No Witnesses

TWENTY-FOUR

Armed with a variety of mug shots, including those of Harry Caulfield that had been given to her by Boldt, Daphne approached Holly MacNamara the following Friday morning before the young woman left for summer school.

Holly was dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and black running shoes. The mother continually tried to push herself on them, and to prevent her from interfering, Daphne and the young woman sought privacy in Holly’s bedroom. The walls were covered with posters of grunge bands. The bed was on the floor, and the room smelled of incense.

“You see what I live with?” she asked Daphne.

“Mothers can be harsh,” Daphne agreed.

“Yeah?”

“My mother was a real jerk when I was in high school. She thought I was going to get pregnant and become a junkie.”

“You?”

“Me,” she answered. She placed the first series of mug shots in front of the girl, withholding Caulfield’s for the third or fourth group. She wanted to get her acquainted with the process before risking their prize. But more than that, she wanted to help this young woman if possible.

Holly MacNamara studied them all carefully, picked one of them up, placed it down, and shook her head. “Not here,” she said.

“The thing is,” Daphne told her, “the more time I spent at home, the worse it was, because it seemed like everything I did was wrong. My mother wanted me to be her cute little girl. She couldn’t handle that I had breasts and my period, and that I was curious to find out what drinking beer was like.” None of this reflected her high school years in the least, but she had studied the Holly MacNamaras and she thought she knew the general situation well enough to establish a rapport.

“Talk to me.”

“Same with you?”

“Absolutely.”

Daphne laid out another set of four mug shots. “How about these?” she asked.

Holly was not looking at the photographs, but at Daphne instead. “The thing is, she never lets up. And all I want is for her to chill and give me some space. You know? She doesn’t have a clue who I am.”

“Maybe a clue,” Daphne said, “but not much of one.”

“Exactly.”

Daphne indicated the photos for a second time, and Holly studied them carefully-perhaps more carefully, Daphne hoped, than had they not had this conversation.

“No, I don’t think so,” Holly said.

“Make sure.”

“No. Definitely not.”

Daphne picked up these, but waited before placing down the next, for the photo of Harry Caulfield was among these. She said, “I volunteer at the Shelter-”

“The place for runaways?”

“Yes. A close friend of mine is the spokesperson, and I put in about eight hours a week there-evenings mostly. Have you ever considered volunteer work?”

“Me?”

“I know it’s not the same as hanging out at the mall, as hanging out with your friends. But the girls are about your age-closer to your age than mine, that’s for sure-and more than anything, they need contact with people, they need to find a base, to get themselves centered again. Volunteers do everything from serve meals to change beds to just sit around talking. What I was thinking-you’re kind of in a bad scene here. Your sentencing requires you to stay home, but this is where a lot of your problems seem to stem from. What if I could convince the judge to allow you to spend some time volunteering at the Shelter? Maybe the same hours I’m there-at least at first. Would you have any interest in that?”

“I could try it.”

“Is that a yes?”

Holly studied Daphne’s face. “Yeah, that’s a yes.”

“Good,” Daphne said, grinning.

She laid out the next series of mug shots. First one, then the second, then Harry Caulfield, then a fourth. “What about these?” She watched the girl’s face carefully, as Holly’s eyes moved progressively down the row. When she reached Caulfield, her eyes widened and she bit her lip. Then, without saying anything, she looked at the fourth in the line.

“Let me ask you something,” Holly MacNamara said. Daphne nodded. “If I did recognize this guy-not that I’m saying I do-then I become involved, right? I become a snitch.” Her voice changed, driven by anger. “You know how much trouble I’ve gotten in because someone ratted on me? Do you know what that feels like? And now you expect me to rat on some guy? Do you see anything wrong with this picture?”

