The Body of David Hayes

by Ridley Pearson

  “You’re both special,” Liz said. “And Sarah, too.”

  The wall phone rang, interrupting the few moments of distraction away from the case. With the chiming of those tones, both husband and wife went silent, caught in a pregnant pause of indecision as to who should answer, and who should listen in. Boldt had never loved the phone, considering evening phone solicitation a crime on the level of a felony, and now had no desire to ever hear it ring again.

  They both expected it to be Hayes, but it was Laura Towle, inviting them to a dinner with the school board member who represented their district. Boldt listened one-sided as Liz accepted. She knew that her husband supported her own passion to improve the early reading program. But the intrusion registered on both their faces as Liz hung up. David Hayes had stepped into their lives. There was no getting around it.

  Not long after that they rounded up the kids and got them to bed. Familiar routines that settled Boldt’s anxieties and reminded him how important this family life had become for him.

  Twenty minutes after the kids went down Liz’s cell phone rang, and this time her face collapsed as she answered. Boldt edged up next to her and she cocked the phone away from her head just far enough for Boldt to overhear.

  Hayes made it short and sweet. She was to withdraw five thousand dollars in cash from the bank, deposit it into an aluminum briefcase sold by a Brookstone store in the small mall beneath the bank, and carry it with her out of the bank and onto the streets. Additional instructions were to come by cell phone then.

  “They’re willing to deal,” Liz said, stretching the known facts. “The details aren’t worked out, but they’re sympathetic to your situation. They’re willing to protect you and your mother. Let me work this out for you, David.”

  The long pause on the other end of the call seemed good reason for hope.

  “Don’t let me down, Lizzy. These guys… there’s no deal that could possibly be good enough. Help me out here. Do this for me. Tomorrow, four P.M. sharp.”

  The line disconnected.

  Twenty-five minutes later, at Boldt’s beckoning, Danny Foreman knocked on the back door, and Boldt let him in. He was out of breath, his forehead sparkling, his eyes frantic, betraying a cluttered mind.

  “Let me explain this,” Foreman said, looking too big for the lovingly restored parlor chair that had once been Liz’s great-aunt’s. He sat forward, dispensing a sense of urgency that Boldt found contagious.

  Boldt reviewed the Hayes phone call with Danny Foreman as if Liz weren’t in the room, an attitude corrected after a series of glaring looks on her part. He built up to a point where he felt himself capable of negotiating Liz out of the money drop that Hayes had requested. It was then that Foreman jumped in with his own news.

  “I’ve spoken to Paul Geiser. Any deal is predicated upon the recovery of the software or whatever means was used to hide the money as well as the identification and apprehension of whoever’s money it was in the first place.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Liz blurted out. “That’s not a deal. That’s conscription. He’s not a cop, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Paul is just a prosecutor. He’d have to pull some serious strings to provide permanent relocation for Hayes and his mother. Witness protection like that is only done on the federal level.” Boldt felt himself nodding along. The state could protect an important trial witness for a matter of weeks, or sometimes even months, but true relocation was a matter for the Justice Department. “If he can put a racketeering charge onto whoever’s got a thumb on Hayes, then the U.S. Attorney’s Office takes over and he says relocation is possible, not guaranteed, but possible. But that’s the only way it’s going to happen.”

  “It’s too much,” Liz said.

  “You’re speaking for him now, are you?”

  “Lay off, Danny,” Boldt said.

  Foreman sat back and collected himself. “Paul asked if Liz would go along with us, at least far enough to obtain what he calls the ‘cloaking’ software-whatever means was used to hide the money. I told him I doubted it, given your involvement.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, okay?” Liz leveled a look at both men. “Did you tell this prosecutor about David and me, Danny?” Foreman looked as if she’d slapped him across the face. “He knows, Danny,” she said, indicating Boldt. “I told you I wasn’t going to hide any of this.”

  “He knows I have some juice on you, yes, because he asked how far we could push you.”

  “And you answered, how?” Boldt asked.

  “I was clear that the degree of her involvement would probably be defined by you more than by her.”

