The First Victim lbadm-6

by Ridley Pearson

  ‘‘You are a deckhand. It says so right here. You spent the last three weeks up on deck. Hong Kong. Hawaii. Three weeks with that container. You know the one I’m talking about.’’

  The boy’s upper lip shone as he said, ‘‘The trip it takes longer to expected. The storming.’’

  Boldt understood the malnutrition and dehydration then. ‘‘How much longer than expected?’’

  ‘‘Normal, ten days. This crossing, two times that.’’

  ‘‘The people in the container?’’

  The boy shook his head.

  ‘‘I can detain you here in Seattle. The ship leaves without you.’’

  ‘‘There was nothing us people able to do. It was shut up.’’

  ‘‘Locked.’’

  ‘‘Yes, locked.’’

  ‘‘But you heard them?’’

  The young man looked back suspiciously and shook his head again, a familiar response.

  ‘‘We have laws about lying to police.’’

  ‘‘We hear them. It bad, all the crying. Locked,’’ he confirmed. He crossed himself.

  ‘‘Food? Didn’t you feed them?’’

  Again, the young man shook his head no.

  ‘‘Water?’’

  Another.

  ‘‘You heard them,’’ Boldt pressed, remembering the shrill cries and haunting pounding. ‘‘And did nothing?’’

  The man’s eyes glassed under a tightly knit brow exaggerated by his nearly shaved head. He mumbled, ‘‘The captain.’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ Boldt said, seizing upon this. ‘‘The captain.’’ The captain, who no doubt had taken the bribe; the captain, who had the connections to make the drop; the all-important captain. ‘‘You were paid extra because of this container.’’

  The man appeared angry.

  ‘‘How many times before?’’

  ‘‘No. Not me. The others, yes. Not me. This, my first crossing with Visage.’’

  ‘‘No food, no water.’’ Boldt hesitated. ‘‘People died. Three people died. You understand?’’

  A small nod, the man’s first.

  ‘‘Murder. You understand ‘murder’?’’

  Terror-stricken eyes. Moist lips from a nervous tongue. A faint nod.

  ‘‘I arrest you,’’ Boldt said.

  ‘‘No!’’ the man protested.

  ‘‘The captain,’’ Boldt suggested.

  A reluctance in the eyes. A stiffening of the spine. Then the slumped shoulders of resignation. The man mumbled, ‘‘The captain not open the container. He said, ‘The sea plays tricks on the ears.’ ’’

  ‘‘It’s blood money,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘You understand?’’

  A nod.

  ‘‘Jail,’’ Boldt stated.

  A nod. ‘‘The captain, he is not talk to you.’’

  ‘‘We’ll see about that.’’

  ‘‘He not talk. No. And I? I not talk against him. Jail?’’ he shrugged. ‘‘Better than to talk against this captain.’’

  Boldt saw crew members ‘‘lost at sea.’’ He saw bodies caught in the ocean’s midnight swells fading into blackness, a hand crying from the waves. A crew kept loyal through fear. A silent captain. He saw a brick wall ahead of him.

  ‘‘The transfer during the storm. Something went wrong. Tell me about it.’’

  ‘‘Bad seas.’’

  ‘‘Your people lost the container?’’

  ‘‘Us people? No way! The others on the barge. That tug captain, has brain of a baby. Not able to handle barge. Their tower, not ours! They lost that piece, not us!’’

  ‘‘Their crane?’’ Boldt asked. ‘‘Is that what you mean by tower?’’ He gestured to indicate a crane and finally resorted to demonstrating with his pen.

  The deckhand nodded vigorously. ‘‘Crane on barge.’’

  ‘‘Yes, of course.’’ Boldt wondered how many crane-and-barge combinations there were available to such people. He saw a narrow opportunity for investigation. ‘‘Something went wrong with the crane?’’

  ‘‘Not so much crane’s fault. Seas too high. Both captains are fools to make try. But we try.’’

  ‘‘The crane dropped the container?’’

  ‘‘No. No. Not crane. Guy lines snapped.’’ He moved his leathery hands in a circle as if shaping a sphere out of clay. ‘‘Container spin. Fall into water.’’

  ‘‘And your captain tried to recover them?’’

