The Pied Piper Read online

  LaMoia started to mumble but did not answer. No wife and mother would want her husband, the father of her children, on such a case.

  “Wait for me downstairs,” Boldt told his former detective. “I’ll wait with you until Marina and the kids arrive,” he told his wife after LaMoia had left.

  “No need.” All humor had left the room. “Go,” she said. But Boldt stayed.

  Five minutes passed in relative silence before Liz sat up sharply and Boldt recognized the sound of his son’s voice approaching.

  “You all set?” Boldt asked.

  She nodded faintly, squeezed her husband’s arm and mouthed the words, “I love you.”

  Boldt leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Likewise,” he whispered.

  Her cheek felt inhumanly cold.

  CHAPTER

  John LaMoia double-parked his red 1974 Camaro in front of 2351 51st North and set its wide taillights flashing amid a veritable light show of emergency vehicles. He sat behind the wheel for a moment gathering his strength. Any apparent kidnapping automatically evolved into an enormous investigation, requiring tact and diligence on the part of the lead investigator, and he’d been named lead. Tact was not necessarily LaMoia’s long suit, and he knew it. His fellow officers called him Floorshow, what with his creased blue jeans, steel gray ostrich boots and rock star hair. Because of the Big-A attitude. LaMoia knew he wore an attitude, but to hell with it: He was good at what he did. People talked about talking the talk, but John LaMoia talked it. He’d been the same cocky son-of-a-bitch since junior high; he wasn’t about to change now.

  Boldt’s beat-up department-issue Chevy slipped in behind him and parked.

  This particular kidnapping—of a white infant—would stir not only the city’s conscience but, quite likely, the nation’s. Before even stepping out of the car at the crime scene, LaMoia already had a few suspicions about how it had happened, but for the moment he pushed them away. Not for anyone, including his ambitious Crimes Against Persons captain Sheila Hill, would LaMoia guess at a crime’s solution before he could gather the necessary evidence, witnesses and facts.

  “It’s my job to make the call,” he told Boldt. “Either I group it with the others, or it stands alone.” Domestics and gang killings had occupied his past few months—grounders for the most part. A serial kidnapping case with national importance? He tried not to think of himself as Lou Boldt’s replacement, even though others saw his promotion that way.

  “So why drag me along?” Boldt asked.

  “Maybe I’m insecure.”

  “Yeah, right. And it’s going to be sunny tomorrow.”

  They ducked under the police tape onto the lawn. Officer Jonny Filgrim said to LaMoia, “Bad Guy used the back door, Detec—, Sergeant,” he corrected himself. “It’s him, right?”

  “Keep the vultures back, Jonny,” LaMoia said, indicating the press. “They want an interview, it’s Hill, not me.”

  “Mulwright’s here. Back door.”

  “Already?” LaMoia asked. He and Boldt met eyes in the flashing blues and reds of the emergency lights.

  Boldt questioned, “Mulwright at a crime scene early?”

  “Any of his boys?” LaMoia asked the uniformed officer.

  “Special Ops?”

  “Yeah, any of Mulwright’s guys,” LaMoia answered. Some of the patrolmen were thick as bricks.

  “Ain’t seen none,” Filgrim answered.

  “There was a woman watching the child,” Boldt said.

  Filgrim nodded, though seemed bewildered that Boldt already knew this. “The sitter? Yeah? Knocked out cold.”

  “Where’d they take her?”

  “University Hospital.”

  Boldt offered LaMoia a look; they had passed an arriving ambulance on their way out of the hospital.

  LaMoia ordered, “Get someone over to the hospital,” as he took in the chaotic scene of the reporters and cameras at the edge of the property. “And make sure SID gets room to park their van close by.”

  “You got it.”

  Boldt caught him by the arm. “The baby sitter was unconscious?”

  “Like I said, out cold on the kitchen floor. It’s gotta be him. Right, Floorshow?” Filgrim said excitedly. “A kid, right? I mean, we’ve been expecting this, right?”

  “The parents?” Boldt asked, releasing the man.

  “Mulwright spoke to a neighbor lady. She’d heard from the parents, which is how come she was here. She got the other kid.”

