Shinz is back!!! A big Thank You kindly to Laura Higgens, who is the conduit by which Schinz Wong was able to get this post to DSFICT-L.

Shinz is not on-line yet (she is back home in Malaysia) but she misses everyone and is looking forward to catching up on all the stories when she gets back on-line! :)

-------------------------------

All Due South characters belong to Alliance Communications Corp., etc.

*Friend And Partner*

by Shinz Wong

Part 1 of 7

Body language is a science that, properly mastered, will open up worlds that others prefer to keep under wraps. Every smirk, cough, turn, bend, tap is wordless but portentous. Interpreted correctly it can save lives, help avoid unwanted confrontations, it might even help you find out what your superior officer wants with you before he actually says it. However, if said superior officer is totally motionless as well as expressionless for about one whole minute, the correct reaction can only be absolute nervousness, so Ray cleared his throat again and probed tentatively.

"Sir?"

Lieutenant Welsh ran his finger down the open file cradled on his left palm and studiously ignored his detective. Ray mentally ran through the events of the previous weeks and highlighted every glaring mistake or blunder he could find, it had been an average month with one exceptional statistic. His unsolved cases had been steadily accumulating and his net unsolved cases had slowly but surely been doing an uphill jog. Ray sighed inwardly and reminded himself to yell at Fraser the next time he saw him. Chicago had been experiencing an Indian summer phenomenon and the temperature had plummeted over several days for the past week. Fraser had somehow gotten on friendly terms with a legion of homeless families staked out in the park and had taken it upon himself to rescue them bodily from the sudden cold front from Canada, which, Ray was certain, was most likely to be Fraser's doing also.

As inevitable as the perky Coca-Cola ads on TV, any project that Fraser took on naturally tsunamied to him. He shook his head at the memory of driving these people from one shelter to another and then from one home to another when the shelters overflowed during the last five days. The homeless situation was at a chaotic standstill at this point in time. Fraser was spending his sleeping hours calling up shelters and visiting the families stationed at every available home that accepted them, namely the homes of the Mountie's friends and neighbors. There were two families camped out in Ray's guest bedroom, basement and attic. His home sounded like a Jurassic Park nursery as reinforcements were supplied to the already formidable troop of his nieces and nephews. Fraser wasn't doing any better, Diefenbaker was sharing his rug with a pair of carbon copy toddlers from the Ikhdar family which represented clear and present danger to the Arctic wolf.

The cold produced some very desperate people on the streets of Chicago; assault, robbery, and homicide climbed exponentially as the temperature dropped. And as chaos arose in the chilly air, so did the number of files that appeared unsolicited on his already disorderly desk. Blame it on the weather and Fraser, better yet, blame it all on Fraser. The lieutenant of all people would understand that you can always do something about the weather but never anything about the Mountie. So, Ray tried again.

"Sir?"

Lieutenant Welsh looked up as if he had just noticed Ray standing there. With one swift motion, he slammed the file close and stood up, his chair screeching harshly on unoiled wheels. He walked to the window and thumbed the blinds, looking down at the smoky street below. Welsh frowned at the scene before him and turned back to frown at Ray. Ray braced himself.

"You know what's missing from down there, Detective?"

"Uh...no, sir."

"Let me tell you what's missing from down there, Vecchio. Better yet, I'm gonna show you what's missing. What do you see at that curb?"

Ray moved to the window and squinted at the curb. It looked like any other curb in the city. People hurrying about, their feet getting light and fast because of the cold while their bodies gained several pounds of coats, shawls, and sweaters. Some children were blowing into their unmittened hands and waiting for the light to turn green.

"What am I supposed to see, sir?"

"You don't see it?" Welsh stared at Ray earnestly.

"No..no, I don't." Ray drawled his words out cautiously, sensing danger.

Welsh snapped his thumb away from the blinds, the two panes sprang together a fraction of an inch away from Ray's nose. The detective blinked at his boss while the lieutenant continued to wear his expression of total earnestness. He took Ray's elbow and maneuvered him away from the window whispering almost furtively.

"My hot-dogs are missing."

"Hot-dogs, sir?"

Welsh nodded and patted Ray paternally on the back to congratulate him on getting the $5000 spot on the wheel of fortune.

"Yes, Vecchio. If you had spared the time to read the files on your desk, you would've realized that my hot-dogs have been missing for two days now."

Ray gulped. So, this was about his cases after all.

"I'm sorry, sir. You see, I was helping..."

The lieutenant held up a hand to silence him, Ray stopped talking faster than if a polar bear had clamped his paw on his mouth.

"I know, Vecchio. The Mountie did it."

"As a matter of fact, he was involved, sir."

"I am sure he was. And his wolf too, right?"

"Most of the time, sir. If there was space for him in the car."

"If there was space in the car. I see, I see. Well, I'm going to help you out, Vecchio. And I'm going to help myself too."

"That's really nice of you, sir."

Welsh smiled treacherously. "You're going to recover my hot-dogs."

Ray nodded and his eyes widened slightly. Welsh pointed at the file on his desk.

"And you're going to have some help. You see, Vecchio, the way I see it, you need a little motivation to solve the cases I assign to you. A little push now and then, you know, a little push from someone other than the Mountie. See that lady sitting at your desk?"

For the first time since he entered his superior's office, Ray looked carefully away from the lieutenant and in the direction of his finger. There was a woman seated at his desk with her back toward them. Ray could not see her face as her head was bent over something, evidently in deep concentration.

"She's going to be that little push to help you get my hot-dogs back."

"I don't understand, sir."

Welsh inhaled deeply and sat on his desk.

"She's your new partner, Vecchio."

Ray opened his mouth to protest that he already had a partner, albeit an unofficial one, when Welsh held up his hand again in warning.

"I thought about it for some time, Vecchio. I considered putting you and Huey together but you two will kill each other and ruin me. Then she came along and I thought she'd be great with Huey but Huey's cases aren't piling up, so, she's all yours. She's on her way to better things than this precinct but while she's here, you've got yourself a partner. She's worked in Seattle and Miami in the last eight years so you aren't required to baby-sit." Welsh took a step toward Ray.

"Just work with her, Vecchio. For my sake."

Part 2 of 7

That was how Detective Raymond Vecchio became partners with the Hot-dog Cop, that was what he called her although her name was Lynne Kingston. Her name had been duly informed to him before he was catapulted out of Lieutenant Welsh's office in the general direction of his desk. Ray strolled warily over to the woman who was warmly attired in a banana leaf green sweater and plain black slacks. The sweater would have amounted to conspicuous ugliness if worn by just about anyone else but on her it attained a kind of fashion self actualization magnified by an innate grace and lack of self-consciousness. The Hot-dog Cop looked up at him with a disarming smile that Ray responded to by adding more burnished plates to his armor. Ray, shaking her hand rigidly, placed her age at around twenty seven or eight; she had actually just celebrated her thirtieth birthday the day before.

After the requisite formalities, observed with regal authority from his office by Lieutenant Welsh, the work began. Once she started talking about the cases, Lynne Kingston became the archetypal businesslike police detective, carrying a professionalism that lacked the relaxed equanimity of a veteran officer, an attitude that belied the number of years since she had left the police academy. Any departmental psychologist worth his salt could have easily told you that, as the new kid on the block, she only wanted to do the thing she was most comfortably familiar with, which was the work. Ray, on the other hand, was irked that she did not appear to want to follow his lead and mistook her stance for arrogance. He looked at his desk, miraculously transformed from temporary refugee camp to villa by the Mediterranean, and scowled. So that's the way things were going to be.

Kingston placed three files in front of him and began on a well-informed discourse; her pace unhurried, nevertheless, it contained a certain edge of urgency.

"I singled out these three because they have the highest priority. You are the primary investigator on all of them, detective, I'll be the secondary unless you want it otherwise."

"That's really nice of you, detective." Ray, leaning back in his chair with relaxed insolence, was careful not to let his sarcasm slip by unnoticed. Kingston averted her eyes and bowed her head over the files. A tinge of guilt crept into Ray's heart and he cleared his throat amicably.

"So, how long have you been in Chicago?"

Kingston held up one finger. "A month."

"That long, huh."

Her faint smile acknowledged his gibe. "Yeah, long enough for the cold to settle in. I've been following Detective Huey around for the past week. I guess we just kept missing each other." In other words, Ray hadn't been around the station too much.

Ray reddened and hurriedly shifted some papers around. "You have quite a resume. Seattle. Miami. Chicago can't be half as exciting as those two."

"After eight years in the field, every place looks about the same. You remember the places you worked in by the cases you get. The criminals on the streets keep thinking up new ways to do old business."

Ray decided against asking her why she transferred to Chicago, it might be personal and she might not want to talk about it, and made up his mind to adhere strictly to business with her since that was the way she appeared to be playing it. The new partners spent the next few hours discussing the cases. Case number one was a really bad extortion of some privately owned small businesses by a gang of youths. The threats had been getting more real as the weather turned from bad to worse; the extortionists needed the extra cash to buy necessities for winter, for example, liquor and drugs. The sixty-nine year old store owner who lodged the complaint had been severely beaten and was lying in a coma in the intensive care unit at Cook County Hospital. Lynne Kingston tapped the file on the desk and pointed out that the gang leader's age was eight years older than the average gang member's, stating also that he had been imprisoned four times on various charges since he was sixteen. The other gang members had been in jail on an average of once each. Ray pondered this and his gut instinct made him point out.

"So, the big bad guy is whatshisname and all the others are just the little guys."

"Lonnie Stills."

"Yeah, Lonnie. And if we get this Lonnie character, the gang breaks up, right?"

"Maybe. The problem is finding him, he's bunkered down pretty good and he's got his minions."

Ray looked up at the "minions" and across at her in amused silence. "Minions? You mean bodyguards, right?" he taunted.

Kingston looked back and raised her eyebrows, challenging him to dare to ridicule her choice of vocabulary. Ray, finding out quickly that Lynne Kingston could easily win a staring match when she wanted to, she had eyes that thundered at will, finally cleared the air.

"We'll get him. What's the second case about?"

Case number two was a composite case involving two women business executives from companies around the city who had received obscene, threatening phone calls from a stalker around the same period of time at the end of August. The threats caught the attention of the police when the stalking culminated in the violent assault and attempted rape of one prominent business leader outside her own home two weeks ago. Checking with reports of the past months, the police discovered that both women had lodged complaints about obscene phone calls at approximately the same time. In the two separate cases, the words used by the caller were distinctly similar. Kingston frowned at the file.

"The ladies are pretty much keeping their mouths shut. They aren't saying much except that they have no idea who he is. Scared out of their wits, I guess. They all made just one report each but never came back to inform us of further harassment. The Feds are sending in the troops. We are to *co-operate*."

"Don't we always?" Ray grimaced as the two united in their mutual dislike of the often dislikeable Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kingston nodded and Ray went with one of his hunches again.

"It sounds a lot like a lone campaign of terror against wealthy, successful businesswomen picked out from the Wall Street Journal but the perfect timing stinks of something else. What exactly did the guy say to them over the phone?"

"Things to the tune of, 'If I get my hands on you, I'm going to bleep, bleep and bleep you.' The thing that made us sit up was him saying he was going to bite their fingers off."

"Did he?"

"Yeah, but not with his teeth. He used a cable cutter."

A look of disgust and pity swept over Ray's face. "Do the victims know each other personally?"

"No."

"Any similarities between the two?"

"Physically?"

"No, professionally."

"Well, they both work in big companies. One of them is a Fortune 500 company."

"Any similarities between the companies?"

Kingston clicked her tongue at the file. "One is a conglomerate and the other a commodity trader."

"The trader. What do they trade in?"

"A number of things but mainly oil and copper. Hmm, oil prices have been skyrocketing since September because of the missile attacks on Iraq. Anyone who bought a lot of oil futures cheap for anytime after September can easily make a ton of money."

"The Fortune 500 company, does it have anything to do with oil?"

"It's a conglomerate, it does a lot of different things." She peered at the

file intently and was silent for a whole minute. "The report is vague on what it does but as I recall, it uses a lot of oil in one or two of its industries."

"Are these women in charge of oil futures for their companies?"

"We'll have to check on that. Big companies like the Fortune 500 one usually hire outside expertise to take care of that for them but someone from within's got to be in charge of liaison with the consultant."

"Let's find out if she's the liaison."

"Are you suspecting a business motive behind the attack?"

"Someone could be using violence to force them to do something against their will. These threats have been kept under tight wraps from the public, right? The stalker or whoever's behind him might be banking on the women not wanting to expose this for fear of damaging their professional reputations. We have to figure out what exactly the women are being forced to do."

"You think it's something to do with the oil futures? You think someone's trying to make the ladies give up their companies' shares of oil futures so that he or she can corner the market? But...their companies would never allow the women to give away their futures...their careers would be over if they even attempt something like that. I don't see the full rationale."

