No Witnesses lbadm-3

by Ridley Pearson

  They stood in an uncomfortable silence staring at the towering wall of smudged and ragged files, both of them seething with anger. The room seemed the size of a football field to Boldt, and the records on Caulfield could have been misfiled.

  “Someone took it,” Boldt finally said, voicing what he knew she too was thinking.

  She looked up at him, so frustrated that her eyes were brimmed with tears, and she said in a tense and raspy voice, “What do you want to bet that whatever went on with Longview Farms reached further than State Health?”

  “I’m not a betting man,” replied Lou Boldt.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “It’s no secret that some of you consider this voodoo,” the renowned forensic psychiatrist and FBI special agent Dr. Richard Clements said in a deep-throated voice that filled Homicide’s situation room. Thirty minutes into the evening shift, LaMoia and Gaynes were already on ATM watch, as were a total of eight other police officers.

  Boldt, Shoswitz, Rankin, and Daphne Matthews were all in attendance for SPD. They were joined by two plain-clothes detectives from the King County police, a homicide lieutenant and two detectives from the Portland Police Department, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office, and two FBI public information officers.

  Dr. Clements looked a little green under the artificial lights. He wore a plain gray suit, white shirt with a loud, abstract tie, and black wing tips. He had long gray hair, wild over the ears, and steely dark eyes, and looked like someone who ran a museum for a private foundation. He never blinked. Wearing half-glasses, he read from a dogeared folder, and made notes with a black mechanical pencil as he went.

  Prior to the start of this meeting, he had complained to Boldt that he would rather be back in Virginia mowing his lawn and drinking a sloe gin fizz. This, Boldt assumed, was his attempt to give a romantic impression of himself. Boldt knew all about Dr. Richard Clements.

  Dr. Clements had interviewed the most vicious mass murderers and serial murderers in confinement in the United States as well as several overseas countries, including the former Soviet Union, and had compiled a psychological overview of these killers that later led to the now commonplace practice of criminal profiling. For four of the Reagan years, he had been adviser to the Secret Service, analyzing both real and perceived threats to the president’s life. According to rumor, on three occasions he had accurately predicted where to find the would-be assassins just days before the attempts.

  He had come to work with Daphne Matthews as an adviser while serving as a special agent on the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit during the Seattle Police Department’s attempt to apprehend the Cross Killer. An eccentric, he was the stuff of legend in law enforcement-the Einstein of the criminal mind. He lectured at Yale and Johns Hopkins regularly, and had authored several books including a textbook in use in nearly every criminology course in the country. It was said that extensive scars, barely visible above his shirt collar but more obvious at the cuff of his left sleeve, covered most of his upper torso and had been given to him by Mad Dog, a Swedish inmate who had nearly devoured the man before guards saved him. There were other stories about Dr. Clements-some even about these same scars-that Boldt had heard over the years, some of them flattering, some not. Until today, he had not believed them. Now, looking at this creature, he was not so quick to rule anything out. In appearance, Dr. Clements had been around mass murderers for too long: He was wide-eyed and given to explosive bursts of animation followed by eerie stretches of silence and contemplation that one dare not interrupt.

  “Perhaps this science is part voodoo. Sometimes the profiles help, sometimes not. What I am going to tell you about this man-oh yes, a man-is intended merely as a reference point, a fallback that hopefully, may help guide you toward a better understanding of this individual, or even possibly predict his future behavior.” He addressed Captain Rankin, a big burly man of Irish coloring. “My job is part science, part invention. But like you, I take it seriously, and I ask only that you give me serious consideration and your undivided attention.

  “First, a point of business: At my suggestion, Sergeant Boldt has instructed Adler Foods to begin a quiet recall and subsequent destruction of all its candy bars. As you may know, an individual believed to be our suspect has been identified as having purchased several such candy bars, and it is my contention that he intends to poison them. This is a substitution recall only-that is, all such products currently on the shelf will be replaced with fresh product, and random testing will be conducted on recalled product. In this way we do not violate the demands, but we serve the public interest. Now, as to the larger issue.

  “The individual in question goes by the name of Harry Caulfield. He is single, twenty-eight years old. Despite a possible residence at Longview Farms, I believe he has recently lived within a two-mile radius of the Broadway Foodland supermarket. He may be cohabitating, though I doubt it-a loner is more likely. He is or was recently employed in a blue-collar job or jobs that involve manual labor. This employment may have temporarily included Adler Foods or association with Adler Foods, though it is my contention he was never on the payroll.

  “I can see, Captain Rankin, that you are skeptical of my assessment.” Rankin shifted uneasily in his chair. “I can explain some of this. The first two faxes that Mr. Owen Adler received some months ago were pasteups, not computer faxes like the more recent threats. Your lab identified the source publications for these pasteups as including typography from both Playboy and Penthouse as well as a local shopping giveaway. The two skin magazines help us define his demography; the giveaway helps narrow his current or former place of residence, because the publication does not enjoy wide circulation. He also clipped both Sports Illustrated and a national blue-collar rag called Heartland-these identified by our Hoover lab-which further narrows his demographics and suggests the likelihood of manual labor. We don’t dream this stuff up.” He smirked.

  “But who is he?” he continued. “He is a loner. A possible insomniac. The actions he is taking are his-that is, he is not some hired gun, but instead his own man. He may or may not have a background in”-he held up his fingers-“microbiology, animal husbandry, electronics, or food production. He believes his cause righteous, and as far as we are concerned, that makes him extremely dangerous and he is to be taken at his word. He believes he is doing what he has to: punishing Adler Foods, or Owen Adler himself, for some grievous wrong committed in the past.

