The First Victim

CHAPTER 13

Boldt gripped the white rubber lip of the Boston Whaler, a flat-bottomed fiberglass skiff used as a Port Authority launch, as it tossed in the substantial wake of an arriving passenger ferry. LaMoia didn’t react to the movement whatsoever, having grown up on the waters of Narragansett Bay.

Seagulls followed high above the ferry’s foaming stern, diving into the prop wash after the pretzels and popcorn tossed there by unthinking tourists who were doing the shorebirds more harm than good. The captain of the Visage had refused to come ashore to be interviewed. His ship had been called back to port, and he was furious with authorities. With the political and legal Ping-Pong match continuing at a fevered pitch, Boldt instructed Port Authority to inform Visage that a pair of Seattle policemen were coming aboard to interview crew members.

Boldt correctly guessed that a shipping captain’s greatest enemy was not the Coast Guard or the Port Authority, or a homicide cop, but time. He would not want to be delayed again from weighing anchor, and he would not want to leave any crew behind. By combining Rutledge’s data with the Port Authority docking schedule and interviews with the Port Authority’s radar station personnel, the Visage appeared to be the vessel in question. It had been well outside the shipping lanes the night of the storm, a night every navigator had been glued to his radar scope hoping to make it into port without incident. The Visage had gone radio dead for more than three hours-inexplicable in such traffic and high seas. The Port Authority radar controller distinctly recalled the ship’s return to the southern shipping lane on scope but off the air, and how, predawn, it had slipped back into the lane, causing all ships behind it to give berth and thereby experience delays, forcing them to endure even more of the storm-something no one forgot.

Boldt and LaMoia climbed up a noisy steel ladder suspended from heavy chains, a crew member behind them, presumably, as a backstop should they slip. The pungent odors of a ship ripe with a three-week ocean crossing struck them-seaweed, diesel fuel and a tangy metallic rust that formed in the back of Boldt’s mouth like the scent of blood at a crime scene. He gripped the chain, steadied himself and looked back toward shore and the noble city skyline that gave the Emerald City its jewels.

Nostalgia tightened his chest-he had devoted his life to service of this city, and was now considering plans to abandon it. At forty-four, with over twenty years on the force, the possibility of a job in the private sector insinuated itself. The unspoken evil of Liz’s cancer treatment was the lingering debt, caused not by medical bills-all paid for by the bank’s health care-but by loss of their double income for over a year. The bank had paid her full salary for three weeks of ‘‘vacation’’ and had then reduced her to one-quarter pay for her ‘‘leave of absence.’’ But their lifestyle, which included day care and a house-cleaner, had left more going out than was coming in. Even Boldt’s advancement to lieutenant had not made up the gap. He was seriously considering a private security position that paid nearly double his city salary. He had an interview scheduled, though he had not told Liz.

With the captain of the Visage on ‘‘shore leave,’’ and therefore unavailable, the crew was all they had. A list of fifteen names was provided by the ship’s first mate, an Asian with few teeth and a leathery face. Boldt and LaMoia divided their energies. Boldt was led below deck through cramped hallways, the gray steel reminding him of prisons, to a game room that contained an oversized projection TV and an enormous video library.

Thirty minutes of frustration left Boldt’s patience brittle and his nerves raw. The first two crewmen had not spoken a word of English, replying to Boldt in some Balkan-sounding tongue. The third crewman listed as a deckhand, a young man with a stubble head and dark eyes that contained a tinge of fear, marched in wearily and, like his fellow seamen, spoke this same foreign language.

‘‘English,’’ Boldt instructed, knowing that at least someone on this ship spoke the language-the international language of the sea and a Coast Guard requirement. The young deckhand shook his head and prattled on in his native tongue again.

It was then that Boldt’s eye landed on the wall of videos, and the titles there-all in English-included Super Bowls and NBA title games. He said to the deckhand, ‘‘Michael Jordan! Now there was a player!’’ He paused. ‘‘Even so, Sean Kemp is a better shooter.’’