  The man did not answer. He stared back through hollow eyes.

  ‘‘He did not try,’’ Boldt said.

  The man sat stoically. The answers were not with him.

  ‘‘Go,’’ Boldt told him.

  The man appeared stunned by the offer.

  ‘‘Go,’’ Boldt repeated, ‘‘before I change my mind.’’

  The young man hurried from the room, pulling the steel door shut behind himself with the familiar hollow thunk of a jail cell door.

  Boldt knew from earlier discussions with Port Authority that this investigation had become a question not only of jurisdiction but of whether any crime could be proven: The ship’s manifest was unlikely to list the dumped container, and it certainly would not list humans as its cargo. Even if it could be confirmed that the Visage had been carrying the container, the captain could claim it had been lost to the storm, that its contents had never been known. A ship held hundreds of containers-hundreds of secrets-and it was usually the case that their contents were listed but never actually verified by captain or crew. Customs inspected less than 10 percent of arriving containers. Even so, with confirmation that the container had been aboard the Visage, Boldt had to try for the shipping manifest. If paperwork existed for the container, it would list the shipper.

  Time, Boldt realized, remained his best weapon. If he threatened a delay, and thus prevented the ship from sailing, he might force the captain to cooperate. As backup, he had the INS’s authority to impound any vessels involved in the transportation of illegals. They did this regularly, as did the DEA.

  He collected his things and sent for LaMoia. Time was everything.

  Boldt was halfway into his explanation to Talmadge when the man passed responsibility, and the call, to deputy director Brian Coughlie, and Boldt had to start his explanation all over again. It seemed Cough-lie, in charge of field operations, investigations and processing the illegals, had more direct experience in impounding vessels, which was what Boldt hoped to set in motion.

  ‘‘You’d like a chat with the captain,’’ Coughlie summarized, ‘‘and you’re willing to play hardball to get it.’’

  ‘‘You have authority to impound or even confiscate the ship. You’ve done so before.’’

  ‘‘All the time. But I’d need a smoking gun for that.’’

  ‘‘How about the testimony of a crew member?’’

  ‘‘Good, but not great. The crew always holds some grudge against the captain. Anything else?’’

  ‘‘You could threaten him with impounding,’’ Boldt encouraged.

  ‘‘Sure I could,’’ Coughlie agreed.

  ‘‘And?’’

  ‘‘Maybe the captain is dumb enough to fall for it.’’

  ‘‘You don’t think so.’’

  Coughlie said, ‘‘Listen, we could be more convincing if you guys picked him up on charges. That’s a kind of pressure we can’t apply. Some of them gamble, some of them whore, all of them drink. If this guy is facing criminal charges of some kind then there’s no harassment involved, no intimidation. International law gets sticky.’’ He hesitated on the other end, and when Boldt failed to respond, Coughlie said, ‘‘Listen, we used to cut deals with the detainees-they talk, we cut them some slack-but it’s such a crapshoot, such a waste of time, we gave up trying. We just ship them back home now. Return to sender. There are too many protections, too many complications with international law.’’

  Boldt realized that Coughlie knew the details of his own interrogation out at Fort Nolan. The interpreter? The detainee herself? The idea that
Coughlie already had the line on one of Boldt’s interrogations disturbed him. The feds were never up front about anything!

  Coughlie offered, ‘‘Let me put the word out on this captain. I have plenty of contacts dockside, believe me. Someone has seen him. I get word on his location, your boys watch him and hope for a miscue. If you pounce, the only thing I ask is that you share any information you get.’’

  ‘‘That works for me.’’ But he wasn’t sure why he said it.

  CHAPTER 14

  Stevie McNeal, accustomed to more attention than what she received from the Seattle Police Department, sat impatiently in an uncomfortable chair in the Crimes Against Persons reception area, next to a secretary pool of Hispanic, Asian and African-American women busy at computers.

  She remembered LaMoia from the raising of the container. Flippant, cocky and a womanizer, if she was any judge of character. Adding to insult, she had the sinking feeling she was going to have to reintroduce herself.

  ‘‘Stevie McNeal,’’ she reminded him, as loath as she was to do so.

