Beyond Recognition

by Ridley Pearson

  “We know a lot about him,” Ben said, impressed.

  “Yes, we do,” she answered. “But not what he’s up to.” She went through the small pile of articles they had clipped. “And I have a feeling that’s his biggest secret of all.”

  9

  When Liz voluntarily took the kids with her to the cabin for the weekend, Boldt knew he had trouble. Typically, she found the cabin too remote, too far from a doctor should the kids need one, and was bothered by being too far from the city and all its weekend treasures. Her more common complaint about the cabin was how cold it was, and in early October it was likely to deliver on that front. She had not called him at work, but instead had left him a note he couldn’t possibly receive until she and the kids were well on their way, the decision beyond discussion. That struck him as odd, completely unlike her—until he reached the part in the note where she suggested he “come up if you can get free.” Then he realized it was a test, a conspiracy, and it made all the sense in the world. He had a choice: his family or his job.

  Liz knew that when he sank his teeth into something like this arson case there was no letting go. These cases only came around once every two years or so, but she resented them more than when he had six domestic battery investigations running simultaneously, taking him away from home fifteen hours a day. It was almost as if she were jealous of these larger investigations, as if it stole something personal from her when he dove in like this.

  What really hurt was that he was going to fail the test. There was no way he could get up to the cabin for the weekend. Sunday night was going to be pins and needles on the home front. She would be angry, but with a smile pasted onto her face. He would feel guilty, but act casual and confident. He couldn’t wait.

  On the plus side, he had the house to himself. It didn’t happen that often, and when it did he felt as if she had handed him the greatest gift of all. The thought bubbled up then that perhaps she had gone to the cabin in sacrifice, knowing perfectly well how he valued quiet time during a difficult investigation. This made him feel all the worse because his first thoughts had been so negative. He reread her note one more time, hoping to find clarity there, but to no avail. Marriage was many things; easy was not one of them.

  He switched off the front porch light and put on an Oscar Peterson album. He sat down at the piano and played for the first time in several months, wondering why the great things in life were always the first to be sacrificed. He played roughly through the opening, reset the tone arm, and tried again.

  After twenty minutes with Oscar, Boldt went through his investigation notes, reading every line carefully.

  Boldt had good ears. A car pulled past his drive, slowed, and stopped. He went to the curtain and peered out: Daphne’s red sports car. She climbed out carrying her briefcase, not a good sign.

  He raced around, trying to pick up. A moment later he heard her footsteps on the back porch and opened the door for her.

  “You not answering your phone?”

  “Liz turns the ringers off—Sarah’s a light sleeper. Sorry.”

  “Your pager? Your cellphone?”

  “In the bedroom, along with my piece. I’ve had the music kinda loud,” he apologized. “Nothing intentional. Come on in.”

  “Liz?” She seemed hesitant to enter.

  “Took the kids to the cabin. It’s all right.” He motioned her inside.

  “It’s not all right,” she corrected, stepping inside, already down to business. “Today’s press conference was a disaster. Shoswitz talks too much! And then there’s this.” She reached into her briefcase and handed him a photocopy. “The original’s with the lab,” she informed him.

  Minutes later she was sitting across from him at the kitchen table, sipping from a glass of red wine. Boldt had a glass of juice. He reread the note silently another time before finally speaking. “Suddenly a flash of understanding, a spark that leaps across to the soul.” Several minutes had passed. “Sent to Garman?”

  She nodded gravely. “It’s Plato. Our boy is something of a scholar.”

  “Just now you’re on your way home?” he asked, dodging the issue a moment while he considered the consequences of the note. “It’s late for you.”

  “Garman delivered it unopened,” she informed him. “He knew what it was. He said he wanted to protect it as evidence.” She let him digest this a moment before saying, “I offered to bring it over.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Boldt said. He added, “I hate this, you know? I really hate it.”

  “Yes.”