“I’m going to tell you something that I’m not allowed to tell you. I’m going to tell you because I trust you never to repeat it. If you were to repeat it, you could get me in some serious shit-maybe even cost me my job-it’s that secret. I don’t know you well, Holly, but I like you-and this is one time I had better be a good judge of character.” She hesitated, to allow this to sink in. “I know what you’re saying about snitching. I think I understand where you’re coming from. And I can see how it would be hard for you. Especially if you were turning in a shoplifter. Shoplifting is nothing to be proud of, Holly, but I can see how that would be difficult for you. But the person we’re after is not a shoplifter.” Caulfield stared back at her from the mug shot. He was clean-shaven, dark eyes, with an average face of average looks. He was Mr. Anybody. He might have been a waiter, or an attorney, or a cop. Dark hair, a firm jaw line, and strong eyes. He was a multiple murderer, and he seemed to be looking right at Daphne with an expression of smug contempt and hatred. I hate you all, his eyes said.

Daphne continued, “The man we’re after is no shoplifter. He killed a boy young enough to be your little brother. He killed a family of four-two little girls and their parents. He’s put other people in the hospital. He has threatened much worse, and we take those threats very seriously. We believe time may be running out-and we need to know if we’re after the right person or not. We have a suspect, but no one that we know of has seen him but you. If you are able to identify him, then we know where to focus our investigation. We just may stop him in time.” She pointed back to the line of mug shots. “Do you see him, Holly? Is he any of these men?”

Without any indecision, Holly MacNamara reached down and picked up the photograph of Harry Caulfield. “This is the man I saw at Foodland.”

Bernie Lofgrin’s magnified eyeballs looked fake, like a pair of joke glasses won at the ringtoss at an amusement park. His office was crowded with stacks of reading material and reports vying for chair seats and rising like teetering skyscrapers from the office floor. A cup of steaming coffee sat by the phone and he waved a Bic pen in the air as if it were a baton.

Boldt set the jazz tapes down on the man’s cluttered desk, moved a stack of printed matter, and took a seat across from him.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Lofgrin said, holding the cassettes close to his face so he could read the titles that Boldt had written on them. “Uh-huh,” he muttered and repeated with each new discovery, quite pleased. “You’re a man of your word,” he said. Peering more closely, he added enthusiastically, “‘Jumping Off a Clef!’ Chet Baker! And Red Rodney, too! Terrific.” Lofgrin liked the trumpet.

“An added bonus for my tardiness,” Boldt said.

“You mind?” Lofgrin got up, shut the office door, and put the trumpet tape into a boom box and turned it on, setting the volume low. For Boldt the jazz improved his mood immediately, and he was glad it was as familiar to him as it was, because it did not distract him, stealing his attention the way unfamiliar music did.

“We checked out all three ATMs last night. No latents. No evidence whatsoever.”

While Boldt had been investigating the poisoning of the Mishnov family, three ATMs had been hit for another twenty-eight hundred dollars. Again, Boldt’s surveillance team had been nowhere near the ATM locations hit. Bernie Lofgrin’s forensic sciences squad had dusted for prints and inspected the sites for any other evidence.

Lofgrin said, “One thing bothers me … We’ve seen four ATMs hit, right? And according to ATM security people, some fifty percent of the machines are equipped with optical surveillance-cameras. So is this extortionist of yours just lucky or what?”

“It bothers me, too, Bernie.”

“It gives you the feeling someone’s got a hand in your back pocket-know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean. I’ve got some ideas.”

“I get the hint. We’ve got other things to discuss.”

“The Longview Farms evidence,” Boldt reminded as Lofgrin sat back down.

“We focused on that basement room, as you asked. Worked closely with the fire marshal, Peter Kramer, and also Fergus in their lab because a total burn is really its own science. And there is a lot of work yet to go, I’m afraid, some of which we’ve shipped off to Washington, thanks to your agreement with the Bureau boys. There just isn’t a hell of a lot left after a fire like that. Where we got lucky is that the workbench under which all these boxes were stored was topped with sheet metal. The weight of the collapsing building, combined with the limited protection of this layer of sheet metal, compressed the contents of some of the boxes, and there just wasn’t enough oxygen for it all to burn. So we have small clusters of flaky carbon, kind of like the layers of French pastry-extremely fragile, sensitive still to oxygen, and yet basically intact. We shipped a lot of this off to the Bureau because we want to get it right, and evidence this volatile only allows you one shot. Exposed to air, it literally turns to dust before you can work with it.”

