This story may be archived by the Cascade Library.

Author's note: This was written as a Feb '04 themefic for the SentinelAngst list. The challenge was to write a story in which Blair is suspected of a crime.

There are spoilers for most of season I. The story runs from the end of Love and Guns and Attraction and ends just before Flight.

PG-13 for violence and language.

Boundaries

by Helen W.

Save for the forty-something-year-old couple obviously visiting with their undergrad daughter, Jim Ellison was the oldest person grabbing an early dinner at Beno's Pizza. Blair Sandburg was probably the next oldest, but he didn't seem to notice. "This place is one of the great Rainier institutions," he was saying. "It's the only pizza place written up in the student catalog. I can't believe you've never been here! Can you tell what they put in their crust?"

"Is that the real reason you wanted me to come?" asked Jim, teasing the younger man. "Espionage?"

"No!" croaked Blair. "But now that you mention it..."

"Fennel," said Jim, reaching for his second slice of sausage and garlic. "Or maybe you'd call it anise - never could figure out the difference. And maybe a bit of malt."

"Malt!" exclaimed Blair, rocking backward in his chair. "I knew about the anise."

Jim smiled. It was good to see the kid happy, after everything he'd been through the past couple of months, particularly after how hard he'd taken being slammed by Maya. With a bit of a start, Jim realized that he, too, was feeling pretty good. Though it had only been a week since he'd arrested Laura McCarthy, the memories of how out-of-control she'd made him feel had faded; now, mostly all he just recalled the sex clearly, and that wasn't a bad deal at all.

Not something he'd share with Sandburg, though.

Jim had suggested that they visit Beno's in an attempt to spend a little time with Blair in Blair's world. Since the grad student had come into his life a few months earlier, they'd lurched from crisis to crisis. He wouldn't have blamed Blair a bit if he'd cut and run after his encounter with Veronica Sarris. Or Garrett Kincaid and the The Patriots. Or David Lash. Especially David Lash. Or even Maya.

He hoped Blair was able to intuit, somehow, the depth of Jim's gratitude that Blair seemed to place enough importance on getting his degree that he was willing to keep hanging around. Because now, more than ever, Jim realized how completely dependent he was on Blair for any control over his sentinel abilities. Without Blair, he'd be either dead or in an institution somewhere. It was as simple as that.

This dependence made Jim uneasy. But, he rationalized, as a soldier he'd always had to depend on those he served with. There was nothing wrong with that. So there was nothing wrong with depending on Sandburg either.

Lacking the words to express any of this to Blair, he instead passed the grated parmesan, praised the bread sticks, and tried to ignore the fact that he could easily be mistaken for an undergrad's dad. Well, not quite - he wasn't even 40 yet - but he felt out-of-place in this corner of Blair's world.

"I used to come here all the time the summer I started at the U.," Blair said. "My mom had set me up in a dorm, but we'd somehow both missed that there was no food service until it was too late to back out."

"So you went here undergrad?" Jim asked.

"Yeah! Wow, somehow I thought you knew that. Yeah, I started a little young, and when you do that I think your college feels so much like home that you don't want to leave when it's time. So I stuck around for grad school. Not the best thing, career-wise, but they gave me the teaching fellowship, so it really wasn't a bad deal." Blair paused. "And of course I wouldn't have met you if I'd gone some place else for grad school, so maybe it was meant to be. But then, I had feelers out pretty wide, so I might have snagged you no matter what."

Jim wasn't sure he liked the imagery, but let it slide.

"So what about you?" Blair asked. "Where'd you do undergrad?"

"I grew up about 10 miles from here," said Jim, "and I couldn't wait to get away. I got an Army ROTC scholarship to the U. in Seattle, so that's where I went."

At the mention of ROTC, Blair stopped his subtle chair-rocking and his respiration rate increased the smallest bit. "What's the matter?" Jim asked, a bit annoyed. "You object to having officer training on campus?"

He was about to say more - a LOT more - but Blair interrupted. "Oh, nononono, man!" he said. "ROTC's cool. Looked into it myself, but I got a governor's scholarship so didn't need it."

"It's not just about needing a little money for college," said Jim.

"Oh, come on, man, I'm not dis'ing ROTC, okay?" said Blair. "The military's great. I mean, where'd my wardrobe be without the Army/Navy store?"

Jim started to form an angry retort - he'd been WAITING for Blair to start talking anti-military since the day they'd met - but then he caught the gleam in Blair's eye and the anger faded as quickly as it had come. Instead, he balled up his paper napkin and threw it across the table.

"Stop it," said Blair, glancing around. "Not in front of the children."

- - - - -

It wasn't until a few hours later, at home reading Clancy's latest while the Mariners played on cable, that Jim's subconscious put two and two together for him. Rainier. The Army ROTC program. Shit.

He grabbed the phone and dialed Joel, who confirmed that his memories were correct - three years before, at about the time of his wedding in fact, a Rainier undergrad had died when a bomb (though Taggert had said that it only barely qualified as one) had gone off in the Army ROTC mailroom. The victim, a 20-year-old Sophomore, had had a part-time job in the ROTC office doing filing and such; presumably, she'd come in late to get in an extra hour or two. The bomb had been designed to disperse a red, presumably blood-like liquid; it was an open question whether the mayonnaise jar it was in was supposed to have shattered, but the shards of glass had spilled real blood. Alone and disoriented, with a gash in her neck, she'd bled out before she could summon help.

