No Witnesses

TWENTY-THREE

That same Thursday night, LaMoia pulled up in front of Boldt’s house knowing the sergeant was expecting him. Still tucking in his shirt, Boldt came out the door with his coat slung over his arm. A cloud of moths fluttered overhead, surrounding the porch light. Another group enveloped a street lamp above the car.

LaMoia met him on the porch and handed Boldt a scrawled note containing an address that was surprisingly close. Over by Greenlake on Seventy-fourth, it was a neighborhood Boldt remembered well from another case, and one he would have just as soon forgotten.

“Dixie?”

“On his way. His people will meet him there.”

“Razor?”

“Left your cellular number with him.” LaMoia handed Boldt his cell phone and Boldt absentmindedly slipped it into his coat pocket. He patted his side; his gun was there. “It’s a tough break, Sarge.”

Boldt double-checked the front door. The two men hurried to the waiting car. “Who called it in?” Boldt asked.

“Who else would land this kind of black hole? Hollywood, Sarge,” he said, answering Boldt’s blank expression. “Danielson.” A second later from inside the car, LaMoia shouted, “You coming?”

Boldt stood frozen with his hand on the door. Daphne had mentioned Danielson’s eavesdropping. Boldt did not like it.

“Sarge?”

Boldt climbed inside.

“You okay?”

“Step on it,” ordered the man who liked to drive under thirty at all times.

The house was a two-story shake, closely situated to its neighbors on both sides. The street rose up a hill, and so LaMoia cut the wheels into the curb and let the car settle back. A set of cement steps carried Boldt up to some wooden steps that led to a landing and to the front door where Danielson sat on the stoop. Bernie Lofgrin and his ID crew remained below for the moment, waiting to be summoned.

The ME’s chuck wagon arrived next-an unmarked, lime-green van. A color green no one could possibly like. Usually reserved for cadavers, but sometimes used to transport the field technicians. Boldt saw the scene they were creating, and told LaMoia tersely to spread out some of the vehicles to try to lessen the attention drawn to the scene. “We want this done as quietly as possible. If the neighbors do get involved, no one answers any questions. And I mean no one.”

“Got it,” LaMoia answered. He saw to it and returned to join Boldt as he was preparing to enter.

Boldt and LaMoia donned latex gloves.

Boldt tried the front door, but it was locked. He signaled Bernie Lofgrin, and a few minutes later one of Lofgrin’s assistants had used a speed key on the back door.

Boldt motioned for LaMoia to go first. The young detective pushed open the door, leaned his head inside, and called out, “Honey, I’m home.”

Boldt felt a depressing weight in the air. It was not the smell of vomit that triggered it-he smeared some Vicks under his nose and took care of that, and he passed the tube to LaMoia, who did the same. The weight was the result of a sense of failure that would not let go of him. Four more lives. Four more Slater Lowrys.

Uncharacteristically philosophical, Boldt said to La-Moia, “Death touches us all, but murder affects people permanently. Twenty years later the average guy will have forgotten some of the ones who died, but not the ones who were murdered.”

“I’m sure that’s right,” LaMoia said, unsure how to answer.

“If it would do any good to swear to you that these are the last we’re going to see, I would.”

“If you had those kinds of powers, you’d be wearing a turban, not a badge.”

The table was set for four-but it looked like breakfast, not dinner. It looked as if someone had reset the table ready for a morning that never came. The stove top was clear and there were dishes inside the dishwasher that would be analyzed by the lab.

The two bathrooms, downstairs and upstairs, were ugly. People had been real sick, and in the end no one had taken the time to clean up. Boldt could imagine them awakening with bad stomachs-first the kids, then the parents. Two to six hours after the meal, Dixie had told him. And as the reaction worsened, the parents would have become scared, would have discussed the idea of the hospital. Guts wrenching. Children screaming from the pain in their abdomens. He could not imagine that kind of fear-that moment when one of them realized they all had it-whatever it was. Projectile vomiting. Diarrhea. Slamming headaches. The father or mother running for the car. Thinking about 911, but deciding they could make it themselves …

But they did not make it.

On the very top of the tin-can recycle bag in the pantry, Boldt found two crushed cans of Adler’s Homestyle Hash. Evidence for Lofgrin’s ID crew that would follow into here shortly.

Here was a crime scene that seemed bound to hit the press. The deaths of an entire family could not be contained. Boldt was already working on a believable story that Dixie and State Health could feed the media. The family was believed to have eaten out at a restaurant, as yet unidentified. “The symptoms observed in the deceased do not conflict with those found in other E. coli contaminations.” At face value, the truth. The only way he could see of keeping the real truth from the public in order to protect it from even more such poisonings. The Seattle community was numb enough from earlier E. coli contaminations to accept the explanation. He could not buy forever with such a story, but a few days-a week if he were lucky.

