Middle Of Nowhere b-7

by Ridley Pearson

  "I'm going outside to look around," Boldt said.

  "It's nasty out there," the SID tech cautioned from the bathroom.

  "Check her boots and meet me outside," he told Gaynes. She cupped her hands to the window, peering into the backyard. She knew Boldt well.

  "Now," he reminded, his voice urgent.

  "Got it," she said.

  "Nasty." Gaynes tugged the GORE-TEX hood over her head. Boldt made a similar move with the collar of his green oilskin. He switched on a flashlight borrowed from a patrolman-one of the ones with six D-cell batteries inside-enough weight to club a skull to pulp, the flashlight's second function. Hunched over, he and Gaynes approached a disturbed area of mud in the backyard. They walked single file, electing to avoid the well-worn route leading from the separate garage to the house's back door.

  "This is where he intercepted her?" Gaynes suggested, dropping to one knee.

  "Looks like a possibility," Boldt said. "But there's no sign of dragging."

  "Her shoes show mud. The tech bagged them. Black leather jacket, presumably hers, had a partial shoe print on the chest. A set of keys and a garage clicker in the pockets." She added, "And yes, I'll have the shoe print typed, if possible," anticipating the request.

  Gaynes poked a raised rib of mud and grass with her gloved finger. "It's recent enough."

  Boldt kneeled beside her, the flashlight illuminating the disturbance. The grass looked like a rug scrunched up on a hardwood floor. Boldt tore some grass loose and sealed it into an evidence bag for lab comparison. He lived for such work-his lifeblood. He heard more chaos around in front of the house. More press. More pressure.

  Gaynes said, "I can see Sanchez stumbling upon him unexpectedly, surprising him, a struggle and she goes down."

  From behind them, Daphne spoke. "At first it's a matter of survival for him: get her to shut up and get the hell out of here. But then there's a change. Something primitive takes over. Primal. It's about dominance now, about her struggling and him overpowering her. He finds he gets off on it. He wants more than to simply subdue her. He has to possess her."

  "You're buying the burglary?" Boldt asked, peering up at her into the rain, the flashlight following. Even in the rain, Daphne Matthews looked good.

  "Help me out," Daphne said.

  "Shoelaces on both wrists. Same as Carmichael, my thirteen-year-old rape victim."

  "But not the ankles," Gaynes said.

  "Not the ankles," Boldt agreed, meaning it for Daphne. This was a jigsaw, with three players picking at pieces.

  "The burglary is intended to mislead us?" Daphne asked.

  "We've got a crime scene with two MOs," Boldt said. "A burglar. A rapist. Neither fits perfectly. Why?"

  Gaynes announced, "We've either got ourselves a twisted burglar, or a greedy rapist." She tugged on her hood. A trickle of water slid down her cheek and dripped off her chin. Knowing full well it would be his next request, she asked, "You want SID to work this site?"

  "It's a start," Boldt agreed.

  Daphne said, "Leanne Carmichael was raped. There's no medical evidence yet that Sanchez was."

  "And if she wasn't, then you've got yourself a couple of contradictions," Boldt suggested.

  "I don't want contradictions. I want a suspect. I want to clear this before it gets out of control." Daphne sounded unusually nervous. She wasn't used to leading a high-profile case. The Flu had caught up to her as well.

  Boldt shined the light over toward the garage. "She parked in the garage and headed for the back door. She either ran into this guy-"

  "Or he was out here waiting," Daphne interrupted.

  "I want to assign a guard outside her hospital room," he said.

  "L.T… You're right, but who we gonna get to do it?" a frustrated Gaynes asked. The Blue Flu had taken four out of every five officers off the force.

  "Notify hospital security. Let's move her to a private room away from a stair entrance. We'll require checkin at the nurse's desk. Some guy realizes he hit a woman cop, and maybe he decides he doesn't want any witnesses. Or maybe it's a boyfriend, and the same thing goes. I want her under protection."

  "Got it."

  Boldt felt the pressure of the investigation then-a sixth sense for a black hole and a case that wouldn't clear. He knew from the look in her eye that Daphne sensed this as well. "Contradictions," he said.

  "Yes," she agreed. "Not this case, okay?" she pleaded.

  "We'll each have six more cases on our desks by the time we get back," Boldt reminded.

