No Witnesses lbadm-3

by Ridley Pearson

  Boldt began drawing the curtains and lowering shades.

  “And you can’t go outside,” Daphne stated emphatically. “This is a small, closed neighborhood. We decided against putting any of our people around the area because we thought it would cause too much suspicion and probably force us to move you. We don’t want to move you. We were also worried about leaks. Only a handful of people know you’re here, all of whom can be trusted.” Boldt continued with the shades. “You won’t go outside, you won’t use the phone, and you won’t open any of the shades. We’re taking no chances that you might be randomly spotted. And remember, this is for you, not us.”

  “Bullshit,” the woman protested. “This is so I’ll squeal. This is so Kenny Fowler goes to jail. Don’t give me any of that shit.”

  Cornelia Uli had been told nothing of Boldt’s ruse, and Boldt delighted in the fact that unwittingly she, too, played her role out to perfection.

  For a day and a half, the two women lived side by side-sometimes combative, sometimes in harmony, but with Daphne either wearing her weapon at her side or leaving it within plain reach.

  Boldt and his team were equipped with some of the same digital communication technology used in the ATM sting, preventing any possibility of electronic eavesdropping. Officially, the police were completely out of this. In fact, an elite team of individuals including Gaynes and LaMoia were following a carefully choreographed script in which Cornelia Uli was the only unwitting participant. For the sake of possible surveillance, it had long since been decided that the trap would be baited after dark.

  On the second evening of Uli’s confinement, Daphne sat waiting for the woman to take a bathroom break. As usual, she wore a radio and earpiece.

  Uli was a television addict, and remained virtually glued to the set in the bedroom during waking hours. Boldt used this against her in his plan: The diuretic slipped into the evening meal guaranteed frequent bathroom calls; at some point she would come down to the head-essential to the success of the ruse. More important, she would immediately return upstairs to her shows, where, true to form, she would remain. She would not be hanging around downstairs, checking coat closets. Crucial, because on this night, the closets would have more than coats inside of them.

  But for Daphne the time seemed to stretch on forever. Finally Uli did come down from the bedroom, the sound of the television behind her, and crossed the room toward the head. Daphne, as per instructions, sprang into action.

  She walked quickly to the front door and unlocked it. At the same time she keyed in the security code, deactivating the system, she also flashed a signal of three pops of the transmission button to her radio. Then she hurried to the back door, which she unlocked as well. All of this required only seconds to accomplish.

  Thankfully, Uli always washed her hands after using the toilet. The running water was to serve as Daphne’s warning signal.

  Outside the houseboat, the three quick pops over the radio were the awaited signal. Boldt, LaMoia, and Gaynes, all dressed in dark clothing, hurried from the back of a panel truck and down the short dock toward the farthest houseboat, while through an earpiece Boldt monitored the monotonous drone of the dispatcher’s voice tracking Kenny Fowler’s every move. At present, Fowler was holed up in his water-view apartment across town.

  On board the cabin cruiser, Daphne’s radio signal instructed Watson to jam several of Fowler’s transmission frequencies and to start the prerecorded videotapes playing. It was for this reason that Daphne remained standing close to the back door-there were no hidden surveillance cameras watching this back area of the house. One moment the hidden cameras were showing the real-time activity inside the houseboat; the next, only the camera and microphone showing Cornelia Uli urinating were live. The rest briefly displayed the images and sounds of empty rooms.

  It was during these few precious moments of illusion that Boldt and his team slipped quietly inside the houseboat-Boldt and Gaynes through the front door, locking it behind them, and seconds later LaMoia through the back.

  LaMoia took up position in the back coat closet.

  Boldt stuffed himself into the front coat closet.

  Bobbie Gaynes raced up the ladder and concealed herself on the small deck outside the bedroom.

  Daphne heard the bathroom water running.

  She rekeyed the security code and the light flashed red.

  She glanced into the living room. Boldt’s jacket was caught in the closet door, cracking it open. He did not seem to notice.

