The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives

by Otto Penzler

  [Interrupts] Because it solidified and defined the relationship between you and Captain Shoswitz.

  Boldt: Not true! You are way off base. Stick to the facts. You're not paying attention to the facts.

  And the facts are?

  Boldt: Okay. [subject looks between the two interviewers] You want this from my side? [subject clears his throat] You allege that ten thousand dollars went missing from Property, that the missing money was discovered in a random inventory. You neglect to figure into this--somehow--that the discovery was kept secret. Neither I nor anyone else below the chief, I assume, was made aware of the missing money. You then suggest that I somehow divined the money was missing, recovered the money, and returned it in order to protect Phil Shoswitz, who you claim stole it in the first place. Throughout all of this, you fail to give any credence to the idea that the initial inventory was inaccurate, that someone made a mistake on the front end of this thing, and that all of this is just a horrible accounting error.

  That's what you'd like us to believe.

  Boldt: I'm telling you my impression of the events.

  Shoswitz moved you along with him at each and every promotion. That suggests more than just a bond of friendship or camaraderie.

  Boldt: Do not go there.

  It suggests a tie between the two of you. A debt. A street debt. Something that creates the kind of bond we all know happens on this job. Happens more frequently than is acknowledged. You moved from Vice to felony investigation, Major Crimes, and Homicide. Each time Shoswitz moved, you followed six months later.

  Boldt: Maybe he valued my abilities.

  Dr. Hainer: You did the same for the career path of Barbara Gaines.

  Boldt: Is that what this is about? Payback for me bringing the first woman onto Homicide? Aren't we beyond that?

  Dr. Hainer: Did you or do you have a sexual relationship with Barbara Gaines?

  Boldt: I did not. That would be fraternizing. And just for the record, Dr. Hainer, you are precariously close to losing your front teeth and most of your face as you know it.

  Sergeant Feldman: For the sake of the record, let it show that Lieutenant Boldt's threatening remark was aimed at Dr. Hainer.

  Boldt: We're on video, Sergeant. I think they can see where I'm looking. And yeah, it's at Dr. Hainer. For the record, I have never had anything but a fully professional and platonic relationship with Detective Gaines, not that it pertains to this case in any way.

  Sergeant Feldman: But it does. Gaines is part of this investigation. [pause] So shocked? Didn't you know? You, LaMoia, Gaines, and Matthews. You're all to be questioned.

  Boldt: [subject is restless in the chair] You're after my entire squad? My lead unit? What kind of a witch hunt is this?

  Each person on your lead squad holds some kind of debt to you. The way you do to Shoswitz, or Shoswitz to you--we don't know which. This department doesn't run that way anymore. You're old-school, Lieutenant. It may give you a hell of a clearance rate, but it has complicated this investigation.

  Boldt: The only thing complicating this investigation is the limited scope of the person running it. Face it: you want me out. Now you have the chance to use someone's incompetence to try to take me to the mat. Why don't you just say it? But let me tell you something. I'm not going. I'm not done. And I'm sure as hell not leaving the job like this. You picked the wrong way to go after me, Feldman. Why isn't it mentioned anywhere that each time I was promoted, you were up for the same promotions? Where's that in all your paperwork? Why don't we stick to the evidence, the way police work is supposed to be handled?

  While we're on the topic of professional conduct, why don't you tell me about how Daphne Matthews fits into this?

  Boldt: Ms. Matthews is a civilian. She serves in a professional capacity as an employee, a consultant to the department. By "fits into this," do you mean homicide investigations? I think even you should be able to understand how the services of a criminal psychologist might be of use to a homicide investigation.

  You brought her into the department.

  Boldt: Exaggeration.

  As I understand it, she approached you for an interview.

  Boldt: Okay, now I'm impressed. There aren't many who know that. Well done, Sergeant.

  About your uncle Vic's jumper, wasn't it?

