The Pied Piper (34 page)

“Tommy said a five- or six-year-old might have worked out. Henry lacked both the patience and the vocabulary.”

“And we got to him too late,” she said, taken in. “Three-year-olds are not long on visual memory.”

In point of fact, Henry Shotz had done a brilliant job.

“I'd just as soon the tattoo not be mentioned at the four o'clock.”

She tensed. “But why not?”

“Doris Shotz. I promised her—”

“I remember.”

“The press will crush her.”

“They might not be told.”

“Then Mulwright will crush her,” he said. “The point is that the tattoo is weak or even useless until and unless we get a second witness.”

“But who will look for collaborative evidence if no one hears about it?” she asked. “Chicken and the egg.”

“Leave it,” Boldt said sharply, stinging her. “I made her a promise.”

“You made me promise not to ask questions. When is that quarantine lifted?”

“Don't,” he said.

“When do we talk about whatever it is you don't want to talk about?”

His throat constricted and he felt his jaw muscles lock.

She said, “Did I tell you I called Marina and asked about Liz and she said she's coming home this weekend? Because she's better, Lou, or because she's worse? Talk to me.”

He coughed and turned his head away. He searched for a way to change the subject. He said, “I wanted the kids out of the house for the first few days. That's all.” He knew what she was thinking.

“Why doesn't that make any sense to me? I'm getting conflicting signals. Mommy's coming home and you send the children away? You think she's coming home to see you?” She stepped closer and repeated, “Talk to me.”

“Daffy!”

“Have you told Liz? Did you involve her in this decision? Is she coming home to live or to die, Lou? That's important.” She moved around the desk toward him. “I know you. You take matters into your own hands. You make decisions, no matter how boneheaded. I'm a woman, Lou. Liz wants the kids home regardless of the added pressures it puts on you, regardless of what the doctors have to say about it. The kids will heal her, Lou, emotionally, sometimes even physically.” She reached out and took a firm grip on his shoulder. “You're reacting as a controller. You want to control her environment, make it peaceful for her. Make her better. Heal her. Good intentions, wrong action. Get the kids back home.”

It was these last words that pushed Boldt to tears, and his friendship with this woman that made him look up into her eyes and reveal himself, expose his vulnerability.

She clearly took the tears to mean Liz was coming home to die. She moved even closer and cradled his head. It was this contact that triggered his pulling away. He wasn't going to tell her, wasn't going to give her the opportunity to coax the truth out of him—she could milk the truth from anyone; it was her expertise.

He judged the situation quickly and said, “I'm not much of a father, am I? Who would abandon their kids because his workload makes home life too difficult? This isn't about Liz. I moved the kids before I heard Liz was coming home.” He forced out a small bark of laughter. The lies came too easily all of a sudden. With truth his only tie to sanity, he felt himself slipping away, like trying to run on ice. “Worse, I haven't told Liz. I know you are right.”

Her eyes darted back and forth between his. Her expression changed from relief to concern. “I almost believe you. You're good. You're very good.”

“What's not to believe?” he said, knowing not to break eye contact. This strength served to confuse her. She studied him.

“What the hell is going on, Lou? You're selling me a bill of goods here.” She waited and said, “How do I account for these changes in your behavior? Professional stress? Home life?” She added, “Sheila Hill is playing politics. At yesterday's four o'clock I was told to take measure of all those present. Today she's dropping hints that I may want to pay you a visit, and I'm taking that to mean she wants the book on you as well. My guess?” she asked rhetorically. “A little task force housecleaning is in order. She's not getting results and the axe is about to fall.”

“It isn't that,” Boldt said.

“I'm on orders here,
Lieutenant
. If I'm by the book I tell her that you're a physical and emotional wreck, that you appear exhausted, short-tempered and that you have gone steadily downhill over the past three days. I tell her that you don't appear fit for duty.”

Boldt said calmly, “Hill thinks there's a conduit inside the task force, possibly supplying information to the Pied Piper. As Intelligence, I'm to turn him or her. She suggested I work in concert with you. Thinks we should try an inside-out: Sting him with disinformation and watch for the bubbles on the surface. It's big and it's complicated, and it comes at a time when I have a few other things on my mind.”

She stepped back as if he had pushed her.

“Me?” Boldt asked. “I'd like an afternoon tea at the Olympic, a lamb dinner with roasted potatoes and a video of Bogie and Bacall. The phone off; the kids asleep and Liz complaining into my ear that there isn't enough time in the day. But I'm stuck with this, and now you are, too. I wasn't going to drag you into it. I resisted. But she pushed and you fell for it. It's Need to Know. It's you and me and no one else except Hill.”

“Disinformation,” she said, still dazed. New territory for her, but with nearly as much ambition as Hill, she would jump at the chance.

“She's thinking a tabloid reporter has compromised someone at the Bureau, that the reporter is in cahoots with the Pied Piper. Or maybe the kidnapper has compromised one of us. If it's illegal adoption, then there's a lot of money at play. If spread around correctly—”

“One of
us
?” she gasped.

“What the hell? It could be you or me,” Boldt said. “Never know.”

“Yeah, right: Lou Boldt, the Pied Piper's insider,” she said sarcastically.