Ray, slightly irritated with her for disagreeing with him, stood up to stretch his legs and turned away from her on purpose. He walked off in the direction of the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee without offering to get her one as well.

When he returned, Kingston was still mulling over their discussion. Ray paced around her a little impatiently until she finally looked up and said, "You may have a point there, Vecchio. Someone with inside information, you know, maybe secret stuff like there was going to be a spur of the moment missile attack on Saddam in September, someone like that *could* know where the price of oil was heading in September, October and during the winter. Up. Other companies that don't have the same information would have traded away their futures at a reasonable price before the missile attack."

Ray continued her train of thought without missing a beat. "So, Mr. Insider was going around buying up these futures off the market before the whole Saddam business. The sudden activity was bound to raise suspicion and executives from other companies began thinking of keeping their futures under lock and key without really knowing why they have to. Mr. Insider, smelling the scent of sweet success and getting addicted to it, was determined to have those futures and employed criminal methods to get his way. I bet he spread big money to some, threatened others, promised jobs to some more."

Kingston nodded eagerly, her eyes lighting up, and took over from Ray. "The ones Mr. I threatened included the victims. These ladies have influence over the sales of oil futures in their respective companies and Mr. I wanted to make sure that he got his hands on all that they own. If they don't comply and don't keep their mouths shut after that, it's shame and mayhem for these well-known, rich and famous ladies. He gets his futures and then the missiles start flying. The lady who was attacked probably figured out what the deal was all about *after* the fact, got mad or got a working over from her boss and decided she really didn't feel like keeping her mouth shut after all. So, Mr. I sends his henchman back to beat her up. This I-man might have threatened male executives of other companies too by using blackmail or violence. It's just that he's dealt these ladies a far heavier hand. There may be more victims out there who are too scared to come to us...and others who live elsewhere."

Ray was impressed with her methodical deduction; the conclusion she arrived at hit the right spot inside him but he decided to withhold any outright agreement that might reveal his excitement and said simply, "We'll have to find out who Mr. Insider is. He may be a few groups of people."

Ray ruminated a little more. "I bet it's a big company. We can rule out the two these women work in. I'm putting my money on an oil company or someone who uses a whole lot of oil. Someone who gets a lot of government contracts. Someone with the inside track who's probably got their headquarters here in Chicago and a professional lobbyist in D.C. We'll get the business crime boys to check out on who's been doing really badly in oil futures or losing big money on their oil industries for the past year. We'll have to contact other cities for similar cases occurring around the same time too."

"You think it's someone who's had a lot of financial trouble?"

"I don't know a lot about big business or oil but criminals get the most violent when they are in deep shit."

Kingston nodded in assent at Ray's little piece of criminal psychology and paused before closing the file. Case number three was a little more unconventional. In the last two weeks, six patrol cars had been vandalized in different parts of the city while the officers were lured away on wild goose chases. Finally, a lone officer had laid in ambush near his car and seen four young men smash up the vehicle. When he emerged to confront them, he had been hit from behind and while unconscious had been badly roughed up by his attackers. He suffered a broken spine and the medical opinion was that he would be an invalid for the rest of his life. One patrol car from the 27th precinct had been vandalized among the six and Chicago police officers have made it their crusade to find the gangsters. Ray leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling while Lynne Kingston read from the file.

"The locations of the attack and the five cases of vandalism are all different and many miles apart. We may have a copycat or several copycats working here. Any ideas?"

Ray, shaking his head, reluctantly passed the ball to her. "Nope. Got any?"

"Reporters with video cameras."

"Huh?"

"You know, mobilize the press corp. Tabloids, papers, radio, TV, Internet. Make *them* lay in ambush for the vandals instead of us. Smashing up patrol cars has become sport of the day for kids in this city and we don't have the manpower to lay in wait for them because very soon, just about everyone will be doing it. We need help to catch them. If we catch a few, the rest may get scared and quit."

Ray shrugged tentatively and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know. It's worth a try." He yawned and then asked languidly, "Where to now?"

Kingston had already gotten up and was reaching for her coat. "Places to go, people to see. What do you want to do first?"

Ray picked out a case at random, "This one," he stood up unhurriedly then hesitated, "What's this hot-dog thing about?"

"Oh, that can wait."

"Yes, ma'am." Ray held back from a jeering salute.

Kingston bit her lower lip. "It's really not that important. These three are."

The two headed for the door. Ray glanced back and saw a whole new vista. His desk was clean and tidy. His brow creased in agitation.

"Did Welsh say you can sit there? Where's your desk?"

"We'll have to share your desk till they shell out the money to get me one. If they ever find the space to put it, that is."

Ray looked at her for a moment, then turned his eyes away and asked lightly, "Have you drawn that chalk boundary down the middle of the desk?"

Kingston gazed up at him for a moment to gauge his mood, then deadpanned. "I'm getting around to that, thanks for the reminder. Actually, I was thinking of getting an electric fence."

Ray took a deep breath and, shoving his hands into his coat pocket. "Just keep to your side of the desk."

They reached the car park and headed toward the Riv. Ray asked suspiciously as she walked to the passenger side.

"Where's your car?"

"Don't have one yet."

"How do you get to work?"

"A bus and then the el."

"You must be crazier than Frasier." He scoffed in amazement.

Kingston got into the car and took off her shades. "Who?"

"A friend of mine. He walks to work from West Racine, everyday."

"Bad neighborhood, huh."

"You're telling me."

"I like taking the el. It makes me feel like I'm really in Chicago."

"Yeah, right." Ray mumbled in disbelief. "Well, don't do anything that will hurt my car. I don't want to see a single hair line scratch."

"Fine, I'll make a list."

Part 3 of 7

Ray carefully carried the tray of steaming foil wrapped beef lasagna down the hallway to Fraser's apartment, it was his mother's special homemade lasagna, extra cheese, extra beef. He hadn't seen his friend for more than two weeks and this was actually his first free waking hour in eighteen days. An unholy noise preceded his opening of the door and he cringed involuntarily; the hullabaloo was distinctly child produced and sounded frighteningly like certain persons below age four having a lot of fun inflicting minor injury on a grown wolf. Ray nudged the door open with his foot and turned left into the kitchen. The first sight that greeted him was his friend in a casual checkered shirt and faded jeans peering intently at a frying pan on top of the stove.

Fraser looked up at him and, smiling his welcome, asked, "It's been a long while, Ray. Free at last?"

"Thank God Almighty." Ray returned a little sheepishly.

Ray carted the lasagna to the counter top and carefully placed it far away from the edge. He then went to stand beside his friend to stare at the smoking pan.

"What is that, Benny?"

To their left, Diefenbaker groaned once and was silenced immediately. Ray glanced at him and saw that there were two identical miniature monsters astride on his back, using his ears as reins and his tail as a windshield wiper. Ray put on an evil smirk and called out to the wolf.

"Having a good time, Dief?"

Fraser shook his head in surrender. "Little children like him unconditionally but he doesn't always requite the appreciation." He took up a spatula and prodded at one of the yellowish lumps in the pan before pronouncing, "I don't think this is working."

"What are you making? Pancakes?"

"No, Ray. It's an ethnic dessert for the children. I got this recipe from Mrs. Ikhdar. She's a lineal descendant of one of the greatest nomadic warriors who lived around three hundred years ago on the land which is presently known as the United Arab Emirates."

"What is it?"

"It's known by twenty seven different names by over thirty separate nomadic tribes."

"Spare me the grisly details. Is it suppose to look like that?" Ray kept well clear of the bubbling yellowish mess.

"I improvised on most of the ingredients. The original recipe called for camel's milk. It also required the pulp of Syrian pomegranates and El-Shelebi dates, goat's milk, and the paste of brayed wheat. The original recipe said that the dough should be placed in between two flat rocks and dried in the sun for two middays. I suppose that the stove fire might achieve the same result as the sun hasn't really been out for two weeks but I think I may be wrong. They should have been cooked twenty five minutes ago."

"Admit it, Benny. You have no idea what's in that pan."

"I really did try to get the correct ingredients, Ray. I've been calling all the zoos within a fifty kilometer radius to see if they had any female camels that could spare a pint or two of milk but none of them could help me. I am afraid that animals in captivity don't reproduce as well as they do in freedom. I even checked the itinerary of the Barnum and Bailey circus to see if they are going to be anywhere near Chicago at this time. They may have a few performing camels. Unfortunately, they travel mainly in the south during the autumn and winter seasons. Then I checked for all the camel farms in the United States but the closest one is in southern California. In the end, I spent two hours in the supermarket last night and the only thing I found that most approximately resembled the constitution of camel's milk was this," Fraser brandished a pink plastic cup that had pinkish mucilage smeared on the inside of it, "yogurt."

"Eeww, remind me never to get that brand. No one can say you didn't try your best."

"Syrian pomegranates and El-Shelebi dates were out of season."

"And I thought they were evergreens. What a let-down."

"So, I got this high fiber brand of mueslix."

"That's cheating, Benny. The sheikhs and sultans must be scandalized."

"I also replaced the paste of brayed wheat with wheat flour."

"I would stay clear of the United Arab Emirates if I were you. They'll have you hunted down for heresy."

"I know and I'm completely ashamed of myself. The goat's milk was easy to come by. You can find it all over Chicago."

"You can?" Ray's eyes widened in disbelief, recalling his past experience relating to that sustenance.

"Yes, Ray. You'd be surprised at what you can find in the remote corners of Albertson's these days. I imagine there must be more mothers feeding their infants goat's milk this year than the last causing demand to increase. The purchasing agents are extremely vigilant. However, there has been a recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease and I just didn't want to take the risk even with pasteurized goats' milk. So, I used skim milk instead."

Ray nodded sympathetically while Fraser leaned forward to sniff at the concoction.

"I'm afraid the only thing that's not going well is the sun. I've erected a baking area up on the roof but the weather has been immensely unco-operative. Hence, the stove fire improvisation. If only I could get them to turn golden brown." Fraser pointed at the alien substance in the frying pan.

Ray folded his arms and waited patiently for imminent culinary disaster. Fraser poked at the lumps in silence and finally turned off the stove. The gesture of defeat was finalized when the lumps clung tenaciously to the pan and refused to drop into Diefenbaker's dish despite Fraser's utmost efforts of persuasion. Fraser eventually gave up the lost battle and soaked the whole pan and its rebellious contents in the sink. Ray chuckled at his friend's gastronomic dismay and inclined his head toward the two tiny terrors.

"Where are their parents?" The Ikhdar family had recently moved from New Mexico to Kankakee, a little town just outside Chicago, lured up there by promises of owning an apartment of their own. They had paid the friend of a friend with all the cash they withdrew from their savings account; the deal was, like a predictable D-grade horror movie, a con and the Ikhdars, who have never owned property of their own in New Mexico, lost all their money. They wanted to buy the apartment in Kankakee because of its proximity to Chicago, their children could grow up in a small town environment near a big city. Distraught and desperate, the friendless family took the bus to Chicago, spent the rest of their cash in a few weeks and ended up on the streets. They finally found a spot to camp in the park after being harassed by the veteran homeless and the police. Their park neighbors, all families with young children, banded together through their common circumstance. Then, the cold came and refused to leave Chicago. It was a blessing that the Ikhdars happened to walk by in front of the Canadian Consulate, after being mugged around the corner, just as Fraser was finishing his shift. The Mountie had not only taken them in but provided temporary homes for the other families in the park.

"They are out looking for odd jobs. How are the De Boers and the Mitschekovichs?" Fraser asked referring to the homeless taken in by Ray's family.

"Last time I saw them, they were fine. Ma says they've almost finished repainting the interior of the house and retiling the bathrooms for us. How's the shelter situation coming along?"

"I called around to the ones closest by here but they were all full due to the cold. They don't have the capacity to take in whole families and I really want to keep the children and their parents together. Some private shelters out near the suburbs occasionally have vacancies but I haven't been able to transport them without a car. I still haven't found a place for two families and my neighbors have taken in all they can. I even called on MacKenzie King and some other people we know for help. You know, Ray, Miss King reacted rather strangely. She thought that I wanted to move in with her when I asked if she had empty rooms in her apartment. I had to convince her that I was perfectly happy here alone and I have Diefenbaker for company, of course."

Guilt swelled up wholesale in Ray's throat as Fraser lifted the foil cover to inspect the lasagna. He knew that he had been neglecting his friend since the day Lynne Kingston became his partner, at a time when he and his car had been most urgently needed. He managed to call Fraser at the Consulate but had missed him several times as the Mountie had to alter his schedule to accommodate the family and to run around to the shelters during the day. (Inspector Thatcher had not been very happy but tolerated Fraser's sacrifices. Constable Turnbull was more than understanding and had willingly taken over Fraser's day shift. Turnbull even had a little homeless boy living with him.) Ray had managed to tell his friend about his new partner but very little of anything else. He could see that Fraser needed his help and he hadn't been there for him. Exasperation coursed through his veins as he walked to Fraser's bed and sat down heavily. The two children increased their volume of screeching when they saw that they had another captive audience.

