The Body of David Hayes

TWELVE

BOLDT’S DASHBOARD CLOCK REGISTERED 7:04, the colon between the numbers flashing as it counted off the seconds in the evening darkness that enveloped the car’s interior. Less than twenty-four hours earlier he and Liz had dropped off the kids, and now the events of this day occupied him as he navigated around the streets clogged with traffic, inventing a route that might speed his arrival to what he had been told was a bloodied cabin and possible crime scene.

He had not slept well, if at all that prior night, laboring under the strain of their discussion in the car, wondering about their future, feeling betrayed by their past. The early morning, derailed without the routine of the kids, had presented them with too much time together, too much opportunity to speak, and nothing to discuss. They settled on a truce of silence, each reading a different section of the morning paper, or in Boldt’s case, pretending to read.

Work that day had been paint-by-numbers: one of the only times he welcomed a lieutenant’s paperwork, the administrative meetings, the indulgence of actually reading the group e-mails. Anything to occupy him without discussion, without human contact. He had swum around the fifth floor like a fish in the wrong school.

Now a call from Danny Foreman summoned him to a cabin in the woods, a cabin that Foreman claimed to know about because Liz herself had provided its location. Boldt’s head spun with possibilities.

Earlier, he’d been thrown into turmoil over a call he’d received from Dr. Bernie Lofgrin, the civilian director of the police department’s crime lab.

“You got a minute?” Lofgrin had asked.

“I’m signing off on overtime vouchers and desperate for distraction,” Boldt said. Not that he would have ever put off a call from Bernie, who was both a close friend, a fellow jazz enthusiast, and the sole source of all things evidentiary. Among several dozen active cases, the lab was currently working both the Foreman crime scene evidence and Liz’s videotape for Boldt, and the call could have concerned either or both. Boldt had been eager to learn about one, extremely reluctant to hear about the other.

“The tape’s a second-generation copy.”

“Dubbed from the original,” Boldt clarified.

“Correct. And not to worry about content. For viewing I digitally obscured a central panel allowing only a half inch border to show. I sampled the first thirty seconds of sound for bandwidth and signal. Also supports the determination of it being second generation. Those half-inch borders don’t reveal any live action, only the setting, a darkly paneled or log room, and a time-and-date stamp. I suspect the location is a bedroom, and I’m not asking questions. I’m the only one who handled the tape and it remains in my possession. No case number has been assigned, which means you owe the taxpayers for about an hour of my time.”

Boldt thanked him, knowing when Bernie needed to hear it. The man had taken several key steps to protecting the tape.

“I developed four good latent prints and six partials off the videocassette itself. Ran them through ALPS,” he said, meaning the computerized comparison, automated latent print system, “and struck out with known felons, convicted or otherwise. No hits.”

The bubble of Boldt’s building optimism burst. He’d hoped against hope that some of the prints would come back for David Hayes, a registered felon and ex-con. The letdown was severe. “Well, I don’t mind saying that’s a disappointment.”

“So I ran it through WSW,” the Washington State Workers database that included all day care instructors, public school teachers, most health care personnel, all firemen, policemen, politicians, their spouses, and in some cases their children’s prints as well, “and I nailed down two. Then on to the State INS database,” Immigration and Naturalization Service, “and a hit for one of the partials, but I’ve got to caution you, it would never hold in court in case that’s a consideration. You got a pencil?”

Boldt assured him he was already taking notes-something Bernie always wanted to hear.

“The partial comes back one Malina Alekseevich-that’s a male name, by the way: Malina. I double-checked. But as I’ve said, we ain’t gonna prove it’s him anyway.” Like many in the department, Bernie slipped into street speak whenever a situation called for it.

“Did INS happen-”

Bernie cut him off, interrupting. “Employment is listed as a driver for S &G Imports.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Your department, not mine, I’m happy to say.”