“How long?”

“The Bureau is thorough. They can, and have, taken weeks to get back to us. I’d say two weeks is average. We’ve asked for a rush, but everyone does, so I doubt it means much. They do know about the case, though, and that helps. My guess is that it will get some kind of priority, which may mean a week or ten days if we’re lucky.”

“We don’t have ten days.”

“I understand,” Lofgrin said sympathetically. “I’m just being upfront with you. It’s out of my hands.”

“So we wait?”

“For the real detail work, we do. The specifics that may turn this thing on its ear. Oh, check this riff!” He leaned back. A pair of trumpets soared on an unpredictable harmony and fluttered to a gentle landing. Lofgrin sighed, as if he had just finished a good meal. “What we have for you is not the best news,” the lab man said, sitting forward again. “The boxes beneath that workbench contained varying sizes of thin sheets of paper. Printed matter. Color, probably.”

“Labels,” the detective said.

“Yeah, labels, I’m thinking. But who knows? Could be any printed matter-church programs, political flyers. We didn’t get a good look at any of them because of the decomposition during oxidation, and that’s what we’re hoping for by sending them out: some kind of positive identification for you to work with.”

Boldt took notes despite the knowledge that Bernie Lofgrin would provide him with a copy of the preliminary report. Lab reports were overly technical and therefore difficult to interpret.

“As far as you’re concerned, the most disturbing news was the detection of strychnine.”

Boldt shouted involuntarily. “What?”

“In a basement we expect the presence of rodent poisons-anticoagulants, mostly. But strychnine has no business being down there, especially in the proximity of the workbench, which is where we detected it. We picked up traces in some of the ash samples-parts per million, mind you; trace amounts is all-but there was definitely strychnine in and around that area.”

“Cholera?”

“If it was there, the bacteria were sterilized by the fire. We’re pretty damn sure that what remained of the electrical gear we found could have fit the parameters of a light box of the kind Dr. Mann described to you, and we’ve detected abundant amounts of melted polymers, plastics specific to the manufacture of petri dishes.”

“So it was a home lab,” Boldt stated.

Lofgrin nodded. “Sure could be.” His eyeballs seemed to be on springs.

“Why strychnine?” Boldt asked himself quietly, though Lofgrin answered.

“Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid jamboree,” Lofgrin reminded. “The Guyana massacre. The Sudafed case here. The Tylenol tamperings. Poison of choice for tampering.” He explained, “Tasteless, odorless, easily blended.”

“A mass poisoning?” Boldt questioned, reminded of the faxed threats.

“With cholera,” Lofgrin said, “if it’s identified and treated properly, the patient stands a good chance of recovery. Not so with strychnine. It’s extremely fast-a few minutes is all. There’s your primary difference.”

“A few minutes,” Boldt repeated, reminded of Caulfield’s threat to kill hundreds.

Lofgrin’s phone rang. He turned down the music, answered the phone, grunted, and placed it back in the receiver.

“Matthews,” he informed Boldt. “She says she’s got some good news for you.”

“It’s about time someone did.”

“Do we dare release the mug shot to the press?” Boldt asked, buoyed by MacNamara’s positive identification.

Daphne told him, “I think not. If he sees his own photo on the news, two things are going to happen: One, he’s going to go underground-we lose any chance of catching him at the ATMs; two, he’ll feel betrayed and may attempt to deliver on his larger threat. Let me run this by Clements. He’ll have an opinion for us.”

Boldt mentioned the strychnine, and they discussed possible psychological motives for a more deadly poison, and again she deferred to Dr. Clements. Leaving her, Boldt made himself a copy of the face and left the original with one of the civilian office workers, asking that it be photocopied and made available to all patrol personnel. A Be On Lookout was issued-Caulfield would be detained and brought downtown if spotted.