  “Other kid?”

  “A little boy. She took him home with her.”

  Boldt nodded.

  “Go!” LaMoia ordered.

  Filgrim hurried off at a run, grabbing his gun to keep it from beating his side.

  LaMoia tongued his mustache nervously and said softly, “I’ll tell ya, I am not calling it until we can rule out a copycat or a coincidence.” He looked to Boldt for help but was met with the blank face of a teacher waiting out his pupil. “I suppose it is him. Baby sitter unconscious? The kid’s age is right. Both parents out of the house.”

  “Even so,” Boldt cautioned.

  “I know. I know,” LaMoia said nervously. “Where the hell is SID?” He checked his watch. Once the lab techs controlled a crime scene, the Feds would have a hell of a time trying to take over. No one in the Seattle Police Department wanted to play second fiddle to the Feds. An investigation’s power remained with whoever controlled the evidence.

  LaMoia studied the house, trying for a moment of calm. He then said to Boldt, “You’re thinking the baby sitter is, by definition, also a victim.” Boldt maintained that a victim, dead or alive, could tell an investigator more than a dozen witnesses. But the true victim had been taken from the crime scene.

  “The sitter won’t remember much,” Boldt cautioned. “None of the others have.”

  “So I’ve got shit to go on.”

  “You’ve got a crime scene and the chance for physical evidence, a missing victim, a hospitalized victim. You’ve got neighbors, the possibility of unfamiliar vehicles in the neighborhood—maybe Neighborhood Watch,” Boldt listed for the man.

  “That’s what I’m saying: We’ve got shit,” LaMoia repeated.

  Another patrolman approached. Name tag read Rodriguez. These guys were all over him at a crime scene, working for brownie points, hoping their names would be mentioned to someone, that they’d get a shot at something better than driving the streets. The advancement to sergeant had made LaMoia painfully aware of just how servile these guys could be. The female uniforms were a lot less so. Too bad.

  He raised his index finger to stop Rodriguez from interrupting his thoughts. He spoke to Boldt. “Some asshole comes here to lift a toddler. He’s got it all planned out, right? Use the back door, where no one’s gonna see him. Whack the baby sitter, heist the little thumb-sucker and make tracks. So … is he alone, or does he have company?”

  “He’d have a wheel man, I guess,” Rodriguez answered.

  “Not you!” LaMoia chided. “I’m asking the lieutenant.”

  “Let him answer,” Boldt said. “You don’t need me.” The two exchanged a look, teacher to student.

  Rodriguez waited until LaMoia nodded approval for him to speak. “Wheel man? Parked out front, where the neighbors can see him?” LaMoia wanted the man to think.

  “Keeps moving, maybe. Driving around, you know, until the doer needs him.”

  “And if there’s a sudden problem with their little visit?” LaMoia asked. “What’s the Bad Guy gonna do, make a phone call, stand on the curb with his thumb in the air? Think!”

  The patrolman paled.

  “How would you do it?” LaMoia asked, as Boldt had asked of him dozens of times. “That’s what a detective asks himself, Rodriguez: How would I do it?”

  “I gotta get me inside the house. I come on as a plumber or something.”

  LaMoia looked back toward the house, nodding. “Yeah. A plumber, a fireman, a cop. He’s played them all, if he’s who we think
he is.”

  “No shit?”

  “No child,” Boldt supplied.

  “I zap the sitter in the kitchen and grab the kid out of the crib,” Rodriguez said, getting into it. “Wrap it up in something, I suppose. I don’t know.”

  “She’s not an ‘it,’” Boldt corrected harshly. “She’s a four-month-old baby girl who has been abducted from her home.” Boldt had kids of his own; kids LaMoia thought of as his own niece and nephew.

  LaMoia patted the uniformed officer on the cheek. “You’re excused.”

  They found Mulwright on the back stoop smoking a nonfilter cigarette. He looked about sixty. He was forty-one. Part Native American Indian, part Irish with a liver to prove it. Teeth that looked like a rotted picket fence hit by a truck. Skin that made enough oil for a refinery. Black hair and unibrow and five o’clock shadow. One eye green, the other nearly brown, like a junkyard dog. He held the constant expression of a person who didn’t feel well.