“And the two positives from WSW?” Boldt asked. He assumed one of these two identities would prove to be Liz, although in reconstructing events Boldt knew she claimed to have never handled the tape. If her prints were on it, that would need explaining-yet another uncomfortable discussion between husband and wife. The deeper he involved himself, the worse it got.

“Daniel Foreman and Paul Geiser.”

Lost in thought, recalling the conversation now, Boldt nearly drove off the road. Danny Foreman and Paul Geiser. Foreman he understood. The tape could have once been in Foreman’s possession. But a prosecuting attorney’s prints? How was that to be explained? Added to this was that the request Boldt had received to drive out to the log cabin, a possible crime scene, had come from Foreman. Things were getting interesting.

His cell phone emitted a single beep, indicating a text message. One eye on the road, one eye on the phone, Boldt read the message as it scrolled across the phone’s tiny screen:

From: B. Lofgrin: Cig. ash IDed from Foreman CS: Proletarskie (Russian). More 2 come-BL

It didn’t surprise him that Bernie was working late; the man kept all hours depending on the lab’s workload. He assumed Bernie had become excited by the discovery of Foreman’s prints on the video and then went back and pushed his crew to work the Foreman crime scene. Nor did it surprise him that Bernie had not telephoned him. His friend would assume Boldt was home with the family, and would not have wanted to disturb him. Sending a text message allowed Boldt to make the choice to read it or not, think about it or not. Boldt was certain he’d find a carbon copy on his office e-mail in the morning, hopefully along with the “more to come” information. The point that Bernie seemed eager to make, and one that required Boldt to read between the lines, was the connection between a Russian with temporary immigration papers identified by a partial fingerprint left on the videocassette, and a Russian brand of cigarette found in the form of ash at the Foreman torture. As the pieces both began to take shape and to fit into place, Boldt found himself excited, his senses heightened. The Russian seemed a promising lead to follow, someone to interview and look at closely, no matter that the evidence remained circumstantial. But it was Foreman’s role, as victim, as another person found to have handled that video, as the man who had called Boldt out on a misty, dark evening, that currently intrigued him. Suspicion worked its web. Boldt had to weigh how much to give Foreman and how much to withhold, how much to explore and how much to place aside. Pieces fitting was one thing. The picture those pieces were a part of, the story they told, quite another.

Boldt drove into the dense woods that led to the cabin. He pulled the car forward and parked alongside Danny Foreman’s sparkling new Escalade, wondering why anyone would dump so much money into a luxury vehicle. He could see there was someone inside the cabin, and he assumed it to be Foreman, but despite the presence of the man’s car, he wasn’t taking any chances. There were too many fingernails lying on the ground in this case for him to be careless. Too many questions now surrounding both Foreman and Geiser.

Boldt reached the edge of the trees and worked his way around back, the blood pressure building in his chest and surging past his ears as a low whine. He paused along the way to allow his ears to stretch and his eyes to scan.

The backyard was small. Ankle-high field grass and weeds ran up to a poured concrete patio that housed a rusted barbecue grill and twin beach chairs that had seen better days. A frayed patio umbrella listed above the chairs, anchored in a stack of rock and brick. A can of charcoal starter caught his eye. Concrete steps led up to a back door that had been left open an inch. Not taking his eyes off the door, he withdrew his weapon, crossed the spongy backyard, and eased the door fully open. Using the jamb as cover, he called out.

“Danny?”

“In here.”

It was Foreman’s voice.

“I’m at the back,” Boldt announced, playing it safe, not wanting to walk into a trap. Let him come to me.

Foreman entered the kitchen casually. He looked tired. He wore a disposable glove on his right hand but not on his left because of the two heavily bandaged fingers. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Boldt echoed, returning his gun to his belt holster.

Foreman led the way through the tiny kitchen. “Guy used this place as his hang. Belongs to a friend. When Liz mentioned it, I knew exactly where she meant. We did some surveillance out here back during the embezzlement.”

Some surveillance. “What kind of surveillance, Danny?”

