A Good Man

July, 1982

Near Cascade, Washington

I.

The first time Blair ever saw Eli Joe, he was leaning against a fence enclosing a trio of blacktop basketball courts down the street from Blair's new apartment building. The slightly older boy was chewing gum in big, jaw cracking chomps, watching a game of half-court two-on-two. Looking, maybe, too cool to join in, maybe like he was just trying to give off that vibe because nobody was going to ask him. He didn't look like the sort of kid Blair normally made friends with, but it had been almost a week since Blair and Naomi had moved to the neighborhood and he had yet to hit it off with anyone, so he dusted off one of his standard opening lines and asked, as nonchalantly as he could manage, "Want to take on the winners?"

Eli Joe turned out to be a pretty lousy shot, but with his height he was able to rebound pretty well, and Blair was quick and a good ball-handler, so they hadn't done too badly as a team. They lost that first game, but while the original two pairs played again they practiced and even worked out a couple of plays, and when their turn came again they won.

By this time, the sun was sinking below the split-levels on the west side of the park, and the other kids seemed to take this as the signal to head home for the day.

"What about you?" Eli Joe asked him.

"Naomi doesn't believe in curfews," Blair replied.

So they started hanging out together for an hour or more most evenings after the other neighborhood kids headed home. They'd shoot hoops some more, or ride their bikes through the city's string of parks and along its side streets and bike paths. Sometimes they'd do silly, stupid things, little-kid stuff that they wouldn't have done when other kids were out, like lining up bottles and zooming between them, seeing how fast they could go and how close they could cut back and forth. Or they'd experiment with makeshift catapults made from stuff Joe'd pull out of his ever-present knapsack, flinging pebbles across Riverside playground at the swing set. Once, Joe aimed at some pigeons, but Blair told him to stop and Joe looked sort of embarrassed and said that he'd been aiming to miss.

Eli Joe was, Blair guessed, to him what he usually was to the 'good' kids he typically ended up hanging around with. The type of kid you only introduced to your mother if you had to. But nothing really seemed bad-wrong about Eli Joe, and Blair was confident that he could tell; thirteen years of being Naomi Sandburg's son had exposed to him a lot more of life than most kids encountered, he figured. As long as he didn't get in the guy's face, or tempt him with, like, a twenty hanging out of his pocket or something, Blair was confident that he could safely be friends with Eli Joe, at least until school started and he was off into the high school TAG classes Naomi'd signed him up for the minute they'd moved into town.

Blair would later remember those long, hot July days, capped by his evenings with Eli Joe, as some of the best of his childhood.

And then everything went to pieces.

All Eli Joe had wanted to do, Blair repeatedly told the police later, was introduce him to his old friend, Vin Tanner, who lived with a foster family about five miles away. They'd gotten tight, Eli Joe said, when they'd been with the same family a few years prior, before he'd had gone to live with his uncle Ron.

So Blair and Eli Joe had skipped the evening pick-up games and headed out right after Blair was through with dinner. An hour later, they got to the crossroads convenience store where Joe said they were going to hook up with Vin.

"Vin's a great guy, but he's a little nervous when he doesn't know you," Eli Joe said, swinging his knapsack onto his shoulder. "Wait out here a few minutes, while I tell him I've got someone with me. Then come on in."

So that's what Blair did. Counted to two hundred slowly, then walked into the mini-mart and past the coffee machines and magazine racks against the front window until he reached the cold cases. Prepackaged ham sandwiches; they looked pretty good. Then he spotted Eli Joe and another kid, who must have been Vin, standing in the far corner near the door to the restroom, in front of cases of chilled drinks, pulling out a couple of 16 oz. bottles of Pepsi.

Eli Joe turned toward him and made like he was shooting the floor with his right index finger, then pointed to Vin's back; there was an odd-looking bulge beneath the thin fabric of his t-shirt, like there was something tucked into the back of pants. As clear as if he were shouting, Eli Joe mouthed the words, "He's got a gun. Run!"

Blair staid put, though, at first, not knowing whether he should go help Eli Joe, or leave and call the police, or go tell the cashier he was about to get robbed. Vin turned, nodded at him in a friendly sort of way, and started examining a rack of chips. The movement made his t-shirt ride up a little around the bump, and Blair saw something metallic-looking. Then, it was like Blair's brain turned off and his legs took over. He bolted toward the front of the store and out past the checkout counter, so fast the cashier must have thought he was stealing something. "Stop!" he heard the guy shout, but Blair was already picking up his bike.

There was a noise like a cork popping, then Vin flew out the door straight at him. Before Blair knew what was happening, he had grabbed Blair's bike right out of his hands and was in the seat and then pedaling like hell off the asphalt and over the grass and into the road.

Blair started to run after him, but gave up after a few steps. "Come back!" he yelled. "That's my bike!"

A moment later, Eli Joe was at his side. "He shot the cashier!" Eli Joe gasped, his voice high and tight. "Vin shot him! Vin Tanner's a murderer!"

Blair's first impulse was to go after Vin again, knock him off his bike, hold him somehow until the police came, and he run a few feet after him. But already Vin was out of sight, around a curve in the road.

Think! What else could he do?

Airway, breathing, circulation. Yeah. Step one in the first place should have been to see how badly the cashier was hurt.

Leaving Eli Joe, who was hurling curses in the direction Vin had fled, Blair went back into the bright cool of the mini-mart. For some reason, he'd expected it to have turned hot and dark. "Hello?" he called, peering down aisles, delaying looking near the cash register. Finally he took a deep breath and hoisted himself up so that he could lean over the high counter. Fabric. Shit. He considered bolting, but, no, he couldn't do that. The guy might still be alive. How... yeah, duh, the opening to the checkout area was just beyond the candy racks. Blair ran around and through the swinging doors - then stopped. The cashier was crumpled sideways, angled slightly towards where Blair stood, and his head...

It wasn't a head anymore.

When the next customers came in, Blair was still standing there, feeling like there was something he should have been doing but completely unable to figure out what that was.

+ + + + + + +

Blair could answer every question the police asked, except what his phone number was. He could remember their number in Berkeley and even from that gas station in New Mexico when they'd lived completely off the grid for a while, but it was as if everything he'd encountered since June was covered with fog, or mud. Mog or Fud. He could produce his address mostly, though, and that was enough for them to send someone to contact Naomi in person.

Blair half-expected his behavior to tag him as guilty, but it seemed to do the opposite. Nobody seemed to think he was involved in any way; he couldn't tell from the questions whether the police suspected Vin Tanner, or Eli Joe, or maybe both older boys.

Naomi showed up looking almost middle-class, trim and worried in chinos and a light sweater and very little makeup. As far as he could tell, her appearance was what sealed it; Blair was free to go, with nothing but a brief lecture for Naomi on keeping track of him, which Naomi nodded through solemnly.

Leaving the station, he got a brief glance of Eli Joe being led in, hands secured behind his back, huge cops on either side of him. "We caught him heading home, can you believe it?" someone called out to someone else. Well, why shouldn't Joe have headed home? Blair got to go home.

Naomi was very huggy for the next few weeks, but they never really talked about what had happened. Three weeks after the shooting, a new bike appeared in the living room. Blair went for one ride, to show Naomi it worked and that he appreciated it, then never touched it again.

+ + + + + + +

Blair kept waiting for the police to ask him more questions. Months went by, though, before he was depositioned in preparation for Eli Joe's trial. This time much more composed than the night of the shooting, he tried to convince the prosecutors that Eli Joe hadn't been involved in any way. He won all the debates in Civics, even when he was just making stuff up, or playing devil's advocate for the heck of it; why wouldn't anyone believe him when he was telling the truth, when it really mattered? But it seemed that everyone's decision had been made. Nobody believed Eli Joe when he said that he'd fought Vin Tanner for the gun that killed Jesse Kincaid, leaving his prints on the handle and getting residue on his skin.

At the trial, Blair was the defense's only witness. The jury was made up of reasonable-enough-looking people, but it turned out they were narrow-minded bourgeois just like the DA. They rejected the charge of second-degree murder, going for manslaughter, which didn't fit the facts AT ALL - you either meant to blow someone's head off or you didn't - but maybe that was the jury's idiotic way of saying they weren't really sure what had happened.

After the trial, an ADA complimented Blair on his 'comportment'. "You should be a lawyer, kid. Without you as a friend, Joe Vassiconelli would probably be locked up until he's 30, maybe even longer. He'd be headed for the state pen, too, not Juvie."

"Eighteen is old enough," Blair grumbled, feeling peevish. "The real killer is still loose. Doesn't that bother anybody?"

"Vince Tanen is still a suspect in the murder," she said. "I'd bet anything he was the brains of the operation."

Tanen? "Isn't Vin's last name Tanner?"

"No, we know all about Vince Tanen," she replied. "He and Joe were in a foster home together, back in Texas. They moved here to live with that uncle of Vassiconelli's that was sitting in the back the whole trial. Really creepy guy. Apparently some new girlfriend kicked the kids out and they ended up OUR problem." She looked like she'd just spit something disgusting out of her mouth. "Tanen will materialize somewhere soon. Kids like him, if they don't get arrested for B&E; or vagrancy or just get picked up for looking too cold, they always do something stupid like go visit their grandmas at Christmas time."

"I'd really like to help put him away," said Blair.

She smiled. "Don't worry, you'll be the star witness."

II.

May, 1999

Blair promised himself that he'd look Eli Joe up when he got out of juvenile detention, but then he'd left high school after only three years, and by the time Eli Joe was released Blair had been so busy with college that it wasn't until he'd flown down to see Naomi in Napa Valley over Thanksgiving that Blair realized that Eli Joe must have turned 18 weeks before. So Blair decided he'd make some calls when he got back to the dorm, but it wasn't easy finding someone via a payphone, especially when you shared it with 30 other guys, and somehow Blair ended up just letting things drop.

Then, years later, his name and face were everywhere, and Eli Joe found him.

So now Joe Vassiconelli was sitting on the sofa wolfing down Ramen noodles - Blair's dinner of choice this week, a reaction to two weeks of Naomi-driven healthful eating. Joe certainly looked like he could use the food - he'd gotten even taller, and hadn't outgrown his youthful lankiness. His face, though - it was ageless, and not in a good way.

Blair had run through 'It's great to see you' and 'I'm sorry the system screwed you' and 'I told them and told them it was all Vin, you had nothing to do with anything,' and Joe'd just stared at him through colorless, deepset eyes. Now, Blair found he had absolutely nothing to say to Eli Joe. Had he ever?

Eli Joe slurped the last of the noodles, then leaned back. "I'm betting you're pretty handy with that computer," he said, nodding toward Blair's laptop on the table.

Blair nodded. "Well, you know, I'm a grad student..." Had been one, at least, but Joe didn't correct him. Joe probably didn't know what a grad student was.

"I was wondering if you could help me find that bastard. Vin Tanner."

"Don't you mean Tanen?"

"No, Damn it!" And now Joe looked almost frightening, like the line between him eating Blair's Ramen noodles and knifing him in the gut wasn't very wide.

"I tried to tell them a million times," Joe continued, a little calmer. "His name's not Tanen, it's Tanner. Someone screwed up when he went into the system when he was seven, before he could read and set them right. They even screwed up his social security card. He never stopped bitching about it. I bet it's why they never caught him in all these years. Lucky bastard."

"Well, I can poke around, see if he's anywhere obvious, but I think it's a pretty good bet he's living under an assumed name..."

"Not Vin Tanner."

"Well then..."

All it took was pulling up Lycos and entering "Vincent Tanner" to find that someone by that name had come in third in a dirtbike race in Denver a few years prior.

"Got to be him!" said Joe, smiling.

Blair doubted it. "Fat lot of good that does us," said Blair.

"It means he's alive. That means I can kill him."

Which was a pretty dumb thing to say in the loft, Blair mused; if his roommate was anywhere near home, he'd have picked that up.

"Excuse me," Blair said, rising and opening the front door a crack. Might as well not risk Jim breaking the poor thing off its hinges. Again.

Sure enough, not 30 seconds later, Jim Ellison flug the door wide, practically brandishing his cane with his left hand, his right hand hovering over his holster. "Sandburg!"

"Right here," said Blair, holding his hands partway up, palms exposed, trying to exude calm. "Um, Jim, this is an old friend of mine, Joe Vassiconelli. Uhm, I've always called him Eli Joe."

Jim limp-stepped into the room, clearly in pain, leaning heavily on the cane. Had the idiot taken the stairs? He'd probably set his leg back a week at least. This was not how you let a bullet wound heal!

"You went to Yale?" Jim kept his eyes on their guest as he made his way over to the remote-controlled rising chair the hospital had arranged. "What year were you?"

"Not that type of Eli," said Blair.

+ + + + + + +

"Jim, I don't often ask things of you..." Blair began, and Jim didn't bother stifling a snort. You want a weekly or a monthly list, Chief? Or we could go all the way to quarterly.

"No, REALLY, Jim," Blair persisted, "how often do I ask you for a favor? I've been wanting to testify against Vin for years, and I think we have a lead here. Let's just see whether it pans out. Then we'll call it in."

"He leaves first," said Jim, nodding toward Vassiconelli. "I'm not taking sides in some feud."

Vassiconelli laughed. "He doesn't know?"

"It never came up," said Blair. "Jim, I want Vin found as much as Eli Joe does. Back in 1982..."

Blair sat in the dining set chair closest to Jim and let his face go slack, which was something Blair just didn't do.

"I can tell him," said Joe, and suddenly Jim didn't dislike him quite so much.

"No, it's okay," said Blair. "It happened in 1982, the summer before I started high school. Someone Eli Joe thought was a friend of his, this kid named Vin Tanner... he lured us to a convenience store, then killed the cashier and made it look like Joe was involved. I'm the only witness, aside from Joe. Joe ended up in juvie until he turned 18."

Jim nodded.

"So bringing him to justice," Blair continued, "This is something I've always wanted, for Eli Joe's sake, and the sake of the poor guy he killed. And, you know, I've always wondered, would Vin ever try to, you know, take care of unfinished business? I've never worried that much about it, just tried to keep my name out of the phone book, off the department web site, that sort of thing. But I'm not exactly a hard guy to find anymore.

"Yeah, now that I know Vin's correct full name, we could do it ourselves without Joe, or just hand it over to the PD, but Eli Joe knows him better than anyone. And I'd just as soon not waste time here."

And who could say no to that?

It didn't take much, once he got involved. Vin Tanner was indeed alive and well, and doing a heck of a lot more than riding a dirt bike.

"Army sharpshooter turned ATF agent," their visitor repeated a couple of times. "Well, shit."

"And he'll finally come to justice," Blair countered each time he said it.

This was the last thing on Vassiconelli's mind, Jim knew. They'd just helped target a man for death. Even if this Tanner deserved it, it wasn't going to be on Jim's conscience. "I'm calling this in now," he said.

"Like hell you are," said Eli Joe, jumping up and blocking Jim's path to the phone. Crazy bastard; like Jim would have to work up a sweat to deal with him.

Eli Joe backed down, though. "Hell with you both," he hissed. "I'm going to get the bastard that ruined my life, and there's not a thing you can do to stop me." And then he was out the door.

III.

Having your boss waiting in your office at 7 a.m. was never a good way to start a Monday. Particularly when your boss was Orrin Travis - the Judge, he was called, a reference to his stint on the Tenth Circuit Court, and a sign of the respect he was accorded.

Travis didn't do social visits.

"Wanted to tell you this myself," Travis said without preamble. "Before anything happens. Vin Tanner usually gets in at 7:30, correct?"

"To the minute," Chris replied.

Travis nodded. "When he gets to the building this morning, he's going to be met by two federal agents. They'll be exercising a 17-year-old warrant for his arrest in the murder of Jesse Kincaid in Cascade, Washington."

Chris sat down heavily. "Shit."

The judge nodded. "It seems a witness has come forward or some such."

Chris was doing the math. "Seventeen years ago Vin was, what, fourteen? Fifteen? What does the witness say - what role does he say Vin played?"

"He says Vin shot Kincaid in cold blood in a botched convenience store robbery."

Chris shook his head. "I can't believe it."

"How well do you know Tanner?"

A very good question. Not well enough, maybe. "I'll be down there, make sure Vin doesn't do anything stupid."

Travis rose from Chris's spare chair. "Very good," he said. "Keep me informed. And Chris - I'm sorry about this. I was thinking you'd gotten yourself the makings of a fine team here."

Although he probably had twenty minutes yet, Chris grabbed a coffee and headed down to the federal building's lobby. Yes, there were the agents - two suits hovering just outside the security checkpoint. He introduced himself as Vin's boss and they discussed logistics, agreeing that it would be simplest and most discrete to pull Vin aside as he neared the building.

