Boldt - 03 - No Witnesses

by Ridley Pearson

  He climbed out of the Chevy and locked it and walked toward the supermarket’s automatic doors, passing abandoned shopping carts that carried two-color ads in their kiddie baskets announcing this week’s specials. Eggplant was nearly a dime cheaper per pound than where Boldt shopped. The sixteen-ounce spaghetti sauce was a bargain. Boldt did most of the marketing and all of the laundry; he split the child care with Liz, who handled finances, some ironing, housecleaning, and their social calendar.

  He suspected this was a crime scene. Daphne had reached him on the cell phone only minutes earlier, confirming that the product-run number stamped on the lid of the Adler soup can found in Betty Lowry’s recycle crate was indeed a valid lot number and one that would have recently been on sale in the greater Seattle area. The investigation was beginning to take shape in his mind, which was a little bit like the morning rush hour on I-5: too many ideas entering all at once and not enough lanes to accommodate them. But the basic structure seemed clear enough: either the blackmailer was working from within Adler Foods, or from without. Both concepts would have to be pursued—each differently, and both quite delicately.

  More important to the moment was that the blackmailer had managed—in person or indirectly—to place a contaminated can of soup on a shelf in this store. That much was fact. Boldt traveled the aisles of this store now, first as the victim: the unknowing patron on an afternoon shop, Betty Lowry, busily hunting down provisions. And then again as the criminal: alert for security cameras, store personnel, lines of sight, and placement of product. It was not so much an investigative technique as it was a result of his dedication to the evidence. He broke out in a sweat as he threw himself fully into this identity, even going so far as to carry a can of Hormel Chili that he intended to place among the shelved cans of Adler Soup just to see how difficult it might be to do so without being seen by human or camera.

  He stalked the aisles, aware of his own rapid breathing, the sound of his synthetic soles on the vinyl flooring, the slight chill from the store’s vigorous air-conditioning that conflicted with his own perspiration. He was aware of each and every person, immediately visible or not. Patrons. Employees. Checkers. He passed the morning cereals, where dozens of faces stared out at him: sports legends, cartoon characters, the All-American Mom, dinosaurs, astronauts. He, the center of attention, the focus of their combined sales efforts. “Take me.” “Buy this one!” “Twenty-five percent more!” Loud, despite the insipid Muzak.

  The security cameras appeared tricky if not impossible to avoid. There was a multicamera device over aisle 5 with three lenses that rotated and then stopped every ten seconds like an inverted gun turret. Each lens slightly larger than the last, and only one was recording at any one time, made apparent by a red light beneath the lens. The three combined to afford a manager or security personnel everything from a wide-angle to a close-up on the various aisles. Two more such turrets oversaw the butcher counter, meat display, the wines, and wall coolers, respectively. These units had clearly been installed with an eye toward the most expensive items, which suggested to Boldt that the soup aisle might possibly have less security. Boldt timed each of these other two camera turrets. They were also on fixed rotations, ten seconds apart, but were not synchronized in their start-and-stop times: difficult, but not impossible, for a fast hand to beat. The trick was to find that moment in the pattern when view of the soup aisle, number 4, would be lost briefly to a blind spot. After eight minutes of wandering the store—his attention split among all three, like a juggler—Boldt identified just such a moment. Eight minutes later the blind spot repeated. Clockwork. Predictable. Fallible. Enough time to plant a tainted can of soup.

  Foodland made sense as a crime scene.

  Large mirrors were mounted high on three of the four walls, with the fourth given to glass overlooking the parking lot and admitting light. Boldt assumed the business office could be found behind one of these mirrors, and, if so, then the blackmailer additionally threw himself open to being spotted as a shoplifter.

  The concept of a shoplifter made Boldt realize that the blackmailer would not be spotted as such. Would a customer returning an item to a shelf attract any attention? Customers changed their minds constantly. Shelves were cluttered with misplaced items. It was a regular part of the grocery business—straightening and restocking shelves. He sagged: Slipping an item onto a shelf was unlikely to create any suspicion.

