Middle Of Nowhere b-7

by Ridley Pearson

  Boldt flipped through the stack of pink, archived triplicate copies, wanting some other identifier. He read each of the twenty-three reports in more detail, taking the time to study the notes, wanting something to narrow these to a more manageable number. Twenty-three phone calls would take days, if not weeks, under the current caseload. Even shared with Daphne, he thought the job could take a week or more. Two or three weeks was not out of the question if they reached a bunch of answering machines. Shoswitz's comments about his relationship with Daphne troubled him, stayed with him. He wanted to see it as exaggeration. Lies. He wanted to feel it in his heart as schoolhouse rumor, but it triggered fear instead-as if he'd been caught at something, and that bothered him most of all.

  His blunt concentration passed the time quickly. The tea went cold. His butt hurt. All the little pleasantries of police work. City traffic had slacked off outside. He heard a distant whine of tires, but not the up-closeand-personal street traffic with which he hummed along by day. The place smelled of janitor's disinfectant, a chemical lime smell that had a hint of melting rubber to it. The janitor had passed through unnoticed.

  He glanced up at the clock-it was late; he owed Liz an apology. But before he picked up the phone to call her, he checked the clock a second time, recalling that Kawamoto had been hit in the daytime-extremely unusual. Sanchez had not, but for the moment he managed to separate the two cases and keep them that way. Back through his pile of reports he went. From the stack of twenty-three, he began pulling out reports, his heart racing as the new pile grew to six burglaries-the shared element: broad daylight.

  He went through all hundred-and-something files again. This time, a total of nine reports made up his pile. Nine burglaries. Nine violations of private property in broad daylight, all with thousands of dollars of highend electronics stolen. Big hits. Tricky hits. Some with home security devices apparently compromised. Wellorchestrated crimes. Practiced. Judging by Post-it notes and stapled attachments, Shoswitz's detectives had apparently spotted some of these same similarities-these overlapping loose connections-had probably been developing leads when the Flu came along and sent them home to watch reruns. Now Boldt had them, and he suddenly felt like a runner being passed a baton.

  There was no mention of white plastic ties. No assaults. Just nine pink sheets on missing electronics and some attached notes from bone-weary detectives. Police work.

  The smell of burned coffee drifted down the hall. The janitor had forgotten to turn off the pot. Boldt did so, stretching his legs, appreciating the moment away from the eyestrain and the tight back. He yawned. He washed out the coffeepot and shut the door to the lounge to keep the smell contained. All the while, he kept a weary eye over one shoulder. He kept thinking of that blue brick lying on his living-room floor, his wife in a sea of glass and her strained voice choking out, "I thought it was a bomb." He thought of his kids, his responsibility, his promises. He recalled Shoswitz's warning that his intrusion into Burglary's turf and open cases would not be appreciated. But Sanchez's eyes came back to haunt him.

  He would want to speak with all nine burglary victims; visit them in person, if possible. Daphne should accompany him, to read their answers. What they didn't say, and how they didn't say it, was often more important than what they put down for the record. He felt high, his spirits lifted by the discovery. Taken together, the reported crimes had been committed in broad daylight, in houses where the occupant had vacated the premises, in houses left locked, often with the home security system armed-with not one of the security systems announcing an intruder. Sanchez's assault remained the anomaly-committed at nighttime, with the security system engaged, but the same high-end electronics stolen. Location was another possible tie-some of the burglaries had occurred in the North Precinct; others in the East or South, but always in white, uppermiddle-class neighborhoods.

  Boldt's excitement grew as he sat back down. The cases looked damned good strung out in a line. Stacked in a pile. They made sense as a package. It was dark outside and nine o'clock. He had missed the family dinner at John and Kristin's, had missed putting his kids to bed. Had worked through a date with his wife and family and friends. At 9:30 he called Liz and apologized. She sounded a little upset but said she missed him, which he reciprocated. He didn't mention his partial victory on the case because it didn't seem appropriate at the moment. Missing dinner was one thing in their family; missing the kids' bedtimes another. He hated to disappoint Liz, even for a good cause.

