Boldt stayed on the line, trying his best to bite his tongue, to keep from saying what a cop could not say, but what a father had to. He saw Sarah swing her face toward the camera in anguish, heard her shrill plea for help. The only help he could give her went against twenty-four years of experience and violated every friendship he had built over that time. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Boldt said. Before cradling the phone, he added, “I’m all over that.”
CHAPTER 29
The session with sketch artist Tommy Thompson occupied all of Boldt’s Friday morning and the early hours of his afternoon. He, Doris and little Henry Shotz rode the ferry across the undulating olive skin of the sound, pursued by the white flights and cries of seagulls as the city’s skyline receded until it nearly joined the horizon. The sea air was alive with pine and cedar. A few pleasure craft split the green marble along the shores, etching a gray wake. Sight of the boats reminded him of Hill’s theory about the Pied Piper moving between coastal cities by vessel, that this might explain the kidnapper’s ability to avoid roadblocks and dragnets in San Francisco and Portland. Within fifteen minutes of their departure, Boldt’s mind was too preoccupied to remember he had missed placing a phone call to Liz and another to Miles, had forgotten to leave Marina her check, had failed to give Hill an update, and had not shaved.
But he was not too preoccupied to remember bathing his daughter in the bathtub and the small rubber sailboat that would cause her to giggle and splash. He looked out on the water, and it was this red rubber boat he saw, not the ketch running downwind, its spinnaker full.
He swayed with the rocking of the ferry, wind tossing his hair, his eyes unfocused and distant. He processed information as quickly as he could conceive it, working more vigorously than behind his desk.
The artist’s rendition of an eagle, its wings wrapped like a robe around itself, traveled with Boldt back to Seattle.
There was no one better than Thompson: The eagle tattoo looked alive on the page. That a three-year-old had guided Thompson’s hand was something that would go unsaid as long as Boldt could manage. The tattoo itself would go undiscussed and unpublished. Boldt was studying it when Daphne entered his office uninvited. He covered it quickly, not wanting her or anyone to see.
“You’re avoiding me,” she complained. She looked flushed and awake, from another world than his.
“Nonsense.” Boldt adjusted himself in his chair, prepared for the deceit of a lifetime. Daphne Matthews knew him intimately; she was not someone to whom he could easily lie. “We’re both very busy,” he said. As a cop he had learned when and how to stretch the truth, but outright lying came from a different, more central place inside oneself, and he found it repugnant.
He did not offer her a cup of tea as was their custom, knowing that would send its own signal. He wanted her out of here. He was, at that moment, expecting Gaynes, who had called to tell him that the SID lab had completed several tests including the analysis of the mud from Anderson’s boots. The results were being sent upstairs to the fifth floor for her signature. She, in turn, planned to run the results up to Boldt before showing them to anyone else. He did not know if Daphne would pick up on this or not, but Gaynes had no business reporting to him, and it seemed quite possible to him that Daphne might make that connection. He needed her gone.
“You took him to Tommy Thompson without telling me,” she said irritably.
“Tommy only had the morning open,” Boldt explained. “You were busy.”
“The man paints seagull art for curio shops and you’re telling me he was too busy?”
“I can’t dictate the schedule to him,” Boldt complained. “It’s a freebie for him.”
“Which begs the question: Why didn’t you use one of the in-house artists? Why go all the way over to Vashon?”
“He’s the best there is. Tommy’s the best.”
She had yet to sit down, in part because he had not asked her to, and so she stood, arms crossed indignantly, her high breasts cradled tightly. She wasn’t buying this. Boldt had a problem. She drew in a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly in an effort to settle down. “Do you want to talk?”
“I want to find Rhonda Shotz and the Weinstein boy. I want to stop another kidnapping from happening.”
“How did the sketch come out? Thompson’s sketch?”
“Worthless,” Boldt answered, consumed in the lie. She was his closest female friend outside of his wife. Lying to her was the worst and yet it came so easily.
“Tommy said a five- or six-year-old might have worked out. Henry lacked both the patience and the vocabulary.”
“And we got to him too late,” she said, taken in. “Three-year-olds are not long on visual memory.”
In point of fact, Henry Shotz had done a brilliant job.
“I’d just as soon the tattoo not be mentioned at the four o’clock.”
She tensed. “But why not?”
“Doris Shotz. I promised her-”
“I remember.”
“The press will crush her.”
“They might not be told.”
“Then Mulwright will crush her,” he said. “The point is that the tattoo is weak or even useless until and unless we get a second witness.”
“But who will look for collaborative evidence if no one hears about it?” she asked. “Chicken and the egg.”
“Leave it,” Boldt said sharply, stinging her. “I made her a promise.”
“You made me promise not to ask questions. When is that quarantine lifted?”
“Don’t,” he said.
“When do we talk about whatever it is you don’t want to talk about?”
His throat constricted and he felt his jaw muscles lock.
She said, “Did I tell you I called Marina and asked about Liz and she said she’s coming home this weekend? Because she’s better, Lou, or because she’s worse? Talk to me.”
He coughed and turned his head away. He searched for a way to change the subject. He said, “I wanted the kids out of the house for the first few days. That’s all.” He knew what she was thinking.
“Why doesn’t that make any sense to me? I’m getting conflicting signals. Mommy’s coming home and you send the children away? You think she’s coming home to see you?” She stepped closer and repeated, “Talk to me.”
“Daffy!”
“Have you told Liz? Did you involve her in this decision? Is she coming home to live or to die, Lou? That’s important.” She moved around the desk toward him. “I know you. You take matters into your own hands. You make decisions, no matter how boneheaded. I’m a woman, Lou. Liz wants the kids home regardless of the added pressures it puts on you, regardless of what the doctors have to say about it. The kids will heal her, Lou, emotionally, sometimes even physically.” She reached out and took a firm grip on his shoulder. “You’re reacting as a controller. You want to control her environment, make it peaceful for her. Make her better. Heal her. Good intentions, wrong action. Get the kids back home.”
It was these last words that pushed Boldt to tears, and his friendship with this woman that made him look up into her eyes and reveal himself, expose his vulnerability.
She clearly took the tears to mean Liz was coming home to die. She moved even closer and cradled his head. It was this contact that triggered his pulling away. He wasn’t going to tell her, wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to coax the truth out of him-she could milk the truth from anyone; it was her expertise.
He judged the situation quickly and said, “I’m not much of a father, am I? Who would abandon their kids because his workload makes home life too difficult? This isn’t about Liz. I moved the kids before I heard Liz was coming home.” He forced out a small bark of laughter. The lies came too easily all of a sudden. With truth his only tie to sanity, he felt himself slipping away, like trying to run on ice. “Worse, I haven’t told Liz. I know you are right.”