Ridley Pearson - The First Victim

‘‘It’s a bus stop,’’ LaMoia said.

‘‘Yup.’’

‘‘That make sense to you?’’

‘‘Let’s watch,’’ Boldt suggested.

The air brakes hissed and the bus pulled to a stop. Shot from the hip, as the video was, the scene played out from a child’s height and perspective. Boldt thought about his own kids, Miles and Sarah, and worried that he wasn’t seeing enough of them. He was barely seeing Liz either, for that matter-unless he counted the hours she was sleeping. With his insomnia back in full swing, he saw a lot of Liz while she slept. He lay there and worried-it didn’t seem to matter about what; his kind of worry was a world unto itself.

They caught their first glimpse of Melissa in a shiny piece of steel or aluminum, or maybe even a mirror inside the bus. It happened so quickly that it was hard to tell. But there she was-twenty-something, almost pretty, blue jeans and a Wazoo sweatshirt-climbing the stairs of the bus. There was too much noise to pick out any particular conversation, but the camera seemed intent on the left side of the bus. It was obvious that she had worked at maintaining that angle as long as she did, given that she was walking the center aisle the whole time.

‘‘What do you think?’’ LaMoia asked.

‘‘I don’t know,’’ Boldt answered. He didn’t like the man interrupting every few seconds. He wanted to watch the video, to get inside the images, not be constantly yanked back into the viewing room with his sergeant.

‘‘Someone on the left side interests her.’’

‘‘Let’s just watch it one time through. You think?’’

‘‘Yeah, sure.’’

Melissa took a seat about two-thirds of the way down the bus, across from the vehicle’s rear door, but the lens remained aimed on the same side of the bus. Images streamed by outside the windows.

LaMoia said immediately, ‘‘She wants to be able to leave in a hurry.’’

Boldt said nothing. Lead by example, he was thinking.

After only a few more seconds there was an abrupt jerk in the image, and the time stamp advanced eleven minutes. She had stopped and then restarted the recording. Boldt made note in the dark of the eleven-minute break.

‘‘You trying to intimidate me, Sarge? Should I be taking notes?’’

‘‘I’ll take the notes,’’ Boldt said.

The bus turned and lumbered up a downtown street. The change in architecture said as much. It was noticeably darker outside- twilight. The nose of the bus lowered, all the passengers thrown slightly forward in their seats.

‘‘Third Avenue bus tunnel,’’ LaMoia said.

‘‘Yup.’’

‘‘She’s following someone. What do you want to bet?’’

‘‘Let’s watch.’’

LaMoia snorted, excited by what he saw and disappointed in Boldt’s stubborn silence.

The bus pulled to a stop inside the tunnel and a dozen passengers stood to disembark. The camera continued to record as one waist and torso after another passed by. It then swung and Melissa carried it off the bus and into the bus stop where some passengers headed for exits and others awaited connections. For the first time, the camera clearly singled out one man in particular.

‘‘There he is,’’ LaMoia said anxiously. ‘‘Whoever he is.’’

The man grew increasingly larger as the camera approached. For an instant, he was held in profile, but an overhead ceiling lamp burned a bright white hole into the image and erased the man’s face.

‘‘Damn!’’ LaMoia gasped. ‘‘We had him.’’

‘‘She had him,’’ Boldt corrected. ‘‘The question that has to be asked: Did he have her?’’

‘‘You think he made her?’’

‘‘We know he made her, John,’’ Boldt reminded. ‘‘We just don’t know when.’’

‘‘This shit gets on my nerves.’’

‘‘I can tell.’’

‘‘Film, I’m talking about.’’

‘‘Yes,’’ Boldt said.

She stopped at a city map, turned and sat down, presumably on a bench. The camera turned ever so slightly and held the man’s back in frame.

‘‘She’s good at this, you know? A good aim.’’

The image jumped. In the lower right-hand corner, seven minutes had elapsed. The man’s back was still on the screen. He wore an old moth-holed sweatshirt with a hood, black jeans and waffle-soled boots. The man’s black wavy hair and build suggested ethnic blood-a big Hispanic or South Pacific man. It meant nothing without a better look.

‘‘Why this guy?’’ LaMoia spoke aloud.

‘‘That’s the relevant question,’’ Boldt agreed.

‘‘Klein? Did she connect the missing skirt with this Frito Bandito?’’

‘‘That’s a racial slur, John. You’re a sergeant now.’’

‘‘This rice and beans gentleman,’’ he said, correcting himself. ‘‘Tommy Taco?’’

‘‘Way to go.’’

‘‘Thank you.’’

A bus pulled to a stop. Passengers disembarked. The suspect boarded, followed a moment later by the camera and the woman carrying it. The image didn’t last long. She established the man’s location on the bus. Another cut. Elapsed time, seventeen minutes.

Boldt was thinking about timing specific bus routes. He wondered how many they would have to deal with.

‘‘Exit, Tommy, stage right,’’ LaMoia said, as if directing the film.

The broad-shouldered sweatshirt descended the steps. The camera moved toward the door, but then abruptly stopped. Only the sweatshirt disembarked. Melissa had apparently thought better than to join him out on a darkened stretch of sidewalk in the middle of nowhere.

‘‘Well, she’s not completely stupid,’’ LaMoia said, picking up on the obvious.

‘‘Recognize the area? The location?’’

‘‘You kidding? Those doors were open for maybe five seconds,’’ LaMoia complained.

‘‘Rewind,’’ Boldt instructed.

Imitating a sports announcer, LaMoia said, ‘‘Our bus-cam will now perform instant replay as the star of our show descends the rear steps.’’ He was as nervous outside as Boldt was on the inside. The missing woman had followed a man-a big man, a laborer perhaps, maybe not Caucasian. She had followed him for the better part of an hour, at night, on two different buses while carrying a briefcase concealing a camera.

They made three successive attempts to identify any landmark or piece of skyline when the bus doors opened, but to no avail.

The next cut was equally as abrupt as the others.

‘‘We’re a day later,’’ Boldt observed. ‘‘That last shot. Rewind. . Yes. See?’’

The camera panned left to right. Small white lights glowed in the darkness. As the aperture adjusted, both men rocked forward at the same moment. Dozens of Chinese women-all with shaved heads, all wearing jeans and T-shirts-sat behind large industrial sewing machines, frantic with work. Others manned cutting tables, busy with razor knives and scissors chained to the tables. Melissa’s rapid breathing mixed with the roar of machinery and played loudly from the television’s stereo speakers.

‘‘Jesus,’’ LaMoia muttered.

The screen zoomed and the lighting improved as a few of the women seamstresses were captured in close-up. They appeared bruised and beaten. ‘‘Oh my God,’’ Melissa remarked in a dry whisper. The next shot was of a chained ankle, blood raw. She gasped as the camera focused. Then another shackled ankle, and another. ‘‘The graveyard,’’ the woman’s voice whispered hoarsely.

‘‘Hilltop?’’ LaMoia asked.

Boldt shot him a look. Had Melissa made a connection to their Jane Doe? How? When?

Another edit jump. The screen stole his attention.

The ominous groan of machinery continued throughout, grating and annoying. The camera closed in on a black surface, where there suddenly appeared a small hole the size of a silver dollar. The lens approached that hole and then focused automatically. It was a small room, poorly lit by a construction light. The sound of running water. Naked women-their heads and genitals shaved-hose water running down over them. They whispered amongst themselves. It sounded Chinese.