squad, like stale coffee, cleaning fluids, and the odd perp. He sat up quickly, almost bolting out of his chair, and sat on the very edge of the seat. He wasn't sure which direction the voice had come from, so he just faced forward. "Yeah?" he asked, like he was back in the military at attention.
"You sleep here?" Fisk asked.
Jim turned his head to the left. "Nah. No, I… got here early. Couldn't sleep."
"Looks to me like you were doing a pretty good job."
Jim tried to smile.
"Your wife didn't throw you out, did she? 'Cause if she did, you should get a hotel room. More comfortable. I want you alert, not walking in front of a cab."
"No, she didn't. It's okay." Jim turned away. "A small fight last night, but—" he frowned a second— "should blow over by tonight." He gave a dismissive wave with his hand.
Fisk was silent a second. "I'm not going to find out you murdered your wife, am I?" he asked quietly.
Jim looked over at him, bewildered, then remembered the wounds on his hands from his boxing bout. He grinned at the boss. "If I ever do, I'll let you know first so it doesn't come back to bite you in the ass."
"You've been telling me a lot of stuff lately that's liable to do that."
Jim held up his hands. "I was letting off steam at the punching bags. I let off a little too much."
"You're sure everything's okay?"
"I spent all night thinking and I was at fault. The guy's always wrong, right?" Jim smiled up at the lieutenant.
"If he wants to stay married, he is." The phone rang in Fisk's office and he hurried away to answer it.
Even though he knew deep down that it was his fault, that what he'd told Fisk was true: if he apologized, it would all blow over: even deeper down a little spark of anger was boiling, growing, surprising him by its presence. Really, why should he apologize? It had been her fault as much as his own. Jim opened the top of his laptop, the anger niggling in the pit of his stomach.
"Well?" Fisk called from his office, sounding impatient.
Jim and Hank followed Tom into the lieutenant's office. Fisk had sent them immediately down to the morgue that morning to meet a woman named Melanie Bartlett. Fisk rushed out from the early morning phone call that had interrupted his and Jim's conversation, agitated and impatient. As soon as Tom had walked in the door, Jim and Tom been deployed with instructions not to come back until they had pertinent information that would finally move the case along.
"We've all been waiting," Fisk said.
Jim could hear the other two detectives waiting as patiently as Fisk was. He nodded at the lieutenant. "She was positive," he said. "DOA's her son, Glenn Bartlett." Jim was still trying to fit the new information into his head, work it in with what little he knew about the first DOA in the 'Owls' shirt, found with a non-fatal gunshot wound and possible poison in his system. It was a relief to finally have him ID'd, to be able to get down and research a real person with a past and find friends who might have known him. Then again—
"How'd we find her?" Marty asked.
Marty was on top of things as usual. That little tidbit of information had been plaguing Jim the whole time they'd interviewed Mrs. Bartlett. "We didn't. She found us. Anonymous tip."
"So who knows more than we do?"
Jim shook his head. "I dunno. We need to find out." Someone had to have known where the kid was, that he was dead. Someone had to have known who the kid was and where to contact his family. There was a good chance the only person who would know all that information was the DOA's killer. That meaning, there was a very good chance Mrs. Bartlett had personally talked to the killer, but she hadn't been able to tell them anything useful.
"She thought it was just a prank—didn't even know her son was missing, so she called up his work," Tom said, explaining the story they'd gotten from Mrs. Bartlett only minutes before. "Found out he hadn't worked there in a year, just stopped showing up one day." Tom paused dramatically, stretching the time before he would get to the real kicker.
"Tom, there's a reason you're my partner," Marty said plaintively.
"Oh?"
"'Cause you enjoy the suspense too much. If I'd gone with you, I'd already know everything and you wouldn't be standing there, dragging it out."
Tom laughed gleefully. "So she ID'd the body. Definitely her son, who she hadn't known was missing—"
"Tom," Marty growled.
Jim smiled and picked up the story. "They're not from New York. Story is he came up here for work a few years ago and was staying with his cousin—Samantha Whittleton."
"You okay, Jim?"
Jim's head snapped up. He hadn't even heard Marty walk up. "Yeah, no problem."
"It was just a different look on your face."
Jim frowned, thinking. "Nope."
"Not related to the case?"
"Nah. I do have a life outside the squad, you know."
"Ah, problems at home. She still pissed about her birthday?"
"I dunno." Jim bit his lip. He had to look away to the other side of the squad, remembering the night before. It wasn't like things like that had never happened before, it's just that he never was able to handle them very well. It made him feel clumsy and awkward, less in control of himself and his environment. Most of the times Christie didn't even know about things he spilled or ran into; he'd get them cleaned up before she came home.
It was the worst when she was in the room watching. He could just feel the horror in her gaze sometimes, thinking things would never get back to normal. And they wouldn't. Jim liked to think he'd accepted that, but obviously he hadn't, or he'd have just gone with the flow last night, explained to Christie that these things happened—
When she'd yelled at him, asked him if he'd noticed—
Then she'd probably looked over at him and seen that difference in him that only she would know about. Looked into his eyes, not looking at whatever they were supposed to be looking at.