  No time. Watson had warned her that for the video to play correctly once the jamming was removed, she had to walk “on screen” from the same location where she had walked off. She could not suddenly appear in the middle of a room when the cameras went live.

  Desperate to correct Boldt’s coat, she had no choice but to return to her screened position at the back door, while at the same time clicking her radio three times successively. Click, click, click.

  On the cabin cruiser, sweat clinging to his brow, Watson stood alongside his assistant, Moulder, each with fingers from both hands occupied, awaiting the signal. The radio sparked three times. Watson said, “Ready?” Moulder nodded. “One, two, three!”

  In a synchronized movement, the men depressed the buttons simultaneously. The video of the houseboat was once again live. But now, there were three police inside.

  Watson spoke calmly into the radio, “You’re live.”

  Uli came out of the bathroom at the same time Daphne heard Watson’s confirmation and crossed back onto a video screen somewhere in the city. The psychologist’s heart was pounding ferociously. She had not realized how tense this would make her.

  On cue, the phone rang, and Daphne answered it in her same bored manner with which she always answered a phone, fully aware of the electronic device listening to her every word.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” said Lieutenant Phil Shoswitz. “We need you downtown. It’s urgent-the grand jury has advanced the schedule. They’ve decided to hear her testimony tomorrow morning. Smyth wants to talk to you.”

  “But I-”

  “Twenty minutes is all. I know you’ll be leaving her, but it’s better than us sending a replacement and making a scene. Lock it up tight and key in the security. You’ve done it before. She’ll be fine.”

  “But I really don’t think-”

  “If we don’t handle this tonight, we’ve got major problems in the morning. Get your butt down here.” He added, “No one can bust in there without us knowing. I’m putting an unmarked car up on Fairview. They’ll respond if needed, but I don’t want them any closer than that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She hung up and told Uli, “I have to go downtown.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I have to go. You’ll be fine. I’ll lock up and you’ll rekey the security behind me. I won’t be more than a half hour.” She added, “I’ve gone out for food before.” She turned around, and there peering from the closet was Boldt’s eye, wide with urgency. Shocked, she quickly collected herself. Boldt could not spin around in the tiny space and free his coat without making noise. Nor could he pull the closet door shut without risking being heard.

  “But not at night,” Uli complained.

  “It’s orders. I have to go.”

  “A half hour, that’s all,” Uli stated as a requirement.

  “I thought you didn’t like cops,” Daphne reminded her. She edged toward the closet.

  “I like your gun. I don’t suppose you would leave me that.”

  “You’ll be fine.” She reminded her of the code, although Uli had used the system before. “Lock up behind me.”

  “No,” the woman snapped sarcastically, “I think I’ll leave it open so Fowler can just walk right in.”

  Daphne stepped up to the closet door and said, “Oh hell, I don’t need a coat,” and smacked the door firmly, pushing it shut. A small triangle of Boldt’s sport coat stuck out by the hinge like a tiny flag.

 
Boldt was not big on claustrophobic environments. He was large enough that even the front seat of a car seemed tight to him. The minutes ticked by interminably long. He monitored the time by pushing the button that lit the display on his Casio watch.

  Four minutes after Daphne’s departure, Boldt heard softly in his ear, “Suspect is departing his domicile. Repeat: Suspect departing.” They had intentionally given Fowler only a few minutes in which to react, because they knew their operatives could not stand inside a coat closet remaining absolutely silent for more than thirty minutes, and because they hoped to force an urgency upon him that would require a quick, perhaps irrational, decision to act. This also accounted for Shoswitz’s announcing to Daphne an advanced trial date.

  “Suspect headed east on Denny Way,” Boldt heard in his ear.

  Boards creaked overhead-Uli was in the bedroom watching television, unaware of Bobbie Gaynes lurking in the shadows only several feet away.