  In her eyes he saw a deep-seated sympathy. They both understood perfectly well what this meant, but Boldt had no desire to voice it, as if by doing so might give it more weight. Nonetheless, his imagination fixed on the thought of another Dorothy Enwright out there, at home, minding her own business, about to come face to face with the gates of Hell. They had recovered only a single bone of her body. It seemed all but impossible.

  “Why?” Boldt asked Daphne, still withholding any mention of what this second note represented—another fire, another victim.

  “The fire or the note?” she asked.

  “Is there a difference?”

  “You bet there is.” She sipped the wine, though she didn’t seem to enjoy its taste. She looked a little less pretty all of a sudden, tired and under the same relentless pressure that Boldt found himself. Investigating a violent crime was one thing; anticipating and stopping such a crime, another thing entirely. With the arrival of the second note, their charge was to prevent a death. It was an undeserved burden—unwarranted in many ways—but inescapable. They had been here before, the two of them, and this went unmentioned as well, for lives had been lost; other lives changed forever, not the least of them their own.

  She continued, “The first note, as we discussed, could have been anything from a cry for help to a poorly timed coincidence. This note changes all that. Remember,” she cautioned, “this is only an opinion, an educated guess.”

  “I’m with you.”

  “These quotations are warnings, Lou.” Boldt felt a chill. “Forget the cry for help. He’s going to strike for a second time. By mailing them, he dated both poems, don’t forget. If I’m right, that means the fire is today or tonight. It’s immediate. He’s not giving Garman any time to figure this out. He warns; he strikes—which means that by the time the card arrives, he has already targeted his victim, perhaps even rigged the house to burn.”

  “Jesus!” Boldt expelled his breath. “With only one victim, we hardly have what could be considered a pattern.”

  “It’s premeditated, and he’s enjoying it. But his intended victim may not be the resident, don’t forget,” she warned. “May not even be human. He may be after the work of a particular architect, the structure itself that he’s trying to ‘kill.’ More likely, it could be Garman he’s after. The pressure you’re feeling—that I’m feeling, for that matter—may be solely intended for Garman. He’s a fire inspector, Lou. His evidence puts arsonists in jail. Revenge is potent motivation.”

  “Fidler is checking out Garman.”

  “Well, that will help,” she said, knowing Fidler’s reputation for detail.

  “I’ve got Bahan working the technical end, the chemistry of the arsons.” He sensed her unease. “What’s up?”

  “Firemen,” she answered. “Fidler, Bahan, Garman, all of them. Cops are one step away from being the bad guys—we’ve discussed this before—far too many of us are in it for the power. Present company excepted, of course. Firemen are no better. Putting out a fire is only one step away from setting it. In fact, as we both know, firemen set structure fires all the time to train the new boys. They love torching places.” She met his skeptical expression. “I’m generalizing, admittedly, but I don’t think even the firemen would argue this point too hard. My point being, if we’re looking for an arsonist, we might not have to look very far.”

  Boldt said inquisitively, “Who better than a fire inspector to go torching places and sending h
imself notes? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Anyone in turnouts, Lou. They all have the bug. How busy has this fire season been? How much budgetary pressure is on the department to start cutting costs? These things have to be answered. Who goes first if the cuts are made? He or she could be our torch.”

  “She?” Boldt asked.

  “Poison and fire, a girl’s best friends.”

  “Prior convictions and current firemen. Quite a list. Anyone else?” Boldt felt an impending urgency; the second note was like a fuse burning inside him. “What about victims? How do we stop a second death?”

  “How do we stop potential copycat fires?” she asked, avoiding an answer. Arsons were notorious for spawning copycats; it was something they all knew but no one wanted to discuss. “How do we ask the press to hold off to stop the chances of a copycat?” she asked rhetorically. “It can’t be done, Lou. Let’s hope we’ve got it wrong. Maybe there is no second fire. Maybe that first note wasn’t tied to Enwright. Who knows?” She added, “And if there is a second fire, a second victim, we don’t collapse under the weight, we don’t allow the city—or even the brass, for that matter—to run the investigation. It’s your case, Lou. Everyone should be grateful for that.”

