Title: A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Two

Author: Laurie

Type: Slash

Rating: PG-17

Warnings: none for this chapter.

Beta'ed by the lovely and talented lj user=t_verano.

A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Two

It was hours before we were through with the decontamination procedures at Cascade General. Blair and I had showered in a safe area in the ER and had changed into new scrubs before getting some baseline urine and blood work done. Acrylamide didn't leave any traces in the body, but the docs had deemed the tests necessary in case poisoning symptoms showed up later. It wasn't likely, though. Before I had touched the travel mug that held the coffee Bergman had tampered with, I had wrapped the handle with napkins to avoid adding my fingerprints to it, and that action had provided another layer of protection. Blair had only touched the mug with one hand and we didn't think he had inhaled any vapors.

Bergman had cooperated with the medical staff, although he insisted that he had followed all lab safety protocols for dealing with this dangerous chemical. He finally got taken to Booking shortly before midnight. I'd question him after he was processed in, and I'd take Blair, who was still in protective custody, with me to the bullpen. Anyway, as Blair pointed out, we hadn't arranged a safe house for the night, and in the morning he had to give an official statement regarding Bergman. Mostly he was indulging me by staying close, but I was fine with that.

I would have stopped at the loft to change and Blair could have borrowed a pair of sweatpants and a warm shirt; however, I saw a golden opportunity to buy him some new clothes, and he couldn't argue about it. The ER doc hadn't let him keep his backpack or any clothes that had been in it on the off-chance that Bergman had contaminated them. Blair protested that his stuff had never been left alone with Bergman, but he lost that argument.

Blair agreed to a whirlwind expedition to Walmart, as long as I handed over the receipts so he could pay me back later. We loaded up a cart for mostly him, but some for me since I was in scrubs, too, and then headed to the P.D.

I knew Simon would let Blair sleep in his office, and truthfully, I would feel better knowing I could check on him even while I was breaking Bergman into pieces. My senses felt strong, centered, since Blair and I had reconnected; it would be no hardship to listen in on him from the interrogation room.

Blair hesitated for a moment before we entered Major Crimes, but then headed straight for my desk, trailing a hand along the edge of it before dropping down into my chair. He'd been quiet ever since we'd left Walmart, and I wished he'd start chattering about something. Blair expounding on things that popped into his head meant normal to me, and God, I wanted normal with him.

I grabbed the chair from Connor's desk and joined Blair. "Hey, are you feeling okay?"

He flipped his hand back and forth, indicating he wasn't sure yet, and bit his lip. "Yeah, although the Tylenol should wear off soon, and then I'll be able to tell if I've still got the fever. I just... it's that... Well, I didn't think I'd ever be back in the bullpen again, and man, I've got so many memories from when I belonged here." He pointed to a wall. "Over there is where Zeller shot Megan. I was standing right next to her when it happened. And seeing Rhonda's candy dish, and H's hula girl statue and knowing Simon's angel collection is there on his shelves... I guess I'm just feeling a little nostalgic."

I said quietly, "I wish that you could be here with me every day. Simon let me know that isn't an option. I don't know why the brass dug in their heels about you not becoming a cop or even a consultant again, but you're still on the Chief's shit list; we can't work together like we did before. I'm sorry."

Blair smiled regretfully. "I know, Jim. There's a line from a book by Nelson Mandela about how he processed coming back to his life after prison. I can't remember the exact quote but I kind of feel the same way."

He yawned then, and I jerked my thumb towards Simon's office. "Get some shut-eye. Getting Bergman to crack might take all night. Do you think he'll lawyer up?"

Yawning again, Blair nodded. "He's an intelligent man, and sure, he's going to want a lawyer. But Jim, he's got a story to tell, and I think if you keep on that theme, he might spill his guts. Whatever the hell Edwards did to bring him to the point of murder, he must have stewed about it for a long time. And you know, I think he felt guilty about trying to kill me. He didn't have to give me that coat – not that I got to keep it for very long, since it's headed for the incinerator - or that money. Why did he do that? It's like he was trying to take care of me, even though he thought he had to feed me poison. Push him on that, Jim, and I think he might talk despite getting a lawyer."

