No Witnesses

of balloons, running like water down a hill.

LaMoia was already up, clutching the cat, sprinting for the storm cellar door only feet behind Boldt. LaMoia shouted something, but it seemed slowed down to Boldt and he didn’t understand.

Boldt felt the strong wind in his face as he followed LaMoia up the concrete steps on hands and knees, wildly racing for survival. The igniting of the balloons drew air from every crack and crevice, creating a choir of singing voices.

The force of the subsequent explosion propelled Boldt out of the storm cellar as if he had been shot from a cannon, followed a fraction of a second later by a tunnel of yellow flame that curled to the sky like a crooked finger.

Boldt scrambled to safety, unaware his jacket was afire until LaMoia tackled him and threw him upside-down into the mud.

The house went up like kindling, a bonfire of epic proportions.

The volunteer fire department arrived in time to declare it a complete loss and to take several pictures. For the time being, Boldt and LaMoia identified themselves only as passersby, keeping their occupations silent. There was no mention of a body in the basement, and the fire remained far too hot for its discovery. The sergeant and detective lingered nearby, protective of their crime scene. Fire marshals were due on the scene early morning. At 1 A.M., Boldt telephoned Bernie Lofgrin of the police lab, awakening him at home. By the time the fire cooled, sometime around sunrise, Boldt wanted an ID crew available to sift the ashes. Lofgrin complained about jurisdiction and that he was still owed the jazz tapes Boldt had promised. Boldt said he would take care of both, and even though Lofgrin knew there was little or nothing Boldt could do about the jurisdictional conflict, he agreed to have a crew available.

SEVENTEEN

A man was following her-she was convinced of it. She would have to lose him or miss the emergency meeting. She was already late. Monday mornings were always a nightmare.

The meeting had been hastily arranged by Fowler and was to be held at a neutral site. They were all to arrive within a few minutes of one another-Boldt, Fowler, Adler, Taplin, and Matthews-all having used different modes of transportation, or at the very least, different entrances to the Seattle Center. The idea was to make it impossible for one man-following any one of them-to connect them to this meeting. A pair of Fowler’s undercover security people were to keep Adler under constant surveillance while watching for someone keeping him under surveillance. If such a person were identified, a police patrol, under the direction of Phil Shoswitz, was prepared to detain him or her.

If Adler was free of any surveillance, then the meeting would go ahead as planned.

But now it was Matthews, not Adler, who was being followed, or so she believed, and there were no contingencies for this.

At first it had just been a sixth sense, a bout of intuition, a feeling as if one too many buttons were undone and every male on the street had his eyes on her. Or maybe her wraparound skirt was not fully wrapped. Only she was not wearing a wraparound skirt today, but a pair of forest-green denim jeans, and the oversize white button-down oxford was properly buttoned right up to her collarbone, with the shirt collar flipped up to help hide the scar that had been the gift of a psychopath some years before.

The Westlake Center was just down the hill now. She had been assigned the monorail. She debated taking a quick detour through Eddie Bauer, a chance to waste a few extra minutes-she was always early to everything-and maybe even a chance to ditch or identify whoever was back there. She could not be sure she was right about this.

In the back of Daphne’s mind always lingered the possibility of retaliation, of becoming a target of one of the criminals she had helped to convict. As the department’s forensic psychologist, she saw more of the witness chair than many of her colleagues did, testifying ninety-nine times out of a hundred that the suspect was legally sane and therefore able to stand trial. Such testimony carried long-range implications: If and when the suspect was subsequently convicted and sentenced, the sentencing time for a suspect deemed mentally healthy was specified as hard time instead of the more gentle “hospital time” given to those identified with psychological problems. For those serving the time, a big difference indeed. To make matters worse, she knew that the cases involving her services were for criminals with unstable personalities. Or perhaps, she thought, her being followed had to do with her current efforts-the break-ins at the Mansion and the archives. The Tin Man himself, or at least the New Leaf contamination.

She did not get a good look at him, and that worried her all the more because he was good. If there was someone back there, he remained well back, and seemed to always anticipate her inquiries. The very first time she turned, she had seen a reaction in a man about a block in back of her; but the next time she looked, he had stopped nonchalantly, turned, and walked away from her, quickly rounding a corner. Twice more, sensing his presence again, she stopped cold and turned around abruptly. But both times she failed to identify any pursuer. Even so, the feeling, once inside her, did not go away; and she was talking no chances.

She passed over the Eddie Bauer idea, deciding instead to make her move once inside the Westlake Center, which was the departure point for the monorail. The tourist crowds were large this morning-there were two conventions in town, a greeting card sales conference and a water sports equipment show-and Fifth Avenue teemed with coffee-carrying, camera-laden, T-shirt-clad enthusiasts, a swarming hive of Middle America in search of retail therapy.

The Westlake Center was just what such people were looking for: a minimall that included some impressive anchors as well as decidedly upmarket outlets for everything from jelly beans to three-hundred-dollar fountain pens. It had size without losing its substance. It catered to the gold cards, leaving the Discover set to find their thrills out on the streets amid the homeless and Seattle’s unpredictable weather.

Daphne headed straight to Fireworks, not only because she enjoyed the often bizarre merchandise, but also because of its central location and floor-to-ceiling glass walls that enabled her to keep a close watch on both the escalators and the people emerging from the building’s only elevator.

She declined the assistance of an eighteen-year-old windup Barbie doll whose exposed cleavage was enough to keep any warm-blooded male shopping for hours, and confined herself to the front shelves that provided her the perfect location for her vigil.

She had the monorail timed perfectly. In five minutes she would head two floors upstairs, buy her ticket, and board.

After her first few minutes of observation, she began to doubt herself. She saw no one who even vaguely reminded her of that man whom she had seen duck around the street corner. She, of all people, knew the power of imagination, the power of the mind, and she, too, knew the dangers of paranoia. She could not allow herself to be convinced of anything without solid proof. She could tolerate suspicion, but only for so long. Just as she nearly had herself convinced that this was nothing but delusion, she saw him.

How he had reached the Westlake’s Metro level she had no idea, but there he was below her-at least the back of him; she had yet to see his face. But the clothes looked familiar, as did the general height and size of him. And he had that bloodhound body language about him-attentive to the crowd around him but not the stores. Maybe he had taken a bus and entered through the Metro tunnel; she had been watching the street-level entrances. But what sense did that make? How could he be following her if he rode a bus to get here? Was there more than one man involved? She willed him to come closer, to turn around and face her, but he continued away from her, and as she glanced at her wristwatch she saw that she had run out of time: Less than two minutes until the monorail’s arrival.

There was no decision to make-she was expected at this meeting. She left the store, dodging a final attack by the bouncing Barbie who nearly caught up to her at the door. Her attention remained almost entirely on the man who circulated on the floor below her. She gripped the handrail and moved slowly toward the ascending escalators. He wore a khaki windbreaker, blue jeans, and boat shoes, but so did half the males in Seattle this time of year. He wasn’t alone in this look, even in the Westlake-and again she found herself mired in self-doubt. Another man perhaps, not the one she had seen earlier.