Ridley Pearson - The Angel Maker

Daphne held Sharon's hand. It was cold, and she worried she knew what that meant.

Several times, a strange weightless feeling passed over Daphne and she wondered each time whether it was the helicopter or Sharon's spirit leaving her body. She would glance at the medic, and he in turn at the various monitors, and he would offer a thumbs-up, and again she would wonder: Does that mean she's gone up, or she's okay?

She wasn't sure exactly what Sharon hoped for in life, and she thought that tragic, because she would have wished it for her if only she knew. What do any of us wish for that really matters? she mused. And she answered herself: another day. "One more day."

"What?" the paramedic shouted over the roar of the blades.

FRIDAY February 10

Dr. Ronald Dixon, cloaked in a surgical smock, recited his actions as he worked on Tegg's dead body. Boldt tuned out the autopsy details. As lead detective, his presence was required by law-but no one said he had to pay attention.

It was three in the morning, an unusual time for such a procedure, but Dixie had rallied without complaint. There were six people in the Medical Examiner's waiting room, more expected. Boldt felt thrilled at such a turnout. The world wasn't such a bad place when you knew the right people.

The heat from the overhead light felt like that of a hot sun. It shone down on the naked body. There was nothing pretty about this sight. Bleached skin, pieces of it folded open. Technical words spoken in an unbroken litany. Death reduced to detail.

He had found the three of them in the Quonset hut only minutes after the shooting.

There were more ambulances, a coroner's wagon, crime scene crews even a fire engine, though no one knew why. The road became impassable. Two tow trucks had been called into service.

Sharon Shaffer had suffered not only a hemorrhage but a ruptured kidney from the blow of the shovel, leaving her without a backup. She had lost a great deal of blood.

A sticker on the back of Elden Tegg's driver's license indicated he was an organ donor. Blood type: AB-negative.

Of the people in the waiting room, one was a woman from the Lion's Eye Bank. Two were part of a lung team that had flown up from Portland. But to Boldt's thinking, the most important was the kidney specialist from the U-Tegg's kidney was destined for Sharon Shaffer.

A cardiac crew was enroute from Spokane. Over the next three hours, Elden Tegg would make his final contributions. "I hate autopsies," said Boldt.

Dixie said, "Just wait until we open those plastic bags."

"Me?

No way." Boldt found his first smile in a long while. "I've saved that for Lamoia."

Daphne suggested lunch on Bainex bridge Island and Boldt agreed, with Liz's blessings, in part to try to talk her out of quitting. He brought Miles along in a stroller. She accused him of bringing his child as a chaperon, and he allowed that this was partly true. She limped from her bad leg. She wore a blue rain jacket, the kind a backpacker would wear, blue jeans, and two-tone leather deck shoes with rawhide laces. She wore no scarf around her neck, allowing the scar to show, and Boldt knew this was a different woman. "What's this about a job offer? I thought we were a team."

She didn't answer that. The ferry horn sounded. Miles started crying. Daphne walked over to the rail and looked out across the textured expanse of gray green water. The city grew progressively smaller behind them. A beautiful skyline and rolling hills covered in toy houses. Boldt and Miles joined her at the rail.

She watched the horizon; he watched her. Miles played with some plastic balls attached to the stroller. This thing was the BMW of strollers. Liz had picked it out after exhaustive research.

"We bought a piano," Boldt said, though he didn't tell her why, not exactly. That reminded him that there were things they hid from each other now, and that was okay. He said, "You get me on the force, and then you quit. That's hardly fair. Shoswitz would cry foul."

She spoke just loudly enough to be heard above the wind and the constant vibration of the engines. "She rejected the kidney." "Considering the source," he joked, "can you blame her?"

"She's on a list now. Number five on a list."

"I know that," he said soberly. "What if she's too far down the list? Did she live through all that, just to die?"

"Her? She's a fighter, Daffy."

She nodded faintly and whispered, "This was why he was in business in the first place."

"If anyone can beat this-"

"Yeah, yeah," she interrupted. "You sound just like Dr. Light Horse."

