The wind whispered mournfully down the long, lonely stretch of Kansas highway. With it, the smell of freshly harvested wheat – sweet yet yeasty, like baked bread – assaulted Agent Thomas' nostrils, even though the land about him had apparently been long-abandoned by the combine harvesters that had cut down their crops, leaving nothing more than dried, golden chaff and dirt as far as the eye could see. The wide bowl of the sky was an azure, cloudless blue, that was quickly brightening as the sun continued to slowly rise in the east. It was so quiet and peaceful there, on the side of that road, that for a moment, Thomas almost forgot why he was standing there at all. Almost.
Elijah sucked in a mouthful of that earthy, humid air as he turned his face to the sky, closing his eyes for just a moment – not really wanting to forget what had brought him there, so much as taking a much-needed moment to collect himself. It had been a long nine hours since he'd last talked to Ezra, and the first three hours it had taken him to reach his old partner had been the longest three hours he'd lived since the days when he lived in constant fear of lynch mobs and clansmen. Although he'd rushed to his friend's aid, and even called in assistance from Ezra's deputies, he'd been almost certain of what they'd find in the end. Elijah's deep, mournful eyes opened quite suddenly, and he pushed the air out of his lungs as he stepped forward into the grass at the side of the road, where a bright orange marker still lay, indicating the place where his old partner had fallen. Crouching beside it, Elijah placed a wide, muscular hand onto the ground where his friend had been found, fighting the urge to either cry or scream as he pushed his fingernails into the dirt there. His breath shook and his stomach churned as he recalled Ezra, sprawled out and eyes open wide to the sky – his final surprising, yet clearly terrifying moments frozen onto the expression left on his face. As unforgettable as he'd appeared laying there in the grass, the lack of damage done to his body seemed to indicate that he might have died of natural causes. Still on his way to the scene and desperate to work the case of his friend's murder, Elijah had had a hell of a time convincing the county examiner not to pack him up and take him away the moment he'd been found. Elijah didn't need to be told by the man on the phone that there was no evidence that any foul deed had befallen his friend, and it had taken every bit of professional patience for Elijah not to tear into him. In the end, his persistence and apparent adherence to procedure had won over the methodical sounding man on the other end of the line, and he'd agreed to keep the scene intact until Elijah could get there. By the time he finally pulled up to that stretch of road, he'd felt like he'd had an eternity to prepare for the worst, but what he saw lacked any of the usual sensational hallmarks that usually followed in the wake of the beast he'd hunted too many years ago to count, and he was somewhat shaken by its absence. The coroner had been right to question Elijah's oddly strict adherence to protocol in this case, for apart from the surprised expression on Ezra's face, there was no sign of foul play – no marks on his skin, nor extreme aging apart from the natural indications that had been there before, and no second victims either to join him on his trip to the county morgue.
The presence of most of the sheriff's office, clambering around the edges of the crime scene and threatening to muck up any hidden evidence, gave Elijah another reason to release his friend to the coroner. He'd done this as quickly as possible, so they'd finally abandon this stretch of road once more, leaving him free to examine it without prying eyes. This was difficult in the dead of night, however, and apart from the abandoned vehicle Ezra had been found no more than twenty feet away from, there was no other sign of life on that road to assist Elijah in putting together the final few moments of his friend's life. In the end, he'd decided to follow the coroner back to Hilltop, where he waited in silence for the man's report on what had killed his friend in the end.
Elijah's usually well-ordered mind was jumble of emotion and adrenaline, and part of him hoped that the midnight drive to the hospital might somehow let everything settle, but Hilltop's regional hospital was really just scant miles away, and he was just as raw when he pulled into the pristine, new-looking parking lot, as he'd been minutes before. It was a distraction, at least, to take note of the oddly modern hospital, planted among old farmhouses and small brick businesses. It seemed out of place somehow and stuck out like a sore thumb amongst its more modest surroundings, and despite knowing how common this was for a regional facility – probably funded by multiple counties and most likely the only source of medical care for miles – it only further aggravated Agent Thomas' feelings of imbalance and foreboding. As modern as the hospital complex was, towering over the surrounding neighborhood like a miniature city, it was still peopled by small-town locals. So even within those crisp, stark white walls, Thomas felt eyes upon him, studying him, sizing him up, and passing on his business to who-knows-who else. He felt that although he would have liked an eternity alone – to pace the cold, basement hallway just outside the morgue, and await some word from the coroner – he did not get it for more than a few hours before the heavy double doors separating him from the rest of the hospital swished open, and Elmer Gultch strode forward, his face a mixture of grief, concern, and wary respect as he stopped short just a few steps away from Agent Thomas.
