“In there?”
“Nine-one-one ID’d the call location as a pay phone at this address.” After a long silence, she said, “Tell me he didn’t do this, Lou. Why would he do this?”
Boldt, staying focused, tried to follow the logic. “If he had come back out, he’d have taken his bike, which means he’s in there somewhere. And if Garman is in there too, who knows what we’ve got going?”
“I’m going in.”
“Ridiculous,” Boldt snapped. The look she gave him could have stopped traffic. “Come on! This is textbook. We don’t make the pick on his turf. We wait him out, put up a net, take him on neutral ground.”
“Who cares about him?” Daphne asked. “I’m talking about Ben. Are we going to wait for Ben too? Is that in the textbook? He’s in there-either playing hero or afraid to come back out. Either way, for his safety, we have to get him out of there. And right now! Anything less than that and we invite a hostage situation. Anything less than that and Phil Shoswitz will never glue this back together.”
“This isn’t about Shoswitz.”
“With the mind-set of a Jonny Garman, we do not want a hostage situation, believe me.” She added spitefully, “And I will not have Ben at the mercy of an ERT rescue attempt.”
The battle lines had long since been drawn between the department’s psychologist, who believed in talking through an incident, and ERT, which believed in quick, efficient strikes. There were marks on both sides of the scoreboard; each solution had its place. But Daphne Matthews was outspoken and one-sided on the issue. Boldt was not about to debate it with her.
She worked his paternal emotions, like a potter with clay. “If that were Miles in there, what would you do?”
“I’ve called for backup,” he informed her, dodging the question.
“How many?” she asked, panic seizing her.
Boldt told her. “Two pair. Unmarked. No ERT.”
That seemed to both relieve her and disgust her at the same time. He saw her in a different light. Was she too far invested in Ben to remain even partially objective? He feared she was, which left him alone in his decision making. As if to confirm this, she admitted, “I don’t know that I can make it over that fence.” She paused, studying it. “But I’m going to try.”
He grabbed her by the arm; she looked down at his handhold with disdain. “If it were Miles, I’d go in,” he answered honestly. “I wouldn’t let ERT within a mile of the place.”
A faint smile found her eyes.
“But I’d do it smart,” he continued. “And I’d have as much information available as possible.”
“Yes, you would,” she agreed, knowing him well.
“We don’t know for a fact that the boy is in there. We certainly cannot confirm that Garman is. What Ben reported seeing and what actually is the case are two different animals. He doesn’t know Garman.”
“He saw him at the airport,” Daphne corrected. “He does know him. Of all of us, he’s the only one who does.”
Boldt felt the wind knocked out of him. He had forgotten that connection, and the reminder of it blanked his mind momentarily. He tried to regain his thoughts. Either you stayed ahead of Daphne Matthews, or you played catch-up from then on.
“If you’re suggesting reconnaissance,” she encouraged, “I’m in.”
“He’s under the name Babcock at a rooming house over on Washington,” he informed her, stunning her with the news. “If he used the same name here, it would be in the files in the office. We’d know which unit is his.”
“Forget him,” she repeated. “We get Ben out, then we worry about him.”
“No way,” he said.
“You know I’m sorry to do this,” she said, turning her head slowly to face him. Their eyes met. And then, all at once, she shoved him-struck him with open palms, sending him off-balance from where he crouched and skidding back through the loose stone and gravel.
She took several long strides with that athletic body of hers and leapt up onto the chain link like a cat, vaulting it as if it were a regular exercise. Both legs cleared the top and she was on the other side and down with a minimum of effort. She did not look back, did not give him a chance to wield power over her.
She stole into the dark and was gone.
70
“I never had me a little brother,” Garman said to Ben, as the boy came awake from unconsciousness. “I’m Jonny.”
Ben found himself on the storage unit’s cement floor, sitting in a corner away from the large garage door. His wrists were stuck together, as were his sneakers, sole to sole. He tried to speak, but his lips wouldn’t open.