I stood up then and helped him lever himself up. He squeezed my hand before pulling away from me. We walked over to Rhonda's desk and I took the key to Simon's door from its hiding place. We stepped into Simon's dark office, and I pulled a blanket out of a filing cabinet and tossed it to my partner. He unlaced his new shoes - cheap but they'd do for now - and stretched out on the couch, wiggling until he was comfortable, ending up facing me. I stepped closer to him and ran my fingers through his curls. I tugged on one, and then moved to Simon's desk. I could hear my phone from here without extending my hearing, and I was going to give into my desire to stand watch over my sleeping friend. My partner. My lover. My guide. There were so many facets to what we were to each other.

"G'night, Jim." He tilted his head in the way that told me he was checking out my aura. "Colors are looking good, my man. You know, you don't have to stand guard."

"Let me do this, Blair, at least until I have to go. It... feels right."

He blew me a kiss, and closed his eyes, sighing, it seemed to me, with tiredness and contentedness.

"Go to sleep, okay?" Guide, I added to myself. Go to sleep, babe.

xxx

When my phone rang out in the bullpen, I stopped to feel Blair's forehead before I left Simon's office to answer it. He was warm with a low fever, but was sleeping soundly, since he didn't stir when I touched him. I quietly turned the lock and closed the door and hoped that Blair wouldn't be disturbed till Simon banged on the door in the morning. I grinned to myself as I pictured Simon's exasperated expression at being turfed out of his own space.

It was Joel on the phone and he told me he'd re-read Bergman his rights and for now the man was marinating nicely in Interrogation Room 4, waiting for me to come and grill him.

I decided he could wait a bit longer – let his anxiety increase – and then I called Connor. We'd had a few quiet words at the hospital after I had been decontaminated, and while she couldn't stick around till the staff finished with Blair, she'd insisted that I call her if I needed help. She'd been furious that Bergman had tried to poison Blair, and felt torn between wanting to hug the stuffing out of "her Sandy" and kicking his ass for not keeping in touch with her, especially when she'd heard enough details of his past year to know that he'd had a bad time.

I spent the half hour till she arrived going through my mail. Findley had mailed back my phone, and I slipped it into my flannel shirt pocket. I repackaged his in the same box, wrote his address on it, and stuck it on Rhonda's desk so it could be mailed out in the morning.

Connor and I exchanged grunts when she took over guard duty for me. I hadn't forgotten that there had to be a leak from within the P.D. - someone had given away Blair's whereabouts to whoever had hired the hit-men. While Blair was sleeping, Conner would keep watch. When he woke up, I knew he'd protest that being in the bullpen provided enough security. He'd argue that I was being overprotective if I asked one of the few detectives who I trusted absolutely – Joel, Megan, Henri, Rafe – to take charge of his protective custody detail. No doubt it had been Bergman who had hired the hit-men, since he'd wanted Blair dead badly enough to get his own hands dirty. Probably Blair was safe now that the man was in custody, but I didn't want to take any chances until Bergman admitted it. Hopefully, by the time Blair woke up, I'd be done with Bergman and we could go home.

Home to the loft. It had stopped feeling like my home when Blair left – just became a place to try to sleep and to fix meals. With Blair living there, it would return to being our home. I was looking forward to that. I was looking forward to making love with him in our bed again.

Before I entered the interrogation room where Bergman sat secured in handcuffs, I concentrated and listened to Blair's heartbeat – slow and steady, so he was still asleep. Conner was cursing softly to herself as she wrangled with some of her paperwork. The watch was hers, and I took a moment to consider my strategy for getting Bergman to confess. Then I opened the door, ready to confront him.

xxx

I nodded my head to Bergman, acknowledging him, and then I sighed, hoping I sounded sympathetic. "There's no call for you to be in handcuffs. I apologize for my colleagues, they can get carried away sometimes." I walked the short distance – very short, they designed these rooms to make the prisoner feel confined and eager to be compliant with the interrogator, so they could leave – and freed him.

I had an agenda to follow for this interrogation, which would be filmed and not just tape recorded. Bergman was an intelligent man - getting him to confess would be crucial in charging him with Edwards' murder. I'd start by seeing if I could develop some rapport with him. Bring up things we had in common, and then I'd start mapping out his physical responses to my questions. His reactions to questions involving just memory wouldn't be the same as his responses to questions that he would have to formulate an answer to before responding back. This was because people accessed memories from one area of the brain but when they made up answers they accessed a different one.

