Middle Of Nowhere

C H A P T E R

64

"My last conscious thought was that we needed him alive." Two days after her ordeal, Daphne's voice remained weak and trembling.

They sat in the front seat of Boldt's Crown Vic, outside the home of Ron Chapman, awaiting LaMoia. Boldt wore a walking cast on his left leg. Daphne wore a cast on the same foot. Ever the pair.

"He didn't feel the same way about you," Boldt reminded her.

"He assumed he'd be blamed for Sanchez, but he didn't do her. He claimed to have an alibi. The AirTyme cellular records put him on the Bainbridge ferry for the night you were shot at. Flek did the burglaries, no question about it. He pushed Kawamoto down some stairs. But not Sanchez. Not you. Certainly not Schock and Phillipp. He's not good for any of that."

"Which is why we're here—to get to the bottom of it."

"Despite the obvious risks to our careers that video represents," Daphne reminded him.

"Leave well enough alone?" he asked. "Is that what I'm hearing? We put Flek down in the books for the Sanchez assault, and we walk away from it?"

"There are those who wouldn't give that a second thought, given the stakes."

"And are we them?" he asked. "Daffy, I'm not going to force this on you. It's both of our careers. We either do this unanimously, or not at all." He added, "I thought we'd—"

"Been over it?" she interrupted. "So did I. But sitting here now, ready to dig back into it, it feels a lot different. It would be so easy to cover it up."

"Say the word," Boldt advised her, glancing up at the dashboard clock.

LaMoia parked across the street. He crossed, and slipped into the backseat. He carried a file under his arm that Boldt had been expecting. "It arrived a few minutes ago," he informed his lieutenant. "Typical I.I.— they hand-delivered it, and made me sign off on it twice." Speaking to Daphne, LaMoia said through his wired jaw, "If it's any consolation, Matthews, I've been jammed in a lot worse ways than this—the video, I'm talking about—and I know the value of a person keeping his mouth shut, if it comes to that. No pun intended."

Daphne thanked him.

Boldt flipped open the folder LaMoia had delivered and angled it to catch the street light. He read the contents, flipped pages and read some more. "Ronnie wasn't cut out for this."

"He denied any involvement when Sanchez interviewed him," LaMoia pointed out.

"Hopefully, we can change that," Daphne said.

* * *

"I feel like I'm visiting a convalescent home," Ron Chapman said, sitting across from Boldt at his own kitchen table. He'd been reluctant to speak with them, but Boldt flashed him a look at the I.I. folder, and Chapman had acquiesced. The story of Bryce Abbott Flek's fiery death had already come and gone from the papers and newscasts. Public interest in the case had faded as quickly as the fish had washed out to sea from Miller Bay, as quickly as it had taken work crews to restore power to eleven hundred households. In the world of local TV, two days proved to be an eternity.

Boldt, Daphne and LaMoia sat side by side across the table from Chapman.

"Between us we've got over forty years, Ronnie," Boldt reminded the man.

"Some good, some bad," Chapman said. "I've never had a beef with you, Lou."

"The three of us over here have an ongoing investigation into that assault of the female officer."

"Sanchez," Daphne said.

LaMoia told the uniform, "Mine is more of a personal interest. Sanchez and I were . . . friends."

"I'm with you," Chapman told the three.

"You've always been straight with me, Ron."

"Same here, Lou."

"And I need you to be so now." He repeated, "Straight."

"I've spoken to I.I. already, if that's what this is about."

"That's part of what it's about," Boldt acknowledged. "Krishevski paid me a visit. Told me about a video you have. Wouldn't tell me what's on it."

"So maybe you're wasting your time."

"You want to go down with them?" Boldt asked, having a vague idea of who "them" was. "I.I.'ll get you for hindering prosecution—you understand that, don't you?"

"I got no comment, Lou."

Boldt said, "I was with you when you discovered that rifle being switched. I think it surprised you."

He waited a moment. " 'Course it surprised me," Chapman said.