"Agent Thomas," Elmer greeted Elijah, his voice metered and even, yet wavering somewhat.
A certain kind of somber understanding passed between the men, and Thomas greeted him with a silent nod of his head, at which point Elmer collapsed against the wall next to Elijah, letting out a heavy sigh as he leaned his head against the snow-white plaster. Thomas glanced covertly at the man, who he'd taken to jail just a few annuals back, studying how he'd changed while Elmer's eyes remained shut to the low ceiling above them. Thomas recalled how Ezra had always been blindingly proud of his adoptive son and reveled in his achievements: when he'd been nothing more than a boy, Ezra had taught him how to fish and hunt; how to handle a weapon safely and how to dance, using the boy's ma as a primer. Later, he'd sent Elijah picture after picture of the boy quickly turning into a man: strapping and tall in his football uniforms, and probably catching the eye of every girl in town with his charming smile and muscular build. He'd followed in his father's footsteps, of course, and soon Ezra was sending him more pictures of Elmer; no longer a boy, but a man wearing the same, chocolate brown sheriff's office uniform that Ezra donned daily, and sporting a cocky, side-ways smirk that clearly spoke volumes to his now unappealing swagger. That cocky attitude was gone now, Elijah noted, having been apparently replaced by experience that one could only gain by having a good deal of sense knocked into them. Elijah might have even done it himself had he known that it was his own goddaughter being harassed by the young man, but Ezra had left that part out, like he had so many other things over their years on this side. In the end, it had taken another Tin Man to bring Elmer down a peg, and although breaking the law had been his downfall, he'd worked hard to regain his humanity, along with a few scars for his time spent in prison.
It was silent in between the men, who both leaned against that baren wall, starring ahead at the closed double doors of the morgue, waiting. The silence itself was heavy, like a living thing, and it carried with it the unspoken grief of the men standing alone in that space. The air was cold too, no doubt due their proximity to the morgue, and it felt as if time itself had frozen while they stood there like silent sentinels. In such a place, it felt almost wrong to speak, as if one were standing within the sacred walls of a church or tomb, and so when Elmer finally spoke, his voice, though respectfully quiet, was somewhat jarring.
"Dad told me about you, you know," Elmer muttered quietly as he continued to stare ahead, "said you two were partners a long time ago."
"Mm-hum," Elijah hummed quietly in return while Elmer continued to fill the silence.
"Funny though, that he didn't tell me about you until recently, but then Dad never did say much about his life before he came to Hilltop. Never could find any pictures or anything. I mean, did he tell you about me? Before everything that went down a couple years ago, that is -" he trailed off uncomfortably.
"Your old man told me a lot about you, Elmer." Elijah replied, "but he wasn't one to talk, that's fo sho."
Elijah and Elmer exchanged sighs laced with bittersweet reembrace, and Elijah shook his head in a kind of nostalgic disbelief, remembering the man that had been like a father or uncle to him when he'd first come to the OZ. "He trained me to be a cop, you know. Taught me everything I know." he glanced at the younger man, who eyed him with surprise and Elijah could feel a small smile creep up his face. "Seems we go something in common then, huh?"
Elmer nodded and his eyes became distant again as he spoke, sounding both thoughtful and uncertain. "Ruby said that she thought he died of a heart attack, Agent Thomas. Do you think that's true?"
Elijah thought back on his old friend, often chewing on the end of a cheroot and drinking enough coffee to fuel an entire squad of Tin Men. Though true that these were hardly good habits, Ezra had otherwise kept almost saint-like habits with respect to his personal care. That was one thing that Tin Man Academy was great about beating into you. He'd heard more than one instructor lecture cadets, saying things like "Don't turn one problem into two," and Ezra had been chief among the instructors drilling it into him. It seemed unlikely then, that a heart attack would have killed him, and given his final words, he was fairly certain it didn't. He just wasn't sure what would show up on the coroner's report, and how he would explain it to Elmer if it appeared to be anything other than a heart attack.
