Middle Of Nowhere

C H A P T E R

67

Boldt stepped out of interrogation room A, "the box," at 4 A.M., an empty mug that had held tea in his hand. LaMoia was still in the next room over, getting interviewed by his fellow Homicide officers just as Boldt had. Any officer-involved shooting required the surrender of one's weapon, a half dozen interviews and a mile of paperwork. It wouldn't all sort itself out for another week.

She sat in one of the gray office chairs, the kind with four spread feet on black rollers. Her left ankle, encased in a removable cast, looked more like a ski boot. Only Daphne Matthews could look so beautiful at four in the morning.

"Hey," he said.

"Went a little differently than you thought," she told him, barely able to conceal her anger. She didn't like him taking chances like that.

"He took the bait," Boldt said. "That's what we needed."

"At what cost?"

"I'm not saying it wasn't messy. I'm not saying I might not do it differently, given hindsight. I considered involving the department for backup. But these guys were too well connected. They would have heard we were out to sting them, and we would have either come up empty or dead. So John took the trunk, and we went for it."

"You sent me to Pendegrass's house without telling me. Why? Too big a risk?"

"No. Because you might have talked me out of it." He paused. "You're mad."

"Damn right."

"So are they," he said, indicating the interrogation room.

"Every right to be."

He sighed. "Yeah. Well I'm whipped. Give an 'old man' a ride home? They confiscated the Crown Vic. I'm without wheels."

He won a partial smile from her. "Old man?" she quoted.

"Pendegrass called me that."

"So blowing out his knee was generous of you."

"Damn right." He added, "More like lucky, I suppose. I'm not very good prone like that."

"You're pretty good prone," she said, pursing her lips and letting him know that they could still tease. The kiss had been forgotten. Or at least wiped away.

She tapped her purse.

Boldt missed the message. He said, "Are we going?"

She clicked the purse open. Inside was a black plastic rectangle. A videotape. She explained, "I kicked the Pendegrass home, ahead of SID, as soon as I got John's call. I looked everywhere. Turned the place upside down. Couldn't find it."

"Then what's that?" he asked.

"Bernie Lofgrin says that you owe him your original Chet Baker, the one's that's autographed." It was a 1957, original vinyl in perfect condition, one of the prizes of Boldt's jazz collection. Small change, Boldt thought. "He says that he doesn't want to know what's on the tape, and that as far as he's concerned there never was a tape."

"His guys found it."

"They make these books with fake leather bindings that aren't books at all, but hold videotapes in your bookshelf. His guys found it in the bedroom while I was out searching the garage. Lofgrin brought it to me, as lead on the search and seizure, and I had to tell him . . . tell him what I thought it was . . . before he put it onto the inventory. Lou, I've never done anything like this." She passed it to Boldt.

He held the tape in his hand. His reputation. Possibly the end of his career on Homicide. He couldn't be sure. And then he handed it back to her. "We return it to Bernie right now while there's still time, and he puts it into the inventory," he told her. "I'll give him that album anyway . . . just because he was willing to go that far."

Tears formed in her eyes as she looked up at him. She nodded. This was what she wanted to hear.

He said, "It isn't us . . . doing something like this. And besides, Pendegrass will mention the tape . . . it's going to come out. The best thing we can do is stand up to it. Sheila Hill is ultimately the one to decide if our relationship compromises her department, and she's been in a few compromising positions herself. You don't need to know about that. She'll go light on us, believe me."

The tears spilled down her cheek. Tears of joy, he hoped.

"Am I allowed to say I love you?" she whispered.

"Hell, no," he said, offering her his hand and extricating her from the chair, "but that kind of thing goes both ways, so you be careful."

"Yes, sir."

"That's better," he said, touching her in the small of the back and aiming her toward the elevator. He couldn't do the stairs in the cast. It would be a while until he could do the stairs again. "Look at us. A pair of gimps."

"Yes," she said, laughing through her tears, "a pair of gimps."