No Witnesses Read online

  Praise

  Praise for No Witnesses:

  “Tough and intelligent.”

  —Fort Worth Star Telegram

  “Up-to-the-nanosecond techno-thriller.”

  —New York Times

  “Infused with astonishingly effective overtones.”

  —Boston Globe

  “Good old-fashioned storytelling.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “A serious, well-researched, complex thriller.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  Praise for Hard Fall:

  “Pearson excels at novels that grip the imagination. Hard Fall is an adventure with all engines churning.”

  —People magazine

  “Mesmerizing urgency.”

  —Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Nifty cat-and-mouse caper. Crisply written tale.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  Praise for The Angel Maker:

  “Exceptionally gripping and full of amazing forensic lore: a top-flight offering from an author who has clearly found his groove.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A chilling thriller.”

  —Dell Publishing

  Dedication

  Every so often there is that rare experience that profoundly alters one’s life. In receiving the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Award, I was afforded a year at Oxford, with access to that institution’s unparalleled libraries, as well as Raymond Chandler’s personal letters and manuscripts. It was at Wadham College, up staircase Kings Arms eleven, that I researched and outlined both The Angel Maker and this novel, No Witnesses. The ten months spent at Wadham College, under the auspices of the Fulbright Foundation, have never left me, nor will they. For both Colleen and me, these months remain sacred.

  This book is dedicated to Mr. Graham C. Greene, who on the centennial of Raymond Chandler’s birth elected not to dedicate a statue or a park bench to the great author, but to leave a living legacy in the form of funding a private Fulbright through the Chandler estate. This award has now been enjoyed by several British and American writers and has created its own legacy by changing all our lives.

  This book is also dedicated to Dr. Tim Binyon, Dr. Robin Fiddian, Mr. Jeffry Hackney, Sir Claus Mosner, and all the Fellows of Wadham College, Oxford; and to Captain John Franklin and the Fulbright Foundation, London, England; Ms. Karen Adams and the Fulbright Commission, Washington, D.C.

  What you gave me is irreplaceable.

  Acknowledgments

  The author wishes to express a special debt of gratitude to Ian and Annette Cumming and Leucadia National Corporation. Also to James and Wendy Daverman, and Alex and Gina Macdonald, Marino Tomacelli, and all the gang at Kailuum.

  Technical research would not have been possible without the generosity of the following:

  Washington State: Dr. Donald Reay, chief pathologist, King County medical examiner; Dr. Christian Harris, forensic psychiatrist; Judge Robert Lasnik, King County Superior Court; Judge Mike Rikert, Skagit County Superior Court; Mr. Thomas Bass, president, The Exchange; Dr. Phillip I. Tarr, M.D., assistant professor (pediatrics), Division of Gastroenterology, University of Washington; Lieutenant Dave Reichert, King County police; Sergeant Don Cameron, Homicide, Seattle Police Department.

  England: Mr. Bill Tupman, Center for Police Studies, University of Exeter; Dr. Jack Wright, HM Prison and Youth Custody Centre, Grendon Underwood, Aylesbury; Richard Baker, Metropolitan Police, London; Detective Inspector Adrian Maybank, New Scotland Yard; Detective Inspector Phil Gulliford; Inspector Thomas M. Seamon, Philadelphia Police Department, Police Studies Fulbright; Nick Roditi, Hamstead, London; John D. Drysdale, Robert Flemings Holdings Limited, London; Shelagh James-Hudson, Bicester, Oxon; Carole Blake and Julian Friedman; Mary Peterson, office assistance; Judy McLean, manuscript preparation; Colleen Daly, editorial assistance.

  The author wishes to thank Brian DeFiore, who edited this manuscript.

  Thanks also to Albert Zuckerman and Steve Ross.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Praise

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  About the Author

  Also by Ridley Pearson

  Copyright

  ONE

  And now for the good part.

  This was where Lou Boldt threw out all convention, where the textbooks took a backseat to experience, and where he found out who in the lecture hall was listening and who was asleep.

  He raised his voice. Boldt was a big man and his words bellowed clear back to the make-out seats without the need of the mike clipped to his tie. “Everything I’ve told you in the past few weeks concerning evidence, investigative procedure, chain of custody, and chain of command is worthless.” A few heads snapped up—more than he had expected. “Worthless unless you learn to read the crime scene, to know the victim, to listen to and trust your own instincts. To feel with your heart as much as think with your head. To find a balance between the two. If it was all in the head, then we would not need detectives; the lab technicians could do it all. Conversely, if it was all in the heart—if we could simply empathize with the suspect and say, ‘Yup, you did it’—then who would need the lab nerds?” A few of the studious types busily flipped pages. Boldt informed them, “You won’t find any of this in your textbooks. That’s just the point. All the textbooks in the world are not going to clear a case—only the investigator can. Evidence and information is nothing without a human being to analyze, organize, and interpret it. That’s you. That’s me. There comes a time when all the information must be set aside; there comes a time when passion and instinct take over. It’s the stuff that can’t be taught; but it can be learned. Heart and mind—one’s worthless without the other.” He paused here, wondering if these peach-fuzz students could see beyond the forty-four-year-old, slightly paunchy homicide cop in the wrinkled khakis and the tattered sport coat that hid a pacifier in its side pocket.