Fraser, clearing away the remnants of the dessert disaster, shouted over the din. "This lasagna is superb. Please thank your mother for me, Ray. She really doesn't have to send over food every other day. The children are getting totally spoilt." Ray nodded as Diefenbaker decided to attempt one last blitz at escaping his tormentors. He leaped onto the bed and brushed by Ray on his way to the kitchen. The twins yelled joyously and scrambled over Ray to get to the wolf. Dief, cornered, pleaded for amnesty with anguish in his eyes. Ray chuckled unhelpfully.

"You can run, Dief, but you can't hide. They'll hunt you to the ends of the earth."

"HOW'S WORK?" Fraser shouted from the kitchen.

Ray, about to say "great", changed his mind and uneasily volunteered a less enthusiastic adjective. "GOOD."

"HOW'S YOUR NEW PARTNER?"

"THE HOT-DOG COP? SHE'S THE ENERGIZER BUNNY INCARNATE. THE WOMAN'S SO PUNCTUAL SHE MAKES OLD FAITHFUL LOOK BAD. KINGSTON'S THE MOST EFFICIENT AND PRODUCTIVE PERSON I KNOW BESIDES YOU. WE HAD TO SPEND MANY NIGHTS IN THE STATION BUT I NEVER CAUGHT HER SLEEPING. SHE WORKS AND WORKS AND WORKS. NEVER LETS UP."

"SHE SOUNDS LIKE AN INTERESTING PERSON."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ray breathed. "SHE'S GOOD AT HER JOB BUT I CAN'T SHAKE THE FEELING THAT SHE'S SPYING ON ME FOR WELSH."

"THE LIEUTENANT WON'T DO THAT, RAY. HE PROBABLY ASSIGNED YOU A PARTNER TO LIGHTEN YOUR WORKLOAD. SHE IS DOING HER JOB WELL, ISN'T SHE?"

"I GUESS, BUT AT LEAST SHE'S THERE TO KEEP AN EYE ON ME AND I HATE THAT."

"DO YOU LIKE HER?"

"WHAT?"

"DO YOU LIKE HER?"

"I DON'T KNOW."

"BUT YOU HAVE BEEN PARTNERS FOR MORE THAN HALF A MONTH. WHY DON'T YOU KNOW, RAY?"

"I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HER, BENNY. APART FROM THE FACT SHE'S A GOOD DETECTIVE AND HER NAME, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HER. WE'VE JUST BEEN WORKING OUR BUTTS OFF ALL THIS TIME. WE DON'T TALK ABOUT ANYTHING BUT THE CASES."

"DON'T YOU WANT TO GET TO KNOW HER?"

Slightly taken aback, Ray pondered Fraser's last question. He thought about it a little and realized the truth in the statement. He had been obstinately keeping Lynne Kingston at arm's length. He was angry at Lieutenant Welsh for assigning him a partner against his will, he hadn't needed an official partner for almost two years because Fraser had been there to help him, even the Lieutenant understood the value of Fraser's influence on Ray. Ray and most of the 27th precinct always thought of Fraser as a permanent fixture --Ray's inseparable accomplice-- of the police department. Ray, more than anyone else, treasured Fraser as his friend and partner and despised the intrusion of a third person into their brotherhood. But the hot-dog problem finally roused the lieutenant from his lenient indifference and his consequent wrath produced Lynne Kingston. Those damn hot-dogs, whatever they mean.

The second factor in the mixture of unfriendliness on Ray's part was his guilt over not being able to help Fraser these past weeks. Ray inexorably blamed his inability to set aside time for Fraser on his new partner whom he saw as a bullet-proof glass dome trapping him, limiting his freedom through her enthusiasm for their work. A little unprovoked anger toward her flared now and then; delving into the source of that anger, Ray felt that this new partner had come between him and Fraser causing him to neglect his best friend. He didn't know her well even now and he refused to trust her completely, once he had set out not to like her, he wouldn't allow even a wisp of fondness to cross from his cold front to her. He didn't hate her but he just couldn't bring himself to get to know her as a person, he respected her but apart from a few rare, off-handed jokes to ease the tension caused by two unaccustomed minds rubbing together, there was not much else between them. She remained the impersonal Hot-dog Cop to him.

Fraser looked at his inert friend and, guessing that he was trying to figure something out, wisely left him alone. After a moment, as Ray was about to explain some of his woes to Fraser, one Ikhdar tyrant walked up to him and started to do an odd little two step right under his nose. This went on for a whole minute as the child stared intently at Ray, waiting for his response.

"Very nice, kid." Under his breath, he muttered, "What do you want--an interview on CNN?"

The child carried on undeterred. Ray's eyes narrowed in puzzlement. The child's eyes were beginning to smart but his feet continued on their erratic tapping course at a much higher speed. Ray frowned at the little figure before him. Fraser looked up from the stove and saw the wordless, animated showdown.

"I think he has to relieve himself, Ray. Could you please take him down the hall? Thanks."

Ray took the Ikhdar kid's arm and launched him along the hall to the common bathroom and went inside to stand guard over him. Away from the noise, Ray suddenly felt the full weight of the exhaustion that has been threatening to overwhelm him these past weeks. The exhaustion was not without professional gratification. The three top priority cases that he and Lynne Kingston had discussed more than two weeks before were well on their way to being solved. They had beaten the FBI to the motive behind the stalker case and now the FBI had been ordered to give them assistance in solving the case. All three cases had his name as primary investigator so he could reasonably look forward to a huge jump start at this stage in his career; Ray was not without ambition even if he did not believe in pursuing it at the expense of others. Lynne Kingston had claimed very little credit to the work every time they reported to Welsh although she had contributed 50% and often more to the investigations. Ray was keenly grateful to her for that but never told her so. Kingston was inexhaustible and the two had spent thirteen of the last eighteen days camped out in the precinct or on all night stakeouts. Professionally, he couldn't find fault with her.

The first case about the extortionists required a lot of footwork. Ray and Kingston canvassed the neighborhood where the gang concentrated their activities. They interviewed all the victims and secured their promises to testify in court. They spent time profiling the gang members and went to see their parents or guardians, most of whom were helpless to do anything about the matter. They even went to see the girlfriends of the gang members hoping that someone had influence on these kids. Their big break came when they visited the prison where Lonnie Stills had spent his last term a year ago. From the medic in the prison clinic, they discovered that Stills had a strange addiction, not to crack or ice but to oxygen, he was asthmatic and had developed a psychological reliance on O2. After that, Ray got a list of the scuba gear suppliers in that part of the city. They went around to each of them until one seller told them that Stills was a frequent customer and came in for a fresh supply of oxygen about once a month. Ray and Kingston staked out the store and arrested Stills the day before; Ray was in fact celebrating the capture by taking a few hours off today. Now, he hoped that the gang would break up without a head, all signs were pointing toward a sinking ship; Ray was optimistic.

On the second case, the partners had taken their hunch to the lieutenant and the lieutenant had directed them to the Commissioner. The Commissioner ordered the business crime department to look into the activities of several big oil firms. The business crime officers then uncovered some unusual futures trading in the month of August by two big multinational firms based respectively in Chicago and New York which had a lot of joint interests overseas. The FBI brought the executives involved in for questioning while Ray and Kingston pressured the victims of the stalker into revealing the business proposals they had received from clandestine parties. The victims, realizing that the police knew the other side of their secret, talked hesitantly at first. Then, full of fury at the heinous injury against them and the memory of the fear they had to go through, the women talked and talked. The victim of the assault finally agreed to described her attacker as well as identify suspects and Ray and Kingston spent a lot of time running to the forensics lab to get DNA matches from the hair and saliva left by the stalker during the attack. The police were drawing the noose around the attacker and even as he stood there in that bathroom, and the FBI was closing in on his masters.

On the third case, Ray contacted MacKenzie King and proposed Kingston's "reporters with video cameras" idea to her. MacKenzie promised to use her influence in the journalistic circle to promote the idea. She also promised that if she couldn't get one of the TV stations to follow the story, she would do an exclusive on it herself and get a free-lance cameraman or press photographer to go with her to lay in ambush. Ray had gotten satisfactory reports from her so far. She and her regiment of reporters that tailed pre-selected patrol cars every day for two weeks had caught one gang in action and taped it. The partners spent many days putting names to faces and had been cynically shocked to discover that one of them was the teenage son of a prominent state senator. In return for no charges brought against his son, the politician promised to pressure the city council into offering a reward to civilian or civilians who contributed information leading to the arrests of the other gangs involved in the vandalism and even made a personal gift of $10,000 to the injured officer. There was a dramatic drop in the number of patrol cars vandalized but the attackers of the police officer were still at large.

For Ray, three major cases almost solved or nearing completion in the course of eighteen days was exceptional. Jack Huey was obviously envious while Elaine raised a congratulatory thumb every time she saw him. Ray just wished that he could be completely happy and get rid of the nagging dissatisfaction that haunted him. He was successful but he wasn't as fulfilled as he was whenever he and Fraser solved a case. He guessed it was because of the different partner and the fact that Fraser's cases always got personal which explained the contentedness he got at their completion while his recent work had been exactly that: work. With Fraser, he was working with a friend while Lynne Kingston was a partner whose role ended as soon as they parted to go to their respective homes. He also wished fervently that he could share his recent triumphs with Fraser. The Mountie had helped him solve so many cases that he truly deserved some sort of meritorious recognition. It unsettled him to think that he was surging ahead without giving some of the credit to Fraser.

Coming back from latrine duty, Ray found that the Ikhdars had returned from a fruitless job search. Fraser's neighbors were gathering in his apartment bringing along the homeless that Fraser had bequeathed upon them. It was a communal dinner of sorts with each neighbor and guest bringing along dishes and children. Fraser's cramped apartment was heading dangerously toward meltdown and Ray could hardly see his friend playing the attentive host among the motley crew. People were crowding out into the hallway as assorted languages raged all around and sign language became the popular lingua franca. Eventually, Fraser appeared from the kitchen holding up an empty and cleaned lasagna dish.

"They finished the lasagna quite quickly. I'm afraid my spaghetti didn't appeal to them as much. There's plenty of good food around, Ray. There's Tandoori chicken, sweet and sour pork, kuskus, baklava, spiced coffee. Can I get you anything?" Fraser asked in concern.

Ray's appetite never failed to shrink with the ballooning of his workload.

He wondered at that sometimes. That may be why he never seemed to put on any weight. "No thanks, man."

Fraser gave him an "Are you sure?" look to which Ray nodded before shouting, "Look, Benny. I know I should be helping you look after these people but it's been kind of crazy lately at the station and...I'm sorry. I feel lousy about it."

Fraser shouted back, "I..," but before the friends could exchange another word, Fraser was called away by a neighbor who couldn't find a serviette. When he finally came back, Ray yelled, "I wish I could let you have my car to drive them around but I've been going on these all night stake-outs and..."

CRASH...a window broke under the urgent administering of three adolescents and Fraser hurried away to keep things under control. He returned after a long time with an apologetic look. Ray continued, "I haven't had much time to be here and I know you need all the help you can get." Fraser shouted back, "You...," and was abruptly interrupted by a neighbor who wanted a new garbage bag. That happened numerous times until Ray finally decided that this wasn't the time or place to carry out a conversation. He wanted to apologize for not helping him with the homeless and the disintegration their unofficial partnership and he wanted to tell Fraser about his new partner and his success with his cases. Ray shrugged in defeat and left quietly amidst the chaos of the dinner riot without saying goodbye to his friend. Diefenbaker appeared silently beside him as he reached the top of the stairs. The wolf whined softly as Ray patted him gently on the head.

"Feeling left out, Dief?"

Diefenbaker whined again.

"All alone in a sea of humanity, huh?" Man and wolf stared at each other until Ray finally broke away and walked down the stairs.

Part 4 of 7

Ten days later, Lieutenant Welsh told Detective Vecchio to close the three cases that he solved and complimented him on work well done. Case one, Lonnie Stills and his whole gang were going to jail for murder because the extortion victim they battered had died as a result of his injuries. Case two, under pressure from the FBI, the self-serving executives of the two oil companies, who as a whole form Mr. Insider, behaved true to form. Belated whistleblowers sprouted like a bad rash and confessions incriminating colleagues and recent golfing buddies were exchanged for light sentences. The case created tremors that were felt all the way to Washington and many prominent members of the capital city's gild-edged social clubs had to hurriedly clean house. The stalker's whereabouts were revealed through an anonymous phone call; he broke both his legs jumping down from the roof of a building when Ray and Kingston went to apprehend him. Case three, an ex-girlfriend of one of the vandals who attacked the officer decided that the $3,500 put up by the city council was three thousand five hundred times more attractive than her ex-lover and volunteered to tell the police the story he had boasted to her right after the incident. That gang was also ending up behind bars and MacKenzie King finally washed off the bad blood between her and the Chicago PD. Welsh was pleased, very pleased. Ray beamed from ear to ear as he walked back to his desk. He had just arrived at the precinct that morning after a good six hours of sleep and a hot shower at home. Lynne Kingston was seated on her chair where he had left her the night before with her knees drawn up to her chin. She nodded at him groggily and sipped at the canned tomato juice in her right hand while with her left she jabbed at the keys of Ray's temperamental typewriter. Twenty eight days and nights of non-stop work were finally starting to tell on her. Ray hung up his coat and walked happily to his side of the desk then stopped to scrutinize Kingston.

