“Which were?” Boldt asked.
“The Spitting Image customers. If you know about Spitting Image, then you know she has a Web page; I got to the Web page first, never did interview her. But one of our pocket protectors hacked into her site without any hassle. Said a sixth grader coulda done it. Lifts a couple dozen valid credit cards. The woman was using E-mail for her orders! Jesus! And I’m thinking—”
“This guy’s had experience counterfeiting credit cards,” Boldt supplied.
“Got to be. Right? Credit cards, documentation. It’s all available to him. He needs fake cards to get things done. But first he needs valid numbers, and Spitting Image all but hands them to him.”
“Not the victims’ cards.”
“No way. Have to be punch drunk to use those; but the other card numbers? Why not?”
“Did you ever connect it?” Boldt asked.
“Did I ever! The AFIDs.”
“We’ve never seen a report.”
“Yeah, well, Hale has one. The cartridges for the air TASER were bought all at one time. Las Vegas, a year ago. One time charge to a valid credit card—”
“Which later turned out to be—”
“Much later, yeah,” Bowler answered.
“What?” Liz asked irritably.
The two men answered nearly simultaneously, “A Spitting Image customer.”
“And that’s when you thought to follow the cards,” Boldt said.
“The guy is lifting his vics off the Internet. Why make things harder on himself? He does up a valid credit card, maybe a driver’s license all from the same hack. He gets into those files once, he never needs to go back again. Clean and simple.”
“Is someone going to explain this to me?” Liz asked indignantly. “How does his using some silk-screen customer’s credit card connect to rental cars?”
Bowler answered shamefully, “I never followed it up, never chased it. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.”
Boldt told her, “The Pied Piper needs valid credit cards and a valid ID to rent cars, take plane flights, whatever. If he’s using Spitting Image customers—and I agree it makes sense that he might—then we may be able to track him.” Boldt told Bowler, “The problem with it that I see is that we know he accessed the victims’ credit card records—it’s how he knew their movements, how he predicted when to strike.”
This was clearly news to Bowler, who attempted to digest it. Boldt continued, “If he had that kind of access to credit records, he doesn’t need the Spitting Image list.”
Bowler contradicted, “Sure he does. He needs expiration dates. Those aren’t available from a TRW or some credit service. He’s got some ex-con who can pull that kind of information for him,” Bowler speculated. “It doesn’t mean he’s got valid cards.”
Liz, the banker, said, “He’s right, love. He would need the expiration dates for a successful counterfeit.”
“What you’ve got here is someone who knows computers. With a color scanner you can forge hundred dollar bills. How difficult can a driver’s license be?”
Boldt thought back to the CD-R of Sarah—video embedded on a CD-ROM. He said, “They teach computer skills in prison.”
Bowler looked up and said, “Our tax dollars hard at work.”
CHAPTER
Boldt returned to the office as fast as the Chevy would safely take him, a dozen ideas competing inside his head for his attention. Kalidja. Hale. Sarah’s situation. Time running out. He couldn’t hold all the loose ends together.
LaMoia pushed shut both doors to the fifth-floor corner coffee lounge, windows overlooking the secretary pool to one side and the bullpen to the other. The situation room, which offered far more privacy, had become task force headquarters and churned with activity. Daphne warmed her hands on a tea cup. There were no smiles, only anxiety-ridden expressions.
“I’m toast,” LaMoia said. “I’m out of here.” He had called the others to the impromptu meeting.
“Boise?” Boldt asked.
“Sheila—Hill,” he corrected himself, a little late, “wants me on the six o’clock flight, wants me running down every stinking piece of evidence there is—some of which I’ve already done, incidentally, though I didn’t tell her.”
“Econo-Drive,” Boldt supplied. He had asked LaMoia to look into the car rental records.
“Yeah. I had no trouble getting that: The abandoned car in the pileup,” LaMoia said, “was rented to one Lena Robertson.”
