Pied Piper

CHAPTER 15

Several hours later, Boldt was paged by LaMoia while on his way to the University Hospital, making the visit with Liz brief but memorable. She had natural color in her cheeks, light in her eyes, and warm hands. She called him over to sit on her bed and announced proudly, “I’m coming home.”

He felt a pang of hope. Tears. “You can go back to being an outpatient?”

“The doctors will tell you it’s the drugs. But I know better.” She looked over at the Bible, and next to it a copy of a religious textbook.

He gasped, “Liz-”

“Don’t! Keep that comment to yourself until we have a chance to talk about it.”

“The chemo took, that’s all.”

“That isn’t all,” she objected. “That isn’t any of it. But don’t do this now. Let’s wait ’til I’m home, okay? Tomorrow, or Sunday at the latest.”

He squeezed her hand, thrilled and troubled. “We need to talk about this.”

“We will. Let me get home first.”

He nodded. Then he saw a look he knew too well. “Dr. Woods approves, doesn’t she? Of your going home.” A resonating fear penetrated through him: She was giving up on treatment.

“Dr. Woods is somewhat baffled by my improvement, love. She would like to hold me for observation.”

“Improvement?” he said skeptically.

“My count is down significantly. Katherine can’t explain such a quick change, but I can. And I don’t need observation, love, I need to go home. To you, the children. Home. The work that needs to be done is better done there.”

“The work? You’re scaring me.”

Speaking like a Transylvanian, she mimicked, “It vill all be revealed to you in time.” And then she smiled a smile that could have filled a stadium with light, or a cathedral with warmth, a smile that had nothing to do with illness, a smile that came from a Liz before their marriage, their children, their trials, a smile that convinced him that she knew what was best.

“I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

“No you won’t,” she said, a different, all-knowing smile taking its place.

LaMoia appeared disheveled and tense. “First hail, then rain. I’m getting a little sick of this.”

Bobbie Gaynes, on the other hand, looked positively radiant.

“What did I miss?” Boldt asked. The fifth floor was near empty.

LaMoia said, “SID discovered a caller-ID box at Anderson’s.”

Gaynes declared enthusiastically, “The caller-ID unit kept a record of the last ninety-nine calls made to Anderson’s apartment.” She repeated, “Every incoming call.”

“Technology is a beautiful thing,” LaMoia said.

Gaynes handed Boldt a list of the calls. “These are the last thirty incoming calls. We’re thinking maybe his visitor might have paid Anderson the courtesy of an advance phone call before coming over. If so, it might be the Pied Piper, if the two had a relationship.”

“And?” Boldt asked, handling the pages. “What do we have?”

LaMoia explained, “The guy had an obvious network going. Look at all the pay phones: nine of the last thirty calls he got.”

Both detectives looked up at Boldt simultaneously with wanting expressions.

“Oh, I get it,” Boldt said.

“It’s your field, Lieutenant,” LaMoia fired back, with emphasis on the rank.

“We’d like to talk to all the people who called Anderson. Including whoever used these pay phones,” Gaynes said. “Maybe we find out why both Anderson and the Shotz crime scene had pollen all over them.”

“No, no, no,” Boldt cautioned.

“Sarge, it’s a homicide,” Gaynes pleaded. “A homicide that ties directly to the Pied Piper investigation through that pollen match.”

“You want me to run the pay phone numbers for you,” Boldt said, scanning the list, “and see if Anderson was running any of our snitches.” A number jumped off the page at him as he said this. He concealed his reaction by forcing a cough. The number belonged to one of his more reliable snitches, the pay phone in a tittie bar by the airport, The Air Strip. He tallied the number of its appearances: three calls, all just prior to Anderson’s demise.

“Sarge?” LaMoia asked.

“It’s nothing,” Boldt answered. Intelligence operated in its own sphere. The squad worked autonomously, gathering its information, creating its files, running its snitches, from five-hundred-a-night call girls to mayoral aides. Boldt had to protect the identity of his snitches, even from his own detectives. “Let me work with this,” Boldt said.

“Sarge?” LaMoia inquired, noticing the change of voice.

“I’ll run the phone numbers for you. Be thankful for small favors.”

“Sarge?” Gaynes asked in an equally accusatory tone. She exchanged looks with LaMoia, then back to Boldt. “We’re on the same team here, right?”

“I’ll run ’em for you,” Boldt repeated a little more sternly, both excitement and concern competing inside him, along with the secrecy the moment required of him. “I’ll handle it.” LaMoia said something else, but Boldt didn’t hear. He was thinking about his snitch, Raymond, and why the hell the man might repeatedly have been calling a chump like Anderson a few days before the man’s murder.