"I don't know, Elmer, but I intend to find out," Elijah returned darkly as the double doors swung open, and a harried looking medical examiner emerged.
The man looked like he'd been awake for an eternity, and between his extreme lack of sleep and their unwelcome presence in his hallway, he took little pains to hide his fatigue. "Well," he announced with a tired sigh, "it's going to be at least a week before I finish my report on Sheriff Gulch, but I'm guessing you want information now. Is that about right?"
The aged man pushed his wire rimmed glasses up his nose and peered at the two of them impatiently. When Agent Thomas merely nodded, and the pair of them pushed away from the wall to stand a bit straighter, the medical examiner folded his arms in front of him and continued. "When the Sheriff was found, he'd been holding a tire iron in his right hand. Now, although it's still early in my examination, I can already tell you that by judging from the burn marks on the Sheriff's hand and right foot, it appears that he most likely suffered acute myocardial infarction as a direct result of electrocution. In short, he had a heart attack."
"How?" Elmer blurted out in outrage, "from what? There weren't any storms tonight!"
The medical examiner dropped his shoulders and replied with a sad sigh, "Now Elmer, I know this upsetting, but you and I both know that we get all kinds of rogue storms at this time of year. As a matter of fact, I heard that a cyclone touched down not far from where your father was found. I'd put odds on that twister being the one to blame here, not any man." He reached out and placed a hand comfortingly on the other man's shoulder as he reasoned with him, looking like a father would to his son, and when Elmer nodded in reluctant agreement, the examiner spoke once more. "Now, I've got a lot more work to do here, and I won't have any more answers for you tonight, so you both might as well go home. I'll call you when I have something. Alright?"
He peered at both men paternally, waiting patiently now for their reply. Thomas could only sigh and offer the examiner his hand, and he shook it firmly as he said in parting, "Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate you telling us what you did."
The examiner nodded in reply before turning then to Elmer, who interjected respectfully, "Can I see him, Doctor?"
"Of course, Elmer, right this way," the examiner replied kindly.
In following the examiner through the doors, Elmer stopped as he passed Elijah, and he turned to him with sad, wide eyes. "Thanks for talking to me, Agent Thomas."
He held out a hand to Elijah, which he took readily, shaking it firmly as he replied in a deep, wavering voice, "I'll be around a while more, Elmer, if you need to talk more. Just look for me at the station, alright?"
Elmer nodded then and the two men parted ways, with Elmer disappearing behind the wide, swinging doors of the morgue, and Thomas turning to exit with a weary sigh. Once outside, Elijah lifted his eyes to the inky sky, brightening from navy to a deep heathery purple as the sun slowly arose. It felt cruel, somehow, that the sun should throw such beauty in his face, when his friend and mentor had been ripped from him. There was a battle raging within him as he stood there, staring at that wide, painted sky. The part of him that steered his moral compass told him that there was work to be done, and screamed at him to move, while another growing part of him felt suddenly weary and ancient. The weight of his secret – the real cause of Ezra's death – felt untenably burdensome, and he wished bitterly to be free of it. Somehow, working the case always helped when he had feelings such as this one though, and he stood still among the cars parked in front of the hospital, weighing his next steps. It was still too dark to examine the crime scene, and too early to drop by Jimmy's shop, where the missing motorist's car had been dropped off, leaving only one place for Agent Thomas to appear – the Sheriff's station. Small towns like Hilltop are a long way away from being anything like Wichita, though, and Elijah was certain his every move would be catalogued the moment he entered the station. There would be questions, and plenty of suspicion, despite the fact that he was a cop, and Elijah wondered how he might explain his interest in his old partner. Although it wasn't any secret now that the pair of them were friends, Elijah could not reconcile using that fact as an excuse to examine his friend's truck and maybe his office. There would be no way to explain the case they'd been secretly working on, not without raising suspicions, but then there were other cases they'd collaborated on – open cases – and Elijah finally settled on the reason he'd give when he arrived at the station, hoping that it would be enough for them to grant him access.
