Boldt rose out of the chair and switched some buttons on the stereo. He pushed PLAY on his cassette deck. A series of familiar tones filled the room, not quite music.
“Know what that is?” Boldt asked his former detective.
“Telephone tones.”
“Move to the front of the class.”
“So what?” LaMoia asked.
“Umm,” Boldt muttered. Guilt was a difficult cross to bear, but more difficult to break. “I needed you,” he explained. Or he thought he did. “I trusted you. I needed you.”
“You need a Valium is what you need. Word is, you’re coming back to the shop next week.”
“Tech Services wiretapped every member of the task force-their phones-for me. I ordered it.”
“When?”
“After Sarah.” He hesitated. “But before your suspension.”
Boldt rewound and replayed the telephone tones-a long string of tones with a few, equally long pauses. “It took me forever to figure out the code. I broke it when I realized the first numbers were your pager. Tech Services, actually. They’re the ones that filled in that blank.”
“You tapped Hill’s line?” LaMoia barked in astonishment, not listening clearly. “You tapped a fucking captain’s phone line?” A touch of reverence. He glanced around, embarrassed by the loose tongue. “You’re outta your gourd,” he whispered. Then the realization Boldt had awaited finally cascaded over LaMoia’s face as he added the information together. His brow tightened and his mustache and mouth sagged into concern.
“You?” the sergeant asked, incredulous.
“She told me that she was going to assign you the accident in Boise.”
“You?” Outright astonishment.
“I couldn’t allow that. I needed to short-circuit Flemming’s plan to steal the task force and preserve you for my team. For New Orleans. For Sarah.”
“You bastard.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Silence hung between them, and with it, Boldt feared their friendship as well. LaMoia’s record would forever be blemished; it was an unspoken rule that a suspension, even though cleared by review, affected an officer’s rate of advancement forever.
Miles cried out LaMoia’s name from the other room-a child’s shrill peal of pure pleasure. A moment later, Sarah’s tiny voice echoed the same delight.
John LaMoia grinned, lifted his head, shut his eyes and drank in the sounds like sweet perfume. “You bastard,” he said, offering Boldt his back and hurrying into the room to play with the kids.