Boldt And Matthews: No Witnesses Part 38
"Monty the Clown," she repeated, holding up the fax's black-and-white artwork for him. "It's an ice-cream bar with a gimmick. The kids love it," she quoted what Owen had told her when he warned her to expect an invitation to Corky's birthday party.
The birthday party was today.
"Ice-cream bar?" Boldt said, in a voice filled with concern.
He repeated it several times and began madly digging through the files stacked high on the table in front of him. "An ice-cream bar," he repeated.
"Lou ...," she called out, her voice stronger, her mind ruling out coincidence.
Guccianno raised his head, sensing the tension in both of them.
"It's here somewhere," Boldt mumbled. He found it inside the file, second from the bottom. "Got it!" he hollered, rattling Guccianno's nerves. Boldt tore into the phone book and found the phone number for the Broadway Foodland. Lee Hyundai was paged, and Boldt waited impatiently, finally looking up for the first time and seeing several pair of eyes trained on him.
He held up the receipt and reminded those in the room, "Four items purchased by a man in a greatcoat at express checkout lane, a man identified by Holly MacNamara as Harry Caulfield. Three of the items on here were Adler products-candy bars-and we lost those boys in the tree house, and after that, I never went back to the receipt, focusing on the candy bars instead."
He recalled the haunting words of Dr. Richard Clements: "He will try to deceive you." The Muzak stopped and the voice of Lee Hyundai came on the line. Reading the receipt, Boldt asked, "How much do you charge for a single Montclair ice-cream bar?"
His finger pointed to the receipt where it was written: 1.66. After a long pause, during which Boldt heard the clicking of a keyboard, Lee Hyundai reported, "That would be one dollar sixty-six cents."
Boldt hung up the phone and hollered, "We've got a match!"
Guccianno came out of his chair.
Daphne turned to Boldt and announced with difficulty, "No one may believe this, but I know what he's planning to do. And I know where to find him."
"Are there bells on these trucks?" Dr. Richard Clements was one of the eleven law enforcement personnel now a.s.sembled in the emergency meeting under way in the situation room. Department of Motor Vehicle records had been checked four times. No vehicles were registered to a Harry, or a Harold, or an H. Caulfield. Of the four Caulfields in the listings, two were senior citizens and two others in their late fifties.
A Be On Lookout had been issued for all Monty-mobiles, with orders to approach with caution. With urging from the prosecuting attorney's office, the company's legal counsel had agreed to open their employment records to the police, effective immediately. Although they could provide the general areas their trucks covered, there was no direct communication with the trucks, and the specific routes were left up to the drivers. The bottom line was not good: The ice-cream trucks would remain in circulation until late afternoon. The Be On Lookout seemed the only way to catch him.
Dr. Brian Mann had stated emphatically over the phone that strychnine was the perfect poison of choice for a frozen food. "Cholera wouldn't survive in that environment," he had added.
Clements repeated, "Are there bells on these trucks?"
There were three or four conversations going at once, and only by raising his voice in this manner did he draw the attention of those gathered.
"Bells on Monty-mobiles?" Shoswitz said. "Who knows?"
"Yes," answered one of the FBI men. "At least there are on Good Humor trucks back east."
"Well, someone find out," Clements ordered. He held up the fax for Boldt to read again.
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.
IT TOLLS FOR THEE...
"'It tolls for thee ...' You see? I am right about our friend. He would like for us to stop him, if we can, with our limited combined intelligence, and take him at his word. 'The bell tolls' for Mr. Adler, gentlemen. How can he be certain? Mr. Adler's daughter is a fan of Monty the Clown." He checked with Daphne, who nodded. She had remained sullen and silent for much of this, not understanding how-when she was so certain of Caulfield's whereabouts-that these oafs could call a meeting. Boldt could see the wait was destroying her.
"And Adler's daughter has a party scheduled, with an appearance by Monty the Clown."
"Which means a disguise," Shoswitz said.
