She ejected the tape and placed it to the side. The screen was a sky blue. She shut off the gear, the sense of failure a bitter taste in her mouth. Danny Kotch of Tech Services, who had always had a crush on her, caught up to her in the hallway and handed her Ben’s backpack, returning it, reminding her of the boy and further disappointment. She carried it to her car and tossed it onto the seat.
Daphne drove with her headlights on through early evening rain that continued to hold the city in a perpetual dusk. She was going a little too fast for conditions when the light changed. She always drove fast anyway, and her anxiety over Ben only served to increase her speed. Green to yellow: She downshifted and tapped the brakes. The rear end swerved, but she recovered with a tug on the wheel. Yellow to red: She downshifted again and gave the brakes an extra effort. The rubber met the road cleanly and firmly, and the car slowed hard.
The backpack flew off the front seat and onto the floor mat.
The car lurched to a stop at the red light and rocked on its springs.
Daphne leaned forward and grabbed for the small backpack and hoisted it by one of its black straps up onto the seat.
The light changed, but Daphne didn’t see it.
A car horn sounded behind her, but Daphne didn’t hear it.
Traffic swerved around her, taking advantage of the green light, and one of the drivers flipped her his middle finger. Daphne did not see this either. Her full attention was fixed on the backpack. In her mind’s eye she saw Garman briefly glance into the back of the Explorer as he climbed into the car to wash its windows; she measured a count of two, as Garman, then in the back seat, dipped out of sight, coming back up a moment later with an ashtray that needed dumping.
The backpack had been in the back seat-she had placed it there herself. The same backpack that was currently in the seat alongside of her. She stared at it, transfixed. For there on the backpack, slipped into a plastic window designed for just that purpose, was a small identification tag listing Ben’s name and Jackson Street address. Even the phone number was there, she noted.
Jonny Garman had not needed to open the glove box. The address he sought was available to him in the back seat, something he had probably determined within seconds of climbing into the car. She recalled the video tape and Garman’s brief disappearance as he sat up with an ashtray in hand. Ben’s backpack had been in the Explorer’s back seat. Garman would have had time to memorize the address.
The police had established an elaborate surveillance operation at the wrong address. If Garman was watching any house, it was the Santori house on Jackson, not 114 Lakewood where Martinelli was ensconced.
As she hung a U-turn in the middle of oncoming traffic, Daphne wasn’t thinking about Boldt or the investigation; she was thinking about Ben and the fact that she had not bothered to check his home, where he clearly might hide in a panic. She would not tell Boldt or the others, not yet. They would want Martinelli, not Daphne, to arrive at the house on Jackson, more worried about their trap than the emotions of a frightened runaway boy.
She owed this to Ben. She would not drive him away again.
It never occurred to her for a minute that at a distance, in the dusk, she and Martinelli did not look so very different.
59
Boldt was both annoyed with and concerned about Bobbie Gaynes. She had called in to dispatch an hour earlier, explaining she was going to walk to Seattle University-the location of Garman’s surprise bicycle disappearance-and had not been heard from again. She didn’t carry a cellular phone and she was clearly away from her vehicle, because she wasn’t answering radio calls. She was one of only two detectives to whom Boldt could turn for his surveillance team, and he felt forced to chase her down.
He drove to the corner of Broadway and Columbia and immediately spotted her department-issue four-door parked a half block down the hill. At that point, his concern gave way to worry.
He parked and walked quickly through the small campus, eyes and ears alert. There was no more daylight left, only a strong twilight glow off the clouds, bouncing back a muted, ambient light that stuck to anything pale in color. Gaynes could have covered the area in no time, he realized, wondering why she had not returned to her car and reported back to dispatch. He had no time to chase detectives around the city. Increasingly impatient, he widened his area of search as he believed she would have. He had been on foot for twenty minutes when he found himself waiting for a car to pass at the intersection of Broadway and James.
He looked up at the many office buildings surrounding him, at first taking in their contrasting brick and concrete architectures, preferring the older brick look, but then assessing their purpose as professional buildings-medical offices. The area was known as Pill Hill. All at once he knew why he had lost Bobbie Gaynes; she too had made this same discovery. Medical offices, and their suspect with a reconstructed face.
Boldt began to run in the direction of Harbor-view, where he hoped to catch Dixie, still in his offices. As medical examiner Dixie would have access to professional listings. The man often worked late; Boldt felt he had a chance.
Each building he passed had some connection to the medical world. The signs, the names shouted out at him. He couldn’t run fast enough. He cut across to Boren and down Boren toward the hospital, out of breath but not slowing his stride.
They had run driver’s license and vehicle registration checks on Garman, he recalled. Had LaMoia run credit checks and medical records? He couldn’t remember. But then he thought they must have, because they knew the exact date of Jonathan Garman’s admission for severe burns in the hospital at Grand Forks. And, if so, they had not discovered any record of medical insurance or they would have had an address to run down, even if only a mail drop.
Think, think! he told himself. And as the idea struck him, Boldt pulled an abrupt about-face, cut back across the street, and ran at a full sprint back toward the school campus.
Less than five minutes later, he burst through the door of the First Hill Medical Clinic, a welfare outpatient service only a block south of the university. It operated out of an old dry-cleaning shop, the rusted mechanized clothes hanger chain still suspended from the ceiling like recovered dinosaur vertebrae.
Bobbie Gaynes was standing at the counter, halfway through a serious pile of paperwork. She viewed a sheet and turned. Viewed and turned. She took no notice of Boldt until he stood panting only a few feet away. Then she glanced over at him and said, “Well, don’t just stand there, Sergeant, take a chunk of this.” She passed him two inches of paperwork. As if they had been discussing the case together, she said, “Shifts changed at six o’clock, so no one here now saw him come in today. But one of the girls recognized the description. Garman uses the clinic, though she says the name doesn’t sound right. She says the plastic surgery was a lousy job-it’s always infecting along his ears. They’re not so pretty, evidently; he wears the sweatshirt hood up to hide them. And they’re real painful. If he was in today, he’s in these piles. And if he’s in these piles they have some paperwork on him. Everyone has to register here. It’s kind of like an uninsured HMO.”
A female nurse called another patient’s name into the crowded room. A male nurse answered the phone and sat down at a computer terminal.
“You didn’t call in,” Boldt said. Leafing through the doctors’ reports, he asked, “What do I look for?”