No Witnesses

THIRTY-SIX

Monday morning Boldt was physically awake at eight, but mentally he could not find his bearings. He drank a pot of tea and stuffed himself into his car. He turned on KOMO news on his way downtown. The plan was to meet Daphne and continue with the Uli interrogation.

But as the lead story for the morning news was read, Boldt nearly caused an accident. He involuntarily jerked the wheel, forcing another car to make a quick lane change that evolved into a skidding U-turn, and left Boldt’s Chevy sandwiched diagonally in a parallel parking spot. The car’s tail was protruding into the morning rush.

He had expected the Striker/Danielson shooting to be near the top, if not the lead itself, but instead the local report began with a pleasant female voice that announced “an unexpected development” in which Adler Foods had been ordered by the FDA, in conjunction with the CDC, to recall every retail product line from all grocery shelves by noon this day. The story suggested that an investigation had begun into the company’s role in the “alleged” E. coli contamination and in recent poisonings that had claimed several lives. It had yet to be confirmed, the listener was told, but “sources close to the investigation” also claimed that a major food product-tampering and extortion scheme had “held Adler Foods paralyzed” for nearly three weeks, and that local authorities, as recently as yesterday, had summoned the help and assistance of the FBI.

Captain Rankin and the bureaucrats had scored again: Knowingly or not, they had just challenged Harry Caulfield to Russian roulette.

The pulling of the products, the mention of the FBI-all forced Caulfield’s hand. He had come to know his adversary. This reckless decision on the part of Captain Ran-kin drew detective and suspect closer. They shared a disgust at this decision. Boldt knew without checking that there would be a fax awaiting him when he reached his office.

In a strange way, he was glad he was right.

Daphne awakened late, having spent the night with Owen Adler. Feeling frustrated and dirty from the interrogation, she had shed her clothes and taken a moonlit swim, then joined Owen in his bed, where she fell into a deep sleep.

He had sneaked out of bed and showered and shaved, and as he was changing she came awake. “We have the estate under surveillance. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m glad you did.”

“I haven’t slept that well in weeks.”

“I’ve missed you,” he said. “So has Corky.”

He finished buttoning his shirt.

She pushed the pillow back and sat up in bed, the sheet down around her waist, and felt wonderful that she could be partially naked here without the sensation of violation. She felt none of what she had been experiencing in her houseboat. She decided not to voice her suspicions of Fowler. Not yet.

“Daddy?” It was Corky coming down the hall.

Adler did not want his daughter connecting Daphne to his bed. Daphne knew this, and she sprinted out of bed for the bathroom, making it only to his walk-in closet before being forced to hide. She felt like a teenager hiding from a parent, and she began to laugh at this notion-Corky as Owen’s parent, not the opposite-and she gagged herself with the sleeve of a sport coat to keep from being heard.

“Your fax machine is going,” his daughter reported.

“I’ll be right there.” Owen hesitated before saying, “Honey?”

“Why’s Daffy in your closet?”

Kids. Daphne’s mind raced. She called out, “I’m wrapping your birthday present, Corky.”

“You are?”

“No peeking!” She looked through the racks of clothes for a robe to put on, and resorted to one of his man-tailored shirts.

“Are you coming sailing?”

“Maybe afterward,” she said. “I can’t promise.”

“You’ll miss Monty the Clown.”

“Daffy’s extremely busy, Honey, but she’s going to try and make it to the party after.”

“What kind of present?” she called out.

“No peeking,” Daphne repeated, pulling on a pair of his underwear just in case. She started laughing again because the underwear would need a belt to stay on. She kicked them off.

“Meet you in the kitchen,” Adler said.

“Okay,” said the child, disappointed.

Adler rounded the corner of the walk-in. He said, “Don’t even try for the party. I completely understand, and so will Peaches.”

But Corky would not understand, and Daphne knew this better than her own father. “I’ll catch up to you later. Save me some cake and ice cream.” She waited a moment and reminded, “The fax.”

D DAY.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

IT TOLLS FOR THEE…

For the better part of the last thirty minutes, Boldt’s attention had been divided between this fax and the situation room wall where eleven pieces of artwork printed by Grambling Printers were thumbtacked. All the artwork contained the three primary colors-red, yellow, and blue-and at least one foil-copper, silver, or gold. The products were as diverse as enchiladas and frozen yogurt, and just looking at them worried Boldt’s fragile stomach.

