Pretty Damn Strange (formerly an untitled Dead Zone AU) Updated, Still a WIP
Reposting the entirety because I've tweaked the earlier parts just a little bit. Skipping to Part III if you've already read the first two will not result in confusion.
Added Part IV and settled on a title:
Pretty Damn Strange
Author's notes: Begins at the beginning with scenes analogous to the pilot episode "Wheel of Fortune". I've lifted dialogue in whole and pieces to use here because I couldn't justify rewriting the characters reactions to certain events just to end up paraphrasing them.
Warnings: Slash- Johnny/Walt (maybe Bruce by the end), NC-17 eventually. A major character death is the main detail that makes this AU.
Officially speaking, I'm looking for a beta. Also friends who dig Dead Zone.
Part I
"Hey Johnny! Get down here already, your breakfast is getting cold!" Walt yelled up the stairs again and went back to the kitchen to find his keys. If they didn't get a move on, they were both gonna be late- Johnny for first grade and Walt for his meeting with the councilman.
"I'm coming already!" the boy shouted as he clomped down the stairs, still only half dressed. The buttons on his shirt were a bone of contention between the father and son on a daily basis. Walt required his five and a half year old son to dress himself, for Christ sakes, but Johnny had a different opinion.
"Hurry up. We were supposed to leave twenty minutes ago!" Walt stacked Johnny's eggs and toast into a sandwich and shoved it into his son's hands, while he took a knee to do up four buttons on Johnny's shirt. "Get your backpack, let's go." And just as Walt found his keys, the phone rang. "Go out and get in the car, Johnny," he said as he picked up the receiver.
"I'm goowung," Johnny answered around a bite of sandwich and headed out the door.
"Bannerman," Walt said into the phone.
"Hello, I'm looking for a woman named Sarah Bracknell," a female voice said from the other end of the phone line. "This is the contact number she left at Serenity House. It's a long-term care facili-"
"I'm familiar with Serenity House. I'm Sheriff Walt Bannerman. Sarah Bracknell was my wife's maiden name." It still felt weird to talk about Sarah in the past tense- two years or not. God, he missed her.
"Would it be possible for me to speak with her?"
"No, it wouldn't. Is this about Johnny Smith? He's still there, right?" Sarah's old boyfriend, who'd been in a car wreck and was in a coma. Man, the poor guy must have finally died.
"Oh, yes. Do you know him? He's been asking to see Sarah Bracknell. Could you let her know-"
"Asking to see? He's awake? I thought the doctors said he'd never regain consciousness?" Wow. The guy was probably a drooling idiot, barely stringing two words together, and he asks for Sarah. Pretty damn sad. Walt would have done the same thing in his place.
"They didn't- it's a remarkable case. Everyone's amazed by his progress-" Walt couldn't deal with hearing about Johnny Smith just then.
"Look, I'm sorry. I'm late and Sarah's not available. Sarah wasn't his next of kin- that's Reverend Purdy over at Faith Heritage. Call him."
"Of course, we have, but-" Walt hit the off button on the phone, put it down on the counter harder than he should have, and left to take his son to school.
***
Walt felt like a pussy because really, him being there in the parking lot of Serenity House about to go see his dead wife's ex-fiancée, who'd just woken up from six years in a coma, to tell the guy that he, Johnny Smith, was Walt's son's biological father, was about the most idiotic thing he'd ever done. Walt looked up at the long stairway to the front door again, cursed under his breath and got out of his police cruiser. He knew he was a pussy, but he took the stairs anyway, because Sarah would have wanted Smith to know he had a son, would have wanted Johnny to know Smith, if he could. Of course, there was every chance that Smith was not gonna understand what Walt was saying, not even know Walt was in the room- he was brain damaged, after all. Walt should have been hoping for Smith to be incapacitated, but he couldn't even bring himself to do that. Sarah had loved him and he was Johnny's father, Walt couldn't hate the guy. He'd tried.
He walked in through the front door and stepped up to the desk there. "I'm Sheriff Bannerman. I'd like to see one of your patience. His name is Johnny Smith," he told the pretty blond behind the window.
"Oh yes, Sheriff. I'm Allison Connover, we spoke on the phone." She handed him a visitor's pass. "Johnny's out in the garden. You can go through those doors there," she pointed to a door with an even longer staircase going down from it than the front door had.
"Thanks," Walt said and walked to the door. Man that was lot of steps. They must have an elevator or something to take wheelchairs down. Wheelchairs- there was one at the bottom of the stairs, next to a bench. The man in the wheelchair looked a little like the Johnny Smith Walt remembered from the hospital bed Sarah had spent weeks praying next to, only a couple of years older and, strangely, more robust. Weren't people who wasted away in coma supposed to look frailer than that?
"Johnny Smith?" Walt asked as he reached the man and eyes he'd never seen open before looked up at him inquiringly. "I'm Walt Bannerman. I'm here about Sarah Bracknell." Walt extended his hand more out of habit than an expectation that Smith might shake it. Who knew how much control the guy had?
"Oh," Smith murmured, reached out, hesitated and then took Walt's hand, wincing as he did. Walt hadn't applied any pressure, he was sure he shouldn't have hurt the guy.
"You all right?" Walt sat on the bench.
"You know Sarah," Smith said and it should have been a question, but it didn't sound like it.
"Yes. I was married to her." Smith looked down, hiding another wince. "Are you in pain? Do you need a nurse?"
"No." He looked up. "I'm- I don't need anything. You're here because Sarah couldn't come herself, because Sarah's dead." Again, it should have been a question, but Smith already seemed to know the answer.
"Yes. There was a fire at the Cleaves Mills High school two years ago- she got all her students out, but..." Walt didn't finish. He usually couldn't finish that sentence.
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Walt said, "Me, too."
And they sat there a moment, awkwardly stinging in pain beside each other. Walt took a breath and plunged on to the rest of what he'd come to say, "Sarah and I- we got married just after they sent you here and she gave birth six months later to our son-" Walt took a breath. "-all our son," Walt corrected himself. "His name is Johnny- Sarah insisted, to remember you."
