Lou Boldt dismissed the first call from sketch artist Tommy Thompson as a cry for payment. Thompson, a freelancer and former employee of the police department, understood he faced a four- to six-week wait for his check. Boldt believed Thompson was merely attempting to hasten the process by applying some pressure.
He reluctantly heeded the second call, however, because the word “urgent” was conveniently tacked onto the message. If Thompson was misusing their relationship, Boldt would give him a piece of his mind, but as it was he owed him the professional courtesy of a return call.
“You’re either getting sloppy, lazy or both,” Thompson began their telephone conversation.
“I put in for payment the minute I got back, Tommy. You did great work with that tattoo. If I had my way I would have paid you on the spot.”
“I’m not talking about my check, I’m talking about your lack of hindsight, that is, covering your tail end.”
Boldt understood the implication immediately-that he had been followed to Vashon Island and the session with Thompson-and felt sick to his stomach. The Pied Piper had warned him in the ransom note to derail the investigation, not work to improve their evidence. He experienced a flutter in his chest and a light-headedness that bordered on nausea. If the Pied Piper knew about Thompson, then Boldt had just sabotaged his own daughter.
“You were contacted?” Boldt nearly screamed into the receiver, furious at himself for having let down his guard. He had not thought to look for a tail the day of that ferry ride.
“You might call it more of an interrogation,” Thompson said. “I got a little door-to-door from a blue suit named Hale, Dunkin Hale. You know him?”
“I know him,” Boldt confirmed.
“Was interested in a little bird-watching.”
“As in eagles?”
“You got it.”
“You showed him the sketch?” Boldt complained into the phone.
Thompson snapped sarcastically, “No. I told him to go screw himself. I do that with all the FBI agents who come knocking.”
“If I had wanted the thing broadcast,” Boldt reminded, “I would have done it in-house.”
“Yeah? I trained every one of them kids. We both know why you made the ferry trip.” He added, “Listen, he told me not to say a word about his visit. Told me the IRS loves to audit artists working out of their houses. A real peach, this one. Meaning, you put it back onto him and I’m a screwed pooch. You got that?”
“I got it.”
“Intelligence,” Thompson mused. “What exactly does that mean, anyway?”
Boldt wondered how Hale had found out about Henry Shotz. Would Doris Shotz, reluctant to involve her son in the first place, volunteer to the FBI that she’d withheld information from them? Doubtful. Had Hale placed a tail on Boldt? Had he wiretapped Boldt, the same way Boldt had wiretapped him? Perhaps Boldt had just found him.
CHAPTER 44
The idea of running one investigation inside another appealed to LaMoia in the same way as did the secrecy of having an affair.
At 11:30 that Wednesday morning he was paged to the Four Seasons Olympic, arguably the best hotel in the city. He drew attention as he passed through the elegantly appointed lobby, in part because of his cocky body language. He rode up to the fifth floor along with a Chinese woman laden with Nordstrom shopping bags. A few minutes past twelve noon, he knocked sharply on the door to room 512.
The routine nearly always the same, the room door came open for him and LaMoia stepped inside. Sheila Hill had pulled the window’s gauzy inner curtain so that the noonday light bled across her skin in an induced twilight. She wore a black underwire bra that forced her breasts up invitingly and black high-cut underwear revealing her tanned flank.
She stepped toward him with her practiced hungry look in her polished eyes and LaMoia suddenly wondered what he was doing there. She allowed him a modicum of control by eagerly submitting to various fantasies, but her reason for being there was a form of addiction, whereas his was a desire for companionship: He had dated twenty-year-olds for too long.
He turned away from her, taking in the room with its glimpse of the sound’s gray-green waters and shipping traffic. He wanted a conversation, something more than G-strings and the Kama Sutra. He told her, “Boldt was able to get some of the credit records from the Bureau-you don’t want to ask.”
“I don’t want to talk,” she corrected, swaying toward him, but stopping short of making contact. “Let’s see what can make you stop talking.”
She slipped off a shoulder strap and sucked on her fingertip.
“We’ve got to talk,” he dared. “This isn’t working for me.”
“How ’bout this?” she inquired, slipping off the other strap. “It certainly worked last time.” She placed her hand between her legs.
“Can’t we just talk for a change?”
“Damn you!” she said, her act over, though her chest and cheeks flushed with anticipation. She stormed over to her pack of cigarettes, all femininity gone, and lit a smoke. Until that moment he hadn’t fully allowed himself to realize how much of her was an act. “So talk.”
LaMoia said, “Not like that. I mean talk.”
“About?”
“Something other than work and sex,” he said.
“And the leading candidates are?”
“What if we just had dinner tonight? A bottle of wine, some pasta.”
“I hate pasta. I bloat up. What has gotten into you?”
“We shouldn’t be doing this at lunch hour,” he complained, regretting his earlier line of argument. Born of guilt and concern over Sarah’s abduction, he said, “Those kids need us on this ’round the clock.”
“What the hell have you been smoking?”
She sucked on the cigarette though didn’t seem to notice it. She appraised him like a tailor, paying no mind whatsoever to her own partial nudity. Reaching for the table, she tossed him a key ring and said, “Make me a gin and tonic.” She indicated the minibar.
“It’s lunchtime, Captain.”
“Yeah. Okay. Make it a double. And make one for you too.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Make one for you too. I’m not drinking alone, cowboy.”
LaMoia obeyed her, observing himself as if watching another. He poured the drinks, a stranger to himself. From where did she extract such power over him? He even went down the hall for ice. The drinks were poured strong. The cigarette smoke annoyed him.
She circled him as she drank. “More important question,” she said. “Why would you give a shit about conversation? Hmm?” She dipped her finger into her drink and offered it to his lips, and he sucked on it. “Tongue,” she said, and he obeyed. “Are you going soft on me, so to speak?” She plopped herself down onto the bed, the drink spilling onto her hand. She licked off the excess lasciviously, making a great show of her abnormally long tongue.
“I want more than nooners,” he blurted out.
“Not from me you don’t.” She leaned back and poured a stream from her drink so that a silver line of liquid jumped through the delicate white hairs on her belly and vanished into the underwear’s black elastic. “Ready or not,” she said again, rocking her legs open and closed. She giggled girlishly. He knew that was part of it as well-she was someone else in these hotel rooms.
LaMoia upended the drink. She liked his long neck and its angular Adam’s apple. He did this for her, again not understanding why.
Her thighs slapped softly.
She poured another stream down her belly to where it disappeared. “Come and get it!” She waved the cigarette at him.
LaMoia slipped it from her fingers and extinguished it, suddenly boiling mad. With the reactions of a snake, he knocked the drink from her hand, snagged her wrist, and pulled her so hard and so quickly toward the head of the bed that he pulled her out of her underwear. It rolled into a lump between her knees.