It was nine o’clock in the morning, and LaMoia and Gaynes were home recovering from the ATM surveillance.

Following the advice of Dr. Richard Clements, Boldt had divided his team. Freddie Guccianno remained in charge of tracking down any truck farmer whose vehicle bore these same three colors. In the evening hours Freddie worked with a wall map, planning out the next day’s coverage strategy. Although dozens of truck farmers had been questioned, Harry Caulfield remained at large.

Shoswitz was on the phone; he seemed always to be on the phone.

A uniform patrolman entered and crossed the room and handed Guccianno an enormous ball of aluminum foil that contained a sticky roll the size of a tree stump. “You get my receipt?” Guccianno asked. The patrolman produced the receipt, and Guccianno placed it in his top pocket.

Two women detectives, on loan from Sex Crimes, were sorting through the companies represented on the wall by product and affiliation, looking for a link to Adler Foods.

Daphne entered and walked up to the wall, stared at all the products thumbtacked there, and said to the Sex Crimes detectives: “Let’s talk this stuff up.” She stood there looking around the room. No one seemed to have heard her. “Lou?”

“I don’t see what good talking is going to do.”

“Which is why I’m the psychologist and you’re the detective.”

Guccianno oohed, seizing the opportunity to tease Boldt.

“Feisty,” Boldt told her.

“Frightened,” she answered honestly.

“Okay, so let’s talk.” He studied the board. “We got eleven companies. Nine of them have vehicle fleets bearing the company colors. Five of those companies utilize truck fleets.”

“So we stay with those five companies for the time being,” she agreed.

He pointed to the center row of artwork. “Top to bottom: noodles, frozen seafood, ice cream, jams and berries, smoked seafood.”

Daphne asked the two women to read off some of the products. “Keep in mind,” she told Boldt, “that Caulfield claims to be able to kill a hundred or more people with whatever product or method he’s chosen. That has to limit the field.”

“You’re suggesting he intends to do this all in a single day, before we have a chance to issue a recall.”

“Clements is suggesting so, yes.”

Boldt knew that she only said this to attempt to give it more weight. He then turned to one of the other detectives and said, “Denise, of those five, who has the highest product velocity?”

Boldt and Daphne met eyes while Denise checked through the papers. He acknowledged with a slight nod that Daphne’s discussion did in fact seem to be clearing some of the cobwebs. And if she had not been so frightened, she might have smiled as a way of showing her thanks.

Denise said, “In dollar amounts, it’s pretty much a tie between Chalmer’s microwavable fish dinners and the Montclair ice-cream line. But in terms of sheer product volume, the Montclair ice-cream products far outnumber the dinners.”

Daphne wandered over to Denise and borrowed her paperwork on Montclair for a moment.

Boldt knew her well enough to ask, “What is it?”

“That’s a familiar name to me …” She looked over the paperwork.

Denise, checking more records, advised Boldt, “They also have the largest number of trucks-by far-of anyone we’re looking at.”

Boldt felt the bloodhound in him stir. He stood and began removing the other pieces of artwork, leaving Montclair in the center by itself. Studying it, he asked Daphne, “Familiar how?”

“It’s probably a stretch,” she said, not answering him.

Daphne flipped through the pages of fax paper detailing the Montclair products. She came across a large picture of a clown with the words Monty the Clown written beneath it. Her chest grew tight and her voice turned to gravel. “Then again, maybe not.”

That comment drew Boldt’s attention. To him she seemed to be in a trance. “Daffy?”

“Monty the Clown,” she repeated, holding up the fax’s black-and-white artwork for him. “It’s an ice-cream bar with a gimmick. The kids love it,” she quoted what Owen had told her when he warned her to expect an invitation to Corky’s birthday party.

The birthday party was today.

“Ice-cream bar?” Boldt said, in a voice filled with concern.

He repeated it several times and began madly digging through the files stacked high on the table in front of him. “An ice-cream bar,” he repeated.

“Lou …,” she called out, her voice stronger, her mind ruling out coincidence.

Guccianno raised his head, sensing the tension in both of them.

“It’s here somewhere,” Boldt mumbled. He found it inside the file, second from the bottom. “Got it!” he hollered, rattling Guccianno’s nerves. Boldt tore into the phone book and found the phone number for the Broadway Foodland. Lee Hyundai was paged, and Boldt waited impatiently, finally looking up for the first time and seeing several pair of eyes trained on him.