The evidence at the scene had been of little use in determining the origin of the device. Only the victim's fingerprints were found on the packaging, and the few glass shards large enough to get anything off of had been print-free. The criminal investigation had focused on the scores of students involved with some anti-ROTC protests happening at the time, but despite extensive questioning, no solid suspects had emerged, and no arrests had ever been made, though a few search warrants had been exercised.

Rainier was a large school, but Jim didn't doubt for a minute that Blair had known the victim.

When Blair got in later that evening, Jim was up waiting for him. "Chief, I'm sorry for going off on you at dinner," he said, putting down his book. "I know about Anne Ashland."

Blair said, "Wait a minute," then dropped his keys in the basket and shed his light jacket before slumping into the easy chair. "Wow, you'd make a great detective, man."

"I called Taggert," Jim said. "He said it was pretty bad."

"Yeah. I just think about her running up and down the hall, trying to find the exit," said Blair. "If she'd just picked up a phone, or rung the fire alarm, or something, she might have been okay." He swallowed. "I didn't know her really well or anything, but she was in the first class I taught. She was the first young person I knew that died, ya know?" He sighed and got up. "Still can't look at Morton Hall without thinking about her."

"That's normal, Chief," said Jim. "Nothing to be ashamed of. It's good to remember people."

Blair laughed a little at that, and seemed about to speak. Instead, he headed for bed. Jim surmised that Blair had been about to speculate that Jim must have a hard time just driving down the road, or some such. Thanks for sparing me, kid, he thought.

- - - - -

Poor Annie, Blair thought, as he lay in bed, trying to clear his mind's eye of how she must of died. Poor clueless, idealistic Annie.

Damn, though, Jim was good. Somehow they'd gone from trying to have a nice, normal pizza dinner together to talking about one of the worst experiences in his life - a pointless death that might not have happened if he'd handled things differently.

What would Jim think of him, if he knew the part Blair had played?

Why did he give a damn what Jim would think?

In a more basic way than Blair was accustomed to, Jim had gotten to him. As he often did, his thoughts went to how Jim, after his fight to the death with David Lash, had pulled him out of Lash's awful torture chamber. How he'd held Blair while he'd puked up Lash's poison and stuck to Blair like glue through the night at the hospital. As Blair's brain had clear, he'd considered dying of embarrassment, or ending their acquaintance, or maybe just devoting the rest of his life to hero worship. But Jim, not so much by words as by his manner towards him, had convinced Blair that it was okay to stick around, stay cool, see what happened next. And, since Jim's reaction to Laura McCarthy, he was particularly glad he had.

On the other hand, if he hadn't felt bound to help Jim out in whatever way he could, he'd never have fallen for Maya, never have made her feel used, never have had her walk out and know that it was what he deserved.

And Jim wouldn't be dangerously close to looking into a three-year-old death that Blair really didn't think bore closer inspection.

Maybe it was just too risky to let Jim into every corner of his life.

- - - - - -

Jim's workload was heavy enough that he did not tend to delve into the PD's backlog of cold cases. Since talking with Blair the previous evening, though, Jim had grown increasingly annoyed that the Anne Ashland murder had never been cracked. To help put Sandburg's mind at rest, if for no other reason, he figured he should give the matter a look.

Shortly after lunch, three boxes of evidence related to the case arrived in the bullpen. He was glad Blair was busy at the U. - he didn't want to revive more memories, if it turned out that he could not find a fresh angle to pursue.

He started by reading a brief bio of the victim. Anne Ashland had been a biology major, a mostly a solid student. She'd grown up in Oregon and had picked Rainier because she liked the breadth of courses students were expected to take, according to her family. Not many hobbies - mostly, she'd studied and hung out with her roommates. Her father was a physician and her mother was a lawyer, and she had an older sister who was an outstanding athlete and a little sister who sang junior opera. As a result of coming from "a family of overachievers," as one friend put it, she'd always seemed to be a little insecure about not being a star at anything, the friend thought. Basically, though, she'd been a happy person, enjoying the college experience, as far as anyone could tell.

Finding nothing of use there, Jim turned to the more disturbing items in the document box.

The pictures of the crime scene were ghastly, even knowing that much of the red liquid wasn't real blood. The floor, walls, and open-front mailboxes were covered. Here and there, bits of glass reflected back the camera's flash.

The victim's body was pictured where she'd collapsed, about 20 feet down the hall. Red footprints on the carpeting, and a smear along the wall, showed that she'd gone further down the hall, then turned and come back. A close-in view showed why she hadn't been able to find her way to help - though it was the neck wound which had caused the fatal blood loss, her face was a mass of cuts and was covered with red liquid and blood. Her eyes had not been spared.

