Middle Of Nowhere

CHAPTER 45

Addressing Sergeant Ron Chapman from outside SPD's Property room, Boldt said, "Ronnie, we've got some confusion about a confiscated weapon." He handed the man some paperwork from SID. It bore a reference number for the rifle that had fired on Boldt.

"Is that right?" Chapman replied. "What kind of confusion?"

"Just need a look at it, is all," Boldt informed him.

"That, I can do."

While Chapman consulted the computer, Boldt flipped pages in the log book-accomplishing what Riorden had refused to do for him.

"Help you there?" Chapman inquired.

"Looking for visits by Schock and Phillipp." Boldt added, "I asked Riorden. I'm not sure he had time to check for me."

"They're in there somewhere," Chapman answered dryly. "They've been down here."

"Since the Sanchez assault, or before?" Boldt asked, flipping more pages, looking for the right date.

"Couldn't say."

Boldt found the records of Sanchez's four visits and worked forward. On the next page he found Schock's and Phillipp's signatures. Again, as with Sanchez, there were no case numbers listed. "No case numbers," he mumbled. Looking up, he caught Chapman staring at him-something was wrong in those eyes, though the man volunteered nothing. "Ronnie?"

"It's down in the warehouse," he said. "The rifle. You want a look?"

Technically, the Property room consisted of two different secure storage facilities, both located in Public Safety's sub-basements. "The boneyard," located on Public Safety's ground floor, held any physical evidence involved in an active case or any case pending trial within the next calendar year. Caged and managed by an armed uniform officer of at least the rank of sergeant, along with a staff of two or three plainclothes officers per shift, the boneyard remained open twentyfour hours a day. Several years earlier, Narcotics- Drugs, as the officers called it-had managed to administratively separate the chemical evidence confiscated in arrests from the guns, knives, magnets, and bell bars that typically populated Property. The Drugs evidence was kept locked in a vault inside its offices on the fourth floor, just down the hall from Burglary.

Property's second facility-"the warehouse"-occupied half of the building's lowest floor, on the same grade as the lower level of SPD's sub-level parking garage. The warehouse was located behind a double-wide four-inch solid steel vault door with a combination tumbler and two-key perimeter locking system and a security alarm that had to be turned off from inside the boneyard-a floor above-no more than five minutes prior to entry. All this because the warehouse not only accepted all the overflow weapons and munitions from the boneyard, but also the heavier artillery that occasionally surfaced in raids.

Entering the warehouse always gave Boldt a chill because of its size and contents. The Public Safety Building occupied most of an entire city block, and half its basement was one enormous room. Boldt's first reaction-no matter how many times he came here-was awe. The room was crowded with row after row of floorto-ceiling freestanding steel shelving, and was dimly lit by bare bulbs in the ceiling.

Chapman read from the clipboard, dragging himself down aisles of shelves stacked high and deep with tagged items of every description, though predominantly weapons-from Swiss Army knives to machetes; zip guns to flame throwers. House lamps. Garden hoses. Gloves of every make and description. The space smelled musty despite the constant hum of overworked dehumidifiers.

Chapman said something about Ken Griffey Jr.'s homerun count. Boldt barely heard it, his gut churning, his mind racing. Sanchez had visited Property and had ended up in the hospital; Schock and Phillipp, the same. Boldt had called down to Riorden the night before and had nearly been shot. He had thought Flek had thrown that shot, but he had not. And where did Chapman fit in?

The Property sergeant dragged a rolling ladder down the aisle and climbed high up to the sixth shelf. He banged around up there for several seconds, descended the ladder and returned to the end of the stack, where he verified the row number and letter.

Chapman's movements were lazy-too many years on the job to get worked up over another man's worries. That, or he was trying to cover for his own nervousness.

Chapman climbed the rolling ladder for a second time. He dug around on a shelf and handed down a tagged rifle.

For a moment, Boldt felt a sense of relief, for his fear had been that the rifle wouldn't be there at all- that it had been removed from Property and used in an attempt to assassinate him. He sniffed the barrel- not used recently. Then he held the rifle at arm's length as Chapman climbed back down to his level. And his chest tightened. He fumbled for the label. The numbers were right. He double-checked them.

"Something the matter?" Chapman inquired, sensing Boldt's disposition.

"It's the wrong rifle," Boldt replied. "It's not even the right make!"

His words echoed in the space. His stomach knotted.

Ron Chapman looked at him and said, "Oh shit! We got problems!"

Boldt instructed Daphne and Bobbie Gaynes to meet him in the Garden Terrace of the Four Seasons Olym pic Hotel, where he had tea for three and a plate of currant scones waiting. Although not a regular, Boldt took afternoon tea at the Four Seasons whenever he felt he could afford it, about once a paycheck.

