No Witnesses

THIRTY-SEVEN

While surgeons at Harborview Medical Clinic stitched up Caulfield’s left shoulder, Boldt and six others went through several hours of debriefing. The Scientific Identification Division’s second-floor lab, under the direction of Bernie Lofgrin, began testing each and every one of the sixty-one ice-cream products recovered from the freezer van.

Despite the fatigue of everyone involved, there was an ebullient bounce in the step of all those who walked the fifth floor. A press conference, scheduled so that footage could be included in the eleven o’clock news, was held in a conference room at the Westin, with over eighty journalists and news crew personnel in attendance. Captain Rankin, the police chief, and the mayor fielded questions, assuring the public that “this terrible man” had been apprehended, that a “nightmare of carnage had been avoided,” and that Seattle’s supermarkets were safe once again.

Bobbie Gaynes, John LaMoia, Freddie Guccianno, and dozens of others involved in the incident were given a six-hour break to go home and sleep. Some of them took it, some did not.

The emergency surgery took forty-five minutes, finishing up a few minutes before six o’clock. The chief surgeon allowed Boldt and one other detective to interrogate the suspect if the interrogation was kept to thirty minutes or less. Boldt pressed for and won a concession that the interrogation could involve three, possibly four people. A second, more involved session was tentatively approved for the next morning. Although Caulfield had already waived his right to an attorney, by morning a public defender would be assigned and the case would fall into the hands of the attorneys. With black holes, everything was done to the letter.

At ten-thirty that night, armed with a cassette tape recorder and a large tea, Boldt stood outside Caulfield’s hospital room alongside two SPD patrolmen who stood guard. They were accompanied by Dr. Richard Clements and deputy prosecuting attorney Penny Smyth.

Boldt wanted nothing less than a full confession. They had attempted murder, they had enough circumstantial evidence to fill a courthouse, but a confession would finish things nicely. Clements wanted “a peek into that mind.” Smyth wanted to make sure they conducted the interrogation properly.

“Before we go in,” Clements said, stopping them, “his world has ended, and he knows it. He continues to blame Adler-not us, you will find-for everything. And that is extremely important, because it offers us a way to the truth. He will surrender the truth without meaning to. The more he tries to hide it, the more we can get from him. I see your confusion. You will understand as we proceed.” He pushed open the door, and they entered the room.

Caulfield was awake, lying in bed, his head rocked up on a pillow, his eyes alert and sparking darkly with anger. The room, stripped down to the bare necessities, smelled of alcohol and disinfectant. The surgery had involved only local anesthesia, which meant medication would not interfere with or negate the results of the interrogation.

Boldt switched on the tape recorder and spoke clearly, listing the location, the time of day, and those present.

Caulfield’s pewter-gray eyes ran over them. The man looked so normal.

Clements pulled up a chair beside the bed. Boldt and Smyth remained standing.

“I’ve got nothing to say,” Caulfield informed them.

Smyth said, “The difference to you, should you cooperate, may mean life imprisonment instead of the death penalty.”

“I want to hang,” Caulfield said, stunning both Boldt and Smyth.

Clements smiled and said softly, “Of course you do.”

Caulfield eyed him peculiarly.

Clements said, “But not before clearing Mark Meriweather’s good name. Hmm? Think about it.”

“You know about that?”

“We know about everything, my boy. We are very interested in Mr. Meriweather.”

Caulfield looked at him curiously, wondering how far he could trust the man. “Bullshit,” he said.

“Meriweather was set up, son.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Very well. What would you like me to call you? Mr. Caulfield? Harold? Harry?”

“Leave me alone.”

“If I leave you alone, attorneys like our Ms. Smyth here will get their hooks into you and that will be that. You’ve been through this before, Harry. You know what I’m talking about. If you had wanted that, you would not have waived your right to an attorney.”

“Attorneys suck,” he said directly to Smyth. “No attorneys.”

“Let’s talk about your hanging for a minute.”

“I want it over.”

“I understand. But why so fast? What about Mark Meriweather?”

“He’s dead. It’s over.”

“You loved him.”

“He was good to me.”

“They broke him.”

“They lied.”

“Yes. We know that.”

Caulfield sat forward slightly, stopped by the pain of his wound, but his neck remained craned forward.

Clements said, “Oh yes. We know about it all. They laced the birds. They paid people off. They placed the blame on Mark Meriweather.” He paused. “They made you kill the birds.”

The pain on Caulfield’s face cried out. The last thing Boldt wanted was to feel sorry for this monster.

“That wasn’t easy, was it? Killing those birds.”

Caulfield shook his head slightly. He seemed to have left the room.

“You had never seen Mr. Meriweather like that, had you?”

“So much blood,” Caulfield whispered.

“He wasn’t himself.”

“He changed.”

“Yes, killing the birds changed him, didn’t it?” He added, “Changed you all.”

Caulfield nodded.

“You loved those birds.”

He nodded again.

“We need your help, Harry. If you help us, we will help you. Sergeant Boldt here knows all about what happened out at Longview Farms, but we need to hear about this soup. What you did to the soup.”

“The birds were not sick.”

“We know that. And you blamed Mr. Adler.”

“They lied about us.”

“What about the soup, Harry? Tell us about the soup.”

“They poisoned our birds. I warned them. They didn’t listen.” He had a glazed look, no longer directed at Clements or Boldt or Smyth, but somewhere on the ceiling or the back wall. Off on his own. “I thought the cholera would convince them.”

“You put the cholera in the soup?”

He nodded.

Boldt glanced over at the tape. Still running.