“Super Glue,” Jonny explained. “I only had a little tape left, and I needed it. Now don’t go fighting it,” he said, as Ben struggled with his wrists. “At best you’ll only tear your skin open, and I’ll have to reglue you. You’ll make a mess and it’ll hurt. Just sit still.”
The sweatshirt hood was off his head and hanging down his back. The skin on his face looked strange, like smooth white clay, but his ear looked like a big scab, yellow and rust colored, like pus and dried blood. It took Ben a few minutes to adjust to not breathing out of his mouth. Every time he became too scared, he got dizzy. Things would go soft and fuzzy, but when he awakened everything was clear again. He realized it all had to with his breathing. If he kept himself from getting scared, he’d stay awake.
Jonny was soldering something, using what to Ben looked like an oversized butane lighter. There was a Coleman lantern going, making a loud hissing sound and throwing off a tremendous amount of bright light.
“I ain’t going to hurt you,” Jonny said, reading Ben’s thoughts accurately. “You shouldn’ta followed me here, you know that.”
Ben nodded, as terrified as he’d ever been. It looked like the guy was making some kind of bomb, all those wires coming out of a piece of plastic tubing.
“But what’s done is done.” He raised a finger to Ben. “You fucked with my head back there at the tree. I thought you was dead.”
He didn’t sound like other grown-ups to Ben. Besides having a voice that was like a cat’s hiss, he seemed more like a kid than an adult-someone who hadn’t aged, like a movie where the kid is trapped in an older guy’s body.
“Why the hell did you follow me?” he asked the boy who couldn’t answer. “My face?”
Ben shook his head violently no. He dared to look into those eyes and felt light-headed again. He was going to pass out. He heard the words “You can admit it” but only faintly. “And now, ’cause of you, I gotta pack up and leave. Leave you here. Never killed no kid.” Ben’s world went woozy-he hyperventilated-and he lost several minutes to the blue darkness.
When Ben came to again, Jonny was through soldering. Ben endeavored to keep his eyes off the man, because every time he looked at him he felt queasy. The area was occupied nearly entirely by a large pickup truck, with just enough room left over for a pair of oil drums marked USAF, lots of black plastic pipe, and a green metal trunk unlocked but not open. Jonny sat on the trunk, working off the truck’s tailgate. There was a car jack and a pair of beach chairs stacked along the wall and a couple of cardboard boxes that were taped shut. There were boxes from Radio Shack that had once contained radio-controlled four-wheel-drive cars.
There were only two pictures in the place, a postcard of Jesus and a slightly larger image of a woman being burned at the stake.
Ben thought about God. He believed in him. He prayed to him. He made all sorts of promises about how he would live his life, how he would obey Emily or whoever ended up taking care of him; he would even spend the night at the detention center, if that were asked of him. He promised not to run away. To listen. To learn respect. The prayers gushed out of him.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Daphne’s red car driving past. He wanted so badly to believe it had been her car. Although he didn’t know exactly how long he had been held captive, he guessed at least ten minutes, maybe more. His hope of being rescued waned, and he retur
ned to his prayers.
The man who called himself Jonny spoke to the wall but intended it for Ben. “You and I aren’t so different.” A half minute later he added, “I ain’t never had no little brother.”
Ben hung his head to the floor. He didn’t want the man to see he was crying.
71
Boldt climbed the chain link fence quickly, tearing his coat sleeve and slicing his right forearm on the sharp spikes at the top, but he was up and over more easily than he had expected. He landed at a run, pursuing Daphne as if she were the suspect.
She had crossed over an extremely rare threshold for her: operating from her emotions rather than her intellect. It was one of the most dangerous transitions a cop can make, and Boldt had no choice but to stop her before she got herself, or the boy, or all three of them into what Boldt thought of as the “red zone”-that place from which there was no out other than confrontation or violence.
