Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

She nodded limply, displaying none of the defensiveness Boldt would have expected of the Pied Piper or an associate. He said, “And you are?”

“Donna Stonebeck,” she answered him.

The woman showed them in to a small pine table. The house smelled vaguely of paint, although there was no silk-screen equipment in sight. The small living room had been converted into a preschool classroom.

Boldt opened his briefcase and handed her a stack of photos. “Look carefully,” he said. “Do you know any of these children?”

Studying them, she looked a little frightened, understanding this was no social call. She shook her head at each photo, looked through them a second time more quickly and passed them back to Boldt. “They weren’t students here. We have never had a single complaint.”

“It’s not that,” LaMoia surprised her by saying. “It’s a kidnapping case. A serial kidnapper.”

The horror on her face appeared genuine. Disappointment stung Boldt.

“Kidnapping?” she whispered. If an act, it was a damn good one.

Boldt heard small footsteps racing downstairs followed by three children who appeared around the corner and stopped abruptly. One was Asian, one Caucasian, and one a beautiful cream skin. They all seemed the same age, around five or six. Stonebeck, still stunned, told them, “I’ll be up in a minute.”

The kids ran back upstairs at the same frantic speed.

Stonebeck apparently felt compelled to explain. “I take up to five boarders. I have those three at the moment. Children of violent divorces, orphans whose extended family can’t take them in yet but who can afford private care-we offer a better environment than the public institutions.”

“A regular Florence Nightingale,” LaMoia quipped.

“It’s not entirely benevolent. I’m paid quite well for my boarders.” Without flinching, the woman offered, “Tea or coffee for either of you?”

Boldt asked for tea with milk and sugar. LaMoia took coffee.

Donna Stonebeck asked from the kitchen, “Are you interested in the preschool or Spitting Image?”

“Spitting Image is located here?” LaMoia asked.

“I’ve got a basement full of it,” she told him, setting the water on to boil.

“You do much business?” LaMoia asked.

“I have two people downstairs full time while I’m up here with the kids,” the woman said proudly. “It keeps growing like this, and I’m going to need more space. We created a Web page-oh, about a year ago now-and our orders have doubled in the last three months. We’re shipping all over the world now. Japan is big for some reason. Korea. Germany. Finland. We’ve got five orders for Japan right now.”

“The T-shirts mostly?” Boldt inquired.

The woman stood waiting for the pot to boil. She didn’t appear nervous in the least. Boldt wanted her nervous, he wanted her a part of it. “We don’t do T-shirts, per se. Too crowded a field. We do infant clothing, but it’s our crib products that are zooming: the blankets, quilts, duvet covers and pillows. We’re doing twenty, thirty baby blankets a week. At fifty bucks a blanket,” she added. “We’ve got a new velvet product. Comes out like velvet art, you know? Elvis? Only it’s your kid’s face. Hundred bucks per unit. Can’t keep up with orders.”

“Business is booming,” LaMoia said.

“I won’t give up the preschool,” she directed to Boldt. “I mean, one’s for love, one’s for money, right?”

“What kind of records do you keep?” LaMoia asked coldly.

“Are you two IRS?” She laughed as if caught. “Oh my God, I should have looked closer at that badge!”

“Police,” Boldt answered, attempting to reassure her. “Kidnapping,” he reminded.

“All of those kids, or was I supposed to recognize one of them?” Then a wave of realization crashed over her and she cried, “You don’t think I have something to do with this?”

Boldt’s cell phone rang. He rose and took the call in the corner.

LaMoia asked her, “How do you keep track of each order?”

“The artwork? The paperwork? What?” she asked, distracted by Boldt mumbling in the far corner.

“Artwork. Paperwork.”

“Artwork, goes back with the product. Our paperwork-”

“Invoices,” he clarified, interrupting. “Customer names. Addresses. That sort of thing. I give you a name, you pull the order.”

“Specific customers? We file by month,” Stonebeck said.

“If I give you a name?”

“A date and name would be better, but yeah, we could do it. We’re alphabetized by month. But can I promise we’d have it? This is not Land’s End,” she said. “A year ago we were doing five pieces a week. Now it’s maybe twenty-five. Last year we invoiced by quarter. This year by month. Used to pay our bills by hand. Now we use Quicken.” She said sarcastically, “We’re real cutting edge around here.”

“Could I check out your invoices?” LaMoia asked. “The last six months?”

“Do you have a warrant?” she said. “That’s what I’m supposed to ask, isn’t it?”

“No warrant,” Boldt answered, returning to the conversation. “We had hoped to keep this as informal as possible.”

“But you want to rifle my invoices? That’s cute.”

LaMoia glanced at Boldt, who nodded his consent. He said, “In your estimation how secure is your Web page?”

“Meaning?”

“What precautions have you taken to secure your Web page?”

“This is a cottage industry, fellows. I keep telling you-it’s not Land’s End. We post the same warning everyone else does-you play at your own risk. We encourage customers to call us direct and place the order that way. You know what it costs me to file with one of these security providers? Forget it. Arm and a leg. Maybe down the road.”

“To call you is a toll call or an 800 number?”

“Do I look like I’d have an 800 number? I’m out of my basement. I do a couple dozen pieces a week.”

“So they place the orders through the Internet to save the toll charges.”

“The orders come to me as E-mail. E-mail is pretty secure, right?”

“We’re interested in attempting to identify some of your customers,” LaMoia explained.

“No kidding?” she asked sarcastically. The water boiled. She poured the beverages and delivered them. “What I want to know is why?”

“We just want to check a couple of names,” Boldt said as respectfully as possible.

“Yeah, but how’s it connect to these kidnappers?”

“That’s police business,” LaMoia said harshly.

“I kinda figured that,” the woman fired back, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

“If you wouldn’t mind?” Boldt asked. “Time is our biggest enemy.”

She put down her tea and stood. “You can see whatever you like.” She asked cautiously, “Am I in any kind of trouble here?”

LaMoia grinned that LaMoia grin that showed his teeth and bent his mustache into a pair of wings. “Not yet,” he said, joining her.

“You single?”

To Boldt, LaMoia said, “Wait here, Lieutenant.”

As their voices descended the stairs, Boldt heard her say, “Maybe I like you after all, Mr. Smooth. Which one are you?”

“LaMoia.”

“Italian?”

“Every inch.”

“Don’t go getting personal on me.”

Boldt listened in, thinking only LaMoia got away with such things. One of these days his libido would get him in trouble. Sooner than later. After twenty minutes he emerged, that same irritating self-confident smile pasted under his mustache. In his right hand he carried a number of invoices. “Bingo!” he said, waving the paperwork.

“So the doer, soon to become the Pied Piper, decides he wants to establish a little under-the-table adoption business.” LaMoia drove the curves effortlessly and at twice the speed, like water running through a pipe. “He needs product: white babies, good solid stock.”