  At the same time, he listened to his own words reverberating through the lecture hall, wondering how much he dare tell them. Did he tell them about the nightmares, the divorces, the ulcers and the politics? The hours? The salary? The penetrating numbness with which the veterans approached a crime scene?

  Light flooded an aisle as a door at the rear of the hall swung open and a lanky kid wearing oversize jeans and a rugby shirt hurried toward the podium, casting a stretched shadow. Reaching Boldt, he passed the sergeant a pink telephone memo. A sea of students looking on, Boldt unfolded and read it.

  Volunteer Park, after class. I’ll wait fifteen minutes.

  —D. M.

  Volunteer Park? he wondered, his curiosity raised. Why not the offices? Daphne Matthews was anything but dramatic. As the department’s forensic psychologist, she was cool, controlled, studied, patie
nt. Articulate, strong, intelligent. But not dramatic—not like this. The curious faces remained fixed on him. “A love letter,” he said, winning a few laughs. But not many: Cops weren’t expected to be funny—something else they would have to learn.

  Volunteer Park is perched well above Seattle’s downtown cluster of towering high-rises and the gray-green curve of Elliott Bay that sweeps out into the island-riddled estuary of Puget Sound. A large reservoir, acting as a reflecting pond, is terraced below the parking lot and lookout that fronts the museum, a building under reconstruction for months on its way to housing the city’s Asian Collection. Boldt parked his aging department-issued four-door Chevy three spaces away from the red Prelude that Daphne Matthews maintained showroom clean. She was not to be found in her car.

  The water tower’s stone facade rose several stories to his left. Well-kept beds of flowering shrubs and perennials surrounded its footing, like gems in a setting. The grass was a phenomenal emerald green—unique, he thought, to Seattle and Portland. Maybe Ireland, too; he had never been. Summer was just taking hold. Every living thing seemed poised for change. The sky was a patch quilt of azure blue and cotton white, the clouds moving in swiftly from the west, low and fast. A visitor might think rain, but a local knew better. Not tonight. Cold maybe, if it cleared.

  He spotted an unfamiliar male face behind the iron grate of one of the tower’s upper viewing windows and waited a minute for this person and his companion to descend and leave the structure. Once they were gone, he chose the stairway to his right, ascending a narrow chimney of steep steps wedged between the brick rotunda to his right and the riveted steel hull of the water tank to his left. The painted tank and the tower that surrounded it were enormous, perhaps forty or fifty feet high and half again as wide. With each step, Boldt’s heart pounded heavier. He was not in the best shape; or maybe it was because she had elected to step outside the system, and that could not help but intrigue him; or maybe it was personal and had nothing whatsoever to do with the shop. He and Daphne had been close once—too close for what was allowed of a married man. They still were close, but mention of that one night together never passed their lips. A month earlier she had surprised him by telling him about a new relationship. After Bill Gates, Owen Adler was the reigning bachelor prize of the Northwest, having gone from espresso cart to the fastest-growing beverage and food business in the western region. He leased his own plane, owned a multimillion-dollar estate overlooking Shilshole Marina, and now, quite possibly, owned the heart and affections of Daphne Matthews. Had her note been worded any other way, had she not chosen such an isolated location, Boldt would have been convinced that her request was nothing more than some lover butterflies.

  In another two hours, Volunteer Park would be a drug and sex bazaar. Despite its view, the tower was not a place frequented by the pin-striped set. She had clearly chosen it carefully. Daphne was not given to acts of spontaneity. She desired a clandestine meeting—and he had to wonder why.

  He reached the open-air lookout at the top of the tower. It had a cement floor and evenly spaced viewing windows crosshatched with heavy-gauge steel to prevent flyers from testing their wings, or projectiles from landing on passersby.

  Daphne held her arms crossed tightly, accentuating an anxiety uncommon in her. Her brown hair spilled over her face hiding her eyes, and when she cleared it, he saw fear where there was usually the spark of excitement. Her square-shouldered, assertive posture collapsed in sagging defeat.

  She wore the same blue slacks and cotton sweater he had seen her wearing at work. She had not been to her houseboat yet. “What is it?” he asked, worried by this look of hers.

  Her chin cast a shadow hiding the scar on her neck. She did not answer immediately. “It’s a potential black hole,” she explained—a difficult if not impossible case to solve, and with political overtones. And then he understood: She had bypassed the proper procedures to give him a chance to sidestep this investigation before he formally inherited it at the cop shop. Why she would have a black hole in the first place confused him. The department’s psychologist did not lead investigations; she kept cops from swallowing barrels, and profiled the loonies that kept Boldt and the others chasing body bags. She assisted in interrogations. She could take any side of any discussion and make a convincing argument out of it. She was the best listener he knew.

  She handed him a fax—the first of what appeared to be several that she removed from a briefcase.