Smith bowed his head again and this time Walt recognized it for what it really was. Smith had lost too much not to be breaking over all this.
"Listen, when you're ready, call me." Walt fished his card out of his wallet and held it out to Smith. "We'll talk about when you want to meet him." Hell! Walt didn't really want to invite this guy into Johnny's life, but, damn it! There wasn't any other choice he could live with. Smith took Walt's card without looking up. Walt figured the guy needed some space, so he turned to leave.
Three steps later, Smith said, "You didn't have to do this. You didn't have to come here. I probably wouldn't have thought to look for him."
"That's why I had to come," Walt answered facing Smith again.
"No, you didn't. You shouldn't have. You're his father- you've made a good home, a good life for him. I can't take that from him- change that. You both deserve to be left alone." Smith was dismissing him, letting him off the hook, telling him he could still cut and run and keep Johnny all to himself. Too bad he couldn't let himself off, too.
"Sarah would have wanted..."
"Yeah," Smith agreed, almost smiling. Walt could see that he'd known Sarah's determination, too.
"So, call when you're ready," Walt ordered before mounting the stairs again and Smith nodded a solemn reply.
Part II
The next time Walt saw Smith, he was sitting next to one of Walt's deputies as a dreadlocked man on Smith's other side made a ruckus about how Smith could see things and knew something about the serial killings that were shattering the quiet of life in Penobscot County. Walt walked up to try and calm things down.
"I'm Sheriff Bannerman, can I help you?" Walt introduced himself mostly for the guy with the dreads, but also to Smith, just in case Smith was not as together brain wise as he had seemed at Serenity House. If the company he was keeping was any indication, that might be the case.
Smith stood up and began, "Sheriff-"
"Dana Bright, Bangor Daily News," the damn lady reporter that had been hanging around Walt's bullpen since the murders began interrupted. "Mr. Smith, are you saying that you can help the sheriff's department catch the strangler?"
"Don't answer that," Walt ordered Smith. "Step into my office." Smith and his friend both started to follow. "Alone," Walt clarified and the other man hung back. Then Walt threw a harsh glance at the reporter. "Don't you have anything better to do, Dana?" he asked as he led Smith through his door.
Dana shot back, "No."
"Piece of advice," Walt stated after he closed his door, "the media's not your friend unless you're looking for publicity."
"I'm not. I just want to make sure no one gets hurt, Sheriff," Smith said, sounding saner than the belligerent guy he'd come in with.
"Look," Walt tried to strike a reasonable tone because this was a pretty weird situation for him, personally and professionally. "Sarah used to talk about you- you know, when you were- when she still had some hope you might come out of your coma. She said you were lucky, that you got these feelings, insights. I didn't buy into it, but if you have some information, you'd better just tell me what you know and how you know it."
"Sheriff, all I can tell you is what I saw in my vision. I saw a woman, a nurse- Allison. He took her, killed her and buried her body near a windmill," Smith replied earnestly. "She's not answering her phone and we went to her house, but she's not there. He's got her, Sheriff, but he might not have killed her yet!"
"Okay, back up. First you say you saw him kill her, now you saw she's not dead yet- which is it?" Walt asked, trying to get Smith to see the flaw in his own story, get a little sanity going. He'd invited this man to meet his son and now it was looking like he was a head case. This was not good.
"The visions, they aren't real cut and dry. When I saw all this, it was in the future, now I'm not sure how much has happened yet."
"Not to be rude about it, but didn't you just get out of the hospital? Maybe you're not as all right as they thought," Walt offered.
"Believe me, Sheriff, I'm nowhere near all right," Smith told him, "doesn't change the fact that Allison Connover is missing." And he went out the office door.
"Listen," Walt followed Smith back out into the bull pen. "I'll step up patrols in the area, but that's all I can do. She's only been gone a few hours."
***
A few hours turned into a day and then into two days with no sign of the woman Johnny Smith had "seen" kidnapped and murdered. Walt found Smith lurking in the Connover woman's backyard and sent him home, but not before Smith came up with the strangler's shoe size from one of his "visions" and it was right. Maybe he just got lucky, but maybe not.
This thing with Smith, his son's goddamn biological father, was sitting like a ball of lead in Walt's stomach, so he did some more investigating. He went out to Serenity House again to talk with one of Smith's doctors expecting to hear about brain damage as it related to delusions and whatnot. Instead the guy turned out to be a believer, called Smith precognitive. As much as the skeptic in Walt couldn't believe Smith was psychic, a part of him sort of hoped that Smith wasn't crazy because little Johnny didn't deserve to have that in his life, not on top of losing Sarah. Besides, if Smith actually could see the future, could help find the strangler, Walt could sure as hell use the help before another woman died.
Walt dialed Smith's house on the way back from Serenity House.
"Hello, Sheriff," Smith said before Walt had spoken, which was creepy, but could be explained away by caller id.
"Smith, be ready in half an hour. I'm picking you up," Walt snapped into the phone and hung up.
***
"Technically, I shouldn't be doing this, because this stuff is evidence, but the forensics team has gotten everything they can from it," Walt explained as he pulled a couple of evidence bags from the file in his office. "You can what, read vibrations or something off objects?"
"Something like that," Smith answered. "But you've got to understand, Sheriff, it doesn't happen every time. It's all new to me. I don't have control over it."
"Don't start with the excuses already. Can you do it or not?" Walt asked as he held out the bags to Smith, who was seated in the visitor chair at Walt's desk.
"I'll try." Smith took the bags and set them down on the desk, sorting through them until he selected a cigarette butt. He held it between his thumb and two fingers and started talking.
Smith's description of the killer was the same as the FBI profiler had come up with- single male 25 to 45 years old, probably abused as a child, etc. Then Smith seemed to go deeper- like into a trance or something and started talking like he was the killer. It was crazy, so Walt stopped it and had Roscoe drive Smith home. Smith hadn't given him much new information, but he'd pegged a bunch of things that had been kept out of the papers, so Walt didn't really know what to make of it still.
