Pied Piper

CHAPTER 27

Boldt parked outside the Shotz house shortly after 8:00 P.M. that same Thursday. The warm evening air carried the scent of a budding earth-rich, black, wet soil pushing up life after months of sponging up the sky’s discharge. Boldt recalled an early winter evening when just he and Sarah had been home. He had put a Scott Hamilton CD on the stereo, a cup of hot tea on the table and little Sarah warmly into his lap. Flipping pages of The Lovables-he remembered the book so clearly-he had been pointing out the pictures to her when suddenly she had wheeled her head around and up and had met eyes with him, her father, so absolute a connection, so strong, this little person making contact, real contact with him, and then the long, sustained smile, gradually forming and then occupying her entire face, and an overwhelming sense of love choking his heart, filling his throat and unleashing from his eyes. Father crying, baby smiling, the book slipping to the floor, its pages slowly shutting.

Daphne’s red Honda arrived a few minutes later, and she joined him in the front seat of the Chevy. She smelled of lilac and her face carried worry poorly. For a moment they sat in silence, and he knew she was mad at him for not explaining his moving Miles out of the city. But there wasn’t any explaining to do; he wasn’t going to start now. He had dug himself in too deeply.

“I’ve had time to go over the files, found some interesting coincidences.” Everyone, including Daphne, knew he abhorred the word. “Take a look at these,” he said, handing her a stack of lab prelims from the task force book. She would not question his being in possession of these. Boldt worked evidence-it was his lot.

“The parents’ statements,” she observed, reading.

“One is Shotz,” he explained. “The other is taken from a report the Bureau provided. It’s Portland … the Portland kidnapping.”

“You want me to read these?” she said impatiently.

“Skim is okay.”

“Portland is in interview form,” she noted.

“All right. Here!” he said, pointing, “… swaddled in a receiving blanket at the time of the abduction. The mother calls it a ‘custom’ blanket.”

“All mothers think that,” Daphne said.

“No, no, no! She calls it a custom blanket. No one asks anything more. Here!” he said, rearranging the pages. “Doris Shotz says her baby was wearing ‘an outfit with her picture on it.’ Her words.”

“Custom,” Daphne said, following his logic.

“Custom,” he agreed.

“Weinstein?”

“No mention I can find. No reference. But that’s why we’re here,” he informed her. “Doris Shotz is organized. She’ll know what we’re after.”

“And me? What’s my role in this?”

“Downplay it. I don’t want it going to the press. I need this to be a conversation, not an interrogation. She’s a wreck.”

“You don’t look so swift yourself. You setting a record on that shirt or what?”

“He picks his victims somehow.”

“Custom blanket?”

“Why not?”

“Just asking.” She informed him, “The Bureau is pursuing magazine subscriptions and catalogs. It came up in the four o’clock.”

“No kidding,” Boldt said, hoping to sound surprised.

She knew him too well. “I won’t ask,” she said. “I promised not to ask. But I sure as hell hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Me too.”

Doris Shotz answered the door with her three-year-old son clutched in her arms. Boldt had seen her only a few hours earlier outside Davidson’s office and knew of her vigils over the past two weeks. In an environment that could and did cast humor onto any subject no matter how grim, Boldt did not know of a single joke that had been voiced about Doris Shotz. Each day she returned, unwilling to give up on her daughter. She was admired by captain and patrol officer alike.

A woman in her thirties, she had the look of an old lady on her deathbed, wan and thin. She admitted Boldt and Daphne, but they were not welcome. Doris Shotz had quickly developed a deep-seated hatred for the police.

The kitchen table held two empty place mats from an earlier dinner. Shotz never let go of her boy while preparing coffee and tea, even though she looked as if she might snap under the weight. Boldt and Daphne took tea. Paul Shotz poured himself a cup of coffee laced with rum, despite his wife’s protests. He had the unfocused glass eyes of a taxidermied rat. He had shaved carelessly, a day or two gone by, lending him a worn and beleaguered look. His shirt had been slept in, on the living room couch if Boldt had it right. Sitting at the table with them, Paul Shotz stared beyond Boldt-right through him-so that the detective had the feeling that someone was standing right behind him.