  “Technically, clinically,” he went on, “he is assumed to be a paranoid schizophrenic. He is really two people, if you will-the evil person committing these crimes and the voice he hears both encouraging him and warning him of the severity of his actions. There is a voice of reason within him, hence his ability to organize and seemingly remain one step ahead. Although schizophrenic, he’s not crazy in the way you think of him,” he addressed to Rankin. “Not organically. He’s disturbed certainly, but there is a vast difference. No drooler, this man. He is to be taken seriously. He is to be feared. If he says two weeks, then two weeks it is. If he says he’ll kill a hundred, then it shall be no less.”

  Clements scanned the room and continued. “He does not believe he can be caught. You snicker, Captain, but it is the truth. He believes himself smarter than all of you-all of us combined. I promise you that he monitors the media closely for signs of his success or failure. Your ability so far to disguise his acts is to be commended. As I understand it, you were concerned about the proliferation of copycat crimes-a legitimate concern. But worse, this is a man who will try to outdo his own headlines.”

  Rankin, still not convinced, asked, “Where does the extortion fit in? The extortion demands?”

  “It’s a complex issue,” Clements answered. “It appears he has a grand scheme, a grand design in mind, perhaps from the beginning. Three phases: a warning phase, an attack phase, a final phase, if you will. I believe we have moved into the attack phase. He has not seen the results he had hoped for, but he was prepared for this all along.
He has shifted from the larger demands that even to him must have seemed unlikely for him to win, to the more specific monetary gains of these extortion demands.”

  “And the final phase?” one of the Portland cops asked reluctantly.

  “Phase three is to deliver on his promise to kill hundreds, I would assume. Do not doubt it. It is not inconceivable that he has devised a plan in advance to accomplish this in the event of his arrest.” As an aside he said, “With an individual as seemingly capable as this, nothing is inconceivable.” He allowed another wry smile, and his glassy, unflinching eyes sparkled in the harsh light. Dr. Richard Clements was enjoying himself.

  TWENTY-THREE

  That same Thursday night, LaMoia pulled up in front of Boldt’s house knowing the sergeant was expecting him. Still tucking in his shirt, Boldt came out the door with his coat slung over his arm. A cloud of moths fluttered overhead, surrounding the porch light. Another group enveloped a street lamp above the car.

  LaMoia met him on the porch and handed Boldt a scrawled note containing an address that was surprisingly close. Over by Greenlake on Seventy-fourth, it was a neighborhood Boldt remembered well from another case, and one he would have just as soon forgotten.

  “Dixie?”

  “On his way. His people will meet him there.”

  “Razor?”

  “Left your cellular number with him.” LaMoia handed Boldt his cell phone and Boldt absentmindedly slipped it into his coat pocket. He patted his side; his gun was there. “It’s a tough break, Sarge.”

  Boldt double-checked the front door. The two men hurried to the waiting car. “Who called it in?” Boldt asked.

  “Who else would land this kind of black hole? Hollywood, Sarge,” he said, answering Boldt’s blank expression. “Danielson.” A second later from inside the car, LaMoia shouted, “You coming?”

  Boldt stood frozen with his hand on the door. Daphne had mentioned Danielson’s eavesdropping. Boldt did not like it.

  “Sarge?”

  Boldt climbed inside.

  “You okay?”

  “Step on it,” ordered the man who liked to drive under thirty at all times.

  The house was a two-story shake, closely situated to its neighbors on both sides. The street rose up a hill, and so LaMoia cut the wheels into the curb and let the car settle back. A set of cement steps carried Boldt up to some wooden steps that led to a landing and to the front door where Danielson sat on the stoop. Bernie Lofgrin and his ID crew remained below for the moment, waiting to be summoned.

  The ME’s chuck wagon arrived next-an unmarked, lime-green van. A color green no one could possibly like. Usually reserved for cadavers, but sometimes used to transport the field technicians. Boldt saw the scene they were creating, and told LaMoia tersely to spread out some of the vehicles to try to lessen the attention drawn to the scene. “We want this done as quietly as possible. If the neighbors do get involved, no one answers any questions. And I mean no one.”

  “Got it,” LaMoia answered. He saw to it and returned to join Boldt as he was preparing to enter.

  Boldt and LaMoia donned latex gloves.

  Boldt tried the front door, but it was locked. He signaled Bernie Lofgrin, and a few minutes later one of Lofgrin’s assistants had used a speed key on the back door.

  Boldt motioned for LaMoia to go first. The young detective pushed open the door, leaned his head inside, and called out, “Honey, I’m home.”

  Boldt felt a depressing weight in the air. It was not the smell of vomit that triggered it-he smeared some Vicks under his nose and took care of that, and he passed the tube to LaMoia, who did the same. The weight was the result of a sense of failure that would not let go of him. Four more lives. Four more Slater Lowrys.

  Uncharacteristically philosophical, Boldt said to La-Moia, “Death touches us all, but murder affects people permanently. Twenty years later the average guy will have forgotten some of the ones who died, but not the ones who were murdered.”

  “I’m sure that’s right,” LaMoia said, unsure how to answer.

  “If it would do any good to swear to you that these are the last we’re going to see, I would.”

  “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, intent
ionally 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.