No Witnesses

“Eaten? Are you kidding? What would you recommend-some soup maybe?”

“Have you slept?”

Adler’s eyes flashed anger. “This isn’t about me. This is about that poor family. It’s about Tap and I trying to stay in the market, because once you leave-especially in a situation like this-it’s damn near impossible to get back market shares. It’s about greed, Sergeant. And ego-trying to hold on to something we fought hard for. And it’s over.”

“And are you going to kill yourself?”

That stopped Adler from fiddling. He looked over at Boldt, who said, “Because that’s the second half of the demands.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Hello?” It was Liz. She who had apparently dived into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Barefoot. A hint of lipstick, nothing more. She introduced herself to Adler-reintroduced, as it turned out, for he recognized her immediately as being connected to the bank. Liz’s bank had partially financed Adler’s move into the European marketplace, something she had never told her husband because she took client confidentiality at face value. Wisely, having taken one look at the man, she made no attempt at small talk. She said, “Why don’t I take over duties here?” pointing to her son, whose arms were begging for her.

Boldt led Adler back into the front room. Liz stopped Adler on his way by and gently took the serrated bread knife from him. He seemed embarrassed to be holding it, as if he did not know how it had gotten there. Boldt guided him onto the couch and placed his coffee down for him.

Sounding on the edge of tears, Adler said, “No more deaths.”

Boldt had no intention of babying a man like Owen Adler. Adopting a business-as-usual tone of voice, he said, “If you intend on shutting down your business, there’s little I can do to stop you. But I would caution you against it. And although I strongly objected to keeping product on the shelves during the initial contaminations, I don’t see any way around it right now.”

Boldt understood then that he had no choice but to take Adler into his confidence, and though he would have rather checked with Daphne before doing so, he could not allow Adler to risk the lives of hundreds by panicking. “We know who the killer is.”

Adler, too stunned to get a word out, cocked his head at an unusual angle and glared at him.

“His name is Harold Caulfield. He worked for Mark Meriweather at Longview Farms.”

“But why wasn’t I-?”

Boldt interrupted, “We think he blames you for the Longview salmonella contamination. He wants to see you bankrupt and dead, just like Mark Meriweather. Daphne is the one running with this, but I have to tell you that it was my decision not to inform you or your company. We have evidence that the State Health department altered at least one lab report crucial to the placement of responsibility for the New Leaf salmonella contamination. It seemed to me unlikely that a state government employee would take such an action without an incentive. The who, when, and what of that incentive remains in question.”

This news clearly struck a blow to Adler. Looking ill again, he sank back into the couch, too dumbfounded to speak. Boldt continued: “In the short amount of time I’ve known you, you’ve struck me as being straightforward. So that’s what I’m being with you. Whether you’re an honest man … I can’t say. But whatever you or your people may have done to Mark Meriweather, it’s insignificant when compared with the lives of Slater Lowry and the Mishnovs. If you or one of your people was behind that altered State Health report,” Boldt said, “I need to know right now.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

People could lie, and Boldt, in his role as a homicide cop, had sat across from some of the best of them and could often spot them. But to his knowledge, a person could not intentionally make himself pale, much less pale to the point that the skin seemed green and the lips looked like those of a cadaver. He believed Adler.

“I won’t pretend we’re close to apprehending this man, but we are closer, and if you shut down your company now, there’s no predicting his response. We believe that the ATM surveillance offers us the fastest, most predictable way to apprehend Caulfield. Even if he is using a runner, which remains a strong possibility, that ransom money is our way back to Caulfield. Shutting down your company, pulling your product, is likely to have an adverse effect on him. Change his agenda-take his attention off the money and put it back on the mass poisoning. At the moment, he seems reluctant to deliver on his larger threat, and I for one have no intention of testing his resolve, of pushing him over the top.”

“I want to know everything there is to know about this Longview Farms incident,” Adler said too calmly. He appeared to be in shock. “What exactly do you know, Sergeant?”

“We believe the contamination was not salmonella, but staphylococcus. Staph is most commonly transmitted by physical contact, which suggests maybe one of your workers forgot to wear his gloves. Your product went out on the shelves and people got sick.”

“Good God!” he gasped.

“We believe there was a cover-up to keep New Leaf in the clear, and that it involved altering documents to place the responsibility on bad poultry at Longview Farms.”

“This is why Daphne wanted access to our files.”

“Yes it is.” Boldt added, “Your cooperation, your confidence is crucial to the success of this investigation. As difficult as it may be, you need to continue on as if you knew none of this. At the same time, your cooperation in proceeding with the investigation-helping Daphne get what she needs-would be a welcome asset.”

The man nodded slowly, his eyes in a fixed stare at someplace over Boldt’s shoulder. “Are you telling me that these killings … all of this suffering, is the result of some misconceived attempt six years ago to keep us out of trouble?”

Boldt nodded. They saw it often enough in Homicide. “The biggest crimes are often committed trying to hide the smaller ones.”

On Sunday morning he and Liz and Miles drove up to the lake because Liz asked him to, and he had no desire to fight her as well. Another member of their family was on the way, and yet the very family this child would soon join seemed fragmented and in a fragile condition. The lake cabin always helped: No phone; no radio. A game of Scrabble maybe, some chores, some reading. A fire if the evening was cool enough. A swim if he was brave enough to endure the coldness of the lake water.

But Boldt did not sleep, and somewhere in the night he strayed out into the darkness in a plaid bathrobe with worn elbows. After a commune with the flat blackness of the lake’s starlit surface, he migrated toward the car, where he had left his briefcase and his papers. When Liz rose to a cold bed at four in the morning and found him by a small fire going through his papers, she said nothing-though he knew he had ruined their stay. At dawn he did swim and it chilled him to his bones, and Liz was there with a towel when he came out.

She was quiet on the drive back; Miles was noisy. They had to leave by six in order to make work on time, and they beat most of the bad traffic. After forty minutes of following license plates and sitting tall so that his visor blocked the morning sun, Boldt reached for the radio knob in order to catch the start of “Morning Edition.” Liz reached out and stopped him.

“I try not to involve myself in your cases,” she said quietly, not looking at him. “Even cases like this-the ones that seem to kill you-because there is so little I can do, so little I know that might help, and I believe it important that at least one of us be rooted in some kind of reality to help the other find ground.”

He could think of nothing to say to that. An eighteen-wheeler passed them. He noticed that it was a poultry truck and this serendipity did not elude him. The chickens were stacked in ventilated, crowded cages; some feathers escaped and, caught in the slip-stream, were carried along behind the trailer like a bridal train.

“I think I may be able to help,” she offered, “but I’m afraid to, because in a way it violates the parameters of this relationship-and that frightens me. When I am crazy at the bank, you are my anchor, and I would like to think that the same is true for you, and I fear that if I become involved, even in the smallest, most insignificant way, that in effect that sets us adrift, that joins the two of us but separates us from any tie back to reality. Does this make any sense?”

“Sure.” But he knew he did not sound convinced.

“I am a banker, love. As in ATM machines, accounts, withdrawals, loans. Now does it make sense?”

He did not answer.