Beyond Recognition

by Ridley Pearson

  On the second floor of the open house, in a storage room left dark, a police photographer operated a pair of 35-mm Nikons, each with a different speed film. Every movement would be recorded, every word.

  A bicyclist, a motorcycle rider, and two unmarked cars were spread between the surrounding streets, ready to follow the truck when it left the area. The drivers of these vehicles also were keeping an eye out for the camper’s arrival.

  At 4:57 P.M. the motorcycle rider’s voice came clearly over the radio.

  RIDER: Suspect’s vehicle, Washington tag 124 B76, just passed checkpoint Bravo, headed in a westerly direction. Copy?

  DISPATCH: Westbound. Copy.

  “Right on time,” Boldt said, checking his watch.

  Daphne, wearing her game face, was prepared to deliver a real-time psychological evaluation of the suspect.

  DISPATCH: 124 B76 is registered to one Nicholas Trenton Hall, a male Caucasian, twenty-six years of age. Residence listed as 134 232nd Street South, Parkland.

  “Here he comes,” said Gaynes, from where she had her eye to a crack left between a pair of brown curtains that kept the van’s two forward seats separate from the passenger area. Seeing the truck approaching, Boldt felt a stirring of vengeful anger. He recalled Branslonovich twirling in flames in the circle of trees, like an effigy burning. One man responsible for the death of so many.

  Daphne said, “Is he Air Force? Can we confirm that?”

  Boldt repeated this question into his phone. Dispatch replied that a “full query” was under way. He reported this to Daphne. She nodded, her sober face revealing no emotion.

  Not thirty seconds had passed before Boldt, holding the phone loosely to his ear, pressed it closer and relayed to Daphne, “He was Air Force for eight of the last eleven years, a civilian employee at Chief Joseph for the last three.”

  “The discharge—his employment change—coincides with the hand injury. Bet on it.”

  “Is he our guy?” Gaynes asked from the front, where she watched the slow approach of the truck.

  Boldt shrugged. He glanced out the window. LaMoia was on the porch of the open house, shaking hands and saying goodbye to Brimsley and Meyers, a pair of Narcotics detectives. Brimsley and Meyers were among the best shots on the force with handguns. Boldt had wanted them outside, on the playing field, at the time of the suspect’s arrival. If the surveillance went bad, he reasoned, case histories showed it would happen in the first two minutes. He wanted his best people out there. He knew Brimsley and Meyers well enough to judge them oversized; they were wearing police vests, he beneath his sport coat, she beneath a blue rain slicker. The two cops stopped on the path, turned, and waved goodbye, Brimsley shouting his thanks to the real estate agent, both officers facing the purple house slightly, ready for weapons fire.

  Nicholas Hall left his truck and followed the path past the huge globe, his face reflecting the colors in the neon sign. He pushed the button. The doorbell was heard over the surveillance radio.

  Boldt, tight as a knot, muttered, “Get him inside.”

  The suspect took notice of Brimsley and Meyers next door. He then glanced around cautiously, suspiciously. He looked right at the police van. “Freeze,” Boldt said. “No one breathes.” Hall’s attention on his surroundings continued even after Emily answered the door. His attention focused on the two men struggling to hoist the car up onto the tow truck. The bomb squad crew was not particularly adept at car towing.

  The fax machine began to whine. Boldt glanced hotly toward it as a poor copy of a black-and-white photograph of the suspect slowly wound out, an enlargement of a driver’s license photo. Nicholas Hall looked average in every way.

  Into his phone, Boldt whispered, “Find out about that right hand.”

  The hand. Even from a distance it was noticeable. Boldt snagged a pair of binoculars, glad to have the porch light. The hand. A single piece of red flesh with three fingernails growing out of the end. It looked as though the man had put his real hand into a pink ballerina slipper or a costume glove. But this glove would not come off. A moment of panic surged through Boldt at first sight of that hand: Could such a person climb and descend trees? Could he carve biblical references into a tree trunk? Boldt snatched up his phone and told the dispatcher to reach him on the radio if necessary. He ended the call on the cellular and dialed Lofgrin’s office, hoping the man had stayed late, as he often did.