Clements saw this and said, “I didn’t hear you, Harry.”

Harry Caulfield just stared at the wall.

“We need your help, Harry.”

“I did it because they did it to us. I did it to show them that they had better listen.”

“Did what?”

“Poisoned the soup.”

Boldt and Clements met eyes. There it was-and captured on tape.

Caulfield attempted to sit up once again, but was beaten by the pain. He pleaded, “Why didn’t they believe me? Why did they let those people die?”

“Excuse me,” Smyth said. She was pale and his lips were trembling. She walked quietly to the door and left the room.

“Tell me about the money,” Boldt said.

“What are you talking about?” His eyes burned into Boldt.

“The extortion money,” the sergeant reminded. But Caulfield’s face went blank, and Boldt felt certain that this was no act.

“You’re out of your mind.” To Clements he said, “All cops are out of their fucking minds.”

“Are you out of your mind, Harry?”

“Who is this guy?” he asked Boldt. To Clements he said, “A shrink, am I right?”

“How do you feel about these murders, Harry? Tell me about these murders.”

“Ask Owen Adler. No fault of mine.”

“Tell me about the murders.”

“I didn’t murder anyone.”

“Yes you did, Harry. You have murdered twelve people, including two peace-”

“I didn’t murder anyone! And I don’t know anything about any extortion money, or whatever the hell it is you asked me,” he said to Boldt.

Clements scooted farther forward, leaned in closely, and whispered intimately, tenderly, “We’re listening, Harry. We want to hear whatever you want to tell us. Doesn’t matter what.” Caulfield’s eyes brimmed with tears. “The world has not treated you fairly, have they, son?” This time, Caulfield did not object to Clements’s using the term. Instead, the patient shook his head and tears spilled down his cheeks. Clements said warmly, but in a strangely eerie voice, “No one has listened, have they? I know what that’s like, son. Believe me, I know. They just never listen.” Caulfield shook his head again. “You told them about what happened at Longview, and did they listen? Is that fair? You told them about that drug charge-oh yes, I’ve read the piece. It’s a brilliant piece of writing, son. Something to be proud of. I’ve read it all.” Caulfield groaned. “But no one ever listens, do they? They tell you to come back. They tell you to go away. They treat you like a child. But they never listen, do they?” He paused. “No one has ever listened like Mark Meriweather listened. And they took Mark away from you. They ruined him, didn’t they?”

The cry that came from the man might have been heard across several of the hospital’s wings. The patient’s mouth hung open and he wailed at the ceiling, rocking his head on the pillow, and Dr. Richard Clements threw his own head back, closed his eyes, and listened like an opera patron enjoying an inspired aria.

“I’m listening!” Clements shouted in the middle of one of these cries, and it only encouraged the patient louder. Boldt glanced at the tape recorder-no one was going to believe this, he thought.

Before the male nurses threw open the door, Clements had already raised his hand to stop them and wave them off. Boldt had not heard their approach.

“We’re fine,” the doctor reported. “A little healthy release is all.” He said to the patient, “They heard you, Harry. Do you see? We’re listening now! We can hear you!”

Caulfield stopped and opened his tear-stained eyes, and Boldt thought he was witnessing a soul’s final glimpse of sanity, that Harry Caulfield had made a fateful journey. But Clements did not seem bothered in the least. For the benefit of the troubled male nurses, Clements said to the patient, “We’re fine, aren’t we, son? Better now, aren’t we?” To the nurses he said, “You see?” And he waved them off contemptuously, a move he finished by sweeping off the lapels of his double-breasted blazer.

“Now let’s start at the beginning, shall we, son? Every action starts with a thought. Can you tell me, please, about the very first moment that you knew Owen Adler had to pay for his crimes? The very first inspiration. I have all the time in the world, son. All the time in the world.”

Clements looked over at Boldt, beaming a smile.

Boldt was not certain who was crazier. “The money,” Boldt repeated.

“I don’t know anything about any money,” Caulfield repeated angrily. For the second time, Boldt believed him.

He did not have all the time in the world. He grabbed the tape recorder and headed straight to the office to have it transcribed.

Boldt slept for fourteen hours, awakening at two in the afternoon. He ate a light meal, called the office, and fell back to sleep. At eleven that night, he found himself wide awake with a dozen thoughts colliding in his head. He kissed his sleeping wife, changed clothes, and returned to the office. DeAngelo’s squad was on rotation. Everyone congratulated him on the Caulfield raid and on the confession, treating him like a hero, but Boldt did not feel like a hero: The extortionist was still at large.

He checked with Lockup. He checked with Daphne-but could not find her. Cornelia Uli had a public defender assigned to her. She was in the system now.

With no evidential connection yet made between Uli and Harry Caulfield, no money found in Caulfield’s possession, no ATM cards, and Caulfield’s denial of extortion-while confessing to cold-blooded murder-Boldt felt compelled to believe that Caulfield had had no connection to the ATM scam.

He pulled out Uli’s file and started through it once again, reviewing her past arrests: gangs, drugs, a prostitution charge that had been dropped. He looked at her earlier arrest photos. Sixteen, seventeen years old. A real sultry beauty then. Now, at twenty-one, the street had robbed her of her looks. The gangs were hardest on the young women.

Each time through, he had been reviewing the contents of the files, quickly passing over the form headings, the departments, the officers involved: the overly familiar information that any cop encountered repeatedly and with little or no interest. But the next time through, a number jumped out at him. One little number typed innocently years before into one little box. So easy to miss. One small piece of information left on a form. Over six years old now. By a cop making an arrest, filling out a blank: Arresting Officer: 8165.

