Ridley Pearson - Middle Of Nowhere

"All that from dyed pubic hair? I'm glad you're on our side," Boldt said. "If you were a PD, I'd retire."

"You'll never retire," she fired back. "And I'll never be a public defender. We both hate the bad guys too much, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Boldt agreed.

A sharp knock on the door drew their attention. A woman civilian from the secretary pool whom Boldt had only met that same morning. "Lieutenant," she said, "call for you, line one. They said it's urgent, or I wouldn't have-"

Boldt interrupted, thanking her, and scooted his rolling chair over to a phone. "Boldt," he announced, into the receiver. As he listened to the man's voice on the other end of the call, his shoulders slumped, his head fell forward and his right hand clenched so tightly into a fist that his fingers turned white and ghostly. He hung up the phone.

"Lieutenant?" a concerned Delgato asked in her strident voice.

Boldt's voice caught. He cleared his throat and tried again. "We're going to need another game plan," he warned her. "Another angle. Something-" He finally looked up at her, stealing her breath away.

"Lieutenant?" she repeated, a little more desperately.

"Seems the inmates didn't like having the private commerce program shut down. Probably enjoyed the extra income, not to mention the access to information. Can you imagine how many games were being run out of that facility?"

"Lieutenant, what the hell's going on?" she demanded.

"The call was from Jefferson County Corrections. David Flek was found beaten to death in the showers. They would have called us sooner, but it took them a while to identify the body."

Delgato frowned. "Luck of the draw."

"We're screwed," Boldt said.

The woman believed to be connected to Bryce Abbott Flek was identified through her fingerprints by Colorado's BCI as Courtney Samway. The mug shot came back as a cream-skinned sixteen-year-old with a pretty face and a home haircut that made her into a tomboy vixen with a curiously rebellious expression.

Samway's Colorado parole officer had required her to register in Seattle upon her fulfillment of obligations and her departure from the Colorado corrections system. Samway had, in fact, contacted the Washington State Parole Board upon her arrival, as required, meaning that a tiny, insignificant computer file in the vastness of the endless mainframes that constituted law enforcement's efforts to track thousands of offending juvenile felons provided an address of residence for the recently released teen.

"She kicked from Colorado two months ago," Boldt told Bobbie Gaynes, who rode shotgun in Boldt's brandnew Crown Vic. Nearing midnight, the city still teemed with activity. Ten years earlier it would have been dead this late at night. The car replaced his Chevy Cavalier. He'd earned the Crown Vic apparently for his loyalty throughout the Flu. The Chief was handing out perks. Boldt wasn't complaining. The Crown Vic was twice the car and even came with a remote device that locked and unlocked the door or popped the trunk from thirty yards. "Mug shot is two years old."

Gaynes said, "She's a punk slut. You can see it in her eyes. Age doesn't matter."

Boldt said, "She registered with a parole officer here, claiming the move was to support a job offer."

"She turned eighteen last month," Gaynes said, reading from the woman's jacket-her record having been forwarded by Colorado's BCI. "The alleged job is with a fish processor-probably someone Flek bought off to write her a letter of employment. The address is not the same as the one her P.O. provided. Not that it matters. I'm betting this address is smoke. You want five on that?"

"Have I ever taken one of your bets?" Boldt asked, checking the rearview mirror to ensure that the radio car was following as planned. "The address is good," he guessed. "She registered with the parole board. That tells me she didn't like serving time-she doesn't want to go back there. She played by the rules laid out for her in Colorado. The address will be good. Maybe I should take that five," he contemplated.

"Yeah, right." Gaynes laughed. "The day you take a bet, L.T., I'm having your head examined."

The brick structure had been built fifty years earlier at a time when this south part of the city had prospered from timber and fishing. Time had not been kind to it. The street was paved in wet, matted trash. The carcasses of vehicles resting on rusted rims lay alongside broken glass and spent syringes littering the alleys like discarded cigarette butts. It was not somewhere to take a stroll.

They had waited impatiently to conduct a midnight raid. A daytime operation in this neighborhood was worthless: Rats only returned to the nest at night. Boldt used only secure frequencies-believing Flek might be monitoring the normal channels. If this was in fact Samway's apartment, with Flek's roost already raided, it seemed possible, even likely, he might be inside.

On command, the cruiser behind him turned up the side alley. He would allow his team a minute or two to take positions. According to city fire records for the once commercial building, three possible exits offered egress. At each of the three, a uniform would be waiting for anyone beating a hasty retreat-anyone who managed to get past Boldt and Gaynes. With Gaynes at his side, Boldt knew not many would slip past.

Once inside the wet and cold building, loud rock and roll from a downstairs apartment obscured Boldt's hearing. He relied on his sensitive ears the way a bloodhound depended on its nose, and he found the overpowering music frustrating and troublesome.

Gaynes gestured through a series of hand signals indicating that she would take lead on the climb up the stairs. Boldt's chest knotted and his skin prickled with sweat. A month earlier he would have had Special Ops as his advance team, but the Flu had taken its toll. In the company of one other detective-albeit a bulldog in the form of a poodle-he prepared to take on some animal who had cracked one officer's neck and rabbitpunched another into the hospital.

Weapons drawn, he and Gaynes worked up the staircase as if an adversary had already spotted them, Gaynes in the lead, Boldt trying to cover her both top and bottom, nerves rattled.

A sudden movement behind and below. Boldt swiveled silently to see a rail-thin junkie cross the hall in a T-shirt and bare feet, moving between neighboring rooms. Boldt signaled Gaynes to continue.

The staircase smelled strongly of cats. Crushed candy wrappers, spent Lotto tickets, and cigarette butts littered the edges of each step. They reached the first landing. It smelled of pizza. The thumping of the downstairs music faded behind them. Boldt heard at least two televisions and a considerable amount of muted talking.

They turned right at the top of the stairs, Bobbie Gaynes looking stressed and tension ridden, her movements sharp and angular. They passed three closed doors before Gaynes raised her hand to stop them. She pointed across the hall to their target. Boldt signaled back an acknowledgment, and moved Gaynes to the side, her back to the wall immediately alongside the door.

His gun aimed to the side and down to the floor, Boldt tried the doorknob and found the door locked. He rapped his knuckles loudly against the wood, stepped back and waited. When nothing happened, Gaynes reached around and pounded on the door.

"Police!" she announced. "Open this door!"

Shock waves reverberated down the hall: police! Through the closed doors behind them, they heard much shuffling, but the door before them remained quiet.

Boldt reared back onto one leg and hammered on the door, kicking it hard, most of his weight behind the blow. His second attempt broke the door loose from the jamb. The door crashed loudly into the wall as it swung open.