  Gaynes chimed in, "And then our phones'll start ringing and Dispatch will dish out another couple each."

  "We need the sickout over with," Boldt said.

  "Dream on, L.T. They're firmly entrenched."

  Daphne saw her investigation headed for a black hole. "With Sanchez gone," she said, "we're down to sixteen investigators left-detective or higher."

  Boldt felt sick inside. A thirteen-year-old, raped. A policewoman paralyzed. A burglar on the loose. The public was certain to panic. The Emergency Communication Center's 911 lines would be crippled with hundreds of bogus reports and sightings. Seventeen detectives had become sixteen.

  "The press is going to screw us on this one," Gaynes whispered. "This is fuel to their fire."

  "Yes," agreed Boldt, "that's just what we don't want." He had come here hoping for evidence. Perhaps the contradictions were the place to start. They didn't offer him much.

  Daphne remained angry about the Flu. "It's a fellow officer! They've got to come back on the job now! It's time to circle the wagons."

  "I wouldn't count on it," Boldt and Gaynes said nearly in unison.

  CHAPTER 2

  " What exactly did Sanchez's doctor say?" Daphne Matthews moved fluidly, like a dancer. She set the pace, climbing the hospital fire stairs faster than Boldt might have liked. Sanchez's room was on the fourth floor.

  Boldt was relieved to be able to tell her that the rape kit had come back negative. He had made the call to the hospital while Daphne was reporting back to headquarters, where a reduced, overworked staff attempted to cope with a growing number of reported crimes.

  "Is there any eye movement? Limb movement? What exactly did the doc say?" she asked.

  He didn't answer right away, preoccupied with thoughts of the threatening phone calls he'd received in the last few days and what to do about the risk they posed to his family. Liz, his wife, was not easily moved out of her home.

  Daphne asked, "What's this about your knowing Sanchez personally?"

  "I know her," Boldt confirmed. "She lost her sister and her sister's two kids to a traffic fatality-"

  " That Sanchez?" Daphne exclaimed, interrupting.

  "The same."

  "I thought she transferred out when she graduated."

  "She did, but only for a few months, after which we met at a couple crime scenes. She met Liz and the kids at one of Phil's baseball games." Phil Shoswitz had been Boldt's immediate superior for nearly a decade. Currently he was captain of Crimes Against Property. "Offered to sit the kids. I suggested off-duty uniform work paid considerably better, only to find my foot in my mouth. She wanted to be around the kids. It had nothing to do with money."

  "She baby-sat Sarah and Miles?" Daphne asked incredulously.

  "I know," Boldt said, understanding her concern over such financial fraternization. "But it wasn't for any favors. It wasn't for promotion consideration. It was simply that Miles and Sarah were the same ages as her niece and nephew had been, and she wanted the contact. It didn't last all that long, but I've got to tell you: The kids loved her. Liz will be crushed when she hears." Slightly winded from the climb, he added, "This should never happen to any officer. But in particular this should have never, ever have happened to Maria. She's a great person."

  "You're a great person," Daphne said. She added reluctantly, "You and Liz-for taking her in like that."

  Boldt stopped his ascent, as did she. It wasn't all sweet and innocent between them. They
shared a past rarely discussed.

  They hugged the steel rail as a flurry of white and green hospital uniforms blurred past. Their eyes met, and briefly an energy passed between them that they both felt. "Liz and I," he repeated, echoing her. But from his lips it sounded more like a statement.

  "Right." Color rose in Daphne's long, elegant neck.

  Boldt took the lead. Daphne followed up the stairs and into the busy hall.

  "Eye movement," he whispered before opening the door to Sanchez's hospital room. This was the information she had originally sought from him, and he chose his timing intentionally, for the woman in question now lay on the other side of this door. "She apparently has some eye movement."

  Daphne nodded solemnly. Boldt swung open the door. "It's your case," he reminded. "Your lead."

  As she passed him, she whispered, "I know that."