  Pep talks and compliments, they traded them often. She seemed to sense when he most needed them. Their friendship had started that way. That it had developed into a single night of frantic sex six years earlier was their business and theirs alone. He had a line of sarcasm on the tip of his tongue, but he withheld it—she meant well enough. But just the fact that she would attempt to pump him up troubled him. It meant she was as scared about a second fire, a second victim, as was he.

  She added, in a frail voice that confirmed his concern, “No one wants a second victim. I’m not suggesting that.”

  Boldt had dealt with a peer of Daphne’s, a forensic psychiatrist from the East brought in to profile an earlier case. The man had once told Boldt, “The more they kill, the more we learn, the greater the chance we’ll catch them.” It had been one of those hard pieces of truth that Boldt wanted nothing to do with, yet it had lingered in the back of his mind. The psychiatrist was a strange man, but his message simple: An investigator could not afford to allow an increasing body count to kill the investigation over guilt and grief; he had to rise to the challenge and gather as much additional evidence as possible. He had to persevere.

  “We can put the fire department on alert,” Boldt suggested, trying to find something to do other than sit around and wait for another body to burn. “We can contact the Marshal Fives—the Arson Task Force—and ask them to pump their sources for information. This guy isn’t operating in a void.”

  She offered, “We’ve had a few calls from psychics wanting to sell us information. I haven’t followed up, but I’d like to.”

  Boldt winced. He had no room for psychics in his cases. “Not for me,” he reminded her.

  “I’d like to run with them. At least a follow-up.”

  “Your stuff, not mine.”

  “Don’t start with me,” she cautioned. “They may have something to offer. We take tips from junkies, Lou! Are you trying to tell me a psychic is less believable than a junkie?”

  “You handle the psychics,” he quipped. “I’ll take the junkies.”

  She fumed, exhaling heavily. Daphne rarely lost her cool. They sat in silence.

  She focused on the glass of wine, her long fingers running up and down the stem. She changed the subject, asking, “Did you catch the sound bite they ran in the news. Shoswitz threatening the arsonist?”

  “I caught it. They ran it on PLU.” Shoswitz was the lieutenant. He was terrible with the press, but there was no stopping him.

  “He may have baited him, Lou: ‘Madman … nut case.’ He even mentioned you by name.”

  “Lead detectives are often mentioned,” he reminded her, unconcerned.

  “In ongoing cases? It’s wrong. I wish he wouldn’t do that.”

  “The lieutenant dances to his own drums.”

  Boldt’s pager sounded. He and Daphne exchanged looks. There was danger in hers. They both knew it was a fire before Boldt ever made the phone call.

  10

  The brunette with the thin waist and the tight skirt was in the kitchen cleaning up from the popcorn, and Ben knew that she had to come through the living room to reach Jack, who was already waiting in the bedroom. She was a new one, brown hair pulled back with a hair band, less makeup than the others, thinner than most of the women he dragged back with him. Ben liked her. She had rented the video with him in mind. The movie was a little sappy, but Ben enjoyed what passed as a normal evening at home. Typically, the only normal things in his life were school and—after school—Emily.

  He wondered what better way to welcome her than to share his cherished death pose with her. He didn’t let just anybody see it.

  He positioned himself in the guy’s favorite chair, one of the ones with a handle that leaned way back and lifted your knees, and he hung his head over the arm, so that he stretched his neck and the blood ran into his face, turning it a bright red. Then he popped out his glass eye, carefully cupped it in his hand, and opened both his eyes in a deadman’s stare that he fixed on the bookshelf across the room.

  A minute later he heard the water stop and her footsteps approaching, and he spread his arms out so they were floppy, and he held in his breath so that his chest stopped moving.