He'd prepared himself for a battle of sorts, and when he entered the Sheriff's station, minutes later, he looked ready for the toughest sparing match. He hadn't counted on the small, elderly receptionist being his opponent, however, and the fight just about went out of him the moment she peered up at him from his place in the open door.
"Agent Thomas," Ruby Holt greeted him kindly, "I wondered when I might see you."
Elijah's brain stuttered for a moment on the sight of the old woman, peering questioning at him over her knitting needles; for whatever else he'd been through in his life, his first lessons had been taught be similarly wizened old grannies, and he felt very suddenly ill-equipped against this woman. It wasn't that Ruby appeared in any way threatening, but a combination of respect and caution had welled up in him so fast that he was already rethinking his plan, being nearly certain that she'd see right through it. The old woman's eyes were warm and kind, however, and whether or not he was granted access to Ezra's space hardly mattered at that point while that old mother silently demanded his reply. So, Elijah stepped through that threshold and shut the door, quietly as if he might wake something, before turning to sit before the old woman at her desk. The expression on his face was one of resignation and fatigue, for although he had no intention of unloading his inner most thoughts to the woman, he was keenly aware of the magic that many old ladies have that makes this sort of confession nearly impossible to avoid, and he was not wholly prepared to fight such a force.
Ruby was not unaware of her own power though – she'd seen many young faces come through those doors, and very few had been able to resist her. There was something so familiar and comfortable about her it seemed, like the personalities of everyone's favorite grannies and aunties were somehow distilled into her singular little frame, but she seldom used this sentiment against any of them. Her favorites were always the tough ones like Ezra Gulch and Wyatt Cain. These men had clearly lived through difficulty, but regardless of this, their manner softened the moment they saw her, and they'd all ended up treating her like they might their own precious mothers. She could clearly foresee this possibility with the hardened-looking KBI agent as well, who'd frequented the Sheriff's office a number of times over the past few years, and – no matter how pushed for time he been every time he'd come by – had made time to greet her properly. She was also keenly aware of how close Agent Thomas was to Ezra, having been told by Ezra himself a number of times, and a pang of compassion kept her from prying too much just then, understanding instinctively that the look of fatigue in his eyes was most likely accompanied by a deep grief that was probably still too fresh to speak of.
"Wasn't ready to hit the road just yet, Ruby," Thomas sighed as he collapsed into the wooden office chair, letting his massive hands curl around its arms as he leaning back into a stretch.
Ruby put her needles down and studied Agent Thomas maternally. Elijah could feel the weight of her stare, like she was considering whether or not to chastise him or feed him, but he suddenly didn't have the energy to fight her and tried his best to ignore it instead by finding sudden interest in the high ceiling above them.
Ruby had made her mind up though and produced her ever-present tin of fudge from within the depths of her desk; opening it to him and pushing it forward as she spoke. "Here, I can tell you haven't eaten in a while, Agent Thomas."
Elijah obliged the old woman, smiling a bittersweet kind of smile as he purloined a small square and popped it into his mouth. The fudge was silky and rich as it coated his mouth, and he paused for a moment, allowing it to transport him to a happier time. This allowed Ruby to continue speaking, meanwhile, and when she spoke, there was a deep well of compassion evident in her tone. "You and Ezra were close, I know." Elijah nodded as he continued to savor the morsel still coating his mouth, and Ruby continued, "He told me once, that you were like brothers."
Elijah swallowed down the rest of the fudge in his mouth and nodded again, answering, "You could say that. Took me under his wing when I was new to the force, and between him and my old best friend, Ahamo, there's never been anyone that holds a candle. More like family than friends. I'll miss him a lot."
Ruby nodded sadly, and her mouth drew into a bitter frown of its own while she chewed on the loss of her friend, the sheriff. After a moment of silence, her frail hands came away from the table, and she sighed as she bent over the side of the desk, emerging once more with a small box that she'd evidently been hiding at her feet.
"Well, hopefully, this will help a little," she announced though her sigh. As Thomas began to pick cautiously through the contents, Ruby explained, "Ezra told me that if anything ever happened to him, you were to receive everything he'd been working on at the time of his death, plus a few other things he kept hidden away in his desk. It's all in there, although I might have added a few things of my own for you."