I sat down across from him, observing his pallor, the slump of his shoulders. "Long day, long night. You must be tired, Nathan. Uh, it is okay if I call you Nathan, isn't it? Blair Sandburg's mentioned you quite a bit over the last few years; I feel like we've known each other for a while now." I didn't actually stop to let him answer those questions. At this stage of the game, I would be doing the talking and he would be mostly listening. I continued with using his first name.

"Nathan, how long have you worked for the university?" I smiled at him, encouraging him to answer.

His eyes moved to the right, indicating he was accessing his memory. No need to make up an answer when the truth would do. "Twenty-five years."

"Wow, that's a lot of time you've dedicated to making Rainier one of the best universities in the state. I went to school there, even played football. Best time of my life, and it was due to motivated people like yourself. You taught chem, didn't you, before you became an administrator?"

A soft yes, another involuntary glance to the right. I went on building rapport, establishing connections between ourselves, and easing him into answering my questions.

Joel was watching behind the one-way mirror. He would come in later and engage in strategies that we hoped would make Bergman feel uncomfortable with this second, unfriendly cop. When Joel left the room, threatening to return later, Bergman might confide in me, since hopefully the rapport I was establishing now would make me seem more sympathetic to him than Joel. Classic good cop, bad cop, which worked on people a fair amount despite any movies they might have seen which gave them a heads up about that tactic.

So far, all the questions I'd directed his way had been non-incriminating. He hadn't asked for a lawyer yet. He hadn't insisted on his right to silence. That was promising. He shifted on his chair – an uncomfortable one that was there to deliberately increase his discomfort – and I switched to asking questions about how he thought the students and the faculty perceived his time as chancellor. His eyes looked upwards as he gave me the answers he crafted in that moment. Yep. Eyes to the right for memory, eyes looking upward for processing an answer. When I asked him where the Volvo was or how he'd arranged for hit-men to kill Blair while my partner had been in Sweetwater, I'd know if he was remembering the truth or making up a whopper. I'd use my ability to read him through increased heartbeats and perspiration, too, but that behavior could be muddled by just plain anxiety. The eyes thing was a documented, standard interrogation technique.

This stage of rapport building continued for another twenty minutes or so, and his responses to me had been positive enough. We'd stick with me being the main interrogator, then.

"Nathan, let me give you some advice. We know that you tried to poison Blair Sandburg tonight. Blair called, asked to meet, and you agreed. You left your office and went to a chemistry lab and took acrylamide with you when you left. You drove to Petro and spoke for some time with Blair Sandburg. You doctored a travel mug of coffee with the acrylamide you stole from the university lab and gave it to Blair Sandburg."

Bergman opened his mouth, but I kept right on talking.

"You're going down for attempted murder. The coffee you poisoned is considered a deadly weapon, and lab tests will confirm what you already told us: that there was acrylamide in that mug."

His heartbeat was changing tempo as I spoke, and the quickened sound started to engulf me but I countered its effect by scratching my arms roughly, the sharp sensation grounding me.

Blair had shown me that trick years ago.

I continued, "Now, some people might think that you hate Blair Sandburg, but I have to say I don't think that's the case. I mean, you bought the guy dinner and a jacket. You didn't have to do that, or give him money." I explored this theme for a while, that he hadn't acted against Blair in malice, and by the subtle body-language tells – the small nods he probably wasn't even aware he was making, listening to me without interrupting – he was accepting this theme that he liked Blair.

It made him sound like a good guy, and you know, nobody is the villain of their own story. It was my intent to get him to spill why a good guy like him had taken the steps that had led to murdering Marie Edwards.

I stood up and moved to the chair which was next to his. I made eye contact with him, and squeezed his shoulder comfortingly.

"But you did hate Marie Edwards. She never appreciated all the work you did to make Rainier a better school for the students. In fact, she blocked you a lot, didn't she?" I squeezed his shoulder again before standing up, dwarfing him in his chair.

"She was a terrible person, and you were her second in command. I bet you had to clean up a lot of the messes she made. And it wasn't only the students that she derided, was it? Why did you stay? A bright, capable, dedicated man like yourself, why stay for the abuse she heaped on you?"

Bergman listened, captivated, those small nods telling me I was accurately describing his feelings.

"She was holding something over you and you had no choice; you couldn't leave that position, and somebody needed to look out for the students. You had no choice but to remove her, and you were so clever, Nathan, when you realized that Blair Sandburg could be used as a decoy."