“What is it you want?” Doris Shotz asked impolitely. Two weeks earlier she would have done anything to help; but now she had little room left for hope. The Pied Piper claimed far more lives than just the children he abducted.

Daphne said, “We’re making headway-real headway-in the case, Mrs. Shotz. Police work is about fitting pieces together. We’re here in search of more of those. We need to seize chances when they arise. That’s why we’re here. Some of what we’d like to discuss has been brought up before, perhaps so many times that you’re sick of it, that you think we already have the answers. If we did, we wouldn’t be here. What we need to do, all of us,” she said, including the dazed husband, “is do our best to imagine that none of this has been discussed before. Erase the slate. Allow things to rise to the surface through the grief and pain of your loss. We all want Rhonda back home. As much hostility and anger as you feel toward us, it’s important you believe that, trust that, because it is the truth: We’re in this together.” She shot Boldt a look-this last statement aimed at him.

Losing her patience, Doris Shotz said, “We have been over all of it a dozen times. You take notes. Don’t you read them?”

“What happens,” Boldt informed her, “is that answers change.”

“Shock affects memory,” Daphne said. “You think you’ve told us something because it’s so clear in your mind, but in fact it never made it into words. The mind can play tricks. It’s the same with us: We can be so caught up in pursuing one line of evidence that we hear, but don’t process, an important fact. When that resurfaces-if it ever does-the entire investigation may change.” She added, “In just a little over three weeks, Mrs. Shotz, we’ve made significant progress. We came here to listen. Help us, please. Help us find Rhonda.”

“Rhonda,” the intoxicated husband mumbled. “You never even met her.” He looked at all three of them as a silence fell between them.

The wife took in the husband as if tolerating an unwelcome stranger. She looked back at Daphne with despair in her eyes. “We’ll try,” she said.

Boldt explained, “The report filed with our department lists a missing receiving blanket. Her ‘Rhonda blanket,’ you called it.”

“Her Rhonda blanket,” the woman echoed. “Yes.”

Daphne glanced to Boldt signaling that she wanted to lead. Boldt gave a slight nod.

“Can you describe the item for us?” Daphne asked. “Was it personalized in some way?”

“I did this already … I’m sure I told you,” Doris Shotz complained.

“It’s not the point, Doris,” the husband admonished drunkenly. “You’re so damn concerned about who’s to blame here.” He tapped the coffee cup against the table rhythmically. “It’s not their fault. It’s not mine. It’s not yours. It just happened. They took her.”

“Things like this don’t just happen! If we hadn’t taken that dinner train …”

“Oh, bullshit!” the husband roared. “What? We would have been back here an hour sooner. So what? She still would have been gone, Doro. They took her. They took our baby-” He sniffled. His rheumy eyes spilled tears. He stood and poured himself another rum, the coffee abandoned as unnecessary.

“We might have misplaced the description,” Daphne allowed, hoping to avoid a domestic battle.

“It had her picture on it,” Doris Shotz explained.

“Gail, wasn’t it?” the husband asked, returning to the table with his mug full of rum.

“Paul’s sister gave it to us.”

“A gift?” Daphne nudged. She needed the woman to stay focused.

Boldt withdrew his notepad, trying not to attract attention to it. Most people were intimidated by their words being written down.

“It was cute,” the woman explained. She scratched absent-mindedly at the table.

“We sent out a photo with our announcements,” the husband explained. “Gail found some place that silk-screened the photo onto the baby blanket. It was a really good job. Doro used it all the time.”

“Silk-screened,” Boldt repeated.

“Digitally enhanced,” said the computer repairman. “Nice color, good resolution.” He rocked the bottom edge of the mug in circles against the table.

The mother said mournfully, “It was adorable.”

“She was wrapped in it that night?” Boldt asked cautiously.

The woman lifted her eyes to meet Boldt’s, and he saw in there a building uncertainty. “It was missing. I assumed I had her in it.”

Trying to keep the excitement out of her voice, Daphne asked, “But now?”

“It’s definitely missing,” the drunken man replied.

Doris Shotz shook her head slowly side to side. She glanced back to Boldt. “This is important, isn’t it?”

“It’s all important to us.” He didn’t want to fuel her hope unfairly, but they needed her attention focused on the blanket.

