Pied Piper

CHAPTER 49

Bowler was sober, making him a different man than the last time Boldt had seen him. He had clear eyes that wore concern at their edges, though he possessed the soft, bloated look of a man lost to the bottle. Boldt noticed the liver spots on the back of the man’s hand and felt its coldness as they shook hands in greeting.

“Tom.” Boldt felt jumpy and edgy. There was too much going on inside his head to stay focused, too many lies to keep straight. He had seen suspects this way-frayed and scattered. He worried he was becoming the very person he sought.

Liz, her wig perfectly in place, her clothes hanging loosely, explained patiently, “Tom drove all the way from Portland to talk to you. I’ve been boring him with the details of my recovery.”

“Not at all,” Bowler said, generously.

She called it her recovery-her decision to walk out of treatment, to turn to “God’s healing powers.” As supportive as Boldt had felt about it only days earlier, he feared that any setback might rob her of her ability to mentally fight the battle. She preached, to those who would listen, the healing powers of her faith. Ironically, Boldt could only pray that she wouldn’t lose that same faith if the beast grabbed hold of her again.

Boldt sat down alongside his wife but could hardly stay still. Bowler had gone to a great deal of trouble to come here. Pushed by Connie, or of his own accord; therein lay the important difference.

Liz offered to leave the room. Boldt, and Bowler immediately after him, told her she was welcome to remain. “It involves us both,” Boldt told his wife, his eyes on their visitor.

“Yes, both of you,” Bowler began. “I know what you’re going through. I also accept that in no small way I’m responsible.” Liz sat up straight and her lips quivered; the facade she had offered Bowler was crumbling. Boldt took her hand.

He said to Boldt, “When you came down to see me, I was an asshole. I was drinking. We were threatened-Connie and me. I just could not, would not, put us into that same position again.” He sat in the chair, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands steepled at his chin. He looked as if he might be praying too. “And then this Kittridge girl.”

Liz knew only the rough details of the Kittridge case, what Boldt had told her from the bathtub. Like her husband, she was a practiced listener.

Bowler said, “That changed things. I don’t know if it was Connie or Sarah and this Kittridge girl, but something convinced me it has to stop. Maybe it was your visit,” he told Boldt. “Seeing that you were willing to take him on, that I wish I had. I was pissed-pissed that you had the strength I lacked. I wasn’t about to help you.” He said to Liz, “You got a good man here.” Liz sobbed and squeezed Boldt’s hand.

Boldt corrected him. Returning her affection, he told Bowler, “We made that decision together.”

Bowler said, “We were working the vic’s possessions. Anything that might link the kidnappings. I informed the Bureau that I had a good, solid lead-”

Boldt interrupted, “Spitting Image.”

He nodded. “You do your homework, don’t you?”

“We stumbled onto it.”

“So I ask for a meeting, to get this out on the table.” He blinked furiously, his eyes glossy. “Penny’s gone the next day. Needless to say, because of the demands I cancel the meeting and keep my trap shut.”

“The next day?”

“The Pied Piper knew I had requested that meeting-has to be.”

“Your contact over there?”

“The island girl-legs to the ceiling.”

Kalidja, Boldt realized. Had Hill been right about an insider? Had Daphne played right into that?

Bowler said, “I’m making lame excuses for skipping the dance; she’s breathing fire down my throat. I’d been after them to run rental car reservations, not the actual agreements, using a list of valid cards I had.”

“Which were?” Boldt asked.

“The Spitting Image customers. If you know about Spitting Image, then you know she has a Web page; I got to the Web page first, never did interview her. But one of our pocket protectors hacked into her site without any hassle. Said a sixth grader coulda done it. Lifts a couple dozen valid credit cards. The woman was using E-mail for her orders! Jesus! And I’m thinking-”

“This guy’s had experience counterfeiting credit cards,” Boldt supplied.

“Got to be. Right? Credit cards, documentation. It’s all available to him. He needs fake cards to get things done. But first he needs valid numbers, and Spitting Image all but hands them to him.”

“Not the victims’ cards.”

“No way. Have to be punch drunk to use those; but the other card numbers? Why not?”

“Did you ever connect it?” Boldt asked.

“Did I ever! The AFIDs.”

“We’ve never seen a report.”

“Yeah, well, Hale has one. The cartridges for the air TASER were bought all at one time. Las Vegas, a year ago. One time charge to a valid credit card-”

“Which later turned out to be-”

“Much later, yeah,” Bowler answered.

“What?” Liz asked irritably.

The two men answered nearly simultaneously, “A Spitting Image customer.”

“And that’s when you thought to follow the cards,” Boldt said.

“The guy is lifting his vics off the Internet. Why make things harder on himself? He does up a valid credit card, maybe a driver’s license all from the same hack. He gets into those files once, he never needs to go back again. Clean and simple.”

“Is someone going to explain this to me?” Liz asked indignantly. “How does his using some silk-screen customer’s credit card connect to rental cars?”

Bowler answered shamefully, “I never followed it up, never chased it. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.”

Boldt told her, “The Pied Piper needs valid credit cards and a valid ID to rent cars, take plane flights, whatever. If he’s using Spitting Image customers-and I agree it makes sense that he might-then we may be able to track him.” Boldt told Bowler, “The problem with it that I see is that we know he accessed the victims’ credit card records-it’s how he knew their movements, how he predicted when to strike.”

This was clearly news to Bowler, who attempted to digest it. Boldt continued, “If he had that kind of access to credit records, he doesn’t need the Spitting Image list.”

Bowler contradicted, “Sure he does. He needs expiration dates. Those aren’t available from a TRW or some credit service. He’s got some ex-con who can pull that kind of information for him,” Bowler speculated. “It doesn’t mean he’s got valid cards.”

Liz, the banker, said, “He’s right, love. He would need the expiration dates for a successful counterfeit.”

“What you’ve got here is someone who knows computers. With a color scanner you can forge hundred dollar bills. How difficult can a driver’s license be?”

Boldt thought back to the CD-R of Sarah-video embedded on a CD-ROM. He said, “They teach computer skills in prison.”

Bowler looked up and said, “Our tax dollars hard at work.”