Chris then settled onto one of the lobby's thinly-cushioned benches. Shit shit shit.

Travis was right. Since they'd brought on JD Dunne the previous month to keep their equipment running while he finished up his B.S., things had started to come together for his team. Buck Wilmington had settled considerably - had stopped thinking of himself as immune to most rules due to his long association with Chris and had, unexpectedly, decided to become some combination of full-time tutor and big brother to JD. He'd even started showing up on time, 'on time' being a somewhat flexible concept. But he was putting in the hours, and, more importantly, he was applying himself effectively to his job.

JD had thrown himself into the position they'd crafted for him, quickly getting the top-of-the-line gear Travis had granted them into working order and getting them all, even Josiah Sanchez, up to speed. He'd also started showing Josiah how to use some of the new inter-force databases coming on line; when Buck wasn't being JD's big brother, Josiah was being some sort of sage uncle, intoning platitudes of the sort that Chris had heretofore found tiring but which JD ate up.

Nathan Jackson, who'd worked with Josiah for years, seemed to appreciate the former priest having a new, receptive target. He also was spending less time tsk-tsking Buck and Ezra and more time doing his job.

Ezra seemed happy that there was someone on the team who seemed oblivious to his somewhat shadowed past, and that all their fancy gear finally worked.

And Vin, well, he just seemed to like not being 'the kid' anymore.

Vin - Chris had really liked him. Really DID like him. They'd only worked together a few months, but they'd been a couple of pretty tight spots and Vin's nerve and skill had proven invaluable. And Vin didn't demand things of him like Buck and the others did. They could grab a few beers and just drink them, leaving Chris's psyche out of it.

Could Vin have killed someone way back when he was a kid? Well, hell, Vin had shot what any rational person would consider a disturbing number of people. But never - never the WRONG people. But as a kid - was it possible? Chris considered Vin a good man, but how deep did that go?

"That's Tanner's car?" asked the head suit, Agent Fitzgerald.

Chris looked where Fitzgerald was pointing. Yeah, Vin's little rice rocket had pulled into the federal building lot. Vin spotted Chris and gave him a wave-salute, then parked and jogged over. "Something's up?"

"Uh, yeah," said Chris, assuming the lead since the suits seemed to be happy hanging back a few feet. "Vin, these gentlemen are here to exercise a warrant for your arrest."

"What the..." Vin started.

"For the murder of Jesse Kincaid," said the other suit, Agent Boyd.

"Oh," said Vin. He didn't even swear, just seemed to deflate a bit, if a guy as slender as Vin could deflate. He held his arms a bit out from his body and Agent Boyd patted him down, then removed Vin's service piece from the holster he wore under his windbreaker. Vin looked down and away as Agent Fitzgerald mirandized him, still saying nothing. As Boyd took his arm to escort him to their car, however, Vin looked over his shoulder at Chris. "I'm sorry this is happening on your watch," he said. "I hoped... I hoped this would never catch up with me. Damn stupid of me to stay in one spot like this. But, I want you to know - I didn't do it. It was Eli Joe. Don't know his last name. He set out to frame me, and it looks like it's finally worked. I'm sorry. I should have been able to stop him from killing that man. Tell the other guys, okay?"

Chris nodded. "I, uh, I believe you, Vin," he said, wondering if he meant it.

As Vin let himself be lead away, Chris came close to hopping into his Suburban to follow, so that he could ease things for Vin at the PD. But that wasn't where he would be the most effective. "I'll come by later, see what I can do," he called, just to say something.

+ + + + + + +

An hour later, Chris had the whole story, or at least as much of the story as anyone seemed to know. Years before, like the judge had said, a clerk had been shot in an attempted robbery of a convenience store. One Joseph Vassiconelli, presumably the Eli Joe that Vin had mentioned, had named Vin Tanner as the shooter, a claim which had been corroborated at the time by another young teen, a Blair Sandburg. Vassiconelli had fled the scene but had been apprehended the evening of the murder, and had done time in juvie for his role - his first conviction, but not his last, though he hadn't done more than two years at a stretch as an adult. Vin had never been apprehended, and he'd managed to join the Army, get his GED and some additional education, and wind up working for the ATF, with a warrant for his arrest hanging over his head all the while. The hiccup seemed to be that the warrant had been issued for 'Vince Tanen', apparently the name that Vin had had attached to him when he was a ward of the state of Texas.

Vassiconelli and the other witness had, for some reason, chosen yesterday to get some cop to enter 'Vin Tanner' into a few databases, and - well, that was that.

By the time Chris had finished his calls, the rest of his team had come in. With a deep sigh, Chris hauled himself out of his chair and entered the bull pen. "Vin's been arrested. It's a long story."

But really, it was a short one; when he was done, Josiah was the first to speak.

"One of us should be there with him."

"Agreed," said Buck. "Chris, when you heading over?"

"Later, I guess," he said, wondering why Buck was presuming it should be him. "Don't know what good it'll do though."

"Do you think he'll need bail?" JD asked.

"On a capital case? I doubt it will be an option," said Nathan Jackson.

"I'll take care of making sure his car's okay in the lot," said Josiah. "Anyone else think of any little details that Vin might need attending to, might as well let me know and I'll see that they're done."

"That's good of you," said Chris.

"Well, often the spirit is most at peace when the material isn't a burden," said Josiah.

"And when you know someone's looking out for you," said JD. Josiah nodded.

"So what do we do now?" asked Buck. "Shake down this Joe Vassiconelli and Blair Sandburg?"

"Don't even joke about that," said Chris. "That's the last thing he needs. One thing I forgot to tell y'all, though - Joe Vassiconelli has gone to ground, and there's reason to believe that he might be a danger to Vin. That's one reason the feds took Vin into custody so quickly - for his own protection."

"Yeah, right," scoffed JD.

"There's an APB out for Vassiconelli in Cascade, but it's assumed that he's heading this direction. As I understand it, Blair Sandburg is also heading to Denver, but on the up-and-up, with a police escort. First step is, he's going to ID Vin if he can, and then the officers who are accompanying Sandburg here will handle the transport of Vin to Cascade."

"Think he'll fight extradition?" It was the first time Ezra had spoken.

"Don't know," said Chris. "He didn't exactly incriminate himself this morning, but he didn't feign complete ignorance either. I think Vin will cooperate, if only to get this mess over as quickly as possible."

+ + + + + + +

After staring at the papers on his desk for about 20 minutes, Chris gave up and headed over to the Denver PD's main downtown complex. He only got to see Vin for a moment, though, just long enough to ascertain that the younger man hadn't taken any steps toward obtaining a lawyer.

"Won't do any good," Vin said. "They always think you're guilty, anyway. I - I can't believe I let my guard down, let myself get found like this. I should never've used my real name. Should never've just let Eli Joe be out there, knowing he hated me, knowing he wouldn't let this rest."

"We'll fight this, all the way," said Chris, cutting Vin off. But how?

Chris put in a call to Josiah and they agreed that Judge Travis's widowed daughter-in-law, Mary, was a good choice. She wasn't especially high-profile, but she was a friend, and extremely successful. A good lawyer for an innocent person: unlike most defense attorneys they dealt with, she didn't seem to focus on getting her clients to cop pleas in order to save herself time. She also didn't represent people she didn't fundamentally trust, a luxury she had since her bread-and-butter was a weekly syndicated column on women in the legal system. But she'd met Vin, and had liked him, so agreed to take him on.

And maybe Chris asking her nicely had also had something to do with it.

Buck joined Chris at around two. "Saw the Cascade contingent in the parking lot," he said. "You'll just love these guys."

A moment later, Agent Fitzgerald ducked his head into the PD's waiting room. "The witness is here," he said. "Line up ASAP. You can observe if you want."

"I thought Vin's admitted he was there when the shooting happened," said Buck.

"Well, he's being a little cagey," said Fitzgerald. "The way we see it, if it turns out this Sandburg nails the ID, that can only help things. If he can't, that doesn't really break the case, but it would be good to know that now. And if it turns out we're looking for an seven foot tall Korean, well, might as well save us all a lot of time."

The observation booth was reasonably large for what it was, but slightly stuffy, despite a ventilation system working at full throttle. Several folding chairs were set up along the one-way glass that separated the space from the rest of the line-up facility; additional chairs rimmed the rear wall. The seats along the glass nearest the door were occupied already by a couple of men Chris didn't recognize - part of the 'Cascade contingent', maybe? Yeah, one, the younger, was in a uniform he didn't immediately recognize, wearing a name plate identifying him as 'Corp. Farnum'. The other was dressed as a civilian, but held himself like he'd worn a uniform in the past. Which meant he was probably a detective with the Cascade PD. The man gave Chris and Buck a brief up-and-down - appraising whether they were a threat, Chris surmised - then a slight nod, which Chris returned before passing behind the men.

There was a third, slim form seated in the rear - Mary Travis. Followed by Buck, Chris crossed over to stand next to her. "Thanks again," he whispered.

Mary nodded. "Anything to help Vin find his way clear of this," she answered.

On the other side of the glass, a young, white guy with long, curly hair pulled loosely back into a pony-tail entered the room, followed by Agent Fitzgerald and some locals Chris had seen before. So this was their witness. "Should I sneak out to the parking lot, turn a K-9 unit loose on his rental, see what gets sniffed out?" Buck breathed into his ear. Trying to be funny, failing as usual.

Though he couldn't have heard Buck over the loud rumble of the A/C, the plainclothes Cascade officer turned and - well, it was too dim to see his eyes, but his stature was clear - they'd just pissed him off. Chris was pretty sure this wasn't a good idea.

Looking straight at the stranger and speaking softly but clearly, Chris said, "People might get the same impression of Vin, at first glance." The man's mouth quirked up into an almost-smile, then he turned back towards the window.

"Gee, thanks for the gut knife there, boss," murmured Buck after a beat, smiling and shaking his head.

If only Buck wouldn't push things! It made Chris feel like the underside of his shoe to knock Buck down, but sometimes he just had to.

"Speaking of grievous wounds, as Ezra might say, I've got a favor to ask you," Buck continued. "Could you tell JD you like his new umbrella the next time you get the chance?"

"What?" OK, so maybe Buck wasn't so hurt.

"Yeah. You know that old umbrella he's been using? Purple and green, with a yellow trim, almost lace?"

"No, can't say as I recall it," said Chris, impatience rising.

"Well," said Buck, "It was his mama's, but the mechanism is all busted. We managed to fiddle with it, get it to open and stay that way, but it just won't take any sort of wind, so I took him shopping and got him to get one in basic black. Collapsible. Was going to buy it for him, but he wanted to get it himself, which I think is a good thing."

"You want me to compliment JD Dunne on an eight dollar umbrella?"

"It was closer to twelve; it's reinforced. Just tell him it's a good choice, or something. It'd mean the world to him."

In front of them, Cascade men were probably laughing at them, though their heads stayed firmly forward. Buck smiled and winked at Mary, who said, "I'll be sure to say something to him if I get the chance, Buck."

Chris was surrounded by lunatics.

A half-dozen men were now entering the line-up area of the facility. The selection looked fair enough to Chris. A range of guys, similar to Vin in type but not his long-lost twins.

Damn it, Vin was shifting back and forth like a four-year-old. And - stepping forward and waving???

Chris had to put a stop to this before Vin did something really stupid. He bolted out of the observation room booth and into the line-up room to find that Sandburg had approached the plexiglass, so that he and Vin were scarcely a foot apart.

"I'm sorry," Vin yelled, though only a low rumble came through the plexiglass.

"Shut up, Vin!" Chris shouted.

"Is he confessing?" asked Fitzgerald. "Someone, make sure they're recording in there!"

From behind him, one of the men from Cascade - the one who was probably a detective - was barreling in, making a hell of a racket. Ah, he was using a cane, and not exactly gracefully. "Sandburg, get back!" the man shouted. "Someone get that guy away from the witness!"

"It's okay, Jim," said curly-hair, who seemed to be trying to read Vin's lips. "He's saying 'bike'." The guy turned, his eyes wide. "He's apologizing for stealing my bike!"

"Well," said Fitzgerald, "I guess we'll put that down as a positive I.D."

IV.

With a nod to Chris, Vin was lead off by two bailiffs while a third corralled the other line-up participants. Chris just shook his head. He'd expected Vin to bring the same calm dignity to this whole affair that Chris saw him apply to the rest of his life. Not - this.

"You think that whole thing just now was so that he could apologize to me?" asked curly-hair.

"Well, if he's not done, he can write you a nice note on the plane," said the Cascade cop. "You okay, chief?"

Curly-hair nodded.

This just seemed fishy to Chris. "You know this guy?" he asked the cop, gesturing at the witness.

"You could say that," he said. "And you are?"

"Uh, apologies," said Fitzgerald. "Chris Larabee, this is Capt. Jim Ellison of the Cascade Police, and Blair Sandburg, who, as I understand it, has had some association with the force as part of his graduate education."

"Yeah, close enough," said curly.

"Mr. Sandburg, Capt. Ellison, Chris is Vin Tanner's supervisor at the ATF."

"And he's here why?" snapped Ellison, just as Chris was starting to protest that he didn't think it was proper for an associate of the witness to be in charge of escorting Vin to Washington.

"Shut up, both of you," said Mary Travis, coming into the room. "Before this goes any further, let's all sit down, figure out what's in the best interest of justice at this point."

Ellison scoffed a little; Sandburg had moved over to take Mary's hand and introduce himself earnestly. Chris was liking curly less and less.

"Vin is a good man," said Chris. "I don't know what happened back when he was a kid, though if he says he's innocent I believe him. I don't want him being treated like some thug, or meeting any sort of convenient accident on the way back to the most dangerous city in America."

"If he's such a good man, what was he doing hanging out with the likes of Joe Vassiconelli?" Ellison asked.

"Uh, actually, I was the one hanging out with Eli Joe that summer," said curly.

"Your original statement and deposition were faxed to my office right before I headed over here; I just finished reading it before the line-up," said Mary. "It might be instructive if you went over the details again, for all of us."

"That sounds rather inappropriate..." Ellison started.

"Jim, don't treat me like some sort of child witness!" curly snapped. "Shit, I could have handled all of you THEN!"

He turned back to Mary. "Sure, I'd be happy to sit down with everyone, figure out how we can safely get your guy back to Cascade."

"Safely?" Chris asked. Coming from the Cascade people, after what he'd just said - was that some sort of threat?

"Yeah, security's a concern," said Ellison. "Joe Vassiconelli contacted us so that he could flush Tanner out for him. We went along with it because we had our own concerns regarding security and Mr. Tanner."

+ + + + + + +

"You don't have to do this now," Jim murmured to Blair as they joined Chris Larabee, Agent Fitzgerald, Mary Travis, and a Captain Dan Scott of the Denver PD around a small conference table.

Blair shrugged. As traumatic events went, having someone on the other side of a piece of half-inch-thick plexiglass say he was sorry that he'd left him without a ride - well, that didn't really rate.

"So let's start at the beginning," said Agent Fitzgerald.

"There isn't a lot to say," said Blair. "Eli Joe..."

"He went to Yale?" Mary Travis interrupted. "After Juvenile Hall?"

"NOT that sort of Eli," said Jim.

"Nothing like," said Blair. "Like I was saying, Eli Joe and I hung out together for a few weeks right after I moved to Cascade the summer I was thirteen. One day, he said he wanted to introduce me to a friend of his. So we rode out after dinner to this convenience store a ways out of town."

Blair paused, realizing he was talking way too fast. It wasn't like he hadn't given a statement before! But it was like he was thirteen again, or something. He took a breath (calmly!) then continued, "Joe went in first, because he didn't want me to spook Vin. I came in about three minutes later and Joe made a gesture like Vin had a gun and told me to run, so I ran. Then I heard Vin shoot the cashier and then Vin ran out past me and stole my bike and then Joe came out and I don't know what he did next but I headed inside the store and got to see my first murder victim."

So much for professional comportment. He swallowed. "The cashier, he didn't really even have a head anymore. I - I guess Vin must have rushed the front before he fired. There wasn't anything I could do to help the victim."

The others around the table were looking at him like he wasn't even speaking English. Well, except for Mary Travis, who was looking a bit smug. It was a good look on her (well, you couldn't fault a guy for noticing someone like Mary Travis, could you? Not that he'd ever successfully gotten a date out of opposing counsel, and not for lack of trying.)

"You didn't actually see Tanner shoot Jesse Kincaid?" asked Agent Fitzgerald.

"No, but I forgot to say, I know Tanner had custody, possession, whatever, of the gun, right before the shooting. Right before I left the store. I saw something in the back of his pants."

"Did Joe Vassiconelli tell you who it was you'd be meeting?" asked Jim.

"I don't really remember."

"Was the name Vin Tanner familiar to you before yesterday?" asked Chris Larabee.