She said, “A drawer was found open.” Adding, “It wasn’t us. Julie maybe-the sitter.”

Boldt nodded. He had read about the drawer in the report. It was what had focused him onto the possessions of the victims. He wrote into his notebook: the sitter?

Boldt said to the husband, “If you could provide a way for us to reach your sister?”

“Sure.” He motioned for Boldt’s pen and paper. His handwriting was more of a scrawl.

Boldt thanked him.

Doris Shotz said out of her silence, “It was a cute name. On the label. Mirror Image? I don’t remember. Something cute. Does that help?”

Boldt took this down.

Daphne reached over and touched Doris Shotz’s nervous hand. “Can you get a picture in your head of that label?”

She squinted. “No, not the label. The blanket, sure.”

“But not the label?”

“No.”

Boldt’s sense of time had been destroyed by Sarah’s abduction-everything took too long. His patience frayed. He spoke somewhat harshly to the husband. “Tell me about the dinner train again … who knew you’d be on that train?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he said, eyeing his wife. “We’ve been over this.”

“You booked it yourself,” Boldt stated.

“Yeah. There’s a number you call. All there is to it. Pick up the tickets when you get there.”

“You must have guaranteed them. What? A credit card?”

“Sure.” The man repeated, “All there is to it.”

“And you don’t remember telling anyone at all-at work, a neighbor, a best friend? Maybe a friend recommended the train and you mentioned to him that you had booked an evening?”

The man ran his hand through his oily hair. “No, that isn’t true. I didn’t tell nobody-anybody,” he corrected.

“Do you have the credit card statement?” Boldt asked.

The man looked a little fuzzy.

“Think, honey,” Doris Shotz pleaded.

He screwed his face into a knot. “I probably got it, yeah, I suppose. I booked it ahead of time, you know.” He reached out for his wife’s hand, but she pulled hers away.

“Get it for them,” the wife demanded.

“I can’t.”

“I’d appreciate the statements from the last three months for any credit cards you have,” Boldt clarified. The husband looked crestfallen.

The wife remembered something then. She said, “We turned all that over to the other people-the FBI.”

“All your finances,” Boldt said, perfectly calmly. Inside, he boiled.

“The girl,” her husband said, “the one with the accent. She took our bank statements, credit card stuff, everything.”

Kay Kalidja, Boldt realized.

Before they left, Daphne and Boldt visited the child’s nursery. He stepped into the room knowing full well what it was like to live with such emptiness. He had spent the night in Sarah’s room, rocking in the rocking chair, staring into darkness, hating himself. He absorbed as much of the environment as he could, a new eye to the crime scene. The carpet was marked in three places where chips of automobile glass had been found. The glass connected the crimes to a single assailant, reminding Boldt of its importance. The dresser and the windowsills were clouded with fingerprint dust. Stuffed animals; children’s books on a hand-painted bookshelf; a musical mobile of pandas with red and yellow feet; a changing table.

He visualized the Pied Piper entering the room and heading straight to the crib. Knowing what he was after. Boldt turned toward the dresser: The Pied Piper had taken time to search the dresser. Why? Did he need a change of outfits for the child? Or was he worried about leaving evidence behind? Had that silk-screened blanket been wrapped around the child, or had it been in the drawer that still remained open?

Blanket in hand, or not, he turns toward the crib. He needs to disguise or conceal the child before abducting her. He wraps her in a second blanket? He places her in a bag or toolbox?

The open drawer continued to tug at Boldt. The missing blanket had to be significant.

Daphne reminded, “He’s an organized personality. If he took that particular blanket there’s a reason.”

“Mrs. Shotz!” he called out. The woman stopped at the door to the room, unable to enter. Her eyes welled with tears and she crossed her arms tightly as if to ward off the cold.

“You do the laundry?”

“Paul doesn’t, I can tell you that.”

“How many receiving blankets do you own?” he asked. Boldt did the laundry in his house. He grilled the meat, washed dishes and was much better with an iron than Liz. She paid for the housecleaner and they split Marina’s check. Liz did their bookkeeping, cooked most of the meals-all of the vegetables-and answered the mail and phone calls. He wanted his life back.

