The Body of David Hayes

by Ridley Pearson

  Boldt said, “You’d think a person could maybe narrow this down by method. Rohypnol, duct tape, fingernails. That’s got to be a signature crime. I ran it by Matthews and didn’t get very far. I think I’ll try OC this time.” Organized Crime.

  “We got to ask ourselves,” Foreman said, “if this vic-and I’m assuming it to be David Hayes-got up and walked away or was hauled out of here in a Hefty lawn bag; ’cause one thing that ain’t part of the original signature is the lack of a body. I was in that chair, Lou, and I’m telling you there’s no way you get yourself out of this and go for a stroll.”

  But there had been no body at the trailer either. It seemed odd that Foreman would overlook the obvious.

  Boldt circled the bloody chair and again watched his theory play out briefly as film. Hayes, or whoever had occupied that chair, was taking a beating, his head snapping left and right. Boldt studied the splatter patterns on the ceiling that supported this determination. The blood was dense immediately above the chair and more sporadic and separated farther out from this epicenter. All this made sense to him. Some of it did not, however.

  “What do you think?” Foreman asked, as if the two were regarding a painting in a museum.

  “I’ve got some questions.”

  “What kind of questions?” Foreman clearly didn’t like the sound of that. He wanted this cut-and-dried. He wanted his assumption-that Hayes had probably been killed in this chair-front and center.

  “Questions for SID.”

  “I’m first officer,” Foreman declared. “It won’t be SID, it’ll be our guys.”

  The State Bureau of Criminal Investigation outsourced their field detection and lab work to King County Sheriff’s. The lab had a good reputation, but Boldt didn’t personally know anyone there, and it was the personal relationships that got investigations cleared.

  Foreman repeated, “What kind of questions?”

  Boldt doubted then that Foreman had read the preliminaries from the two other such beatings-including his own. He wasn’t sure he wanted to give something away for nothing. There were answers he needed as well.

  Boldt wandered into the doorway of the adjacent bedroom and suddenly felt breathless, his chest tight, his imagination besieged by images. It was a twin bed, pulled off the wall, a nightstand shoved into the corner. It faced a closet with louvered panels on the folding doors. Boldt looked away just as quickly.

  He asked, “How’d you manage getting the camera into the closet?”

  “What?” Foreman answered.

  “The video. It’s why they beat you, wasn’t it, Danny? That video? Pulled your nails and drugged you until you coughed up the combination and location of the safe. You had the video in the safe. Six years you kept that thing. Why? Just tell me you didn’t drag it out at night and slip it into the VCR, Danny. Tell me that’s not why your prints were on it.” Boldt felt sick, a combination of this bedroom, the smell of blood and vomit, and other images now swarming his brain. He didn’t need to see the video.

  Foreman let himself down into a wooden chair just outside the bedroom door. “I obtained the warrant through an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the time. I lured Hayes away from the cabin with an anonymous call. The hope was for data capture-to record his keystrokes. In all, three cameras were installed, each covering an area that included a phone jack because we assumed he was doing this online. Tech Services did it for me, under the protection of Special Operations.”

  “You were with us at the time,” Boldt said. Seattle Police.

  “Correct. He used a laptop. Moved around. We couldn’t predict what room he’d use. I had no idea, Lou. I went fishing, and I caught the wrong fish. If it hadn’t been relevant-”

  “It wasn’t relevant!”

  “A bank officer? It was very much relevant. For two or three days, she was a primary suspect. Your wife I’m talking about. The only thing that saved her, the only one who saved her… you’re looking at him. I kept the tape to myself, explored what needed exploring, and never surfaced her name. We went through the treatments together,” he said, meaning their wives’ cancer treatment, “and it just got harder and harder to look you in the eye. And then Darlene slipping and Liz recovering. Uglier and uglier.”

  “What were Paul Geiser’s prints doing on the video?” Boldt asked, trying to keep their personal history out of this, but seeing clearly how entangled it all was. “Get your story straight, Danny. That way you only have to tell it once.”

  “To hell with you!” Foreman shouted.

