The Pied Piper

by Ridley Pearson

  Busy with paperwork, she did not look up immediately.

  “Working late,” he said, greeted then by an authentic smile.

  She motioned to the stacks around her. “If you do this during the day, there’s no time to sell.”

  “Your partner?” he asked motioning toward the hallway.

  “Business partner,” she clarified. “One of them.” She drummed her painted nails on the desktop.

  “A couple of questions,” he said.

  “Oh, darn.” She flashed a smile and barked an eager laugh.

  “I need some help.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” The eyelashes were dyed, but effective. They beat like little wings.

  “We needed a realtor. I thought of you.”

  “I love making that kind of impression on people.”

  “I would imagine it’s quite often.”

  “Complete with a silver tongue. You must need this help pretty badly.”

  “May I?” He motioned to the available chair. His legs were dog tired.

  “I like you better when you’re standing,” she said, looking eye level at his rodeo belt buckle, “but okay.”

  He remained standing. “A realtor must track houses that are likely to come onto the market—try to get a jump on the competition and win the listing.”

  “Listings are the golden ring. Sales are great, but I get a piece of the listing even if someone else sells it.”

  “Ahead of time, I’m talking about.”

  “Of course. You stay ahead or you fall behind.” She adjusted herself in the chair, enjoying his company, and said, “It’s a rule that pertains to so many things in life.”

  “And how do you do this?” he asked. “Other than reading the obits?”

  “You’re not thinking of getting your license, are you?” She added, “I hate competition.”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “You were never a scout. Too many rules for a man like you.”

  “I wasn’t a man then.”

  “I think you had better sit. You’re distracting me. Good. There. All right. How do I do it?” she asked, chewing on a wry smile. “Okay. Obits, of course. Sure. Divorce filings can be a gold mine. I get a lot of play out of the divorce market—the separation filings are registered downtown. Early bird gets the worm. Construction permits are a good source: couples often fix up the house before trying to sell, or they start work on a future home before committing to listing the existing one. Tricks.”

  “Others?” LaMoia, for all his ability to think through crimes, had not come up with the divorce and construction angles.

  “Oh, sure. I have lots of other tricks.” The same smile, but a little more forced.

  He appreciated her ability, her desire, to toy with him, to flirt. He knew the game and enjoyed playing it. He trusted her because of this. She demanded another’s confidence in herself that only the best salespeople, attorneys and cops possessed. She was family. “Such as?”

  “Don’t tease, Detective.”

  “That is definitely the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “Smaller clues? Other sources?” she inquired, knowing what he sought. “Let’s see … property taxes in arrears—that can point you toward a vacancy, and it’s a matter of public record.”

  “Public records,” LaMoia mumbled, writing fast.

  “They are the easiest. City water being shut off is the biggie. Private records don’t hurt, if you have access: phone, utilities. If you know someone in the insurance industry, multipolicy car insurance lapsing or a change in property coverage can signal a death. It’s a long list. Maybe we should discuss it over a drink.”

  “Do you keep a list of these places? Some way to follow up?”

  “A database on my machine. Sure I do. My secretary makes the cold calls for me. I do the follow-ups. It’s one of those things always running in the background, you know? Low priority. Boiling away back there. A lot of it’s wasted time, but every so often it pays off and I get a listing worth a trip to someplace warm and dry. The Biltmore in Phoenix. Ever been?”

  “No.”

  “Friend and I own a two-bedroom suite in the hotel, a condo deal that works out great. We each get two weeks a year. It really is amazing weather down there. Rain is just another four-letter word. Not like here.”

  He asked, “Can I get a copy of the database?”

  “Is this where I get to barter? Oh, goodie. How about you consider Arizona, and I consider giving you the database?”

  “I’m a little busy right now.” LaMoia thought about a weekend with this one at the Biltmore: white terry cloth robes, free shampoo. Where would he rather be? The decision came easy for him: with Sheila Hill.

