Second story, part two

[snycock]

Title: The True Road
Author: Bluewolf (bluewolf458)
Email: bluewolfen@btopenworld.com
Category: Gen, AU
Rating: PG
Word count: 12,823

Prompt by: Jen
Prompt: I jump on a high speed train, I'll never get off again

Many thanks to Nat for the beta, and her unending patience in correcting my UK spelling and Briticisms.



Once the body had been collected and taken back to the morgue, Blair and Dan got to work on it. First Blair checked it over, confirming his on-the-spot conclusions and establishing the death as more likely to be three days than two - not only the raw flesh of the stab wounds was quite thickly covered with insect eggs, some of them had had time to hatch...

This, he admitted to himself, was the main reason he had decided to concentrate on cultural anthropology. He had found forensic anthropology interesting, especially when it involved older, aka skeletonized, bodies. These less-than-six-months-old, especially the not-more-than-a-week-old, bodies were ones he had found disturbing.

The victim, he estimated, was young, probably mid-teens; it was almost certain that she had been reported as a missing person - though not necessarily in Cascade. She could have been a runaway. The clothes were of good quality, but that didn't necessarily mean she wasn't a runaway. Young teens from every strata of society rebelled against their parents and were capable of leaving home if their feelings of 'you don't understand!' were strong enough - even if they didn't have anywhere to go.

When Blair went to write up his report, Dan started work, quickly establishing that the victim had not been sexually assaulted. Blair breathed a mental sigh of relief. Bad enough that she had been murdered; how much worse would her last minutes have been if she had been raped as well?

He finished his report and sent a copy of it to Major Crime as Dan completed the autopsy.

***

Blair went home that night thinking about the girl whose life had been cut so brutally short. He had, of course, known when he applied for the job that it would not always involve old deaths, bodies that, like the one found beneath the road, he could identify as being over a hundred years old, but somehow he had not thought of having to investigate child deaths - and while today's victim would probably have resented being called a 'child', she was almost certainly under 16, and therefore classified as one by society.

He had little appetite, but forced himself to eat, telling himself firmly that eating was not a sign of a callous disregard for the dead girl and that not eating was not good for him.

He spent the evening reading the latest issue of Current Anthropology, and when he finished the last article he realized that the words had simply gone in one eye and out the other; he had no recollection of what he had been reading. Well, it had filled the evening... He went to bed even though it was still early, and quickly fell into an uneasy slumber.

***

Not long after he started work the next day, the morgue door opened and Detective Ellison entered accompanied by a man of around forty and a woman perhaps five years younger. Ellison nodded to Blair and turned to Dan. "Dr. Wolfe, this is Mr. and Mrs. Hunt. Their daughter went missing four days ago."

He didn't need to say anything more. Both Dan and Blair knew the couple was there to identify - or not identify - the dead girl. "Over here," Dan said quietly and took them over to the bank of drawers. He pulled out the drawer containing the stabbed girl.

Hunt uttered a broken sob. "Yes," he managed. "That's my Gina. Oh, God. What happened to her?"

"Someone stabbed her," Dan said quietly. "But whoever it was didn't rape her. She was spared that."

"You're sure of that?" Hunt asked.

"Yes," Dan said.

"Thank you."

Ellison said, "Mrs. Hunt? I know your husband has identified Gina, but do you agree that this is your daughter?"

She glanced quickly at the body. "Yes," she said.

Hunt looked at Ellison. "When... when can we get her body?"

"In a few days," Ellison said quietly. "You can contact an undertaker, and we'll let you know when he can come for her." He led them out.

"That is one of the unhappier parts of our job," Dan told Blair. "Having relatives come in to identify a body. Bad when they do, but it's almost worse when they don't, when the body is that of a stranger. They're back to uncertainty; to not knowing what happened to their child or husband or sibling... not knowing whether to hope that the missing person will turn up or if he'll never show, alive or dead."

Blair nodded absently. "I can see that," he said. "But Dan... "

"Yes?"

"Did it seem to you that Mr. Hunt was more concerned than his wife?"

"Women are sometimes more self-controlled in this sort of situation than men," Dan said. "Doesn't mean they won't break down once they get home again."