It probably killed her to see that.
She wasn't married to the same man by a long shot. So why'd she stay?
Pity, that was the only thing Jim could think of. Because she'd look over at him and see that little difference and she'd think, no matter what had happened between them, if she ever left, he'd be all alone in the dark. He shook his head a little, it was such a shallow statement to encompass everything that had happened between them.
But still, as much as he told himself he didn't care if she left, told himself he didn't love her anymore, might be easier on them both to be alone, easier on him to not worry constantly about what she thought, he wasn't going to ask her to leave. He was comfortable with her. He really didn't relish the idea of suddenly being a bachelor, having people thinking he needed a woman to take care of him and complete him. Again, shallow.
"That bad, huh?" Marty asked.
"Marty, some things aren't any of your business," Jim said.
"I know. I just thought, since I'm married…"
"Yeah, but you're not married to my wife."
"Well, if you ever want to run something by us, I'm married and Tom's an idiot—roll us together and we're probably pretty qualified to comment on your life."
"Excuse me?" Tom asked, walking up from the men's room.
"And Karen's a girl—you got an inside track on the enemy right there."
"Hey," Tom said, "women aren't enemies. They're beautiful, fragile, interesting creatures that make the world a better place. The more of them on the planet, the better."
"Like I said, an idiot."
Jim had spent most of his lunch hour thinking about Marty's comment. He had been an idiot, Marty'd sure nailed that one. Christie and he just had so little time to spend together; out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. They just spent so much time living their own lives, they'd never even tried to connect; they'd never had to.
He spent the rest of lunch, tired and having barely eaten, just wiped from the mostly sleepless night, wondering if he and Christie could learn to connect, and if they would have married now, had they just met each other. He and Christie had a difficult relationship. Why was it up to him to always be wrong? Why did Christie always get her questions answered? Wasn't he allowed to have questions of his own?
Yeah, so he was a jerk. He'd screwed around, lied a lot. He'd been wrong.
But there were reasons he'd strayed. Christie wasn't the blameless saint. She couldn't just expect him to always answer for his actions and never answer for her own.
It was small things with Christie that used to drive him crazy. She could think she wasn't enough for him, but it hadn't been that. More like she'd been too much for him to handle. Like a sports car and he was the inexperienced driver. But that made her sound too exquisite—she had her foibles. Those little quirks that drive people crazy and make them trade up for a different model.
They hadn't been ready to marry, had known each other less than a year. She didn't like the dangerous parts of his job, the anger that often simmered just beneath his surface. He didn't like how she was pretentious, everything always so organized and pristine—he wondered briefly if the nail polish had actually come off of the floor. She'd always been a spoiled brat, had to have things her way. Made him talk when he didn't want to. How was he supposed to protect her emotionally from things he knew she couldn't handle if she kept asking him to tell her about them? He didn't tell her about certain cases because if she knew everything that went on crime-wise in this city, she'd never leave the apartment. He hated the people she wanted to be friends with. He hated the way she dressed him up and took him out on parade, her arm tightly wrapped through his, dragging him around.
He stewed.
There were more things that bothered him now, relative to his blindness. Her gasping horror at little things, always trying to compromise his independence by helping. The way she'd put away most of her breakables and tried to help him around the apartment when he got back from rehab, just to make sure he didn't break anything. The way she questioned his ability to go back to work. How she questioned others when he told her they treated him normally. The way, at dance class, when he'd tripped and fallen, how she'd cried out and rushed to his side like he was a child.
And always those interminable parties. Before and since.
"Jim, are you ready?" Christie'd asked impatiently.
He'd only walked in the door minutes before, wiped from a long day and a tough case. He wanted a beer, wanted to relax. But Christie was always on 24 hours a day, ready to go, ready to make contacts and charm everyone.
"Almost."
"Jim, come on!" She tossed his coat at him and he snatched it out of the air.
He looked her up and down as she stood in the doorway of the bedroom, all made up, tight skirt, low-cut red blouse, high heels, lipstick, perfect hair falling over her shoulders, hands on her hips, lips set in a line, eyes narrowed, chin tilted up.
"I just got home. Give me a second." He crossed over to her with a smile, his jacket over one arm. He reached out, ran a finger down her cheek, and leaned in for a kiss, but she pushed him back, averting her lips.
"We have to go." She took his jacket, spun him, helped him into it, straightened his collar.
Jim sighed. "Can we come home early? I had a long day today and it's going to be long tomorrow, too."
"I don't know how long we'll be. This dinner is important for my career."
They always were. Every dinner that popped up was of the utmost importance and it was always impossible for her to miss a second of it. They were always early and stayed pretty late. Jim followed her dutifully, drove to the hotel the dinner was at, escorted her to the banquet room. He helped her out of her coat and checked their jackets, returning to her side to find her no longer scowling. She smiled brightly and waved at someone, slid her arm through his and led him across the room.
