Pied Piper

CHAPTER 3

John LaMoia double-parked his red 1974 Camaro in front of 2351 51st North and set its wide taillights flashing amid a veritable light show of emergency vehicles. He sat behind the wheel for a moment gathering his strength. Any apparent kidnapping automatically evolved into an enormous investigation, requiring tact and diligence on the part of the lead investigator, and he’d been named lead. Tact was not necessarily LaMoia’s long suit, and he knew it. His fellow officers called him Floorshow, what with his creased blue jeans, steel gray ostrich boots and rock star hair. Because of the Big-A attitude. LaMoia knew he wore an attitude, but to hell with it: He was good at what he did. People talked about talking the talk, but John LaMoia talked it. He’d been the same cocky son-of-a-bitch since junior high; he wasn’t about to change now.

Boldt’s beat-up department-issue Chevy slipped in behind him and parked.

This particular kidnapping-of a white infant-would stir not only the city’s conscience but, quite likely, the nation’s. Before even stepping out of the car at the crime scene, LaMoia already had a few suspicions about how it had happened, but for the moment he pushed them away. Not for anyone, including his ambitious Crimes Against Persons captain Sheila Hill, would LaMoia guess at a crime’s solution before he could gather the necessary evidence, witnesses and facts.

“It’s my job to make the call,” he told Boldt. “Either I group it with the others, or it stands alone.” Domestics and gang killings had occupied his past few months-grounders for the most part. A serial kidnapping case with national importance? He tried not to think of himself as Lou Boldt’s replacement, even though others saw his promotion that way.

“So why drag me along?” Boldt asked.

“Maybe I’m insecure.”

“Yeah, right. And it’s going to be sunny tomorrow.”

They ducked under the police tape onto the lawn. Officer Jonny Filgrim said to LaMoia, “Bad Guy used the back door, Detec-, Sergeant,” he corrected himself. “It’s him, right?”

“Keep the vultures back, Jonny,” LaMoia said, indicating the press. “They want an interview, it’s Hill, not me.”

“Mulwright’s here. Back door.”

“Already?” LaMoia asked. He and Boldt met eyes in the flashing blues and reds of the emergency lights.

Boldt questioned, “Mulwright at a crime scene early?”

“Any of his boys?” LaMoia asked the uniformed officer.

“Special Ops?”

“Yeah, any of Mulwright’s guys,” LaMoia answered. Some of the patrolmen were thick as bricks.

“Ain’t seen none,” Filgrim answered.

“There was a woman watching the child,” Boldt said.

Filgrim nodded, though seemed bewildered that Boldt already knew this. “The sitter? Yeah? Knocked out cold.”

“Where’d they take her?”

“University Hospital.”

Boldt offered LaMoia a look; they had passed an arriving ambulance on their way out of the hospital.

LaMoia ordered, “Get someone over to the hospital,” as he took in the chaotic scene of the reporters and cameras at the edge of the property. “And make sure SID gets room to park their van close by.”

“You got it.”

Boldt caught him by the arm. “The baby sitter was unconscious?”

“Like I said, out cold on the kitchen floor. It’s gotta be him. Right, Floorshow?” Filgrim said excitedly. “A kid, right? I mean, we’ve been expecting this, right?”

“The parents?” Boldt asked, releasing the man.

“Mulwright spoke to a neighbor lady. She’d heard from the parents, which is how come she was here. She got the other kid.”

“Other kid?”

“A little boy. She took him home with her.”

Boldt nodded.

“Go!” LaMoia ordered.

Filgrim hurried off at a run, grabbing his gun to keep it from beating his side.

LaMoia tongued his mustache nervously and said softly, “I’ll tell ya, I am not calling it until we can rule out a copycat or a coincidence.” He looked to Boldt for help but was met with the blank face of a teacher waiting out his pupil. “I suppose it is him. Baby sitter unconscious? The kid’s age is right. Both parents out of the house.”

“Even so,” Boldt cautioned.

“I know. I know,” LaMoia said nervously. “Where the hell is SID?” He checked his watch. Once the lab techs controlled a crime scene, the Feds would have a hell of a time trying to take over. No one in the Seattle Police Department wanted to play second fiddle to the Feds. An investigation’s power remained with whoever controlled the evidence.

LaMoia studied the house, trying for a moment of calm. He then said to Boldt, “You’re thinking the baby sitter is, by definition, also a victim.” Boldt maintained that a victim, dead or alive, could tell an investigator more than a dozen witnesses. But the true victim had been taken from the crime scene.