  Boldt rounded the corner, taking in the registers and the glaring copies of the tabloids to his right: BAT HAS FACE OF MAN—STUNNED SCIENTISTS SAY, “SMART AS A WHIP!” He checked his watch: one minute to go until the blind spot. He glanced up at the mirrors, wondering if anyone had a clear look at the soups. Wondering once again if anyone would even take notice of a product being returned.

  Thirty seconds.

  He turned down aisle 4, the can of chili in hand. Soup everywhere. The Adler Soup was up ahead to his right. Five seconds. One quick glance over his shoulder. A single shopper, but she was facing away; she would, in fact, screen any sight of him from the checkers and bag boys at the registers. Regimented rows of Campbell’s Soup cans, lined up for Andy Warhol. Late afternoon, there were some cans missing from nearly every variety, which made Boldt realize that time of day was important to the blackmailer. Adler Soup, a local product and an all-organic line, was a popular seller, and there were more cans missing from these shelves than any other brand. Time! Boldt’s heart pumped hard—for these brief few seconds he was the Tin Man, and he found it unsettling. He slipped his can of Hormel Chili into place alongside Mom’s Chicken Soup. He walked on, blood pounding loudly in his ears, heat prickling his skin. He marched through a sea of yellow-clad enchiladas wearing Mexican sombreros that blurred past him like the sharpened points of a picket fence.

  He had done it.

  He had poisoned a person. A stranger. No connection to be made.

  No one the wiser.

  No witnesses.

  Lee Hyundai—“like the car,” he said—was the supermarket’s day manager, a man in his midthirties but already balding. He squinted through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, displaying a nervous energy that might not have been his natural temperament. Cops made innocent people nervous and guilty ones cautious. It often interfered with Boldt’s work. It did now.

  On the wall of Boldt’s office cubicle hung a needlepoint that Liz had given him for Christmas in their second year of marriage, when handmade gifts were all they could afford. In blue lettering on a white background it read: There is no such thing as The Perfect Crime. There were those who could and did take issue with such a statement—plenty of crimes went unsolved. The Book was full of black holes that never had, and never would, clear. And yet he still clung to this as truth. He relied upon it to see him through, to get him out of bed in the morning. A black hole was the product of his own vulnerability, his own failures, not the intractability of his adversary’s powers.

  There is no such thing as The Perfect Crime, thought Boldt.

  Hyundai educated him about the process of food distribution, from the moment a shipment arrived in the store to the closing of the automatic doors. Soup arrived from a wholesale distributor in sealed cardboard boxes. Case lots—no partial cases. Hyundai made it a policy not to accept opened or damaged cases because it usually meant a dented can or two, and he couldn’t sell dented cans. “People are weird about even the slightest ding in something. I’m telling you, if it is not perfect, it stays on the shelf. Cereal, soup. I don’t care what it is.”

  “Are the cases stored somewhere—temporarily—in a back room, perhaps?”

  “Sure.”

  “Show me?”

  “Sure.”

  He led Boldt through the store into a loading dock area that served as a staging zone. Meats and produce and dairy went to giant walk-ins, some of which were built directly behind the shelved product—beer and soda mostly. A conveyor system and dumbwaiter transported the nonperishables to an enormous basement. Boldt looked around, stunned by
the quantity he saw—row after row, stacks of cases of every conceivable product. “I hate carrying this much inventory,” Hyundai said. “Cheaper in these quantities, though.”

  “Some of these cases are open,” Boldt pointed out. “Quite a few, in fact.”

  “Sure. We’re constantly restocking.”

  Boldt would ask for an employee list before he left. Not now, but later, when he would claim it was “routine.” The list would be checked against Adler employees past and present and against the Criminal Identification Bureau’s computerized database of state felons. Maybe the FBI would get a copy as well. Alone, down here in this basement, placing a tainted can would be effortless. Boldt assumed the employee list would draw a blank—blackmail was rarely so simply solved.