"Lila! How good to see you!" she said.
"Ah, Christine, darling." Lila, perfectly coiffed, a woman of sixty with hair colored and treated to show no gray, turned to Jim, spangles on her dress glittering in the overhead lights. "And your handsome husband." She held out her hand, palm down. Jim grasped it awkwardly, never sure how to take that kind of handshake. He was probably supposed to kiss it, but he'd reserve that for the Pope or the Queen of England. Normal people didn't need that sort of old-fashioned chivalry. His lips were for his wife. "What was your name again?" She glanced at her hand and laughed at his hold.
"Jim," Christie supplied.
Jim smiled dumbly, wishing he were anywhere else.
"Yes," Lila said. "The detective." She batted her eyelashes.
Jim kept his expression placid, let his gaze wander up as if someone had just caught his eye. "Darling, isn't that…?" he asked, pointing, releasing Lila's hand. "We should go say hello." He smiled at Lila, declined his head in a polite nod, took Christie's arm and propelled her into the crowd.
"Jim." Christie wriggled in his grasp. "I wish you wouldn't do that. Lila's an important client and—"
"And I always get an earful on the way home about what a bitch she is," Jim said quietly, leaning down to her ear so no one else could overhear or even see his lips.
She sighed. "She'll just find us later." She patted his arm and changed direction. "Come on."
She introduced him around all night, making sure everyone knew what a perfect man she'd married, quiet, respectable, handsome, like a show pony.
Occasionally she would leave him in the capable hands of one social psychopath or other, leave him to suck up for her, to mingle on his own. He would excuse himself and eventually find himself joking with a few other husbands in a corner about what a shtty party it was, making fun of everyone there.
Sometimes he would turn to find Christie, scan the crowd until he found her hair falling over her shoulders, her most prominent feature, the best way to find her, and she'd be laughing, rubbing her hand down the arm of some handsome guy, looking up at him from under her eyelashes. His stomach would turn, but he'd let her be. It was just business, she'd told him the first time he'd made a fuss.
But if he'd ever found himself laughing with a woman alone, a second later her hand would be on his arm, around his waist, giving a squeeze, laying her head on his shoulder, sizing up the woman to make sure there was no threat.
Inevitably, she would always complain the whole way home about the people she was forced to work with. Jim always asked why she didn't drop the act and just tell them what she really felt.
"I'm too refined for that. This is part of my job."
He always dropped it, never consciously connecting it to how pretentious she was, just like all these people he was paraded around party after party. He was sure they all went back home and complained about Christie and him, but he never brought it up. She seemed so sure her façade couldn't be seen through.
And really, she was good at what she did, networking, sucking up. So sweet. Beautiful didn't hurt. She played a lot off that feature.
Then there was Clay's party. She'd left him by that wall with a beer and excused herself. Teased him for checking his watch. Yeah, that was the Christie he knew. Instead of leading him around …
He wondered what would have happened later if he'd reigned his impulses, bucked up his patience, hadn't spilled his beer: dinner, dessert, smiling pleasantly at anyone who felt sorry enough for him to come up and ask how he was doing. Christie didn't want to explain that he was blind, or that he'd gone back to work as a detective. Neither were things she could be really proud of. It wouldn't go so well with her image.
He'd gotten sick and tired of it all before the shooting. That's why he'd started looking. Inexcusable, stupid reasons, but he'd felt better flirting with other women than asking Christie to change.
But now? Now he wanted answers from her. Why should she be the only one allowed to question him? If Christie thought she was the same woman from before, he wanted her to finally answer a few questions, see if he was also the same man from before when it came to her. He needed to make sure he was never going to feel the need to seek solace in the arms of someone like Simone again.
Jim fought a yawn as Hank led him back into the squad. He'd pretty much decided he and Christie never would have married now—he couldn't see her and she'd mostly been attracted to the tough cop side of him.
"Hey, Dunbar," Sonny greeted him.
Jim frowned. "Get out of my chair, Sonny."
Sonny stood up. "I don't know how you do it—"
"Don't finish that thought."
"You're sure bossy today."
"Did you bring me good news?" Jim asked. He let Hank go.
He took a deep breath and cleared his thoughts of Christie. He wouldn't think about her again until he got home, when he could do something besides brood. Jim was back in cop mode. He'd always prided himself on his ability to keep different aspects of his life separate.
"I can't talk at your desk," Sonny said, suddenly sounding nervous, like he was looking around.
"But you can sit at it?"
"I was looking for the Dunbar family photograph."
"Come on." Jim crooked his finger and led the way to an interview room. "You can talk in here, right?" Sonny was always careful not to be seen giving away criminal secrets to cops; he would have ruined his career as a professional snitch.
"I don't know… Last time I was in here, you tried to strangle me."
"Start talking, or I'll do it again. What have you got on Pipsqueak?"
"You're not going to like it."
"Spill." Jim pulled out a chair and sat, waiting, but prepared for the worst. The way this case was going, he wasn't overly hopeful that Sonny'd be able to find anything useful.