“A woman,” Daphne said. “Then it is a team.” Boldt could feel her processing the information. She had been among the first to insist that the kidnapped children were intended for illegal adoption, and that if true, the Pied Piper more than likely needed an accomplice to help care for and transport the infants. Boldt’s revelation of two uniformed cops, a man and a woman, abducting Sarah from day care had supported her theory and led her to investigate previously arrested or convicted con artist couples on a national level. Con games were often played out in pairs.
“Hold that thought right there,” Boldt said, hurrying from the coffee lounge. Once through Homicide’s secure door he started for the elevator but changed his mind and ran the stairs. The climb up was arduous and reinforced his utter exhaustion, reminding him of how little sleep he had gotten over the past ten days and how poorly he had eaten. He reached for some of those dangling strings, knowing that the SPD task force—and their FBI counterpart—was, at the very least, close to identifying and arresting the kidnapper’s accomplice. If he could only count on a few pieces of good luck, he might yet beat Hale or Flemming to his daughter’s abductor. But luck rarely ran when one needed it. It ran when least expected.
Boldt ran the hallway to his office, unlocked his file cabinet and secured the Spitting Image customer list. He was halfway back downstairs when he located the name on the run: Robertson, a baby quilt shipped in care of Durrel Robertson of Oakland, California.
“You look like you’re about to come out of your skin,” Daphne observed of Boldt on his return.
“Robertson was a Spitting Image customer. A baby blanket was shipped to that name in care of Durrel Robertson at what looks like a home address. It was charged to a VISA in the name of Lena Robertson.” Daphne and LaMoia looked back at him blankly. He explained Bowler’s visit and the possible connection—never proved and never brought to anyone’s attention because of Penny’s kidnapping—between the Pied Piper’s possible identities and the Spitting Image customer list.
“You’re telling me Bowler suddenly got a conscience?” LaMoia said skeptically, finding it impossible to conceal his dislike of a cop who would intentionally throw an investigation. “Or did he drive up here to sell you a bill of goods and stay with his original game plan?”
“You are the all-time cynic,” Daphne said.
“Bowler put together Spitting Image just as we did. But he made a leap in logic that we did not: With a bunch of valid credit card numbers at your fingertips, why not put them to good use? It works for me,” Boldt impressed upon LaMoia, referring to the customer list. “Robertson’s card was used to rent a car here in Seattle that’s later abandoned on the way to God knows where. Do we need it any clearer?”
“It’s your call,” LaMoia said irritably.
“You’re just pissed that Hill can call the shots,” Daphne, the psychologist, explained to him. LaMoia was no fan of her psychological evaluations. “You don’t like a woman bossing you around. I know you, John. I know where this is coming from.”
“You don’t know shit about it.”
“Hey!” Boldt chided. He told LaMoia, “The Bureau blocked the financial records of the victims, we assume so they could have it all to themselves. But we can pull credit card statements for the Spitting Image customers and look for charges that coincide with the Pied Piper’s calendar. You see what they’ve done?” he asked, tapping the Spitting Image records. “The Pied Piper uses fresh, valid credit cards—Robertson ordered that blanket just last week. If he has the access we thin
k he does, then he knows her statement dates; he knows she won’t actually see any of his charges for a month or more. He’s protected from discovery. What we want to do is get to those statements electronically ahead of time—we can do that—then we focus on car rentals in and around the abduction dates; gas charges, airfare, lodging, restaurants.”
“They won’t use the cards for small-ticket items,” LaMoia countered. “The car rentals, sure—you have to show a card.”
Daphne said, “And that card has to match your driver’s license.”
“Fake ID?” LaMoia asked. “So they could use a card and license to board a plane as well. I’d buy that.” He added for Boldt’s sake, “But I’m off to Boise to measure skid marks and work a traffic accident. That’s what this is, you know?” he complained. “Hill is knocking me down to metro.”
“I need both of you with me in New Orleans, if any of this pans out,” Boldt announced. “Hill will have to settle for Mulwright.”
LaMoia snapped, “Forget it. She’s talking a minimum of two or three days over there.”
“She’s going too, isn’t she?” Daphne speculated.
“It’s where the press will be,” LaMoia said, though he blushed and squirmed in his chair. “What do you think?”