The description of the bomb (or, bomb-like device, as it was termed in the write-up) was brief. A small explosive had been placed in a glass jar, along with a ziplock bag of catsup and brown paint. The jar had been capped with plastic wrap held in place by a rubber band, then wrapped in brown paper salvaged from a grocery bag. The outer wrapping was held together with tape. A piece of string recovered from the scene was assumed to be the trigger; presumably, it had passed through a hole in the plastic wrap down to the explosive. A yank to the string, such as would have occurred if the package had been opened, would have activated the bomb. Forensics had determined that the package had not been opened, though - some jostle, or maybe just material degradation, had initiated ignition. Not at all an unusual happening, when dealing with a homemade device.

The package had been correctly addressed, in block capitals using a black Bic, to the head of the Army ROTC program. There was no return address or postage. It had been deemed too fragile to have survived intercampus mail (and the campus mail carrier had no memory of the package), so it was assumed that the bomber had placed the package in the ROTC mail room in the mid-to-late afternoon, after the daily mail delivery. The victim had come into the room to sort mail, and presumably had picked the package up and shaken it, or perhaps put it down a bit too hard. Or knocked it over. It might not have taken much.

Jim turned his attention to the documents describing the investigation. It seemed that in the spring of '93 it had been announced that the Native American Studies program was going to be "placed into stasis" during the 1993-4 school year to make room for Navy ROTC, which was being moved to Rainier from UW-Cascade. Originally, the Native American Studies program was to have been moved directly to a new wing being built onto Hargrove Hall - Blair's building, Jim realized - but a local recession had slowed contributions. The administration's solution made sense to Jim: nobody had been fired, and no courses cancelled, but the two senior faculty members, according to the case notes, were to be paid to take sabbaticals, accompanied by their research assistants. The remaining faculty member and a pair of teaching fellows were to be moved to trailer, and no new graduate students were being admitted for the time being.

This proposal had not gone over well. Rumors had spread that the Native American Studies program was being killed, at the bequest of the incoming Navy ROTC program. The Army ROTC program had been a convenient target of student vitriol. There'd been protests and teach-ins (whatever the hell THOSE were) drawing hundreds of students. Mostly, things had stayed peaceful, but there had been some minor vandalism to the Army ROTC minivan. All this had stopped after Anne Ashland's death; the protests had ended, and one of the professors had cancelled her sabbatical and been housed in the math department for a spell. Apparently, everyone had been deeply shaken and had decided to play nice. Great for them, too late for Anne Ashland.

Jim then turned his attention to the two larger boxes. One held the remains of the explosive device, the other Ms. Ashland's clothes and other personal effects on her at the time of her death. Jim dismissed the latter box after only a brief look.

The inside of the former box smelled like Larry. Larry?? Well, it also smelled like paint and ketchup and death and wet paper and plastic and gasoline and, well, a friggin' meth lab (a smell fresh in his mind from the explosion in the warehouse Blair'd been living in until several months before), but the scent of Sandbury's Barbary ape friend was present, too. Though, of course, it probably wasn't THAT monkey, come to think. Jim wasn't sure he could tell a baboon from a gorilla by smell.

He tried to figure out which of the items exuded the smell, but his vision started to blur and swirl and the insides of his nostrils soon felt raw and slightly burned. He wondered what Blair would tell him to do, if her were there. Probably to not inhale deeply around where he could smell gas fumes, bright lad that Sandburg was.

Jim looked again at the report from forensics. As it turned out, the original investigators had detected everything EXCEPT the nonhuman primate. In fact, the trace ingredients of meth had driven the investigation and had led to a fairly major bust, but no real lead on who'd manufactured or planted the bomb.

Well, they HAD noticed some unusual dander, Jim saw on the next page of the lab report. 'Non-human, probably feline, on outer paper and under tape,' was the handwritten notation. In a different ink and script was written, 'no lead suspects have pets - dander still a mystery.' Jim looked closely at the remains of the brown paper which had wrapped the bomb. Yes, there it was, some tiny bits of white. Using tweezers, he placed several grains in a sample bag and resealed the rest of the evidence.

- - - - - -

Blair had figured out pretty early in his acquaintance with Jim that a happy sentinel was a dangerous sentinel. When he got home that evening, Jim had a Julia Roberts movie on the television and was dusting; Blair would have fled, but it was raining out and his socks were wet.

"Great timing, Sandburg," Jim said, "dinner's almost done."

"What's the occasion?" Blair asked warily.

"I think I've got a new lead on the Ashland murder!" said Jim, looking like he was giving Blair a birthday present.

Blair swallowed and took a moment to think of a response. He SO did not want Jim digging any deeper. Jim's face fell a little, and he said, "I know this is a tough one for you, Chief, but, trust me, it'll feel better when we nail who killed her."

Blair made himself smile slightly. "If you say so, Jim," he said.

Over stuffed shells and steamed green beans, he figured he'd better show some curiosity. "So, what'd you learn?" he asked.

"I pulled out the evidence and noticed - this," said Jim, taking the bag out of his pocket with a flourish and waving it once before tucking it away quickly.

"What's that?"

