Beyond Recognition

and weak in the knees.

“You’re lying to me,” said the woman in front of her, a woman as familiar as she was with reading body language. “We can have all the currency you want, but the boy is not in the equation.”

Daphne recovered nicely. “They have electronic sniffers. Have you seen one? A guy comes in here with a briefcase and he leaves, telling you if the place is rigged or not. Five, ten minutes. Peace of mind. Are you a target? I don’t know. I wish I could tell you that you weren’t.” The sniffers were for hydrocarbon accelerants and certain drugs. She’d never heard of one for rocket fuel. She didn’t share this. “Let us help you. Do this my way and it’s completely low-profile. Stonewall and you lose control. You strike me as a woman who wants to maintain control.”

The woman looked confused. Daphne didn’t like that. She anticipated Emily’s reaction before it ever came.

“Get out of here.” Emily stepped to within inches of Daphne’s face, strong and defiant. “You’re here uninvited, and you’re not welcome. I’ll file a complaint against you. Don’t think I wouldn’t.”

“You’re overreacting,” Daphne cautioned. “Take a minute to think about this.” She absolutely hated losing. There was nothing worse. Her job was about wins, about steering people away from some thoughts and toward others.

“Out!” Emily reduced the space farther, closing to where Daphne could feel the warmth of her breath across her face.

“I’m going,” Daphne conceded. She stormed out, more upset with herself than with the psychic.

The outside air was not cold, but it stung her face. She stood on the front steps for a moment, admiring the quirky six-foot metal sculpture of the world that sat on Emily’s front lawn. And then a frightening feeling overcame her: She was being watched. She glanced around-but casually, carefully-and saw no one.

She walked a little more quickly to her car, feeling unsafe and exposed. And as she drove away, a little faster than polite for a quiet neighborhood, she wondered who had been watching. The boy? Or was it the arsonist?

How much to tell Boldt and how much to keep to herself? How much was paranoia, how much real?

And how was she going to feel if and when Emily became the next victim?

30

Another poem. Garman had delivered it downtown while Boldt had been visiting Bear. Both his pager and cellular phone had sounded nearly simultaneously. He drove home to tell Liz in person that it was going to be a long night. He didn’t want to tell her by phone. The claw-foot tub was the first place he checked, placing his large hands against the side wall, searching for evidence of lingering warmth. Stone cold, like his heart. He felt an immediate pang of regret. Trust had been the cornerstone of their renewed attempt at marriage, and here he was, creeping around and feeling up bathtubs.

Together they put the kids to bed, Boldt looking for a chance to tell her he was going to leave her alone. Getting the kids down took longer than he expected. Things rarely went the way he expected. He finally sat down to a reheated dinner at a kitchen table cluttered with several days of mail-bills, mostly.

“You know,” she said, absentmindedly opening a piece of mail, “I was thinking that I might leave Miles with you and take another weekend up at the cabin.” The announcement-for that was what it was, an announcement, not a request-stunned him. She had never been a big fan of the cabin. What had changed? “Maybe this weekend.”

“By yourself?” he blurted out.

“No, with my lover,” she snapped sarcastically. Or was she using sarcasm to hide the truth? Would she, when he finally found out, remind him of this evening when she had mentioned a lover over the dinner table? “I’m whipped, Lou. Burned out. I could use a weekend by myself. I’ll take Sarah, of course. A good book.” She added, “Not away from you, just this.” She motioned around the room. He knew she meant him. She meant Miles, who at three and a half was a handful. Although a good mother-especially, he thought, for a working mother-she reached these tolerance points with Miles; it wasn’t the first time. More important, he thought, trying to see the positive, she trusted him to take good care of their son.

“It’s not the best time,” he answered honestly, aware that he had worked three seven-day weeks in a row. Aware he needed to get back downtown. “This case-”

“Oh, come on,” she complained. “Marina can help you. Besides, you can’t work every weekend. Phil won’t allow that. If he knew the schedule you were pulling he’d throw a fit.” Then she caught on and he winced before she voiced it. “You haven’t filed for the overtime, have you,” she stated incredulously. Liz ran the household budget-being the banker in the family-and Boldt knew he had serious trouble with this discovery: unpaid time at work was time he could be with the kids, or working on the house, or spending time with her. This could provoke a firestorm.

“It isn’t as simple as that. I’m sort of on loan to the fire department. I’m essentially pulling double duty as it is; managing the squad and working these arsons.”

Her expression remained hard. “If you’re expecting violins, forget it. I need this time, Lou. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. If I could do it without Sarah-if I could express enough milk-I’d leave her with you too, but I can’t right now.”

Boldt went over to the sink to pour himself a glass of filtered water and noticed immediately that the view out the window was remarkably cleaner. He noticed this because cleaning the windows was his responsibility and he had let this duty slip, and it seemed inconceivable that Liz had washed them, which meant she had paid to have them washed, and this in turn helped him to understand her independent and somewhat foul mood: If he slacked off on his jobs around the house, she came in behind him and hired them done, and it annoyed her to no end. He asked, “Is it the windows? Is that it? You got them washed, didn’t you? Listen, I meant to.”

“No, it’s not the windows,” she countered.

“You got them washed,” he objected. He could see that they had been washed-and a good job at that. Professional. He even felt a little envious at how good a job it was.

“It was a mistake,” she said, clearly frustrated at his attempt to steer her away from the issue of the overtime pay. “The point is, if you’re not filing for over-”

“Getting the windows washed was a mistake? I don’t think so. They look great to me.” He hoped he might be able to press this toward humor and deflect her anger, because taken together the two added up to real trouble: He wasn’t charging the department for his overtime, and he wasn’t home enough to do his chores, so the overtime pay wasn’t there to cover the added expense of hiring people to pull his weight.

Speaking in a patronizing, condescending way in which she accented every syllable, she told him, “A mistake. The … wrong … house. I did not hire any window washer. You are the window washer. The guy was off by one street. It was a mistake … on … his … part.”

Boldt smelled a scam. “Did he try and charge you for-”

“No. We cleared it up. He packed up, and he took off. He was perfectly nice about it.” She lightened up a little. “In fact,” she said, “he did a pretty good job.”

“Better than that other guy you’ve got,” he said, meaning himself.

She came out of the chair then and, suppressing a slight grin, approached her husband and threw her arms around his neck and drew them close together. He felt like stealing a glance at his watch, but he didn’t. “Why is it I can’t stay mad at you?”

He felt better than he had in ages. He didn’t want to let go. He clasped his arms around her waist and squeezed tightly, and she got the message and squeezed back, and he could feel her breath beneath his ear, and he put his lips to her ear and said, “I miss you.”

“I need this weekend, Lou. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.” She added, “Please.”

He felt himself nod, although it wasn’t automatic; it was born of great reluctance and trepidation. He felt some fear along with his love, some suspicion, even some anger. He wanted to keep squeezing until the truth came out of her, but Liz took her time. She needed time to think; he understood this. Her return from the cabin would bring with it a request to talk with him alone. He knew this woman well enough to understand that a change was