  Gaynes handed Boldt the fax of Hall’s face. Boldt accepted the fax but put it quickly aside.

  At the front door, Hall continued to watch the two at the tow truck.

  “Welcome,” the three in the van faintly heard Emily say as she greeted Hall. The microphone was some fifteen feet and a room behind her, yet it still grabbed some sound. “Come in,” she encouraged.

  “You seen ’em tow cars around here before?” he asked her. “That something they do here up in the city?”

  “All the time,” she lied.

  “Ticket them, sure. But tow them?”

  “They make more money towing them. What do you think it’s about, parking spaces?” she asked cynically. “Besides, what do you care?” she asked. “You’re okay in my drive.”

  “One cool woman,” Daphne said under her breath.

  “I’ll say,” Gaynes agreed.

  One of Lofgrin’s assistants answered Boldt’s call. The boss had gone home. Boldt asked for his home phone. The assistant gave him the number for a car phone, adding, “He just left a few minutes ago.”

  Boldt reached Lofgrin, who was in slow traffic on the floating bridge. The sergeant asked him, “Those tree carvings?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The guy was right-handed or left-handed?”

  “I don’t believe we checked for that.”

  Surveillance operations were conducted on a need-to-know basis. Lofgrin had no idea that Boldt was in a department-owned repossessed luxury van with his eyes on a possible suspect.

  “We shot some macros, with the digital. My people can enlarge them. You want me to look at it, I can have them faxed right here to the car. Otherwise, they should be able to handle it for you.” Boldt had seen the inside of Lofgrin’s department-issued vehicle. Equipped with a Motorola Communication terminal, printer, cellular phone, and fax machine, it served as the Identification Division’s field office at crime scenes.

  “I need it ASAP. I’m on a surveillance, Bernie.”

  “Give me a number.”

  Knowing his might be tied up, Boldt checked if Daphne was carrying her phone. She was. Boldt gave Lofgrin that number.

  Lofgrin said, “Traffic sucks. That’s in our favor. I can get some work done. Right back to you.”

  Boldt thanked him and disconnected the line. He redialed and was once again connected with the steam-clean van.

  Nicholas Hall stepped through the front door, which closed behind him. Emily’s voice grew louder as she led him into the room and toward the microphone.

  Daphne sat with her eyes shut, concentrating. She sensed Boldt looking and said softly, “He didn’t like the tow truck.” She added, “I suggest we lose it.”

  Without hesitation, Boldt passed this along to dispatch. Less than a minute later the towed vehicle was secure on the flatbed, and the truck pulled away and down the street.

  For the next minute, the only radio traffic was between operations dispatch and a pair of ERT officers concealed behind a hedgerow immediately to the north of Emily’s purple house.

  One of these ERT officers, identified only by the number seven, checked several times to determine beyond a doubt that the suspect was known to be inside the structure. Then, in what appeared to be nothing more than a shadow moving across the grass, Boldt witnessed this same agent roll out of the bushes and under Hall’s truck. Less than five seconds later, he rolled back out from under the truck and vanished into the darkness beneath a large cedar tree.

  “GPS is in place,” this man announced over the radio. Dispatch acknowledged, repeating the statement. A sophi
sticated location device had been attached to Hall’s truck, enabling police to track its movement and identify its whereabouts. This accomplished, mobile surveillance could then follow blocks behind the suspect’s vehicle, well out of sight. It was a major accomplishment, and one that helped Boldt feel at ease and in control.

  “Good move,” Daphne said, eyes still closed. She added, “I’d tell LaMoia to keep the frat party atmosphere to a minimum. Might be wise, in fact, if he packed it up, made the house dark, and left behind whoever needs to be there. Mr. Hall is a control freak,” she announced in a cold, authoritative voice.

  Boldt felt a chill down his spine.