"I started asking around at all my usual places, my usual sources, I got nothing. So, playing a hunch maybe he dealt in weapons, I asked about that. 'I'm looking to buy an AK-47, I heard I need to talk to Pipsqueak,' you know. Nothing. So I switched up, started asking about buying drugs. Finally found this old guy in a dive, took me aside, told me he didn't know where I got my information, but I got it mixed up. Pipsqueak don't sell drugs to you unless you're suicidal and he warned me to stop asking questions. So I stopped."
Jim bit his lip, mulling that over in his mind. "…unless you're suicidal." "What if you are suicidal?"
"I'm not, so don't ask me. I'm not going back. I value my life—don't laugh."
Jim wiped the smile off his face to humor Sonny, then headed back to his desk with the information on the only guy Sonny'd found who'd even heard of Pipsqueak—not even a name, just a location and a description. He'd roll it over with the other detectives, see what they thought about casing the joint and trying to find the guy.
"Let's run it by Jim," Tom was saying as Jim walked back to his desk late that afternoon.
"No," Marty said emphatically. "I'm sick of "running things by Jim" first. We don't need his help." Marty sounded angry, bitter.
"Run what by me?" Jim couldn't help asking. According to his and Marty's agreement, he should have just let it go and backed off, but if he could help…
"No," Marty snapped.
"Why not?" Jim sat carefully, confused. He and Marty'd actually been getting along, he thought. He'd been wrong about people before, but… this was different. He'd just talked to Marty and there'd been nothing wrong then.
"Because I'm sick of watching you take things we've been working on for hours and you work it in that steel trap of a head for five minutes and you got it."
"Marty—"
"Marty, I'm gonna run it anyway," Tom interrupted.
Marty grunted.
Tom came over and sat on the corner of Karen's desk. Jim sat back to listen.
"So these two suspects walk into a bar. They're sitting at the counter, drinking some cheap beer, ragging on each other. One of 'em says, "If I got in my car in Des Moines and drove at 93 mph, and you got in your car in Florida and drove at 50 mph, which one of us is the old granny?""
Jim stared at Tom blankly. "Have you been drinking?" he asked.
Marty just sat back and laughed.
"You're no fun, Jim," Tom said.
"I told you it wouldn't work," Marty said.
"You had me going there for a second. I thought it was actually about the case."
"Yeah, right. You don't need to make me feel better."
Fisk walked up, followed by Karen. "Give me a rundown. What's going on?"
"One DOA down, one to go," Tom said. "Samantha Whittleton, DOA like her cousin. No criminal record. I notified her family to contact us, but haven't heard back yet. Mrs. Bartlett said she'd try to get a hold of her sister, but they had a falling out a couple years ago and don't really talk. All she knew for sure was Samantha had left home when she turned 18."
"I got her high school transcripts," Karen said. "I've been looking into who her friends were when she left home 'cause I can't find she had any friends in New York."
"I've been looking into Glenn Bartlett," Marty said. "Also no criminal record. Medical records have him with a history of depression, which his mom confirmed. She said Samantha had always been the wild child of the family, but didn't think she had a history of drug use. She's getting us all the information she can think of, addresses, friends, family. I faxed Samantha's regular doctor for her records, but I haven't got them yet."
There was a pause.
"Jim?" Fisk prompted.
"Pipsqueak. Seems like he deals in homemade poisons. I've been calling all the local chemists and drug suppliers, looking into private purchases, but unless ME can isolate any of the chemicals, it's going to be hard to narrow it down. The other scenarios are he's buying black market, or just stealing the chemicals, which would make it untraceable."
"Jim and I are trying to work up a way to contact the guy Sonny talked to. If we can get him in here on charges, he'll be more likely to talk," Marty said.
"We're gonna set Sonny up as a stakeout tonight. He'll call me if he sees the guy, but he's going to keep his distance," Jim added.
"I'm gonna stay a little late here. Just in case."
"If he calls, Marty will go down, they'll take a picture of the guy with the telephoto lens, run his photo, see who comes up, try to come up with a name, ask around a little—"
"And I'm sure we'll find something on him. Get him in custody within a couple days. Question him, see what he knows. I'll let Jim do that part, since I get to do the fun stuff."
"And if the guy doesn't show tonight, Sonny's gonna keep an eye out. And he's asking around about anyone who does a business in poison, going at Pipsqueak from the opposite end."
"Do we know," Fisk asked, "who notified Mrs. Bartlett yet?"
"Payphone," Tom said. "Whoever it was used a payphone."
"Did the Whittleton girl have a job?"
"She worked at Bloomingdale's for a grand total of two weeks," Tom said. "Cosmetics section."
"I talked to her boss and a couple old co-workers who were still around," Karen said. "They thought she was pleasant enough, but she never got personal with them. When she found out she was pregnant, she quit. They didn't know who the father was. They'd never even heard of Rico Artez."
"Samantha and Artez knew each other at least a few years, right?" Jim asked.