She hesitated at the pay phone, as if it might answer some questions for her, sensed Boldt’s approach, and took off around the side of the office building.
Boldt took his weapon in both hands, training it down to his side, an automatic response born of some sixth sense that had responded to an internal alarm. He didn’t believe in such responses, but he trusted them when they happened.
Daphne was athletic, a daily runner, and she was fast. If she had chosen to outrun Boldt it would have been no contest, but her focus was on locating Ben, and she moved slowly alongside the building, checking the shadows. Boldt bumped her from behind and whispered, “Move, move!” as he herded her to the end of the building, his attention spread in too many directions: behind him, along the storage units, along the wall of the building. He urged her on with his left shoulder, stopped her, peered around the corner of the building, and then indicated her on ahead. She glared at him but allowed him to guide her. He drove them into a recessed brick corner that felt protected and hissed, “Stupid move.”
“He’s here, goddammit. You may not believe that but-”
“We’ll find him,” he said, to reassure her. “If he’s here, we’ll find him. He’s a kid. A curious kid, at that. Precocious. Our job is to keep him-and us-out of trouble. Not make trouble.” He scanned the area as he spoke, rarely meeting her eyes. It didn’t escape him that he was suddenly playing the psychologist and she the renegade cop. “We’ll check the rows, but we’ll do it organized, not running around on our own. If we work together, side-to-side, we can net him. Listen, it’s like a giant supermarket, these rows. We’ll miss him if we don’t do it in an organized way.” She looked a little dazed. “You hearing me?”
She nodded faintly.
“We both want him to be okay,” he reminded her. He was hoping that by pinning her here he might buy time for the arrival of the backup, but to utilize them would either mean returning to the radio in his car or spending time on the cellular phone relaying messages-and Daphne’s patience was running low. He could sense her about to make another break. He felt rushed, hurried; he knew that was when he made mistakes. He had to get her involved, engaged in a plan, focused. If she went running through the facility she might get them all killed. He decided to hit her with the truth. “May I remind you,” he said, still scanning the immediate area, “that Garman has an undetermined amount of this rocket fuel? Just consider that for a moment.” He stared at her.
“Point taken.”
“An undetermined amount.”
“I get it, Sergeant. Let’s get on with it.”
“Okay,” Boldt said, forming a plan, wishing for the backup. “Right up against this first row. Weapons at the ready. We walk quietly-super quietly-slowly. Patiently. We hold position at the end of the first row. Round the corner, cover the side. Round the next corner and make eye contact. We hold to the wall and meet in the center. We cross to the next row and start it all over. If we need cover, we press ourselves into the recesses at the garage doors. We walk quietly because we’re listening-for voices, for movement, a radio. We’re interested in light and sound. Those are our signals.” He paused, hoping some of it might sink in. “If this is his lab, his storage area-and we have every reason to believe it is-it’s a second home to this creep. It’s familiar turf for him.” He released the gun with one hand and tapped his forehead. “Keep that right in here: his turf. Expect the unexpected. We watch for things like trip wires, sensors maybe, who knows? He has surprised us too many times to count. He prides himself on it. No surprises. Expect anything. Everything.”
He had talked long enough to calm her. Or perhaps his words had sunk in. Her eyes trained on his, she thanked him and followed it with an apology. Then she said desperately, “I just want to find him.”
He nodded. There were a dozen things he wanted to tell her-about Liz, about the change in his thoughts on field work, about feeling as if he were tempting fate. But the look on her face wouldn’t allow him to back out of his plans, and he realized that she loved little Ben Santori.
If that were Miles in there…. The words rang inside his head like bells.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Okay,” he answered. But it didn’t feel okay. As they crossed the blacktop toward the first row of units, an increasing sense of foreboding filled him. Daphne’s intuition was right; Ben was in trouble.
They moved methodically through the rows of storage units, and much to Boldt’s surprise Daphne stayed in lockstep, following Boldt’s plan to the letter. The sound of traffic on I-5 was oppressive, interrupted only by the drumming in Boldt’s ears. He rolled his shoes across the blacktop to avoid being heard, keeping himself alert for the unexpected.
