The Pied Piper (24 page)

Gaynes consumed the rest of the biscotti greedily and wiped ashen crumbs from her pouty lips. She carried a tomboy look, much of it from her man-tailored clothing. She said, “Doc has some more tests to run before it's welded.”

“When it's official, I want to know. Anderson's important to us … to LaMoia,” he corrected.

She eyed him amusedly, but then her expression changed gravely. “A victim,” she whispered knowingly.

“Yes,” he conceded. If pieced together correctly, Andy Anderson could talk to him from the grave and lead him and the investigation to the Pied Piper. A victim. He prayed silently there would be no more.

LaMoia entered the hotel lobby, anxious to see her. His pager had alerted him an hour earlier. The phone number belonged to The Inn at the Market, an upscale sixty-five-room hotel overlooking the Public Market and the churning marble green waters of Elliott Bay beyond.

He didn't know where she came up with the money for these rooms. The Inn was pricey and didn't rent by the hour. He supposed that she knew the right people—veteran captains often peddled their influence. Years of fighting the fight had its perks. Or perhaps the rumors that Sheila Hill's East Coast heritage came complete with a trust fund were accurate. He had never had the nerve to ask.

She answered the door using it as a screen in case of any stray eyes in the hallway. Sheila Hill was careful. She wore a hotel robe and her hair pulled back, her cheeks flushed as if coming off a workout. The bathroom mirror was fogged from the shower. His heart pounded at the sight of her. He missed her company while at work, bothered that their only contact was official.

She hung out the privacy tag and locked the door and pulled on the robe's belt and it fell open, revealing her carefully waxed crotch and a smooth, tight stomach. “All work and no play,” she said. “It's in the interest of the task force that you've come here.”

She affected him both emotionally and physically. Something new for him. Like a thirsty animal to water, he needed to fill her, to hear her cry out for him. But he wanted her laugh as well, her ideas, her insight—she understood people so completely—her calm guidance, her company. He unbuttoned his shirt, unfastened his rodeo belt and opened his jeans. She fell to her knees.

“Let's wait a minute,” he complained, stunned by his own words. He always pursued the physical women, the hungry women. Since when did he want to talk? He hardly knew himself.

She stood and turned to the wall.

Spreading her legs, she said, “Take me. Now. Right here.”

She leaned against the louvered mirror that served as the closet door and watched.

LaMoia obeyed, driven frantically to please her. The smells and sounds overcame them both. “Faster, and harder,” she ordered in a tone that he found demeaning. She was not his lover, but the captain ordering this.

“We have work to do,” he said, briefly staying with a rhythm she suggested with her hips.

“You're doing yours right now,” she returned. “I'll handle the investigation.”

He withdrew from her. “Don't talk to me like that.”

“You bastard.” She spun around, a playful expression creasing her face as she decided he was simply toying with her.

LaMoia walked slowly backward into the room, Sheila Hill pursuing him in matched steps. “What now?” she asked. “All fours?”

“I'm not your play toy,” he complained.

“Of course you are.” She approached, both hands suddenly busy on her own body. She knew him and his pressure points. “That's exactly what you are. You love it. We both love it. Because it comes without baggage. But it comes, and it comes hard.” She repeated, “What now? You want to watch?”

He did want to watch—she knew this about him—but he was too far along to stand back and do so. He stepped forward, turned her, and threw her to the bed. She laughed as she bounced. “You're so easy,” she said. “It drives you crazy when I do that, doesn't it?”

“Shut up!”

“Make me.”

In the minutes that passed, she gasped between surges of pleasure, her back arched, her smiles twisted and pained.

When it was over, she lay on the bed a glowing ruby, spent and exhausted. LaMoia showered. He returned to find her in the exact same position, but her eyes were open, deliriously taking in the whiteness of the ceiling and the flashing light of the smoke detector.

“Let's take room service,” she suggested.

“Let's talk about the surveillance—”

“It can wait. You made the assignments. Everyone's in place. We have our pagers. We do room service, and another go.”

“I just showered,” he complained.

“And you will again.”

She laughed and sat up on the bed. She looked older and more worn. He wasn't sure what he was doing there. He wasn't sure how to leave. It was going wrong for him.

“I'll call it in,” she said. “What's your pleasure?”

But it wasn't about his pleasure; it was about hers. Nonetheless, he answered, “A burger.”

“They don't do a burger, darling. This isn't White Tower.” A disapproving, condescending voice of a disappointed mother. “New York Strip? Fillet?”

“Whatever.”

“A salad?”

“What, you're a waitress now?” he asked, trying to lessen her. But it wasn't his game; it was hers.

“If you want me to be. Whatever you want me to be, baby. Have I ever refused you?”