  “You should have destroyed the tape.”

  “You mean I should have told you about it, don’t you?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “A bank exec is sleeping with my embezzler-my suspect-and I’m supposed to destroy that evidence? Would you have destroyed that evidence?”

  “Six years,” Boldt said, his throat dry. “Yes, I would have.”

  “The tape wasn’t the only thing in my safe. Every scrap of information pertaining to this case was in there with it, most of it burned to disk. All of it gone now. Destroyed? I don’t know. This is the first I’ve heard about the tape resurfacing.” A pause as Foreman added it up. “So they got to Liz again. That’s what you’re telling me.”

  In fact, Boldt was telling him more than he wanted to, the result of allowing his emotions to play into this. “Was it the only tape? Of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Geiser’s prints?”

  “I can’t answer that,” Foreman said. “News to me. My guess would be that all the tapes at some point crossed his desk. I don’t have a specific memory of Liz’s tape being grouped with the others. I do remember clearly the first time I saw it, and the realization-the need-to protect you, if possible. My memory is that I got this tape out of the group. But they were numbered at the time, you know? And I can see me keeping tabs on it, but including it, so nothing fishy surfaced-a tape being noticed missing-and maybe it was in the stack that crossed Paul’s desk. Early on, as inventory was being matched against the warrant. Something like that.”

  Boldt didn’t like the explanation-it felt to him as if Foreman were making this up on the fly-but he accepted it for the time being.

  “I feel a little sick,” Boldt said.

  “Probably the air. It stinks in here.”

  “You must have surveillance notes putting Liz with Hayes last week.” He wondered if they’d met here at the cabin. Was Foreman aiming to involve Liz?

  “No. I wasn’t watching this place.”

  Was this credible? Boldt wondered. A location under surveillance six years earlier and Foreman doesn’t chase it down when the man’s released from prison?

  “I sat on the rental-the mobile home-thinking he might make a move. Got stung instead.”

  “They got you twice, and now they appear to have gotten Hayes twice. Why risk that?” Boldt asked. “Why not do what had to be done the first time?”

  “They weren’t going to torture me out in the damn woods,” Foreman complained. “And these guys are smart: They don’t put kidnapping on the rap sheet. Assault. Maybe second-degree manslaughter. But it’s in the victim’s home. It’s breaking and entering. Robbery. Light stuff compared with kidnapping.”

  That argument wasn’t quite right, but Boldt didn’t push it. “They got Hayes that first time. We know that by the blood type at the scene. Why risk, why bother with a second event?” This stuck in Boldt’s craw. These people seemed smart-as Danny had just said. Even Liz’s assault in the van looked more like robbery. They were carefully avoiding the charges that drew mandatory time and a maximum-security facility. So why risk a second attack on Hayes? Especially given that he might be being watched.

  Boldt gestured at the torture scene. “Did you see this go down, Danny?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But Liz had told you about the cabin. You were watching the cabin. You said so.”

  “That’s you talking, not me.” He added, “I was suckered away from here
. Anonymous call saying I should take a meeting in town. That Hayes was thinking of turning. I ended up stuck in a traffic jam on the 520. I’d been over in Bellevue. Missed the meet entirely. Fuck me.”

  Boldt felt a measure of pride at having successfully distracted Danny Foreman away from asking again about the forensic evidence that Boldt found inconsistent at the scene. Veteran cops rarely snuck something past one another, and Boldt had done just that by focusing Foreman on himself-a subject most people found irresistible.

  “You know what happens when I call in the lab techs?” Foreman asked. “They’re going to go room by room,” he said, “dusting, developing prints.”

  Boldt felt a spike of heat travel up his spine.

  “Thing about latents,” Foreman said. “They can’t be dated. They could be from yesterday, or they may be six years old, and they all look the same.”

  Boldt paced back to the doorway and glanced into the bedroom again. This time the film that played in his head had his naked wife grabbing headboards, touching the bedside lamp, pressing her sweating palm on the wall. With her prints in the WSW database, it would be only a matter of time until she’d be placed in the cabin and questioned. A matter of time until she’d have to detail the affair with Hayes.