Elijah smirked at the tin box just larger than his palm – clearly this was more of Ruby's magical fudge, and he winked at her before pushing it aside to examine the other contents. A road map of Hilltop and the surrounding county, a pocket-sized notebook with names and dates scribbled in it, a framed picture of the pair of them – smiling and laughing outside Central City Tin Man Headquarters – and Ezra's Tin Man badge were all there within the cardboard box. Elijah paused on the silver badge, and his thumb rubbed the star like it was some kind of talisman, whose magic and protection he wished to draw from. Another heavy sigh unloaded itself through his nose then, and he frowned down at it.
"Although you and Elijah haven't been the only Tin Men to come through these parts," Ruby's voice sounded out, soft and thoughtful, "it seemed like you would be the best person to take care of that little guy. Someone else might not understand. Might raise some questions."
Elijah's eyes jerked upward in surprise from their study of the little silver star to rest on Ruby's face, still somber overall, yet with a glint of impish understanding in her wizened eyes. "My family and the Gales go way back, Agent Thomas." She explained quietly, chuckling a little when she added, "and my youngest great cousin is apparently a princess now, although I'd never had known that if she hadn't told me the last time she was here. DG was always such a little imp; I can hardly imagine her in a ball gown!"
Elijah shook his head and laughed, "You're full of surprises, Ms. Ruby, just like DG. Thank you." While Ruby nodded appreciatively, Elijah arose from his seat and collected the small box in the crook of his arm. "You saved me a good deal of trouble, tryin' to make up excuses for gettin' into Ezra's office. Glad I didn't have to."
Ruby arose as well, and she came around to pat the man on his massive arm, and her expression turned dark while she murmured quietly, "Well, someone needs to keep an eye on my favorite cousin and her friends. Besides, Ezra seemed to think something bad might be comin' through from the otherside. You be careful."
Elijah nodded while a look of seriousness darkened his face, and he turned then to leave. Returning again to that massive sky outside, he realized that the sun had arisen enough for him to examine the crime scene, and he moved quickly now to do just that, feeling somehow renewed after speaking with the old woman at the station. Talking to her had been like therapy in a way, with some of his burden being lifted by the knowledge that he wasn't really alone – someone else in this world knew and understood the importance of his secret and would bear the burden with him. It didn't hurt that that someone was apparently a Gale, for somehow, it always came back to them. He just hoped he could catch this latest threat before it truly did just that.
By the time he'd returned to the scene of Ezra's death, Elijah's resolve had been fully resolved. Although kneeling before the place where Ezra had fallen had reacquainted him with his grief, it had been a brief interlude before his mind returned to his mission – examining the scene for things the coroner could not begin to understand. A tire iron laying in the grass by that marker harkened back to what the coroner had told him and Elmer – that Ezra had been electrocuted by emissions from a rogue storm. Elijah knew better though, and judging by Ezra's last words, this wasn't just any rogue storm. Storms were not merely storms when they were conjured, of course, but Elijah could not have told the doctor this. Nor could he tell the man that the storms were brought here from another land, and by a person no less – probably the person who'd also been responsible for his partner's death. Then Elijah walked out into the harvested field, and it all seemed suddenly confirmed. From the circle of destruction where the twister had touched down and hovered like an obedient puppy to the sets of footprints – one set large, with a wide berth, coming and going from that spot, and another, uneven and sometimes absent set, replaced by deep groves cut into the soft ground where the footprints were nonexistent, and all going towards the twister – it all seemed to confirm the same, disturbing pattern that he and Ezra had been investigating all summer.
Elijah arose from his crouching position in the field to frown at the space where the twister had been. "Somethin's still not addin' up," he grumbled under his breath, pondering how his partner had just happened to be on-scene for the arrival of one of these travel storms. "How did he know?"
His question was really aimed at two parties: Ezra, and his attacker. It seemed almost like the classic, chicken-or-the-egg question in his mind, and he stood staring ahead at nothing while his mind did a series of mental gymnastics to determine both how Ardat Lilith was picking locations where potential victims were, and how Ezra had known to be in that particular spot at all. However, the image of map and notebook, with names and dates marked out in the hurried scrawl of his friend popped into his mind, and Elijah rushed back to his sedan. His mind raced as he remembered the tokens from Ezra's box – these most certainly had been in Ezra's car until recently, for they'd appeared weathered, like he'd opened them and closed them both a million times, and Elijah was almost certain that Ezra might have left him clues here. It was only a few breathless moments later then that the box was pried from the annals of his trunk and plopped out onto the hood of his car; Elijah rushing excitedly to spread the map out before him.