"Monkey dander," said Jim. "Or something. Smells like your ape friend, Larry. I got it off the bomb's packaging. Someone in forensics was sloppy and said cat, but I KNOW feline and this isn't. In fact, that's where you come in. You still on speaking terms with the primate lab at Rainier?"

"Not exactly," said Blair, telling the truth, though he'd have lied if he'd had to.

"Well, then I'll just go over solo. I'm betting those flakes came from some sort of monkey, and I'm heading over there first thing tomorrow to get samples for comparison. Interested in coming?"

"Seriously, Jim, my name's mud over there," said Blair. "They didn't like how I let Larry get free. They had to send him back to ape school after I returned him."

"Ape school?"

"Don't ask," said Blair. Shit, Jim was getting closer and closer, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

- - - - -

Jim was always a little uneasy when dealing with academic types. It wasn't so much that he didn't trust them as he couldn't read them, and never had been able to, even when he'd been an student himself. Even if Blair had been an unwelcome presence at Rainier's primate lab, it would have been useful to have him along, so that they could compare impressions later.

Not that he was suspicious of any of the lab's workers; but it paid to keep an open mind, and suspect everyone.

The woman (a few weeks earlier, he would have mentally called her a co-ed, but Blair had freaked on him the one time he'd used the term, and so he was trying to reform) at the front desk of the lab had balked a bit at letting him obtain samples of dander from the various species at the lab. But her supervisor, a Margo Collins, had practically done backflips for him, so he'd ended up with samples of dander from a chimp, two baby gorillas, a family of orangutans, and Larry himself. The dander was only a formality once he got a whiff of the Barbary ape, though - his smell was his own, and matched what he'd experience that first instant when he'd opened the evidence box the day before.

According to Ms. Collins, the animal had been part of the lab for over five years. "We check him out to students all the time."

"Like Blair Sandburg?"

"Few of our students are like Blair Sandburg," she said icily. Maybe Blair HAD been wise to stay away.

She'd then volunteered that the lab kept detailed records of students and other researchers who'd had extensive access to the animals, going back to the genesis of the lab 20 years before. She'd even started to print out Larry's history when Jim stopped her and phoned in a quickie request for a warrant. Which was denied, pending consultation with the university legal office. Jim cursed himself for following procedure; but, if the grains of dander were all that tied someone to the case, he didn't dare compromise the evidence trail.

"Nonono, that nasty Blairy won't ever be taking my baby again," Margo Collins was cooing at the animal as Jim hung up.

"Did Larry there spend much time with - uh, that student?" Jim asked; Ms. Collins hadn't asked why he'd mentioned Blair, and Jim wasn't about to volunteer that they were roommates. She'd also not asked what he was doing there in the first place. Margo Collins was not a curious woman.

"A couple of weeks here and there," she said.

"Uh, starting when?"

"Oh, five years ago at least. He was one of the first undergrads we let access primates outside of the lab. Of course, they have to take a course first..."

Oh, shit, thought Jim. Between the ape dander and the meth lab residue, Blair'd just become a suspect.

Back at the station, Jim returned his attention to the interviews conducted as part of the Ashland murder investigation. Sure enough, Blair had been questioned. He'd drawn attention because apparently he'd been involved in the teach-ins at the Army ROTC office. In his interrogation - probably too harsh a word - he'd said that he didn't really hold the ROTC department responsible for the "railroading" of the Native American Studies department, but that he thought that it was good that his fellow students were learning about organizing and protesting and "peaceful resistance." He'd of course denied any contact with any violent elements, and he attributed the end of the protests to "just plain shock." He hadn't been very forthcoming when it came to others involved in the protests, but apparently the investigators hadn't pushed him too hard to name names.

Could Blair have constructed the device, not meaning to hurt anyone? Was it his style? Blair might be a pacifist, but he was far from passive.

Damn. He might be about to send his best friend up for manslaughter, if not murder. Best friend? Where had THAT come from?

- - - - -

Jim knocked himself into Simon's office and said, without preamble, "I think Sandburg might have been involved in the Anne Ashland murder."

Simon looked up and blinked slowly, twice. "Taggert mentioned you'd called him about that case. When was it, three years ago? And now Blair's a suspect? If you want to get rid of him, there are easier ways."

"I'm serious, Simon," said Jim, a bit exasperated. Did Simon think this was easy? "I took a hard look at the evidence, and some of it connects right back to that warehouse Blair was living in."

He filled Simon in on the dander and the lab reports. "You're doing a genetic test to make sure it's the same monkey?"

"Of course," said Jim. "Barbary ape. Already sent it out. And I've asked Rafe to see if we can shake any 357s down to see how long they were operating at 133 Seacoast."

"Rafe?"

"I'm pulling myself off the case, for obvious reasons."

Simon nodded. "Okay, keep me informed."

Realizing he was being dismissed, Jim asked, "Aren't you going to have me pull Blair's observer pass?"

"For this? Do you think he's a danger? Do you think he's going to flee over this? Do you think he'd get far, if he did?"

"Frankly, sir, he could get as far as he wanted."

Simon snorted. "I was being rhetorical. Does your gut tell you he was involved?"

"No."

"Then just keep an eye on him."