Boldt spent the afternoon distributing copies to the ATM surveillance team, moving between the various locations where his people were in position. They had a face now, and Boldt considered it their first decent break.

Kenny Fowler lived in a deluxe apartment managed by Inn At The Market, with maid and room service. He seemed both proud and embarrassed by it as he showed Boldt inside. Located directly above Campagne Restaurant, the corner view looked out over the red neon sign-PUBLIC MARKET CENTER-and across Elliott Bay and the slowly moving lights of Seattle’s commercial shipping traffic. The first room encountered housed a wet bar, two couches, a pair of overstuffed chairs, a coffee table, and a small dining table. Off of this was a studio kitchen, a single bedroom with a water view, and a luxurious bath that Boldt knew Liz would kill for.

Boldt needed a favor, and he did not enjoy coming to Kenny Fowler with his hand out. He did not feel he could trust Fowler fully, for although they both wanted to see an end to the tampering, Fowler wanted credit, no doubt motivated by a corporate hierarchy that encouraged competition. He was also likely to want something in return for Boldt’s request, and Boldt could not be sure he could, or would, grant any such request.

Facing the picture window, Fowler said, “Must be something important to bring the mountain to Mohammed.” Then he continued his nervous orbit of the room, pouring himself a gin and tonic and joining Boldt in the sitting area.

“I need your help,” Boldt announced, once Fowler’s back was to him. It caught the security man by surprise, and he left his glass at the bar and returned to his seat without it.

“I’m listening.”

“One of my people is exhibiting some peculiar behavior. I need a background check, maybe some surveillance, and I don’t want to involve Internal Affairs.”

Fowler nodded. “Puts you in a bad position.”

“He’s on my squad, Kenny. It’s Chris Danielson.”

“Danielson? Are you saying you think he’s involved in this somehow? Have you spoken to him?”

“Not yet. I want this background check first.”

“What exactly has he done?”

“I need your help, Kenny. Maybe we should leave it at that.”

“Everything?”

“Everything you can get without it getting back to him that you’re interested.” The discussion made Boldt feel ugly and dirty at the same time. He knew this was not the way it was supposed to be done, and yet it seemed to him the most efficient use of manpower and time.

“You think Chris Danielson is maybe drilling these soup cans?” Fowler became crimson, beside himself with confusion.

“No, I don’t. But I’m a little short of explanations of how the extortionist is never near the ATMs we’re watching.”

“Fucking A! Danielson’s giving out your surveillance information?”

“I don’t know what he’s doing, but I want his dirty laundry if he’s got any. It’s that simple.”

Fowler took some notes, saying aloud, “Finances. Travel. Big-ticket purchases.” He glanced up at Boldt, then returned his attention to the notepad. “Family background, maybe.”

“Full background check. College record, all of it, as much as you can give me.”

Fowler had that deer-in-the-headlights look about him.

“What?” Boldt asked.

Fowler nodded. “Am I to assume this conversation never took place? That I found out about Danielson poking around and decided to sit on him? ’Cause I can do that for you if you like. I got a shitty memory, Lou. That’s the truth.”

“It won’t come to that. Let’s hope it’s all a big dead end.”

“But if it does?”

“If it does … I don’t want any lies.”

“You sure?” Fowler tested. “It could mean your badge if it comes to that. You realize that, don’t you? I’m telling you, I got a bad memory.”

“Save it for when you need it. I’ll make note of this meeting so that at least you’re covered. My idea. My responsibility.”

“Whatever.”

This felt like criminal behavior to Boldt, and he blamed the sensation in part on Fowler and his dramatics, because the man had a wormy quality to him. Technically, within certain parameters surveillance was not an illegal act, but the background check was, and both men knew it. The truth was that people in Fowler’s position were paid under the table for such background checks all the time. Boldt knew there was no new ground being broken.

“I’m not comfortable asking you, Kenny. I’ve got to be up-front about that.”

“I’m here, Lou. I’m part of this. I know how the department feels about the Kenny Fowlers of this world.”

“It’s not that.”