As he'd already surmised, the map was of Hilltop and its surrounding county, but Ezra had added his own notations in bright, blood-red ink. Numbered dots were spread throughout the county, and he'd made numerous attempts with now-erased pencil marks to connect them – finally settling on a pattern which he'd marked out in his ubiquitous red pen. It was a wide swirl, where the numbers began on the outside, and worked their way in. Opening Ezra's notebook then, he learned that the first dot was related to a missing person's case from almost ten months ago, and each subsequent dot was either a fresher case, or a twister sighting, until the numbers ceased altogether, and an "X" marked where Elijah was now standing – the most recent case. Ezra had learned Ardat Lilith's pattern, it seemed, but more than that, he'd also figured out what he was after: The Gale farm, sitting in the eye of the proverbial storm and circled by his friend. He'd left a thought too, that he must have still been chewing on when he died; "who or what is he after?" He'd scrawled hastily on the margin of the map, like he'd written it in an excited rush.
Elijah frowned at the map for a moment longer after reading those words, while the memory of Ezra, hollering over a storm, came to the forefront of his mind. He felt a sudden, bitter pang of discomfort in his chest, and he straightened up to carefully fold the map. "Shoot Ezra, did you think he'd tell you what he was up to if you stuck around and waited on him to show up?" Thomas grumbled bitterly at the map as he tossed it back into the box, still glaring at it as it sat, harmless and small before him.
He could feel anger welling up in him as he stood there. Ezra always did take too many risks – there had been plenty of instances when he'd been lucky that Elijah had been there to save his skin, but he hadn't given him the chance this time. He was probably real excited to stumble onto some actual police work for once, knowing that old codger, Elijah thought in his growing frustration. The anger finally broke though, and Elijah realized that more than anything, his anger was probably just grief in disguise, and all he really wanted was to be able to lecture his old partner in person. With that sad thought, Elijah collected the box again and climbed into the driver seat of his car, now satisfied at least that he'd seen what he could from that lonely stretch of road.
He hadn't even turned the ignition over before his phone was ringing though, and with some resignation, he accepted the call, sounding tired when he answered. "This is Agent Thomas," he announced himself.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Agent," a wavering voice replied on the other end.
It's Ruby, he thought with mild alarm, instantly recalling the old woman's voice. She sounded upset though, more so than before, and there was worry there, like she was afraid of something.
"What do you need, Miss Ruby?" Elijah inquired kindly, his voice intentionally calming and slow, all while he silently put the car into gear and started heading back into town.
Ruby took a deep breath then, as if on cue, and she answered his question with the practiced calmness of one who'd answered many emergent phone-calls over the years. "It's Elmer, Agent Thomas. He came by lookin' for you, and askin' about cases his father had been workin' on. Now, Ezra had always told me that Elmer wasn't to know anything, given the terms of his parole, so I told him I couldn't tell him anything."
When Ruby paused to sigh regretfully, Elijah interjected, reassuring her, "You did the right thing Ruby. Where is he now?"
"Outside. He wouldn't dare fuss with me, but said he wasn't going anywhere until he talked to you." Ruby replied.
"I'm on the way, Ruby. Be there in less than fifteen minutes," Elijah replied, his face now screwed into an expression of frustration.
That boy's goin' to be trouble, I just know it, Elijah thought darkly as he depressed the accelerator, and the car roared as it zoomed back to Hilltop.
Elmer was indeed waiting for Elijah when his dark sedan swung into an empty parking spot just before the stone-faced police station, leaning against his father's chocolate colored suburban, looking harmless, but troubled. Elijah parked beside him and climbed out, and he nodded to the younger man as he leaned against his own vehicle – mirroring Elmer as a means to open the lines of communication between them.
Elmer nearly smiled at Elijah, trying so hard to appear accommodating for him, but the thoughts troubling him kept his eyes serious, and he frowned deeply as he finally seemed to decide what to say. "I know I shouldn't have been poking around in the sheriff's office, Agent Thomas. You don't have to say it," he rumbled quietly to his shoes before his face rose to meet Elijah's, looking earnest and pained.
