Pied Piper

CHAPTER 26

Daphne approached the regular four o’clock agonized over her assignment. Hill had requested a snapshot evaluation of every member of the task force-all of whom would be in attendance. Hill had offered no explanation for the unusual request, leaving Daphne anxious.

Hill had her own grand entrance planned for a few minutes into the meeting. She wanted Daphne’s attention paid to this moment. “Reactions and attitude changes,” she had explained. Sheila Hill remained a nut Daphne found hard to crack.

More photographs had been added to the situation room’s walls. Death and abduction. Children’s faces everywhere.

In attendance were Mulwright, LaMoia, Hale, Flemming, Kalidja and herself. SID’s Lofgrin had delivered a report and was available as necessary. Boldt was two floors away.

Mulwright kicked things off by complaining to Flemming about the FBI lab’s failure to report back on the automotive glass found at several of the crime scenes. The lab had been asked to help ID the product number found on one of the pieces. SPD had heard nothing. Flemming defended the delay, citing recent political and media pressure that had adversely affected the FBI lab.

Daphne studied tone of voice, eye movement and body language of each and every participant. State of mind was more difficult.

The group worked well together when dealing with specifics. They anxiously awaited the analysis of the pollen, the lab work on the glass chips, and put great hope in the surveillance of the vacant houses. The proposed direction for the investigation segregated down departmental lines: SPD put faith in Anderson’s killing and a possible connection to the abductions; Flemming wanted little to do with Anderson, insisting that Kay Kalidja’s suggestion to pursue catalog and magazine subscriptions offered the greatest chance for a breakthrough.

Mulwright proposed concentrating all manpower on surveillance of families with infant children that lived within sight of the abandoned house Boldt had discovered. Flemming argued against this, citing manpower demands. He suggested they notify all parents in the area, reminding, “No child has been taken from a parent-only from baby sitters and relatives of the family.”

In the two weeks since the Shotz abduction, this was the first mention of this, and for Daphne it went to the psychology of the Pied Piper. She blurted out, “He doesn’t want the confrontation a parent would offer. He’s afraid of violence.” All heads turned to face her.

“My point is,” Flemming said, “that if a parent stays with that child there will be no kidnapping.”

Daphne said, “He’s punishing the parent for leaving the child in someone else’s care.” Silence overtook the room. She said, “He’s giving those children to parents desperate for their own; parents who care. Parents who won’t leave that child for anything.”

“Mumbo jumbo,” Hale quipped.

Flemming reprimanded his agent with a stern look. To the others he said, “The point is, if we alert the public now, we may save some children.”

Sheila Hill came through the door without knocking. She won the immediate attention of nearly every man in the room, drawn like moths to light. She wore a plain gray suit, white shirt and black flats. A simple silver necklace hung over her collarbone. Her lipstick was flesh-toned, her hair brushed smooth and held with a clip. Nothing showy. The SPD officers stood for her. The FBI followed reluctantly. In that instant, the mood changed. Authority walked through that door. Even Flemming seemed to understand this.

Daphne sat up and took notice.

At a few minutes before four that same afternoon, a rainstorm relenting to the east, Lou Boldt crossed an internal threshold and, like an ex-drunk sitting in front of a bottle of whiskey, reached out and took his first sip. He simply couldn’t sit there staring at it. If the two who had abducted his daughter had believed him capable of passivity, they had guessed wrong. The cop in him won out. The only way he would ever see his daughter alive again was to beat his own people to the Pied Piper, locate his daughter and do whatever had to be done to take her back. He ruled out nothing. The plan was a simple one-eat or be eaten. His choice was made.

Tech Services was to provide him twice daily with cassettes of conversations that contained the key words he’d specified: “kidnap,” “kidnapping,” “abduction,” “babies,” “infants,” “task force,” and the names of every player, including the victims and Andy Anderson. The tapes were delivered in an interdepartmental envelope that had to be signed for by Boldt himself. Just another day in Intelligence, but this time Boldt was eavesdropping on his own people.

