Middle of Nowhere

by Ridley Pearson

  “I ah—” They approached the Agate Passage bridge.

  “Listen,” she said, “I don’t want to put you out. If the 392

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  casino is easier for you, let’s do that. I can call a cab from Poulsbo and he’ll be there in a matter of minutes.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject!” he objected. “I’m telling you: I think you look great. But try the other color and I’ll tell you what I think.”

  “But I left it. . . . I think. The lipstick. . . . I’m sure I did.”

  “Look,” he said, nudging the purse closer to her with his open palm. As he touched the purse his head snapped up, his eyes intense and dangerous. Had he felt the gun barrel? He knows! she thought, this time with more certainty. “See if you’ve got it . . . if you brought it with you . . . I’d like to see it on you.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her purse. She thought he might wreck the car.

  She couldn’t open the purse. Her gun was near the top—she’d made sure of that on the ferry—right where she could reach it in a hurry. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You said you like this color. That’s good enough for me.”

  “Come on,” he pleaded.

  She dragged the purse to her lap as they drove onto the bridge. She was thinking that if there was a place to pull the weapon and force him over it was there, where the car was restricted. She hadn’t thought any of this out clearly enough. Improvisation was fine, but did not come naturally to a mind preoccupied with consideration, even fear. She angled the purse toward her and slipped her hand inside. The cool metal of the M I D D L E O F N O W H E R E

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  weapon washed a sense of relief through her. The rose lipstick had settled on the bottom amid Tampax, a Flair pen, and loose quarters. Her fingers danced between the two: the handgun and the lipstick. Flek watched all this with one eye while driving with the other, unable to see into the purse. “Well?” he asked, as if knowing the dilemma she faced. She pulled her hand from the purse ever so slowly and produced the lipstick and a crumpled tissue.

  “Found it!” she crowed.

  “I knew it!” He pounded the steering wheel, suddenly a little boy. “Lemme see. Lemme see.”

  She snapped the purse shut, wondering if that was a mistake. “You mind?” she said, taking hold of the car’s rear view mirror.

  “Go ’head.”

  She smudged her lips onto the tissue, removing the sand colored lipstick and then carefully applied the rose, her attention on the mirror. She could feel him staring.

  He said, “Both lips. You do both lips. My mother . . . she used to wear this really red lipstick. Would do just the top lip, the upper lip, you know, and then kiss her lips together to get it onto her lower.”

  “Bright colors, you can do that,” Daphne said. She kissed her lips together a few times and presented herself to him. “Duh-duh,” she trumpeted like a fanfare.

  “What do you think?”

  He stared a little too long. She caught herself check-394

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  ing the road. “She wore bright lipstick all the time, your mother?”

  “I got it,” he said confidently, meaning she could take her eyes off the road. “I’m not gonna hit no one.”

  In control, she thought. “What about the rose?”

  “It’s sexier,” he said.

  He successfully turned the attention away from himself, and she felt resentful of this. She wanted to get back to discussion of his mother. “My mother—” she said, “I’m probably older than you . . . but she wore this fire-engine red lipstick, and I mean really big on her mouth.”

  “My mother was a waitress,” he said. “And she sold clothes too for a while. And bartended and stuff. Changed jobs all the time, but I don’t think she ever changed that lipstick.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “Booze got her. It was a long time ago.”

  “Do you drink?”

  He glanced over at her again. “That one’s way sexier than the other one.”

  “You think?” She tried to sound flattered. The road, state highway 305, swung left past the casino toward Poulsbo. Suquamish—Indianola was to the right. Flek followed traffic.

  “You want to get a beer?” she asked, as they neared the casino. Her thought process was quick and therefore flawed, though she tried to work all angles before speaking, her mind a flurry of thoughts and consideration. She wanted a chance to telephone Boldt, to M I D D L E O F N O W H E R E

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  tell him where she was and what she had in mind. He could then call ahead to Poulsbo and arrange for the local police to pick up Flek moments after dropping her off. He would never be out of her sight. She might even be able to start an interrogation immediately after his booking. It felt like a plan to her, but she needed this chance to call Boldt ahead of her being dropped off. A bar seemed the perfect place—her cell phone from a toilet stall, well away from the ears of Abby Flek.

