Middle of Nowhere (43 page)

“I didn’t ask for a free session or nothing.”

“Pardon me. Professional liability, I guess. I was only trying to help.”

“You can’t help. Nothing’s going to bring him back. Nothing helps.”

“I didn’t mean any offense,” she said.

Flek reached down, hooked the strap of her purse and yanked it up to the seat alongside of her. He had the reaction time of a lizard. She had barely seen his arm move.

“Jeez,” he said, landing it next to her. “Thing weighs a ton! You oughta have wheels for that thing!”

The gun and two spare magazines made it very heavy. She panicked, her brain locking as she stared at her purse. She froze a moment too long and they both knew it.

“The lipstick,” he said brightly, the grieving brother suddenly gone.

She didn’t like the fact that he could throw the switch so quickly. Another in a long series of red flags alerting her to his instability. Boldt had plenty to fear from this man—Flek was capable of pulling the trigger.

He said, “Try the other color. I’ll tell you which is best, which I like. It’s a date, right? Poulsbo? A dinner date. Right? I’ll tell you which one is better.” He switched on the ceiling light.

“I ah—” They approached the Agate Passage bridge. “Listen,” she said, “I don’t want to put you out. If the casino is easier for you, let’s do that. I can call a cab from Poulsbo and he’ll be there in a matter of minutes.”

“Don’t try to change the subject!” he objected. “I’m telling you: I think you look great. But try the other color and I’ll tell you what I think.”

“But I left it. . . . I think. The lipstick. . . . I’m sure I did.”

“Look,” he said, nudging the purse closer to her with his open palm. As he touched the purse his head snapped up, his eyes intense and dangerous. Had he felt the gun barrel?
He knows!
she thought, this time with more certainty. “See if you’ve got it. . . if you brought it with you . . . I’d like to see it on you.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her purse. She thought he might wreck the car.

She couldn’t open the purse. Her gun was near the top—she’d made sure of that on the ferry—right where she could reach it in a hurry. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You said you like this color. That’s good enough for me.”

“Come on,” he pleaded.

She dragged the purse to her lap as they drove onto the bridge. She was thinking that if there was a place to pull the weapon and force him over it was there, where the car was restricted. She hadn’t thought any of this out clearly enough. Improvisation was fine, but did not come naturally to a mind preoccupied with consideration, even fear. She angled the purse toward her and slipped her hand inside. The cool metal of the weapon washed a sense of relief through her. The rose lipstick had settled on the bottom amid Tampax, a Flair pen, and loose quarters. Her fingers danced between the two: the handgun and the lipstick.

Flek watched all this with one eye while driving with the other, unable to see into the purse. “Well?” he asked, as if knowing the dilemma she faced.

She pulled her hand from the purse ever so slowly and produced the lipstick and a crumpled tissue. “Found it!” she crowed.

“I knew it!” He pounded the steering wheel, suddenly a little boy. “Lemme see. Lemme see.”

She snapped the purse shut, wondering if that was a mistake. “You mind?” she said, taking hold of the car’s rear view mirror.

“Go ‘head.”

She smudged her lips onto the tissue, removing the sand colored lipstick and then carefully applied the rose, her attention on the mirror. She could feel him staring.

He said, “Both lips. You do both lips. My mother .. . she used to wear this really red lipstick. Would do just the top lip, the upper lip, you know, and then kiss her lips together to get it onto her lower.”

“Bright colors, you can do that,” Daphne said. She kissed her lips together a few times and presented herself to him. “Duh-duh,” she trumpeted like a fanfare. “What do you think?”

He stared a little too long. She caught herself checking the road. “She wore bright lipstick all the time, your mother?”

“I got it,” he said confidently, meaning she could take her eyes off the road. “I’m not gonna hit no one.”

In control,
she thought. “What about the rose?”

“It’s sexier,” he said.

He successfully turned the attention away from himself, and she felt resentful of this. She wanted to get back to discussion of his mother. “My mother—” she said, “I’m probably older than you . . . but she wore this fire-engine red lipstick, and I mean really big on her mouth.”

“My mother was a waitress,” he said. “And she sold clothes too for a while. And bartended and stuff. Changed jobs all the time, but I don’t think she
ever
changed that lipstick.”

“Is she still alive?”

“Booze got her. It was a long time ago.”

“Do you drink?”

He glanced over at her again. “That one’s way sexier than the other one.”

“You think?” She tried to sound flattered.

The road, state highway 305, swung left past the casino toward Poulsbo. Suquamish—Indianola was to the right. Flek followed traffic.