  Her scream was loud enough that a neighbor called the police, and to make matters worse she peed in her pants, making a big dark stain in the crotch of her jeans. Jack had hold of Ben before Ben could settle her down, and all at once there was that unmistakable sound of his belt singing out of the loops, and Ben felt his world invert and then the belt started connecting with his butt and he thought maybe he’d be sick to his stomach. The girl, Jane? June? April?—Ben suddenly couldn’t remember—screamed even louder for the guy to stop, but that belt kept coming like a whip, and when the girl ran from the house the guy turned the belt around so that the buckle became part of the punishment. Somewhere in the ensuing nightmare, Ben threw up on the fancy chair, which only brought the belt down harder.

  When he had satisfied himself, Jack dropped Ben into the chair like a sack of potatoes, pushed his face into the vomit, and told him to clean up the mess or “face worse.” Ben was solid tears, but he hadn’t let out a peep—that was one of the rules.

  Maybe the cops saved his life—he thought later—because the knock on the door, followed by the strong voices announcing themselves, forced Jack to send Ben to his room rather than let Ben be seen. He pulled the boy by the hair to where his sweating face nearly touched Ben’s tearstained cheeks, and he spoke in a dry, forced whisper. “Out of here. And not a sound!”

  Ben could barely move, his butt was so raw, but he flew up those stairs nonetheless. He heard one of the cops say something about a complaint from a neighbor; the cops wanted a look around. “We gotta check something like this out,” the unfamiliar voice explained.

  Ben understood his situation clear as day. One, in his condition he couldn’t let himself be discovered by the cops; Jack could get in big trouble, which would only mean more beatings. Two, the guy was sure to kill him once the cops were gone.

  He opened his window and went out the familiar route, along the roof—quietly!—over to the tree off the kitchen, and down through the limbs. His butt was a source of blinding, nauseating pain. With a deep inhale of the cool night air, he felt free—the most amazing, most welcome feeling of all.

  For the walk to Emily’s, Ben, slow on his feet and unable to run even if he had wanted to, stayed off Martin Luther King, sticking to back streets. He did not think of Seattle as a dangerous place, and he was not afraid of the dark, but his temporary disability from the whipping, and his blind eye, left him with an acute sense of vulnerability and uneasiness.

  The air smelled faintly of the sea and strongly of bus fumes. The sky glowed vividly from the brightness of down
town. The constant hum of engines and the whine of tire rubber played out like a chorus of summer insects. A ferry horn bellowed. The city. The Seattle he would have known even blindfolded.

  Emily’s house was dark, the neon window sign switched off, and he was loath to roust her, loath to admit on any level that his existence with the guy was untenable, that the time to offer evidence against the guy had long since passed. That the time had come. His fear was not of pain or reprimand but of being alone. Not of loneliness but aloneness. He felt sorry for himself. She had told him that for a time he would be in the care of the state, and nothing scared him more. She had told him she would rescue him from their care and provide for him and nourish him and love him, and though he trusted her intentions he remained skeptical of the process. Of the system. He feared desertion. His mother had run away without a word.

  Briefly, the truth clanged inside his chest, as it did on occasion: His mother would never have left him behind.

  He climbed the cedar tree, past the sitting limb, and up to the platform—six boards nailed between two old boughs, each capable of supporting a car. He had a more complete tree fort behind his own house, but this platform at Emily’s was a safer refuge given the trouble he’d caused. He lay down on the platform keenly aware of his wounds and curled himself into a ball, where he hugged himself until he fell fast asleep, pulled down into the drowsiness of a body and mind in need of repair. Of escape. Sucked down into a dream that turned nightmare: his own inescapable existence.

  11

  Behind the incessant pulse of emergency vehicle lights, Boldt and arson investigator Neil Bahan waited for the site to cool enough for them to walk it. Boldt had a borrowed helmet and turnout jacket. He wore his waterproof hiking boots.

  They had been waiting four hours by the time the Marshal Five inspector entered the remains of 876 57th Street North. Accompanying him was Steven Garman, who had arrived by the second of the four alarms.