‘‘The reporter gets a lead on the illegals and then vanishes. Not only could any information she have be pertinent to the investigation, but there’s a young woman’s life at stake. It has been a week.’’
‘‘So we shifted manpower,’’ she stated as if it were fact. She liked where he was going with this.
Boldt kept silent. He’d fed her the bone; he didn’t need to chew it with her. As a sergeant Boldt had rarely been privy to such negotiations. One more reason he hated his lieutenant’s shield. Politics made him nauseous. The fieldwork-active investigations-was a much more pure environment.
Boldt offered, ‘‘Her disappearance may be tied to the deaths of two key witnesses in this investigation. She’s of primary importance to us.’’
‘‘She certainly is,’’ Hill agreed. ‘‘We moved our resources to this missing persons case.’’
‘‘I wouldn’t mention this out of the house. We don’t want to put her at any more risk.’’
‘‘Point taken. So get on it,’’ she said.
Boldt, LaMoia and Gaynes met behind closed doors.
‘‘Saturday I tell Mama Lu we’d like to chat up Zulia,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘And look what Monday morning brings.’’
‘‘I wouldn’t go there, Sarge,’’ LaMoia cautioned. ‘‘It’s these video tapes McNeal lifted from the woman’s apartment. That’s evidence-if we can get a judge to agree.’’
‘‘Good luck,’’ Gaynes sniped.
‘‘I’m not ‘going’ there,’’ Boldt complained. ‘‘I’m being led there.’’
‘‘It was a pro hit,’’ Gaynes reminded LaMoia. ‘‘Zulia climbed onto that same forklift every morning. They knew exactly what they were doing.’’
‘‘Someone told him it was okay to return to work,’’ Boldt suggested, still focused on Mama Lu’s involvement.
‘‘There are plenty of pros who have no association with Mama Lu,’’ LaMoia said.
‘‘Why are you constantly defending her?’’ Boldt complained.
‘‘I’m not defending her,’’ LaMoia objected. ‘‘I’m trying not to jump to conclusions. The guy I learned from,’’ he said, meaning Boldt, ‘‘stressed the importance of following the evidence, of listening to the victim.’’
Boldt nodded. ‘‘Two potential witnesses killed in the last four days. They’re cleaning house, taking care of loose ends. Maybe Mama Lu is too easy, and maybe she’s good for this, but you’re right about following the evidence,’’ he conceded. ‘‘I’m listening.’’
Gaynes said, ‘‘Maybe I made too much fuss at Geribaldi’s. Anybody working there might have known we were interested in talking up Zulia.’’
‘‘So we question the employees,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘What else?’’ the teacher quizzed.
LaMoia answered, ‘‘Canvass the neighborhood.’’
Gaynes said, ‘‘Look for moving violations in the area.’’
LaMoia said, ‘‘And this missing woman?’’
Boldt answered, ‘‘According to Hill, she’s our top priority.’’
LaMoia said nothing. Message received: Boldt was playing shortstop.
Boldt said, ‘‘Let’s work McNeal. We need her cooperation.’’ The hum of Homicide continued on the other side of the glass, the way traffic noise was a permanent part of the urban backdrop. ‘‘If we find Chow while she’s still alive,’’ Boldt said hopefully, ‘‘then maybe we blow the illegals case wide open.’’
‘‘She’s alive,’’ Gaynes stated, leaving a moment of silence for this to sink in. ‘‘Or we would have found her body already-same as the others. These guys aren’t shy. They’re making statements. They don’t want anyone talking about any of this. But if she is alive, and they have her, and they know what she was up to, then God pity her. She might wish she was dead.’’
‘‘I’m telling you,’’ LaMoia said. ‘‘We want a look at those videotapes. If we can’t get a judge, then we sweet-talk McNeal-’’
‘‘Daffy,’’ Boldt said. Matthews could sweet-talk a pet viper.
‘‘But we get a look at those videotapes one way or the other.’’
CHAPTER 20
Stevie viewed the tapes she had taken from Melissa’s apartment, the ordeal painful, even excruciating at times. Her fourth time all the way through. Melissa’s narration rose with her enthusiasm and sank into cautious whispers despite her seclusion inside the van. The early surveillance footage documented the LSO and its location. Melissa had driven the entire block and had shot the building from all four sides, where in the back parking lot and for the first time, the camera recorded Gwen Klein leaving work-a short, stocky woman of average looks.
Klein walked stiffly and without a hint of grace. Melissa and her camera followed her to the supermarket, and to Shoreside School, a day-care center where she picked up a young boy and slightly older girl. With Melissa’s van following, they drove to a clapboard home with a postage-stamp front lawn and a Direct TV satellite installed on the recently shingled roof.
On the video, the time stamp changed hours-18:37- approaching the hour of seven o’clock, providing the tape’s clock was correct. It suggested Melissa had killed nearly two hours sitting parked waiting for activity. A pickup truck arrived and parked-the same pickup truck that Stevie already knew belonged to the husband and had been bought with cash. At 20:21, nearing eighty-thirty on the tape, the minivan left with Gwen Klein behind the wheel. With each start and stop of the video Stevie felt a little more uncomfortable, a voyeur, a spy. The subsequent sequence showed a run-down car wash, but no shot of any sign out front, any name. The van’s taillights shined at her like a pair of squinting red eyes, Klein’s foot on the brakes. The vehicle remained inside the automatic wash for the full cycle and then drove off, returning home. Melissa followed and captured the van parked at 21:07. The tape changed to gray fuzz. Stevie fast-forwarded through to the end, once again making sure she hadn’t missed anything.
She poured herself a glass of juice, loaded the second tape, rewound and started it running. Eavesdropping on Melissa’s monologue with the camera, Stevie felt as if she were reading from someone’s private diary. Melissa would have edited the tapes down to a few brief shots, writing copy to accompany it-copy that Stevie wished she had, copy that might explain the significance or give continuity to the various shots. As a journalist, Melissa had recorded the footage in hopes of editing together a story sometime in the future. Stevie wanted that story now, but instead took away only the occasional grunt or groan from the camerawoman, the rare comment: ‘‘That’s the husband’s truck.’’ ‘‘She wasn’t in the grocery store long. But I suppose she could have passed someone the counterfeit licenses in there.’’
The second videotape showed Klein arriving by morning to the LSO. She carried a coffee in hand as she crossed the parking lot. There were shots of the public coming and going, first taken from a considerable distance, and then more footage with the camera zoomed and concentrating on faces. Melissa had either been bored and burning footage or had focused on the people coming and going out of a significance Stevie did not yet understand. Tempted to fast-forward, she nonetheless stuck it out as she had before, not knowing if one of the faces might be recognizable-the auditor who had contacted them? a politician or public official? She wasn’t sure who or what she was looking for; she only knew that these were the tapes Melissa had shot prior to her borrowing the smaller digital camera, that these same images had more than likely led Melissa to take one step too many.
Convinced that time was working against her, Stevie needed that connection to her little sister. She fast-forwarded to the end of tape two and inserted the third and final tape she had liberated from the apartment.
Tape three began with familiar footage: again Klein left the LSO, this time amid a late afternoon drizzle strong enough to percussively pelt the top of the van and be picked up on the tape; the errands were different only in location-off to the vet’s for a large bag of pet food, a drugstore stop tied to a dry cleaner next door, the same day-care center and retrieval of the kids. Melissa remained silent throughout all the recording, her enthusiasm of a day earlier muted, the sound of her breathing strangely present on the tape as background noise, like hearing a lover softly snoring. She returned to the same small house, the pickup truck having beaten her home on this day. The screen jerked as Melissa moved inside the van to shut the camera off.