“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.
CHAPTER 22
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.”
“But-”
“Or,” he added quickly, “Flemming’s little end run will find its way to both local and national media, and all the efforts in the world won’t keep at least some of it from going public. It’s going to come apart on you.”
“You’re threatening me?”
“I’m an information gatherer, Ms. Kalidja. I leave the threatening to others. But if I were to threaten anyone, it would be Flemming, not you. From what I know about him, Flemming is a man who gets the job done. Nothing wrong with that. He’s known to like things his way. I’ve been there myself. But I wouldn’t threaten a man like Flemming; I’d just expose him and let him deal with it. No, what I’m offering is a trade. I’m trading you a damn good lead for information I should have had in my hands two weeks ago. Who’s getting the better end of this one?”
“I don’t have the information you request, Lieutenant.” Her voice held a note of apology.
“You’re the Intelligence officer. Any such information would have gone through your office.”
“It may have passed through,” she conceded, “but it did … not … stick.”
She was giving him something, revealing something. Boldt could hear the tentative reluctance in her silky voice.
At SPD such information would have been copied, filed and disseminated to those with a Need to Know. The Bureau couldn’t be much different, and yet what she was telling him was that she had either failed to make copies or had been ordered not to do so. Either explanation was insufficient and yet intriguing. What the hell was going on over there? Local FBI against the nationals? Perhaps the lockdown had little to do with keeping local police away from it and everything to do with preventing their own FBI field office investigators from running with it.