"I know women tend to be stronger than men generally give them credit for," Blair agreed, "but there was something about Mrs. Hunt... She agreed that it was her daughter, but she barely looked at the body, and she seemed almost too eager to confirm that it was. As if... as if she was going through choreographed behaviour that - that wasn't touching her emotionally."

Dan thought about it for a moment, then said slowly, "Yes, she was a bit detached, wasn't she... as if she didn't really care. But Gina was her daughter, for heaven's sake!"

"Was she?" Blair asked. "Mr. Hunt said, 'my Gina'. Not 'our'. Might Mrs. Hunt be a second wife, a stepmother rather than Gina's mother?"

"It's possible," Dan agreed.

"Not that it's particularly significant," Blair said.

"I'm not sure. It might be. Because what's interesting is how easily you picked up on it - but then a true shaman would. I noticed it, yes, but didn't really register it until you mentioned it."

"It could just mean that Mrs. Hunt and Gina didn't like each other very much. That can happen in a step relationship. It doesn't mean that Mrs. Hunt had anything to do with Gina's death."

"You don't really believe that, do you?" Dan asked.

"I don't want to believe it," Blair said reluctantly, "but... "

"You might not be properly trained, you might not follow a shaman's path, but you have the gift. You can read people. You've read something in Mrs. Hunt that you don't trust. I think you should mention this to Ellison."

"Like he'd pay any attention to my opinion!" Blair muttered. "He made it very clear that he didn't think much of me when he first saw me."

"Based on how young you look?"

"Yeah. I'd to give him a bit of attitude, and although he was polite enough after that, and even seemed to accept that I seemed to know what I was doing, I doubt very much that he'd listen to my opinion on anything."

"Then we can present it as a joint opinion. I don't have the disadvantage of looking ten years younger than I am, and I've known Jim Ellison for several years." He reached for the internal phone, and punched in a number. "Captain Banks - Dan Wolfe here. Has Jim finished with Mr. and Mrs. Hunt?... Well, could you send him down here when he does? Thanks." He put the phone down. "Probably be about half an hour."

"Mm. I suppose he'll have to get a statement from them - people Gina knew, maybe where she was going the day she disappeared, stuff like that?"

"Yes. Up until they identified her, she was still a missing person. Now he has to begin gathering the evidence that could catch the killer."

***

It was just over half an hour before the door opened and Ellison entered. "Dan? You wanted to see me? Have you found something else?"

"Not so much found something else as an observation. Dr. Sandburg was wondering - is Mrs. Hunt Gina's stepmother?"

Ellison threw a quick glance at Blair. "What makes you ask?"

"She didn't seem particularly upset," Blair said.

"Well, you're right. She's a stepmother. Hunt married her last year, a few months after his first wife died. Is that all you wanted me for?"

Blair threw a quick glance towards Dan, who said, "No. Go on, Doctor."

"I don't want to believe it, but... but I think she could have had something to do with Gina's death."

Ellison sounded a little impatient as he said, "Dr. Sandburg, the 'evil stepmother' scenario - "

"Can happen," Dan cut in. "Jim, Dr. Sandburg is a shaman. He read something in Mrs. Hunt that he didn't like."

"Are you sure of that?" Ellison asked. "Are you sure he's a shaman?"

"He's untrained, but yes; I'm sure," Dan said.

Ellison swung around. "What did you sense in her?" he demanded.

Blair thought for a moment, surprised that Ellison had accepted 'he's a shaman' so easily, and wondering how best to word an answer. "I don't think she was surprised. Her reaction seemed to be rehearsed."

"That was what I thought too - that her response was rehearsed - but I was speaking to her for a lot longer than you were. For you to get that from the short while she was here... He sounded surprisingly respectful. "Unfortunately, 'cop's instinct' or 'shaman's insight' aren't acceptable reasons for accusing someone... "

"I didn't think you'd believe in a shaman's insight," Blair said.

"I lived for eighteen months with a tribe in Peru," Ellison replied. "Their shaman sort of took me under his wing - and I saw first hand what he could do."

"Peru? - Yes, of course... Time magazine?"