He held up the receipt and reminded those in the room, “Four items purchased by a man in a greatcoat at express checkout lane, a man identified by Holly MacNamara as Harry Caulfield. Three of the items on here were Adler products-candy bars-and we lost those boys in the tree house, and after that, I never went back to the receipt, focusing on the candy bars instead.”

He recalled the haunting words of Dr. Richard Clements: “He will try to deceive you.” The Muzak stopped and the voice of Lee Hyundai came on the line. Reading the receipt, Boldt asked, “How much do you charge for a single Montclair ice-cream bar?”

His finger pointed to the receipt where it was written: 1.66. After a long pause, during which Boldt heard the clicking of a keyboard, Lee Hyundai reported, “That would be one dollar sixty-six cents.”

Boldt hung up the phone and hollered, “We’ve got a match!”

Guccianno came out of his chair.

Daphne turned to Boldt and announced with difficulty, “No one may believe this, but I know what he’s planning to do. And I know where to find him.”

“Are there bells on these trucks?” Dr. Richard Clements was one of the eleven law enforcement personnel now assembled in the emergency meeting under way in the situation room. Department of Motor Vehicle records had been checked four times. No vehicles were registered to a Harry, or a Harold, or an H. Caulfield. Of the four Caulfields in the listings, two were senior citizens and two others in their late fifties.

A Be On Lookout had been issued for all Monty-mobiles, with orders to approach with caution. With urging from the prosecuting attorney’s office, the company’s legal counsel had agreed to open their employment records to the police, effective immediately. Although they could provide the general areas their trucks covered, there was no direct communication with the trucks, and the specific routes were left up to the drivers. The bottom line was not good: The ice-cream trucks would remain in circulation until late afternoon. The Be On Lookout seemed the only way to catch him.

Dr. Brian Mann had stated emphatically over the phone that strychnine was the perfect poison of choice for a frozen food. “Cholera wouldn’t survive in that environment,” he had added.

Clements repeated, “Are there bells on these trucks?”

There were three or four conversations going at once, and only by raising his voice in this manner did he draw the attention of those gathered.

“Bells on Monty-mobiles?” Shoswitz said. “Who knows?”

“Yes,” answered one of the FBI men. “At least there are on Good Humor trucks back east.”

“Well, someone find out,” Clements ordered. He held up the fax for Boldt to read again.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

IT TOLLS FOR THEE…

“‘It tolls for thee …’ You see? I am right about our friend. He would like for us to stop him, if we can, with our limited combined intelligence, and take him at his word. ‘The bell tolls’ for Mr. Adler, gentlemen. How can he be certain? Mr. Adler’s daughter is a fan of Monty the Clown.” He checked with Daphne, who nodded. She had remained sullen and silent for much of this, not understanding how-when she was so certain of Caulfield’s whereabouts-that these oafs could call a meeting. Boldt could see the wait was destroying her.

“And Adler’s daughter has a party scheduled, with an appearance by Monty the Clown.”

“Which means a disguise,” Shoswitz said.

“Precisely,” agreed Clements.

“And we are assuming he has his own truck, rather than is planning to commandeer one-this because of the paint samples found at Longview.”

“Agreed,” Boldt said.

“Can we hurry this up?” Daphne snapped impatiently.

Clements glanced up at her. “Easy does it, Matthews. We understand your concern. We just want to do this correctly. Methodically. Mr. Caulfield is a worthy adversary-we must not underestimate him.”

She boiled, crossing her arms defiantly. But she held her tongue.

Boldt reminded, “We have the registration tags for all the legitimate Monty-mobiles.”

“One of which is expected at this sailing club-the party,” Clements reminded. “But we must be able to identify his truck. That is imperative.”

Bobbie Gaynes offered, “It would be easier to repaint an old truck than to make original art on one.”

“An auction list!” Clements snapped his fingers at Gaynes. “Get on it! They must get rid of their older trucks!”

Gaynes ran from the room.

For the next twenty minutes they discussed the logistics of attempting to prepare for Caulfield at the sailing party.

Gaynes burst into the room and placed a fax down in front of Boldt. It listed the sixteen Montclair ice-cream trucks that had been placed on the auction block in the last five months.

“His name’s not here,” Boldt moaned, his hopes shattered.

“I suggest you try the name Meriweather,” Clements directed, in that all-knowing tone of his.