  She said, “What is all this about anyway? Still the kidnappings?” She curled a lock of yellow blonde hair. “What do vacant houses have to do with it anyway?”

  LaMoia answered honestly, “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  He left with the promise of having the database by morning.

  CHAPTER

  Tuesday morning, day fourteen since the Shotz kidnapping, a fine cold mist sat across the city. Umbrellas were held against the weather, animating the sidewalks with color. It was a salt rain and tasted as such, tangy and tight in the nostrils, tart in the throat. A cloud-driven drenched darkness hung over the city.

  Sherry Daech’s list of confirmed vacant structures arrived by fax at quarter to ten. Thirty-two addresses. LaMoia checked with Sheila Hill, who agreed that by the start of the four o’clock task force meeting, the FBI would have to be provided the list and told of any progress for the remainder of the workday; however, SPD possessed this for themselves. It was LaMoia’s job to work the evidence dry so that they surrendered nothing useful to the competition.

  With the pressure of time and Hill’s demand for success, he rounded up volunteers for the legwork: four members of his homicide squad, a Sex Crimes detective by the name of Cindy DuFur, a Narcotics cop called Runt who needed the overtime, Boldt and Gaynes. LaMoia assigned each cop several of the addresses to check. They were to door-to-door the neighbors for any activity at the houses, day or night, check the locks and look around the premises. If the owners could be contacted and admission legally gained and granted, then LaMoia wanted a look inside with attention paid to the upper stories. “Operation: Room with a View,” he nicknamed it.

  Excitement warmed him, countered by a chilling fear for the missing children.

  The investigation still lacked key explanations to understanding and anticipating the Pied Piper, explanations required if the case were to be solved by anything other than blind luck. Chief among these was how the kidnapper identified his victims. The possibilities of their being random was infinitesimal—the Pied Piper was profiled as a careful planner. Whether the victims were identified through their parents or somehow through the infants themselves, no one knew. The parents seemed the more likely choice, all the children were of the same approximate age, all white. The kidnapper clearly knew about his victims. A variety of sources existed for such information, including the Internet, which posted national bulletin boards of births; its network carried full text copies of hundreds of small-town newspapers, all of which published news of new arrivals. The kidnapper might have used any of these.

  The FBI, with its resources and nearly endless manpower, had been after this link between victims for nearly six months, and still seemed in the dark. How, LaMoia wondered, was SPD supposed to make such a discovery in the face of that?

  Right behind selection of the victim was the physical and logistical execution of the crime—the modus operandi. For this reason, the discovery of a possible system of surveillance used by the kidnapper held a place of major importance.

  For Lou Boldt, the fieldwork for which he had volunteered offered him a chance to air out his brain, clear his thoughts, refocus. Liz’s proclamation of a spiritual awakening and an intention to abandon medical treatment struck him as nothing short of dementia. W
ith his wife’s survival so much in question, the notion of “leaving it up to God” was for him like deciding the easiest way to use the elevator was to cut the cable and allow gravity to deliver the car to the lobby. But there was no way he could think that would allow him to seize control and force her to take the treatments. To the contrary, he had to accept her decision, and his fear all but prevented that. This, in turn, caused him to face up to those fears, and he found it easier to run from them—to pursue fieldwork—than to look them in the eye.

  So on a rainy Tuesday in March, Boldt found himself with his ear pinched to his cellular phone and his hand gripped on the wheel of the department-issue Chevy Cavalier he had driven for six years. The phone connected him to the owners, or the heirs, of the vacant structures. Boldt presented his need to enter the building, making no mention of writs or warrants. The more cautious of the group demanded to call back police headquarters and be transferred to Boldt, a situation made difficult due to his use of the cellular, but not an insurmountable hurdle. He slowly chipped away at suspicions, learning quickly to invoke a reference to the Pied Piper and approach the owners on an emotional level. One by one, he opened doors, making small checks on the list, suffering through congested traffic, struggling to put his personal issues behind him and to deliver some good police work.