  She continued, “He’s used to the military way: everything in its place. Everything explainable. He doesn’t like variations on a theme. He listens to country music. He’s macho. He’ll take her as a hostage if he’s pushed.” This came out as a warning. Allowing Emily to conduct her fortune-telling had been a huge risk for Boldt to take. He had trusted Daphne’s assessment of the woman—that they could work with her. Putting a civilian at risk was absolutely forbidden within the department; nonetheless, it was done on rare occasions—with all sorts of legal waivers in place—and this evening was just such an exception.

  Daphne explained her reasoning without Boldt asking. “The belt Emily described is a Western thing. Rodeo. That’s country music—that’s a macho attitude: little woman in her place, and all that goes with it. He’s angry about that right hand, angry every day of his life. He believes he’s owed something for that hand. That could be at the heart of all of this—retribution. I don’t trust him with her. We want to make him comfortable in there.”

  A phone rang in the heart of her purse. For the first time Boldt noticed a walkie-talkie sitting in her lap and wondered where it had come from. She took the phone from her purse and passed it to Boldt.

  The sergeant answered. Lofgrin’s voice said, “Ninety-percent chance whoever carved that tree was right-handed.” Static.

  Dismayed, Boldt said, “I owe you.”

  Lofgrin answered, “True story.”

  Boldt passed the phone back to Matthews.

  “It wasn’t him in that tree, was it?” Daphne said.

  “What makes you say that?” Boldt asked.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” she replied, not answering. She jumped ahead of him. “Garman’s back in the picture.”

  Astounded, Gaynes said, “Are you saying Hall is not the arsonist?”

  “Where Nicholas Hall fits in is anybody’s guess.” Daphne held up her index finger, halting conversation. She pointed to the radios. “Here we go,” she said.

  EMILY: Welcome back.

  HALL: I want to check a date with you.

  Daphne hoisted the walkie-talkie and said softly, “Like before.”

  EMILY: Like before.

  Boldt glanced over at Daphne. She answered the look in a calm voice, saying, “Nicholas Hall isn’t the only control freak.” Bobbie Gaynes grinned.

  HALL: Yeah, that’s right. Like before.

  Daphne said, “Ask him if the dates worked out.”

  Boldt asked her, “When did you arrange this?” She chastised him with a look that told him to hold his questions for later.

  EMILY: So, did our other sessions work out for you? They did, didn’t they? The stars are a powerful tool, aren’t they?

  HALL: It’s next week. Next Thursday. You can check that, right?

  Daphne spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Check the charts and tell him it’s a bad day. Something sooner would work better.”

  Over the radio Boldt heard Emily stand and open a drawer. There was a rustling of paper; she returned to the table with the microphone and sat down.

  EMILY: You have a descending moon next week.

  The psychic’s voice sounded ominous and foreboding.

  Gaynes quipped, “My moon’s been descending since I passed thirty. My planets too!” She of the perfect body.

  Daphne shot her a hot, annoyed look, but Boldt grinned.

  HALL: What’s that mean?

  EMILY: It’s not a particularly fortuitous time for you to be making a business deal. You said this was business, not pleasure, isn’t that right?

  HALL: Does it make a difference?

  EMILY: Very much so.

  Daphne announced to her colleagues, “This is interesting. How can someone quoting Plato believe this stuff? I think he takes it quite seriously.”

  Boldt had no comment. For him the interview with the psychic was only the beginning. They needed hard evidence against Hall. Probable cause to raid the truck and his residence. Bust it open, a voice inside him urged. The discovery that Hall was unlikely to have carved those trees left Boldt with a pit in his stomach. The wrong guy? He felt impatient and edgy. He didn’t want any hostages, any shooting; he wanted this clean; they had to follow Hall, make something happen. Justify a raid.

  HALL: Business, yeah.

  “Bingo,” said Daphne. Into the walkie-talkie she said, “Try to draw it out of him.”

  EMILY: The kind of business can influence the way the charts are read. Sales for instance. Sales are particularly bad in a descending moon. Negotiations, however, don’t suffer so much. You could negotiate next week, if you’re careful. But if it’s sales, I would suggest you advance the date.