"Yes; after the shooting, Eli Joe was quite definite about it being 'Vin Tanner' who'd done it. Though the prosecution at Eli Joe's trial referred to him Vince, or maybe Vincent, Tanen, and so I guess I figured Eli Joe didn't have it right. Anyway, Joe kept on saying that Vin fired the shot. He was very consistent. I'm sure there are records."

"Yes, I've browsed the transcript," said Ms. Travis. "Vassiconelli was quite vociferous in his hatred of Vin."

Jim was shaking his head. "It smells like a set-up, chief, top to bottom. I think you screwed this one up."

Blair felt his cheeks start to burn. "Why? Because the Joe Vassiconelli we met yesterday came off like a petty felon, and Vin Tanner has turned himself into a-a candidate for Denver's Outstanding Citizen, or something? Jim, you know what being in the system does to someone. That's not what Eli Joe was like that summer. He was my only friend!"

There was silence around the table for a moment, finally broken by Larabee. "Mary, I don't have to tell you that it would risk everything to have any of us talk to Vin before he makes a statement, not after what Sandburg here has said. Can you phone one of your associates now to sit with him for a while this afternoon when we all see what he has to say?"

"Yes, I can do that," she said.

Everyone was looking at Blair again. What the hell had he done wrong, exactly??

+ + + + + + +

Another observation room, another lousy ventilation system. Jim was not going to miss Denver.

Beside him, Blair was fidgeting. He hadn't meant to come down on Blair like he had, but, jeeze, if you're going to try to pin a murder on someone, it was usually a good idea to be really, really sure. How much had his earnestness, his good-kid persona influenced the jury's cake-and-eat-it-too verdict in Joe Vassiconelli's trial? From what he could gleam from a quick read-over of Ms. Travis's copy of the original trial's transcripts, the physical evidence tying Vassiconelli to the shooting had been pretty conclusive. Without Blair, Joe Vassiconelli might still be in jail.

Yeah, Blair might well have screwed this one up - and if he had, Blair being Blair, he'd probably figure the whole thing out, probably in pretty short order. Chris Larabee could just give that attitude of his a rest.

Agent Fitzgerald and Captain Scott entered the interrogation room first and took a moment to settle themselves before signaling for Tanner to be brought in. He looked far more composed than he had during the line-up. The lawyer Ms. Travis had rounded up for this, introduced as Allen Polk, looked almost giddy.

Vin Tanner spoke slowly and with the exquisite politeness one only found in native Texans. Yes, sir, he'd known Joe Vassiconelli. Yes, he'd known him from probably the spring of 1976, in Tuscosa, Texas. No, sir, he didn't think Vassiconelli had had anything particularly against him, and he'd had no particular problems with Vassiconelli, though they'd stopped really being friends once they were placed in separate homes after living with Vin's uncle Ron for a spell.

In a manner that could not have been more different than Blair's 20-second one-breath recount of the events of Thursday, July 29, 1982, Vin Tanner calmly detailed how there was a message waiting for him when he returned from a day of mowing lawns. According to the note, whose authorship he had not thought to verify at the time but didn't believe was important, Vassiconelli had called earlier that afternoon and asked to meet him at the GasSnack&Go to show him some 'action figures' he'd recently acquired.

"Action figures?" prompted Agent Fitzgerald.

"Code, sir. When we lived with Ron Armstrong, sometimes Eli Joe would get his hands on stuff. Um, usually stolen, but I was remiss in not always asking. Since it would have raised suspicions to talk about watches or whatever, Eli Joe would call his objects of value 'action figures.'"

"So when he called you, you thought that Vassiconelli was, what?" asked Fitzgerald

"I suspected that he had something he wanted me to help him sell."

"This didn't bother you?"

Tanner shrugged. "Fencing wasn't what I did, wasn't ever what I did, and I was going to remind him of that. He'd always taken 'no' for an answer fine. But I thought it would be good to see him, make sure he was okay. I had a few dollars on me, and was figuring on getting us a pizza, maybe shooting some pool."

"So you..."

"I had an early dinner at home, just to keep me going, then I walked over to the convenience store."

"Even though you expected that Vassiconelli wanted to entice you into a crime."

Tanner smiled a little. "Like I said, he'd always taken 'no' for an answer in the past." The smile vanished. "Eli Joe wanted to lift some stuff, but I told him I wouldn't do that, and anyway I had cash, so we started to pick out some snacks. While we were at the soda case, he said something to the effect of, he had a Ruger revolver in his knapsack that he'd lifted from the house next door, but he had second thoughts and would I please hold it for him and help him figure out how to slip it back. I really didn't think that Joe having a gun was a good idea, so I took it and stuffed it into the back of my shorts."

"You didn't leave immediately?"

Tanner shook his head. "I was a stupid kid."

"What happened next?"

"The soda case had just been restocked, I think; I was having a hard time finding a cold bottle. Some other kid came in, and I guess Joe knew him because he started signaling to him. I thought this was a little funny, but I could take care of myself, if you'll pardon the expression, and the kid didn't look like he was more'n eleven. Not really a threat, you understand."

Beside Jim, Blair stopped fidgeting.

"So I finally found a couple of cold Cokes and was just about to ask Eli Joe if he wanted one of them when I saw he was heading to the front of the store like he was ready to buy his stuff. Except, I'd said I was buying. It just seemed wrong. Then he pulled out another gun - a Beretta 92, I think - and he shot the cashier in the face. Then he turned and smiled at me and said, 'Look what you did, you bastard.' Then I ran."

"Where did you go?" asked Fitzgerald.

"The kid that was with Eli Joe was standing right outside, holding a bike. I, uh, took it from him and then I rode as hard as I could for as long as I could. It was a pretty good bike, I guess. It lasted until I was way outside the city. Maybe outside the state. I'm afraid I wasn't thinking too clearly. Eventually I busted a tire and had to dump it. I got rid of the revolver at the same time, because the folks who'd give someone like me a ride, I knew they'd be looking for something like that on me. Good thing, too, because the little old lady who have me my first lift patted me down first."

"Two guns," Jim heard Chris Larabee whisper. "Shit."

While Fitzgerald and Scott pressed Tanner for details, Blair softly asked, "Do you believe him?"

"It seems plausible," said Jim. "The records say Vassiconelli's prints were the only clear ones on the pistol found at the scene."

"So it really boils down to Vassiconelli's word versus Vin's," said Larabee softly. "Nothing he's said contradicts Sandburg."

+ + + + + + +

Vin had never thought that he'd make it through telling about the night of the shooting without exploding or crying or something. But he just answered the questions and it was over pretty quickly - nothing like the two or three hours he'd expected.

Then, before he'd even gotten a chance to thank Fitzgerald and Scott for their civility, Chris was in the room beaming, taking his arm and leading him to the side. "That went perfect, Vin," he said. "There's no way they'll pin this on you now."

"But the witness..."

"You know what he told the cops and the DA back then? Did you read about it in the papers at the time?"

Vin shook his head. In 1982, he'd barely been able to read, hadn't realized that you could access out-of-state newspapers in public libraries.

"Your story matches his exactly. He never said he saw you shoot anyone, he just assumed you did because he heard the shot. Apparently Joe Vassiconelli was a friend of his."

"Will he change his story if he needs to, to protect a friend?" he asked.

"He'd better not," said Chris.

"I wouldn't!" Shit, the witness had come in. Had he heard his apology earlier?

Apparently. "It's, uh, okay about the bike," the guy was saying. "My mom got me another one."

Vin half-sat against the edge of the room's small table, covered his face with his hands, and let his body shake.

V.

Chris Larabee's elation was relatively short-lived. Vin, instead of doing backflips, seemed to have checked out. The detective from Cascade, Ellison, was arguing that, though what had been a pretty solid case now seemed to be swiss cheese, Vin still had to be taken to Cascade post-haste.

The Denver PD and FBI reps agreed with Ellison. The original plan was still the way to go - Vin should be placed in the custody of the Cascade PD as soon as the extradition details were worked out. Then they'd put things in front of a grand jury, if the DA wanted to go forward. Anything less would, at the very least, look very suspicious, and could come back to bite them all later. Mary and her colleague seemed to agree.

Once Vin was up to answering questions again (composing his features the way someone might form a face out of clay, Chris thought), he agreed that rapid extradition to Cascade was in everyone's best interest.

"What did you do? How did you get home that night?" he asked Sandburg, who, along with Buck, was hovering around Vin.

"I went back inside the convenience store to see if I could do anything for the cashier."

Vin slumped back against the table. "Was he still alive?"

Sandburg shook his head. "Never had a chance. I stuck around until someone called the police, then the cops took me with them and eventually called my mom. It was okay. I mean, it was horrible, but I was okay."

Dan Scott drew Chris aside. "A few hours ago, I never would have thought I'd be saying this, but is there any way you could take charge of Tanner tonight? You know as well as I do it's not safe to put him in the general lock-up, and we don't have any available private cells here. If I still considered him a viable suspect, we'd make do, but it would be easiest for us if you'd just take him with you and give him a ride to the airport when the tickets get figured out."

Chris looked over to where Buck had engulfed Vin in his sport coat. Chris didn't - couldn't - wasn't in any shape to deal with anyone's shit but his own. But then Buck looked at him, hope warring with disappointment... "Sure, I'll take him," Chris said.

Thankfully, Vin seemed his normal, self-possessed self by the time they cleared the station. A call from Josiah Sanchez during the drive out to the ranch informed him that his entire team had invited itself over for pizza and beer. For a minute he was annoyed, then it occurred to him that this would keep him from having to make conversation with Vin all evening. Not that Vin had ever been hard to talk to - but, heck, Vin had also never before been arrested for murder and then had the case pretty much busted up, all in the course of a day.

The sprawl of cars blocking his garage meant that Josiah, Nathan, and Ezra had already arrived and were probably busy raiding his liquor cabinet. As Chris cut the Suburban's engine, Josiah stepped out of the low ranch and, with a quick nod to Chris, circled to Vin's side of the truck. As Vin emerged, Chris saw his oldest man envelope his quietest in an embrace that would have sent Chris through the roof. But Vin seemed to be taking it, and - what, Josiah was quoting scripture? "...I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures... he leadeth me beside the still waters..." and now Vin seemed to be murmuring the words with their own personal ex-priest.

Too bad Buck wasn't there yet, though Chris; he'd love this. With a scowl, Chris went to see what sort of wreck the guys were making out of his house.

A few minutes later, Buck and JD showed with the pizzas and everyone got down to the business of eating. Maybe things were a little subdued, but that suited Chris; Vin especially didn't seem to be much into conversing during dinner, or while they all settled in to catch a Rockies away game. Vin just sat between Ezra and JD and listened to JD talk about some on-line game he'd been playing, while Ezra explained how he'd go about taking the virtual land over, if he were to bother himself with such trivial pursuits. It seemed a little odd that Vin didn't just move and let Ez and JD sit together; it would let them be quieter about things, if nothing else. But for a good hour he sat between them saying nothing, just grinning occasionally as the conversation warranted.

Vin did slip off to bed pretty early, though, silently heading for the spare room he'd stayed in a time or three before. This signaled the break-up of their impromptu gathering. After convincing JD that Vin didn't want any more company and knew the whole team wished him well, Chris shut the door behind the last of them and put in a last call to Mary Travis, to get the details of Vin's handoff to the Cascade contingent. Things had moved quickly, like he'd pretty much expected they would, and Vin would almost certainly be heading to Washington State the next morning.

"Which of you are going with him?" she asked.

"None of us." He had Vin bedded down his spare room for the night, damn it! What else did people want?

"Oh," Mary replied, after a pause. "I won't be heading to Cascade until mid-afternoon. Billy's parent-teacher conference is tomorrow morning, and I had assumed that Vin wouldn't be heading out alone."

"Do you really think he should have someone along?" he asked.

"I trust the Cascade people, that's not a problem," she said. "And Vin's got all the confessing he wants out of his system. Unless he decides to change his story, he'll be fine. I just thought he'd like a friendly face."

"Vin's a big boy," Chris said. Snapped, actually.

"Yes, of course he is," said Mary just a little bit too brightly.

Great, so now he had a few more things to feel guilty about.

+ + + + + + +

Vin lay in Chris's guest room and listened to the last of the guys' vehicles pull away. It was great that they'd been here tonight, even better that they'd left without forcing any drawn-out good-byes on him.

He half-expected Chris to come in and shackle him to the bed or something, but nothing happened; since he'd left the Denver PD, nobody'd said anything to remind him that he was under some sort of house arrest and in Chris's custody, only saved from lock-up by the complications involved in holding someone involved in law enforcement, and by the respect the ATF in general, and Chris Larabee and Buck Wilmington in particular, commanded.

But Vin didn't think for one instant that he was in the clear. And still wasn't sure he should have been. So that kid, that scrawny pal of Eli Joe's, had stayed at the scene of the shooting? Hadn't even thought of running? Had wanted nothing more than to help that poor cashier? When nothing but flight had been in Vin's mind. Terror, that's all he'd felt, and now he couldn't remember if he'd been afraid of Eli Joe, or of getting blamed, or just that there was a dead body where there'd been a live one.

And now the kid was all grown up and some sort of semi-cop himself or something, and as credible as the day was long. Maybe a touch flighty, but that just made him seem less coached. Yeah, his story wasn't air-tight, but Sandburg was.

+ + + + + + +

"Did I really screw everything up?"

Sandburg had been pushing his dinner around for the past 20 minutes; Jim had been waiting for this question ever since Bob Farnum had excused himself and headed to the bar.

"Would you do the same thing today?" Jim replied. "If yes, then I don't think you can possibly be mad at yourself for how you reacted when you were thirteen."

"I don't know," said Blair. "I just - it never occurred to me that Eli Joe was setting Vin up, and using me. I thought I was smart enough to see through that sort of thing."

"Never noticed you being omnipotent, chief."

"So what do we do now?"

"The same as always," said Jim. "Let things play out, do the best we can with what we have to work with."

VI.

The next morning, Vin already had coffee going by the time Chris finished dressing. The younger man stood at the bay window in the dining area, looking west toward the front range of the Rockies.

Too dark this early to see far today, even without the morning haze.

At 6:30 a call came in from Ellison - they'd been booked for 10 a.m. on United.

"Any business you have to take care of before the flight?" Chris asked.

Vin nodded. "Should have done it last night, but I wasn't thinking. Josiah packed me a bag and brought it over here, but I'd really like to get a shot at closing up my place myself."

Chris understood. He had a neighbor who acted as a sort of care-taker, doing for the horses and even making sure the house was kept in good order, particularly when he was out of town or fully occupied by the job. The ultimate irony was that Sarah's death had left him with enough insurance money that he didn't have to live within the confines of his government salary. Vin would have no such support, which was why guys like Vin couldn't even commit themselves to a cat or a cactus, usually. Still, there'd be things Vin would want to see about.

They hit the road early. The stop at Vin's apartment took only 20 minutes, while Chris waited in the car and paged through the Post. When Vin came out, he toted a second bag and a manila envelope that looked like it was stuffed with bills and what-not. "Could you see that Josiah gets this?"

"Sure thing," said Chris, vaguely annoyed that Josiah got to keep Vin's checkbook balanced or whatever. But then, Josiah had probably offered, and it just hadn't occurred to Chris. Something Buck would throw in his face some year, no doubt.

Too soon, they were Denver International and heading for the short-term parking portion of one of the airport's massive garages. Ellison and Curly were waiting near the pedestrian exist as they pulled in, Ellison holding his cane in both hands as if to show he didn't really need it. The bull-headedness of some people.

"Looks like you, cowboy," said Vin, gesturing at the Cascade men. "After you threw your knee out in January. Buck wanted to hide that crutch on you, but we told him it would torture you more to always have it a foot away."

By the time they'd parked, Ellison and curly had been joined by the Cascade officer that had been with Ellison the previous day in the observation room during the line-up. Farnum, yeah, that was it. Presumably back from returning their car. So this was really it.

The handover took all of two minutes. Chris tried to sense any out-of-place antipathy in Ellison as they shook hands, but the lead Cascade man just seemed anxious to get a move on. Curly looked tired, and Farnum seemed just a little excited by the whole thing, smiling and bouncing on the balls of his feet a little. Odd that he should seem less experienced than their civilian.

Vin exchanged brief hellos with his escort, then turned to Chris. He took a breath, then said, "Just want to tell you, boss. Thanks for last night. Was good to be free for one last..."

Then he stopped and started to turn, but Chris grabbed his arm, his hand sliding down Vin's forearm to almost the elbow. Vin gave a surprised laugh and returned the grip. "See you soon, Cowboy," said Chris, then released him.

"Hope so," said Vin.

