"You know trying to shake down a cop is not the brightest thing you could do."
"That's why I'm thinking she didn't know I was a cop til she got here."
"Why approach you at all, then?"
"Beats me, Chief. You ready to go home?"
Part III
Jim was torn. As a child, he had held close to his heart a fantasy that some day his mother would come back and take care of him - just like she had before she left. And while he was no longer a child, a part of him still longed for a mother who would hold him and comfort him and be proud of him. But this woman – not only did she not seem motherly - she was trying to blackmail him. 'Why is it that everything I touch turns out so twisted?'
"Jim – Simon's here." Blair called from the living room. Jim came in from the balcony, and accepted a beer.
Jim, I'm sorry about yesterday. I didn't…"
"It's okay, Simon. After all it is your office." The smile showed the apology was accepted. "Could you have this dusted for prints?" He handed over the card she'd put her cell phone number on.
"Sandburg's filled me in. What do you say about a little wire action?" Jim and Blair shared a puzzled look. "I think you should meet with your mother, start asking questions – things you remember from your childhood – drag it out a little why we figure out who she is and what game she's really playing."
"No!" Blair came up off the couch and began a frantic pacing of the room. "You can't – Jim, please don't put yourself out there like this. She's trying to hurt you. Hell, she already has just by showing up. Don't give her any more power over you." The Guide desperately wanted to protect his Sentinel from this woman.
"What if Sandburg was with me? She thinks Sandburg is my, ah, my lover. She called here and got the machine – you know Ellison-Sandburg residence. She put two and two together and got five."
"Damn Jim, I was hoping you missed that part of the conversation," Blair said with a laugh before flopping down beside him on the couch.
"So, I tell her that I'd like her to share her memories of my childhood – short though they may be – with me and my 'lover.' Only way she'll get the money. And it'll tell us if she is, in fact, my mother. Plus that way I have backup."
"You in Sandburg?" Simon asked.
The next night they met the woman at a restaurant for dinner. She had not been happy, but Jim had carefully explained that he needed some closure on his childhood before he would turn over the money. She ordered only the most expensive things on the menu and a rather pricy bottle of wine. Sandburg had to hide a smirk – the department was picking up the tab after all - seems blackmailing cops was frowned upon in the Great City.
Jim started out with simple questions – did she remember bringing home Stevie from the hospital; what about his first day of kindergarten? Her answers were very nonspecific, and she kept asking Jim to expand on what he remembered – essentially trying to glean enough from his words to fake it. He remained on an even keel throughout the evening, stopping just this side of the doting son. Sandburg played his part with squeezes and pats and other displays of physical affection.
Simon met them back at the loft, but had to wait until Jim got out of the shower. He felt compelled to be clean after the time spent with that woman. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Sir," he said joining them.
"What did you learn?"
"I don't know who she is, but she's not my mother."
"Care to explain?"
"The only information she shared, she parroted back to me. A major flaw in the plan was my being a cop and not a hot shot businessman who would pay just to shut her up. So she had to play along – but she's not that good an actress. Anything on the prints?"
"Nothing on NCIC, so I asked for a state by state starting with the West Coast. Should know the results tomorrow."
"I want this over with, Simon," Jim said, his voice giving away his true state of being. "Enough's enough. I'll arrange a drop tomorrow, and then let's haul her in." He didn't know what else to say. He was disappointed, in some way he couldn't quite categorize, that this woman was not his mother. He knew he shouldn't be, and that made him angry at himself. It was just so fucked up.
"Jim, we have enough to take her now. You don't have to be there." Simon was worried about the emotional health of his friend and top detective. He knew he had only an inkling of how hard this was on the man.
"No. By the book, Simon. I need to see what she has to say about my father."
"Jim, please don't…" Blair didn't know what else to say. "She's lied about everything else, why let her play you on this point?" Jim shrugged in response, before heading for the phone. He made the call, and set the meeting for a park near the loft.
He also called Stephen, and told him that the woman was not their mother. He reassured his younger brother gently, and made it clear that blackmailing was not really a trait they wanted in the family anyway. Then he took a beer out onto the balcony, and settled into a chair, his eyes lost in the stars.
"You going to bed?" Blair asked an hour later.
"Not right now, Chief. But go ahead, I'll see you in the morning."
"Jim?"
"I'm fine, Sandburg, honest. Just have some thinking to do, and as you know, that is your strong suit, not mine." He tried for a light tone, but his Guide was not fooled.
"Bullshit. You're one of the smartest people I know."
"Blair, please, just go to bed. I'll be fine, I promise, and if I need to talk, I know where to find you." The anthropologist took hold of both shoulders for a minute before leaving him to the night. Jim stayed on the balcony, watching the stars, trying to figure it all out.
Blair brought him coffee in the morning. "You alright?"
"Think so."
"Find any answers?"
"None I liked," he admitted, as he sipped his coffee. "Sometimes I think I must be wearing a sign that says 'kick me' for all the cosmos to see. I'm not sure what about this case makes me maddest – the fact that she isn't my mother or that she had me doubting who my father was. After all these years, who knew I would react so emotionally? And I understand now that's all this has been about – the idea that she is still out there somewhere…wondering and worrying about me. Pretty stupid."
"No. Not at all. I figured her showing up had to feel like all your childhood fantasies come to life – well except the blackmail angle – but to have this woman, claiming to be your mother, suddenly reappear, and maybe get the answers to all those questions…I don't think its stupid at all, man. I think its' human."
"Think she might know my mother, and that's where the idea came from?"
"Big guy, I don't think it will be that easy." Blair's heart wept for the lost eight year old looking out his friend's sad eyes.
TBC
