A Fair Distance. Comes a Time. Chapter Five Cont'd
See this post for heading information and links to warning page
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
I felt myself ascending from a deep level of sleep into an awareness that my shoulder was being shaken. No, I whined to myself. Let me sleep.
I mumbled for the shoulder shaker to go away. No such luck. If anything, the shaking intensified.
My eyes still shut, I reached for blankets to pull up over my head. I felt a hard surface instead. After a while I realized this meant I wasn't in bed. So where was I? Had I fallen asleep at the kitchen table again?
“G'way, Jim. Lemme sleep.”
I heard laughter, and it dawned on me slowly, as the shaking continued, that it wasn't Jim laughing.
“Sandburg, wake up. Time to go.” I knew that voice. Why was Simon at the loft? Was it poker night, and did I pass out, or something?”
“Sandburg. Wake up, kid.” Simon again. Okay, okay. I'd get out of the way. Really, who could play poker with me asleep in the middle of the chips?
“Hairboy, we aren't playing poker.” That was Henri. He was the one laughing at me.
I felt myself really waking up and I lifted my head. Simon was standing next to me, his hand on my shoulder, and Henri was there, holding the jacket Jim had bought me at Walmart yesterday.
Not the loft. Not asleep at the kitchen table in the middle of a poker game. I was in the bullpen. I'd fallen asleep on top of the case files for the Edwards murder. I remembered now pulling them forward from the back of the desk to use as a pillow.
“Sandburg, are you ready to make sense now? You know we're not playing poker, right?”
That was Simon. I yawned, and nodded and then stood up and stretched. I took my jacket and shrugged it on.
“Where's Jim?” It was a stupid question. Obviously Jim was still tied up, or it would have been him shaking me awake.
“Still with the techs. I'm sending you to the safe house, and don't bother arguing; if you can't stay awake, then you can't stay here.”
Simon sounded... I don't know. Like he was talking to Daryl, maybe. I frowned. I hated it when people treated me like I was still a kid. Hell, I had hated being treated like a kid when I was a kid.
“All right, I see your point.” I held up my hands, placating him. “I'm not arguing about heading for a bed. So what happened with Bergman while I was snoozing?”
“He was really shook up when I informed him that we'd found the car. He's agreed to the plea. His lawyer and an ADA are coming over to hammer it out. He's not going to talk until then.”
Wow. It looked like closure was just around the corner. Bergman would confess and get his plea. No more hit-men after me; no more protective custody. I could go back to the loft, maybe not tonight, but surely by tomorrow it would be safe.
Simon laid his hand on my shoulder again. “Get some rest. I know Jim didn't get much sleep last night, so as soon as we've got Bergman's confession, I'll send him to the safe house, too.” He stepped back and turned Henri's way. “You can leave when Ellison gets there.”
“Sure thing, Cap'n. C'mon, Hairboy. We'll swing through somewhere and get some takeout. You want some Chinese or Thai? Barbecue? The P.D. is paying for it, so let's live a little.”
Simon said mildly, “You go over the allotted expense and it comes out of your wallet, Brown.”
“Right.” Henri winked at me. “We'll stick to the specials.”
Simon snorted. “Get out of here, and Blair, I meant it when I said to get some rest.” Simon went into his office and shut the door. Henri and I walked out of the bullpen, after I gathered up my meds and notes on job hunting. Jim had bought us some new clothes, but they were in the truck. I missed my backpack. I wished the hospital hadn't kept it.
We'd almost gotten to the elevator when Jim's cell phone rang. I was smiling when I answered it, and waved to Henri to wait for me, while I stepped away out of earshot for some privacy, sure that it was Jim checking in with me.
It wasn't Jim.
“Who is this? Is this... Blair Sandburg?”
“Hello, Mr. Ellison. Yes, this is Blair. Jim's letting me use his phone, but I can get a message to him, if you like.”
There was silence on the other end. I looked at the phone to see if the call had been lost, but the connection was still good.
“Mr. Ellison? Are you still there?”
No answer. “Mr. Ellison?”
“Jimmy's not with you?”
“He's in Cascade but he's working on a case. Should I have him call you or do you want to leave a message with me? I'll be seeing him tonight.”
He didn't answer right away. “Mr. Ellison? I have to go; what do you want me to do?”
He finally answered me.
“I'll talk to Jimmy later; it wasn't anything important. But I would like to talk to you. In person. There are things I've wanted to discuss with you, about... you know. I don't like talking over the phone about it. And I don't want Jimmy, or anybody, to know we've talked. Can you come over now? Privately, by yourself? I'm asking you in confidence. It concerns Jimmy's future, and I believe you're a part of that future. There are things that concern Jimmy that you should know.”
I hedged. “It's not really a good time, Mr. Ellison. Could we do it in a day or two?”
“No. I'm afraid that what I have to tell you shouldn't wait. I can't stress this enough, the urgency and the need for this to stay private, just between you and me. Please, Mr. Sandburg. I wouldn't be asking if I didn't have Jimmy's best interests in mind.”
“I don't like the idea of keeping secrets from Jim. Doing that has messed us up in the past, and Jim and I are trying not to make the same mistakes again.”
“Then tell him afterwards if you feel you must, but I'm begging you, Mr. Sandburg, I need to see you tonight, privately. Jim's life is at stake.”
I caved. I'd talk H into letting me stop by and see Jim's dad. He sounded frantic, for him, and if William Ellison, the poster child for stoicism, and Jim's role model in that regard, was losing his cool, it must be as important as he was saying.
“All right. I'll come.”
“I can't stress enough the need to keep our meeting private. Tell no one, and especially not Jim, that you're coming here. Please, Mr. Sandburg. I have my reasons.”
“I'll be there soon. Goodbye, Mr. Ellison.”
“Thank you.” He ended the call and I put the phone up to my forehead, thinking.
It must be the sentinel stuff. Jim had said that he and his dad had been close over the last year. What did William Ellison know about Jim that was scaring him so badly? Maybe it wasn't anything, and I could lay the man's fears to rest. Maybe he'd seen Jim in a zone or something and was terrified about Jim's health. He hadn't been open to discussing Jim's abilities with me in the past. He might well clam up again in the future. If he wanted to talk, then this was a golden opportunity for me to develop some rapport with the man who was in effect, my father-in-law.
I beckoned Henri over. I'd have to tell him that I needed to see Jim's dad before going on to the safe house. Maybe a small obfuscation was in order.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Henri had parked two houses down and across the street from William's big house. He had a good view for surveillance from there, even inside the garage, since it was wide open.
My conscience was twinging a bit about letting Henri think it had been Jim who'd called me and asked me to stop by his dad's house. I hadn't actually stated that it had been Jim. I just hadn't corrected Henri's assumption.
There wasn't any danger in stopping and seeing William, but by the time I would have talked Henri into letting me go without Jim's approval, William and I could have finished our talk and I could be in bed. I was tired.
Anyway, we'd arrived in a roundabout way, making sure nobody had followed us from the station. Once there Henri had agreed to keep a low profile, after he'd used binoculars to cautiously check out the perimeter of the house. I wondered where Sally was, since her car wasn't in the driveway. She lived at the Ellison residence, but she didn't work twenty-four hours a day there. I knew she sometimes visited relatives and went out with her friends.
My conscience was clear about Jim, though. I'd returned to Jim's desk and left a note about where I'd gone and why on the top of the Edwards file, where he couldn't miss it. By the time Jim read the note William and I would be done talking and I would be released from William's insistence on keeping the conversation private.
I knocked on the door, thinking that William needed to get his porch light turned on. Maybe he needed the light bulb changed. I'd offer to fix it before I left. He really shouldn't be on a ladder and he'd need one to reach the fixture.
He opened the door and ushered me inside, murmuring that he'd take my jacket. I quickly eyed him and he looked in good health. He was standing straight, and his body was tall and strong, with good muscle tone even though he was somewhere in his sixties.
However, he was clearly upset. I summoned up the energy to look at his aura. The muddy tones of red, green, and blue that were woven throughout his aura and the gray shimmer around his heart told me that his spiritual health was not great. Still, I was pretty sure that he would never allow me to try to do what I had done for Jim. Maybe, just maybe, if I pumped my energy levels up, my aura might blend somewhat with his, and maybe I could do something to help him recover, even if just for a little while. I would listen to his concerns, try to help him with his anxiety about Jim. I had a feeling that this was something counselors did, as well as shamans. I wasn't really either, but I'd do my best to help him.
I thought this panic of his was more about William's perception that something was not right with Jim, rather than anything that was actually wrong. I'd been up close and personal with Jim's spiritual self a lot in the last week. After the extraction I'd done, Jim's aura had kept shimmering with strong, clear colors.
