Ridley Pearson - No Witnesses

“Attorneys suck,” he said directly to Smyth. “No attorneys.”

“Let’s talk about your hanging for a minute.”

“I want it over.”

“I understand. But why so fast? What about Mark Meriweather?”

“He’s dead. It’s over.”

“You loved him.”

“He was good to me.”

“They broke him.”

“They lied.”

“Yes. We know that.”

Caulfield sat forward slightly, stopped by the pain of his wound, but his neck remained craned forward.

Clements said, “Oh yes. We know about it all. They laced the birds. They paid people off. They placed the blame on Mark Meriweather.” He paused. “They made you kill the birds.”

The pain on Caulfield’s face cried out. The last thing Boldt wanted was to feel sorry for this monster.

“That wasn’t easy, was it? Killing those birds.”

Caulfield shook his head slightly. He seemed to have left the room.

“You had never seen Mr. Meriweather like that, had you?”

“So much blood,” Caulfield whispered.

“He wasn’t himself.”

“He changed.”

“Yes, killing the birds changed him, didn’t it?” He added, “Changed you all.”

Caulfield nodded.

“You loved those birds.”

He nodded again.

“We need your help, Harry. If you help us, we will help you. Sergeant Boldt here knows all about what happened out at Longview Farms, but we need to hear about this soup. What you did to the soup.”

“The birds were not sick.”

“We know that. And you blamed Mr. Adler.”

“They lied about us.”

“What about the soup, Harry? Tell us about the soup.”

“They poisoned our birds. I warned them. They didn’t listen.” He had a glazed look, no longer directed at Clements or Boldt or Smyth, but somewhere on the ceiling or the back wall. Off on his own. “I thought the cholera would convince them.”

“You put the cholera in the soup?”

He nodded.

Boldt glanced over at the tape. Still running .

Clements saw this and said, “I didn’t hear you, Harry.”

Harry Caulfield just stared at the wall.

“We need your help, Harry.”

“I did it because they did it to us. I did it to show them that they had better listen.”

“Did what?”

“Poisoned the soup.”

Boldt and Clements met eyes. There it was-and captured on tape.

Caulfield attempted to sit up once again, but was beaten by the pain. He pleaded, “Why didn’t they believe me? Why did they let those people die?”

“Excuse me,” Smyth said. She was pale and his lips were trembling. She walked quietly to the door and left the room.

“Tell me about the money,” Boldt said.

“What are you talking about?” His eyes burned into Boldt.

“The extortion money,” the sergeant reminded. But Caulfield’s face went blank, and Boldt felt certain that this was no act.

“You’re out of your mind.” To Clements he said, “All cops are out of their fucking minds.”

“Are you out of your mind, Harry?”

“Who is this guy?” he asked Boldt. To Clements he said, “A shrink, am I right?”

“How do you feel about these murders, Harry? Tell me about these murders.”

“Ask Owen Adler. No fault of mine.”

“Tell me about the murders.”

“I didn’t murder anyone.”

“Yes you did, Harry. You have murdered twelve people, including two peace-”

“I didn’t murder anyone! And I don’t know anything about any extortion money, or whatever the hell it is you asked me,” he said to Boldt.

Clements scooted farther forward, leaned in closely, and whispered intimately, tenderly, “We’re listening, Harry. We want to hear whatever you want to tell us. Doesn’t matter what.” Caulfield’s eyes brimmed with tears. “The world has not treated you fairly, have they, son?” This time, Caulfield did not object to Clements’s using the term. Instead, the patient shook his head and tears spilled down his cheeks. Clements said warmly, but in a strangely eerie voice, “No one has listened, have they? I know what that’s like, son. Believe me, I know. They just never listen.” Caulfield shook his head again. “You told them about what happened at Longview, and did they listen? Is that fair? You told them about that drug charge-oh yes, I’ve read the piece. It’s a brilliant piece of writing, son. Something to be proud of. I’ve read it all.” Caulfield groaned. “But no one ever listens, do they? They tell you to come back. They tell you to go away. They treat you like a child. But they never listen , do they?” He paused. “No one has ever listened like Mark Meriweather listened. And they took Mark away from you. They ruined him, didn’t they?”

The cry that came from the man might have been heard across several of the hospital’s wings. The patient’s mouth hung open and he wailed at the ceiling, rocking his head on the pillow, and Dr. Richard Clements threw his own head back, closed his eyes, and listened like an opera patron enjoying an inspired aria.

“I’m listening!” Clements shouted in the middle of one of these cries, and it only encouraged the patient louder. Boldt glanced at the tape recorder-no one was going to believe this, he thought.

Before the male nurses threw open the door, Clements had already raised his hand to stop them and wave them off. Boldt had not heard their approach.

“We’re fine,” the doctor reported. “A little healthy release is all.” He said to the patient, “They heard you, Harry. Do you see? We’re listening now! We can hear you!”

Caulfield stopped and opened his tear-stained eyes, and Boldt thought he was witnessing a soul’s final glimpse of sanity, that Harry Caulfield had made a fateful journey. But Clements did not seem bothered in the least. For the benefit of the troubled male nurses, Clements said to the patient, “We’re fine, aren’t we, son? Better now, aren’t we?” To the nurses he said, “You see?” And he waved them off contemptuously, a move he finished by sweeping off the lapels of his double-breasted blazer.

“Now let’s start at the beginning, shall we, son? Every action starts with a thought. Can you tell me, please, about the very first moment that you knew Owen Adler had to pay for his crimes? The very first inspiration. I have all the time in the world, son. All the time in the world.”

Clements looked over at Boldt, beaming a smile.

Boldt was not certain who was crazier. “The money,” Boldt repeated.

“I don’t know anything about any money,” Caulfield repeated angrily. For the second time, Boldt believed him.

He did not have all the time in the world. He grabbed the tape recorder and headed straight to the office to have it transcribed.

Boldt slept for fourteen hours, awakening at two in the afternoon. He ate a light meal, called the office, and fell back to sleep. At eleven that night, he found himself wide awake with a dozen thoughts colliding in his head. He kissed his sleeping wife, changed clothes, and returned to the office. DeAngelo’s squad was on rotation. Everyone congratulated him on the Caulfield raid and on the confession, treating him like a hero, but Boldt did not feel like a hero: The extortionist was still at large.

He checked with Lockup. He checked with Daphne-but could not find her. Cornelia Uli had a public defender assigned to her. She was in the system now.

With no evidential connection yet made between Uli and Harry Caulfield, no money found in Caulfield’s possession, no ATM cards, and Caulfield’s denial of extortion-while confessing to cold-blooded murder-Boldt felt compelled to believe that Caulfield had had no connection to the ATM scam.

He pulled out Uli’s file and started through it once again, reviewing her past arrests: gangs, drugs, a prostitution charge that had been dropped. He looked at her earlier arrest photos. Sixteen, seventeen years old. A real sultry beauty then. Now, at twenty-one, the street had robbed her of her looks. The gangs were hardest on the young women.