Ridley Pearson - Middle Of Nowhere

He drove next to Carkeek Park and walked the water's edge, wondering what to think about Riorden's apparent refusal to assist him. As dusk fell and the Sound washed gray from green, as radio towers winked and jets flew almost silently overhead, Boldt felt overwhelmed. His personal life was in tatters. Fellow officers were backstabbing his efforts to set the record straight on Sanchez and perhaps Schock and Phillipp in the process. His knee-jerk reaction was to call Daphne, but he wisely ruled that out. Instead, he made the drive home. Home, where he belonged.

He climbed out of the car, accidentally kicking an empty Starbucks cup into the driveway. As he bent to retrieve it, the driver's door window blew out above his head cascading down as a thousand cubes of tempered glass.

His detective's mind immediately registered that he'd been shot at-an intended chest shot. A kill shot. His next coherent thought was Flek!

He edged beneath the car instinctively, defenseless but partially protected and less vulnerable. He waited for the second shot, hoping there wasn't enough of him exposed to take a bullet. His heart raced out of control and he wondered if a heart attack might kill him instead. Ten seconds passed. Twenty…

The shot had not made any noise. Even the window shattering had sounded like little more than a hand clap and pebbles spilling onto pavement. He didn't want Liz alerted, didn't want to bring her to the door for any reason. One Boldt as a target was enough. A long shot, Boldt thought, recalling the rifle Manny Wong had sold Flek. Probably from on a roof or up in a tree, and at a long distance, which might explain why he had not heard any report from the weapon. Not even a trailing echo. Maybe Wong had saved his life by resighting that scope.

He stayed there under the car, collecting himself, wondering if a German sniper sight was searching the edge of the car, looking for enough flesh to sink a bullet into.

He heard tapping on a window. He couldn't see, but he knew it was Liz, inside the house, wondering where he was. She'd seen his car. Perhaps she had heard the dull pop of the driver's door glass. His kids would be getting ready for bed. Maybe already in bed. The rest of the world was going about its business.

It took him a moment to extricate his right arm and ease himself out from under the car. He didn't want Liz to come looking for him. She'd come home without consulting him. For a moment a husband's anger boiled inside him. Maybe his sniper was doing him a favor. Could he tell his wife he'd just been shot at? In his own driveway?

Did he have any choice?

He squeezed himself out from under the car and ran, crouched low, to the back of the house. He entered through the kitchen door, sat Liz down and explained that he'd just been shot at. He wasn't going to tell her to take the kids and leave. That would be left for her to decide. They embraced. Boldt felt himself swell with tears-the fear of the last few minutes wanting an outlet.

Boldt groaned.

"Who?" she asked.

"Daphne," he answered, believing her still questioning the kiss.

"The gun shot," she corrected, tension steeling. "Who shot at you, and what are you going to do about it?"

He leaned back, drew his weapon from its holster, and checked it as he spoke to her. She didn't like that. A tension settled between them. "I'm going to check the park. I think the shot came from there. If I'm lucky, I find a shell casing. Doubtful, but worth a try." He hurried so that she wouldn't interrupt. "After that, I'm going to go out there and look for the bullet, which is probably the only chance we have for evidence."

"You're going to report it," she stated with no uncertainty.

"All they'd do is look for a slug and a shell casing. Believe me, I know how this works. And when we find the slug or the shell casing, it'll be from a Chinese manufacture long-barrel assault rifle."

"You do know who it is," she said.

"A pretty good idea is all," he admitted. "But that doesn't win convictions."

They met eyes-hers filled with concern. Then she softened and said, "Lou, if you'd kissed some waitress at a bachelor party…" surprising him. "But this isn't the same thing. Not even close. I've changed over these last couple of years, I know that. I'm not so sure you have. Which is fine. Let me just say this: if you don't want me, I don't want you. But for the sake of the kids, I'd do anything not to break us up. Not now. Not so young anyway. I'm angry with you. Not so much for what you did, but for allowing it to happen. I've got my faith to keep me strong. What do you have?" She stepped back and crossed her arms defiantly. "Go find your slug. Tonight, I'll sleep with Miles. For their sake, we're loving and cheerful in the morning."

"Maybe I'll wait 'til morning to look," he suggested, hoping they might still talk it through.

"You?" she asked. "Do you know yourself at all?"

"Maybe not," he answered.

"Maybe not," she agreed. "You're a cop. Once and forever." Her eyes sparked, a thought clearly filling her head. That look on her face grew with intensity. "You're a cop! Meaning our phone is unpublished, and always has been. Your name-our address-is not in any phone book, any listing, anywhere. So how did this guy know which house to watch? Right? I mean, that's the point of the privacy, of all the secrecy. Right?"

"The Internet?" he wondered aloud. "I don't know," he answered, somewhat lifelessly. Her reasoning bored into him deeper the more he thought about it. Who was the cop in the family now?

How, indeed? he wondered, looking at that assassin's bullet in a whole new light.

He spent an hour in the park, and found no evidence of his would-be assassin. He searched his driveway in the dark. Again, nothing.

In the dim light of dawn, Boldt methodically searched his driveway a second time. Flat-bottomed wisps, like micro-clouds, hovered in the air twenty feet off the ground. Birds awakened with their percussive morning calls and crackles, not yet song. Someone across the street had NPR playing too loudly. Boldt could almost make out the news stories himself. There would be nothing there about the attempted assassination of a cop; nothing there about a police manhunt for Bryce Abbott Flek that grew in scale each day. Presently, that manhunt included not only SPD, but King County Police, the state sheriff's office and the Washington State Transportation Department; nothing on the news about Boldt's attempt to locate Flek's cellular phone while in use.

When he discovered a small hole in the garage's gray clapboard siding, the only convincing evidence that drew him to it was the fresh splinters of wood showing. Seattle's dampness aged any exposed wood quickly-a week or two and a broken branch or a recently sawed two by four might be mistaken for a year old. But these tiny slivers of missing wood surrounding the oddly shaped hole were a golden blond. The hole's location at knee height puzzled him, and it took a moment to convince himself the slug could have ricocheted off the blacktop and landed so high up on the wall, but as an investigator he knew better than to doubt the obvious- anything could happen. He had not thought to look at this height. He had cost himself time.

He dug the slug from the garage wall with a hammer and flat blade screwdriver, taking more of the clapboard than necessary to ensure he didn't further damage the slug. He wanted it as intact as possible for SID's ballistics analysis.

Like an expectant father, Boldt waited in a formed fiberglass chair inside Bernie Lofgrin's office. Lofgrin joined his friend at the first opportunity.

"I'd really appreciate a case number to assign that slug," Lofgrin said.

"Later."

"Suit yourself, but the work goes down in my log and it's easier for all if that number's attached. The computer won't accept it without a number, which means it will stand out. Get noticed. Be brought to my attention during some forensics audit, and therefore to your attention."