  “But you said you had juice.”

  “I did, but Paul has no idea of the nature of that.”

  “He can guess,” Liz said.

  “No. If he guesses, it will have to do with internal politics, because that’s the way Paul Geiser thinks.” Foreman looked around the room, his eyes landing on the kids’ books and toys. Boldt wondered if he was thinking that had Darlene lived, such clutter might be on the floor of his own living room. “I want her to make the drop.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “To show goodwill. To show him she means business, that he can trust her.”

  “Hayes needs her and her security clearance in order to access these computers. That makes her a constant target of possible abduction. A drop like this… for all we know, it’s a trap being laid to kidnap her.”

  Liz interjected, “Then why wouldn’t he have simply taken me when we met earlier? He had a terrific opportunity. No, it’s not the way David operates. He’s not going to kidnap anyone. If he can’t get me to do this for him, he’ll think of something else.”

  “We do not want to lose contact with him,” Foreman pressed. “Liz is that contact.”

  “So we’ll give him what he wants,” Boldt said.

  Liz asked, “Will someone please tell me what we’re all agreeing to?”

  “Give us a chance to set it up,” Boldt told Foreman, who looked as surprised as Liz that he had acquiesced. Boldt told them exactly what he had in mind.

  FIVE

  “THE WOMEN’S REST ROOM DOWN the hall will have a yellow sign out front saying it’s being cleaned,” Danny Foreman told Liz over the phone in a calm, melodious voice. “Go in there now.”

  She walked out her office door and down the hall, telling her assistant that she’d be right back. She doubted that. The wall clock read 3:40. She was scheduled to pick up the five thousand in cash at 4:00. This was it. A day of clock-watching over, actually doing some felt a bit surreal.

  Stepping inside, she was met by a woman she recognized. This woman locked the door behind her and whispered “Clear” into the echoing tile room.

  It took Liz a moment to identify Detective Bobbie Gaynes because of the dark blue coveralls. Gaynes was the first woman to ever make Homicide. She wore her dark hair cut short, and the cleaning-company coveralls fit her loosely.

  Gaynes spoke softly. “Your every movement will be tracked by Special Ops, Mrs. B.” Everyone on the Crimes Against Persons unit called her this. “Just as the Lieu probably told you, I need you to follow my instructions closely and do exactly as I say. Me and the girls urge you to ask questions whenever you’re unclear. We’ll repeat or explain ourselves as necessary, though time is of the essence. Okay? We want to get this right the first time. Okay?” She waited hardly a second. “Good.”

  Liz found it hard to breathe.

  Lou had explained the operation to her, but it had seemed at the time that little would be expected of her. Now, even that little bit felt like too much.

  Gaynes continued, “This here is Gina.” The woman stood about five feet, and had to be a size two. She had Italian coloring, a sweet smile, and a firm handshake. “If you ever seen Cats up on Fifth, you seen Gina’s handiwork.” In front of Gina, on the countertop between two sinks, a series of open fishing tackle boxes offered a wealth of c
osmetics, from eyebrow pencils and blushes to hairpieces and bras.

  A woman with dark hair, average height, stood next to Gina, her blouse unbuttoned and hanging open. She looked familiar, though Liz felt certain they’d never met. No introduction was made. This woman remained firmly fixed on Gina.

  “Your bra size, Mrs. B.?” Gina asked, the familiarity of her addressing Liz this way unsettling, as if she, too, were a part of CAP.

  “Thirty-two A,” Liz answered, embarrassed by what two nursing children, chemotherapy, and drastic weight loss had done to her breasts.

  The other woman peeled her blouse off and removed her bra, leaving her naked from the waist up. Gina positioned Liz to face the mirror while she worked on this other woman’s face. Gaynes and Gina wrapped the stand-in’s chest to flatten her high breasts.

  Gina explained, “Believe it or not, and I’m sure you will, it’s the first thing a guy’ll notice-the chest.”

  “What the…?”

  Gaynes interrupted, “Gina’s done all our S.O. work for the past couple years. Best in the business.” Special Ops was a prestigious though dangerous posting.