Neither Gaynes nor Matthews was fooled by his choice of location. They arrived together, having walked from the office. "So, L.T.," Gaynes said, sitting in a chair facing the man and leaving the other half of the love seat he occupied for Daphne, "what's so important that we can't talk about it at the house?"

"Am I so transparent?"

"Not wearing that vest you're not," Daphne said. Boldt was a big man. He carried the protective vest better than most. He'd bought a shirt two sizes bigger that what he typically wore to accommodate the vest. All this at Liz's insistence. His concession to their negotiation for his return to the job.

He explained, "I promised Liz I'd wear it."

Daphne Matthews looked pale. "I think you owe us an explanation."

He took them through his last eighteen hours-the attempt on his life, the visit to Lofgrin, the wrong rifle in storage.

Daphne reached out to grab his hand, but caught herself and dragged the butter to her plate. Daphne and butter did not go together, so Gaynes looked on in amazement.

"Someone threw shots at you?" Gaynes gasped.

"One shot," Boldt answered clinically. "And it wasn't a warning shot."

Gaynes stared down at the scone on the plate before her. "Well, there goes my appetite."

"I have a theory I'd like to share with you," he told them.

Gaynes interrupted. Daphne seemed frozen in the love seat. "Flek found your crib?"

Boldt addressed her and said, "Liz caught that too. Flek has no way of knowing where we live. I'd have to put him low on the list." He let them think a moment and said, "Someone switched out the rifle."

"You're giving me the weebies here, L.T."

"Someone switched out the rifle. It is not the weapon confiscated in the Williamson shooting. Sanchez paid four visits to Property, just before her assault. Schock and Phillipp paid two. What if that's the I.I. case no one will talk about?"

"Sweet Jesus!" Gaynes blurted out.

"The Flu," Daphne whispered, knowing him better than others did.

He found room to smile. He appreciated the connection the three of them had. "Let's say that word got out to a select few that the walkout was inevitable, that negotiations had broken down. Let's say that all this happened well ahead of the rest of us ever hearing even a rumor of cancelled overtime. The rank and file," he said. "Paychecks stop. People borrow. Then the borrowing stops, and families suffer. So what if a couple of our boys decided they needed underwriting? An insurance policy?"

"Heist some weapons from Property and sell them into the market," Gaynes suggested.

Daphne objected, "But a weapon was there. Just the wrong one. Property can't make a mistake? With that inventory?"

"Exactly," Boldt said. "Exactly what we're supposed to think: human error. And that's probably what I.I. was checking up on."

Gaynes disagreed. "Ron Chapman would not condone this. Not ever."

"Maybe not," Boldt agreed, "but he suspected something, or discovered something that put him on to it. I've got to tell you: He looked as surprised as I was to see the wrong weapon attached to the label."

"Then who?" Gaynes asked.

"Remember what Wong said?" he asked Gaynes. "Remember what he mumbled a couple of times? 'Cops and guns,' he said. Said it at least twice. It bothered me at the time, not for the words themselves-I mean the guy's a gun dealer-but for the way he said it: like he was disgusted or something. 'Cops and guns.' One day they're selling them to him. The next we come along, and we want them back."

Daphne followed his logic. She said ominously, "Someone tried to kill you with one of those guns. Are you saying Manny Wong sold Flek an assault rifle that had been black-marketed by one of us?"

"Might be Flek," Boldt said. "Might not. The sooner we catch him, the better."

Gaynes said, "You have other enemies?"

"Earlier in the day I'd been arguing in a closed meeting that maybe Flek had not done Sanchez, that maybe we had to look inside our own ranks."

Daphne said, "It's all circumstantial."

"Extremely," Boldt agreed, "but it starts to add up."

Gaynes said, "Wong sold one of the Property Room weapons back to Flek? Isn't that a bit of a coincidence?"

"Agreed," Boldt said. "When we find Flek, it won't be his rifle that threw the shot. We need him in custody. We need that rifle for comparison. Flek's a screw-up. He's a burglar with a temper. He hurt John, and we're bringing him in for that. But it's not the only reason he's our top priority. Flek can help fill in some of the answers, whether he knows it or not." He added, "My guess is that at this point-once my discovery in Property gets out-there are people or persons who won't want us to bring him in. Won't want certain questions answered." He added, "Bryce Abbott Flek has become their scapegoat."

Gaynes reminded them, "Whoever stole those weapons has to have someone from Property in their camp."

Boldt suggested, "Who in Property would have had inside information that a walkout was imminent?"

"Krishevski?" Gaynes asked timidly. "Sweet Jesus," she repeated, reaching for a scone to quell her nervous stomach.