Beyond Recognition

34

There were many times in the course of a day that Daphne wondered what she was doing with her life. Engaged to a man she was finding hard to love; loving an unavailable man; pressed between uniforms and suits, one of a handful of women above the rank of patrol; volunteering a few nights a week at a homeless shelter for kids who had seen too much and lived too little; a scientist longing for the spiritual; a loner longing for a partner.

Her car was parked in front of and across from the purple house with the neon sign and the giant globe in the front lawn. At exactly 3:07 P.M. a small boy came walking down the sidewalk and turned into the driveway. He walked around to the back of the house and was not seen again, presumably having gone inside.

Daphne glanced over at Susan Prescott sitting alongside her and said, “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” answered the woman.

Daphne climbed out of the car. It was colder than earlier. She shoved her hands into her pockets, still searching for alternatives. She hated the idea of separating the boy from Emily, only to put him in the custody of a public agency. She had paid plenty of visits to the King County Youth Detention Facility on Spruce. What if he somehow ended up there? Who was to blame then? It was all about pressure. It was about bringing Boldt a witness. It was about forcing Emily Richland to deliver.

She stayed as far to the edge of the property as possible, not wanting to be seen. Susan would wait to knock on the front door.

Daphne felt heavy and sad. The gray and the drizzle weighed her down that day. She wanted out. She wanted to be somebody else-a woman with a different past, a different job, a different life. Mrs. Owen Adler? She wasn’t sure anymore, and one had to be sure. She was sick of herself, of the predictability of things.

Take a boy from someone willing to love and protect him and turn him over to the custody of the state? Life sucked. Susan knocked loudly. The sound bounced off the trees like gunshot reports. Daphne tensed, pulled her hands from her pockets, and climbed the back porch, placing herself immediately before the door. Pressure. It could be used to drill tunnels through mountains of solid rock; it could push people out backdoors.

She heard the muted sounds of a heated conversation between Susan and Emily. It started low but quickly grew to shouting. It was strange how, without hearing the actual words spoken, Daphne nonetheless could predict the conversation down to the punctuation. Susan represented herself as the authority that she was: City of Seattle Human Services, Child Custody. Emily mounted a quick but useless defense, objecting, interrupting, raising her anguish and decibel level to the point that Daphne clearly distinguished the words, “You cannot take him!”

Daphne spread her feet apart a little wider, like a boxer in a stance, braced for the collision that seemed imminent. She had mild cramps. She hadn’t eaten anything all day. The two cups of morning tea sat in her stomach like a pool of acid. She had her period. A little nausea. It was a day to be in bed with the covers pulled up, or in a hot bath with some music playing. She decided she had been spending too much time at Owen’s, not enough time on the houseboat; her priorities were all screwed up. Flat out hated herself. Bad time to be doing business.

“So there I was,” Daphne said. “He came through the back door like a train running downhill, head down and hell bent.”

Stretched out on the bed in Boldt’s hotel room, Daphne was into her second beer. The room wasn’t much-paid for by the city until Boldt was allowed to return to his house. He wanted back badly. He didn’t feel right about Daphne stretched out like that. She wore tight black jeans and a white button-down shirt. She toyed with her watchband, spinning it around and around.

“I caught him in my arms, and he squirmed like … I don’t know, a fish or something. Fought like hell. Poor kid. And of course she couldn’t prove he was hers-because he isn’t-which was all Susan required in order to take him. And now it has backfired. We know exactly who he is, but he won’t say one word to us. So … you know ….” Her voice trailed off.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” he advised. He was staying pretty much in the room’s pullman kitchen, keeping his distance.

“Listen, if you’d been there,” she said. “He was crying for her. She was crying too-begging us. It was awful.”

“You’re killing yourself over this,” he said.

“It backfired,” she repeated. She was beginning to sound a little drunk, to slur her words. “You want to stay out of trouble, don’t mess with kids.”

Boldt leaned forward.

“Don’t lecture me,” she cautioned, anticipating him. “I’m a big girl, and I want another beer.”

“You drink it, and I’m driving you home.”

“Promises, promises,” she said. “Maybe I’ll just sleep right here.” She asked too loudly, “What are those?”

Boldt felt caught. He’d been about to attempt to talk her out of a third beer. She patted the edge of the bed, for him to sit closer, but he declined.

“Dorothy Enwright bought this from a hardware store the day of the fire. John pieced it together.” It was a can of compressed air, a roll of silver tape, a can of Drano and a pair of rubber gloves.

“Susan’s letting let him stay with me-the boy,” she stated.