“Of course it is. I steal a lot of your best people away from you. I offered you once, Lou, and you know that offer’s always open. Starting pay would be twice where you are with your three stripes-”

“I know-” Boldt cut him off. He had no use for another Fowler recruitment pitch. “Thanks.”

“Listen,” the man said honestly, “I shade a lot of the laws. There’s a reason police drive black-and-whites, you know. ’Kay? So, I live in the gray. So what? And I live better than any of you guys. And maybe there’s just a touch of resentment there. No triplicate forms. No bullshit. We do our job and we collect big paychecks for our services. And maybe our job takes us a little outside the code. So what? Civil libertarians screwed the code up years ago, anyway. Am I right? ’Kay? Fucking sandbaggers have more rights than a badge does any day. So the system is set up to favor guys like Kenny Fowler. And now you need me. And I’m not going to bullshit you: It feels good, Lou. This is a day I’ll remember. But maybe not for the reasons you think. This just settles some of my own shit.”

Boldt had feared this exact lecture, having to sit there and eat crow while Fowler gloated. And if he knew the man, the quid pro quo was right around the next corner.

His piano, time with Miles, the lecturing, and now stepping outside the system he held dear despite his frustrations with it. Little pieces of Boldt’s life were slipping away. And the little pieces added up to the whole, and it terrified him where this might be headed. He worked on a pair of Maalox.

“It’s expensive, what you’re asking,” Fowler said, reading Boldt’s mind, “although it’s Adler’s money, and he wants this thing wrapped up-obviously-so what the fuck? We can do it.”

“I can’t help you there, Kenny. You know the way it is.”

“I’m not talking about money, Lou. You know what I’m saying.”

“I was hoping maybe Adler wasn’t the only one who wanted to see this thing wrapped,” Boldt tested. Fowler offered a wooden smile, and Boldt felt his bowels stir.

“Sure. Sure,” he said. He carefully measured his words. “We would like to be part of the extortion surveillance, Lou. Adler, Taplin, me-we don’t like you guys being the only ones looking out for Mr. Adler’s money. You know how it is. We have access to some super technologies. Stuff that there’s no way you guys have. We can tie all your operatives together, restrict access, use GPS location devices-Adler’s pretty much given me a blank check these last couple years. We’ve got the latest shit, Lou.”

“My hands are tied, Kenny, you know that. We don’t include privates in our surveillance work. It just doesn’t happen.”

“That’s bullshit, Lou. Come on! Who you talking to? It’s me, Kenny. Shoswitz eats out of your hand-you’ve been all but running that department for years. You get what you ask for.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. All I’m asking is to protect my client’s interests. ’Kay? To be kept up to speed. To help out. You include us in the surveillance, I can throw maybe ten guys your way. I can loan you guys access to my dispatch center. There’s any number of ways I could help out. You’ve gotta see that. You can’t tell me you got enough guys on this. Hell, you guys are still using open-channel radios-tell me you aren’t. I’m decades ahead of you on this. All our shit is digital, fully restricted, and encoded; we can help in a big way-I’m telling you!”

Boldt suddenly understood the pitch. He felt stupid that he had missed it at first. “You’re already watching the ATMs, aren’t you?” Boldt inquired rhetorically. “Just the Pac-West machines, or others as well? You’re trying to avoid possible charges later by making yourself included. Am I reading this right?”

“Lou …”

“How many machines, Kenny? What kind of access to the system do you have?”

