The news of Pamela's death shocked Daphne, and his attempt to stick her with guilt worked, for she understood she had pushed Pamela hard-too hard?-knowingly.
She was going to lose the gun-she couldn't hold it up any longer.
If she lowered it, he would shoot her.
Sharon winked her one good eye and looked down.
Only then did Daphne notice the needle in her hand.
Sharon leaned her head back against Tegg and looked up at him.
Briefly, he glanced down at her.
She grinned through the leather muzzle and drove the needle into Tegg's eye. Sharon broke loose.
Daphne fired, but missed wildly, as Tegg dropped the dart gun and reached for the needle. He extricated it with an ear-piercing shriek and reached for the shovel. He leveled it once onto Sharon, who had fallen and was crawling toward the car. She buckled with the blow.
Daphne dove at him. He swung the shovel at her and caught her sideways, splaying her against the cage, but lost his balance. He raised it again-this time aiming to come down on Daphne's head.
Daphne seized hold of the dart gun. The shovel reached its apex.
Next stop ... He was sure to crush her skull.
Summoning the last of her resolve, Sharon sprang the few feet across the cement, going for his legs-one hand slid under his pant leg as the other groped for, and found, the electric fence.
The charge surged through her-through them both-and she would not let go. The buzzer on her collar cried out. Tegg went rigid and with the pain, the shovel suspended above him. Eyes white. jaws locked open in what began as a silent scream and then turned deafening.
Daphne squeezed the trigger and fired. The dart gun went off with a dull pop. The white cottony rabbit's tail protruded from Tegg's chest where the dart lodged. "No!" he screamed, scooting backwards on the cement, as if he could get away from it. Escape it. Only he knew what drug that dart contained. He pulled it out and dropped it onto the cement prior to the first convulsion. "Too much!" he said frantically, knowing the dosage, terrified, staring into Daphne's eyes as if she could help him. "Too much! Too much!" His whole body jumped. Waves of the convulsions passed through him. "Too much!" he repeated, jolted again. But then his mouth wouldn't move. His eyes remained fixed open. Dead? or a result of the drug? His body went limp, then rigid, in an increasing series of convulsions. It stopped completely.
Daphne dragged herself over to Sharon and rolled her over.
She was hemorrhaging.
Daphne rode with her in the helicopter, though the paramedic protested against it, claiming there were rules to follow. Once airborne though, he kept trying to treat Daphne as well, but she wouldn't have any of it.
Daphne held Sharon's hand. It was cold, and she worried she knew what that meant.
Several times, a strange weightless feeling passed over Daphne and she wondered each time whether it was the helicopter or Sharon's spirit leaving her body. She would glance at the medic, and he in turn at the various monitors, and he would offer a thumbs-up, and again she would wonder: Does that mean she's gone up, or she's okay?
She wasn't sure exactly what Sharon hoped for in life, and she thought that tragic, because she would have wished it for her if only she knew. What do any of us wish for that really matters? she mused. And she answered herself: another day. "One more day."
"What?" the paramedic shouted over the roar of the blades.
FRIDAY February 10
Dr. Ronald Dixon, cloaked in a surgical smock, recited his actions as he worked on Tegg's dead body. Boldt tuned out the autopsy details. As lead detective, his presence was required by law-but no one said he had to pay attention.
It was three in the morning, an unusual time for such a procedure, but Dixie had rallied without complaint. There were six people in the Medical Examiner's waiting room, more expected. Boldt felt thrilled at such a turnout. The world wasn't such a bad place when you knew the right people.
The heat from the overhead light felt like that of a hot sun. It shone down on the naked body. There was nothing pretty about this sight. Bleached skin, pieces of it folded open. Technical words spoken in an unbroken litany. Death reduced to detail.
He had found the three of them in the Quonset hut only minutes after the shooting.
There were more ambulances, a coroner's wagon, crime scene crews even a fire engine, though no one knew why. The road became impassable. Two tow trucks had been called into service.
Sharon Shaffer had suffered not only a hemorrhage but a ruptured kidney from the blow of the shovel, leaving her without a backup. She had lost a great deal of blood.
A sticker on the back of Elden Tegg's driver's license indicated he was an organ donor. Blood type: AB-negative.
Of the people in the waiting room, one was a woman from the Lion's Eye Bank. Two were part of a lung team that had flown up from Portland. But to Boldt's thinking, the most important was the kidney specialist from the U-Tegg's kidney was destined for Sharon Shaffer.
A cardiac crew was enroute from Spokane. Over the next three hours, Elden Tegg would make his final contributions. "I hate autopsies," said Boldt.
Dixie said, "Just wait until we open those plastic bags."
"Me?
No way." Boldt found his first smile in a long while. "I've saved that for Lamoia."
TUESDAY February 14 Valentine's Day
Daphne suggested lunch on Bainex bridge Island and Boldt agreed, with Liz's blessings, in part to try to talk her out of quitting. He brought Miles along in a stroller. She accused him of bringing his child as a chaperon, and he allowed that this was partly true. She limped from her bad leg. She wore a blue rain jacket, the kind a backpacker would wear, blue jeans, and two-tone leather deck shoes with rawhide laces. She wore no scarf around her neck, allowing the scar to show, and Boldt knew this was a different woman. "What's this about a job offer? I thought we were a team."
She didn't answer that. The ferry horn sounded. Miles started crying. Daphne walked over to the rail and looked out across the textured expanse of gray green water. The city grew progressively smaller behind them. A beautiful skyline and rolling hills covered in toy houses. Boldt and Miles joined her at the rail.
She watched the horizon; he watched her. Miles played with some plastic balls attached to the stroller. This thing was the BMW of strollers. Liz had picked it out after exhaustive research.
"We bought a piano," Boldt said, though he didn't tell her why, not exactly. That reminded him that there were things they hid from each other now, and that was okay. He said, "You get me on the force, and then you quit. That's hardly fair. Shoswitz would cry foul."
She spoke just loudly enough to be heard above the wind and the constant vibration of the engines. "She rejected the kidney." "Considering the source," he joked, "can you blame her?"
"She's on a list now. Number five on a list."
"I know that," he said soberly. "What if she's too far down the list? Did she live through all that, just to die?"
"Her? She's a fighter, Daffy."
She nodded faintly and whispered, "This was why he was in business in the first place."
"If anyone can beat this-"
"Yeah, yeah," she interrupted. "You sound just like Dr. Light Horse."
"Well, maybe she's right."
Five seagulls flew just off the rail. Miles pointed. One of the passengers threw a piece of a Hostess Cupcake at them. "Even seagulls are subjected to junk food," Boldt said to her. But she didn't smile. She didn't even seem to notice. "I brought a kite along," he tried. She stared off.
He said, "Did Einstein tell you about the fish for the kite?"
"He didn't have to. I can smell it."
"It's an old trick of mine. I'm full of tricks. Mostly old ones." She didn't smile at this either. So he had lost his touch. Another sign of change. Or age. Or both. "Even if we should lose her, Daffy, she's made a difference. She has touched hundreds of lives at The Shelter, more since this story broke. organ banks have been flooded with donors. With more organs, people like Tegg are out of business. That was her doing. You can't knock that. We should all have that kind of effect." He added, "Not that we're going to lose her." "I love you," she said, still looking at the horizon. "As a friend," she added, smiling for the first time. "Likewise. Always will."