The Angel Maker lbadm-2

by Ridley Pearson

  Three roads, six turns and two logging roads later, he was driving alongside the south bank of the North Fork of the Tolt River, trying to remember where it was that the road fell away toward the river steeply enough that he could launch the cadaver in order to get it near the bank. Right along here somewhere

  Suddenly he noticed the enormous number of tracks in this road-a deep-woods logging road that only saw a minor amount of traffic, even in the peak of October's hunting season. It struck him as strangely curious. Then just as quickly he realized he had reached the perfect spot. The tire tracks widened here, spreading all over the road, and it took another second or two for him to realize that there had been dozens of vehicles parked here, and by the look of those tracks, quite recently.

  Then he saw the bright orange tape stretched between several consecutive trees, with the boldly printed warning: KING COUNTY POLICE DEPT.-DO NOT CROSS Instinctively, he slammed on the brakes. The Trooper's wheels locked and the back end skidded out of control. His heart pounded ferociously in his chest. The vehicle drifted toward the edge of the road, toward the trees and the steep incline. He could just imagine himself getting the car stuck right here, a dead man in the back. Once again, his reactions were well behind his thoughts. He released the brakes, over-corrected the wheel, applied some gas, and lost the tail end once again. it slid so far to the left that it smacked into, and bounced off of, one of the trees, actually breaking the police tape from this tree. He saw the tape flapping like a flag in the rearview mirror. His only saving grace was that there was no one here. They had packed up and left. He did manage one quick glimpse of the area below, just enough to confirm his fears-the entire area was excavated, including one massive hole, the location of which he recognized.

  All this brought back memories, rushing as quickly as the dangerous waters of the river below. This grave was The Secret that Maybeck had held over him these last four years. Tegg could recall the day with an alarming vividness.

  Anna, unaware of her mistake, had neglected to latch one of the dog pens. Unlike Pamela, who had all the right instincts, Anna could never get close to the dogs, could never "speak their language," could not control them by tone of voice and attitude. She had been attacked from the back, while Tegg was out of earshot. And by the time he did hear, it was too late. Or was it? he remembered thinking at the time. The most important part of her had survived. Could he waste that?

  After the harvest, he had to dispose of what was left of her or face unanswerable questions. He had driven out here with her body, selecting a burial site that assured him what he thought was complete privacy and, being near the water, promised a quick and thorough decay. What he had mistakenly overlooked on that day was the construction of a highvoltage power line nearly a mile away. A young man named Donald Maybeck had been atop one of those tall towers, performing labor for Norwest Light and Power, looking out over this most secluded of spots.

  A streetwise Maybeck, sensing easy money, quickly drove to this site rather than to the police, and confronted Tegg, offering to remain silent for a price. That uneasy partnership had continued to this very day.

  And now, The Secret had been dug up by the police! Maybeck's doing? Had he cut a deal with the police?

  For the next few minutes Tegg drove fast, putting as much distance between himself and that site as he could manage, as if hoping to drive away from his past. Later, he didn't remember the driving or the turns he had made, just that gaping hole in the riverbank. He refused to backtrack; he didn't know the area well enough and he got himself lost several times trying to find an alternative route. There were so many thoughts banging around his brain, so many internal voices arguing that he couldn't hear himself think, couldn't sort them out. Every thought an explosion. Every conceivable explanation terrifying.

  Somewhere along the way he had rolled all the windows up, leaving himself enveloped in the nauseating smell of the decaying body. He pulled off the road, hurried into the bushes, and vomited. From the odor or from nerves? He couldn't remember vomiting in the last twenty years. What was happening to him? He didn't know himself anymore.

  And what about that thing in the back? he asked himself.

  Maybe a bonfire was the answer after all.

