Pied Piper

CHAPTER 51

LaMoia boiled at the thought of pursuing dead leads in Boise, Idaho, while Boldt attempted to track the tattoo and criminal records to the actual suspect in a place like the Big Easy. The central question that needed answering-was Sarah better off with him in Boise-seemed obvious enough: Bobbie Gaynes or Patrick Mulwright could easily handle Boise. How Sheila Hill could have made such a call without discussion was beyond him. Once again she was using him, this time in a political move that left too many unanswered questions. Was she afraid of someone within the department? Was LaMoia a threat? Or did she simply want three days with him in a hotel out of town to mend their fences? He feared this latter thought the most: playing gigolo in Boise for an oversexed, overly ambitious woman who had the power to trash his own career. Exactly what had he gotten himself into? Perhaps his handcuffing incident had awakened her, had made her realize how strong his feelings were for her.

He had no choice but to obey orders. A police department was not a democracy. The Boise investigation could have been handled over the phone, and Sheila Hill knew it. But the cameras-along with the fresh sheets and room service-were in Boise.

LaMoia’s calls to his credit services contacts produced immediate results. Cross-referencing the Spitting Image customer names with the dates that the Pied Piper was known to have been in specific cities produced billing records that suggested the kidnappers had counterfeited at least six credit cards. LaMoia was sorting through the information when his pager buzzed, interrupting his work. Tempted to ignore it, he obediently angled it to the light and read the overly long string of numbers on the display, immediately guessing these numbers would lead him to a hotel room, same as always. Sheila Hill wanted to talk; she had wisely reconsidered her decision. That, or she wanted to lay down ground rules for their Boise bed jumping. He cringed. A combination of resentment, anger and hope overcame him. Perhaps she wanted to apologize. Perhaps she knew in advance he had no intention of sharing showers with her in Boise. The New Orleans red-eye was only hours away. His own flight to Boise was much sooner.

One phone call, and LaMoia had the name of the hotel: a Days Inn south on I-5. Its close proximity to the airport annoyed him-she still expected him to board that plane to Boise.

He passed the credit card information along to Boldt, went home and quickly packed a bag, his anger continually resurfacing like a fire assumed out. He left an extra dish of dry food for his cat, Granite, and slipped a note under his neighbor’s door that said he’d be gone for a few days. He stopped at an ATM and withdrew two hundred dollars cash, which he would then expense over the next few days.

On the drive south he promised himself that he would not, under any conditions, have sex with her.

He found himself passing the Days Inn registration desk and heading to the elevators. He found himself on the second floor, walking the long corridor in search of the number 214. He found himself practicing his first few lines so that she could not, would not, steer him off course, no matter what her intentions and appetites. He knocked sharply on the door and braced himself for whatever she threw at him.

The door came open to empty space and he knew immediately she was hiding behind the door, and he feared what she had in mind. Feeling like a trained German shepherd, he stepped into the room prepared to counter whatever awaited him. He walked straight ahead, intentionally not looking back, not playing to her game. If her clothes were laid out on a chair or on the bed, then he knew what to expect: reckless abandon. He couldn’t wait to deny her that.

The TV was going loudly. Sheila Hill was a screamer. LaMoia knew at that moment that she intended to try to make up to him. Knew what she had in mind-something adventuresome, something daring, perhaps even dangerous. He cautioned himself against succumbing.

There was a big rat of a man in a padded chair pulled up to a faux-grain breakfast table, and LaMoia’s first thought was that she had fantasies about a trio, but for him, the gender was all wrong. The rat was hairy and in his middle thirties. On the table in front of him, a cheap briefcase waited. LaMoia had never seen the man before, but sight of him set off a string of mental alarms. This was no sex partner of Sheila Hill’s. Not only was someone in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the rat was the exact kind of man one saw in a lineup. He was a man made for numbers across the chest.

A squeaky male voice behind LaMoia wheezed, “Hands stay visible. Nothing fast. You move slow or you go.”