  “How bad is your shoplifting?” he asked, steering the man away from any thought of open cases.

  “We’ve hired a new security company. All the latest stuff.”

  If the blackmailer worked for a security company, he would know the store’s surveillance weaknesses better than anyone.

  Where is he, right now? Boldt wondered.

  He questioned Hyundai about his soup distributor, wondering privately how hard it could be to open a case, substitute a can, and reglue it. That kind of deceit was certain to go unnoticed. He was told it was the same wholesale distributor he had worked with for years, but that the distributor had switched truckers a couple of months ago. Boldt scribbled notes, his thoughts and suspicions branching continually. He tried to keep each thought separate, to give each full consideration, and yet never to lose that thread that might lead to another, more promising possibility. These mental gymnastics continued, as did his questions. He felt exhausted and must have looked it. Hyundai interrupted, offering an espresso. Espresso in the grocery store! Boldt thought. He said no, he didn’t drink the stuff.

  “Tears a hole in my stomach.”

  “Too bad,” Hyundai said.

  “It’s simpler,” Boldt replied.

  Hyundai steered them toward the deli and ordered himself “a tall double with shavings.” There ought to be a handbook, Boldt was thinking. The man signed the receipt and handed it back to the attendant.

  “If I knew the nature of your investigation, perhaps I’d be able to help more,” Hyundai suggested.

  Boldt flashed a false smile that said, Answer the questions, don’t ask them. Hyundai received the message, returning to a description of the surveillance system.

  “The name of the new company?” Boldt asked.

  “Shop-Alert.”

  Boldt flipped another page in his notebook.

  There was always a time in any investigation when he sensed the enormity of the case. The limitless possibilities. It was the first, brief glimpse of the black hole opening up to swallow him.

  Hyundai knew his facts and figures: average number of customers, daily and weekly; average purchase amount: $42.50; the demographics of his customers; figures skewed by this particular neighborhood, for it leaned toward the college crowd. Scribble, scribble, Boldt caught it all, useful or not. He could, and would, throw most of it out later, but not until he had taken the time to review it.

  The veins of the leaf were many: Each required one or more detectives to chase down leads. Boldt would be awake a good part of the night writing it up. Up early to start it over. Somewhere in this city, as Boldt stood questioning Hyundai, the Tin Man could be twisting his drill into the seam of yet another can of soup. Somewhere, a Slater Lowry was dying to eat it.

  Confused, Boldt asked the man about the numbers printed on the lid of the can and whether or not anyone in Hyundai’s employ would catch it if a can suddenly showed up with a different number. He was told they would not. As long as the UPC bar code remained the same—and it would from one product run to the next—there would be nothing to alert them. “Even a label change would be likely to carry the same UPC code,” Hyundai concluded.

  A bell rang in Boldt’s head, a way to ensure that no more cans of tainted chicken soup reached the public. Tossed out insignificantly by Hyundai, it went into Boldt’s notebook in thick bold letters: A Label Change.

  He was still writing this down when the bell tolled again, causing a surge of excitement in his chest.

  “What’s that? Repeat that,” Boldt stuttered.

  Hyundai stiffened; he didn’t appreciate repeating himself. “I was talking about the automated checking system,” he said. “The registers itemize every sale. I can tell you which brands sell on which days. Mondays, for instance, are big on dairy products; Wednesdays, we do a lot of cigarettes—don’t ask me why; and Fridays we can’t keep beer or fish in the store.”

  “You said ‘each sale,’” Boldt reminded. “Let me get this straight: I come in here and buy a shopping cart full of groceries and you track every item?”

  “Sure.”

  “I come back three days later and you can tell me what I bought?” He was thinking: right down to a can of soup!

  “Sure. No problem. Computers. Register tapes. We got it.”

  “And if I paid by check, would you know it?”

  “Sure. Cash. Check. Credit card. We keep records of all forms of payment. Sure.”

