Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

“No.”

“So you need help.”

“No. We can’t.” Standing, he told her to get some sleep. “I’ll be back afternoonish. Cell phone is on if you need me.”

“I need you,” she assured him.

She was back asleep before he was into street clothes.

At 7:30 A.M., the Columbia River was caught in the dusk of sunrise, its swirling dark waters reflecting back a rose-hued sky with patches of white cotton clouds. Shorebirds and gulls flew low while a barge and tug cut white-feathered wakes into its surface. The noise of traffic obscured any sounds, so that if one stared long enough, he might believe it was the river making that noise.

Boldt ate scrambled eggs with his four cups of tea at a trucker’s diner. The waitress was too old for the hairstyle and too friendly for the hour.

At 9:00 A.M. Connie Bowler claimed her husband was running errands. At ten, when Boldt called back, he heard the twinges of panic in her voice as she fired off an excuse. Boldt had met Connie only once. He reintroduced himself, asked after their kids, and said he was passing through town and would love to see Tom. She said the kids were fine, but there was relief in her voice. Boldt pressed her about Tom. She carefully volunteered the name and address of The Shanty Lantern.

The watering hole was six blocks from the Portland Police Department, in a basement area beneath a Chinese restaurant named Wang Hong’s. Entering from sunlight, it was several minutes before he could see clearly. The bar smelled strongly of egg rolls, but it had an Irish decor. It was not a happy bar, but a drinker’s bar; Boldt had played piano in both kinds. It was not a cop bar either. Police were a strange breed. After spending eight-hour shifts together, cops tended to spend another two hours together getting pasted before heading home. They shared war stories. They bragged. They exaggerated. They talked sports and cars and, in the right company, women. Daphne would have all sorts of explanations for cop bars, some of which might make sense to scholars, but at the heart of such a place was that police work was teamwork. After the bruising, the team enjoyed a moment or two on the lighter side.

The Shanty Lantern was no such haunt. On a Sunday morning it played host to ten determined souls, all of whom struggled to either continue their drunk, or find one. Tom Bowler owned a table, a pack of cigarettes and a disconnected look. He paid no attention to the sports discussion on the overhead Sony. He had a Scotch in front of him-half empty. By the way the man stared into space, Boldt knew it wasn’t his first.

Bowler looked all wrong for a man in his late thirties. Boldt might not have spotted him had he not been looking for him. He wore a wrinkled white shirt that was stained with either ketchup or blood. When he saw Boldt, he shook his head, refusing the visit.

Boldt took a chair at the man’s table, sat down and stared at him.

The bartender interrupted, attempting to rescue her regular customer. She was the owner of a great deal of dyed hair, a pair of artificially large breasts and a vivid shade of blue eye shadow that could be seen even in the cavelike atmosphere of The Shanty Lantern.

Boldt ordered an orange juice for himself and a cup of coffee for Bowler.

“Who put you in charge?” the man asked, correcting the coffee to another Scotch.

“We’ve never received your file, Tom,” Boldt said, deciding to play it straight. “You were lead,” Boldt reminded.

“Queen for a Day, you mean. Flemming shows up, my brass bends over and greases up the old red eye and says, ‘Park it here please, Mr. Federal Officer.’ We form a serious Crimes Unit, but all we end up with is bottle washers for Flemming’s suits. He’s a monster, you know-Flemming, I’m talking about. A dictator. Eyes in the back of his head, an ear to every wall. Knows what you’re thinking before you do. On edge. I had the feeling that at any moment … he used us. Manipulated us, worked us-and the brass seemed to never catch on. We processed the evidence, but they analyzed it. I gotta admit, he played it brilliantly, like a quarterback working a cheerleader to get her panties down. We get the public exposure, the blame, if it goes south; Flemming gets the real control. Knows which wheels to grease, which buttons to push. Has our chief bragging at cocktail parties that he’s taking phone calls and sharing beverages with our U.S. Senator. It’s all politics, Boldt. Blame management: Who’s to blame if the investigation goes south? Who takes the front page if the guy walks into the seventh precinct and gives himself up? Let me tell you this: Talk radio has done in law enforcement. The public is like a child, you know? You give them too much information too soon and they’re dangerous with it.” He killed the Scotch. “To hell with it.”

“How’re the kids?” Boldt asked.

Tom Bowler’s jaw set and his eyes grew large as they met and held Boldt’s. He shouted a little too loudly. “Ginger?” Barroom shorthand. She delivered the two drinks. “What about my kids?”

Boldt said, “Let me run a hypothetical situation past you, Tom, and maybe you can help me see clear of it.”

“What about the kids?” the man asked, mean in a way only a drunk can get.

Boldt had won the man’s attention. The room suddenly felt warmer.

“What the-?”

“Sarah’s going to be two. Can you believe it?” Boldt sipped his juice. It was from a can. He set it aside. He locked into Bowler, saying no more. The man’s expression slowly hardened. He knew why Boldt had made the trip. “So let’s just say, hypothetically,” Boldt continued, “that a cop is working a case, a big case, like a string of kidnappings or something.”

Bowler shifted uncomfortably.

Boldt continued, “And let’s say the doer is no dummy. He knows he either has to have an enormous string of luck or someone pulling strings for him. He knows the Feds will be players. Tens of thousands of kids vanish every year. Few, if any, of these disappearances are ever connected. Fewer prosecuted. But this guy is making a statement. He leaves a calling card.”

“A penny flute.”

“Exactly.” Boldt hesitated. Other than Liz he had not told a soul. He couldn’t bring himself to. Instead he said, “The doer understands it’s the local cops who will work the crime scenes for evidence, the locals who will most likely process the lab work on that evidence. In that way it’s the locals’ case to give away, not the other way around. The Bureau may be running things, maybe not, but the local cops control the evidence and therefore the success or failure of the investigation.”

A bead of sweat ran from Bowler’s sideburn into his collar. He looked jaundiced. Malarial.

“One other thing: The doer is much more frightened of the Feds than he is of local law.” He paused briefly. “Did I ask you about your kids?”

Bowler coaxed the shiny surface of the Scotch into a swirling disk of light suspended in the glass. “You wasted a trip,” he said.

“I’m just talking hypothetically,” Boldt reminded.

“How’s Liz?”

“Cancer,” Boldt fired back harshly. Mentioning it didn’t sting him the way it used to. If he expected Bowler to talk to him, then he had to reciprocate. “They cut her open. They ran her full of drugs and radiation. Now she’s found religion.”

“Connie’s joined the God squad. Me?” He lifted the Scotch.

“Is it working?” Boldt asked. Maybe it was the fear loosening him up. Maybe it was the look in Bowler’s eye that confirmed Boldt was right. His voice faltered as he said, “I’m begging you here, Tom.”

“The Sonics are murdering us this year. Once we lost Clive the Glide it was all over. They should have thrown it in back then.”