Middle Of Nowhere

C H A P T E R

15

"I'm not sure I see the point of this," Daphne said, hurrying down the hallway toward Property. Boldt had rousted her out of her office.

"The point is," Boldt said, pain ringing through him, "her keys are important. How, I'm not sure. You're lead on her case, which means I don't get her keys out of Property without your signature."

She held a door for him. He said, "I'm beginning to believe my assault and hers are linked: that's what led me back to her hospital room. Now this—these keys, I've got to face facts: People don't get mugged in my neighborhood, Daffy."

"I know that. So if they weren't muggers, who were they?"

"Maybe we don't want to find out."

"The cop in me doesn't want to believe any cop would do this to another cop. Not ever."

"You think I like it?" Boldt asked.

"The psychologist—she's a different story," she went on. "There's resentment here. Frustration on the part of the Fluers. Venting those pent-up emotions is a natural progression, a natural expression."

"But the sickout is working."

She agreed. "To us it is, because we're worn out by it. But to those cops now on the outside?" she questioned. "To them—and to the public too—we're wounded, we're down on one knee, but we're not on the mat. We're not raising white flags. That could be the source of a lot of anger."

"Violence?" he asked her.

She shrugged and reluctantly nodded. "I'd rate it as a possibility," she confirmed. "But for the record: I'd put Maria's assault down as a burglary gone bad; your little skirmish, I'm not so sure."

"So we listen to the victim and we chase the evidence," he reminded her. Boldt's law of investigation. In the Sanchez case, chasing the evidence now meant a certain set of keys.

As its senior sergeant, Krishevski ran the evidence storage facility's daily operations, claiming the day shift for himself and his three-man squad. As guild president, Krishevski had caught a bad case of the Blue Flu, as had his squad, leaving what remained of the night duty and graveyard shifts to handle things.

Ron Chapman, a uniformed sergeant with two years less seniority than Krishevski, looked haggard. Barrelchested, potbellied and pale, he looked as much like an Irish potato farmer as a cop in pressed blues. Boldt knew Chapman casually though not socially, having spent years passing the man in the hallways and seeing him working behind the Property room's wire-mesh screens in the process of cataloging case evidence. Any field detective worth his salt knew any and all of the officers who manned Property—the repository of all physical evidence from active and uncleared investigations and arraignments that had yet to reach trial.

As lead on the case, Daphne signed off for the Sanchez evidence at the cage, and Chapman retrieved it for her. A few minutes later, Chapman delivered the items in a sealed cardboard box that in turn contained a large plastic garbage bag kept shut by a wire twist that carried a tag bearing the case particulars. That tag had to be torn in order to open the twist and get to the contents. Daphne did so in front of Chapman, who held a computerized inventory of the bag's contents. She removed the woman's black leather jacket, now stained with chemicals used by the lab in an attempt to develop fingerprints. She held it up for both to see.

"I'm removing the jacket," she noted.

Chapman said to Boldt, "I got your E-mails about Sanchez."

That won Boldt's interest.

"Thing about E-mail," Chapman said, "is they can trace it back to its source, you know?"

"You have something for me, Ron? You know anything about the Brooks-Gilman burglary?"

"Didn't say that, did I?"

"Was there any evidence collected in the BrooksGilman burglary?"

"Not that I know of."

"May I see the log for the past two weeks?"

"Don't see why not," Chapman said, typing for a moment before spinning the computer terminal to face Boldt and Daphne. Boldt checked his notepad for the date Sanchez had taken over the investigation for Shoswitz's flu-ridden burglary unit.

Boldt noticed that three days before her assault, Sanchez had visited Property both in the morning and the early evening. He counted four visits in all. But there was no case number listed, nor any victim name, which struck him as unorthodox at best. Ron Chapman's initials listed him as OD—the officer on duty for Sanchez's evening visit.

"What's with the lack of reference, Ron? No number. No name."

"No kidding," Chapman said, staring at Boldt in nearly the same manner as Sanchez had stared. As if something were expected of him. As if he were supposed to pull this all together out of thin air.

"They're required," Boldt reminded.

"Not always they aren't," the man returned.

The statement confused Boldt. Since when wasn't a case number required for a Property visit? "An officer can't just pay a visit and do his or her shopping," Boldt said.

Chapman leaned toward the screen, like an inmate entertaining a visitor. He said faintly, "Not all visits are recorded the same way." He hesitated. "These are tumultuous times," he said, shooting Boldt another knowing look, clearly begging him to connect the dots.

Daphne announced formally, "I'm searching the pockets of the leather coat."

"That stuff's in here," Chapman said, indicating a sealed manila envelope. He read from the label. "Set of keys and a garage door opener."

Boldt scrolled back through the listings. He didn't want to lose Chapman and the man's uncertain willingness to cooperate. "How about a little help here, Ron?"

Daphne signed the manila folder and then opened it, dumping a set of keys and a clicker into her waiting hand. The keys and clicker had been dusted and fumed for latent prints, giving them a pale purple cast. Chapman swiveled the monitor back around and made notes in the computer log. Everything in its place.

But no case numbers alongside Sanchez's name. Why? Boldt had in his possession what he'd come for, but he was leaving with more questions than answers.

"Let me ask you this," Boldt said to Daphne from behind the steering wheel of the Chevy. "Since when does a uniform like Ron Chapman not walk in concert with Krishevski?"