Jim was good. I was sure of it.
“Please, come into the kitchen. Sally made apple turnovers this morning - they were always Jimmy's favorite - and I've made a fresh pot of coffee. I think it would be easier to discuss the problem fortified by some good strong coffee.” He took my elbow and steered me towards the brightly lit kitchen.
I wouldn't say no to anything Sally baked - maybe there would be enough turnovers to take some with me, for Jim - and tired as I was, coffee would help me rev up my energy levels.
He waved me to a kitchen chair and set a plate of the pastries on the beautiful cherry wood table. He busied himself with filling a mug with coffee and a splash of creamer, and set it before me, then fixed his own mug and sat down on the other side of the table.
We sipped our coffee, and I waited for him to bring up what was bothering him about Jim.
“Please, Mr. Sandburg, try one of Sally's turnovers. I... I'm thinking about how best to explain to you about... well. Give me a few moments, if you don't mind.” I nodded.
I'd finished my coffee and a turnover before he began speaking.
“I love my sons. I wasn't particularly a good father to them when they were boys, but I didn't know I was failing them so miserably. Looking back, I can see where I made my mistakes. I can't change the past, but I hope that I've become a good father to Jimmy and Stephen now. I would do anything to save my boys. You aren't a parent, are you, Mr. Sandburg?”
“Blair, please, call me Blair. And no, I'm not.”
“You're very close to Jimmy, I know. I suppose that at this point we should drop the formality of titles. Please, Blair, feel free to call me William.”
“Okay, William. Thank you.” I smiled at him, hoping to put him at ease. This was good, William and I talking, and once I'd laid his fears about Jim to rest, this might be a turning point in our own relationship. It would be nice for Jim to have his lover and his father getting along with each other, although William hadn't been told yet that his son and I were in a committed relationship. We were waiting for things to die down with the case first, then we'd have a long talk with William.
“I don't know, since you are childless, if you can really comprehend the fears parents have for their children. I had plenty of them for my boys. The world is not a kind place, not for those who are different; I wanted to spare my boys the pain of being taunted, hurt, or rejected.” He looked at me, willing me to understand.
“You didn't want Stephen or Jim to have bad experiences because of who they were or what they did.” I knew, of course, about how William had pounded into Jim's head that he should hide his sentinel abilities when he was a kid. I also knew that he had done that thinking he was protecting his son. But I kept silent. It was my role to listen to him tonight, not point out to William how he had screwed Jim and Stephen up.
Something occurred to me... William's reaction to Jim being different from other boys had always seemed to me to be an overreaction. Had something happened to William when he was a kid? Had he been seen as different, been treated harshly because of it? Could William have also had sentinel senses as a boy, and repressed them? My research indicated that being a sentinel was tied to genetics. I'd always wondered about Jim's mother being a sentinel, since the little Jim knew and had shared with me indicated that his mother seemed to have had some health problems before she left her husband and her boys. But what if Jim's abilities came from William?
“William? Were you treated badly as a kid because you were different in some way?”
He looked at me, and I could see his eyes becoming wet.
“Excuse me. I'm afraid that at my age I must visit the facilities more often than young men like yourself. Please, would you like another turnover? Or help yourself to more coffee, if you would like.”
He left the kitchen, but he didn't stop at the downstairs bathroom. I heard him go up the stairs. Probably felt more comfortable in his own bathroom.
I passed on eating any more turnovers. I thought I should get up and pour myself another cup of coffee, but it seemed like too much trouble.
William took his sweet time in the john, but I reminded myself to have patience. He'd seemed to be on the edge of crying when he'd excused himself, and might take a while to pull himself together. Or, you know, just needed that long to take care of business.
That coffee didn't seem to be having any effect on me at all. I wondered if it had been de-caf, because I was getting so tired. Damn this mono. It kept just knocking me off my feet, and if William didn't come down pretty soon, he'd find me asleep at his table.
I yawned, and felt lightheaded. Whoa. I closed my eyes and decided it would be a bad idea to move for a while. Let my head settle back down first.
I'm not sure how long I stayed like that, just sitting quietly, eyes shut, but the dizziness kept increasing and I thought that whether or not William liked it, I was going to have to take off soon.
I decided to go knock on the bathroom door, tell him that I really had to leave now, and it was shit or get off the pot time. Not that I'd actually phrase it like that. I wasn't going to be a jackass and be all rude. This was Jim's dad; I wanted him to have a good impression of me.
I wanted him to like me.
I opened my eyes and stood up. When I did, my stomach started doing flip-flops and I staggered away from the table. I made it out of the kitchen, and into a large study sort of room, with bookshelves, a desk, a big stuffed chair, and a couch against one wall. I realized that I'd gotten turned around, because this wasn't the way I had come into the kitchen. It seemed easier to stumble to the door on the other side, and hope that it would open back out into the hallway so I could find William. I wasn't able to walk very well, more of a zig-zag than a straight line, and then the room started spinning around and around, a countermelody to the acrobatics going on in my gut.
Fuck. This felt like I'd gotten very, very drunk. A part of my brain wanted to pout about that, being this hungover without the fun part of getting sloshed. The more intelligent bits of gray matter were screaming at me that this wasn't right. Either I was getting very sick - and what new hell would that be about - or I was having a bad reaction to the coffee or the apple turnovers.
Crap. What if Sally had put some spice or something In those turnovers and I was having an allergic reaction to it?
My smart ass comment to Simon about not eating any poisoned apples was coming back to kick my butt. Karma. When was I going to realize I shouldn't tempt Karma like that?
The door out of the study was locked. I turned and lurched back towards the kitchen, and stumbled into a small table that was laden with books and files. I knocked them all over.
Oh, wonderful. What a great way to make a good impression on your father-in-law.
I fell to my knees and tried to sort out the jumbled mess and re-stack them, but I wasn't having much success.
My head began pounding, and my heartbeat started skipping around. Shit. I might need medical help. I called out for William, but I couldn't seem to get my voice to work loudly enough. I fumbled for Jim's cell phone. Henri was right outside, and I was sorry that William would know that I hadn't come alone, but I was starting to get very scared.
I got the cell phone out and promptly dropped it. Shit, shit, shit. It hit the floor and skittered out of my reach. I made a long arm trying to reach it, my other arm braced against the floor, and William walked in the door.
“I'm...” I was feeling so weak and too warm and there were colored dots dancing in front of my eyes. He reached down and grasped me by my biceps.
“Are you not feeling well? Perhaps you should lie down, go to sleep.” His voice sounded odd to me, but then my ears were fucked up, too, because there was this loud ringing noise.
He raised me up and the vertigo hit me full force again. My vision narrowed down to a tunnel, the orange and red and green dots disappearing into blackness as he turned me towards the couch.
“M' sick. Hospital. Jim.”
“You're going to lie down. Everything will be taken care of.”
It felt like my arms and legs didn't belong to me anymore. William tightened his arms around me, my back against his torso, and then blackness swallowed me up.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Joel and I were elated about Bergman's decision to quit dicking around and take a plea, and on the drive back to the station we discussed our next steps.
Joel would handle the interrogation; he'd make sure the cameras were working, see if the other players had arrived yet, arrange for Bergman to be brought into the room.
I'd go grab the files on both the Edwards case and the attempted murder on Blair and set up shop in the observation room. The ADA would want to go over the evidence - the written testimonies, the confirmation of acrylamide in the thermos Bergman had handed to Blair, the letters Blair's bosses had received that indicated harassment from Bergman, the forensic evidence from the scene of Edwards' murder - to use as leverage against him. I'd listen in and confer with Joel on lines of questioning, since I was more familiar with the cases.
Hopefully, we could get things wrapped up without it taking all night; if Blair wasn't deeply asleep when I got to the safe house, we'd go home. I just needed to be able to read Bergman about whether there were still hit-men that he'd hired lurking around waiting to fulfill the contract on Blair. I didn't think so, because it didn't make much sense to hire someone to do your dirty work and then try to do it yourself.
I parked the truck and we rode up in the elevator, Joel getting off on the third floor and me on the seventh. Once at my desk, I quickly dropped the files I'd been carrying that contained the copies of the subpoenas on top of the other case files, since the message light on my desk phone was blinking. I checked my messages but there wasn't anything that needed my immediate attention, so I grabbed the stack of files and went to get organized in the observation room.
I met Simon in the hallway, shooting the shit with Beverly Sanchez. “Simon. Beverly, you're the ADA on this case? Who'd you piss off to get stuck working this late?”
