another three to five years. But Liz herself was sanguine: She credited God with her healing; and Boldt kept his mouth shut on that one. He felt that he and Liz had yet to recapture their comfort zone, but he wasn’t about to talk about that, either. So that night no one discussed much of anything. They joked. They drank. They drank some more.
When the pagers started sounding, it seemed like something orchestrated for a comedy sketch, except that everyone knew immediately that it must be serious, since one call simultaneously summoned the lab, the medical examiner and the Homicide squad.
LaMoia flipped his cellphone closed and said, ‘‘It’s a shipping container. Sinking out in the sound. People screaming inside. Still alive. Coast Guard’s towing it ashore.’’
‘‘Still alive,’’ Liz echoed, watching as all but Daphne Matthews headed for the exit. Those words meant more to her than anyone at the table.
Liz offered a look of surprise that Daphne stayed behind.
Daphne explained, ‘‘They don’t need me.’’
‘‘Well I do,’’ Liz replied, though retreating into silence, both confusing Daphne and making her curious.
When club owner Bear Berenson got the jukebox going a few minutes later, the rock music clashed with the earlier mood set by Boldt’s piano.
‘‘He doesn’t understand it,’’ Liz told Daphne. She meant Boldt. ‘‘The prayer. He can’t accept that I was healed by something outside of that hospital.’’
‘‘His background,’’ Daphne said, uncomfortably attempting to explain the woman’s husband to her. ‘‘If he wasn’t a detective, he’d be a lab guy. You know?’’
‘‘Yeah, I know,’’ Liz agreed. ‘‘But it’s more that that. He won’t give it a chance. It drives him crazy.’’
‘‘He’s glad you’re well, however you got there.’’
‘‘He doesn’t trust it. Has he talked to you about it?’’
‘‘No,’’ Daphne lied. She and Boldt had once been more than friends, just briefly. She knew well enough to protect the deeper friendship they had now.
‘‘He doesn’t say anything,’’ Liz continued, ‘‘not directly, but I know he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not that he wants it-I’m not saying that! Of course not! It’s just that he doesn’t believe in it. It’s inconceivable to him that prayer, that God, can have that kind of power, that kind of consequence.’’ She organized the dirty glasses on the table for the waitress.
‘‘He doesn’t believe it,’’ she repeated. Liz looked toward the door as if he were still there.
‘‘What if I talked to him about it?’’ Daphne offered.
‘‘It’s not something that can be sold.’’
‘‘He needs to hear that from all sides,’’ Daphne suggested.
‘‘He needs to hear this from within, Daphne. That’s the only way it’s going to make sense, to have any resonance. Especially to him.’’
Liz reached for Daphne’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
Daphne felt this woman’s cold fingers held in her own warm palm, and thought how quickly things change. There had been a time when she would have cheered for Liz to leave her husband. Now she was cheering for Liz’s survival. ‘‘You’re an amazing woman,’’ she said, as a chill whispered through her.
Boldt marveled at the emptiness of the docklands at night, the wide streets and warehouses deserted. Huge shipping cranes towered along the shoreline, silhouetted against dull gray clouds that reflected back the glow of city light, reminding Boldt of his son’s Construction Site Legos kit that currently occupied the far corner of the living room.
The August air blew both warm and heavy, laden with salt spray, forcing all who awaited the raising of the container to squint and turn a shoulder toward shore. Boldt wore his hair trimmed short, which didn’t quite fit with his otherwise professorial look-the wrinkled khakis and favorite tweed jacket worn threadbare at the elbows and sleeves. His tight jaw and erect posture belonged to a man who meant business. Few people interrupted him when he was locked in thought, eyes distant and yet strangely focused. He deservedly owned the respect of all who worked with him, due to his attention to detail and dedication to procedure that many in law enforcement preached, but few practiced. He occasionally spoke at law enforcement seminars and conferences and at graduate criminology courses on the role of homicide victims as witnesses. ‘‘The Victim Speaks,’’ his talk on the subject, had been transcribed and posted on the Internet.
Boldt grumbled to LaMoia about how long it was taking the Coast Guard to recover the container. The cries and screams continued. Patience was running thin.
LaMoia had stood at Boldt’s side for the last seven years, working in his shadow, studying his every movement, then rising in rank to take not only the man’s stripes but even his desk and office cubicle.
LaMoia wore his jeans pressed, his shirts crisp, his hair perfect and his cowboy boots gleaming. He was focused less on Boldt and more on his boots-brand new boots that had cost him a month’s salary. This salt spray was beginning to really piss him off. He kept rising on tiptoe to pull his boots out of the puddled water.
‘‘Piano sounded great tonight,’’ LaMoia said.
‘‘Are you kissing my butt?’’ Boldt asked. ‘‘What are you after, John?’’
‘‘I want to keep these new boots dry,’’ LaMoia confessed.
‘‘So get out of here. I’ll cover.’’ As a lieutenant, Boldt was expected to have no active field responsibilities. Technically, the case was LaMoia’s, he was lead detective, though under Boldt’s direct supervision. Both men understood this. Boldt resented it. Despite his two decades of experience he was expected in the conference room, not the street. Under a different captain, he might have been given more latitude, but Sheila Hill paid attention to rank and procedure. A ladder-climber and well connected in the department, Hill was not someone to cross. ‘‘Make it quick,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘They’re going to get this thing up and open any minute now.’’ LaMoia was famous within the department for his casual attitude and his willingness to stop and chat with any and every woman he encountered.
‘‘Okay, Sarge.’’ LaMoia still referred to Boldt by his former rank. He jogged back toward his fire-engine red 1968 Camaro and the police line established to hold back the press from where television news crews were already shooting.
The detective left. Briefly the field belonged to Boldt.
‘‘Polly’s broken down in traffic. She’s not going to make it. We need you.’’
‘‘Slow down, Jimmy,’’ Stevie McNeal said into the phone.
Jimmy Corwin was among the station’s best producers, but he worked in a constant state of high anxiety. Stevie found his energy infectious, even over the phone. He was proposing she take a live segment for Polly. As an anchorwoman, Stevie picked her reporting
work carefully.
‘‘What are we looking at?’’ she asked.
‘‘We’ve got a shipping container found by the Coast Guard. Human cries coming from inside. Channel Seven is already on-air. We need you on-camera in the next ten minutes.’’
‘‘You’ll post it up on the feed.’’
‘‘Sure we will.’’
‘‘I need a promise on that, Jimmy.’’ The national feed could bring offers from the larger market.
‘‘When we see the piece, we’ll determine-’’
‘‘Now! You commit now or I-’’
‘‘Okay. Agreed.’’
‘‘And it’s my follow-up, my story,’’ Stevie negotiated.
‘‘It’s going to mean original segments for us, not just the five o’clock leftovers.’’
The phone crackled and the window flashed blue with the light of an approaching thunder cell. She said, ‘‘Tell the crew I’m on my way.’’
The Coast Guard crew had attached inflatables to stabilize the container while it was being towed to shore. Those same inflatables currently kept the steel box afloat.
As the cries from inside continued, swimmers climbed up and connected the cables to all four corners. A supervisor signaled the all clear and the crane’s mighty diesel growled loudly. The cable lurched and snugged tight