  He felt himself shrink and recoil. Would Foreman now suggest or offer to destroy evidence and wipe down the cabin? Where was this going? What was it Foreman wanted?

  “I need her to go along with whatever they ask her to do,” Foreman said.

  There it was, words hanging between them, as if stopped in space and floating. Boldt’s response determined their power or impotence.

  “I need her safe,” Boldt said.

  “You walk out of here now, and there’s no record of your having been here. What forensics finds or doesn’t find is a product of what there is to find in the first place. But when the prelims on this cabin come back clean for Liz, you’ll know why. She gets another call, and I’m the first one you contact. She gets asked to do something for these people and she does it. No more substitutions, coach. If they were gonna snatch her up, they’d have done it. Clearly, she’s of more use to them on the outside. They aren’t going to harm her, they’re going to use her. And you’re going to let them.”

  The message didn’t surprise Boldt, but Foreman’s edgy, demanding tone did. The ordeal that Foreman had gone through had taken its toll. Boldt had no idea what it was like to have fingernails pulled, no idea what that did to a person.

  “It’s seventeen million dollars, Danny. WestCorp was insured. They’re not out a cent. I know they’d love to prevent something similar from happening again, but the only person who seems to really give a damn about closing this case is you. As for me… my concern is for Liz, and only Liz. I want her out. I want her disconnected. Neither of us needs to relive this. All it can do is hurt us. What you’re asking is impossible. It’s the one thing I’m working against: her involvement. As to my condoning the destruction of evidence-I can’t do that either. Her prints or not, the cabin needs to be gone over by the technicians. We need every scrap of evidence there is. And I’ll tell you why,” he said. “Because this crime scene-whatever happened here, whoever it happened to-is wrong. Can I put my finger on it? No, I can’t. Not yet. But it’s wrong. You don’t do this twice to the same guy. I just don’t see professionals doing that. That’s why we need the technicians. That’s why I’m going to stay right here with you until they arrive. Liz’s prints can and will be explained, no matter the outcome. Does anyone think she possesses the strength to tie David Hayes into a chair? Even with Rohypnol? Not a chance. She will not participate beyond serving as a comm center. They want to call her, fine. Beyond that, it’s surrogates, undercover officers, and that’s that.”

  “You’re going to make this decision for her?” Foreman asked. “Without her?”

  “You tried to blackmail me a minute ago, Danny. Extort me. For what? A six-year-old case that no one cares about? Look in the mirror. There are reasons the original investigating officer doesn’t get the lead when a case resurfaces. You embody those reasons. You’re burned out, Danny. You blame that case for Darlene’s illness, even for her death, for all I know. You’re hanging on to this one and it’s going to take you with it. Let it go, man! Pass it off to someone less personally attached.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do?” Foreman asked, his voice steady and calm, but belying an undercurrent of raw energy that raised Boldt’s hackles. “Practice what you preach, soldier.”

  Boldt felt a severe stab of pain in the center of his chest and nearly buckled over with it. He was living this case, something every detective knew not to do. It caught up to you, this kind of thing.

  “You okay?”

  Foreman’s voice sounded distant to Boldt. He hadn’t realized he’d gone blind in one eye until the condition cleared like a window shade lifting.

  “Lou?”

  “Fine,” Boldt lied. But he could see clearly again out of both eyes. His hearing returned to normal, losing that echo. He realized they were like two high school kids who entered into a brawl as opponents, but rose from the pile bloody and shaking hands. “I can’t do what you ask. I’ve got to say no to the evidence tampering, and no to Liz doing anything for Hayes or whoever’s behind this. I’ll take what comes my way is, I guess, what I’m saying to you. You want to play hardball, that’s up to you.”

  “It’s not up to me,” said Foreman. “Never has been. If there’s a body out there, I want to find it. Fast. Yes. Because maybe it leads us to who did this ahead of whatever they have planned for Liz.”

  “They?”