He listened to most of the conversations with the tape speed doubled. Voices like chipmunks, but the spoken words understandable. A two-minute phone call became one. Life in half time.

As he listened, he thought that he had failed as a father, husband and cop. A dozen should-have-dones presented themselves, but all in hindsight.

He recalled bottle-feeding Sarah in the living room as the morning sun warmed a darkened sky, the smell of the top of her head, the delicious sounds she made while eating. He recalled the softness of her feet and the strong grip of her toes. He ached beyond anything he had ever experienced. A knot of pain seized his chest, unrelenting. Adding to this anguish was the solitude of his secret. He could not face people. He shut and locked his office door and turned off his phone. But he locked himself in another room as well.

The father in him-the failure-wouldn’t let him out of the dark room of his guilt and grief. A glimpse of a family photo, Sarah’s crayon art, the tiny baby shoes on the bookshelf. These were the personal reminders he could not live with, and yet could not bear to remove.

From this point of utter desperation, he struggled back, reaching the most difficult decision of his life: The Pied Piper was not going to dictate his actions. He would turn on his own people if necessary, but Sarah would not be used to allow other children to be kidnapped.

As lead, LaMoia had both the Anderson file and the task force “book” on the Pied Piper in his possession.

Boldt could have submitted official requests for any such reports and files-he considered doing that-but then a more ominous question presented itself: Did the Pied Piper have a way of monitoring Boldt’s activities? Was there a second insider? Had a second cop been compromised? Was someone monitoring his every move?

Boldt had to conduct his own investigation while hindering the efforts of the task force, to be seen obeying the ransom demands while secretly working to locate Sarah and get her back. Any sudden interest on his part in evidence records and case files might send the wrong signal.

If he couldn’t request them, he had to steal them.

Flemming glanced over at his subordinate Dunkin Hale in what Daphne realized was a signal.

Addressing Mulwright, Hale said, “Lieutenant, if you agree, we would like to suggest SPD canvass pawnshops for Anderson’s camera.”

Mulwright countered in a sharply sarcastic tone, “It would help if we knew what kind of camera we’re looking for, Special Agent.”

Hill caught on and said, “Are you suggesting that Anderson was a heist gone bad, not a murder associated with the kidnappings?”

“It’s possible,” Hale replied. He then informed the group, “The camera is a Kodak DC-40, a digital camera that Anderson’s credit card records show he purchased in November of last year.”

Hill’s face went scarlet. “We want the camera, yes. But for the record, Anderson connects via the pollen,” she protested.

Flemming said calmly, “Anderson’s computer may contain digitally stored photographs. It has been sent to Washington for analysis.”

“You shipped it east without so much as telling us?” LaMoia complained. What he did not divulge was that the SID technicians had discovered a number of backup disks in Anderson’s bookshelf that were currently being analyzed. If the disks contained digital photographs, SPD would have them ahead of Flemming.

“I’m telling you now,” Flemming said. “We use the four o’clocks to share information.”

Not all of us, LaMoia thought. He smiled and said, “Thanks for sharing.”

The clock clicked into place: 4:20 P.M. LaMoia would still be at the four o’clock, his office cubicle unattended.

Boldt did not miss the irony of approaching an office cubicle and desk that had once been his own. At 4:00 P.M. the duty rotation had occurred and LaMoia’s squad had technically gone off their day shift. Because of the caseload demands of the Pied Piper investigation, most of his team kept right on working, logging coveted overtime. Combining the two squads could have meant a chaotic fifth floor, but it didn’t work out that way because of the surveillance duty. Adding to the floor’s peace and quiet was that the civilian employees-the secretaries, clerks, receptionists-had gone home.