Half an hour later, Walt was stopping at Smith's house on the way to Allison Connover's place because Allison had come home from a weekend at her sister's house bewildered to find the police watching her house. Smith couldn't explain anything and Walt decided that maybe he should call a lawyer about extricating he and little Johnny from the can of worms he'd opened by making contact with Smith. He should have just left well enough alone, what Sarah would have wanted be damned.
***
The babysitter had just left ten minutes before and Walt was making some burgers for him and Johnny when Smith and his friend with the dreadlocks (Bruce Lewis from the report they'd filed about the Connover woman) were at his door. "All right, Smith, this is way too far-" Walt began to complain, but Smith interrupted.
"We found the windmill. We've seen the grave," Smith said. "It was a different woman." And Walt should have just shut the door because he knew that Smith was crazy, except he'd gotten so much right and he looked so sure of himself. And Smith's doctor had been certain that Smith could see things and-
"I gotta get the sitter back," Walt explained.
Then Smith offered, "Bruce can stay with him." He didn't use little Johnny's name. Walt wondered if meant anything. "He's a physical therapist-"
"I know," Walt opened the door further to let them inside. "You think I didn't check out your sidekick the same way I checked you out?" Walt showed Bruce into the den, introduced him to Johnny and promised to be home as soon as he could. Smith stayed by the front door.
Walt drove and Smith navigated and they found the windmill. Then Smith pointed Walt down into a gulley with a stream in it where the mud had been dug into recently and Walt called in forensics because there was part of a shoe and what looked like some hair visible. Walt had so much to manage with a crime scene like that that he didn't notice Smith hanging back until the body was ready to be moved and Walt had to find the guy and make sure he got back home. Walt found him sitting on the bumper of his police cruiser looking green and guilty.
"You all right?" Walt tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Smith shrunk back from it. Walt guessed he'd do the same if anytime someone touched him, he might have to see things like the dead woman they'd just pulled from the mud and how exactly she got there.
"She was going to get married. She was going to be a lawyer," he replied. "When I tried to warn Allison Connover, I killed someone else. I did this!" Smith stood and walked off a little way. Walt followed.
"Johnny, you didn't do this. You tried to stop it the best you could."
"What good is knowing what is going to happen if all I change is who dies? Allison lives and Stacy Shepard dies? How do I fix that? I can't be in charge of who gets to-"
Walt grabbed Smith by the shoulders, trying to shake some sense into the guy. "Stop it. That's wrong and you know it- or you should. You didn't cause this, you didn't pick one woman over another and you're not responsible for what that psychopath did." Johnny gave one of those winces that Walt had begun to recognize as a symptom of a vision and stared awestruck at Walt for a moment. "What? What do you see?"
"Uh- it's nothing," Johnny said unconvincingly and pulled away from Walt's grasp. He stopped and stared at the body bag as it was wheeled on a gurney up to the coroner's hearse. Then he strode over and laid a hand on the body. He looked over at Walt and said, "I know who the killer is."
Part III
As they drove back to Walt's house later (after it had all gone down and Walt had done the mountain of paperwork to prove it) so Johnny could rejoin Bruce and go home, Walt tried to make sense of what he'd done over the last couple of hours. He wasn't exactly sure why he let Smith come along to the Dodd house to confront one of Walt's own deputies about the killings. Walt really should have sent Smith home to get some sleep and brought Roscoe along instead.
But all the things Walt's reason told him to do regarding Smith- don't go see him at Serenity House, don't tell him about JJ, don't put any stock in his visions- they all seemed contrary to what Sarah would have wanted, contrary to what his gut told him to do, which was trust him. Trust Johnny Smith, the brain damaged psychic who had enough money that he only had to call a lawyer and say the word to take Walt's son away. Trust him with everything because Sarah had trusted him, because he was a good man in a bizarre situation trying to do right. So Walt had trusted him and gone against his own reason (and his depute).
In the end, it came out about as right as something that wrong could come out. Maybe it would have been better if Frank Dodd had lived to stand trial, but Walt was pretty sure that things in his county would get back to normal faster without the distress of a sensational trial added to the losses the case had already wrought. And Johnny had handled himself well through it, had shown up at just the right moment to stop Dodd from shooting at Walt.
Now, with it all as over as it was gonna get, Johnny Smith was sitting in Walt's passenger seat, staring out at the night and Walt could feel the guy shutting down. It was as if the visions were what was keeping Johnny going, that searching for the killer had given him a reason to keep breathing and now that Dodd was dead, instead of breathing a sigh of relief, Johnny was ready to stop breathing altogether. Walt knew that feeling. He'd felt it when Sarah had died. Except he'd had Johnny- his son, and the idea of not taking the next breath, the idea of leaving JJ in that much more pain had pulled him on, made him breathe. That's what Johnny needed.
Was it really that crazy for Walt to want to give it to him? Because, looking across the front seat, Walt clicked that that was something he wanted. He, him, Walt. Walt wanted to give Johnny something to live for, wanted to take care of the guy, ease his pain however he could, and not just because Johnny was JJ's father, or because Sarah had loved him and he'd loved Sarah, or even because he'd saved Walt's life back in Frank Dodd's basement, but because he felt for the guy. Hell, he liked the guy. Pretty damn strange.
***
JJ was asleep when they go there and Bruce detailed the quiet evening they'd had together, somehow knowing not to ask about what had happened in the case. Walt was thankful that Bruce seemed to know Johnny's limits and when not to push him. At least he had a friend like that behind him. When Johnny made to leave, Walt pretty much had to drag him up to JJ's room to get him to look in on his son. "Some days, he's just the thing to make living bearable," Walt had argued and Johnny had given in.
They watched JJ sleeping a while before Smith- Johnny started talking.
