“Close,” Geiser said, impressed that Boldt had picked this up at such a distance.
The trio passed through another door and into a leather-and-mahogany paneled library that belonged in a faux English manor, not in this clapboard two-story with aluminum windows. The built-in stacks ran floor to ceiling, a trick chair unfolded into a small ladder in the far corner. But all of it looked purchased from a catalog instead of inherited. It was a would-be world in the heart of middle-class suburbia.
A dark leather globe stood in a stand next to the reproduction desk. Newsprint had been laid down to cover the desk, atop which a green glass bottle rested on its side. The first pieces of a ship’s hull could be seen inside it. A set of long tweezers lay at rest, accompanied by a magnifying glass, spools of thread, a small pile of dark wood the size of toothpicks, a razor knife, and a stack of wood-sticked cotton swabs.
“Who is she?” Boldt asked, easing into an uncomfortable leather captain’s chair facing the desk. LaMoia fit himself into the other, looking all around.
“The Francis and Elizabeth. Seventeen forty-two, Rotterdam and Deal to Philadelphia.”
“Impressive,” LaMoia said, unconvincingly.
Geiser picked up the magnifying glass and studied the beginnings of the ship inside the bottle, then set it down and addressed his visitors. “I apologize for continuing this, but I can’t stop in the middle. I have glue drying.” He scooted the reading glasses back up his nose, picked up a pair of forceps, and displaying impossibly steady hands, delivered a structural element to the side of the tiny ship’s hull.
“Our glue’s drying too, Paul. And we can’t stop in the middle either.”
“So talk,” Geiser said, never taking his eyes off the model.
Questioning a DPA about his personal involvement on a case was dangerous ground and Boldt knew it.
“We need to know where he’s being kept.”
“Who?” Eyes on the model.
“We need to know now,” Boldt said. “We can’t do the dance. Not tonight.”
“How can we even dance if you won’t share the music? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant.”
There was no forcing the man, so Boldt thought he might try to break him down a piece at a time. This had not been entirely unexpected. LaMoia was in attendance primarily as a witness. It occurred to Boldt that Geiser had figured that out already, and if so, he was already on notice that Boldt’s visit was formal.
“What did you leave out about the proposed meet with Hayes?”
“I told you: It failed to materialize,” Geiser said. “Am I supposed to waste your time?”
A legitimate reply, but not to Boldt’s satisfaction. “You said something came up.”
LaMoia said, “You didn’t even watch the bridge? Like from a distance, or a building, or something?”
“I did go to the bridge, in fact. I parked where I was told to park. But when Foreman informed me he was stuck in traffic, I got the hell out of there.”
Boldt asked, “Do you happen to remember if Danny told you where he was when he let you know he wasn’t going to make it?”
“You want me to provide an alibi for Danny Foreman?” Incredulous, Geiser carefully wiped the tips of the forceps with a cotton ball and solvent. He placed them down and looked up at Boldt for the first time. “Or perhaps you want an alibi for me as well, eh, Lieutenant?”
Boldt felt himself flush with heat. He told Geiser what the man knew already. “SID is processing the cabin.”
“Good for them.” Geiser went back to his model.
Boldt repeated, “Did Foreman mention where he was when he was stuck in traffic?”
“He was on highway five-twenty, I think. Construction backup. Rush hour. A breakdown in the opposing lane. Same old, same old.”
This roughly matched what Boldt had been told. In another witness Boldt would have questioned the degree of accuracy, the level of detail, but attorneys guarded their facts. “The Pine Street overpass? Your choice, or the voice that called you?”
Geiser hesitated, either to attend to his model, or because he was considering how to answer, and this bothered Boldt. The man bothered Boldt. The resolute calm.
“Are you laying traps for me, Lieutenant? Do you not trust me?”
That didn’t answer the question, but for Boldt to press a DPA, treating him like a suspect, would be a mistake.
Geiser sat up and pushed back from the desk admiring his handiwork, the model still a long way from looking like much. “Listen, can’t you people check this kind of thing?” Looking between the two cops, he said, “I’m sure Foreman mentioned construction and something about a car in the breakdown lane. Somebody’ll have that, right?”
Foreman had mentioned traffic problems to Boldt as well, and Boldt had already made the call, but Geiser didn’t need to know that. Boldt stuck his neck out as far as he dared. “An attorney and an investigator… working together… could make a whole hell of a lot of trouble if they wanted.”
“One hell of a team,” LaMoia said.
“Now wait just a goddamned minute,” Geiser said, not taking any time to catch on to the suggestion.
LaMoia said, “They could sequester a state witness for instance.”
Boldt added, “Covering their tracks by leaving a bloody crime scene behind but with the body missing.”
Geiser’s narrowing eyes tracked back and forth between the two. “Give me a break. Do you have any idea of the hoops we’d have to jump through to pull that off? Do you honestly believe the U.S. Attorney’s Office or my own office would condone misleading an investigation in order to sequester a witness?” He could see on the men’s faces he wasn’t gaining ground. “We start down that road and when would we ever mend that fence? Huh? You tell me. SPD would never cooperate with our office again. Not ever. And who could blame you? Listen, I’m not saying we might not try something like that. It’s pretty ingenious, you ask me. Damn good ruse. But it would be in concert with you guys-someone in your department would catch wind of it well before it ever went down. You’ve got to see that, right?”
It made sense to Boldt, but he was loath to admit it. Horrified even to think that his captain, Sheila Hill, or some other gold badge would cut a deal with the attorneys and leave him in the wind. But his wife was involved, and that might account for any number of things. A sense of near panic filled him. Was his own department running him around in circles while they had plans of their own?
He found himself believing Geiser, and it bothered him. He said, “I need to know if something like that is in play.”
“I imagine you do.”
“Do you believe Danny Foreman was stuck in traffic at the time he called you?”
“Well, now we’re getting to the heart of it, aren’t we, Lieutenant? The hell of it is, there’s no way I can know that, is there?”
“Would you know if Hayes had cut a deal for protection?”
“I should. It should go through my office. Absolutely.”
“But it wouldn’t have to.”
“It could just as easily go through the U.S. Attorney. Maybe more likely, you think about it. The USAO can negotiate with Treasury for witness protection. I can’t offer that.”
“Danny Foreman told my wife that you and he had Hayes under protection and that you’d deny it ’til hell freezes over.”
“Well, he’s right on one account, isn’t he?” Geiser said. He scooted his chair up to the desk again and met eyes with Boldt. “You’d better move before your glue dries, gentlemen. You can find your way out.”
Paul Geiser was in the middle of a tricky bit of business on his model when his kitchen doorbell rang only minutes after Boldt’s departure. Angry that Boldt would play the “oh, I forgot something” technique on a seasoned attorney, Geiser hurried through the house to the kitchen’s back door, ready to give Boldt a mouthful. His glue was indeed drying. He yanked open the door, already mid-sentence. “This is the oldest game in the book-” but cut himself off, not recognizing the two men in the suits who faced him. FBI, by the look of them. Treasury, he thought, reminded again of the discussion of witness protection. Boldt had been followed, or the house had been watched. Fucking feds were full of such tricks.