"It was a fair while ago. I'm surprised you made the link." And Ellison really did sound surprised.

"Anthropologist here, Detective. My class had to read the article, then we had to do an essay based on it. You have no idea how much I envied the 'GI soldier' who lived for eighteen months as one of the Chopek... even though the article didn't say as much as it might have done."

"The mission I was on was top secret. The army didn't actually want me to give the interview at all, but if I hadn't, the guy who did it would have made something up that might have been too close to the truth. I had strict orders about what I couldn't say."

"Why doesn't that surprise me," Blair muttered. His mother hadn't thought much of 'the pigs' but his teachers had done a lot to show him how much good the police actually did; but Naomi's opinion of the army was even lower, and his teachers hadn't given him any balancing information about it.

Ellison shrugged. "I can say a little about it now, because the main issue has been politically settled. Back then there was a lot of skirmishing in the area between Peru and Equador - and my team was sent in, unofficially, to help the Peruvians. Turned out there was a lot of activity in the area by a drug cartel as well.

"Our helicopter crashed; I was the only survivor, and after the Chopek found me several days later, I carried on with our mission, with the help of the tribe. I never did quite understand, though, why they accepted me as readily as they did. We'd been warned that the locals might be quite... well, stand-offish, even if we were helping them."

"You're right," Blair agreed. "It is unusual. Those tribes tend to be suspicious of strangers - the tribal shaman is particularly so; so much of the tribe's welfare depends on him. He must have seen something special in you."

Ellison shook his head. "Whatever it was, I never knew." He sighed. "Sometimes I really miss Incacha... especially when I have a difficult case. I don't know what he did, but he could help me concentrate."

"You sound as if you were happy there," Blair murmured.

"Yes. I did wish my men had survived - we'd been together for a while, and worked well together - but apart from that... yes, I was happy. It felt as if I belonged there." Abruptly, he shook off what sounded like nostalgia. "Thanks. Now I know it wasn't just me, I can concentrate on finding out if Mrs. Hunt knows more about Gina's death than she's saying."

As Ellison walked out, Blair decided that he did in fact quite like the detective. He was an odd mixture of abrupt, distant, almost defensive, and sympathetic understanding; Blair found himself wondering if Ellison was afraid of being emotionally hurt.

As he turned to resume working, Blair also found himself distracted by wondering just what it was that the Chopek shaman - Incacha? - had seen in Ellison that he had considered special. Whatever it was... it was clearly at least part of what had made Ellison feel as if he 'belonged'.

***

When he got home that evening, he was still considering Ellison and his acceptance by the Chopek and, in particular, the Chopek shaman. What would a tribal shaman consider 'special'?

Some ability or some skill that was probably rare. But what skill or ability would a white man have that a Chopek shaman would value? Something that would benefit the tribe... but what skill would an American soldier have that members of the tribe did not?

Blair shook his head. It was more than unlikely that it was a skill; so it had to be an ability. What ability would be rare, but as likely to be possessed by a white man as a Chopek? Something Incacha realized that Ellison could do, that possibly none of the Chopek could. Some sort of genetic advantage, perhaps?

A genetic advantage... a sensory awareness that can be developed beyond normal humans... honed by solitary time spent in the wild. The memory of a subject that had fascinated him when he was in his teens sent him to his bookcase.

He hadn't looked at The Sentinels of Paraguay for several years - not since he had come to the unhappy conclusion that he wasn't going to find anyone with five enhanced senses, and that there was no way he could base a thesis on the facts gleaned from one book that was over a century old and the people he had found with a very acute sense of taste and/or smell.

On his various expeditions, he had asked the tribes he had encountered if they knew of men with senses that were sharper than the norm, and received nothing but negatives. Certainly he had suspected that if a tribe did have a sentinel they wouldn't broadcast the fact; the sentinel was undoubtedly the most valuable man in the tribe, and as such would be the one first targeted by an enemy. Inter-tribal conflict was, sadly, still quite common in very remote parts of the world.

