Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

“Tom was lead detective on the Pied Piper. Did you know that?”

“Yes. That’s why I came down yesterday.” He added, “To ask about Penny.”

She blushed-an involuntary act that spoke volumes. Boldt felt flooded with anxiety. Connie Bowler glanced quickly at the door again, drawn perhaps by a uniform passing close to the office.

Once the uniform was well out of earshot, she whispered, “Penny was taken from us in the middle of the second week of the investigation.”

For Boldt, this meant the Pied Piper had routinely blackmailed local police officers, that in all likelihood, the evidence from each city was tainted, that Flemming and the FBI had been following bad information all along. Sheila Hill had suspected as much. Connie Bowler now confirmed it.

“Tom won’t talk about it, but I know he concealed evidence. He said the case file was stolen, and he kept it from the FBI that way. That’s not right. I can’t let it happen again. I mean … it already has, hasn’t it? Sarah. He told me. And these other children up here. I’m so sorry. I know that if Tom … but you have to understand … we got her back safely. Penny … It was all we dreamed for.” The woman’s eyes brimmed with tears, her lips quivered and her face collapsed like a balloon losing air. She shrank down into herself, suddenly half her size. Her tears spilled onto her blouse, leaving constellations on her chest. “And Tom? He’s convinced that if it came out how he intentionally threw the case-for whatever reason-that they’d pull his badge and his benefits and kick him out into the street. And the way it is, we’re just not prepared to start over like that. You know? The kids and all.”

As he waited for her to continue, he understood that he had already violated the ransom demands, and a sinking terror filled him that he had done the wrong thing in giving in to the intervention. But in the same thought he realized that Bowler could not live with what he’d done.

Connie Bowler’s tear-streaked face confronted Boldt, who caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He lifted his hand to stop Daphne from entering his office. Connie looked in Daphne’s direction, but by the time she did, she saw only her back as Daphne walked away, no questions asked.

Connie said softly, “Penny’s fine. Not a scratch on her. No sign of … you know … nothing. He’d done nothing bad to her.”

“He?”

The question puzzled her. “The kidnapper. A woman couldn’t possibly put a child through this.”

Playing his cards closely, Boldt said nothing to contradict her. “Did Tom make contact with him?”

She shook her head. “No. He would have told me.” She teared up again. “We heard nothing for over three weeks.”

Sarah had been missing six days; he could not fathom the concept of three weeks.

“She was found in the Clackamas Town Center. It’s a mall. Her name, our address and phone number were found on a card in her pocket. Left there like a lost package.” She sprouted more tears and mumbled, repeating, “Nothing was wrong with her. She was fine. Just a little scared was all.”

“The card. Handwritten or typed?”

“On a computer, Tom said.” She forced a smile. “It’s funny that that would matter to both of you, isn’t it? I remember he mentioned it was a computer. It struck me as so strange that he would care about that.”

Boldt’s speech came out hoarse and dry. “I will need to talk with Tom about his case.”

“I told him he had to talk to you, that we couldn’t allow it to continue, but he said that Penny came first, that he had gone to the devil to save Penny and keep her safe and that he wasn’t going to throw that all away now.”

Boldt wasn’t sure he had the courage to do what Connie Bowler had done-to get Sarah back safely and then risk it all over again.

“What we went through … what we’ve gone through … well, you know, don’t you.” She made it a statement. “You of all people would understand. That’s what I tried to tell Tom. If we can tell anyone …” She teared up again and spoke to Boldt the father, the parent, her voice earnest and strong. “No one should ever have to go through what we went through. It has to stop.” Holding his gaze, she silently pleaded with him. Then she stood, wiping away her tears, and indicated the thick manila envelope. “I put our address on top. Mail it back to me, please. He still looks at it occasionally.”

Boldt offered to copy the file while she waited. This appealed to her, and Boldt left her in his office while he copied it, the action reminding him of copying LaMoia’s task force book only days earlier.

If he did not act, if he allowed the Pied Piper to continue the abductions, in all likelihood Sarah would be returned unharmed. This possibility tugged at him but was quickly replaced by an image of Bowler cradling the glass of Scotch. The child had been saved but the father lost-the family broken.

The FBI’s Washington State Field Office, located in Seattle’s new Federal Building, smelled of perfumed disinfectant that Daphne Matthews associated with a doctor’s waiting room. She was repulsed by the smell because it reminded her of a particular car deodorizer that came in the shape of a small green pine tree and hung from the rearview mirror or inside the trunk, the smell of which was seared into her memory where it would remain forever. Just the smell of it made her want to run. She was supposed to trick an FBI agent into supplying information the Bureau had yet to release to SPD. No small task. The intervention had gone well. Boldt-and Sarah with him-was now supported by a team of competent and fiercely loyal individuals bent on the girl’s rescue.

As Flemming’s Intelligence officer, Kay Kalidja had unrestricted access to Bureau resources, making her an invaluable ally. By not making an appointment, Daphne denied Kalidja any preparation for her visit. She was kept waiting for ten minutes in a small reception area. Behind the receptionist hung a photo of the president, another of the FBI chief and a third of WSFO’s special agent in charge. Kalidja appeared at the secured door and greeted Daphne, apologizing for keeping her waiting. Daphne followed her inside. “The digs here aren’t much for those of us from out-of-town. I’m sharing an office with two others.”

She showed Daphne into the cramped and cluttered office and closed the door. “They resent us, of course-the local agents. They don’t want Washington coming in and dictating procedure. On the surface, it’s business as usual, but the resentment is there. Have a seat, if you can find one.” The office walls held bookshelves crowded with loose-leaf binders bearing the FBI logo.

They faced each other from opposite sides of the desk.

Daphne lied for the sake of her efforts. “They assign me all the no-brainers, assignments they wouldn’t dare ask a male officer to do.”

“Same thing here, I promise,” Kalidja said, sympathetically.

“They assume we’re incapable of using our brains,” Daphne said, hoping to strike a common chord.

“And it’s not our brains they’re thinking about,” Kalidja said. She laughed. Her neck was long and elegant. She might have made it as a model had she tried.

Daphne met eyes with the woman and said, “Have you ever noticed how quickly your ideas become someone else’s? Suddenly all the credit is going down the table?”

Special Agent Kay Kalidja did not break the eye contact, understanding perfectly well that Daphne had come for a favor. Daphne placed Thompson’s rendition of the tattoo in front of Kalidja and let it sit there. She said, “VICAP and your other databases keep track of body markings, don’t they?”

Kalidja fingered the photocopy.