"Well, you know I'm not here to arrest you, Elmer, but why did you do it?" Elijah returned kindly.
Elmer sucked in a chest full of air and blew it out loudly as he stared out at the blue sky. Clearly, the man was struggling to explain himself, but Elijah just waited, watching him as he tumbled the thoughts around his head. It took only a moment, and Elmer's expression turned quickly from thoughtful to troubled again as he met Elijah's eyes, explaining logically, "I may not be a cop anymore, Agent Thomas, but I'm not blind. There's a lot that's not adding up about my dad's death."
"Like what?"
Elmer's eyes narrowed on Elijah for a half a second and he fired off examples as if he was being quizzed, sounding almost irritated. "For one thing, Dad wouldn't stop to change a tire on an abandoned vehicle. So where's the driver? And I'm not buying this storm idea either – I mean, I know a twister was apparently sighted, but I checked the doppler history. There wasn't a single low-pressure system anywhere near here last night."
Elijah chewed on the inside of his mouth, appreciating the young man's deductive reasoning, but hating it all the same. It made it nearly impossible for him to be truthful with him, and given everything Elmer had been through to regain his freedom, honesty was one thing he hated to withhold from him.
"I can tell that you don't think he died naturally either, Agent Thomas, so don't bother feeding me a line," Elmer continued on in deep earnest, "I just need to know if you're working the case or not."
It was Elijah's turn to sigh and ponder his answer to the sky. There were no answers there, however hard he winced at it, and so he returned to Elmer, shaking his head sadly. "There not a case for me to work Elmer. The driver of that car was local, so someone from your pa's outfit will be investigating them, and as for the twister idea – well, let's just say I'm not much of a weather man. I'll have a hard time explaining to my boss why I should be looking into that one."
Elmer pushed away from the suburban, looking pleading when he burst out in outrage, "but you believe me, don't you?"
Elijah nodded, replying sadly, "Yeah I do, but there's not much I can do here."
"Elijah, please!" Elmer pleaded, his expression pained, "I need to know that someone'll look into this. He's all I had left in this world. I can't let him down – we can't let him down."
Elijah sighed through his nose as he studied the young man, and he shook his head when he finally answered sadly, "I'm not lettin' Ezra down, Elmer. I'm doin' the job he trained me to do ages ago, and you'd do best to remember that, and let me and everyone else do it. I'm sorry, but I'll stay on top of it for ya. Let ya know when somethin' comes back on that driver. Okay?"
Elmer huffed, looking as far from satisfied as he could, but defeated all the same as he nodded his head sadly. "Alright then," he answered in a deep rumble before his hand jutted out and Elijah took it to shake it.
The men parted again then, with Elmer turning to walk down the street, hanging his head to the ground and Elijah watching him until he turned a corner. He watched a moment more, wondering if the man would reappear – he'd clearly been deeply dissatisfied with Elijah's answer, and Elijah knew that he was hardly the type to let something go so easily. When his phone rang, his study of the empty sidewalk was interrupted, however, and Elijah looked down at the cellphone in his hand and frowned, seeing that it was Lesedi calling.
"You got some timin' sister," Elijah answered darkly, half expecting his sister to ask for something innocuous like cough syrup, instinctually knowing he'd be heading home soon.
Her voice was raised in alarm though, and she barked at him, "that damn weathervane's at it again, Elijah, and I've just about had it. I've got the name of an antiques dealer that'll make a house call, and I'm callin' them today. I've had enough of this thing."
"Now Lesi," Thomas tried to calm his sister, "Just hang on just a minute. I don't want you sellin' that thing just yet. Just wait for me to get there, okay?"
"Alright brother, but that's all I'm givin' you. This thing's givin' me nightmares." Lesedi proclaimed before the line went dead.
Elijah replaced the phone in his pocket while his mouth screwed into a deep frown. Another travel storm, he thought, before he climbed the steps of the police station two at a time. He was willing to bet he'd be just in time to hear about a storm sighting when he entered the station, and this was a perfect opportunity to test Ezra's deduction. He'd have to hurry to test it though, because judging by the tone in his sister's voice, he'd have to rush home soon before his only link to the Zone got chucked in a bin.