Beyond Recognition lbadm-4

by Ridley Pearson

  The parents met at the door leading into the kitchen, each bearing a child. Liz was fraught with raw nerves-eyes wide, jaw dropped, breathing heavily, panting from fear. “Let’s get out,” she said hoarsely.

  “We’re going,” Boldt answered, his voice cracking, his eyes scanning the kitchen floor for anything unusual. His paranoia ran rampant. He pictured everything a potential trigger. He suddenly froze, fearing the trigger immediately before them. Miles struggled restlessly in his mother’s arms. Sarah wiggled to be free of Boldt, reaching for Liz, who pleaded, “If we’re going, then we’re going. Please.”

  “We’re going,” Boldt announced dryly. He cut a straight line across the kitchen, out the door, down the steps. “No,” he called out, stopping Liz as she headed for her car. He stepped closer to her and kissed her on her damp cheek. “We’re out for a walk with the kids. Leisurely. Easy does it. Okay?”

  Tears ran down her cheeks. She nodded, glancing around.

  “No,” he cautioned. “It’s just us. The two of us with our kids, out for a walk. Nothing to it.”

  She nodded again.

  They walked west on 55th up to Greenwood and a corner convenience store run by a pair of Koreans whom Boldt knew by name from so many trips for eggs or milk.

  He dialed 911 into the pay phone mounted outside the store, with Liz and Miles at his side and Sarah in his arms. Graffiti was scrawled around the phone, foul jokes, and a message: Zippy was here.

  “You can go in,” Boldt told his wife.

  “No,” was all she said. She stayed close, to where her elbow pressed against him, and he felt her warmth with the contact. That simple touch was enough to tighten his throat as he spoke into the phone. In his twenty-plus years on the force, he had never dialed the emergency number. He asked to be put through to Homicide and was informed that it couldn’t be done. He asked, sternly, for the on-call identification technician and received the same curt reply. He hung up and, lacking a quarter, borrowed the use of the phone behind the counter.

  He called his lieutenant, Phil Shoswitz, at home rather than the department. He explained his suspicions, requesting the bomb squad, a backup fire truck, and evidence technicians. He suggested the adjacent homes be evacuated, but Shoswitz refused this last request, wanting more proof before attracting “that kind of attention.”

  The comment reminded Boldt of a conversation with Daphne that the majority of convicted arsonists admitted to watching the burn. Witnessing the burn was itself a major if not primary motive for committing the crime. Boldt debated returning to the house to get Liz’s car, but decided instead to ask a friend to come pick them up at the convenience store. A plan was forming in his head. He was a cop again, the father’s panic subsiding.

  The ladder, and whoever had scaled it, had been in their side yard that same afternoon. The arsonist, if the house had been rigged, could be watching the house at that very moment. Depending on what vantage point he took, what distance he chose, he might or might not have seen the family leave. It seemed possible he was still in the neighborhood. Boldt suggested this to Shoswitz. Listening in, Liz went noticeably pale.

  After a short argument, in which Boldt found himself on the side of sacrificing his home if necessary, it was agreed that the various squads-lab, fire, bomb-would be placed on call but would not arrive at the residence until a police net had been put in place in an area extending from Woodland Park to 5th Avenue, Northwest. The net would be tightened, in hopes of squeezing the arsonist into its center. Shoswitz, typically tight with the budget, responded admirably. Faced with a possible crime against a police officer acting in the line of duty, he made not one comment about money. No crimes drew more internal support.

  If and when the bomb or accelerants were found, their existence proved, then whoever had perpetrated this act had, in the process, crossed a sacred boundary, a boundary Boldt and his colleagues took seriously, one that was intolerable and unforgivable, the reaction to which would be the unvoiced but unwavering goal of revenge and punishment.

  Twenty minutes later, Liz and the kids were headed to Willie and Susan Affholder’s house for the night. If possible, Boldt would join them later. He and Liz kissed through the open window of Susan’s Explorer, a heartfelt, loving kiss that meant the world to him. As they drove away, as the red taillights receded, Boldt knew in his heart that even if there had been an affair, it was over now. His wife and his family were whole again. They were reunited by this incident.