“Meaning?”

Boldt didn’t answer. Like an emcee, Foreman swept his left arm out, indicating the room before them. The cabin’s central room was contaminated with spilled blood. Boldt slipped on gloves and squatted and touched a droplet on the floor. It was tacky, not wet, but not dry. Less than four hours old.

“Another one,” Boldt said, noticing the two fingernails on the cabin floor next to the leg of a blood-covered wooden chair to which the victim had been taped with duct tape. All of this came into his mind effortlessly. He didn’t merely surmise the crime scene, he saw it as an eerie black-and-white moving image. A man in the chair struggling. Gagged, blindfolded. Another man in front of him, a pair of vise-grip pliers in hand. Boldt shook this image out of his head and continued to collect information.

“I don’t know about that,” Foreman said. “It certainly looks like another one. Hayes, then me, now this. Similar. But I don’t know… something’s not right. It’s almost like me and Hayes were clinical, you know? Whereas this one… this looks emotional. Angry. The guy doing the deed lost it and got all wild like.”

Boldt took in the carnage. “I don’t know. At your scene we found blood on the ceiling as well. The walls.”

“Yeah, but look at this place!”

Boldt recalled that Bernie Lofgrin’s Scientific Identification Division had determined that Foreman had probably been beaten using a plastic bag filled with wet sand-this theory supported by forensic evidence recovered at the scene. At some point the bag had torn open, spraying sand into the bloody mix and matching the splatter patterns. Boldt carefully dodged the chair and examined some blood splatter on the far wall. He didn’t see any sand mixed in. Foreman had been here longer, had a head start.

Boldt said, “You’d think a person could maybe narrow this down by method. Rohypnol, duct tape, fingernails. That’s got to be a signature crime. I ran it by Matthews and didn’t get very far. I think I’ll try OC this time.” Organized Crime.

“We got to ask ourselves,” Foreman said, “if this vic-and I’m assuming it to be David Hayes-got up and walked away or was hauled out of here in a Hefty lawn bag; ’cause one thing that ain’t part of the original signature is the lack of a body. I was in that chair, Lou, and I’m telling you there’s no way you get yourself out of this and go for a stroll.”

But there had been no body at the trailer either. It seemed odd that Foreman would overlook the obvious.

Boldt circled the bloody chair and again watched his theory play out briefly as film. Hayes, or whoever had occupied that chair, was taking a beating, his head snapping left and right. Boldt studied the splatter patterns on the ceiling that supported this determination. The blood was dense immediately above the chair and more sporadic and separated farther out from this epicenter. All this made sense to him. Some of it did not, however.

“What do you think?” Foreman asked, as if the two were regarding a painting in a museum.

“I’ve got some questions.”

“What kind of questions?” Foreman clearly didn’t like the sound of that. He wanted this cut-and-dried. He wanted his assumption-that Hayes had probably been killed in this chair-front and center.

“Questions for SID.”

“I’m first officer,” Foreman declared. “It won’t be SID, it’ll be our guys.”

The State Bureau of Criminal Investigation outsourced their field detection and lab work to King County Sheriff’s. The lab had a good reputation, but Boldt didn’t personally know anyone there, and it was the personal relationships that got investigations cleared.

Foreman repeated, “What kind of questions?”

Boldt doubted then that Foreman had read the preliminaries from the two other such beatings-including his own. He wasn’t sure he wanted to give something away for nothing. There were answers he needed as well.

Boldt wandered into the doorway of the adjacent bedroom and suddenly felt breathless, his chest tight, his imagination besieged by images. It was a twin bed, pulled off the wall, a nightstand shoved into the corner. It faced a closet with louvered panels on the folding doors. Boldt looked away just as quickly.

He asked, “How’d you manage getting the camera into the closet?”

“What?” Foreman answered.