"Didn't you go home last night?"

"Too late for the el. A bit scary." Kingston yawned and hugged her knees. "That's okay, I wanted to finish this report on that Stills case. God forbid but I'm getting used to these all-nighters. Someone once told me that I look more like an accountant than a big city cop. He said that I needed to go around with blood shot eyes, dirty hair, and rumpled clothes to look like a cop. I'm finally losing the accountant look I guess."

"I could have given you a ride," Ray pronounced seriously.

Kingston stared at him in mock surprise and gushed, "It's got feelings. It's actually trying to be nice."

"Hey!" Ray feigned annoyance but reached in and unscrewed one piece of defense, letting it clatter noisily onto the imaginary floor. Kingston suppressed a chuckle and started to bind the report she had finished typing. Ray looked down at his shoes, fidgeted a little and mumbled something long overdue.

"I guess I owe you breakfast, Kingston."

His partner looked up quickly to see if he was serious. "I'll settle for a cappuccino. Keep this up, Vecchio, and I might even cook for you."

Ray swallowed the cheeky retort he had on the tip of his tongue and simply said, "Let's go to Olympo's." He was only prepared to take one infinitesimal step at a time with this woman.

The cool, crisp air was refreshing after the oppressive atmosphere of the precinct room. Kingston inhaled deeply and tugged at Ray's elbow. "Come on, I want to show you something."

They walked to the curb that Lieutenant Welsh had pointed out to Ray more than a week ago. Kingston stopped at the corner of the police department and gestured expansively.

"There used to be a hot-dog stand here."

Lightning flashes crossed Ray's mind. "The lieutenant's hot-dogs? The ones he's so anxious to get back?"

Kingston nodded. "You never bought a hot-dog here from Marnie?"

Ray nodded uncomprehendingly and then asked. "Where's Marnie?" The proprietor of the hot-dog stand was missing along with his wares.

Kingston became the professional cop all at once. "He was robbed at knife point by a masked man thirty days ago. Right here at three seventeen in the afternoon in front of the police station. Robbed him of every penny he had on him, five hundred eighty eight dollars and forty nine cents. Slapped Marnie around a couple of times in the process. The whole thing took less than three minutes. Marnie lodged a report, packed up and went on extended vacation to Bermuda."

"So the Lieutenant can't get hot-dogs for his two o'clock snack. That's what he's so pissed off about." He looked at the surrounding buildings. "The trail may be stone cold by now."

Kingston sighed, "Let's go, Vecchio."

Ray brooded and refused to budge. "The guy's got to be pretty brave or pretty stupid to rob Marnie in front of the station. Did Marnie see him get away?"

"Yeah. In the report, Marnie said he ran off around the corner."

"Ran off around the corner? What, he didn't have a car?"

"Marnie didn't see a car. But the robber could have parked around the corner."

"I don't think so. If he had a car, he would've stopped in front of the stand and drove off after he got the money." Ray shook his head in mounting exasperation. "We could've had a chance at getting this guy if we had gotten around to it sooner. Why didn't you say something about this four weeks ago, Kingston?" he demanded irrationally. "The Lieutenant's gonna have me in his doghouse till he gets his hot-dogs back." And make you my partner permanently, Ray added silently. "You may think that it's a really small case but it's important to me. If it never gets closed, it will be on your head, not mine. From now on, I pick the cases we work on and if you don't like that...well, you can do what you like because I don't give a damn. You can go tell the Lieutenant that you are sick of me and you want Jack Huey as your new partner. That would suit me just fine. " The infinitesimal step forward had just been negated by a record breaking long jump backward.

Kingston opened her mouth to protest, stopped and turned resolutely away toward Olympo's. Ray followed her morosely. As they were about to cross the street, two figures approached from the opposite direction and the human in the red serge and deep blue overcoat raised his arm in greeting. Initially, Ray gazed at the Mountie in surprise, then an inexplicable blackness bled into his eyes. Kingston directed rapt attention to the Arctic wolf at Fraser's heel.

"You're a wolf, right? Wow!"

Diefenbaker barked in the elated affirmative. Ray looked wordlessly from his friend to his partner and back again as Fraser tipped his Stetson courteously at Ray's official partner.

"Miss Kingston, I presume?"

Lynne Kingston looked up at him and slowly took stock of the uniform and the man wearing it before answering in an austere tone. "I have a deep dark secret, I have another name and it's Lynne." She grinned at Fraser and held out her hand. Fraser glanced at Ray as he introduced himself and shook Lynne Kingston's hand. Diefenbaker acted wildly out of character by extending his paw which Kingston shook promptly. The lady detective then kneeled on the cement and took Dief's head between her hands bringing her nose within a hair breadth of the wolf's.

"You are the handsomest creature I've seen in Chicago."

Diefenbaker whined with pleasure while Fraser watched the little exchange with polite interest. Ray was abysmally quiet.

"Now, that's too high a compliment for a deaf wolf, Miss..Lynne."

Diefenbaker growled in resentment.

"He can't be deaf. He heard every word I said." Lynne Kingston fondled Diefenbaker's ears gently.

"He chooses only to hear what suits him. I believe he occasionally reads lips too."

"Nooo." Lynne Kingston exclaimed in awed disbelief and peered intently at Diefenbaker and began to silently mouth words. The wolf watched her and then barked joyfully. The detective straightened up and laughed. "He reads lips all right."

Fraser shook his head in resignation as Diefenbaker went over to sit at Lynne Kingston's heel. He had gotten over his earliest surprise at meeting Ray's partner, his friend had told him a few things about the Hot-dog Cop but none of them concerned the fact that she was attractive. Ray, the self proclaimed connoisseur of the fairer sex, often berated him over his seeming indifference toward the beautiful women they had encountered during the past two years. He wondered why Ray had refrained himself from telling him about Lynne's physical attributes but repeatedly emphasized her professional characteristics. He inspected his friend's body language and discovered that Ray was holding himself aloof from the woman beside him. He appraised this unusual behavior, Ray commonly put on his most charming front around women, especially pretty ones. The Ray he now saw was distant, there was a preoccupied frown etched permanently into his forehead and brows, and would not even look at his partner during her antics with Dief a moment ago.

From what Ray had told him about Lynne, Fraser knew that his friend respected her but was wary of her at the same time. At this moment, Ray even looked like he was angry with her although Lynne's manner was natural and composed, very unlike someone who had just come away bloodied from an argument. He looked closely at this woman with the laughing eyes and the ready smile, her eyes radiated frank intelligence and insouciant humor while the hand that clasped and shook Fraser's was firm but friendly, and recounted everything Ray had told him about her, she was professional, efficient, productive, energetic and knowledgeable but Ray simply couldn't tell him if she was nice. He knew that his friend was forced into this partnership against his will and deduced that Ray's reluctance had opened a gap between him and Lynne, he hoped that Ray's reserve would not strain the two's working relationship. Fraser readily judged that Lynne was an easy-going, good-natured person, decided he liked her, and from that moment onwards, was determined to apply himself in bridging that gap.

"Are the two of you off on a case?"

Ray gestured at Olympo's. "No, we are getting coffee." After a long pause, he offered. "Come on, Benny."

The four of them were glad to get indoors to escape the frigid air outside. A few off-duty officers nodded and greeted them while Diefenbaker quickly got half a sugared donut. They found a booth where Dief immediately leapt into the space beside Lynne. Ray, glancing back darkly, went off to order at the counter. Fraser smiled pleasantly at Lynne as she patted Diefenbaker.

"I heard that you closed three significant cases in less than a month. Congratulations, that's very impressive," said the friend to the partner.

"Thank you but I don't remember having been this tired for a long time."

"Ray and you must work well together. He told me you are a very good detective and that you are one of the most productive officers he's ever known."

Lynne smiled and met Fraser's eyes confidently. "He seems to have told you a lot about me in a relatively short time. Nothing very damaging, I hope."

"Ray and I are very good friends. As a matter of fact, I know quite a few of the people he works with. I hope that you don't mind him telling me a little about his partnership with you, he's had nothing but praises for you."

"I don't mind at all. You can tell Vecchio that I think he's a great detective himself."

Fraser smiled. "I believe he'll be happy to hear that from you personally."

Lynne shrugged and didn't answer. When she looked up, the subject had been subtly changed. "You have an unfair advantage, Ben. Vecchio's never told me anything about you. From that uniform, I gather you're not an American. I thought only the Mounties of the Musical Ride wear that red serge."

Fraser nodded. "That's accurate. However, the sentinel at the Canadian Consulate also wears this uniform. I've just ended my shift and decided to pay Ray a visit. He's been too busy to talk to me recently so I thought that I should make the effort to come see him."

"You picked the right time. We may be getting a holiday in the next few days."

"Well deserved too."

"Yes, I'll finally get the time to pick up the car that I just bought through a friend and relax at home for a while."

"Where's home?"

"Little house with a large yard out near Memorial City Mall."

"That's quite a distance from here."

"Yeah, that's why I've been sleeping at the station this past month."

"It appears to have been worth it."

"I certainly hope so. You know, I've been here for two months but I still don't know the color of my walls, I usually get home so late at night and fall asleep immediately. Tell you a secret, Ben. I'm the mother of all homebodies. Whenever I get any free time, I like to read, cook and watch TV. And have a dog. I never get to have a dog." She looked longingly at Diefenbaker. "I've just finished unpacking but my house doesn't feel lived in yet."

"Why don't you get a dog?"

"My hours are irregular. I'll just be maltreating a pet."

"I take Diefenbaker to work with me. He seriously believes that the national security of Canada lies in his hands now."

Lynne laughed and hugged Diefenbaker impulsively as Ray came to sit down beside Fraser moodily.

"How are you guys doing?"

Fraser indicated with a smile that they were getting along fine. "I think Diefenbaker has found a best friend." Lynne grinned at Fraser and nudged Dief's flank gently.

"You wanna come live with me, Dief? I cook a mean pot roast."

Fraser shook his head hurriedly. "He's already getting fat, Lynne. Please don't tempt him with something as good as a pot roast."

"But I love big, hunky dogs. They are great as leg warmers during winter. If Dief gets fat from my food, he'll just be helping me conserve energy by bringing down my gas bill. Conservation is a big thing around my house. How about it, Dief? Extra crispy Southern fried chicken on Mondays, fresh poached salmon on Tuesdays, that scrumptious pot roast on Wednesdays, some yummy cheesy meat-lovers pizza on Thursdays, juicy, tender roast beef on Fridays, spicy, steaming curried lamb on Saturdays, and the take-out of your choice on Sundays."

Diefenbaker slobbered onto the table as his tail whacked the vinyl covering of the seat at hurricane speed. Fraser smiled and said, "I'll have to put him on a vegetarian diet after listening to your delicious menu."

Dief growled indignantly. Fraser ignored him and turned to Ray. "Lynne sounds like a very fine cook, don't you think?" Turning to Lynne he said, "Ray's mother makes the best lasagna in Chicago and I've always believed that Mrs. Vecchio's tiramisus are the best there is." To Ray, "You should get your mother and Lynne together to exchange recipes."

Silence. The invitation for Ray to make an invitation hung in the air untouched. After a prolonged pause, Ray grunted in a non-committal way and the three lapsed into further silence. Lynne averted her eyes from the two men and busied herself coddling Dief; Fraser licked his lower lip while Ray stared at his hands. The coffee arrived and Diefenbaker was delighted to see that Ray had gotten him a jellied donut. He wolfed it down hurriedly before Fraser could stop him while the three humans sipped their coffee slowly. Ray was a little taken aback at how gung-ho Fraser had been a moment before, he really didn't know how to respond as he hadn't demolished bout 90% of his defenses yet. He could see that Kingston and Fraser were getting along very well, in the few minutes since they met, his new partner had laughed and smiled more times than she had in the last two and a half weeks they have worked together. It was also evident that Fraser liked her while Diefenbaker was undoubtedly enamored. The sudden jealousy that pricked at his throat arose so unexpectedly that he mindlessly resorted to gulping his coffee in order to douse it; the coffee was scalding hot and Ray quickly doubled over with a violent fit of coughing.

