Boldt - 03 - No Witnesses

by Ridley Pearson

  “None of us wants to see Caulfield duck these charges.”

  “What?” Shoswitz challenged.

  She explained, “If you stop him now, you have a truck with poisoned ice-cream inside. You have intent, certainly.” As she continued talking, Clements waved his pen high in the air and conducted, stabbing and punctuating her words. He was smiling thinly. “But intent is all you have—we have. Some good circumstantial evidence, certainly. Some good motivation that our expert psychiatrist can use to our advantage. I don’t deny any of this.”

  “What is this shit?” Shoswitz asked.

  Clements, eyes closed, answered for her. “This is the law.” He opened his eyes now, sat forward, and placed down the pen. “She’s right, of course. It’s her job to be right about these things.”

  Shoswitz looked back at Smyth, who said, “We need to witness the actual passing of a poisoned item to an individual if we’re to build any kind of case to carry a life sentence or greater. I’m not saying that what we have isn’t good, but it is not enough, I’m sorry to say—not if you want this man on death row. You take him as is, and we’ll put him away for ten or twenty. With a good jury, maybe twice that. But connecting him to these other deaths won’t be nearly as easy as pinning down an attempted murder—delivery of a fatal substance. There are some holes in the narco laws we may be able to squeeze him into and put him away for mandatory life, which is what I think we all want.” She looked at Boldt with sad eyes. She did not like this any more than the rest of them.

  Boldt said, “So we sting him.”

  She nodded.

  Checking the clock, Daphne reminded urgently, “Less than forty minutes.”

  The patrolman charged through the door waving a sheet of computer paper. “We’ve got the registration!” he announced.

  A light breeze blew out of the west, filling the nine white sails beautifully and causing each boat to heel slightly. Boldt was wearing a set of dirty dungaree coveralls, leaning on a shovel, where LaMoia used a pickax to dig a hole leading nowhere. They worked at the junction of an asphalt path and the parking lot that connected the dock with the parked cars. Boldt wore a flesh-colored earphone with an attached wire that led down between his collar and his neck. A hidden lavalier microphone was clipped below the coveralls’ second button. He listened to the running monologue from the task force’s dispatcher. By pretending to scratch his chest, Boldt could depress a button allowing him to transmit through the microphone.

  The two men cleaning the pool were task force. So were all of a team of four—two men and two women, including Daphne Matthews—who were in the act of putting the finishing touches on the party. The hired caterer and her people were being kept inside the clubhouse and out of sight. Straddling the clubhouse chimney, a roll of tar paper at his side, an FBI sharpshooter pretended to be making repairs. Hidden inside the roll of tar paper, a semiautomatic .306 with laser scope awaited him. This man was capable of a hard-target kill at three hundred yards, and he had the blue ribbons to prove it. At the moment, he had sore ankles as well.

  There was a party of three having cocktails in the cockpit of a twenty-one-foot ketch pulled up to the fuel dock. All were task force, all expert shots. The cocktails were ice tea in a bourbon bottle. There was a guy having engine trouble, and another helping him—both bent under the hood of a Chevy, where a pair of handguns remained within easy reach. Hidden inside the clubhouse were six Special Forces agents, and in the bathhouse, six more.

  Twenty-four cops and agents in all, eight on radios. The dispatcher nimbly maintained constant communications with all elements, continually updating and informing, and ready to relay the latest input.

  In the distance, Boldt heard the approach of the radio station chopper as it reported on traffic on the floating bridge. The Birdman was riding with this pilot and reporting on a separate frequency to dispatch. This was a man who could spot a fox in a thicket from a thousand feet up. If Caulfield’s refrigerated truck was in the area, the Birdman would find it.

  His efforts were aided by fourteen unmarked cars casually patrolling the seventeen streets that fed the two roadways that fed the dirt road at the end of which was this clubhouse. Phone line work was being conducted on these two feeder roads by FBI agents manned with communications and firearms.

  The door-to-door salesman lugging his Naugahyde box from his backseat to the front door of every house on the approach street was in fact Detective Guccianno. He wasn’t selling anything; he was informing all residents to get their kids into the house, lock their doors, and await an all-clear. He was also showing each a photo of Caulfield, in case the man had been staking out the neighborhood prior to today.