  ‘‘I know,’’ he said. ‘‘We met last week. You wouldn’t remember.’’

  ‘‘But I do remember.’’ She won him over with that one comment, and congratulated herself on knowing how to play him. He traveled the length of her-head to toe with a few layovers-before offering her a chance to sit down. Across the room, a number of heads began turning. There were times celebrity had its benefits.

  She said, ‘‘I’m working with a freelance reporter to assist me in my ongoing series. She does the footwork and the footage. I do the voice-overs. It’s an investigative, expository piece. I’ve lost contact with her. I want you to find her.’’

  ‘‘To say I’m a fan would not be fair, Ms. McNeal. Not always. But I’m familiar with your work. I’ve been taping this series on the illegals-both to see myself on TV,’’ he offered a toothy smile, ‘‘and to pick up any leads you might have to offer.’’

  ‘‘Her name’s Melissa Chow. Chinese by birth. Five foot two. A hundred and five pounds. Oval face, small nose. . I have pictures.’’ She passed them to him.

  LaMoia studied the snapshots. ‘‘She’s just a colleague?’’

  ‘‘We’re sisters. Legally. It’s a long story. We grew up together. My father brought her over from China when she was little, and we adopted her. She’s family, and now she’s in the middle of doing this work for me, and she’s gone missing.’’

  ‘‘Missing for how long?’’ LaMoia asked.

  ‘‘I don’t know exactly. I last saw her on Monday.’’

  ‘‘It’s Thursday.’’

  ‘‘Thank you for that,’’ Stevie said. ‘‘I loaned her one of the station’s digital cameras, and sent her off to get a story. I’ve lost touch with her.’’

  ‘‘We can put a photograph of her into our radio cars. We can get her paperwork going,’’ he conceded. ‘‘But most of the investigative work I suspect you’ve already done: contacting co-workers, family members, friends, neighbors. If you’d gotten anywhere, you wouldn’t be here.’’

  ‘‘And here I am.’’

  He jotted down a note. ‘‘We’ll check with pawnshops.’’

  ‘‘You think she sold the camera?!’’ she asked, incredulous. ‘‘Do you have any idea what is going on here? Melissa stuck her nose into something she shouldn’t have and she’s gone missing. That’s it. That’s all. We need to find her, and we need to find her fast.’’

  ‘‘Let’s start again,’’ he suggested. ‘‘She was working on your series? The illegals?’’

  ‘‘She was following a lead I got on this illegals story.’’

  He bowed his head and gave her a telling look.

  ‘‘I don’t know exactly how far she had gotten, where she was going with it.’’

  ‘‘We need to know exactly what she was working on,’’ LaMoia prompted.

  ‘‘There was a man who offered us some information,’’ Stevie explained cautiously.

  ‘‘His name?’’ LaMoia inquired.

  ‘‘He wished to remain anonymous. I honored that. We met at a restaurant.’’

  ‘‘His name,’’ LaMoia repeated, a pen hovering above paper.

  Calculating how much to tell him, Stevie said, ‘‘If I give you that, you’ll track him down and then we’ll both lose him. I don’t see how that helps anyone.’’

  LaMoia said, ‘‘And what if your ‘source’ is actually the one responsible for her disappearance? Have you thought of that?’’ He added, ‘‘Listen, Ms. McNeal, I see things that even as a reporter, you couldn’t dream of. My job is to find her as quickly as possible. I need every scrap, every handout I can get.’’

  Stevie placed a file folder onto the desk. ‘‘Photos, background, handwriting samples. Find my sister, goddamn it, or I warn you: Your incompetence will be my next story.’’ With that she stood up and walked out. One way or another, she would get them to help.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 214 DAYS MISSING

  CHAPTER 15

  The call came an hour before sunrise, while the population at large, including Lou Boldt, remained fast asleep. With two kids, the Boldt home looked alternately like a petting zoo or a toy factory, its floors and shelves cluttered with stuffed animals, pieces of Lego sets, dolls and action figures. Liz typically went to bed immediately after the kids; her energy sapped. Once in bed, she read from the Bible and a book she called her textbook, doing ‘‘her work.’’ She no longer spoke of the lymphoma by name-she referred to it as her ‘‘challenge,’’ relying on her role as God’s creation to remain in remission. Boldt wasn’t sure what he thought about any of it, but he kept his mouth shut. For whatever the reason, Liz did seem well. Whether temporarily or permanently, no one knew- though Liz fervently believed it was the latter. And as any cop knew, it wasn’t worth it to fight City Hall. For now, he placed her continuing remission in the win column.