Blair flicked through the pages of the book, reminding himself of facts he had once known very well indeed. He hadn't actually forgotten them, but he had pushed them to the back of his mind once he had decided that he would have to find a subject other than sentinels for his Masters thesis and doctoral dissertation.

It was late before he went to bed, but even so he lay for some time wondering how he could broach the subject of acute senses to Ellison the next time he saw him - and wasn't it strange how convinced he was that he would see Ellison again, and fairly soon.

He fell asleep still considering how best to approach the subject...

Morning brought him no answers.

Still thinking about the enigma that was Detective Ellison over breakfast, he decided to add The Sentinels of Paraguay to the contents of his backpack. It would, he thought, be useful to have it conveniently to hand if the opportunity arose to speak to the man.

***

He drove into the PD garage just behind an already familiar blue and white truck that drove into a space just beside the entrance. Tempted to park beside it, he resisted the urge and carefully parked several spaces away from it.

"Morning, Chief." Good lord, was Ellison waiting for him? And sounding quite friendly, even without the nickname - one which, Blair thought, Ellison probably applied to people in general when he was in a good mood.

"Morning," he replied as he joined Ellison.

"Thought you might like to know - when I went to speak to her again, Mrs. Hunt broke down and admitted that she'd killed Gina. The two of them didn't like each other, but were polite in their dealings; but Gina had discovered that her stepmother had been having an affair, threatened to tell her father, then walked out. Mrs. Hunt followed, to try - she said - to persuade Gina not to say anything, and tried to say that the killing was a spur of the moment thing, but when I reminded her that the stab wounds were made by a pretty heavy knife she finally admitted that she'd taken the knife with her, meaning to get rid of Gina permanently. Afterwards she threw the knife into the lake."

Blair was silent for a moment. "Thanks for telling me. But, God, poor Mr. Hunt."

"There are always innocent victims," Ellison said.

They turned towards the elevator, but had taken only three or four steps when a car horn blared, the sound followed almost immediately by the sound of two cars crashing into each other. Blair turned instantly towards the entrance ramp, then realized that Ellison was standing with his hands clamped over his ears.

"Detective?" Blair touched Ellison's arm in the silence following the crash. "Are you all right?"

"Loud," Ellison muttered.

"It's quiet now," Blair said. As Ellison took his hands from his ears, Blair went on, speaking very quietly, "It sounded as if there was an accident just outside - hadn't we better go and see?"

"Oh. Yes..."

However, when they reached the street, it was to find several police already in attendance - not surprising when the accident had happened just outside the PD - so they turned back and headed for the elevator. As they went, Blair said, still almost whispering, "I think I know what Incacha found special about you."

"You do? How? I never knew - "

"That crash - it was loud, but I've heard louder noises. You found it deafening."

"The horn blaring - it was loud enough to hurt," Ellison said.

Blair nodded. "In general... do you find noises louder than you find comfortable?"

"In general... they're pretty loud, yes."

"Means your ears are quite sensitive. What about your eyes?"

"Well, I'm fairly far-sighted... "

"What about night vision?"

"Yeah, that's good, too. I've heard people complain that it's too dark to see when I'm having no trouble at all." Ellison sounded slightly puzzled.

"Sense of smell pretty acute too?" Blair asked, seeing Ellison making a face as they entered the elevator car. Blair himself was aware of -

"Some idiot has peed in here," Ellison growled. He sniffed and shook his head, "Not someone I recognize, but if I meet him I'll know him."

"That's it confirmed," Blair said. "I know exactly what Incacha saw in you. I'll bet the Chopek were sorry when the army arrived to pick you up, too."

"Well, yes, they were, but I'd been one of them for eighteen months. Incacha... he said that I had served the Chopek well, but that my destiny was with my own people."

Blair hit the button for floor six. "We need privacy for this," he said. "An interrogation room will give us that."

"Won't Dan wonder where you are?"

"He might. Will Captain Banks wonder about you?"

"He might." Ellison's reply was totally deadpan, and Blair grinned.

"Well, even if they do, you and I need to discuss this."

Leaving the elevator, they found an empty room - at this time in the morning, it was easy to find one. Once inside, Ellison said, "All right, Chief. What did Incacha see in me?"