Fowler would not look at Boldt. He rose, crossed the room, and finished pouring that drink for himself. To the mirror behind the wet bar, he said, “A list would do, Lou. Just the list of the ATMs you people are covering. No reason to have two guys playing second base. ’Kay? Spread out the team. I know you won’t let a private in on the surveillance. I accept that. But me and my people-my resources-can help out. We can cover the areas that you’re not. ’Kay? You see that, don’t you? Is that wrong? Or is that cooperation? Coordination? I want to help, and no one, including you, will fucking let me. What kind of fucking ass-backwards sense does that make? Am I talking nonsense here? Tell me. Am I?” The drink was mixed and he carried it over to his chair and sat down carefully so as not to spill it, because he had poured it tall. “My guys are good, Lou-you know some of them as well as I do. They were your guys not long ago: Hal Fredricks, Jonny Chi, Mac Mackensie-quality guys. With me and my guys working some of the ATMs, you get more coverage. Isn’t that what you want?” He met eyes with Boldt. “How about this? You supply me with a list of the ATMs, your guys are watching. Just the list, Lou. That’s all. So we don’t overlap.” He sipped the gin while Boldt considered the deal. “You keep me current on that list and I’ll give you Danielson’s deepest, darkest secrets.” He waited. “How ’bout it?”

Boldt attempted to gain some air. The apartment, despite its substantial size, despite its stunning view, suddenly felt claustrophobic to him. He weighed his choices: If he wanted the book on Danielson, Fowler could have it for him nearly overnight. Was it so stupid to avoid duplicating surveillance of the ATMs? He clarified, “I need the background work on Danielson done quickly. I need the surveillance conducted without his or anyone else’s knowledge. No slipups. No risks that could jeopardize that.”

“I understand, Lou, I understand.”

“Fredricks, Chi, Mackensie-he’d recognize any of them.”

Somewhat angrily Fowler said, “I can run a surveillance, friend. Would you be asking if I couldn’t? What the hell do you think we did in Major Crimes, eat pizza all day and talk sports?” It was a stab at the Fraud division, but Boldt let it pass.

The sergeant asked, “Matthews was going to ask you for some help?”

“Got her place wired up good and tight. Nice stuff. She won’t be having any more prowlers.” He added in a bellicose fashion, “We take care of our people. Someone has a problem, we fix it. That’s what we’re here for. It’s a lot simpler than wearing that badge of yours, believe me.”

Boldt’s cell phone rang, and for a moment he did not know the sound was coming from his own pocket.

“I think that’s you,” Fowler encouraged him.

Boldt, feeling self-conscious, was not terribly comfortable with the device, and he thought that Fowler probably sensed this as he turned it on. His awkwardness seemed to lend weight to Fowler’s claim of technical superiority, and this bothered the sergeant.

He spoke in blunt, terse acknowledgments. Grunts. As he did, Fowler’s phone rang, though the security man did not move. He watched Boldt intently, allowing an unseen answering machine to take the call. Boldt shut off the phone and said, “You want some involvement?” He was already out of his chair. “We’ve got an ATM hit going down.”

There was no hope of catching the extortionist during this first withdrawal; but if this night were like the others, there would be a second hit. Boldt wanted to be there.

He was on the phone with Lucille Guillard at Pac-West Bank by the time he ran the red light on First Avenue. Fowler secured his seat belt. They ran another light heading north toward Queen Anne and Ballard. The first withdrawal had been made in the U district; Lucille Guillard was playing percentages, believing a cluster of four banks on North Forty-fifth Street presented the next closest target. “How many people do you have in the field?” Fowler asked. The blue light of the dash-mounted police bubble played off his face, doing cruel things to his looks.

“We have three roamers. KCP has loaned us another five-they’re at fixed locations.”

“Eight people?” Fowler gasped. “Eight fucking people to cover every ATM in the city? You’re fucking kidding me?” Fowler confessed, “I have four stationaries. They are each within a two-block distance of three or more separate ATM locations. I have another four people on unmarked patrol, but with very definite territories. All told, I figure I’ve got somewhere around thirty-five of the fifty most active ATMs in the city covered. But I bet you’re covering some of the same ones.”

Boldt withheld comment. Fowler was organized, well financed, and obviously had a reserve of manpower on which to draw. For someone in Boldt’s position, it was discouraging.

The second ATM hit occurred at position 33, according to the police dispatcher whose constant running commentary and absurdly calm instructions could be heard from beneath the dash. On the off-chance that a savvy reporter had figured a way to eavesdrop on this or any of the other secure radio frequencies, the surveillance team was utilizing these reference numbers. Fowler spread it open on his lap. He studied it a moment and said, “North Forty-fifth Street.”

