The First Victim

CHAPTER 49

"This is out of order.’’ Boldt pointed to the screen.

They had reviewed all the tapes together. They were taking their second look at the digital tape.

McNeal’s expression was grave, her reaction time delayed like a person working off a translator. From his experience when his own Sarah had been abducted, Boldt knew this horror firsthand: the hollow resonance of people’s voices as they spoke to you; the way the clock hand refused to creep forward; the insomnia.

‘‘I beg your pardon?’’ Stevie said, finally responding to him.

‘‘You’re the reporter here-don’t get me wrong. But the outside of the bus on the VHS looks dirty to me, like it has been raining, whereas the bus on the digital tape, the one she boards, is clean. We get just a glimpse of it, but it’s not the same bus, believe me. And if that’s right, then there may be as much as a day or two between the VHS and this digital tape being shot. If that’s true, as thorough as she is in her reporting, then maybe there’s another tape. Maybe there’s one still missing. And if there is, who knows what’s on it? Maybe that’s the tape that establishes the location of the sweatshop-or even the people responsible.’’

She studied the two screens-one showing the back of the dirty bus as it descended into the bus tunnel; the other, the opening shot on the digital tape. She said, ‘‘I told Brian Coughlie there was a tape missing, but at the time I was just making it up-trying to buy Melissa some time. I just assumed the remaining tape I gave her was blank, but you’re right about the dirt.’’

‘‘So she may have shot yet another tape.’’

‘‘It’s possible.’’ Her voice was fragile and did not carry. ‘‘She may have simply had nothing to shoot for a day. It happens. You know surveillance work.’’

He proposed, ‘‘Let’s assume that when the camera was confiscated it contained the second of the two digital tapes, not the first. Let’s say the first had already been shot and put aside, and whoever got the camera only got the second tape.’’

She said hoarsely, ‘‘So maybe there is a second tape.’’

‘‘We have to explain that camera showing up. If whoever’s behind this found it, would they hock it? Not likely! Destroy it, yes, but hock it? We have Riley’s statement-the man you met at the water shower fountain-that it was a gang kid who brought the camera to him in the first place. So maybe this kid simply found the camera, or stole it, or maybe she hid it. That would make it a random discovery. He doesn’t tell anyone about it-he simply hocks it to cash in on his discovery. But conversely, maybe she used it to buy this kid’s silence, or to help her to escape-’’

‘‘And if that was all she had to trade, what happens next time they come looking?’’

‘‘Or maybe someone in the sweatshop-one of the leaders-took it, traded it, used it. It doesn’t mean they’ve found her,’’ he reminded.

‘‘I aired her photo,’’ Stevie whispered. ‘‘They’ve identified her.’’

‘‘We can’t confirm that.’’

‘‘Thepapersran it. .the other stations. You’d have to live in a vacuum to have missed that photo.’’ Equally softly she said, ‘‘I screwed this up.’’ She added, ‘‘All because you bastards were moving too slowly.’’ He’d been waiting for that. Blame followed on anger’s coattails.

Boldt allowed a moment for the air to clear and held to the high ground. ‘‘We’ll pull a picture of the car wash and distribute it to every radio car on patrol. Someone will recognize it. You. . you have two assignments. One is to go back over this digital tape and translate. I don’t mean the spoken language-what the women are saying-we’ve already had that done. She gets their histories, the conditions aboard ship-’’

‘‘I speak Mandarin,’’ she reminded. ‘‘We’ve seen the tape twice.’’

‘‘What I need-we need-is to be inside Melissa’s head. Her thoughts. Emotions. Why is it she dwells so much on the ship’s conditions, when we’re assuming all they saw was the inside of that container? She mentions the ship over and over. We need all that subtext.’’

‘‘The second?’’

‘‘I need you to craft a smear piece. I need you make someone look pretty damn bad.’’

‘‘I don’t know how I can get by putting something on the air that’s pure fantasy.’’

He hesitated, needing her, and said, ‘‘Nothing libelous, but bad enough that she’ll squirm.’’ He asked, ‘‘How long does something like that take?’’

She considered all this, her face a mixture of curiosity and concern. She answered reluctantly, ‘‘Anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days. Depends on who the subject is, what kind of existing footage we have.’’

‘‘It doesn’t have to be long, just powerful.’’

‘‘You’re sounding more like a producer than a cop.’’ She tried to smile, but her face only found a grimace.

‘‘You know a woman called Mama Lu?’’ Boldt asked.

She arched her back, opened her eyes and said sarcastically, ‘‘The crime lord? You really do want me killed.’’

‘‘Former crime lord,’’ he corrected. ‘‘More of a politician these days. She’s the one. She has the answers.’’

‘‘She’s behind the disappearance?’’ Stevie asked. ‘‘She’s who Coughlie’s protecting?’’

‘‘We don’t know anything for certain. My gut says Mama Lu has the answers. Some of the answers? All of the answers? I don’t know. But I’ll never get any of them without some way to open her up. She’s getting older. She wants acceptance in the community. That’s her pressure point.’’

‘‘Let me check the clip files,’’ Stevie said, committing to helping him. ‘‘How soon do you need it?’’

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 115 DAYS MISSING