  The surveillance traffic crackled in Boldt’s ear. Fowler drew progressively closer, and when he eventually turned north toward the lake, Boldt knew he was headed here. Seven minutes.

  “Suspect has arrived at destination,” came the dispatcher’s bland voice. Boldt could not stand the lack of air another minute. He tugged on the closet door and cracked it open again, delivering fresh air, and leaving him a tiny slit through which he could see.

  Somewhere around three minutes later, the back door came open, Kenny Fowler using a master key for locks that his own people had installed. He punched in an override code that circumvented a customer’s PIN-supplied to alarm companies by the manufacturer in case a customer forgot his or her security PIN. Then he shut the door and reset the alarm.

  Cornelia Uli’s ears were aided by the fact that she had muted a commercial, and because Fowler proceeded to step on the same noisy board that had gotten him into trouble with Daphne. Uli came charging down the ladder calling out, “Changed your mind?”

  Boldt watched as Fowler came into view. He wore a dark-green oilskin jacket. Bold could not see Uli.

  “Oh shit!” Uli barked out, seeing him.

  “Relax! I’m not here to kill you.” He sounded emotionally drained.

  “Bullshit.”

  “No shit.” He produced a fan of cash-twenty-dollar bills. “We’re getting you out of here.”

  “What are you talking about, out of here?”

  “I’m giving you a choice,” he said calmly. “You can take a plane ticket and three thousand bucks right now, or you can get on that stand tomorrow morning-”

  “It’s not tomorrow morn-”

  “Shut up! There’s no time, Corny.” Fowler evidently cared for the woman. Boldt had not anticipated this. “You get on the stand and you lose your memory. No ATMs. No Kenny Fowler. No testimony. It was all your idea. I can tell you how to make it sound convincing. You do that, and I’ll give you thirty thousand when you get out.”

  “I’ll never get out.”

  “Four years, maybe six. And thirty thousand at the other end. I’ll deposit half in your name before you get on that stand.”

  “I take the fall for you.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Jesus,” she said. Boldt realized she was actually considering it.

  Boldt reached down and depressed the radio’s call button twice: Click, click. Overhead, he heard Gaynes move. He saw Fowler turn as he must have heard LaMoia. Boldt swung open the door, his weapon already drawn.

  Cornelia Uli screamed.

  Fowler scrambled for his weapon, completely caught off-guard.

  “Three of us, Kenny! Drop it!” Boldt announced.

  “Hands high!” LaMoia warned from behind.

  Gaynes leapt down the ladder and tackled Uli, shielding her.

  Fowler shook his head. He sat down slowly onto the floor, only inches from the post where Daphne had struck her head. “But how?” he said, glancing toward the wall and one of his hidden cameras.

  “We’ve got all the latest shit,” Boldt said, quoting him.

  Fowler remained dazed.

  LaMoia said, “Hey, Sarge, get this: Tonight you and I came out of the closet.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  At Owen Adler’s recommendation they met at Place Pigalle because it was small and intimate and offered a stunning water view. Boldt noticed Daphne’s new ring immediately, but he said nothing because he was not sure Liz had seen it yet. But of course, she had. Liz did not miss much when it came to Daphne Matthews. The ring was both handsome and elegant, though not showy, and Boldt admired Adler for that.

  Boldt had accepted the invitation reluctantly, not wanting to leave his home for any reason, not comfortable with the idea of socializing with the two of them, but he had never been good at denying Daphne much of anything. She had gotten him into this investigation, and now, in her own way, she was letting him out.

  Boldt asked, “How do you interpret Fowler’s statement?”

  In a plea bargain to lessen the charges, Kenny Fowler had agreed to cooperate by giving a written statement. One of Daphne’s jobs was to analyze the psychology behind it. “From the day he left SPD he told all of us he was going to have his own agency. Working for Owen, he spent as much money as he made-actually more most of the time; he lived beyond his means. He felt inferior-Howard Taplin’s go-and-fetch-it. He claims that the Caulfield case brought all those feelings home. That he suddenly saw a way to make enough money to strike out on his own. He knew the look of the faxes, the language, and the tone-he could imitate the killer and extort money. If people kept dying, he could use this to apply more pressure.”