Liz had nine bras, two that she wore more often than the others. He knew the outfits that Miles wore by heart. They had eleven burp rags and seven receiving blankets-enchiladas, Boldt called them, because that was how they looked as infants, swaddled tightly before sleep.

“Four,” she said, without the slightest hesitation. Boldt trusted the number.

“And how many are here?” he asked.

She looked at him, her face drained of expression. Fear stole into her eyes. “I never counted.”

“No reason to,” Daphne encouraged.

“Count them now, please,” Boldt said.

Doris Shotz headed for the drawer that had been left partially open. Exactly what Boldt had hoped for: That drawer held the blankets. She corrected herself immediately, “Four, other than the new one, the one with the picture.”

“I understand,” Boldt said. “Five total then.”

“I don’t machine wash the one with Ronnie’s picture. I hand wash it.”

“Fine.”

She rummaged through the drawer, glanced back sharply at Boldt and then started over, checking for a second time. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to count,” she said, distracted by her own guilty feelings. She went through the drawer a third time.

“Only three?” Boldt asked.

The woman hurried from the room. A moment later she returned, several shades paler. “Not in the wash,” she mumbled.

“How many?” Boldt asked her again.

“Three,” she answered. “But how did you know two would be missing?”

Ten minutes later Daphne and Boldt stood by the Chevy. Her eyes sparkled with excitement.

“What about the credit cards? What was that about?” she asked.

“We all buy tickets, we book travel, we charge our meals, our shopping, all on credit cards. If there are any patterns to our lives, the two places they show up are our checkbooks and our credit cards.”

“But Trish Weinstein was at the supermarket at the time of abduction,” she protested.

“Frequent flyer miles. People charge groceries to credit cards now. Liz does it sometimes.”

“Jesus,” she muttered.

“The Bureau gave it away without meaning to. They’ve locked us out of the credit histories on the earlier victims. We’ve been asking for them for weeks. Why hog them all to themselves unless they’ve spotted a pattern?”

“And the blanket?”

“We got lucky,” he said modestly. “No one picked up the pattern.”

“Next?”

“We contact Portland and see if the custom outfit mentioned in that interview had a silk-screened photo on it.”

“We need the name of that company-the silk screens,” she said.

Boldt nodded. “Might be the link we’ve been missing.” He moved toward the driver’s door.

“We’re not done here,” she stated.

“We have to move on this.”

“Look over my shoulder,” she instructed. “I’ll bet you a month’s salary she’s watching us from the window.”

Boldt did as he was told. “Are you showing off?”

“Of course I am. Did you notice the way she kept repositioning her little boy?”

“He’s a heavy little boy.” After a dismissive look from her, he said, “Okay. What’d I miss?”

“Only an eyewitness,” she said.

Boldt opened the car door and retrieved the thick task force book. He sifted through the contents until reaching the Shotz file, mumbling, “Baby sitter … mother and father … neighbor … real estate agent … neighbor … neighbor-”

She interrupted. “John and I did the parents together. Spent a long time. We never spoke one word to little Henry.”

“Little Henry was there.”

“Little Henry is three, keep in mind.”

“Miles is four. I know three very well, thank you,” Boldt said.

“Too young for a witness?”

“Maybe for a courtroom, but not for me. I broke a lamp of Liz’s last year-she’d had it since college. I swept it up and threw it out, and thought I would wait for a good time to tell her. You know,” he explained sheepishly, “there are good times and bad times for that sort of thing. Well, Miles beat me to it. He reported the entire incident, point by point, the minute she got home. Three years old. He not only remembered everything I’d done but articulated it. Three years old? I’ll take a three-year-old witness. Bring him on.” He asked, “Can you deliver little Henry?”

“Not if Mama has anything to say about it. I’d bet anything that Doris knows Henry saw something. Ironically, no matter how much she wants Rhonda back, she can’t bring herself to involve Henry. One child lost, one child left. She won’t do anything to jeopardize that. The guilt we’re seeing all over her face has more to do with her withholding Henry from us than with her being on that dinner train.”

“Then why did you let me leave?”

“Because she needed to see us out here in a discussion. She needs to lose some of that protective confidence before we stand a chance with her. Henry can help Rhonda. The mother in Doris knows that. But she waited too long to tell us, she vented too much anger on us to come creeping back. But now that anger has turned inward. She has dug herself a hole.