  SOUP IS MOTHER’S CHOICE.NOT ALWAYS.

  She told him, “That was the first threat he received.”

  “Adler,” Boldt said, filling in the blank.

  She nodded, her hair trailing her movements. Daphne Matthews had grace, even when frightened. “It’s an ad slogan they use.”

  “Innocuous enough,” he said.

  She handed him the next saying, “Yes, but not for long.”

  SUICIDE OR MURDER. TAKE YOUR PICK.

  NO COPS. NO PRESS. NO TRICKS,

  OR YOU WILL CARRY WITH YOU

  THE LIVES OF THE INNOCENT.

  “It could be nothing,” Boldt said, though his voice belied this.

  “That’s exactly what he said,” she replied angrily, lumping them together.

  Boldt did not want to be lumped in with Owen Adler. “I’ll give you one thing: When you say black hole, you mean black hole.” Faxed threats? he thought. In the top left of the page of thermal paper, he read a date and time in tiny typeface. To the right: “Page 1 of 1.” Good luck tracing this, he thought.

  She handed him a third. He did not want it.

  “Quite a collection,” he said. Boldt’s nerves unraveled from time to time, and when it happened, he defaulted to stupid one-liners that seldom won a laugh.

  IF ADLER FOODS IS OUT OF

  BUSINESS WITHIN 30 DAYS, AND ALL OF THE

  MONEY IS GONE, AND YOU ARE DEAD AND

  BURIED, THERE WILL BE NO SENSELESS KILLING.

  THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

  “How many days has it been?” It was the first question that popped into his head, though it was answered by the date in the corner. He counted the weeks in his head. The thirty days had expired.

  “You see the way he worded it?” Looking down at her feet, she spoke softly, dreamy and terrified. Her lover was the target of these threats, and despite her training, she clearly was not prepared for how to handle it. “The more common threat would be: ‘If Adler Foods is not out of business within thirty days …’ You see the difference?”

  Her bailiwick, not his, he felt tempted to remind her. “Is that significant?” He played along because she had FRAGILE written all over her.

  “To me it’s significant. So is the attempt in each fax to place the blame firmly with Owen: It’s his decision; his choice.” When she looked up at him, he saw that she held back tears.

  “Daffy—” he offered, stepping closer.

  “Owen and I are not going to see each other—socially—for a while. Me being police and all.” She wanted it to sound casual, but failed. “We have to take him seriously now.”

  Boldt felt a chill. “Do we?”

  She handed him another.

  I AM WAITING. I SUGGEST YOU DO NOT.

  YOU WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITH YOUR CHOICE.

  OTHERS WILL NOT BE SO LUCKY.

  “It’s the first time he’s mentioned himself,” Boldt noted.

  She handed him the last of the group. “That one was sent four days ago. This one arrived this morning.”

  YOUR INDECISION IS COSTLY. IT CAN, AND

  WILL, GET MUCH WORSE THAN THIS.

  Below this on the fax was a copy of a newspaper article.

  “Today’s paper,” she explained.

  The headline read: INFECTIONS BAFFLE DOCTORS—Two Children Hospitalized.

  He read the short article quickly.

  “The girl is improving. The boy is not,” she told him. “‘It can, and will, get much worse than this,’” she quoted.

  He looked up. “This is his of
fer of proof? Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “He means to be taken seriously.”

  “I don’t get it,” he complained, frustrated. “Why didn’t you bring this in sooner?”

  “Owen didn’t want to believe it.” She took back the faxes possessively. Her hand trembled. “The second one warns against involving us.”

  She meant cops. She meant that the reason for them meeting here, and not in the fifth-floor offices, was that she still was not sure how to handle this.

  “An Adler employee,” Boldt said. “Past or present, an employee is the most likely.”

  “Owen has Fowler working on it.”

  She meant Kenny Fowler, formerly of Major Crimes, now Adler’s chief of security. Boldt liked Kenny Fowler, and said so. Better yet, he was good police—or had been at one time. She nodded and toyed with a silver ring fashioned into a porpoise that she wore on her right hand.

  “I misjudged him,” she said so quietly that Boldt leaned in to hear as she repeated herself. Daphne was not one to mumble.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sure,” she lied.

  A black hole. Absorbing energy. Admitting no light—pure darkness. He realized that he had already accepted it, and he wanted to blame her for knowing him so well.

  “Talk to me,” he said, nervous and irritated.

  “You’re right about it being an employee. That’s the highest percentage bet. But typically it involves extortion, not suicide demands. Howard Taplin, Owen’s counsel, wants it handled internally, where there’s no chance of press leakage, no police involvement, nothing to violate the demands.” This sounded a little too much like the party line, and it bothered him. It was not like her to voice the opinions of others as her own, and he had to wonder what kind of man Howard Taplin was that he seemed to carry so much influence with her. “That’s why I have to be so careful in dealing with you. Taplin wants Fowler to handle this internally. Owen overruled this morning. He suggested this meeting—opening a dialogue. But it was not an easy decision.”