  By 9:15 P.M., eight unmarked police cars had taken up positions along the corners and side points of an area roughly a half mile square, with Boldt’s house at its center. Two decommissioned school buses, painted blue, typically used for the transportation of convicted felons, awaited the drop-off of thirty-four uniformed officers, nine of whom were on walkie-talkies with earpieces, the rest on hand signals. The buses were placed to the north, at Greenwood and 59th, and to the south, at Greenwood and 50th, seventeen uniforms each.

  Before this, a black Emergency Response Team step van deposited nine of SPD’s most highly trained field operatives onto the southwest corner of the zoo. Woodland Park was believed by the ERT to be the suspect’s most likely route of escape. Each of the nine ERT officers was armed and wore a hands-free radio headset and night vision equipment.

  Boldt climbed into the back of a maroon step van marked in bold gold letters, TWO HOUR MARTINIZING. The van had been confiscated as part of a greyhound gaming bust several years earlier and was presently in service to the police as a field communications command center. It was parked on a hill on Palatine Place, a block and a half from Boldt’s house.

  Shoswitz occupied an office chair bolted to the floor, as did the two techies-a communications dispatcher and a field operations officer. Shoswitz owned a long, pale, pointed face, overly large eyeballs that registered perpetual shock, and busy fingers that reflected his nervous disposition.

  Boldt checked his watch. Even secured radio frequencies could be, and occasionally were, monitored by the more creative members of the press assigned to the police beat. The best technologies could be compromised, given time and determination. He knew at least two reporters capable of such tricks. He estimated the operation had about fifteen minutes in the clear. Boldt made specific note of the time: 9:23. They needed to be well along by 9:45, or the press might spoil the operation. Impatience tested him.

  “All set?” the field operations officer asked Shoswitz. Phil glanced over at Boldt through the dim red light of the step van’s interior. There was no other chair, so Boldt squatted on an inverted green plastic milk crate. The sergeant nodded at the lieutenant; it was an uncomfortable moment for Boldt, this prerequisite use of chain of command necessary to all multitask, multidepartmental operations. With one hot glance in the sergeant’s direction, Shoswitz let Boldt know that responsibility for the hurried operation was all his. Phil Shoswitz was already distancing himself.

  The dispatcher flipped some toggles and said, “Attention, all units.”

  Boldt closed his eyes and, listening to the continuous stream of radio traffic, envisioned the events unfolding in the dark outside.

  As residents in the neighborhood watched TV, ERT and uniformed police stole through their lawns, down the alleys behind their homes, and around their garages and carports, with almost no one the wiser. One child of nine announced from his bedroom that outside his window he had just seen a Ninja in the backyard. The father hollered up the stairs for the kid to go to sleep and stop bothering them.

  A human net constricted toward its geographical center: Lou Boldt’s home.

  Boldt, eyes closed, pictured a cool and hardened killer, lurking somewhere out there in the dark, anxiously awaiting the spectacular light show he had planned, awaiting an event that Boldt prayed would never come to pass.

  ERT officer Cole Robbie was one of the voices Boldt heard speaking across the nearly constant radio traffic. He was a tall man, a little over six foot one, and on that night he wore all black, including a flak ja
cket and leather jump boots. He wore his black ERT baseball hat backward, the brim covering the back of his neck, the adjustable plastic strap biting into his forehead. Robbie had a young daughter, nine months old, named Rosie, and a wife of four years called Jo, for Josephine. Rosie was, without a doubt, the most amazing thing that had ever happened to him. Jo was probably the finest woman on the face of the earth, given that she pulled two jobs and still managed to keep Rosie happy and the house happening. Only a few days earlier, in the middle of prayer at church, Cole Robbie had realized he had everything he had ever hoped for, everything and more than a person dared ask for. On that night, sneaking through people’s backyards, aware that many if not all people in these neighborhoods armed themselves, aware that his job was to apprehend some unknown, unidentified assailant, quite possibly dangerous, quite possibly a murderer, his heartbeat was clocking a hundred and ten, and he was thinking, Let it be someone else. He had no intention of being a hero. He was, in fact, seriously considering applying for an interdepartmental transfer. After all his years of training and angling for a place in ERT, a desk job suddenly looked real appealing.