The ATM PIN number. Boldt picked up the phone, his hand trembling, dialed Daphne’s number again, and again she did not answer. He had to search his notebook to find Adler’s unlisted residence. His fingers punched out the number. He waited seven rings before Adler answered and passed Daphne the phone.

“I need you,” he said.

Chris Danielson was asleep when Boldt turned the light on in his room. Daphne and the male night nurse followed at a run. Boldt turned to this nurse, pointed to the other bed in Danielson’s room, and said, “He’s out of here-now.”

The nurse opened his mouth to complain, but Boldt had already been through hell with him at the nurses’ station, and he had had his fill. “Get that bed out of this room now!” The man mumbled something, but obeyed. Apologizing to Danielson’s roommate, the nurse took him for a ride into the hall, and Daphne closed the door.

“I need straight answers, Chris.”

He still appeared half-asleep. “Sarge?”

“And Matthews,” Daphne announced herself.

“They’re going to throw me out of here in a minute-we’re still not allowed to see you-and this can’t wait until morning. Are you with me?”

“Go ahead.” He rolled his head, blinked furiously, and reached for a paper cup of ice water with a straw. Boldt handed it to him and Danielson sucked in a mouthful.

“You took Caulfield’s file from the Boneyard without signing it out-a day before we identified him. When we did, you returned it. I need to know why.”

Any minute, that door would open.

The man had new lines in his face, and a combination of pain and exhaustion in his eyes. A tent frame held the covers off his abdomen, and two large weights held his legs in traction. His voice was dry. “I obtained a state tax record of Longview employees. Caulfield had a record. I pulled the file.”

“But why?” Boldt challenged. “For money?”

“Money?” he asked incredulously. “To clear the black hole, why else?” The man was too tired, too medicated for Boldt to read his face well.

“You were offered a job away from the force,” Boldt speculated.

“Not true.” He met eyes with Boldt. “I wanted your job.”

A flashing light passed below the window as a silent ambulance arrived. It pulsed light across all their faces.

“I wanted this one worse than you did. I’ve been going at this case night and day when I wasn’t handling your paperwork for you. ‘Nice little nigger, sit behind the desk and let the white boys do the big, tough jobs.’ Not this nigger, Sergeant. Bullshit.”

“It wasn’t like that, at all.”

“Wasn’t it?”

They both raised their voices simultaneously and began shouting. Daphne cut them off with a sharp reprimand and said to both of them, “Out of order!”

Unaccustomed to losing his temper, Boldt took a few seconds to pull himself together. He checked his watch-precious seconds.

Daphne said to the injured man, “Elaine Striker.”

Danielson looked over at her. “Just one of those things that happened. It’s nothing I’m proud of. She’s lonely and she doesn’t remember what love is.”

“And then this black hole comes along,” Daphne nudged.

“Like I said, it’s nothing I’m proud of. Turns out Michael Striker is a talker, that’s all. Turns out his wife knows everything there is to know about this case, and suddenly I’m a lot more interested in the romance-the pillow talk-and she isn’t complaining.”

“What a sweetheart you are,” Daphne said.

“I paid for it, Matthews. You want to switch places?” He jerked his head toward the corner of the room where a collapsed wheelchair leaned against the wall.

Daphne stuttered.

“Listen, Striker was all messed up about Lonnie-Elaine. He wasn’t thinking clearly. I came to him for a warrant to get the New Leaf bank records-the canceled checks-and it never occurred to him to clear it with you,” he said to Boldt.

“You found the payoffs,” she concluded.

“No, I didn’t. They were more careful than that. It was a long shot was all: Hoping to find a paper trail to the bribe money. I had already guessed who had been paid off, but couldn’t prove it. So I changed tack.”

“We’re listening, Chris.”

“Check the transcript of Caulfield’s trial. It was not a good case. But public sentiment toward drugs was bad right then-you so much as said the word cocaine, and in a jury trial the suspect went down for the long count. And what did the case hinge on? Some tip that the arresting officer received. The whole thing turned on this snitch-an anonymous tip. One anonymous snitch, and Caulfield goes away for four and change. Granted, that’s how Drugs’ busts go down: Narcs never reveal their snitches. But if you read between the lines of that transcript, the arresting officer-a cop named Dunham-was nervous as hell up on the stand. Why? Because he didn’t have a legitimate snitch. It was a setup. Caulfield was framed.”

“And?”

“And before I got to this Dunham, Striker got to me. Must have followed Lonnie-Elaine-to the hotel.”

“But you suspected someone.”

“Wouldn’t be fair. I never did prove it.”

“Kenny Fowler,” Boldt said, supplying the name. He mumbled, “Badge number eight-one-six-five.”

Daphne stared at him, dumbfounded.

Danielson’s eyes flashed. He hesitated, barely nodded, and explained, “Dunham’s partner for five years on Major Crimes. Fowler goes private with a company called New Leaf. Dunham goes over to Drugs. He’s floundering, can’t get the hang of Drugs. Then he does this major bust: Harry Caulfield with a couple kilos of high-quality soda. Four months later, guess who he’s working for? Double the salary, double the vacation. Double the fun.”

Boldt sagged and leaned onto the frame of the bed. “Jesus.” In a soft, apologetic, guilt-ridden voice, he confessed, “I got you shot, Chris.” No one said a thing until Boldt spoke again. “I suspected you of stealing that file. I didn’t want an IA investigation in the middle of this black hole. I asked Fowler to place you under surveillance for me. Keep it out of uniform. He lied to me about what he found out about you. Obviously, what he found out was that you were a little too close for comfort and that you were sleeping with Elaine Striker.”