Boldt turned right, passing the Waiting for the Interurban sculpture, and Fowler said, “Nice system. Nice and private. I like it. Do you pretty much stick with this, or mix it up?”

“We’re going to start mixing it up,” Boldt informed him.

“This is all I need, Lou. You give me this map and at least we won’t be stepping on each other’s toes.”

“Hang on!” Boldt interrupted, recognizing Adrian Walcott’s voice as he announced his location as North Forty-fifth and Latona.

Boldt put his foot down hard and blew past traffic. He turned left on Stoneway, ran two lights while sounding his horn, and skidded the back end of the car through a yellow light at Forty-fifth, as Fowler pointed right.

Walcott announced in a harried voice: “I’m stuck in traffic.”

Fowler said to Boldt, “Friday night. Forty-fifth street-it’s a good place to disappear in a hurry if you have to. A good place to lose the cops.”

The maximum amount of time Boldt could hope for was fifteen to twenty seconds per transaction. He estimated that this time was about up, confirmed when the dispatcher’s voice said, “Transaction is complete. Repeat: Transaction is complete.”

“I’m going on foot,” announced an anxious-voiced Walcott. “Passing Meridian.”

Three blocks to go, thought Boldt.

“Are you there?” Lucille Guillard asked over the cell phone.

“Right here.”

“That’s twelve hundred. We could still see more.”

From beneath the dash, a winded Adrian Walcott announced, “I’m at position thirty-three. There’s no one using the machines.”

Boldt pulled over, slammed the car into Park, taking the key, and cut through the stalled westbound lane of traffic. Car horns sounded. Fowler cut to the right, increasing the distance between them.

Face after face of what were mostly young college students streamed past. Seeing his intensity, these kid strangers looked away uneasily. He encountered no six-foot male wearing a greatcoat. He caught up to Walcott, who, sweating, shook his head and cursed.

Fowler said eagerly to Boldt, “Let’s stay with this.”

Dodging traffic, the two men ran back to the waiting car.

Boldt grabbed the police radio handset. He was willing to play a gamble. “Cover the banks to the south. And let’s make sure our patrols are aware of the Be On Lookout for that mug shot.”

Dispatch acknowledged.

“What about the north?” Fowler asked. “Do you want my people-”

“South,” Boldt insisted. “The density of the ATMs favors the city.”

“That’s a hell of a chance to take,” Fowler objected.

Boldt rudely handed him the cell phone. “Tell your people to cover south of the bridge: Broadway and east of I-5. I’ll keep our people west of the interstate.” He was, in effect, giving in to exactly what Fowler had suggested. The security man looked a little stunned, but he made the call quickly before Boldt changed his mind.

The radio began to sparkle with the new deployment. Boldt headed toward the university. As he drove past the ramp to I-5, Fowler, coming off his call, queried, “Where the fuck are we going?”

“Back to square one.”

“Why?”

“Exactly,” Boldt said, swerving to miss two kids on mountain bikes who had disregarded a crossing light.

He came around the block and parked in front of the Meany Tower Hotel at Eleventh Avenue NE, because this offered him immediate access to the U district-and the ability to block the most predictable route the extortionist would take back to I-5, the entrances to which were only two blocks away.

Fowler scratched at a stain on his pants. Boldt explained softly, so as not to cover the dispatcher’s voice, “If I’m this person, I want it as crowded as possible, as confusing as possible. Friday night, this is where you come. A couple of the malls, maybe-but they’ve got cameras everywhere. I hit the ‘Ave.,’ then I go out Forty-fifth-it’s close, it’s quick and easy. I head back to the U because it offers me everything I’m looking for and it worked the first time I was there.”

“I don’t know,” Fowler disagreed.

“Broadway-where your people are-is my backup choice. Again, lots of weekend activity-a difficult area to police, and only a few-”

He was interrupted by the dispatcher’s bizarrely calm monotone. “Position four-one. All field operatives: Position four-one is active. Repeat: active.”