  “Lieutenant,” Boldt said from a distance.

  “Well, look what the fucking dog drug in.” Mulwright’s resentment of LaMoia’s assignment to lead the task force was public knowledge. The task force itself was the source of much politicking because it had been formed ahead of any kidnapping, effectively limiting the FBI’s powers by assuming that power for itself. It was the brainchild of Sheila Hill, captain of Crimes Against Persons, who now commanded the task force she had created. Mulwright was next in line seniority-wise, but as lieutenant of Special Operations he was more accustomed to surveillance and busting down doors than conducting an evidence-driven investigation. For that reason, Hill had chosen LaMoia, whose experience was mainly as a homicide detective, as lead investigator, which left Mulwright with an ambiguous job assignment until and unless they had surveillance to conduct.

  To make matters worse, Mulwright blamed Boldt for ending his twenty-seven-year drinking spree, which had culminated in suspension and treatment programs. Rumor had it that the latter had not worked. The thick cone of cigarette smoke he blew into the air fairly reeked of resentment.

  “Who called you to the scene, Lieutenant?” Boldt asked.

  “I got a scanner in the kitchen. You? You got no business being here. You ain’t got nothing to do with this task force.”

  “Adviser,” Boldt reminded. As a division, Intelligence intimidated some detectives, especially those like Mulwright who got themselves into trouble. “I’m one of the task force links to the Bureau.” It occurred to Boldt that Mulwright should not have arrived on the scene until after a call from LaMoia. “I’m also supposed to prevent press leaks.”

  “Is that right?”

  LaMoia said, “The National Insider is offering two grand for task force information.”

  “Don’t know nothing about it.”

  “So who called it in?” Boldt asked.

  “I don’t have to answer to you.”

  “No, you don’t.” Boldt waited along with the man through several long seconds of silence.

  “A neighbor lady.” Mulwright had no fondness for women, other than as the objects of obscene humor. “Name of Wasserman. Tina. Down the street.” He checked his notes—every detective carried a notebook, even Mulwright. “Fifty-three hundred, Fifty-first North. Was asked to check on the place by the mother when the baby sitter failed to answer the phone. You ever heard of a dinner train takes off from Renton?”

  “Sure,” LaMoia answered.

  “Yeah? Well, I hadn’t. The parents are still stuck on the train. Due back any minute.”

  Boldt asked, “Does the press know about this neighbor?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “Do we have someone meeting the parents?”

  “I put someone with the neighbor. That redhead with the big tits. You know her? Motor patrol?”

  “McKinney,” LaMoia supplied.

  “McKinney’s with her.”

  “And who’s meeting the parents at the station?” Boldt asked, checking his watch.

  “Don’t know,” Mulwright answered.

  LaMoia said, “You did or did not assign someone to pick up the parents?”

  “This isn’t my scene,” Mulwright reminded.

  “You’re senior officer present,” LaMoia countered. “Are the parents covered or not?”

  Boldt turned to LaMoia, “What are the chances our kidnapper has someone watching the parents to make sure they don’t return unexpectedly?”

  LaMoia judged the question, hesitated, then nodded. “I can see that.”

  “He’d be on the fucking dinner train,” Mulwright answered, tossing his cigarette into the grass. Boldt took note of where it landed; the cigarette had contaminated the crime scene.

  Mulwright’s eyes awakened, his face expanding. “We should have both the train station and the parents under surveillance.”

  “Can we handle that?” LaMoia asked, as innocent-sounding as possible. He agreed with Boldt’s attempt to lead Mulwright away from the crime scene. Few officers, despite all the training, understood the delicate nature of a crime scene. LaMoia realized that if Mulwright had read the advance briefing papers he would have known the FBI had all but ruled out surveillance by the kidnapper—he was believed to be a solo operator.

  “Got it,” Mulwright announced, standing. “We’ll watch the station and the train for strays. We’ll work out a way to notify the parents we’re with them. We’ll make sure they head straight to the neighbors.” He asked, “ID? How do we ID them?”