  He and Liz had formed their courtship around jazz, films of every kind, and late-night dinners filled with stories and laughter. He had thought her too pretty for him; she'd feared even early on that he was too much of a workaholic. They had married young and for years had kept the marriage that way as well. Careers and the pressure to consider a family had briefly driven Liz to an affair, which in turn had encouraged Boldt to give in to temptation with Daphne Matthews for a single night. But that original connection between husband and wife had never been severed-it remained strong, if strained. They rarely made it to movies as a couple any longer-it was all Disney videos and the occasional Ice Capades musical. Boldt sometimes played Happy Hour jazz piano as a distraction, but Liz stayed home with the kids. The connection remained. Sometimes it took the form of a late-night movie or a rented video, a shared bath, or love-making on the couch with the kids asleep. Sometimes, nothing more than a look or a tone of voice. A long talk. They practiced mutual tolerance, mutual support; they limped through the challenges thrown up by daily life, sometimes overcoming, sometimes only surviving. But on this night he could feel Liz attempting to be tolerant and not entirely succeeding.

  "Call me in the morning," she suggested, a little too quietly, but still gently.

  "Sure will."

  "Maybe you can come over for eggs."

  "Maybe so," he replied.

  "You'll keep working tonight," she said.

  "Yes."

  "Okay." She didn't sound overjoyed about that.

  They said their good-byes and hung up.

  With a monthly calendar laid out on the desk before him, Boldt charted the nine burglaries that seemed to have led up to Maria Sanchez's tragedy. Sanchez-if part of that string-was number ten. Kawamoto, eleven. There was no particular day of the week to tie the events together, no exact hour, though all but the Sanchez crime had occurred during daylight; nor had there been a particular neighborhood. At first blush, a detective's nightmare-circumstantial connections linking the crimes but lacking the hard evidence necessary to provide a trail to follow. Nonetheless, for Boldt the sim ilarities remained substantial enough to impress him. He believed all eleven were connected, even if it wouldn't be easy to prove it. He had yet to discover how the burglar selected or targeted the homes-and this was, of course, of primary importance to the possible identification of a suspect. Certainly the residences had not been chosen at random-not since they were loaded with high-end electronics. The connection between these targets-an insurance provider? a security company? — eluded him, but remained a top priority.

  Or so he thought. Those priorities began to shift when he noticed a circled pair of initials on the top of one of the nine files. The initials crowded the box reserved for the investigating detective, for in this particular box two detectives had left their initials. The home belonged to a couple listed as Brooks-Gilman, living over in Queen Anne, a mitt-shaped neighborhood immediately north and west of downtown. The BrooksGilman case had been passed to a second detective, probably as a result of the Blue Flu. The circled initials were elegant and easily read:

  Maria Sanchez? he wondered, as he then noted the date on which the detective in question had accepted responsibility for the case. That date was just two days before the Sanchez assault. That exceeded the boundaries of acceptable coincidence. MS. Maria Sanchez. Had to be.

  CHAPTER 9

  " I don't see what we're after," Daphne said, hurrying to keep up with Boldt as he ascended the hospital stairs.

  "Her connection
to the Brooks-Gilman burglary investigation," he answered.

  "I understand that much," she said, a little miffed that he wouldn't give her at least some credit. "I read the memo!" Boldt had circulated an interdepartmental E-mail requesting any information on all cases Sanchez had been working prior to her assault. "But how does that get us any closer to the thief? So she took over some cases after the walkout happened. We all did. So what?"

  Boldt didn't answer her. Not one person had responded to his E-mail, again reminding him that the Flu had sympathizers still on the job. He felt disheartened, even defeated.

  Daphne matched strides with him in the long hallway. "Lou, she's my case. It's only right you tell me what you're thinking."

  "Shoswitz said his boys would not appreciate any of us doing their work for them. The implication being pretty obvious."

  "We're considered scabs," she gasped, "just because we accept some assignment passed to us by Dispatch?"

  "Maybe Sanchez was. Maybe they got pissed off at her for crossing over into their department. The only way a strike is effective is when the work doesn't get done. Maybe I got that brick through my window because I'm supposed to stay in Homicide, not take cases from other departments."