Fraser patted his friend's back while his mind told him that Ray wasn't going to open up easily to Lynne. He was going to have to convince the woman to warm up to Ray instead. He decided to give up for the day and find another chance to talk to Lynne privately about Ray's uncharacteristic reticence. Maybe she would be understanding enough to tolerate this down side of Ray. Even if she did, nothing would change unless Ray overcomes whatever demons that were gnawing at him causing him to act like that. He felt sorry for this pleasant woman and also a little sorry for Ray. He could empathize with Lynne Kingston and understand the position that she was in; he had been at many posts where his colleagues had been, at best, cold and unfriendly, and, at worst, outright antagonistic. Ray, on the other hand, was missing out a great opportunity at gaining a good friend. He smiled apologetically at Lynne and she smiled back at him with apparent concern for Ray in her eyes. When Ray's coughing finally subsided, Fraser announced looking at his watch.

"Ah, it's time for me to go home and take the children to nursery school. Their parents have to go out to the suburbs today to do some house chores. Their bus leaves in an hour."

Lynne digested his statement with interest. "You're baby-sitting for someone?"

Fraser thought about this for a moment. "Yes...and no. It's a long story. Perhaps Ray will tell you about it." He looked anticipatively at his friend.

Shrugging his silent refusal, Ray got up to go pay at the counter. When he returned to the booth, Fraser was getting to the part about the massive relocation of the homeless families. Kingston was listening with engrossed interest; the two were so absorbed in their conversation that they hardly noticed him--or they were pretending not to notice him, he thought. Ray shoved the change for the coffee into his wallet in an erupting bad-temper. The wallet bulged at its seams and refused to fold under his cruel and unusual punishment. In growing exasperation, he took out the notes and readjusted them roughly. The conversation at the table came to an abrupt halt. The situation turned from bad to worse and Ray's teeth began to grit involuntarily as the wallet yawned and stretched with no promise of ever folding again. At this point, Fraser leaned over and took the wallet away from him gently.

"May I, Ray?"

Ray slumped down sulkily into his seat which brought Dief's grinning jaw into his direct line of vision. Kingston was drawing circles on the table with one finger. Ray felt stupid and knew he looked like a fool, that knowledge didn't make him feel any better. Fraser took out the abused notes one by one and ironed them out meticulously with his hand. There weren't many of them as Ray and cash never kept close company. He arranged the tens and fives neatly together and replaced them carefully in the wallet and then began smoothing out the ones. One of the $1 notes was unusually crumpled and smudged so Fraser was extra careful with it for fear of tearing the bill. Lynne appeared fascinated by Fraser's handiwork, stopped drawing circles on the table, and began looking at the Mountie's dexterous fingers with a slight smile on her face.

Just as he was about to reunite the rumpled $1 with its companions, a little wave of concentration appeared in Fraser's eyes. He bent down close to the $1 and inspected its face carefully. Then he lifted the note to his nose and began to sniff purposefully. Lynne's eyes widened while Ray watched his friend's familiar antics with a disgusted frown. Fraser peered at the bill again and then brought the $1 up to his mouth. Lynne's lips opened and closed in amazed indecision as Fraser carefully licked President Washington's face, his eyes narrowing with focus. He looked away for a little while, shook his head, and licked the note a second time. This time he nodded confidently.

"I knew this was coming." Ray mumbled under his breath while Lynne took a deep breath and stared quizzically at the Mountie.

"Is it any good?" Lynne inquired with a straight face.

Fraser held up the $1 like an exhibit. "It's been through many hands."

"And many toilets, many garbage dumps, many hospitals, many waste treatment plants..." Ray contributed.

Lynne leaned forward to join in the fray. "What did it taste like?"

Fraser contemplated the query for a moment before answering, "Mostly like an old dollar note," with the certainty of an expert. "However, I also detected strong traces of sauerkraut, saut ed onions, cheese and...chili. Diefenbaker?" He pushed the note across the table to the wolf. Diefenbaker sniffed at the bill and barked once. Fraser nodded apologetically.

"I missed that one. You're right, Dief, there's Dijon mustard too. The traces of it are quite fresh. That was the thing that caught my attention. Ray, have you been eat..."

Lynne started while Ray jumped up from his seat, snatched the note from under the wolf's nose and ran to the counter. Diefenbaker leapt from the booth in excitement and bounded after him. Lynne ran after the man and wolf while Fraser brought up the rear. Ray leaned across the counter to the waiter, Ernie and shook the bill at him.

" Do you remember who gave this to you? The guy who paid you with this was not a cop."

Ernie examined the $1 bill and scrunched up his face. "I dunno. Let me get Dee. HEY, DEE!"

Deandra, Olympo's only waitress and the target of many police officers' romantic attentions came up to the counter, eyed Fraser appreciatively, and glanced at the dollar note. Fraser looked intently down at his boots as Deandra smirked and nodded.

"Yeah, he was here last night but left in a couple of minutes. Kid about sixteen or seventeen. Lives around here somewhere. Been coming in here something regular lately. That bill was a tip for me and I really have this thing about dirty notes, you know, urgh. I was going to ask the kid if he could give me something that didn't look like someone used it for bathroom tissue, but I didn't want to give him a reason to think that I wanted to have a conversation with him so I kept my mouth shut. I exchanged it for a cleaner note at the till after he left. Day manager didn't get a chance to go to the bank with last night's take yet, I guess." Deandra carefully omitted to say that the reason the suspect had been patronizing Olympo's frequently of late was because he was infatuated with her. "Came in not too long ago putting on airs and sneering at the cops. I knew he was gonna get into bad trouble real soon the way he was going about. Don't usually see him till seven at night, says he likes our night cook's burgers better."

Lynne asked quickly. "Did he say when he'll be back?"

Deandra shook her head. "Nope, but I betcha he'll be here tonight." She smiled slyly. "He knows that Ketchup's just got back from his annual Vegas trip."

"Ketchup?" Lynne looked at her in confusion.

"The night cook." Ray answered her and turned to Deandra. "Seven o'clock you say?"

Deandra nodded. "Yeah. I think that's his breakfast time."

Ray and Lynne looked at each other in silence; she finally smiled an odd smile and made a proposition.

"Vecchio, can I buy you dinner tonight?"

Ray accepted with a bemused nod. "Yeah, I'm just starving for some of Ketchup's pigs in a blanket."

Part 5 of 7

Ray and Kingston sat facing each other in the booth closest to the door and picked at the fries on their plates. True to her word, dinner was on Kingston. Their wrist watches told them that it was almost eight. Deandra had not made a sign of any kind and was flirting with some officers at the counter. Ray groaned inwardly and shifted uncomfortably in his seat while Kingston appeared calm and even seemed to be enjoying her dinner. Ray, unsettled by her cool, leaned forward and asked.

"Think he's going to turn up tonight?"

Kingston cradled her chin in one palm. "He just might. I think he may be getting complacent. After all, it's been a month and no one's come after him yet."

"I admire the nerve of that kid coming here into the lions' den."

"Yeah, but the lions weren't biting."

Ray stretched and cracked his knuckles. "Well, thanks for the dinner."

Kingston made a little bow. "You're very welcome." They picked at their fries a little while longer in silence. Kingston cleared her throat a little hesitantly.

"Your friend the Mountie was very...interesting."

"That's the kindest thing that's been said of him yet." Ray's eyebrows elevated almost imperceptibly while he struggled to keep his tone flatly unconcerned.

"You guys known each other long?"

"Two years." Apathetic.

"Hmm, he's...well..."

"Not your typical Canadian." Dry.

"Really? How so?"

"Well, he's politer than most of them." Sarcastic.

"Anything else?"

"He does strange things." Disinterested.

"You mean stranger than licking money?"

"Oh, that's the simple stuff." Indifferent.

"What else?"

"He jumps from tall buildings, sniffs raw beef, swims in garbage, talks to his Dad...oh, there's loads more." Acrimonious.

"I wouldn't have believed you if I hadn't met him myself. He's a pretty nice guy."

Ray was profoundly nonchalant. After a tense pause, Kingston carried on. "It's very neighborly of him to take care of those homeless families like that. Can I help in any way?"

Ray thought hard about her offer. Throughout the conversation, he had been very suspicious about her interest in Fraser and his affairs. All of a sudden, in Ray's mind, the days and months sprinted forward in flashes of light and he saw Fraser and Kingston in each other's arms, Fraser and Kingston coming out of a church, Fraser and Kingston with a dozen kids. They were smiling and laughing and gazing into each other's eyes. All the while, he and Diefenbaker were stashed away forlornly in the background, outcasts from the sea of love, forsaken from the moment the friend and the partner discovered each other. This woman would come between him and his best friend. She was...evil.

"Vecchio?" Kingston repeated her question. "Can I help?"

Ray returned from his mental time travel with a colossal jet lag and answered sullenly, "I don't know, you'll have to ask him."

His partner detected his sudden mood reversal and sighed inwardly, she really didn't know how to deal with this man in front of her the second they inched out of professional territory. "Forget I asked."

Ray mumbled something that sounded very much like "Sure". The partners looked away from each other.

Just then, the door to the restaurant opened and a teenager in a dirty denim jacket walked in. He spotted long hair and a gold ring in his nose, which was running, and his eyes were blood shot. His general appearance was that of an unkempt high school dropout junkie. He walked unsteadily over to the counter with a sneer and, ignoring the police officers who looked at him, caught Deandra's elbow roughly and steered her away from the group of cops she had been talking to, loudly whispering lewd nonsense to her the whole time. Deandra wrenched her arm away in disgust as the boy howled with laughter and dropped into a booth. Deandra disappeared into the kitchen; the boy laid down full length in his booth and only his sneakers could be seen from where Ray and Kingston were sitting. Deandra reappeared with a soft drink which she slammed down on the boy's table, he grunted and tried to sit up only to collapse into the seat again.

Deandra went behind the counter and picked up a fresh pot of coffee. She approached Ray's table, filled their cups and when her back was turned to the boy's booth, she raised an eyebrow and inclined her head in the direction of the newcomer. Ray and Kingston looked quickly at each other and nodded to Deandra. The waitress moved away and the partners consulted in low whispers.

Kingston sneaked a look at the pair of sneakers which remained as inert as their wearer. "He looks like he's passed out from a drug high."

"He may be armed." Ray glanced quickly at the stationary shoes.

"Marnie's report said that the robber had a knife."

"We can't be sure he's only got a knife. We gotta make the first move and get him under control."

Kingston nodded. "Should we call for backup?" She swung her eyes toward the cops at the counter.

Macho pride and egoism power surged Ray for a split second. Fresh from the success of his last three cases, he wanted this personally all important hot-dog case to himself. He shook his head firmly. "We'll both go up to him." He eyed the narrow aisle flanked on both sides by the booths. "I'll stand closer to the door and stop him if he tries to run." Kingston nodded and inspected the sneaker yet again, it remained motionless. They waited for another ten minutes until the group of officers departed. There was no one else in the restaurant except for themselves, Deandra, the kitchen crew and the suspect. The two detectives signaled Deandra that they were about to make their move; the waitress disappeared quietly into the kitchen. The clamor of pots and pans from the kitchen came to a sudden halt and all became as still as the boy's shoes. Kingston stood up and walked down the aisle followed by Ray.

The sneakers were immobile and when the partners reached the booth, they saw that the boy's eyes were tightly shut and his breathing slightly laborious. Ray withdrew his gun but kept it hidden from view under his coat. Kingston looked at him, he nodded, she cautiously bent forward to the boy. She put one hand on his left shoulder and shook him gently, calling, "Hey."

The boy groaned and threw his right arm over his eyes. Kingston shook him again with more force. "Hey you!"

The boy groaned even louder and his eyes flickered open but did not focus. "Wha...what?" He muttered.

Kingston shook him again. "We want to talk to you. Get up."

The boy's eyes remained dazed. "Th..talk about what? Who the hell are you?" He put his left hand on the edge of the table in an attempt to pull himself up. The effort failed miserably when his hand slipped, knocking over his untouched soft drink. The boy fell back into his original position and sniffled, "I c.can't get up." Most of the Dr. Pepper had splattered onto Kingston's coat.

"Get up, kid," she said a little edgily.

The boy moaned on his back. "I can't." Ray wondered if he had any drugs on him; that would be an additional charge.

Kingston shook her head and leaned forward to shake his shoulders. "Get up now."

She grabbed hold of his coat and began to tug. On the first try, she almost pitched forward into the boy, Ray moved forward to help as the teenager didn't seem to be making any effort of his own. Kingston tried again exerting more strength. She had almost gotten him to a forty five degree position when the boy suddenly spied Ray behind her and confused recognition passed momentarily through his eyes; Ray had arrested his mother's ex-boyfriend the year before after a particularly violent bout of domestic altercation on the street in front of their apartment block. The boy's mouth opened in a soundless shout as his left hand hastily reached into his belt under his jacket. Kingston, intent on trying to make him sit up on his own, failed to see his lethal movement. Ray, detecting the motion, largely blocked by Kingston's body, that was succeeded by an evil metallic glint, yelled.