"Precisely," agreed Clements.
"And we are a.s.suming he has his own truck, rather than is planning to commandeer one-this because of the paint samples found at Longview."
"Agreed," Boldt said.
"Can we hurry this up?" Daphne snapped impatiently.
Clements glanced up at her. "Easy does it, Matthews. We understand your concern. We just want to do this correctly. Methodically. Mr. Caulfield is a worthy adversary-we must not underestimate him."
She boiled, crossing her arms defiantly. But she held her tongue.
Boldt reminded, "We have the registration tags for all the legitimate Monty-mobiles."
"One of which is expected at this sailing club-the party," Clements reminded. "But we must be able to identify his truck. That is imperative."
Bobbie Gaynes offered, "It would be easier to repaint an old truck than to make original art on one."
"An auction list!" Clements snapped his fingers at Gaynes. "Get on it! They must get rid of their older trucks!"
Gaynes ran from the room.
For the next twenty minutes they discussed the logistics of attempting to prepare for Caulfield at the sailing party.
Gaynes burst into the room and placed a fax down in front of Boldt. It listed the sixteen Montclair ice-cream trucks that had been placed on the auction block in the last five months.
"His name's not here," Boldt moaned, his hopes shattered.
"I suggest you try the name Meriweather," Clements directed, in that all-knowing tone of his.
Boldt ran a finger down the list and hit the name immediately. "Got it!" he announced. He whistled loudly. The door to the room swung open and a uniform blurred to him at a run. He circled the name and handed the man the sheet. "DMV t.i.tle and registration. Go!"
"What?" Boldt asked, catching the expression of the psychiatrist, whose eyes immediately began to track back and forth in their sockets. He pointed to Penny Smyth. "Explain the situation."
The prosecuting attorney said, "I don't know how to put this."
"Quickly!" Boldt encouraged, watching the door for the return of the patrolman.
"None of us wants to see Caulfield duck these charges."
"What?" Shoswitz challenged.
She explained, "If you stop him now, you have a truck with poisoned ice-cream inside. You have intent, certainly." As she continued talking, Clements waved his pen high in the air and conducted, stabbing and punctuating her words. He was smiling thinly. "But intent is all you have-we have. Some good circ.u.mstantial evidence, certainly. Some good motivation that our expert psychiatrist can use to our advantage. I don't deny any of this."
"What is this s.h.i.t?" Shoswitz asked.
Clements, eyes closed, answered for her. "This is the law." He opened his eyes now, sat forward, and placed down the pen. "She's right, of course. It's her job to be right about these things."
Shoswitz looked back at Smyth, who said, "We need to witness the actual pa.s.sing of a poisoned item to an individual if we're to build any kind of case to carry a life sentence or greater. I'm not saying that what we have isn't good, but it is not enough, I'm sorry to say-not if you want this man on death row. You take him as is, and we'll put him away for ten or twenty. With a good jury, maybe twice that. But connecting him to these other deaths won't be nearly as easy as pinning down an attempted murder-delivery of a fatal substance. There are some holes in the narco laws we may be able to squeeze him into and put him away for mandatory life, which is what I think we all want." She looked at Boldt with sad eyes. She did not like this any more than the rest of them.
Boldt said, "So we sting him."
She nodded.
Checking the clock, Daphne reminded urgently, "Less than forty minutes."
The patrolman charged through the door waving a sheet of computer paper. "We've got the registration!" he announced.
A light breeze blew out of the west, filling the nine white sails beautifully and causing each boat to heel slightly. Boldt was wearing a set of dirty dungaree coveralls, leaning on a shovel, where LaMoia used a pickax to dig a hole leading nowhere. They worked at the junction of an asphalt path and the parking lot that connected the dock with the parked cars. Boldt wore a flesh-colored earphone with an attached wire that led down between his collar and his neck. A hidden lavalier microphone was clipped below the coveralls' second b.u.t.ton. He listened to the running monologue from the task force's dispatcher. By pretending to scratch his chest, Boldt could depress a b.u.t.ton allowing him to transmit through the microphone.