  Boldt: I've been on the job for twenty-seven years. I'd like to think I've touched a lot of lives, hopefully in a good way. You can throw Matthews into that, I suppose.

  You allowed the interview. You don't often allow interviews, do you, Lieutenant? In your twenty-seven years of service, how many interviews--press or otherwise--have you agreed to?

  Boldt: She was interested in the psychology of the case. Both sides. That impressed me. She was a graduate student at the time. When she was degreed, I consulted her on a case. Her insight proved valuable. Six months later, I turned to her again. By then she'd applied for a position, I believe. I might have that wrong. But at any rate, along came the Cross Killer. Ms. Matthews was a critical piece of the investigation, and that of the copycat killings that followed.

  And you became close.

  Boldt: I'm close to LaMoia too, so watch your implications.

  I wasn't implying anything.

  Boldt: Nice try.

  And how did Ms. Matthews fit into the property room switch? How was she involved in that?

  Boldt: Let's talk about the video camera and log book. I'm told you have both LaMoia and me on tape and in the book signing into the property room that night. Never mind that we were called out on a case. Gaines? Do you have her? Why aren't you looking at who might have the ability to substitute videotape? Why haven't you used a forgery expert to check the signatures in the log? Let me ask you something, Feldman: you see my right foot? [subject extends right leg] You see what I'm wearing? It's a sandal. A Birkenstock. A hippie shoe. Because I got problems, big problems, with the pinky toe on my right foot. Check with my podiatrist. I've been in this sandal for the past eight months. Now, you go take a look at your security video. I haven't been to the property room in eighteen months. I'm a lieu, not a sergeant. I have no reason to go down there. You check my footwear. Ten to one, I'm not wearing a sandal. That's because someone took some older footage of me using the property room and performed some video magic and changed the time code. Moved it from twenty-ought-six to twenty-ought-eight. Something like that. But it's Sonny and Cher: "It Ain't Me, Babe." All that precious evidence of yours is part of a scheme to frame me and my best unit. If you'd done your homework, we wouldn't be here right now. You're wasting both my time and yours. It's a shame you don't know what you're doing.

  [Sergeant Feldman is summoned to door. Pauses interview. Heard from door: Feldman: "... so have a look at the damn video." Feldman returns to table.]

  Boldt: You want a break, we can take a break. You don't look so good, Feldman.

  You're not the one running this interview. [pause]

  Boldt: [whispers, but is caught on tape] I am now.

  [Clears throat, takes sip of water] Matthews is ambitious. She used you to advance her name in criminal psychology, to build a career where she's now one of the highest paid consultants in the nation.

  Boldt: I wouldn't know anything about that.

  Wouldn't you? Oh, come on! Define your relationship with Ms. Matthews, please, Lieutenant.

  Boldt: Have you been listening? It's incumbent upon the interviewer to actually listen to the subject.

  You were separated from your wife for a time. This was just after the Cross Killer investigation, about the time copycat crimes surfaced. You and Ms. Matthews worked closely together during this time, did you not?

  Boldt: I've explained that Ms. Matthews's contributions to both investigations were instrumental to the clearance of those cases. That's all I need to say.

  She is currently living with Detective LaMoia, as I understand it.

  Boldt: Fraternization is not permitted by this department and you know it. It can lead to nepotism. Ms. Mat
thews is an expert witness and a consultant used by many units in this department. I don't track her personal life.

  Not what I hear.

  Boldt: [leans across the table, then returns to chair] You and I... [subject sits back down] Go check your video evidence, Sergeant. I can wait. And while you're at it, check the logs and compare the signatures. When all that is done, you might want to explain to someone that you served for three years on Vice's video surveillance tech squad. You moved from there to I.T. for a couple years. Isn't that right? So let's take a long, hard look at who in this room is qualified to mess with video evidence. The only thing I know about a mouse is you feed it cheese. You could give me every computer book in the world, and I couldn't do a thing with video evidence. And yet, here you are, with me in your sights, and I'm telling you that you picked the wrong guy. I get a guy like you. I understand that kind of patience, that anger at being passed over for promotions. Matthews could explain how a guy like you... how that kind of obsession festers. It goes bad. It makes you sick. And it's no secret that I'm nearing the end of my run. Nothing a guy like you would rather see than me going down in flames or being forced out. I know all this, and I believe I may be able to prove it. But you took care of that: the one guy who might challenge this absurdity of an investigation is the one guy you took care of by aiming it at him. My only hope is that since Internal Investigation tapes are reviewed, someone watching this, listening to this down the line, will at least bother to look at the evidence with a less jaundiced eye.