Beverly smiled at me. It wasn't a nice smile. Not at all. “Oh, I asked to be assigned to this case, once I heard about it. Blair risked taking a bullet for me, and I'll never forget that. How is he, by the way? Simon mentioned that he's been sick.”
Simon interrupted us. “Bergman's cooling his heels in there,” he pointed to the interrogation room, “and his lawyer should be here any minute. Joel's escorting him up. I'll be sitting in, at least for a while, to help keep Bergman rattled.”
“A teddy bear like you coming across as intimidating? You're kidding, right, sir?”
Simon snorted. “Better be careful, Jim. Sandburg's smart mouth must be catching. I'll be back in a minute. I could use some coffee.” He strode down the hall and around the corner.
Beverly touched my arm. “So, how is Blair? I always liked him. Is he just here for the case, or is he moving back to Cascade?”
“He's had a bad time with mono and strep, but he's turned the corner on it. And he's staying. Um, with me.” I was willing to stop right there, but Beverly is a very perceptive woman.
“With you? Like roommates again? Friends?” She must have seen something in my expression because she smiled again, only this time in a warm and friendly way.
“Or friends who've realized their potential? Jim? Should I be congratulating you?”
“Yeah, we're together. It's good, Bev.” I looked at her pretty face, and remembered when we had kissed, trying out a tentative attraction. It hadn't taken long for us to decide to shelve that attraction in favor of being friends. I'd never regretted it.
“I can't say I'm surprised You know, you talked more about Blair whenever we got together than anything to do with us. He's a genuinely nice man, and a real cutie. I hope you guys are very happy together.” Her dark eyes took on a mischievous look. “I could throw you a coming out party.”
“I'm letting the grapevine take care of spreading the news. But if you do want to help, how about keeping an eye open for a job for Blair? You know Bergman and Edwards shafted him about his job opportunities, right?”
She nodded. “I know, the bastards. Like Blair was their puppet, a doll to manipulate instead of a human being. Sure, I'll ask around about a job for him. And maybe we can all go out for a beer when he's feeling better, have some laughs.”
I could hear Bergman's lawyer and Joel getting off the elevator, but they were too far away for Beverly to notice yet. Simon was on his way back, too.
“Thanks, Bev. And yeah, Blair and I would like that. Say, I'll talk to you later; I need to get my stuff organized. Good luck, Counselor.”
I ducked into the room and set down the files. I was sorting them into piles when Simon came in and placed a large coffee in front of me.
“Thanks, Simon.” He went back out and I watched through the one-way mirror as Bergman's lawyer, Beverly, Simon, and Joel entered the small room. Bergman was handcuffed to the table and looked terrible.
Show time was about to begin.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
I found Blair's note in the middle of the stack of files while the lawyers worked out the plea. They'd get the legal mumbo-jumbo completed, then Bergman would make both a verbal and written confession. Joel would painstakingly go over that confession, making sure there were no loopholes a defense lawyer could use. Bergman could change his mind and ask for a trial even while he was in front of the judge accepting the plea formally, and in that case we wanted the evidence and confession ready to nail his ass.
It'd been about an hour and a half since Blair had left the note; he'd scribbled the time on it. What on earth could my father want to talk to him about that had to be done privately this evening? Blair had written that Dad was pretty upset, was worried about me, and that he'd get to the bottom of it and try to calm my dad down about whatever he thought was wrong.
I was sure their talk could have waited, and I'd call Blair first chance that I got, probably when Joel took a break, since didn't want to miss anything during Bergman's confession. There was a phone jack in this room, but no phone. I suspected it had been liberated to replace one that wasn't working correctly somewhere else in the building
After the plea forms were signed, Bergman's lawyer took a hike, and Beverly came in to say goodbye and look over the evidence.
After she left, Bergman started to lose it.
Joel was playing good cop now, making supportive noises, making sure that Bergman had a glass of water, and pushing a Kleenex box over to him when tears began running down his face.
Simon didn't say much, just glowered at the man. He stood directly across from Bergman, and as big as Simon is, Bergman would be forced to notice him. I expected that Simon would leave shortly, once he was convinced Bergman was going to sing like the proverbial canary.
I think it was actually cathartic for the man. He admitted that Edwards had blackmailed him about an affair he'd had with a student, a seventeen-year-old girl. Edwards had pictures of him with this girl in compromising positions, and had threatened to expose him to his wife and bring about his ruin at the university. He'd broken it off with the girl, and she'd transferred to another school, well fortified with guilt money from him.
Edwards had used him like a dog, he said, his hands gripping each other now that Joel had removed the handcuffs. She'd foisted a lot of her job responsibilities off on him and taken credit for a lot of his own work, and silenced him when he wanted to protest the policies she was endorsing. He'd hated seeing what she was doing as chancellor. She'd turn a blind eye to abuse if it meant cover-up money from rich parents, to make sure their little darlings didn't have to face any consequences. He mentioned Brad Ventriss and Blair's involvement as an example.
He'd tried to escape, to transfer to another department, to even get a job somewhere else. She wouldn't have it. She didn't demand money from him, although she did expect him to pick up her tabs at any restaurant meetings they attended. She constantly punished him, though, and he choked out how demeaning it had been for her to order him around, and how he felt as if his soul was shriveling from having to dance to her tune.
He said he didn't want to admit what he'd done with that girl because he didn't want to hurt his wife. He denied being concerned about losing her fortune if they divorced, but his body language expressed to me that he was fudging about that. He'd miss the money and the prestige he'd married into.
Okay, background motivation established, Joel led him to surrender details regarding his plan to kill Edwards and why he'd involved Blair Sandburg.
Bergman said he had hated Edwards' policy decisions as chancellor, things like blocking changes that would have benefited the teaching assistants, or shifting funds earmarked for counseling and educational resources into accounts he knew would not help the students . He passionately believed her actions would end up hurting Rainier, and finally concluded that she had to be removed.
And Blair? Well, he'd known for some time that Blair, who'd been one of the few to oppose her publicly, would make a good scapegoat. Blair had wanted to file a grievance against her, based on the letters she had sent out to his prospective employers in Cascade. Bergman had pretended to have advocated for Blair, but in reality he hadn't addressed Blair's grievance with the committee. He'd wanted to keep alive a reason for Blair to be angry with Edwards.
I shook my head, listening to this well-respected and educated man describe how he'd set Blair up to be his patsy. It might have worked, too, if Blair's alibi hadn't cleared him. If he'd been arrested, though, those of us on the force that knew him would have worked day and night to find the actual killer. Even if Blair and I hadn't gotten back together, I would never have let him take the fall for a crime he hadn't committed.
Bergman stopped talking to blow his nose and wipe at his face. Joel gently prodded him to continue talking, and he took a deep breath and went on.
He said that at that point he hadn't totally decided on killing her, though he'd thought about it a lot. He'd begun trying out different methods in his head, ones that would not implicate him.
He'd kept tabs on Blair's whereabouts, not hard to do since Blair's transcript files were flagged for notification to Edwards whenever they were requested by Blair's prospective employers. It had actually fallen to Bergman to be the one to make sure the letters were sent. He knew Blair was struggling to keep a job, and he remembered conversations he and Blair'd had about Blair's car. He remarked that he was a classic car buff himself, but his wife didn't see the point of buying old vehicles, so he hadn't indulged his desire for one.
He realized that if he bought Blair's car and didn't change the registration, he could use it to run down Edwards. If he made sure to have the car ticketed, it would be proof that Blair's green Volvo had been on campus that day. He would wear a wig, pick a deserted time and day. He and Edwards attended many meetings together and he felt sure he could do it. He didn't own a gun, didn't know how to shoot one, poisoning might bring suspicion on him since he was a chemist, and he didn't want to touch her to strangle her, besides the danger of leaving evidence on her body.
Blair was jumping around the country; he'd be hard to find. If the police came to Rainier looking for any useful information on Blair Sandburg's current whereabouts, the files could be hidden or doctored. Blair would be safe enough from police questioning, and if it came down to it, it would be his word against Blair's. He was respected in the community; Blair had a reputation as a liar who'd forged his research. He thought that since Blair's history of disagreements with Edwards was public, and his own was not, Blair would seem the more credible suspect.
So he flew into New Mexico. He'd gotten Blair's address from the welding shop Blair worked at by spinning a story about updating the University's records. Then he went looking for him. Pretending that he'd run into Blair by chance, he'd treated him to dinner and offered to buy the car. Blair had agreed, and left it to him to complete the paperwork for registering the car in Bergman's name.
Joel asked him what he had done with the Volvo. Bergman broke down for a while, and he took a few minutes to regain his self-control. Finally he drank some water and continued with his confession.