“The sitter won’t remember much,” Boldt cautioned. “None of the others have.”

“So I’ve got shit to go on.”

“You’ve got a crime scene and the chance for physical evidence, a missing victim, a hospitalized victim. You’ve got neighbors, the possibility of unfamiliar vehicles in the neighborhood-maybe Neighborhood Watch,” Boldt listed for the man.

“That’s what I’m saying: We’ve got shit,” LaMoia repeated.

Another patrolman approached. Name tag read Rodriguez. These guys were all over him at a crime scene, working for brownie points, hoping their names would be mentioned to someone, that they’d get a shot at something better than driving the streets. The advancement to sergeant had made LaMoia painfully aware of just how servile these guys could be. The female uniforms were a lot less so. Too bad.

He raised his index finger to stop Rodriguez from interrupting his thoughts. He spoke to Boldt. “Some asshole comes here to lift a toddler. He’s got it all planned out, right? Use the back door, where no one’s gonna see him. Whack the baby sitter, heist the little thumb-sucker and make tracks. So … is he alone, or does he have company?”

“He’d have a wheel man, I guess,” Rodriguez answered.

“Not you!” LaMoia chided. “I’m asking the lieutenant.”

“Let him answer,” Boldt said. “You don’t need me.” The two exchanged a look, teacher to student.

Rodriguez waited until LaMoia nodded approval for him to speak. “Wheel man? Parked out front, where the neighbors can see him?” LaMoia wanted the man to think.

“Keeps moving, maybe. Driving around, you know, until the doer needs him.”

“And if there’s a sudden problem with their little visit?” LaMoia asked. “What’s the Bad Guy gonna do, make a phone call, stand on the curb with his thumb in the air? Think!”

The patrolman paled.

“How would you do it?” LaMoia asked, as Boldt had asked of him dozens of times. “That’s what a detective asks himself, Rodriguez: How would I do it?”

“I gotta get me inside the house. I come on as a plumber or something.”

LaMoia looked back toward the house, nodding. “Yeah. A plumber, a fireman, a cop. He’s played them all, if he’s who we think he is.”

“No shit?”

“No child,” Boldt supplied.

“I zap the sitter in the kitchen and grab the kid out of the crib,” Rodriguez said, getting into it. “Wrap it up in something, I suppose. I don’t know.”

“She’s not an ‘it,’” Boldt corrected harshly. “She’s a four-month-old baby girl who has been abducted from her home.” Boldt had kids of his own; kids LaMoia thought of as his own niece and nephew.

LaMoia patted the uniformed officer on the cheek. “You’re excused.”

They found Mulwright on the back stoop smoking a nonfilter cigarette. He looked about sixty. He was forty-one. Part Native American Indian, part Irish with a liver to prove it. Teeth that looked like a rotted picket fence hit by a truck. Skin that made enough oil for a refinery. Black hair and unibrow and five o’clock shadow. One eye green, the other nearly brown, like a junkyard dog. He held the constant expression of a person who didn’t feel well.

“Lieutenant,” Boldt said from a distance.

“Well, look what the fucking dog drug in.” Mulwright’s resentment of LaMoia’s assignment to lead the task force was public knowledge. The task force itself was the source of much politicking because it had been formed ahead of any kidnapping, effectively limiting the FBI’s powers by assuming that power for itself. It was the brainchild of Sheila Hill, captain of Crimes Against Persons, who now commanded the task force she had created. Mulwright was next in line seniority-wise, but as lieutenant of Special Operations he was more accustomed to surveillance and busting down doors than conducting an evidence-driven investigation. For that reason, Hill had chosen LaMoia, whose experience was mainly as a homicide detective, as lead investigator, which left Mulwright with an ambiguous job assignment until and unless they had surveillance to conduct.

To make matters worse, Mulwright blamed Boldt for ending his twenty-seven-year drinking spree, which had culminated in suspension and treatment programs. Rumor had it that the latter had not worked. The thick cone of cigarette smoke he blew into the air fairly reeked of resentment.

“Who called you to the scene, Lieutenant?” Boldt asked.

“I got a scanner in the kitchen. You? You got no business being here. You ain’t got nothing to do with this task force.”

“Adviser,” Boldt reminded. As a division, Intelligence intimidated some detectives, especially those like Mulwright who got themselves into trouble. “I’m one of the task force links to the Bureau.” It occurred to Boldt that Mulwright should not have arrived on the scene until after a call from LaMoia. “I’m also supposed to prevent press leaks.”