On Ellison's signal, Farnum pulled out a pair of cuffs; Chris just didn't want to see this part, never mind that it meant he was chicken-shit, so he executed a quick nod and then headed back to the Suburban.

Later, his statement would read that he'd gone about 40 feet when Ellison yelled to get down, but it could have been more. Not much more, though. Then there was a single shot, and Chris was running back before he even fully registered what he'd heard.

Corp. Farnum, his left hand cuffed to Vin's right, was folding over; before Chris could reach them, Vin, seemingly forgetting the cuffs, had made a hard jerk in the direction the shot had come from, destroying whatever balance Farnum might have had. Farnum and Vin both hit the ground pretty much face first, Vin's legs under Farnum, Vin's left elbow absorbing most of his weight.

"Jim, don't!"

That was Curly. Ellison's instincts seem to have mirrored Vin's, with similar results. Ellison hit the ground with a hiss of pain, his cane impacting the pavement with a sharp crack.

Chris scanned the region the shot had come from. Nothing. Then a blare of horns from near the vehicle exit. Chris might be able to catch him, but pursuit on foot was probably not the course of action with the highest probability of success, and they had a man down. He pulled his cell phone from its case on his belt and dialed 9-1-1. "Did anyone see him? What was he driving?" he asked while he waited the gaping seconds it took for his call to go through.

"He was on foot," grated Ellison between whispered curses. "I don't think he had a car nearby."

Like Ellison would have any way of knowing. The call went through finally, and Chris reported that they had a cop down and asked to be patched through to airport security. That was going to take a minute or two to go through, he wagered. Holding his cell between his ear and shoulder, he knelt and helped Vin untangle himself from Farnum and roll the injured man onto his back without breaking the hold that Sandburg had already established on Farnum's left side. It looked like the bullet had passed just below Farnum's rib cage; by the placement of Sandburg's hands, it looked like there were both entrance and exit wounds. A blessing and a curse. And, damn, Vin'd been missed by inches at most.

As soon as he had some freedom of motion, Vin rose to kneeling and took hold of Farnum's hands, gently but firmed keeping them from disturbing Sandburg's pressure hold. "Let me out of these cuffs so that I can GET that son-of-a-bitch! Chris! You've got to make them let me go after him!"

"Who was it? Do you know it was?" Chris asked.

"Eli Joe! Let me after him!"

The patch to DIA security finally came through then, and Chris requested whatever medical staff was on hand, then asked that all cars leaving airport lots be checked. It sounded like they actually had procedures in place, wonders of wonders. If he'd been Vassiconelli, though, he'd have parked illegally up on Pena St. That was really the only good way out of the airport that didn't require crossing a runway, but someone fast could probably be gone by the time DIA security had a checkpoint up and running.

Chris placed another quick call to the state police demanding help, for all the good it would do. He had no idea what Vassiconelli would be driving. "You. Sandburg. What state does Vassiconelli live in?" Maybe they could at least take a guess at Vassiconelli's plates, assuming the bastard was too dumb to not use his own car.

Sandburg glanced up, his hands still pressing into Farnum. He looked terrified. "I don't know. He sounds like he's from the south somewhere."

"Course he does, you dumb..." Vin stopped himself and took a deep breath. "He's from Texas, just like me. That's what we had in common, why we were friends..."

Sandburg nodded. "He's not such a bad guy when you first meet him. Until he starts shooting people."

Ellison was now up and leaning against a handy Skylark, absently waving a gawking family of five past. "What can I do to help?"

"Don't try to get down here, you'd never get back up again," said Sandburg. He glanced to look Farnum squarely in the eyes and said, "Vin and I've got Bob covered, right? 'Til the pros get here."

Ellison nodded. "Security EMTs should be here within the minute. The ambulance is..." and then Chris heard the siren too and Ellison shrugged. "Maybe three minutes away."

As good a guess as any. "Let me get Vin unhooked here. He won't go anywhere." A statement; the time for chasing Vassiconelli on foot had long passed. Ellison nodded, handing over the key to the cuffs, and Chris knelt down and unfastened both rings, then slid his jacket under Farnum's head.

"Thanks, cowboy," Vin murmured, still concentrating on keeping Farnum calm. "Stay still, Bob."

Then two men and a women wearing DIA insignia were there. Blair and Vin both quickly rose out of their way. "Oh, God..." Sandburg whispered.

"Not here," said Ellison curtly and Sandburg nodded.

Vin leaned against the Buick on Ellison's other side, shaking out his right hand. "I hate those things. I don't know how I'm..." He shook his head hard. "Chris, you should have let me go after him."

"We'll get him," said Chris with no conviction whatsoever. The ambulance arrived; and, from the sound of it, there was a pile of equipment outside the garage.

Farnum was quickly stabilized for transport; Ellison and Sandburg spoke to him briefly as he was being slid into the ambulance, then rejoined Chris and Vin.

"Either of you that guy's buddy?" Chris asked.

Ellison and Sandburg both shook their heads. "I know him from around the station," said Ellison. "New to Cascade. Good guy."

Sandburg took a deep breath. "Should we try to beat the ambulance?"

"Don't worry, they'll know he's a cop, they'll take good care of him," said Chris.

"So, we're missing our flight," drawled Vin.

"Yeah," said Sandburg. "Listen, Vin - I really, really, REALLY thought that you'd shot that guy. Jesse Kincaid. I really did."

"Yeah, I know," said Vin. "I don't blame you. Eli Joe, he's real good at being slime."

"But, you know, I'm not usually this dumb," said Sandburg.

"You did good there, with Farnum," Vin offered.

And Sandburg accepted. "I hope it was good enough."

Great, the kids were friends now. Break out the Pokemon cards, power up the gameboys. "Want to head over to the hospital?"

+ + + + + + +

Blair really would have liked a nice, quiet place to have a mini nervous breakdown. But they'd already returned their rental, and leaving Jim white-lipped with pain so that he could dart off to the little boys room and try hard not to cry for five minutes - well, that just wasn't going to happen.

Getting Jim somewhere quiet, so that they could do some breathing exercises or something - that's what he should be working on. But Jim had torpedoed that idea instantly.

So now he and Vin were in the back of Larabee's Suburan, headed toward Mercy General. "Done this before?" Vin asked.

For a second Blair was confused. "Oh, the shot-cop thing? A time or three. Actually, the last time was really bad." He swallowed. "Did, uh, the Klaus Zeller mess make the news here?"

Vin's eyes widened. "That was y'all?"

"Two of our best friends were... Simon... it was pretty awful." Shit, you'd think he'd be able to talk about this by now. "Nobody we knew died, but Zeller killed a pawn shop owner, just to fake his own death." Blair paused. "He got Jim at the very end. Jim chased him to the top of the station with a bullet in his leg."

"I've been hurt worse. It's no big deal," put in Jim from the front seat.

"It wouldn't be, you just won't stay off it," Blair said. Or at least, that was the party line.

"I'd be doing fine if Blair hadn't brought home that homicidal lunatic," said Jim.

"Like you've never brought one home!"

"Not in ages," said Jim, turning and smiling. "Relax, Sandburg. The shot Farnum took wasn't bad, you got most of the bleeding stopped by the time the paramedics even got there."

That's not what was bothering Blair. Well, a little. He'd gone through about half a roll of paper towels, cleaning himself up after real help had arrived. But keeping it together in the breech and getting things right were two different things. He was sitting next to a guy that he'd almost put in prison. Might yet put in prison.

+ + + + + + +

Farnum was already being prepped for some patch-up surgery by the time they got to the hospital. The Cascade contingent wanted to hang around, but Chris felt equally anxious to get to the office and see what the locals were doing about tracking Vassiconelli down.

"You can just hand-cuff me to a chair," Vin suggested.

"Naw, you get to be my shadow for rest of the day," Chris answered.

Blair Sandburg - who had somehow stopped being 'Curly' over the course of the morning's events - looked up from the newspaper he'd scrounged. "He's going to take off after Eli Joe."

"Shit, that's not..." Vin started, but Chris realized Sandburg was right.

"Tanner, you know how precarious... it's my neck on the line too, if you do anything stupid."

"He could come HERE, Larabee," Vin snapped, then looked away. "He's been hunting me for years. Almost found me once, when I was at Camp Benning, except my buddies played dumb and showed him a picture of this black dude and said that was me. I can guarantee, now that he knows where I am, he won't stop until one of us is dead."

Chris didn't know how to respond to that. Assuring Vin that he'd keep him safe would just be patronizing; and, anyway, Vin didn't seem afraid, just prepared for a fight. Not bloodthirsty, just ready, willing, and able. Well, that's why he'd hired Vin, right? Of course, there was a lot more to Vin than that, but Chris couldn't deny it was a part of him.

Then Vin surprised him. "But I swear, Chris, I don't want to kill him," he said. "I want to get him in the law's hands, get him to testify to the fact that it was him that shot that cashier. He's the only person aside from me that knows what really happened."

"He sounds like a bargain-basement Klaus Zeller," Sandburg said, after a beat.

"You really think he'd ever tell the truth?" Chris asked.

"Don't know," said Vin. "He has to."

Sandburg barked a laugh. '"Ve haf vays...' Yeah, right. Not in Cascade. But maybe you guys SHOULD get out of here..." and he looked at Ellison, who was sitting a couple of chairs away, staring at who-knew-what down a side hall. "Jim?"

Ellison sighed and rubbed his left thigh. "Ugh, yeah. Larabee, you've got a team, right?"

Chris nodded, wondering where this was going.

"I think keeping an eye on Vin and watching out for Vassiconelli is too much for anyone, but if your whole team was on the job then you might be okay. So I'd be fine with handing Tanner off to you and your team until we figure out when we're heading home, as long as you're primarily in charge of him. I'd like to meet them first, lay down the ground rules."

And size them up, presumably. Chris wasn't happy - didn't like having Ellison telling him what to do, or how to manage his men, or pulling them away from what they were being paid to do - but, honestly, he suspected that they were all having low-productivity days anyway.

VII.

Chris Larabee's team didn't look too shabby, though Jim reserved full judgment on such things until he saw people at work in the field. After all, who would have guessed that Joel and Blair would click so well, or that he and the formidable Megan Connor would be a mobile disaster-in-the-making?

Chris's second-in-command (near as Jim could tell), Buck Wilmington, screamed 'good cop.' Probably good with victims, bright enough to figure things out at least occasionally, and big enough to intimidate the susceptible. Not anyone really worth intimidating, but Jim supposed that was Larabee's job.

Or maybe Josiah Sanchez's. Jim couldn't get a good read of the man; there was a certain - mellowness? - about him, but Jim had long since learned that this sort of air need not indicate a lack of either intelligence or intensity. Jim had been puzzled enough that he'd focused in on Sanchez's vitals, and counted out a heart rate of 45 to 50 beats a minute. So the man was either in excellent physical condition or a Buddhist monk. Maybe both, with their luck.

Next to Sanchez, Nathaniel Jackson seemed an open book. Which didn't necessarily mean he wasn't without his depths, but in Jim's experience, with men like Nate Jackson you got what you saw. Jackson had quizzed Blair about Farnum's injury like he knew what he was talking about, and Chris had encouraged him to take a look at Vin's elbow, so he probably had a decent amount of emergency medical training.

Ezra Standish - well, Chris couldn't tell much about him, but nothing screamed dangerous, incompetent, or unmanageable.

Which left JD Dunne, the youngest-looking, youngest-acting twenty-two-year-old (he had to be at least twenty-two or twenty-three, right?) that Jim had ever seen. At first, Dunne had mostly hovered around Tanner, asking if he was okay, if he needed a Coke or some coffee or something. Then somehow he'd figured out who Blair was - he'd even seen the press conference, it seemed. He started quizzing Sandburg about anthropology and Richard Burton, stuff that he thought Blair would never want to talk to anyone about ever again. Especially not to some stranger who knew about what had gone down the previous month, who would have no reason to think that Blair was anything but an academic fraud. But Blair seemed to really be enjoying the conversation, and, after a bit, Standish and Sanchez had been drawn in, giving Sandburg an intelligent and inquisitive audience.

The lot of them certainly looked up to keeping a lid on Vin Tanner, and Jim would have given Larabee the okay to take Tanner after fifteen or twenty minutes, but Blair seemed to be thoroughly enjoying talking with Larabee's men, and Blair had had little enough in his life recently that gave him pleasure.

And yes, he knew whose fault that was.

After a spell, a surgeon came out and reported that, as Jim already knew, Farnum had come through surgery without any complications, but was still groggy from the anesthesia. Well enough for him to go see for a minute, though. Blair flashed him a look - did Jim want company? He shook his head, then followed the surgeon down a bright, stinking corridor to tell Farnum he'd done good (because that was what he was supposed to say) and that he'd be back later to check on him.

That done, there really was no sense in everyone continuing to hang around; time to lay down some ground rules and let Chris and his men take off.

Vin had joined the cluster around Blair and was describing the morning's shooting - what he'd seen, how he'd completely forgotten the cuff he'd just had put on seconds earlier. Probably hadn't wanted to tell anything but the facts he'd relayed to the local officers on the scene until Farnum had been patched up.

"So it was definitely Vassiconelli?" asked Standish.

"Oh, yeah."

"But you haven't seen him in several decades," said Sanchez.

"Only got a glimpse of him before he rounded the corner, but I recognized his gait."

"Wonder if that would be as distinctive as a fingerprint?" mused Standish. "Mr. Dunne, do you think you could write a program that could recognize people by how they walked?"

"I don't...."

And Jim had to laugh, because he knew that the military and civilian intelligence agencies were putting millions of dollars into that sort of project. But, sure, let Chris's kid agent take a crack, why not?

"If your identification can be corroborated, Vassiconelli's credibility will be further diminished, which can only help you," said Ezra.

Sanchez nodded. "All the security feeds from the region are being examined, and there are some decent recent photos of Vassiconelli, I understand."

"And Jim and I can identify him from tapes too," said Blair.

"Still, that Vassiconelli is dangerous now doesn't negate the original attestations against Vin in the shooting of Kincaid," said Standish.

"But - there's more evidence!" said Blair suddenly.

And now, everyone was looking at him.

"We have to find my bike."

Vin looked aghast. "You want it NOW?"

Blair shook his head. "What we need is the gun I saw Vin carrying. The murder weapon was found at the crime scene, confirmed by ballistics tests. We find the gun Vin had, we have plausible support for Vin's two-gun story."

Crime scene, not 'that day' or 'in the store' or something? Interesting, how Blair was compartmentalizing.

"I bet someone's already thought of that," Jim said. "Finding a - what did you say it was, Vin, a Ruger revolver? - somewhere along 200 miles of highway..."

"Is completely impossible," Blair finished. "But, Vin says he dumped it at the same time as my bike. And you don't have to be searching every inch of ground to find an old Huffy."

"You might have to be pretty close," said Vin, "I hid the bike in some brush. And the gun... I didn't put it right with the bike. But, I bet if I found the bike, I could find the gun." He swallowed. "Damn, you're right. I bet I could find the bike. If I looked long enough. But... it could take, I don't know, weeks, months to find it. I don't have that kind of time. And I don't think they'll let me out to look."

"Seven men could cover a lot more territory than just one," said Sanchez.

"Damn right," said Buck Wilmington.

Chris Larabee had stood and moved next to Jim. "Think we have a plan forming here," he said softly. "Speak now, if you think your department would veto a search outright."

Jim shrugged. "I can talk to my captain. He's a decent man and pulls a lot of weight."

"What, are we going - what? Camping? All of us?" asked Dunne.

"My lad, there are hotels in the fine state of Washington," said Standish. "You may sleep where you wish, but I prefer recently-laundered sheets."

"Airing out a sleeping bag in the sunlight can be as hygienic," said Nate Jackson.

"I'd be happy to act as a native guide," said Blair.

And then they were all looking at Chris. "I'll call Judge Travis, see what has to be done on our end," he said.

"A good place to start," Jim acknowledged.

VIII.

Blair could fix this. He really could. Not completely, you never got back anything completely, but with just a bit of luck...

Waiting around a hospital was never fun, but it was a lot less horrible when nobody was close to dying, the bad guy seemed more stupid than anything, and you had a shot at making nearly everything all right.

It was great about Bob. He probably wouldn't be using the rotary torso machine in the HQ gym for a while, but there was no reason to think he wouldn't make a full recovery. The doc had even said he could be released the next day, and able to fly immediately if he felt up to it, provided he was checked out by his own doctor in Cascade upon arrival.

Chris and his men had dispersed pretty quickly after Jim gave the okay for them to assume custody of Vin, in part to find out whether there was any precedent for the sort of search they wanted to conduct. At around 4 p.m., Chris Larabee and Vin Tanner reappeared to check up on Farnum and offer them a ride somewhere. Right, they had no car. No bed for the night, either, though that was the sort of thing which was pretty solvable.