  “Don’t worry so much, Sarge,” LaMoia said nonchalantly, digging the hole a little deeper.

  Static spit in Boldt’s ear. “The sailboats are about five minutes out and closing,” Dispatch reported. “Alpha is four minutes ETA.” That was Adler. “P-one and P-two, make your move, please.” Parents-one. Parents-two. A 700 series BMW and a Mercedes sedan, both repossessed in drug convictions, turned onto the final approach road, passing beneath the overhead phone line repair crew and pulling into the clubhouse parking lot—make-believe parents about to join their children at the party. For the last thirty minutes, police communications had busily sought out parents of the mostly girls in the sailing party. Of the eighteen kids, the parents of eleven had been contacted, and undercover police were to take their places. The whereabouts of the remaining seven were unknown.

  The helicopter, displaying the station call letters, swooped low overhead and banked, as if to return for another pass over the floating bridge. Boldt glanced up. On the other side of the mirrored plastic bubble, the Birdman was scrutinizing the landscape through his binoculars. The Birdman, who could count eyelashes on a flea.

  Several more cars arrived—some police, some not. Boldt felt a stream of sweat trickle down his side. Civilians in the mix. He wished there had been a way to prevent that. “You okay?” he asked LaMoia.

  LaMoia rested the pickax, looked up at his sergeant, and nodded gravely. “Digging holes is shitty work.”

  “You’ve got your line all memorized?”

  “I’m ready, Sarge. Relax.”

  Boldt heard the barking of the dogs, but did not see them yet. There were three scheduled, all German shepherds. Diana, who ran the K-9 squad and trained the dogs, was dressed in jeans and a Bob Dylan T-shirt: out for an afternoon stroll, down to watch the boats come in. Down to wreak some havoc. Another actor in a play so hastily written.

  In Boldt’s right ear the dispatcher’s voice said plainly, “We have hard contact. Repeat: hard contact.”

  “Hold on!” Boldt whispered hotly to LaMoia, who stopped midswing and set down the tool.

  Boldt listened and reported, “Birdman’s spotted a gray roof of a decent-size truck parked in a stand of trees about a quarter-mile from here.”

  “He got here early,” LaMoia said, “just as Clements said he would. I bet Clements was a Boy Scout.” He added, “I always hated Boy Scouts. Now, Girl Scouts was another story—” He swung the pickax again. A nervous LaMoia was a joke machine. Boldt longed for a switch. LaMoia said, “On second thought I could get to like this work. I kinda miss this physical stuff.”

  “Cut the chatter,” Boldt said.

  The chopper pulled up to a new elevation high over the bridge. Boldt assumed that from there the Birdman could keep an eye on the truck. Responding to a question from Shoswitz relayed through Dispatch, Boldt spoke into the radio, “No drive-bys. Nothing to rattle him. Copy?” He nodded and went back to leaning on his shovel.

  Boldt pressed his ear and reported to LaMoia, “A second truck, just entering the road … Hold it! It has pulled off…. Something’s wrong…. Tires are out. Birdman has all four tires flat …”

  LaMoia said, “He spiked the road.”

  Boldt said, “He spiked the road.” And LaMoia grinned for guessing right.

  “Take out the competitio
n,” LaMoia said. “Make sure the truck that was hired is a no-show. The guy is smart, Sarge.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You nervous?” LaMoia asked, his concentration fully on his work. “There’s nothing quite like an operation, you think? But I never really recover. It’s like putting too much postage on a letter, you know? You can never get it back.” He added, “Your postman ever return any money to you?”

  He reminded Boldt of Liz’s mother, who tended to rattle on when she became nervous or anxious, switching subjects randomly and somehow stringing them all together.

  Boldt checked the roof. The sharpshooter had his hand inside the roll of tar paper. One of the two pool cleaners was scrubbing the steps of the high dive, making sure he had an elevated vantage point in case he had the only shot. All cogs of the same wheel. It rolled slowly toward Harold Caulfield.

  “Boats are two minutes out,” Dispatch reported into Boldt’s ear. Then, after a spit of static, “Suspect vehicle is rolling.” Calmly, he stated: “All stations, suspect is rolling. Good luck, everyone.” SPD dispatchers rarely added such editorials, but Boldt was glad to have it.