"Seems like it."
"So when did she get this Bloomingdale's job?"
"About three years ago."
"Clem's only, what six months? Maybe a year?"
Karen made an uncertain noise. "So she had another kid before?"
"You wanna go talk to DeLana?" Jim asked.
Karen groaned. "That girl's the Fort Knox of secrets. But I'll keep her busy while you wheedle the information out of her kids."
The phone in Fisk's office rang and he grabbed the extension on Tom's desk. "Hold off on that," he said when he hung up. "The brother's down in the Tombs freaking out. He had another seizure and when he woke up…"
"Karen?" Jim asked and stood.
"I don't know how comforting we'll be to him, but okay."
Jim headed for the elevator. "We'll be gentle."
He took Karen's arm and followed her down to the cell Artez was being kept in. He was in such a state they didn't want to bring him out to an interview room. Jim heard sobbing and yelling, several officers yelling back.
"Hey!" Karen said. "We'll take care of this."
"We brought the doctor down, but I ain't opening that cell 'til he calms down," an officer said.
Jim let go of Karen's arm and touched the bars to his right. "Artez!" He thought of yelling at him to pull himself together, but figured that wouldn't go over so well. "Your sister's still safe. We talked to her this morning on the phone."
"Don't go down there!" Artez sobbed. "They'll follow you."
"It was a phone call," Karen said.
"She was fine, so are the kids. And here you are. Can you calm down and talk to us or are you going to make us restrain you?"
"Don't go down there! Promise," Artez whispered.
"I promise," Jim said calmly.
"Never trust a cop."
Jim leaned forward. "You gotta talk to us. We won't go down to talk to her, we'll just keep it to the phone."
Artez was on the floor. Still crying, but calming down.
"We know a lot more about Samantha now, but you gotta come clean with us. Help us out."
"No!"
"Hey! Artez! Don't you want us to help?"
"There's nothing you can do."
"We have a tranquilizer ready," the doctor whispered.
"No!" Artez yelled, rearing back, pushing himself across the cell on the floor.
Jim held out a hand behind him to stop the doctor. "He'll be fine. Right? You'll calm down? So they don't have to give you a tranquilizer? You'll let them examine you, make sure you're okay?"
"I'm never going to see my sister again, so what do I gotta live for? They don't need to make sure I'm okay. It's all my fault in the first place."
"Why?" Karen asked.
Artez was crying quietly. "Samantha," he groaned.
"You wanna tell us how you met Samantha?" Jim asked.
"Is Clem okay?"
"Doing fine."
"Does he miss his daddy?" He made a strangled noise and cut off.
Karen gasped and snatched Jim's arm, pulling him out of the way as the doctor rushed forward. The cell was opened and the body held down as it shook.
"I'm going to sedate him so I can examine him more thoroughly," the doctor said. "You'll have to wait until tomorrow."
Jim hooked his hand around Karen's arm and sighed.
"Karen, what are you doing?" Marty asked.
Jim looked over. He didn't often hear Marty sound surprised.
"I have a date," Karen mumbled.
"So you're running him for priors?"
Jim laughed loudly, surprising even himself.
"Jim, shut up."
Jim grinned. "You want me to call the FBI?"
"I already did." She sounded a little embarrassed.
"That's illegal, right?" Marty said.
"I made up a very plausible story," Karen said.
"Let's run Tom's girlfriend next," Jim suggested.
"How about that floozy from the other night, too?" Marty asked.
"Are you—" Karen sputtered. "Are you guys picking up girls at the bar?"
"Chicks, Karen," Tom said, coming up. "At a bar, they're chicks."
"But these guys are married!" She made a gesture, probably encompassing him and Marty, Jim thought.
"Don't worry, they're just picking up chicks for me." Tom leaned over Karen's desk.
"Nice," Karen said.
"Who are we running?" Tom asked. "Ow! What was that for?"
"Keep your eyes on your own computer. The whole world doesn't need to know."
"Karen has a date," Jim said proudly. He felt both good for her, and good to be in on the joke. He hoped it worked out for her, but in the meantime, it wouldn't hurt to rib her a little about it.
"Jim!"
"She's running him for priors?" Tom asked.
"Karen, that look of spite—you got a thing for Dunbar?" Marty asked.
"Not particularly," she spat.
"Ouch, sorry, Jim," Marty said.
"Most women don't like me much, Marty. I'm used to it."
Fisk walked out of his office and headed their way. "Who are we running?"
Jim followed Karen to the locker room. She'd been snippy when she told him goodnight. "Karen?" Jim asked.
"What?"
"I'm sorry about telling Tom about your date."
"I can take a little teasing, Jim. I'm not gonna break."
Jim stayed by the door. Karen hadn't moved from her locker.
"Marty told me about the girl you guys picked up the other night," she said disapprovingly.
"Marty gossips a lot, doesn't he?"
"I thought you'd know better, Jim. By now, wouldn't you?" She slammed her locker.