“A hardware store,” Boldt said, not wanting to look at her. “Might be a connection.”

“It’s that or some halfway house till things are sorted out, and I just can’t do that to him. They have this thing called a Big Sister sponsorship. Susan has to bend the rules a little, but by tomorrow afternoon he’s mine. And he won’t run away, because we’ve told him that if he does, Emily Richland goes out of business, maybe to jail. He won’t do that to her. See how good I am at my job? I thought you’d be proud. It’s down to threatening twelve-year-olds.”

“It’s never easy,” he answered. “Especially where kids are involved. Remember Justin Levitt?”

“They look so innocent. That’s the thing. It’s hard to get around the way they look at you.” She added, “You miss them, don’t you? Your kids?”

“Sure I do.”

“She’s got you forever. That’s the thing. The day Miles was born I knew I’d lost you forever.”

This was exactly where he didn’t want the conversation straying. “What will Owen think about the boy?”

“I’ll stay at the houseboat,” she answered. “Owen and I …” she didn’t finish, electing to drink the beer instead. “Really quite good,” she said.

“You haven’t lost me,” he said.

“Of course I have.” She wouldn’t look at him. “We had our chance,” she reminded him. “I’m not sour grapes.” She said thoughtfully, “Maybe it wouldn’t have worked with us. Who knows?”

They both knew better, he thought; it would have worked. It had always worked between them. He was thinking that, but he said, “I was separated at the time. Married.”

“Don’t remind me. Believe me, I remember that night well. Funny, what sticks with you and what doesn’t. I’m the one who’s supposed to be able to explain all that, right? All this training. But when it’s my life? Forget it. That’s the thing: objective, subjective. ‘Tangled up in blue.’ Was that Dylan or Joni Mitchell? Probably both. Hey,” she added playfully, “did you grow up liking jazz, or was there a transition period? Folk rock? Rock? Or were you jazz right from the crib?”

“There may come a day when we’re old, and our spouses have died off. For us, I mean.” He wasn’t sure why he was saying any of this.

“Like Love in the Time of Cholera, you mean?”

“Never read it.”

“Your loss.” She said dreamily, “That’s us, I suppose. Maybe you’re right.” She added, “It’s a little morbid, though.”

“The thing of it is,” he said, changing the subject, “the boy may break this open.”

The way she positioned herself on the bed-rolled up on one hip, her legs split, up on an elbow with her hand supporting her head-was too much. That lush hair, eyes a little drunk and dreamy. She said, “I wonder why I’m so hung up on you.”

“You’re not.”

“Oh, but I am. We both know it.”

“We’ll place Richland under surveillance,” Boldt said. “Garman also, I think.”

She added, “I see the way you look at me sometimes. You don’t think I feel that same stuff? Right down to my … bones,” she said.

“She’ll call us if he shows up?” he stated.

Without missing a beat, Daphne answered, “As long as we have the boy, she will. If I’m her, my big worry is that the state gets him in their system and never lets him out.”

“Will Human Services ever let him go back to her?” Boldt inquired dubiously. “There’s no blood relation, is there?”

“He loves her,” Daphne said painfully. “And she him. Does it really matter?”

A cellular phone rang. Boldt stood and reached for his, but it was hers, coming from her purse. She answered and listened. She mumbled, “Yes, I heard you.” She flipped the phone shut. To Boldt she said, “We used the last name of the crawl space suspect. Susan cross-checked school enrollment. We know the boy’s name: It’s Benjamin Santori.” She misted. “Nice name, isn’t it?”

“It’s a start,” he said, trying to be upbeat.

“Just the point,” she fired back. “A start for us, an end for him. Twelve years old, Lou. Murder. Some kind of exchange at the airport. She was protecting him from us: the courts, the truth. Can you blame her?” She sucked down a good deal of beer.

“I’ll drive you and take a cab back. I insist.”

“Then I’ll take another,” she said, holding up the empty can.

The beers were on ice in the ice bucket.

“First class service,” Boldt said nervously, delivering the beer.

“I won’t bite,” she said, popping the top.

But Boldt wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. The cellular phone rang for a second time. Boldt didn’t even bother going for his, but when Daphne answered hers and shook her head, the sergeant thought better and lunged across the small room.

“Boldt!” he answered curtly. Cupping the phone, he told her, “LaMoia.” He grunted into the receiver several times, impatient for his detective to get to the point. He was talking excitedly about scanners and hits and making a big point about his personal contacts in the banking industry.

Boldt listened intently as LaMoia finally got to the point. Boldt disconnected the call with a heart in his chest that couldn’t find the beat.

