Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

“Your contact over there?”

“The island girl-legs to the ceiling.”

Kalidja, Boldt realized. Had Hill been right about an insider? Had Daphne played right into that?

Bowler said, “I’m making lame excuses for skipping the dance; she’s breathing fire down my throat. I’d been after them to run rental car reservations , not the actual agreements, using a list of valid cards I had.”

“Which were?” Boldt asked.

“The Spitting Image customers. If you know about Spitting Image, then you know she has a Web page; I got to the Web page first, never did interview her. But one of our pocket protectors hacked into her site without any hassle. Said a sixth grader coulda done it. Lifts a couple dozen valid credit cards. The woman was using E-mail for her orders! Jesus! And I’m thinking-”

“This guy’s had experience counterfeiting credit cards,” Boldt supplied.

“Got to be. Right? Credit cards, documentation. It’s all available to him. He needs fake cards to get things done. But first he needs valid numbers, and Spitting Image all but hands them to him.”

“Not the victims’ cards.”

“No way. Have to be punch drunk to use those; but the other card numbers? Why not?”

“Did you ever connect it?” Boldt asked.

“Did I ever! The AFIDs.”

“We’ve never seen a report.”

“Yeah, well, Hale has one. The cartridges for the air TASER were bought all at one time. Las Vegas, a year ago. One time charge to a valid credit card-”

“Which later turned out to be-”

“Much later, yeah,” Bowler answered.

“What?” Liz asked irritably.

The two men answered nearly simultaneously, “A Spitting Image customer.”

“And that’s when you thought to follow the cards,” Boldt said.

“The guy is lifting his vics off the Internet. Why make things harder on himself? He does up a valid credit card, maybe a driver’s license all from the same hack. He gets into those files once, he never needs to go back again. Clean and simple.”

“Is someone going to explain this to me?” Liz asked indignantly. “How does his using some silk-screen customer’s credit card connect to rental cars?”

Bowler answered shamefully, “I never followed it up, never chased it. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.”

Boldt told her, “The Pied Piper needs valid credit cards and a valid ID to rent cars, take plane flights, whatever. If he’s using Spitting Image customers-and I agree it makes sense that he might-then we may be able to track him.” Boldt told Bowler, “The problem with it that I see is that we know he accessed the victims’ credit card records-it’s how he knew their movements, how he predicted when to strike.”

This was clearly news to Bowler, who attempted to digest it. Boldt continued, “If he had that kind of access to credit records, he doesn’t need the Spitting Image list.”

Bowler contradicted, “Sure he does. He needs expiration dates. Those aren’t available from a TRW or some credit service. He’s got some ex-con who can pull that kind of information for him,” Bowler speculated. “It doesn’t mean he’s got valid cards.”

Liz, the banker, said, “He’s right, love. He would need the expiration dates for a successful counterfeit.”

“What you’ve got here is someone who knows computers. With a color scanner you can forge hundred dollar bills. How difficult can a driver’s license be?”

Boldt thought back to the CD-R of Sarah-video embedded on a CD-ROM. He said, “They teach computer skills in prison.”

Bowler looked up and said, “Our tax dollars hard at work.”

Boldt returned to the office as fast as the Chevy would safely take him, a dozen ideas competing inside his head for his attention. Kalidja. Hale. Sarah’s situation. Time running out. He couldn’t hold all the loose ends together.

LaMoia pushed shut both doors to the fifth-floor corner coffee lounge, windows overlooking the secretary pool to one side and the bullpen to the other. The situation room, which offered far more privacy, had become task force headquarters and churned with activity. Daphne warmed her hands on a tea cup. There were no smiles, only anxiety-ridden expressions.

“I’m toast,” LaMoia said. “I’m out of here.” He had called the others to the impromptu meeting.

“Boise?” Boldt asked.

“Sheila-Hill,” he corrected himself, a little late, “wants me on the six o’clock flight, wants me running down every stinking piece of evidence there is-some of which I’ve already done, incidentally, though I didn’t tell her.”

“Econo-Drive,” Boldt supplied. He had asked LaMoia to look into the car rental records.

“Yeah. I had no trouble getting that: The abandoned car in the pileup,” LaMoia said, “was rented to one Lena Robertson.”

“A woman,” Daphne said. “Then it is a team.” Boldt could feel her processing the information. She had been among the first to insist that the kidnapped children were intended for illegal adoption, and that if true, the Pied Piper more than likely needed an accomplice to help care for and transport the infants. Boldt’s revelation of two uniformed cops, a man and a woman, abducting Sarah from day care had supported her theory and led her to investigate previously arrested or convicted con artist couples on a national level. Con games were often played out in pairs.

“Hold that thought right there,” Boldt said, hurrying from the coffee lounge. Once through Homicide’s secure door he started for the elevator but changed his mind and ran the stairs. The climb up was arduous and reinforced his utter exhaustion, reminding him of how little sleep he had gotten over the past ten days and how poorly he had eaten. He reached for some of those dangling strings, knowing that the SPD task force-and their FBI counterpart-was, at the very least, close to identifying and arresting the kidnapper’s accomplice. If he could only count on a few pieces of good luck, he might yet beat Hale or Flemming to his daughter’s abductor. But luck rarely ran when one needed it. It ran when least expected.

Boldt ran the hallway to his office, unlocked his file cabinet and secured the Spitting Image customer list. He was halfway back downstairs when he located the name on the run: Robertson, a baby quilt shipped in care of Durrel Robertson of Oakland, California.

“You look like you’re about to come out of your skin,” Daphne observed of Boldt on his return.

“Robertson was a Spitting Image customer. A baby blanket was shipped to that name in care of Durrel Robertson at what looks like a home address. It was charged to a VISA in the name of Lena Robertson.” Daphne and LaMoia looked back at him blankly. He explained Bowler’s visit and the possible connection-never proved and never brought to anyone’s attention because of Penny’s kidnapping-between the Pied Piper’s possible identities and the Spitting Image customer list.

“You’re telling me Bowler suddenly got a conscience?” LaMoia said skeptically, finding it impossible to conceal his dislike of a cop who would intentionally throw an investigation. “Or did he drive up here to sell you a bill of goods and stay with his original game plan?”

“You are the all-time cynic,” Daphne said.

“Bowler put together Spitting Image just as we did. But he made a leap in logic that we did not: With a bunch of valid credit card numbers at your fingertips, why not put them to good use? It works for me,” Boldt impressed upon LaMoia, referring to the customer list. “Robertson’s card was used to rent a car here in Seattle that’s later abandoned on the way to God knows where. Do we need it any clearer?”

“It’s your call,” LaMoia said irritably.