  He found the door-to-door interviews with neighbors the most satisfying, challenging him to carefully nurse from his potential witnesses facts that were often perceived as insignificant. For these two hours he left behind the world of chemical therapy and the smell of Betadine, the insatiate expressions of those marked to die. By hour three he was on to his last two addresses.

  LaMoia favored him, like a teacher with a pet student, assigning Boldt four addresses closest to his own house, one of which bordered his neighborhood a half mile west of Green Lake. By doing so, LaMoia was offering Boldt the chance to head home early, ahead of the four o’clock duty rotation that would have sent him into rush hour traffic. Boldt understood this, but had no intention of going home early.

  At the second to last house, he pulled to a stop and parked, checking the street for a white van or minivan. He waited, watching the house’s windows for any movement, a shadow, a change of light, motion. After a few minutes of this he left the car in favor of a neighbor’s house. He climbed the neighbor’s steps, knocked, and was admitted into a small room with a faux leather recliner and needlepointed pillows depicting British bobbies, the London Bridge and Jesus at the Last Supper. A needlepoint in progress rested on the arm of the recliner along with a sweating glass of Coke. The chair faced a twenty-seven-inch color set tuned to the shopping channel. A cordless phone perched within reach.

  Beyond the television, an open curtain revealed the adjacent vacant house.

  The woman’s figure implied cheeseburgers, fries and vanilla shakes. She wore blue rubber beach thongs on her pale swollen feet. She willfully closed the door behind him like a Floridian bracing for an unseen hurricane, and maintained her distance, crossing to the safety of her bowled chair in hurried little steps. Police shields bothered people.

  “Can’t stay long. Police or not.” She picked up the phone like some cops handled their weapons.

  “No need,” Boldt said. She clearly had items to purchase. Some black-and-white fish occupied an aquarium with pink Bermuda sand that bubbled continuously. There was a ceramic sunken pirate’s ship at the bottom that wore a green slimy film. “I need to ask you some questions about the vacant house next door. I wonder if you might turn the television down for a minute?” According to the uninterrupted narration, 170 peach cardigan sweaters had sold for $29.85; $6.50 tax, shipping and handling. Only two minutes left to go. She worked the remote and silenced the voice midsentence. “Thank you,” he said. She watched the muted television, not him.

  “Eleanor Pruitt breathed her last breath there not six months ago. Pancreas, it was.”

  He didn’t want to be reminded of disease and death.

  “No one living there, if that’s what you wanted.”

  He wondered what she found so fascinating about the silent colors flashing at her that she couldn’t so much as glance at him. “Visitors?” His chest tightened.

  “People wandering around, that sort of thing. At first I thought they might be church members. People used to bring Eleanor meals from time to time. But they weren’t. Parasites is what they were—insurance men, real estate agents, tax assessors. Never knew all the fuss dying created. Been more activity over there since Eleanor died than when she was living.”

  “Recently?”

  “I look right out that window, don’t I? You can see that, can’t you? It’s distracting, people walking around like that. How do I know who they are?”

  “Anyone been around recently?” Boldt repeated. “Quite recently?”

  “I bought me a gun. It’s legal,” she informed him, making eye contact for the first time, but briefly. “Had it nearly two years now. They better not mess with me; I’ll show them.”

  “Next door,” Boldt said. “These people have been walking around recently? Ma’am?”

  “You got earwigs where you live? Silverfish? I hate those damn things. Goddamn, they bother me.”

  He didn’t look at the television. Perhaps it was selling a roach hotel. “Have you seen anyone recently, ma’am? Over next door, I mean.”

  “They hide in all the dark, damp places you know. Kitchen is the worst. Under the edges by the trash. Enough of ’em to make me sick. All I wanted was to know how much to get rid of them, you know? You’d think he could have told me that.”

  “Who’s that?” Boldt asked, his thoughts finally connecting her words and his heart racing away.