"GUN!"

Kingston swiftly shoved the boy away from her as the Sig Sauer 228 extended toward her abdomen at point blank range with the speed of the suspect's undiluted panic. The boy fell heavily backwards, his gun hand jerking up as his elbow hit the table. As the boy squeezed the trigger, Ray shoved his partner to the right while he sprang to the left whipping out his Smith and Wesson simultaneously. The flash then the sound of the shot was followed by a yell, three bodies hitting the floor and Deandra screaming from behind the kitchen door. After that, the restaurant reverted to absolute silence.

Ray jumped up quickly and pointed his service firearm in the direction of the booth. A few feet away from him, Kingston was sitting on the floor with her back to the leg of a table. Ray moved forward quickly to the booth. The boy had tumbled off his seat and was lying on his chest under the table, his gun hand was trapped under his body but Ray wasn't taking any more chances. Squatting down, he trained his gun on the suspect's back and used his left hand to pull the boy out by his right leg. Once his torso was clear of the table, Ray quickly pinned his arms to his back and handcuffed him. The boy offered no resistance other than muffled groans; he had expanded all his energy during the shooting and was fleeing in haste back into the safety of his heavily drugged universe. By this time, officers from across the street were rushing in through the door with their weapons drawn.

Ray shifted over to kneel beside Kingston who was smiling weakly at him, she was still sitting on the floor with her right hand pressed to her left shoulder. "Ray...I...," she muttered tiredly and closed her eyes. Ray could see a dark spot enlarging on her coat underneath her fingers.

"Oh, God....Lynne," Ray whispered. He turned to shout at the cops who were crowding in.

"Call an ambulance! Officer down!"

Part 6 of 7

Ray refused to take the holiday offered to him by Welsh and lingered persistently in the station to interrogate the suspect and to type up the report on the case. He hadn't slept; he left his wounded partner at the hospital the night before for overnight observation and returned to the station with boulders in his heart. He kept running the shooting over again and again through his mind to see if it could have been avoided. He couldn't shake the feeling that if they had called for backup or if he had approached the boy instead, his partner wouldn't have her left arm in a sling. It was his fault a partner of his got shot...again. He felt physically sick, his head was throbbing, his hands clammy, his stomach sank listlessly and his eyes refused to focus on anything real or tangible. At four in the afternoon, Ray was staring at the half typed report in his typewriter. He had been absolutely still for two hours. Lieutenant Welsh went up quietly to him with Elaine just behind him. The lieutenant looked at his detective for a moment and said firmly.

"Go home, Vecchio. I'm ordering you to go on holiday. I don't want to see you in this station tomorrow, you hear me?"

Ray nodded but his eyes were vague. As Welsh turned away, Elaine went forward and put her hands on Ray's shoulders. "Go home, Ray," she whispered gently, "go home. I called Lynne a few minutes ago. She's resting at home," Elaine leaned forward and squeezed his shoulders lightly before saying emphatically, "she's okay. She sounded fine to me....she said to tell you to go home and get some sleep."

Ray left the station and drove around the city aimlessly for hours until dark. The one thought he had was that Lynne Kingston could have been killed. It was pure luck that the boy's gun arm had moved upwards while Lynne moved to the right so that the bullet passed through her shoulder instead of her stomach or lung. Ray winced in pain whenever he remembered Lynne sitting on the floor with the blood seeping through her coat. A potent mixture of emotions was building up inside him and coupled with stress and exhaustion, Ray felt like he was about to explode. He found himself driving to Lynne Kingston's address far out in the suburbs but when he got there, he parked two houses away and sat motionless behind the wheel. Was there anything he could do or say now that could make up for all his past nastiness? His legs froze to the seat and he let his eyes drift aimlessly around the unfamiliar neighborhood.

The porch light was on at Lynne's house and Ray debated if he should go in to see her. He hadn't been very nice to her ever since they became partners, in fact, he must have been the partner from hell. Ray was sincerely afraid that she might think him hypocritical if he started caring now. He felt awkward and guilty and plainly didn't know what to do. He was starting his engine to leave when the door to Lynne's house opened and two silhouettes appeared in the doorway. Ray switched off his engine hurriedly.

One of the figures walked away from the door and descended the few steps from the porch. Ray watched in shock as Fraser turned back to wave at Lynne Kingston. She waved cheerfully back with her uninjured right arm and then shut the door. Fraser, dressed in casual clothes, walked down the driveway to a white car parked at the curb. He got into the driver's seat, started the engine and in a minute or so pulled away. Ray's mouth opened slowly but no sound emerged; his only thought was--there would be no need for him to drive Fraser around any longer. Then his mind went completely blank.

************************************************************************

When he woke up the next morning, the temperature had dropped another ten degrees and sleet was pouring down in sheets outside his window. Ray rubbed his eyes and sat up on his bed. The events of the night before had seemed like a dream. He wondered if the person he had seen coming out of Lynne Kingston's house was really Fraser. He pondered this for a long time until a gentle knock sounded on his door.

"Come in."

His mother entered the room bringing with her the scent of freshly baked bread and garlic. She smiled down at him and sat down on the edge of his bed. Reaching out, she took one of his hands in hers. Ray smiled wearily back at her. She stroke his hand tenderly and asked with maternal concern.

"Are you okay?"

He nodded and bowed his head. She didn't look like she believed him. "I was worried about you. Benton came here late last night before you came home. He came to see you. He was worried and said you needed to rest. To stop working for a while. What's wrong, Ray?"

Ray looked at his mother. "He didn't tell you anything else?"

His mother shook her head and asked again. "Are you okay?"

This time Ray smiled and nodded. "Yes, Ma. It's just the work. I've been very busy, that's all."

"We tried to call you on your cellular phone. Me and Benton."

"Battery's dead, I guess." He had it turned off.

"Benton told you to call him at work before he left. He waited for you for about an hour."

"Must've been pretty late when he left."

"Yes, almost eleven. I was worried he was going to take the el home but he said he had a car. He borrowed a friend's car. A girl's I think. Her name was...."

"Lynne?"

"Yes, yes. Lynne. Is she Benton's girlfriend?"

Ray gazed at his mother for a long while then responded with perfect honesty, "I don't know."

************************************************************************

Ray drove around the city for the rest of the day with his cellular phone turned off. He didn't call Fraser because he didn't have anything to say to him yet. Chicago was dreary and wet but winter had not really made a snowy entrance yet. Toward evening the tops of the buildings became enveloped in a miasma of smog and mist. Ray found himself driving into Lynne Kingston's neighborhood again as the streetlights came on. He wasn't really sure what he was doing there. Above all else, he felt hollow. He could only be sure that if he was struck by anything at that moment, an empty echo would resound from inside him. He hadn't been able to think about anything since the night before. He didn't feel any anger or guilt or anxiety. This floating sensation must have been common among the survivors of shelling. He parked in the same spot under the elm trees. The white car was nowhere in sight but Ray had a feeling it would show up. So, he waited as the mist thickened and the cold blanketed Chicago and slowly fell into a stupor.

He was awakened by the feeling that it was time to get up. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up and peered into the night. The white car had just pulled up to the curb in the minute since he jerked awake. Through the frosty haze, he saw Lynne Kingston's porch light come on and her door opening. She appeared in the doorway as someone emerged from the car. Ray leaned forward and intensified his peering. After a long moment, the person from the car walked up the driveway into the light. This person was followed by a four legged shape bounding after him. Ray felt oddly relieved as he saw Diefenbaker leap onto the porch wagging his tail furiously. Fraser came after him carrying what looked like two large brown bags. All three of them disappeared into the house and the porch light was turned off a second later. Ray blew out a gust of pent-up breath and drove away.

He went home and sat on his bed for an hour, his thoughts racing about aimlessly. Finally, he went downstairs and told his mother that he was going out of town. His mother, who had stopped asking for the names of the places he was going to since he was seventeen, merely nodded and told him to pack warm clothes. In his own room, he hurriedly packed a light traveling bed and left his house. From there he drove straight to Fraser's apartment and went to knock on his friend's door with calm determination. He had to be sure. It was deathly quiet within so Ray tried the knob. As usual the door yielded without resistance.

All was dark within as Ray reached for the light. Illuminated by the kitchen light, Ray saw that Fraser's apartment was unoccupied, the Ikhdars were gone and so was his friend. Ray closed the door quietly and went to sit at the kitchen table. He sat there for a long time listening to the sounds made by Fraser's neighbors seeping through the walls and found the noises strangely warm and comforting in that cold, cold room. He got up slowly, switched off all the lights and returned as slowly to his chair. Then, he sat down to wait in the dark, staring at the fire escape and the misty orange light that found its way in through the window. The only feeling that fought its way onto the surface through the confusion of the mass of emotions was an overpowering sense of loneliness. Hours passed by and gradually, sleep overtook him. He was sucked into a dreamless slumber that was more like unconsciousness.

Mild sunlight was streaming in through the window when he woke up. He looked around the apartment and saw that nothing had changed from the night before. The apartment was devoid of occupants save himself. Despite the sunshine, the cold and the solitude remained obstinately in the apartment so Ray got up from the chair and left. When he was in his car, he called Lieutenant Welsh and asked for a two day holiday. The lieutenant gave him three. Ray settled into his seat and started driving north into Wisconsin hugging the shoreline as he went; he drove slowly because he needed to think, he drove slowly too because he did not have a destination in mind.

He felt the blood trickling back into his brain not long after he left Chicago's city limits. A cacophony of images bombarded his mind along with the infusion of blood, leaving him slightly breathless. The clearest of these images were the ones of Lynne Kingston wounded on the floor in Olympo's followed closely by the ones of himself being hostile to her at various occasions during their partnership. Bringing up the rear were the memories of Fraser walking up the path to Lynne's house accompanied by Diefenbaker. Fraser's role in the big picture made him uncomfortable although his reaction was not jealousy nor anger. Somehow, he felt that the picture would be just right if it excluded one character. Time and again he arrived at a single conclusion; he knew which person shouldn't be there: Ray Vecchio.

After a while, Ray felt detached from the whole scenario. He could clearly see that he should have treated his partner more warmly, he had been so wrong in blaming her for what was essentially Lieutenant Welsh's idea in breaking up the Vecchio/Fraser partnership. Blinded by his guilt and unhappiness over that, he retaliated mindlessly against the wrong person by secluding Lynne from any part of his private life, a large portion of which was dominated by Fraser. Then, when they had tremendous success with their cases, Ray continued to cordon her off, partly because he felt that her existence unfairly excluded Fraser from this momentous professionalachievement - some of the most important cases in his career - while the Mountie had been his faithful collaborator all along for most of the last two years. If Lynne had been incompetent or argumentative, he could at least alleviate his grief by finding fault with her or fighting her; he could even have convinced the Lieutenant to end their partnership, but Lynne Kingston insisted on being a good detective and was persistent in her efforts. Powerless to do anything, Ray then heaped more sins upon himself by believing that he neglected Fraser at a time when he was most needed and in Ray's soul, that amounted to selfish betrayal.

He couldn't find a way to be fair to both Fraser and Lynne. If he allowed Lynne to be more involved in his life, he felt that he would be allowing her to usurp Fraser's place. If he abandoned Lynne in favor of Fraser, his professional partnership would collapse miserably before it had even started, convincing Lieutenant Welsh to resort to more drastic measures in dealing with him. In his mind, Lynne Kingston and Fraser unavoidably became segregated into two opposite camps-- the Partner, the Friend, and ne'er the twain shall meet. Somehow, he believed that any effort of his to bring the two together would be cosmically wrong although he just couldn't say why. Into this confusion Fraser sauntered in just as Ray was striving wildly to keep his professional and private lives far apart. The two camps proceeded to assimilate speedily without his aid and he watched helplessly as the situation spun away totally beyond his control. At this point in time, the two had incorporated into each other so seamlessly that Ray himself appeared to be left out of the whole equation. As a result, Ray became convinced that the only flaw with the picture, the only crack in the mirror, was himself. He took a deep breath and turned down a new road of thought, steering the Riv into a small countryside road.

So, what do you do when your partner becomes involved with your best friend or vice versa? Prevent it? Too late. Encourage it? How? Was he caught in the middle or was he just a non-essential catalyst that fizzles out once the chemical compound had been produced?