“I can offer her a way out,” she continued, “but it will only take if she accepts responsibility for her past actions. Oddly, the way I get her there is fear. Her imagination can make this worse than we will. We need to let that stew.”

Boldt rocked his wrist as if checking his watch. “Yeah? Well, if she won’t talk, I’ll hold her in contempt for obstruction of justice and drag her downtown.” He started walking toward the house, the task force book still in hand.

“Since when did you become cop, judge and juror?” Daphne asked, requiring a half run to keep up with him.

“Shit happens,” he said on the fly.

She stopped abruptly as if slapped, and then hurried to catch back up to him. “Since when do you swear?”

“Same answer.” He reached the front door and knocked more loudly than necessary.

“Lou,” she said, grabbing his upper arm forcibly, “I’m serious. This isn’t you.”

“So am I. Yes it is. This is me, the new me. Take it or leave it.”

“Leave it!” she said. “What’s going on?” She still held him.

“I said no questions,” he whispered dryly. “Remember?”

She released her hold on him. “Let me do the talking,” she demanded. “This one has special handling written all over it. She needs force, but a special kind of force.” They locked eyes. His were sunken and darkly colored. “Please,” she begged.

Footsteps approached.

Her eyes held him, unrelenting. She, of all people, knew this man; and yet she didn’t know him.

“If that kid, if that woman,” he said angrily, “has kept something from us …” He didn’t complete the statement. He said only, “Lives are at stake here!” The front door swung open.

Doris Shotz answered, a mask of concern and caution. Daphne’s attention remained fixed on Boldt. The woman at the door said, “I’ve had about enough for one day-”

“We need to talk,” Daphne interrupted her, still facing Boldt. “Now,” she said strongly, snapping her head toward the woman and pushing her way past and inside. “We need to talk with Henry,” Daphne completed.

“No! You cannot-”

“Yes, we can,” Boldt corrected, cutting her off and silencing her. He and Doris Shotz met eyes, and she cowered under his haunted look.

“Where is he?” Daphne asked once the three of them were inside the living room and Doris Shotz realized they meant business.

“You can’t do this.”

Boldt responded, “You’d prefer attorneys and the press?”

“Your son was never interviewed as a witness,” Daphne stated. The immediate tension in the mother’s eyes confirmed Daphne had guessed correctly. “We understand your reluctance to involve him in-”

“He is three years old!” the mother objected. “How could he possibly help?”

“We also understand how important it is to you that we make every effort to locate Rhonda just as soon as we can.”

If there had been any tears left for Doris Shotz, she might have spilled them, but her well was dry. She shook her head, holding on to what little protest remained in her.

“Let us talk to Henry. Help us find Rhonda, please,” Daphne urged.

“He bit the man,” the mother confessed, her chin wobbling. “I know I should have told you. Downtown … sitting there, just sitting there … I knew I should tell someone.”

Boldt glanced over at Daphne; he wanted the interview now.

“Please,” Daphne repeated.

“In our bedroom,” the mother replied.

Down a narrow hall, she showed them into a cluttered bedroom. The boy had a set of blocks out on the floor, reminding Boldt of Miles, and in turn making him think of Sarah.

“Honey,” the mother said, “these people are going to help us find Ronnie. They want to talk to you. I told them they could. Okay?”

The boy averted his eyes shyly, down at the toes of his Air Nikes.

Boldt said, “I understand Henry is quite the hero.”

“A brave little boy,” Daphne agreed. “We’re just going to ask you some questions. Okay?”

The boy checked again with his mother, who sat down on the floor and took the boy in her arms from behind so the child faced Boldt and Daphne. Daphne signaled Boldt to lose some altitude. He joined her on the floor so he no longer towered over the boy. “Please, honey? We like these people. They want to help Ronnie.” She prompted, “You bit the man, didn’t you?” The boy nodded.

“On the leg?” Daphne asked.

The boy shook his head no. Henry had several of his teeth and a small scar on his chin. His s’s whistled when he spoke.

The mother said, “Would you tell me again about what happened when the man came for Ronnie?” The child vigorously shook his head no. The mother encouraged, “You heard them in the kitchen.”

