Boldt - 03 - No Witnesses

by Ridley Pearson

  Uli looked to Boldt for support. The sergeant said, “Do as she asks.”

  Uli obliged, lifting her arms and lacing her fingers on the top of her head. “What’s going on?”

  She had small, high breasts that disappeared when she lifted her arms. She was thinner than Boldt had first judged her, and her neck was long and elegant.

  “Turn around,” Daphne instructed.

  She did so, asking, “Come on. What’s going on?”

  “Turn around!” Daphne was out of her chair now. “Who gave you that ATM card?”

  Facing the wall, the suspect said, “It was sent to me in the mail.”

  Daphne sounded angry. “No it wasn’t. You applied for it by mail. You opened an account.” Daphne produced the scanned copy of the account application provided by Lucille Guillard. “A handwriting expert will connect you to this application. We’re confident of that. But who put you up to it?”

  She began to lower her arms.

  “Keep them that way. Turn back around.” To Boldt she said, “Do you see it?”

  He wanted to support her, but she had lost him. He looked at her inquisitively.

  “Who told you to open that account?” Daphne asked.

  Uli was looking down at the document on the table, blank-faced, her hands still held on her head. “I …”

  “And don’t hand me a crock of shit, Uli, because I’m running out of patience with you.”

  Sweet and Sour. They never really knew who would play which role. Sometimes they planned it out in advance: who would befriend the suspect, who would lean. Sometimes it evolved, and they found their roles as the interrogation wore on.

  “I can’t say,” Uli said.

  Boldt felt a spike of heat rush up his spine. By these words, Uli had just admitted her culpability in the crimes.

  They interrogated her for another forty-five minutes, talking in circles.

  Sometime after three, they elected to send her down to lockup. They would try again the next morning.

  In the elevator, on their way to the garage, Boldt asked her, “What was the choreography about?”

  A worried look about her, Daphne answered carefully: “It’s not that I understand it, Lou, but I’ve seen that woman before.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Monday morning Boldt was physically awake at eight, but mentally he could not find his bearings. He drank a pot of tea and stuffed himself into his car. He turned on KOMO news on his way downtown. The plan was to meet Daphne and continue with the Uli interrogation.

  But as the lead story for the morning news was read, Boldt nearly caused an accident. He involuntarily jerked the wheel, forcing another car to make a quick lane change that evolved into a skidding U-turn, and left Boldt’s Chevy sandwiched diagonally in a parallel parking spot. The car’s tail was protruding into the morning rush.

  He had expected the Striker/Danielson shooting to be near the top, if not the lead itself, but instead the local report began with a pleasant female voice that announced “an unexpected development” in which Adler Foods had been ordered by the FDA, in conjunction with the CDC, to recall every retail product line from all grocery shelves by noon this day. The story suggested that an investigation had begun into the company’s role in the “alleged” E. coli contamination and in recent poisonings that had claimed several lives. It had yet to be confirmed, the listener was told, but “sources close to the investigation” also claimed that a major food product-tampering and extortion scheme had “held Adler Foods paralyzed” for nearly three weeks, and that local authorities, as recently as yesterday, had summoned the help and assistance of the FBI.

  Captain Rankin and the bureaucrats had scored again: Knowingly or not, they had just challenged Harry Caulfield to Russian roulette.

  The pulling of the products, the mention of the FBI—all forced Caulfield’s hand. He had come to know his adversary. This reckless decision on the part of Captain Ran-kin drew detective and suspect closer. They shared a disgust at this decision. Boldt knew without checking that there would be a fax awaiting him when he reached his office.

  In a strange way, he was glad he was right.

  Daphne awakened late, having spent the night with Owen Adler. Feeling frustrated and dirty from the interrogation, she had shed her clothes and taken a moonlit swim, then joined Owen in his bed, where she fell into a deep sleep.

  He had sneaked out of bed and showered and shaved, and as he was changing she came awake. “We have the estate under surveillance. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m glad you did.”