Another long silence as the sound of the circulating air and the hum of machinery seemed deafening to Boldt. He wanted this man’s forgiveness, and he knew that was impossible.

“Her PD is on his way,” prosecuting attorney Penny Smyth informed them.

“But do we wait?” Boldt asked her.

“No one is forcing her to speak to you,” Smyth pointed out. “You can push, but technically she doesn’t have to talk.”

“Understood.”

Smyth was cautious not to give them her outright approval. “You don’t have much time.” She requested of Daphne, “Should anyone ever ask: You loaned me your office, where I remained while you two were in there with her, okay?”

“Near as I can remember.”

Boldt and Daphne moved quickly down the hall. “I have an idea. Back me up in here,” she requested, meeting eyes with him as he reached to open the door for her.

“I’m there,” he promised.

“We turn the volume way up and she’s going to talk. Bet on it. But it may get a little nasty.”

“That suits her, I think.”

He followed her into the Box. Daphne never broke stride. She burst through the door, leaving it for him to close, and she hollered at the suspect, “Out of the chair. Now!”

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Cornelia Uli wore a haggard expression from her two dismal nights in lockup. Uli sprang to her feet.

“Come over here,” Daphne said, indicating the end of the table. “Right here.”

Uli stood at the end of the interrogation table, looking concerned.

Daphne said, “Now let’s get one thing straight: If you do not cooperate with us, your life just got ugly. You’re going where girls do other things to girls that are not pleasant-things you’ve never heard of-and where the guards just do worse things, so no one ever says a thing to them. You keep your mouth shut, unless someone has use for it. That’s option number one. Option number two is you open that same mouth for me, right now. This is not some two-year drug charge we’re talking about. It is not some check-kiting scam. This is not some free ATM card that your pal set up for you. This is murder one. This is the end of your pitiful little life, Cornelia, if you do anything but exactly as I say.”

“I’ve got nothing to say.”

Daphne glanced once, hotly, at Boldt, turned to face the suspect, and said, “Lean against the table.”

“I will not,” Uli protested.

Daphne slapped the table hard, jarring the woman. “Lean against the table.”

“Go ahead,” Boldt said.

Reluctantly, Uli leaned onto her hands.

“Your forearms,” Daphne said. “Good. Now open your legs. More. Move ’em. Good!”

“What do you think?” Daphne asked, stepping back to view the profile as she might a painting.

Having no idea what he was agreeing to, Boldt said, “I think you’re right.”

Daphne stepped up behind a nervous Cornelia Uli and reached around her, careful not to make contact, and leaned over her in a provocative position impossible to mistake. She rocked her hips unmistakably. In an intimate whisper she asked the suspect, “Remind you of anyone?”

“Get off me.”

“I’m not on you. Neither was he. He was in you.”

Boldt felt like an idiot for taking so long to see it: The woman in Kenny Fowler’s apartment. The night Daphne had taken the hotel room and sat in the dark.

In that same intimate whisper Daphne said, “I saw you two up there.”

Uli’s head jerked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It didn’t look like you enjoyed it very much,” Daphne said. She added quietly, “Whatever he has on you is gone. We tear it up, burn it, whatever. We’re not interested.”

“All I do is squeal, right? Forget it.”

The first crack.

Boldt said, “We’re talking about extortion, accessory to murder. The rest of your natural life spent behind bars.” he added, “We know it was you.”

The door swung open and an angry male voice demanded, “Out of here now!”

It was Uli’s public defender, and he left the door for them to close as he rushed to his client’s side.

On the other side of the Box’s one-way glass, Uli, her attorney, and Penny Smyth were waiting impatiently for Daphne and Boldt, who had been talking it through for the last several minutes.

Wrapping it up, Boldt speculated, “Being one of the few insiders, Fowler knew how to word the extortion threat so that we would attribute it to Caulfield.”

“But he blew it-the extortion demand neglected to blame Adler, something that bothered both Dr. Clements and me.”

“We expected extortion demands. He simply gave us what we wanted.”

Looking at Uli through the glass, Daphne explained proudly, “It was her body language that caught my eye. When she started prancing around the room like that, I knew I recognized her. I sat in that hotel room watching them for hours. It just took a second for it all to click.”

Boldt said cynically, “Both of them in that apartment-right there across from us …”

“He was angry with her about something. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to show up there. He took a quickie at the dining room table for payment and sent her packing.”

“He’s such a prince,” Boldt said, swinging open the door as they joined the others.

Uli’s public defender was a young Jewish kid fresh from the law boards named Carsman. He looked like an unmade bed. He had a high, squeaky voice and he protested Boldt’s every breath. Penny Smyth, looking the most dignified of any of them, dragged Carsman into the hallway for a conference, and when they returned to the Box, Cars-man did not utter a single objection. He took notes furiously, and occasionally passed one to his sagging client.

Boldt passed Uli her arrest record. “Badge number eight-one-six-five. That badge number belonged to Detective Kenneth Fowler when he was a police officer. He arrested you in a gang situation, and you were charged with a second-degree homicide. The charges were later dropped for lack of evidence.”

Daphne stated, “We saw you in his apartment that night.”

“Shit,” the suspect said, and she hung her head and shook her hair in defeat.

Boldt felt triumphant. His face revealed nothing. Impassive. Exhausted.

Daphne said, “What does he have on you, Cornelia?”