The two men cleaning the pool were task force. So were all of a team of four-two men and two women, including Daphne Matthews-who were in the act of putting the finishing touches on the party. The hired caterer and her people were being kept inside the clubhouse and out of sight. Straddling the clubhouse chimney, a roll of tar paper at his side, an FBI sharpshooter pretended to be making repairs. Hidden inside the roll of tar paper, a semiautomatic .306 with laser scope awaited him. This man was capable of a hard-target kill at three hundred yards, and he had the blue ribbons to prove it. At the moment, he had sore ankles as well.
There was a party of three having c.o.c.ktails in the c.o.c.kpit of a twenty-one-foot ketch pulled up to the fuel dock. All were task force, all expert shots. The c.o.c.ktails were ice tea in a bourbon bottle. There was a guy having engine trouble, and another helping him-both bent under the hood of a Chevy, where a pair of handguns remained within easy reach. Hidden inside the clubhouse were six Special Forces agents, and in the bathhouse, six more.
Twenty-four cops and agents in all, eight on radios. The dispatcher nimbly maintained constant communications with all elements, continually updating and informing, and ready to relay the latest input.
In the distance, Boldt heard the approach of the radio station chopper as it reported on traffic on the floating bridge. The Birdman was riding with this pilot and reporting on a separate frequency to dispatch. This was a man who could spot a fox in a thicket from a thousand feet up. If Caulfield's refrigerated truck was in the area, the Birdman would find it.
His efforts were aided by fourteen unmarked cars casually patrolling the seventeen streets that fed the two roadways that fed the dirt road at the end of which was this clubhouse. Phone line work was being conducted on these two feeder roads by FBI agents manned with communications and firearms.
The door-to-door salesman lugging his Naugahyde box from his backseat to the front door of every house on the approach street was in fact Detective Guccianno. He wasn't selling anything; he was informing all residents to get their kids into the house, lock their doors, and await an all-clear. He was also showing each a photo of Caulfield, in case the man had been staking out the neighborhood prior to today.
"Don't worry so much, Sarge," LaMoia said nonchalantly, digging the hole a little deeper.
Static spit in Boldt's ear. "The sailboats are about five minutes out and closing," Dispatch reported. "Alpha is four minutes ETA." That was Adler. "P-one and P-two, make your move, please." Parents-one. Parents-two. A 700 series BMW and a Mercedes sedan, both repossessed in drug convictions, turned onto the final approach road, pa.s.sing beneath the overhead phone line repair crew and pulling into the clubhouse parking lot-make-believe parents about to join their children at the party. For the last thirty minutes, police communications had busily sought out parents of the mostly girls in the sailing party. Of the eighteen kids, the parents of eleven had been contacted, and undercover police were to take their places. The whereabouts of the remaining seven were unknown.
The helicopter, displaying the station call letters, swooped low overhead and banked, as if to return for another pa.s.s over the floating bridge. Boldt glanced up. On the other side of the mirrored plastic bubble, the Birdman was scrutinizing the landscape through his binoculars. The Birdman, who could count eyelashes on a flea.
Several more cars arrived-some police, some not. Boldt felt a stream of sweat trickle down his side. Civilians in the mix. He wished there had been a way to prevent that. "You okay?" he asked LaMoia.
LaMoia rested the pickax, looked up at his sergeant, and nodded gravely. "Digging holes is s.h.i.tty work."
"You've got your line all memorized?"
"I'm ready, Sarge. Relax."
Boldt heard the barking of the dogs, but did not see them yet. There were three scheduled, all German shepherds. Diana, who ran the K-9 squad and trained the dogs, was dressed in jeans and a Bob Dylan T-shirt: out for an afternoon stroll, down to watch the boats come in. Down to wreak some havoc. Another actor in a play so hastily written.
In Boldt's right ear the dispatcher's voice said plainly, "We have hard contact. Repeat: hard contact."
