Ridley Pearson - The First Victim

‘‘Thirty seconds!’’ the floor director called out.

The daily ritual had grown so familiar to her as to be second nature, but on that day it felt entirely unnatural, all because of Melissa’s ensuing silence. She felt simultaneously angry and worried. That call had never come. As independently as they both lived their lives, neither ever broke the promise of such a call. Not ever. Either Melissa was making a statement about her chosen lifestyle-or she was in trouble.

Of immediate concern to Stevie was Melissa’s occasionally impatient ambition. She was competitive with Stevie’s success, always hoping to ignite the spark that would accelerate her own career from occasionally employed to in demand. Stevie blamed herself for both encouraging Melissa to dig for the story, and for handing her that digital camera without a better understanding of what kind of undercover work she had planned. If Melissa was in fact on to the illegals story, Stevie didn’t necessarily want to raise a red flag with authorities after just one undelivered phone call. She attempted to practice her own advice to exercise patience, but it didn’t come naturally to her. She wanted control, and Melissa had taken that away from her.

‘‘Fifteen seconds everyone! Ms. McNeal, you with us?’’

Stevie twisted a professional smile across her face and once again studied the script.

‘‘Ten.. nine.. ’’

Stevie would give Melissa one more night. After that, story or no story, the police had to be told.

‘‘Four.. three..two. .’’

A red light illuminated on top of the camera directly in front of her. Stevie heard herself speak as she read the lines, but she had no idea what she said.

For the man in the back row of the smut film house, time seemed to slow down as the big Mexican next to him loudly blew his nose into a napkin and then threw the napkin onto the floor. Just being here with this man was a risk, and he’d come only because it had seemed unavoidable.

‘‘So what’s so important?’’ he asked Rodriguez.

‘‘The count is off.’’

‘‘An escape?’’ It wouldn’t be the first.

‘‘We’re long by one.’’

‘‘Long?’’

‘‘That’s what I’m saying,’’ said Rodriguez. ‘‘An escape I can handle, you know that. But this?’’

‘‘You counted wrong.’’

‘‘I done this count six times. We’re long.’’ Rodriguez’s voice was rough and scratchy. He kept sniffing back snot into his throat in a vulgar disgusting sound.

‘‘Well it’s off.’’

‘‘It’s not off,’’ Rodriguez objected.

‘‘You know what you’re saying? Are they all Chinese?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Did you strip them?’’

‘‘Of course.’’

‘‘And they’re shaved.’’

‘‘Every last snatch.’’

‘‘So the count is off. It’s the only explanation.’’

‘‘It wasn’t off last week. I done the count six times.’’

‘‘So you said.’’

‘‘Just so you know.’’

‘‘Now I know.’’ The idea disturbed him, but he didn’t let Rodriguez know this. It was his job to worry-most of the time Rodriguez simply did as he was told. Inventory was off; it was as simple as that. ‘‘Maybe one of the ones in quarantine. . maybe that threw the numbers off,’’ he suggested.

‘‘I got them into the count. I’m telling you-last week we done the count and the numbers was right.’’

‘‘Use your squirrels, your snitches. See what you can find out.’’

‘‘Got it.’’

‘‘Tell your boys to keep their eyes open.’’

‘‘Done already.’’

‘‘Well, do it again,’’ he snapped, regretting the tone. It wouldn’t help matters to piss off Rodriguez.

The big man sneezed again. This time he forgot the napkin entirely.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 203 DAYS MISSING

Boldt gripped the white rubber lip of the Boston Whaler, a flat-bottomed fiberglass skiff used as a Port Authority launch, as it tossed in the substantial wake of an arriving passenger ferry. LaMoia didn’t react to the movement whatsoever, having grown up on the waters of Narragansett Bay.

Seagulls followed high above the ferry’s foaming stern, diving into the prop wash after the pretzels and popcorn tossed there by unthinking tourists who were doing the shorebirds more harm than good. The captain of the Visage had refused to come ashore to be interviewed. His ship had been called back to port, and he was furious with authorities. With the political and legal Ping-Pong match continuing at a fevered pitch, Boldt instructed Port Authority to inform Visage that a pair of Seattle policemen were coming aboard to interview crew members.

Boldt correctly guessed that a shipping captain’s greatest enemy was not the Coast Guard or the Port Authority, or a homicide cop, but time. He would not want to be delayed again from weighing anchor, and he would not want to leave any crew behind. By combining Rutledge’s data with the Port Authority docking schedule and interviews with the Port Authority’s radar station personnel, the Visage appeared to be the vessel in question. It had been well outside the shipping lanes the night of the storm, a night every navigator had been glued to his radar scope hoping to make it into port without incident. The Visage had gone radio dead for more than three hours-inexplicable in such traffic and high seas. The Port Authority radar controller distinctly recalled the ship’s return to the southern shipping lane on scope but off the air, and how, predawn, it had slipped back into the lane, causing all ships behind it to give berth and thereby experience delays, forcing them to endure even more of the storm-something no one forgot.

Boldt and LaMoia climbed up a noisy steel ladder suspended from heavy chains, a crew member behind them, presumably, as a backstop should they slip. The pungent odors of a ship ripe with a three-week ocean crossing struck them-seaweed, diesel fuel and a tangy metallic rust that formed in the back of Boldt’s mouth like the scent of blood at a crime scene. He gripped the chain, steadied himself and looked back toward shore and the noble city skyline that gave the Emerald City its jewels.

Nostalgia tightened his chest-he had devoted his life to service of this city, and was now considering plans to abandon it. At forty-four, with over twenty years on the force, the possibility of a job in the private sector insinuated itself. The unspoken evil of Liz’s cancer treatment was the lingering debt, caused not by medical bills-all paid for by the bank’s health care-but by loss of their double income for over a year. The bank had paid her full salary for three weeks of ‘‘vacation’’ and had then reduced her to one-quarter pay for her ‘‘leave of absence.’’ But their lifestyle, which included day care and a house-cleaner, had left more going out than was coming in. Even Boldt’s advancement to lieutenant had not made up the gap. He was seriously considering a private security position that paid nearly double his city salary. He had an interview scheduled, though he had not told Liz.

With the captain of the Visage on ‘‘shore leave,’’ and therefore unavailable, the crew was all they had. A list of fifteen names was provided by the ship’s first mate, an Asian with few teeth and a leathery face. Boldt and LaMoia divided their energies. Boldt was led below deck through cramped hallways, the gray steel reminding him of prisons, to a game room that contained an oversized projection TV and an enormous video library.

Thirty minutes of frustration left Boldt’s patience brittle and his nerves raw. The first two crewmen had not spoken a word of English, replying to Boldt in some Balkan-sounding tongue. The third crewman listed as a deckhand, a young man with a stubble head and dark eyes that contained a tinge of fear, marched in wearily and, like his fellow seamen, spoke this same foreign language.