“Me hearded Ronnie crying. Me shout for Julie.”

“The baby sitter,” Daphne said.

Henry nodded.

“And when she didn’t answer, did that scare you?”

He nodded again. He was a cute boy with a round face and his mother’s large blue eyes.

“And then what happened?” Daphne asked.

“Me go into kitchen.”

“Went into the kitchen,” the mother corrected. Boldt shot her a hot look. No time for home schooling.

“What did you see in the kitchen?” Daphne inquired.

The boy grew restless in his mother’s arms. His voice was excited. “Julie asleep on the floor. The man with a bag. Ronnie crying.”

“Did you see him?” Boldt asked. “The man carrying the bag?”

“Julie sleeping on the floor.” He looked frightened all of a sudden.

Daphne signaled Boldt off with her eyes.

“What did you do then?” Daphne asked.

His voice sped up with his description. “Me pulled on his arm. He kicked me. Me screamed.” He hung his head.

“You tried to help Ronnie, didn’t you?”

“I bit him,” Henry said, proudly.

“Yes,” Daphne returned quickly. “On the leg … on the-”

“His arm,” Henry interrupted.

Boldt restrained himself from interrupting, his heart racing painfully.

Without prompting, the boy continued, “Me bit him and I fell down and hit my head and it hurt.” He rubbed the back of his head. “There was a bump, wasn’t there, Mommy?”

“There sure was.” Doris Shotz grimaced. She didn’t want to relive any of this.

“It hurt!” the boy declared, still rubbing his head.

“I bet you hurt him more,” Boldt said.

“He bleeded.”

He smiled up at Boldt. All the innocence of the world was in that smile. What powers ultimately corrupted such innocence? he wondered. How was it so quickly lost? Because of the Pied Pipers of this world, he realized. Because detectives asked painful questions.

“I bit him on the birdie,” the boy blurted. Doris Shotz was as surprised to hear this as Boldt and Matthews.

“A birdie?” Boldt asked. “On his arm?” The boy nodded. “A drawing?” Another nod.

A tattoo was as good as a fingerprint with a jury, and juries loved child witnesses.

“What kind of birdie? Do you remember?” Boldt asked.

Daphne let him go. Boldt had opened up the tattoo information.

“Like on TV.”

Boldt was on pins and needles. He needed a detailed description of the tattoo, and the chances of that from a three-year-old were slim.

“Big Bird?” Boldt asked.

“No, the real bird,” the boy replied, confirming he knew the difference.

“Is the bird on a show?” Daphne asked.

He shook his head no.

“A commercial?”

He half nodded, half shrugged his shoulders in puzzlement.

“Which commercial would that be?” she asked.

Henry offered Daphne a silly expression and said, “The one with the bird in it!” He giggled.

Daphne maintained her composure, but Boldt barked out spontaneous laughter.

Henry said, “Big bird flying over the river.”

“An airplane?” Daphne asked.

“A bird!” the child repeated. “We deliver, we deliver!”

“The post office!” the mother said.

“An eagle,” Boldt announced.

Henry turned toward him and nodded vigorously. “An eagle!” he repeated.

Daphne was not pleased with Boldt, and her eyes told him so. He had fed the witness an answer. In the process of answering questions a witness reached a heightened state of wanting to please. Especially children. That desire, combined with the frustration of a blocked or vacant memory, would often jump at the first offering, even if it meant answering erroneously. Boldt had planted a word in the boy’s head to go along with whatever image lingered. No matter what the bird looked like, the word eagle would now be used.

“Where was this bird on his arm?” Daphne asked, avoiding mention of the species.

Henry Shotz pointed to the top of his forearm.

Boldt said, “If a friend of ours sketched the bird, drew the bird, do you think you might recognize it?”

The boy shrugged.

The mother said, “Henry loves picture books.” The boy nodded agreement.

Boldt wanted a sketch artist with the child in a hurry.

“So what happened after you bit him?” Daphne asked, adding to her notes.

“The man ran out. I gone to Julie, but she was sleeping.”

They repeated the line of questions a second time and got the same answers, a detective’s dream. Boldt took more detailed notes the second pass. They left at 9:07 P.M. Boldt made note of this as well. Daphne was watching him, expecting this of him. Illusion was everything.