He'd hidden the car at Pacific Storage, but he'd been careful not to have the unit listed in his own name. One of his friends, another professor who was on sabbatical in France, had emptied his house of furniture so that it could be rented out. He'd had his furniture stored, leaving the care and bill paying in Bergman's hands. The storage manager had been told Bergman was in charge, papers signed to that effect, and it had been simple for Bergman to request another unit in his friend's name for additional space.
He'd kept the folder and key for his friend's unit in his secretary's office. Unluckily for him, she had recognized the key from the safe as being the same sort as the key in the folder. The file the secretary gave Joel and me had supplied Pacific Storage's name. The subpoena had covered rental units as well as Bergman's home and office, and the manager's records had identified which units were under his friend's name.
The second one we had opened revealed a green Volvo. Bingo.
Joel explained to Bergman the process by which we'd located the car. Bergman put his head in his hands, and Joel offered him more water and allowed him a minute to regain his composure.
In answer to Joel's next series of questions, Bergman described Edwards' murder and how he had hidden the car afterward back in the storage unit.
“Why did you keep the car, sir?”
“I thought eventually I could drive it, after things had calmed down. I would have had it painted, figured out how to get a different title. I didn't want to sink it in a lake or drive it off a cliff, and Detective Ellison asked me about a chop shop, but my knowledge of such things are from the movies. I don't know anyone who runs one. I don't even know anyone who would know anyone who runs one. I'm not a criminal.”
Nope, I thought. Not a criminal. Just a murderer. And almost one twice over.
More questions. More answers. More details about how he'd decided Blair had become a risk he couldn't afford anymore, not since Blair had contacted him and talked about moving back to Cascade.
Joel walked him through the steps he'd taken to kill Blair when they'd met for coffee.
All of those details meshed with what we'd known from observing him.
Joel looked sternly at Bergman. “Tell me about the hit-men you hired to kill Blair Sandburg while he was in custody in Sweetwater, Tennessee.” Now we were heading to the unknown parts of this story.
Bergman frowned and looked confused.
“Excuse me?”
“Your plea covers those charges, also, Chancellor, so there isn't any reason to keep that information hidden. We know you hired two hit-men to kill Blair Sandburg. We want the name of your contact for those hit-men, and we want to know how you knew Sandburg was incarcerated at Sweetwater.”
Bergman held up his hands. “I don't know what you're talking about. Blair had dropped off my radar. He wasn't contacting the university for his transcripts anymore. And hit-men? How would I know how one goes about hiring a hit-man? I didn't have anything to do with any hit-men.”
I stood up. He was being truthful. Shit. Blair was still in danger. But from who?
Simon excused himself and joined me. Joel was still questioning Bergman about hiring hit-men and he kept protesting his innocence.
“Jim, is he telling the truth? He's coming across to me as being honest.”
“I'd bet on it. Damn it, there's another player at work here.”
I sat back down, thinking. After Edwards' murder, Bergman had kept sending the letter trashing Blair along with his transcripts. He'd admitted that he did it to keep Blair on the run. We'd assumed he'd sent the other letters, the ones that warned employers that they'd hired a bad apple, that Blair was going to be investigated on various fraud charges and had hinted that he was also a sexual predator. The ones signed “James Ellison” that had pissed Blair off so much, since he'd thought I'd sent them.
Maybe Bergman wasn't responsible for the second type of letter.
At any rate we needed to see if he had or hadn't sent them. I picked up the folder that contained a faxed copy of the letter that one of Blair's former employers had received. Restless, I stood back up and handed it to Simon.
“See if he recognizes this letter. At the very least, I'll get a reading on his reaction.”
Simon opened the folder to familiarize himself with the letter. I hadn't bothered to read it myself yet, since Blair had described the contents with a lot of force back in Sweetwater. I moved a little closer to him and glanced at it, then I grabbed it out of his hands.
“Jim? What is it?”
My heart rate picked up, sounding like thunder in my ears. Oh, no, there must be some mistake, I wasn't seeing what I thought I was seeing. Oh, dear God, please let me be wrong.
I moved past Simon, ignoring his demand for me to stop and talk to him. I flung open the interrogation room door and in a few strides was looming over Bergman.
Oh, dear God, let Bergman have written this.
I shoved the letter under his nose. “Did you write this?”
He pushed it down so he could see it properly and began reading it. After his eyes had glanced down the first paragraph he stopped and shook his head.
“Are you positive?” Bergman's eyes widened, and Joel looked at me with alarm.
“No! I didn't write that. I don't know who did.”
Oh my God.
“What connection does William Ellison have with you?”
He glanced to the right and then upwards. “Your father? He's been a very generous donor to the university.”
He was being truthful but he wasn't telling all the truth. “What else! All of it, now!”
“He, he arranged for Chancellor Edwards to send to Blair's prospective employers an extremely negative letter regarding Blair's university work history. And he wanted her to send him any new information she received, such as updated addresses for Blair. After she died, he came to see me and explained the arrangement they'd had, and that if I would continue it, then he would continue to generously fund my special projects.”
Oh my God. And Blair had gone to my dad's house.
I couldn't get my head around what I was learning.
Simon grabbed my arm and propelled me out the door, Joel following. I broke loose and practically ran down the hall to the elevators and hit the down button. Joel and Simon caught up to me there.
“We need to call Blair right now, he's got my phone. Make sure he's okay.” Oh, God.
Joel made the call.
Simon said quietly, but with force, “Explain what's going on here, Jim.”
I held up the letter. “I'm pretty sure that's my dad's signature. He's not even lying on it. His name is William James Ellison. Simon, he bribed Edwards and Bergman to harass Blair. Blair and Henri stopped at his place on the way to the safe house. Blair left me a note telling me that my dad wanted to see him privately. Simon, what if it's my dad who...” I couldn't finish that thought.
Joel said, urgently, “Blair doesn't answer and neither does Henri. We should roll.”
Grasping at straws, I told them, “Cell phone reception is spotty out by his house. Maybe that's why we can't reach them.”
Simon ordered, “Joel, contact Dispatch to reach Brown by radio. See if there are any units in the area for backup. Jim, what's your dad's phone number?”
I gave it to him. Simon called but only got the answering machine. Joel called Dispatch and also arranged for Bergman to be returned to his cell. I heard the elevator rising to our floor and willed it to work faster.
I felt hot, then cold, and my gut was roiling. Finally, the elevator door opened and we rushed inside. Joel hit the button for the garage, and tried again to call Blair, then Henri, as we descended.
Simon grasped my shoulder. “Jim. I need you to listen to me. And I'll have your ass stuffed in a patrol car and you handcuffed to the grill if you don't do exactly what I say. You can not enter your dad's house or talk to him. Somehow, this is all about what Blair is to you. You're the key, the connection. If your dad's holding the kid hostage, then seeing you might be the trigger to kill him. I hope to God I'm wrong about all of this. Maybe he just took a dislike to Blair after the publicity over that damn dissertation, and just wanted him away from you. Maybe he's not the one who hired the hit-men. But you know, he's looking awfully good for it.” Simon shook my shoulder.
“I need your word, Jim. You've been a cop for a long time now. You know what usually happens when the catalyst comes on the scene.”
He was right, I knew he was right. But... “I can sneak in, get Blair out. Simon, I have to --”
Simon swung me into the elevator wall and pinned me there. “Jim, if I'm not making myself clear, then I'm putting you in handcuffs immediately. You can not make contact with your father. If he does have Blair, then we'll hold seeing you as a delaying tactic and a bargaining chip. Get your act together here. Your father is obsessed. He's risked a lot already to get at Blair, and if he thinks you know what he's doing then he's got every reason to kill Blair anyway, and maybe himself so he doesn't have to deal with you knowing what he's done.”
The fog that had been in my head cleared. Simon was right. “I got it, Simon. But I have to go! I can listen for what's going on when I get there. God, I hope this is a false alarm, and that Blair's asleep in the safe house.”
The elevator opened onto the parking garage and I headed for my truck. Simon grabbed my arm. “You're not driving. I am. I'm parked over here.” He let go and I followed him; we were all practically running, although there was no way that we'd be the first ones on the scene.
And then I stopped dead in my tracks, skidding a little. The panther, snarling, tail lashing, was pacing on top of Simon's black Ford Explorer. He let out a roar that was loud enough to crumble stone. But Joel and Simon were oblivious and continued to move to the car at a fast clip.
I couldn't. A terrible, horrific fear had hit me like a tidal wave.
Blair, the image of Blair, was floating before me. His feet were inches off the floor, putting us at eye level. He was translucent.
“Blair, oh God, are you still alive?!”
He put his hands on my cheeks. I couldn't feel him. He looked at me with such love in his eyes.