  Cole Robbie crept over a low fence and into a fire alley, which was considered city property and therefore public land. Sneaking through backyards was not exactly legal, it was just easier at times.

  He remained in shadow as often as possible, moving slightly hunched, shoulders low. In his right ear a constant stream of radio traffic became a din, and though he listened for key words that might have relevance to his own situation, for the most part he tuned it out. In any field operation that involved uniforms there was too much radio traffic. Left to ERT-as it should have been, in Robbie’s opinion-an operation like this one would have been substantially simpler.

  His wrist vibrated silently under his watch face. He stopped, stepped out of shadow, and looked once left and then right. He waited. A moment later he looked again and this time saw both of his fellow squad members, one on each side, perhaps twenty to thirty yards away. There was no attempt made at hand signals. Conserve movement.

  In four more minutes his wrist would vibrate again, and he would wait for visual contact with his team members. If, within a minute of this, either should go missing, Robbie would attempt radio contact through Command Center Dispatch. If this failed, he and his fellow ERT teammates would search for the missing officer until the reason for his absence was explained. Sometimes it proved to be nothing more than a neighborhood dog preventing egress. Sometimes it was a matter of the officer getting lost or forgetting his route; even the best trained made mistakes. Once-only once, Robbie reminded himself-a missing ERT operative had been found with his spinal cord broken in two places and his skull cracked open. He lived through it, but David Jefferson, who had changed his name to Abdul Something-or-other, now worked the phone bank for a telemarketing firm from the confines of a wheelchair. Robbie had had a pizza with him a couple months earlier. The man’s life was a wreck: He had lost his wife in a bloody divorce and was twenty grand in debt. Cole Robbie wanted nothing to do with that. He stepped quietly forward. The section of park on the far side of the zoo that the suits believed was this perp’s most likely escape route lay just ahead and was Robbie’s destination. It was pitch dark beneath those trees. Visual contact was out of the question once they were inside there. His heart rate climbed above one-ten. He loved this work.

  Boldt opened his eyes and craned forward in the odd red light, attempting to see whatever it was that the field operations officer, Tito Lee, was attempting to show him.

  Pointing to a map, Lee said, “We got ERT in a line right through here. They’re moving good and should be in position within five, maybe ten minutes. At that point, we got a human wall between Phinney Way and the zoo. Our perimeter patrol cars are all in place. The two buses are in position as we speak, but no one’s going anywhere until we give the high sign. You want to start to close this gnat’s ass, you let me know.”

  “What-who? — was that woman I heard a couple of minutes ago?” Boldt asked.

  “What we got there is an undercover officer working the streets in an Animal Control vehicle up to the west side. She’s driving around real slow, like she’s after something, which of course she is, technically speaking.” He seemed proud of this concept. He grinned. “It gives us an operative on the specific street; she’s headed for your place. She’ll get out of the vehicle there and go door to door, heading toward Woodland, asking about a Doberman reported wandering loose.”

  “She’s alone?” Boldt asked apprehensively. “I thought everyone was going to be partnered in this-”

  “Who’s alone?” Shoswitz interjected, suddenly interested.

  Lee answered the lieutenant, turning from Boldt. “The dogcatcher. One of the Vice dicks, Branslonovich. She’s undercover as a dogcatcher,” he repeated, for the sake of the bewildered and concerned Shoswitz.

  “No one goes unpartnered on an operation like this,” Shoswitz echoed, suddenly concerned. “Who authorized?”