The girls’ bedroom-he could see that they shared the room-devastated him. A Raggedy Ann doll sitting in a low wicker chair. It was the way the bed linen was folded back-a mother helping her child out of bed. But they were out of bed. Dixie’s office had them in black plastic bags, zippered down the middle. Their breakfast table was set, but within a few minutes, breakfast would be in plastic, too.

Boldt had tried to help an injured sparrow once as a child, but it had struggled in his hand, and he had broken its neck and it had died. He remembered holding it outstretched in his open palms and tossing it into the air, encouraging it to fly. Picking it up and tossing it, until his mother, weeping, caught up to him and stopped him.

Though she had tried to convince him otherwise, he had killed it trying to help-and this was how he felt now as he sank down to the floor of this small pink room and pushed the door shut in a vain attempt to make his peace.

Striker arrived late, looking and smelling a little drunk. Waving his pager at Boldt, he slurred, “Fucking thing’s a piece of shit.”

“It’s him,” Boldt said, indicating the house.

“Mr. Caulfield’s work?”

“Right.”

Striker said, “For what it’s worth, I think all women are shit.”

“Another Adler product. Hash this time.” Boldt realized he was not getting through.

“They yank your chain. They mess with your brain.”

“A family of four. All four died, Razor.”

Striker’s prosthesis clicked violently. “Died?” He was only half there.

“All four. Waited too long before going to the emergency room. The mother did okay for a while, but they lost her. They say grief, maybe. They say it can do that.”

“The wrong people always die,” Striker complained. “You know what I’m saying?”

“No,” Boldt answered honestly.

“Well, fuck you,” Striker said. He passed Boldt, intentionally bumping him with his shoulder, and went inside the house. Boldt waited fifteen minutes under a low, overcast sky that threatened rain. A gang of uniformed patrolmen held back the reporters and cameramen. He heard the words E. coli on the tongues of the spectators. So far, so good, Boldt thought, growing accustomed to the lies, and hating himself for it.

“Stinks in there,” Striker said on his return. “Same old, same old.”

“We need a mug shot or file photo of Caulfield. Department of Corrections should have one.”

“You don’t need me for that.”

“It would be easier. I want everything they have on Caulfield, and I’d rather they don’t connect the request directly with me or the fifth floor. Your office makes those requests all the time.”

“I’ll have it for you by morning.” Striker made a note. It was the first sign of sobriety.

“Been hoisting a few, Razor?”

“Hey, I’m not on call. Shit, Elaine’s never home. Why not?”

“Just don’t go picking any fights.” Striker had a reputation for challenging thirty-year-olds to one-handed fights-and winning. And sometimes there was no challenge. Just an explosion, and Striker was on someone.

“Well, there he is,” he said, noticing Danielson glaring at Boldt from the parked car. “That warrant must have done the trick, huh?”

“Which warrant?” Boldt asked. “Holly MacNamara?”

“The klepto? Hell no. I mean his. Danielson’s. The W-2s on Longview Farms. I had to bitch and scream to get you those. Fucking tax boys have assholes as tight as squirrels’.”

Boldt did his best to hide his shock. He looked away, as if still interested in the house. “The W-2s,” he repeated.

“Right. Going after the Longview employees. That’s how you got Caulfield’s name. Right? And all thanks to yours truly. And Danielson, too, maybe-or was he just your go-boy on that?” He poked Boldt a little too hard with his metal claw. “You can thank me. I won’t complain.”

“Yeah, thanks, Razor.” Boldt’s words barely left his mouth.

“You don’t have to sound so overjoyed,” Striker stabbed sarcastically.

“No. I appreciate it. Really,” Boldt said, sounding stronger, his attention focused across the lawn on Daniel-son’s profile. “The Longview tax records,” he repeated.

“Damn straight. You ought to try going up against the tax boys sometimes. It ain’t all fun and games, believe me.”

Boldt had LaMoia drive him downtown. He left the car before it came to a full stop and hurried to the door with the detective shouting loudly from behind him, “Wait up!”

Boldt was not waiting. He took the stairs two at a time, descending into the basement. He had his key out for the Boneyard before reaching the door. Through the door, then the chain-link gate. He found the light switch without looking.

Several long strides down the second aisle, around the corner to the shelf so familiar to him. C-A-U-

And there it was: the arrest file for Harold Emerson Caulfield. Exactly where it belonged.