The First Victim

by Ridley Pearson

  ‘‘We just playing around with a crane, man!’’ he pleaded to Boldt. Boldt manipulated the truth, as was permitted him by the courts. Police had this one shot at a suspect who waived his right to an attorney—the interrogation. After that it was lawyers, courts and plea bargains. Both Tan and Wong had seen the court-appointed attorney side of the justice system enough times to believe they stood a better chance controlling their own destiny with the cops. Boldt advised him,

  ‘‘We seized the ship out in the bay. The captain gave up the Delancy Avenue marina. That’s a gun aimed at your head, pal. You or Mr. Wong. We’re not sure who.’’

  ‘‘It’s him, man. It’s him!’’

  ‘‘What’s him?’’ Daphne said.

  Those untrusting eyes tried again, searching the two for whom to try. ‘‘The container,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m the crane operator, but that’s all!

  I’m telling you, I don’t know shit about what’s inside.’’

  Boldt felt a wave of relief at the man’s mention of the container. It connected a purpose to the operation of the crane. He needed the sweatshop’s location; he needed Coughlie’s involvement, but just the mention of that word opened doors previously shut.

  ‘‘What we need is cooperation,’’ Daphne said. ‘‘We need the particulars, Mr. Tan. If you’re just the crane operator, if you’re just a hired hand, then it’s Mr. Wong we need to talk to. Unfortunately, if you can’t help us out, you won’t be buying yourself much of a break. Does that make sense to you?’’

  ‘‘No, it don’t!’’

  ‘‘The way it works, the one with the most information for us gets the most breaks.’’

  Boldt said, ‘‘We need to know where that container was headed once it landed.’’

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  ‘‘And we need to know who’s been protecting you,’’ she said. Answering his expression she continued, ‘‘Oh, yes, we know all about it.’’

  ‘‘We have someone here with us tonight who is very interested in that—a federal agent.’’

  ‘‘Well, bring him on,’’ the suspect said. ‘‘Let’s talk turkey.’’ He leaned back and kicked his feet up onto the table in a bold and arrogant gesture. Boldt was about to reprimand him for the act when he noticed the bottom of the man’s boots.

  Clinging to the rubber between heel and worn-down sole was a small but unmistakable clot of fish scales.

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  Stevie McNeal’s final chance to find Melissa literally spilledout of her purse as she wrestled for her cellphone in the helicopter’s tight confines and a city bus map fell out onto the clear plastic floor beneath her feet.

  ‘‘Wait a minute!’’ she’d instructed the pilot, retrieving the map.

  ‘‘Can you fly this route for me?’’

  ‘‘We’re low on fuel.’’

  ‘‘As much as we have time for then,’’ she said. ‘‘This area in particular.’’ She pointed out the area where Coughlie had climbed aboard, distracting her. ‘‘We’re looking for old canneries along here.’’

  ‘‘Salmon Bay? Once upon a time. Mostly restaurants and boathouses now.’’

  ‘‘Let’s take a look.’’

  The helicopter veered north.

  Turning to the technician, Stevie asked, ‘‘These binoculars? They can see heat?’’

  ‘‘You bet.’’

  ‘‘Body heat?’’

  ‘‘That’s the idea,’’ he answered.

  ‘‘Through a wall?’’

  ‘‘No way.’’

  ‘‘A window?’’

  ‘‘A warm room would mean warm glass, which would produce some degree of green instead of black—so, sure. But it depends.’’

  ‘‘But people crowded into a room,’’ she suggested, ‘‘big machinery, people sweating.’’

  The kid answered, ‘‘We’d get some kind of read on that Isuppose. 336

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  Listen, I’d rather have that camera that Seven has, but we may have toasted that thing. All we can do is try.’’

  t

  At the edge of Lake Union they slowed, passing Fremont Bridge and moving west along the ship canal and into Salmon Bay. Hundreds, if not thousands, of boats of every kind crowded marinas along this stretch. Some of the boats glowed faintly green through the binoculars, holding out hope for Stevie. She trained the lenses onto the roofs and darkened windows of the buildings that lined the south shore of the waterway. The technician used another set of binoculars to view the north shore.