"This is about the Flu, Ronnie. That's what I think. It's about some of the guys buying themselves a little extra insurance that the cash flow would be there when the guild funds started running dry. It's about inside information, which is where Krishevski fits in: He talked when he shouldn't have. The best pressure we have is that a missing assault rifle took a shot at me."

Chapman's eyes went wide.

LaMoia suggested, "You'll be hooked up to that if you keep playing it the way you are."

Daphne explained, "The shooting offers us the best leverage in terms of getting one of them to talk." She had no idea what she was talking about, but she hoped Chapman didn't know that.

"And I fit in, how?" Chapman asked, vamping.

Boldt said, "Property has always been a clean department, Ronnie."

"Damn right."

"And now this," LaMoia said. "Gotta break your heart."

"It does," the man insisted.

"And us too," LaMoia said.

Daphne added, "We hate to see anyone look bad."

Boldt said, "And we understand that when a guy is dealing with I.I. he's not about to so much as whisper a fellow officer's name without damn good proof, because no matter what anyone says, any kind of I.I. association hurts an officer, jams him up. Even ruins him, sometimes. And for no good reason."

"Agreed."

"It was Krishevski's shift," Boldt stated, as if certain. "How long do you cover, Ronnie?" Boldt readjusted his cast. "Krishevski has three officers under him: Pendegrass, Riorden, and Smythe."

Chapman was feeling uncomfortable. "I'm aware of that, Lou."

"Who was it? What was it?" Boldt tried to sound convincing, "One of them stole some assault rifles. Probably more like two of them, given the way the mechanics work—one guy having to trip a button upstairs in order for the vault to come open downstairs. They sold them into the marketplace for some spending money."

"Is that what's on this missing video?" LaMoia asked. "Or was it you who threw the switch to open the warehouse?"

"I didn't throw no switch. I didn't have nothing to do with that."

Daphne speculated, "You saw something."

Chapman answered, "I caught one of Sergeant K's guys in house on my shift, and he hadn't signed in. You gotta sign in, Lou—that's on penalty of death in our unit. There were threats exchanged. Obviously, I realized something wrong was going down. Something had come out of the warehouse, and it came out on my shift—that was on purpose. And if it came out, then it had to go somewhere. Had to leave the building. And fast."

"The garage," Boldt nodded, understanding the logic. The warehouse and the lower deck of the parking garage were on the same level.

"I don't know if these guys planned on covering their backsides later or not. Maybe they're just plain stupid." He looked at LaMoia. "Maybe they planned to give me what someone gave you, what someone gave Sanchez. Schock. Phillipp. You gotta be some kind of stupid to try any of this. But I got the leg up on 'em. If I hadn't, maybe somebody would have clubbed me in an alley or on the way out of a bar or something."

"Leg up, Ronnie?" Boldt asked.

"You remember that vandalism in the garage . . . must be two years ago now?"

"Vaguely," Boldt answered.

"I.I. had a pair of cameras installed." He recognized Boldt's blank expression.

LaMoia said, "The video."

"No one knows about those cameras," Chapman said. "The brass wanted it that way. They didn't want anyone knowing. They knew the vandalism had to be internal, cop to cop, and they wanted to put somebody right for it. The wiring for the closed-circuit stuff runs into the boneyard. They installed it saying they were doing maintenance. Thought they'd hidden the VCRs where we'd never see them—way up on a shelf in the back. But I knew. I had to know. I've been in that room going on twenty-one years. I know every creak, every sound. I've been fighting rats and spiders so long that I've given them names. I know every inch of those shelves. But no one knew I knew."

"The videotape," LaMoia repeated.

The ruddy-cheeked man grinned. "I grabbed it that night, knowing it was my insurance package. Locked it away good and tight. And if anything happens to me, it goes directly to KSTV's News Four at Five."

"Oh . . . my . . . God," Boldt gasped, realizing Chapman had images that could ID the cops responsible for the theft. "I.I. caught on, how?"

Chapman explained, "I loosened a wire, put a blank tape into the VCR, hoping to satisfy I.I. But it didn't, of course. The Flu hit. I.I. sent Sanchez to talk to me."

LaMoia guessed. "You reported that visit to Krishevski."

