The First Victim

by Ridley Pearson

  ‘‘Let go of my arm,’’ Stevie demanded.

  Still holding her, the man placed a claim check in her hand. ‘‘The art museum,’’ he said. She glanced down at the claim check.

  ‘‘A woman was mugged,’’ she said.

  ‘‘It’s a dangerous city.’’

  ‘‘You think I’ll give you five hundred dollars for a worthless claim check?’’

  He answered, ‘‘If you don’t, you’ll never know what was on that tape.’’

  ‘‘You’re not getting the money until Ihave the tape in hand.’’

  ‘‘That’s not how this works.’’

  ‘‘That’s exactly how it works,’’ Stevie said.

  ‘‘If you don’t want to play,’’ the man declared, ‘‘then we got nothing to discuss.’’ He pulled her to the side out of the flow of pedestrians.

  ‘‘Just to remind you: Ihave five hundred dollars here that has your name on it.’’

  ‘‘Gimme the five,’’ the man said anxiously.

  ‘‘Let’s take a walk,’’ she suggested. ‘‘Ten minutes and you’re five hundred dollars richer.’’

  ‘‘That ain’t the way it’s gonna work,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Then it’s not going to work,’’ she declared. She reached into the bag and offered the claim check, wondering if he noticed her trembling fingers.

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  ‘‘Keep it. Just give me the money,’’ he pleaded.

  ‘‘Let’s take a walk,’’ she said cheerily. Retaining the claim check, she walked away from him, realizing he had no choice but to follow. She counted to herself—one thousand one, one thousand two—her anticipation mounting as she reached the pedestrian crossing where the light changed instantly. She crossed with the light.

  ‘‘Iain’t got no time for this,’’ the man’s voice complained over her left shoulder.

  ‘‘Sure you do,’’ she replied, looking straight ahead. ‘‘This is the easiest five hundred you’ve ever made.’’ She kept walking, not knowing if he was following or not, but never so much as checking her stride.

  t

  ‘‘The woman has got nerve,’’ LaMoia remarked in back of the van, his cellphone clutched to his ear. ‘‘What-do-ya say we pop the lid on this thing? You farting in here or what?’’ he asked the dispatcher.

  ‘‘No sir.’’ The dispatcher got up and slowly cranked open the van’s skylight.

  ‘‘Smells like a dog let loose in here,’’ LaMoia commented, fanning the air.

  ‘‘I’m going on foot,’’ Boldt announced into the phone.

  ‘‘We got her covered,’’ LaMoia said somewhat arrogantly.

  ‘‘Just the same, I’m going on foot.’’

  LaMoia said, ‘‘We’ll relocate the team to the museum. We got four on foot. They’re your back-up.’’

  Boldt said, ‘‘If he puts another hand on her, John, if he gets an idea to liberate that five hundred, we’re all over him.’’

  ‘‘Understood.’’ He added, ‘‘We screw this up, hell, it’ll make Brokaw.’’

  t

  Outside the art museum there stood on enormously tall steel plate sculpture of a man pounding an equally huge hammer. To Stevie, it

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  looked Russian, a holdover of Stalinism, a dedication to the might of the worker. Her escort grew increasingly nervous with their approach, perhaps sensing the trap that was laid for him. Her own anxiety increased with each step, and she worried that the police didn’t have anyone in place yet.

  A group of Japanese tourists had collected in the courtyard awaiting their tour guide. She felt several of the men staring. Others shot pictures of the Russian worker.

  ‘‘You don’t need me for this,’’ the man complained to her.

  ‘‘Idon’t trust you,’’ she said, spinning and confronting.

  ‘‘You take picture us?’’ a Japanese man asked Stevie, extending his camera toward her and indicating his smiling friends. Stevie hesitantly accepted the camera.

  ‘‘Idon’t have time for this,’’ her escort objected again.