‘‘No way!’’ the young man protested.

Boldt did not so much as flinch. He said, ‘‘Kemp’s jump shot?’’

‘‘Jordan was the best play-’’ the boy caught himself as Boldt’s grin surfaced.

Boldt said, ‘‘Do you know that refusal to cooperate with police is a crime here? I could have you locked up.’’

The boy’s eyes went wide and he shook his head as if not understanding.

‘‘You think I’ll tell the others? Is that it? Do you think I would say anything? How does it benefit me to expose a possible witness?’’

‘‘I witness nothing,’’ the man returned.

‘‘You are a deckhand. It says so right here. You spent the last three weeks up on deck. Hong Kong. Hawaii. Three weeks with that container. You know the one I’m talking about.’’

The boy’s upper lip shone as he said, ‘‘The trip it takes longer to expected. The storming.’’

Boldt understood the malnutrition and dehydration then. ‘‘How much longer than expected?’’

‘‘Normal, ten days. This crossing, two times that.’’

‘‘The people in the container?’’

The boy shook his head.

‘‘I can detain you here in Seattle. The ship leaves without you.’’

‘‘There was nothing us people able to do. It was shut up.’’

‘‘Locked.’’

‘‘Yes, locked.’’

‘‘But you heard them?’’

The young man looked back suspiciously and shook his head again, a familiar response.

‘‘We have laws about lying to police.’’

‘‘We hear them. It bad, all the crying. Locked,’’ he confirmed. He crossed himself.

‘‘Food? Didn’t you feed them?’’

Again, the young man shook his head no.

‘‘Water?’’

Another.

‘‘You heard them,’’ Boldt pressed, remembering the shrill cries and haunting pounding. ‘‘And did nothing?’’

The man’s eyes glassed under a tightly knit brow exaggerated by his nearly shaved head. He mumbled, ‘‘The captain.’’

‘‘Yes,’’ Boldt said, seizing upon this. ‘‘The captain.’’ The captain, who no doubt had taken the bribe; the captain, who had the connections to make the drop; the all-important captain. ‘‘You were paid extra because of this container.’’

The man appeared angry.

‘‘How many times before?’’

‘‘No. Not me. The others, yes. Not me. This, my first crossing with Visage.’’

‘‘No food, no water.’’ Boldt hesitated. ‘‘People died. Three people died. You understand?’’

A small nod, the man’s first.

‘‘Murder. You understand ‘murder’?’’

Terror-stricken eyes. Moist lips from a nervous tongue. A faint nod.

‘‘I arrest you,’’ Boldt said.

‘‘No!’’ the man protested.

‘‘The captain,’’ Boldt suggested.

A reluctance in the eyes. A stiffening of the spine. Then the slumped shoulders of resignation. The man mumbled, ‘‘The captain not open the container. He said, ‘The sea plays tricks on the ears.’ ’’

‘‘It’s blood money,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘You understand?’’

A nod.

‘‘Jail,’’ Boldt stated.

A nod. ‘‘The captain, he is not talk to you.’’

‘‘We’ll see about that.’’

‘‘He not talk. No. And I? I not talk against him. Jail?’’ he shrugged. ‘‘Better than to talk against this captain.’’

Boldt saw crew members ‘‘lost at sea.’’ He saw bodies caught in the ocean’s midnight swells fading into blackness, a hand crying from the waves. A crew kept loyal through fear. A silent captain. He saw a brick wall ahead of him.

‘‘The transfer during the storm. Something went wrong. Tell me about it.’’

‘‘Bad seas.’’

‘‘Your people lost the container?’’

‘‘Us people? No way! The others on the barge. That tug captain, has brain of a baby. Not able to handle barge. Their tower, not ours! They lost that piece, not us!’’

‘‘Their crane?’’ Boldt asked. ‘‘Is that what you mean by tower?’’ He gestured to indicate a crane and finally resorted to demonstrating with his pen.

The deckhand nodded vigorously. ‘‘Crane on barge.’’