And then he disappeared.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Laurie
A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Six
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
I felt myself ascending from a deep level of sleep into an awareness that my shoulder was being shaken. No, I whined to myself. Let me sleep.
I mumbled for the shoulder shaker to go away. No such luck. If anything, the shaking intensified.
My eyes still shut, I reached for blankets to pull up over my head. I felt a hard surface instead. After a while I realized this meant I wasn't in bed. So where was I? Had I fallen asleep at the kitchen table again?
“G'way, Jim. Lemme sleep.”
I heard laughter, and it dawned on me slowly, as the shaking continued, that it wasn't Jim laughing.
“Sandburg, wake up. Time to go.” I knew that voice. Why was Simon at the loft? Was it poker night, and did I pass out, or something?”
“Sandburg. Wake up, kid.” Simon again. Okay, okay. I'd get out of the way. Really, who could play poker with me asleep in the middle of the chips?
“Hairboy, we aren't playing poker.” That was Henri. He was the one laughing at me.
I felt myself really waking up and I lifted my head. Simon was standing next to me, his hand on my shoulder, and Henri was there, holding the jacket Jim had bought me at Walmart yesterday.
Not the loft. Not asleep at the kitchen table in the middle of a poker game. I was in the bullpen. I'd fallen asleep on top of the case files for the Edwards murder. I remembered now pulling them forward from the back of the desk to use as a pillow.
“Sandburg, are you ready to make sense now? You know we're not playing poker, right?”
That was Simon. I yawned, and nodded and then stood up and stretched. I took my jacket and shrugged it on.
“Where's Jim?” It was a stupid question. Obviously Jim was still tied up, or it would have been him shaking me awake.
“Still with the techs. I'm sending you to the safe house, and don't bother arguing; if you can't stay awake, then you can't stay here.”
Simon sounded... I don't know. Like he was talking to Daryl, maybe. I frowned. I hated it when people treated me like I was still a kid. Hell, I had hated being treated like a kid when I was a kid.
“All right, I see your point.” I held up my hands, placating him. “I'm not arguing about heading for a bed. So what happened with Bergman while I was snoozing?”
“He was really shook up when I informed him that we'd found the car. He's agreed to the plea. His lawyer and an ADA are coming over to hammer it out. He's not going to talk until then.”
Wow. It looked like closure was just around the corner. Bergman would confess and get his plea. No more hit-men after me; no more protective custody. I could go back to the loft, maybe not tonight, but surely by tomorrow it would be safe.
Simon laid his hand on my shoulder again. “Get some rest. I know Jim didn't get much sleep last night, so as soon as we've got Bergman's confession, I'll send him to the safe house, too.” He stepped back and turned Henri's way. “You can leave when Ellison gets there.”
“Sure thing, Cap'n. C'mon, Hairboy. We'll swing through somewhere and get some takeout. You want some Chinese or Thai? Barbecue? The P.D. is paying for it, so let's live a little.”
Simon said mildly, “You go over the allotted expense and it comes out of your wallet, Brown.”
“Right.” Henri winked at me. “We'll stick to the specials.”
Simon snorted. “Get out of here, and Blair, I meant it when I said to get some rest.” Simon went into his office and shut the door. Henri and I walked out of the bullpen, after I gathered up my meds and notes on job hunting. Jim had bought us some new clothes, but they were in the truck. I missed my backpack. I wished the hospital hadn't kept it.
We'd almost gotten to the elevator when Jim's cell phone rang. I was smiling when I answered it, and waved to Henri to wait for me, while I stepped away out of earshot for some privacy, sure that it was Jim checking in with me.
It wasn't Jim.
“Who is this? Is this... Blair Sandburg?”
“Hello, Mr. Ellison. Yes, this is Blair. Jim's letting me use his phone, but I can get a message to him, if you like.”
There was silence on the other end. I looked at the phone to see if the call had been lost, but the connection was still good.
“Mr. Ellison? Are you still there?”
No answer. “Mr. Ellison?”
“Jimmy's not with you?”
“He's in Cascade but he's working on a case. Should I have him call you or do you want to leave a message with me? I'll be seeing him tonight.”
He didn't answer right away. “Mr. Ellison? I have to go; what do you want me to do?”
He finally answered me.
“I'll talk to Jimmy later; it wasn't anything important. But I would like to talk to you. In person. There are things I've wanted to discuss with you, about... you know. I don't like talking over the phone about it. And I don't want Jimmy, or anybody, to know we've talked. Can you come over now? Privately, by yourself? I'm asking you in confidence. It concerns Jimmy's future, and I believe you're a part of that future. There are things that concern Jimmy that you should know.”
I hedged. “It's not really a good time, Mr. Ellison. Could we do it in a day or two?”
“No. I'm afraid that what I have to tell you shouldn't wait. I can't stress this enough, the urgency and the need for this to stay private, just between you and me. Please, Mr. Sandburg. I wouldn't be asking if I didn't have Jimmy's best interests in mind.”
“I don't like the idea of keeping secrets from Jim. Doing that has messed us up in the past, and Jim and I are trying not to make the same mistakes again.”
“Then tell him afterwards if you feel you must, but I'm begging you, Mr. Sandburg, I need to see you tonight, privately. Jim's life is at stake.”
I caved. I'd talk H into letting me stop by and see Jim's dad. He sounded frantic, for him, and if William Ellison, the poster child for stoicism, and Jim's role model in that regard, was losing his cool, it must be as important as he was saying.
“All right. I'll come.”
“I can't stress enough the need to keep our meeting private. Tell no one, and especially not Jim, that you're coming here. Please, Mr. Sandburg. I have my reasons.”
“I'll be there soon. Goodbye, Mr. Ellison.”
“Thank you.” He ended the call and I put the phone up to my forehead, thinking.
It must be the sentinel stuff. Jim had said that he and his dad had been close over the last year. What did William Ellison know about Jim that was scaring him so badly? Maybe it wasn't anything, and I could lay the man's fears to rest. Maybe he'd seen Jim in a zone or something and was terrified about Jim's health. He hadn't been open to discussing Jim's abilities with me in the past. He might well clam up again in the future. If he wanted to talk, then this was a golden opportunity for me to develop some rapport with the man who was in effect, my father-in-law.
I beckoned Henri over. I'd have to tell him that I needed to see Jim's dad before going on to the safe house. Maybe a small obfuscation was in order.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Henri had parked two houses down and across the street from William's big house. He had a good view for surveillance from there, even inside the garage, since it was wide open.
My conscience was twinging a bit about letting Henri think it had been Jim who'd called me and asked me to stop by his dad's house. I hadn't actually stated that it had been Jim. I just hadn't corrected Henri's assumption.
There wasn't any danger in stopping and seeing William, but by the time I would have talked Henri into letting me go without Jim's approval, William and I could have finished our talk and I could be in bed. I was tired.
Anyway, we'd arrived in a roundabout way, making sure nobody had followed us from the station. Once there Henri had agreed to keep a low profile, after he'd used binoculars to cautiously check out the perimeter of the house. I wondered where Sally was, since her car wasn't in the driveway. She lived at the Ellison residence, but she didn't work twenty-four hours a day there. I knew she sometimes visited relatives and went out with her friends.
My conscience was clear about Jim, though. I'd returned to Jim's desk and left a note about where I'd gone and why on the top of the Edwards file, where he couldn't miss it. By the time Jim read the note William and I would be done talking and I would be released from William's insistence on keeping the conversation private.
I knocked on the door, thinking that William needed to get his porch light turned on. Maybe he needed the light bulb changed. I'd offer to fix it before I left. He really shouldn't be on a ladder and he'd need one to reach the fixture.
He opened the door and ushered me inside, murmuring that he'd take my jacket. I quickly eyed him and he looked in good health. He was standing straight, and his body was tall and strong, with good muscle tone even though he was somewhere in his sixties.
However, he was clearly upset. I summoned up the energy to look at his aura. The muddy tones of red, green, and blue that were woven throughout his aura and the gray shimmer around his heart told me that his spiritual health was not great. Still, I was pretty sure that he would never allow me to try to do what I had done for Jim. Maybe, just maybe, if I pumped my energy levels up, my aura might blend somewhat with his, and maybe I could do something to help him recover, even if just for a little while. I would listen to his concerns, try to help him with his anxiety about Jim. I had a feeling that this was something counselors did, as well as shamans. I wasn't really either, but I'd do my best to help him.
I thought this panic of his was more about William's perception that something was not right with Jim, rather than anything that was actually wrong. I'd been up close and personal with Jim's spiritual self a lot in the last week. After the extraction I'd done, Jim's aura had kept shimmering with strong, clear colors.
