Ridley Pearson - The Body of David Hayes

Boldt finally laid out his suspicions to LaMoia in a desperate act he’d hoped to avoid. It wasn’t his way to voice those suspicions until he had more to go on than hunches. But none of this was going “his way,” and so he resorted to outright manipulation, knowing LaMoia wouldn’t be able to resist.

“Two visits in the same day. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Dressed in blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, Paul Geiser looked nothing like the attorney who occupied the small office in the Justice Building. He’d become so predictable in his gray suits, white shirts, and conservative ties, that this alter ego at the front door surprised Boldt. Geiser looked at them over a pair of dime-store reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.

He admitted Boldt and LaMoia with no reference to the late evening hour, no questions on why the surprise visit. “Beer? Coffee? Tea for you, Lieutenant?” He motioned for them to follow him when they failed to answer. Geiser might have lost the suit but not the swagger of confidence that epitomized prosecuting attorneys.

The room smelled of airplane glue, a potent odor that took Boldt back to his youth. “Models?”

“Close,” Geiser said, impressed that Boldt had picked this up at such a distance.

The trio passed through another door and into a leather-and-mahogany paneled library that belonged in a faux English manor, not in this clapboard two-story with aluminum windows. The built-in stacks ran floor to ceiling, a trick chair unfolded into a small ladder in the far corner. But all of it looked purchased from a catalog instead of inherited. It was a would-be world in the heart of middle-class suburbia.

A dark leather globe stood in a stand next to the reproduction desk. Newsprint had been laid down to cover the desk, atop which a green glass bottle rested on its side. The first pieces of a ship’s hull could be seen inside it. A set of long tweezers lay at rest, accompanied by a magnifying glass, spools of thread, a small pile of dark wood the size of toothpicks, a razor knife, and a stack of wood-sticked cotton swabs.

“Who is she?” Boldt asked, easing into an uncomfortable leather captain’s chair facing the desk. LaMoia fit himself into the other, looking all around.

“The Francis and Elizabeth . Seventeen forty-two, Rotterdam and Deal to Philadelphia.”

“Impressive,” LaMoia said, unconvincingly.

Geiser picked up the magnifying glass and studied the beginnings of the ship inside the bottle, then set it down and addressed his visitors. “I apologize for continuing this, but I can’t stop in the middle. I have glue drying.” He scooted the reading glasses back up his nose, picked up a pair of forceps, and displaying impossibly steady hands, delivered a structural element to the side of the tiny ship’s hull.

“Our glue’s drying too, Paul. And we can’t stop in the middle either.”

“So talk,” Geiser said, never taking his eyes off the model.

Questioning a DPA about his personal involvement on a case was dangerous ground and Boldt knew it.

“We need to know where he’s being kept.”

“Who?” Eyes on the model.

“We need to know now,” Boldt said. “We can’t do the dance. Not tonight.”

“How can we even dance if you won’t share the music? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant.”

There was no forcing the man, so Boldt thought he might try to break him down a piece at a time. This had not been entirely unexpected. LaMoia was in attendance primarily as a witness. It occurred to Boldt that Geiser had figured that out already, and if so, he was already on notice that Boldt’s visit was formal.

“What did you leave out about the proposed meet with Hayes?”

“I told you: It failed to materialize,” Geiser said. “Am I supposed to waste your time?”

A legitimate reply, but not to Boldt’s satisfaction. “You said something came up.”

LaMoia said, “You didn’t even watch the bridge? Like from a distance, or a building, or something?”

“I did go to the bridge, in fact. I parked where I was told to park. But when Foreman informed me he was stuck in traffic, I got the hell out of there.”

Boldt asked, “Do you happen to remember if Danny told you where he was when he let you know he wasn’t going to make it?”

“You want me to provide an alibi for Danny Foreman?” Incredulous, Geiser carefully wiped the tips of the forceps with a cotton ball and solvent. He placed them down and looked up at Boldt for the first time. “Or perhaps you want an alibi for me as well, eh, Lieutenant?”

Boldt felt himself flush with heat. He told Geiser what the man knew already. “SID is processing the cabin.”

“Good for them.” Geiser went back to his model.

Boldt repeated, “Did Foreman mention where he was when he was stuck in traffic?”

“He was on highway five-twenty, I think. Construction backup. Rush hour. A breakdown in the opposing lane. Same old, same old.”

This roughly matched what Boldt had been told. In another witness Boldt would have questioned the degree of accuracy, the level of detail, but attorneys guarded their facts. “The Pine Street overpass? Your choice, or the voice that called you?”

Geiser hesitated, either to attend to his model, or because he was considering how to answer, and this bothered Boldt. The man bothered Boldt. The resolute calm.

“Are you laying traps for me, Lieutenant? Do you not trust me?”

That didn’t answer the question, but for Boldt to press a DPA, treating him like a suspect, would be a mistake.

Geiser sat up and pushed back from the desk admiring his handiwork, the model still a long way from looking like much. “Listen, can’t you people check this kind of thing?” Looking between the two cops, he said, “I’m sure Foreman mentioned construction and something about a car in the breakdown lane. Somebody’ll have that, right?”

Foreman had mentioned traffic problems to Boldt as well, and Boldt had already made the call, but Geiser didn’t need to know that. Boldt stuck his neck out as far as he dared. “An attorney and an investigator… working together… could make a whole hell of a lot of trouble if they wanted.”

“One hell of a team,” LaMoia said.

“Now wait just a goddamned minute,” Geiser said, not taking any time to catch on to the suggestion.

LaMoia said, “They could sequester a state witness for instance.”

Boldt added, “Covering their tracks by leaving a bloody crime scene behind but with the body missing.”

Geiser’s narrowing eyes tracked back and forth between the two. “Give me a break. Do you have any idea of the hoops we’d have to jump through to pull that off? Do you honestly believe the U.S. Attorney’s Office or my own office would condone misleading an investigation in order to sequester a witness?” He could see on the men’s faces he wasn’t gaining ground. “We start down that road and when would we ever mend that fence? Huh? You tell me. SPD would never cooperate with our office again. Not ever. And who could blame you? Listen, I’m not saying we might not try something like that. It’s pretty ingenious, you ask me. Damn good ruse. But it would be in concert with you guys- someone in your department would catch wind of it well before it ever went down. You’ve got to see that, right?”

It made sense to Boldt, but he was loath to admit it. Horrified even to think that his captain, Sheila Hill, or some other gold badge would cut a deal with the attorneys and leave him in the wind. But his wife was involved, and that might account for any number of things. A sense of near panic filled him. Was his own department running him around in circles while they had plans of their own?