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Title: The Question of Ghosts, sequel to Old Ghosts
& Old Fears The Question of Ghosts by Gillian Part Two "Now that's a case I haven't thought about in a long time," Dennis Bolson said, pulling open a filing cabinet and rummaging through it. "Ah, here it is." He extracted a worn looking manila folder and tossed it on the desk, then sat down heavily into his swivel chair. "You boys care to tell me why you're so interested?" Sam shot Dean a glance and groped nervously for the cover story he and Dean had thought up. He was so bad at lying. "Never mind," Bolson said, sending them a shrewd look. "It might be ten years since I looked at that file, but I spent a long time working the case, and you." He nodded at Dean. "Haven't changed that much." Dean's face froze and Sam shot the cop a panicked look. "Calm down," Bolson said, flicking open the folder. "I got no problem opening this old can of worms, if that's what you want." He shot Dean a piercing look. "You sure that's what you want?" Dean stared back at him for long moments, then nodded once. Bolson nodded back. "All righty then. What do you know?" "Only the stuff that was online," Sam said, wishing he could reach out and take Dean's hand. But he knew Dean wasn't ready to be touched like that. Knew he needed a few minutes to pull it together. "Online," Bolson said sourly. "I hate computers." He flipped through the file, dusty pages crinkling as he turned over report after report. "Then you know how he died?" Sam nodded. "Grisly scene, and I've seen a few in my time. Everyone was pretty freaked out for a while, as you can imagine. Nice, respectable family man, mutilated and left to die. His neighborhood started making a collection up for his widow, outpourings of sympathy, you know what I mean." Sam nodded again, shooting Dean another worried glance. Widow? Dean had never mentioned that Ryan had been married, although Sam supposed it made sense if the man was fostering kids. "I was the one who found the photographs," Bolson said heavily, staring down sightlessly at the page in front of him. "Pictures, magazines. He had a computer as well, our experts found even more of that filth on it. Sick fuck. Some things you never get used to in this job, you know?" "Was it... Was it one of his former victims who did it? Who killed him?" Sam said, just wanting to cut to the chase. Just wanting this to be over. Bolson blew out a breath, leaning back in his chair. "Who the fuck knows? Ryan was in his late thirties, and pedophiles don't just spring up full grown. So yeah, that was one angle we looked into once we realised what he was. But the only real suspect we had wasn't that much younger than him, so it didn't seem likely." Dean leaned forward in his chair. "Suspect?" "We never read anything about a suspect," Sam said. "That's because we never got past questioning him. The couple that found Ryan in the alley gave us a description and a partial plate. Led us to this guy." Bolson sorted through his file and held out a booking sheet. "Robert Singer," Dean read, scanning the page and handing it to Sam. "Breaking & Entering, Trespass. Grave Robbing?" Sam said incredulously, reading through the old sheet. "Yeah, ain't that one for the books?" Bolson said wryly. "Singer got off on the serious charges over the years, and paid the fines for the misdemeanors." "But you couldn't get him for Ryan's murder?" Bolson shrugged. "Might have, eventually. But he had an alibi, some friend of his who said they were working together that night. And in the end we couldn't link him to Ryan, which gave us no motive, and no opportunity. Couldn't even get a search warrant to look for a weapon with that kind of evidence." Sam studied the mug-shot for a moment longer before handing the page back. Robert Singer looked like an ordinary guy. Was he really someone capable of mutilating a man and leaving him to die? On the other hand, Jason Ryan had looked like an ordinary guy as well. Bolson spread his hands. "I don't know what to tell you boys. The Ryan case is officially an Unsolved Murder, and unless you have anything new for me, I can't see that changing any time soon." He looked at Dean. "Mr Petrakos?" Dean shook his head, his gaze steady. "No, sorry." Bolson smirked. "Yeah, I bet you are. There's some would say Ryan got what was coming to him. Hell, I recall saying it myself at the time, although not too loudly, that kind of sounds bad coming from lead investigator on the man's murder case." Sam stood and held out one hand. "Thank you for your time, Detective. We appreciate it." "Yeah." Bolson returned the handshake and then caught Dean's hand when it was proffered, shaking it firmly. "Listen, Mr Petrakos," he said slowly. "I just want to say..." He shrugged a shoulder awkwardly. "I spent a lot of time, over the years, wondering about you. If you were okay. I'm glad you are. I'm glad you're okay." Dean looked surprised for a moment, and then his tight lips relaxed a little and he gave a small smile. "I am," he said quietly. "I am okay." 888 Bolson walked them to the hall, nodding at another detective as they strolled through the busy bullpen. "I want you to know," he said, shaking Sam's hand again. "Despite what I said back there, I did try to solve Ryan's murder. And for what it's worth, and if it means anything to you, I think Singer probably did do it." "And his alibi?" Sam asked. "His motive?" Bolson shook his head. "No idea. But I've been a cop for thirty years, believe me, you get an instinct about these things. Singer did it. And if his buddy Nash hadn't alibied him, I might even have proved it." Sam froze in his tracks and a moment later Dean stopped too, eyes widening as Bolson's words sank in. "Nash?" Sam repeated numbly. Bolson stared at them both curiously. "Yeah, that was his name. Phillip Nash. They owned a wrecking yard together in South Dakota. Why, you know him?" Thoughts were racing through Sam's head quicker than his mind could process them. Phil Nash. Phil Nash. Christ. "No," Dean was saying, taking his arm, pulling him away. "No, never heard of him. Come on, Sam. Thanks, detective." Bolson was frowning now, but Sam let Dean pull him along, feet automatically finding their way on the worn, cracked old stones of the precinct floor, down the hall and out the door. The sun hit him full force and Sam reeled, back finding the brick wall and letting it hold him up. "Christ, Dean." "Hold