  Boldt, carrying Miles in the sling, found Shoswitz on the third floor of an old brick ice-house that had been converted into The Body Shop, a fitness center that provided everything from a lap pool to high-tech game rooms. It was located only a few blocks away from Bloodlines, and Boldt couldn't help but think about the donor agency and the parade of twenty-eight young victims who had passed through its doors. SPD had a contractual agreement with The Body Shop that allowed cops and civilian employees a discounted rate to use the facilities. Boldt passed a weight room crowded with the after-work set, grunting and sweating. Young, finely tuned women wearing Day-Glo Lycra like a second skin. He passed a step-aerobics class, voyeuristically pausing to watch. These people looked too good to be working out. He was the one who needed the aerobics, but he wouldn't be caught dead in a T-shirt and gym shorts in the company of people in this kind of shape.

  He came here, armed with the most recent information and evidence, to seek Shoswitz's help. The lieutenant, ever skeptical of the harvester investigation, and always politically sensitive to his own position in the department, would not be an easy sell. All that Boldt needed was for the man to place a single phone call. It had to be made by Shoswitz because only he had the necessary contact inside U.S. Immigration. But to ask him outright to make that call was certain to fail. Boldt had to trick him; he had to lead him into it. He had to make Shoswitz offer to make the call.

  On the third floor, alongside an office door marked Private, were three doors, each individually marked in computer graphics: GOLF, TENNIS, and BASEBALL. He didn't have to guess behind which one he would find Phil Shoswitz. He knocked and entered, stopping abruptly. The room was small and dark. He was standing on the playing field at Yankee Stadium. The Yankee Stadium. A series of surround screens filled his vision, the rich green playing field seemingly stretching for acres, the spectator stands rising into the imaginary sky. The player, Shoswitz, stood inside a chain-link wire box that had been painted black so you couldn't see it well in the relative darkness. A pitcher surprisingly real-stood out on the mound. "Oh, it's you," the helmeted Shoswitz said, looking impossibly foolish. "What's-a-matter, never seen this before? The Japs are geniuses. They call it virtual reality. That's Tommy John out there. Or at least his stats. And that's the real Yankee Stadium." He tripped a button on the floor. The pitcher on the mound wound up and delivered the pitch. A hardball came flying through an unseen hole in the projection screen. Boldt jumped aside, not realizing the chain-link fence would have stopped the ball if Shoswitz hadn't connected well. The sound of bat against ball made Miles jump, but, surprisingly, he didn't cry. A born fan. The ball flew toward the screen's projections, hit a net, and fell to the floor with a thud. Simultaneously, the image of a baseball in the same trajectory was picked up in the screen. it flew in an arc into shallow left field where it dropped and rolled. "Base hit," Shoswitz announced proudly. The roar of approval from fifty thousand electronic fans filled unseen speakers. A scoreboard far in the distance registered the hit, as a base-runner reached first base and removed his batting gloves. "Japs are incredible, aren't they? You ever seen the golf?"

  "Saw it in a movie once."

  "Fuckin' incredible. You can field, too. You know, play a position like shortstop. Genius. You don't catch any hits, but when you throw the ball, the screen registers how accurate you were. This time of year, the weather like it is, this thing keeps you polished-know what I mean?"

  "Can we put it on pause or something?" Miles caught Boldt by the lip and tugged. "You kidding? You know what they hit me up for this-above and beyond my regular fees? A good chunk of change, kiddo. No way. I'll keep hitting. You talk if that's what you came for."

  "Please?"

  "No fucking way. Talk." He tripped the button on
the floor and hit a foul ball. "You can change pitchers if you like. Stadiums too. But I love the old Yankee Stadium, don't you?" "No thanks," Boldt said, misunderstanding this as an invitation and not knowing the names of more than two or three pitchers, most of them hopelessly out of date. "The bones we dug up alongside the Tolt River have been positively identified as those of a woman named Anna Ferragot-"

  "Old news, Lou. What's your point? I'm busy here." He turned and eyed Miles like an unwelcome guest. "Lamoia just got a peek at Anna Ferragot's state tax records." That caused Shoswitz to turn his head-such records were not easy to come by. Boldt continued, "For the two years prior to her disappearance, Anna Ferragot was employed by the Tender Care Animal Clinic."

  Shoswitz swung and missed. The ball crashed loudly into the protective cage. Shoswitz gave Boldt an angry look. Boldt didn't like competing with a batting machine, but this couldn't wait until morning. Sharon Shaffer had less than forty-eight hours. Her chances of survival diminished with every passing hour.