- - - - -

"I don't wanna do it, YOU do it," Jim heard Rafe saying he came back from lunch.

"Naw, no way, man. Make Jim do it," said H.

"Can't do that, he'd tear him apart. Oh, hi, Jim." Rafe, perched on a corner of H's desk, grinned a bit sheepishly. "I think we gotta question Sandburg. The warrant came through and we got the full records from that primate lab. Blair had Larry the Chimp..."

"Barbary ape," interrupted Jim.

"Ape in January of '93. And the 357s had the meth lab going all that winter."

"And we're thinking that Hairboy isn't the sort of housekeeper who'd have vacuumed thoroughly between January and March," said H.

Jim allowed that that was probably a good assumption.

"Another thing," said Rafe, pulling out a sheet of paper. "Ashland's roommates were asked to list all of her friends and acquaintances, to see if maybe the whole bomb thing was an elaborate murder set-up. Look who's at the top of the list."

Blair. Shit.

"He wasn't followed up on because he had an iron-clad alibi for her time of death. The notes say that he was teaching a class that took weekend field trips to local anthropological field sites, and he'd driven a van out of town with about eight of his students a few hours before the bomb went off. So he could have planted the device, but he couldn't have shown up and killed her and faked the murder scene," said Rafe.

"It'd have been a pretty tricky thing to fake anyway," said Jim. He sighed; he hated this. "He's supposed to be in at 3 today. I want to be there when you talk to him. Just to be a friendly face."

"Right..." said H.

"Sure thing," said Rafe.

- - - - -

Blair knew something was up as soon as he walked into the bullpen; every eye in the place was on him. "Uh, come with me, Chief," said Jim, not waiting for him to even stash his jacket and backpack.

"What's up?" he asked. Might as well play the total innocent as long as he could.

Jim just shook his head. Rafe and H came up on either side of him. "Hey, I swear she said she was only 60," said Blair. Nobody laughed.

They walked him to one of the floor's interrogation rooms. "Ah, an explanation would be really nice about now, y'all," he said.

"This is about Anne Ashland's murder," said Jim. "Don't play dumb."

Blair kept his voice low and even. "I gave a statement three years ago. I don't have anything to add."

"Your statement was shit, Sandburg," said H. "You didn't mention a thing about knowing her to Lt. Kline."

"Frankly, I don't remember who I told what," said Blair. "I was questioned on two occasions, once downstairs here for about an hour, and once on the phone, to clarify our relationship because one of her friends said we were an item, or something. Which we weren't. I'm sure you guys have notes."

"Why didn't you tell me about any of this," said Jim.

"Because you didn't ask, and because it's none of your business."

"It's our business now," said H.

"Why?"

"There were traces of Barbary ape dander on the packaging of the bomb," said Jim. "The primate lab says Larry was with you all that January."

Blair felt the blood drain from his face. He was very glad he was sitting already.

"I was in the ROTC office the day before the bombing," he said. "I could have tracked something in."

"Not likely," said Jim. "It was affixed to the paper as if it had been pressed on during wrapping, and some was caught up in the tape."

"I think I need to see a lawyer before I say anything more," said Blair, very softly.

"Like shit you do, Sandburg," said Jim. "What do you know? Who are you protecting? Or did you do it? Didn't mean to hurt anyone, it just got a little out of hand. Is that why you're so upset?"

Blair looked around at the three other men. "Damn you all," he said. "Don't you know me by now? Don't you trust me? Don't you think I'd have come forward if I knew anything? She was only 20!"

"So you'd have been okay if your targets had been, what, middle-aged army officers?" said Rafe.

"Give us names, Blair," said Jim.

"No, I'm done here," Blair said, scooping up his gear and fleeing just ahead of the sting of tears. How could they not believe him? Why were they pressing this?

"You're damn right you're through here, Sandburg," Jim called after him.

- - - -

When the Rainier Action Committee had formed in the January of 1993 to try to get the administration to reconsider slashing the Native American Studies program, Blair had been overjoyed. In part, it was because he wanted to keep NAS on campus: it was important for the mostly-white, mostly-upper-middle-class student body to learn about their Native American neighbors; the presence of the department acted as a draw to the college for Native Americans, adding diversity to the student population and lending a sense of belonging to Native American students, even those who might end up never even taking a course in NAS; and he had personal interest in the field, and viewed NAS grad students and, when all else failed, professors, as a resource. Mostly, though, the emergence of the student protest movement marked the first time in his years at Rainier that the majority of his fellow students had been galvanized by an issue more weighty than the quality of cafeteria food.

He'd attended the second organizational meeting, held the week after the administration had announced that Navy ROTC was coming in and NAS was going to be ramped down drastically. Like everyone else there, he hadn't believed that the program's cutback was temporary, though his reasons had less to do with belief in ill will on the part of the school administration than knowledge that "sabbatical" was often simply a fancy word for "extended job interview."

Despite the fact that he lacked the proper spirit, his experience (having been the only person who'd ever actually been to a protest rally) had gotten him respect, and by the end of January, as students started to return to campus in larger numbers from winter break, the large expanse of his warehouse home was being used to hold meetings and for sign construction.

