He spun to face her and their lips brushed. He leaned back and held up his fingers.
He kicked open the shed door. Daphne snapped on the light.
“Police!” Boldt shouted. “On the ground
Hall dove to the earth, hands outstretched. The move surprised them.
“One thing about those military boys,” Daphne quipped. “They know how to follow orders!”
Daphne realized that she loved him but would never have him. Her mind was not on the suspect or the house or the attempted theft but on Boldt, the man, the sergeant, the lover, the friend. The unattainable. Her thoughts had been on the suspect, and they returned quickly to him, but for that brief instant of time between leaning against him and being asked if she was ready, her thoughts had strayed to encompass the idea of a life with him and the realization that any chance for such a thing had passed. It was a thought she had entertained and refuted an equal number of times, as she did once again, though she eased incredibly close to acceptance. Her move to Owen had felt like love but in truth had been little more than a late rebound, an attempt to shed the burden of Lou Boldt. The attempt had failed, something she had acknowledged within herself only over the past few weeks, something Owen had sensed immediately. She faced the reality that her personal life was once again a train wreck. Did she think too much and feel too little, or was it the other way around? If she listened to her friends, she was opinionated and stubborn, inflexible and bossy. These were the same friends who told her how much they loved her. If she listened to Owen, she was beautiful and brainy, ballsy and supportive. If she listened to her own heart, it said that what had once been respect for Lou Boldt had matured into unconditional love. She admired him for his musicianship, his leadership by example, his intelligence, and his humanism. He was flawed: full of self-doubt, misplaced compassion, and a tendency to hide inside his moods. He was an amazing father, a loyal husband, and she wanted him for her own. Liz be damned.
He stepped toward the suspect. There was enough ambient light to see shapes but not details.
She didn’t want any surprises. “Let’s wait for backup, shall we?”
Boldt never broke his concentration. He nodded. Then he called out to the man lying on the ground, “Nicholas Hall, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent ….”
He glanced over at her-only for an instant-and their eyes met. His were full of joy.
She cherished the moment. She tucked it away and saved it. Safe from harm. Hers always.
39
They took turns with him, as if working a punching bag. Nicholas Hall had been processed like a side of beef: his fingerprints inked, his possessions stored in lockup in a brown paper bag bearing his name and record number, his clothes replaced with the humiliating orange jumpsuit with CITY JAIL stenciled in huge white letters across the back. Boldt had requested “full jewelry”-handcuffs and ankle manacles. He wanted Hall to think about it.
The prisoner had not yet requested a court-appointed attorney, a privilege that had been offered him during three separate readings of the Miranda. They were taking no chances with Nicholas Hall. The lack of an attorney meant that Hall spent three consecutive two-hour shifts in Homicide’s eight-by-eight interrogation room A, the Box. He was given a twenty-minute break between sessions, escorted to the toilet, and offered food and water. Boldt took the first hour and the role of the heavy. Daphne took hour number two and played the friend. Boldt took hour three. By the fourth hour, Daphne had begun to loosen him up by pitting Boldt against her and telling him how the old guard, the hard-liners like Boldt, didn’t like a woman doing their job, didn’t like the suspects forming any kind of relationship with her.
“I put up with a lot of shit around here,” she informed him. Hall had rough hair and soft brown eyes. The left side of his lower neck was discolored-beet purple-a birthmark, not a burn. That hand hid in his lap, shackled to its partner. “They think of me in terms of my sex,” she said. “I’m all tits and ass to most of them, that’s all. I’m different,” she said, attempting to appeal to that hand of his, “so they don’t trust me.”
“I know all about that.”
In the three hours and twenty minutes they had worked on him, this was the fourth full sentence that Hall had spoken. Daphne felt a tingle of excitement in her belly. “The hand,” she said.
He nodded.
“People think you’re a freak.”
“You got that right.”
“Me,” she said, “I’m a freak around here because I don’t pee standing up.” She wanted to place as many images in his head about her as possible, hoping to mislead him into seeing her strictly as a woman, not as a cop but as opposing the cops, the same way Nicholas Hall felt at that moment.
He smiled.
She could tell a lot about him from that smile: considerate, kind, thoughtful. Not that she trusted it. “Do you have brothers or sisters?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“Yeah. Kid sister.”
“Parents?”
“Dead. My dad on the highway. My mom … she kind of drank herself to death, you know? After my dad and all.”
“My parents too,” she lied. “It trashed me at the time. Tough stuff.”
“My dad was driving pigs, Des Moines to Lincoln. Can you imagine? They say he caught a wheel on the shoulder. The pigs all swung at the same time and carried the trailer over. Trailer took the cab. Rolled down into that middle part. I was fourteen.”
She nodded sympathetically. She reached up and scratched the back of her neck, giving Boldt the signal.
The sergeant came charging into the interrogation room, red faced and angry. “It’s my turn,” he announced. “You’re out of here.”
“No way,” Daphne complained. “He doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“What the hell do I care what he wants?” Boldt asked. “He killed a woman and left her in a crawl space-”
Sitting forward, his handcuffs dragging on the table, Hall said, “That’s bullshit.”
“You’re interrupting me, Sergeant.” She glanced at her watch. “Nick and I aren’t through,” she said, using his abbreviated name. Until that moment she had only called him Nicholas. The idea was for her to develop a rapport and isolate Boldt as far as possible. “You mind if I call you Nick?” she added, checking with the suspect, who looked confused and afraid. To Boldt she said, “If Nick wants to speak with you instead-” She left it hanging there.
“No!” objected the suspect.
“There you have it,” she informed Boldt. “You’ll have to wait your turn.”
“You’re not going to get anything out of him,” Boldt complained. “Let me have him. I sense
“I don’t think so,” she countered. “The door is that way.” She added, “If your head isn’t too big to fit through it.” She glanced at Hall. The suspect grinned. Just right, she thought. He’s all mine. “Out!” she told Boldt.
The sergeant glared at them and left the tiny room.
“These charges are bullshit,” Hall stated. “I didn’t kill no woman.”
“You know, it’s better if you don’t play dumb,” she informed him. Quietly, she said, “If they think you’re cooperating with me, we can keep you up here. Otherwise it’s down to lockup. And once they arraign you, you can spend weeks there-months in County. The backlog in the courts is awful right now.”
“I am not playing dumb,” he protested. “I don’t know nothing about no dead woman.”
“Listen, the thing is, they can place you in the house. What were you doing there, if not trying to cover up your knowing her?”
“I don’t know her.”
“Didn’t,” she corrected. “I’m telling you, these guys are not real long on brains.” Raising her voice, she said, “They’re just about as dumb as they look.”
“Are they watching us?” he asked.