  “I haven’t slept that well in weeks.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he said. “So has Corky.”

  He finished buttoning his shirt.

  She pushed the pillow back and sat up in bed, the sheet down around her waist, and felt wonderful that she could be partially naked here without the sensation of violation. She felt none of what she had been experiencing in her houseboat. She decided not to voice her suspicions of Fowler. Not yet.

  “Daddy?” It was Corky coming down the hall.

  Adler did not want his daughter connecting Daphne to his bed. Daphne knew this, and she sprinted out of bed for the bathroom, making it only to his walk-in closet before being forced to hide. She felt like a teenager hiding from a parent, and she began to laugh at this notion—Corky as Owen’s parent, not the opposite—and she gagged herself with the sleeve of a sport coat to keep from being heard.

  “Your fax machine is going,” his daughter reported.

  “I’ll be right there.” Owen hesitated before saying, “Honey?”

  “Why’s Daffy in your closet?”

  Kids. Daphne’s mind raced. She called out, “I’m wrapping your birthday present, Corky.”

  “You are?”

  “No peeking!” She looked through the racks of clothes for a robe to put on, and resorted to one of his man-tailored shirts.

  “Are you coming sailing?”

  “Maybe afterward,” she said. “I can’t promise.”

  “You’ll miss Monty the Clown.”

  “Daffy’s extremely busy, Honey, but she’s going to try and make it to the party after.”

  “What kind of present?” she called out.

  “No peeking,” Daphne repeated, pulling on a pair of his underwear just in case. She started laughing again because the underwear would need a belt to stay on. She kicked them off.

  “Meet you in the kitchen,” Adler said.

  “Okay,” said the child, disappointed.

  Adler rounded the corner of the walk-in. He said, “Don’t even try for the party. I completely understand, and so will Peaches.”

  But Corky would not understand, and Daphne knew this better than her own father. “I’ll catch up to you later. Save me some cake and ice cream.” She waited a moment and reminded, “The fax.”

  D DAY.

  FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

  IT TOLLS FOR THEE…

  For the better part of the last thirty minutes, Boldt’s attention had been divided between this fax and the situation room wall where eleven pieces of artwork printed by Grambling Printers were thumbtacked. All the artwork contained the three primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—and at least one foil—copper, silver, or gold. The products were as diverse as enchiladas and frozen yogurt, and just looking at them worried Boldt’s fragile stomach.

  It was nine o’clock in the morning, and LaMoia and Gaynes were home recovering from the ATM surveillance.

  Following the advice of Dr. Richard Clements, Boldt had divided his team. Freddie Guccianno remained in charge of tracking down any truck farmer whose vehicle bore these same three colors. In the evening hours Freddie worked with a wall map, planning out the next day’s coverage strategy. Although dozens of truck farmers had been questioned, Harry Caulfield remained at large.

  Shoswitz was on the phone; he seemed always to be on the phone.

  A uniform patrolman entered and crossed the room
and handed Guccianno an enormous ball of aluminum foil that contained a sticky roll the size of a tree stump. “You get my receipt?” Guccianno asked. The patrolman produced the receipt, and Guccianno placed it in his top pocket.

  Two women detectives, on loan from Sex Crimes, were sorting through the companies represented on the wall by product and affiliation, looking for a link to Adler Foods.

  Daphne entered and walked up to the wall, stared at all the products thumbtacked there, and said to the Sex Crimes detectives: “Let’s talk this stuff up.” She stood there looking around the room. No one seemed to have heard her. “Lou?”

  “I don’t see what good talking is going to do.”

  “Which is why I’m the psychologist and you’re the detective.”

  Guccianno oohed, seizing the opportunity to tease Boldt.

  “Feisty,” Boldt told her.

  “Frightened,” she answered honestly.

  “Okay, so let’s talk.” He studied the board. “We got eleven companies. Nine of them have vehicle fleets bearing the company colors. Five of those companies utilize truck fleets.”

  “So we stay with those five companies for the time being,” she agreed.