"Bothers me too. Yes," Daphne agreed.

"You're the psychologist."

"Peer desertion?" she asked, looking for a cubbyhole. "It would typically indicate a selfish motivation. Something personal, maybe. Retirement? Illness in the family? Some situation where the paycheck is deemed more important than the cause."

"Then why cooperate with me at all?"

"It's troubling, I have to admit."

"Then you thought that was strange back there," Boldt said encouragingly.

"Unusual," she said, choosing her own word. "Unexpected."

"He wanted to tell me something."

"No," she corrected. "He wanted you to discover it."

"Sanchez wanted that too," he informed her. "These keys. She was practically killing herself to help me figure this out, and I never did."

"At least not yet," she said, displaying the keys and letting them dangle.

He pulled the car to a stop, blocking Sanchez's driveway. "I still can't forgive SID for parking in the driveway that night. Who knows what we might have missed?"

"Such as?"

"If it's burglary, robbery, whatever, this guy has to park somewhere. He's yarding in TVs, don't forget. Maybe he parked in the driveway. Maybe we might have lifted a tire pattern or something. Who knows?"

"If?" she questioned. "Don't you hate this not knowing?"

"We know they got my wallet, and yet they stayed to finish me off. One of them used the term 'K-9.'"

"We also know there have been a dozen serious assaults since the Flu," she reminded him.

"Right now, only these keys interest us."

She quoted, "Maintain focus and objectivity." Boldt 101.

"Amen," Boldt said, snagging the keys from her grasp and limping as he led the way to the Sanchez house.

• • •

"Okay," he said, once inside. "Let's review the inconsistencies."

"I thought this was about the keys," she complained. "Can't we just try all the keys first?"

"It's your case," he said, a little miffed. He passed her the keys. Attached to the ring was a black plastic bobble with a black button.

She sighed and gave in, saying, "Most security systems were blocked. Hers was not. She was stripped and tied to a bed. The only other known assault was Kawamoto, and she was left alone."

He added, "Time of day was off. All the others were committed in broad daylight."

"But all the burglaries involved high-end electronics, including Sanchez. Similar neighborhoods, similar MO: jewelry, silver, and other items left in plain view go untouched. How often does that happen?" Daphne walked them through the house, trying the keys on exterior doors. One key worked all the exterior doors. Three keys to go. She said, "Are you going to explain how this guy bypassed the security systems?"

"He didn't. Not exactly," Boldt answered.

"Are you going to make me beg?"

"I love it when you beg," he said.

"You be careful what you ask for," she said, trying a key out on a locked closet. She found one that fit. The closet was empty.

"Probably for renters," Boldt said.

"So?"

Boldt said, "The guy does this for a living, right? He knows damn well that home security systems dial out over the phone line. He scouts the place. He knows it's empty. So he calls the house just as he's going to hit it. The message machine picks up, engaging the line, which means it's now busy. The security system can't dial out. He's got a minute or more—however long the answering machine gives him—to break in. When he does, he busts up the system's siren and gets the phone physically off the hook."

"Sweet. Except that siren is blasting from the minute he's through the door until he KOs it."

"Those things false alarm all the time. As bad as car alarms. You think a neighbor's going to pay any attention if the thing stops within twenty or thirty seconds? No way."

"Two keys unaccounted for," she said. They'd been through the whole house.

"Garage?"

"Should be one of them," she agreed.

They walked out back. The disturbed area in the grass was marked off and protected by yellow crimescene tape. They reached the garage's side door, and the key fit. They opened it up and stepped inside.

Boldt said, "All keys accounted for."

"One left," she said, indicating the smallest on the ring.

"You'll find it fits that dirt bike," he said, pointing.

She slipped past the car into the far corner and

tried the key just the same. When it fit, she said, "You do impress the ladies, you know?"

"Do I?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"But I failed in my mission," he pointed out. "Why the keys?"

"Maybe you misread her?"

"Maybe."

"If you'd asked me along," she prodded, upset that he had not. She added sarcastically, "But then again, it's only my case."

She took the keys back. They'd been exchanging them back and forth like this, as if playing some kind of parlor game. Daphne took them, stepped toward the parked car and pushed the button on the key ring's bobble.

With both of them facing the car—a badly weathered Toyota—the garage door opened behind them. They spun around in unison.

She said, "I figured it for the car."

"Yes," Boldt agreed, snatching the keys back and stopping the door mid-ascent. He pushed the button again, and the door started down.

Daphne was already digging in her purse by the time Boldt looked over at her. Her hand came out holding the clicker found in the pocket of Sanchez's leather jacket. She pointed it toward the door and squeezed. Nothing.

Boldt grabbed it from her. He aimed the clicker at the overhead garage door mechanism and depressed its button. Twice. Nothing. Again, he tried the small black clicker attached to the set of keys. Again, the door reversed direction.

Boldt and Daphne met eyes. She said, "So it wasn't the keys after all."

"No."

"And you're thinking?"

"The obvious," he answered.

"Who's it belong to?" she said, indicating the freestanding clicker.

"Exactly."

"A boyfriend? Her parent's house? A sister? Someone she was house-sitting for?"

"One of the cases she was working?" Boldt suggested.

"I knew you were going there." She sounded disappointed. She knew the time involved in going door to door to nine different homes.

"She wanted us to find this," he reminded her, holding the clicker. Cherishing it.

"And now we have," she said.