  Boldt needed to know when Betty Lowry had purchased her can of Mom’s Chicken Soup. This would provide him a way to work backward with the distributor, and even possibly the security company’s surveillance videos. Timing was everything. Tracking bank checks and payment by credit card would also give him a chance to identify other customers who might have witnessed the blackmailer in the act. This, he realized, was the trail to follow. A crime scene.

  Boldt received a page and placed a call downtown. Dixie had come through: State Health had identified the particular strain of cholera and had traced it to the Infectious Diseases lab at King County Hospital. Excited by this news, Boldt reached out and shook the man’s hand vigorously, anxious to be going.

  A stunned Lee Hyundai was left standing there with a drained espresso in hand, shouting after the detective, “What did I say? What did I say?”

  SIX

  Dr. Brian Mann had an energetic handshake, eyes glassy with exhaustion, brown curly hair, and a disheveled look to which Boldt could relate. He led the detective through the Infectious Diseases lab at King County Hospital and into a small corner office littered with reading material. A computer terminal hummed in the far corner. Boldt was overly sensitive to such noise. There was also a phone, its receiver discolored from activity.

  “Neither of us has much time, Sergeant, so I’ll get right to it. You and everybody else would like to know where this strain of cholera originated, and I can answer that now.” Mann had pulled a twenty-hour shift, and he looked it. He pointed into his lab. “We’re the only ones in the city—in the state, for that matter—with that strain, cholera-395.”

  This was what Dixon had told Boldt: a single source for the offending bacteria. Another possible crime scene.

  “We believe these contaminations were intentional,” Boldt said. “You understand the need for confidentiality.”

  “Exactly what the hell are you saying?”

  “Product tampering—food product tampering. It was a can of soup. Chicken soup.”

  “Protein base,” Mann mumbled, nodding. And then to explain himself, “The cholera needs a protein base to survive. Soup would provide that.” He rubbed his eyes. “What’s this world coming to?”

  Boldt was thinking that this man could be the bastard behind it all. His lab. His cholera. Why not? Except that Dixie swore by Mann, and that was good enough for Boldt.

  “How many have access to the cholera? To the lab?” he questioned.

  “Too many,” Mann said. “Coffee?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Anything?”

  “Tea would be nice.”

  “Give me a minute, will you? I pulled some stuff for you to read.” He stood. Boldt called out, “No cream. No sugar.”

  “Be right back.”

  A lot of what
Boldt read was over his head, but some was not. He was distracted, in part by the fact that this was a children’s research hospital. In the last forty-eight hours, he had seen precious little of his boy. Liz, too, for that matter. When he was away from Miles for too long, he missed him in a way that until the boy’s birth he had never experienced, and would never have expected. It was a chemical longing, like an addict after his fix.

  “Make any sense of that?” Mann asked, setting down Boldt’s tea in a Styrofoam cup. Liz would not drink out of Styrofoam cups anymore.

  The tea tasted terrible, but Boldt choked it down for the caffeine. “If I’m the person doing this, why do I choose cholera?”

  Dr. Mann considered this a long time. When he finally spoke, it was cautiously, a man unfamiliar and uncomfortable with being inside the mind of a stranger. “It depends on what you hope to accomplish. I would guess he considered three choices—a poison, a viral contaminate, a bacterial contaminate. The toxins, the poisons—strychnine, or something like what we saw in the Sudafed product tampering—can and will be immediately detected in the blood of the victim. If you’re just looking to kill a few people, then that’s the poison of choice, I would think. Most of your other choices, if you’re talking food products, will give themselves away, either by producing a gas you can smell or a taste that warns you immediately what you’re into. Also, all of the more common of these would be immediately detected in the state lab. If it was me, I too would choose cholera if available. What’s interesting about cholera is that labs around here once tested for it, but many don’t any longer. This gets political, I’m afraid; this enters into health care and insurance costs, and believe me, you don’t want to get me started. But the point is, this is the exact area where reduced health care costs are felt. The lab has to cut something and they cut right here. We see virtually no cholera up here. Dropping that test is justifiable at every level of bureaucracy. Don’t tell that to these two kids, mind you.”