  The dispatcher traced the route of Caulfield’s Monty-mobile as it passed under the first of the phone crews. “We have confirmation of vehicle registration.”

  “We’re on,” Boldt told LaMoia.

  “Show time,” said the detective. “Don’t forget to smile.”

  Boldt heard the first sailboat thump against the float, and then the shrieks of excited, childish laughter. One of the parents passed by on the way down the dock, but rubbernecked the two cops, and Boldt realized she was looking at LaMoia’s cowboy boots and probably wondering what a guy wearing a gorgeous pair of ostrich boots was doing digging a hole at her club. But she didn’t say anything. She ran her hand along the rail, though she walked more slowly, apprehensively, and looked back one more time, her face still caught in curiosity.

  Too many civilians, Boldt thought, tempted to abort. Tempted to let it be Penny Smyth’s problem: Arrest now, figure out the charges later.

  “Don’t do it, Sarge,” LaMoia said, reading his thoughts. “We’ve got this bastard. Five minutes and it’s all over.”

  The inevitable question came into his ear; it was the voice of Phil Shoswitz. “Decision time. He’s thirty seconds out.” Hesitation as he awaited Boldt’s signal to arrest now or play it out.

  LaMoia stared at him.

  The anxious mother, far down the dock, reached the arriving boats and grabbed hold of a line tossed to her. Other parents waited in the party area. Boldt caught Daphne’s eye, where he saw both worry and concern, yes—but determination as well.

  Boldt considered a sentence of twenty years—out in six with good behavior.

  LaMoia, serious now and sensing Boldt’s struggle, looked into the man’s eyes and said, “Slater Lowry.”

  In the distance the jingle of cheap bells filled the air.

  Boldt depressed the radio button hidden at his chest. “Go,” he said.

  Dispatch said into his ear, “All stations: green light.” He repeated this and then added, “Suspect vehicle has arrived on-site.”

  Boldt glanced up to check the sharpshooter: The man had changed positions, and now hid behind the chimney where it would be easier to steady a rifle barrel. It occurred to Boldt that in the next few minutes they might kill a man—might get several more killed if they were not careful. For what? To appease the legal process?

  The clanging bells grew louder, followed by the sound of a rough motor. Adler shouted not to run on the docks as a group of seven children sprinted toward Boldt and LaMoia.

  Boldt recognized Corky from Daphne’s description: third back in the pack. Bright-eyed and innocent. After today, regardless of the outcome, her life would be changed; in and of itself, a crime against persons.

  The ice-cream truck, bells clanging noisily, came to a stop not fifteen yards from Boldt. The sergeant swung his head casually. The driver wore a clown’s face, a bulb nose, and a yellow wig. He was dressed in a baggy jumpsuit of red, yellow, and blue. He reached to his mouth, withdrew a toothpick from his lips, and tossed at the ashtray. For Boldt, this confirmed it: It was Harry Caulfield.

  Boldt felt hotter than just moments earlier: body chemicals. He could not allow himself to stare, and so he looked back at the black hole that LaMoia had dug, and the similarity to a child’s grave was impossible to mistake. He took his first and only stab with the shovel and spilled a mound of dirt back into the hole like a widow at a funeral. He touched his breast pocket, LaMoia looking on nervously, and said for the benefit of the microphone: “Suspect confirmed.” He heard the dispatcher repeating this as he plucked the earpiece from his ear and stuffed it down inside his collar, out of sight—out of contact now. Isolated.

  The plan called for he and LaMoia to make the front of the line—to beat the kids to the truck and hence maintain their position closer to the parking lot than to the dock or the party area. Boldt took two steps toward the ice-cream truck and casually shouted over his shoulder loudly enough for the driver to hear, “What kind you want?”

  “Get me an orange and vanilla,” LaMoia answered loudly, delivering his one line just as he had been told.

  Boldt quickened his step, sensing the approaching children coming up on him rapidly from behind. Everything felt sharp and crisp, and suddenly the sunlight seemed overpowering—blindingly bright. To his left, the cop on the high dive adjusted his position. To his right, high on the ridge of the roof, the sharpshooter could no longer be seen, but Boldt could imagine the black eye of the barrel looking down on him.