  “But he withheld information,” Boldt reminded.

  “He lied to all of us,” Adler snapped. “If it was a matter of money-” but he cut himself off, clearly too upset to discuss it.

  Daphne continued hesitantly, “The statement says nothing about the original New Leaf cover-up, or framing Caulfield on the drug charges. I suspect that his intention all along was to find Caulfield himself, before we did, and to take him out. That way he could continue the extortion while the New Leaf connection to the killings remained unproven, probably hoping it would fade away.” She looked out at the view. “He exploited everything and everyone around him.” She clearly included herself in this. Liz poked her husband in the leg, her actions hidden beneath the table. Boldt asked no more questions.

  Liz changed the subject, asking questions about Corky, and Adler brightened and told a series of amusing stories.

  He ordered champagne, and Liz changed hers to a San Pellegrino because of the child growing inside her. This announcement won several toasts and more talk of Corky, and naturally led into Adler’s blushing, tongue-tied inability to speak, and Daphne’s finally announcing their engagement. She confessed, “It may be the only engagement in history to be consummated not by a kiss, but a handshake.”

  Boldt and Daphne met eyes briefly, and he saw in hers a terrified joy that he had longed to see there. Far out on the water the ferries came and went, their lights blurred in reflection. Daphne drank nervously and started telling stories on Boldt, reminding him of things that he pretended to have forgotten.

  Adler drank to Liz for the time-trap software, and to Boldt for everything he had done, and to his fiancee “for finding the truth.” No one mentioned Harry Caulfield by name. Howard Taplin was cooperating with authorities, but he received no toasts that night. Boldt said a silent toast for Danielson and Striker-one recovering, the other facing a difficult trial and a messy divorce.

  In all, it was an awkward evening for Boldt. He fought Adler for the check and lost, and this seemed significant to him. He drove home in silence with his wife napping in her seat, and when they pulled up to the garage, her eyes still closed, Liz said, “She’ll always be your friend. It won’t change that. You’ll see.”

  He had no way to follow that. He got the door for her and they held hands on the way to the kitchen. After checking in on Miles, Liz paid the baby-sitter while Boldt tended to th
e day’s mail piled by the kitchen phone. Among the letters was a brown package, and like a good cop, Boldt treated it suspiciously, chastising himself once he read the return address.

  “I wondered what that was,” Liz said, as her husband opened it carefully. “But I didn’t touch it,” she added. Boldt hated the precautions, he resented so much of his public service. The package was incredibly light and was marked FRAGILE, with a series of bright red stickers.

  The note was on personalized stationery and read simply,

  For your boy. I forget his name. Did you tell me it? I don’t remember. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste. I know he’s too young. But perhaps someday he can finish this.-Betty

  Inside, he found the partially completed model of the Space Shuttle.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Howard Taplin took the stand for the third time in as many days. He had turned state’s witness, and the convictions were piling up in a case that drew both Court TV and CNN updates. The succession of trials was nearly as exhausting as the investigation for the lead detective. It was in that horrible time of year for Boldt-between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the sky was gray, the air cold, and there was canned Christmas music playing from fuzzy speakers on every street.

  Kenny Fowler went down in flames, receiving three thirty-year sentences to be served consecutively. Amazingly to Boldt, Cornelia Uli was acquitted after the prosecution proved without a shadow of a doubt that she had served as Fowler’s accomplice, had opened the phony bank account, and had made over twelve thousand dollars in withdrawals. Television reporters called it a sympathy vote, for Uli had been arrested seven years earlier by Fowler during a gang raid and had been forced to serve as his sexual partner ever since. The jury apparently bought the defense’s position that she had been brainwashed. LaMoia had summed it up as far as Boldt was concerned: “That’s the law for you. Go figure.”