  He pointed to the center row of artwork. “Top to bottom: noodles, frozen seafood, ice cream, jams and berries, smoked seafood.”

  Daphne asked the two women to read off some of the products. “Keep in mind,” she told Boldt, “that Caulfield claims to be able to kill a hundred or more people with whatever product or method he’s chosen. That has to limit the field.”

  “You’re suggesting he intends to do this all in a single day, before we have a chance to issue a recall.”

  “Clements is suggesting so, yes.”

  Boldt knew that she only said this to attempt to give it more weight. He then turned to one of the other detectives and said, “Denise, of those five, who has the highest product velocity?”

  Boldt and Daphne met eyes while Denise checked through the papers. He acknowledged with a slight nod that Daphne’s discussion did in fact seem to be clearing some of the cobwebs. And if she had not been so frightened, she might have smiled as a way of showing her thanks.

  Denise said, “In dollar amounts, it’s pretty much a tie between Chalmer’s microwavable fish dinners and the Montclair ice-cream line. But in terms of sheer product volume, the Montclair ice-cream products far outnumber the dinners.”

  Daphne wandered over to Denise and borrowed her paperwork on Montclair for a moment.

  Boldt knew her well enough to ask, “What is it?”

  “That’s a familiar name to me …” She looked over the paperwork.

  Denise, checking more records, advised Boldt, “They also have the largest number of trucks—by far—of anyone we’re looking at.”

  Boldt felt the bloodhound in him stir. He stood and began removing the other pieces of artwork, leaving Montclair in the center by itself. Studying it, he asked Daphne, “Familiar how?”

  “It’s probably a stretch,” she said, not answering him.

  Daphne flipped through the pages of fax paper detailing the Montclair products. She came across a large picture of a clown with the words Monty the Clown written beneath it. Her chest grew tight and her voice turned to gravel. “Then again, maybe not.”

  That comment drew Boldt’s attention. To him she seemed to be in a trance. “Daffy?”

  “Monty the Clown,” she repeated, holding up the fax’s black-and-white artwork for him. “It’s an ice-cream bar with a gimmick. The kids love it,” she quoted what Owen had told her when he warned her to expect an invitation to Corky’s birthday party.

  The birthday party was today.

  “Ice-cream bar?” Boldt said, in a voice filled with concern.

  He repeated it several times and began madly digging through the files stacked high on the table in front of him. “An ice-cream bar,” he repeated.

  “Lou …,” she called out, her voice stronger, her mind ruling out coincidence.

  Guccianno raised his head, sensing the tension in both of them.

  “It’s here somewhere,” Boldt mumbled. He found it inside the file, second from the bottom. “Got it!” he hollered, rattling Guccianno’s nerves. Boldt tore into the phone book and found the phone number for the Broadway Foodland. Lee Hyundai was paged, and Boldt waited impatiently, finally looking up for the first time and seeing several pair of eyes trained on him.

  He held up the receipt and reminded those in the room, “Four items purchased by a man in a greatcoat at express checkout lane, a man identified by Holly MacNamara as Harry Caulfield. Three of the items on here were Adler products—candy bars—and we lost those boys in the tree house, and after that, I never went back to the receipt, focusing on the candy bars instead.”

  He recalled the haunting words of Dr. Richard Clements: “He will try to deceive you.” The Muzak stopped and the voice of Lee Hyundai came on the line. Reading the receipt, Boldt asked, “How much do you charge for a single Montclair ice-cream bar?”

  His finger pointed to the receipt where it was written: 1.66. After a long pause, during which Boldt heard the clicking of a keyboard, Lee Hyundai reported, “That would be one dollar sixty-six cents.”

  Boldt hung up the phone and hollered, “We’ve got a match!”

  Guccianno came out of his chair.

  Daphne turned to Boldt and announced with difficulty, “No one may believe this, but I know what he’s planning to do. And I know where to find him.”