"When you were in that house- when I was calling for backup, I saw Dodd kill you. I saw what it did to him." Johnny looked at JJ a moment and Walt wasn't sure if he was supposed to say something, but before he came up with something, Johnny continued, "Losing you after losing Sarah, it was too much. He never recovered. Your parents tried, but it wasn't enough. He needs you, really needs you, Walt."
"You're not trying to weasel out on me, are you?" Walt teased.
"He's already got a father. What the hell would I be?"
"Hey, ever think he might need you? That I might, too? Think doing this alone is easy? I mean, we've been getting by since Sarah's been gone. Johnny likes Mrs. Perkins, but it's not the same as having another parent around, not the same as family."
"I'm not-"
"Yes, you are. You think Sarah'd let you get away with saying that? Because if you do, you didn't know her like I did. And we have a rule in this house- if it wouldn't have happened when Sarah was here, it's not gonna happen now."
"Oh really?"
"Besides, there's all this stuff you need to tell JJ about what a sweet little kid his mother was and I don't know those stories."
"Not sure you know what you're getting into here, man."
"I'm a big boy. I'm not scared of you."
Johnny laughed, the first time Walt had ever heard him, and nodded. "Right. Gonna go home and crash now." He brushed past Walt and down the stairs. Walt took a moment to smooth the tousled hair on JJ's forehead and kiss him before going downstairs to check the locks and get some shuteye himself.
Part IV
Three days after the strangler case was wrapped up, Walt hadn't heard from Johnny Smith and, not that he expected to be the guy's new best friend, but Walt had sort of expected Smith to call wanting to come around and actually meet JJ. So, that part of Walt that wanted to do right by Johnny, do right by JJ, and do right by Sarah's memory- that part of him called Smith. Walt got the answering machine. After almost a week of that, calling and leaving what felt like pathetic message after message to call him back on Smith's machine, after a week of that, Walt called Bruce Lewis.
Lewis was glad to hear from him. He wanted an ally. Smith had all but cut himself off from the world, and Lewis was worried about him. That made two of them.
Smith was a teacher- high school science, once upon a time, and before the vision about the Connover woman that had brought Johnny into the strangler case, Johnny's told Bruce that he'd wanted to try and get back to it. Walt called the new high school to see about it. The principal, Mike Pelson, had had the same position at the old Cleaves Mills High School, the one where Sarah and Johnny had both taught, the one where Sarah had been teaching when she died. Pelson remembered Walt and, more importantly, remembered Johnny. Walt set up a meeting and Bruce promised to drag Johnny there kicking and screaming if he had to.
The next time he spoke to Smith, Walt was personally working crowd control as he and Bruce left the local hospital. Johnny had saved the life of one of the kids from Cleaves Mills High's hockey team by way of one of his visions. Of course, before Johnny saved the kid, he managed to piss off every hockey fan in town by benching the boy and costing the team an important game. So much for Johnny's teaching career.
***
Walt called Johnny the next day to commiserate but, well, Walt was starting to feel like a stalker because Johnny was still not picking up his phone for him. So, after that, he let it lie for a while. Sort of. Walt talked to Bruce every couple of days to keep tabs on Johnny. It became a weekly thing, Bruce's report on what Johnny'd been doing with his visions- reuniting long lost loves, stopping a gas explosion at the Cleaves Mills mall, weird things like that.
Then Johnny surprised the hell out of Walt by showing up at one of JJ's soccer games. Walt had mentioned it in one of his messages, but he'd pretty much figured Johnny wouldn't want to come.
"Hey, Sheriff, what's the score?" Johnny asked casually standing on the sidelines watching the game.
"Clams are up 3-2," Walt answered trying to keep the stupid thrill he felt that Johnny had showed up from telling in his voice.
"Clams," Johnny repeated, made a face and nodded.
"We didn't get a choice on the name," Walt smirked. "Get in there JJ!" Walt shouted toward his son through cupped hands, when he noticed the boy was lagging behind the mob of kids that was rushing down the field after the ball. But JJ didn't. Walt saw that Johnny was watching JJ and wearing a concerned look, so he bumped Johnny with his elbow to get his attention (ignored the tiny flinching reaction to it that meant that Johnny might have seen something just then) and said, "Not that I'm knocking it, because you know I think you ought to spend time with him, but what brought you here today? You don't look happy."
"Think I need your help," Johnny stated resignedly, and the strain in his voice made something in Walt's belly coil up.
"Professionally?" Walt inquired, pretty sure that the answer would be a resounding yes. Johnny was looking and sounding like he had when he'd been having visions of the serial killer. "What is it?"
"I'm not sure- something about my house. I think something happened there. I think it had to do with my mother. Were you there- at the house the day she died?" Johnny asked.
"No, I wasn't on the scene," Walt replied. "You think there's something strange about her death?"
"Maybe. I saw blood all over her bathroom." Johnny looked a little green remembering. "Can you dig up whatever information you have on her death- maybe talk to whoever was on the case?"
"I could, John, but I'm not sure it'd do any good. The report is gonna say she died in her sleep, that the housekeeper found her and it was ruled a heart attack. There wouldn't have been any blood."
"I thought you weren't on the case?"
"Sarah-" Walt started to explain.
"Right. Sarah wanted to know what happened."
"Yeah, she did," Walt said. "You know, I met your mother a couple of times. I liked her. Believe me, if anything had seemed off, I would have made a stink about it."
"You met my mother?"
"She came to my wedding."
"Did she know about JJ?"
"Well, Sarah and I didn't tell her, but anyone could have- you know, done the math."
"So, you'll check into it?"
"I didn't say that-"
"But you will, because Sarah would have wanted-"
"Right. Sarah." Walt shook his head. It was downright odd that they did that to each other, used Sarah's memory to justify things, and used Sarah as shorthand for where they probably would have gotten to anyway. The oddest thing was that talking with Johnny about Sarah didn't feel the kind of odd that it should have. Talking with Johnny about Sarah felt completely normal.
"I'm gonna keep looking for answers, too."
"At your house?"
"Faith Heritage. I figure Reverend Purdy might know something about that day."