She mumbled. “A videotape. A surveillance tape. I was seventeen.”

“Sex?” Daphne asked.

“A homicide,” Boldt stated knowingly.

“Don’t answer!” Carsman interrupted.

Boldt said, “Lester Gammon. Age eighteen. Stabbed seven times.”

Cornelia Uli obeyed her attorney, though she locked eyes with Boldt. “He asks me to do stuff now and then. I do it.”

“Like the other night?” Daphne asked.

“Go stuff it,” Uli said vehemently. “What do any of you know about the streets? Let me tell you something-out there you do favors and people leave you alone. It’s simple in the streets. It’s basic survival. You and your perfect hair and your strawberry douche,” she said spitefully to Daphne. “You make me sick.”

Daphne blushed and held herself back in a formidable show of internal strength.

“You did Fowler favors,” Boldt repeated.

“Like this ATM thing. Yeah.”

“Do not say anything more!” her attorney advised.

“Shut up,” Uli told him.

“I can’t represent you if-”

“Shut up!” To Boldt she said, “I went where he told me to. I did what he said to do.” To Daphne she said, “And yeah, he jumps my bones now and then. And no, I don’t particularly like it. But it’s not like it’s something new, okay? He’s been doing it since back when he was a cop. He had a lot of the girls doing it back then. If Kenny busted you, you went down on him. No charges. It was that simple. That’s what I’m saying. You get why I’m afraid of cops? It started when I was fifteen and running with a gang. Kenny liked me. Too bad for me.” She seemed to be apologizing to Daphne. “You get kinda used to the ones like Kenny Fowler. But it’s better than the alternative, and that’s the way it works out there. Doing favors for people beats the hell out of living under bridges in cardboard boxes. Getting gang-banged. Getting bad needles. You don’t know until you’ve been there.”

“You’re right,” Daphne said, overcoming her personal agenda and striving to establish rapport with the suspect. Daphne’s friend Sharon had been there. Daphne knew all about it, but was not going to say so, was not going to defend herself. Boldt admired her for that.

“He gave you the ATM card,” Boldt began for her.

“And the number. And he told me which machines to hit. Big deal. He gave me a hundred a night.”

“Generous,” Boldt said.

“It’s a living,” Uli replied dully.

“Sergeant?” It was Penny Smyth. She asked for a conference in the hall. Daphne stayed with the suspect.

Smyth said, “What I’m seeing here is that it’s going to come down to her word against Fowler’s. Is there any other evidence tying them together other than this? Because I’ve got to tell you, a judge is not going to like her. Will Fowler have the money on him? No way. It’s long gone-the minute you picked this girl up, it was gone. He was a cop, right? He knows the game. He’ll have something planned; he used her for a reason. Am I right, or am I right? I’ll run with this if you want. I can take it up the ladder and see what they think, but it stinks, if you ask me. She’s young-she has reasons, serious reasons in her past to hate Fowler and want to do him harm, and that’s going to come out in any testimony. It stinks, Sergeant. Matthews cannot say for sure it was this girl in Fowler’s apartment that night.”

Boldt countered, “We have the PIN number. We have the former arrest.”

“The bank account was opened by her. She uses Fowler’s badge number as a way of getting back at him, just in case she’s caught, which she was. I’m showing you the spin that can be put on this. As a witness she stinks, I’m telling you. Your call. You tell me what you want me to do.” She met and held eyes with him.

“I hate attorneys,” Boldt told her.

“Me too.” She smiled. “All my friends are cops.”

He smiled back. “So what do you suggest, Counselor?”

“I suggest she wears a wire for us. We plea her down to six months in medium with good behavior. Carsman will do back flips to get that. We send Fowler to the Big House until he’s gray.”

Boldt asked incredulously, “Do you actually think that Kenny Fowler will get within a six-state region of this woman? No way in hell. Maybe to kill her, but not to-” He caught himself.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Maybe we let Fowler do our work for us. I think he owes us that.”

Boldt had his car swept for listening devices before driving Daphne out to Alki Point, where he parked with a view of the water and a volleyball game being played out at sunset. Thankfully, no devices had been found.

A body had washed ashore here once, and had changed a case and their lives along with it. He had not chosen this place to park at random.

“I don’t want to ask this of you, Daffy.”

“Then don’t.” She knew already. But she had agreed to the drive, so perhaps he stood a chance of convincing her. She looked away from him, out her window. “Please don’t,” she repeated.

“You have to be living back there if this is going to work. We’ll have to script some things for you and Adler to say. We have to chum the water, or he’ll spot the hook.”

“Do you understand what you’re asking?”

“I know what I’m asking-I don’t know what it would be like. I don’t know that I could do it.”

“And Watson and Moulder-they would see me, too, if all this works the way you have planned. On the toilet, in the shower … My God, Lou!”

“We gave him the mug shot, Daffy. We know he showed it around the processing plants, the warehouses. At some point someone must have recognized it. Caulfield delivered there on a regular basis. Fowler kept that information from us, all so that he could continue the extortion. He’s as guilty as Caulfield is. If we’re to put him away for that, we need a huge case against him. We need to build it from the ground up and show that Kenny Fowler, because of greed, allowed these poisonings to continue. But to do that, we have to have him dead-to-rights on the extortion. Honestly?” he asked. “I don’t care much about the extortion. I care about these lives. I care about being lied to and strung out because of Fowler’s greed. He deserves more than a slap on the wrist. And yes, it means that you have to take your clothes off. Yes, you have to do all the private things we all do every day of our lives. And yes, you have to do them as if there is no camera watching you, no microphone listening. And no, I don’t know how a person does that. But I know you want him as badly as I do-otherwise, I couldn’t have asked.”