“Is that right?”

LaMoia said, “The National Insider is offering two grand for task force information.”

“Don’t know nothing about it.”

“So who called it in?” Boldt asked.

“I don’t have to answer to you.”

“No, you don’t.” Boldt waited along with the man through several long seconds of silence.

“A neighbor lady.” Mulwright had no fondness for women, other than as the objects of obscene humor. “Name of Wasserman. Tina. Down the street.” He checked his notes-every detective carried a notebook, even Mulwright. “Fifty-three hundred, Fifty-first North. Was asked to check on the place by the mother when the baby sitter failed to answer the phone. You ever heard of a dinner train takes off from Renton?”

“Sure,” LaMoia answered.

“Yeah? Well, I hadn’t. The parents are still stuck on the train. Due back any minute.”

Boldt asked, “Does the press know about this neighbor?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

“Do we have someone meeting the parents?”

“I put someone with the neighbor. That redhead with the big tits. You know her? Motor patrol?”

“McKinney,” LaMoia supplied.

“McKinney’s with her.”

“And who’s meeting the parents at the station?” Boldt asked, checking his watch.

“Don’t know,” Mulwright answered.

LaMoia said, “You did or did not assign someone to pick up the parents?”

“This isn’t my scene,” Mulwright reminded.

“You’re senior officer present,” LaMoia countered. “Are the parents covered or not?”

Boldt turned to LaMoia, “What are the chances our kidnapper has someone watching the parents to make sure they don’t return unexpectedly?”

LaMoia judged the question, hesitated, then nodded. “I can see that.”

“He’d be on the fucking dinner train,” Mulwright answered, tossing his cigarette into the grass. Boldt took note of where it landed; the cigarette had contaminated the crime scene.

Mulwright’s eyes awakened, his face expanding. “We should have both the train station and the parents under surveillance.”

“Can we handle that?” LaMoia asked, as innocent-sounding as possible. He agreed with Boldt’s attempt to lead Mulwright away from the crime scene. Few officers, despite all the training, understood the delicate nature of a crime scene. LaMoia realized that if Mulwright had read the advance briefing papers he would have known the FBI had all but ruled out surveillance by the kidnapper-he was believed to be a solo operator.

“Got it,” Mulwright announced, standing. “We’ll watch the station and the train for strays. We’ll work out a way to notify the parents we’re with them. We’ll make sure they head straight to the neighbors.” He asked, “ID? How do we ID them?”

“Wait here a moment,” Boldt said, leaning his weight against a sapling and slipping on a pair of paper shoe covers. He donned a pair of latex gloves and entered the kitchen, stepping carefully. Mulwright or the first officer on the scene had used blue painter’s tape to indicate the position of the baby sitter’s body on the floor. Boldt stayed clear of what looked like red confetti and the medical litter the paramedics had left behind. He located a family photo hanging to the side of the kitchen sink. It reminded him of his four favorite photos of Liz and the kids-three at home, one at the office. He suddenly wished that he had more photos of Liz in the prime of her health-he thought of her this way: her face full of color, her limbs lean but strong.

He removed the photo from the wall feeling pained-he hated to disturb any evidence no matter its apparent insignificance.

He renegotiated his way out of the house and handed the framed photo to Mulwright. “If you spot a suspect,” he said, “he’s better followed than confronted.”

“I know the drill, Boldt. I’ve worked a hell of a lot more hostage situations than you.”

LaMoia believed that Boldt could probably recite the names of each of those hostages for Mulwright if pushed. But it wasn’t Boldt’s way to throw around his knowledge; he hid himself from all but the most intimate friends.

“What time’s that train arrive?” Boldt asked, checking his watch.

Mulwright hurried off, calling back to them, “Tell Hill we’re on it.”

LaMoia watched him go and said with admiration, “You knew he’d take the bait, knew he hadn’t read the briefings.”

“Mulwright is Special Ops-translated, he’s a thrill seeker and likes working from the seat of his pants. He needs credibility to shore up support after this drinking thing. He stays around here, he looks bad. He goes off on surveillance, he’s on familiar ground.”

“You hosed him.”

Pocketing Mulwright’s discarded cigarette butt, Boldt said, “I offered him what he wanted: a dignified way out. The meet and greet with the parents is important; he wants to feel important. Daphne plays those head games every day. Maybe she’s rubbing off on me.”

“I wouldn’t mind if she rubbed off on me,” LaMoia said.

“Spare me.”

Daphne Matthews, the department’s resident psychologist, was good-looking to a fault. As an interrogation team, few were better than Boldt and Matthews.