He'd tried to be, well, an adult influence. No, it wasn't okay to make harassing phone calls to ROTC students. Yes, circling the administration building and chanting slogans was a great idea. No, they shouldn't shout smears at people trying to get in and out. Yes, they should still do their calc homework. And their anthro reading. Especially their anthro reading.

Since dinner at Beno's, Blair had been fearing that Jim was going to find out about his involvement in the protests, and shove it in his face as being dangerous and foolish. Worst case, he was afraid that Jim was somehow going to imply that he was, in part, responsible for Annie's death.

Never had he expected that they'd think that he could have had any connection to the bomber. Did he LOOK like friggin' Theodore Kaczynski? Okay, maybe he did, a bit. But, damn it, Jim KNEW him. Better, maybe, than anyone else in the world except for Naomi, even though they'd only been working together for a few months.

Leaving the station, Blair drove straight to the loft. If Jim thought so little of him, there was no way he could stay with him.

It wasn't until he got into the apartment that he realized that both of his other pairs of jeans were in the tiny washing machine in the kitchen. Clean, but sopping. And it would take an hour for the equally feeble dryer to change that. Ironic, he thought, how it had been the dryer that had tipped the balance when he'd been considering living with Jim. Well, and the cable tv. And, most of all, being around such a - well, such an honorable man.

Whom he was trying to snow. Maybe Jim was right to think so little of him.

- - - - -

Jim was saddened, but not surprised, to find Blair in the middle of packing when he got home. "You don't have to do this, Chief," he said. "If you weren't involved, help us figure out who was."

"Name names?" said Blair, shoving his finally-mostly-dry jeans into his duffel bag. "Invite the Cascade PD to start mucking around in the lives of totally innocent people? Maybe screw up their jobs, or something."

"I think you're over-reacting."

"You accuse me of murder, and I'm the one over-reacting?"

"Then how did Larry's dander get under the tape?"

In answer, Blair grabbed his duffel. "You can reach me at my office," he said as he closed the door behind him.

Leaving his laptop, packed up and ready to go, still sitting on the coffee table.

Sighing, Jim popped open a couple of beers and set one next to the computer.

Ten minutes later - Jim was starting to get worried, he'd expected Blair to only make it 5 - Blair return, looking sheepish.

"Uhhh..." he began.

"Sit," said Jim. "Drink. Pizza's on its way."

Blair obeyed.

"Do you have anything more to say?" Jim asked.

"No," said Blair.

"Okay, then," said Jim. "Let's just leave it at that for a while. I won't push, you won't cut town, okay?"

"Are you ordering me to not leave town?"

"Damn it, Blair, don't make me make it official, okay? Let's just try to get along normally. I'm not working the case, so there's no reason to even talk about it in the loft. That work for you?"

"Yeah."

"Good, because those jeans you packed weren't quite dry, and I think mold's growing on them already. Would have helped if you hadn't let them sit in the washer all day."

"Jim!" Blair ripped the pants out of his bag. "You sure know how to sweet-talk a guy."

"Deal?"

"Deal," said Blair.

- - - - -

So, they didn't talk about it. Blair got word from various quarters that Rafe and H seemed to be talking to just about everyone, asking about the Rainier Action Committee and about him specifically. He assumed they weren't finding much of use. Not enough for an indictment, he was sure.

As for dealing with Jim - well, there were times when living with a master of repression had its advantages. They were getting along well enough that Blair even invited Jim to accompany him to visit his old friend Brother Marcus. During, and after, THAT fiasco, they worked as smoothly as they ever had.

Blair had a harder time facing Rafe and H. He knew they were just doing their jobs, but he couldn't handle talking to them while wondering what they were thinking, what casual comment might be used against him. So he avoided the precinct, meeting Jim at crime scenes when he was needed and mostly concentrating on work he'd been letting slide all semester.

For his part, Jim was glad that Blair stayed away from the PD. It was easier to put aside his doubts about the other man if he wasn't reminded of how he'd refused to cooperate in the investigation.

Of course, Jim kept tabs on things. Rafe and H briefed him as they steadily working their way through the original list of possible suspects, trying to discern who might have had contact with Larry (since positively confirmed to be the source of the dander) or access to Blair's warehouse home in the months before Anne Ashland's death. It turned out that almost everyone they talked to had been to Blair's place at one time or the other, and many remembered that he'd kept a spare key over the door.

Because Anne's roommates had mentioned Blair during the first round of investigation, Rafe and H had reinterviewed the women. They'd found that neither of them had met Blair prior to Anne's death, but that Anne had talked about him a lot, starting the semester before her death when he'd taught her introductory anthropology course. It seemed to be not so much a crush as a mild case of hero worship. She'd talked about how he was the sort of guy she'd like to marry, not about wanting to date him, for example. She'd mentioned "every single time the guy called on her in class, or said 'hi' to her on campus," according to one of her roommates.

Anne hadn't really dated anyone her Sophomore year, the friends had said; she'd been considering doing a 5-year double major in biology and medical technology, and was finding the math required to be pretty tough. "She wasn't someone who did something half-way," the roommate had said. "If she was with someone, she was with them all the time, and after barely passing several of her courses Freshman year she really didn't want the distraction of a relationship."

