J.M.J.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading this story! Thank you also for reviewing, following, and/or favoriting it! I always appreciate your feedback and support! Thank you especially to AllTrekkedUp for your review on chapter 3!

Chapter IV

Deadly Recognition

This was not how Jim had planned to spend his day off. He had expected to take Jean and Jimmy to the doctor in the morning, and then in the afternoon try to get some work done while they rested. There was plenty of work that needed done. The drain in the kitchen sink was plugged again, there was a creaky floorboard on the stairs, and the lawn was beginning to look like a jungle since Jean had not been well enough to mow it in almost a week and Jim hadn't been home.

It looked like all of that would have to wait a little longer. Jim's sore throat had developed overnight into a flu just as bad as Jean's had been. Jean, on the other hand, was feeling a bit better. Even so, she agreed to go to the doctor with Jim and Jimmy, but they couldn't get in until afternoon. So, for the morning, there was nothing to do but lie in bed and try to read.

Focusing on the words on the page took too much effort, and Jim found that his interest kept being taken away from what he was reading. He just couldn't stop thinking about that supposed accident the day before. He had thought at first that the fireman's idea that the hit-and-run had been intentional was a little far-fetched, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. It was odd that the driver had swerved around the paramedic squad to hit the jogger, but he'd seen odd things like that happen in car accidents before. But between that and the car being abandoned and stolen, the idea that it was homicide was starting to make a little more sense. The whole thing must have been planned.

There wasn't anything he could do about it now, he told himself. The detectives knew as much about it as he did, and being a patrol officer, he wouldn't be assigned to investigate it. Besides, the way he felt right now, the case would probably be solved by the time he was back to work. He needed to just try to forget about it, but that was easier said than done.

/

"All right." Johnny clasped his hands nervously and tried to smile, but the sea of bored faces looking at him was less than encouraging. It was only five minutes into his talk, but it felt like it had been forever. Charlie from C-shift really owed him for this. "Now that I've, uh, told you what – a little bit what paramedics are, I'll tell you what we do." He wasn't sure if that made any sense, but since the kids didn't even seem to be listening, it probably didn't matter.

Usually when the fire department did an educational talk like this for one of the schools, they would bring some of their equipment and a fire engine, which usually kept the kids' attention. The teacher for this particular class, however, apparently tried to have a guest come into the classroom at least every other week to talk and, for the sake of uniformity, he said, he wanted all of these talks to happen in the classroom. That was why an off-duty paramedic had been asked to do this and why Johnny didn't have any equipment to show the kids. Johnny only had to get through half an hour, but considering that it had only been five minutes so far, it might as well have been for eternity.

Two of the boys in the back began whispering to each other. The teacher, a stern, middle-aged woman who had only introduced herself as Mrs. Farley, immediately interrupted Johnny to tell them to be quiet.

"Be respectful!" she snapped. "Mr. Gage didn't come to visit our class just so you would talk over him."

One of the boys raised his hand. Mrs. Farley begrudgingly gave him permission to speak.

"I was just telling Phil that I already know what a paramedic does," the boy said.

Mrs. Farley looked like she was about to tell him to be quiet again, so Johnny intervened. "You do? What's your name?"

"Sam," the boy replied.

"Well, Sam," Johnny said, "have you seen paramedics working?"

"Yeah," Sam told him. "I saw you working. Old man Winfall – I mean, Mr. Winfall got hit by a car yesterday, just down the street from my house. I saw you and another paramedic there."

"There's no need to talk about things like that," Mrs. Farley started to say.

"You saw that?" Johnny asked, his curiosity about what had happened making him forget all about the talk he was supposed to be giving. "You saw the accident?"

"I didn't see it, but I heard it," Sam said. "I was sick so my mom let me stay home. I was up in my room, and I heard the crash and then all the sirens. My dad says Mr. Winfall had it coming to him. He was a real mean old man."

"Enough of that, Sam," Mrs. Farley rebuked him. "Please continue your talk, Mr. Gage."

"Oh, right." Johnny was half-distracted through the rest of the talk, but so was his entire audience. The revelation that the victim of the "accident" had been disliked by his neighbors seemed just another piece of evidence that the incident had been intentional.

Fortunately, the distraction helped to make the next twenty minutes go by faster. Whether the talk had been a disaster or not, Johnny couldn't have said. Probably the kids listening could have said either. Whatever the case, that wasn't the first thing on his mind. He was focused far more on the "accident".

From the few months that Johnny had been working with Roy, he could already see that things like this hit hard for Roy. John couldn't blame him. After all, as hard as he'd tried yesterday that there was no way they could have caused the accident, he had to admit to himself that that wasn't entirely so. If it had been an accident, the driver of the other car had clearly been at fault for speeding and running the stop sign, and he hadn't helped his case by making it into a hit-and-run. Still, if the squad hadn't been there and the driver could have seen the jogger, Winfall, he might have been able to swerve to miss him. On the other hand, if the "accident" had actually been on purpose, whether the squad was there or not wouldn't have made any difference. Johnny needed to find out somehow.

That was what he was thinking as he walked out of the school and was suddenly accosted by a man who looked vaguely familiar.

"You're the paramedic who was giving the presentation to the fourth grade, right?" the man asked. When John replied in the affirmative, he went on. "That's some program, the paramedics. How did you get involved in it, anyway?"

"I just signed up for the training," Johnny replied, a little confused by the man's effusive interest.

"They must pay quite a bit extra for something like that," the man continued.

"Actually, no. They pay us the same amount as a regular firefighter," John said. "Excuse me, but have we met?"

"You don't recognize me?" the man asked. "I guess you wouldn't. I was just a bystander anyway a few days ago at a car accident. I thought I saw you there. I could be mistaken."

"Yeah, that could be." That would explain why the man looked familiar, but Johnny had the feeling that there was more to it than that.

"I'll let you get on your way," the man said. "Are you on duty today?"

"No," Johnny said.

He was a little relieved to get away from this stranger. His effusiveness was more than a little uncomfortable. Besides, Johnny had a possible murder to think about.

He stopped short. That was it. The man who had just talked to him. He'd cut his hair and between that and the brief glimpse Johnny had had of him the other day, he hadn't completely recognized him at first, but he was sure now. The man who had just spoken to him was the driver of the hit-and-run car.

Johnny looked all around to see where the man went, but he was already out of sight. John spotted a public phone booth just down on the corner. He trotted to it, pulled out a phone book, and began looking for the number of the police without bothering to close the door of the booth. A moment later, he felt someone standing right behind him. He turned his head and found himself face-to-face with the man he had just spoken with a moment ago.

"I thought you'd recognized me," the man said. He pulled his hand out of the large pocket of his coat just long enough for Johnny to see that he had a gun in it. "I figure that other fireman and those cops must have seen me, too. That's something I can't just leave alone."

"Hey, man," Johnny tried to reason with him, "what are you trying to get from this?"

"I'm trying to stay out of jail, idiot," the man practically growled. "There wasn't supposed to be anyone around that time of the morning. Then you and those others had to show up. Well, I'm going to make sure none of you are going to be able to identify me."

"I don't think any of the others saw you," Johnny told him, truthfully enough.

"I'm going to make sure of that," the man said. "But I'm going to have to find them first, and I don't think they'll be quite so easy to find as you were." He jerked his head to indicate to John to follow him. "You can help me."