it together, Sam," Dean was saying, and he pushed away from the wall and stumbled down the street and into the car. The Impala's interior was fiery hot and Dean wound down his window to let in a trace of breeze. "You think it's him?" Dean said tightly, hands gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline, his fingertips white with the pressure. Sam felt hysteria rise up inside him and he choked on a sobbing laugh. "No, I think it's a fucking co-incidence, Dean! You know, like two people meeting and falling in love with each other and then finding out they're brothers! Dean, Phil Nash sent me to you, do you get that?" Sam voice rose until he was shouting, but Dean kept his eyes forwards, face grim and tight. "Dean, he sent me to you!" Dean nodded. "Yeah, I get that." 888 Sam let Dean drive, barely questioning as he pulled into a roadside motel and climbed out of the car. A few minutes later he was back with a set of keys and he drove the Impala around the court and eased into a spot by a faded motel door. He shut the engine off and Sam sat and stared through the windshield at the crooked number 12 gracing the cracked blue paintwork. "When I was fifteen years old, Phil Nash offered me a part-time job at his garage," Sam said. "When I was seventeen and I started talking about going to college out of state, it was Phil who mentioned Stanford. Told me I might appreciate being far enough away from home to be independent, but just close enough to see my family on holidays." Sam rubbed at the ache blossoming between his brows. "Christ, Dean. He moved me around like a chess piece." "Why would he do that?" Dean said. "What possible reason could he have? And, by the way, how the fuck did he even know about me?" "And if he did know, why wouldn't he tell us? Either of us?" They sat for long moments, the silence between them full of questions and answers that didn't make sense. "Come on," Dean finally said gruffly, thrusting his way back out of the car and reaching in the back for his bag. The first thing they did was turn on the air-con, the second thing they did was grab two glasses and some ice from the bar fridge. The third thing was crack open the bottle of Wild Turkey. "You know I figured we'd need a drink by tonight," Sam said, staring down at the remains of his shot swirling over the ice. "But I sure as hell didn't see this coming." "I always thought," Dean said. "I always thought it was just too much of a co-incidence. You and I, meeting the way we did." "This is huge." Sam gazed at Dean, still seeing the traces of shock on his lover's face, knowing it must be echoed on his own. Another thought occurred to him. "Do you think he sent the journal?" "I still can't get past the fact that he alibied the guy who probably killed Jason Ryan," Dean returned. "Nice, grey-haired Philly Nash, who sends us a Christmas card with a red T-Bird on it every year. Covered up the horrific murder of the guy who..." Sam sat up straighter. "The guy that hurt you," he said, mind racing. "Dean, what if he tracked you down and found out you'd run away? What if he found out why?" "And him and his buddy butchered the guy in revenge?" Dean said incredulously. "Why the hell would they even care?" "Well, maybe they knew our father?" Sam said excitedly, then he rushed on, words tumbling over each other. "Shit, maybe one of them is our father?" Dean frowned. "I thought John Winchester was dead? Didn't they find his corpse in his car? With that Elkin's guy?" "Yeah, they assumed it was him, because it was his car. But what if it wasn't? He was never formally IDed." Dean finished his drink and poured them both another. "No," he said finally, shaking his head. "No way. We have that picture of Winchester when he was a younger man." Sam frowned, thinking back to the mug-shot he'd seen of Singer. "People do change," he said, but now that he was thinking about it, maybe they didn't change that much. "Uh uh," Dean denied. "And I don't know Nash as well as you do, but surely you would have recognized him when you saw that old snapshot?" Sam nodded. "I guess. I guess I would have. So let's put this together. John Winchester left us alone in a motel room when we were kids, for whatever the fuck reason, we could never figure out." "Yeah," Dean said, pulling out a chair and collapsing at the table. "He drives off in his car and dies in the wilderness with that other guy. Social Services take us away and proceed to fuck up badly. They split us up and the rest, as they say, is history." "Yeah." Sam looked into his brother/lover's eyes and gave him a small smile. They'd long ago come to terms with what had been stolen from them. It was made a lot easier by what they had built between them. "Fast forward a few years. Phil Nash and his buddy Singer somehow manage to track us down. Who knows why it took them as long as it did." "Or why they even bothered. They were too damn late by then." "But at least they tried," Sam said. "They figure out what happened to you, and they take revenge." Dean grimaced. "To say the least." "And then, and this is even weirder, Phil Nash opens a business near where I live. Makes friends with my dad and me, and becomes a part of my life." "And then proceeds to steer you towards me," Dean agreed, then he smirked. "I bet he didn't expect us to fall into the sack with each other." Sam returned the smirk, then a light bulb went off over his head. "The journal!" he gasped. "That's why they sent the journal! They wanted us to know we were brothers!" "And break us up," Dean breathed. "The fucking cowards didn't have the guts to come and tell us they'd been manipulating our lives like we were god dammed puppets. They send that damn book to tell us the truth." "Who does that?" Sam appealed incredulously. "Who lurks in the shadows pulling strings like that?" "And what does that say about John Winchester," Dean said grimly. "If these guys were his buddies?" Sam absorbed that. "Shit. We need to talk to Phil." 888 Sam snapped his cell phone closed and turned to Dean. "Phil Nash has left a manager in charge of his store. Apparently he's moved to - you'll never guess where." "South Dakota?" Sam touched his nose. "Bingo. Turns out he still own s the wrecking yard out there." "With his good friend Robert 'The Mutilator' Singer?" Sam shrugged. "Hey, Dean? Fancy a run out to South Dakota?" End of Part Two Back to Gillian's Supernatural Page
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