Jim was good. I was sure of it.
“Please, come into the kitchen. Sally made apple turnovers this morning - they were always Jimmy's favorite - and I've made a fresh pot of coffee. I think it would be easier to discuss the problem fortified by some good strong coffee.” He took my elbow and steered me towards the brightly lit kitchen.
I wouldn't say no to anything Sally baked - maybe there would be enough turnovers to take some with me, for Jim - and tired as I was, coffee would help me rev up my energy levels.
He waved me to a kitchen chair and set a plate of the pastries on the beautiful cherry wood table. He busied himself with filling a mug with coffee and a splash of creamer, and set it before me, then fixed his own mug and sat down on the other side of the table.
We sipped our coffee, and I waited for him to bring up what was bothering him about Jim.
“Please, Mr. Sandburg, try one of Sally's turnovers. I... I'm thinking about how best to explain to you about... well. Give me a few moments, if you don't mind.” I nodded.
I'd finished my coffee and a turnover before he began speaking.
“I love my sons. I wasn't particularly a good father to them when they were boys, but I didn't know I was failing them so miserably. Looking back, I can see where I made my mistakes. I can't change the past, but I hope that I've become a good father to Jimmy and Stephen now. I would do anything to save my boys. You aren't a parent, are you, Mr. Sandburg?”
“Blair, please, call me Blair. And no, I'm not.”
“You're very close to Jimmy, I know. I suppose that at this point we should drop the formality of titles. Please, Blair, feel free to call me William.”
“Okay, William. Thank you.” I smiled at him, hoping to put him at ease. This was good, William and I talking, and once I'd laid his fears about Jim to rest, this might be a turning point in our own relationship. It would be nice for Jim to have his lover and his father getting along with each other, although William hadn't been told yet that his son and I were in a committed relationship. We were waiting for things to die down with the case first, then we'd have a long talk with William.
“I don't know, since you are childless, if you can really comprehend the fears parents have for their children. I had plenty of them for my boys. The world is not a kind place, not for those who are different; I wanted to spare my boys the pain of being taunted, hurt, or rejected.” He looked at me, willing me to understand.
“You didn't want Stephen or Jim to have bad experiences because of who they were or what they did.” I knew, of course, about how William had pounded into Jim's head that he should hide his sentinel abilities when he was a kid. I also knew that he had done that thinking he was protecting his son. But I kept silent. It was my role to listen to him tonight, not point out to William how he had screwed Jim and Stephen up.
Something occurred to me... William's reaction to Jim being different from other boys had always seemed to me to be an overreaction. Had something happened to William when he was a kid? Had he been seen as different, been treated harshly because of it? Could William have also had sentinel senses as a boy, and repressed them? My research indicated that being a sentinel was tied to genetics. I'd always wondered about Jim's mother being a sentinel, since the little Jim knew and had shared with me indicated that his mother seemed to have had some health problems before she left her husband and her boys. But what if Jim's abilities came from William?
“William? Were you treated badly as a kid because you were different in some way?”
He looked at me, and I could see his eyes becoming wet.
“Excuse me. I'm afraid that at my age I must visit the facilities more often than young men like yourself. Please, would you like another turnover? Or help yourself to more coffee, if you would like.”
He left the kitchen, but he didn't stop at the downstairs bathroom. I heard him go up the stairs. Probably felt more comfortable in his own bathroom.
I passed on eating any more turnovers. I thought I should get up and pour myself another cup of coffee, but it seemed like too much trouble.
William took his sweet time in the john, but I reminded myself to have patience. He'd seemed to be on the edge of crying when he'd excused himself, and might take a while to pull himself together. Or, you know, just needed that long to take care of business.
That coffee didn't seem to be having any effect on me at all. I wondered if it had been de-caf, because I was getting so tired. Damn this mono. It kept just knocking me off my feet, and if William didn't come down pretty soon, he'd find me asleep at his table.
I yawned, and felt lightheaded. Whoa. I closed my eyes and decided it would be a bad idea to move for a while. Let my head settle back down first.
I'm not sure how long I stayed like that, just sitting quietly, eyes shut, but the dizziness kept increasing and I thought that whether or not William liked it, I was going to have to take off soon.
I decided to go knock on the bathroom door, tell him that I really had to leave now, and it was shit or get off the pot time. Not that I'd actually phrase it like that. I wasn't going to be a jackass and be all rude. This was Jim's dad; I wanted him to have a good impression of me.
I wanted him to like me.
I opened my eyes and stood up. When I did, my stomach started doing flip-flops and I staggered away from the table. I made it out of the kitchen, and into a large study sort of room, with bookshelves, a desk, a big stuffed chair, and a couch against one wall. I realized that I'd gotten turned around, because this wasn't the way I had come into the kitchen. It seemed easier to stumble to the door on the other side, and hope that it would open back out into the hallway so I could find William. I wasn't able to walk very well, more of a zig-zag than a straight line, and then the room started spinning around and around, a countermelody to the acrobatics going on in my gut.
Fuck. This felt like I'd gotten very, very drunk. A part of my brain wanted to pout about that, being this hungover without the fun part of getting sloshed. The more intelligent bits of gray matter were screaming at me that this wasn't right. Either I was getting very sick - and what new hell would that be about - or I was having a bad reaction to the coffee or the apple turnovers.
Crap. What if Sally had put some spice or something In those turnovers and I was having an allergic reaction to it?
My smart ass comment to Simon about not eating any poisoned apples was coming back to kick my butt. Karma. When was I going to realize I shouldn't tempt Karma like that?
The door out of the study was locked. I turned and lurched back towards the kitchen, and stumbled into a small table that was laden with books and files. I knocked them all over.
Oh, wonderful. What a great way to make a good impression on your father-in-law.
I fell to my knees and tried to sort out the jumbled mess and re-stack them, but I wasn't having much success.
My head began pounding, and my heartbeat started skipping around. Shit. I might need medical help. I called out for William, but I couldn't seem to get my voice to work loudly enough. I fumbled for Jim's cell phone. Henri was right outside, and I was sorry that William would know that I hadn't come alone, but I was starting to get very scared.
I got the cell phone out and promptly dropped it. Shit, shit, shit. It hit the floor and skittered out of my reach. I made a long arm trying to reach it, my other arm braced against the floor, and William walked in the door.
“I'm...” I was feeling so weak and too warm and there were colored dots dancing in front of my eyes. He reached down and grasped me by my biceps.
“Are you not feeling well? Perhaps you should lie down, go to sleep.” His voice sounded odd to me, but then my ears were fucked up, too, because there was this loud ringing noise.
He raised me up and the vertigo hit me full force again. My vision narrowed down to a tunnel, the orange and red and green dots disappearing into blackness as he turned me towards the couch.
“M' sick. Hospital. Jim.”
“You're going to lie down. Everything will be taken care of.”
It felt like my arms and legs didn't belong to me anymore. William tightened his arms around me, my back against his torso, and then blackness swallowed me up.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Joel and I were elated about Bergman's decision to quit dicking around and take a plea, and on the drive back to the station we discussed our next steps.
Joel would handle the interrogation; he'd make sure the cameras were working, see if the other players had arrived yet, arrange for Bergman to be brought into the room.
I'd go grab the files on both the Edwards case and the attempted murder on Blair and set up shop in the observation room. The ADA would want to go over the evidence - the written testimonies, the confirmation of acrylamide in the thermos Bergman had handed to Blair, the letters Blair's bosses had received that indicated harassment from Bergman, the forensic evidence from the scene of Edwards' murder - to use as leverage against him. I'd listen in and confer with Joel on lines of questioning, since I was more familiar with the cases.
Hopefully, we could get things wrapped up without it taking all night; if Blair wasn't deeply asleep when I got to the safe house, we'd go home. I just needed to be able to read Bergman about whether there were still hit-men that he'd hired lurking around waiting to fulfill the contract on Blair. I didn't think so, because it didn't make much sense to hire someone to do your dirty work and then try to do it yourself.
I parked the truck and we rode up in the elevator, Joel getting off on the third floor and me on the seventh. Once at my desk, I quickly dropped the files I'd been carrying that contained the copies of the subpoenas on top of the other case files, since the message light on my desk phone was blinking. I checked my messages but there wasn't anything that needed my immediate attention, so I grabbed the stack of files and went to get organized in the observation room.
I met Simon in the hallway, shooting the shit with Beverly Sanchez. “Simon. Beverly, you're the ADA on this case? Who'd you piss off to get stuck working this late?”
Beverly smiled at me. It wasn't a nice smile. Not at all. “Oh, I asked to be assigned to this case, once I heard about it. Blair risked taking a bullet for me, and I'll never forget that. How is he, by the way? Simon mentioned that he's been sick.”
