Chapter Eight

Karen took several tentative steps into the room. She wasn't sure why, maybe she was afraid to see him messed up, injured. It wasn't her fault he'd been attacked, but still, she was his partner, she should have had his back somehow. He looked thin in the face, unshaven and exhausted. His head was turned toward the window and outside. A white bandage covered the back of his head and another covered the left side of his forehead. His eyes were open and he fingered the IV on the back of his left hand.

On her third step, Jim turned toward her, a questioning look on his face.

"Jim? It's me Karen."

"Karen? I'm sorry I don't remember who you are." He was being polite, cool, formal.

"It's okay." She shivered. "Detective Karen Bettancourt," she reminded him.

Jim squinted in her direction, cocked his head and asked, "You're a cop?"

"Yeah."

"So you need my fingerprints to ID me?"

"Jim, I don't need to ID you, we're partners."

"Partners?" Jim went quiet for a moment, digesting this news, partners, not wife, well that answered the lack of wedding ring. "You know who I am?"

"Detective James Dunbar. Sound familiar?"

He shrugged, "Not really." Detective, so what sort of partners were they? He hoped she'd give him a bit more and not make him ask for every nuance.

"So, um, what do you remember?"

"Waking up in a dump." A familiar expression flitted across his face but was gone before she could identify it. "Do you know who did this to me?"

"We do. What do you remember?"

"Will you need my testimony?"

"Probably not, we have some hard evidence and an accomplice after the fact, but I need to know what you remember."

Jim shook his head, turned away from her, "Nothing. I remember nothing before waking up in the dump."

"What then?"

"I was injured, I couldn't see anything. There was a dog there I think."

"That's Hank. He's your guide dog."

Jim went silent. "Guide dog?"

Karen watched as Jim reacted and then smothered the emotion on his face. What was he thinking? Should she ask? She didn't know how to react herself. She'd assumed the doctor had explained, but he'd left it to her. Coward.

Guide Dog? He flinched internally. No, it wasn't possible. The doctor had said they didn't know what had caused this, it must be from the blow to his head, from a few days ago.

The woman was waiting, but still Jim couldn't pull his thoughts away.

Experiencing blindness over the last few days somehow didn't compare with the news that this wasn't temporary or new. He really hadn't considered the possibility that it wasn't connected to whatever had landed him in a dump. His breath caught in his throat, he must have misunderstood her. "What do you mean?"

"Hank, the dog. He's yours."

"I'm completely blind?"

"Yes." At least the female detective who claimed to be his partner wasn't equivocating.

"I was born this way?"

"No, you got shot a few years back."

Jim nodded. As he chewed his lip in a very familiar way, Karen felt tears come to her eyes and blinked them away angrily.

He stilled his face. "Why?"

"Why'd you get shot?"

He nodded.

"A shootout." There was no response from him. "The gunman killed a lot of people. You got the guy who did this to you. Saved four men at least."

Jim took a deep breath and his head moved around, as if he were avoiding eye contact with her. "Good, that's good." He wished she'd leave. He felt like he was under a microscope. He knew she was looking at him, there was no privacy, and the turmoil was building inside.

Karen didn't know what to say. Jim looked devastated, and she had no idea how to help. When she had first seen him, all she had wanted to do was celebrate his return but now, with him not knowing her, and in such a state, she felt sadness and concern.

"So, you said you know who did this to me?"

"Marybeth Desmond." Karen waited, looking for a flicker of recognition but there was none.

He frowned, half shook his head and continued, "And how?"

"Crow bar."

Jim fingered the bandage on his head. "A crow bar, huh? And she just walked up and hit me?"

"We don't know. She won't talk. Her accomplice, he put your body in the dumpster, he didn't see it." Karen suddenly realized what she'd said and began trying to retract it. "I mean, he-"

"It's okay, so he thought I was dead?"

"That's what she had told him, and he put you into the dumpster and that's how you ended up at Staten Island."

"And the dog?"

"We don't know how he got in there. But we'll find out."

"The suspect hasn't said anything?"

"No.'