"Hold on!" Boldt whispered hotly to LaMoia, who stopped midswing and set down the tool.
Boldt listened and reported, "Birdman's spotted a gray roof of a decent-size truck parked in a stand of trees about a quarter-mile from here."
"He got here early," LaMoia said, "just as Clements said he would. I bet Clements was a Boy Scout." He added, "I always hated Boy Scouts. Now, Girl Scouts was another story-" He swung the pickax again. A nervous LaMoia was a joke machine. Boldt longed for a switch. LaMoia said, "On second thought I could get to like this work. I kinda miss this physical stuff."
"Cut the chatter," Boldt said.
The chopper pulled up to a new elevation high over the bridge. Boldt a.s.sumed that from there the Birdman could keep an eye on the truck. Responding to a question from Shoswitz relayed through Dispatch, Boldt spoke into the radio, "No drive-bys. Nothing to rattle him. Copy?" He nodded and went back to leaning on his shovel.
Boldt pressed his ear and reported to LaMoia, "A second truck, just entering the road ... Hold it! It has pulled off.... Something's wrong.... Tires are out. Birdman has all four tires flat ..."
LaMoia said, "He spiked the road."
Boldt said, "He spiked the road." And LaMoia grinned for guessing right.
"Take out the compet.i.tion," LaMoia said. "Make sure the truck that was hired is a no-show. The guy is smart, Sarge."
"Tell me about it."
"You nervous?" LaMoia asked, his concentration fully on his work. "There's nothing quite like an operation, you think? But I never really recover. It's like putting too much postage on a letter, you know? You can never get it back." He added, "Your postman ever return any money to you?"
He reminded Boldt of Liz's mother, who tended to rattle on when she became nervous or anxious, switching subjects randomly and somehow stringing them all together.
Boldt checked the roof. The sharpshooter had his hand inside the roll of tar paper. One of the two pool cleaners was scrubbing the steps of the high dive, making sure he had an elevated vantage point in case he had the only shot. All cogs of the same wheel. It rolled slowly toward Harold Caulfield.
"Boats are two minutes out," Dispatch reported into Boldt's ear. Then, after a spit of static, "Suspect vehicle is rolling." Calmly, he stated: "All stations, suspect is rolling. Good luck, everyone." SPD dispatchers rarely added such editorials, but Boldt was glad to have it.
The dispatcher traced the route of Caulfield's Monty-mobile as it pa.s.sed under the first of the phone crews. "We have confirmation of vehicle registration."
"We're on," Boldt told LaMoia.
"Show time," said the detective. "Don't forget to smile."
Boldt heard the first sailboat thump against the float, and then the shrieks of excited, childish laughter. One of the parents pa.s.sed by on the way down the dock, but rubbernecked the two cops, and Boldt realized she was looking at LaMoia's cowboy boots and probably wondering what a guy wearing a gorgeous pair of ostrich boots was doing digging a hole at her club. But she didn't say anything. She ran her hand along the rail, though she walked more slowly, apprehensively, and looked back one more time, her face still caught in curiosity.
Too many civilians, Boldt thought, tempted to abort. Tempted to let it be Penny Smyth's problem: Arrest now, figure out the charges later.
"Don't do it, Sarge," LaMoia said, reading his thoughts. "We've got this b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Five minutes and it's all over."
The inevitable question came into his ear; it was the voice of Phil Shoswitz. "Decision time. He's thirty seconds out." Hesitation as he awaited Boldt's signal to arrest now or play it out.
LaMoia stared at him.
The anxious mother, far down the dock, reached the arriving boats and grabbed hold of a line tossed to her. Other parents waited in the party area. Boldt caught Daphne's eye, where he saw both worry and concern, yes-but determination as well.
Boldt considered a sentence of twenty years-out in six with good behavior.
LaMoia, serious now and sensing Boldt's struggle, looked into the man's eyes and said, "Slater Lowry."