Middle Of Nowhere

   "That's my story and I'm sticking to it," Boldt said softly, finding it too painful to speak. The pain grew inside him, like roots of a tree trying to find water.

   "I could write you a couple of prescriptions. Pain. Sleep."

   "No, thanks."

Daphne said, "Maybe just write them anyway."

   It hurt too much to object. "Listen to the little lady," Dixie said.

   "How's Liz anyway?" Dixie asked, his back to them as he wrote out the prescriptions. Was there innuendo in that question? Boldt wondered.

   "Healing rapidly. She doesn't like to discuss it."

   "When do you tell her about this?"

   "Not yet," Boldt answered.

   Daphne mocked, "He doesn't want to go through the paperwork."

   "Uh-huh," Dixie said.

   "Who needs another case to investigate?" Boldt reasoned.

   "That was a baseball bat," Daphne said, as Dixon once again studied the ear.

   Boldt mumbled, "K-9."

   "What's that?" Dixon asked, still probing the damaged ear.

   "Since when does a mugger call a dog a K-9?"

   "Uh-oh," Daphne said. "I smell a conspiracy theory coming."

   Boldt asked, "Okay, so it's a mugging. So why not take off once they had my stuff? Why stay to punish me with the baseball bat?"

   "I thought that since the Flu, assaults like this are up," Dixie said.

   "Dozens," Daphne answered.

   "True enough," Boldt agreed.

   "Blood in the urine?"

"No." Boldt felt Daphne's stare.

"You want to watch for that as well as dark stool."

"So noted."

"And I want to hear about it immediately."

"Affirmative."

"You got lucky here."

Boldt winced. "Yeah, I'm feeling like a real winner."

   "No cop would ever do such a thing to another cop, Lou. Sickout or not, I just don't see it," Dixie said. "That brick? Sure. Some name calling? Some harassment? You bet. But this? Just to keep you off the job?"

   "I guess you're right," Boldt admitted. "Though it certainly crossed my mind."

   "Muggings are up," Dixie repeated.

   "I caught that the first time," Boldt said.

   "Can you have him stay with you?" Dixon asked Matthews. To Boldt he said, "I understand your not wanting to alarm Liz before you know what's going on. I know you. But you can't stay alone at your house tonight. You just can't. Doctor's order. You need someone there. So, you either head over to the Jamersons—"

   Boldt shook his head interrupting him.

   To Daphne Dixie said, "So you play nurse. Take his temperature every four hours, feed him more aspirin, if necessary. Call me if there are any rapid changes in his condition."

* * *

"I need to call Liz," he said from the passenger seat of Daphne's Honda.

"Now you're coming to your senses."

   "But I don't want to wake her up, and I don't want to frighten her."

   "That's out of my territory."

   "I'll wake everyone up and turn this into a huge deal and make promises to her that by the morning I'll break, because I'm not going to take time off—and that's what she'll want."

   "Lou—"

   "If I take sick leave, what the hell's it going to look like?" He answered his own question. "Flu. And I'm not going to give Krishevski a chance to play that card. No way."

   "And this has to do with calling Liz?" she questioned.

   "It's complicated," he said.

   "It must be."

   "It can wait until morning," he convinced himself. "No need to wake anyone tonight," he justified. "Sleep it off and see how I'm doing." He tested, "Right?"

   "This is your decision, Lou. Am I heading to Mercer Island—to the Jamersons?"

   "No," he answered. He leaned his head back. A moment later he was asleep and lightly snoring.

   Daphne drove Boldt to her houseboat and made up the futon couch in the downstairs living area. Just north of the NOAA docks on Lake Union, the floating community of houseboats had taken on a mythical reputation, raising property values fivefold in just eight years. Two thousand square feet of living space dressed in red wood shingle and asphalt roof, her houseboat had a red enamel wood stove and a sea kayak tied up to the deck outside her living-room window. There were ten other such homes on her pier, five to a side, a half dozen piers running up the lake's shoreline, little henhouses of mailboxes out on the road where the mailman knew each resident by name. Community still meant something here. The hippie feel of the past twenty years was giving way to Microsoft geeks who looked stupid smoking their cigars while sucking down microbrewery beer on warm summer nights, with the city's killer skyline forming a stage set in the near distance. An animosity existed surrounding the influx of the chip set, despite the lift it had given the economy. But the quaintness of her houseboat remained: small spaces, carefully decorated so as not to clutter, a faint trace of cinnamon incense, the sound of lake water lapping at the sides. If she ever sold, she'd be able to retire.

   "Listen, I appreciate the gesture," he said, "but we can't do this."

   "Sure we can," she replied, retrieving a pillow from her loft bedroom. Boldt lacked the strength to fight. He wanted sleep.

   "I need sleep," he complained.

   "You need a bath and some tea. The sleep will come of its own accord."

   "I'm sure you're right."