Simon interrupted us. “Bergman's cooling his heels in there,” he pointed to the interrogation room, “and his lawyer should be here any minute. Joel's escorting him up. I'll be sitting in, at least for a while, to help keep Bergman rattled.”
“A teddy bear like you coming across as intimidating? You're kidding, right, sir?”
Simon snorted. “Better be careful, Jim. Sandburg's smart mouth must be catching. I'll be back in a minute. I could use some coffee.” He strode down the hall and around the corner.
Beverly touched my arm. “So, how is Blair? I always liked him. Is he just here for the case, or is he moving back to Cascade?”
“He's had a bad time with mono and strep, but he's turned the corner on it. And he's staying. Um, with me.” I was willing to stop right there, but Beverly is a very perceptive woman.
“With you? Like roommates again? Friends?” She must have seen something in my expression because she smiled again, only this time in a warm and friendly way.
“Or friends who've realized their potential? Jim? Should I be congratulating you?”
“Yeah, we're together. It's good, Bev.” I looked at her pretty face, and remembered when we had kissed, trying out a tentative attraction. It hadn't taken long for us to decide to shelve that attraction in favor of being friends. I'd never regretted it.
“I can't say I'm surprised You know, you talked more about Blair whenever we got together than anything to do with us. He's a genuinely nice man, and a real cutie. I hope you guys are very happy together.” Her dark eyes took on a mischievous look. “I could throw you a coming out party.”
“I'm letting the grapevine take care of spreading the news. But if you do want to help, how about keeping an eye open for a job for Blair? You know Bergman and Edwards shafted him about his job opportunities, right?”
She nodded. “I know, the bastards. Like Blair was their puppet, a doll to manipulate instead of a human being. Sure, I'll ask around about a job for him. And maybe we can all go out for a beer when he's feeling better, have some laughs.”
I could hear Bergman's lawyer and Joel getting off the elevator, but they were too far away for Beverly to notice yet. Simon was on his way back, too.
“Thanks, Bev. And yeah, Blair and I would like that. Say, I'll talk to you later; I need to get my stuff organized. Good luck, Counselor.”
I ducked into the room and set down the files. I was sorting them into piles when Simon came in and placed a large coffee in front of me.
“Thanks, Simon.” He went back out and I watched through the one-way mirror as Bergman's lawyer, Beverly, Simon, and Joel entered the small room. Bergman was handcuffed to the table and looked terrible.
Show time was about to begin.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
I found Blair's note in the middle of the stack of files while the lawyers worked out the plea. They'd get the legal mumbo-jumbo completed, then Bergman would make both a verbal and written confession. Joel would painstakingly go over that confession, making sure there were no loopholes a defense lawyer could use. Bergman could change his mind and ask for a trial even while he was in front of the judge accepting the plea formally, and in that case we wanted the evidence and confession ready to nail his ass.
It'd been about an hour and a half since Blair had left the note; he'd scribbled the time on it. What on earth could my father want to talk to him about that had to be done privately this evening? Blair had written that Dad was pretty upset, was worried about me, and that he'd get to the bottom of it and try to calm my dad down about whatever he thought was wrong.
I was sure their talk could have waited, and I'd call Blair first chance that I got, probably when Joel took a break, since didn't want to miss anything during Bergman's confession. There was a phone jack in this room, but no phone. I suspected it had been liberated to replace one that wasn't working correctly somewhere else in the building
After the plea forms were signed, Bergman's lawyer took a hike, and Beverly came in to say goodbye and look over the evidence.
After she left, Bergman started to lose it.
Joel was playing good cop now, making supportive noises, making sure that Bergman had a glass of water, and pushing a Kleenex box over to him when tears began running down his face.
Simon didn't say much, just glowered at the man. He stood directly across from Bergman, and as big as Simon is, Bergman would be forced to notice him. I expected that Simon would leave shortly, once he was convinced Bergman was going to sing like the proverbial canary.
I think it was actually cathartic for the man. He admitted that Edwards had blackmailed him about an affair he'd had with a student, a seventeen-year-old girl. Edwards had pictures of him with this girl in compromising positions, and had threatened to expose him to his wife and bring about his ruin at the university. He'd broken it off with the girl, and she'd transferred to another school, well fortified with guilt money from him.
Edwards had used him like a dog, he said, his hands gripping each other now that Joel had removed the handcuffs. She'd foisted a lot of her job responsibilities off on him and taken credit for a lot of his own work, and silenced him when he wanted to protest the policies she was endorsing. He'd hated seeing what she was doing as chancellor. She'd turn a blind eye to abuse if it meant cover-up money from rich parents, to make sure their little darlings didn't have to face any consequences. He mentioned Brad Ventriss and Blair's involvement as an example.
He'd tried to escape, to transfer to another department, to even get a job somewhere else. She wouldn't have it. She didn't demand money from him, although she did expect him to pick up her tabs at any restaurant meetings they attended. She constantly punished him, though, and he choked out how demeaning it had been for her to order him around, and how he felt as if his soul was shriveling from having to dance to her tune.
He said he didn't want to admit what he'd done with that girl because he didn't want to hurt his wife. He denied being concerned about losing her fortune if they divorced, but his body language expressed to me that he was fudging about that. He'd miss the money and the prestige he'd married into.
Okay, background motivation established, Joel led him to surrender details regarding his plan to kill Edwards and why he'd involved Blair Sandburg.
Bergman said he had hated Edwards' policy decisions as chancellor, things like blocking changes that would have benefited the teaching assistants, or shifting funds earmarked for counseling and educational resources into accounts he knew would not help the students . He passionately believed her actions would end up hurting Rainier, and finally concluded that she had to be removed.
And Blair? Well, he'd known for some time that Blair, who'd been one of the few to oppose her publicly, would make a good scapegoat. Blair had wanted to file a grievance against her, based on the letters she had sent out to his prospective employers in Cascade. Bergman had pretended to have advocated for Blair, but in reality he hadn't addressed Blair's grievance with the committee. He'd wanted to keep alive a reason for Blair to be angry with Edwards.
I shook my head, listening to this well-respected and educated man describe how he'd set Blair up to be his patsy. It might have worked, too, if Blair's alibi hadn't cleared him. If he'd been arrested, though, those of us on the force that knew him would have worked day and night to find the actual killer. Even if Blair and I hadn't gotten back together, I would never have let him take the fall for a crime he hadn't committed.
Bergman stopped talking to blow his nose and wipe at his face. Joel gently prodded him to continue talking, and he took a deep breath and went on.
He said that at that point he hadn't totally decided on killing her, though he'd thought about it a lot. He'd begun trying out different methods in his head, ones that would not implicate him.
He'd kept tabs on Blair's whereabouts, not hard to do since Blair's transcript files were flagged for notification to Edwards whenever they were requested by Blair's prospective employers. It had actually fallen to Bergman to be the one to make sure the letters were sent. He knew Blair was struggling to keep a job, and he remembered conversations he and Blair'd had about Blair's car. He remarked that he was a classic car buff himself, but his wife didn't see the point of buying old vehicles, so he hadn't indulged his desire for one.
He realized that if he bought Blair's car and didn't change the registration, he could use it to run down Edwards. If he made sure to have the car ticketed, it would be proof that Blair's green Volvo had been on campus that day. He would wear a wig, pick a deserted time and day. He and Edwards attended many meetings together and he felt sure he could do it. He didn't own a gun, didn't know how to shoot one, poisoning might bring suspicion on him since he was a chemist, and he didn't want to touch her to strangle her, besides the danger of leaving evidence on her body.
Blair was jumping around the country; he'd be hard to find. If the police came to Rainier looking for any useful information on Blair Sandburg's current whereabouts, the files could be hidden or doctored. Blair would be safe enough from police questioning, and if it came down to it, it would be his word against Blair's. He was respected in the community; Blair had a reputation as a liar who'd forged his research. He thought that since Blair's history of disagreements with Edwards was public, and his own was not, Blair would seem the more credible suspect.
So he flew into New Mexico. He'd gotten Blair's address from the welding shop Blair worked at by spinning a story about updating the University's records. Then he went looking for him. Pretending that he'd run into Blair by chance, he'd treated him to dinner and offered to buy the car. Blair had agreed, and left it to him to complete the paperwork for registering the car in Bergman's name.
Joel asked him what he had done with the Volvo. Bergman broke down for a while, and he took a few minutes to regain his self-control. Finally he drank some water and continued with his confession.
