Ridley Pearson - Middle Of Nowhere

He ate a gyro while Liz tried the Greek salad. Their relationship sat between them on the table like a tall vase of flowers or a lit candle one can't see past. Boldt had never felt so awkward in her presence.

"Mud up to the axles," Boldt said after an uncomfortable silence. "That's how this feels. Work. You and I. Everything."

"What I feel is a need-a real need-to get things right. And they aren't right now. We imposed on John and Kristin for weeks, and that wasn't right. We need to have them over to dinner, buy them a real special thank-you gift. But you're barely home, and when you are, you don't even talk to me." She poked at the salad. Boldt felt it in the center of his chest.

"I kissed a woman," he announced apologetically. It tumbled out of him and he felt a flood of relief with the confession. It would be work, but now they could make real progress.

She stabbed again and missed. She knocked over the bowl spilling oily cucumbers onto the table. They slid around like transparent hockey pucks. She wouldn't look up at him. Her lower lip trembled. He felt like dying.

He said, "It was only the one kiss. It stopped at that. Not that that makes it any better." He paused. "But it was enough to tell me something is very wrong. I've let this separation drift us apart. I couldn't face you without telling you about it, and I couldn't tell you about it without facing you."

Her mouth hung open. She had some pepper stuck between her teeth. Any other day he would have told her about the pepper. The fork fell into the bowl. She didn't notice. "Who?" she asked.

"Does it matter?" he scoffed. "It's not who, it's why."

"Then why do I feel jealous?" she asked. "Why do I feel this is somehow my fault?"

"It's both our faults," Boldt said. "But it doesn't feel that way."

"Good," she said. "That somehow makes me feel better." She asked, "Emotionally? Are you emotionally attached?"

"It was a single kiss. It's not an affair."

"But of the heart?" she asked with difficulty. "Where's your heart in all this?"

"Broken at the moment, as I imagine yours is. But the pieces are all with you, Elizabeth, with us. Every last piece."

"I need air. I need time to think!"

"I…" Boldt began.

But she stood and made for the door, her purse trailing by its strap. She held herself high-ever Liz. Boldt felt as if he were swimming underwater. Consumed in darkness.

He pushed the food aside, his appetite gone, wondering what came next. He felt sick. Sick, and incredibly cold.

Boldt wished that Liz had blown up at him in anger, because as it was, her level-headed wait-and-see approach only served to increase his sense of guilt.

Boldt wasn't a drinker. The only outlet for his frustration was work. Work consumed him, took his mind off nearly anything. And he wanted that.

Boldt contacted one Frederick Osbourne at AirTyme Cellular and provided him with Flek's cell phone number, which Samway had supplied in the course of her second interrogation. Osbourne explained that the technology and methodology existed to locate analog cellular phones, but that it was not a real-time process. He, Osbourne, would begin tracking Flek's cellular calls and report back to Boldt. Of all their current efforts to locate Flek, Boldt held to the hope that Osbourne's radio triangulation would come through.

Sinking back into despair, Boldt blocked calls, prevented visitors, and spent nearly four hours in his office reviewing the Sanchez jacket, which had swollen to a thick file, though under Daphne's care remained properly organized and easily navigated.

There Daphne was, right there in his hands. He couldn't seem to escape her. He focused his attentions on the Brooks-Gilman case-the investigation that Sanchez had taken over in the wake of the Blue Flu reassignments. Prior to her assault, she had identified that Flek used garage door openers to break and enter. Boldt understood that he had allowed her work on the case to mislead him. It was the I.I. case that seemed more likely to have gotten her beat up, the I.I. case that interested him. Yet without I.I.'s cooperation, he didn't know how he might break that case. Flek's testimony still seemed the most important first step. If Flek had an alibi for the night of Sanchez's assault, then Boldt had the necessary ammunition to pressure I.I. into including him in on what they knew about whatever had led to Sanchez, Schock and Phillipp all ending up in the hospital.

He called down to the lab and reached Bernie Lofgrin. He asked about the boots recovered from Flek's closet in the first raid.

"What about them?" Lofgrin asked.

"Guy I spoke to said they were Converse, but have you compared the tread pattern to that Nike pattern you found on Sanchez's leather jacket?"

"I have, and I sent them to Property. That's where her jacket is as well."

Mention of Property reminded Boldt of Ron Chapman and his visit to the Cock amp; Bull the night Schock and Phillipp had been "mugged."

"Property," Boldt repeated.

"That's right," Lofgrin said. "Do you ever read your E-mails?"

"I was out of town," Boldt said, spinning around to check his computer. Seventeen messages. In the chaos of LaMoia's injuries and Samway's surveillance, he'd fallen behind. He began to scroll through them, pulling up the one from Lofgrin as the man said into his ear, "Tread pattern lifted from the jacket came back as Air Nike. Flek's closet contained two pair of Converse All Stars. Both are ubiquitous, but they're not interchangeable. Not even close."

"Same size?" Boldt asked, reading from his screen that the impression from Sanchez's jacket had been a size 12.

"Flek wears a fourteen," Lofgrin answered. "Again, no match to what we lifted from that jacket." He waited. "Lou? You there?"

"Thinking."

"Not what you wanted to hear," Lofgrin stated, "or you would have hung up on me, as you always do."

"Do I?" Boldt asked, astonished to learn this about himself.

"Every time," Lofgrin confirmed.

"The Nike…" Boldt said. "Is it a distinct print?"

"You bring me the shoe and chances are I can tie it to Sanchez's jacket. A little visit to Property is all it would take."

There it was again: Property. He made sure to thank Lofgrin before hanging up. Who said you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks?

He called down to Property. Riorden answered. Riorden ran with Pendegrass, both of them on Krish evski's squad. Krishevski and Pendegrass had both been discharged in the chief's health service sweep. Riorden had somehow survived. Boldt elected to skip the small talk. By now, news of Boldt and LaMoia's late-night visit to Pendegrass would have reached Riorden-he could do business with the man, but he wasn't going to win any friends.

"I need you to check your logbook for me," Boldt informed him.

"For?"

"Schock or Phillipp," Boldt said. "Any visits in the last ten days?"

Silence on the line. "Let me check," Riorden replied. Boldt waited to hear the pages of the logbook turning-he had the ears of a bat-but heard nothing, not even the clicking of computer keys. "Nothing I see, Lieutenant. You might want to check yourself."

This time it was Boldt who left the silence on the line. "Yeah

… okay… thanks…" he said, knowing his ears had not failed him. Why hadn't Riorden even bothered to check the log? Out of obstinacy? Pissed off over Boldt's questioning of Pendegrass? Did the Flu still continue inside these walls?

The thought that a handful of officers might yet still be sabotaging the efforts of those officers who had remained on their job during the Flu stayed with Boldt on his extended ride home.

He stopped at The Joke's On You and played six ballads during a break in the comedy routine. Bear Berenson finally interrupted him, saying, "That's some really dark shit you're playing, man."