"So, the accomplice, what's his name?'

"Michael Pale."

"Did he say why she wanted to kill me?" Jim gave her a wry smile.

"She gave him some story about you attacking her."

Jim was silent for a while. "Am I the sort of person who would do that?"

"No, no way."

"Does she have any injuries?"

"No."

"Well, that's good."

"And, Jim, it's not realistic anyhow, you chasing and attacking her."

Jim looked quizzical.

"Jim," Karen spoke as gently as she could, "Hank was out of his harness."

"The dog?" Jim's expression told Karen that it hadn't occurred to Jim that he would need the dog.

"Yes."

Jim was silent but his face told her the whole story.

"Marybeth claims that she ran and you caught her. If she ran, how would you have caught her?"

Jim's emotions swept back like a tidal wave.

"So we figure, judging by the two head injuries you've sustained, that she sneaked up on you and hit you without provocation."

He grabbed the bars on the side of the bed just to keep upright. What was she telling him? Either he had attacked a woman or he was so blind that he couldn't. Neither alternative was acceptable.

"Hi, How we doing?" A cheery voice suddenly rang to his left, the nurse, Leslie, coming in for the regular blood pressure and temperature checks.

"I'll come back in a little while, okay?" Karen touched his arm sympathetically and retreated from the strained atmosphere.

As soon as Karen's footsteps told him she'd left the room, Jim turned to the woman who had been with him during the night. He touched her hand where she held his wrist. "Nurse, the woman who was in here… I need some time…" Jim was at a loss for words.

Leslie looked at his unsteady hand, the white knuckles where he gripped the bed rail, the strain in his handsome face. It was her first year on the wards, and she was still getting used to the trauma that came through the emergency wards. This man had woken to blindness, full loss of identity, and judging by the rumors, in the Staten Island landfill. She'd thought not knowing who he was would hurt. Perhaps finding out was hurting even more. She'd been checking on him through the night as he tossed and turned with nightmares. She stroked his arm and felt her eyes grow warm. "I'll tell her you need a rest. You're temperature is up a little too. I'm going to let the doctor know."

"Thank you." Jim fell back against the pillows, exhausted.

Karen turned away from the window of his door after checking Jim once more. He was lying back, eyes closed, perhaps he was sleeping. The doctor had told her she'd need to wait a little longer to talk to him again. Give him a couple of hours. She called the Boss but he had nothing for her. She decided to take care of Hank. He needed a wash and some food. She took him back to her place where he sat unresisting through a bath but he refused any food. Curled on the floor next to the door, Karen knew he was waiting for her to take him back to Jim.

Tom and Marty stopped in at the hospital. Jim was asleep but it was enough for them to look through the glass window and see it really was him. They bumped fists, shaking their heads. "This guy must have a head made of steel." Marty joked as they drove out of the hospital car park.

"Well, there's still shrapnel in there," Tom agreed.

"What?"

"Yeah, you know, from the bullet that blinded him." Tom was serious. "He told me."

Marty's grin covered his whole face. "No way! He's just messing with you again." Marty shook his head, good detective Tom might be, but when it came down to it, Tom was as gullible as a rookie about some things.

"No, I'm serious, he told me so, after that thing with his brother. Apparently he's carrying six bullets worth of shrapnel around."

Marty gave Tom a disbelieving look but began to wonder. After all, this wasn't the first time Dunbar had come out of a situation that would have seen most cops dead.

Tom grinned. "I for one, am happy he's got some kind of positive voodoo going. Looking through dumpsters for dead cops is not my idea of a good day's work."

"You guys finished touring the state?" Fisk jumped on Russo and Selway as soon as they walked in. "You got two DOA's to go check out in a dumpster behind that new Chinese restaurant on Canal."

Tom hung his head. Marty looked sick.

"Go, get outa here, we're understaffed 'til Dunbar get's his ass outa the hospital bed but that doesn't mean we don't have cases."

"Where's Karen?" Marty asked. It was her partner that was sleeping during their tour. She should carry some of the load.

Fisk silenced him with a look and the men headed right back out the door.