  (Paper rustling) The next two to three days would be far superior. (Pause) Is there a date in that range you’d like me to check?

  HALL: (Pause) How come you didn’t mention this before? Last time? This moon thing.

  EMILY: There was no descending moon involved. Your chart was good last time. Not as good this time. (Pause) Is it sales then? It influences the way I read the charts.

  HALL: Sales. Yeah. You could say that.

  Daphne said into the walkie-talkie, “Well done. Number of people involved. Location.”

  EMILY: (Clears voice) You have a good Mars and Venus. But Pluto is way off.... That says something about numbers. There are not a lot of people involved in this sale, are there? (Pause) One other. Am I right about that?

  HALL: This shit amazes me.

  EMILY: Cars. Darkness. Lots of cars. Parked cars. Am I seeing that clearly? Loud noises. What’s that noise? Roaring, like animals.

  HALL: Jets.

  EMILY: Of course, the airport. (Pause) You work at the airport.

  HALL: Something like that. You fuckin’ amaze me.

  EMILY: There’s a man, isn’t there? There’s another man involved in this sale. One other man.

  HALL: Whatever.

  EMILY: But not a group of people. That’s important.

  HALL: Not a group.

  Boldt sat forward. “The airport drug deal the boy called in.”

  Bobbie Gaynes said, “Well, at least it’s not a militia or something like that. At least it’s not another Oklahoma City.”

  “He trusts her,” Daphne stated. “He’s displaying a great deal of trust in her.”

  EMILY: The next day or two. Three at the outside. I wish I had better news.

  HALL: You missed something last time.

  (Pause.) I nearly didn’t come back to you because of that.

  EMILY: (Long pause) I’m seeing something outside of your business arrangement. Something unexpected. Something missing, perhaps. You lost something?

  HALL: It was stolen.

  Daphne said anxiously, “I don’t know what this is about.”

  Boldt answered, “I bet our friend Ben does.”

  Daphne shot him a surprised look.

  EMILY: Money.

  HALL: Damn right.

  EMILY: A lot of money.

  HALL: Fuck yes, a lot of money. It was a boy.

  A boy stole it. Right out of my truck.

  (Pause) I want that money.

  Daphne met Boldt’s eyes. “Ben,” she said agreeing with him.

  Boldt nodded. “No wonder he’s scared of us. He’s worried we’re after him.”

  “She knows the whole story. Ben told her,” Daphne said, soundi
ng a little wounded.

  Boldt worried about her relationship with the boy. “Or she got Ben to steal the money for her. Maybe it’s not the first time,” Boldt suggested.

  “No,” Daphne countered, “I don’t believe that.”

  Boldt, thinking aloud, said, “He’s Air Force. It wasn’t drugs. It was rocket fuel.” The silence in the van was shattered by the speaker.

  HALL: I thought you could see this shit!

  Why didn’t you warn me?

  EMILY: You asked me about a particular date.

  That was all.

  HALL: Well, now I’m asking about complications. The unforeseen shit. I don’t need any of that.

  EMILY: And I’m warning you that the longer you allow the descending moon—

  HALL: Fuck the descending moon! What about complications?

  Daphne said, “I don’t like the hostility. He’s in a mood swing here. Something triggered that swing.” Into the walkie-talkie she said, “Placate him. Go easy. Be vague. I’m not liking what I’m hearing.” To Boldt—the walkie-talkie back in her lap—she said, “Can we kick it if we have to?”

  Boldt felt his scalp prickle with sweat. He didn’t want it heading in that direction.

  HALL: What about if I pull it off in the next few days? (Pause) What if I can’t get it together in the next few days?

  EMILY: You can get it together. The stars support success. (Pause.) The moon isn’t good for some time.

  HALL: How long?

  EMILY: How long?

  Daphne depressed the talk button. “Make it a long time. Force this on him.”

  EMILY: The moon won’t ascend for another month.

  HALL: What?

  EMILY: This isn’t a good month for you where business is concerned. Love, on the other hand, is on the rise.

  Gaynes said, “This woman is a piece of work!”