Boldt ran a finger down the list and hit the name immediately. “Got it!” he announced. He whistled loudly. The door to the room swung open and a uniform blurred to him at a run. He circled the name and handed the man the sheet. “DMV title and registration. Go!”

“What?” Boldt asked, catching the expression of the psychiatrist, whose eyes immediately began to track back and forth in their sockets. He pointed to Penny Smyth. “Explain the situation.”

The prosecuting attorney said, “I don’t know how to put this.”

“Quickly!” Boldt encouraged, watching the door for the return of the patrolman.

“None of us wants to see Caulfield duck these charges.”

“What?” Shoswitz challenged.

She explained, “If you stop him now, you have a truck with poisoned ice-cream inside. You have intent, certainly.” As she continued talking, Clements waved his pen high in the air and conducted, stabbing and punctuating her words. He was smiling thinly. “But intent is all you have-we have. Some good circumstantial evidence, certainly. Some good motivation that our expert psychiatrist can use to our advantage. I don’t deny any of this.”

“What is this shit?” Shoswitz asked.

Clements, eyes closed, answered for her. “This is the law.” He opened his eyes now, sat forward, and placed down the pen. “She’s right, of course. It’s her job to be right about these things.”

Shoswitz looked back at Smyth, who said, “We need to witness the actual passing of a poisoned item to an individual if we’re to build any kind of case to carry a life sentence or greater. I’m not saying that what we have isn’t good, but it is not enough, I’m sorry to say-not if you want this man on death row. You take him as is, and we’ll put him away for ten or twenty. With a good jury, maybe twice that. But connecting him to these other deaths won’t be nearly as easy as pinning down an attempted murder-delivery of a fatal substance. There are some holes in the narco laws we may be able to squeeze him into and put him away for mandatory life, which is what I think we all want.” She looked at Boldt with sad eyes. She did not like this any more than the rest of them.

Boldt said, “So we sting him.”

She nodded.

Checking the clock, Daphne reminded urgently, “Less than forty minutes.”

The patrolman charged through the door waving a sheet of computer paper. “We’ve got the registration!” he announced.

A light breeze blew out of the west, filling the nine white sails beautifully and causing each boat to heel slightly. Boldt was wearing a set of dirty dungaree coveralls, leaning on a shovel, where LaMoia used a pickax to dig a hole leading nowhere. They worked at the junction of an asphalt path and the parking lot that connected the dock with the parked cars. Boldt wore a flesh-colored earphone with an attached wire that led down between his collar and his neck. A hidden lavalier microphone was clipped below the coveralls’ second button. He listened to the running monologue from the task force’s dispatcher. By pretending to scratch his chest, Boldt could depress a button allowing him to transmit through the microphone.

The two men cleaning the pool were task force. So were all of a team of four-two men and two women, including Daphne Matthews-who were in the act of putting the finishing touches on the party. The hired caterer and her people were being kept inside the clubhouse and out of sight. Straddling the clubhouse chimney, a roll of tar paper at his side, an FBI sharpshooter pretended to be making repairs. Hidden inside the roll of tar paper, a semiautomatic.306 with laser scope awaited him. This man was capable of a hard-target kill at three hundred yards, and he had the blue ribbons to prove it. At the moment, he had sore ankles as well.

There was a party of three having cocktails in the cockpit of a twenty-one-foot ketch pulled up to the fuel dock. All were task force, all expert shots. The cocktails were ice tea in a bourbon bottle. There was a guy having engine trouble, and another helping him-both bent under the hood of a Chevy, where a pair of handguns remained within easy reach. Hidden inside the clubhouse were six Special Forces agents, and in the bathhouse, six more.

Twenty-four cops and agents in all, eight on radios. The dispatcher nimbly maintained constant communications with all elements, continually updating and informing, and ready to relay the latest input.

In the distance, Boldt heard the approach of the radio station chopper as it reported on traffic on the floating bridge. The Birdman was riding with this pilot and reporting on a separate frequency to dispatch. This was a man who could spot a fox in a thicket from a thousand feet up. If Caulfield’s refrigerated truck was in the area, the Birdman would find it.

His efforts were aided by fourteen unmarked cars casually patrolling the seventeen streets that fed the two roadways that fed the dirt road at the end of which was this clubhouse. Phone line work was being conducted on these two feeder roads by FBI agents manned with communications and firearms.