As Boldt entered Homicide, he glanced first toward the lieutenant’s office, a large room with two desks shared by Shoswitz and Davidson. The lights were on. Boldt kept his head down and moved quickly. It was rare that both lieutenants occupied the room at the same time-they handled separate rotations-but the chaos of the task force had added hours to both men’s watch. If either lieutenant spotted him he would need to come up with an excuse for roaming around Homicide. Head down, he slipped past and headed directly to LaMoia’s desk, where a deerskin jacket hung on the back of the chair. The adjacent desk belonged to Leon Kreuter, a detective on Davidson’s squad, another of the middle-aged Homicide detectives who felt that Boldt’s prolonged years as sergeant had hurt their promotions-an argument Boldt didn’t buy. Kreuter was a talker. He would make a point of nosing into Boldt’s affairs. LaMoia’s desk would not be safe for long.

His heart pounding heavily, Boldt hurried to LaMoia’s cubicle and sat down. Twice the size of any other file, the task force book was easy to spot. Anderson’s was more elusive. He ran through the paperwork in plain sight but struck out. He pulled on the desk drawer and found it locked. At the same instant, two voices boomed from down the hall, the louder of which belonged to Leon Kreuter.

Sitting at his former desk, he suddenly realized that in the course of transition, he had handed the desk key over to LaMoia but not the duplicate key he had always kept in his wallet. He didn’t remember having ever disposed of the key. He dug into his wallet’s warm sticky leather and came up with it.

Kreuter’s voice moved toward him all of a sudden; the topic not cop talk but the performance of four-wheel-drive utility vehicles versus pickup trucks.

A detective’s desk area was off-limits. Chain of custody rules for active files required the signatures of both officers. Searching the contents of another officer’s desk-even a friend’s-was simply not done.

Worse, an Intelligence officer caught snooping around Homicide would sound alarms. As much as Boldt felt a part of this floor, his new posting cast him as an outsider even to members of his former squad.

While considering all this, he unlocked the desk.

Kreuter’s laughing voice drew closer.

Boldt slid the center drawer open: no files. Next drawer.

Anderson’s file had been placed on top of a Kleenex box. Boldt grabbed it and slid the drawer shut. He tried to turn the small key but it slipped out of his fingers and fell to the carpet.

Kreuter said clearly, “And she handles turns like a dream. You can’t believe the thing is four-wheel.”

Forced to leave the desk unlocked, Boldt fled toward the copy room, both files clutched tightly under his arm, his heart painful in his chest, his face stinging hot.

Homicide’s copy room looked like a paper warehouse, its walls adorned with dozens of Far Side cartoons, its shelves stacked with reams of paper products. The copier itself was the size of a freezer locker; it hummed loudly, green display lights lit up like a Christmas tree. The room was always a good fifteen degrees warmer than any other, making it a sweatshop. It smelled of paper, bleach and body odor. The door did not lock; nor was it ever seen closed, so Boldt left it open, feeling vulnerable. His back to the hall. He had never worked undercover. He didn’t know how people did it. A greater offense than lifting the files was to be caught copying them-cause for immediate internal review. Knowledge remained the key to Sarah’s chances.

He fed the copier groups of pages and it devoured them. The Anderson file took less than two minutes. He started in on the task force book, a formidable job.

A pair of voices approached from down the hallway. Boldt collected the paperwork in a rush of adrenaline, but then the voices faded past him, and again he returned to copying. He checked his watch as he fed another stack into the machine. Twenty minutes had lapsed since his entering Homicide. He bundled the photocopies into a stack and tucked it up under his shirt against his spine, held snug by the waist of his pants. His sport coat further hid it from view. He clamped the original folders under his arm and marched with purpose back down the hall.

All went well until he glanced over and spotted Doris Shotz keeping vigil in one of Homicide’s formed fiberglass chairs. Boldt stopped and stared, understanding this woman’s agony for the first time. Doris Shotz looked over at him, and Boldt felt her helplessness, her frustration and anger. They briefly met eyes.

“What is it?” she asked him from across the room, suddenly agitated, her hands worming in her lap. Her eyes dropped to the folders he was carrying, searching for answers.

Boldt shifted them to the opposing arm. As he did so, the strained voice of Lt. Peter Davidson said, “Inciting the natives?”