On their way back to their cars, Boldt stopped Daphne and told her he would take care of arranging a sketch artist. If they got a decent sketch, he’d pass it on to LaMoia to present to the task force. Daphne accepted this-as staff psychologist she had no part in evidence collection. But it was her role to assist in artist rendition sessions where the subject’s state of mind was critical.

She mentioned her participation as if pro forma. “You’ll let me know time and place,” she said. “I have a ten o’clock tomorrow, so anytime after eleven will work. I’d suggest the sketch be done here, by the way. A three-year-old doesn’t need any additional stimulus. Environment is everything.”

“Good,” Boldt said. “I got all that.” He thanked her and they said good night and he walked to his car. He would arrange the interview for ten the following morning. He would use Tommy Thompson, whose studios were on Vashon Island. And if anything came of the session, no one would hear about it but him.

Thompson was perfect: retired and reclusive. No one would ever know.

Boldt approached the Weinsteins’ front door alone, painfully aware that the Pied Piper had walked these same steps posing as a delivery man. The eerie sensation he experienced had to do with retracing the kidnapper’s steps, with picturing his two victims: Phyllis Weinstein, and her grandson, Hayes.

“It’s nine-thirty, Detective!” Sidney Weinstein objected. Dressed in a ratty cardigan, a wrinkled white button-down shirt and a pair of khakis that fit too loosely, Weinstein smelled of brandy.

“It’s Lieutenant,” Boldt corrected. “Crime waits for no man,” he said.

“My hearing has been delayed while I undergo ‘psychiatric treatment,’” he said, distastefully drawing the quotes. “Careful. I might shoot you. I suggest you leave.”

“I need to talk to you and your wife.”

“My attorney might have something to say about that. Are you part of my son’s investigation or mine?” He smirked. “Wonderful world, isn’t it?”

The question put Boldt in a difficult position that, if answered directly, required he misrepresent himself. His only association with the task force, other than as an adviser, was a covert assignment to flush out an informer. His visit to Weinstein was difficult if not impossible to justify if Weinstein made a production of it and brought in his attorney. Trish Weinstein appeared behind her husband. She looked dazed and exhausted.

Boldt spoke over Weinstein’s shoulder to the man’s wife as if absolutely certain of what he was saying. “Hayes had a blanket, a shirt, an outfit-I don’t know which-that carried a photo silk-screened image of him.” He spotted the hit of recognition in her eyes. “You know what I’m talking about.”

The husband stepped back and regarded his wife and then Boldt with suspicion and confusion. “Don’t listen to him,” he said. “They want to put me away, Trish.”

“No one is even thinking of putting you away, and you know it. Your attorney has certainly told you that much. You stole an officer’s sidearm. There is more paperwork involved in that one action, more internal reviews, than you can imagine. It will take us weeks, possibly months, to sort it all out. That is why your hearing has been delayed, that and because no one wants to see you face any charges, and that’s not an easy thing to swing when a person has stolen an officer’s sidearm and trained it onto half the fifth floor. You see a psychiatrist or a psychologist a couple times; we do our paperwork; a lenient judge gets assigned your case, and it’s all over. In your position, any of us might have done the same thing.” Smiling oddly, he emphasized, “Any of us!” knowing it was true.

Having silenced Weinstein, Boldt returned to the woman. “You know the item I’m talking about.”

She allowed a faint nod.

“Is it here? Is it still here, or did it go missing the night of the kidnapping?”

She shook her head. She didn’t know.

“You can’t come barging in here!” the husband protested.

“No,” Boldt agreed. Looking at the wife, he said, “Without a warrant, I have to be invited.”

“Come in,” the woman said, her voice trancelike.

“What?” Weinstein shouted in protest.

To her husband she said, “He knows what clothes Hayes owns. How could he know such a thing unless it’s important? He’s here to help us get our child back, Sidney. Are you going to prevent that?”

Sidney Weinstein stepped clear of the door. “Come in,” he said to Boldt, motioning him inside.

“It might have been in the wash at the time,” Trish Weinstein explained minutes later, rummaging through drawers. “I can’t say for sure.”

“But to your knowledge, the drawers, the closets weren’t searched?”