  If Boldt pressed the switch hidden on his chest and uttered the words Take him, then Caulfield was a dead man—his sentence decided right here and now. The power of that possibility did not escape him. He was judge, jury, and executioner. Ironically, arrest was all that could save the man now.

  In this moment of consideration, he moved too slowly. Two of the frantic children scampered past him and cut in line, beating him to the ice-cream truck. This was not the way they had planned it, and though his fallback position had been to take Caulfield before any sale of ice cream, that too was now no simple matter, given the two children—hostages—easily within his reach.

  The safety release was Diana and her three shepherds. Boldt glanced over at her, seeing she was in position, just behind the ice-cream truck, kneeling and talking to her dogs: stalling.

  Boldt could not make a play for Caulfield until these two kids were out of the way.

  The first child in line ordered a Big Dipper with nuts, and Caulfield, looking uncomfortable and acting slightly awkward, moved to the side of the truck and checked two of the small doors before coming out with the order. “None with nuts,” he said, handing the girl the ice cream. “I’m all out.” She took it anyway and immediately handed Caulfield two dollar bills. Boldt recognized fear as it darkened the suspect’s eyes: with all this preparation, he had neglected to bring change. He stuttered, “Ahh—I—,” glanced into Boldt’s eyes, and hurried back into the truck. He came out with change and handed the girl some coins. He looked into Boldt’s eyes again—calmly—and Boldt thought that Caulfield somehow knew.

  The second child in line ordered a Red Bar—frozen fruit juice on a stick—and it occurred to Boldt that as he stood here waiting in line, every Montclair frozen ice-cream product in a three-state region was being pulled from the shelves—every truck emptied and the product destroyed. If Caulfield had laid bigger plans, hopefully they had shut these down.

  “Change?” the man was asking Boldt. “Any change?” Caulfield repeated. Boldt had been caught up in thought. “Any quarters?”

  The coveralls allowed a snapped slit to access the pants he wore underneath, and Boldt reached into his pocket and found five quarters and several dimes. He extended his open palm to Caulfield, who thanked him, and picked his way through a dollar in change, exchanging it for a dollar bill.

  He thanked me. I just helped h
im, Boldt thought. He stuffed Caulfield’s dollar back into his pants, but it required of him an amazing amount of concentration and effort for so simple a task.

  The girl with the Red Bar slipped out of line, and Lou Boldt stood facing Harry Caulfield.

  “Help you?” the clown asked.

  “An orange one with vanilla, and a Big Dipper, please.” He was saying “please” to a murderer; it seemed inconceivable to him.

  Caulfield checked two doors. The white vapor of the dry ice escaped, briefly concealing him inside a cloud. “An Orange-Up and a Big Dipper?” he confirmed.

  “That’s right.”

  Boldt heard the tearing of paper. The two kids were not waiting: They were ripping into their treats. He glanced hotly at Diana, and she released the trained dogs, who immediately bounded across the pavement and leapt at the girls, knocking them down and stealing their ice-cream bars. The panicked screams and piercing cries of the two girls cut Boldt to his core. Diana plunged into the fray, confirming that the ice creams were not in their possession, and then called off her dogs, making apologies. She reprimanded both dogs severely, all the while petting them—a trainer’s game. As if on cue, Daphne and another of the fake caterers rushed to help the girls.

  His backup was in place.

  Boldt, pretending to be absorbed in the drama, kept one eye cautiously on Caulfield, who handled the disturbance quite well. And then Caulfield’s head snapped and Boldt followed his line of sight: Inexplicably, the third of the shepherds was gobbling down one of the ice creams. It had sneaked in behind its trainer as she collared and controlled the other two dogs. Seeing this, Caulfield seemed to panic.

  Boldt tried to catch Diana’s eye, but it was too late. Snap, snap—the Big Dipper was gone.

  “Two-ninety,” Caulfield said.

  Boldt had not thought this out, had not figured on having to hold the two ice creams in one hand while searching for money in his pocket. This left him with no hand free for his weapon. As he rummaged back into his pocket and found several dollars, Corky Adler jumped line in front of him and demanded a Sno-Foam Fudge Bar. At this same moment, Owen Adler, right behind his daughter, looked first into Boldt’s face, then Daphne’s, and actually staggered as he realized what he had walked into. He straightened himself up, and in a moment of quick thinking said, “Corky, let’s wait for the cake!”