  As they passed over a cluster of brick buildings in bad shape, Stevie asked the pilot to make a loop. She was studying those buildings as the kid said from the back, ‘‘Here’s something interesting, but it isn’t a warehouse.’’ He directed her, ‘‘Up about a quarter mile. Your side. Check out the water next to that ship!’’

  Dozens of dark shapes. Perhaps forty or fifty boats all tied together haphazardly, side-to-side, bow to stern, unlike any of the marinas they had flown over. She spotted it then—clear out in the group—a glow of electronic green in the water, the binoculars picking up warmth. The helicopter hovered.

  ‘‘That’s a lot of heat from below deck,’’ the kid said.

  ‘‘Where are we? What is that?’’ Stevie asked, pointing out the enormous cluster of shops and boats all tied together. The pilot informed her, ‘‘They’re the ones confiscated in drug busts and shit like that. The feds auction them off a couple times a year. A lot of ’em never sell. They end up rusting out there. Half of

  ’em are sinking.’’

  ‘‘Confiscated?’’ Stevie asked, her skin tingling. ‘‘As in the feds? INS?’’

  The pilot said, ‘‘DEA, INS, FBI. Those boats are never going anywhere. They call it the graveyard.’’

  Stevie shouted so loudly that both men grabbed for their headphones. ‘‘Get me down! Get me back to the station right now!’’

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  ‘‘Igotta tell ya,’’ LaMoia said to Boldt as both men hurried down the fire stairs at Public Safety two at a time, ‘‘I’m a little pissed at Lofgrin for taking so long with that chain. Seems to me he coulda had something for us this afternoon.’’

  ‘‘The chain takes a backseat to these fish scales,’’ a winded Boldt said, carrying the evidence bag containing the gang kid’s shoe in his left hand, while guiding himself with the banister in his right. LaMoia was suddenly leaping three stairs at a time. Youth! ‘‘Bernie’s a perfectionist. He isn’t going to speculate. It’s not in his nature. If he’s taking more time with the chain, then maybe that’s in our favor. Maybe he’s got something.’’

  ‘‘Wouldn’t count on it.’’

  In a perfect choreography, LaMoia beat Boldt to the landing and held the door open. Boldt ran through without missing a step. t

  ‘‘Gentlemen!’’ Bernie Lofgrin said, looking up from the middle of his two-million-dollar playground. Two assistants worked at a bench nearby. Lofgrin’s thick glasses leant him the nickname Magoo. He looked extraterrestrial with those eyes and the white lab jacket. Boldt passed him the evidence bag. ‘‘Need to know if we’re talking the same fish scales, Bernie. We’ve got a live one up in the Box.’’

  ‘‘A match,’’ LaMoia advised, ‘‘would put him with Jill and Jane Doe.’’

  ‘‘Iget the idea, Sergeant,’’ Lofgrin replied. Detectives tried to influence the lab’s findings by guiding and indicating where they wanted 338

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  the evidence to lead. Lofgrin rarely played that game, though detectives never stopped trying. They gave him the room to work and they kept their mouths shut, with Boldt twice reaching out to stop LaMoia from making any comment. Lofgrin always took his sweet time about it. To rush him was to get him talking; to get him talking was to suffer exasperatingly long explanations on a variety of subjects.

  He prepared two fish scales onto a glass slide—one from the earlier evidence, and one from the shoe just delivered. He began speaking before the slide was fully inserted into the microscope. ‘‘Was just about to return your call, Sergeant,’’ he said to LaMoia, though his attention remained on his equipment. ‘‘The reason we took so long on that chain that Dixie sent over was that we lifted a substance from a full third of the links. Ran a gas chromatograph on it—petroleum base—but couldn’t establish a product identification for you. Knew you’d want it.’’