"Karen." Jim moved into the room, headed for her locker, but she intercepted him. "I didn't—"
"You kissed her."
"She kissed me. There's a difference."
"Big difference."
"Intent is a big difference. I made her stop!"
"You expect me to believe you? I could ask Anne. We'll find out what she thinks."
"Karen, honest."
"Was Anne really the only one?"
"Yes!" Jim turned away. "Just what did Russo tell you? 'Cause I made her stop. She went off with Tom."
"Really?"
"Yes! Ask them. I'm not gonna lie to you."
"Jim…" Karen said more calmly. "I'm your partner now and I'd hope you wouldn't lie to me. I just want to make sure you don't screw up. 'Cause you know, cops can really mess up their lives doing that."
Jim nodded. Carl Desmond's death was still fresh in their minds. "I know. I almost did once. I swear I won't do it again."
Karen smiled. "I'm keeping an eye on you anyway. I have to report back to Anne, you know."
Jim groaned. "Can we set her up with that Nick guy you were seeing? She'd have a field day with him; make me look like a saint."
"He's in jail."
Jim grimaced. "Sorry."
"But the guy I'm going out with this weekend looked clean. Here's hoping."
"We good?"
"Yeah."
He'd thought Tom and Karen had already left. Marty was still in the squad room. Someone else was in the locker room and, though Jim couldn't pin down why exactly, it just didn't sound like that person belonged. He could ask 'hello' like a blind man, but that would be like showing his cards, and he wanted to have the upper hand. A control freak, like he'd told Marty and Tom in the bar. He stood listening a second to footsteps moving slowly. He moved himself to the far side of the lockers, then waited for the steps to turn the corner. "Can I help you?" he asked, looking as closely at the other person as possible. He'd whipped off his sunglasses as soon as he heard the footsteps, so he kept his gaze as piercing as possible.
"I was just looking for your boss. Brian Mulhaney."
Jim turned quickly before the guy could offer his hand. "Come with me."
"I was sent over from my squad for some information on a witness in one of our cases."
Jim stopped in the hallway and they faced each other. "The boss is gone for the day," Jim said. His internal lie detector was going off, telling him not to trust this guy. "What's your name again?"
"Mulhaney. You wanna see my badge?" There was a snarky, superior tone in his voice, a hint of sarcasm, almost like he was toying with Jim, thought it would be fun to torment him, like pulling the wings off a butterfly. Malice.
Jim shook his head. The guy obviously had noticed he was blind, so Jim dropped the charade.
"And you're…?"
"Jim Dunbar. You wanna see my badge?"
"Oh, you're Dunbar? I heard you interviewed this girl I'm looking for. Maybe you can help me out?"
"What girl are you looking for? I interview a lot of people everyday."
"You want me to describe her?" Mulhaney asked with a tone bridging on the absurd.
"How else am I gonna know who you mean? You just wanna look at my files on everyone I've interviewed this week?"
"If it'll be easier." His voice had a hopeful, almost excited tinge.
"What's her name, this girl, and why are you looking for her?"
"We have reason to believe she witnessed a murder in our precinct. Name she goes by's DeLana Artez."
Jim waited.
"Real name's Laine Campbell. You remember her?"
Jim frowned, pretending to think. "Can't say I do."
"You mind if I go through those files you were talking about?"
"Why don't you come back tomorrow—they're all in Braille, I'd have to read them to you."
"Oh. Ah, yeah, tomorrow. Sure."
"Is that a problem?"
"No, of course not. I'd just hoped the files would be more readily available. Hoped to get a jump on things."
Jim shrugged widely. "Sorry, what you see is what you get. Come back tomorrow, I'll hook you up." Jim held his hand out. "Nice meeting you."
Mulhaney shook, then headed for the elevator.
Jim hurried to his desk.
"Who was that?" Marty asked.
"Take a good look," Jim said quietly.
"I don't recognize him. Should I?"
Jim slid into his chair, trying to look like he wasn't talking to Marty, in case Mulhaney turned around. "Remember that face, okay?"
Marty kept quiet. The elevator doors dinged.
Jim sighed. He cracked his neck and tried to unbunch his muscles.
"You mind explaining?"
Jim put in his earpiece and started loading a file. "I can't explain it. This guy's snooping around, obviously he got lost. I'm pretty sure he's not who he says he is. And he's looking for our witness."
"Who's he say he is?"
Jim was already typing the name into his computer. "Brian Mulhaney," he said slowly as he typed it out. He hit enter and waited for the computer to tell him what he already suspected. It was loading slowly, so he turned back to Marty. "I met this kid once, back when he was in training, so I think I'd even recognize his voice. If I remember right, he was on the job about two days, but he couldn't cut it. Rob Mulhaney's only son. You know Rob?"
"Vaguely."
"Brian was assigned to my old precinct."
"But he only lasted two days?"
The computer started spitting out information and Jim held up a finger for Marty to wait. When the file was done he nodded to himself and threw the earpiece on the desk.
"Bad news?" Marty asked.