  “Right now?” he asked.

  “One beer would help relax me—before this dinner,” she said. He jerked the wheel hard, throwing Daphne against the door. The tires cried and the huge car fishtailed slightly. An on-coming car sounded its horn as Flek shot the Eldorado across to the far side and bounced it into a gas station next to the casino. He hit the brakes hard and threw her forward against the dash. “Sit tight,” he said, leaving the car running. “Couple beers coming up.” He jumped from the car and hurried inside.

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  Daphne sat back in the front seat of the 1978 Eldorado, the wind knocked out of her—more from nerves than Flek’s bad driving. This was not the pit stop for beer she’d had in mind. She caught a glimpse of their suspect through the crowded shelves of the gas station’s mini-market as he grabbed a cold six-pack from a wall cooler. Within seconds she had her purse open and the cellular phone out, though her eyes remained on Flek who was already at the cash register under the sterile bluish glare of tube lighting. She had to look down to dial. She nervously punched in Boldt’s cellular, and got the number wrong. She cleared the last three digits and reentered them correctly. She hit SND.

  The phone signaled a busy cellular circuit. She ended the call, pushed RCL and hit SND again. Flek had a wad of bills in hand. He leafed through them, and pulled one out, and handed it to the clerk. For a moment, nothing. Then the call went through.

  She heard the ringing tone bleeping in her ear. An- swer the phone! she willed. Or would Boldt’s cellular be turned off this time of night and her only way to reach M I D D L E O F N O W H E R E

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  him be the home number? Liz had sounded so hostile when she had taken the call earlier. What was that about? Did she even want to know? Answer the damn call!

  “Boldt,” came his voice, small and thin over the bad connection, cellular to cellular.

  Flek had a couple dollars and change in hand as he pushed out the swinging glass door and into a light drizzle that started that exact same instant. M

  Boldt had roughly explained the predicament over the Denver video to Liz before bidding her goodnight and heading back into town.

  “I’ve thought about it,” he had said, “and I don’t see how I can just walk away.”

  “It’s not the principled thing to do,” she agreed. He loved her for this ability of hers to disconnect and walk the moral walk, talk the moral talk. Her religious faith, rekindled during her struggle with lymphoma, burned brightly. When tested, she fell on the side of right, of good, even if it meant ostensibly insurmountable personal challenges. Her earlier anger at him was “surface anger”—as she called it. When faced with this kind of challenge, they were a team again. She loaned him her own personal courage, and at no cost, no spousal bargaining. “You’re known for your integrity, love. You can’t escape it, even if you so desire—and I don’t think you do. Do you?”

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  they’ve got to stand up for it. And they’re not going to. Not on their own.”

  “If it’s time for you to leave this job, then it’s time,”

  she said.

  “What they intend to do—it will hurt. Hurt badly. Our friends. Your church. You want to look at that carefully before we decide this.”

  “Listen, I’m not saying I fully forgive you for all that has happened, but I’ll survive it . . . we will survive it.”

  She added faintly, “We’re survivors.”

  “It’s no easy decision. It can’t be made lightly,” he cautioned, although more for himself than for her to hear.

  “We don’t decide these things. They’re not ours to decide. We choose to listen or not.”

  “You’re saying the decision is already made,” he suggested.

  “I’m saying there never was a decision. There was only a question of whether we’d listen or not. And you always listen. You’re a good man, Lou. I love you for these moments.” Again, she added an afterthought. “I dislike you for certain others.”

  “We’ve never been quite at a moment like this, Elizabeth. It’s going to rain hard on this house.”

  “We can take it. Or not.” She added, “When you listen, when you do what’s right, things have a way of working out. Maybe not this week or next, maybe not this year or next. We could be in for some challenges, individually or together. Who knows? But there comes a time when you look back and say: ‘So that’s why that M I D D L E O F N O W H E R E

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  happened like that.’ I’m telling you—it happens every time.”