Checking the map, an excited Fowler said, “It’s a Pac-West. It’s right around the fucking corner.”

Boldt stuffed a radio earphone into his ear and was already out of the car and on the run.

“Ten seconds active,” the dispatcher announced.

The average ATM access time, from keying in the PIN to the ATM card being returned to the account holder, ran eighteen seconds.

“No operatives in the immediate vicinity,” the dispatcher announced into Boldt’s ear. Boldt had neglected to make his own position known and, therefore, dispatch remained unaware of his presence.

Ten thousand … Eleven thousand … he counted in his head.

Natalie Smith, normally assigned to SPD’s Sex Crimes, checked in. She had been crossing Montlake Bridge when the hit was announced. Now she was on her way back, a minute away. An eternity.

Fourteen thousand … Fifteen thousand …

“Transaction complete,” dispatch announced.

Boldt turned right, took an immediate left through a parking lot, and broke around the corner. The blue-and-green Pac-West Bank sign hung over the sidewalk, twenty yards ahead.

Boldt said, “Six feet tall, maybe wearing a greatcoat.” He signaled Fowler across the street. Boldt took this side, moving quickly toward the sign and the entrance to Pac-West Kwik-Cash. The sidewalk was mobbed. He searched for Caulfield’s face in the crowd. The effect of the kids flowing past him was dizzying.

He reached the Pac-West sign. Through the glass window, he saw three ATMs side by side. One was in use by a young redheaded woman, a short woman-not a six-foot-tall Harry Caulfield. Boldt tugged on the door. It was locked. A small sign indicated how to use one’s cash or credit card to gain entrance. Boldt slid a cash card into the slot and the door opened.

She glanced quickly at him, but displaying none of the fear or concern he might have expected of a guilty party.

“Someone just left.” He interrupted her transaction, showing her his badge.

She squinted. “That girl?”

“A girl?” Boldt questioned, recalling the account application.

“Weird chick-she was wearing a motorcycle helmet.” She nodded toward the door. “Just left,” she said, echoing him. “Just now.”

Back out on the sidewalk, in a teeming horde of college students, Boldt searched left … right …

He saw the glossy dome of a motorcycle helmet on the opposite side of the street, heading away from Fowler’s position.

Not wanting to shout, not wanting to alert the woman, he signaled Fowler, making a motion around his head, attempting to indicate a helmet, and he pointed down the street.

Fowler saw her.

Boldt crossed the street, just as Natalie Smith’s tires yipped to a stop in heavy traffic. A horn sounded. The helmet turned. “Sergeant?” Smith yelled loudly from her car.

The helmet broke down an alley at a run, Fowler sprinting to catch up.

Boldt pushed through the melee of teeming students and headed down the adjacent alley. Suddenly overcome with the stench of urine, he jumped over a pair of legs at the last second and turned to see a man sleeping next to a bottle.

The helmeted figure blurred past the intersection with another alley, heading to Boldt’s left.

Another blur-Fowler in pursuit.

Boldt ran fast and reached the corner, which he rounded in time to see Fowler’s back turn down an alley parallel to his.

He rounded this next corner as well, and when he came to the end of the alley, he faced another street teeming with hundreds of students.

Kenny Fowler was doubled over, winded, clutching the knees of his pants.

He gasped to Boldt, “I lost her.”

Boldt searched the crowds for another half hour. He issued a Be On Lookout for a motorcycle with a black helmet and female rider. Frustrated and out of his element, a failed Lou Boldt returned to where he had last left Fowler, but the man was gone. Back at the car he found a business card on the seat where the surveillance map had been. The map now belonged to Kenny Fowler.

With this one agreement, Boldt effectively doubled his surveillance manpower-and yet he did not feel right about it. He did not feel entirely right about Fowler, something he attributed to Fowler’s having left the department to seek his fortune. Or maybe it was just the man: unceremoniously direct and brusque.

He flipped the business card over where Fowler had written: Thanks, partner.

He pocketed it, and drove straight to the Big Joke.