"Heightened senses," Blair said. He put his backpack on the table and opened it. Removing the book, he put it down in front of Ellison, who frowned at it.

"The Sentinels of Paraguay?"

"I found this book when I was thirteen, and it fascinated me. I wanted to make sentinels my focus of study, but I couldn't find any; I did find a few individuals with very acute sense of taste and smell, working for tea, coffee and wine companies, or perfumiers; but that was all. I went on expeditions as a student, but no tribe that we visited would admit to having a sentinel, though I'm sure some of them probably did. In the end I had to abandon the subject, and made my focus of study tribes living in remote, isolated areas.

"Last night I started wondering what Incacha could have seen in you that made you so special to him. It couldn't have been a skill - these tribes have all the skills they need at their fingertips; it had to have been something that none of his people had; and I remembered about sentinels. I brought the book in hoping that I might see you; I didn't expect to find proof that you have heightened senses practically the moment I parked my car this morning. All the time I was speaking to you in the garage, I was practically whispering, and you heard me, no bother at all. You agreed you're far-sighted and have excellent night vision; and in the elevator you indicated that you could find whoever it was that peed in there just by smelling him. Taste is linked to sense of smell - what about touch. Is that sensitive too?"

"Well... yes. I have to watch what material my clothes are made from, or what detergent I use to wash them. Some materials are really rough."

"Sense of direction?"

"If you mean do I always know where I'm going, yes, that's good too."

"Sense of time? When you look at your watch, do you find you're not surprised when you see what time it is? Because you know?"

Slowly, Ellison nodded. "But... "

"But?"

"I thought we just had five senses."

"Sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch are the ones everyone thinks of, but there are more. Time, direction, balance, proprioception - "

"What?"

Blair grinned. "Bodily awareness. Close your eyes. Now touch the tip of your nose."

Ellison shook his head but obeyed.

"Some people can't do that; their brain is damaged in some way. Doesn't affect their everyday lives but they don't have the awareness of their own bodies that most of us do. There are other senses too - even sense of humor - but let's not bother going into that.

"Even if all you'd had was sight and hearing, that would have been valuable to the Chopek; with all those main five senses acute, well, I can only imagine how keen Incacha was to hang on to you for as long as possible."

"But... "

"But?"

"I didn't have any problems with sounds being too loud, anything like that, when I was with the Chopek."

"Everything there was natural. You said you felt you 'belonged'; our way of life is - has to be - totally unsympathetic towards a sentinel. Actually, the time you spent there on your own, before the Chopek found you... One of the points Burton makes - "

"Burton?"

Blair indicated the book. "Sir Richard Burton - an explorer in the Victorian era. There were a lot of 'gentlemen explorers' back then, and they all wrote books about what they saw and did. But for some reason, Burton was the only one who mentioned sentinels. He either managed to get some of the tribes to admit it and talk about what sentinels did, or he was an incredibly acute observer. Could have been a bit of both. But given that nobody else said anything about 'natives with remarkably acute senses', his finds were first disputed and then ignored as a traveler's tale.

"Burton suggested that people with a genetic predisposition to having heightened senses would have these honed by solitary time spent in the wild. He did reference one tribe whose test of manhood for the boys was to spend solitary time in the jungle. If they had that predisposition, their time in the jungle would develop it.

"I think that's what happened to you. Living in the 'civilized' world, we don't actually need particularly acute senses. Indeed, acute senses could be a positive disadvantage, so in self-defense you probably suppressed any tendency to hear or see, etcetera, more acutely than everyone else. But then, on your own in the jungle, you needed the senses to help you survive... just as Burton pointed out those young men undergoing their rite of manhood did - if they had the potential for them."

"Okay - that all sounds convincing," Ellison admitted. "But if sudden loud noises deafen me, things like that, it's a disadvantage here. How do I close them off?"

Blair shook his head. "I don't think you can," he said. "You've come on-line, so to speak, and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. But you're a detective; can't you imagine how valuable your senses could be in helping you gather evidence?"