Something about this seemed fishy to Jim. Why hadn't Blair told him more? Blair was hiding something, he was sure. But what?

Finally, the other two detectives admitted that they had to reshelve the investigation. They could pretty much prove that the bomb had been assembled at Blair's home, but any one of dozens of people could have done it.

"You'd think it would bother Hairboy that one of his friends was a murderer," H said, over coffee in the break room. "I just don't get it."

Jim didn't either.

"There's just one thing," said Rafe. "Here's this girl, too busy to date anyone, catching extra hours doing office work. Wonder what was up with that?"

"I worked odd jobs whenever I could in college," said Jim. "I had my ROTC scholarship, but that didn't give me date money."

"Anne Ashland wasn't a scholarship kid," said Rafe. "Her dad was a doctor, remember?"

If he'd had a brick, Jim would have hit himself with it. "How long had she been working for the ROTC program?" he asked.

"Since the start of the semester," said H.

"Damn," said Jim. "She did it to herself."

- - - - - -

For the previous three weeks, Blair had been bracing himself slightly whenever he'd approached the front door of the loft. Would this be the night that the shit would hit? Or would Jim tell him that they'd dropped the investigation? Well, a guy could hope, right?

Coming in tonight, Blair knew the former was about to happen.

"When were you going to tell me?" began Jim without preamble, standing in the kitchen doorway. "Do you think we work for free? That we enjoy wasting time and the PD's money?"

"Back up, man! What's up?"

"Don't play stupid anymore, chief. You've known all along that Anne Ashland built that bomb."

"I, uh, I had my suspicions."

"Why have you been withholding this from us?"

"Because - because I'm not some extension of you! You don't own all my thoughts and all my - my history, my life!"

"What the hell are you talking about, Sandburg?"

"There have got to be some boundaries, Jim!" said Blair. "So what if I thought she might have done it? You don't have an automatic right to that!"

"Do you think I introduce you as my partner because I'm too lazy to say as-so-ci-ate?" asked Jim, his voice hard. "You owe me! It's your duty to share what you know."

"OWE you? How?" asked Blair. Could Jim be talking about Lash? Could he possibly be holding THAT over him?

"I haven't worked with a partner in a long time. I thought I could trust you. I don't give trust to just anyone," said Jim.

"And so I owe you because of a decision YOU made? Jim, every time I let you near anything, you - you completely blow it up, or screw it up! I can't give you everything. We need boundaries, man, or I can't stay with you. Can't even work with you."

Blair paused, taking a deep breath. "Look at how this went down. All I did was blink when you mentioned ROTC, and next thing I know I'm a murder suspect."

"What could it have hurt to come clean?" asked Jim.

"I didn't have a thing to come clean about!! And I still don't have any real proof Annie built that bomb. Just a feeling that it had to be her. I mean, I know everyone else who could possibly have done it, and they wouldn't have. I just don't get why you didn't - don't - trust me!"

Jim sank down onto the sofa. "I'm sorry you feel that way. I thought we were friends."

"Damn it, we are! And I'm trying to keep things - things sane enough that we can stay friends. I don't want to be just some extension of you. I'm not going there."

"What makes you think I'd want to do that?"

Blair sat down in the easy chair. "It's just the way you are. I can't explain it."

"I can't change if you won't tell me what it is I'm doing that's worrying you."

Why did Jim have to get reasonable on him at times like this? "Just let me have my own space, okay? Let me set the boundaries sometimes," Blair said.

Jim nodded. "Want to tell me why Anne Ashland blew herself up?"

"Might as well," said Blair. Where should he begin? "You might have noticed that I attract head cases."

"Nooo..."

"From time to time. Well, Annie wasn't too nuts, but she could get a little, well, obsessive. She had a crush on me, or something, when she was in my intro antro class in, let's see, that was the fall of '92. Lots of flustering, not meeting my eye but staring when I was looking elsewhere, that sort of thing. Mostly harmless, right? Well, we both made it through without extreme embarrassment, and I figured I'd never have to deal with her again.

"Then, the whole thing with Native American Studies got underway. Annie was home in Oregon instead of being on campus for January short courses, so she missed the start of the protest movement. When she got back on campus and somehow found out that I was involved, she came to my office and volunteered to do something, well, stealthy, for the movement. I said, no way, the whole point was that we were publicly standing up for diversity on campus.

"The next thing I knew, Annie'd gotten a job in the ROTC office. She came to me again asking what she could do 'from the inside.' I tried to convince her that they weren't the real enemy, just a stand-in target for the ills of society. I took her out to my place to show her all the signs that people were painting, and also to show her my clippings from the protests I'd been involved with growing up. I also wanted to show her pictures of, uh, what could happen if you stepped over the line and got the police, or national guard, or whatever, mad. Not that there aren't times when you HAVE to step over that line, or when you know you're going to get beat up just by showing up. But what we were doing at Rainier wasn't that sort of protest movement."

"And it all went over her head," said Jim.