And Johnny walked away. Without staying to talk to JJ. If Walt hadn't been so glad the guy was actually talking to him again, he would have punched him for it.
Added Part IV and settled on a title:
Pretty Damn Strange
Author's notes: Begins at the beginning with scenes analogous to the pilot episode "Wheel of Fortune". I've lifted dialogue in whole and pieces to use here because I couldn't justify rewriting the characters reactions to certain events just to end up paraphrasing them.
Warnings: Slash- Johnny/Walt (maybe Bruce by the end), NC-17 eventually. A major character death is the main detail that makes this AU.
Officially speaking, I'm looking for a beta. Also friends who dig Dead Zone.
Part I
"Hey Johnny! Get down here already, your breakfast is getting cold!" Walt yelled up the stairs again and went back to the kitchen to find his keys. If they didn't get a move on, they were both gonna be late- Johnny for first grade and Walt for his meeting with the councilman.
"I'm coming already!" the boy shouted as he clomped down the stairs, still only half dressed. The buttons on his shirt were a bone of contention between the father and son on a daily basis. Walt required his five and a half year old son to dress himself, for Christ sakes, but Johnny had a different opinion.
"Hurry up. We were supposed to leave twenty minutes ago!" Walt stacked Johnny's eggs and toast into a sandwich and shoved it into his son's hands, while he took a knee to do up four buttons on Johnny's shirt. "Get your backpack, let's go." And just as Walt found his keys, the phone rang. "Go out and get in the car, Johnny," he said as he picked up the receiver.
"I'm goowung," Johnny answered around a bite of sandwich and headed out the door.
"Bannerman," Walt said into the phone.
"Hello, I'm looking for a woman named Sarah Bracknell," a female voice said from the other end of the phone line. "This is the contact number she left at Serenity House. It's a long-term care facili-"
"I'm familiar with Serenity House. I'm Sheriff Walt Bannerman. Sarah Bracknell was my wife's maiden name." It still felt weird to talk about Sarah in the past tense- two years or not. God, he missed her.
"Would it be possible for me to speak with her?"
"No, it wouldn't. Is this about Johnny Smith? He's still there, right?" Sarah's old boyfriend, who'd been in a car wreck and was in a coma. Man, the poor guy must have finally died.
"Oh, yes. Do you know him? He's been asking to see Sarah Bracknell. Could you let her know-"
"Asking to see? He's awake? I thought the doctors said he'd never regain consciousness?" Wow. The guy was probably a drooling idiot, barely stringing two words together, and he asks for Sarah. Pretty damn sad. Walt would have done the same thing in his place.
"They didn't- it's a remarkable case. Everyone's amazed by his progress-" Walt couldn't deal with hearing about Johnny Smith just then.
"Look, I'm sorry. I'm late and Sarah's not available. Sarah wasn't his next of kin- that's Reverend Purdy over at Faith Heritage. Call him."
"Of course, we have, but-" Walt hit the off button on the phone, put it down on the counter harder than he should have, and left to take his son to school.
***
Walt felt like a pussy because really, him being there in the parking lot of Serenity House about to go see his dead wife's ex-fiancée, who'd just woken up from six years in a coma, to tell the guy that he, Johnny Smith, was Walt's son's biological father, was about the most idiotic thing he'd ever done. Walt looked up at the long stairway to the front door again, cursed under his breath and got out of his police cruiser. He knew he was a pussy, but he took the stairs anyway, because Sarah would have wanted Smith to know he had a son, would have wanted Johnny to know Smith, if he could. Of course, there was every chance that Smith was not gonna understand what Walt was saying, not even know Walt was in the room- he was brain damaged, after all. Walt should have been hoping for Smith to be incapacitated, but he couldn't even bring himself to do that. Sarah had loved him and he was Johnny's father, Walt couldn't hate the guy. He'd tried.
He walked in through the front door and stepped up to the desk there. "I'm Sheriff Bannerman. I'd like to see one of your patience. His name is Johnny Smith," he told the pretty blond behind the window.
"Oh yes, Sheriff. I'm Allison Connover, we spoke on the phone." She handed him a visitor's pass. "Johnny's out in the garden. You can go through those doors there," she pointed to a door with an even longer staircase going down from it than the front door had.
"Thanks," Walt said and walked to the door. Man that was lot of steps. They must have an elevator or something to take wheelchairs down. Wheelchairs- there was one at the bottom of the stairs, next to a bench. The man in the wheelchair looked a little like the Johnny Smith Walt remembered from the hospital bed Sarah had spent weeks praying next to, only a couple of years older and, strangely, more robust. Weren't people who wasted away in coma supposed to look frailer than that?
"Johnny Smith?" Walt asked as he reached the man and eyes he'd never seen open before looked up at him inquiringly. "I'm Walt Bannerman. I'm here about Sarah Bracknell." Walt extended his hand more out of habit than an expectation that Smith might shake it. Who knew how much control the guy had?
"Oh," Smith murmured, reached out, hesitated and then took Walt's hand, wincing as he did. Walt hadn't applied any pressure, he was sure he shouldn't have hurt the guy.
"You all right?" Walt sat on the bench.
"You know Sarah," Smith said and it should have been a question, but it didn't sound like it.
"Yes. I was married to her." Smith looked down, hiding another wince. "Are you in pain? Do you need a nurse?"
"No." He looked up. "I'm- I don't need anything. You're here because Sarah couldn't come herself, because Sarah's dead." Again, it should have been a question, but Smith already seemed to know the answer.
"Yes. There was a fire at the Cleaves Mills High school two years ago- she got all her students out, but..." Walt didn't finish. He usually couldn't finish that sentence.
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Walt said, "Me, too."
And they sat there a moment, awkwardly stinging in pain beside each other. Walt took a breath and plunged on to the rest of what he'd come to say, "Sarah and I- we got married just after they sent you here and she gave birth six months later to our son-" Walt took a breath. "-all our son," Walt corrected himself. "His name is Johnny- Sarah insisted, to remember you."