  ‘‘Settle down,’’ she whispered. Focusing the camera she spun the zoom by mistake. Behind the group of grinning tourists, she saw the steam-cleaning van turn left, cross traffic and pull to the side of the street. She clicked the shutter, capturing only the tourists’ heads. The Cavalry had arrived.

  t

  Boldt approached the museum’s sunken courtyard wishing McNeal would lower the camera and get a look at him. He slowed but did not stop, passing within a yard or two of the man at her side. Detective Mulgrave appeared to his left and entered the museum ahead of him. It would all move quickly now even if it felt like slow motion. He paused at the museum’s glass doors and studied the reflection as McNeal handed the camera back to the Japanese tourist. As she turned toward the entrance, he wondered if she would recognize him from the back, deciding that she probably would. Stevie McNeal didn’t seem like she missed much. t

  In the back of the van, LaMoia spoke into the radio handset, ‘‘If this goes south, if our boy makes tracks, Mulgrave stays on him. MoCom will follow. Lynch, you put your body in front of McNeal if needed.’’

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  ‘‘Roger that,’’ Lynch confirmed.

  ‘‘If we have to move on him, I want it down and dirty,’’ he ordered.

  ‘‘We got civilians in there. Copy?’’

  The radio sparked with several distinct pops as undercover detectives tripped their radios. This told LaMoia plenty. His operatives were in place. No one could speak. It was going down. t

  Stevie stepped up to the coat check and handed the colored tag to the Asian behind the counter. She wondered if this woman had once been an illegal, and realized she had a stereotype to overcome. Her escort had stopped ten feet back in the midst of museum foot traffic coming and going, reminding her of a dog poised on a street curb considering crossing traffic. His face florid and feverish, he had broken into a sweat out in the courtyard.

  She too was sweating. It seemed her chance to save Melissa—if there still was a chance—came down to these next few minutes and the tape promised. Boldt stepped up to the counter alongside of her and spoke clearly to one of the coat check attendants.

  ‘‘What if Ilost my claim check?’’ he asked. He was buying time. The girl had turned to face the array of cubbyholes, looking for the match to Stevie’s claim check. ‘‘You gotta have your tag,’’ the other man informed Boldt.

  Boldt patted his pockets. ‘‘But if Idon’t?’’ he asked. Stevie’s confidence gained with his being so close. The girl plunked down the camera bag in front of Stevie. Her heart fluttered; she had handed this bag to Melissa the last time she’d seen her.

  Stevie turned. The man said, ‘‘Okay, we’re outta here.’’

  ‘‘Not yet.’’

  ‘‘Bullshit,’’ he hissed, leaning in close with his tobacco breath.

  ‘‘This sucker’s done. Gimme the five.’’

  She wanted to confirm the existence of the tape before surrendering the cash.

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  A fist tightened around her upper arm.

  ‘‘Outside,’’ the man ordered. ‘‘We’re done here.’’ His sideburns leaked pearls of sweat.

  Stevie hesitated briefly, her fingers hovering on the camera bag’s zipper. She moved toward the wall, a water fountain, forcing him to release her. He let go and
pursued her to the wall; her arm tingled with relief.

  She pulled the zipper, realizing that despite her intentions to stay calm, her anticipation had won the moment. Her heart felt ready to explode. She opened the bag and peered inside: a pair of black slippers with red roses embroidered on the toes. Her throat tightened—

  they were Melissa’s. She moved them aside. The small tape was there as well. She didn’t understand the next few seconds when blood chemistry and emotions overcame all rational thought, when memories of Melissa and those slippers were all that mattered. Tears erupting from her eyes, she took the man by his sport coat, pulled her face to his and shook him, crying, ‘‘Where is she? What have you done to her?’’

  The stunned man plunged his hand into the shopping bag and came out with her wallet. ‘‘The money!’’ he said, his head lifting, his dark eyes flashing as he saw one of the detectives reaching for a weapon.