Davidson was an ex-football type with the chest and the attitude to prove it. His beer gut and spiderweb blood vessels spoke of his favorite pastime. “Don’t get her fired up,” he complained, “and don’t get her hopes up either. Just leave her alone.”

“She is alone,” Boldt said, understanding perfectly well. “That’s the problem.”

“What are you doing on this floor anyway?” He looked Boldt over, looked right at the files in Boldt’s hands. “Spying on us? Spying on your former squad?”

Boldt kept his arm to where it covered the tabs on the files. “Of course I am,” Boldt said sarcastically, tapping the files. “Spying on all of you.”

Davidson smiled. “Right. I thought so.”

Boldt headed directly to LaMoia’s desk, relieved to see Kreuter’s cubicle empty once again-some cops spent all their time between the coffee lounge and the men’s room. He returned both files to the drawer.

Finding his key proved more difficult. He looked where he expected it to be-beneath the desk-but didn’t see it. If LaMoia found his desk unlocked … that was unacceptable.

Boldt intentionally dropped his pen, toed it under the desk, and then kneeled to retrieve it. He didn’t see the key. He shoved aside the trash can, and there it was.

At the moment he retrieved the key, the door to Homicide buzzed and Boldt looked back to see a pair of ostrich cowboy boots approaching.

“While you’re at it, fella’, empty the trash,” LaMoia teased. “If you’re planting a bug, forget it. I’m onto you.”

With mention of the bug, Boldt bumped his head on the underside of the desk.

Boldt’s only chance to lock the desk was to put his body between LaMoia and the man’s desk. He backed out from under, stood and feigned a sudden loss of balance. Leaning onto the desk for support, he blindly attempted to fit the key into the lock, but couldn’t get it. He mumbled, “Stood a little too fast,” his fingers working furiously. The key slipped in the lock. He pocketed it.

“You okay?” a concerned LaMoia asked.

“Fine,” Boldt answered, wondering what kind of person deceived his closest friends. Wanting LaMoia’s thoughts elsewhere, he asked, “How’d the four o’clock go?” He felt so cheap. Desperate people take desperate measures, he recalled Daphne once saying.

“Hill wants you in her office,” LaMoia advised him.

“Me?”

LaMoia nodded and teased, “You’re not in trouble, are you, Sarge? Your boys been putting cameras in the girls’ locker room again?”

Had Hill found out about the wiretapping? Boldt felt the color drain from his face. Too much deceit to keep the lies straight. One day into it and he couldn’t keep himself together!

“Maybe you ought’a sit down,” LaMoia said.

“I’m fine,” Boldt lied.

By design, task force books did not necessarily duplicate one another. The copy of LaMoia’s was packed with evidence reports, SID workups, Daphne’s psychology profiles and Boldt’s Intelligence summaries. It contained the most recent SID forensics sweep of Anderson’s apartment and a short write-up on the backup disks. With Anderson their only palpable victim, Boldt read carefully, his tired eyes working down each sheet. LaMoia’s idea of organization differed from his; he found navigating the paperwork difficult.

Finally he reached the photocopies of the crime scene photographs, including two series from Anderson’s apartment. He scrutinized these. On his third pass he grinned. He picked up the phone and dialed Gaynes.

A few minutes later, they met in the lobby, his paranoia forcing him to recognize that if he could so easily eavesdrop on others, the reverse was also true.

He walked her to a nearby restaurant caught up in happy hour. Dark wood, marble and polished brass, gleaming mirrors-suits, soft wools, spike heels, cigars. The noise level was deafening. Not a cop to be seen.

Bobbie did not turn heads, though if attitude had been looks, she would have silenced the place. He found a pair of stools in the corner looking out at an avenue crowded with buses. Her legs were a little too short to reach the stool’s footrest.

“Since when do you buy me a drink, Sarge?” Gaynes was always out front with him. It was part of the reason for his enormous respect for her. “Especially at digs like this.”

“Buying favors. Why else?”