  In-bound traffic had improved in the past few hours. He wasn’t going to sleep; he knew that much. It seemed right to get into the office and continue probing the Sanchez case before his time was occupied with defending himself.

  His cell phone rang and he answered, “Boldt.”

  It wasn’t until he heard her voice that he remembered he owed Daphne a return call. M

  “Lou . . . Thank God,” she said breathlessly. Flek crossed through the drizzle at a run, the six pack of beer held steady in his hands so he didn’t shake the cans.

  She whispered frantically, “I’m with him, Lou: Flek!

  They traced his cell phone! Hang on! Don’t hang up, even if you think I have.”

  He popped open the car door and hurried behind the wheel, setting the six-pack of beer down between them. “Damn rain!” he said.

  M

  “Daffy?!” Boldt called out, hearing a man’s voice in the background. A car sounded its horn from behind him—

  he had unintentionally slowed to forty miles an hour. He sped back up.

  She said calmly, “So, I’ve caught a ride with a really 400

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  nice guy, and he’s taking me clear in to Poulsbo to meet you, even though it’s out of his way.”

  “Poulsbo? You’re with him!?” an incredulous Boldt asked her defiantly. Anger rose in him. Only then did he recall the message Liz had delivered—the phone call he had turned down. It seemed every time he turned around, he was to blame for something.

  “I know,” she answered, reading from her own script, ignoring his. “It’s really nice of him, isn’t it?”

  “Poulsbo,” Boldt whispered again into the phone.

  “It’ll take me an hour or two to get there unless I can get one of the news choppers. Jesus, Daffy!” SPD no longer owned its own helicopter, but leased time from one of three news stations that ran traffic choppers.

  “Friends?” she said, still on her own script. “I thought it was just going to be the two of us. No . . . no . . . you can bring your friends if you want . . . I’d love to see them. No, it’s fine. It’ll be a great dinner. Bring them! I’m sure. . . . Really. . . . Okay. . . . See you in a few minutes. . . .”

  The call did not go dead; Boldt could hear the two voices, but at a distance. Daphne had apparently pretended to end the call, but had left the line open. Boldt drove with the phone pressed to his ear. Friends? Boldt thought. She wanted backup. She intended to collar Flek herself. Sanchez was her case, and she intended to clear it. Perhaps this was more about her being a police officer than a psychologist. But where in Poulsbo? When? How was Boldt supposed to M I D D L E O F N O W H E R E

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  orchestrate this from miles across the Sound without putting her at risk?

  He left the cellular phone line open still held to his ear and simultaneously used his car’s police radio to ask Dispatch to place an emergency land line call to LaMoia’s hospital room. He quickly explained Daphne’s situation to the man, leaving out his own troubles. “I figured you, of all people,” Boldt told him, “would know the best bar and restaurant in a place like Poulsbo.

  ’Cause I haven’t got a clue where she’s headed.”

  “Give me five,” LaMoia requested through a jaw wired shut.

  When the radio called his name a moment later, and Boldt acknowledged, LaMoia said, “The Liberty Bay Grill. It’s the only game in town.”

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  Flek popped two beers and handed Daphne hers.

  “Quicker than stopping,” he said. “We’re both in a hurry.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” she said, accepting the beer. She didn’t like the taste of beer; if they had stopped for a drink it would have been red wine, a Pine Ridge Merlot or Archery Summit Pinot Noir, something above this dime store drool. She gagged some of it down for the sake of appearances.

  “Tell me about your brother,” she said. “What was he like?”

  The wide car cut through the night following the 402

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  road to Lemolo and Poulsbo. Flek downed half the beer before the first minute was up.

  The whirring of the tires was the only sound for the next few miles. The longer the silence, the more difficult. She sipped some beer.

  “He was the best,” he said, as if the minutes had not passed.

  “The Black Hole,” she said. “There are times you can’t think. You can’t sleep. You’re not hungry.”

  He looked a little surprised. He downed more of the beer.