Beyond the third set of blue units, all doubts concerning Garman’s whereabouts were suspended. A wash of pale light illuminated the fronts of the units that Boldt and Daphne faced; the source of that light, the unit immediately to Boldt’s right. At the far end of the row of units, Daphne’s face appeared. Boldt signaled her. Together, they moved toward each other, ducking from one doorway to the next, moving toward the center of the row. Less than a minute later, they stood on opposite sides of the garage door that was leaking light, ten feet apart. Boldt’s heart pounded heavily in his chest and clouded his hearing as he tried to discern the sounds coming from within. It sounded like a fan. Like a cat hissing, or water just beginning to boil. But it was none of these, he realized; it was a gas lantern and the voice of Jonny Garman, coming from a throat burned in a fire in North Dakota, a voice trying to make itself heard.
When Boldt signaled Daphne to withdraw from their positions by Garman’s storage unit, her first temptation was to disobey-allow him to take a few steps back and then throw open the garage door and face whatever Garman had to offer. But intelligence, training, and discipline won out, leaving her feeling a victim of her profession.
Step by step they pulled away from the unit, back to the far corners, and finally retreated until they caught sight of each other once again in the second aisle. Boldt motioned toward the office, where they met outside a few minutes later.
“We’re going to assume it’s Garman”-Boldt led off at a fraction of a whisper-”and work from there. If Gaynes or LaMoia spot a suspect, we’ll reconsider, but buying this as coincidence is too great a stretch for me. Garman came here to prepare-”
“For Martinelli,” Daphne informed him, mouthing her words more than speaking them. She explained to him her discovery of the backpack with the Santori address and how, in her opinion, the bait of a woman so close in appearance to his mother had overridden the other arson he had planned. She admitted reluctantly, “I have no idea how Ben became involved.” And those were the last words she could manage, her emotions winning out.
“If Ben isn’t in hiding-”
“-then he’s inside that storage unit,” she completed for him. “Garman won’t harm a child-especially not a young boy. He won’t even use him as a hostage, Lou. He won’t risk the boy’s life.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes, we do,” she
contradicted. “We know the great lengths he went to in order to avoid harming the offspring of his victims. He stayed in those trees to make sure the young boys were out of the house. He knows Ben’s face, Lou, it’s the face he saw on the sun visor. That will have an effect on him; he will empathize with Ben. He will think he’s doing him a favor by burning up his mother, which is exactly what he has planned. He will not harm him in any way. If anything,” she suggested, “Ben’s presence reduces the chance that Garman will resist arrest.”
“No, no, no,” Boldt objected, sensing where she intended to take that line of argument. “We are not confronting the suspect.”
“Of course we are!” she protested. “What we are not going to do is turn this thing into a circus. He’s an introvert, a paranoid, a man afraid of society because of society’s reaction to his disfigurement. He’s angry. He blames his father. You surround a person like that with flashing lights, bullhorns and armed men in uniforms and he’ll lose it. Reality will blur for him. Who knows what he’ll do?”
“Daffy-”
“We confront him, Lou. You and I. We stand outside that door, our weapons put away, and we talk to him. We reinforce that he doesn’t want the boy hurt and that he doesn’t want to contend with an army of trigger-happy cops. We make, and we keep, a promise to bring him in quietly. He’s not a headline hunter, Lou, not this one. This is a family matter-between him and his father, him and his mother. We can resolve this right here, you and I.”
“And if you’re wrong, the place we’re standing will look like ground zero by tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not wrong,” she stated bluntly. “Work with me here, Lou. There’s a right way and a wrong way to a Jonny Garman. You know that’s right; you know I know what I’m talking about. You bring the circus, and he’ll join it. You bring a show, and he’ll outdo your show. We offer him a way out, and he’ll take it.”
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