“Why else indeed? Thing is, Sarge, you don’t need to buy them. Know what I mean?”

“Depends on what they are.”

“No, actually it doesn’t,” she said, waving the busy waitress over to them. She had an extraordinary presence, this one.

“Two things,” Boldt said, keeping his voice to a level where it reached only her ears.

“Go,” she said, studying him carefully. “You look like shit, by the way.”

He hadn’t changed clothes in forty-eight hours. “True story,” he answered.

“Is it your wife?”

“You can sign off on Anderson’s file,” he said, not wanting any more of that.

“I had better be able to. I’m lead on Anderson,” she reminded proudly.

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Go.”

“So you’ll do that-you’ll get the file back from LaMoia.”

“Understood.” A Scotch was delivered, neat. She sampled it and approved.

“You’ll go through the SID crime scene photos. The more recent ones, not the March twenty group. Something is going to occur to you.”

She placed down the Scotch, studied him and nodded grimly. “Go,” she said, though less enthusiastically.

“You found Anderson’s clothes on the bathroom floor, including shoes that were still tied. That was good work. In an abstract way we can match those clothes with those shoes. So, what are we missing when it comes to the clothes in the hamper?”

“Shoes.”

“You’re a peach, Bobbie, you know that?” He waited for her.

“I’m looking for shoes in the SID photos,” she stated.

“Shoes or …”

“Boots,” she answered.

“I want the lab report on those boots twenty-four hours before anyone else sees it.”

Her eyes revealed her shock. Boldt did not make end runs.

“Sarge?”

He pulled out a five-dollar bill and placed it on the counter that fronted the window. Outside a homeless man was trolling for rush-hour philanthropy. He had a three-legged dog with mangy fur.

Gaynes took out her notebook and neatly wrote out several reminders.

This time, she waited for him. “Sarge, whatever it is-and I don’t to want to know, thank you very much-you’re not alone, okay?”

His eyes stung with encroaching tears. If there was one thing he felt, it was alone. “Thanks,” he said.

She drank the Scotch in two swigs and banged the glass down. She cleared her throat, burned by the drink. Without looking at him, she added, “You need a shoulder, I’m here.”

“What about Anderson’s front door video? Any progress?”

“I’ll be through it by tonight, promise.”

“Didn’t you say that last time?” He checked his own notes. “And the earwax?” he asked. “Anderson’s earwax?”

“I put in the request with the Doc. He should a sent it over to SID.”

“Follow it up,” he instructed.

“Can I ask something?” she asked.

“No,” he answered bluntly, surprising her. He tempered it by saying, “No, I’d rather you didn’t.”

He had hurt her. “Fine,” she said, toying with the empty Scotch glass. She slipped off the stool. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Bobbie!” he called out, wishing he’d handled her differently.

Some guy in red suspenders turned his head. He looked about twelve years old and was smoking an illegal cigar. “What?” he said. “I’m Bobby. What the hell you want?”

Boldt walked past him, too annoyed to think what to say.

Sheila Hill’s office lacked any feminine touches. Cluttered with paperwork, newspapers and stacks of files, it nonetheless had an image of control. She motioned Boldt into one of the two straight-backed gunmetal gray chairs and clicked a shoe off unseen under her desk. “You mind?” she asked, lighting up a cigarette. It was illegal in a public building. “First things first,” she said. “Anderson’s computer. How we let the Feds get hold of it is beyond me. It’s obvious we need to know whatever they know the minute they know it.”

“I can try,” Boldt said, thinking of Kalidja, “but it’s not as if I have ears over there.”

“Yeah? Well get some. Get a line on them-this is Need to Know, this is no bullshit.”

“They sent it to Washington,” Boldt reminded. “Bernie knows a couple civilians in the lab.”

“Whatever it takes. Which brings me to my more important point.”

He felt it coming: She knew about the wiretap and she was about to cut him off at the knees.