  “Have you experienced that?” she asked. “Insomnia. Loss of appetite.”

  “No appetite for food,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

  “Other things . . . sure.” He killed the beer and reached for another. Daphne had barely taken an inch out of her own can. She did the honors, popping the next for him.

  “You’re not a cop, are you?”

  There were few questions that could freeze her solid, but this one managed. In all, perhaps a second or two lapsed, but to Daphne it felt like minutes. She coughed out a guttural laugh, at which point Flek joined her. A pair of nervous people chortling contagious laughter at a silver windshield. Oncoming cars and trucks passing with that familiar, if not disturbing, whoosh, that rocked the car side to side. Flek steered with one hand lightly on the wheel. Daphne kept one eye on the road, ready to grab that wheel.

  “Well, good,” he said, when she didn’t answer. “Pass M I D D L E O F N O W H E R E

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  me the Gold. It’s in the box.” He pointed to the glove box.

  Cuervo Gold Tequila. Half empty. Or was it half full on this night—she couldn’t be sure about that. He downed two large gulps from the bottle and offered her some. She declined as politely as possible. He wrestled with his left pocket, lifting his butt off the car seat to get a hand down deep, and came out with a plastic aspirin container, meant to carry ten for the road. It carried small capsules instead—she couldn’t identify the drugs in the limited dash light.

  “I won’t bother to offer,” he said, dropping two down his throat and chasing them with the beer. He clicked the aspirin traveler shut with the one hand, in a move that was far too familiar to him. He slipped the container back into his pocket.

  Possession, she thought, knowing they now had charges that would support his arrest. He said,
“Does it bother you?”

  “Only that you’re driving,” she answered. He laughed. “I think I can handle it.”

  “Does it make it any better?” she asked pointedly.

  “Let’s not go there, okay, Mom? Session’s over, Doctor. Ten, fifteen minutes, the patient won’t care.” He added, “The patient won’t be here.”

  “Then we’ve got ten minutes,” she suggested.

  “Five is more like it. Let’s not for now.” He pulled on the beer, then stuffed it between his legs. “Remember, I’m doing you a favor here, going all the way to Poulsbo. Don’t push it.”

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  “I was offering to help, is all.”

  “Yeah? Well, save it.” He drummed restless fingers on the top of the beer can in his crotch. “I’ve got all the help I need.”

  “That’s temporary help,” she said, not giving ground.

  “Depends how regular you are in administering the dosage, Doc! Ritalin. Prozac. They’ve tried it all on me, Doc. Started on me when I was eleven years old. You lift a couple toasters, they give you a pill. Wasn’t me who started this,” he said. Looking over at her, he added, “Oh . . . gee . . . am I scaring you? It’s you who wants to talk, not me.”

  “It’s called a glow plug, isn’t it?” she asked. He looked a little surprised by her knowledge, but recovered quickly. He sang, badly out of tune, “You . . . light up my life . . .” and laughed hotly, before putting out the fire with more beer.

  “It won’t bring him back.”

  “Shut up!” he roared. The car swerved, and Daphne felt weightlessness in the center of her stomach and a flutter in her heart. He shoved on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop on the side of the road. A pickup truck zoomed past, its horn cascading down the Doppler scale. “What the fuck business is it of yours?” he hollered, his eyes wild, spittle raining across the seat.

  “Jesus!” He drew on the beer again, leering. “Why can’t you just shut up about it!”

  She glanced down at her purse. The gun, she M I D D L E O F N O W H E R E

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  thought. But suddenly, all felt calm within her. This was her domain: the wild frenzy of minds losing grip. This was the moment she had hoped for: the anger breaking loose and opening up a hole through which she might travel. In a perfectly calm voice she said, “You’re experiencing guilt over your brother’s death. You blame yourself. You’re torturing yourself.” She pointed to the beer. “You’re medicating yourself.” She hesitated. He was actually listening to her, though through elevated respiration, dilated eyes, and an increased heart rate, judging by the pulse in his neck. “You can do damage, you know, assuming that kind of responsibility for another. Don’t beat yourself up over this.”