A quick phone call got them a night at the Holiday Inn nearest the airport; might as well stay someplace with a courtesy van, though they hadn't yet decided whether they'd leave the next day or wait with Bob in case he wasn't up to traveling right away. Jim collected his cane and the four of them started back to the hospital garage, matching their pace to Jim's. A bit of a reversal after years of being left in Jim's dust.

Coming out of the elevator on the garage's third level, Jim stopped short and hissed, "He's here!"

Vin took off. Of course. Blair sprinted after him and reached Larabee's Suburban a second behind Vin. Nobody was in sight.

Chris Larabee trotted up. "Was Vassiconelli coming or going?"

"Don't know," replied Vin.

Jim, leaning heaving on his can again, rounded the corner. "Don't touch your vehicle!"

"Believe it or not, Ellison, they don't give you a lobotomy when you join the ATF," Larabee said, sounding more amused than anything.

"Well, why should you guys be different than the FBI?" Jim responded.

Jim circled the vehicle slowly, looking and sniffing. Blair wondered whether Jim could BE more obvious, but Larabee and Tanner didn't comment. "It's not explosives," Jim said. "And I don't smell brake fluid."

"No puddle," said Tanner. "They don't blind us when we join up, neither."

"Maybe he was just planning on ambushing us," said Blair.

"Fits his MO," agreed Jim.

Still, Larabee insisted the others stay back a ways when he started up. No boom.

So the question became, what should they do next? Suddenly staying in a motel didn't seem to be in the best interest of public safety.

"What about the ranch?" Vin suggested.

"I was planning on asking a few of the boys to come out, keep us company overnight," said Chris. "It'd be pretty crowded."

"Cowboy, I trust you to get out of town without a tail, assuming Vassiconelli hasn't figured out where you live already, but, come on, BUCK? Or JD? Or the two of them driving together? Or Josiah, if he gets into his CD?"

"Point taken," said Chris.

"You really live on a ranch?" asked Blair.

Jim shot him his 'you're embarrassing me' look, but asked, "You mind a few more houseguests? Wouldn't make you uneasy to have the prosecution's star witness under your roof?"

Larabee laughed. "Maybe, but I was thinking of sticking y'all out in the barn."

"Barn??" And now Blair realized he probably did sound like an eight-year-old.

"It's neat," said Vin. "From the loft, you can surveil out these cracks for miles. Much better than the house for that sort of thing."

In the end, Jim took one look at the ladder heading up to the loft and shook his head. "I might get up that thing, but I'd kill myself getting down, particularly if I was in any sort of a hurry. Chris, do you have room for all of us inside?"

"It's okay, Blair and I will stay out here," said Vin. Sounded great to Blair.

"No way in hell," said Jim.

Right, Jim. "What's he going to do, push me over the edge? Put a pitchfork through my stomach? STRANGLE me?"

Blair turned to Vin. "Sure, let's camp out out here. It'll give us a chance to connect, like we should've back then."

Jim scowled, but turned and headed for the house.

+ + + + + + +

Company for dinner at least meant that Chris was able to clear some things out of the refrigerator before heading out of town. Afterwards, the kids - somehow, Blair Sandburg kept bringing out the juvenile in Vin - loaded up on munchies and sleeping gear for their slumber party out in the barn.

Before they headed out the door, Ellison drew Sandburg aside. Obviously not caring that Chris was but a few feet away, he said, "Be alert, chief. And I don't mean for Vassiconelli."

"You'd be having a fit if you didn't think Vin was innocent," said Blair. "I trust your instincts."

"Yeah, well, remember our track record."

Blair nodded. "Gotcha," he said.

+ + + + + + +

To Vin's disappointment, Chris had already had Yosemite Smith come and get the horses. But their smell was - well, it defined the space, you might say.

Blair took a deep breath. "Wow, this is pretty intense. Jim would have been miserable spending the night out here, even if he could have handled the ladder."

Vin perched at one of the half-foot-wide slits that faced toward the main road some 200 yards away. Between several stands of trees and the uneven terrain, only a bit of road was visible, it turned out, though the view of the hills beyond was impressive, for all the good that did them. "Eli Joe comes in without lights, we'll never see him once it's full dark," he said.

"Think we'd hear a car?"

A pickup truck passed silently into and out of view, its lights already on. "That'd be a 'no'," said Vin, staying put at the slit.

"Then lets hope he hasn't been able to trace Chris," said Blair.

"Took him long enough to find me," said Vin with a shrug. "I think, if your - if Ellison was really worried, he'd be the guy keeping watch, ladder or no ladder."

Blair nodded, conceding the point.

"What - how ARE you and that guy connected, anyhow? You're not with the Cascade PD, right? You're some sort of student?"

"Yeah, well, not anymore. I was working on my doctorate at Rainier," said Blair. "I was researching the culture of urban police departments and Jim let me tag along with him."

"So you've known him a couple of months?"

"Sort of. I started in, uh, 1996."

"And you rode along for a spell?"

"Actually, I've never really stopped, though Jim's been on desk duty since getting shot."

"Some ride-along," said Vin.

"Yeah."

"So you're, whatchacallit, writing things up now?"

Blair shook his head. "Things sort of went to hell with grad school, with all that mess last month you saw in the media. I'm thinking of joining the force."

"Huh." Sandburg didn't look like a cop, and even less like Ellison. "Pardon me for saying this, but I can't see you and Ellison riding together for a couple of years without killing each other."

Blair chuckled. "It's been mostly good, really. Jim's just having a rough time right now. He's always healed really quickly, but the bullet did some real damage, and Jim won't stay off it long enough to let it heal properly."

Vin nodded and refocused on the road.

"No, really," Blair said behind him. "Jim's a great guy. He's not always so..."

"Seems like a pain in the ass to me." And, he had to say it. "Don't think I could work with him."

Blair laughed. "Actually, he's okay with the long-haired look. Just wishes my hair wouldn't clog the drains."

Did that mean, what? Sandburg and Ellison lived together? "I took over his spare room just after I started my field work," said Blair, not waiting for Vin to figure out how to form the question. "My old place blew up, and it ended up being really convenient, what with the hours Jim keeps."

A great way of answering "no" without Vin having to ask. Still, Vin had to say it. "You know, you have other options. If you, you know, don't want to keep, uh, the spare room thing going. Might not look so from the inside, but it's always true."

"Vin, look at me," said Blair, and so he did, wondering if he was going to get punched. "I'm not an abused lover, I'm a long-suffering best friend. There's a difference."

Vin nodded. "Okay, we're square," he said.

"And I'm not alone with the hard-ass friend," said Blair. "Larabee seems like he could be a challenge."

"True enough," said Vin, chuckling. "He tries, though. But I wouldn't really call him a friend." Well, actually, he would. "More like, I'm trying to be a friend, but it ain't always clear he has much room for them."

"He seems pretty tight with Wilmington," Blair observed.

"More like, Buck's tight with him," said Vin. "Chris, he just doesn't trust Buck not to screw up the big stuff."

"Really? And does Buck?"

"Not that I've ever noticed," said Vin.

"Jim, he's got his trust issues too," said Blair. "It's what it all comes down to, I think. He has a hard time believing people aren't going to stab him in the back."

"Happen a lot?"

"Enough," said Blair. "And we aren't always on the same page, so there's times he goes all, well, insecure. And then there's no talking to him until whatever we're working on settles down."

"No talking?" He'd only known Sandburg, what, two days? But he couldn't imagine him quiet.

"Okay, so I keep at him. Because silence isn't what he needs."

"Doesn't seem right, that it's all about what he needs," said Vin.

"It isn't, always. And I was going for my degree, right? So I've had external motivation."

"But now, the degree, it's not going to happen, right?"

Blair sighed. "It's complicated."

"But it comes down to, you told the truth and you got screwed."

"Truth? No way, man, I made the whole thing up."

"Like I said earlier, they don't blind us when we join up."

"I'm not going to say that Jim isn't very good at what he does. I never said that he doesn't use everything when he's doing his job. But he doesn't have any super powers or anything. There's nothing he does that I couldn't do, if I had the focus and training."

Yeah, and Vin was a closet mathematician. "You sure you're looking all your options?"

"For the last time. We're not a couple. I'm not doing anything I don't want to be doing. And I'm profoundly grateful that Jim is out here with me, and has thrown himself behind trying to get this whole thing with you and Eli Joe straightened out. It didn't have to be him traveling with me and Farnum, but it WOULDN'T have been anyone else, ever."

Okay, they were definitely a couple, but a couple of WHAT, that was the question.

+ + + + + + +

Chris Larabee considered himself a pretty decent chess player - he'd never bothered with the USCF rating system in years, but that was because he'd just been too busy to play the right games against the right people when he'd had a family, and these past few years it hadn't seemed worth the bother.

Ellison mopped up the board with him.

The first time, well, Chris wasn't really paying attention and then he'd lost his queen and a rook in rapid succession. That didn't work as an excuse for the second game. Damn, but he was rusty.

"Play a lot?" Chris asked as he put the pieces in their box on top of the folded board. Where was his good, wooden set, anyway?

"Some. Mostly against Sandburg."

"Really? You spend off time with him?"

Jim looked incredulous. "We've shared a condo for a couple of years. It would be hard not to spend time with him!"

"You two just don't seem very close."

Ellison sat up even straighter than before. "I'd say he's like a brother to me, that would be completely inadequate."

Chris shrugged. "It just looked like he bugged the hell out of you, and I could sort of see how."

Like he'd expected, this got a rise out of Ellison. "Did you SEE how he reacted this morning?" he close to hissed. "Who could have done better?"

"Then what's the problem?" Chris asked.

"Who says there's a problem?"

"I heard you warning him to be careful of Vin before they headed out to the barn. That just sounded a bit..." 'Patronizing', but he didn't know Ellison well enough to say it.

"You wouldn't have done the same for one of your men?"

"Wouldn't have had to."

"You wouldn't have had reservations about a friend, then, going out there with a guy who he might end up putting away for murder?"

Chris tried to imagine Buck, or Vin for that matter, being in a similar position. "I probably couldn't get away with being so obvious."

Jim laughed. "Blair and I stopped worrying about stomping on each other's feelings long ago."

As he had stopped worrying about offending Buck. But he didn't take it as a sign of closeness on their part. He also didn't worry too much about being frank with Vin, but that was more because Vin didn't force him to be any other way.

+ + + + + + +

Blair got tired of staring into the dark before Vin did. "Think we should trade off keeping watch?" he asked.

Vin shook his head. "If I need to, I can sleep light. Since we'll hear Eli Joe before we see him, I don't think we need to keep doing this." But he didn't budge from his crevice.

So Blair kept on looking. For, maybe, 20 seconds. "Promise, no pitchforks in the gut?"

"Don't want to get on the bad side of Jim Ellison," said Vin.

"Smart move," said Blair. He drank a swig of water, punched his pillow twice, pulled up the light polyester blanket he'd claimed out of Chris's linen closest, and sank into sleep.

He woke up twice during the night, both times from Vin talking to someone below. The first time, it was Larabee, and Blair played possum. The second time it was Jim, and Blair threw some hay down as his contribution to the conversation.

IX.

Vin and Blair stumbled in from the barn just after 7, looking, well, like they'd spent the night in a barn, tracking in dirt and hay and helping themselves to most of the pot of coffee Chris had going. Soon after came the call from Mary. Judge Travis, with very little convincing, had decided that doing a thorough search for the revolver Blair had seen on Vin was worth facilitating.

Still no word from Cascade, but it was still very early there.

Everyone seemed to be taking their time getting in their showers and getting going, and they were still home when Ellison took a call on Chris's home line from his boss. It seemed the Cascade prosecutor's office would give the operation its blessing, if not, precisely, its support, given what was at stake, who and what Vin Tanner was, and the reputations of the people in Denver would vouch for him.

Which meant that Chris had about three high-priority and seven back-burner projects to try to put on some kind of hold, if they were all going.

As they were heading out the door, they had one more call, from Buck offering to coordinate getting together camping gear. Sure, Buck, it beats working.

So they were on the road for the office about two hours later than normal.

A veritable photo album was waiting for them when they finally made it upstairs. Pictures off of security feeds of a tall guy with sunken eyes and long, straight, unkempt hair; in one he had what looked like a pistol, probably a semi-automatic of some sort.

"That looks like Eli Joe," said Blair.

Any other man would have agreed, thought Chris, but Vin shook his head. "I recognized him yesterday, and this is the man I saw, but I'd never get that it was him off of these."

"It's the man who visited us Sunday," said Jim. At Blair's nod, he continued, "We'd both testify to that."

"And here he is!" said Blair, sifting through to a recent mug shot of Vassiconelli.

"Man, he looks like shit," said Vin.

"His life hasn't been easy," said Blair.

"Whose life is?" asked Jim.

"Hey, I'm not defending the guy," said Blair. "Just - you know, he's only a year or two older than me, and he could be YOUR age, Jim."

Ellison did not deign to react.

"You think it's the life he's leading, or who he is?" asked Vin.

"The physical or the spiritual, you mean?" Blair thought a minute. "I've seen baby-faced executives who've done a whole lot more damage than Vassiconelli."

"Yeah, but in his case - if he hadn't decided to pull that robbery, would he be a totally different person? Body and soul."

"It wasn't a robbery," said Blair. "Nothing was stolen."

Vin slapped down the picture and looked at Chris. "That true?"

Chris had no idea.

"Shit," said Vin.

 

Toward noon, Chris sent Josiah off with Ellison to Mercy General to help spring Bob Farnum, and they ended up putting him on a flight back to Cascade. Ezra and Nate spent the time officially in charge of Vin, meaning they did paperwork while Vin and Blair poured over Mapquest and paper maps of Washington State.

By 5, it seemed like they were in pretty good shape. With Travis's assistance, all of their active cases that couldn't be put on hold for an indefinite period had been at least temporarily reassigned. Buck had figured out who had what equipment and worked out what vehicles they should take (Chris's Suburban, Buck's F150, Josiah's Audi). Vin and Blair had worked out a tentative plan of attack, figuring it made the most sense to start at the convenience store and work southeastward.

It looked like things were a go.

- - - - -

Jim felt the need to hunt down Vas almost as a physical itch, but the logistics of keeping Vin Tanner under his and Chris Larabee's mutual custody meant that his mobility was somewhat limited. Somewhat MORE limited. His leg injury was a constant source of irritation, the reduction in his capabilities it caused always a surprise.

Mid-afternoon, coming back from depositing Bob Farnum at Denver International, he'd followed Josiah Sanchez up the three flights of stairs to Chris Larabee's suite of offices. He was supposed to be exercising, right? But on the last turn he'd done something to the knee of his good leg, probably because his balance was so thrown off by favoring the other, and he'd had to steady himself against the wall a second before coming through the fire door and onto the floor. Blair had noticed something was wrong pretty quickly, but Jim'd waved him off and Blair had contented himself with plopping three aspirin and a bottle of water on the desk closest to where Jim had collapsed. Jackson's desk? Yeah, based on the pictures and the emergency medical and anatomy texts on the shelf above.

He should have pulled himself together and joined Blair and Vin, but moving the 20 feet to where they'd spread out seemed - just too much. And anyway, someone should be standing guard. Yeah, that's what he was doing. If Vassiconelli did a Sunrise Patriots he'd be ready.

He woke up to Chris Larabaee saying, "So, gentlemen, want to hit the road tonight? We can get to Salt Lake if we push it a little."

The gist of the ensuing discussion was that most of Larabee's team had a few personal loose ends to attend to first, but that starting the drive that evening was possible.

It took two hours for the ATF agents to do what they had to do and reconvene in the parking lot. Jim didn't like being in the open like this, with Larabee and his men and Blair all focused on moving equipment between vehicles, laughing and calling across the lot to each other. But, no, not all of them were oblivious to their surroundings; Vin Tanner had positioned himself between Larabee's Suburban and another SUV and was carefully scanning the area. When his gaze came to Jim he smiled slightly and Jim nodded back. Yeah, between the two of them, they had things covered pretty well, though only Jim was armed.

Then they were off. Jim took the front seat of Larabee's Suburban when offered, even knowing that it would be his badge if Vin got away from them out a rear door at some traffic light. But Blair, sharing the backseat with Vin, was probably more of a flight risk. Never knew when Sandburg was going to find a kitten in distress and jump out of a speeding vehicle or off the side of a speedboat or something. Larabee's other men fit into Buck Wilmington's F150 crew cab and Josiah Sanchez's sedan. Quite the little convoy.

They didn't make it to Utah. Though Rt. 80 was blessedly flat, Jim found being a passenger nauseating, and the knee he'd done something to earlier was hurting worse than the gunshot wound. He was sure he didn't betray anything, but he knew that when Blair, claiming a headache, started campaigning to find a motel for the night an hour past Laramie, it was on Jim's behalf.