  ‘‘Oil?’’ LaMoia asked.

  ‘‘It has the viscosity of old oil, to be sure. Nothing automotive. The graph was a mess of chemicals. Couldn’t get a clean enough sample for a good read. Because of its age maybe. We must have tried a dozen times or more, which accounted for the extra man-hours.’’ He leaned his head into the microscope and made adjustments on the focus.

  ‘‘Bingo!’’ he said, stepping aside. ‘‘Have a look.’’

  LaMoia moved to the microscope. He worked the focus. Nobody’s eyes focused the same as Lofgrin’s. ‘‘That’s a match!’’ he said excitedly. The fish scales tied their suspect to the Hilltop homicides.

  ‘‘Iconcur,’’ Lofgrin said.

  ‘‘The oil,’’ Boldt encouraged. He knew the man well enough to know the importance of this evidence—Bernie Lofgrin always dragged out the really good stuff.

  Lofgrin smiled at his old friend, letting Boldt know he was on the right track. ‘‘Grease, actually. Extremely heavy grease, used in winches, lifts. The substance that threw us off was nothing more than sea salt. Contaminated the hell out of our graphs.’’

  ‘‘Sea salt,’’ Boldt repeated. ‘‘Grease . . .’’ he mumbled. ‘‘And the

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  only place we can confirm the use of those chains was in the sweatshop.’’

  ‘‘Ergo,’’ Lofgrin said in his usual contemptuous tone, ‘‘that sweatshop isn’t in any cannery. It’s on some ship.’’

  ‘‘A trawler!’’ Boldt exclaimed.

  ‘‘An old trawler,’’ Lofgrin added. ‘‘If we’re going to explain these fish scales, it had to be in operation over twenty-five years ago.’’

  Boldt turned quickly on his heels and faced LaMoia. ‘‘Call in for backup. Two cars. Four uniforms. Have ’em waiting for us in the garage.’’

  ‘‘Where we going?’’ LaMoia asked, the two men already on their way out of the lab.

  ‘‘You’re welcome!’’ shouted an annoyed Lofgrin. He lived for compliments. Out in the hallway, at a full run, Boldt informed his sergeant,

  ‘‘We’re going to do the one thing we should have done a long time ago: We’re going to bluff.’’

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  AsStevieagonizedinbumper-to-bumpertrafficcausedbyaseries of weather-related accidents she left a long voice mail for Boldt, having no idea if he would ever get it. ‘‘Ithink I’ve found the ‘graveyard’ Melissa mentioned on the videos. It’s complicated. We need to talk. Leave a way on my voice mail for me to reach you. If I don’t hear from you, you’ll hear from me. I’m going to get you the evidence you need.’’ She hung up.

  Back at the KSTV studios, she collected a camcorder—

  lightweight and easy to use. She was on her way back down the hall when the night watchman caught her with a shout.

  ‘‘Ms. McNeal!’’

  She stopped and turned, impatient to her core.

  ‘‘Damn glad to see you! Security people be looking everywhere for you! Police and feds been calling every fifteen minutes! They lost track of you. You had better stay put ’til Ican hook you up with them again. They’re all pissed off.’’

  ‘‘Sure thing,’’ Stevie said. ‘‘You make the call.’’

  The man waved and turned into an office.

  Stevie took off at a run.

  With absolute certainty that she had found the sweatshop, it all began to add up for her: the darkness of Melissa’s video, that echoing, reverberating sound. A ship!

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  should have to relive Melissa’s hell in order to get Boldt the evidence he needed. No flashes of her life passing by, no nostalgia. She had a job to do. She was in her element.