  The man pocketed the wallet, turned Stevie, and shoved her into Boldt. He dodged across the entrance lobby, weaving through tourists, using them as protection. Stevie stumbled into Boldt’s arms. He stood her up and took off at a run.

  t

  Detective Mulgrave shouted loudly, ‘‘Police! Everyone stay where you are!’’ The English-speaking visitors dove to the carpet. The Japanese smiled and took a moment longer to react. Shouts and cries followed. A uniformed museum guard stepped forward to block one of the exit doors.

  Boldt and Mulgrave ran toward the entrance as the suspect

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  dropped his shoulder into the guard driving him through the glass door. The guard went down hard. The suspect fled outside, Boldt and Mulgrave immediately behind.

  Boldt shouted at the suspect. Mulgrave called into his handheld for backup. The man crossed through traffic stopped at the light and ran hard, heading south on First Avenue.

  Boldt caught a glimpse of LaMoia and a uniform out of the corner of his eye and, at the same time, a cameraman trailing black wires as he leaped out of KSTV’s large blue panel truck which was stopped in traffic. The cameraman hit the sidewalk running. LaMoia and the uniform hit the cameraman’s wires and all three went down. Boldt dodged through the traffic and took off after the suspect, Mulgrave still shouting orders into his radio. The suspect ran left at the next corner and disappeared from view. His lungs burning, his right knee tightening, Boldt lost ground to Mulgrave and called out, ‘‘Backup?’’

  ‘‘On route!’’ the detective answered.

  They needed this man in custody. To lose the suspect was not an option. Both cops turned left at the corner, Mulgrave already breaking across the street, the suspect nowhere in sight. Sirens approached. The street rose up a hill. No suspect. Mulgrave headed across the street and down an alley.

  Boldt stopped and spun in a circle. Their boy had either entered one of the buildings or had gone down that alley. Faced with a tough decision—await the radio cars and the uniforms so that they sealed off any chance of the suspect sneaking past, or pick one of the buildings to search before the suspect had time to escape—Boldt studied the wall of brick buildings that lined the northern side of the street, his eyes darting window to window, one building to the next. It appeared first as a shadow, then an image: a woman in a thirdfloor window, one hand spread open on the glass. Descending a stairway, she had clearly stepped aside for someone. It was that spread hand that convinced him—the fear it implied. Boldt took the chance. His police shield displayed in his coat’s breast pocket, Boldt took

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  two stairs at a time, passing the middle-aged woman on the second floor’s landing. She pointed up. Boldt kept moving, never breaking stride. He had the advantage of surprise now. He had to move fast before he lost it.

  By the fourth floor he was severely winded but still climbing. The movement came from his right as he turned left toward the final flight of stairs. It came as a change of color, of lighting, as if someone had dropped a curtain or waved a flag. It came as a flash of heat up his spine, his right arm climbing instinctively but opening him to the blow to his ribs. His momentum moved him away from the blow rather than into it; he was thrown off balance, careening into a chair that sat alongside a standing ashtray. He grabbed hold of a leg of that chair and hurled it in the general direction of his assailant, simultaneously reaching for his gun. The chair’s four metal feet screeched like fingers on a blackboard, then traveled toward the stairs and, as if planned, as if calculated, flew off the top edge, rebounded off the far wall and headed end over end as if aimed at the unfortunate soul in its path.

  The suspect, after shoving Boldt and then starting back down the stairs, never saw that chair. It came after him as if it were tethered to him, jumping and springing into the air and crashing only to lift again, gaining velocity. Boldt was back to his feet by the time the chair impacted, not only tripping up the man but sending him down the subsequent flight of stairs following the same route the chair had traveled. A tumbler, a circus act gone awry, the dull snapping of bone on stone. Despite the fall, the man clamored to his feet but then sagged under the pain and Boldt was upon him. A handcuff snapped around the wrist in a ritual all too familiar to both men. Boldt patted him down for weapons while reciting the Miranda like a man talking in his sleep. He arrested the suspect on charges of trafficking in stolen goods and assaulting a police officer.