  “Wait here a moment,” Boldt said, leaning his weight against a sapling and slipping on a pair of paper shoe covers. He donned a pair of latex gloves and entered the kitchen, stepping carefully. Mulwright or the first officer on the scene had used blue painter’s tape to indicate the position of the baby sitter’s body on the floor. Boldt stayed clear of what looked like red confetti and the medical litter the paramedics had left behind. He located a family photo hanging to the side of the kitchen sink. It reminded him of his four favorite photos of Liz and the kids—three at home, one at the office. He suddenly wished that he had more photos of Liz in the prime of her health—he thought of her this way: her face full of color, her limbs lean but strong.

  He removed the photo from the wall feeling pained—he hated to disturb any evidence no matter its apparent insignificance.

  He renegotiated his way out of the house and handed the framed photo to Mulwright. “If you spot a suspect,” he said, “he’s better followed than confronted.”

  “I know the drill, Boldt. I’ve worked a hell of a lot more hostage situations than you.”

  LaMoia believed that Boldt could probably recite the names of each of those hostages for Mulwright if pushed. But it wasn’t Boldt’s way to throw around his knowledge; he hid himself from all but the most intimate friends.

  “What time’s that train arrive?” Boldt asked, checking his watch.

  Mulwright hurried off, calling back to them, “Tell Hill we’re on it.”

  LaMoia watched him go and said with admiration, “You knew he’d take the bait, knew he hadn’t read the briefings.”

  “Mulwright is Special Ops—translated, he’s a thrill seeker and likes working from the seat of his pants. He needs credibility to shore up support after this drinking thing. He stays around here, he looks bad. He goes off on surveillance, he’s on familiar ground.”

  “You hosed him.”

  Pocketing Mulwright’s discarded cigarette butt, Boldt said, “I offered him what he wanted: a dignified way out. The meet and greet with the parents is important; he wants to feel important. Daphne plays those head games every day. Maybe she’s rubbing off on me.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if she rubbed off on me,” LaMoia said.

  “Spare me.”

  Daphne Matthews, the department’s resident psychologist, was good-looking to a fault. As an interrogation team, few were better than Boldt and Matthews.

  LaMoia and Boldt stood just inside the kitchen door studying the litter of the disc
arded gauze left behind by the medics and the unusual red confetti sprinkled across the floor. LaMoia snapped his gloves in place.

  “What’s with the red shit?” LaMoia asked.

  “AFIDs,” Boldt answered.

  “An air TASER, not a stun gun?” Air TASERs fired a projectile carrying a pair of probes that delivered the device’s electrical charge via thin wires—a stun stick capable of being fired from a distance. When the projectile cartridge fired, the weapon released confettilike ID tags called AFIDs. “First I’ve heard of it.”

  “We can assume it’s Need to Know,” Boldt suggested. In repeat offenses, law enforcement never revealed every piece of evidence, so as to separate out copycat crimes. Near the litter was a tangle of thin wire and the probes.

  “Yeah? Well, I Need to Know if I’m going to make the call that it’s task force jurisdiction.”

  “Flemming knows more about these kidnappings than we do. He’s got ten children and six months on us. If their guys beat us to the evidence, if Flemming takes control, it won’t be the worst thing.”

  “Tell that to Hill,” LaMoia said.

  “Thankfully, I don’t have to. That’s your job.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” LaMoia added, “And don’t forget: You end up with Shoswitz’s desk and you’ll be reporting to her as well.”

  “One day at a time,” Boldt said.

  To invoke task force jurisdiction was to invite national attention, internal power struggles and regular four o’clock meetings with the Feds. It was all laid out. Mulwright, by showing up, had already made the call.

  LaMoia sketched the kitchen indicating the litter and the AFIDs. “She meets him at the back door, makes it about five steps and he zaps her.”

  Boldt said nothing. He orbited the spot where the girl had fallen.

  LaMoia wrote meaning into Boldt’s silence. He studied the blue tape outline and reconsidered his opinion. “Of course it depends if he fried her from the back or the front.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “If from the back, yeah: She makes it a couple steps and goes down. But if he’s over here when he hits her—” he said, moving across the room.