  Pointing to the television, she said, “That’s Jerry. He sells all the electronic stuff. Could care less. It’s Dorothy I like. The clothes. Haven’t you ever watched this? Where you been?”

  “Who was it you were asking about silverfish?” Boldt asked.

  “The man spraying,” she answered matter-of-factly.

  “The house next door,” Boldt supplied, violating a fundamental precept of interrogation. “Someone spraying the house next door?”

  “‘I’d have to call the office for a quote,’ he said. Screw him. Didn’t even give me a card. I’ll tell you something: If you’re too busy for my trade, then someone else gets it. Plain and simple, far as I’m concerned.”

  “You spoke with him. You got a look at this exterminator,” Boldt stated. He wanted this badly. The Pied Piper had used his exterminator disguise to scout the home, or as an excuse to be seen entering. This woman was an eyewitness.

  “You kidding? Wouldn’t give me the time a day. Never even so much as turned around.” She added incredulously, “You’ve never actually watched this channel?”

  “Was he spraying the vacant house?” Boldt asked. “Is that what you’re telling me? When?”

  “They had a housedress I really wanted. Kind of like this one, only red.”

  “Mrs.—” He searched for the name. Couldn’t find it. A year earlier it would have been on the tip of his tongue.

  “The housedress was up at the same time I saw him, and I thought about those earwigs in there and I thought, ‘That’s who I need.’ So I get up and go out back and shout over to him. That’s a big deal for me—going out like that. And could he care less? How’s someone that rude stay in business anyway?”

  “The housedress,” Boldt said in earnest, returning to the language of her world. There were no minutes and hours, only items for sale. “What day was that?”

  She looked up at him for only the second time. “He’s been around a couple of times, but hell if I’m going to give him the time of day.”

  “You’ve seen him more than once?” It had been a long time since Boldt had conducted this kind of interrogation, and he felt out of sorts, his timing off. It was an art form when done right. Handled incorrectly, even the best witness could become confused and begin to believe he or she had it wrong. �
�When? How often?” He was rushing her, pushing her, supplying her with the answers he wanted to hear. If he had seen one of his detectives handling a questioning that same way, he would have been livid.

  “Couple a times. At a distance. Sure I have. But to hell with him.”

  “When?” He had trapped himself; he couldn’t seem to break out of what he knew to be poor practice, like bogging down in an argument going nowhere.

  “Yesterday maybe. The day before.”

  “Recently.”

  “I said ‘yesterday,’ didn’t I? How recent do you want?”

  “Have you seen him today?” Boldt asked.

  “No.”

  Boldt handed her his card. “My number,” he said, “in case you remember anything else about him. We’ll want to talk with you some more.”

  “Not this time of day you won’t. You wait until the gadget part of the show. Who cares about computers and VCRs anyway?” Eyeing Boldt’s business card, she allowed a large grin to superimpose itself upon her features. “Say,” she said, causing Boldt to turn from the door to face her, “you know anyone sprays for earwigs?”

  Boldt tried LaMoia from the cellular, his intention to inform him that he was going to enter the residence on a determination of probable cause. He couldn’t get through, but penned a note of his attempt in his notebook. He walked around back of the vacant house, not wanting to draw any attention, his senses on full alert. It took him a total of three minutes to find the spare key—under a potted plant. He paused at the back door and unsnapped his service handgun.

  The brief touch of the weapon brought with it dread and anxiety. Fieldwork was for the younger officers—he understood this well.

  He moved cautiously through the building, clearing rooms in succession, allowing for no surprises. The house smelled dusty and shuttered. Boldt climbed the stairs as silently as possible, slowly and carefully. His imagination attempted to suggest the Pied Piper was upstairs at that very moment. A confrontation. Violence. He pushed the images aside and measured every footfall, listening intently after each. Anxious cops made mistakes, he reminded himself. They shot small kids who surprised them, allowing adrenaline and imagination to distort reality, they shot the legal residents, they got addresses wrong, they believed witnesses without a second source.