Middle Of Nowhere

   Violent crimes against fellow police officers held special significance for anyone carrying a badge. All crimes were not investigated equally—a fact of life. Members of the immediate police family deserved and received special attention. Maria Sanchez would be no exception.

   Daphne Matthews arrived and checked in with Boldt and Gaynes. As lead, Matthews handed out the assignments. Boldt deferred to her—a reversal of their usual roles.

   Boldt thought of Daphne as a thoroughbred: dark, lean, fit and strikingly handsome. His system always ran a little quicker when in her presence, in part out of necessity. She possessed both a facile mind and a trained eye. Technically it was her case, but they would all three work the crime scene together.

   A civilian employee at first, a decade earlier, Matthews had undertaken the six-week academy training so that she now carried not just a title but a badge, rank, and weapon.

   She assigned Boldt the second-floor crime scene, where the victim had been discovered, with Gaynes to assist. She would interview the first officer and speak to the SID team leader.

   Even though Maria had been whisked away in an ambulance, the importance and power of the crime scene preoccupied Boldt as he approached the bed room. Out on the street, the first of the press arrived. There would be more.

   "How'd we find her?" Boldt asked Gaynes. He felt surrounded by women: Liz, Daphne, Gaynes, his own CAPers captain, Sheila Hill, even his little Sarah. He felt isolated but not alone, actually far more comfortable surrounded by these women than by a bunch of cartalking, sports-crazed men who commented on every chest that passed. He wondered why, of the seventeen detectives and two hundred uniformed patrol officers remaining on the job, some eighty percent were women. Why, when the going got tough, did the men quit and the women stay behind? Maybe it would be the topic of one of his guest lectures over at the U.

   Boldt felt time getting away from him. He hoped for a clean crime scene and good evidence—something obvious that pointed to a suspect. He might as well be asking for a miracle, and he knew it.

   Gaynes answered, "House has a silent alarm installed. Security company telephoned the home when the alarm tripped, then responded in person, finding the place locked, then finally contacted us because they're not allowed to kick a door. All told, it took about forty minutes before our officers arrived."

   "Nice response time," Boldt snapped sarcastically.

   "First officer was . . . Ling. Patrolman. He kept the security guys out, made the necessary calls and did a pretty fair job of protecting the integrity of the scene."

   Boldt said, "Matthews and I will visit the hospital on our way home. See how she's doing. We not only want this one cleared, we need it cleared. A cop assaulted in the middle of the Blue Flu? Press will have a heyday."

   "Got it," Gaynes confirmed.

   The bedroom where Detective Maria Sanchez had been discovered naked and tied to the bed still smelled of sweat and fear. Sanchez's shoes, clothes and undergarments lay strewn across the pale carpet: gray blouse and dark pants heaped together to the left of the bed, underwear up on the foot of the bed, which remained made but rumpled. The woman's bra lay up by the pillow. An SID tech was working the adjoining bathroom for evidence and prints. Boldt studied the layout carefully, snapping on a pair of latex gloves almost unconsciously. He circled the bed carefully, like a photographer planning a shoot.

   "No evidence of fluids," he observed, "other than the blood on the pillow. Not much of it."

   "The ligatures?" Gaynes inquired, pointing to the head of the bed.

   Boldt noticed the two bootlaces tied to each side of the headboard. He glanced back down to the floor and the ankle-high, black-leather-soled shoes missing their laces. His stomach turned. The scene was confused. It didn't feel right to him.

   "Ling cut the shoelaces himself, before the ambulance arrived," Gaynes explained.

   Both laces had been cut with a sharp knife, though remained knotted where they had been tied to the bed.

   "Photos?"

   The SID tech answered from the reverberating bathroom, "We shot a good series on her."

   "Close-ups of the ligatures?" Boldt inquired loudly.

   "Can't say for sure. You want it on the list?"

   "Please," Boldt answered, now at the head of the bed, studying one of the cut shoelaces himself. He'd had a case earlier in the week involving rape and a young girl bound by shoelaces. The similarities were obvious. He regretted that. A serial rapist was the last thing anyone needed—and most likely the first thing the press would suspect.

   "Done," the tech answered from the bathroom.

   Boldt glanced around. "Tied the wrists, but not the ankles?" His earlier rape had been tied by all limbs. The similarities suddenly lessened. A copy cat? Boldt wondered. The Leanne Carmichael rape had made the news.