No Witnesses

by Ridley Pearson

  “If you had those kinds of powers, you’d be wearing a turban, not a badge.”

  The table was set for four—but it looked like breakfast, not dinner. It looked as if someone had reset the table ready for a morning that never came. The stove top was clear and there were dishes inside the dishwasher that would be analyzed by the lab.

  The two bathrooms, downstairs and upstairs, were ugly. People had been real sick, and in the end no one had taken the time to clean up. Boldt could imagine them awakening with bad stomachs—first the kids, then the parents. Two to six hours after the meal, Dixie had told him. And as the reaction worsened, the parents would have become scared, would have discussed the idea of the hospital. Guts wrenching. Children screaming from the pain in their abdomens. He could not imagine that kind of fear—that moment when one of them realized they all had it—whatever it was. Projectile vomiting. Diarrhea. Slamming headaches. The father or mother running for the car. Thinking about 911, but deciding they could make it themselves …

  But they did not make it.

  On the very top of the tin-can recycle bag in the pantry, Boldt found two crushed cans of Adler’s Homestyle Hash. Evidence for Lofgrin’s ID crew that would follow into here shortly.

  Here was a crime scene that seemed bound to hit the press. The deaths of an entire family could not be contained. Boldt was already working on a believable story that Dixie and State Health could feed the media. The family was believed to have eaten out at a restaurant, as yet unidentified. “The symptoms observed in the deceased do not conflict with those found in other E. coli contaminations.” At face value, the truth. The only way he could see of keeping the real truth from the public in order to protect it from even more such poisonings. The Seattle community was numb enough from earlier E. coli contaminations to accept the explanation. He could not buy forever with such a story, but a few days—a week if he were lucky.

  The girls’ bedroom—he could see that they shared the room—devastated him. A Raggedy Ann doll sitting in a low wicker chair. It was the way the bed linen was folded back—a mother helping her child out of bed. But they were out of bed. Dixie’s office had them in black plastic bags, zippered down the middle. Their breakfast table was set, but within a few minutes, breakfast would be in plastic, too.

  Boldt had tried to help an injured sparrow once as a child, but it had struggled in his hand, and he had broken its neck and it had died. He remembered holding it outstretched in his open palms and tossing it into the air, encouraging it to fly. Picking it up and tossing it, until his mother, weeping, caught up to him and stopped him.

  Though she had tried to convince him otherwise, he had killed it trying to help—and this was how he felt now as he sank down to the floor of this small pink room and pushed the door shut in a vain attempt to make his peace.

  Striker arrived late, looking and smelling a little drunk. Waving his pager at Boldt, he slurred, “Fucking thing’s a piece of shit.”

  “It’s him,” Boldt said, indicating the house.

  “Mr. Caulfield’s work?”

  “Right.”

  Striker said, “For what it’s worth, I think all women are shit.”

  “Another Adler product. Hash this time.” Boldt realized he was not getting through.

  “They yank your chain. They mess with your brain.”

  “A family of four. All four died, Razor.”

  Striker’s prosthesis clicked violently. “Died?” He was only half there.

  “All four. Waited too long before going to the emergency room. The mother did okay for a while, but they lost her. They say grief, maybe. They say it can do that.”

  “The wrong people always die,” Striker complained. “You know what I’m saying?”

  “No,” Boldt answered honestly.

  “Well, fuck you,” Striker said. He passed Boldt, intentionally bumping him with his shoulder, and went inside the house. Boldt waited fifteen minutes under a low, overcast sky that threatened rain. A gang of uniformed patrolmen held back the reporters and cameramen. He heard the words E. coli on the tongues of the spectators. So far, so good, Boldt thought, growing accustomed to the lies, and hating himself for it.

  “Stinks in there,” Striker said on his return. “Same old, same old.”

  “We need a mug shot or file photo of Caulfield. Department of Corrections should have one.”

  “You don’t need me for that.”

