Middle Of Nowhere

   "If you felt anything for her at all, you'd have come back on the job," Boldt complained. "What's that about?"

   "I came up through the front seat of a radio car, Sarge. I still drink beer with the guys wearing unis. Hit balls at batting practice with them. My name's on the guild roster. The chief is wrong about this. I gotta stand up for that. You can see that, can't you?"

   "You and Sanchez. How long?" Boldt repeated, knowing they could argue the Blue Flu all night long.

"We've been seeing each other about a month now."

   Although the department didn't expressly forbid relationships between officers, it discouraged them. No "involved" officers could work the same division and were more often exiled to separate precincts, sometimes having their careers destroyed in the process. The credo "Personal lives do not mix with police lives" hung on the lips of every superior.

   "And how long were you going to sit on this relationship?"

   "I'm here, and I'm talking. Right?"

   Daphne snorted. "We caught you!" She said, "A lot of good you're doing Maria on the sidelines."

   "Maybe I'm doing more than you think," LaMoia said.

   "Working the cop bars for information, I suppose," she offered derisively.

   "Anybody angry at her about her dating a gringo?" Boldt asked.

   "I knew you were going to ask that! God damn it, Sarge!"

   "Family? Fellow officers?" In a city with a large population of Asians, Hispanics seemingly suffered under extreme prejudice. Tensions flared on the force between uniforms from time to time. Boldt didn't want to face the possibility that Sanchez's assault might have been racially or relationship motivated—a hate crime— and therefore disconnected from his current line of investigation.

   "Nothing like that," LaMoia promised. "Besides, we kept it quiet. Neither of us wanted a transfer across town."

   "You're sure?"

   "This is me, Sarge."

   "That's why I'm asking," Boldt said. LaMoia made trouble for himself. From captains to meter maids, he'd made the rounds, suffering suspensions and reprimands. Miraculously, he had not only kept his badge, but had managed to advance to squad sergeant in the face of rumor, innuendo, and outright scandal. Boldt had managed to keep LaMoia's affair with Captain Sheila Hill quiet, or LaMoia would have been forced off Boldt's CAPers squad. Both Hill and LaMoia owed him for that. Boldt rarely collected on such debts, though right now he felt tempted to pressure LaMoia back onto the force.

   Boldt said, "So let me ask you this: You know anything about this burglary investigation she was working?" LaMoia twitched, belying his outward calm. Boldt knew he had scored. "John?" Boldt inquired.

   LaMoia maintained eye contact with Boldt. Something begged to be spoken but did not reach the sergeant's lips. Standing from his chair, LaMoia said, "You two take care of yourselves," and hurried from the room. Boldt called after him, but his voice fell upon deaf ears.

   "What was that?" Daphne asked, a tinge of fear in her voice.

   "He knows something about Sanchez but is afraid to tell us," Boldt whispered, wondering once again if Liz and the kids were safe, even tucked away miles from home. John LaMoia wasn't afraid of anything or anyone, so why the sudden change in attitude?

C H A P T E R

11

Anthony Brumewell struggled through another dinner alone. When the phone rang, the balding man was in the middle of eating some seashell pasta and broccoli in a pool of yogurt and butter covered with packaged parmesan—plastic cheese, he called it—and drinking from a can of Lite beer. Reading the Seattle Times' sports page, he cursed in the general direction of the phone as it rang. Annoyed, he nonetheless stood up and answered: He didn't get all that many calls, after all.

   "Hello?"

   "Mr. Anthony Brumewell?"

   "Speaking. Who is this?" He tentatively identified the call as a phone solicitation, a spike of indignation welling up and working toward boil. Didn't call me Tony, he thought. Other voices in the background. Keyboards clicking.

   The words of the man on the other end were rushed though clearly, carefully rehearsed. "I'm calling on behalf of Consolidated Mutual Insurance, Mr. Brumewell. Before you hang up, you should know that, without obligation, we're offering you two free tickets to the movie of your choice—"

   Anthony Brumewell considered himself a film buff, even if he mostly saw these films by himself. Did two free tickets mean two different films, or two tickets to the same film? This meant a world of difference to him, and he assumed the latter, which accounted for the receiver heading back for the cradle, the salesman's voice barely audible through the tiny earphone. He stopped himself from hanging up. . . . two free tickets to the movie of your choice.

   "Two tickets to one film," he asked, "or one ticket to two films? And you should know there's a big difference to me."