He felt trapped, someplace he didn't want to be, but didn't want to leave. “I want to talk,” he complained.

“Whatever you want, baby.” But she didn't mean it.

And yet he stayed. Same as always.

The following morning began simply for Boldt, the scare of the evening before behind him. Marina's husband, Felipe, was to accompany his wife and Boldt's children to Millie's Day Care, where Boldt felt they would be safe. His eyes tired from paperwork, he freed up time to pursue credit records of earlier Pied Piper victims only to discover those records “locked” by order of the FBI, an unexpected twist.

He placed a call to Kay Kalidja for an explanation but was unable to reach her.

Several times his computer beeped, signaling incoming E-mail. Not every cop was on the system yet, but each unit was, from accounting to Special Ops. Intelligence had been one of the first on-line.

Boldt did not yet fully appreciate the network—the intranet—although he understood how to operate it. E-mail was a nuisance. It piled up worse than voice mail. He recognized its enormous potential but reserved the right to use his E-mail at his own convenience. Just because his computer beeped did not mean he responded.

His focus remained on the Pied Piper investigation, and on several crime scene reports that were still being stonewalled by Flemming. Under orders from Hill, Boldt was to get those files. “No tears.” He was not to let her down.

Boldt had homicide contacts in most major cities and was on a first-name basis with many of Portland's finest. So he tried Portland first; if he could present Hill an early victory, she might ease up on him.

The computer beeped at him again. More E-mail. That made six since he had sat down. It irritated him: He didn't want to be counting beeps while he worked. (He knew the beeping could be switched off but had yet to learn how—another bothersome aspect of computers; the simplest thing required twenty minutes of figuring out how to do it.)

The overnight surveillance of vacant homes had failed to turn up any suspects or suspicious movements, a major disappointment. A few minutes past noon, LaMoia shared Daech's list of vacant houses with the Bureau, along with Boldt's discovery of the rocking chair facing a window. By early afternoon, in the first real show of a coordinated effort, the Bureau and SPD combined resources to identify any and all parental couples within visible range of the surveillance house discovered by Boldt. Ironically, it was through this effort that major progress was made in pinpointing how the Pied Piper selected his victims.

It was also through this effort that Boldt finally connected with Kay Kalidja.

“I received your voice mail. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you,” she apologized in her creamy island singsong. “It has been a little crazy around here this morning.”

“Here too.”

She said, “Your people are pursuing recently issued birth certificates—a smart angle. We have gained access to state tax filings that we can sort by ZIP code, though with April fifteenth less than a month away and the targets under a year old, they will not show up as deductions. We also have access to applications for new social security numbers. We have asked for those as well.”

Boldt offered the information he was anxious to share with her, believing that the Bureau had the authority to make the requests and receive the information days, perhaps weeks, ahead of SPD—something unmentionable around the hallways of Public Safety. “Baby catalogs, parenting magazines. I know from experience that once you have a baby, you're on every list there is. The offers they send you …”

The profound silence he encountered told him he had hit the mark. “This is good.”

“We should have been on this a long time ago,” he suggested.

“You mean
we
should have been. Point taken. This is very good, Lieutenant.”

“You, the Bureau, would have quicker access to those mailing lists. The publishers will be out-of-state.” He added, “You didn't hear that from me.”

“Are you telling me this is ours?” the disbelief in her voice unmistakable.

“As far as I'm concerned, you thought of it, Ms. Kalidja, not me. It's all yours.”

“I do not know what to say. This kind of cooperation … well, it has not been the norm.”

Boldt asked, “Quid pro quo?”

“Ah … so that's it! You know, Lieutenant, I think you would get along well with my S-A-C. Perhaps you would like to bring this up with him.”

“I didn't ask for Flemming, I asked for you.”

“Exactly,” she replied.

“That's because Flemming has locked down all credit information on past victims. I can't get access to any of it. I figure he put you up to that.”

Another prolonged silence. Boldt didn't want a story from her; he hoped she wasn't dreaming one up for him.

She said, “A precaution is all. Keep the media from disseminating information ahead of time.”

“Or to keep local investigators from looking at it?” he asked.

“Lieutenant …”

“I need the financial records—credit history, bank accounts, credit card activity—of every family the Pied Piper targeted. You can understand that, I'm sure. It's where an investigation like this starts. I put that request in to you personally, long
before
there ever was a Shotz or a Weinstein. When it failed to arrive, after numerous subsequent requests, I attempted to obtain those records myself and discovered they are stonewalled. Blocked. Now, since you're Flemming's Intelligence officer, you must have done this. I've got to tell you that I didn't even know such a thing could be done. It must have been one hell of a Herculean effort to pull this off. But now that you've done it—and so successfully—I respectfully request that all such information be delivered to me by this afternoon.”