Ridley Pearson - Middle Of Nowhere

Boldt intentionally blocked the short driveway with the Cavalier. Sunshine again. He hoped it might hold. He didn't want SID pulling their van in there as they had at the Sanchez crime scene. Cleanliness was next to godliness at a crime scene.

The patrolman said, "I've got the owner in the front seat of the cruiser, if you want to-"

"Later," Boldt said, accepting the clicker from the man. "Take down his statement, Officer… Mallory. No editorials. Just let him talk. You've got five to ten minutes."

"Yes, sir."

"If the press shows up, you keep them away from him. You got that?"

"Got it."

"SID waits outside as well. Anyone entering while the captain and I are inside will be chalking tires. That includes you, Officer Mallory. You want me, you page me. Dispatch has the number."

The officer nodded but looked a shade or two paler than a moment earlier. He took off as Shoswitz caught up. Boldt pressed the clicker and the garage door opened out and up, reminding Boldt of a mouth of a tomb. He handed Shoswitz a pair of latex gloves. "You ready, Captain?"

Shoswitz rubbed his elbow violently. Boldt took that as a "yes."

Brumewell's garage was crowded, though not cluttered, with collapsible lawn furniture and rusted garden tools hanging from nails on the wall. Boldt and Shoswitz steered their way clear, and then Boldt tripped the clicker he held in his hand, the garage door slowly closing.

"What's with your interest in the garage?" Shoswitz asked.

"Point of entry," Boldt answered. "Dead-bolted homes, Phil. It took us a while to see the common denominator. Our boy clones the garage door clickers, probably by hanging around nearby and picking up frequencies. I had someone looking for a name for us, but I haven't heard from him, so I suspect we've drawn a blank."

"My guys didn't have this garage thing?" Shoswitz queried, a little troubled.

"Neither did I, Phil. Sanchez gets the credit on this one." They entered the kitchen. Boldt speculated, "My guess is that the burglar takes only one big risk: He backs his van into the victim's garage in broad daylight and then shuts the door. If he pulls that off cleanly, he's home free. Probably carries a police-band scanner with him. If it's me, I put the scanner in a pocket and an earpiece in one ear. If I hear this address called in, I'm gone. Otherwise, once he's inside, he's inside."

Shoswitz followed Boldt out of the kitchen and into a living area, where several vacant spaces on shelves marked some of the stolen electronics. A cable TV box sat on a table's empty surface. A VCR, untouched. "My guys didn't get this?" a frustrated captain repeated.

"Not important," Boldt said.

"It is to me."

"You made inquires about an I.I. connection?"

"First thing. But the chances I'll hear back-"

"I know," Boldt interrupted.

Boldt had greeted LaMoia's return to the fifth floor by dumping a copy of all eleven burglaries on his desk and ordering him to use his contacts in the private sector to look for possible insurance fraud.

Standing in Brumewell's living room, he made notes about the missing electronics.

"Clean job," Shoswitz said. "It's no junkie, that's for sure."

The comment triggered a thought, and Boldt dropped to his knees, searching the area behind the cabinet that had held the TV.

Shoswitz followed obediently, also dropping to the carpet. A moment later, he asked sheepishly, "What exactly are we looking for, Lou?"

Boldt stretched, squeezing his arm between the cabinet and wall. As he touched the object, his mind leaped ahead wondering where Pendegrass and Chapman fit in, and if he'd ever prove a connection between these men and the assaults.

"This!" he said, suddenly jubilant. Pinched between his latex-gloved fingers he held a white plastic wire-tie.

The noon news carried a plea from Krishevski to the mayor to drop the "hardball tactics" and allow police officers to "once again take their place, protecting and serving the city of Seattle." But it proved too little, too late. The mayor had played his card-health services had invalidated dozens of sick leaves and officers were being fired from the force.

Krishevski attempted to turn Schock and Phillipp into martyrs, claiming that inexperienced officers promoted prematurely by the chief, with the mayor's blessing, had failed to support the detectives and that the chief should be held directly responsible for their injuries. The pressure failed. In a press release, the mayor announced that the two hundred and twelve firings were not under reconsideration, that health services had determined that these officers claiming sick leave had been perfectly capable of serving their city and had lost the public's trust, causing permanent damage to the reputation of all city employees and services. Krishevski, it was announced, was himself fired, and the mayor announced he would no longer be considered president of the guild, as this position, according to charter, had to be held by an active police officer.

Viewed as nothing more than a negotiating position, the nature of Krishevski's status remained in question. A compromise seemed inevitable. The cost to both sides-politically and economically-had not yet been calculated.

"You look awful," LaMoia told Boldt upon entering the man's office. "But this…" he said, indicating the busy fifth floor, "this, is beautiful."

The floor teemed with activity.

"Partially trained cadets promoted to uniform; uniforms to plainclothes," Boldt complained. "It's a circus. No one knows what the hell they're doing. And they're all acting like they won the lottery, for Christ's sake."

"Beggars can't be choosers," LaMoia said. "You wanted it over, Sarge. Krishevski will be gone by the end of the day. Everyone wanted this thing over. Once you've seen all the Seinfelds twice-"

"I feel more like a schoolteacher than a lieutenant."

LaMoia grinned and said, "We got more members of our unit back than any other division. That's what I hear."

"Thirteen shields out of seventeen." Disappointed. He had wanted them all back.

"Yeah, well, those other four? Poor, poor pitiful them," he said, intentionally misquoting a Warren Zevon song. LaMoia was Zevon's biggest fan.

Boldt recognized that cocky grin of LaMoia's. With no less than a dozen active cases on the desks of every returning detective, including his sergeant's, this wasn't a social call. "So give it up," Boldt suggested.

"I made some calls," the man confirmed proudly. "It isn't insurance fraud," LaMoia said, knowingly disappointing his boss. "And I tried everything I could think of, in terms of trying to connect the vics to each other… in terms of trying to determine how our boy is picking them as targets. Their finances came up blank. No overlaps I could see. Mind you, it's a quick pass, and not all my calls have been returned. There may still be something there. A gas station they all used. A department store. Some one place they all shared in common."

"Then why that look?" Boldt asked.

"What look?" LaMoia asked, offering the look again.

"Are you going to chortle over there all day, or you going to tell me what you have?"

"Who says I have anything?"

"John-"

"It's not exactly convincing evidence, Sarge. It's a connection, is all." He added confidently, teasing the man, "Sure, maybe even the connection we're looking for, but not something you can take to Shoswitz or Hill."

Boldt elected not to speak, not to engage the man. LaMoia would drag this out as long as he could, would make Boldt beg, if possible.

"The silent treatment?"

Boldt said nothing. He offered only a lazy-eyed stare.

"Okay… Okay. You wanted me to work the insurance angle. So I did like you asked. A decent idea worth pursuing. But it came back blank, as I said. Zip. Zero. And then I catch the unexpected, and I'm thinking, 'Well, maybe not exactly zero.'" He waited for Boldt to react, but the man remained as patient as a fisherman.