  She parked in the back lot of a marine supply store a hundred yards east of the impound area and went off on foot, staying away from the water’s edge and electing to thread her way through two rows of boat storage that housed skiffs and rowboats and sailboats stacked five high on steel shelving and covered by a tin roof. The property included two warehouses—one for dry storage, the other a repair workshop, its northern boundary fenced off from the government impound by a rusted ten-foot chain-link fence that bore ancient NO TRESPASSING signs. Stevie moved carefully, shadow to shadow, alert for night watchmen or sentries, alert for any sign of activity that might confirm the existence of the sweatshop. At last she came to the end of the storage and tucked herself beneath the hull of a ski boat from where she had a view of the impound facility: dozens of rusting boats and ships, all tied one to the other in an unplanned confusion. Algae-green lines drooped and sagged toward the water like awkward smiles. A graveyard indeed. The ships were old ruins of rust and corrosion—fishing trawlers, small freighters, power cruisers, sailboats, tugs—all put into illegal service at some point: drug running, guns, human beings—a harsh and mechanical landscape overcome by decay and neglect. She saw no hint of life, no evidence of the sweatshop to film. A wooden gangway lay on the asphalt next to a barge, the only indication of a way up to the flotilla, but it would require at least a couple men to move it into place. The assortment of boats and ships was secured to pylons where seagulls slept with their heads tucked into their wings. See no evil . . . she thought. Past these, any semblance of order was lost, the boats tied together at random one to the other in a patchwork of fiberglass and metal and inflatable bumpers, most crippled and listing.

  However improbable, however unlikely, there was a sweatshop hiding among the carnage. Brian Coughlie had chosen well—the last place on earth one would expect the sweatshop, and a place under his professional control. The sweatshop. Melissa!

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  Reenvisioning what she had seen from the helicopter, she tried to locate the vessel rimmed in the electronic lime green of the binoculars. Somewhere in the middle of the pack she decided, resigned to getting out there. But in fact the aerial view did not translate well to a five-foot-seven-inch woman standing thirty yards away from the flotilla’s perimeter, the first obstacle to which was a chain-link fence. In junior high maybe, when gymnastics had been a regular part of each afternoon, but suddenly the ten-foot-high rusted wire fence looked insurmountable. Crouched beneath that ski boat, s
he heard a steady electrical hum. This hum meant electricity—electricity, power lines. The story slowly pieced together, her eyes found and followed a thick black cable that ran down a power pole at the farthest corner of the compound. The cable had been stuffed into the overgrowth to hide it, but it finally broke out of the bushes where it was tied to one of the massive rope lines that held the ships to the pilings, wrapped around the line like a fat snake. Stevie was no stranger to power cables, but as thick as her wrist, this one was clearly no simple ship-to-shore extension cord. This was some kind of major power supply—thousands of volts, like the one that fed KSTV’s control room.

  Big enough for a sweatshop, she thought. Big enough to follow. The camcorder strapped to her, she considered her choices: The barge was the lowest of all the waterfront boats, clearly the more easily scaled, but it also offered the most exposure. The tanker to the left, on the other hand, although harder to scale, offered good cover, and the loading net that hung from its side appeared scalable, if not precarious. She ran to the chain-link fence, exposed and vulnerable, the camcorder hanging at her back. Crossing that fence offered a finality for her. Once on the other side she was fully committed. But there was no moment of pause. Her fingers webbed tightly through the rusting wire and she pulled herself up, higher with each grasp. The fence wobbled and threatened to throw her off. She reached the top edge, a row of twisted wire spikes. Twice she tried to throw her right leg up and over. On her second attempt, the cellphone spilled from her coat pocket and

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  clapped loudly down onto the asphalt. Mistaking it for a gunshot, she vaulted the fence effortlessly, clawing her way down the other side and jumping the final four feet. The camera slapped her back as she landed. She froze, her knees throbbing, ears ringing. Her cellphone lay broken in pieces on the other side. So much for the cavalry. But there was no turning back.

  She hurried across the open wharf and into shadows thrown by the docked ships. Lightheaded, almost giddy, she felt like a teenager sneaking out of the house.