  Boldt answered the bedside phone in a groggy voice and continued the call in the kitchen so as not to disturb Liz. On the other end of the phone, dispatch informed him of a floater found face down in the canal on the border of Fremont and Ballard, a one-mile stretch of protected waterway where working fishermen of five nations frequented sailor bars. The victim was Lo Wan Chang, the former captain of the freighter Visage.

  Within ten minutes of hanging up the phone Boldt was in his Chevy Cavalier heading for the crime scene.

  Boldt arrived ahead of the chuck wagon-the medical examiner’s emerald green panel van that transported cadavers-and refilled his plastic tea mug before venturing out to join the two uniformed patrol officers who had responded to the original call and who had correctly established a crime scene perimeter in an effort to protect the scene. The sky was brighter now. The wharf area where the body had been found was within easy walking distance of a half dozen bars and rooms for rent by the hour. It was a decrepit stretch of sea-rotted piers, their tops stained white by seagulls, the air pungent with seaweed, engine oil and the exhaust of a patrol car left running to power headlights aimed onto the ugliness of the captain’s soggy body stretched out on the cracked and weathered blacktop.

  The patrolman pointed, ‘‘This big guy over here seen the body on his way to his boat. Says he was floating face down right about here,’’ he said, walking over and indicating a space between pier and hull. ‘‘Side of his head all thumped in like that, looks like maybe he slipped. There’s some blood smeared back here.’’

  Sure enough, a foot-long streak of something dark brown was adhered to the hull of a wooden fishing boat. ‘‘Could be,’’ Boldt agreed, not eager to rule the death an accident, nor to accept its timing as coincidental. If the captain had talked, if he’d cut a deal with either Boldt or Coughlie, if he’d tried to scapegoat the responsibility for the container and the deaths of the illegals, then any number of people might have wanted him dead. Boldt wondered if his own candor during the shipboard interviews had gotten the captain killed. ‘‘There’s a Polaroid in my trunk. Make yourself useful and
take a couple pictures,’’ Boldt said to the patrolman. He handed him the car keys. ‘‘Canvass the neighborhood. See what we can come up with in terms of witnesses.’’

  ‘‘People around here talk?’’ the young officer questioned sarcastically.

  Frustration winning out, Boldt said, ‘‘Just do the job.’’ The point wasn’t so much the dead body, the loss of a possible witness, it was the decision behind the death, the swiftness with which someone had acted, and Boldt’s realization that these people were a step ahead of him, knew his intentions. Outside of his own squad and the INS, only Mama Lu had been told of his intentions to interrogate the ship captain, although whoever had hired the man to transport the container would have foreseen the inevitability of his being questioned and might have acted not only to prevent it, but to send a signal to future ship captains to keep their mouths shut.

  LaMoia’s earlier mention of Tidwell, the detective who had retired on disability after investigating an illegals case, rang in Boldt’s ears. These people played tough. He had only to look down at the captain’s puffy face for a reminder. He thought of Sarah and Miles and Liz. Maybe this case wasn’t worth the risk. Maybe that was the other purpose of this kill. Maybehewas supposed to seehis ownface lying thereonthe dock.

  Forensic sciences-the responsibility of Bernie Lofgrin’s Scientific Identification Division (SID)-had made so many advancements over the past twenty years that crime scene procedure had been reinvented to accommodate the painstakingly exact collection of evidence, including photography and videography, as well as the careful preservation of the physical environment on and around the cadaver. When coupled with careful documentation, thoroughly working a homicide crime scene could, and in this case did, easily consume two to three hours.

  At the start of the third hour, Boldt was notified that the entire crew of the Visage had been found asleep in quarters aboard ship and was being held by the Coast Guard for SPD questioning. He expected they would back up each other’s perfect alibis, but LaMoia would interrogate all of them nonetheless. If anyone could get a person to talk, it was John.