Ridley Pearson - No Witnesses

D DAY.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

IT TOLLS FOR THEE…

For the better part of the last thirty minutes, Boldt’s attention had been divided between this fax and the situation room wall where eleven pieces of artwork printed by Grambling Printers were thumbtacked. All the artwork contained the three primary colors-red, yellow, and blue-and at least one foil-copper, silver, or gold. The products were as diverse as enchiladas and frozen yogurt, and just looking at them worried Boldt’s fragile stomach.

It was nine o’clock in the morning, and LaMoia and Gaynes were home recovering from the ATM surveillance.

Following the advice of Dr. Richard Clements, Boldt had divided his team. Freddie Guccianno remained in charge of tracking down any truck farmer whose vehicle bore these same three colors. In the evening hours Freddie worked with a wall map, planning out the next day’s coverage strategy. Although dozens of truck farmers had been questioned, Harry Caulfield remained at large.

Shoswitz was on the phone; he seemed always to be on the phone.

A uniform patrolman entered and crossed the room and handed Guccianno an enormous ball of aluminum foil that contained a sticky roll the size of a tree stump. “You get my receipt?” Guccianno asked. The patrolman produced the receipt, and Guccianno placed it in his top pocket.

Two women detectives, on loan from Sex Crimes, were sorting through the companies represented on the wall by product and affiliation, looking for a link to Adler Foods.

Daphne entered and walked up to the wall, stared at all the products thumbtacked there, and said to the Sex Crimes detectives: “Let’s talk this stuff up.” She stood there looking around the room. No one seemed to have heard her. “Lou?”

“I don’t see what good talking is going to do.”

“Which is why I’m the psychologist and you’re the detective.”

Guccianno oohed, seizing the opportunity to tease Boldt.

“Feisty,” Boldt told her.

“Frightened,” she answered honestly.

“Okay, so let’s talk.” He studied the board. “We got eleven companies. Nine of them have vehicle fleets bearing the company colors. Five of those companies utilize truck fleets.”

“So we stay with those five companies for the time being,” she agreed.

He pointed to the center row of artwork. “Top to bottom: noodles, frozen seafood, ice cream, jams and berries, smoked seafood.”

Daphne asked the two women to read off some of the products. “Keep in mind,” she told Boldt, “that Caulfield claims to be able to kill a hundred or more people with whatever product or method he’s chosen. That has to limit the field.”

“You’re suggesting he intends to do this all in a single day, before we have a chance to issue a recall.”

“ Clements is suggesting so, yes.”

Boldt knew that she only said this to attempt to give it more weight. He then turned to one of the other detectives and said, “Denise, of those five, who has the highest product velocity?”

Boldt and Daphne met eyes while Denise checked through the papers. He acknowledged with a slight nod that Daphne’s discussion did in fact seem to be clearing some of the cobwebs. And if she had not been so frightened, she might have smiled as a way of showing her thanks.

Denise said, “In dollar amounts, it’s pretty much a tie between Chalmer’s microwavable fish dinners and the Montclair ice-cream line. But in terms of sheer product volume, the Montclair ice-cream products far outnumber the dinners.”

Daphne wandered over to Denise and borrowed her paperwork on Montclair for a moment.

Boldt knew her well enough to ask, “What is it?”

“That’s a familiar name to me …” She looked over the paperwork.

Denise, checking more records, advised Boldt, “They also have the largest number of trucks-by far -of anyone we’re looking at.”

Boldt felt the bloodhound in him stir. He stood and began removing the other pieces of artwork, leaving Montclair in the center by itself. Studying it, he asked Daphne, “Familiar how?”

“It’s probably a stretch,” she said, not answering him.

Daphne flipped through the pages of fax paper detailing the Montclair products. She came across a large picture of a clown with the words Monty the Clown written beneath it. Her chest grew tight and her voice turned to gravel. “Then again, maybe not.”

That comment drew Boldt’s attention. To him she seemed to be in a trance. “Daffy?”

“Monty the Clown,” she repeated, holding up the fax’s black-and-white artwork for him. “It’s an ice-cream bar with a gimmick. The kids love it,” she quoted what Owen had told her when he warned her to expect an invitation to Corky’s birthday party.

The birthday party was today.

“Ice-cream bar?” Boldt said, in a voice filled with concern.

He repeated it several times and began madly digging through the files stacked high on the table in front of him. “An ice-cream bar,” he repeated.

“Lou …,” she called out, her voice stronger, her mind ruling out coincidence.

Guccianno raised his head, sensing the tension in both of them.

“It’s here somewhere,” Boldt mumbled. He found it inside the file, second from the bottom. “Got it!” he hollered, rattling Guccianno’s nerves. Boldt tore into the phone book and found the phone number for the Broadway Foodland. Lee Hyundai was paged, and Boldt waited impatiently, finally looking up for the first time and seeing several pair of eyes trained on him.

He held up the receipt and reminded those in the room, “Four items purchased by a man in a greatcoat at express checkout lane, a man identified by Holly MacNamara as Harry Caulfield. Three of the items on here were Adler products-candy bars-and we lost those boys in the tree house, and after that, I never went back to the receipt, focusing on the candy bars instead.”

He recalled the haunting words of Dr. Richard Clements: “He will try to deceive you.” The Muzak stopped and the voice of Lee Hyundai came on the line. Reading the receipt, Boldt asked, “How much do you charge for a single Montclair ice-cream bar?”

His finger pointed to the receipt where it was written: 1.66. After a long pause, during which Boldt heard the clicking of a keyboard, Lee Hyundai reported, “That would be one dollar sixty-six cents.”

Boldt hung up the phone and hollered, “We’ve got a match!”

Guccianno came out of his chair.

Daphne turned to Boldt and announced with difficulty, “No one may believe this, but I know what he’s planning to do. And I know where to find him.”

“Are there bells on these trucks?” Dr. Richard Clements was one of the eleven law enforcement personnel now assembled in the emergency meeting under way in the situation room. Department of Motor Vehicle records had been checked four times. No vehicles were registered to a Harry, or a Harold, or an H. Caulfield. Of the four Caulfields in the listings, two were senior citizens and two others in their late fifties.

A Be On Lookout had been issued for all Monty-mobiles, with orders to approach with caution. With urging from the prosecuting attorney’s office, the company’s legal counsel had agreed to open their employment records to the police, effective immediately. Although they could provide the general areas their trucks covered, there was no direct communication with the trucks, and the specific routes were left up to the drivers. The bottom line was not good: The ice-cream trucks would remain in circulation until late afternoon. The Be On Lookout seemed the only way to catch him.

Dr. Brian Mann had stated emphatically over the phone that strychnine was the perfect poison of choice for a frozen food. “Cholera wouldn’t survive in that environment,” he had added.