They ended up finding a Motel 6 in Rock Springs, distributing themselves into four doubles; how they managed to handle the math, Jim didn't bother to find out. Larabee and his men worked out a schedule of 2-hour paired watches, to officially document custody of Tanner and, more importantly, to watch for signs of Vassiconelli; Jim only became aware that Blair was part of the rotation when his wristwatch alarm chimed at 1 a.m. "You aren't armed," Jim protested.

"Neither is Vin," said Blair.

"Who'd you get paired up with?" With any luck, Jackson or Wilmington.

"Ezra," said Blair.

Oh, great.

"We're going to play cards."

Well, it wasn't like Blair had a lot of capital to lose.

Everyone was refreshingly efficient at getting themselves organized the next morning. By 7:30, they'd all gotten as much nutrition as they could from the continental breakfast and were climbing into their vehicles. They hit a little rush-hour traffic as they neared Salt Lake City, but were well into Idaho by the time they stopped for lunch.

Jim spent the drive dozing and hadn't bothered to get out when they'd stopped for gas earlier. A bad idea; as he rotated out of the Suburban his knee gave out, and he ended up suspended between the seatbelt and the door.

"Shit, Jim, what the hell are you doing?"

Blair held the door stationary long enough for Jim to untangle himself and sink down until he was perched on the lip of the door.

"Lean back," Blair said, and Jim reclined until he was more-or-less in front of the seat. His legs were pulled out, and he let himself be pulled forward again. Not the most secure position, but he didn't have a lot of choice in the matter.

"Is he okay?" That was Larabee. "Should I get Nate?"

"Dunno," said Blair. "Jim? What's wrong?"

"Damn leg..." he managed. "Wouldn't hold my weight."

"Let's try this again," said Blair; and without actually giving his consent Jim was hauled out by the both of them. They supported him a step or three, then his legs seemed to remember what they were for and acquiesced to doing their job. By the time they reached the door of the diner Jim was holding his own pretty well.

"Let's just walk around the building a few times before you sit down again," said Blair, his hand now shifted to the small of Jim's back. A little walk actually seemed like a pretty good idea, though Jim shrugged off the support. Really, now that he was moving he didn't even miss his cane, still in Larabee's Suburban.

During the second lap, Jim caught the glass window of the building at just the right angle and saw straight through, and, well, he was good at not eavesdropping but if he saw lips move it was impossible for him to keep his hearing broadly focused. Josiah Sanchez was saying, "Think he'll make it, Nate?"

And at that point it was hopeless and Nathaniel Jackson's "I don't think it's hurting him any to drive home; probably better, in some ways, than a plane, because it's easier to keep things stretched," might as well have been said to his face.

"But wasn't the shooting a while ago? Like, weeks?" said - yeah, that was Dunne.

"Us old folks don't heal as quickly as you cubs." That was Wilmington. "Right, Nate?"

"Especially if they aren't perfect patients," Jackson replied. "Not that I've ever had the opportunity to deal with one of those." A pause for Larabee's guys to laugh. "I admit, I'm a bit surprised by how much pain he seems to be experiencing."

"Well, we're all agreed that he probably has better hearing and vision than most people." Larabee. "Does anyone remember the details of what the reports were last month? Anything about other senses? It's quite possible that there are big downsides to his... gah, what do you even call something like that? Condition?"

"But... he's a cop!" Dunne again.

"That would be - inconvenient." Ezra now. "I wonder how he experiences sudden bright lights, or a dog whistle."

"We could try..."

But Vin's voice cut Dunne off. "Don't even joke, JD."

Blair shook his arm slightly, finally, mercifully breaking Jim's thread to the conversation. "Ready to go in?"

Not really, but, yeah, he could eat.

"Anything we can do?" Larabee asked them - really, more Blair, and wasn't that just peachy? - as they approached the table.

"Stop every 90 minutes, let him stretch his legs," said Blair.

"Chief..." he started.

"We can manage that," said Larabee.

Even with Blair's idiotic scheduled stops, they made it to Oregon that night. Again, the watch schedule seemed to take form without Jim's input. And, again, everyone was still there in the morning, no thanks to him.

They lunched in Yakima; by late afternoon, they were in the outskirts of Cascade.

X.

Cascade was too warm, too humid, and smelled like fish. But there was no sense of wrongness to the place, and this had Vin stumped. Cascade was where the little sticks he's started to assemble into an okay sort of life had been lit afire. Where Eli Joe Vassiconelli had killed someone, maybe just to make Vin's life hell. And used Blair Sandburg to try to make it stick.

He'd fled this place on a stolen bike with eight bucks in his pocket. Cascade was supposed to wreak of evil.

"Man, it's good to be home," said Blair.

They went straight to the Cascade PD's main headquarters, where Jim and Blair were greeted by just about everyone and where Mary Travis was waiting, having flown out that afternoon. She was smiling, but that didn't mean anything; it was her job to be encouraging.

After being booked quickly and efficiently, several of Cascade's finest gave him a lift to the courthouse, where he signed a copy of the statement he'd given in Denver, and then he was done. Hardly seemed worth Mary's bother to be there; but maybe being lawyered up was why he wasn't warming a bench in the basement.

Coming out of the proceedings, the rest of the guys were waiting, all smiles.

"The locals did some digging," explained Ezra. "They've come up with the serial number of the missing Ruger. That is, assuming it was one of a pair of handguns reported stolen by a Mr. Henry Blake a week before the shooting. The other was the murder weapon."

"So this means nobody's going to think you planted the weapon we're going to find," said Josiah. "Makes life a lot less complicated."

Though it was unlikely that he had enemies in the city jail, it still seemed wise for him to stay out of it, so he accepted the invitation to 'camp out in the loft,' as Blair put it. The going theory seemed to be that Ellison and Sandburg's security system would deter Vassiconelli, eliminating the need for overnight watches, so he and Chris left the rest of the guys to find their own lodging and followed (well, more, drove) Blair and Jim home.

Vin didn't know what to expect. To him, lofts were in barns, like where he and Blair had slept several nights previous. Jim and Blair's place was - well, fashionable. Like someone had put thought into where things went, what pictures hung where. It was the type of place he imagined having some day; well, except that his other fantasy was to chuck it all and live off the land, and the two visions didn't really work together.

Ellison had a lifting easy chair that looked a little out of place; he didn't hesitate to raise it before sitting down, then leaned his head back and audibly sighed as it lowered. This, more than anything - more than the cane, or even the couple of times Vin had seen Ellison's leg fail him - brought home that, damn, the guy was really hurt.

Chris picked up on this too; Chris was like that, often saying what Vin was thinking. "You know, we could wait a few days before heading out," he said.

"No, we can't," said Jim, his eyes still closed. "How long can you justify having your men out here? And I don't like the idea of some gun lying around on the side of a highway. Our best chance for getting this all cleared up is to try to find it now."

"All cleared up?" asked Blair, handing Jim some aspirin and a bottle of water. "Finding the gun won't give Vin an airtight defense, will it?"

"Cleared up as we can get things without Vassiconelli's cooperation," said Chris.

Which would probably have to do for now. Some day, though, he'd somehow get Eli Joe to come clean. Clear his name for good. He had to.

+ + + + + + +

Chris spent an uncomfortable night on Jim Ellison's sofa, and wasn't at all happy to see the rest of his team crowding into the suddenly small apartment just before seven. Though Buck had a steaming cup of coffee in hand for him and a big box of Krispy Kreme donuts; Wilmington seemed to still be enjoying playing scoutmaster.

They decided they'd keep to the three vehicles they'd taken and leave Ellison's truck (which he couldn't drive just then anyway because of the clutch) and Sandburg's vintage Volvo (which Ellison implied was less than reliable) in the city. Ellison and Sandburg managed to have a little argument about this using only their eyebrows, with, as far as he could tell, Sandburg finally convincing Ellison that they could trust Chris and his guys not to drive off and leave them in the middle of nowhere; and that, if they hadn't been trustworthy, they'd be in deep shit no matter how many cars they took.

Chris glanced at Vin; he looked like he'd also managed to follow the conversation, and was grinning. Chris directed him a small nod. I-won't-say-a-thing-if-you-don't.

It wasn't until he'd almost gotten to the minimart where the shooting had occurred, Jim directing him from the passenger's seat again, that Chris really thought about what they were about to do. This wasn't going to be easy for either Vin or Blair.

"Blair, you don't have to do this," said Ellison, turning to talk over the seat.

"We can't start at the beginning unless we start at the beginning, man," said Blair.

There were a couple of cars parked around the store, and the gas pumps were fairly busy with people tanking up for the weekend. A company rep was also waiting for them, who would have to be mollified with assurances that they'd be as quick and discreet as possible.

Hopping out of the Suburban, Chris grabbed Buck. "Deal with the lady, will you?"

Nate was helping Ellison out the passenger seat of the Suburban, something Blair had been doing since Jim had almost landed on his rear on the pavement in Idaho. Vin and Blair were still sitting in the back, staring at the store in front of them.

Vin looked at Blair, then Chris, then back at Blair. "Do this together?" he asked.

"Uh, sure," said Blair.

Emerging slowly, the younger men approached the building at half-speed, Blair looking around some, Vin focusing forward. "It hasn't changed," Blair said.

"You never came back here?" Vin asked.

"Are you crazy?"

Inside, they headed to the soda cases. "You and Eli Joe were..."

"Yeah, and then..."

"You really came back in and looked at the body?" asked Vin.

Blair nodded.

They walked out of the store and Vin looked confused. "Boss, I don't know what sort of tracker this makes me, but I have no idea which way I went after I grabbed Blair's bike."

"That way," said Blair, pointing south-east down a residential side street. "I chased you a little ways along that sidewalk."

"I don't remember that part," said Vin.

"Great," said Buck; he'd pawned the company rep off on Ezra, it looked like. "Let's go!"

Buck clamped Vin on the shoulder, but Vin didn't look like he wanted to be touched just them. "Let him concentrate," Chris said.

Blair trotted back to the Suburban and got out a map but Vin waved it off. "Let's walk a little," Vin said. "I made a few turns at the beginning and I want to see if I can recognize them."

Blair turned and held up a hand, then he and Vin headed in the direction he'd pointed earlier.

"They're doing pretty well," said Jim, leaning heavily on his cane next to Chris now.

Josiah, on the other side of Jim, nodded. "I think having each other helps."

Which might be true. Chris was pretty sure he knew where Blair was drawing the body of his strength from, though. But what about Vin?

Ten minutes later, Vin and Blair were back. "We figured out how Vin must have cut through, then taken Elm to 27," said Blair. "South, probably, from looking at the map. Let's go!"

XI.

Vin couldn't believe he was stumped already, looking out the window of the Suburban from Elm St.'s little bit of gravel shoulder. He was positive he'd hit Rt. 27 here, but had he gone left or right? North or south?

Yeah, it had been dark. And he'd been scared - frantic - but that wasn't an excuse. He hadn't been eight, he'd been almost fifteen, hunched to fit on that too-small bike. Just trying to get away...

He'd have avoided lights. The construction to the south, a couple of fast food places with drive-thru windows, a highish-end liquor store, looked new. They probably hadn't been there back in '82. But the warehouse to the north of the intersection looked like it dated from the 50's, or even before, with its glass-brick almost-windows. He'd probably have turned right and headed south, away from the warehouse. Yeah, and that way he wouldn't have had to cross any traffic.

Two miles down, 27 hit the highway, which seemed about right. But the exit had clearly been redone recently, and Vin had no idea whether he'd gone east and hit 90 or more south. Hell, he wasn't even sure it was 90 he'd ended up on, just like he couldn't really say whether he'd gone five miles or 50.

Buck produced a quidditch team's worth of metal detectors. "This is what we came for," he said brightly. "Let's get on it!"

It took a while to figure out the best configuration for searching. Jim and Vin were both forced to stay with the vehicles; Jim simply couldn't handle walking far on uneven terrain, and suspicion would shadow any discovery by Vin, especially if it turned out it wasn't the Ruger revolver that Eli Joe was suspected of having stolen.

Chris and Josiah ended up walking along the edge of the asphalt mostly, trying to get a wide-angle view of the land. Vin found himself accompanying one or the other of them, pointing out the sorts of places he might have dumped his bike.

Tramping through the undergrowth fell to Buck, JD, and Blair on one side of the highway and Nate, Josiah, and Ezra on the other. Ezra appointed himself to medium strips, saying, "Let me verify there's nothing over here but dead armadillos." Ezra was a strange one sometimes.

Josiah answered, "Neutral men are the devil's allies." Which didn't really make any sense either.

Jim moved the Suburban when the searchers got out of sight, and Ezra and Blair made a game out of racing to see which of them could get to Josiah's Audi first, the looser making a big show of cursing his fate at being stuck with Buck's F150, a truck Vin personally would have been happy to call his.

Chris, Jim, and Josiah silently handed custody of Vin around, like he was given to falling into holes or something. Vin was surprised how, well, content, this made him feel.

They covered about a mile an hour like this. Lunch was food out of a gas station off the first exit he came to. Vin knew he'd gotten further than this that night, but Chris and Jim both told him that they wouldn't get anything out of not being thorough. After lunch, they went back to where they'd started and worked the other direction.

A couple of the guys ran out for dinner and came back with burgers and fries, and they kept on looking until sundown. Just as it got too dim to continue, they got to the point where the highway hit the bay. He hadn't wanted to totally eliminate the possibility that he'd gone north, but seeing in person how close the road got to the water, he knew he'd have remembered if he'd ridden there, no matter how dark it was. So they must have been on the right track before lunch. Six hours wasted, and they weren't even out of Cascade proper yet.

The next day, after another night with him and Chris staying at Jim & Blair's place and the rest of the guys back at their motel, they drove a little down another highway that there was a chance he could have found himself on, but it wasn't divided, and Vin was sure he'd been on something big at first, something with shoulders so wide that he hadn't really given any thought to the traffic. So they turned around (again) and went back to where they'd had lunch the day before. They covered 20 miles that day and got well into Cascade National Forest; far enough that they decided to camp out at a family-sized basic amenity drive-up site, if only to use all the gear that Buck had rounded up. Was cheaper for the guys, too; nobody had really said anything about it, but Vin knew that everyone was paying his own way, and they'd been on the road a while.

It was nice, being out in the woods with the guys. Buck and Nate turned out to both be good camp cooks. JD, a city kid, had never been camping, and after dinner and cigars (supplied by Buck), Ezra and Josiah took turns telling ghost stories. It was funny, these men who could probably tell tales that would make Steven King pale, telling stories about the little old lady who got chased home by a haunted pair of pants and such. But JD was eating it up.

They stayed up probably later than they should, and were late putting out the fire. With the last hiss, though, Vin heard - something.

So did Ellison. He was standing at the entrance to the tent he was going to share with Blair, turning his head slowly, open to whatever was out there.

"See anything?" Vin whispered, moving to his side as noiselessly as he knew how.

"Maybe," Ellison mouthed, holding up a hand for silence.

Now everyone else was watching him too, or looking out into the woods themselves. But the two or three lanterns they had going, though meager, produced enough light to make the woods surrounding them impenetrable to their eyes. Josiah, probably realizing this, moved to extinguish them, but Jim said, "Don't bother. I think I'm seeing things."

"If you're seeing them, I'm hearing them," said Vin. "Nothing now, though."

JD sighed. "Guess this means we're standing watches again."

Buck chuckled. "Let's take the first shift, junior. Have you ever heard the story about the tell-tale heart?"

+ + + + + + +

They only made ten miles the next day. In all likelihood, if the gun was out there, it was here, Vin was almost certain, and the guys seemed determined to not miss it. That night, they went back to the campsite they'd used the night before. Not the best move in terms of security, but it wasn't like they'd be hard to miss out there on the highway all day. Eli Joe could have driven past them a dozen times and they likely wouldn't have noticed.

Most of the guys turned in a good hour earlier than they had the night before, with Vin and Chris drawing first watch. Chris, grinning, produced a small, magnetic travel chess set. "Want to help me brush the rust off?"

Vin's knowledge of chess pretty much ended with a few basic openings, but playing was an alright way to pass a few hours. Kept them both awake, didn't make much noise, and didn't need any more light than a gas lantern threw on 'low,' so their nightvision wasn't completely shot.

It mystified Vin that people could play this game over and over, but there were worse things than having his clock cleaned repeatedly by Chris. After his fifth concession, Vin checked his watch. Another half hour and he'd be waking Buck and JD...

"Shit shit shit..."

Ellison, still in his tent, not 15 feet away.

And now Sandburg was saying, low and as intense as Vin had ever heard him, "Press harder. Come on, force my hand backward."

