The First Victim

CHAPTER 69

Stevie McNeal’s final chance to find Melissa literally spilled out of her purse as she wrestled for her cellphone in the helicopter’s tight confines and a city bus map fell out onto the clear plastic floor beneath her feet.

‘‘Wait a minute!’’ she’d instructed the pilot, retrieving the map. ‘‘Can you fly this route for me?’’

‘‘We’re low on fuel.’’

‘‘As much as we have time for then,’’ she said. ‘‘This area in particular.’’ She pointed out the area where Coughlie had climbed aboard, distracting her. ‘‘We’re looking for old canneries along here.’’

‘‘Salmon Bay? Once upon a time. Mostly restaurants and boathouses now.’’

‘‘Let’s take a look.’’

The helicopter veered north.

Turning to the technician, Stevie asked, ‘‘These binoculars? They can see heat?’’

‘‘You bet.’’

‘‘Body heat?’’

‘‘That’s the idea,’’ he answered.

‘‘Through a wall?’’

‘‘No way.’’

‘‘A window?’’

‘‘A warm room would mean warm glass, which would produce some degree of green instead of black-so, sure. But it depends.’’

‘‘But people crowded into a room,’’ she suggested, ‘‘big machinery, people sweating.’’

The kid answered, ‘‘We’d get some kind of read on that I suppose.

Listen, I’d rather have that camera that Seven has, but we may have toasted that thing. All we can do is try.’’

At the edge of Lake Union they slowed, passing Fremont Bridge and moving west along the ship canal and into Salmon Bay. Hundreds, if not thousands, of boats of every kind crowded marinas along this stretch. Some of the boats glowed faintly green through the binoculars, holding out hope for Stevie. She trained the lenses onto the roofs and darkened windows of the buildings that lined the south shore of the waterway. The technician used another set of binoculars to view the north shore.

As they passed over a cluster of brick buildings in bad shape, Stevie asked the pilot to make a loop. She was studying those buildings as the kid said from the back, ‘‘Here’s something interesting, but it isn’t a warehouse.’’ He directed her, ‘‘Up about a quarter mile. Your side. Check out the water next to that ship!’’

Dozens of dark shapes. Perhaps forty or fifty boats all tied together haphazardly, side-to-side, bow to stern, unlike any of the marinas they had flown over. She spotted it then-clear out in the group-a glow of electronic green in the water, the binoculars picking up warmth.

The helicopter hovered.

‘‘That’s a lot of heat from below deck,’’ the kid said.

‘‘Where are we? What is that?’’ Stevie asked, pointing out the enormous cluster of shops and boats all tied together.

The pilot informed her, ‘‘They’re the ones confiscated in drug busts and shit like that. The feds auction them off a couple times a year. A lot of ’em never sell. They end up rusting out there. Half of ’em are sinking.’’

‘‘Confiscated?’’ Stevie asked, her skin tingling. ‘‘As in the feds? INS?’’

The pilot said, ‘‘DEA, INS, FBI. Those boats are never going anywhere. They call it the graveyard.’’

Stevie shouted so loudly that both men grabbed for their headphones. ‘‘Get me down! Get me back to the station right now!’’