Beyond Recognition

coming-a decision. The baths were part of it: isolation, a time to think; perhaps that was all they were about. He leaned back and looked at her; he thought her darkly handsome and intelligent-looking. She looked a little tired. Troubled. “You okay?” he asked.

She squinted. That meant don’t ask, so he didn’t push it. A pit of concern burned inside him.

“I’ll take Miles,” he conceded.

She hugged him thanks.

“And I’ll get the rest of the windows.”

She kissed him on the lips. “We’ll talk,” she said.

“I know we will.”

“It’s going to be okay.” She attempted to reassure him, but his years with her contradicted this; her tone of voice belied her message. It was not going to be okay, and this realization terrified him. He forced a smile, but he thought she probably saw it was forced. Their moment of peace was passing. They released their hug.

Boldt headed to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of milk.

He heard Miles calling from the nearby room. “Da-a-ddy.” It was not a cry of alarm but of longing-the father could easily discern the difference-and it caused a warm stirring in Boldt’s heart. He stopped at the kitchen doorway and turned toward his wife, the first nibble of concern beginning chew on the inside of his chest. “How old?” he asked.

Liz, who had poured the teakettle full of water and headed for the stove, replied, “What are you talking about?”

“How old?” he repeated, this time more strongly.

“What? Who?”

“The window washer,” Boldt answered, and by then his body had seized on the idea, and it infected him, from the center of his chest outward through his shoulders, groin, and into his limbs. He felt this flood of heat like a sudden fever. “A ladder?” he barked at his wife, passing along his alarm to her, for her head snapped up disapprovingly, and even to his son, whose nearby cry suddenly raised in pitch and severity.

Her hand trembling, she placed the kettle onto the stovetop, attempting to carry on as usual. She knew that tone of his. She detailed for him: “Midtwenties. Early thirties? Thin.”

“His face?”

“He was up the ladder. His face? I don’t know. I was over by the garage. He wore a sweatshirt up over his head. We said about five words. I went inside, and he was gone. Lou?” She reached down to turn the knob on the front of the gas stove. That knob was suddenly all that Boldt could see-it loomed huge in front of him, occupying his vision: a trigger.

“Don’t touch it!” Boldt shouted loudly.

Liz jumped back. Terror filled her face.

Miles cried out, the fright contagious. “Daddy!”

“Don’t touch anything!” he cautioned. “Don’t move, for that matter.”

“Lou?” she pleaded, anxiety dissolving her.

His mind racing, Boldt hurried outside, into a dark and gripping terror. A window washer. A ladder.

It was dark out, and as he ran down the back steps he headed directly to his car and retrieved the police- issue flashlight from the trunk. He hurried around the side of the house, the glaring white light fanning out across the grass and throwing moving shadows in its wake. Boldt glanced up at the kitchen window and saw Liz, wide- eyed with concern, looking directly out at him. Her expression told him not to bring this sort of thing into her home, her life, onto her children. In all his years of service, no physical threat or trouble had found its way across the threshold of his home. There had been phone calls once-even with the number unlisted-but these had been quickly handled. Never this close.

He inspected the grass bib alongside the narrow apron of foundation planting that surrounded the house. He could picture Liz in summer shorts and a scoop-necked T-shirt, toiling over the flower beds. Flooded by such memories, he felt a stopwatch running inside his head. He imagined flames, concave walls sucking the life out of everything within …

The light illuminated two parallel rectangles pressed down into the grass. The evidence-sensitive cop in Boldt prevented him from stepping forward and contaminating the area. He looked carefully for any boot or shoe impressions, cigarette butts, matches, any possible evidence, while his heart was tugging at him to step closer and check those ladder impressions for the telltale chevron pattern left at the two arsons. The two homicides, he reminded himself grimly.

Any grass lawn collected and concealed evidence. As empty as it appeared under the glare of this light, the area of grass surrounding the ladder impressions was a potential gold mine to evidence technicians. Technically, he should have waited, but instead he stepped forward and trained the light down into the first of the impressions. Recognizing the chevron pattern, he cursed and ran toward the back of the house, Liz staring coldly at him through the freshly cleaned glass of the kitchen window.

“Get the kids!” Boldt ordered frantically, once inside. His imagination created an inescapable inferno at the center of the house, oxygen starved and impatient. He hurried toward their bedroom, where Sarah would be in her crib. “You get Miles,” he shouted. He reached inside the bedroom door for the light switch, but his mind’s eye suddenly enlarged the action to where he saw only a fingertip and the toggle of the switch, and as the two connected and Boldt was about to throw the switch, he caught himself. A trigger!

“Don’t touch anything!” he shouted as a panicked Liz sprinted past him. “Just get him and wait for me.”

He suddenly saw everything as a potential detonation device. Sarah, startled by her father’s voice, began to cry.

Liz stopped at the doorway to their room, held by the sound of her daughter’s crying. “Be gentle,” she said. Boldt turned around in time to see Liz reaching for the light switch.

“No!” he hollered, stopping her. “Touch nothing. Watch for wires. Anything that doesn’t look right.”

“A bomb?” she gasped, suddenly catching on.

“Get Miles, Liz. Quickly. We’ll go out the back door, not the front. We’ve both used the back door, right? So it’s okay. Just hurry.”

When residents panicked, they fled out their front doors regardless of their clothing or appearance-any cop, any ambulance driver, any fireman had experienced the half-naked family standing out on the front lawn, toward the psychological safety net of the neighborhood. But to Boldt, the front door could be the trigger.

Liz scooped up Miles. Boldt snagged his daughter, drawing her into his arms and pressing her warmth and her sweetly perfumed baby skin close to him. He was drenched in a nervous sweat. “Good girl,” he said, as she calmed in his embrace.

The parents met at the door leading into the kitchen, each bearing a child. Liz was fraught with raw nerves- eyes wide, jaw dropped, breathing heavily, panting from fear. “Let’s get out,” she said hoarsely.

“We’re going,” Boldt answered, his voice cracking, his eyes scanning the kitchen floor for anything unusual. His paranoia ran rampant. He pictured everything a potential trigger. He suddenly froze, fearing the trigger immediately before them. Miles struggled restlessly in his mother’s arms. Sarah wiggled to be free of Boldt, reaching for Liz, who pleaded, “If we’re going, then we’re going. Please.”

“We’re going,” Boldt announced dryly. He cut a straight line across the kitchen, out the door, down the steps. “No,” he called out, stopping Liz as she headed for her car. He stepped closer to her and kissed her on her damp cheek. “We’re out for a walk with the kids. Leisurely. Easy does it. Okay?”

Tears ran down her cheeks. She nodded, glancing around.

“No,” he cautioned. “It’s just us. The two of us with our kids, out for a walk. Nothing to it.”

She nodded again.

They walked west on 55th up to Greenwood and a corner convenience store run by a pair of Koreans whom Boldt knew by name from so many trips for eggs or milk.

He dialed 911 into the pay phone mounted outside the store, with Liz and Miles at his side and Sarah in his arms. Graffiti was scrawled around the phone, foul jokes, and a message: Zippy was