“The video. It’s why they beat you, wasn’t it, Danny? That video? Pulled your nails and drugged you until you coughed up the combination and location of the safe. You had the video in the safe. Six years you kept that thing. Why? Just tell me you didn’t drag it out at night and slip it into the VCR, Danny. Tell me that’s not why your prints were on it.” Boldt felt sick, a combination of this bedroom, the smell of blood and vomit, and other images now swarming his brain. He didn’t need to see the video.

Foreman let himself down into a wooden chair just outside the bedroom door. “I obtained the warrant through an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the time. I lured Hayes away from the cabin with an anonymous call. The hope was for data capture-to record his keystrokes. In all, three cameras were installed, each covering an area that included a phone jack because we assumed he was doing this online. Tech Services did it for me, under the protection of Special Operations.”

“You were with us at the time,” Boldt said. Seattle Police.

“Correct. He used a laptop. Moved around. We couldn’t predict what room he’d use. I had no idea, Lou. I went fishing, and I caught the wrong fish. If it hadn’t been relevant-”

“It wasn’t relevant!”

“A bank officer? It was very much relevant. For two or three days, she was a primary suspect. Your wife I’m talking about. The only thing that saved her, the only one who saved her… you’re looking at him. I kept the tape to myself, explored what needed exploring, and never surfaced her name. We went through the treatments together,” he said, meaning their wives’ cancer treatment, “and it just got harder and harder to look you in the eye. And then Darlene slipping and Liz recovering. Uglier and uglier.”

“What were Paul Geiser’s prints doing on the video?” Boldt asked, trying to keep their personal history out of this, but seeing clearly how entangled it all was. “Get your story straight, Danny. That way you only have to tell it once.”

“To hell with you!” Foreman shouted.

“You should have destroyed the tape.”

“You mean I should have told you about it, don’t you?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“A bank exec is sleeping with my embezzler-my suspect-and I’m supposed to destroy that evidence? Would you have destroyed that evidence?”

“Six years,” Boldt said, his throat dry. “Yes, I would have.”

“The tape wasn’t the only thing in my safe. Every scrap of information pertaining to this case was in there with it, most of it burned to disk. All of it gone now. Destroyed? I don’t know. This is the first I’ve heard about the tape resurfacing.” A pause as Foreman added it up. “So they got to Liz again. That’s what you’re telling me.”

In fact, Boldt was telling him more than he wanted to, the result of allowing his emotions to play into this. “Was it the only tape? Of them?”

“Yes.”

“And Geiser’s prints?”

“I can’t answer that,” Foreman said. “News to me. My guess would be that all the tapes at some point crossed his desk. I don’t have a specific memory of Liz’s tape being grouped with the others. I do remember clearly the first time I saw it, and the realization-the need-to protect you, if possible. My memory is that I got this tape out of the group. But they were numbered at the time, you know? And I can see me keeping tabs on it, but including it, so nothing fishy surfaced-a tape being noticed missing-and maybe it was in the stack that crossed Paul’s desk. Early on, as inventory was being matched against the warrant. Something like that.”

Boldt didn’t like the explanation-it felt to him as if Foreman were making this up on the fly-but he accepted it for the time being.

“I feel a little sick,” Boldt said.

“Probably the air. It stinks in here.”

“You must have surveillance notes putting Liz with Hayes last week.” He wondered if they’d met here at the cabin. Was Foreman aiming to involve Liz?

“No. I wasn’t watching this place.”

Was this credible? Boldt wondered. A location under surveillance six years earlier and Foreman doesn’t chase it down when the man’s released from prison?

“I sat on the rental-the mobile home-thinking he might make a move. Got stung instead.”

“They got you twice, and now they appear to have gotten Hayes twice. Why risk that?” Boldt asked. “Why not do what had to be done the first time?”

“They weren’t going to torture me out in the damn woods,” Foreman complained. “And these guys are smart: They don’t put kidnapping on the rap sheet. Assault. Maybe second-degree manslaughter. But it’s in the victim’s home. It’s breaking and entering. Robbery. Light stuff compared with kidnapping.”