“Your people were all over this place,” Sidney Weinstein reminded. “They went through everything. Everything was searched,” he emphasized. “How can we know who went through what? A drawer here, a closet there. What’s to see?”

“Here!” the wife said, hoisting a small outfit from the third drawer. She looked at it, drew away and dropped it to the floor, her open hands raised to cover her face and hide her tears.

“See?” Weinstein barked. “See what you do to her?”

Boldt picked up the garment. It was a baby’s onesie with three snaps at the crotch. On the chest was a square color photograph of the baby, slightly faded from washing; the mother had chosen this garment often for her child. The baby’s face was adorable, reminding Boldt once again of an infant’s profound innocence. Of Sarah.

Boldt checked for the label. There was none. It clearly had been cut out. He questioned Trish about this, and she nodded. “I snip all the labels. They’re so big these days with all the washing instructions. They’re horrible.”

“You cut it out yourself,” Boldt said, disappointed.

“I do it to everything. I hate those labels.”

“And the company’s name?” he asked, hoisting the garment.

She shook her head, reflecting. “Mirror Image … Double Image … something like that.”

“A gift?” Boldt asked.

“Yes,” Trish replied. “We sent out photos-that photo-to our close friends and all our family.”

“One of them gave us the outfit,” Weinstein said.

“Do you remember who?” Boldt asked.

“No chance,” Weinstein replied.

Boldt focused on Trish.

The wife said, “No. Neither do I.”

Boldt felt the failure weigh down his fatigue; he hadn’t slept in two days. Investigations could drag out forever and never be cleared. Perhaps in this case it was a good thing, he thought. It was one case he didn’t want solved. He just needed to make sure no one else could solve it either.

“But I don’t have to,” Trish Weinstein continued, coming more alive. “I kept a thank you book, a diary of all the gifts. It’s got to be in there.”

Moments later, she was busy flipping pages in a hand-bound diary with a Florentine cover. “Daniel!” she said, looking up at her husband.

“My cousin Danny,” the husband told Boldt. “Wouldn’t you know it! You get Danny on the phone, you never get off.”

Daniel Weinstein lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he managed a chain bookstore. He spoke to Boldt on the phone for over ten minutes, the upshot of which was a few bursts of hard information. He’d placed the order for the custom garment over the Internet. He remembered this distinctly, because he had scanned the baby’s photo and sent it electronically. He did not remember the company’s name, did not remember how he had found the company on the Internet, and promised to go back online and try to find it again. “It was over six months ago,” he complained. “I surf every night, two or three hours a night. I bookmark about one out of every hundred sites I visit. I did not bookmark a baby clothes retailer, I promise you that.”

“But you paid for the garment,” Boldt suggested.

After a pause the man agreed, saying, “I guess that’s why you’re the detective.” He laughed nervously.

“By credit card?”

“Of course. Would have to be. I buy all sorts of shit off the net. All by plastic.”

“Then it would be on a statement,” Boldt informed him. “And that statement would be a great deal of help to me and your nephew.”

“I’m all over that.”

Boldt gave him his direct fax number and reiterated the importance of the information. He added, “If you find it on the Internet, I’d appreciate that address.”

“Hey, give me a good excuse and I’ll spend all night on-line.”

“You want motivation?” Boldt asked. “A dozen children like Hayes, Mr. Weinstein. There’s your motivation.”

“Hell,” the concerned man replied, “I’m not really sleeping anyway. Not since the kidnapping. … You tell Sid and Trish I’m all over this. My VISA statement’s in your hands by midnight. If that site still exists, I’ll have it by tomorrow morning.” He added, “Just tell me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Did I do something wrong here? Did I set up my own cousin?”

“We don’t know. But you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“’Cause you’ll forgive me, Lieutenant, but if some schmo used me to get at that child, my cousin’s child … I know there’re laws against this shit, and it may be your job to enforce them, but that guy’s a dead man. That guy is dead.”

Boldt stayed on the line, trying his best to bite his tongue, to keep from saying what a cop could not say, but what a father had to. He saw Sarah swing her face toward the camera in anguish, heard her shrill plea for help. The only help he could give her went against twenty-four years of experience and violated every friendship he had built over that time. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Boldt said. Before cradling the phone, he added, “I’m all over that.”