"After he left the squad, he disappeared. I don't think he was officially on a case when he disappeared, maybe unofficially… Rob kept it real quiet. If I remember right, they found his body a year ago in a creek upstate. Kid died, but they kept it real hush-hush, no obituary, no funeral. Cremated. All the file could tell me was he was a cop for two days and he disappeared, whereabouts unknown. What do you bet they never recovered his badge?"
"Are you sure it was the kid they found, and this wasn't Mulhaney?"
"I don't even think this guy was a cop."
"You mind explaining that one?"
"Marty, the only cop I know who makes fun of me for being blind is you. True?"
"True. Everyone else can't get past the whole bank thing and stop calling you hero long enough to see you as you really are."
Jim leaned forward on his desk, resting his chin on his hands. "Rob told me about his kid himself. I was still in the hospital, all these well-wishers coming by, driving me crazy: good job, you'll be fine. Rob came in. He sat down, didn't say anything. Just sat there.
"Finally he said, "Jimmy, you were a good detective, sorry 'bout what happened, we'll miss you, but at least we didn't have to pull your body out of a stream.""
That had been when Jim had decided to try to come back on the job. He still hadn't been able to walk down the hall on his own, wasn't sure he'd ever be able to, but he wasn't dead, that much he knew. As long as he was still alive, he'd be a detective. He had been a good detective, and he would be as long as possible.
"He started talking to me, since I couldn't interfere—they were keeping it all under wraps. And to see what I thought. They'd run DNA and everything, 'cause the body'd been decomposing in a creek for a month. Not a pretty sight.
"Rob said Brian had met this group of people the summer before, disappeared for a while. Rob just thought they were all out partying. Then Brian showed up one day, suddenly wanting to follow in the old man's footsteps. Rob was kinda proud, thought Brian was ready to turn his life around.
"The case is still open on his disappearance, and I'd guess they're still investigating—pretty sure it's a murder. Rob thought it had something to do with those new friends."
Jim sighed and leaned back, spinning his chair a little and staring at the ceiling.
"Go home. You look like you need some sleep."
"What I need is to figure out who this guy—"
"I'll look through a few mug books for you."
Jim clenched his jaw.
"Don't tell me you want to do that, too. Jim, you can't—"
"I know." He gripped the armrests of his chair. It was killing him that he'd had a conversation with this guy but had to rely on Marty's eyes.
"I was going to say you can't save the world. One cop doesn't interview everyone, do all the footwork, research, and make the arrests, right?"
Jim smiled. "Right."
"Get some sleep. And apologize to your wife while you're at it."
Jim grimaced. That's not what he'd spent the whole day thinking about, apologizing. Apologizing wasn't even on his list at the moment. "Marty—"
"None of my business."
Jim shut his laptop and stood up. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"Jim?"
He turned away. He didn't want her to look him in the eye.
"What? I was just going to ask what you wanted for dinner."
"Are we okay?"
"I don't know."
He nodded. "We've both been pretty busy lately. Everything's been so hectic."
"Mhmm."
Jim leaned against the pillar in the living room. "About last night…" The whole way home, he'd been thinking, stewing, needed her to understand where he was coming from. Almost like when Marty had confronted him about always trying to be the best, he felt like that around Christie. He'd been wrong when he told Fisk it would all blow over. If he bowed out, yeah, it would blow over for a while, but there was no way he could keep his feelings at bay. Maybe she'd had her answers last night, but he hadn't.
"It's not always about you being blind, Jim." She took a deep breath. "I don't care how many messes you make. You could have let me help, but I understand why you didn't."
Jim sighed. "When you married me, I bet you had no idea one day I was going to be blind." He was tired. Tired and he really didn't want to talk about the night before. He had things he wanted to know, like where he stood with her before apologizing. Maybe all their discretions weren't pardonable after all.
"How could I?"
"How do you deal with it?" He'd heard enough people ask her that, but she'd always shushed them, he'd never heard her answer, but now he wanted to know.
Christie was quiet. "I guess it would be easier to answer that if I knew," she said. "You don't talk to me—"
"I never have. How do you feel? How do you deal with it?"
"You don't let me help."
"I don't want help. And usually I don't need it."
"You don't make it very easy for me to understand, to know what I should do."
It was always back on him. Always his fault.
"I just want things to be the way they were before," Jim said.
"How can I argue with that?" Christie asked.
"Do you want to?"
She paused. "I don't want everything the way it was before."
"Okay, what I want is for you to treat me the same way as before. Can we forget everything and go back to the beginning? I'm still the asshole you married, right?"
"That doesn't say much for me, does it?" she asked with a grimace in her voice.
"So maybe I became one later."
"Timing is everything."
"When I fall down, why do you have to rush to my side?" That had been bugging him for so long. Why didn't Christie just stand up for him? "You can't help. Why don't you just stand there and tell people I'm okay?"
"Wouldn't that seem heartless?"
Aren't you? he wanted to ask. "I was never good enough for you, Christie. Was I? You knew that. You were always out of my league. Why did you marry me?"