The door-to-door salesman lugging his Naugahyde box from his backseat to the front door of every house on the approach street was in fact Detective Guccianno. He wasn’t selling anything; he was informing all residents to get their kids into the house, lock their doors, and await an all-clear. He was also showing each a photo of Caulfield, in case the man had been staking out the neighborhood prior to today.

“Don’t worry so much, Sarge,” LaMoia said nonchalantly, digging the hole a little deeper.

Static spit in Boldt’s ear. “The sailboats are about five minutes out and closing,” Dispatch reported. “Alpha is four minutes ETA.” That was Adler. “P-one and P-two, make your move, please.” Parents-one. Parents-two. A 700 series BMW and a Mercedes sedan, both repossessed in drug convictions, turned onto the final approach road, passing beneath the overhead phone line repair crew and pulling into the clubhouse parking lot-make-believe parents about to join their children at the party. For the last thirty minutes, police communications had busily sought out parents of the mostly girls in the sailing party. Of the eighteen kids, the parents of eleven had been contacted, and undercover police were to take their places. The whereabouts of the remaining seven were unknown.

The helicopter, displaying the station call letters, swooped low overhead and banked, as if to return for another pass over the floating bridge. Boldt glanced up. On the other side of the mirrored plastic bubble, the Birdman was scrutinizing the landscape through his binoculars. The Birdman, who could count eyelashes on a flea.

Several more cars arrived-some police, some not. Boldt felt a stream of sweat trickle down his side. Civilians in the mix. He wished there had been a way to prevent that. “You okay?” he asked LaMoia.

LaMoia rested the pickax, looked up at his sergeant, and nodded gravely. “Digging holes is shitty work.”

“You’ve got your line all memorized?”

“I’m ready, Sarge. Relax.”

Boldt heard the barking of the dogs, but did not see them yet. There were three scheduled, all German shepherds. Diana, who ran the K-9 squad and trained the dogs, was dressed in jeans and a Bob Dylan T-shirt: out for an afternoon stroll, down to watch the boats come in. Down to wreak some havoc. Another actor in a play so hastily written.

In Boldt’s right ear the dispatcher’s voice said plainly, “We have hard contact. Repeat: hard contact.”

“Hold on!” Boldt whispered hotly to LaMoia, who stopped midswing and set down the tool.

Boldt listened and reported, “Birdman’s spotted a gray roof of a decent-size truck parked in a stand of trees about a quarter-mile from here.”

“He got here early,” LaMoia said, “just as Clements said he would. I bet Clements was a Boy Scout.” He added, “I always hated Boy Scouts. Now, Girl Scouts was another story-” He swung the pickax again. A nervous LaMoia was a joke machine. Boldt longed for a switch. LaMoia said, “On second thought I could get to like this work. I kinda miss this physical stuff.”

“Cut the chatter,” Boldt said.

The chopper pulled up to a new elevation high over the bridge. Boldt assumed that from there the Birdman could keep an eye on the truck. Responding to a question from Shoswitz relayed through Dispatch, Boldt spoke into the radio, “No drive-bys. Nothing to rattle him. Copy?” He nodded and went back to leaning on his shovel.

Boldt pressed his ear and reported to LaMoia, “A second truck, just entering the road … Hold it! It has pulled off…. Something’s wrong…. Tires are out. Birdman has all four tires flat …”

LaMoia said, “He spiked the road.”

Boldt said, “He spiked the road.” And LaMoia grinned for guessing right.

“Take out the competition,” LaMoia said. “Make sure the truck that was hired is a no-show. The guy is smart, Sarge.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You nervous?” LaMoia asked, his concentration fully on his work. “There’s nothing quite like an operation, you think? But I never really recover. It’s like putting too much postage on a letter, you know? You can never get it back.” He added, “Your postman ever return any money to you?”

He reminded Boldt of Liz’s mother, who tended to rattle on when she became nervous or anxious, switching subjects randomly and somehow stringing them all together.

Boldt checked the roof. The sharpshooter had his hand inside the roll of tar paper. One of the two pool cleaners was scrubbing the steps of the high dive, making sure he had an elevated vantage point in case he had the only shot. All cogs of the same wheel. It rolled slowly toward Harold Caulfield.

“Boats are two minutes out,” Dispatch reported into Boldt’s ear. Then, after a spit of static, “Suspect vehicle is rolling.” Calmly, he stated: “All stations, suspect is rolling. Good luck, everyone.” SPD dispatchers rarely added such editorials, but Boldt was glad to have it.