She stood and checked her door. She locked it. She took the smoke over to the window, sat down, turned toward Boldt and faced him with her stockinged feet up on the desk. She spoke unusually softly for her. “This goes no further than us.” Boldt felt a chill up his spine. He was busted; he felt certain of it. “Okay. Are you with me?”

Boldt nodded tentatively. Hill had an imposing femininity about her. Sitting so close to her, Boldt felt drawn into her. Captivated.

“We’re all thinking adoption ring at this point. Okay? So if we’re right then there’s some serious money in play. Market price for an illegal is anywhere from twenty to seventy thousand. White babies on the high side. That’s a million bucks and counting.”

Boldt wondered why Hill had waited to weigh in behind the adoption theory. Where was she leading?

“Plenty of spare change for a few favors.” She met eyes with Boldt. “You see what I’m driving at?”

“Maybe I do,” he said.

“You look at these reports, and you realize that in each and every city the Pied Piper blows town only days ahead of a major attempt to collar him. San Francisco. Portland. It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Fairly,” he answered.

“And you,” she said strongly. “You’re in the perfect position.”

“Me?”

“Of course.”

He had never understood the idea of a person’s world collapsing in an instant-worlds took time to collapse-but all at once that was how he felt, as if the walls, furniture, the ceiling and floor began to suck in toward him, crushing air out of the room and him along with it. She knew! She had found out. Next came his confession about Sarah, and then what?

“Me?” he repeated, his voice breaking.

“Who else?” she asked, confirming she had thought long and hard about this. “It’s your world, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he let slip in a sad, quiet voice. She understood too much. His daughter was his world. He and Liz had taken a bath with Sarah not two months ago, her little feet frantic in the water-a different world now for everyone.

“You’re positioned so perfectly. Who would think?”

He felt true hatred. “Who would think?” he repeated.

“Are you with me on this? Do you feel all right? You’re looking awfully pale, Lou.”

How should I feel? he wanted to say. “With you.”

“Who else? Not Mulwright. Not John. They’re too close to the center.”

“You see, I differ there,” Boldt objected. “The closer to the center the better, if it was me.”

“Forest for the trees, in my opinion. I thought about Matthews, and maybe she becomes part of this-”

“She’s not involved,” Boldt interrupted strongly.

“But she could be. If you wanted her to be, she could be. In some ways she’s perfect for this.”

“I’ve barely spoken to her in the past few days,” he protested. But I tapped her phone! And yours … and LaMoia’s!

“But if you wanted her to, she could help you on something like this.”

A high-voltage spike struck him; his fingers tingled. He had misconstrued everything she had said. “Captain …,” he began. “Sheila … what the hell are we talking about here? Me? Matthews?”

“I’m thinking it’s a reporter. You know: exclusive rights for a little cooperation. Book deal. TV movie. It happens,” she added with a strong twinge of regret.

“Are we talking the same thing?”

“A hundred grand? Two hundred?” she added quickly. “I’m thinking a reporter is buying inside stuff and supplying it back to the Pied Piper in exchange for exclusive rights. One of the tabloids.”

Boldt took a long deep swallow. “Just to clarify,” Boldt said dryly, “you’re asking me to flush out an insider?”

She cautioned, “One of the Feds would make the most sense. Hell of a source. A little cash under the table. Happens all the time.”

“You want me to flush the insider?” He felt giddy, he nearly laughed aloud at the irony: She was asking him to trap himself.

She said, “Yes. How else has this person gone undetected for so long? Inside information. Has to be.”

“We sting the Feds with disinformation,” Boldt proposed, “and see who surfaces.”

“Whatever you can come up with.” Unknowingly, Sheila Hill had just provided him the justification for the wiretaps he had ordered.

He would need to go through with something-no matter how poorly conceived-to placate her. Maybe use Daphne, maybe not.

“I think you’re onto something, Captain. It makes sense.”

“You’re damn right it does. We get this insider out of play-we keep our efforts from being sabotaged-and we just might collar the Pied Piper.”

“Right,” Boldt agreed. It was all he could think of.