  “It would be easier. I want everything they have on Caulfield, and I’d rather they don’t connect the request directly with me or the fifth floor. Your office makes those requests all the time.”

  “I’ll have it for you by morning.” Striker made a note. It was the first sign of sobriety.

  “Been hoisting a few, Razor?”

  “Hey, I’m not on call. Shit, Elaine’s never home. Why not?”

  “Just don’t go picking any fights.” Striker had a reputation for challenging thirty-year-olds to one-handed fights—and winning. And sometimes there was no challenge. Just an explosion, and Striker was on someone.

  “Well, there he is,” he said, noticing Danielson glaring at Boldt from the parked car. “That warrant must have done the trick, huh?”

  “Which warrant?” Boldt asked. “Holly MacNamara?”

  “The klepto? Hell no. I mean his. Danielson’s. The W-2s on Longview Farms. I had to bitch and scream to get you those. Fucking tax boys have assholes as tight as squirrels’.”

  Boldt did his best to hide his shock. He looked away, as if still interested in the house. “The W-2s,” he repeated.

  “Right. Going after the Longview employees. That’s how you got Caulfield’s name. Right? And all thanks to yours truly. And Danielson, too, maybe—or was he just your go-boy on that?” He poked Boldt a little too hard with his metal claw. “You can thank me. I won’t complain.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Razor.” Boldt’s words barely left his mouth.

  “You don’t have to sound so overjoyed,” Striker stabbed sarcastically.

  “No. I appreciate it. Really,” Boldt said, sounding stronger, his attention focused across the lawn on Daniel-son’s profile. “The Longview tax records,” he repeated.

  “Damn straight. You ought to try going up against the tax boys sometimes. It ain’t all fun and games, believe me.”

  Boldt had LaMoia drive him downtown. He left the car before it came to a full stop and hurried to the door with the detective shouting loudly from behind him, “Wait up!”

  Boldt was not waiting. He took the stairs two at a time, descending into the basement. He had his key out for the Boneyard before reaching the door. Through the door, then the chain-link gate. He found the light switch without looking.

  Several long strides down the second aisle, around the corner to the shelf so familiar to him. C-A-U-

  And there it was: the arrest file for Harold Emerson Caulfield. Exactly where it belonged.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Armed with a variety of mug shots, including those of Harry Caulfield that had been given to her by Boldt, Daphne approached Holly MacNamara the following Friday morning before the young woman left for summer school.

  Holly was dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and black running shoes. The mother continually tried to push herself on them, and to prevent her from interfering, Daphne and the young woman sought privacy in Holly’s bedroom. The walls were covered with posters of grunge bands. The bed was on the floor, and the room smelled of incense.

  “You see what I live with?” she asked Daphne.

  “Mothers can be harsh,” Daphne agreed.

  “Yeah?”

  “My mother was a real jerk when I was in high school. She thought I was going to get pregnant and become a junkie.”

  “You?”

  “Me,” she answered. She placed the first series of mug shots in front of the girl, withholding Caulfield’s for the third or fourth group. She wanted to get her acquainted with the process before risking their prize. But more than that, she wanted to h
elp this young woman if possible.

  Holly MacNamara studied them all carefully, picked one of them up, placed it down, and shook her head. “Not here,” she said.

  “The thing is,” Daphne told her, “the more time I spent at home, the worse it was, because it seemed like everything I did was wrong. My mother wanted me to be her cute little girl. She couldn’t handle that I had breasts and my period, and that I was curious to find out what drinking beer was like.” None of this reflected her high school years in the least, but she had studied the Holly MacNamaras and she thought she knew the general situation well enough to establish a rapport.

  “Talk to me.”

  “Same with you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Daphne laid out another set of four mug shots. “How about these?” she asked.

  Holly was not looking at the photographs, but at Daphne instead. “The thing is, she never lets up. And all I want is for her to chill and give me some space. You know? She doesn’t have a clue who I am.”

  “Maybe a clue,” Daphne said, “but not much of one.”

  “Exactly.”