"Yeah. She saw pictures of Selma, circa 1963, and I could see stars in her eyes. So I tried another tactic - I offered her a position in our movement. Recording secretary or under-treasurer or something. Something to bring her in out of the cold. She said she'd think about it.

"I didn't hear from her again, but that's when the vandalism of ROTC property started. I didn't really tie any of it to her. And maybe it wasn't her.

"But then that bomb went off... I knew she'd done it herself."

"Why didn't you come forward?"

"Do you think it would have made anyone feel any better?"

"Her parents deserve to know the truth, if nothing else?"

"See, Jim, that's what I was afraid of. PLEASE don't go telling them their daughter did it to herself."

"If I was a parent, I'd want to know."

"Right, Jim."

Jim sighed. "Rafe, H, and I figured it had to have been something like this. I'll call them and tell them we were right."

"Thanks."

"Then I want you to come with me down to Oregon."

"Jim, no way! See, this is an example of you not respecting my limits!"

"Well, I'm calling her parents now, and heading down tomorrow. You can come or stay."

- - - - -

Blair went, of course. Hell of a way to spend a Saturday, but as usual he had a hard time saying no to Jim. There didn't seem to be a way around that simple fact.

The Ashlands lived in a large colonial in a neighborhood of similar homes. The lawns looked professionally tended, presumably by gardeners during the week - nobody was out doing yard work. Ah, suburbia.

The Ashlands seemed too young to have adult children. Mrs. Ashland had the slight build of her middle daughter; Dr. Ashland was tall, with an athletic frame not dissimilar from Jim's. They didn't seem to be living in mourning, but there was a muted feel to their house. Annie's portrait hung over the mantle, among slightly smaller pictures of her sisters. Finally the first amongst them.

Without much preamble, Blair repeated what he'd told Jim the previous night about his encounters with Anne, with Jim explaining about how the Barbary ape dander had narrowed down the location of the bomb's construction to a place Anne had access to. The Ashlands listened without commenting, perched together on the sofa, close but not touching.

"Now, I have to ask you," said Jim, "do you think your daughter had the technical ability to build the device?"

"She didn't do a good job at it, did she?" said her father, with a harsh laugh that was half sob.

His wife placed a hand on his knee. "I don't - I think - I feel that you have latched onto this explanation, just so you won't have to keep searching for her killer," she said to Blair and Jim. "I don't want to feel that. I want you to keep looking."

Jim cleared his throat. "You know that the investigation was suspended several years ago. We reopened it as soon as we got a new piece of information, and for most of the last month we've had two detectives working full-time on Anne's death."

"But you had this, this evidence in your possession all along," said Mrs. Ashland. "I find it hard to have confidence that you've checked every angle, when you practically admit to initial incompetence."

Dr. Ashland shook his head. "I have some, uh, sympathy, Fran. In medicine, it's not at all uncommon to find that you could have done something to extend life, if you'd asked the right questions, or interpreted the answers correctly. It's not malpractice, it's just the way things are."

Mrs. Ashland nodded; clearly, she did not want a fight, she just wanted to voice her frustration and sadness. "What will you do now?"

"We've suspended the investigation, pending new developments," said Jim.

Dr. Ashland asked Blair, "Why did you come forward now?"

Blair reddened a bit; he and Jim hadn't explained what had drawn Jim back to the physical evidence, or that they worked and lived together. In fact, they'd sort of implied that it had been Blair's story which had prompted the review of the evidence. "I thought it would be easier for you if you thought that Anne was a random victim, and not, well, a terrorist."

"Well, put like that, you might be right," said Dr. Ashland.

"No," said Mrs. Ashland. "It's always better to know. We loved our daughter very much - every part of her. Even, even the part of her that could have driven her to do this. You, you don't think she meant to hurt anyone?"

"No," said Jim.

"Thank you, then," she said.

"Yes," said her husband. "The truth is always best."

"Will you, ah, be publicizing your, uh, theory?" asked Mrs. Ashland.

"No," said Jim. "What you do with this information is up to you."

Blair surmised that though the Ashlands professed a love for the truth, it would go no further than their living room.

- - - - -

"Was that as bad as you'd thought it would be?" asked Jim during the long drive home.

"Uh, well, it would have been worse three years ago," said Blair.

"No doubt," said Jim. "But it wasn't your decision to make."

"Give it a rest, okay? You won this one," said Blair.

Jim sighed, exasperated. "This isn't a contest!"

"No, this is my life! And telling people this sort of thing about their daughters - this is NOT how I want to spend it."

Jim was quiet for a while. Then, he asked, softly, "If you want out now, I wouldn't blame you."

The offer hung in the air for a few moments. "No," Blair finally said. "I don't want out. I just want to have a little control, like I keep on saying. Just some boundaries. Do you think we can make that happen?"

"Yes, chief, I'll try." There was nothing more that Jim knew how to offer. 'I need you to stay' wasn't something he could vocalize, and Blair wasn't going to make him try, it seemed.

To change the subject, Jim said, "You'd just love the trip Simon's planning on taking with Daryl next weekend. They're going down to Lima..."

* * * THE END * * *

All feedback welcomed, negative particularly! helenw@murphnet.org.