Ridley Pearson - No Witnesses

Boldt turned in time to see Caulfield leaning toward Corky with the Big Dipper.

The little girl accepted the ice-cream cone and tore at the wrapper.

“No, Corky!” Adler exclaimed, but not in the voice of a father worried about spoiling an appetite.

Caulfield reacted instantly, by reaching out for Corky-wanting a hostage. “Motherfucker,” Caulfield muttered, looking at Adler.

Boldt went for his gun, but it hung up in the coveralls.

Caulfield took hold of the child. Daphne’s purse came at his face like a wrecking ball, and as it connected, she yanked Corky away, threw her down onto the pavement, and covered her.

The children behind Boldt screamed.

Boldt charged the man. Caulfield went up hard against the side of the truck, and Boldt felt a knee implode into his gut, the wind knocked out of him. His head swirled as he heard more screams from behind him-screams of children-and the unmistakable sound of weapons being drawn from holsters as the voice of John LaMoia hollered, “Hold your fire!” Boldt was going down to the pavement in slow motion as LaMoia appeared in his peripheral vision, diving through the air.

He saw Sheriff Turner Bramm’s shotgun then: It had been sawed off, the metal a fresh silver on the end of the barrels, and must have come from inside one of the freezers.

“Down!” he heard shouted in the midst of the pandemonium.

“Drop it!” came a stern voice from behind.

LaMoia dove at Owen Adler and carried him down hard to the pavement.

Boldt, still falling toward the pavement in an indescribable slow motion, touched the chest of the coveralls and said, “Take him.”

He heard a dull pop -like hands clapping together-and the side of the truck sprayed with Caulfield’s blood. It was a shoulder shot, and though Caulfield’s eyes rocked in his sockets and seemed to acknowledge the hit, the sawed-off never faltered for a moment. Mechanically, he pumped the weapon. Boldt, in midair, kicked out hard and caught the toe of his shoe under Caulfield’s kneecap. Caulfield twisted and screamed.

The sawed-off blew the mirror off the truck and sprayed the front windshield into powder.

Two of Boldt’s people swarmed on top of Caulfield.

Boldt’s head slammed into the pavement and the lights went out. He heard the words, “Paramedics! He’s hit!” “Get these kids out of here!” Coming back, Boldt pulled himself up to sitting. Caulfield was buried under a pile of police. A pair of handcuffs sparkled in the afternoon sun as they disappeared into that pile. The Miranda was being spoken.

A moment later the pile parted slightly, revealing a clown without his nose and wig-just bright red cheeks and eyes filled with hatred. His shoulder was bleeding badly.

Daphne was hugging Corky and stroking her hair. Boldt could not see LaMoia or Adler.

But he did see Diana. She was weeping, her shepherd down and still. She held to it as a mother to a child.

Boldt’s heart tore in two. Too close. Too big a risk. And yet the joy of triumph as well. The Tim Man was in handcuffs, his glassy eyes fixed rigidly on a point beyond Boldt, fixed on a man whose voice rose above all others as he called out joyously for his daughter.

While surgeons at Harborview Medical Clinic stitched up Caulfield’s left shoulder, Boldt and six others went through several hours of debriefing. The Scientific Identification Division’s second-floor lab, under the direction of Bernie Lofgrin, began testing each and every one of the sixty-one ice-cream products recovered from the freezer van.

Despite the fatigue of everyone involved, there was an ebullient bounce in the step of all those who walked the fifth floor. A press conference, scheduled so that footage could be included in the eleven o’clock news, was held in a conference room at the Westin, with over eighty journalists and news crew personnel in attendance. Captain Rankin, the police chief, and the mayor fielded questions, assuring the public that “this terrible man” had been apprehended, that a “nightmare of carnage had been avoided,” and that Seattle’s supermarkets were safe once again.

Bobbie Gaynes, John LaMoia, Freddie Guccianno, and dozens of others involved in the incident were given a six-hour break to go home and sleep. Some of them took it, some did not.

The emergency surgery took forty-five minutes, finishing up a few minutes before six o’clock. The chief surgeon allowed Boldt and one other detective to interrogate the suspect if the interrogation was kept to thirty minutes or less. Boldt pressed for and won a concession that the interrogation could involve three, possibly four people. A second, more involved session was tentatively approved for the next morning. Although Caulfield had already waived his right to an attorney, by morning a public defender would be assigned and the case would fall into the hands of the attorneys. With black holes , everything was done to the letter.

At ten-thirty that night, armed with a cassette tape recorder and a large tea, Boldt stood outside Caulfield’s hospital room alongside two SPD patrolmen who stood guard. They were accompanied by Dr. Richard Clements and deputy prosecuting attorney Penny Smyth.

Boldt wanted nothing less than a full confession. They had attempted murder, they had enough circumstantial evidence to fill a courthouse, but a confession would finish things nicely. Clements wanted “a peek into that mind.” Smyth wanted to make sure they conducted the interrogation properly.

“Before we go in,” Clements said, stopping them, “his world has ended, and he knows it. He continues to blame Adler-not us, you will find-for everything . And that is extremely important, because it offers us a way to the truth. He will surrender the truth without meaning to. The more he tries to hide it, the more we can get from him. I see your confusion. You will understand as we proceed.” He pushed open the door, and they entered the room.

Caulfield was awake, lying in bed, his head rocked up on a pillow, his eyes alert and sparking darkly with anger. The room, stripped down to the bare necessities, smelled of alcohol and disinfectant. The surgery had involved only local anesthesia, which meant medication would not interfere with or negate the results of the interrogation.

Boldt switched on the tape recorder and spoke clearly, listing the location, the time of day, and those present.

Caulfield’s pewter-gray eyes ran over them. The man looked so normal .

Clements pulled up a chair beside the bed. Boldt and Smyth remained standing.

“I’ve got nothing to say,” Caulfield informed them.

Smyth said, “The difference to you, should you cooperate, may mean life imprisonment instead of the death penalty.”

“I want to hang,” Caulfield said, stunning both Boldt and Smyth.

Clements smiled and said softly, “Of course you do.”

Caulfield eyed him peculiarly.

Clements said, “But not before clearing Mark Meriweather’s good name. Hmm? Think about it.”

“You know about that?”

“We know about everything , my boy. We are very interested in Mr. Meriweather.”

Caulfield looked at him curiously, wondering how far he could trust the man. “Bullshit,” he said.

“Meriweather was set up, son.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Very well. What would you like me to call you? Mr. Caulfield? Harold? Harry?”

“Leave me alone.”

“If I leave you alone, attorneys like our Ms. Smyth here will get their hooks into you and that will be that. You’ve been through this before, Harry. You know what I’m talking about. If you had wanted that, you would not have waived your right to an attorney.”