  Daphne indicated the photos for a second time, and Holly studied them carefully—perhaps more carefully, Daphne hoped, than had they not had this conversation.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Holly said.

  “Make sure.”

  “No. Definitely not.”

  Daphne picked up these, but waited before placing down the next, for the photo of Harry Caulfield was among these. She said, “I volunteer at the Shelter—”

  “The place for runaways?”

  “Yes. A close friend of mine is the spokesperson, and I put in about eight hours a week there—evenings mostly. Have you ever considered volunteer work?”

  “Me?”

  “I know it’s not the same as hanging out at the mall, as hanging out with your friends. But the girls are about your age—closer to your age than mine, that’s for sure—and more than anything, they need contact with people, they need to find a base, to get themselves centered again. Volunteers do everything from serve meals to change beds to just sit around talking. What I was thinking—you’re kind of in a bad scene here. Your sentencing requires you to stay home, but this is where a lot of your problems seem to stem from. What if I could convince the judge to allow you to spend some time volunteering at the Shelter? Maybe the same hours I’m there—at least at first. Would you have any interest in that?”

  “I could try it.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  Holly studied Daphne’s face. “Yeah, that’s a yes.”

  “Good,” Daphne said, grinning.

  She laid out the next series of mug shots. First one, then the second, then Harry Caulfield, then a fourth. “What about these?” She watched the girl’s face carefully, as Holly’s eyes moved progressively down the row. When she reached Caulfield, her eyes widened and she bit her lip. Then, without saying anything, she looked at the fourth in the line.

  “Let me ask you something,” Holly MacNamara said. Daphne nodded. “If I did recognize this guy—not that I’m saying I do—then I become involved, right? I become a snitch.” Her voice changed, driven by anger. “You know how much trouble I’ve gotten in because someone ratted on me? Do you know what that feels like? And now you expect me to rat on some guy? Do you see anything wrong with this picture?”

  “I’m going to tell you something that I’m not allowed to tell you. I’m going to tell you because I trust you never to repeat it. If you were to repeat it, you could get me in some serious shit—maybe even cost me my job—it’s that secret. I don’t know you well, Holly, but I like you—and this is one time I had better be a good judge of character.” She hesitated, to allow this to sink in. “I know what you’re saying about snitching. I think I understand where you’re coming from. And I can see how it would be hard for you. Especially if you were turning in a shoplifter. Shoplifting is nothing to be proud of, Holly, but I can see how that would be difficult for you. But the person we’re after is not a shoplifter.” Caulfield stared back at her from the mug shot. He was clean-shaven, dark eyes, with an average face of average looks. He was Mr. Anybody. He might have been a waiter, or an attorney, or a cop. Dark hair, a firm jaw line, and strong eyes. He was a multiple murderer, and he seemed to be looking right at Daphne with an expression of smug contempt and hatred. I hate you all, his eyes said.

  Daphne continued, “The man we’re after is no shoplifter. He killed a boy young enough to be your little brother. He killed a family of four—two little girls and their parents. He’s put other people in the hospital. He has threatened much worse, and we take those threats very seriously. We believe time may be running out—and we need to know if we’re after the right person or not. We have a suspect, but no one that we know of has seen him but you. If you are able to identify him, then we know where to focus our investigation. We just may stop him in time.” She pointed back to the line of mug shots. “Do you see him, Holly? Is he any of these men?”

  Without any indecision, Holly MacNamara reached down and picked up the photograph of Harry Caulfield. “This is the man I saw at Foodland.”

  Bernie Lofgrin’s magnified eyeballs looked fake, like a pair of joke glasses won at the ringtoss at an amusement park. His office was crowded with stacks of reading material and reports vying for chair seats and rising like teetering skyscrapers from the office floor. A cup of steaming coffee sat by the phone and he waved a Bic pen in the air as if it were a baton.