  She mumbled, "So to make the strike effective, they intimidate us."

  "Or worse," he said.

  "Break her neck, strip her naked and tie her up?" she questioned. "Does that sound like cop against cop? I don't buy that."

  "Hey," Boldt defended, "I'm not selling. I'm just investigating is all. Leaving open all possibilities."

  "There's a big difference between a brick through a window and what happened to Maria Sanchez."

  "I don't disagree with you," Boldt said. "I'm just investigating is all."

  They reached the door to Sanchez's room and showed their badges to the hospital security guard posted outside. He carefully checked the IDs, then permitted them to go in.

  Sanchez's condition had deteriorated since their first visit. The decline had manifested itself in her skin tone and in the proliferation of ICU equipment that was now attached to her. Daphne acknowledged her read of the situation with a grim look that told Boldt to proceed with caution.

  Daphne stepped closer to the tangle of tubes and wires and said the patient's name softly. Maria's eyelids strained open, followed a moment later by recognition.

  Boldt's overwhelming sense of concern momentarily prevented him from speaking. He felt painfully reminded that homicide cops rarely deal with the living.

  "We promise to come right to the point," Boldt informed the patient, stepping closer, so he could meet her now haunted brown eyes.

  "Something has come up," Daphne jumped in, "that requires clarification."

  Sanchez's eyes never left Boldt. He felt they somehow held him responsible, though he wasn't sure for what. He knew that Sanchez somehow understood their visit was at his initiation, that the questions would come from him. And so she waited. She has no choice, he thought.

  "Are you okay to answer some questions?" Boldt asked.

  The eyelids closed and reopened, eyes looking right. How, he wondered, could something as simple as blinking one's eyes become so labored and difficult?

  Boldt leaned closer. He could smell medication and hear the rhythmic efforts of the respirator. "Among your cases prior to your assault was the burglary of the Brooks-Gilman residence in Queen Anne."

  "Yes," she answered with an eyes-right.

  Boldt felt a slight flutter in his chest. The initials MS: Maria Sanchez.

  He asked, "Had you identified a suspect?"

  "No," came her reply, though clearly with great difficulty.

  "Lou," Daphne said, correcting herself to, "Lieutenant. I think she's too tired for this right now."

  Boldt ignored Daphne, remaining focused on Sanchez. "Do you believe your assault had anything whatsoever to do with your investigation?"

  Maria clearly struggled. With her condition, or with the question? Boldt wondered. An exasperating thirty seconds passed before her eyes fell shut and then reopened. "Yes," came the answer. But this was followed by a "no," as well, and Boldt took to this to mean she didn't know, couldn't be sure.

  Boldt gasped.

  "Lou!" Daphne whispered sharply.

  "Had you made some progress on the case?" Boldt asked.

  Again Daphne attempted to stop him.

  The eyes blinked open: Yes.

  "But not a suspect," he repeated for his own benefit, his mind racing, his connection with this woman nearly visceral. "Evidence?"

  "Yes."

  "Did others know about this possible evidence?" he queried.

  She paled another shade or two, if that were possible. Whatever the monitors were saying, Daphne didn't like it.

  "You're going to have a nurse in here in a minute," Matthews warned. "I'm asking you to stop."

  Boldt couldn't stop. Not when he was so close. He asked, "Had you told anyone about this new evidence?"

  Sanchez stared at the ceiling. No eyelid movement. No answer. He heard footsteps, voices, and then the door swung open.

  But Boldt still didn't give up. He leaned into Sanchez, getting as close to her as he could and asked, "Did you tell anyone who was out on strike that you were working a burglary case?" He added, "It's extremely important to the investigation that I know this."

  "That's it!" Daphne announced, coming around the bed and taking Boldt by the arm. "Come on! We're out of here before they throw us out."

  "One more minute."

  "Oh, my God," he heard Daphne gasp.

  Boldt turned around to greet the nurse or doctor, unprepared for who had entered the room. The normally cool and collected Sergeant John LaMoia stood straight and rigid, as surprised as they were. "What are you doing here?" Boldt asked.