“The press, are you sure?” Boldt questioned, the ramifications for Sarah echoing in his thoughts.
“I’m sure. They’re all over it.”
“Already?”
“Already.”
“That couldn’t have been what Flemming wanted,” Boldt pointed out.
“Ten to one, the Captain did it, Sarge—Hill. She wanted Flemming slowed down; she wanted to punish him for trying the end run. What better way than to dump the press in his lap?”
“Games,” Matthews said, disgusted.
“You gotta get me off the Boise assignment, Sarge. You’ve got tattoos to run, con artists, adoption records. A foreign town.”
“How badly do you want off?”
“Whatever it takes,” LaMoia answered.
“I’ll go,” Daphne confirmed. “I won’t be missed.”
Boldt asked LaMoia, “Straight answer. Is there any reason Hill would be mad at you?”
“Moi?”
“I need it straight, John, because from here, from what we know about what you face in Boise —”
LaMoia interrupted, “You mean failure? Trying to track down this driver and child after the Bureau has a substantial lead on us.”
“It looks more like a setup. This may be the investigation’s biggest lead, and if it goes nowhere—”
“Hill needs a scapegoat,” Daphne said, following Boldt’s reasoning.
“Or else there’s a personal agenda at play,” Boldt said, challenging LaMoia directly, “and she’s either intentionally sending you off to Siberia, or getting you out of the way so you can’t screw things up for her at home.” He added, “How ’bout it?”
LaMoia didn’t answer. He looked searchingly back and forth between Boldt and Matthews.
Boldt said, “Sarah’s out of time. If the press picks up on the abandoned car …” His throat caught. To Daphne, he said, “Better go pack. We have seats on the red-eye.”
CHAPTER
LaMoia boiled at the thought of pursuing dead leads in Boise, Idaho, while Boldt attempted to track the tattoo and criminal records to the actual suspect in a place like the Big Easy. The central question that needed answering—was Sarah better off with him in Boise—seemed obvious enough: Bobbie Gaynes or Patrick Mulwright could easily handle Boise. How Sheila Hill could have made such a call without discussion was beyond him. Once again she was using him, this time in a political move that left too many unanswered questions. Was she afraid of someone within the department? Was LaMoia a threat? Or did she simply want three days with him in a hotel out of town to mend their fences? He feared this latter thought the most: playing gigolo in Boise for an oversexed, overly ambitious woman who had the power to trash his own career. Exactly what had he gotten himself into? Perhaps his handcuffing incident had awakened her, had made her realize how strong his feelings were for her.
He had no choice but to obey orders. A police department was not a democracy. The Boise investigation could have been handled over the phone, and Sheila Hill knew it. But the cameras—along with the fresh sheets and room service—were in Boise.
LaMoia’s calls to his credit services contacts produced immediate results. Cross-referencing the Spitting Image customer names with the dates that the Pied Piper was known to have been in specific cities produced billing records that suggested the kidnappers had counterfeited at least six credit cards. LaMoia was sorting through the information when his pager buzzed, interrupting his work. Tempted to ignore it, he obediently angled it to the light and read the overly long string of numbers on the display, immediately guessing these numbers would lead him to a hotel room, same as always. Sheila Hill wanted to talk; she had wisely reconsidered her decision. That, or she wanted to lay down ground rules for their Boise bed jumping. He cringed. A combination of resentment, anger and hope overcame him. Perhaps she wanted to apologize. Perhaps she knew in advance he had no intention of sharing showers with her in Boise. The New Orleans red-eye was only hours away. His own flight to Boise was much sooner.
One phone call, and LaMoia had the name of the hotel: a Days Inn south on I-5. Its close proximity to the airport annoyed him—she still expected him to board that plane to Boise.
He passed the credit card information along to Boldt, went home and quickly packed a bag, his anger continually resurfacing like a fire assumed out. He left an extra dish of dry food for his cat, Granite, and slipped a note under his neighbor’s door that said he’d be gone for a few days. He stopped at an ATM and withdrew two hundred dollars cash, which he would then expense over the next few days.