She sighed, and she scratched the dashboard with a fingernail. “Thank you for not saying that he’s seen it all already-that he may have hours of me on tape-so what does it matter? And thank you for not saying that I’m strong enough to pull this off. That is a sentiment that would not be appreciated, I can tell you that. We won’t know about any such strength until I try-if I try. And so that would only be manipulative garbage.” She smirked and added, “More my territory than yours. I could blow this, Lou. And thanks also for downplaying the report on that witness from the loading dock. We know Fowler received confirmation of Caulfield’s identity and did not act on it. I read that report. That makes him guilty of these crimes by omission.”

Boldt did not realize that she had read it. “Whatever,” he said. But his heart was pounding strongly, for it sounded to him as if perhaps she had made up her mind.

“They ask too much of us,” she said, her lips tight as if fighting off her emotions. “We give too much, and we get so little back. The media tears us to pieces. The sixth floor rains hell on us. And all for what?”

“Cold pizza and Maalox,” Boldt answered.

She sputtered a laugh. “Yeah. Job benefits.”

“Right.”

The wind blew across the water like a shadow, and sand swirled in the air, and the people playing volleyball shielded their eyes from it.

“As a teenager, like all teenage girls, I wanted to be a movie star. I thought it looked so easy. ‘Be careful what you wish for. Someday it may be yours,’ or however that goes.”

“You have to do this willingly; it’s not something that will work if you feel pressured into doing it. You have to sell him on the idea that everything you say, everything that goes on at that houseboat is for real.”

“Business as usual,” she said spitefully.

He was not going to touch that comment.

“I’m in,” she announced. Facing him with hard eyes she said, “But for my own reasons, Lou. For my own damn reasons.”

Everyone called the man Watson, and he ran Tech Services as if it were his own department, which it was not. He had been called Watson for so many years that Boldt did not remember his real name. He was a bald man with glasses and thick red lips, and was commonly mistaken for Bernie Lofgrin’s younger brother. If it ran on electricity, then Watson could build it, modify it, copy it, or compromise it.

Watson and his prize technician, a man named Moulder, spent two consecutive days in a cabin cruiser anchored off of the Lake Union houseboats, alternating between running the gear and fishing off the stern-this “to keep up appearances.” They were the envy of the entire department that week.

The two most difficult performances were turned in by Daphne Matthews and Owen Adler, who did everything short of making love for the cameras. According to script, they discussed the Uli case on occasion, with Daphne implying that the suspect was getting closer and closer to cooperating with the authorities. Daphne showered, shaved her legs, and brushed her teeth as usual, and Watson followed procedure to the letter, never connecting monitors to the cameras in the bedroom and bath.

The technology behind the ruse was explained to Boldt in layman’s terms. Fowler’s surveillance system worked off of infrared and radio-frequency transmission as opposed to hard wiring, which necessitated cables. The signals from the microphones and fiber optic cameras were transmitted via the airwaves to a remote location that Watson estimated was within a quarter-mile of the houseboat. Another houseboat or a nearby condominium seemed the most likely location for this remote, but a vehicle or boat was a possibility. It was suspected that the incoming signals were recorded and videotaped at the remote site, although it was also possible that the signals were relayed over telephone lines from the remote to either the security room at Adler Foods or Fowler’s apartment-they would not be able confirm this until they conducted a physical search of the various premises. It was no different from the surveillance techniques the police themselves used, except that Fowler was more thorough in his coverage of the houseboat, and he incorporated a state-of-the-art digital technology that required Watson to borrow some equipment from the FBI.

Watson and his people spent twenty-some hours identifying the various frequencies being used, and stealing onto the signals. Now, what Fowler was listening to and watching was also being recorded on the anchored cabin cruiser that housed two of the world’s worst fishermen. More important, when directed to do so, Watson was prepared to jam Fowler’s outgoing signals from the houseboat and transmit his own from videotape, leaving Fowler with false images of an empty houseboat, when in fact it would be bustling with activity. This deception had been the key element for Boldt’s plan to work, and it took nearly seventy-two hours before Watson believed he was ready. No one could guarantee it would work.

On day four of the ruse, the morning headlines and broadcasts led with the story that Cornelia Uli had agreed to turn state’s witness and to reveal to a grand jury the identity of the man who had run the ATM extortion of Adler Foods. Deputy prosecuting attorney Penelope Smyth was quoted as saying that with Uli’s testimony, the state believed it had an airtight case, and that for “security reasons” the witness was being placed into hiding so that nothing could jeopardize her testimony-or the state’s case.

At one-thirty in the morning the night before-well before the story hit the press-an unmarked dark-blue sedan pulled up in front of the dock that led to Daphne’s houseboat, and two plainclothes policemen climbed out and walked the area for five minutes before returning to the car and giving the all-clear. The car’s back door opened, and a figure small in stature, accompanied by a big bear of a man, walked quickly toward Daphne’s home. The front door swung open and admitted these two without a knock or introduction. Moments later, the blue car sped away.

Daphne closed the door and locked it. “Everything go okay?”

“Fine,” Boldt answered.

Cornelia Uli pulled back the hood to the sweatshirt and shook her hair free. “I thought we were going to a hotel,” she complained.

“So will everyone else,” Boldt said. “The press will be searching every hotel, motel, and inn within an hour’s drive of the courthouse. A houseboat on Lake Union, five minutes from downtown? You’re safer here than in any hotel. It has a brand-new security system, and-”

“A policewoman to look after you and take care of you.”