  This is ridiculous.

  Boldt: Which is what I'm saying. We're saying the same thing. So why are my accusations ridiculous, and yours are not? Hmm? You want to explain that? You made a mistake, Sergeant Feldman, by coming after me. You doctored those tapes. You got someone to forge a couple of names in the log book. But you didn't do your homework: you didn't know about my bum foot and the sandal. The Sandal Scandal. The sandal [subject extends leg] is going to turn this all back onto you.

  We're done here.

  Boldt: One of us is.

  This interview is over. [Detective Feldman quotes date and time, and closes session]

  Boldt: I'd get a lawyer if I were you. A good lawyer at that.

  Two days later, Boldt met LaMoia in Carkeek Park. Boldt big. LaMoia long and narrow and, it was apparent, strong and quick. A steady wind blew in their faces, enough wind to prevent any long-range microphone from picking up anything said. They faced the whitecapped waters of the strait, the lush islands, distant and low, like green jewels on gray cloth. LaMoia's mustache and goatee shook with the stiff breeze. His nose ran and he constantly mopped it with a handkerchief that he also held over his mouth as he spoke.

  "What was that like?" LaMoia asked.

  "Like when we do it, only the other way around. It got messy."

  "Are you okay with it?"

  "I don't like being accused of things. They wanted to bring you and Daphne and Bobbie into it. They hammered away on my friendship with Phil. They tried to make a case that we'd done this together."

  "Jeez."

  "You better get her things out of the loft. They accused you two of fraternizing."

  LaMoia chewed on his lower lip till the skin turned white. "Shit. And the other thing? The prop room?"

  "Feldman's seen Murder on the Orient Express one too many times. His theory is, if I read it right, that each of us returned a few thousand until we got the cache back up to ten grand. I think they realized no one person entering Property empty-handed could have carried the full ten grand."

  "How creative of them."

  "Seriously." Boldt looked past LaMoia at a ferry plowing through the chop. A water bug on a breezy pond. "Can you imagine coming up with a plan like that? Who could think of such a thing?"

  "Certainly not a criminal psychologist with a love of old movies."

  Boldt reprimanded LaMoia with a sharp look.

  "And the videotape?" LaMoia asked. "Did they hit you with that?"

  "They'll figure it out. Someone will. Feldman was called to the door by someone looking on. I wouldn't be surprised if it had to do with the video. They're going to realize that tape of me is nearly two years old. When they do, I think it'll be Feldman sitting in that chair I was sitting in."

  "And if not?" LaMoia said.

  "What are the chances that any four or five cops would risk their careers for one person? Phil Shoswitz or no Phil Shoswitz. Never mind that Phil was drunk when he allegedly took that money--never mind that it was his one and only gaffe in all those years of service. Are you going to tell me that four officers would put themselves at risk like that?"

  "I'm not."

  "Because it's absurd. Feldman's on drugs."

  "But he took the case."

  "Of course he took the case. He'd give anything to bring me down. Had to be him."

  "And if it hadn't been?"

  "But it was. No one else in I.I. had the personal motivation he did."

  "But if it hadn't been?" LaMoia pressed.

  "You let me know if they contact you. I don't think there's much chance of that, but I need to know the minute you hear anything."

  "Will do."

  "I'm going to your place now. I need an hour."

  LaMoia looked at Boldt, but the lieutenant only stared out at the chop and the ferry's slow progress.