  A fogged plastic tube, inserted through a surgical hole at the base of her throat, supplied Maria Sanchez's oxygen. Her torso was held fast by a white plastic brace that was itself connected to the bed frame, preventing movement of any kind. Too many tubes to count. A modern Medusa. Blinking lights and flashing green numbers in black boxes on rolling stands of stainless steel. A bag of intravenous fluids. Drip, drip, drip. A blue plastic clip over her index finger ticking out her pulse and measuring her blood oxygen. The glare of tube lighting. The hum of machinery and the disturbingly symmetrical rhythm of her computer-controlled breaths.

  Boldt's throat constricted. His chest seized in a cramp. This wasn't just a woman lying there; she was also a police officer. A friend. Family. Liz had once lain in just such a bed. He knew the things they could do to a person in here. He had seen Liz's roommate being wheeled out, and she had never been wheeled back in. The thought of Liz returned him to his concern over the threatening phone calls. He didn't trust where this Flu was headed. He wanted out of that room.

  Maria Sanchez's bloodshot eyes showed through small slits, and Boldt could detect slight movement in them as she tracked their entry into the room. Boldt recalled her on the couch with his two kids. Sitting up. Laughing. Goodnight Moon in her lap. He could envision her hugging his children with two arms that worked. But it was that laugh of hers he remembered. Her time with his kids had helped in her recovery from grief- she had learned to laugh again in his house. To live. And now this.

  "Officer Maria Sanchez," Daphne said, seeing Boldt struggle, "I'm Daphne Matthews, the department psychologist. You know Lieutenant Boldt-Homicide."

  "Matthews is lead on your assault," Boldt managed to say. "I'm playing Watson." He had wanted to inject humor. He'd failed. Again he realized he had spent too many hours in hospital rooms of late. There should be quotas, he thought. He foresaw pain and hardship in that bed. Time. Waiting. For eighteen months of cancer treatment his family had suffered. Now they still waited, hoping Liz's remission held. The waiting hurt most of all. Sanchez would feel the full force of it.

  His voice broke as he said, "I'm sorry for your situation, Maria."

  Daphne offered, "We don't pretend to know what you're going through, but we are going to put away whoever's responsible." She added, "We're told the doctors plan some experimental surgery and that the prognosis is good. Be strong, Maria. We're pulling for you."

  "The whole department," Boldt said. Adding, "What's left of it."

  The patient blinked once. At first it appeared to be a reflex, nothing more. But it drew their attention.

  Boldt carefully chose his words. "We've been over to the scene just now… your house, Maria. Looks a lot like you interrupted a burglary. Stereo gear and at least one TV appear to be missing."

  "We'll need for you to confirm as much of this as possible-as soon as you're able," Daphne added.

  "The report is sketchy at best," Boldt said. "When you're better, we'll work on this one together, okay?" His attempt at positive thinking sounded hollow and fell flat. Boldt didn't know quite how to act, so he decided to just stick to business. "We're pursuing this as a firstdegree burglary. I guess we just wanted to say it goes without saying that we're not sitting on this one, that the Flu isn't going to delay this in any way. Matthews got the call-the lead-and that's a good thing. We're going to chase down this offender and lock him up. Guaranteed."

  "We need you, Maria," Daphne encouraged her. "You're going to pull out of this."

  Another blink. A tear slithered from her eye, down her pale cheek and cascaded to the pillowcase. When her eyelids opened again fully, Sanchez's dark pupils were lodged to the left of her eye sockets.

  "Maria?" Boldt inquired, the eye movement obvious. He checked with Daphne.

  "We're watching your eyes," Daphne stated firmly to the woman. "Are you trying to signal us, Maria?" she asked. For Boldt, the air in the room suddenly seemed absolutely still. The sounds of the machinery seemed louder. He felt cold, chilled to the bone.

  Another blink. Reflex or intentional? Her pupils faced right.

  "Oh my God," he mumbled, letting it slip. He glanced toward the door and the freedom it offered.

  "Right is 'yes'; left is 'no.' Is that correct?" Daphne inquired.

  The woman closed her fluttering lids with great difficulty. When her eyes reopened, her pupils remained locked to the right.

  Daphne met eyes with Boldt, her excitement obvious.

  "We're going to ask you some questions," Daphne suggested tentatively. "Okay?"

  The eyelids sank shut. As they reopened a crack, the pupils faced left, her answer a solid no. Her eyes fluttered shut and remained so. Boldt felt a wave of relief.

  "She's too tired," Boldt said, indicating to Daphne they should leave the room.

