Middle Of Nowhere

   "Maybe you misread her?"

   "Maybe."

   "If you'd asked me along," she prodded, upset that he had not. She added sarcastically, "But then again, it's only my case."

   She took the keys back. They'd been exchanging them back and forth like this, as if playing some kind of parlor game. Daphne took them, stepped toward the parked car and pushed the button on the key ring's bobble.

   With both of them facing the car—a badly weathered Toyota—the garage door opened behind them. They spun around in unison.

   She said, "I figured it for the car."

   "Yes," Boldt agreed, snatching the keys back and stopping the door mid-ascent. He pushed the button again, and the door started down.

   Daphne was already digging in her purse by the time Boldt looked over at her. Her hand came out holding the clicker found in the pocket of Sanchez's leather jacket. She pointed it toward the door and squeezed. Nothing.

   Boldt grabbed it from her. He aimed the clicker at the overhead garage door mechanism and depressed its button. Twice. Nothing. Again, he tried the small black clicker attached to the set of keys. Again, the door reversed direction.

   Boldt and Daphne met eyes. She said, "So it wasn't the keys after all."

   "No."

   "And you're thinking?"

   "The obvious," he answered.

   "Who's it belong to?" she said, indicating the freestanding clicker.

   "Exactly."

   "A boyfriend? Her parent's house? A sister? Someone she was house-sitting for?"

   "One of the cases she was working?" Boldt suggested.

   "I knew you were going there." She sounded disappointed. She knew the time involved in going door to door to nine different homes.

   "She wanted us to find this," he reminded her, holding the clicker. Cherishing it.

   "And now we have," she said.

C H A P T E R

16

Boldt didn't like the look of the city streets. He could see the difference since the sickout: fewer pedestrians, anarchy at traffic lights, a pervasive restlessness. People walked faster and more determined, taking less time on street corners. There were few, if any, beat cops out here. No patrol cars. Attendance at Mariners games was off forty percent over the prior week, despite the new stadium. Benaroya Hall had hired a private security firm to patrol the area so that symphony patrons could reach their cars safely following a concert. The citizens of Seattle were scared, and for good reason—street crime was up double-digits in six days. The city was backsliding into the very urban problems it had previously managed to keep at arm's length. He followed the traffic out to Queen Anne, anticipation clouding his thoughts. Sanchez hadn't been trying to direct him to some boyfriend—he felt certain of this. The keys had led to the clicker; the clicker belonged to BrooksGilman, the burglary case she had signed off on. Or so his reasoning went. He felt certain of it. Or almost, anyway. Enough to talk Daphne into a drive to Queen Anne.

* * *

The Brooks-Gilman house had views of both Puget Sound and the downtown skyline. Before Boldt led the way up the walkway to the front door, he stood out on the street and tried the garage door clicker.

   The door lifted open.

   Daphne let out a small cheer. "Sometimes," she said, "I actually get off on this stuff."

   Boldt said, "We were stupid."

   "Were we?" she asked.

   "In every case, the doors to the burglarized homes were reported locked. Even our own first officers put it down this way."

   She continued his thought. "We wrote that off to doors being jimmied and owners panicking and locking up once they realized they'd been hit. But it wasn't that. It was that so few of us lock the door that leads into the house from the garage."

   Nodding, he pushed the clicker and stopped the garage door. "Sanchez understood that. She saw the one point of vulnerability and pursued it."

   "But one still needs the clicker," Daphne said. "What? This guy steals them from the car's visor in car washes and parking lots?"

   The garage door opened again, but this time Boldt had not triggered the device. He looked first toward his hand and then toward the house, and pointed to the silhouette of the woman standing at the mouth of the garage. "She may be able to answer that," he said.

* * *

Helen Brooks-Gilman. A hyphenate. A dot-com mom. Whole neighborhood was probably hyphenates, he thought. He attempted to return the clicker to the woman as he explained that detective Sanchez had been hospitalized and that he and Daphne had taken over the burglaries. She accepted the clicker, cautious until Daphne produced her ID wallet and Boldt unfolded a photocopy of his lieutenant's identification.

   "You don't have a badge?" she inquired.

   "My ID wallet was . . . stolen. It's a long story," Boldt answered, tempted to lift his shirt and show her his bruises.

   Holding up the device, Daphne asked, "Is this clicker yours?"

   The woman invited them inside. "It's a long story," she answered, purposely matching Boldt's tone.