Simon saved moving personal items for last when he packed up his office, and waited until department was empty and silent before tackling those. So many memories were associated with them all, some joyful, some painful, but that was only to be expected after his long years as Police Commissioner. The step up to Federal Director of Home Security, Washington State Region, was a good move, though, if a different kind of police work than he was used to. God knew, he'd be busy enough, given the state of the world these days.
He'd also be living and working in Seattle, and most of these mementoes would have to go into storage, physically and mentally, only to be taken out if the occasion demanded. The hard part would be sorting what to put in his new office and what to put away. His angels, of course, would take a place of honor; and his photographs of Daryl, Lisa, and the grandkids. Some, well, he just didn't know.
Holding the heavy wood frame of a picture of him, Jim, and Blair, all proudly holding up monster-sized trout, Simon sank down onto his chair, blinking against unexpected tears. This one had been taken only weeks before the fatal crash that took both of his friends, and the reminder of that happy time, one of the best he had shared with them, had helped him get through their loss. Small comfort that it had been, he'd needed it desperately. Though he had lost men under his command in the line of duty before, even lost friends, losing Jim and Blair had just seemed so *wrong.* As if Good had taken a roundhouse punch to the chin and Evil had chortled in glee.
Part of it was losing both of them at the same time, though a compassionate part of his heart was grateful that neither partner had had to survive the other. Simon honestly couldn't imagine how either of them could have survived without the other half of themselves beside them. The major cause was the how, he had to admit to himself.
One angry kid with a gun, taunted and tormented one time too many, a school bus on the way back from a field trip, and a bus driver who was too panicked to think clearly - those had been the ingredients for a disaster. Jim had spotted the wild confrontation on the bus on the way home from work, Blair had called it in, and they pursued when the driver began pushing the speed limits, along with the endurance of the old, cranky vehicle. When he lost control, sending the bus caroming toward a parking lot filed with other buses unloading students and parents with younger siblings to pick them up, Jim had done the one thing that would save the most lives. He crashed into the bus with his truck, diverting it into a wall. Because it was a side swipe, no one on the bus had been killed, though there had been serious injuries. Jim's truck had bounced off the much heavier bus, rolled, hitting a concrete abutment, and had been hit again by a passing SUV that hadn't been able to stop in time.
Both Jim and Blair had been pronounced dead on the scene.
Later, much later, after the funeral and Simon had disposed of their estates, Dan Wolfe had confided over after work drinks that Jim's right hand had been locked so tightly in Blair's left that he had had to break fingers to separate them. That had broken Simon's heart, but at the same time, it had consoled him in ways that he couldn't explain.
Nor was that all he lacked an explanation for. Setting the picture aside for now, Simon turned his chair until he could reach the locked drawer that held his confidential files, and one that he had hid in it so carefully, no one but himself knew it existed. He took out the first report, which was dated less than two months after Jim and Blair's death: a copy of the one filed by a uniformed officer who had been taken a missing child call. Last seen in the back seat of Dad's car while he changed a flat, the child was returned to his parent just before the officer arrived by a tall, buff man accompanied by a shorter, curly-haired companion. Apparently the little boy hadn't been secured in a car seat, and had slipped out a window to go explore all the lovely mud puddles caused by the rain. Both the officer and the father claimed that they had turned to talk with the child, and when they turned back, both men simply were there any more.
Pulling out another file at random, Simon read about a rape attempt that ended abruptly when the attacker had been yanked away by someone identifying himself as a police officer. The victim described a curly haired man pulling her out of the car and sheltering her until the rapist had been subdued, staying with her until the sirens of the squad cars could be heard. A moment later, there was no sign of her rescuers, despite having no way to slip away unseen.
Simon had more than a dozen accounts of good Samaritans or unidentified officers stepping in to give aid when it was needed most, all matching the same general description. He strongly suspected that for every written account he had, there were at least two others that never reached paper. Instead he heard stories, barely murmured over beer in a cop's bar, or late at night on a stakeout, about two cops that kept showing up to provide backup when it was needed most. A few, a very few, had attached the names Ellison and Sandburg to the unknowns.
"Personally," Henry said unexpectedly from behind him, "I've never been able to decide if it were wishful thinking on our part, or if it was just hard to let the Ellison/Sandburg legend end."
Snapping papers back into the folder, Simon turned, emanating menace. "What are you doing barging in here? This isn't your office yet!"
H put down the box he was carrying, not looking the least bit apologetic for being there, which meant that he had probably been standing watching Simon brood for quite a while. "Same thing you are; taking a look at my past and trying to figure out how much of it to carry to my future. Saw the light and thought it was something we could work on together."
With a quick snatch, H took the folder from Simon and sat, glancing through the contents. "You've got more than I do."
"What!"
Looking up at him over the top of the paper, H smirked. "I think everyone who worked M.C. with them has their version of this. I've managed to get a look at all of them at one time or another."
Curiosity warred with dignity and won hands down. As nonchalantly as he could, Simon asked, "Did they have any I don't?"
Sobering unexpectedly, H found the view outside the window fascinating, but the weight of Simon's patience finally pulled an answer from him. "Only the ones they wouldn't write down or tell anybody except in the strictest confidence."
"Such as," Simon said carefully, though he thought he had an idea of what was coming next.
"Such as an old-fashioned blue Ford truck almost hitting me, making me stumble away from my car just before Hilton detonated the bomb," H said quietly.
Though he still didn't look at Simon, there was an air of expectancy about him that pulled hard on Simon's conscience. After a few minutes, he said, "Or the same truck coming out of nowhere to head off a drunk headed straight for me."
Meeting Simon's eyes again, H smiled. "As close as you were to them, I figured you had to have at least one."
"Four," Simon confessed. On impulse he stood and took the file away from H. "Tell you what, let's talk about this over dinner. I'll tell you about the other times. There are some other things I want to share, too, about being commissioner that might be useful in the long run."
H lit up, telling Simon that he'd made the right decision. Pulling on his jacket, he picked up the photograph again, thoughtfully studying the image of the two men there, then gently put it in the box with his other angels before turning out his desk light.
finis