“Good God!” she said, seeing his reaction. “What was that?”

Boldt took a deep breath, exhaled, and closed his eyes. When he opened them he said, “He got back the information on the ladders, the credit card accounts, and the bank accounts-the names, the mailing addresses …” She knew better than to interrupt. Boldt met her eyes and said, “Steven Garman bought one of the Werner ladders two years ago at a hardware store up on Eighty-fifth.” He took a breath. “The thing to do now is see if he still has it.”

Boldt did not drive Daphne home. Having interviewed Garman in the first place, she insisted on tagging along. During the hurried drive to a neighborhood twenty blocks north of Boldt’s house, she spared no opportunity of reminding Boldt of that initial assessment of hers.

“One doesn’t make arrests based on opinion,” he replied, following her third reminder.

“It’s the beer talking, not me,” she apologized.

“Well, please ask the beer to be quiet when we get there,” he snapped testily. “This is an inquiry, nothing more.”

But the beer spoke again. “Bullshit, and you know it. If that ladder’s there, its pads match. But it won’t be. He knows all about that evidence.”

“Which leads one to ask,” Boldt countered, “why, if he knew about the impressions found at Enwright, did he use the same ladder at my house?”

The words flew around the inside of the car like trapped birds. Boldt ducked from them, shrinking from the logic of his own statement. Why indeed?

“You’re not going there just to chat him up, and we both know it. Why did you ask for a patrol backup? I’ll tell you why: Because you intend to cuff him and bring him downtown for the Box. That’s why you need me along.” She grabbed for the dash as Boldt pulled sharply off the road. “What are you doing?”

“I never thought I’d be glad about an espresso shop on every corner.” She looked blank. He told her, “You’re right. We had better get you a cup of strong coffee.”

Despite her protests, at Garman’s Daphne remained in the car. Boldt and LaMoia, who arrived only two minutes behind, approached the front door. The patrol car and its solo uniformed officer idled at the curb.

Garman wore reading glasses, a cotton sweater, and blue jeans. His pager was clipped to his belt. “Gentlemen,” he said, not a trace of concern or anguish in his voice.

There were times when Boldt liked to skirt the issue, make small talk, or bring up a subject completely away from his central point, establish a rapport, and ease his way into it, but he had a working relationship with Garman, and that evening he went straight for the jugular. “You bought a twenty-four-foot extension ladder manufactured by Werner Ladders from Delliser Brothers up on Eighty-fifth.”

“Summer before last,” Garman informed him, nodding. “You boys are thorough. I’ll say that. You might have asked. I could have saved you the trouble.”

Boldt and LaMoia engaged in a quick eye check, both surprised by Garman’s forthcoming nature.

“We’d like to see that ladder,” LaMoia told the fire inspector. The detective had called in a telephone search warrant that had been authorized by Judge Fitz. He informed Garman of this, hoping he might ruffle the man.

“You’re welcome to come inside,” Garman offered, opening his door wide. “You don’t need a flipping warrant.” The two detectives stepped in. Boldt heard a car door shut. He didn’t need to look to know it was Daphne. “But you won’t find a Werner ladder,” Garman added, without a hint of remorse. “I replaced it with a different brand, one of those aluminum numbers that hinges in a couple of places. You know the kind?”

“Replaced it?” Boldt asked.

“It was stolen,” Garman informed them. “Six, maybe seven months ago.” He nodded, his lips pursed. “Swear to God.” Daphne knocked. Garman admitted her. They shook hands. “Listen,” Garman said, “you want to do this downtown, or can we do it here?”

Boldt felt out of sync, the fireman anticipating his every move, his every question. He wanted to take him downtown, use the Box, intimidate the man. Work a team interrogation, LaMoia the bad guy, Boldt the friend, Daphne the outsider. Loosen him up at the edges. Trip him up. But he wondered all of a sudden if it would work with a man accustomed to conducting his own investigations, his own interrogations. It felt a little bit like looking at himself in the mirror.

“Here will do,” Boldt said, wanting to give the man nothing, wanting an explanation for the two dead women and the threat on his own family, but torn by the necessity of an assumption of innocence. Cops didn’t work from such an assumption, they left it to the judges and juries. Boldt saw the man as a killer-clever, perhaps, professional, but a killer nonetheless. He owed him nothing.

“I’ll look around,” LaMoia said, directing one of his patented expressions of loathing toward the suspect. LaMoia was a cop who cut to the chase, rarely, if ever, electing subtleties. His method was more head-butting, beating a suspect down into submission. He produced a flattened Dunkin’ Donuts bag with a bunch of writing on it. He said, “Just to make it official. This is the warrant the judge signed off on.”