  "How often does it feel like that?" Boldt asked. "Push like hell, get nowhere."

  "Name of the game."

  "You going to ask me why?" Boldt asked.

  "You and her? No. Should I?"

  "Most guys would."

  "And since when am I most guys?" LaMoia asked.

  They both watched the ferry's effort.

  "Listen," LaMoia said. "It's a three-legged dog at the moment. Her and me. And the kid. I could lie and tell you otherwise, but that's the truth. If I was a betting man... "

  "And you're telling me this because?"

  "Because I'm not stupid, Sarge."

  LaMoia had called him that for too long to switch. Boldt would never be a lieutenant in his eyes.

  "You two... " LaMoia said. "Liz must feel the same way I do at least some of the time."

  "And how's that?"

  "Like I'm watching from the sidelines."

  "That's absurd."

  "No, it's not," LaMoia said. "She's gotten me into those old movies. And the one thing I've come to understand is that some actors have this chemistry, this thing between them. You feel it, whatever it is. It's like a magnetic field or something. Like some kind of light the camera doesn't actually catch, but it's still there." He paused to wipe his nose and clean his mustache. "You two are like that."

  "That's B.S."

  "It's not. Maybe you don't feel it the way I do. Maybe neither of you do. Maybe you've lived so long with it that you're used to it. How should I know? Maybe you're hosing me. I sure as shit hope not, because I'd hope by now the two of us have more respect for each other than that."

  "I've got to tell her things, John. I've got to explain things, including the possible fraternization charges. I think this mess... I think something just kind of popped in me that some things have got to be explained," Boldt said.

  "The two of you live in no-man's-land. I don't know how you do it. She's with me. Sort of. But she's never left you."

  "She was never with me."

  "Try telling her that."

  "You and her. It's been, what? A year. More than a year."

  "And we're happy. We're friends. Good friends. Absolutely. But best friends? Listen, I'm infatuated. Hook, line, and sinker. Honest to God, I could take some cabin on a lake with her and never come back. I'm in. All the chips. And of course it's the one and only time I've felt like that--and of course it's never going to happen. I think, when you've had my kind of history with the opposite sex... I think something like this is bound to happen."

  "It's called irony, John."

  "It's called bad luck, Sarge. You go to her. You say whatever you have to say. But I'd be
less than honest if I told you it'll sit all right with me. Because it won't. The kid's in play. We come up for review on that pretty soon. My gut says we won't be allowed to keep the kid, but my heart--and this is me talking, don't forget--wants it more than anything."

  "Kids don't hold a marriage together. If anything they challenge it in ways you can't imagine."

  "But I can imagine. It's been a year, like you said. I'm not expecting miracles."

  "They asked me about my past," Boldt said. "They made me relive all sorts of stuff that I'd forgotten. Phil. Daphne. You and Bobbie. How it all came together."

  "And how it damn near came apart."

  "And something about that made me realize I had to speak my piece. To each of you."

  "You call this speaking your piece to me?"

  "You? No. I'm not ready for you."

  "There's some kind of order? A line?" LaMoia looked around at the grass blowing all around them. "That's precious."

  "In my head there is."

  "I always wondered what was in there," LaMoia said. "Lines, huh?"

  Boldt stopped a smile from forming. He checked the ferry again, surprised at how steadily it moved across the strait. It had made great progress.

  "Do what you gotta do," LaMoia said.

  "It isn't what you're thinking. It's nothing like that. It's about explaining the past, not making up a future."

  "And that's the first time I've breathed in the past five minutes."

  Boldt couldn't stop the smile; it exposed him. "I'm going to the Joke later. Play some piano. If you come by, drinks are on me."

  "Are we celebrating?"

  "Feels like we should, don't you think?"

  "What would we be celebrating?"

  Boldt said nothing.

  "What if they dig up that Gaines studied film for two years of college? What if they find out that what that really meant was two years of working in video?"