Smith bowed his head again and this time Walt recognized it for what it really was. Smith had lost too much not to be breaking over all this.
"Listen, when you're ready, call me." Walt fished his card out of his wallet and held it out to Smith. "We'll talk about when you want to meet him." Hell! Walt didn't really want to invite this guy into Johnny's life, but, damn it! There wasn't any other choice he could live with. Smith took Walt's card without looking up. Walt figured the guy needed some space, so he turned to leave.
Three steps later, Smith said, "You didn't have to do this. You didn't have to come here. I probably wouldn't have thought to look for him."
"That's why I had to come," Walt answered facing Smith again.
"No, you didn't. You shouldn't have. You're his father- you've made a good home, a good life for him. I can't take that from him- change that. You both deserve to be left alone." Smith was dismissing him, letting him off the hook, telling him he could still cut and run and keep Johnny all to himself. Too bad he couldn't let himself off, too.
"Sarah would have wanted..."
"Yeah," Smith agreed, almost smiling. Walt could see that he'd known Sarah's determination, too.
"So, call when you're ready," Walt ordered before mounting the stairs again and Smith nodded a solemn reply.
Part II
The next time Walt saw Smith, he was sitting next to one of Walt's deputies as a dreadlocked man on Smith's other side made a ruckus about how Smith could see things and knew something about the serial killings that were shattering the quiet of life in Penobscot County. Walt walked up to try and calm things down.
"I'm Sheriff Bannerman, can I help you?" Walt introduced himself mostly for the guy with the dreads, but also to Smith, just in case Smith was not as together brain wise as he had seemed at Serenity House. If the company he was keeping was any indication, that might be the case.
Smith stood up and began, "Sheriff-"
"Dana Bright, Bangor Daily News," the damn lady reporter that had been hanging around Walt's bullpen since the murders began interrupted. "Mr. Smith, are you saying that you can help the sheriff's department catch the strangler?"
"Don't answer that," Walt ordered Smith. "Step into my office." Smith and his friend both started to follow. "Alone," Walt clarified and the other man hung back. Then Walt threw a harsh glance at the reporter. "Don't you have anything better to do, Dana?" he asked as he led Smith through his door.
Dana shot back, "No."
"Piece of advice," Walt stated after he closed his door, "the media's not your friend unless you're looking for publicity."
"I'm not. I just want to make sure no one gets hurt, Sheriff," Smith said, sounding saner than the belligerent guy he'd come in with.
"Look," Walt tried to strike a reasonable tone because this was a pretty weird situation for him, personally and professionally. "Sarah used to talk about you- you know, when you were- when she still had some hope you might come out of your coma. She said you were lucky, that you got these feelings, insights. I didn't buy into it, but if you have some information, you'd better just tell me what you know and how you know it."
"Sheriff, all I can tell you is what I saw in my vision. I saw a woman, a nurse- Allison. He took her, killed her and buried her body near a windmill," Smith replied earnestly. "She's not answering her phone and we went to her house, but she's not there. He's got her, Sheriff, but he might not have killed her yet!"
"Okay, back up. First you say you saw him kill her, now you saw she's not dead yet- which is it?" Walt asked, trying to get Smith to see the flaw in his own story, get a little sanity going. He'd invited this man to meet his son and now it was looking like he was a head case. This was not good.
"The visions, they aren't real cut and dry. When I saw all this, it was in the future, now I'm not sure how much has happened yet."
"Not to be rude about it, but didn't you just get out of the hospital? Maybe you're not as all right as they thought," Walt offered.
"Believe me, Sheriff, I'm nowhere near all right," Smith told him, "doesn't change the fact that Allison Connover is missing." And he went out the office door.
"Listen," Walt followed Smith back out into the bull pen. "I'll step up patrols in the area, but that's all I can do. She's only been gone a few hours."
***
A few hours turned into a day and then into two days with no sign of the woman Johnny Smith had "seen" kidnapped and murdered. Walt found Smith lurking in the Connover woman's backyard and sent him home, but not before Smith came up with the strangler's shoe size from one of his "visions" and it was right. Maybe he just got lucky, but maybe not.
This thing with Smith, his son's goddamn biological father, was sitting like a ball of lead in Walt's stomach, so he did some more investigating. He went out to Serenity House again to talk with one of Smith's doctors expecting to hear about brain damage as it related to delusions and whatnot. Instead the guy turned out to be a believer, called Smith precognitive. As much as the skeptic in Walt couldn't believe Smith was psychic, a part of him sort of hoped that Smith wasn't crazy because little Johnny didn't deserve to have that in his life, not on top of losing Sarah. Besides, if Smith actually could see the future, could help find the strangler, Walt could sure as hell use the help before another woman died.
Walt dialed Smith's house on the way back from Serenity House.
"Hello, Sheriff," Smith said before Walt had spoken, which was creepy, but could be explained away by caller id.
"Smith, be ready in half an hour. I'm picking you up," Walt snapped into the phone and hung up.
***
"Technically, I shouldn't be doing this, because this stuff is evidence, but the forensics team has gotten everything they can from it," Walt explained as he pulled a couple of evidence bags from the file in his office. "You can what, read vibrations or something off objects?"
"Something like that," Smith answered. "But you've got to understand, Sheriff, it doesn't happen every time. It's all new to me. I don't have control over it."
"Don't start with the excuses already. Can you do it or not?" Walt asked as he held out the bags to Smith, who was seated in the visitor chair at Walt's desk.
"I'll try." Smith took the bags and set them down on the desk, sorting through them until he selected a cigarette butt. He held it between his thumb and two fingers and started talking.
Smith's description of the killer was the same as the FBI profiler had come up with- single male 25 to 45 years old, probably abused as a child, etc. Then Smith seemed to go deeper- like into a trance or something and started talking like he was the killer. It was crazy, so Walt stopped it and had Roscoe drive Smith home. Smith hadn't given him much new information, but he'd pegged a bunch of things that had been kept out of the papers, so Walt didn't really know what to make of it still.