The dispatcher traced the route of Caulfield’s Monty-mobile as it passed under the first of the phone crews. “We have confirmation of vehicle registration.”

“We’re on,” Boldt told LaMoia.

“Show time,” said the detective. “Don’t forget to smile.”

Boldt heard the first sailboat thump against the float, and then the shrieks of excited, childish laughter. One of the parents passed by on the way down the dock, but rubbernecked the two cops, and Boldt realized she was looking at LaMoia’s cowboy boots and probably wondering what a guy wearing a gorgeous pair of ostrich boots was doing digging a hole at her club. But she didn’t say anything. She ran her hand along the rail, though she walked more slowly, apprehensively, and looked back one more time, her face still caught in curiosity.

Too many civilians, Boldt thought, tempted to abort. Tempted to let it be Penny Smyth’s problem: Arrest now, figure out the charges later.

“Don’t do it, Sarge,” LaMoia said, reading his thoughts. “We’ve got this bastard. Five minutes and it’s all over.”

The inevitable question came into his ear; it was the voice of Phil Shoswitz. “Decision time. He’s thirty seconds out.” Hesitation as he awaited Boldt’s signal to arrest now or play it out.

LaMoia stared at him.

The anxious mother, far down the dock, reached the arriving boats and grabbed hold of a line tossed to her. Other parents waited in the party area. Boldt caught Daphne’s eye, where he saw both worry and concern, yes-but determination as well.

Boldt considered a sentence of twenty years-out in six with good behavior.

LaMoia, serious now and sensing Boldt’s struggle, looked into the man’s eyes and said, “Slater Lowry.”

In the distance the jingle of cheap bells filled the air.

Boldt depressed the radio button hidden at his chest. “Go,” he said.

Dispatch said into his ear, “All stations: green light.” He repeated this and then added, “Suspect vehicle has arrived on-site.”

Boldt glanced up to check the sharpshooter: The man had changed positions, and now hid behind the chimney where it would be easier to steady a rifle barrel. It occurred to Boldt that in the next few minutes they might kill a man-might get several more killed if they were not careful. For what? To appease the legal process?

The clanging bells grew louder, followed by the sound of a rough motor. Adler shouted not to run on the docks as a group of seven children sprinted toward Boldt and LaMoia.

Boldt recognized Corky from Daphne’s description: third back in the pack. Bright-eyed and innocent. After today, regardless of the outcome, her life would be changed; in and of itself, a crime against persons.

The ice-cream truck, bells clanging noisily, came to a stop not fifteen yards from Boldt. The sergeant swung his head casually. The driver wore a clown’s face, a bulb nose, and a yellow wig. He was dressed in a baggy jumpsuit of red, yellow, and blue. He reached to his mouth, withdrew a toothpick from his lips, and tossed at the ashtray. For Boldt, this confirmed it: It was Harry Caulfield.

Boldt felt hotter than just moments earlier: body chemicals. He could not allow himself to stare, and so he looked back at the black hole that LaMoia had dug, and the similarity to a child’s grave was impossible to mistake. He took his first and only stab with the shovel and spilled a mound of dirt back into the hole like a widow at a funeral. He touched his breast pocket, LaMoia looking on nervously, and said for the benefit of the microphone: “Suspect confirmed.” He heard the dispatcher repeating this as he plucked the earpiece from his ear and stuffed it down inside his collar, out of sight-out of contact now. Isolated.

The plan called for he and LaMoia to make the front of the line-to beat the kids to the truck and hence maintain their position closer to the parking lot than to the dock or the party area. Boldt took two steps toward the ice-cream truck and casually shouted over his shoulder loudly enough for the driver to hear, “What kind you want?”

“Get me an orange and vanilla,” LaMoia answered loudly, delivering his one line just as he had been told.

Boldt quickened his step, sensing the approaching children coming up on him rapidly from behind. Everything felt sharp and crisp, and suddenly the sunlight seemed overpowering-blindingly bright. To his left, the cop on the high dive adjusted his position. To his right, high on the ridge of the roof, the sharpshooter could no longer be seen, but Boldt could imagine the black eye of the barrel looking down on him.

If Boldt pressed the switch hidden on his chest and uttered the words Take him, then Caulfield was a dead man-his sentence decided right here and now. The power of that possibility did not escape him. He was judge, jury, and executioner. Ironically, arrest was all that could save the man now.

