Ridley Pearson - No Witnesses

“You all right?” She crossed unsteadily and flopped down onto the cushion beside him. Her hair whipped in the wind. “Are you okay?” she asked more intimately, pressed up against him.

“The boy is worse, I hear,” he said.

She reached out and laid her hand gently on the lower sleeve of his sport jacket and squeezed his forearm.

The launch engines slowed, and as the launch pulled alongside, a woman crew member tossed a line. Daphne climbed the ladder, followed by Boldt. The launch sped away, cutting into the angry green water, ripping open a crease of white foam.

“Lousy weather,” the woman offered. She was in her twenties with an athletic figure, nice legs, and quite crisp green eyes. She wore khaki shorts, white and blue canvas deck shoes, and an aquamarine T-shirt damp on her shoulders.

They descended into a spacious, well-appointed living room. Owen Adler stood to the side of the steep ladder and offered his hand to Daphne to guide her down the steep steps. “Welcome aboard,” he said to Boldt.

Adler was a boyish forty-five, with graying hair at the temples, wire-rimmed glasses, French cuffs, and silver cuff links. He stood just under six feet but carried himself much taller. He wore soft brown Italian loafers, linen pants, and a faint pink pinpoint cotton shirt with a starched collar. His handshake was firm, his dark eyes attentive.

Adler and Daphne sat on opposite ends of a small chintz couch. Adler’s attorney and chief operating officer, Howard Taplin, took the cushioned chair to Adler’s immediate right. Taplin was a wiry man with drawn features, a trimmed mustache, and intense gray eyes. He wore a gray suit and black wing tips and the kind of high, thin socks that required garters. Boldt sat between Taplin and Kenny Fowler. Fowler had once served on the police force in Major Crimes, working the gangland wars. Boldt saw him occasionally at the Big Joke, where Boldt played happy-hour piano. Fowler carried a deliberate intensity in his eyes. He wore his dark hair slicked back and kept himself impeccably groomed. He fancied himself a ladies’ man, though the rumors had always been that he chased the cheerleading age. Boldt knew well the man’s reputation for an explosive disposition and frank honesty. Fowler shook hands strongly with Boldt and asked him about Liz and Miles. He always remembered to ask. He had a couple of new teeth in front and a tiny scar on his lower lip. Boldt wondered what the other guy looked like: Fowler was the workout type and wore tailored clothes to prove it.

As Adler opened the meeting, the cruiser left the protection of the jetty, entering some rougher water. But as the speed increased, the ride smoothed. The cabin was impressively soundproofed. A male crew member delivered a pitcher of iced tea and extra glasses with sprigs of mint and wedges of lemon. A plate of cookies circulated.

Adler said, “We want to welcome your assistance and expertise, Sergeant. This is a horrible situation, and we will cooperate in whatever way required to resolve this just as quickly as possible. I want to say right up front that we’re aware we may have impeded your efforts by waiting to contact you as we did.” He glanced at both Daphne and Howard Taplin. “And I should add that we still feel strongly about keeping the involvement of the police as low-profile as possible. With these contaminations, whoever this is has proved he means business, and we would just as soon be perceived as adhering to his demands-all of his demands.”

“Agreed,” Boldt replied. “Where do we stand with the recall?”

“We’ve issued a full recall for the product run in question. Kenny is continuing to quietly search for a possible employee who might carry a grudge. You two will want to coordinate on that, I’m sure.”

“We will not give in to terrorism,” Taplin interrupted.

Adler did not appreciate the intrusion. “What Tap means,” he said addressing Boldt, “is that we would prefer to catch this person than enter into negotiations.”

“And some of us would prefer to keep the police out,” Taplin said. “Nothing personal,” he added coolly, passing Boldt the most recent fax.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

MORE SUFFERING-AND WORSE-

UNLESS YOU OBEY.

DO NOT CLEAR THE SHELVES,

AND NO POLICE OR PRESS OR

HUNDREDS WILL DIE .

BEEN TO PORTLAND LATELY?

“Portland?” Boldt asked, worried.

“We have calls in to all the hospitals,” Fowler explained.

Daphne took the fax and reread it, saying partly to herself, partly to the gathering, “He’s getting more wordy. That’s a good sign. He’s opening up.” The others listened. Boldt felt cold. She reread it yet again. “No contractions; he’s well educated. And he uses the word obey , not cooperate -that’s interesting.”

Taplin said, “You see our position?”

“Damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” Fowler said.

“What do you advise?” Adler asked. “We will cooperate however we can. We would like to place another run of soup back out there-but not if we’re risking more poisonings.”

“Can you keep the chicken soup off the shelves, but stock them with something else?” Boldt inquired.

“It’s our highest-velocity product,” Taplin complained.

“My take,” Daphne offered, “is that we should accede to the specific demands while taking every precaution possible to prevent this from happening again. What about product redesign?”

Boldt explained, “If the blackmailer is working in one of your production facilities, a label or product redesign might tell us so. If he-or she-has access to the new materials then we know it’s inside work. He added, “And it doesn’t go against any of the demands.”

“Way ahead of you,” Taplin crowed. “Six to eight working days to print new labels if we already had a new design, which we do not. Two to three weeks for a new design. In terms of container redesign-moving to something tamper-proof-we’re looking both domestic and abroad, but best guess is anywhere from two to twenty months to facilitate such an overhaul.”

Fowler contributed, “We’re aware of the product-tampering cases that have lasted years, Lou, ’kay? But from what I can tell, they seem to always involve extortion. These are strange demands we’re getting, and with the time limit already exceeded, it somehow doesn’t seem too real that this nut house is going to hang in there for all that long. You follow? Whatever he’s got cooking-you’ll pardon the pun-I don’t think we can wait around a couple months to put the soup in jars or something. ’Kay? So I advised to move forward with the new labels but not to hold our breath or nothing.”

“What about changing the glue to water-insoluble,” Boldt suggested. “This guy is drilling the cans beneath the label. If we make it impossible to soak off a label, and yet he is still able to contaminate the cans, we narrow the field of where to look inside your company.”

Fowler said, “It would have to be someone stealing labels from, or working on, the line.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s very good!” exclaimed Adler, jotting a note onto a legal pad. “And it’s a simple change,” he said to Taplin, who nodded.

“As few people as possible should know about the glue change,” Boldt encouraged.

“We can arrange this with virtually no one involved,” Adler said.

“We might piss him off,” Fowler cautioned.

“He’s threatened hundreds if we challenge him,” Taplin reminded.

Boldt considered how much to reveal and then informed them, “The lab tests suggest that there is no direct evidence indicating that the label was either soaked or steamed off the can. There’s a high probability that the blackmailer is working with fresh labels-new labels.”