  Boldt reminded, "The suture? Dixie's pathology report? Did you happen to read that?" Miles leaned forward, groping for the cage. "Where are you going with this?"

  "Going? Veterinarians!

  Tender Care Animal Clinic. The suture used in the harvests points to a veterinarian; so does the use of Ketamine."

  "This same suture is used in every hospital in this county. Animal and human. Do you read your own reports?"

  "But the size of the suture indicates a vet. And Ketamine is never used on adults." "The effects of Ketamine were broadcast into the homes of thirty-five million Americans. Listen, it's good police work, Lou. I'm not knocking that. I think we put a vet at the top of our list. But none of this proves anything. You want to talk to the people at this Tender Care Animal Clinic about Anna Ferragot, I got no problem with that. But talk is all, until and unless you have something more. We're not going to get a search-and-seizure based on this." He swung and missed again. "You're fucking with my average here, damn it all. Are we through here? if not, get to the point!"

  He couldn't get to the point. That was the point! He had to take it step-by-step, leading the lieutenant into his trap.

  Shoswitz tripped the pitching switch. A ball flew at him. He fouled into the stands.

  Boldt and his son waited him out. Some guy in the stands to the far left was wandering the aisles selling either hot dogs or popcorn. It made Boldt hungry. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten a real meal. He hadn't seen Liz-awake-since their encounter at The Big joke, although a mostly form letter about her meeting with the IRS, a meeting he had missed, had been left for him on the kitchen table. Between back taxes and penalties, they owed the IRS seventy-three hundred dollars. For them, in their present financial condition, it might as well have been a million. He intended to talk to the credit union as soon as possible.

  Shoswitz struck out. He flashed Boldt an angry look and asked, "How many vets in this Tender Care clinic?"

  "Four years ago note that the date coincides exactly with the disappearance of Anna Ferragot there were three partners in the practice. They broke it up. Two of them went their separate ways. Three clinics now: Tender Care, Lakeview Animal Clinic and North Main Animal Center." /'So if you're right about this-and there's no saying you are-the cutter could be one of those three vets. So you and Lamoia nose around a little. You shake them up. I just told you: I have no problem with that."

  "Asking questions isn't going to do any good. I need to kick the place. I need to locate a pair of snippers that did both Anna Ferragot and Peter Blumenthal. That's our hard evidence, Phil. That's our way to lock this guy up, to stop him while Sharon Shaffer is still alive.@' Shoswitz stopped batting. He asked, "Were Ferragot's tax records obtained legally?"

  "You know they weren't. A formal request to the IRS can take weeks. We don't have weeks." "They're your only link to this animal clinic, I take it. So in point of fact, you've got zilch." Shoswitz tripped the pitching switch again. High and inside. He swung and missed.

  For no reason at all, Miles shrieked at the top of his lungs.

  Shoswitz scowled. "Look at it this way," Boldt said amiably.

  "You can blame all your strikes on Miles and me."

  "Don't think I won't." Shoswitz hit a grounder past third and seemed pleased with it. Boldt played with his son's fingers attempting to distract him. Shoswitz wanted them out of there. Good. He took his foot off the pitcher's switch, turned to Boldt, and said, "You've been away from this too long, Lou. You've gone soft. What's the next step? Think about it." The lecture mode. Perfect. "You need warrants, right? Either that or you're talking about bringing these vets in and chatting them up, and we both agree that's no good. Am I right? So if you're going to — get paper on this, you've got to have probable cause, you've got to have a nice clean chain of evidence. And what have you got? You've got squat! Some suture? Some drug that's been on 60 Minutes! Come on! Four-year-old skeletal remains? What? Exactly which judge were you going to take this to? Or maybe you intended to run it by Bob Proctor, our broom-up-theass prosecuting attorney. You know what Bob would do? He'd laugh you right out of that office! Swear to God."

  As Soswitz turned to face the plate, Boldt smiled behind his back. Daphne had coached him on how to handle the lieutenant: "Let him be right. Let him tell you what you need." Boldt said, "We have those tool markings linking the victims. If we could only raid all three vet clinics at the same time … If we come up with the surgical shears responsible for those tool markings, we've got a conviction."