He knew he owed Lynne Kingston too much. Among the most important were his friendship, his loyalty, his better judgment toward her, his caring. His lack of contribution in the friendship department had been brought unceremoniously to light by her close call, if she had lost her life that night, he would have been crushed by the magnitude of his injustice toward her and he would never have forgiven himself. But she did not die so he guessed that it was payback time. Okay, payback--that was the answer to the "How" of the question above. Once the answer had been achieved, Ray stopped the Riv. He hadn't noticed the name of the small resort town he had just entered, judging by the number of cars on the street, he was one of the few travelers who cared to stop there. He checked into an almost deserted lakeside motel and drifted into his first peaceful sleep in four weeks.

He spent two days in the town doing nothing and not thinking too much. On the morning of the third day of his sojourn in Wisconsin, Ray packed his bag and drove back to Chicago. His mind was made up.

Part 7a of 7

He parked the Riv in the same spot under the elms and waited. Chicago was already growing dusky after an unusually sunny day of high winds. A little while after dark, the white car pulled up at the curb. Fraser was nothing if not punctual. Ray waited until Fraser entered the front door. He couldn't see who opened the door but the person left the door ajar after Fraser had gone in. Diefenbaker was a shadow that exited the car along with the Mountie but the wolf apparently smelled something interesting outside the house and was taking his time sniffing it out. Ray got out of the car slowly and walked toward Lynne Kingston's house. Diefenbaker looked up from his olfactory exploration, spotted Ray, yelped happily and bounded toward him. He put a finger to his lips as the wolf came up to him and continued walking.

He went up silently to the door and stood there listening, he could hear Lynne Kingston's voice but couldn't catch the words. Once, he thought he heard his name. After a minute, Diefenbaker became impatient and, pushing past his legs, entered the house. Dief's entrance left the door wide open, announcing his presence to the people inside. Ray felt that the whole scene became a little surreal as the two persons stood up at the sight of him.

Fraser's face lit up when he saw Ray while Lynne Kingston appeared pleasantly surprised. Fraser strode forward hurriedly and pulled Ray into the room.

"Where have you been, Ray? I couldn't reach you through your cell phone."

"I was out of town." He looked down at the floor.

"Vacation?" Lynne asked quietly.

Ray nodded and pointed at her arm which was still in a sling. "How's your shoulder?"

"It's okay though it's frustrating because I'm left-handed. I've been trying to practice writing with my right."

"When can you get rid of the sling?"

"In another week."

"Does it hurt?"

"Only when the gangrene sets in." Lynne grinned broadly. "Ben tells me you've been shot in the exact spot yourself. Did that hurt?"

"Yes, it did." Ray smiled. After a pause, he grinned. "Benny's a great story-teller, huh? Has he told you any Inuit ones?"

Hearing this, Lynne Kingston suddenly began to laugh. Ray, catching the infectious mirth, began laughing himself, even Diefenbaker barked a few times. Only Fraser maintained his composure. Diefenbaker's bark was joined by a volley of yelping from somewhere inside the house and very soon, two large mutts materialized from the direction of the kitchen. Dief frolicked with them familiarly and all three four-legged pals tore out through the front door. Ray looked at Lynne.

"I thought you didn't have a dog."

"They aren't pets, they are my houseguests."

"Houseguests?"

"Yeah. Ben brought them."

The mongrels and half wolf rushed back in through the front door and began scampering about around the room. A few breakable wares in the room were precariously close to shattering into a billion pieces. Fraser opened his mouth but before he could say anything, one glass picture frame came hurtling down to the floor. The three buddies disappeared before the last shard had settled on the carpet, the two men looked in disgust in the direction of the canine criminals. Lynne Kingston, on the other hand, merely laughed it off.

"I never liked that frame anyway. I was hoping someone would break it. Have a seat, Ray, I'll be back in a second."

She went to the back of the house leaving Fraser and Ray alone. Fraser led his friend to the ottoman and looked at him steadily before asking with concern. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I've had time to think. I figured out a lot of things."

Fraser nodded with some relief, hesitated for a moment and said, "It's a difficult being a good friend to another person because it means that you have an obligation to put in a lot of time, effort, and love. Work, family, duties and responsibilities get in the way and make it even harder. You know, the most ideal best friend that you can have would actually be your spouse who is also your partner in operating a home business whom you can be with twenty four hours a day. That way, you can kill several birds with one stone. It doesn't work out that way for most of us. My father for instance...he had two out of three. His best friends were his colleagues in the RCMP, Gerrard and Buck Frobisher, whom he spent years working with, encountering every hardship imaginable together. They became friends because of *and* in spite of their work. My father enjoyed his work tremendously and I have never doubted that a large part of his satisfaction was due to the fact that he worked among friends."

Ray nodded with quiet understanding as his friend went on. "But then..he neglected his family. He was rarely available as a friend for my mother and he never really became friends with me. Like most of us, he didn't have the ability to divide himself and give equal attention to every aspect of his life."

Fraser paused and Ray asked him softly, "What would you have done if you were in his place?"

The Mountie smiled a little sadly. "I'm not sure I would have fared any better." His friend looked at him and waited for him to continue. "I think all of us have to set priorities based on our principles and our beliefs and to always look at the situation at hand, and we have to remember to be fair. We face a balancing act of difficult choices, choices that involve people we love and care about, choices that might eventually hurt some of these people no matter which option we pick, and that's the time we have to choose according to our priorities. Then, we have to convince ourselves that we chose for the best..and we hope that those who were hurt love us enough to forgive us and to let us compensate the loss."

"Do you think your father did the best thing?"

"His top priority was his duty to his work and that was what he chose though many others would have chosen family over work. He knew that my mother understood that he loved her even if he wasn't there and he knew that I was well looked after. Through his journals, I found out that his family was foremost on his mind even when he was thousands of miles away on duty and I firmly believe that he would have abandoned whatever he was doing if our home and safety were ever threatened. But we were safe, if you disregard getting snowed in around four times a year and the occasional hardened criminal holding a grudge who wanted to chainsaw my father's wife and son into a thousand pieces, so, according to his priorities...yes, I think he picked the best choice."

"But *you* don't think so, right?

"I love him...and I believe that his priorities were based on upright principles. I am sad for my mother's sake but I think he did the right thing."

"Neglect is the right thing?"

"I can't speak for my mother but I had my grandparents and I turned out all right. He wanted that much for me." Fraser smiled as Ray shook his head slowly.

Lynne reappeared with a drink in her right hand, Ray got up hurriedly to take it from her, then set it down on the table gently. Instead of sitting back down, he took Lynne's right hand in his own, looked at her wordlessly for a long time then slowly engulfed her in an embrace. He hugged her until Lynne stretched out her right arm across his back to return his embrace.

"I'm sorry." Ray's voice cracked. "I'm truly sorry."

Lynne patted his back reassuringly and laid her head on his shoulder before saying, "What for?" Her voice was a little unsteady itself.

Ray tightened his hold a little and said, "For being such a jerk."

Lynne was silent for a long, long time. He released her slowly and, looking down, saw that her eyes were moist. She smiled with sincere and new-born affection. "Apology accepted."

Ray smiled back at her. Lynne inclined her head at Fraser and grinned.

"He's been telling me the story of your life for the last two years. Looks like I have some apologizing to do myself, I broke up a great team. It's not easy getting used to a new partner when your last one was absolutely perfect."

Ray raised an eyebrow at Fraser. "Perfect?"

"Well, perfectly bizarre, I guess."

"That's more like it." Ray hesitated and then glanced at Lynne's shoulder. "I really feel bad about..."

"Ray, you saved me from a slow, agonizing death. I was careless, I didn't see the gun. That bullet would have gone into my stomach if you hadn't warned me."

Ray shook his head wordlessly. Lynne clasped his left hand with her right, made him sit down beside Fraser and spoke to him seriously.

"Ray, I've been a police officer for probably as long as the next guy in the station. I fancy myself a veteran at this game. This," she nodded at her shoulder, "was an accident. Unforeseen and unfortunate but we both got something out of it. I have a hole in my shoulder and I learned that suspects who look fazed out are still dangerous. You probably learned to be more careful dealing with these situations in the future."

"I...both of you were...injured."

Fraser spoke up swiftly. "That was an accident like this one."

Ray smiled weakly. "Sounds like I'm bad luck."

Lynne shook her head vigorously. "Maybe we are just accident prone. Ray, we are police officers. This kind of thing comes with the paycheck and the long hours."

"Yeah." Ray intoned without conviction. Lynne realized that it was going to take time for Ray to come to terms with this. There was nothing else she could say. She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Let's try and forget it, okay? And don't let it happen again, not to me or you or Ben or even Dief."

Ray nodded then looked alternately at Lynne on his left and Fraser on his right. He put his arms around the two of them, carefully drawing them close to him. "You're both my partners *and* my friends."

The friends and partners smiled at each other; the last bastion of defenses had been bulldozed at last.

Lynne put her arm around Ray and said, "The way I see it, Ben's still your partner. He solved the hot-dog case, remember?"

Fraser shook his head before saying firmly, "The three..well, the four of us solved it together." Ray and Lynne were satisfied and nodded their agreement.

Ray inhaled deeply with relief then said a little wistfully, "And it's great to see the two of you became friends without my help."

Fraser smiled with unspoken understanding. "I beg to differ. We became friends *through* you, Ray."

Seeing an opening, Ray felt that it was time to settle the final matter, thinking, "Here comes the 'How' part." He cleared his throat with minor embarrassment, took a deep breath and said clearly, "I'm happy for the two of you."

Fraser opened his mouth in chagrin. "Uh..."

Ray stopped him hurriedly. "I know. You don't have to say anything, I figured it out myself." He turned to Lynne and said, "Benny's my best friend and he is the only man in the whole world I would marry my own kid sister to. That's how much I trust him but...if he hurts you, I'll shoot him point blank till my clip runs out and...I'll keep reloading."

Dismay swept in to accompany chagrin on Fraser's face and he tried to interject. "Er, Ray..."

Ray continued rapidly before he got too self-conscious. "Benny, I get this really intense feeling that Lynne's the right woman for you. I know I haven't always been right about these things and my love life is not exemplary but...I just know, I just know. The Dragon Lady, well...she never felt quite right, you know. She's not your...I mean, she's clever and good-looking and all that but she'd never...you'd never...what I mean is...you know, the Dragon Lady, she's...you know...she was there at the right place and the right time so you fell...you know...it was so...inevitable...too...fixed...you know..."

This time shyness joined dismay and chagrin in the Mountie's eyes while Lynne looked increasingly amused. Ray took Fraser's left hand and Lynne's right hand and brought them together, sandwiching them tightly between his own hands. "You have my bless....you know, whatever."

Fraser, shocked into silence, reddened into the color of a Baywatch lifeguard's swimsuit while Lynne stared at Ray and slowly said. "Uh huh....Who's this Dragon Lady?"

"You don't know?" Horrified, Ray groped wildly for a plausible explanation. "She's...er...nobody...she's just Benny's friend." Lynne opened her eyes a little wider and Ray panicked. "Benny's imaginary friend. Yeah, that's it. He doesn't really know her...she's not actually here because she's...Canadian."

Lynne merely stared at him. Just then, an adolescent girl who looked about eight years old but born a decade ago, walked out from one of the rooms with a vacuum cleaner in her hands. Grinning toothlessly at Fraser and Lynne, she gingerly picked up the photograph lying face down among the shards, shook it a few times, blew away the remaining powdery glass, placed the photograph carefully in her pocket, and started vacuuming the shattered glass off the carpet without a word. Perplexed at her sudden appearance, Ray gaped at her in confusion. The girl ignored the three adults with the linked hands and finished her task quickly. She unplugged the vacuum then vanished the way she came in. Ray looked to Lynne for an explanation.

"She's Ben's kid." Lynne offered solemnly.

Ray's eyes widened in astonishment and turned to Fraser. The Mountie, panicking, looked at his friend helplessly then turned to Lynne for assistance. A big smile was illuminating her face and a sound that sounded suspiciously like a choked giggle bubbled from her throat.

Lynne leaned toward Fraser and said conspiratorially, "Tell him, Ben."

Ray turned to Fraser warily. "Tell me what?"

Fraser inclined his head to a side and licked his lip. All he could do was look at the two others in shock. Lynne nodded excitedly and told Ray.

"He wants you to be his best man at our wedding tomorrow. His little girl's going to be my maid of honor."

Ray's eyes widened further. "Tomorrow? That soon?"

Another vigorous nod from Lynne. "Oh, yeah, we can't wait."

Ray was absorbing this piece of information the best he could when he caught Fraser's look of total bewilderment. He glanced quickly at Lynne and saw that she had bowed her head almost to her chest and her whole body was shaking silently. Suspicion crept slowly but certainly into his head.

"Wait a minute here." He turned to his scarlet friend. "Benny, talk."

Lynne lifted her head and, with tears of mirth streaming down her cheeks, disengaged her hand from Ray's and Fraser's, then reached across and patted the latter's left shoulder with it.

"Yes, Ben, talk. Tell Ray all about our sordid affair." She took several deep breaths to calm herself.

