Middle Of Nowhere

CHAPTER 16

Boldt didn't like the look of the city streets. He could see the difference since the sickout: fewer pedestrians, anarchy at traffic lights, a pervasive restlessness. People walked faster and more determined, taking less time on street corners. There were few, if any, beat cops out here. No patrol cars. Attendance at Mariners games was off forty percent over the prior week, despite the new stadium. Benaroya Hall had hired a private security firm to patrol the area so that symphony patrons could reach their cars safely following a concert. The citizens of Seattle were scared, and for good reason-street crime was up double-digits in six days. The city was backsliding into the very urban problems it had previously managed to keep at arm's length. He followed the traffic out to Queen Anne, anticipation clouding his thoughts. Sanchez hadn't been trying to direct him to some boyfriend-he felt certain of this. The keys had led to the clicker; the clicker belonged to BrooksGilman, the burglary case she had signed off on. Or so his reasoning went. He felt certain of it. Or almost, anyway. Enough to talk Daphne into a drive to Queen Anne.

The Brooks-Gilman house had views of both Puget Sound and the downtown skyline. Before Boldt led the way up the walkway to the front door, he stood out on the street and tried the garage door clicker.

The door lifted open.

Daphne let out a small cheer. "Sometimes," she said, "I actually get off on this stuff."

Boldt said, "We were stupid."

"Were we?" she asked.

"In every case, the doors to the burglarized homes were reported locked. Even our own first officers put it down this way."

She continued his thought. "We wrote that off to doors being jimmied and owners panicking and locking up once they realized they'd been hit. But it wasn't that. It was that so few of us lock the door that leads into the house from the garage."

Nodding, he pushed the clicker and stopped the garage door. "Sanchez understood that. She saw the one point of vulnerability and pursued it."

"But one still needs the clicker," Daphne said. "What? This guy steals them from the car's visor in car washes and parking lots?"

The garage door opened again, but this time Boldt had not triggered the device. He looked first toward his hand and then toward the house, and pointed to the silhouette of the woman standing at the mouth of the garage. "She may be able to answer that," he said.

Helen Brooks-Gilman. A hyphenate. A dot-com mom. Whole neighborhood was probably hyphenates, he thought. He attempted to return the clicker to the woman as he explained that detective Sanchez had been hospitalized and that he and Daphne had taken over the burglaries. She accepted the clicker, cautious until Daphne produced her ID wallet and Boldt unfolded a photocopy of his lieutenant's identification.

"You don't have a badge?" she inquired.

"My ID wallet was… stolen. It's a long story," Boldt answered, tempted to lift his shirt and show her his bruises.

Holding up the device, Daphne asked, "Is this clicker yours?"

The woman invited them inside. "It's a long story," she answered, purposely matching Boldt's tone.

The interior was pastels and hardwoods. Programmers and internet CFOs took these 1930s clapboards and sunk a small fortune into flooring, moldings and windows. Boldt knew firsthand: He and Liz had done much the same to their place fifteen years earlier for a third the price, and a second mortgage they were still paying off.

"The first officer's report said there was no sign of forced entry," Boldt said in a voice that bordered on impatient. He had a theory on that now; he needed it proved out.

Helen Brooks-Gilman wore a combination of REI and Nordstrom. Tipped hair cut cleanly above her shoulders. A small Rolex, but a Rolex nonetheless. Leather deck shoes, though he doubted she sailed. "Cup of coffee?"

Boldt declined the offer. Coffee went through him like acid. "Were there, by any chance, any doors left unlocked?"

"No. It's funny. That's what the insurance people asked as well. All the doors have night latches, and we leave them that way all the time-with the buttons in. It can be inconvenient. For example, you take the trash out, and the kitchen door shuts behind you, and you need a key to get back in."

Boldt asked, "How about the door leading in from the garage?"

Helen Brooks-Gilman looked perplexed. "Well, no. That's never locked. But the garage door is-" She caught herself, catching up to his reasoning. "That's why the other detective wanted our spare remote."

Boldt nodded. "I think so, yes."

"You loaned officer Sanchez the garage door opener?" Daphne asked.

Brooks-Gilman confirmed this with a nod. "Our spare. She requested it."

Boldt asked to see the garage and she showed them into the kitchen. Sub-Zero refrigerator and Viking range. He opened the door into a garage cluttered with gardening tools and sports equipment surrounding a gray minivan-the luxury model with leather and electric windows. He and Liz had looked at the same car, but couldn't go the four grand for all the bells and whistles.

"Your sheet lists a television and camcorder taken from your bedroom. A computer, wasn't there?"

"Our son's iMac."

Boldt pulled out the white plastic tie from his pocket and asked, "Any of these found since the theft?"

She looked a little stunned. "Yes. In our bedroom. That's why I called back to you people in the first place."

"And you got Detective Sanchez," Daphne suggested.

"An operator took down my name and Detective Sanchez was the one who called me back."

"And subsequently paid you a visit," Boldt said.

Helen Brooks-Gilman explained, "The strike had started. She explained to me she didn't typically work robberies."

"Burglaries," he corrected. "And it's not a strike, it's a sickout."

Daphne chided him with a single disapproving expression. She intervened. "We need you to answer a couple more questions, Helen. We'd like you to sit down and get comfortable." Brooks-Gilman led them to the kitchen table. This time she offered them decaf. They declined. Boldt and Daphne sat across the table from her so that they could measure her physical reactions as well as her facial expressions. Daphne continued, "Detective Sanchez took your call, and then what?"

"She came over, as I mentioned. I gave her the thingy I'd found."

"That would be the white plastic tie," Daphne said.

"Yes, that's correct."

Boldt said, "And she looked around?"

"Top to bottom. She was very thorough. I liked that about her. She took it seriously. The other officer-the one who came after my nine-one-one-he just wanted the forms filled out."

"The garage?" he asked.

"Yes, she looked at the garage."

"And then?" Daphne asked.

"She asked to borrow the clicker. She didn't say why and I confess, I didn't ask. She was doing her job. That was good enough for me."

Boldt's turn. "She asked you some other questions as well. Like who, if anyone, had serviced your home appliances recently. Pizza deliveries. That sort of thing."

Daphne added, "Any phone calls you'd received, especially any where the person on the other end hung up on you when you answered."

"I've hung up on a few of them," she told them. "Dinnertime phone solicitations! My husband will talk to them-don't ask me why! — but I absolutely will not. I find the whole idea offensive."

Boldt pushed her a bit more. "As to the repairs… Washing machine… fridge… any deliveries?"

"She and I went over this, yes," the woman answered. "All I can tell you is what I told her: I have no idea how this guy picked us to rob, but it wasn't any of those ways. No deliveries. No strange phone calls- other than the usual phone solicitations."

"You loaned her the clicker," Daphne suggested. "She said she'd return it?"

"Said she'd return it in a day or two. Yes."

"Tech Services," Boldt suggested to Daphne, who nodded. He suspected that would have been Sanchez's next stop. It would have been his.

Daphne apologized to the woman. "I'm afraid we're going to have to borrow it again."