  “Are there bells on these trucks?” Dr. Richard Clements was one of the eleven law enforcement personnel now assembled in the emergency meeting under way in the situation room. Department of Motor Vehicle records had been checked four times. No vehicles were registered to a Harry, or a Harold, or an H. Caulfield. Of the four Caulfields in the listings, two were senior citizens and two others in their late fifties.

  A Be On Lookout had been issued for all Monty-mobiles, with orders to approach with caution. With urging from the prosecuting attorney’s office, the company’s legal counsel had agreed to open their employment records to the police, effective immediately. Although they could provide the general areas their trucks covered, there was no direct communication with the trucks, and the specific routes were left up to the drivers. The bottom line was not good: The ice-cream trucks would remain in circulation until late afternoon. The Be On Lookout seemed the only way to catch him.

  Dr. Brian Mann had stated emphatically over the phone that strychnine was the perfect poison of choice for a frozen food. “Cholera wouldn’t survive in that environment,” he had added.

  Clements repeated, “Are there bells on these trucks?”

  There were three or four conversations going at once, and only by raising his voice in this manner did he draw the attention of those gathered.

  “Bells on Monty-mobiles?” Shoswitz said. “Who knows?”

  “Yes,” answered one of the FBI men. “At least there are on Good Humor trucks back east.”

  “Well, someone find out,” Clements ordered. He held up the fax for Boldt to read again.

  FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

  IT TOLLS FOR THEE…

  “‘It tolls for thee …’ You see? I am right about our friend. He would like for us to stop him, if we can, with our limited combined intelligence, and take him at his word. ‘The bell tolls’ for Mr. Adler, gentlemen. How can he be certain? Mr. Adler’s daughter is a fan of Monty the Clown.” He checked with Daphne, who nodded. She had remained sullen and silent for much of this, not understanding how—when she was so certain of Caulfield’s whereabouts—that these oafs could call a meeting. Boldt could see the wait was destroying her.

  “And Adler’s daughter has a party scheduled, with an appearance by Monty the Clown.”

  “Which means a disguise,” Shoswitz said.

  “Precisely,” agreed Clements.

  “And we are assuming he has his own truck, rather than is planning to commandeer one—this because of the paint samples fo
und at Longview.”

  “Agreed,” Boldt said.

  “Can we hurry this up?” Daphne snapped impatiently.

  Clements glanced up at her. “Easy does it, Matthews. We understand your concern. We just want to do this correctly. Methodically. Mr. Caulfield is a worthy adversary—we must not underestimate him.”

  She boiled, crossing her arms defiantly. But she held her tongue.

  Boldt reminded, “We have the registration tags for all the legitimate Monty-mobiles.”

  “One of which is expected at this sailing club—the party,” Clements reminded. “But we must be able to identify his truck. That is imperative.”

  Bobbie Gaynes offered, “It would be easier to repaint an old truck than to make original art on one.”

  “An auction list!” Clements snapped his fingers at Gaynes. “Get on it! They must get rid of their older trucks!”

  Gaynes ran from the room.

  For the next twenty minutes they discussed the logistics of attempting to prepare for Caulfield at the sailing party.

  Gaynes burst into the room and placed a fax down in front of Boldt. It listed the sixteen Montclair ice-cream trucks that had been placed on the auction block in the last five months.

  “His name’s not here,” Boldt moaned, his hopes shattered.

  “I suggest you try the name Meriweather,” Clements directed, in that all-knowing tone of his.

  Boldt ran a finger down the list and hit the name immediately. “Got it!” he announced. He whistled loudly. The door to the room swung open and a uniform blurred to him at a run. He circled the name and handed the man the sheet. “DMV title and registration. Go!”

  “What?” Boldt asked, catching the expression of the psychiatrist, whose eyes immediately began to track back and forth in their sockets. He pointed to Penny Smyth. “Explain the situation.”

  The prosecuting attorney said, “I don’t know how to put this.”

  “Quickly!” Boldt encouraged, watching the door for the return of the patrolman.