Daphne read the man's face. "Not Krishevski. Then to whom?"

"I need that tape," Boldt said.

"It's hidden. They watch me. Probably you too, now.

They want that tape. They get hold of it, and a week from now you'll find me face down in my shower, or lying up next to Sanchez with my neck broke."

"Where does Krishevski fit in?" Boldt inquired, recalling the man's visit to his home two days before.

"Don't look at him for this."

"He knows about your videotape."

"I imagine that's right."

Daphne said, "Having part of the story isn't going to help."

Chapman agreed, but couldn't quite bring himself to talk.

Boldt reminded Chapman, "When we looked in the warehouse for the rifle, there was a rifle. Your doing?"

"I've never tampered with evidence. Never will."

"Those videotapes," Daphne said. "You tampered with those."

"Hey!" he complained. "Those weren't part of Property. You show me one piece of paper saying those were part of Property."

LaMoia tipped back in his kitchen chair. "Okay." He sighed. "I say we leave this for I.I. to mop up. He's not going to help us."

Chapman looked over at Boldt, the first real sign of fear on his face.

Boldt looked the man in the eye. "You don't want to go down on the record as having told anyone anything."

Daphne added, "Because you've seen what they did to Sanchez."

Chapman told her, "I got a family. I got kids."

Boldt suggested, "So I'll tell you what's right, and you'll stop me where I'm wrong."

Chapman nodded his okay.

Boldt closed his eyes and assembled the pieces. When he reopened them, he looked straight at Chapman. The two pairs of eyes locked together. "You figured out these guns were stolen and you accused Krishevski because his guys were on that tape." He paused. Chapman made no corrections. "Either he told you, or you figured out he wasn't directly involved. So when Sanchez shows up four different times, asking questions, Pendegrass gets worried. The next day Sanchez is in the hospital." Another pause. Chapman's eyes were glassy. "Your loyalty is to the room itself, not to any officer. Krishevski feels pretty much the same as you do. Knowing you possess this incriminating tape, Krishevski suggests his boys will return the stolen weapons. They'll make it right, if you keep quiet. And until you and I pulled that gun off the shelf, you thought they had returned them." He added, "How am I doing?"

Chapman said, "Krishevski couldn't believe his guys could do such a stupid thing. Blamed himself for leaking news of the sickout. Practically begged me to let him set it right. He's not the one you're after."

"Schock and Phillipp take over the I.I. case for Sanchez and pay a couple visits to Property. You're thinking Pendegrass is checking the log, and you're worried for them. You go to the Cock and Bull looking for Pendegrass, to tell him to lay off Schock and Phillipp, but they're right behind you, and Pendegrass and company take a baseball bat to their heads as well—in part to scare you, to let you know who's boss."

Again, Chapman made no corrections.

"Krishevski calls me anonymously because he suspects his boys did Schock and Phillipp. He won't condone that. He knows they need to be stopped. He plays it cool when I show up at the bar, putting on a good act." Boldt paused. No comments from Chapman. "I call down to Property and get Riorden. I start asking about visits by Schock and Phillipp, and suddenly I'm on the list." He paused. "I've got to have that tape, Ronnie."

"No chance! But you don't need me!"

"Help me out here, Ronnie."

"I.I. installed two cameras, one upstairs at the street entrance, one downstairs on level two." He hesitated. "They switch tapes once a day. Fresh ones in place of the ones for the day before. So I knew my switch had to be done that night, before they arrived to put in the fresh tapes. I replaced the tape in the camera on sublevel two with a copy, and took the real tape for myself. Figured it might take them a while to realize. My guess was they marked and stored the tapes and kept them around in case any more vandalism was reported. Maybe erased them after a while, for all I know."

"It leaves me the tape for camera one," Boldt said, finally understanding.

"I don't know if it will do you any good, just seeing a car pull into the garage. I've got the one with the actual business going down, and it stays with me. I don't think they're too worried about that other one. A couple cops coming and going. Where's the foul? But you, Lou. Maybe you can make something out of it."

"Maybe so," Boldt said, glancing at LaMoia, who was already wearing a grin.