In this moment of consideration, he moved too slowly. Two of the frantic children scampered past him and cut in line, beating him to the ice-cream truck. This was not the way they had planned it, and though his fallback position had been to take Caulfield before any sale of ice cream, that too was now no simple matter, given the two children-hostages-easily within his reach.

The safety release was Diana and her three shepherds. Boldt glanced over at her, seeing she was in position, just behind the ice-cream truck, kneeling and talking to her dogs: stalling.

Boldt could not make a play for Caulfield until these two kids were out of the way.

The first child in line ordered a Big Dipper with nuts, and Caulfield, looking uncomfortable and acting slightly awkward, moved to the side of the truck and checked two of the small doors before coming out with the order. “None with nuts,” he said, handing the girl the ice cream. “I’m all out.” She took it anyway and immediately handed Caulfield two dollar bills. Boldt recognized fear as it darkened the suspect’s eyes: with all this preparation, he had neglected to bring change. He stuttered, “Ahh-I-,” glanced into Boldt’s eyes, and hurried back into the truck. He came out with change and handed the girl some coins. He looked into Boldt’s eyes again-calmly-and Boldt thought that Caulfield somehow knew.

The second child in line ordered a Red Bar-frozen fruit juice on a stick-and it occurred to Boldt that as he stood here waiting in line, every Montclair frozen ice-cream product in a three-state region was being pulled from the shelves-every truck emptied and the product destroyed. If Caulfield had laid bigger plans, hopefully they had shut these down.

“Change?” the man was asking Boldt. “Any change?” Caulfield repeated. Boldt had been caught up in thought. “Any quarters?”

The coveralls allowed a snapped slit to access the pants he wore underneath, and Boldt reached into his pocket and found five quarters and several dimes. He extended his open palm to Caulfield, who thanked him, and picked his way through a dollar in change, exchanging it for a dollar bill.

He thanked me. I just helped him, Boldt thought. He stuffed Caulfield’s dollar back into his pants, but it required of him an amazing amount of concentration and effort for so simple a task.

The girl with the Red Bar slipped out of line, and Lou Boldt stood facing Harry Caulfield.

“Help you?” the clown asked.

“An orange one with vanilla, and a Big Dipper, please.” He was saying “please” to a murderer; it seemed inconceivable to him.

Caulfield checked two doors. The white vapor of the dry ice escaped, briefly concealing him inside a cloud. “An Orange-Up and a Big Dipper?” he confirmed.

“That’s right.”

Boldt heard the tearing of paper. The two kids were not waiting: They were ripping into their treats. He glanced hotly at Diana, and she released the trained dogs, who immediately bounded across the pavement and leapt at the girls, knocking them down and stealing their ice-cream bars. The panicked screams and piercing cries of the two girls cut Boldt to his core. Diana plunged into the fray, confirming that the ice creams were not in their possession, and then called off her dogs, making apologies. She reprimanded both dogs severely, all the while petting them-a trainer’s game. As if on cue, Daphne and another of the fake caterers rushed to help the girls.

His backup was in place.

Boldt, pretending to be absorbed in the drama, kept one eye cautiously on Caulfield, who handled the disturbance quite well. And then Caulfield’s head snapped and Boldt followed his line of sight: Inexplicably, the third of the shepherds was gobbling down one of the ice creams. It had sneaked in behind its trainer as she collared and controlled the other two dogs. Seeing this, Caulfield seemed to panic.

Boldt tried to catch Diana’s eye, but it was too late. Snap, snap-the Big Dipper was gone.

“Two-ninety,” Caulfield said.

Boldt had not thought this out, had not figured on having to hold the two ice creams in one hand while searching for money in his pocket. This left him with no hand free for his weapon. As he rummaged back into his pocket and found several dollars, Corky Adler jumped line in front of him and demanded a Sno-Foam Fudge Bar. At this same moment, Owen Adler, right behind his daughter, looked first into Boldt’s face, then Daphne’s, and actually staggered as he realized what he had walked into. He straightened himself up, and in a moment of quick thinking said, “Corky, let’s wait for the cake!”

At the sight of Adler, Harry Caulfield was unable to move. The air charged with hatred. Corky, oblivious to it, said to the clown, “It’s my birthday, I can do what I want. Right, Monty?”