Half an hour later, Walt was stopping at Smith's house on the way to Allison Connover's place because Allison had come home from a weekend at her sister's house bewildered to find the police watching her house. Smith couldn't explain anything and Walt decided that maybe he should call a lawyer about extricating he and little Johnny from the can of worms he'd opened by making contact with Smith. He should have just left well enough alone, what Sarah would have wanted be damned.
***
The babysitter had just left ten minutes before and Walt was making some burgers for him and Johnny when Smith and his friend with the dreadlocks (Bruce Lewis from the report they'd filed about the Connover woman) were at his door. "All right, Smith, this is way too far-" Walt began to complain, but Smith interrupted.
"We found the windmill. We've seen the grave," Smith said. "It was a different woman." And Walt should have just shut the door because he knew that Smith was crazy, except he'd gotten so much right and he looked so sure of himself. And Smith's doctor had been certain that Smith could see things and-
"I gotta get the sitter back," Walt explained.
Then Smith offered, "Bruce can stay with him." He didn't use little Johnny's name. Walt wondered if meant anything. "He's a physical therapist-"
"I know," Walt opened the door further to let them inside. "You think I didn't check out your sidekick the same way I checked you out?" Walt showed Bruce into the den, introduced him to Johnny and promised to be home as soon as he could. Smith stayed by the front door.
Walt drove and Smith navigated and they found the windmill. Then Smith pointed Walt down into a gulley with a stream in it where the mud had been dug into recently and Walt called in forensics because there was part of a shoe and what looked like some hair visible. Walt had so much to manage with a crime scene like that that he didn't notice Smith hanging back until the body was ready to be moved and Walt had to find the guy and make sure he got back home. Walt found him sitting on the bumper of his police cruiser looking green and guilty.
"You all right?" Walt tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Smith shrunk back from it. Walt guessed he'd do the same if anytime someone touched him, he might have to see things like the dead woman they'd just pulled from the mud and how exactly she got there.
"She was going to get married. She was going to be a lawyer," he replied. "When I tried to warn Allison Connover, I killed someone else. I did this!" Smith stood and walked off a little way. Walt followed.
"Johnny, you didn't do this. You tried to stop it the best you could."
"What good is knowing what is going to happen if all I change is who dies? Allison lives and Stacy Shepard dies? How do I fix that? I can't be in charge of who gets to-"
Walt grabbed Smith by the shoulders, trying to shake some sense into the guy. "Stop it. That's wrong and you know it- or you should. You didn't cause this, you didn't pick one woman over another and you're not responsible for what that psychopath did." Johnny gave one of those winces that Walt had begun to recognize as a symptom of a vision and stared awestruck at Walt for a moment. "What? What do you see?"
"Uh- it's nothing," Johnny said unconvincingly and pulled away from Walt's grasp. He stopped and stared at the body bag as it was wheeled on a gurney up to the coroner's hearse. Then he strode over and laid a hand on the body. He looked over at Walt and said, "I know who the killer is."
Part III
As they drove back to Walt's house later (after it had all gone down and Walt had done the mountain of paperwork to prove it) so Johnny could rejoin Bruce and go home, Walt tried to make sense of what he'd done over the last couple of hours. He wasn't exactly sure why he let Smith come along to the Dodd house to confront one of Walt's own deputies about the killings. Walt really should have sent Smith home to get some sleep and brought Roscoe along instead.
But all the things Walt's reason told him to do regarding Smith- don't go see him at Serenity House, don't tell him about JJ, don't put any stock in his visions- they all seemed contrary to what Sarah would have wanted, contrary to what his gut told him to do, which was trust him. Trust Johnny Smith, the brain damaged psychic who had enough money that he only had to call a lawyer and say the word to take Walt's son away. Trust him with everything because Sarah had trusted him, because he was a good man in a bizarre situation trying to do right. So Walt had trusted him and gone against his own reason (and his depute).
In the end, it came out about as right as something that wrong could come out. Maybe it would have been better if Frank Dodd had lived to stand trial, but Walt was pretty sure that things in his county would get back to normal faster without the distress of a sensational trial added to the losses the case had already wrought. And Johnny had handled himself well through it, had shown up at just the right moment to stop Dodd from shooting at Walt.
Now, with it all as over as it was gonna get, Johnny Smith was sitting in Walt's passenger seat, staring out at the night and Walt could feel the guy shutting down. It was as if the visions were what was keeping Johnny going, that searching for the killer had given him a reason to keep breathing and now that Dodd was dead, instead of breathing a sigh of relief, Johnny was ready to stop breathing altogether. Walt knew that feeling. He'd felt it when Sarah had died. Except he'd had Johnny- his son, and the idea of not taking the next breath, the idea of leaving JJ in that much more pain had pulled him on, made him breathe. That's what Johnny needed.
Was it really that crazy for Walt to want to give it to him? Because, looking across the front seat, Walt clicked that that was something he wanted. He, him, Walt. Walt wanted to give Johnny something to live for, wanted to take care of the guy, ease his pain however he could, and not just because Johnny was JJ's father, or because Sarah had loved him and he'd loved Sarah, or even because he'd saved Walt's life back in Frank Dodd's basement, but because he felt for the guy. Hell, he liked the guy. Pretty damn strange.
***
JJ was asleep when they go there and Bruce detailed the quiet evening they'd had together, somehow knowing not to ask about what had happened in the case. Walt was thankful that Bruce seemed to know Johnny's limits and when not to push him. At least he had a friend like that behind him. When Johnny made to leave, Walt pretty much had to drag him up to JJ's room to get him to look in on his son. "Some days, he's just the thing to make living bearable," Walt had argued and Johnny had given in.
They watched JJ sleeping a while before Smith- Johnny started talking.
"When you were in that house- when I was calling for backup, I saw Dodd kill you. I saw what it did to him." Johnny looked at JJ a moment and Walt wasn't sure if he was supposed to say something, but before he came up with something, Johnny continued, "Losing you after losing Sarah, it was too much. He never recovered. Your parents tried, but it wasn't enough. He needs you, really needs you, Walt."