LaMoia and Boldt stood just inside the kitchen door studying the litter of the discarded gauze left behind by the medics and the unusual red confetti sprinkled across the floor. LaMoia snapped his gloves in place.

“What’s with the red shit?” LaMoia asked.

“AFIDs,” Boldt answered.

“An air TASER, not a stun gun?” Air TASERs fired a projectile carrying a pair of probes that delivered the device’s electrical charge via thin wires-a stun stick capable of being fired from a distance. When the projectile cartridge fired, the weapon released confettilike ID tags called AFIDs. “First I’ve heard of it.”

“We can assume it’s Need to Know,” Boldt suggested. In repeat offenses, law enforcement never revealed every piece of evidence, so as to separate out copycat crimes. Near the litter was a tangle of thin wire and the probes.

“Yeah? Well, I Need to Know if I’m going to make the call that it’s task force jurisdiction.”

“Flemming knows more about these kidnappings than we do. He’s got ten children and six months on us. If their guys beat us to the evidence, if Flemming takes control, it won’t be the worst thing.”

“Tell that to Hill,” LaMoia said.

“Thankfully, I don’t have to. That’s your job.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” LaMoia added, “And don’t forget: You end up with Shoswitz’s desk and you’ll be reporting to her as well.”

“One day at a time,” Boldt said.

To invoke task force jurisdiction was to invite national attention, internal power struggles and regular four o’clock meetings with the Feds. It was all laid out. Mulwright, by showing up, had already made the call.

LaMoia sketched the kitchen indicating the litter and the AFIDs. “She meets him at the back door, makes it about five steps and he zaps her.”

Boldt said nothing. He orbited the spot where the girl had fallen.

LaMoia wrote meaning into Boldt’s silence. He studied the blue tape outline and reconsidered his opinion. “Of course it depends if he fried her from the back or the front.”

“Yes, it does.”

“If from the back, yeah: She makes it a couple steps and goes down. But if he’s over here when he hits her-” he said, moving across the room.

Boldt finished for him. “She may have let him inside without panicking.”

“The girl gets the door shut, guy takes a minute to make sure they’re alone, and then he zaps her. She goes down.”

Boldt stood to the side allowing his former detective to think it through.

LaMoia continued, “The doer starts his search for the infant-providing he doesn’t already know which room.” He looked to Boldt for support. “You’re doing a pretty good imitation of Marcel Marceau over there.”

“You don’t need me for this, John. I tried to tell you that.”

“So you came along to humor me.”

“No, to compare what I’ve read in the briefing papers with what I might see at the actual scene. Analysis, comparison. What the Bureau has or hasn’t included in their briefing material not only tells me about the suspect, but about what the Bureau wants us to know, how a guy like Flemming operates.” He added, “Where’s the little boy all this time?”

“Glued to a TV?”

“Maybe,” Boldt allowed.

“Hiding in the corner?”

“More likely.”

They moved as a pair through the house slowly and carefully as they had at dozens of other crime scenes. “Thing about a death investigation,” LaMoia said, “it’s over and done with. I mean, there’s urgency, sure. But not like this. Nine kids.”

“Ten now,” Boldt corrected.

“Where the hell is SID?” LaMoia moaned.

They walked single file through the living room, checked the first bedroom for a crib, but found it in the second.

Approaching the crib, Boldt remaining in the doorway, LaMoia felt a crunch under his shoe. “Hold it!” he exclaimed, stepping back and away, fearing he had destroyed possible evidence. He dug into the carpet, his gloved fingers moving through the nap slowly and carefully, and came up with a piece of thick glass the size of a small pearl. He held it up toward the ceiling light so that Boldt could see it as well. “Thick. Square cut. Bluish tint maybe.”

“How thick?”

“Lead crystal maybe, or one of those Mexican drinking glasses-the blue ones. It’s not window glass, not kitchenware.” He elected to bag it, which he did-marking the glassine bag with the date and location found-but wondered if he would have done so without Boldt looking over his shoulder. “Probably nothing,” he said. “Parents will know if it belongs.” He realized he worked a crime scene differently with Boldt in the room and wondered silently if that was why he had wanted so badly for the man to accompany him. “You coming in?” he asked.

“Better if I don’t. Keep traffic down until Bernie arrives.”

LaMoia pocketed the glass and leaned over the crib, catching sight of an object lying where little Rhonda Shotz should have been. He felt an ache in the center of this chest beneath his ribs. “Sarge?”

