Clive Cussler - Thriller 2 - Stories You Just Can’t Put Down

Boldt fought to remain focused, to forget about who was riding in a trunk or the back of a van, to forget about the cadaver he’d seen so recently he could still smell the room, about the victim being stripped naked and trussed and thrown off a bridge.

Not this life. Not her. Not on his watch.

The worst moment came as the Control Center lulled into a library silence, as the initial adrenaline subsided, giving way to police work-the often monotonous, repetitive process of attempting to move from wide angle to telephoto.

LaMoia spoke up for the first time in ten minutes. “It’s been on the skids for months. I told you that, right?”

Boldt didn’t answer.

“I don’t know if it was…you know…the little one, or just a mismatch or what, but we’ve both known it was over for way too long. Funny how you hold on to things you know are broken. Right? Like you’re going to find the glue. You’re going to find out how to fix it? And we both did that. She did it, too. And the thing is, we never said a thing about it. It was all done with looks and silences and fake smiles and forced sex-”

“That’s enough,” Boldt said.

“I’m just saying…shit, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Boldt heard him sniff.

“We’ve got video!” Taggart shouted from across the room. “Screen two.”

Everyone in the room watched a housecleaner pushing a garage bin down the hall. It looked heavy and difficult to control. The person stopped in front of the service elevator. It took Taggart another five minutes to call up the elevator’s interior in the correct time frame. But there was the housecleaner looking calm and easy, the trash can beside her. She wheeled it off the elevator.

Another five minutes to pick up the parking garage.

“He found himself a dark enough corner,” Boldt said. The video showed nothing of his transferring Daphne to the car. They couldn’t be sure that a transfer had ever happened.

“Get S.I.D. down there,” Boldt called out.

“Done!” Taggart answered.

The car pulled out. Taggart and his team did a phenomenal job of freezing the picture at just the right moment where the camera afforded the best clarity. It was an older model Ford Taurus. They had a partial plate: 43 2. The photo suggested a number preceded the four, but no one could be certain. Not knowing the position of the plate numbers increased the database exponentially.

The machine of the Seattle Police Department continued to roll forward. The description of the vehicle went out along with the partial. The same information was transmitted to King County Sheriff’s Department and other regional law enforcement. Police cruisers across five jurisdictions were mobilized to inspect and station themselves on all area bridges. In the Control Center the deployment of personnel was kept track of on screen 4. Bridge by bridge, they accounted for those now under the observation of law enforcement.

Boldt watched all this as a disconnected observer. As, one by one, the area bridges were accounted for, a feeling welled up in him that he couldn’t shake, and he’d been here too many times before to ignore such feelings.

“It’s Deception Pass,” Boldt said aloud, speaking to no one. Then he turned to LaMoia to press his point. “This guy isn’t creative enough to reinvent the wheel. He showed us that today and we’ve not paid any attention. He went about this in the exact same way as he did before. The same MO. Daphne called this-she said he’d throw them at sunrise before traffic of any sort developed. She said he might change his location if we made our knowledge of the bridge public, but we never did that. We made our knowledge of the killing public, yes, but we left the bridge out.”

“He’s keeping her overnight?”

“Yes, he is. Either in the vehicle or at a home or apartment or trailer. Keeping her. Daphne said how this is some kind of ritual for him. The preparation. The trying to make her fly. It’s reverential. That’s why he didn’t assault them, didn’t harm them. Bottom line, John-we have time. The one thing we didn’t have with the other two. We have that here. She has time. We can keep people on the bridges but move them to where they can’t be seen so easily. We can lay some traps. He’s giving us the time we need to be in position.”

“But where?”

“Daniels!” Boldt called out.

“Sarge?”

“I need a name attached to that partial plate registration.”

“Working on it.”

“I’ll take ten names. I’ll take twenty. But zero isn’t going to cut it.”

“We’ve got more like seventeen hundred at the moment. We’re working to narrow it down.”

“Run it through Skagit,” Boldt said.

“How’s that?”

Calling across the room had raised some heads. Boldt was making a nuisance of himself.

“Skagit County-a Taurus with that same partial. You want to narrow it down? Narrow it down.”

Some in the room laughed. Not Daniels. He sank back into his chair and picked up his telephone receiver.

“Because of the bridge? Deception Pass?” LaMoia asked.

“She said he wouldn’t want to move them far. It’s a long way from here-nearly two hours when the traffic’s bad. That doesn’t fit with what she told us.”

“You’re telling me she’s running this thing from wherever she is?” LaMoia sounded skeptical.

“Who are you going to trust more?”

It hit LaMoia in the chest. He sat down, looking wounded.

Five minutes passed feeling like twenty. Twenty, like forty.

“James Erwin Malster,” Daniels said from behind Boldt.

He placed a photocopy of a driver’s license in front of the sergeant.

“Fifty-one years old. Caucasian. Male. Registered with the pipe fitting union. Member of the United Association-”

“Pipe fitters. Plumbers,” Boldt said.

“Exactly. Retired in good standing nine years ago, following the death of his wife. Health complications.”

“This is who the car is registered to?”

“Correct.”

“But it’s not correct,” Boldt said. “She gave me a profile. Twenties. Thirties at the oldest. Is this the father?”

“It’s his car.”

“It’s not him.”

“A pipe fitter,” LaMoia said. “So he knows how to rig things.”

“It’s not him,” Boldt said.

“She could have had the profile wrong,” LaMoia said. “Guy loses his wife, spends years grieving…comes apart at the seams.”

“There’s a son,” Boldt said to Daniels. “Find the son.”

“I’m not showing-”

“Find the son,” Boldt repeated.

“Yes, sir.”

“You have the location of residence?”

“Oak Harbor.”

“Christ,” LaMoia said.

“I say something wrong?” Daniels asked.

“Oak Harbor’s only a few miles from Deception Pass,” Boldt said. He turned to LaMoia. “She called that one right.”

“She also said he’d change bridges once we publicized the death, and we publicized the death.”

“Which is what got us in trouble. Is that what you’re saying, John? Are you laying this onto me, because I can take it. But it isn’t going to do a damn thing in terms of bringing her back.”

“She said he’d switch bridges.”

“She was wrong about that,” Boldt said.

“Because? Which is it, Sarge? Was she right or wrong, because I don’t think you can have it both ways.”

Boldt had been having it both ways for years: part of his heart left behind while the rest of him loved and stayed with his family. He’d built a Great Wall between his true emotions and the Presentable Parent to where no one could see the other side, not even him most of the time. But LaMoia had loosened the lid with that last comment. Contents may explode under pressure.