Ridley Pearson - No Witnesses

Clements repeated, “Are there bells on these trucks?”

There were three or four conversations going at once, and only by raising his voice in this manner did he draw the attention of those gathered.

“Bells on Monty-mobiles?” Shoswitz said. “Who knows?”

“Yes,” answered one of the FBI men. “At least there are on Good Humor trucks back east.”

“Well, someone find out,” Clements ordered. He held up the fax for Boldt to read again.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

IT TOLLS FOR THEE…

“‘It tolls for thee …’ You see? I am right about our friend. He would like for us to stop him, if we can, with our limited combined intelligence, and take him at his word. ‘The bell tolls’ for Mr. Adler, gentlemen. How can he be certain? Mr. Adler’s daughter is a fan of Monty the Clown.” He checked with Daphne, who nodded. She had remained sullen and silent for much of this, not understanding how-when she was so certain of Caulfield’s whereabouts-that these oafs could call a meeting. Boldt could see the wait was destroying her.

“And Adler’s daughter has a party scheduled, with an appearance by Monty the Clown.”

“Which means a disguise,” Shoswitz said.

“Precisely,” agreed Clements.

“And we are assuming he has his own truck, rather than is planning to commandeer one-this because of the paint samples found at Longview.”

“Agreed,” Boldt said.

“Can we hurry this up?” Daphne snapped impatiently.

Clements glanced up at her. “Easy does it, Matthews. We understand your concern. We just want to do this correctly. Methodically. Mr. Caulfield is a worthy adversary-we must not underestimate him.”

She boiled, crossing her arms defiantly. But she held her tongue.

Boldt reminded, “We have the registration tags for all the legitimate Monty-mobiles.”

“One of which is expected at this sailing club-the party,” Clements reminded. “But we must be able to identify his truck. That is imperative.”

Bobbie Gaynes offered, “It would be easier to repaint an old truck than to make original art on one.”

“An auction list!” Clements snapped his fingers at Gaynes. “Get on it! They must get rid of their older trucks!”

Gaynes ran from the room.

For the next twenty minutes they discussed the logistics of attempting to prepare for Caulfield at the sailing party.

Gaynes burst into the room and placed a fax down in front of Boldt. It listed the sixteen Montclair ice-cream trucks that had been placed on the auction block in the last five months.

“His name’s not here,” Boldt moaned, his hopes shattered.

“I suggest you try the name Meriweather,” Clements directed, in that all-knowing tone of his.

Boldt ran a finger down the list and hit the name immediately. “Got it!” he announced. He whistled loudly. The door to the room swung open and a uniform blurred to him at a run. He circled the name and handed the man the sheet. “DMV title and registration. Go!”

“What?” Boldt asked, catching the expression of the psychiatrist, whose eyes immediately began to track back and forth in their sockets. He pointed to Penny Smyth. “Explain the situation.”

The prosecuting attorney said, “I don’t know how to put this.”

“Quickly!” Boldt encouraged, watching the door for the return of the patrolman.

“None of us wants to see Caulfield duck these charges.”

“What?” Shoswitz challenged.

She explained, “If you stop him now, you have a truck with poisoned ice-cream inside. You have intent , certainly.” As she continued talking, Clements waved his pen high in the air and conducted, stabbing and punctuating her words. He was smiling thinly. “But intent is all you have- we have. Some good circumstantial evidence, certainly. Some good motivation that our expert psychiatrist can use to our advantage. I don’t deny any of this.”

“What is this shit?” Shoswitz asked.

Clements, eyes closed, answered for her. “This is the law.” He opened his eyes now, sat forward, and placed down the pen. “She’s right, of course. It’s her job to be right about these things.”

Shoswitz looked back at Smyth, who said, “We need to witness the actual passing of a poisoned item to an individual if we’re to build any kind of case to carry a life sentence or greater. I’m not saying that what we have isn’t good, but it is not enough, I’m sorry to say-not if you want this man on death row. You take him as is, and we’ll put him away for ten or twenty. With a good jury, maybe twice that. But connecting him to these other deaths won’t be nearly as easy as pinning down an attempted murder-delivery of a fatal substance. There are some holes in the narco laws we may be able to squeeze him into and put him away for mandatory life, which is what I think we all want.” She looked at Boldt with sad eyes. She did not like this any more than the rest of them.

Boldt said, “So we sting him.”

She nodded.

Checking the clock, Daphne reminded urgently, “Less than forty minutes.”

The patrolman charged through the door waving a sheet of computer paper. “We’ve got the registration!” he announced.

A light breeze blew out of the west, filling the nine white sails beautifully and causing each boat to heel slightly. Boldt was wearing a set of dirty dungaree coveralls, leaning on a shovel, where LaMoia used a pickax to dig a hole leading nowhere. They worked at the junction of an asphalt path and the parking lot that connected the dock with the parked cars. Boldt wore a flesh-colored earphone with an attached wire that led down between his collar and his neck. A hidden lavalier microphone was clipped below the coveralls’ second button. He listened to the running monologue from the task force’s dispatcher. By pretending to scratch his chest, Boldt could depress a button allowing him to transmit through the microphone.

The two men cleaning the pool were task force. So were all of a team of four-two men and two women, including Daphne Matthews-who were in the act of putting the finishing touches on the party. The hired caterer and her people were being kept inside the clubhouse and out of sight. Straddling the clubhouse chimney, a roll of tar paper at his side, an FBI sharpshooter pretended to be making repairs. Hidden inside the roll of tar paper, a semiautomatic.306 with laser scope awaited him. This man was capable of a hard-target kill at three hundred yards, and he had the blue ribbons to prove it. At the moment, he had sore ankles as well.

There was a party of three having cocktails in the cockpit of a twenty-one-foot ketch pulled up to the fuel dock. All were task force, all expert shots. The cocktails were ice tea in a bourbon bottle. There was a guy having engine trouble, and another helping him-both bent under the hood of a Chevy, where a pair of handguns remained within easy reach. Hidden inside the clubhouse were six Special Forces agents, and in the bathhouse, six more.

Twenty-four cops and agents in all, eight on radios. The dispatcher nimbly maintained constant communications with all elements, continually updating and informing, and ready to relay the latest input.

In the distance, Boldt heard the approach of the radio station chopper as it reported on traffic on the floating bridge. The Birdman was riding with this pilot and reporting on a separate frequency to dispatch. This was a man who could spot a fox in a thicket from a thousand feet up. If Caulfield’s refrigerated truck was in the area, the Birdman would find it.

His efforts were aided by fourteen unmarked cars casually patrolling the seventeen streets that fed the two roadways that fed the dirt road at the end of which was this clubhouse. Phone line work was being conducted on these two feeder roads by FBI agents manned with communications and firearms.