That argument wasn’t quite right, but Boldt didn’t push it. “They got Hayes that first time. We know that by the blood type at the scene. Why risk, why bother with a second event?” This stuck in Boldt’s craw. These people seemed smart-as Danny had just said. Even Liz’s assault in the van looked more like robbery. They were carefully avoiding the charges that drew mandatory time and a maximum-security facility. So why risk a second attack on Hayes? Especially given that he might be being watched.

Boldt gestured at the torture scene. “Did you see this go down, Danny?”

“Of course not.”

“But Liz had told you about the cabin. You were watching the cabin. You said so.”

“That’s you talking, not me.” He added, “I was suckered away from here. Anonymous call saying I should take a meeting in town. That Hayes was thinking of turning. I ended up stuck in a traffic jam on the 520. I’d been over in Bellevue. Missed the meet entirely. Fuck me.”

Boldt felt a measure of pride at having successfully distracted Danny Foreman away from asking again about the forensic evidence that Boldt found inconsistent at the scene. Veteran cops rarely snuck something past one another, and Boldt had done just that by focusing Foreman on himself-a subject most people found irresistible.

“You know what happens when I call in the lab techs?” Foreman asked. “They’re going to go room by room,” he said, “dusting, developing prints.”

Boldt felt a spike of heat travel up his spine.

“Thing about latents,” Foreman said. “They can’t be dated. They could be from yesterday, or they may be six years old, and they all look the same.”

Boldt paced back to the doorway and glanced into the bedroom again. This time the film that played in his head had his naked wife grabbing headboards, touching the bedside lamp, pressing her sweating palm on the wall. With her prints in the WSW database, it would be only a matter of time until she’d be placed in the cabin and questioned. A matter of time until she’d have to detail the affair with Hayes.

He felt himself shrink and recoil. Would Foreman now suggest or offer to destroy evidence and wipe down the cabin? Where was this going? What was it Foreman wanted?

“I need her to go along with whatever they ask her to do,” Foreman said.

There it was, words hanging between them, as if stopped in space and floating. Boldt’s response determined their power or impotence.

“I need her safe,” Boldt said.

“You walk out of here now, and there’s no record of your having been here. What forensics finds or doesn’t find is a product of what there is to find in the first place. But when the prelims on this cabin come back clean for Liz, you’ll know why. She gets another call, and I’m the first one you contact. She gets asked to do something for these people and she does it. No more substitutions, coach. If they were gonna snatch her up, they’d have done it. Clearly, she’s of more use to them on the outside. They aren’t going to harm her, they’re going to use her. And you’re going to let them.”

The message didn’t surprise Boldt, but Foreman’s edgy, demanding tone did. The ordeal that Foreman had gone through had taken its toll. Boldt had no idea what it was like to have fingernails pulled, no idea what that did to a person.

“It’s seventeen million dollars, Danny. WestCorp was insured. They’re not out a cent. I know they’d love to prevent something similar from happening again, but the only person who seems to really give a damn about closing this case is you. As for me… my concern is for Liz, and only Liz. I want her out. I want her disconnected. Neither of us needs to relive this. All it can do is hurt us. What you’re asking is impossible. It’s the one thing I’m working against: her involvement. As to my condoning the destruction of evidence-I can’t do that either. Her prints or not, the cabin needs to be gone over by the technicians. We need every scrap of evidence there is. And I’ll tell you why,” he said. “Because this crime scene-whatever happened here, whoever it happened to-is wrong. Can I put my finger on it? No, I can’t. Not yet. But it’s wrong. You don’t do this twice to the same guy. I just don’t see professionals doing that. That’s why we need the technicians. That’s why I’m going to stay right here with you until they arrive. Liz’s prints can and will be explained, no matter the outcome. Does anyone think she possesses the strength to tie David Hayes into a chair? Even with Rohypnol? Not a chance. She will not participate beyond serving as a comm center. They want to call her, fine. Beyond that, it’s surrogates, undercover officers, and that’s that.”