I'd kept my voice low, but now I was only speaking loud enough for the camera to pick it up.

"Blair was your sacrifice, wasn't he? Like Abraham sacrificing Isaac, you cared for the boy but the greater good needed to be served." I'd heard him say that phrase as he asked for forgiveness while he was in his car doctoring up the coffee that would have killed Blair. He startled when he heard me repeat the very words he'd used himself.

I let myself loom over him. He had to tilt his head upwards and I made sure to keep eye contact. "It was so convenient for you when Blair and Edwards had that falling out over his dissertation. Of course he would feel angry and, after he left Cascade, you kept track of him. Wasn't that hard to do, since his employers sent for his records and references. And you figured out how to stop Edwards from tormenting you. You came up with a plan, didn't you? You flew to New Mexico to see Blair , and you bought his Volvo. You knew he was struggling – all those jobs he couldn't keep. You offered to help him out by buying his car and you paid cash for it. No pesky checks that would show that you were now the owner. He signed over the title to you, and he trusted you to complete the transaction. But you never registered it to yourself. You hid that car, until the right opportunity came."

I walked away from him and sat back down, taking my time, opening a file folder and pretending to read through it. Bergman uneasily watched me, and I finally pushed back away from the table and moved next to him, resuming my looming over him.

"On the afternoon of August 9, 2000, you drove your green Volvo to Rainer's campus. This was the car you had purchased in New Mexico from Blair Sandburg. You parked it illegally so that it would get a ticket and there would be proof that the car had been on campus. Blair Sandburg was the last owner of record, and you were setting him up for the police to consider him a suspect when you killed Chancellor Edwards.

Bergman was listening, sweat beading at his hairline.

"Later that same day you attended an evening meeting with Chancellor Edwards. The meeting ended at dusk, and since it was summertime, the campus was mostly deserted. You left in time to get to the Volvo, put on a curly, long-haired wig, and then let the car idle, waiting for Edwards to walk across the parking lot to her vehicle. You accelerated, driving straight at her. You hit her; you felt the impact from her body smashing into the car."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "By rights, you should have backed up and run over her again, just to make sure she was dead. But you didn't, did you, Nathan. Planning a murder is one thing but actually doing it? Well, that's hard. Very hard. What happened shocked you and you just wanted to get away."

I let go of him and he gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod of his head. He liked this theme, liked how I was explaining that he wasn't a cold-blooded killer. All of this had been hard on him. Very, very hard.

"You knew that Blair probably wasn't in any real danger of being held responsible for the chancellor's death. Blair was moving around the country; he would be difficult for the police to find through the university because you made sure to destroy any documentation that he was continuing to contact Rainier. You hoped the case would go cold, that no leads would be developed. Then later you could get rid of the Volvo."

His body language shifted, a small frown line developing between his eyes. I quickly amended my remarks. "Or, no, you wanted to keep the Volvo; after all, you'd paid good money for it and you could have it repainted, maybe even registered under a false title."

He looked a little bewildered. I asked him a direct question then and waited for his answer. "Do you understand how to falsify a title? Or know who to contact for one?"

He shook his head, happy to have something he could truthfully deny. "No, I don't have any idea how one would go about something like that. Excuse me, Detective. I think maybe-"

I cut him off. He was starting to think about asking for a lawyer. Once he did and stated he didn't want to talk to us without one, our hands would be tied.

"Nathan. What about your side of the story? What did Edwards do to you? Blackmail?" His eyes flicked to the right. True, then. I wasn't surprised. The late, mostly unlamented Chancellor Edwards had always struck me as someone very willing to play fast and loose with ethics. When I remembered her actions in dealing with Blair – jumping on releasing his dissertation without his permission, firing him unjustly for not turning a blind eye to cheating and rape just so another university supporter would fork over cash – well, let's just say Karma can be a bitch.

"She blackmailed you. You didn't have a choice. You had to stop her, she was hurting Rainier. Blair wasn't there, so with his history of contention with her, you made him look like the guilty one. And it worked. You became chancellor; you pushed ahead with all those programs she wanted to veto."