  The woman who had not yet been introduced by name redressed herself. Only then did Liz realize this person wore the exact same clothes as she.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Liz asked.

  Gina asked Liz for the brand and color of the lipstick she wore. The cosmetologist then directed Gaynes to one of the tackle boxes, all the while using small pieces of foam rubber dabbed and coated in various bases and blushes to build the coloring onto the woman’s cheeks and brow. She worked incredibly fast, her hands nearly a blur.

  Gaynes reported, “Two minutes.”

  Gina explained, “We don’t want you to spend more than five minutes in here, because after that it can raise eyebrows. Speaking of which… ” She grabbed up an electric razor and zipped it along the other woman’s brow, then turned to a pair of tweezers.

  “Officer Malone here is going to take your place,” Gaynes said. “It’s a bit of a tricky deal, so you’re going to want to play this heads-up. If we blow it, either something happens to you or to Officer Malone here-not that she doesn’t know the score. It’s just that we want to give this the best shot.” Gaynes unzipped the coveralls and handled a police radio apparently clipped to her belt. “One minute,” she announced. The thing spit back at her. A man’s voice, but not Lou’s.

  Malone looked at Liz for the first time and Liz gasped aloud at this woman’s similarity.

  “Pretty fucking good, huh?” Gaynes said, slipping into her more familiar self.

  Backing up, she gained just enough distance to where she could see the woman clearly; the hastily applied makeup blended perfectly into the surface of this woman’s skin, shallowing her cheeks, stretching her chin, transforming her looks. Gina put finishing touches to the hair-clearly a wig that had been chosen ahead of time.

  Gaynes said, “Malone’s with Washington State Bureau of Criminal Investigation, on loan… it’s a shared operation, Mrs. B.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Malone said, stretching out her hand.

  Liz Boldt’s hand shook of its own accord as she stepped forward and greeted the nearly perfect reflection of herself. Malone’s hand was hot; Liz’s was bone cold.

  “Okay,” Gaynes said, “party’s over, girls. Time’s up.”

  Gaynes quickly briefed Liz on how to execute the substitution as Malone zipped herself back into a pair of housecleaning coveralls and Gina placed a dark scarf over the stand-in’s head.

  “The good thing,” Gina said calmly as she pulled the scarf forward to hide as much of the face as possible, “is that no one pays any attention at all to the help. We’re invisible. It’s straight to the elevators for us.”

  For Liz, who was to return to her office for exactly five minutes, their behavior took on the feel of choreography, and she envied them their cool. Her role was to be fleeting, with Malone carrying the brunt of the load, and yet she still felt light-headed with anticipation.

  Back in her office, she shut the door and paced, watching the time and wondering how it could slow so drastically. Only childbirth produced a slower clock than this. The phone rang, but she let her assistant pick up. When Lou was announced, Liz snatched it up.

  “Thank goodness,” she said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  “Can you go through with this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gaynes briefed you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Three steps,” he said.

  “I understand.”

  “The most important of which-”

  “Is turning around and hiding,” she interrupted. “I got that.”

  “The black raincoat,” he said. “Turn around once you’re in there.”

  “Small steps.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ve got it,” she said.

  “Scared?”

  “You bet.”

  “That’s good.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “There will be a diversion once you’re out. You get to that door-”

  “She told me.”

  “A plainclothes will be waiting for you on the other side.”

  “I wish I were there now.”

  “We can call this off,” he said, his expectant voice clearly preferring this choice.

  “No. I want you to catch him. I want this over.” They had discussed this. Once the money was delivered, Hayes was guilty of extortion. At that point they had the pressure to negotiate a deal to get Liz out of the middle and Hayes to cooperate. If all went well, a matter of hours and she and Lou could begin the process of rebuilding.

  “Time’s up,” he said.

  “Everyone keeps saying that.”

  “At any given moment, there’s one of us within three or four steps of you.”

  “It’s her I’m worried about… this Malone girl. What if he harms her? How am I supposed to live with that?”

  “No matter what, you stay inside the bank. Gaynes explained that?”