Leg cramp, most likely, and getting himself up and out of the tent to stretch things out must have seemed like too much bother to Jim, until it got so bad that he couldn't get himself up.

"Come on, Jim, lean into it... Flex your foot more. No, trust me. This works. You know it does. Press harder."

Some of the other guys were looking out of their tents now; Chris waved them back.

"Now, I want you to picture a rope," Blair was saying, his voice still showing that same calm intensity. "The rope's taunt. Keep pressing! The rope, it's under strain, but now it's starting to have just a little give. Just a little. And you're staring at the rope but it's getting hazy. It was super-sharp, hyper-focused, but now it's a little blurry, a little fuzzy... yeah, that's better, Jim. Press once more. Think you can get up now and put some weight on your leg?"

"Yeah," said Ellison.

There was rustling, the sound of two men trying to emerge from a small tent simultaneously, then Blair backed out and lent Ellison a hand-up. They stood for a minute, Ellison gradually shifting his weight from one leg, to both, to the leg that must have cramped up. It was too dark to see their expressions, but Vin was pretty sure he heard both men exhale in relief.

"Can we do anything?" Chris asked, not sounding like he expected a 'yes'.

They both shook their heads, then Jim waved off his cane in favor of linking his right arm through Sandburg's left and leaning heavily on the younger, smaller man. But it looked like Sandburg was more than up to the weight Ellison was lending him.

The two men headed off slowly in the general direction of the latrines; really, the only path away from their site.

It was like Ellison didn't even care what state Sandburg saw him in, what sort of shit he was dealing with.

Beside him, Chris murmured, "It's something, ain't it?"

XII.

The grasp on Blair's arm gradually became less shakey and desperate, Jim's steps more even. Finally, after a couple of go-rounds of the campground, Jim let go and tried to walk completely normally. He almost pulled it off.

"No more sleeping on the ground," said Blair, hoping he sounded firm.

"We don't know how many more days we'll be out here."

"Like you can't afford fifty bucks a night for a Motel 6," said Blair.

"Let's see how my leg does today," Jim said. Trying for wiggle room, to give up without giving up. Blair could work with that.

Could even push things a little. "Want to find a motel tonight? It's not too late..."

"In what universe is 1 a.m. not late?" asked Jim. He squeezed Blair's shoulder. "Thanks, but my leg's great now. Can't even tell it was cramped up."

Yuh-huh.

They paused, and Jim held up a hand for silence. Blair touched his elbow - yeah, Jim was sensing something. A shrug, though, told that Jim didn't know what it was, but that it wasn't striking him as being an immediate threat. Maybe he was hearing the same thing as the night before? But Blair heard and saw nothing, and after a moment Jim shook his head. "Just act natural," he said softly. "If there's someone there, he's probably more cautious of us than we are of him."

+ + + + + + +

They covered five miles before noon, then had sandwiches Josiah had prepped before striking camp. The afternoon seemed to hold more of the same - more slow slog through the underbrush that marked forest edge.

After a few hours, the highway hit an incline, the first real one since the outskirts of Cascade. Not a hill you'd notice in a car, but on a bike...

Damn, yeah. He'd been here, or some place just like it. Hill cut on one side, guardrail on the other. Sanding on the pedals to get the chain to turn. Almost losing his balance, afraid if he fell that the gun would go off and shoot him in the back. Thinking, then, that he should at least get rid of the gun. It had seemed like good protection at first - just a good thing to have on you if you were out at night alone in the middle of nowhere. If the cops'd stopped him, they'd be trying to pin the murder on him anyway, and having the gun wouldn't change that.

But now he was miles from Cascade, and they might not even have heard about the shooting way out here. A gun would sure be suspicious, though. He had to get rid of it.

Yeah, it was all clear to Vin, just how he'd felt then. He hopped into the Suburban and Jim drove them both until the highway was back in forest. Still rising, and narrower than it had been, with only a few yards of grassy median. And there was that yellow sign: "Trucks use low gear." Man, that sign had pissed him off. He'd hopped off and noticed one of the wheels was getting mushy... How much further had he gone after that?

They pulled over and waited for the rest of the guys to catch up. "It's near here," he said.

"Which side?" asked Chris.

Vin shook his head. "The shoulder was pretty cracked up on both sides. I switched back and forth all night trying to find a stretch that wouldn't wreck the tires."

Josiah pulled out a couple of metal detectors. "We should probably look for the gun as well, since the bike may not be..."

"This it?"

And Buck, trotting back from 100 yards or so up the road, was holding up the most dumb-ass-looking bicycle that Vin had ever seen. Man, if he was going to steal a bike...

He was giggling - yeah, giggling - so hard he couldn't answer for a minute. Blair called, "Yeah! I'd forgotten, it wasn't even a 10-speed."

Buck plopped it at their feet and stepped back, looking very proud.

"Banana seat? High-rise handlebars? Space Invaders on the chain guard?" That was Jim.

"Wow, yeah, they're still there!" said Blair, kneeling to get a better look. "I bet this is considered a classic now. Know any kid that wants a bike?"

"Focus, people, we're not done yet," said Chris. Then, more softly, right next to him, "You okay, cowboy?"

Vin wiped a hand across his eyes. "It's just a really dopey-looking bike," he explained.

"Hey, I was eleven when I got it," said Blair. "And you can't say it wasn't durable."

Vin was giggling again.

Blair, walking by, paused to swat him with his baseball cap.

+ + + + + + +

Chris let the guys take their time choosing which metal detectors they wanted. There were only five good ones, so Chris allocated them to Buck, JD, Josiah, Nathan, and Ezra. They moved the vehicles closer to where Buck had found the bike, and Vin pointed out where, roughly, he though he might have stashed the gun. He really didn't seem all that certain, though, so Chris directed the guys to search diligently everywhere. The forest receded a bit from the road surface here; this could take a while.

Jim and Vin stayed leaning against the Suburban. After a few minutes, Blair joined them, Jim laying a hand on his shoulder. "Almost over," Chris heard Jim murmur. Sandburg just nodded.

For his part, Vin was biting his lower lip hard. Chris decided he'd better camp out next to Tanner, in case he decided to chew off a limb or something next.

In the end, it took another hour, then Ezra called, "Could someone document this please?" and the other searchers were converging on the base of a smallish ponderosa pine.

"Come on, please..." said Sandburg; Ellison drew him close, circling Blair with his arms from behind.

Chris shot a look at Vin - tense, anxious, hands balled into fists, back to chewing his lip. "Easy there," said Chris. Vin looked at him like he was insane. Chris smiled and put an arm around his shoulder. It felt awkward, but he squeezed a little anyway. "What will happen will happen. You just stay put a minute more."

A few moments later, Josiah called out, "The number's a match!"

Vin turned and gave him an honest-to-God hug before dashing with Blair to the site.

XIII.

For the sake of propriety, they left things in place until the forensics team from Cascade arrived. Jim watched the highway closely now; if Vassiconelli was out there, this would be a likely time for him to take another shot at Tanner.

Nothing happened.

In light of the mounting evidence that Vin had been set up, Jim formally gave notice that Vin was now officially released on his own recognizance. Vin just nodded; he seemed past reacting to much now.

By the time the Cascade PD was done, it was close to 7. "Back to Cascade?" asked Blair. "We're not camping again, I'm serious, Jim."

Behind him, Ezra Standish was also looking camped-out. "Surely in environs such as this we can do somewhat better than a Motel 6, especially give the occasion," he said.

"There's a nice inn about 5 miles from here," Jim remembered. "Great little restaurant next door. It's high season, but it's a Tuesday. Let's see if they have any vacancies."

So they grabbed up the last available rooms at the Cascade Falls Chateau, got in showers, then dined on planked salmon or steak. Jim expected Larabee and his men to be in the mood for a party, but everyone seemed pretty subdued. A mixture of exhaustion and trepidation - what if finding the gun wasn't enough? Really, only two people knew what had happened inside that store, and it was still Vin's word against Vassiconelli's.

Vin excused himself before coffee and headed back to his room. His first chance to be alone in over a week, Jim realized.

A moment later, a shotgun fired twice.

Larabee and his men shot out of the restaurant at a pace that Jim would have been hard put to equal even with two good legs. Blair, unarmed of course, wasn't far behind them.

Damn, Vin wasn't armed either.

+ + + + + + +

Although he'd been camping out the past two nights, Vin hadn't bothered to look up much, and he'd only stared into the woods when he was trying to figure out if there was something staring back. It was only now, walking the 50 yards along a ridiculously-coiffed cobblestone path between the restaurant and the hotel, with insects buzzing around the halogen floodlights, that Vin really had a sense of being outside at night. Maybe it was the solitude that did it, or maybe he'd been so long in the city that this had become what nighttime was.

Perhaps he could talk to Josiah about this sometime. He bet Josiah thought about this sort of thing. Chris probably did, too, but there were still topics he didn't want to go near with him. Like what it meant to not have people all around you. Chris had been married before Vin knew him, had had a wife and son, and if it were a just universe then Chris's life would be always busy, always full, never tranquil. Family life looked suffocating to Vin, but it was what Chris had chosen for himself, and Vin wondered if he missed the life itself as much as Vin sensed he still missed the people that had made up that life.

There were things you couldn't discuss, though, unless you abstracted it so far your answers were meaningless.

He realized he'd paused, which some part of his mind told him was really stupid to do under a flood light, with Eli Joe still free...

And then he was diving for cover behind a giant planter before he even registered the shot. A second broke a good chunk off the planter, covering him with soil. Where was the gunman?

An instant later, his teammates poured out of the restaurant, which would have been a relief except that this made them targets as well. Plus, they'd all drawn their weapons. Vin needed Eli Joe alive. "Over here!" Vin called. "Keep covered, I think he's around the left side of the hotel. And hold your fire. Don't hurt him. We need him to talk."

Then a bullet came from the nearly behind him, followed by a curse. Had Eli Joe's weapon jammed? Vin charged around the corner; a shotgun lay tossed against the building, and the side door of the hotel was swinging closed.

Vin ran through the doorway, now aware of Chris right behind him. Stairwell, and stamping feet; Vin charged up, barely registering that Chris had peeled off. Three flights - wasn't the hotel only two floors here? Yeah, this last flight led to an open hatchway...

Vin barely had his arms up before a 1x4 swang at his face. Rotted, the board broke on impact. Ha! Eli Joe was taking off across the roof, but was slowed by its moderate slope. He'd get him, here, now! Vin lunged forward and grabbed a booted foot, earning himself a kick to the face from the other.

As long was Eli Joe was up here, stopping wasn't an option. Vin got his feet under himself and pursued Eli Joe across wing. Then Eli Joe was jumping, and if he could make the distance then so could Vin. In another two steps he was on him and Eli Joe went down beneath him.

The slope was steeper here. For several instants they were swinging at each other, rolling downward... Vin let go and Eli Joe continued; had he gone over?

Vin ran down the slope; Eli Joe had somehow slowed himself enough to get a handhold onto the edge of the roof. Vin grasped a wrist and began to pull.

"This ends now, Eli Joe," he said. Gasped. "You're going to tell what really happened to that cashier."

"Like hell," said Eli Joe.

"Why'd you do it?" Vin asked, still pulling as Eli Joe got one elbow up.

"Knew you'd turn me in for lifting stuff sooner or later," grated Eli Joe. "Had to get you out of the way." He was out of danger now, both knees up. "But it didn't work, and I can't have you knowing that I shot that guy."

Vin realized, then, what a precarious position he'd put himself into by pulling Eli Joe up, with the roof rising behind him and Eli Joe in front. And Eli Joe's right hand was swinging forward, a blade suddenly glinting...

And Eli Joe stopped, and his eyes went dead, and he fell.

Vin turned and looked. Chris Larabee, holding his service weapon.

God, he hurt. "Did you hear him, Chris?" he asked. "He confessed. Did you hear him?"

Chris shook his head.

+ + + + + + +

Vin didn't remember getting off the roof, didn't really register anything until Nate was dabbing his face with something that stung way too much. "Ouch! Stop that!"

He was in the lobby of the inn. It was a big room with a large stone fireplace as its focal point, the registration stuff all more or less in an alcove in the back. He was getting one of the nice sofas dirty; Chris was beside him, hand on his shoulder. Yeah, he probably looked like he needed it.

"You tracking now, cowboy?" Chris asked.

He nodded.

"Does your head hurt?" asked Nathan.

"Everything else does. Didn't hit my head," he answered.

"I'm sorry, Vin. I know you wanted Vassiconelli to clear you some day."

"Wouldn't do me any good if I was dead," he said.

A few feet away, the rest of the guys were milling. Well, except for Buck, who Vin supposed had been detailed to watch the body and deal with the local PD. He wished that Chris would see what a great friend he had in Buck. If this was the life they were leading, they all needed each other...

His gaze fell on Blair Sandburg. He looked like hell. Like he wanted to cry. For Eli Joe?

Jim Ellison was taking Blair's elbow now, leading him to a bench, handing him a Coke. "Can I get a drink?" Vin asked.

XIV.

Blair wanted to go home. Jim was calmly, logically, maddeningly, and no-doubt correctly maintaining that getting back to the loft that night was logistically difficult, of dubious wisdom, and unnecessary. They already had a room here. They had no car of their own. And, though neither of them had really seen anything of the fight on the roof, Jim's support as a semi-local would help dispel any notion that Larabee's discharge had been anything but a clean shoot.

Vin looked like he'd been in a hell of a fight. Blair was sure that Larabee hadn't used lethal force unnecessarily. Nobody seemed happy that Eli Joe was dead, though that certainly had more to do with wanting him as a witness than any respect for the man's humanity.

But, damn, a week and a half earlier - not even! - he'd had the guy in the loft, eating Ramen noodles. He'd been using Blair then, just like he'd been using him back in '82, but... but couldn't things have worked out differently? He'd seen some good in Eli Joe that summer. He had.

Blair let Jim escort him to the room, promised to go to sleep, then lay fully-clothed on top of the covers after Jim wished him goodnight and went back down to the lobby. A few hours later he woke up; his shoes had taken themselves off, and he was covered by some blankets he didn't remember. Yeah, and there was a lump in the other bed. That was good.

+ + + + + + +

"Water," said Vin. "Just a sip."

Chris sure hoped he could let him have some. "Let Nate do his job first, okay, cowboy?"

Nathan Jackson was now probing Vin's abdomen. Vin was neither ignoring their medic nor actively guarding the area; good signs that there was no internal damage to the region, Chris was pretty sure.

After a moment, Nate nodded. "Yeah, just a little."

Getting Vin down off that roof had been a little scary. It wasn't all that steep, but it wasn't the sort of place one wanted to be half-carrying a grown man. A moment after they'd started up, Buck had come over the crest, and Chris and more-or-less handed Vin up to him. From there, the slope lessened, and they'd been fine supporting Vin from either side.

At the hatchway into this wing of the hotel they'd met Josiah and Ezra. "Where the hell is Nate?" he'd asked.

"First aid on the body," said Josiah, who then embraced him first, then Vin, then him again; for Josiah, it was no more personal an act than a handshake. "It was a clean shoot," he'd whispered into Chris's ear.

Chris had been doing this sort of thing for a while, but he appreciated the gesture.

EMTs and the local PD had arrived surprisingly quickly; someone had probably called 9-1-1 after Vassiconelli had taken his first shots at Vin. They were all outside still, though, documenting the scene, dealing with the body in whatever manner local protocol called for.

Nate was now probing Vin's arms. "How'd these get hurt?" he asked.

"Board," said Vin. "The scratches are from nails, I think."

Vin would be up-to-date on his tetanus boosters, so that wasn't an issue, but Nathan still looked worried. "Your wrists should be x-rayed," he said. "And your jaw. And I'd like a doctor to do a neuro check."

"I'm fine," said Vin.

"Yes, you are," said Nate, "But it would be better for everyone if we made sure of that before putting you in a car for two days, and got documentation of the fight Vassiconelli put up."

"You think they'll let me go home?"

"One thing at a time," said Chris. He'd have told an encouraging lie to anyone else. Vin looked grateful he hadn't.

Ellison re-entered the lobby shortly after Vin left for the hospital with Nathan and Josiah. With a nod, Ellison pulled over a decently-stiff-looking wooden chair to near a lobby phone and started exercising his calling card.

"Room phone not working?" Chris asked.

"I want Sandburg to go to sleep," said Jim. Of course.

A local police officer finally came inside and Chris spent the next 20 minutes giving his statement; the first of many, he knew. Man, the paperwork on this was going to be a mess. Still, he'd done this sort of thing enough times that he could keep an ear on Ellison's calls. They were alternating between 'Simon' and 'Beverly,' though it was impossible to read from Ellison's demeanor how they were going.