"You're not trying to weasel out on me, are you?" Walt teased.
"He's already got a father. What the hell would I be?"
"Hey, ever think he might need you? That I might, too? Think doing this alone is easy? I mean, we've been getting by since Sarah's been gone. Johnny likes Mrs. Perkins, but it's not the same as having another parent around, not the same as family."
"I'm not-"
"Yes, you are. You think Sarah'd let you get away with saying that? Because if you do, you didn't know her like I did. And we have a rule in this house- if it wouldn't have happened when Sarah was here, it's not gonna happen now."
"Oh really?"
"Besides, there's all this stuff you need to tell JJ about what a sweet little kid his mother was and I don't know those stories."
"Not sure you know what you're getting into here, man."
"I'm a big boy. I'm not scared of you."
Johnny laughed, the first time Walt had ever heard him, and nodded. "Right. Gonna go home and crash now." He brushed past Walt and down the stairs. Walt took a moment to smooth the tousled hair on JJ's forehead and kiss him before going downstairs to check the locks and get some shuteye himself.
Part IV
Three days after the strangler case was wrapped up, Walt hadn't heard from Johnny Smith and, not that he expected to be the guy's new best friend, but Walt had sort of expected Smith to call wanting to come around and actually meet JJ. So, that part of Walt that wanted to do right by Johnny, do right by JJ, and do right by Sarah's memory- that part of him called Smith. Walt got the answering machine. After almost a week of that, calling and leaving what felt like pathetic message after message to call him back on Smith's machine, after a week of that, Walt called Bruce Lewis.
Lewis was glad to hear from him. He wanted an ally. Smith had all but cut himself off from the world, and Lewis was worried about him. That made two of them.
Smith was a teacher- high school science, once upon a time, and before the vision about the Connover woman that had brought Johnny into the strangler case, Johnny's told Bruce that he'd wanted to try and get back to it. Walt called the new high school to see about it. The principal, Mike Pelson, had had the same position at the old Cleaves Mills High School, the one where Sarah and Johnny had both taught, the one where Sarah had been teaching when she died. Pelson remembered Walt and, more importantly, remembered Johnny. Walt set up a meeting and Bruce promised to drag Johnny there kicking and screaming if he had to.
The next time he spoke to Smith, Walt was personally working crowd control as he and Bruce left the local hospital. Johnny had saved the life of one of the kids from Cleaves Mills High's hockey team by way of one of his visions. Of course, before Johnny saved the kid, he managed to piss off every hockey fan in town by benching the boy and costing the team an important game. So much for Johnny's teaching career.
***
Walt called Johnny the next day to commiserate but, well, Walt was starting to feel like a stalker because Johnny was still not picking up his phone for him. So, after that, he let it lie for a while. Sort of. Walt talked to Bruce every couple of days to keep tabs on Johnny. It became a weekly thing, Bruce's report on what Johnny'd been doing with his visions- reuniting long lost loves, stopping a gas explosion at the Cleaves Mills mall, weird things like that.
Then Johnny surprised the hell out of Walt by showing up at one of JJ's soccer games. Walt had mentioned it in one of his messages, but he'd pretty much figured Johnny wouldn't want to come.
"Hey, Sheriff, what's the score?" Johnny asked casually standing on the sidelines watching the game.
"Clams are up 3-2," Walt answered trying to keep the stupid thrill he felt that Johnny had showed up from telling in his voice.
"Clams," Johnny repeated, made a face and nodded.
"We didn't get a choice on the name," Walt smirked. "Get in there JJ!" Walt shouted toward his son through cupped hands, when he noticed the boy was lagging behind the mob of kids that was rushing down the field after the ball. But JJ didn't. Walt saw that Johnny was watching JJ and wearing a concerned look, so he bumped Johnny with his elbow to get his attention (ignored the tiny flinching reaction to it that meant that Johnny might have seen something just then) and said, "Not that I'm knocking it, because you know I think you ought to spend time with him, but what brought you here today? You don't look happy."
"Think I need your help," Johnny stated resignedly, and the strain in his voice made something in Walt's belly coil up.
"Professionally?" Walt inquired, pretty sure that the answer would be a resounding yes. Johnny was looking and sounding like he had when he'd been having visions of the serial killer. "What is it?"
"I'm not sure- something about my house. I think something happened there. I think it had to do with my mother. Were you there- at the house the day she died?" Johnny asked.
"No, I wasn't on the scene," Walt replied. "You think there's something strange about her death?"
"Maybe. I saw blood all over her bathroom." Johnny looked a little green remembering. "Can you dig up whatever information you have on her death- maybe talk to whoever was on the case?"
"I could, John, but I'm not sure it'd do any good. The report is gonna say she died in her sleep, that the housekeeper found her and it was ruled a heart attack. There wouldn't have been any blood."
"I thought you weren't on the case?"
"Sarah-" Walt started to explain.
"Right. Sarah wanted to know what happened."
"Yeah, she did," Walt said. "You know, I met your mother a couple of times. I liked her. Believe me, if anything had seemed off, I would have made a stink about it."
"You met my mother?"
"She came to my wedding."
"Did she know about JJ?"
"Well, Sarah and I didn't tell her, but anyone could have- you know, done the math."
"So, you'll check into it?"
"I didn't say that-"
"But you will, because Sarah would have wanted-"
"Right. Sarah." Walt shook his head. It was downright odd that they did that to each other, used Sarah's memory to justify things, and used Sarah as shorthand for where they probably would have gotten to anyway. The oddest thing was that talking with Johnny about Sarah didn't feel the kind of odd that it should have. Talking with Johnny about Sarah felt completely normal.
"I'm gonna keep looking for answers, too."
"At your house?"
"Faith Heritage. I figure Reverend Purdy might know something about that day."
And Johnny walked away. Without staying to talk to JJ. If Walt hadn't been so glad the guy was actually talking to him again, he would have punched him for it.