  “Time’s up,” she said, impatient now to have it over with. She added, “She explained it, Lou. Twice. I’ve got it.”

  “Be safe,” he said.

  He hung up before she had the chance to tell him that she loved him. Maybe he’d sensed it coming, she thought. Maybe he couldn’t handle that right now.

  The building’s lobby contained WestCorp’s flagship branch. It looked like a downtown men’s club with teller windows elaborately decorated in dark wood paneling, reproduction partner desks, green banker desktop lights, brass and smoked glass chandeliers, and a rich green carpet with borders of twisting gold braids. The phones purred, they did not ring. Voices traveled only a few feet.

  Wearing her black, full-length raincoat and carrying the aluminum briefcase she’d purchased in the WestCorp Center’s small mall only minutes before, Liz entered the branch office as nervous as on her wedding day, keenly aware of the elaborate charade and her role as a participant. To anyone else, the bank’s main floor appeared no different than on any other business day, but to her the abundance of familiar faces made this seem more like the staging of a Christmas play. She immediately identified no fewer than five familiar faces from Crimes Against Persons: two behind desks, posing as bank officers; one up a ladder affixing to the wall a bright orange banner offering low-interest car loans; two others just behind the bank tellers, pretending to be busy with paperwork. Seeing their faces calmed her.

  She approached the teller line, cordoned off by stainless steel stands and retractable belts. She hesitated a little too long at the small sign atop the stanchion. “Next?” A young Asian guy in his twenties standing in the third window over. Liz felt a jolt of panic. “I can help you,” the young man encouraged. In all, it took her a little under five minutes to get the cash, withdrawn from their home equity line. She tried not to be bothered by the feeling of a dozen eyes boring into her. Behind her, a maintenanc
e man moved aside two orange cones from in front of the revolving doors, removing the CLOSED FOR REPAIR sign. She identified him as Detective Frank McNamara.

  The pounding of her heart, the dry mouth, the stinging eyes accounted for the panic she fought to control, along with the rhythmic surge of blood in her ears and the coarse sound of her breathing. She stepped inside the revolving door, hoisting the briefcase and pushing on the bar with both hands. The lumbering carousel began to spin, the glass tinted ahead of her, its surface mirrored behind-a new feature. This had been McNamara’s handiwork. The Mylar-mirrored glass would hide her.

  She recalled Lou’s instructions vividly: Clutch the briefcase to her chest, turn toward the center of the revolving door, and compress herself, taking tiny footsteps, careful not to jam the door’s motion.

  No one had warned her how confined this space would feel, how it would shrink around her, removing all the air. Two steps into it, she sagged, and thought she might pass out.

  As a Crimes Against Persons lieutenant, Boldt’s participation in this, or any Special Ops surveillance, even one involving his wife, was strictly in an advisory role. Boldt was ready for undercover street work if necessary, dressed in blue jeans, a black sweatshirt advertising a Paris jazz club, and a British driving cap pulled down low on his brow. The disguise was finished off with a pair of black-framed fashion glasses. He looked nerdy by design-a forty-year-old loner who sat on park benches feeding the pigeons.

  In the front of his thoughts lay the possibility that the money drop was nothing more than a clever cover for the opportunity to abduct his wife. Never mind the Special Ops switch-Malone for Liz-Boldt was not going to have any abduction on his conscience.

  Pahwan Riz, a thirty-five-year-old Malaysian American whose mother was a full-blooded Englishwoman, had skin the color of a leather couch, mercurial green eyes that squinted naturally in a constant suspicion, and a lilting, singsong voice that belied his intensity. Riz commanded this special operation, and ran his unit like a military man. Under normal circumstances Boldt celebrated Riz’s formalities, admired a man who had fought racial prejudice in order to reach the coveted position of commander of a twenty-five-person team that was regularly at high risk. S.O. offered officers the likelihood of live ammunition combat and, as such, drew its water from a dark well. Because it was made up of those willing, even eager, to put themselves into the line of fire, S.O.’s direction of the operation came as a mixed blessing.