across the street. Did you know that?' Boldt reared back and raised his hand.
'Lou!' Daphne stopped him. Perhaps with that one blow, Boldt might have killed the kid. Whatever the case, she saved him a review with her reprimand.
Boldt repeated, 'Tuesday night. You want to identify the location for us?'
'What is this shit about Tuesday?' he said, having difficulty with the pictures, given the handcuffs.
Boldt asked, 'Where were you last Tuesday night?'
'Tuesday night?' the kid repeated, some light spark ing across his freakish eyes. 'Mariners' night game. Preseason. It went extra innings. Junior pounded one down the third-base foul line in the twelfth and drove in the winning run.'
'You have the ticket stub?' Boldt asked quickly. 'Were you with anyone? Can you put a time on it?'
'Time?'
'I need a time and a place for you on Tuesday night,' Boldt said. 'I need you to write it all down.'
'Not happening.'
Boldt slapped the table so loudly that even Matthews jumped. The kid looked good and frightened. Boldt placed four more photos on the table. 'Take a good look.' Boldt pointed out what the lab had showed him only a few hours earlier. 'Shoelaces. Knots. Tuesday night knots.' He pointed out the other two photos-not giving him Sanchez's name. 'You going to deny it?'
Studying the photos closely, the kid said, 'So you already know it wasn't me who done these. Is that right?'
'I don't know anything about these until and unless you tell me. Educated guesses-I've got a few of those. Expert opinions-never a shortage there, not in government work. But witnesses? I think I'm looking at him.'
'The hell you are.'
'You've got to write it down. And try starting with the truth. Little Leanne Carmichael, then Tuesday night-'
'I was at the ball game,' the kid interrupted. Pointing to the photos he said, 'You can see right here this wasn't me. These are granny knots. They can pull out. I use square knots. Made it to first class in the Scouts. You were at Carmichael!' he reminded Boldt, who wanted nothing to do with that horrific image. 'Tied with square knots. Check it out, you'll see I'm right.' He repeated, 'Tuesday night was the ballgame.'
Boldt glanced over at Daphne.
She said to the kid, 'Write it down.'
'Why should I?' the kid protested. 'You're only gonna screw me. You say I did something Tuesday night? What? Another girl? Sure, I did it. There! You happy now?'
She explained calmly, 'You care because on Tuesday he made mistakes. Because this one will go into your column and it's a loose job, a lousy job. A middleaged woman. A cop. Which shoves it hook, line and sinker into maximum security's F wing. Twenty-threehour lockup. No chance of early parole. You want to grow old there?'
'Old?' the kid asked sarcastically. 'Like your age or something?' He eyed her and looked repulsed. 'Not interested.'
Boldt slammed his weight against the table, smacking the kid in the chest, and tipping him back in his chair so that his head struck the concrete block wall with pronounced contact. Boldt said, 'Slipped. Sorry about that.' He came around the table-the kid shied- and he violently stood that chair back up, driving the kid's chest into the edge of the table for a second time. 'There,' Boldt said. 'That's better.'
'Write it down,' Daphne told the suspect, as she took Boldt by the elbow and pulled him to her side. They didn't need the arrest going south because of abuse. She needed to get him out of there.
The kid picked up the pen and aimed it and the pad of paper at Daphne. 'You write down that you'll go lightly on me if I help you with that girl, because that other one, it wasn't mine, wasn't me. This bitch cop. No way. Granny knots? Fucking things never hold.'
She turned the pad around yet again. 'Last chance. If we step away from this, who do you think will give you another one?'
The kid hunched forward and started to write.
Standing by Boldt's Chevy, Daphne kept to her thoughts.
'You're mad,' Boldt offered. 'My pushing him around.'
'Surprised. More like something John would do.'
'He shouldn't have spoken to you that way.'
'We've heard worse,' she reminded.
'I'm losing the edge,' he suggested. 'Is that what you're saying?'
'He didn't do Sanchez,' she stated. 'That's all that matters.'
'You believe that?' he said, a little surprised.
'Yes.'
'So do I,' he added. Almost a whisper. A shudder passing through him. 'Oh, God,' he mumbled.
'Yes. I know what you mean.' She headed down the line of parked cars to her Honda.
His pager sounded. Another first-degree burglary. Just his luck.
CHAPTER 7
' Minor injuries, L.T. Nothing to worry about,' Gaynes informed Boldt. The same could be said about Liz's injuries, but Boldt wasn't buying. It all came down to perspective. Worry, he did. Behind Gaynes, EMTs closed up the back of a private ambulance. 'Vic's name is Cathy Kawamoto. Single. Lives alone. Sound familiar?'
Boldt didn't want this. Didn't need it. Not another. They were attending their second burglary/assault in as many days. Gaynes had drawn lead on the case, courtesy of the Blue Flu and Dispatch's current lottery system of assigning the first available detective who answered his or her phone. He told her about the interrogation, about losing the connection between Carmichael and Sanchez.
'So we clear one,' she said, 'and the other heads for a black hole.'
'Do not say that,' Boldt scolded. Gaynes suggested he head inside while she caught back up to the ambulance driver for a final word. Boldt seized the chance to see the crime scene for himself.
A burglary assault committed in the middle of the day. Technically a violent crime, minor injuries or not. The Blue Flu was lending the criminal element courage. While the cat's away, the mice do play. Bright sunshine broke loose from behind quickly moving dark clouds, the wind steady and warm. Summer struggled to be rid of spring. Boldt struggled to be rid of the Sanchez crime scene; he didn't want one influencing the other, but it proved almost inescapable. What he wanted was some good, solid evidence. Something valuable. Something to kick this thing in the butt and help get someone behind bars. Before another. Before the press descended like locusts. Before the looming black hole of Sanchez's unsolved case widened.
'What do we have?' he asked sharply of the first officer, a young woman who, judging by her crisp uniform and pronounced nervousness, was more than likely one of the police academy trainees temporarily promoted to patrol. Her quick-footed effort to keep pace with him, and a strained voice that cracked when attempting a reply, belied the stiff shoulders and confident chin. This stop-gap action taken by the chief to maintain a patrol-level presence on the streets had been written up in the press and condemned in the Public Safety coffee lounges. If a minimum number of uniforms could not be mobilized, the governor had threatened, or promised (depending which side of the argument one took), National Guard troops and curfews-political disaster for the mayor. But so-called 'freshies' had no place behind the wheel of a cruiser, or as first officer at any crime scene, much less on an as sault. For all his experience and wisdom, this new chief was out of his mind.
'Single female.'
'I've got that,' he said. Impatience nibbled at the center of his chest. He needed some basic information, but he longed to be left alone with the crime scene.
'Living with a sister who stays here every couple weeks.'
'Didn't have that,' Boldt admitted. 'The scene?'
'Exterior doors all found locked.'