  Boldt set the jazz tapes down on the man’s cluttered desk, moved a stack of printed matter, and took a seat across from him.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Lofgrin said, holding the cassettes close to his face so he could read the titles that Boldt had written on them. “Uh-huh,” he muttered and repeated with each new discovery, quite pleased. “You’re a man of your word,” he said. Peering more closely, he added enthusiastically, “‘Jumping Off a Clef!’ Chet Baker! And Red Rodney, too! Terrific.” Lofgrin liked the trumpet.

  “An added bonus for my tardiness,” Boldt said.

  “You mind?” Lofgrin got up, shut the office door, and put the trumpet tape into a boom box and turned it on, setting the volume low. For Boldt the jazz improved his mood immediately, and he was glad it was as familiar to him as it was, because it did not distract him, stealing his attention the way unfamiliar music did.

  “We checked out all three ATMs last night. No latents. No evidence whatsoever.”

  While Boldt had been investigating the poisoning of the Mishnov family, three ATMs had been hit for another twenty-eight hundred dollars. Again, Boldt’s surveillance team had been nowhere near the ATM locations hit. Bernie Lofgrin’s forensic sciences squad had dusted for prints and inspected the sites for any other evidence.

  Lofgrin said, “One thing bothers me … We’ve seen four ATMs hit, right? And according to ATM security people, some fifty percent of the machines are equipped with optical surveillance—cameras. So is this extortionist of yours just lucky or what?”

  “It bothers me, too, Bernie.”

  “It gives you the feeling someone’s got a hand in your back pocket—know what I mean?”

  “I know exactly what you mean. I’ve got some ideas.”

  “I get the hint. We’ve got other things to discuss.”

  “The Longview Farms evidence,” Boldt reminded as Lofgrin sat back down.

  “We focused on that basement room, as you asked. Worked closely with the fire marshal, Peter Kramer, and also Fergus in their lab because a total burn is really its own science. And there is a lot of work yet to go, I’m afraid, some of which we’ve shipped off to Washington, thanks to your agreement with the Bureau boys. There just isn’t a hell of a lot left after a fire like that. Where we got lucky is that the workbench under which all these boxes were stored was topped with sheet metal. The weight of the collapsing building, combined with the limited protection of this layer of sheet metal, compressed the contents of some of the boxes,
and there just wasn’t enough oxygen for it all to burn. So we have small clusters of flaky carbon, kind of like the layers of French pastry—extremely fragile, sensitive still to oxygen, and yet basically intact. We shipped a lot of this off to the Bureau because we want to get it right, and evidence this volatile only allows you one shot. Exposed to air, it literally turns to dust before you can work with it.”

  “How long?”

  “The Bureau is thorough. They can, and have, taken weeks to get back to us. I’d say two weeks is average. We’ve asked for a rush, but everyone does, so I doubt it means much. They do know about the case, though, and that helps. My guess is that it will get some kind of priority, which may mean a week or ten days if we’re lucky.”

  “We don’t have ten days.”

  “I understand,” Lofgrin said sympathetically. “I’m just being upfront with you. It’s out of my hands.”

  “So we wait?”

  “For the real detail work, we do. The specifics that may turn this thing on its ear. Oh, check this riff!” He leaned back. A pair of trumpets soared on an unpredictable harmony and fluttered to a gentle landing. Lofgrin sighed, as if he had just finished a good meal. “What we have for you is not the best news,” the lab man said, sitting forward again. “The boxes beneath that workbench contained varying sizes of thin sheets of paper. Printed matter. Color, probably.”

  “Labels,” the detective said.

  “Yeah, labels, I’m thinking. But who knows? Could be any printed matter—church programs, political flyers. We didn’t get a good look at any of them because of the decomposition during oxidation, and that’s what we’re hoping for by sending them out: some kind of positive identification for you to work with.”

  Boldt took notes despite the knowledge that Bernie Lofgrin would provide him with a copy of the preliminary report. Lab reports were overly technical and therefore difficult to interpret.

  “As far as you’re concerned, the most disturbing news was the detection of strychnine.”