Fraser retrieved his hand from Ray's and pulled at his collar. His discomfiture evident, he inspected every one of his buttons before looking up.

"Ray...I'm afraid you may be a little...mistaken." Fraser cleared his throat. "Lynne is married."

Part 7b of 7

Lynne nodded cheerfully. "Been married to the same guy for almost ten years now, no major complaints so far. Ben's met him." She nodded at Fraser and then managed a sober expression. "Sorry to disappoint you, Ray, but polygamy's just not in my gameplan. Guess I'm gonna have to break Ben's heart."

Ray's mouth opened on its own accord, he recovered slowly. "You never told me..."

"You never bothered to ask. I know you have two sisters and a brother and that your Mom makes the best lasagna in Chicago. You don't know anything about me."

Ray nodded repentantly. "I'm sorry." He grinned sheepishly and stole a glance at Fraser who was recovering even more slowly then said, "Okay, joke's on me, guys...Lynne, you don't wear a wedding band."

"Oh, but I do, just not on my finger." She brushed back the hair covering her ears and Ray realized that her earrings were really two slim gold rings of slightly different diameters. Lynne grinned. "The young and the hip. It was a fad at my college when we got married. I'm wearing Josh's too, for luck."

Ray shook his head and laughed before asking, "Where's your husband?"

"He's off somewhere on Lake Michigan measuring the level of winter pollution. Josh's an environmental engineer with the EPA. He left two days ago and should be back in four but there's no telling." The long suffering spouse of the frequently absent government employee shrugged. "We move around a lot because of his job, it's either the wetlands drying up in Florida today or the fish dying off the coast of Washington tomorrow. There's a departmental rumor that we'll be heading down to the flood plains of Missouri next summer."

She chuckled after a brief pause. "I've worked in some of the smallest towns in America and met some of the weirdest characters but I've never met anyone who lunches off dollar bills before." She smiled warmly at Fraser who had mended sufficiently to smile back.

The girl who had vacuumed the carpet came out into the living room with a bowl of pop-corn which she set down in front of them, grinning at Ray and displaying teeth that were badly decayed probably due to severe malnutrition. Lynne pulled her down to sit beside her before reaching into the girl's pocket for the photograph she had picked up a few moments ago. She showed Ray the very photogenic photograph of herself and her husband, Joshua Kingston was a ruggedly handsome and happy looking man, taken at Miami's South Beach district. Ray smiled at the picture and handed it back to Lynne. Before she could take it out of Ray's hand, the little girl quickly snatched away the photograph and protectively returned it to her own pocket.

Lynne smiled indulgently at the little girl and stroked her head. "This is Mimi, Ben brought her to me. Josh had been trying to coax a word or two out of her but," she sighed ruefully, "Mimi's got her own agenda." She looked up with stubborn determination flaring in her eyes. "We might adopt her, you know, Josh and I move around so much no one will know she's not..." She stopped uncertainly and bit her lip for a second, then an impish grin spread over her features. "I'll just tell everyone I had to marry Josh before finishing college because he got me pregnant with Mimi. Ben, you won't mind if I have to take her away from Chicago, right?"

Fraser shook his head and explained to Ray, "Actually, the Ikhdar twins found her. She was a neighbor of theirs in the park. Those two dogs you saw belong to Mimi and she used to lend them to the twins as sled dogs." The mute little girl took out a needle and a piece of thread and began making a pop-corn chain, choosing the fattest and whitest ones, occasionally popping one into her mouth. She had not uttered a single word since she watched her mother, in a drugged induced torpor, being burnt to a char inside a blazing homeless shelter in downtown San Diego one windy summer night five years ago. After her mother's death, Mimi ceased to exist, she became a skeletal shadow who survived on scraps donated by grownup beggars, until the two dogs discovered her two years ago and became her guardians cum discarded food purveyors. The homeless families in the park took care of her whenever they could and called her Mimi because the only sound she ever made was "mh..mh". Fraser always suspected she was saying "Mama".

"Couldn't she stay in your building?" Ray picked a perfect looking blossom of pop-corn and offered it to the little girl, eliciting another grin.

"None of my neighbors could take her in because of the dogs so I had to move Mimi around from one temporary home to another. When I discovered that Lynne likes dogs that morning at Olympo's, I immediately thought of Mimi. I called Lynne the next day and she took Mimi in at once. Our young friend is acting in the capacity of nurse and companion to Lynne at the moment."

"The day after she was shot? How did you know where she lived?"

"I asked Elaine for Lynne's phone number. I was going to ask you but Elaine told me you had already left."

Lynne cuddled Mimi with her free arm. "As payment for Mimi's room and board, Ben's doing all the cleaning and groceries for me," she said in jest before turning serious again. "I really appreciate all the help you've given me, Ben. If I were right-handed or if Josh didn't have to go yachting, this sling business wouldn't affect me much. I feel pretty helpless right now."

"No, no, the gratitude is all mine." Fraser protested. "You have done so much to help me and my friends already. To be frank, I feel rather ashamed for monopolizing the use of your brand new automobile."

"What's the use of hoarding a car when I can't drive it? You can have it till my shoulder heals and don't worry about Josh, you saw the monster he drives. That was an anniversary present from Uncle Sam."

"Josh's jeep was a gift for your wedding anniversary?"

"Yeah, right. Very funny. Anniversary of a decade of slavery in the wonderful world of government bureaucracy."

Realization cascaded like a cold shower on Ray. His eyes grew even larger and he spun on Fraser. "You took the Ikhdars away in Lynne's car. That's why they are no longer at your place."

"Have you been to my apartment in the last four days, Ray? I've hardly been home for that long."

Ray grunted vaguely then asked, "Where did the Ikhdars go?"

"They've moved to one of two old houses at the junction of Drexler and Lanier. I've just finished transporting everyone there in Lynne's car, the Mitschekovichs and De Boers went yesterday."

"What kind of houses?"

"Two weeks ago, I met Ivy Liu of the Chicago Tribune at the Consulate, she was there for a function. We talked about various subjects and I persuaded her to write an article about the plight of these homeless families. Some kind hearted people have come forward to take up their cause, the owner of the houses was one of them. She said that the families could live there until after Valentine's day next year in exchange for part time work at her candy factory nearby. I was with them up to an hour ago and everyone was warm and well-fed."

Lynne chuckled in fascination. "He's been driving them and moving their stuff to the houses all night for the last four days, plus he had to go to work during the day as well as come baby-sit me. I don't think he's slept for the last, let's see...one hundred and eight hours. Isn't that right, Ben?"

"I did manage to take a few naps. I don't feel tired at all."

"You're not human, Ben. But all's well....sounds like a fairy tale, huh?"

Ray shook his head. "Not when Benny's the author."

************************************************************************

The next evening Fraser chauffeured Lynne and Mimi to the dollar cineplex to catch the latest John Travolta movie while Ray went straight to Lynne's house after work to rake up the dead leaves in her yard. Mimi's two dogs, newly christened Bang and Boom by Lynne, tried to help him by making his menial job truly challenging. Ray was thinking murderous thoughts about the two mongrels when Fraser pulled up to the curb. Diefenbaker leapt out and seeing Ray's plight, inducted the two culprits and led them to a game of tag behind the house. Ray heaved a sigh of relief at the end of his torment.

"Thanks, Dief."

He handed Fraser a spare hoe and continued to rake in errant scattered leaves. Without warning, Bang pounced on Ray from behind, pitching him headlong into the stack of leaves he had just accumulated. His head deep in the leafy heap, Ray distinctly heard three different barks of triumphant laughter far away. He rolled over onto his back to find Fraser looking down at him sympathetically. The Mountie pulled Ray to his feet and helped brushed dead leaves off his sweater.

"Benny, where can I buy cyanide?"

Fraser retrieved the rake from the ground and handed it to Ray, consoling his friend with, "They seek strength in numbers which means that they are really cowards at heart," before going off to look for a garbage bag.

He came back soon and the two men finished their task quietly. The exercise warmed them although their breath was already misty from the cold. When the last bag of leaves was tied up and stacked away, Ray straightened up and stretched languorously. He looked over at Fraser who was a shadowy form exhaling smoke beside him in the gloom and, needing to confirm a suspicion, started to grin slyly.

"You liked her from the start, didn't you? Before you found out that she was married."

"Who?"

"Lynne."

"Yes, I did. I liked Lynne as soon as I saw her."

Ray jumped on his friend's words. "There, see, I wasn't completely wrong about that. You would have dated her if she didn't have a husband."

"But she does have a husband, Ray. Josh Kingston is a very pleasant man. To be frank, he reminded me of you in many ways. Do you know he speaks Italian too? His grandmother, on the maternal side, was from Imperia which is between..."

"Genoa and Monaco. Yeah, yeah, I know. You think I'm pleasant?" Ray inquired with gratified interest.

"Well...you see...what I said was certain characteristics of Josh Kingston's were very similar to yours. For instance, he's very..."

"Very what?"

"Well, for one, he's very articulate. He's also excitable, demonstrative, spontaneous..."

"Hold it. Why do I get the feeling that I'm not exactly glad at hearing all this?"

"But why, Ray? Spontaneity is the reflex emotion of a sensitive heart and a quick mind..."

Ray, distracted by a gust of cold wind, realized with a start that Fraser had cunningly evaded their original topic. He grinned and confronted the Mountie. "You're not getting away that easily, Benny. About Lynne, you said you liked her as soon as you saw her."

"Yes, I did say that."

"I knew it, I knew it."

"Knew what, Ray?"

"Well...you know. You know."

"I'm afraid I'm totally in the dark here, Ray."

"You had...chemistry. You know, there was a bright combustion when you saw her."

"Ah....you may be right, Ray. There was something very bright when I first saw Lynne but it wasn't a combustion. It was a blinding, white snow storm and a very, very cold snow field."

"Huh?"

"Yes. You see Ray, long ago, there were very few inhabitants in the vast regions of the Northwest Territories."

Ray groaned in mock terror. Fraser continued as if he hadn't heard him.

"The native people lived very far apart, their closest neighbors were often more than a hundred kilometers away. They lived in family units or in tribes and they rarely saw anyone else for years at a stretch. When they did get visitors, it was usually someone who had traveled a very long way on a hunting trip or an itinerant trader. The visitor would more often than not be near exhaustion or death. The hosts would nurse him back to health and provide him with every comfort they were capable of giving. Once the guest was healthy again, the hosts would persuade him to relate his travels or to tell them the tales he had heard on his journeys. That was the only reward they required for their hospitality. Most of the time, the guest would come to them in the middle of a blizzard but they never allowed him to leave in one. That, is the tradition of hospitality and generosity that the native Canadians treasure to this day."

"I have no doubt there's an excellent point in your fantastic story about the beauty of human nature when man is threatened by below freezing temperatures and there's no gas heater within a thousand miles of the place, Benny. But I don't see it."

"They cherished every life that came to them over the plains of snow, Ray. When they saw someone coming in a blizzard, their spirits soared like the eagle and they rushed out to welcome the guest as one of their own. Their hospitable nature has become a part of the Canadian mentality. We tend to treasure our own because there were so few of us at first and the environment we lived in was so harsh and hostile."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, so there's no place like home. And?"

"Lynne's Canadian, Ray. She is the eldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Higgins of Lynn Lake, Manitoba, where she was born and spent her whole childhood. She's an American through marriage."

Ray took some time to swallow this new fact and slowly began to understand the gist of what Fraser had just said to him.

"Oh, I get it. Canadians are few and far apart over here and America is the hostile snow storm, right? So, you guys found comfort in numbers."

"You asked, Ray." Fraser watched as the wolf and his two cohorts emerge from around the house then said slowly. "We talked about Canada most of the time when I was here. I told her about the Consulate, about the cases we resolved, Detective Gardino, how we got to know each other. Lynne talked about the places she's worked in, about her husband, her family in Lynn

Lake, about you..."

"What? What did she say?" Ray interrupted his friend anxiously as Fraser began to stamp his feet to get rid of leaves sticking to his sneakers.

"She said you possess certain qualities that Josh Kingston also has. Those qualities were what led her to marry her husband ten years ago." Fraser waved at Dief and his friends to get into the house and added hastily, "Lynne said that she wants you to meet her younger sister, Shannon, who's coming to visit her this weekend. She's convinced Shannon that you're the perfect man for her. From the looks of it, Ray, you'll very likely get your bright combustion after all."

With that Fraser turned around quickly and hurried up the stairs to the porch while Ray stood rooted to the spot. As Fraser was opening the front door, Ray yelled in enlightened disgust.

"Was that your idea of a sick joke, to get back at me for saying last night that I would shoot you till I ran out of bullets? And for what I said about the Dra...Inspector Thatcher? Huh? Benny? Hey, Benny?!?"

Hidden from Ray's sight, Benton Fraser's face had acquired a very broad grin.

DONE