LaMoia turned his head ever so slowly and took in a smaller man dressed in blue jeans and a black leather jacket. He had Asian blood in him, and maybe some speed. He hadn’t seen the sun in a long time. He held a Glock in his left hand, as casually and comfortably as some people held cigarettes.

“I’m a cop,” LaMoia announced, not a single muscle tensing. He found his center; he found his calm.

“Guy’s a fucking genius,” Ratman said in an East Coast baritone.

“You can count if you want, or you can take my word for it: The money’s all there,” the little one said, more irritated than only a moment earlier. “We’re not about to short a cop.”

The rat opened the briefcase. Inside were several dozen vials of what looked like crack cocaine and two stacks of cash. The top bills of each were hundreds. If the rest matched those, it amounted to some serious change.

A neon light lit up in LaMoia’s mind. He looked at the little man with the gun curiously. “We got a small problem here,” he said.

At that moment, the hotel room door swung open, blindingly fast. “Police!” a voice thundered. A pair of black blurs occupied a space by the door and suddenly the little guy and LaMoia were both pinned against the wall, faces pressed to the cheap wallpaper, arms wrenched up behind so painfully that LaMoia couldn’t get his voice out. He hadn’t so much as twitched when he saw the ERT coming in; he knew the drill. At first, he couldn’t believe his good luck: that his own people had somehow come to his rescue, and so fast. But with his face kissing the cheap wallpaper and his shoulder about to dislocate, he reassessed. He heard a commotion behind him, which turned out to be the Ratman going down onto the floor.

“I’m a cop!” LaMoia finally gasped, his cheekbone welded with the wall, his ribs flattened by the pressure on his back.

“You were a cop,” the ERT man hissed into his ear. LaMoia knew the voice. He searched for a name to go along with it. Lowering his voice even further, the ERT man added, “You’re lucky you got witnesses, Floorshow, or I’d do you myself right here.”

LaMoia had never experienced such feelings of disgrace, humiliation and frustration as he did over the next few hours. His badge and gun were taken from him. He was escorted in handcuffs to a police van amid a flurry of activity and jeering from his peers and driven downtown. The sting had involved a minimum of eight cops, possibly twice that-all of which added up to something big. He knew the players: Narcotics. Drugs, as they were called within the ranks. They traveled in a clique within the department, the same way Homicide did. He had been to Sea-hawks games with a couple of them. Decent guys who took their jobs a little too seriously. Drugs was rough duty, and it made the players that way too.

He professed his innocence, demanded representation, and otherwise kept his mouth shut. He was booked, printed and humiliated by a full body search. LaMoia’s internal representative rescued him from an interrogation. No one seemed clear on the exact crime for which he was being accused. It involved the briefcase and crack cocaine. Sheila Hill had led him by his dick into a heap of trouble. For what? he wondered. Revenge?

Why get him arrested and suspended only a half hour before sending him to Siberia? Had she found out about Boldt’s Gang of Five and the work being done behind her back? Was this retribution? Or was it repayment for leaving her handcuffed and naked?

LaMoia left Public Safety without his badge or gun-suspended without pay pending review. “It won’t be review,” his representative warned. “They intend to prosecute.”

Boldt showed up as he was being released and offered a ride. LaMoia didn’t know their destination until under way. Daphne’s houseboat was a twenty-minute drive in good traffic. There was never good traffic.

LaMoia said, “Let me tell you something-you never want to be on the receiving end of our business. Never.”

Boldt said. “What happened?”

LaMoia’s hesitation caused Boldt to say, “The truth will work until you can think of something else.”

“I’ve been snaking the captain.”

Boldt released a pent-up sigh.

“I know … I know … okay?”

“Stupid, John. Very stupid.”

LaMoia chewed at his mustache out of nervous habit. “It’s usually lunch with us, but this time-today-it was afternoon. Next thing I know I’m in cuffs. What the hell?”

“Drugs made a good bust last night. This morning I’m told there’s an unidentified cop who plans to swap out evidence: street-grade crack for what’s currently in the evidence room.”