I sighed. "And then Blair called you and said he was thinking of moving back to Cascade. Everything you had worked for was in danger of being lost. You couldn't let that happen. You hated to do it, but Blair was now too big a liability. But you didn't want to watch him die. You couldn't shoot him or run him over with a car – not after that horrible experience with Edwards, feeling her body hit the car. You didn't want to be that close or to see blood." I knew I was right about his motivations by the way his body language gave him away.

"You're a smart man, Nathan. You must have thought it out a long time ago, how using acrylamide could allow a person to kill someone. Just an academic exercise at first, but after Edwards started making your life hell, then you considered it for killing her. You didn't, though. The obvious problem of an autopsy would make you, someone in her close circle, and a chemist, perhaps a suspect. But Blair – now he was a drifter, a bum, and when he left Cascade and died hundreds of miles from here, probably the police wouldn't think it was murder; most likely they'd think he just died of sickness or drug abuse. They probably wouldn't even do an autopsy on him. And even if they did and considered that perhaps he'd been poisoned, despite nothing being found in his system, they wouldn't connect it with you, would they?"

I looked over at him sympathetically. "Removing Blair would keep him from telling the police, if they caught up to him, that he'd sold the car to you. Because the case hadn't been shut down yet from lack of progress, and you were so worried about everything, but now you wouldn't have to be, as long as Blair died."

I laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "It's over. Tell us in your own words what happened. We know that a guy like you would have to have a good reason for your actions. Don't you want the record to reflect the truth?"

Inside the observation room the scrape of a chair, footsteps, and a door handle being pushed down told me Joel was ready to join me on some pretext and push Bergman. I'd look like the sympathetic one and, when I told Joel to get out, Bergman would feel like I was on his side. That was the way it was supposed to go down. We'd see. Bergman was still in shock, but if he wised up, he'd demand a lawyer and shut up.

Joel opened the interrogation room door and it was showtime again.

center~oo~oo~oo~oo/center

I trudged tiredly up to the bullpen. Blair's babysitter was chewing on a pencil, staring at her computer, when I walked over to her.

"Jimbo."

"Connor."

"Progress?"

"Some."

"Meaning what exactly, mate?"

"He liked the themes; he was pretty close to breaking down and giving a statement admitting his guilt. Joel pushed him pretty hard and he was almost at the point of confiding in me after Joel left, but at the last moment he must have realized that he should shut up and he asked for a lawyer. Now it's up to the DA to see about a plea bargain. Bergman didn't confess to Edwards' murder, but at least we caught him red-handed attempting to murder Blair. We haven't gotten a judge to sign a search warrant for his house and grounds, but it shouldn't be a problem as soon as one wakes up. Bergman hasn't called anybody except his lawyer."

I laughed. "He was a little surprised that things don't work quite the way they do on TV cop shows since his lawyer won't be charging down here to shelter him till at least the daylight hours."

Yawning, I added, "Maybe we can find a connection between Bergman and the hit-men who were after Blair when we go over the guy's home and office records. Blair wants out of protective custody, but I'm not going to end it until we know that he's off the target list. Bergman must have a tie-in with the department here, since somebody had to have leaked Blair's whereabouts in Sweetwater, but damned if I can figure out how, or even why."

Connor pointed to Simon's office. "You're dead tired. Why don't you go look in on Sandy, and get some sleep, too. Like you said, your birdie won't sing until after he's spoken to his lawyer, and that won't happen till after breakfast. I can take Sandy home with me later, if you're tied up with Bergman. You can come by my place and fetch him when you're done."

I thought about her offer and shrugged. "Sounds good. Buzz Simon's extension if Bergman wants to talk." I slapped her companionably on the back and went to Simon's door. Locked. I turned around and Connor was dangling the spare key to Simon's office from her hand.

"Think you'll be needing a little help there." She unlocked the door and I opened it quietly. Blair was curled up on the couch, still deeply asleep.

Connor whispered, "I guess you can sleep in the captain's chair. See you in a couple of hours."

She closed and locked the door and I looked at Simon's chair and then back at the couch. We both couldn't lie down on it comfortably, but I wanted to be close enough to Blair to touch him. I sat down on the end of it and Blair halfway woke up.

"Jim? What?"

I tugged at him till his head was on my lap, and I was reasonably comfortable. I stroked his hair and he fell back to sleep.

I joined him soon after, drifting off thinking about how wonderful it was going to be to have Blair home again.

xxx

The story will be continued in A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Three.