“You want to get a beer?” she asked, as they neared the casino. Her thought process was quick and therefore flawed, though she tried to work all angles before speaking, her mind a flurry of thoughts and consideration. She wanted a chance to telephone Boldt, to tell him where she was and what she had in mind. He could then call ahead to Poulsbo and arrange for the local police to pick up Flek moments after dropping her off. He would never be out of her sight. She might even be able to start an interrogation immediately after his booking. It felt like a plan to her, but she needed this chance to call Boldt
ahead
of her being dropped off. A bar seemed the perfect place—her cell phone from a toilet stall, well away from the ears of Abby Flek.

“Right now?” he asked.

“One beer would help relax me—before this dinner,” she said.

He jerked the wheel hard, throwing Daphne against the door. The tires cried and the huge car fishtailed slightly. An on-coming car sounded its horn as Flek shot the Eldorado across to the far side and bounced it into a gas station next to the casino. He hit the brakes hard and threw her forward against the dash. “Sit tight,” he said, leaving the car running. “Couple beers coming up.” He jumped from the car and hurried inside.

D
aphne sat back in the front seat of the 1978 Eldorado, the wind knocked out of her—more from nerves than Flek’s bad driving. This was not the pit stop for beer she’d had in mind. She caught a glimpse of their suspect through the crowded shelves of the gas station’s mini-market as he grabbed a cold six-pack from a wall cooler. Within seconds she had her purse open and the cellular phone out, though her eyes remained on Flek who was already at the cash register under the sterile bluish glare of tube lighting.

She had to look down to dial. She nervously punched in Boldt’s cellular, and got the number wrong. She cleared the last three digits and reentered them correctly. She hit SND.

The phone signaled a busy cellular circuit. She ended the call, pushed RCL and hit SND again.

Flek had a wad of bills in hand. He leafed through them, and pulled one out, and handed it to the clerk.

For a moment, nothing. Then the call went through.

She heard the ringing tone bleeping in her ear.
Answer the phone!
she willed. Or would Boldt’s cellular be turned off this time of night and her only way to reach him be the home number? Liz had sounded so hostile when she had taken the call earlier. What was that about? Did she even want to know?
Answer the damn call!

“Boldt,” came his voice, small and thin over the bad connection, cellular to cellular.

Flek had a couple dollars and change in hand as he pushed out the swinging glass door and into a light drizzle that started that exact same instant.

Boldt had roughly explained the predicament over the Denver video to Liz before bidding her goodnight and heading back into town.

“I’ve thought about it,” he had said, “and I don’t see how I can just walk away.”

“It’s not the principled thing to do,” she agreed. He loved her for this ability of hers to disconnect and walk the moral walk, talk the moral talk. Her religious faith, rekindled during her struggle with lymphoma, burned brightly. When tested, she fell on the side of right, of good, even if it meant ostensibly insurmountable personal challenges. Her earlier anger at him was “surface anger”—as she called it. When faced with this kind of challenge, they were a team again. She loaned him her own personal courage, and at no cost, no spousal bargaining. “You’re known for your integrity, love. You can’t escape it, even if you so desire—and I don’t think you do. Do you?”

“If they’re good for this—whoever they are—then they’ve got to stand up for it. And they’re not going to. Not on their own.”

“If it’s time for you to leave this job, then it’s time,” she said.

“What they intend to do—it will hurt. Hurt badly. Our friends. Your church. You want to look at that carefully before we decide this.”

“Listen, I’m not saying I fully forgive you for all that has happened, but I’ll survive it. . .
we
will survive it.” She added faintly, “We’re survivors.”

“It’s no easy decision. It can’t be made lightly,” he cautioned, although more for himself than for her to hear.

“We don’t decide these things. They’re not ours to decide. We choose to listen or not.”

“You’re saying the decision is already made,” he suggested.

“I’m saying there never was a decision. There was only a question of whether we’d listen or not. And you always listen. You’re a good man, Lou. I love you for these moments.” Again, she added an afterthought. “I dislike you for certain others.”

“We’ve never been quite at a moment like this, Elizabeth. It’s going to rain hard on this house.”

“We can take it. Or not.” She added, “When you listen, when you do what’s right, things have a way of working out. Maybe not this week or next, maybe not this year or next. We could be in for some challenges, individually or together. Who knows? But there comes a time when you look back and say: ‘So that’s why that happened like that.’ I’m telling you—it happens every time.”

In-bound traffic had improved in the past few hours. He wasn’t going to sleep; he knew that much. It seemed right to get into the office and continue probing the Sanchez case before his time was occupied with defending himself.

His cell phone rang and he answered, “Boldt.”

It wasn’t until he heard her voice that he remembered he owed Daphne a return call.

“Lou .. . Thank God,” she said breathlessly.

Flek crossed through the drizzle at a run, the six pack of beer held steady in his hands so he didn’t shake the cans.

She whispered frantically, “I’m with
him,
Lou: Flek! They traced his cell phone! Hang on! Don’t hang up, even if you think I have.”

He popped open the car door and hurried behind the wheel, setting the six-pack of beer down between them. “Damn rain!” he said.