  “Whatever. If Hayes survived, or if he gave up whatever’s necessary to get that money back, then there’s only one person this is gonna come back on, Lou, and that’s Liz. Slice it, dice it, I don’t care. It’s going to be Liz. She has access, and she has history. Who would you come after?”

  Boldt knew he was right, though wanted to talk himself out of it. This being Wednesday evening, the bank reception celebrating the merger was now just a few days away. The embezzled money had to be wired out ahead of that deadline or be lost. It seemed hard to imagine that by Monday morning everything would be back to normal.

  “There’s stuff I’ve got to do,” he said. “So who makes the call? It’s Wednesday night, Danny.” He held this leverage over Foreman-SID processed evidence at all hours. Foreman’s private lab likely did not. It was to both their benefits if Boldt made the call, if SPD did the work.

  “So make the call.”

  Boldt saw a flicker of thought register in Foreman’s eyes. Just a flicker, but enough to sense he’d been had. Danny Foreman knew he’d never have his evidence in time unless SPD’s lab handled the crime scene. He had purposefully manipulated Boldt into making the offer to involve SPD’s lab. The involvement of the lab would mean Boldt, or one of his squad, would inherit the paperwork, the meetings, the explanations, the press, the analysis. Danny Foreman had just encumbered Boldt, leaving himself free to pursue the money trail. More to the point, Foreman knew Boldt would not walk away from any crime scene.

  “I don’t like being run, Danny.”

  “I suckered into a phony tip or I’d have been here to prevent this. At the very least, to witness it. How do you think I feel?”

  “So who did that to you? Not me.”

  “Come Sunday night, you and Liz are gonna see there’s only one way to play this. She walks into that bank. She does what he asks-they ask-and we follow that money to the scumbag who’s causing all this trouble. You aren’t there yet, but you’ll get there, Lou. I know you will.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “That tape ever gets seen, it’ll sure as hell end her career, and it won’t help yours any.”

  “We’ll land on our feet.”

  “And I’ll be there to catch you.”

  “Sure you will, Danny.”

  Boldt raised his phone and called Bernie Lofgrin directly, ready to involve the lab.
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  He sensed he was making a huge mistake.

  THIRTEEN

  BOLDT FOUND TRUE POLICE WORK electrifying. Now that he carried a lieutenant’s shield, such moments came rarely and so when encountered proved all the more meaningful. For him detection was a mathematical process, and therefore very much related to his music, which he thought of as a mathematical language. As a detective you connected A to B and B to C and therefore A to C, and around and around it went, simple algebra and geometry applied to everyday problem-solving.

  The problem had been to approach his interview of Malina Alekseevich with more than a hunch and a whim. For Boldt, several disparate pieces of evidence came together in the men’s room midway into his morning routine at work.

  Standing at the urinal, going about his business, he heard the distinct click of the door’s deadbolt being thrown and glanced over his shoulder to see a woman locking the lavatory door.

  “Wrong door,” Boldt called out, his right hand fishing to return himself to his shorts. “This is the men’s room.”

  When the woman told him she needed two minutes of his time, and called him by rank, Boldt hurriedly zipped himself up. In all his years of policing, he’d never been ambushed in a men’s room.

  She was a handsome woman in her early thirties, strong-bodied and big-chested. She wore her blond-tinted hair as bangs in front and cropped at her shoulders, lending her coif the look of a helmet. He searched for a name to go with that pleasant face but couldn’t find it. He washed his hands as she moved over to him and spoke quickly and softly.

  “Sorry for the cloak-and-dagger, but I couldn’t think how else to ensure privacy.”

  He apologized for having forgotten her name.

  “Olson,” she replied. “Maddie Olson. Organized Crime.”

  Boldt was glad for the moment it took him to yank a couple of paper towels from the box and dry his hands, for it gave him time to think. He’d put the request through to OC earlier this same morning, attempting to establish the torture scenes as signature crimes, hoping OC might have someone on file who liked to pull fingernails. And now here was Olson, delivering information in a quirky, and exceptionally unusual way. He did not question her motives, except to know that if she’d gone to these lengths, she must require an enormous amount of secrecy.