“What about television?”

“There’s a television in the bedroom, and the bedroom is yours until this is over.”

“Okay, fine.” Cornelia Uli strolled the houseboat looking it over, touching some of the furniture, inspecting the view. “It’s killer,” she said.

“Let’s hope not,” Daphne answered. “And let’s get one thing straight: I am not your housemaid. We share dish duty, cooking, and cleaning.”

“Forget it.”

“This is nonnegotiable. You can go back to county lockup and take your chances, if you’d prefer.”

Boldt began drawing the curtains and lowering shades.

“And you can’t go outside,” Daphne stated emphatically. “This is a small, closed neighborhood. We decided against putting any of our people around the area because we thought it would cause too much suspicion and probably force us to move you. We don’t want to move you. We were also worried about leaks. Only a handful of people know you’re here, all of whom can be trusted.” Boldt continued with the shades. “You won’t go outside, you won’t use the phone, and you won’t open any of the shades. We’re taking no chances that you might be randomly spotted. And remember, this is for you, not us.”

“Bullshit,” the woman protested. “This is so I’ll squeal. This is so Kenny Fowler goes to jail. Don’t give me any of that shit.”

Cornelia Uli had been told nothing of Boldt’s ruse, and Boldt delighted in the fact that unwittingly she, too, played her role out to perfection.

For a day and a half, the two women lived side by side-sometimes combative, sometimes in harmony, but with Daphne either wearing her weapon at her side or leaving it within plain reach.

Boldt and his team were equipped with some of the same digital communication technology used in the ATM sting, preventing any possibility of electronic eavesdropping. Officially, the police were completely out of this. In fact, an elite team of individuals including Gaynes and LaMoia were following a carefully choreographed script in which Cornelia Uli was the only unwitting participant. For the sake of possible surveillance, it had long since been decided that the trap would be baited after dark.

On the second evening of Uli’s confinement, Daphne sat waiting for the woman to take a bathroom break. As usual, she wore a radio and earpiece.

Uli was a television addict, and remained virtually glued to the set in the bedroom during waking hours. Boldt used this against her in his plan: The diuretic slipped into the evening meal guaranteed frequent bathroom calls; at some point she would come down to the head-essential to the success of the ruse. More important, she would immediately return upstairs to her shows, where, true to form, she would remain. She would not be hanging around downstairs, checking coat closets. Crucial, because on this night, the closets would have more than coats inside of them.

But for Daphne the time seemed to stretch on forever. Finally Uli did come down from the bedroom, the sound of the television behind her, and crossed the room toward the head. Daphne, as per instructions, sprang into action.

She walked quickly to the front door and unlocked it. At the same time she keyed in the security code, deactivating the system, she also flashed a signal of three pops of the transmission button to her radio. Then she hurried to the back door, which she unlocked as well. All of this required only seconds to accomplish.

Thankfully, Uli always washed her hands after using the toilet. The running water was to serve as Daphne’s warning signal.

Outside the houseboat, the three quick pops over the radio were the awaited signal. Boldt, LaMoia, and Gaynes, all dressed in dark clothing, hurried from the back of a panel truck and down the short dock toward the farthest houseboat, while through an earpiece Boldt monitored the monotonous drone of the dispatcher’s voice tracking Kenny Fowler’s every move. At present, Fowler was holed up in his water-view apartment across town.

On board the cabin cruiser, Daphne’s radio signal instructed Watson to jam several of Fowler’s transmission frequencies and to start the prerecorded videotapes playing. It was for this reason that Daphne remained standing close to the back door-there were no hidden surveillance cameras watching this back area of the house. One moment the hidden cameras were showing the real-time activity inside the houseboat; the next, only the camera and microphone showing Cornelia Uli urinating were live. The rest briefly displayed the images and sounds of empty rooms.

It was during these few precious moments of illusion that Boldt and his team slipped quietly inside the houseboat-Boldt and Gaynes through the front door, locking it behind them, and seconds later LaMoia through the back.

LaMoia took up position in the back coat closet.

Boldt stuffed himself into the front coat closet.

Bobbie Gaynes raced up the ladder and concealed herself on the small deck outside the bedroom.

Daphne heard the bathroom water running.

She rekeyed the security code and the light flashed red.

She glanced into the living room. Boldt’s jacket was caught in the closet door, cracking it open. He did not seem to notice.

No time. Watson had warned her that for the video to play correctly once the jamming was removed, she had to walk “on screen” from the same location where she had walked off. She could not suddenly appear in the middle of a room when the cameras went live.

Desperate to correct Boldt’s coat, she had no choice but to return to her screened position at the back door, while at the same time clicking her radio three times successively. Click, click, click.

On the cabin cruiser, sweat clinging to his brow, Watson stood alongside his assistant, Moulder, each with fingers from both hands occupied, awaiting the signal. The radio sparked three times. Watson said, “Ready?” Moulder nodded. “One, two, three!”

In a synchronized movement, the men depressed the buttons simultaneously. The video of the houseboat was once again live. But now, there were three police inside.

Watson spoke calmly into the radio, “You’re live.”

Uli came out of the bathroom at the same time Daphne heard Watson’s confirmation and crossed back onto a video screen somewhere in the city. The psychologist’s heart was pounding ferociously. She had not realized how tense this would make her.