  ‘‘Ididn’t steal nothing!’’ he complained as he was led down the stairs.

  ‘‘You’ve got some thinking to do between here and downtown,’’

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  Boldt cautioned the man. ‘‘If you’ve got half a brain in there, you’ll trade a walk for the talk.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, yeah . . . but I’m telling you, I didn’t steal nothing!’’

  ‘‘If you’re smart, you’ll lose the broken record,’’ Boldt advised.

  ‘‘Then again,’’ he reconsidered, ‘‘if you were smart, we wouldn’t be here, would we?’’

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  C H A P T E R 3 2

  Gaylord Riley draggedhis fingers againsthis sweatingcheekas if rubbing a lantern for good luck, stoically proud of his refusal to talk to police and patiently awaiting his attorney. His stained polyester shirt stuck to him like cellophane so that his chest hairs rose like tree roots struggling up through old asphalt. The Box had warmed behind LaMoia’s mounting frustration to where both men were panting and in need of a glass of water.

  ‘‘The thing a prick like you doesn’t understand, Riley, is that this is the wrong time to lawyer-up.’’

  ‘‘As if there’s ever a right time as far as you’re concerned.’’

  ‘‘Igot a PA outside who will repeat to you everything I’ve been saying. You’re a known fence. Fraud has you on file.’’

  ‘‘Never been convicted of nothing!’’

  ‘‘You give up whoever laid this gear on you and you walk out of here, no harm, no foul.’’

  ‘‘That’s bullshit and we both know it. That big guy . . . he said assaulting an officer. He fell down is all—a shoelace or something. I didn’t assault no officer!’’

  ‘‘You want me to get him in here? Hang on a second!’’ LaMoia went to the door. Boldt, who had been looking on through the one-way glass was already at the door by the time LaMoia opened it. Boldt stepped inside. Old times: he and LaMoia working a suspect. All they needed was Daphne in the room for the picture to be complete. Boldt said, ‘‘You talk, you walk. Itold you that.’’

  ‘�
��I’d rather hear it from a lawyer,’’ the suspect said.

  ‘‘By which time, you won’t hear it,’’ Boldt answered. LaMoia sat back down in the chair facing the man. ‘‘Stupid is one 170

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  thing. You were stupid to get into this—to call the station, set up the meet. But don’t be dumb. Don’t be an asshole, who thinks he knows more about how this works than we do. We’ve got jails filled with those numb-nuts, I’m telling you. You lawyer-up, you start things in motion that we’re helpless to stop. You bring in the college boys and you, me and the lieutenant are in chairs over in the corner watching the suits do the dance. Is that what you want? Honestly?’’ He felt he was getting through to the guy. Gaylord Riley looked ready to pop a blood vessel.

  ‘‘All we want is to start a dialogue here,’’ Boldt encouraged. ‘‘Get some words going back and forth. Work through the attitude down to the truth. If we do that in a timely fashion, there’s no reason lawyers have to be any part of this. Your little ransom attempt never happened.’’

  ‘‘Ididn’t ransom nothing!’’

  ‘‘That’s what I’m saying,’’ Boldt agreed. ‘‘It never happened.’’

  LaMoia cautioned, ‘‘We got you on videotape, audiotape and stills. We got maybe a dozen witnesses to this thing, pal—law enforcement officers, every one of them. What do you think you and your lawyer are going to use against that?’’

  The man looked back and forth between the two detectives, the epitome of a scared little boy. LaMoia loved every minute of it. He didn’t have the degrees for it, but he thought maybe he should be a hostage negotiator, some guy who looks the bomber in the eye and dares the slob to push the button. He felt good all over, like after sex. The suspect said, ‘‘He was Chinese. Twenty-one, twenty-two. Strong. Small. Never seen him before. Not since. Didn’t know what he had—thought it was a camcorder.’’

  ‘‘Gang kid?’’ Boldt asked, wiping any surprise off his face. Business as usual. Inside he was reeling with excitement. He knew better than to ask if he’d given a name.