“What’s in there?” LaMoia asked.

“Bad formula. Freelance lab, just like McNee’s. Six deaths in the last three weeks. Prosecutor was going for the death penalty, and she would have gotten it. The switch knocks it down to dealing. It’s a first offense, a nonevent. Lab test will come back clean. No aggravated assault, no prosecutable deaths.”

“I walked into that? Oh, shit.”

“The bad cop is Kevin McCalister,” Boldt informed him. The car bounced through construction.

“We know this?” LaMoia asked.

“Some of us do,” Boldt answered. “It’ll sort itself out. Faster, if you explain why you were there in the first place. It doesn’t look so good, you know?”

“I can’t do that. Not now. She’ll deny it, of course. Besides, if I give up the captain, Flemming will take over the task force. You know that’s true. And where does that leave Sarah?”

“Hale was overheard saying Flemming could win control of the task force. I guess we now know how.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“Daphne, via Kalidja.”

LaMoia said, “Something else, Sarge. I think my desk was broken into.”

Boldt sidestepped the comment. “So you ride it out,” he told him. “A trip to New Orleans will keep your mind off it.”

LaMoia glanced over at Boldt.

Boldt explained, “Daphne got an emergency call from Kalidja, who is herself in Boise with Flemming. Dunkin Hale is AWOL. Flemming is furious.”

“New Orleans?”

“Has to be,” Boldt agreed. “The tattoos,” he reminded. He turned off Fairmont and pulled to a stop where Daphne stood at the end of the dock by a box of mailboxes. A moment later they were headed south on I-5 toward the airport.

LaMoia told his story to Daphne, who offered no sympathy.

From the backseat, Daphne suggested to Boldt, “You aren’t taking three of us to New Orleans based on an FBI agent’s curiosity.”

“No,” Boldt confirmed.

LaMoia said to Boldt, “You worked the credit cards.” He then told Daphne, “Six of the Spitting Image customers have contested charges on their cards in and around the dates of the earlier abductions.”

Boldt explained, “The rental car abandoned in Boise was paid for using a credit card belonging to Lena Robertson, a Spitting Image customer. The rental agreement called for a drop-off in San Francisco. With the car turning up in Boise, it’s fairly obvious San Francisco was never in the picture; she, or her accomplice, is smart enough to book the car for one destination and then drive it and deliver it to another. The rental company accepts the car and simply charges more. By using the rental car to get clear of the kidnap city-in this case Seattle-they avoid the law enforcement watching the airports.

“This morning,” Boldt continued, “less than half an hour after the Boise pileup, another Spitting Image customer’s card was used to book an Avis rental from Boise to Reno. She knew we would quickly have the Lena Robertson ID. The name on this second card is Julie DeChamps. The same card-DeChamps-was then used to book a plane flight from Salt Lake City to Cancun.”

Daphne complained, “Cancun doesn’t fit the profile. They are not taking these kids into Mexico. They know the FBI is involved. Immigration officers are alerted. They’re not going to risk that.”

Boldt nodded agreement and said, “The flight makes one stop.” He caught Daphne’s eyes in the rearview mirror, acknowledging her.

“In New Orleans,” LaMoia guessed. “She rented the car in Boise with no intention of heading to Reno. She’s headed for Salt Lake, for that flight.”

“For New Orleans,” Boldt confirmed. “That flight will be short passengers on the leg to Cancun.”

Daphne said, “She’s going down there to sell Trudy Kittridge into adoption.”

“She thinks she is,” Boldt corrected, driving well above the speed limit in the HOV lane, his dashboard flasher pulsing blue against the glass. He pushed the Chevy a little harder.

LaMoia said, “We can’t stop her without putting Sarah at risk.”

Daphne suggested, “Maybe we don’t stop her. You can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

An uncomfortable silence-the silence of frustration-filled the car. “The thing about blackened catfish,” LaMoia told them, breaking that silence, “you either love it or you don’t. But if you don’t, you got no business being in the Big Easy.”