"I suppose so... but it has to be evidence that would hold up in court. How could I stand up and say in evidence 'Yes, Your Honor, I know the accused had broken into the house because I could detect his scent'? And even if I could prove that I did have that acute a sense of smell... how long do you think it would take for the criminal fraternity to work things out and hire someone to take me out?"

"Why do you think most tribes keep quiet if they have a sentinel?" Blair asked. "It annoyed me, when I was trying to get info on sentinels, that nobody would admit to having one, but eventually I realized it was a defensive thing. An unfriendly tribe could come along and seek to weaken their enemy by kidnapping or killing the sentinel.

"But there's another thing you need to be aware of - a major downside to having heightened senses. According to Burton, a sentinel could be so intent on something - if he concentrated too hard with one sense - he could lose touch with reality. So apparently all sentinels had a companion, who would know the signs that it was happening and watch out for it, and guide them back to full awareness. Have you ever had - I suppose you could call them blank spells, where you've lost time, been unaware of your surroundings?"

"Once or twice, usually when I was looking pretty intently at something. I thought... Usually I came back to myself with some sort of idea of what I'd been looking for." He sounded a little lost. "I thought I'd just been totally lost in thought."

"No," Blair said. "Definitely what you might call a zone-out factor, caused by concentrating too hard. Interesting that you say it's mostly caused by sight... Is there someone you work with that could help you?"

"No. I work alone."

"I thought... I know you were on your own - apart from me - when we went to Miller's Pond, but I just thought your partner was maybe off ill. I mean... cops, even detectives, usually have partners, don't they?"

"Usually," Ellison agreed. "But my partner in Major Crime disappeared a couple of years ago. He was delivering the money for a ransom demand, but he disappeared along with the money; the guy who was kidnapped was never found. IA decided that Jack had taken the money and skedaddled, that the kidnappers had killed the victim when the ransom money wasn't paid. I... I ended up on a month's suspension because I reacted badly when I overheard another cop bad-mouthing Jack. I know he had cash problems - he was a gambler and didn't always think to stop before he lost too much money; but something like the delivery of ransom money, when it was someone's life on the line - there's no way he would have kept that money and done a disappearing act with it. I think the kidnappers killed him.

"Anyway, although the other guys respected my defense of Jack, I'd even say appreciated my loyalty to him, none of them actually wanted to partner me - and after the way Jack disappeared, I was happy to accept that; I didn't want another partner. I've worked alone since then." But there was a note in Ellison's voice that made Blair wonder if he was as happy about that as his words implied.

"Well, now that you know what you are and that there's a potential problem, you really need to get a partner."

Ellison looked at him. "I know you're here as a forensic anthropologist, but you know the situation. Could you do it?"

I'm not sure your true destiny lies in forensic anthropology, but somehow I feel that forensic anthropology will lead you to it.

Blair 'heard' the echo of Dan's words. Could it be? Was this the shaman's path Dan saw for him? Certainly he would never have met Ellison if he hadn't applied for the forensics anthropology position with the police...

"I... think I could," he said. "But we'll need to get both Captain Banks and Chief Warren to agree, because they'd need to allow me to move to Major Crime, though I could still probably do some forensic anthropology work. I'm not sure that Captain Findlay needs to be told, though he might wonder... "

"What about Dan?" Ellison asked.

"I think he might be ahead of us." Blair grinned at the puzzled look on Ellison's face. "Dan told me, the day I came to be interviewed, that I wasn't on my true path but that I was close to it. Seems it was closer that he thought... Jim." He scooped up the book and pushed it into his pack. "Come on - time to let Banks and Warren know the situation."

They left the interrogation room, and side by side headed towards Major Crime.

Yes, Blair thought. He'd quit the merry-go-round and his future looked to be far more fulfilling. He wasn't quite on the speeding train yet... but once he was, he wouldn't be looking back. He had finally found a sentinel; he would be working with that sentinel. Dan was right; he had finally found his destined path.

Life couldn't get better.

***

Author's note.

I know that 'Chopec' is the more usual spelling of the name, but because there is no 'c' in the Quechua alphabet, I prefer to spell it 'Chopek'. Strictly speaking, of course, that should also make the shaman's name 'Inkacha' but I've chosen not to change the more normally accepted spelling there.

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