No Witnesses

Boldt explained, “If she’s been picked up for shoplifting this many times, a quiet chat in her mother’s living room is not going to get us anywhere.”

“You’re probably right,” LaMoia agreed.

“What I’d like to do is hit the house hard. A really thorough search-something to shake her up. Something she hasn’t seen. And I want her watching. I want her there. Then we bring her up here to the box and let Razor read her the gospel. Then I chat her up and hopefully she sits up and flies straight. And if she doesn’t, we book her on violation of home release; we print her and strip-search her and toss her into a jumpsuit and let her spend the night in the juvenile pen. Then,” Boldt said, “we go at her again.”

“You’re certainly in a charitable mood,” LaMoia replied.

Within the hour, Boldt sat down with one Mildred MacNamara, mother of their possible witness.

Boldt held up the large, clear plastic bags containing her daughter’s clothing, and if the mother had herself been a detective assigned to the fifth floor, she might have also noticed that the various labeling of the bags lacked a case number-this because the Adler blackmail was still not in the Book, was still in many bureaucratic ways an unofficial case. “This hat and jacket were found in your daughter’s wardrobe.”

“Why aren’t we on the juvenile floor?” she asked.

“Because I’m Homicide, and I’m running this case. And your daughter is a possible suspect.”

“Dear Lord …” She broke down. Boldt slid a box of tissue in front of her. “What about her attorney?”

“As lead detective, I’m in a pretty unique position, Ms. MacNamara. What I say goes-pretty much, anyway. Which means that if I say Holly walks out of here with no charges, then that’s what happens.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I need to talk to your daughter, as an adult, on her own. Have you ever known an attorney to simplify a situation? Think about that: They may help you, but they always complicate matters. In matters of juvenile crime, there are so many gray areas right now-legalistically-that if we bring in the attorneys, we’re both going to be here for a month of Sundays, and chances are I’m going to be required to charge your daughter just in order to speak to her. I don’t want that; Holly doesn’t want another charge on her pink sheet, and I have a hard time believing you would either.”

“Of course not! But how-?”

“Holly violated the terms of her most recent sentencing. We have proof of that. And as I’ve read it, that was pretty much a last shot for her.” The woman confirmed this with a nod. “So basically all I have to do is charge her and eventually I’ll get my interview with her. But, cards out on the table, I can’t wait until ‘eventually.’

“So what I’m asking for is written permission from you for me and some of my colleagues to ask her a few questions. It isn’t much, from your side of this-I know that. All I can do, as a parent, is give you my word that if there’s any way to avoid charging her, then that’s the way it’ll work out. But there are no guarantees,” he added reluctantly. Honestly came at a price.

There was no need to tell her that the search of her daughter’s belongings-an exhaustive one-had offered no proof of any connection to Pac-West Bank or an ATM account. The search had, however, uncovered a hidden stash of stolen goods from CDs to jewelry-the knowledge of which Boldt kept to himself, to be used as a crushing blow should he need it. This single lack of discovery seemed to support LaMoia’s theory that Holly MacNamara had been in that aisle within seconds of the drop having taken place, but was not herself responsible.

“May I call my husband?”

Boldt told her she could do whatever she pleased, but repeated to her what he had told Betty Lowry two weeks earlier, that the husband might overreact, and if so, Holly’s chances for clemency were lost.

“I don’t know …,” she gasped, and broke into tears again. Boldt found room to really hate himself. He waited her out, and when he saw the faintest of nods, slid the minor’s consent form in front of her and asked her to press hard. “It’s in triplicate,” he said, “like everything else around here,” hoping to win back a smile, but admitting to himself-correctly, as it turned out-that there was little hope of this.

“I don’t like you, Sergeant. And if you’ve lied to me, if you’ve tricked me,” she said pushing the form toward him, “then you’re no better than the people you go after.”

Boldt took the form and hurried from the room.

Holly MacNamara sat quietly with Daphne on the other side of the cigarette-scarred table in interrogation room A. Boldt and LaMoia faced them, and everyone sat in uncomfortable straight-back metal chairs. The large plastic bags containing the hat and the dark coat with the hidden pockets sewn into its hem were in full view, like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Boldt switched on the tape recorder, named those present, and stated the time and date.

Striker joined them a few minutes late, his prosthesis clicking nervously, and Boldt added his name to the tape, too.

Holly MacNamara met Boldt with a steely-eyed determination that he hoped Miles would never adopt. Too hard for her young age, too brooding, too suspicious, and far too self-confident given her present situation. She had dark eyebrows, high cheekbones, and long, dark hair. She had some acne that she hid with cosmetics, and her bottom teeth held a retainer. A child in a grown-up’s game. She wore silver studs in her ears, and was quite confused when Boldt opened the discussion by asking her to remove them.

It didn’t help Boldt to connect her to the woman in the video, but it served to disarm her and set her slightly off-balance, which was extremely important to the interviews.

Boldt said, “On the twenty-first of June, during your house detention, in-store security cameras captured you at the Foodland supermarket over on Broadway. You were dressed in clothes similar to these,” he said pointing to the bags, “and your behavior suggested you were trying to avoid these same security cameras.”

“So?” Holly MacNamara asked.

Daphne, who would play the role of friend for this interrogation, advised her, “You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to, but it’s best just to go ahead and answer the easy stuff.”

“Maybe you were shopping with your mother,” LaMoia suggested, giving her a way around the implication of criminal activity. “You were in the soup aisle, do you remember that?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Try to remember, Holly,” Daphne encouraged.

“Soup?” she asked. “I don’t think so.”

Boldt nodded to LaMoia, who turned on the Sony Trinitron and ran the video that Shop-Alert had dubbed for them. They watched it together: Holly watching the screen, the police watching Holly. When it was just at the point where she crashed into a cart being pushed by a man or a woman-it remained impossible to tell-LaMoia stopped the tape.

“Holly?” Boldt asked.

Maintaining her suspicions of all of them, she glanced toward Daphne, who nodded gently.

Boldt clarified: “We don’t want a made-up story from you, we want and need the truth.”

Striker’s hand ticked several times as he told her, “If you cooperate, there will be no charges against you stemming from this discussion. It’s like immunity. You know what that is; I don’t have to explain immunity to you. Whatever you tell us is off the record, and just between us. But Sergeant Boldt is right: We need the truth. You should also know that we’re prepared to play tough if that’s the way you want it.”

Boldt said, “You saw something just now that made you remember.”

“The thing of it was,” she began in a flurry of words. “Like maybe I’d taken some Better-Veggie-the drink, you know? Like maybe I was thinking about buying some of that.”

Boldt conveyed his doubts with a single penetrating look.

“So maybe I wasn’t going to buy it,” she admitted. “I wasn’t. I’d lifted three cans. And I’d lifted some fruit salad, and something else-I don’t remember. Like there I am, pretty loaded up, and I’m thinking about some V-8, which is the same aisle as the soup, but it’s a hard grab because of that overhead eye, and then there’s this guy-” She caught herself and stopped.

Boldt felt the hairs on the back of his neck go erect. Go on! he wanted to scream. What guy?!