He'd hidden the car at Pacific Storage, but he'd been careful not to have the unit listed in his own name. One of his friends, another professor who was on sabbatical in France, had emptied his house of furniture so that it could be rented out. He'd had his furniture stored, leaving the care and bill paying in Bergman's hands. The storage manager had been told Bergman was in charge, papers signed to that effect, and it had been simple for Bergman to request another unit in his friend's name for additional space.
He'd kept the folder and key for his friend's unit in his secretary's office. Unluckily for him, she had recognized the key from the safe as being the same sort as the key in the folder. The file the secretary gave Joel and me had supplied Pacific Storage's name. The subpoena had covered rental units as well as Bergman's home and office, and the manager's records had identified which units were under his friend's name.
The second one we had opened revealed a green Volvo. Bingo.
Joel explained to Bergman the process by which we'd located the car. Bergman put his head in his hands, and Joel offered him more water and allowed him a minute to regain his composure.
In answer to Joel's next series of questions, Bergman described Edwards' murder and how he had hidden the car afterward back in the storage unit.
“Why did you keep the car, sir?”
“I thought eventually I could drive it, after things had calmed down. I would have had it painted, figured out how to get a different title. I didn't want to sink it in a lake or drive it off a cliff, and Detective Ellison asked me about a chop shop, but my knowledge of such things are from the movies. I don't know anyone who runs one. I don't even know anyone who would know anyone who runs one. I'm not a criminal.”
Nope, I thought. Not a criminal. Just a murderer. And almost one twice over.
More questions. More answers. More details about how he'd decided Blair had become a risk he couldn't afford anymore, not since Blair had contacted him and talked about moving back to Cascade.
Joel walked him through the steps he'd taken to kill Blair when they'd met for coffee.
All of those details meshed with what we'd known from observing him.
Joel looked sternly at Bergman. “Tell me about the hit-men you hired to kill Blair Sandburg while he was in custody in Sweetwater, Tennessee.” Now we were heading to the unknown parts of this story.
Bergman frowned and looked confused.
“Excuse me?”
“Your plea covers those charges, also, Chancellor, so there isn't any reason to keep that information hidden. We know you hired two hit-men to kill Blair Sandburg. We want the name of your contact for those hit-men, and we want to know how you knew Sandburg was incarcerated at Sweetwater.”
Bergman held up his hands. “I don't know what you're talking about. Blair had dropped off my radar. He wasn't contacting the university for his transcripts anymore. And hit-men? How would I know how one goes about hiring a hit-man? I didn't have anything to do with any hit-men.”
I stood up. He was being truthful. Shit. Blair was still in danger. But from who?
Simon excused himself and joined me. Joel was still questioning Bergman about hiring hit-men and he kept protesting his innocence.
“Jim, is he telling the truth? He's coming across to me as being honest.”
“I'd bet on it. Damn it, there's another player at work here.”
I sat back down, thinking. After Edwards' murder, Bergman had kept sending the letter trashing Blair along with his transcripts. He'd admitted that he did it to keep Blair on the run. We'd assumed he'd sent the other letters, the ones that warned employers that they'd hired a bad apple, that Blair was going to be investigated on various fraud charges and had hinted that he was also a sexual predator. The ones signed “James Ellison” that had pissed Blair off so much, since he'd thought I'd sent them.
Maybe Bergman wasn't responsible for the second type of letter.
At any rate we needed to see if he had or hadn't sent them. I picked up the folder that contained a faxed copy of the letter that one of Blair's former employers had received. Restless, I stood back up and handed it to Simon.
“See if he recognizes this letter. At the very least, I'll get a reading on his reaction.”
Simon opened the folder to familiarize himself with the letter. I hadn't bothered to read it myself yet, since Blair had described the contents with a lot of force back in Sweetwater. I moved a little closer to him and glanced at it, then I grabbed it out of his hands.
“Jim? What is it?”
My heart rate picked up, sounding like thunder in my ears. Oh, no, there must be some mistake, I wasn't seeing what I thought I was seeing. Oh, dear God, please let me be wrong.
I moved past Simon, ignoring his demand for me to stop and talk to him. I flung open the interrogation room door and in a few strides was looming over Bergman.
Oh, dear God, let Bergman have written this.
I shoved the letter under his nose. “Did you write this?”
He pushed it down so he could see it properly and began reading it. After his eyes had glanced down the first paragraph he stopped and shook his head.
“Are you positive?” Bergman's eyes widened, and Joel looked at me with alarm.
“No! I didn't write that. I don't know who did.”
Oh my God.
“What connection does William Ellison have with you?”
He glanced to the right and then upwards. “Your father? He's been a very generous donor to the university.”
He was being truthful but he wasn't telling all the truth. “What else! All of it, now!”
“He, he arranged for Chancellor Edwards to send to Blair's prospective employers an extremely negative letter regarding Blair's university work history. And he wanted her to send him any new information she received, such as updated addresses for Blair. After she died, he came to see me and explained the arrangement they'd had, and that if I would continue it, then he would continue to generously fund my special projects.”
Oh my God. And Blair had gone to my dad's house.
I couldn't get my head around what I was learning.
Simon grabbed my arm and propelled me out the door, Joel following. I broke loose and practically ran down the hall to the elevators and hit the down button. Joel and Simon caught up to me there.
“We need to call Blair right now, he's got my phone. Make sure he's okay.” Oh, God.
Joel made the call.
Simon said quietly, but with force, “Explain what's going on here, Jim.”
I held up the letter. “I'm pretty sure that's my dad's signature. He's not even lying on it. His name is William James Ellison. Simon, he bribed Edwards and Bergman to harass Blair. Blair and Henri stopped at his place on the way to the safe house. Blair left me a note telling me that my dad wanted to see him privately. Simon, what if it's my dad who...” I couldn't finish that thought.
Joel said, urgently, “Blair doesn't answer and neither does Henri. We should roll.”
Grasping at straws, I told them, “Cell phone reception is spotty out by his house. Maybe that's why we can't reach them.”
Simon ordered, “Joel, contact Dispatch to reach Brown by radio. See if there are any units in the area for backup. Jim, what's your dad's phone number?”
I gave it to him. Simon called but only got the answering machine. Joel called Dispatch and also arranged for Bergman to be returned to his cell. I heard the elevator rising to our floor and willed it to work faster.
I felt hot, then cold, and my gut was roiling. Finally, the elevator door opened and we rushed inside. Joel hit the button for the garage, and tried again to call Blair, then Henri, as we descended.
Simon grasped my shoulder. “Jim. I need you to listen to me. And I'll have your ass stuffed in a patrol car and you handcuffed to the grill if you don't do exactly what I say. You can not enter your dad's house or talk to him. Somehow, this is all about what Blair is to you. You're the key, the connection. If your dad's holding the kid hostage, then seeing you might be the trigger to kill him. I hope to God I'm wrong about all of this. Maybe he just took a dislike to Blair after the publicity over that damn dissertation, and just wanted him away from you. Maybe he's not the one who hired the hit-men. But you know, he's looking awfully good for it.” Simon shook my shoulder.
“I need your word, Jim. You've been a cop for a long time now. You know what usually happens when the catalyst comes on the scene.”
He was right, I knew he was right. But... “I can sneak in, get Blair out. Simon, I have to --”
Simon swung me into the elevator wall and pinned me there. “Jim, if I'm not making myself clear, then I'm putting you in handcuffs immediately. You can not make contact with your father. If he does have Blair, then we'll hold seeing you as a delaying tactic and a bargaining chip. Get your act together here. Your father is obsessed. He's risked a lot already to get at Blair, and if he thinks you know what he's doing then he's got every reason to kill Blair anyway, and maybe himself so he doesn't have to deal with you knowing what he's done.”
The fog that had been in my head cleared. Simon was right. “I got it, Simon. But I have to go! I can listen for what's going on when I get there. God, I hope this is a false alarm, and that Blair's asleep in the safe house.”
The elevator opened onto the parking garage and I headed for my truck. Simon grabbed my arm. “You're not driving. I am. I'm parked over here.” He let go and I followed him; we were all practically running, although there was no way that we'd be the first ones on the scene.
And then I stopped dead in my tracks, skidding a little. The panther, snarling, tail lashing, was pacing on top of Simon's black Ford Explorer. He let out a roar that was loud enough to crumble stone. But Joel and Simon were oblivious and continued to move to the car at a fast clip.
I couldn't. A terrible, horrific fear had hit me like a tidal wave.
Blair, the image of Blair, was floating before me. His feet were inches off the floor, putting us at eye level. He was translucent.
“Blair, oh God, are you still alive?!”
He put his hands on my cheeks. I couldn't feel him. He looked at me with such love in his eyes.
And then he disappeared.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Laurie
A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Six