‘‘Yes, of course.’’ Boldt wondered how many crane-and-barge combinations there were available to such people. He saw a narrow opportunity for investigation. ‘‘Something went wrong with the crane?’’

‘‘Not so much crane’s fault. Seas too high. Both captains are fools to make try. But we try.’’

‘‘The crane dropped the container?’’

‘‘No. No. Not crane. Guy lines snapped.’’ He moved his leathery hands in a circle as if shaping a sphere out of clay. ‘‘Container spin. Fall into water.’’

‘‘And your captain tried to recover them?’’

The man did not answer. He stared back through hollow eyes.

‘‘He did not try,’’ Boldt said.

The man sat stoically. The answers were not with him.

‘‘Go,’’ Boldt told him.

The man appeared stunned by the offer.

‘‘Go,’’ Boldt repeated, ‘‘before I change my mind.’’

The young man hurried from the room, pulling the steel door shut behind himself with the familiar hollow thunk of a jail cell door.

Boldt knew from earlier discussions with Port Authority that this investigation had become a question not only of jurisdiction but of whether any crime could be proven: The ship’s manifest was unlikely to list the dumped container, and it certainly would not list humans as its cargo. Even if it could be confirmed that the Visage had been carrying the container, the captain could claim it had been lost to the storm, that its contents had never been known. A ship held hundreds of containers-hundreds of secrets-and it was usually the case that their contents were listed but never actually verified by captain or crew. Customs inspected less than 10 percent of arriving containers. Even so, with confirmation that the container had been aboard the Visage, Boldt had to try for the shipping manifest. If paperwork existed for the container, it would list the shipper.

Time, Boldt realized, remained his best weapon. If he threatened a delay, and thus prevented the ship from sailing, he might force the captain to cooperate. As backup, he had the INS’s authority to impound any vessels involved in the transportation of illegals. They did this regularly, as did the DEA.

He collected his things and sent for LaMoia. Time was everything.

Boldt was halfway into his explanation to Talmadge when the man passed responsibility, and the call, to deputy director Brian Coughlie, and Boldt had to start his explanation all over again. It seemed Cough-lie, in charge of field operations, investigations and processing the illegals, had more direct experience in impounding vessels, which was what Boldt hoped to set in motion.

‘‘You’d like a chat with the captain,’’ Coughlie summarized, ‘‘and you’re willing to play hardball to get it.’’

‘‘You have authority to impound or even confiscate the ship. You’ve done so before.’’

‘‘All the time. But I’d need a smoking gun for that.’’

‘‘How about the testimony of a crew member?’’

‘‘Good, but not great. The crew always holds some grudge against the captain. Anything else?’’

‘‘You could threaten him with impounding,’’ Boldt encouraged.

‘‘Sure I could,’’ Coughlie agreed.

‘‘And?’’

‘‘Maybe the captain is dumb enough to fall for it.’’

‘‘You don’t think so.’’

Coughlie said, ‘‘Listen, we could be more convincing if you guys picked him up on charges. That’s a kind of pressure we can’t apply. Some of them gamble, some of them whore, all of them drink. If this guy is facing criminal charges of some kind then there’s no harassment involved, no intimidation. International law gets sticky.’’ He hesitated on the other end, and when Boldt failed to respond, Coughlie said, ‘‘Listen, we used to cut deals with the detainees-they talk, we cut them some slack-but it’s such a crapshoot, such a waste of time, we gave up trying. We just ship them back home now. Return to sender. There are too many protections, too many complications with international law.’’

Boldt realized that Coughlie knew the details of his own interrogation out at Fort Nolan. The interpreter? The detainee herself? The idea that Coughlie already had the line on one of Boldt’s interrogations disturbed him. The feds were never up front about anything!

Coughlie offered, ‘‘Let me put the word out on this captain. I have plenty of contacts dockside, believe me. Someone has seen him. I get word on his location, your boys watch him and hope for a miscue. If you pounce, the only thing I ask is that you share any information you get.’’

‘‘That works for me.’’ But he wasn’t sure why he said it.