  Lee said defensively, “We put this together in forty-five minutes, Lieutenant. It’s not like-”

  “I want her out of there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Team her up with someone. I don’t care if her partner ends up in a dog cage in the back, I want everyone paired. I thought I made that clear!” Shoswitz delivered this invective and then glared over toward Boldt; the lieutenant hated the unexpected. He dreaded these operations-he was too close to retirement to risk his career on hunches. He disliked Boldt at that moment; the sergeant could feel it.

  Cole Robbie moved evenly and fluidly, avoiding jerky motions. If one were to have caught a glimpse of his dark form, it might have been mistaken for a tree trunk or a waving shadow from the occasional car headlight that sneaked into the copse of trees through which he navigated. He was, at that moment, no longer a corporeal entity, no longer a body of heartbeats and sensations, for as he negotiated through the trees, so did he negotiate a transformation of spirit, divesting himself of the material and turning himself over to God. That was something he never discussed with anyone other than Jo, who fully understood such transformations and, even had she not understood, would have supported anything that might keep her husband alive through another tour of duty. Through this surrender of spirit, Cole Robbie believed himself an instrument of God, all knowing, all encompassing. If he were meant to engage with a psychotic arsonist, so be it; he would do his best and hope for divine guidance. He trusted that same divine guidance to carry him on the proper route through the forest, to deliver him to a point, the significance of which he might not understand but would willingly accept. Understanding, even knowledge itself, was beyond his capacity at that moment. His training occupied a spot within him far inferior to his trust and confidence in the correctness of the moment. He accepted his role, his route, his destination without question, and whereas others often mistook this for an admirable sense of loyalty to his team, the truth was far different. His misperceived loyalty was nothing more than an adherence to the doctrines of faith and the acceptance of Divine Principle.

  “Come and get it,” was Cole Robbie’s last conscious thought before he surrendered completely and turned himself over to his Keeper. From the corner of his right eye, he registered the quick white wink of a flashlight signal, and he returned and then relayed this signal to his left without thought. Through the trees it sparked, linking the various members of ERT, connecting the chain. All was well. His confidence was second to none. He knew and he accepted, though he did not dwell on the fact, that at that moment he was the best cop out there. He was part of an entirely different team. Only time would tell, but something told him this was his night.

  “Where then?” Shoswitz barked from the back of the step van. The pale red light cast from above created hollow black eye sockets and doubled the size and distorted the shape of his already prominent nose. He looked to Boldt like something satanic. His
teeth shined wet and red in that light. His index finger pointed straight and shook authoritatively at Tito Lee. The lieutenant’s question was in response to Lee’s having said that the Vice officer Branslonovich, who was posing as a dogcatcher, was clearly not in her vehicle.

  The operations officer answered by asking a question of the dispatcher. “Can we raise her in the field?”

  Shoswitz, rarely content to speculate, shouted into the cramped confines, “I want her back in that truck and the doors locked, and her rolling, this instant. How we deal with this can be discussed later. Copy?”

  Lee shot Shoswitz a hot glance.

  The radio dispatcher looked distressed as well, and that troubled Boldt because the dispatcher’s role was critical to such a complex and quickly conceived operation.

  “All we can do,” Boldt offered, weighing in on the side of Tito Lee, “is try to raise her. Is she carrying a hand-held?” he asked the dispatcher, in part to get him back on track.

  “She’s carrying a unicom,” he replied, explaining that she should have been hearing all directives from the step van. “I put it out on the unicom,” he offered. “But even if she heard it, it would take her a minute to get back to the truck and respond. She’s not authorized,” he explained, and Boldt understood that she, along with others in the operation, was not in possession of a walkietalkie capable of transmitting on secured frequencies-only a few of the hand-helds could do that. This technical restriction isolated her.

  Boldt said, “Am I mistaken, or will an animal control van have a radio capable of-”

  “Oh, shit, you’re right,” interrupted Lee. “She’s restricted to line-of-sight reporting over the unicom. Emergency reporting of contact with the suspect.” To minimize radio traffic and to reduce the chance of the press catching on, most of the radios in use were under the same restrictions.