  "You're ahead of yourself," Shoswitz advised. "It's a Catch-22, Lou. You need those shears in order to obtain the necessary warrants to find those shears.

  Come on! You can't conduct search-and-seizures based on hunches.

  I shouldn't have to be telling you this. We shouldn't be having this conversation. I'm saving you from eating a lot of crow. You know that?"

  He swung again. Cracked one way the hell out there. The automated crowd let — out a deafening cheer. "But you see how close we are?" Boldt encouraged. "What more do we need?" "You're close, yes, but you're not there. You need a witness-an employee, maybe." Boldt heaved a sigh of relief. He was so close now. A little more … "What about those numbers in the database?" Shoswitz; asked. "Were they flight numbers as you suggested? Maybeck and that database-now there is some good evidence. Fuckin' judges and juries just love anything to do with computers. Can you link that to any of these vets? You do that, you're one step closer."

  This was the reason for Boldt's being here. Without knowing it, Shoswitz had stepped into the trap. "Each of the four-digit numbers that are unique to the laptop database corresponds to a Northwest Airlines international flight that originates in Vancouver, B.C. Over a dozen flights, but to only two countries: Argentina and Brazil. Both are known markets for donor kidneys. The fact that all the flights are with the same two carriers indicates …"

  "A courier," the lieutenant answered. "A flight attendant, a pilot. Someone hand-carrying the organs for them." Shoswitz lost interest in the baseball.

  Boldt felt his skin prickle. So close now. "Exactly. They arranged and kept track of the flights well ahead of schedule because time is an issue with these organs."

  "If we identify this courier, you've got your witness. We just might bust this thing."

  Boldt could hear the door of his trap slamming shut. Shoswitz was starting to see front-page headlines. "Close, but no cigar," Boldt said.

  Shoswitz considered this challenge. He said, "There may be two couriers. One transporting the organs between here and Vancouver and then passing the thing off to a second who carries it onto an international flight. The international courier would never know the harvester's identity."

  "The harvester — remains insulated," Boldt agreed. "But more importantly, they get the organ to someone who is acceptable for bringing in an organ. Flight crew personnel courier UNOS organs all the time. Passengers never do."

  "Which means we need this other courier the o
ne making the trips between Seattle and Vancouver. "It would be a courier, wouldn't it? if they shipped the organs, they'd leave a paper trail."

  "Agreed."

  Abandoning the bat, Shoswitz tripped some buttons. The screen died, and the lights came on. Compared to Yankee Stadium, this room was tiny. Shoswitz looked foolish in his batting helmet and scuffed wing tips.

  Boldt explained quickly, "We need to identify any passenger who is making roundtrips to Vancouver on the dates of the harvests. We're lucky there because the dates are in the database."

  Shoswitz was catching on. He said, "You've already done this, haven't you?"

  "We ran Maybeck's name first-I was all but positive that he was the courier. He was the one with the laptop, with the database, but I was wrong. We came up blank. It's not Maybeck. We ran the names of the three vets-also blank. I want to run the names of the employees at all three clinics next past and present-through the air carrier manifest lists, but it's an enormous job. Dozens of carriers dozens of dates. It's a logistical nightmare."

  "Is it even possible?

  The courier would travel under a different name each time, wouldn't he? Pay cash. Travel light."

  "Not different names we're lucky there. SEATAC to Vancouver is international--@you have to show legal identification. That helps." Massaging his elbow, Shoswitz asked, "What about driving?"

  "It takes too long. Every hour counts with these organs." You're warm, Boldt wanted to say. "Checking flight manifests for a name common between them? How many carriers between here and Vancouver? A dozen? More? How many flights a day? Fifty? Sixty? How long to cross-check them all? Jesus! A week? A month? I'd say Anna Ferragot died for nothing. We're no fucking closer." Shoswitz; displayed the same frustrations that Boldt had felt. Daphne had anticipated this. According to her, this was the turning point. "Impossible," Shoswitz mumbled.