“The yellow smudge?” Boldt asked. “I can see it from here-about knee height. We’ll want Bernie to sample it for the lab.”

“No, in the crib,” LaMoia said, leaning back and seeing the smudge of a fine yellow powder on the crib’s frame. “It’s a penny flute I think. One of those dime-store-variety penny flutes.”

“Well, at least that explains how they named him,” Boldt said. “Another convenient detail the Feds neglected to share.”

“A fucking calling card? We wouldn’t have shared it either, John.” He added, “You know, just because Hill feels competition with the Bureau-”

“Doesn’t mean I have to,” LaMoia completed. “I know that. It gets a little contagious though.”

“Daphne can help you with the penny flute. His leaving a calling card presents an entirely different profile. Baiting. Taunting. It helps explain some of Flemming’s reticence to share: the AFIDs and the penny flute. If they’re this guy’s signatures, they’re certainly the angles he’s working.”

“I’d wondered how they came up with that handle,” LaMoia said, again referring to the FBI’s nickname. His job to make the call, LaMoia spoke the words that would set into motion one of the highest profile cases in the city’s history, involving three states and nine missing babies. Ten, LaMoia corrected himself, staring back into the crib. The words came out of his throat stubbornly. “It’s the Pied Piper,” he said.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Boldt advised, “we have visitors.”

Captain Sheila Hill’s yelling at the media filtered through the walls. LaMoia confirmed her presence through the window.

Over the long haul, police work typically hardened many of its women-language toughened, even a woman’s walk became more angular, less gracious. But Sheila Hill was the exception. At forty-two she looked thirty-five. She wore her blonde hair shoulder length, and today wore a navy blue sport jacket, khaki shirt and a pair of brown corduroy pants. Her Italian loafers gleamed.

Divorced with an eight-year-old son named Tommy, Sheila Hill still managed to work twelve-hour days, six, sometimes seven, days a week. No one on the force, including LaMoia, expected her to stop at captain.

She carried a knowing self-importance in her posture, transforming her five feet six inches into a much taller figure. Her voice, strident and defiant, carried through the walls as she addressed the press. “We have confirmed an apparent kidnapping, a missing infant by the name of Rhonda Shotz. The relation of this crime to the nine earlier kidnappings in California and Oregon, currently being investigated by the FBI, is not known at this time, so please spare me any such questions; you’re wasting your breath. You can help the parents of this girl, and all of us in law enforcement, by getting an image or a description of that child in front of the public just as quickly as possible. We should have an image for you shortly. Beyond that, it’s far too early to comment. Please, allow us the room to do our jobs efficiently, and I promise you a full press conference in the next six to nine hours. That’s all, people. Thank you.”

She walked away from the shouting as if unable to hear it, sensuous and fluid, right toward LaMoia.

“Sergeant.” She looked LaMoia up and down.

“Captain.” He locked eyes with her.

“Lou,” she addressed Boldt, while continuing to look at LaMoia.

“I asked the lieutenant to join me, Captain.”

“We paged you,” Hill reminded Boldt, as if it had been her idea, not LaMoia’s, to include Boldt. Ever the politician.

“I was on private time,” he explained. One of the luxuries of Intelligence was its lack of being on-call. “John chased me down.”

“I see,” she said, weighing Boldt’s presence. As long as Boldt was around, LaMoia would listen to him, regardless of assignments, and Hill wanted full control. “You heard me just now,” she said. “How much of what I just told that horde is bullshit?”

LaMoia knew that Boldt would leave it to him to answer. “The Bureau withheld a couple signatures. From all of us,” he added.

She glanced at Boldt-Intelligence was expected to know everything about anything, even FBI investigations. “We can assume they’ve withheld some of those crime scene reports to protect the Need to Know. Not all of them,” he cautioned, “but some of them.” He reminded, “We would have done the same.”

“If the FBI had asked?” she countered. “No, we wouldn’t have. It’s a one-way street, Lieutenant. We both know that.” She pursed her lips. LaMoia considered them full and luscious lips-kissable lips surprisingly void of any age lines.

“AFIDs,” LaMoia said. “An air TASER, not a stun stick.” He carried his own stun stick under the Camaro’s front seat. “And a penny flute left behind in the crib.”

“He’s leaving a calling card?” she exclaimed. “He’s proud of these kidnappings? What kind of creature are we dealing with?”

“Matthews can help there,” Boldt contributed.

“One of those dime-store flutes,” LaMoia said.