"Well, maybe she's right."

Five seagulls flew just off the rail. Miles pointed. One of the passengers threw a piece of a Hostess Cupcake at them. "Even seagulls are subjected to junk food," Boldt said to her. But she didn't smile. She didn't even seem to notice. "I brought a kite along," he tried. She stared off.

He said, "Did Einstein tell you about the fish for the kite?"

"He didn't have to. I can smell it."

"It's an old trick of mine. I'm full of tricks. Mostly old ones." She didn't smile at this either. So he had lost his touch. Another sign of change. Or age. Or both. "Even if we should lose her, Daffy, she's made a difference. She has touched hundreds of lives at The Shelter, more since this story broke. organ banks have been flooded with donors. With more organs, people like Tegg are out of business. That was her doing. You can't knock that. We should all have that kind of effect." He added, "Not that we're going to lose her." "I love you," she said, still looking at the horizon. "As a friend," she added, smiling for the first time. "Likewise. Always will."

"Think so?"

"Know so."

"Once she's better," she said strongly, "I'm off to London for this new job. Hostage negotiator."

"So I've heard."

"I may stay over there.

I don't know. Have you ever been to London?"

"The way it works," he said, bending toward his bag and hoping that she hadn't heard his voice catch, "is that you get the kite up good and high. You get it way the hell up there. Then you tie the fish to the line and take up some slack and toss the fish overboard. The drag on the fish in the water supports the line and flies the kite. The kite sails out to sea all by itself. Sometimes for hours. Maybe for days."

"I know you're mad about me quitting," she said. "We can try it off the stern. The wind is best there.

She said, "I suppose if you're lucky, it'll sail completely around the world and come right back to you." This time, he didn't answer. She added, "You know, it hurt more to kill that dog than to kill him. Is that possible? What does that make me?"

"Honest, which is more than most of us."

"You think she has a chance?"

"It's all any of us have."

"Can I get a hug? is that allowed?" Boldt said, "Better ask him" and pointed to Miles, who clapped.

She came into his arms then and held him tightly. She sobbed.

People stared. He didn't care. Let them. Boldt cried, too, but for his own reasons. His life was right now. Okay. On track again, and he had her to thank for some of it. "I'll miss you," he whispered.

Miles clapped again, and Daphne laughed. It was good to hear that.

In the end, the kite trick worked. Miles fell asleep in the stroller. The kite sailed off toward the horizon, growing smaller and smaller. People pointed. Some people clapped. Miles slept through it all.

A few weeks later, Daphne followed it into the sky.

And now for the good part. This was where Sergeant Lou Boldt threw out all convention, where the textbooks took a backseat to experience, and where he found out who in the lecture hall was listening and who was asleep.

He raised his voice. A big man, Boldt's words bellowed clear back to the make-out seats without the need of the mike clipped to his tie. "Everything I've told you in the past few weeks concerning evidence, investigative procedure, chain of custody, and chain of command is worthless." A few heads snapped up-more than he had expected. "Worthless unless you learn to read the crime scene, to know the victim, to listen to and trust your own instincts. To feel with your heart as much as think with your head. To find a balance between the two. If it was all in the head, then we would not need detectives; the lab technicians could do it all. Conversely, if it was all in the heart-if we could simply empathize with the suspect and say, "Yup, you did it/ then who would need the lab nerds?" A few of the studious types busily flipped pages. Boldt informed them, "You won't find any of this in your textbooks. That's just the point. All the textbooks in the world are not going to clear a case-only the investigator can. Evidence and information is nothing without a human being to analyze, organize, and interpret it. That's you. That's me. There comes a time when all the information must be set aside; there comes a time when passion and instinct take over. It's the stuff that can't be taught; but it can be learned. Heart and mind-one's worthless without the other." He paused here, wondering if these peach-fuzz students could see beyond the forty-four-year-old, slightly paunchy homicide cop in the wrinkled khakis and the tattered sport coat that hid a pacifier in its side pocket.