Finally Chris agreed not to leave western Washington (allowing him to go to Cascade, he ascertained) and the locals let him be. He waited semi-patiently until Ellison hung up the phone, then moved to sit near him. "Did you hear Vassiconelli's last words?"

Ellison looked genuinely startled. "No. What did he say?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you," said Chris. "Vin says Vassiconelli confessed, and I need to know if you can corroborate."

"I wasn't listening," he said, looking very uncomfortable suddenly.

"Why weren't you?"

"It wouldn't have done any good if I had. I can't testify that I heard something like that. What jury would believe that?"

"What about your Simon and Beverly? Would they believe you?"

Jim shook his head. "It's a moot point. I didn't hear anything."

+ + + + + + +

Jim slept late and woke worried. Let's see. A childhood friend of Blair's had been shot and killed last night after he'd spent a week hunting them. A very savvy ATF agent was convinced that Jim was some sort of superhuman when it came to hearing. And he was, functionally, somewhere between lame and crippled.

He'd given it his all with Simon and Beverly Sanchez last night. There was absolutely no chance that the man he'd spent the last week with would have killed someone in the manner Jesse Kincaid had been executed. There was no jury in the world that would convict, given the current evidence. But both Simon and Beverly had been noncommittal, and his final call to Simon had ended with a "Don't call us, we'll call you."

Rolling over and going back to sleep was, very briefly, tempting.

But only briefly. There might not be anything more he could do for Vin Tanner, but he'd never find out this way.

Getting up in the morning was always hardest, but he'd gotten used to doing it in stages - sitting upright first, then swinging his legs off the edge of the bed, then, using his cane for balance, very carefully rising and slowly, so slowly shifting as little weight as possible onto his injured leg.

It wasn't something he could do silently; by the time he was ready to try walking, Blair was awake and blinking. "What's the plan for today?" he asked.

"We're waiting word from Beverly Sanchez."

"To think, if you'd played your cards right, you could be Mr. County Prosecutor. She like us these days at least?"

Good question.

Since Jim was already moving, he grabbed the shower first, then hung out in the room until Blair was done. Hid out more than hung out, maybe.

Too soon, they were heading down to breakfast. Brunch. Whatever. Food of some sort.

Coming out of the elevator, Jim quickened his pace. "Simon's here," he told Blair.

"Well, that could be very good or very bad," Blair replied, looking around and actually spotting him first, at the lobby phone.

Simon turned and put down the receiver. "Have fun camping?" he asked.

"Actually, not really," said Blair, dropping into the sofa across from Simon's.

Jim surveyed the options, and again decided that sitting in something he could actually get out of would save him the most dignity. He grabbed the same wooden chair he'd used the night before and pulled it over.

"Sorry, man, I should have thought to do that," said Blair.

Jim waved him quiet. "There's enough I can't do. I don't mind doing what I can."

Simon was smiling. "I'm impressed, gentlemen. You managed that little conversation without undo guilt, and no sarcasm that I could detect."

Had they? What must have they been sounding like to Simon these past weeks? Or maybe months?

Blair laughed. "You should have seen Jim when he realized I'd botched Vassiconelli's original conviction back in the early 80s."

Simon arched an eyebrow. "So it was all your fault?"

"I believed everything Eli Joe wanted me to, and everyone believed me, or at least wanted to."

Simon nodded. "Well, most of us are pillars of wisdom and accomplished judges of character at thirteen. And we all know how persuasive you can be."

Blair shrugged. "I wish Vassiconelli had been apprehended so that he could tell what really happened, but at least we've done something. I think proving there was a second gun will be pretty important if Beverly pushes for a trial."

"Yeah," said Simon. "About that. Blair, do you honestly believe that Vin Tanner was set up?"

Blair, catching that Simon's tone had changed, sat straighter. "Yes, I do. For some reason, Eli Joe wanted to pin something horrible on Vin, and he used me to do it. I think that that was his plan all along. That's why he had me wait outside the store, and that's why he pointed out the gun Vin had tucked into his pants."

"And you'd probably put that story across no matter how a prosecutor shaped the questions."

"It's what happened, Simon."

Simon turned to Jim and shrugged. "There's no way to prosecute if this is what the only witness believes. The physical evidence is ambiguous, and, from the statements I've read, Tanner's actions on the night of the shooting all have plausible, innocuous explanations."

"And that means..." said Blair.

"That we're not going ahead. Withdrawing charges."

"Dismissing the case?" Blair couldn't seem to get his mind around it.

"That's not precisely the terminology. A man was murdered, and if new evidence comes to light it can be reopened."

Jim pushed out of the chair. "Simon, I know a bunch of guys who would love to talk to you."

XV.

"Where do you think they are?" asked Blair. "Is it still breakfast time?"

Jim cocked his head slightly. "Let's see if they're at the restaurant."

More and more it was like this... he'd open himself up and know things without precisely being able to describe how. It wasn't some sort of ESP, of that he was sure. More like his senses were working together without necessarily bothering to inform his brain.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to be? Blair would love this, if they ever got a free minute to talk about it.

Larabee and his men looked like they had been at breakfast a while; dishes hadn't been cleared yet, but some had been shoved aside. They'd chosen tables with the best view of the door (just like he'd have done), and all noticed when they entered.

Simon took the lead, striding over faster than he could manage. "Vin Tanner here?"

Vin stood. "That's me, sir."

"Captain Simon Banks, Cascade PD" said Simon, offering his hand. Vin shook it, then looked questioningly at Jim.

"My boss," said Jim.

"I try," said Simon wryly, then assumed a more formal stance. "Mr. Tanner, on behalf of the Cascade police department and prosecutor's office, let me formally state that we have decided not to pursue a conviction. Moreover, it is our working theory that Joe Vassiconelli was solely responsible for the death of Jesse Kincaid, and we are not going to seek further evidence otherwise, though we will, of course, act, if such evidence comes into our possession." He paused. "Any questions?"

"So I'm cleared?"

"Well, not precisely, because none of us are clairvoyant. But you are no longer a suspect, let's just say."

"Why?"

Simon turned and clapped Blair on the shoulder. "Because Sandburg thinks you're a good man. And while he's been known to make a few questionable character calls, there's no stopping a force of nature."

"This isn't a joke," said Chris Larabee.

Simon grimaced. "You want me to tell you what my last three years have been like, with these two?"

"So, it's just on Blair's say-so?" asked Vin.

"Not my say-so!" said Blair. "I know you didn't do it. I know we were both set up. Without me saying otherwise, apparently there's just some inconclusive, explainable physical evidence."

"Don't forget that the other suspect is a dead psychopath," said Buck Wilmington. "Not a lot of credibility there."

"Yeah. It came down to, good man or psychopath," said Simon. "Not really a tough call, once the county prosecutor and I looked at everything."

He stepped back a bit. "Well, I'll let y'all digest. Jim, Blair, you guys need a ride? I have to go deal with the local PD, but I'll be back in a couple of hours. Be packed, will you?"

And he was gone.

"That's your boss?" asked Larabee.

"The best I ever had," said Jim.

"I like him," said Buck. "Think we'd get along great."

With some minor condensing and the liberation of a couple of additional chairs from nearby tables, Larabee and his men made space for him and Blair. "What's good?" Blair asked the group, then ordered more of the same for both of them; Jim had long since conceded that Blair was simply better at breakfast.

"So, what does this mean? Do I still have a job?" Vin asked as soon as the waitress left.

"Yes," said Larabee. "You're not under indictment, there's no warrant for your arrest, there's not really any suspicion. You're in the clear as far as the ATF is concerned."

Jim knew that Vin would have vastly preferred "cleared" to "in the clear," but that was just never going to be.

"I still don't entirely understand it," said Vin. "It just doesn't seem right. That, after seventeen years I'm not a suspect because somebody likes me. Because Blair thinks I'm an okay guy or something."

Blair shrugged. "But you are."

"You caught a break, Vin, that it was Blair that Vassiconelli chose for his set up," said Buck. "Accept the gift."

"I don't think it was luck," said Jim. "I've felt all along that Vassiconelli chose Blair because he saw integrity in him. Vassiconelli knew that Blair was someone the cops would believe. And that was his undoing. Anyone good enough for Vassiconelli's purposes would eventually have tried to right what had happened to Vin." He took a swing of coffee. "It's not just Blair's opinion, anyway. I told my boss and county prosecutor both that there was no way you could have killed that man. Just no way."

Larabee spoke up then. "And we'd have fought for you, too," he said. "Character just doesn't change like that."

From down the table, there was a clinking of a spoon against a glass. Ezra Standish. A toast? "Gentlemen," he said. "If I may - I completely disagree."

JD, between Jim and Ezra, asked, "You think he DID it?"

Ezra shook his head. "No. Like Capt. Banks said, when the choice is between an upstanding member of the community and a psychopath, I'll place my money against the psychopath. But it's a bet, gentlemen. It's not a certainty. Character, if there really is such a thing, is not so immutable as you all seem to be arguing."

Blair nodded. "Well, theoretically, I agree. People change. What happens changes them."

"Yes, but I'm positing something even more basic," said Ezra. "I hold that the best you can really hope for is a rational mind acting with enlightened self-interest. The mature, fully capable person sees beyond the contingencies of the moment and realizes that aligning himself with what society considers good keeps him out of jail, and can even garner him a steady paycheck. But there's no 'good' or 'evil'. No 'good' or 'bad' people. These are constructs that keep a society functioning."

"Hogwash, Ezra," said Larabee.

"I don't necessarily disagree with you," said Josiah, "but I don't really believe that you don't live by your own strict moral code."

"I defy you to prove otherwise," said Ezra. And Jim suddenly wondered just where Ezra had been during the fight last night.

"Well, you're here, aren't you?" asked JD.

"So I'll fit in better with the group, which can only help my career," said Ezra. "And it would be a shame for society to waste the talents of Mr. Tanner by imprisoning him if he didn't commit the crime. And I'm all for a well-run, efficient society."

"You know, as much as it pains me, I'm going to have to agree with Ez at bit," said Nathan Jackson. "I don't think you can make whether someone seems a good person or not the basis for justice, though in this case I'm not going to complain. But you can't be a black man in America and not know that quote good men unquote can act evilly. Starting with slavery and going through to every SOB who's ever kept little black kids from sitting next to little white kids and continuing on to today."

"History is full of examples of functioning societies that I'd consider fundamentally evil," said Josiah. "There are many aspects of our own society that I find deeply troubling, and I fully believe future generations may look at us and wonder how we abided it."

Buck snorted. "We're not abiding it. We're fighting it."

Josiah shook his head. "I'm not talking about gun runners, or even the greed that motivates them. I'm talking about the imbalance of society. Us having this smorgasbord" - and he waved at the dishes - "when there are hungry children in the world. Maybe right under our noses."

"And I'm not just talking about the job either," said Buck. Something passed between Josiah and Buck then, and Josiah nodded.

Buck turned to Ezra. "I'm actually quite a fan of enlightened self-interest myself," he said. "But how do you explain those who stand against the tide? Who put themselves at risk to do good? Who run up onto a roof to help a friend? Or into burning buildings? Or hid Jews from Nazis or Tutsis from Hutus?"

"I know I would have!" said JD.

Ezra shrugged.

"It's just not always so simple," said Jim. "Even if your goal is to do the right thing, which right thing do you do? On a battlefield, you can't have everyone trying to work out their own personal moralities. You need order, you need a chain of command."

"People shouldn't obey unlawful orders," said Blair.

"No," said Jim, "but soldiers can't be expected to have the big picture. And beyond that, there are multiple ways of looking at everything that might be considered a social injustice. If you feed a beggar on the street, are you just enabling him? Freeing up his change so he can OD tonight?"

"You can never justify letting someone go hungry," said Blair with certainty. "You make sure basic needs are met, then you worry about the rest."

Chris Larabee turned his focus to Jim. "Speaking of divided loyalties - I'd like to talk some more about last night."

And now all eyes were on him. His mouth went dry. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean," said Larabee, "We've all noticed that you seem to hear what others don't hear and see what others don't see. And we all know what the press was saying about you, and about Blair's study of you, before he denied it. None of us buy his denial. And if shyness, or coyness on your part is costing Vin his complete exoneration, I want to know it."

Jim set down his silverware. "Waited until you had us outnumbered to press this, I see."

Larabee smiled unpleasantly. "Yes."

"Jim," asked Blair, "What did you hear last night?"

"Nothing useful," he answered. "Vin, it's the truth."

"Why not?" asked Blair.

What HAD happened? He'd rushed from the restaurant to the hotel as fast as his leg would allow, his weapon drawn. He'd caught up with Blair, and then tried to keep him behind him. He didn't see Vin and Chris follow Eli Joe into the building, but he'd known which way they'd gone. At the door, he'd met Buck, Ezra, and JD. Buck had thrust JD at him and hissed, "Watch him! Keep him out of the way! He's not trained for this," and run in.

"They're on the roof," he'd shouted after Buck and Ezra, hoping they'd heard him.

And then he'd gotten a feel for the shape of the fight, followed as they'd changed wings, almost been run over by Nathan as he charged past and around the corner.

"There was just a lot going on," was all he could tell Blair.

"But you were focused on Eli Joe, right? Tracking him? You knew he was on the roof somehow."

"It's been changing," he said. "The way I, I guess 'process' is the right word, what's going on around me."

"You're control's slipping?" asked Blair.

"No. Maybe." He sighed, and added another sugar to his coffee, just to buy the extra five seconds, then scanned the table. Everyone was looking at him; he might as well make this comprehensive. "Up until now, I've been able to see very small things at unusually long distances, or hear things that most people couldn't, or feel very slight textures, or smell something very faint, or distinguish between tastes better than most people. And sometimes my senses work together - if I can see lips moving, I can hear what's being said better than if I can't see the speaker. We call that piggybacking.

"What's happening recently is that I don't necessarily KNOW which sense, or senses, are telling me something, I just know I know what's happening. By the time I realize what's going on it's too late to figure out what sense to pay the most attention to. So, last night, I was following what was going on, but I don't know if I was hearing it or feeling vibrations through the buildings or, hell, smelling Vin and Eli Joe. Before, I would have used my hearing primarily, and I probably would have heard if either of them had spoken. But that's not how my senses were working last night."

"Wow," said Blair. "And we were going to discuss this WHEN?"

"I'm just now figuring out that something different has been going on. It was just walking over here, realizing that I'd known Simon was in the lobby, then knowing exactly where to find these guys, and it hit me that something had changed."

"How long ago do you think it started?"

"Since Zeller. Looking back, when I knew that someone was watching us at night when we were camping - that was part of this."

Blair swallowed. "This really is - wow, it's great. I bet this is how you are meant to function. We'll work on control, just like we always have, and you'll end up ten times more effective."

JD looked fascinated. "Does this happen to other people like him?"

Blair blinked. "Other sentinels? We don't know if there are any; any functioning ones, at least."

"Then how do you know what to do?" JD asked.

"Blair tells me," said Jim. "That's the short answer and the long one."

"There's no way Jim can be the only - what did you say? Sentinel? Out there," said Buck.

Blair shrugged. "I looked for one for years before meeting Jim. We've actually encountered one other, but that's it. They could be unique in the developed world, or, heck, any one of you guys could be latent. I always saw my thesis as a resource, but we decided that publishing it just wouldn't be worth the risk to Jim. There are downsides to hyper sense. And beyond that, my first duty is to the confidentiality of my subject. He doesn't want the hassle, and it's his call."

"You know," said Jim quietly, "I may never get back out on the street. Not with how this leg is healing."

"That's garbage, and you know it," said Blair. "A month from now, you'll be back to normal. And even if you aren't, you'll still be better than 90% of the guys in the department."

"That won't be good enough."

Blair scoffed; they'd had this argument before, though, and it really didn't matter what either of them believed. His leg would heal or it wouldn't.

"But..." and JD looked completely perplexed. "Shouldn't you be doing something about being a sentinel? Writing a book with Blair? Isn't that more important than whether you stay a cop? You could help thousands of people be better at whatever they're doing, at whatever their jobs are."

"Protecting the tribe - I mean the rest of us - is what a sentinel does," said Blair. "It's a hands-on thing, you might say."

"That seems... Ezra, what's the right word?" asked JD.

"Self-indulgent," supplied Ezra.

"Exactly," said JD.

"It's just not a clear-cut thing," said Blair. "Like Jim was saying earlier, some things just aren't."

"Well," said Vin, "I suppose a man has to choose for himself what his path will be."

And suddenly things were recast: The question wasn't, what would be easiest, or safest, or keep him on the street. Or whether his career or Blair's took precedence.

It filled his mind through promises of confidentiality. Through the good-byes and back-thumps, packing up and catching up with Simon. Through the trip home, and beyond.

It was, what would a good man do?

The End