On cue, the phone rang, and Daphne answered it in her same bored manner with which she always answered a phone, fully aware of the electronic device listening to her every word.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” said Lieutenant Phil Shoswitz. “We need you downtown. It’s urgent-the grand jury has advanced the schedule. They’ve decided to hear her testimony tomorrow morning. Smyth wants to talk to you.”

“But I-”

“Twenty minutes is all. I know you’ll be leaving her, but it’s better than us sending a replacement and making a scene. Lock it up tight and key in the security. You’ve done it before. She’ll be fine.”

“But I really don’t think-”

“If we don’t handle this tonight, we’ve got major problems in the morning. Get your butt down here.” He added, “No one can bust in there without us knowing. I’m putting an unmarked car up on Fairview. They’ll respond if needed, but I don’t want them any closer than that.”

“Yes, sir.”

She hung up and told Uli, “I have to go downtown.”

“Bullshit.”

“I have to go. You’ll be fine. I’ll lock up and you’ll rekey the security behind me. I won’t be more than a half hour.” She added, “I’ve gone out for food before.” She turned around, and there peering from the closet was Boldt’s eye, wide with urgency. Shocked, she quickly collected herself. Boldt could not spin around in the tiny space and free his coat without making noise. Nor could he pull the closet door shut without risking being heard.

“But not at night,” Uli complained.

“It’s orders. I have to go.”

“A half hour, that’s all,” Uli stated as a requirement.

“I thought you didn’t like cops,” Daphne reminded her. She edged toward the closet.

“I like your gun. I don’t suppose you would leave me that.”

“You’ll be fine.” She reminded her of the code, although Uli had used the system before. “Lock up behind me.”

“No,” the woman snapped sarcastically, “I think I’ll leave it open so Fowler can just walk right in.”

Daphne stepped up to the closet door and said, “Oh hell, I don’t need a coat,” and smacked the door firmly, pushing it shut. A small triangle of Boldt’s sport coat stuck out by the hinge like a tiny flag.

Boldt was not big on claustrophobic environments. He was large enough that even the front seat of a car seemed tight to him. The minutes ticked by interminably long. He monitored the time by pushing the button that lit the display on his Casio watch.

Four minutes after Daphne’s departure, Boldt heard softly in his ear, “Suspect is departing his domicile. Repeat: Suspect departing.” They had intentionally given Fowler only a few minutes in which to react, because they knew their operatives could not stand inside a coat closet remaining absolutely silent for more than thirty minutes, and because they hoped to force an urgency upon him that would require a quick, perhaps irrational, decision to act. This also accounted for Shoswitz’s announcing to Daphne an advanced trial date.

“Suspect headed east on Denny Way,” Boldt heard in his ear.

Boards creaked overhead-Uli was in the bedroom watching television, unaware of Bobbie Gaynes lurking in the shadows only several feet away.

The surveillance traffic crackled in Boldt’s ear. Fowler drew progressively closer, and when he eventually turned north toward the lake, Boldt knew he was headed here. Seven minutes.

“Suspect has arrived at destination,” came the dispatcher’s bland voice. Boldt could not stand the lack of air another minute. He tugged on the closet door and cracked it open again, delivering fresh air, and leaving him a tiny slit through which he could see.

Somewhere around three minutes later, the back door came open, Kenny Fowler using a master key for locks that his own people had installed. He punched in an override code that circumvented a customer’s PIN-supplied to alarm companies by the manufacturer in case a customer forgot his or her security PIN. Then he shut the door and reset the alarm.

Cornelia Uli’s ears were aided by the fact that she had muted a commercial, and because Fowler proceeded to step on the same noisy board that had gotten him into trouble with Daphne. Uli came charging down the ladder calling out, “Changed your mind?”

Boldt watched as Fowler came into view. He wore a dark-green oilskin jacket. Bold could not see Uli.

“Oh shit!” Uli barked out, seeing him.

“Relax! I’m not here to kill you.” He sounded emotionally drained.

“Bullshit.”

“No shit.” He produced a fan of cash-twenty-dollar bills. “We’re getting you out of here.”

“What are you talking about, out of here?”

“I’m giving you a choice,” he said calmly. “You can take a plane ticket and three thousand bucks right now, or you can get on that stand tomorrow morning-”

“It’s not tomorrow morn-”

“Shut up! There’s no time, Corny.” Fowler evidently cared for the woman. Boldt had not anticipated this. “You get on the stand and you lose your memory. No ATMs. No Kenny Fowler. No testimony. It was all your idea. I can tell you how to make it sound convincing. You do that, and I’ll give you thirty thousand when you get out.”

“I’ll never get out.”

“Four years, maybe six. And thirty thousand at the other end. I’ll deposit half in your name before you get on that stand.”

“I take the fall for you.”

“Something like that.”

“Jesus,” she said. Boldt realized she was actually considering it.

Boldt reached down and depressed the radio’s call button twice: Click, click. Overhead, he heard Gaynes move. He saw Fowler turn as he must have heard LaMoia. Boldt swung open the door, his weapon already drawn.

Cornelia Uli screamed.

Fowler scrambled for his weapon, completely caught off-guard.

“Three of us, Kenny! Drop it!” Boldt announced.

“Hands high!” LaMoia warned from behind.

Gaynes leapt down the ladder and tackled Uli, shielding her.

Fowler shook his head. He sat down slowly onto the floor, only inches from the post where Daphne had struck her head. “But how?” he said, glancing toward the wall and one of his hidden cameras.

“We’ve got all the latest shit,” Boldt said, quoting him.

Fowler remained dazed.

LaMoia said, “Hey, Sarge, get this: Tonight you and I came out of the closet.”