No Witnesses

Boldt could tell, Caulfield had only sent a threatening fax once the contaminated product was in someone’s hands. He could envision the man as he stood around and watched, as he inspected the shelves periodically to see if his prize had been taken.

LaMoia brought Boldt some Thai takeout before heading out on ATM surveillance duty. He offered it to both Daphne and Boldt, but neither touched the food. Boldt had not eaten all day-a day that dragged interminably into evening.

When phone calls did come, Boldt answered them tersely, prepared for the worst: more cholera, more illness, more people clinging to their lives. He answered them rudely, hung up quickly, and he found it difficult, if not impossible, to get any work done.

BUT YOU DO NOT LISTEN, DO YOU?

YOU WILL WISH YOU HAD.

He thought many times of his conversation with Adler, of his efforts to convince him to allow the product to remain on the shelves. Even with the support of Dr. Richard Clements, he could only see this now as a huge mistake.

He prepared himself for nearly every eventuality-except the one that finally came. He noted the time of the call-7:22-out of habit. And out of habit he checked for his weapon, for his identification wallet, and for the keys to his car.

There were two boys dead-still up in their tree house, he was told by the 911 dispatcher. Not cholera. No chance for emergency rooms or resuscitation. Without any pathology report, without a lab test or a professional opinion of any sort, Boldt knew both the murder weapon and the cause of death.

A chocolate candy bar. And strychnine.

TWENTY-SIX

The bodies had been discovered in Wedgewood, in the backyard tree house of a home in the thirty-one- hundred block of Northeast Eighty-first Street. The hysterical mother explained to the 911 dispatcher that the boys had not responded to her summons to come inside. “They’re just sitting up there!” she had sobbed over the phone. “Just sitting there.” Because it was a death by suspicious causes, the 911 call was first relayed to Wedgewood authorities, then mistakenly to King County police, and finally, because of an astute switchboard operator, to Boldt’s office phone.

Boldt arrived reluctantly, not wanting to get out of his car. As in one of his recurring dreams, he had a longing to turn back the clock to that moment immediately before the incident and to be there to save these victims.

The evening sun worked unmercifully to blister the tree house’s Cape Cod-gray paint. An old wooden ladder with initials carved into the stock stretched up into the darkened hole above. The tree house itself was not like the ones Boldt remembered from his own childhood. It appeared more the product of a catalogue purchase.

He elected not to speak with the hysterical mother, but headed directly to the crime scene instead. There would be time later for talking. Too much of it, as far as Boldt was concerned.

A uniformed officer stood at his side, and she knew better than to say anything. Boldt had a reputation as a loner at homicide crime scenes-and every uniform was aware of it. Dixie was on his way, as were Bernie Lofgrin and his ID crew. It was all being done as quietly as possible, though this time there was sure to be press, and this time there could be no stretching the facts to include E. coli contamination. Certainly Caulfield knew that the press and the police had to be involved-and this, above all else, terrified Boldt the most: Caulfield no longer cared; something inside him had changed.

Facing the press would not require the public information officer to make any mention of Adler Foods, or, for the time being, the candy bars that Boldt felt certain to find in the tree house above him. The press would be told that the case was an active homicide and was under investigation. No more, no less.

He looked up the long stretch of ladder once again, up into that dark mouth in the floor of the Erector Set tree house. She handed him a flashlight without a word, and he reminded himself to get her name later and to thank her for her professionalism. A few more cops arrived in the backyard, but seeing Boldt at work, they left immediately and kept others out. Only Boldt and his uniformed sidekick remained.

He climbed the ladder slowly, not wanting to see the first true homicide crime scene this case had presented him. Again, there were no witnesses to the actual crime, and again Lou Boldt would have little to go on.

Boldt recalled explicitly his promise to Slater Lowry’s mother that the boy would be back to finish his model of the Space Shuttle. There would be no such lies to tell this woman inside this house. She had been up this ladder first.

One of the boys had made for the hatch, for the ladder, but had come up short. He was facedown, his arms outstretched as if reaching for a ball. The other was curled into the fetal position in the corner wearing a death mask of pure horror, as if in the middle of a scream.

It was a small room. It was going to be hard on all the technicians.

The weakened flashlight beam illuminated a pink plastic squirt gun, sandwich wrappers, and comic books. A deck of cards. The small white skull and part of the spine of a mouse kept as a game trophy. A Stephen King paperback on the room’s only shelf, its pages curled. There was a candle on the shelf as well, its wax puddled at its base. A baseball, with a tangle of autographs. A poster of dinosaurs and another entitled “The Marine Life of Puget Sound.”

Boldt could imagine them talking up here. The laughter, quiet now.

The first candy bar he saw was half-eaten. In bold, excited letters, the wrapper read ironically: NEW! Good for You! It was an Adler Foods granola-and-caramel Go-Bar. Poisoned.

Boldt recalled the grainy image of Caulfield at the Foodland checkout counter. He recalled the register tape listing three candy bars and some kind of ice cream. He recalled his diligence in convincing Adler to keep the shelves stocked.

He apologized to the boys, and he caught himself dragging his sleeve across his eyes, and could feel that uniform down there looking up at him, wondering what he was doing.

“Get out of here!” he shouted down at her. And she hurried away before he could stop her, before he could apologize to her as well.

He wondered what had become of him, and turning back to these two fallen victims, whatever became of a child’s departed soul.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“Come up the park steps to the guest house. No lights. I’ll meet you there.”

Click. Daphne hung up the phone, checked the clock: twelve midnight. Owen had risked a call. That alone told her enough about his state of mind; the palpable fear in his voice told her more than she wanted to know. She jumped up off the stool, quickly buttoned her jeans, and left her project on the counter. It was the affidavit requesting the New Leaf bank records that she had meticulously reviewed with Striker over the phone. In order to mark where she had left off, she pointed the lead of the pencil to the word intractable.

Leaving the houseboat, she took special care to arm the alarm system, locked up, and hurried to her car.

Made somewhat frantic by that tone of voice of his, she drove around the lake, crossed at the Fremont Bridge, and took Leary and Market out to Shilshole Marina, entering the park and winding her way up the series of switchbacks until she reached the picnic ground on the left. She parked deep into the area, and it was not until she climbed out into the darkness, the traffic below whining eerily, that she became aware of her isolation. She took her bearings, allowing herself a quick pang of fear-the woods were dark and she was still far below the estate. Her fears were only partially alleviated by the presence of her handgun. She had never seen a handgun as any kind of