Middle Of Nowhere

   "It so happens," Osbourne said, "that our digital mapping service uses Alpha Maps, with research by Cape Flattery Map Company, the same maps at the front of the phone books. Small wonder, since we're a phone company. The point being that the Alpha Maps include all the ferry routes." Another of those instructive taps on the shoulder. The full screen included the city once again, this time with dashed lines leading from the piers out across the Sound. The dashed lines on the map ran incredibly close to the color transmission lines drawn by the software. Osbourne pointed. "That's the Bainbridge Island ferry route. The Winslow route. He traveled into the city on the ten-fifteen ferry yesterday morning, back out to the island on the eight-thirty— back in on the ten-fifteen this morning." He tapped his wrist. "The eight-thirty ferry leaves in twenty minutes. If you hurry, you can make it."

   Daphne shook the man's hand and took off for the door at a dead run.

* * *

Krishevski said to Boldt, "You learn to cut your losses in this job. And that's what I recommend. Someone taking pot shots at you—I hear this guy you're after bought a rifle."

   "It's not him."

   "I don't want to hear that."

   "It disturbs you?" Boldt asked. "What? That they missed?"

   "It isn't like that."

   "Isn't it?" Boldt asked.

   "Hey, this isn't my affair." Krishevski leaned on the word. "You know that."

   The emphasis destroyed Boldt. He understood immediately where the conversation was headed.

   Krishevski glanced hotly toward the door and lowered his voice, and now Boldt could barely hear him. "They have video, Lou. A security camera from a Denver hotel." He added, "I'm not party to this." He didn't convince Boldt. "I'm here strictly out of a desire to keep your personal life from being dragged through the press. Once this surfaces, not only do the wife and kids suffer but one of you is going to leave CAPers, and it ain't going to be the psychologist, on account she's the only one they got. So where's that leave you? Vice? Traffic?"

   His ears whined. He needed names. He needed some chance to stop this from happening. "You'll go down with them, Krishevski," he warned.

   "Me? Who do you think called you the other night and put you onto Schock and Phillipp's assault?"

Boldt sat there stunned.

   "See? That's the whole point of my visit. To cut the losses. They're ready to fry your ass. Don't let them do this. For once, just walk away. Do everyone a favor. Leave it be."

   Boldt tried to respond in a voice that said he had no intention of bending, that he knew what he was talking about, "You, Chapman, Pendegrass—"

   "It's not what you think."

   "Then someone had better enlighten me."

   Krishevski couldn't make the recliner sit up. He struggled like a child wanting to be free of a high chair, and finally got it. "Okay, I lied," he said.

   Boldt felt a bubble lodge in his throat.

   "No one sent me. I'm here to head off our both being dragged through the mud." He met eyes with Boldt and said, "I think I can do that. But I'm in as deep as you are, believe me."

   "I don't."

   Krishevski smiled nervously. "Chapman had a video. These guys will trade you straight across—that video of Chapman's for the one from the Denver hotel."

   Boldt's pager and cell phone rang nearly simultaneously. He shut them both off without paying the slightest attention to them, never breaking eye contact with Krishevski.

   "I'm to get this video and deliver it to you," Boldt said calmly. He added sarcastically, "And you're not connected to this."

   "Don't go there," Krishevski said emphatically.

   "I'm not left a lot of choice," Boldt pointed out. "If you came here on your own—if you're so squeaky clean—then what's to prevent you from talking?"

   "I'm not so squeaky clean," he admitted. "I've been fired. I don't want to face jail time as well."

   "Uh-huh," Boldt said knowingly.

   "My crime—if you're going to call it that—is trying to correct stupidity. Other people's stupidity. Ron Chapman has a video that is trouble for some of my guys. And now I'm jammed because I tried to help. We're all jammed. That's as far as I'll go, as much as I'll say. Deliver Chapman's video, it all goes away."

   "And Sanchez? Does she stand up and walk?"

   "I'll go out the front," Krishevski said. "Tell Liz and the kids good-bye for me."

C H A P T E R

47

By the time Daphne reached the State Ferry Terminal, the vessel destined for Winslow on Bainbridge Island was booked full for vehicles, though was still boarding passengers. She parked her red Honda in the lot and walked briskly toward the ferry. Her purse thumped at her side. A warning light flickered at the back of her brain—the neck scar she carried was a wound inflicted on a ferry while in the line of duty. Boldt had been with her then; she wished he was there now.