  Daphne nodded, but wouldn't let it go. "You go ahead and rest, Maria. We'll be back when you're up to it." She followed Boldt into the hall. He assisted the room's oversized door to shut as quietly as possible.

  "Medicated," Daphne said. "Fatigue plays into it too, but chances are it's as much her unwillingness to confront and relive the assault and the associated trauma as anything else."

  "She's terrified," Boldt said, relieved to be out of the room. "And she has every right to be." He added, "You see that, don't you?"

  "You didn't have to be in such a hurry to leave."

  "Yes, I did," he argued.

  "She can answer questions, Lou. We can build a list of questions and she can answer them! We can interview the victim. You realize that?"

  Boldt complained, "You don't have to sound so excited about it, you know?"

  "What's wrong with you?" Daphne asked. She crossed her arms indignantly against the artificial chill of the hallway.

  "It's all wrong with me," Boldt answered, feeling a chill himself that had nothing to do with thermostats. "Her. This place." Motioning back toward the room he said, "A pair of eyes, Daffy. It's all that's left of her."

  CHAPTER 3

  " It's a difficult situation," Boldt said.

  "So talk me through it. Is it the strike, or this case?" his wife, Liz, asked.

  "Both," he answered. The Sanchez assault was nearly twenty-four hours old. No arrests. No suspects. He feared a black hole.

  The Boldt kitchen confirmed the laws of chaos, a study in the science of randomly placed objects: dinner food, dishes, pots and pans, plastic toys scattered as an obstacle course, a high chair, a booster seat, stained dish rags. Something sticky had been spilled by the pantry door. A path of mud and pebbles led from the back porch, despite the door mat. Boldt stood at the sink, elbow deep in dishwater.

  By nine o'clock they typically would have had the kitchen cleaned up-with or without each other's help-but their daughter Sarah's upset stomach had kept them busy these past several hours. With both kids finally asleep, husband and wife tackled the cleanup.

  "Wish that dog would stop. Does it ever shut up?"

  "Maybe they wouldn't have bought an attack dog if you guys hadn't gone on strike," Liz teased.

  Boldt groaned. She was trying to make light of it, but it struck a nerve. "It's not a stri
ke, it's a sickout," he corrected her.

  Liz policed the countertops and the kitchen table, which looked as if a food fight had taken place. Boldt watched her in the reflection of the window above the sink. In his opinion, she still needed about twenty pounds. The cancer had won that as well as her hair. Most of her hair had returned, but not the weight. And the hair looked wrong, because she had always worn it longer than that. Boldt wrestled with the carrots burned onto the bottom of the saucepan. That dog just wouldn't stop. If Boldt hadn't been a cop, he might have called one.

  Liz brushed against him as she shook crumbs out of a rag. He enjoyed the contact, any contact at all, anything to remind him of her presence.

  "So what's bugging you?" she asked, adding quickly, "besides our neighbor's dog?

  "The Flu. I realize it's complicated." A new sports stadium had gone over budget. The mayor instituted cost-saving measures. The new police chief cut overtime pay for detectives and, at the same time, restricted offduty work for uniforms because one off-duty cop had embarrassed the department. "But it has messed up everything," he said.

  "Listen, I hate to see you like this." She offered, "Maybe it's worth thinking about how much you, personally, can do about any of it."

  "But that's the point! It gets worse every day. Now Phil and the other captains are effecting a slowdown. Doing just enough work to get by, which isn't enough, of course. It's their way of supporting the sickout."

  "But if you're working as hard as always, what more can you ask of yourself?"

  "Thanks," he said sincerely.

  "Is there anything positive to focus on?" Forever Liz. Spiritually determined.

  He answered, "Homicide's bathroom stays cleaner than I've ever seen it. The coffee lounge no longer stinks of burned grounds. Precious little."

  "All you can do is-"

  "Pray?" he interrupted. He didn't need to hear this right now.

  She grimaced. "Not what I was going to say," she said.

  He apologized, but she walked away and went about the cleanup.

  He didn't mention that the eerie emptiness of the fifth floor, the vacant halls and office cubicles, reminded him more of a school in the midst of a fire drill than a homicide squad. The hallways and offices of Crimes Against Persons required bodies to occupy them-like suits in a storefront window.