The bag was oil-stained, the writing illegible. Garman accepted it, looked it over, nodded, and handed it back. “Very official,” he said, trying for a joke.

LaMoia recited the Miranda. Garman just smiled, miming the words along with him.

Boldt wanted to pop the guy. Garman was too smug, too prepared-or innocent as the day he was born. Boldt knew before they started that they weren’t going anywhere with this one. Daphne asked for a cup of coffee. Garman made her a cup of instant; made one for himself as well. Boldt and Daphne sat on a couch that had seen better days. Garman took the La-Z-Boy recliner upholstered in a maroon Naugahyde.

Fifteen minutes into the questioning, Boldt taking furious notes and double-checking Garman’s exact language, LaMoia joined them. He shook his head at Boldt from behind Garman and held both hands into a large zero. Boldt was hardly surprised.

They talked in circles for the better part of the next hour, returning to some of Garman’s statements and attempting to catch him in a misspeak, but the Marshal Five’s performance-if that’s what it was-seemed utterly convincing. Here, Boldt realized, was a man who had achieved an honored position among firemen. He had served his city well, earning several merits of distinction for both his professional life and his volunteer work with teens. Put him in front of a jury with all the damning evidence in the world, and you might not win a conviction.

One hour and twenty-two minutes into the interrogation, Daphne scored the first big points. “Tell us again about your service in the Air Force.”

He nodded. “I was stationed two years at Grand Forks AFB and six at Minot. I was married then. Young. Good times, for the most part.”

“Not much up there,” Daphne said.

“Even less than that,” Garman replied, winning a smile from her.

“Must get to know the other guys real well,” she said.

“You know everybody real well: guys, wives, families. Grand Forks is a big base. It’s a town, a small city really.”

LaMoia said, “Those are missile bases, aren’t they?”

Garman smirked at the question. “Look it up, Detective. It’ll give you something to do.”

LaMoia bristled and shifted uncomfortably where he stood. He sought out a kitchen chair, brought it around to face Garman, and straddled it backward.

The lines were drawn-and by Garman himself, Boldt noted. He would work with Daphne, respect Boldt at a distance, and spar with LaMoia. What bothered Boldt the most was that he had sussed out the exact way Boldt would have done it.

“Your marriage?” Daphne asked.

“Out of bounds, counselor,” Garman replied.

“I’m not a lawyer.”

Garman stared at her. “We never did establish your exact role in this, did we? As I recall, you kind of skirted the question.”

LaMoia said, “Look it up. It’ll give you something to do.”

That caused a brief crack in Garman’s armor.

Boldt felt a little more optimistic. He said, “So you didn’t lose the ladder or loan it to a friend-it was stolen.”

“I’ll answer for a fourth time if you want,” Garman replied. He pursed his lips, looked each of them directly in the eye and said, “You’ll find this out anyway. The ladder was the least of my concerns. It was my truck that was stolen. A white pickup. Damn nice one, too. Ford. Bucket seats. Electric windows. The ladder, some turnout gear, my clipboard. Cars … trucks … stolen every day in this city, right? I figured it was probably chopped and on its way by ship to Singapore or wherever they end up. Until the poems, the notes. Then I wondered if maybe I was some kind of target all along.” He looked directly at LaMoia. “Of course, maybe I stole it myself and stashed it somewhere to use later in these arsons. Great excuse, a stolen truck.”

LaMoia had his hands full. Boldt was used to rapid-fire comebacks, but the detective was slow off the blocks. All he managed to say was, “Yeah, great excuse.”

They did the dance for the next forty minutes, but nothing worthwhile surfaced. Only LaMoia’s questions were answered sarcastically. If Daphne repeated the question, Garman answered it. Boldt saw through the ruse. It meant that Garman feared LaMoia most of all-and he was correct in doing so. LaMoia didn’t do the dance, he just stepped on toes and crashed his way through. When he got on a roll, when he got hot, he could pin a suspect in a matter of a couple of questions. Garman had sensed this quickly and did his best to prevent LaMoia from getting a rhythm going. That particular session was won by Garman, but there would be others.

He was the closest thing they had to a suspect, and Boldt was not about to let him go. He would cut him distance, give him some rope-hopefully enough to let him hang himself.

The interrogation was, in fact, little more than a stall for time.

Twenty-four-hour surveillance began thirty minutes before their departure.

Steven Garman was suspect number one.