"Jim…"
It was Jim, not Jimmy. His pet name was gone. He couldn't confront Christie and expect answers. He should have known that just by looking at the divorce rates in the US. He didn't stand a chance. He turned away.
"I married you because I loved you. You've been making it pretty hard to do that for a long time now. And it has nothing to do with you being blind."
"What if I wasn't?" he speculated. So many things would be different if he hadn't lost his sight, if he'd come out of the shooting with just a small scar on his temple and a few nightmares. If he'd only almost died, but hadn't had to take a year to re-evaluate his life, to struggle to do everything that had always come naturally for him.
In his mind he could see Christie standing behind him, hugging herself, alone. She looked vulnerable for a second and he had to fight the urge to go to her and comfort her. Christie was usually so strong, such an individual, but there were those moments when she softened, when she worried what people thought of her. As he stood there with his back to her he looked closer, past the tears that had gathered in her eyes. Her lips weren't pressed together, her chin wasn't trembling, her nose wasn't turning red. She wasn't scared or sad or hurt. Her blouse, light blue to match her eyes, wasn't wrinkled, and her skirt, dark wool that went just below her knees for a very professional look, it was still neatly pressed. She sat in her office all day, talking on the phone, writing at her computer, taking lunch with the rich and famous and beguiling them with her smile.
She'd almost left him so many times. She always seemed delighted to get him out into her world with her people, show how civilized he was. She took such pleasure in things like trapping him into those dance lessons.
He was tired of doing her favors. She could take one look at him at the end of the day, his suit mussed and wrinkled, his tie undone, often with splatters of blood and a five o'clock shadow, and she'd know she'd failed to curb his natural habits. That had to be killing her.
"Tell me. Why'd you marry me?"
"Do you have to ask? I fell in love with you."
"Did you fall in love with all the parts you've been trying to change for five years?"
"I wouldn't try to change—"
"You do. All the time." He ran both hands through his hair and fell onto the couch.
"You're tired."
"Yes! I'm tired. And all day, I've kept thinking, what does Christie really think?" He turned his head up toward her. "Well?"
She didn't say anything.
"You feel sorry for me? You want to help me?"
"I want to help. That doesn't have anything to do with feeling sorry for you."
"You can't help."
"You're going to do it all on your own, right? Like you've always done everything."
"Is that so bad? That's who I am, Christie."
"I think you should sleep before you say anything else, Jim."
He stood up. "I can't. Dr. Galloway rescheduled me. I have to be there in an hour."
"And what are you going to tell him? About us?"
"That my wife couldn't tell me what she thought of me, how's that?"
"I think," she said, "that you need to stop pushing me away."
Jim grabbed Hank's harness and called the dog over. "I didn't say, tell me what to do. I said, tell me what you think."
"You're not the same man." Her voice trembled.
"That's bad."
"Some of it's good." She sighed. "And sometimes I just don't know you anymore. Last night, right now."
"I'm not very good about talking about my feelings."
"Do you yell at Dr. Galloway?" she asked quietly.
Jim frowned, thinking. "Yeah."
"Tell me, right now, what you think about us."
"I think… I never knew who you were."
"Do you know now?"
"No."
"And yourself? What do you think about yourself?"
"That I'm trying my hardest. At everything."
"You want me to cut you some slack, is that it?"
"I just want everything to be—"
"Yeah, well, it can't. Get over it."
He guessed he just wasn't a sentimental guy. Thinking back to when he first met Christie, he didn't get all nostalgic and think, boy if things were still like that. Or, wasn't that a great time? Or boy, I sure liked Christie.
"Doc, is it possible to have never loved someone you thought you did?"
"How do you mean?"
"Like, when you look back at someone you've known for years, and you realize that, even though you thought you loved them, you can't find anything good to look back at?"
"Maybe you're just not looking hard enough."
"Maybe."
"There had to be something, right? Or else why would you have married her?"
Jim smiled a little. Galloway wouldn't be fooled just because he didn't mention Christie's name. He thought back over their relationship again. "There were all these parties she used to drag me to. I hated it."
"But you went for her?"
"Yeah."
"And now you resent her for that? Because you didn't want to do it and you think you wasted all that time you could have been doing something else?"
Jim grimaced.
"That's normal. But those are tainted memories. That doesn't mean you never loved her. You just need to dig a little deeper."
Jim smiled. "I thought couples' therapy wasn't your specialty, but you sound pretty knowledgeable to me."
"I've been doing a little reading. I figured you'd bring up your wife once in a while."
"Thanks."
"I still recommend you talk to someone else, though. With your wife. It might help. Jim, you're outgrowing me. You seem to be getting everything back on track at work, you're getting along with the other detectives, the biggest problem you have right now is that you won't talk to your wife. I can't force you to talk to her, but I highly suggest it."
Jim turned to stare at the wall. Galloway let him think.
Christie was in bed when Jim got home. He fell on the couch, fully clothed, his arm slung over his eyes, and slept.