On the drive south he promised himself that he would not, under any conditions, have sex with her.
He found himself passing the Days Inn registration desk and heading to the elevators. He found himself on the second floor, walking the long corridor in search of the number 214. He found himself practicing his first few lines so that she could not, would not, steer him off course, no matter what her intentions and appetites. He knocked sharply on the door and braced himself for whatever she threw at him.
The door came open to empty space and he knew immediately she was hiding behind the door, and he feared what she had in mind. Feeling like a trained German shepherd, he stepped into the room prepared to counter whatever awaited him. He walked straight ahead, intentionally not looking back, not playing to her game. If her clothes were laid out on a chair or on the bed, then he knew what to expect: reckless abandon. He couldn’t wait to deny her that.
The TV was going loudly. Sheila Hill was a screamer. LaMoia knew at that moment that she intended to try to make up to him. Knew what she had in mind—something adventuresome, something daring, perhaps even dangerous. He cautioned himself against succumbing.
There was a big rat of a man in a padded chair pulled up to a faux-grain breakfast table, and LaMoia’s first thought was that she had fantasies about a trio, but for him, the gender was all wrong. The rat was hairy and in his middle thirties. On the table in front of him, a cheap briefcase waited. LaMoia had never seen the man before, but sight of him set off a string of mental alarms. This was no sex partner of Sheila Hill’s. Not only was someone in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the rat was the exact kind of man one saw in a lineup. He was a man made for numbers across the chest.
A squeaky male voice behind LaMoia wheezed, “Hands stay visible. Nothing fast. You move slow or you go.”
LaMoia turned his head ever so slowly and took in a smaller man dressed in blue jeans and a black leather jacket. He had Asian blood in him, and maybe some speed. He hadn’t seen the sun in a long time. He held a Glock in his left hand, as casually and comfortably as some people held cigarettes.
“I’m a cop,” LaMoia announced, not a single muscle tensing. He f
ound his center; he found his calm.
“Guy’s a fucking genius,” Ratman said in an East Coast baritone.
“You can count if you want, or you can take my word for it: The money’s all there,” the little one said, more irritated than only a moment earlier. “We’re not about to short a cop.”
The rat opened the briefcase. Inside were several dozen vials of what looked like crack cocaine and two stacks of cash. The top bills of each were hundreds. If the rest matched those, it amounted to some serious change.
A neon light lit up in LaMoia’s mind. He looked at the little man with the gun curiously. “We got a small problem here,” he said.
At that moment, the hotel room door swung open, blindingly fast. “Police!” a voice thundered. A pair of black blurs occupied a space by the door and suddenly the little guy and LaMoia were both pinned against the wall, faces pressed to the cheap wallpaper, arms wrenched up behind so painfully that LaMoia couldn’t get his voice out. He hadn’t so much as twitched when he saw the ERT coming in; he knew the drill. At first, he couldn’t believe his good luck: that his own people had somehow come to his rescue, and so fast. But with his face kissing the cheap wallpaper and his shoulder about to dislocate, he reassessed. He heard a commotion behind him, which turned out to be the Ratman going down onto the floor.
“I’m a cop!” LaMoia finally gasped, his cheekbone welded with the wall, his ribs flattened by the pressure on his back.
“You were a cop,” the ERT man hissed into his ear. LaMoia knew the voice. He searched for a name to go along with it. Lowering his voice even further, the ERT man added, “You’re lucky you got witnesses, Floorshow, or I’d do you myself right here.”
LaMoia had never experienced such feelings of disgrace, humiliation and frustration as he did over the next few hours. His badge and gun were taken from him. He was escorted in handcuffs to a police van amid a flurry of activity and jeering from his peers and driven downtown. The sting had involved a minimum of eight cops, possibly twice that—all of which added up to something big. He knew the players: Narcotics. Drugs, as they were called within the ranks. They traveled in a clique within the department, the same way Homicide did. He had been to Sea-hawks games with a couple of them. Decent guys who took their jobs a little too seriously. Drugs was rough duty, and it made the players that way too.
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