Perplexed, Hill asked incredulously, “He wants us to connect these kidnappings? What the hell is that about?” She nodded, thinking to herself, her expression grim. “Shit,” she mumbled.

LaMoia explained, “We’ll get the parents’ permission to trap-and-trace the phone. Get Tech Services over here to put a tape recorder on the line. Until Flemming confirms the signatures we’ll still hope it’s not him and that there might be a ransom call.” The Pied Piper had yet to request a ransom. The suspicions ranged from a child molester to an illegal adoption ring.

Glancing at her watch, Hill said, “How long has he had?”

“Two-hour lead,” LaMoia answered.

“That’s an eternity.” Her ice blue eyes flickered with worry.

LaMoia reminded, “Dispatch has already notified the airlines, rail and bus carriers. Canadian Immigration. Sheriff’s Department. The ferries-”

“Two hours? Shit.” She filled her chest with a deep breath and exhaled slowly, shaking her head. “Shit.” She glanced around as if the press might be overhearing them. She ordered LaMoia, “Get in that house and find me a picture I can use. If we don’t fax that image around, we haven’t got a chance of saving this baby.”

LaMoia returned inside and searched. In the living room he found a stack of photos showing a tiny baby in the arms and on the breast of her mother. Any of three close-ups in the pile would fax well enough: a tiny glowing face with bulging cheeks and clear blue eyes. He suddenly felt unbearably cold.

As he rejoined Boldt and Hill, SID’s black panel truck pulled up into the space cleared for them. Hill took the packet of photos from LaMoia and leafed through them. She said, “God, I hate this job sometimes.”

As a group, the three caught up to Bernie Lofgrin heading toward them. The Scientific Identification Division’s director, a small man with a beer belly, wore thick glasses that grossly enlarged his eyes. He walked quickly with stiff legs, carrying a large red toolbox at his side that weighed him down and tilted him to his right. As a group they spun around and matched pace with him.

“We need it quick but we need it right, Bernie,” she told him.

“This time of night and you hit me with cliches? Tell me something new, Captain,” Lofgrin quipped. “I was in the middle of dinner.”

“I stepped on this,” LaMoia interrupted, reaching out to hand Lofgrin the evidence bag. “May be nothing.”

Hill snatched it up for herself, held it up closely to her eyes and passed it on to Lofgrin. “I didn’t hear about this,” she complained.

Lofgrin stopped, as did LaMoia, Boldt and Hill. His team of technicians raced past the four of them.

“AFIDs where the body fell,” Boldt added, “and a calling card in the-”

The cry of tire squelches cut him off as a Town Car and a black van blocked the narrow residential street. Boldt had seen the FBI’s evidence van enough times to recognize it. The Town Car produced two men and a woman.

“Get your people to work, Bernie,” Hill ordered. “I’ve got this,” she announced, peeling away and cutting to intercept the Feds.

As LaMoia followed Hill with his eyes he saw beyond her to a set of six balloons waving in the wind up the street.

Lofgrin asked, “You coming, John?”

“Flemming, Hale and Kalidja,” Boldt told his former detective. At Hill’s request, Boldt had done background checks on all three. “This is the wrong place, the wrong situation for me,” he said. “Hill is going to squirrel the moment. I need to be able to work with these people. We’ll talk later, John.”

“Sure,” LaMoia confirmed, still intrigued with what he saw across the street. “Later,” he called out to Lofgrin, who hurried on.

Boldt headed to his car. He stopped and shook hands with the FBI agents on his way.

LaMoia followed, but steered clear of Hill and the FBI agents. As he approached the officers responsible for crowd control, they all noticed him; another of those effects of being a sergeant that bothered him. As a detective, the uniforms had rarely noticed. Two of the officers, anticipating him, lifted the yellow police tape and cleared a hole in the gawkers-neighbors and police-scanner junkies who had nothing better to do-and helped him through. LaMoia walked straight to those balloons, and their ribbons stretched tight. The small metal realtor sign flapped lightly in the breeze: Represented by Sherry Daech-McCann, Daech, Fenton. The sergeant tugged on the balloons. Tight. Fresh helium. Open House Tonite! it read on a smaller sign. If the open house had been the day before, the balloons would have sagged by now. It meant that the open house had been this same evening.

Out came his notepad.

If the realtor had kept track of her visitors, then the police had possible witnesses coming and going throughout the evening. On occasion potential buyers even took photos. LaMoia finished writing this down, closed his eyes and whispered, “Please.”

Behind him, Hill and the FBI agents were marching in lockstep toward the Shotz house.