“Preposterous, isn't it?” he said. But a thought remained: The Pied Piper had identified Boldt both as a father and as someone close enough to the investigation to influence it. He recalled Kay Kalidja explaining to him that the FBI had believed he, Boldt, would lead the task force. Who else might have guessed that?

Her eyes shined. “So what's really going on?”

A pinprick of light stabbed through the darkness of his existence. Someone had identified him, had passed his name on to the Pied Piper. Perhaps Sheila Hill was closer to the truth than Boldt had credited her.

A knock at the door was followed by Bobbie Gaynes.

Daphne moved toward the door automatically. “Call me,” she said. “We'll play with some ideas.”

“Draw something up,” he suggested.

“Will do.” Daphne passed Gaynes at the door and offered a friendly exchange. But Boldt could feel her mind working already, sizing up Gaynes and wondering what she was doing there.

How much did she know? he wondered. Daphne could be like an iceberg: far more lurking underneath than showed on the surface. He appreciated her as an ally, and yet feared the clarity of her insight.

Gaynes radiated an energy he envied. She stepped up to his desk and placed the lab results in front of him with authority—she liked whatever was in that file. She did not take a seat. She appeared slightly uncomfortable as she said, “You wanted to see this before anyone else.”

“Yes I did.” Boldt read from the file.

“It's important that I get it to LaMoia right away,” she said. Answering Boldt's look of disappointment, she added, “If I don't tell him, the lab will.”

Without reading a line, Boldt told her, “The soil on Anderson's boot contained a pesticide, a fertilizer, something like that. His earwax contained traces of the same pollen found at the Shotzes' and on Anderson's khakis.”

Astonishment opened her features, her eyes wide, her teeth showing. “Fertilizer, not a pesticide. The thing about you … sometimes I wonder why we bother with lab tests at all. Third line,” she told him. The report confirmed much of what he had just guessed. As a former student of his, she had quoted him quickly, “I know … I know … . A good detective uses the lab to confirm his suspicions, not bring him surprises.”

He said, “If pollen was discovered in his earwax, then it suggests Anderson did more than rub up against someone. It means he was standing in a garden, a greenhouse or a field, and that evidence being found at the Shotzes' connects to the Pied Piper.” He told her, “Run it by the university's ag-school. See if the pollen and this pesticide suggest a particular flower. Have them contact you directly, and when you hear back —”

“Tell you first,” she interrupted. She said carefully, “What's going on, Sarge?”

A few minutes earlier he had felt despair. Suddenly he felt awash with hope. Evidence, when interpreted correctly, painted a particular, unique story. The mud on Anderson's boots, when combined with the pollen in his earwax and on his clothing, was certain to tell a story.

“It's good work,” he told her. “I appreciate it.”

Still facing him, she said, “Let me know if I can help.”

He thanked her.

She said, “I liked it better when you were on the fifth floor.”

“Me too,” Boldt confessed.

His phone rang, and Gaynes understood that she should go. Boldt handed her the report and thanked her.

She turned and walked out.

He sat alone, a snitch complaining into his ear, an undigested bubble of guilt consuming him. The truth was nowhere left to be seen. Gone, and Boldt along with it. The truth, which Boldt had held as an absolute, was suddenly a product of context. One could distort it, bastardize it, destroy it as one saw fit.

The Pied Piper had not only stolen his daughter, he had stolen his life.

Theresa Russo worked freelance out of a sprawling ranch home that overlooked Puget Sound and the white-capped Olympics. Boldt had met her through Liz, whose bank had arranged a nine-million-dollar loan for the woman to expand a multimedia software start-up. Russo had paid back the loan in eleven months, took the company public a year later and retired to entrepreneurial work, reportedly twenty million dollars richer. With Russo well outside of law enforcement, Boldt had sworn her to secrecy, making no mention of Sarah's name or her relationship. She was a missing child. Russo probed no further.

An African American with boot-polish black skin and straightened hair she kept pulled back tightly, she wore blue jeans, a green cotton sweater, and green Converse All-Star high-tops. She was twenty-seven years old and single. Russo worked from a padded leather throne on a forty-inch monitor mounted in the wall using a wireless keyboard and pointing device. For all the stunning views, her office shades were drawn to restrict sunlight.

Boldt was anxious to be shown whatever it was this woman deemed worthy. He had not told her the child on the CD-ROM he had received was his and Liz's daughter, only that the analysis could not be done in-house for reasons of security. Russo had a strong handshake and bright green eyes. For Boldt, the challenge was to keep all mention of Sarah out of their conversation.

Russo spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, her attention on the huge monitor. She worked the keyboard and trackball with a dexterity reserved for those who spent eighteen hours a day behind their machines.

She said, “First of all, let me answer a couple of questions you raised when you asked me to take a look at this. The CD-ROM is not unique. Many thousands of home users have CD-Rs and can burn their own disks. The disk itself is encoded with a manufacturer's batch number, but it won't get you anywhere in terms of tracking down its sale. Unfortunately, the disk is unremarkable, but it's a clever way to deliver such a message. E-mail would have left a far better trail. She's done a good job, for what it's worth—”

“She?”

“We'll get to that.”

Boldt's mind raced: the Pied Piper a woman! He was hooked. He tried to keep from interrupting.