“You’re going to make this decision for her?” Foreman asked. “Without her?”

“You tried to blackmail me a minute ago, Danny. Extort me. For what? A six-year-old case that no one cares about? Look in the mirror. There are reasons the original investigating officer doesn’t get the lead when a case resurfaces. You embody those reasons. You’re burned out, Danny. You blame that case for Darlene’s illness, even for her death, for all I know. You’re hanging on to this one and it’s going to take you with it. Let it go, man! Pass it off to someone less personally attached.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” Foreman asked, his voice steady and calm, but belying an undercurrent of raw energy that raised Boldt’s hackles. “Practice what you preach, soldier.”

Boldt felt a severe stab of pain in the center of his chest and nearly buckled over with it. He was living this case, something every detective knew not to do. It caught up to you, this kind of thing.

“You okay?”

Foreman’s voice sounded distant to Boldt. He hadn’t realized he’d gone blind in one eye until the condition cleared like a window shade lifting.

“Lou?”

“Fine,” Boldt lied. But he could see clearly again out of both eyes. His hearing returned to normal, losing that echo. He realized they were like two high school kids who entered into a brawl as opponents, but rose from the pile bloody and shaking hands. “I can’t do what you ask. I’ve got to say no to the evidence tampering, and no to Liz doing anything for Hayes or whoever’s behind this. I’ll take what comes my way is, I guess, what I’m saying to you. You want to play hardball, that’s up to you.”

“It’s not up to me,” said Foreman. “Never has been. If there’s a body out there, I want to find it. Fast. Yes. Because maybe it leads us to who did this ahead of whatever they have planned for Liz.”

“They?”

“Whatever. If Hayes survived, or if he gave up whatever’s necessary to get that money back, then there’s only one person this is gonna come back on, Lou, and that’s Liz. Slice it, dice it, I don’t care. It’s going to be Liz. She has access, and she has history. Who would you come after?”

Boldt knew he was right, though wanted to talk himself out of it. This being Wednesday evening, the bank reception celebrating the merger was now just a few days away. The embezzled money had to be wired out ahead of that deadline or be lost. It seemed hard to imagine that by Monday morning everything would be back to normal.

“There’s stuff I’ve got to do,” he said. “So who makes the call? It’s Wednesday night, Danny.” He held this leverage over Foreman-SID processed evidence at all hours. Foreman’s private lab likely did not. It was to both their benefits if Boldt made the call, if SPD did the work.

“So make the call.”

Boldt saw a flicker of thought register in Foreman’s eyes. Just a flicker, but enough to sense he’d been had. Danny Foreman knew he’d never have his evidence in time unless SPD’s lab handled the crime scene. He had purposefully manipulated Boldt into making the offer to involve SPD’s lab. The involvement of the lab would mean Boldt, or one of his squad, would inherit the paperwork, the meetings, the explanations, the press, the analysis. Danny Foreman had just encumbered Boldt, leaving himself free to pursue the money trail. More to the point, Foreman knew Boldt would not walk away from any crime scene.

“I don’t like being run, Danny.”

“I suckered into a phony tip or I’d have been here to prevent this. At the very least, to witness it. How do you think I feel?”

“So who did that to you? Not me.”

“Come Sunday night, you and Liz are gonna see there’s only one way to play this. She walks into that bank. She does what he asks-they ask-and we follow that money to the scumbag who’s causing all this trouble. You aren’t there yet, but you’ll get there, Lou. I know you will.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

“That tape ever gets seen, it’ll sure as hell end her career, and it won’t help yours any.”

“We’ll land on our feet.”

“And I’ll be there to catch you.”

“Sure you will, Danny.”

Boldt raised his phone and called Bernie Lofgrin directly, ready to involve the lab.

He sensed he was making a huge mistake.