Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

Playing devil’s advocate, Boldt said, “The photographs show no crime being committed. They are of an unknown subject in an unknown location. They are from a computer disk that, according to you, has never been mentioned at a four o’clock, never presented to the task force. Is there proper paperwork on the removal of the disk from Anderson’s residence?”

“I wrote it up. Hill knows all about it.”

Boldt warned, “Okay. So let’s say the evidence holds in court. It still shows no crime.”

“The file has Weinstein’s name on it.”

“It has a piece of Weinstein’s name,” the more veteran cop corrected.

“In computers, that’s the same thing.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” He couldn’t afford LaMoia running to the task force with these photos. He needed first crack at them if he were to have any chance of finding Sarah. He looked for LaMoia’s angle in bringing them to him first. It wasn’t the good student wanting to show off to his former teacher-LaMoia wanted something more than praise or evaluation. But what? And could Boldt turn whatever it was to his own advantage?

“So?” LaMoia asked, forcing Boldt to make a hasty assessment.

His basic problem was that he couldn’t think clearly, certainly not quickly. He felt drugged, not himself. Fatigue swam in his head as if his ears were filled with water. Aspirin dulled it briefly, but did not remove this pain. It was his to live with. Why? he asked himself again. He voiced the only thought that entered his weary mind. “You’re reluctant to turn this over to Flemming.”

LaMoia took this as an accusation. “Their lab has had Anderson’s computer forever. If they had come across these same pix when would we have heard about it? I’ll tell you when: Once they had located that marina and made inquiries-and only then, and don’t you believe otherwise.”

“I don’t,” Boldt said, rubbing his neck with as strong a grip as he could muster. That was the other thing: He had lost his strength. He walked at half his former pace. His arms felt heavy, as if someone else’s. “You’re right, I’m sure of it.” He said, “And if you so much as breathe a word of this-”

“They’ll run with it. They’re pigs in shit with this kind of evidence. Fly a few more suits in to canvass marinas, and once they find the place we’ll read about the Piper’s arrest on the front page.”

“Probably right,” Boldt said, not believing a word of it. He had no great love for the Bureau-he’d been bitten as many times as he’d been fed, but Flemming struck him differently than most. The man wanted this over, wanted the Pied Piper in custody as badly as anyone. Boldt wasn’t certain how he had managed to remain on the case as long as he had; the Bureau had a way of exorcising inefficiency. Typically, Flemming would have been off the case by the San Francisco kidnappings, having failed in the previous two cities. He either had friends in the right places, or his reputation as their top kidnap cop was well founded.

“You’re damn right I’m right.” LaMoia could get worked up.

Boldt played on that. “Unless you beat them to it. This is our city, John. Those are our marinas.”

“Exactly! Don’t I know it? Damn right. Our city, god damn it! But the shot! Look at those two pictures. There’s nothing in them but a bunch of masts. Nothing to identify them. It’s like Anderson worked on screwing it up. You know how many boatyards and marinas there are? Lake Union. Lake Washington. The shore. Mercer Island. Kirkland. Medina. Jesus! Vashon. The islands, for Chrissakes. It’s endless.”

“And you want me to find it for you,” Boldt said, knowing and exploiting LaMoia’s needs. Intentionally misusing their friendship. He wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

The comment sobered LaMoia’s hysteria. He looked his former sergeant in the eye and nodded grimly. “You mean I’m using you?” he asked, getting it all wrong. “Yeah, that’s about right. If I have anything to do with this, the existence of Anderson’s photos gets out and I’m butting heads with Flemming, which means I’m butting heads with Hill, which means I’m screwed. Anyone I ask to look into this is going to know it’s task force related. But Intelligence? No one knows what the hell you do up here all day. Everyone’s worried you’re looking up their skirt. And with manpower being what it is-”

“I use the snitches to do the legwork.”

LaMoia acted slightly embarrassed. “That’s what I was thinking. Yeah. A color Xerox. Pass ’em around and see if we can’t kick a location.”

“My snitches don’t exactly work the yachting circuit. They aren’t the deck-shoe set, John.” He couldn’t jump at the offer without raising suspicions. No cop glorified himself with extra work; he or she spent too much time and effort defending turf and protecting positions. Boldt had to dismiss the offer. “You could use a few uniforms.”

“It would leak.”

“It might.” Both knew damn well it would.

“I gave you forty-eight hours with the Spitting Image evidence,” he reminded, playing the trump card Boldt hoped he might use.

“I was doing the legwork. This is a little different,” Boldt countered. It took all his strength not to agree too quickly.

“Seventy-two hours,” LaMoia requested. “Work the photos for three days. After that, I take it to the task force.”

“Forty-eight.” Boldt wanted the evidence for a week or two, and there he was suggesting a shorter period than he was being offered.

“It’ll take you one day just to get the pix out on the street. Right? Once they’re out there, you’re giving me forty-eight, same as I’m giving you.” And then the word LaMoia rarely, if ever, spoke. “Please, Sarge.”

“You’ve changed,” Boldt said, knowing correctly that LaMoia would take it as a backhanded compliment.

“‘You don’t work cases, you work deals,’” LaMoia quoted the man sitting in front of him. “A wise old soldier once told me that.”

“Get out of here,” Boldt said, his fingers sweating on the photographs he held.

As had LaMoia before him, Boldt worked the photocopies with a magnifying glass and a jeweler’s loupe. He pored over the images for the better part of an hour and then, just ready to give it up, he noticed what he had missed in all the other passes. It came under the heading “forest for the trees.”

Of late, he realized, a detective mined his crime scene for evidence that he then turned over to SID for lab tests. Too often, that reliance translated into a dependence on the lab-a belief that the lab had all the answers. In the process, old-fashioned police work suffered.

For an hour, Boldt searched the photos for a readable license plate, a landmark, any unique piece of evidence that might help. He sought out patterns, anything unique.

What he discovered was easily missed. It was not a sign, nor a number or a name. It was much more simple. It was right there in the center of the photo. Right there staring back.

Dr. Ronald Dixon’s home was an impressive three-story Victorian, on the west side of 16th East, near Volunteer Park. Appointed with marble and antiques, Heriz rugs and a Steinway Concert grand, the living room had at its center two couches that faced each other across a low walnut coffee table and were perpendicular to the fireplace, its mantel painted an eggshell enamel white and holding a glass-encased clock whose pendulum issued a steady click, click, click.

Boldt knew the living room well, having spent many hours there exchanging jazz favorites with Dixie, who opened the front door admitting Boldt. Dixie thanked him for coming over.

“You made it sound so urgent,” Boldt said of the request for a lunchtime meeting. Their friendship went back decades, not years. Dixie rarely, if ever, asked favors.