Boldt handed Caulfield the money, which snapped the man’s momentary lapse. If he could just get Corky out from in front of him, it was over. His hand, free of the money, was now touching the stock of the handgun. Move, Corky. “Better listen to your father,” Boldt said, trying to nudge her.

“Stop it!” she said precociously, holding her ground.

Move! He tried again.

“Quit it!”

“All out of Sno-Foam,” Caulfield apologized to the girl, focusing on her briefly, moving to the freezer door closest to him. “But how ’bout a Big Dipper?” he asked. “Monty thought the birthday girl loved Big Dippers.”

Adler stammered.

Daphne stepped forward, alongside Boldt, a face of cold stone. She took Corky’s left arm, “Listen to your father, Corky.”

“You made it!” a delighted Corky said. “Oh please. Oh please, Daffy!”

The other kids pressed in against Boldt, eager to be next in line. It was too crowded. It was all wrong. They could not take Caulfield with Corky where she was, and they could not allow this man to sell anything more.

Caulfield was distracted, and Boldt followed to see one of the shepherds whining and circling erratically, Diana consoling him. Boldt understood then that all of the ice cream was poisoned, not just selected pieces intended for Adler or his daughter. Another check of Diana’s charge confirmed it. The dog stumbled and went down onto its front legs in a praying position. He collapsed twice and pulled clumsily back to his feet, wanting to perform for his trainer. But it was no use-he was dying.

Boldt turned in time to see Caulfield leaning toward Corky with the Big Dipper.

The little girl accepted the ice-cream cone and tore at the wrapper.

“No, Corky!” Adler exclaimed, but not in the voice of a father worried about spoiling an appetite.

Caulfield reacted instantly, by reaching out for Corky-wanting a hostage. “Motherfucker,” Caulfield muttered, looking at Adler.

Boldt went for his gun, but it hung up in the coveralls.

Caulfield took hold of the child. Daphne’s purse came at his face like a wrecking ball, and as it connected, she yanked Corky away, threw her down onto the pavement, and covered her.

The children behind Boldt screamed.

Boldt charged the man. Caulfield went up hard against the side of the truck, and Boldt felt a knee implode into his gut, the wind knocked out of him. His head swirled as he heard more screams from behind him-screams of children-and the unmistakable sound of weapons being drawn from holsters as the voice of John LaMoia hollered, “Hold your fire!” Boldt was going down to the pavement in slow motion as LaMoia appeared in his peripheral vision, diving through the air.

He saw Sheriff Turner Bramm’s shotgun then: It had been sawed off, the metal a fresh silver on the end of the barrels, and must have come from inside one of the freezers.

“Down!” he heard shouted in the midst of the pandemonium.

“Drop it!” came a stern voice from behind.

LaMoia dove at Owen Adler and carried him down hard to the pavement.

Boldt, still falling toward the pavement in an indescribable slow motion, touched the chest of the coveralls and said, “Take him.”

He heard a dull pop-like hands clapping together-and the side of the truck sprayed with Caulfield’s blood. It was a shoulder shot, and though Caulfield’s eyes rocked in his sockets and seemed to acknowledge the hit, the sawed-off never faltered for a moment. Mechanically, he pumped the weapon. Boldt, in midair, kicked out hard and caught the toe of his shoe under Caulfield’s kneecap. Caulfield twisted and screamed.

The sawed-off blew the mirror off the truck and sprayed the front windshield into powder.

Two of Boldt’s people swarmed on top of Caulfield.

Boldt’s head slammed into the pavement and the lights went out. He heard the words, “Paramedics! He’s hit!” “Get these kids out of here!” Coming back, Boldt pulled himself up to sitting. Caulfield was buried under a pile of police. A pair of handcuffs sparkled in the afternoon sun as they disappeared into that pile. The Miranda was being spoken.

A moment later the pile parted slightly, revealing a clown without his nose and wig-just bright red cheeks and eyes filled with hatred. His shoulder was bleeding badly.

Daphne was hugging Corky and stroking her hair. Boldt could not see LaMoia or Adler.

But he did see Diana. She was weeping, her shepherd down and still. She held to it as a mother to a child.

Boldt’s heart tore in two. Too close. Too big a risk. And yet the joy of triumph as well. The Tim Man was in handcuffs, his glassy eyes fixed rigidly on a point beyond Boldt, fixed on a man whose voice rose above all others as he called out joyously for his daughter.