  CHAPTER 10

  " She's Hispanic, Sarge," a macho LaMoia said coolly as if this explained something.

  Boldt had bullied them into a nurse's lounge for the sake of privacy. The room smelled of Danish and was lit like a supermarket. Two Dave Barry columns were taped to the

  wall by the microwave. Someone had scratched out a NO SMOKING sign and changed it to NO CHOKING.

  "It was a little overheated, in and out of bed."

  "How long has it been going on?" Boldt asked.

  LaMoia shrugged.

  Boldt fumed. LaMoia manipulated the world around him in a way Boldt couldn't, even if he wanted to. LaMoia got away with this kind of thing all the time.

  What you saw of LaMoia was what you got: pressed blue jeans, carefully coifed, brown curly hair that nearly reached to his shoulders, deerskin jacket, silver rodeo belt buckle, porcelain white smile, oversized mustache. And Attitude. He carried it in his walk, his posture, his dark eyes. His confidence surfaced behind a softspokenness. He was a hell of a cop. Somewhere between a fraternity brother and a war buddy for Boldt. A former prote?ge? who took what he wanted from life, he'd made himself the stuff of legend around Public Safety, both for his sexual prowess and his abilities as a detective. He'd disappointed Boldt greatly when he'd called in sick at the start of the Flu.

  Women found the package appealing, something Boldt would never fully understand. The Attitude accounted for some of it, but not as much as people believed. Boldt thought it was more the man's soft brown eyes and the vulnerability they often expressed-puppy eyes, pure and simple. Maria Sanchez had fallen. She wouldn't be the last.

  "I heard Bobbie Socks was asking around about her squeeze," LaMoia offered. He meant Gaynes. "I think you can take the squeeze off your list of suspects, Sarge. You're looking at him."

  He continued to refer to Boldt by the man's former rank, the same rank LaMoia now wore. Like a coach and a player, these two had a history that promotions couldn't ruffle and others couldn't explain.

  "If you felt anything for her at all, you'd have come back on the job," Boldt complained. "What's that about?"

  "I came up through the front seat of a radio car, Sarge. I still drink be
er with the guys wearing unis. Hit balls at batting practice with them. My name's on the guild roster. The chief is wrong about this. I gotta stand up for that. You can see that, can't you?"

  "You and Sanchez. How long?" Boldt repeated, knowing they could argue the Blue Flu all night long.

  "We've been seeing each other about a month now."

  Although the department didn't expressly forbid relationships between officers, it discouraged them. No "involved" officers could work the same division and were more often exiled to separate precincts, sometimes having their careers destroyed in the process. The credo "Personal lives do not mix with police lives" hung on the lips of every superior.

  "And how long were you going to sit on this relationship?"

  "I'm here, and I'm talking. Right?"

  Daphne snorted. "We caught you!" She said, "A lot of good you're doing Maria on the sidelines."

  "Maybe I'm doing more than you think," LaMoia said.

  "Working the cop bars for information, I suppose," she offered derisively.

  "Anybody angry at her about her dating a gringo?" Boldt asked.

  "I knew you were going to ask that! God damn it, Sarge!"

  "Family? Fellow officers?" In a city with a large population of Asians, Hispanics seemingly suffered under extreme prejudice. Tensions flared on the force between uniforms from time to time. Boldt didn't want to face the possibility that Sanchez's assault might have been racially or relationship motivated-a hate crime- and therefore disconnected from his current line of investigation.

  "Nothing like that," LaMoia promised. "Besides, we kept it quiet. Neither of us wanted a transfer across town."

  "You're sure?"

  "This is me, Sarge."

  "That's why I'm asking," Boldt said. LaMoia made trouble for himself. From captains to meter maids, he'd made the rounds, suffering suspensions and reprimands. Miraculously, he had not only kept his badge, but had managed to advance to squad sergeant in the face of rumor, innuendo, and outright scandal. Boldt had managed to keep LaMoia's affair with Captain Sheila Hill quiet, or LaMoia would have been forced off Boldt's CAPers squad. Both Hill and LaMoia owed him for that. Boldt rarely collected on such debts, though right now he felt tempted to pressure LaMoia back onto the force.