No Witnesses

Boldt pulled the car next to her Honda and left it running. “And it would have been you,” he said.

She nodded, and she felt the choking sensation in her throat, she felt the tears, and she hated herself for this reaction. She leaned forward and Boldt put his big hand on her back and rubbed her there, and it comforted her. “That was too damn close for me,” she said, sobbing now. “And it’s me I care about, not Mac Mackensie-can you believe that? And you know how he went out? He went out being a jerk. A real goddamn prick. And that’s the last thing he ever was-a jerk. A real jerk. Listen to me!”

He continued to rub her back, and when his hand reached her neck, she felt the tension spill out of her and she found her self-control again. “Sorry,” she said.

“Whenever a cop-someone I know-goes down, my first sensation is gratitude. Glad it wasn’t me. My turn. I always felt guilty about that-until now. I’ve never talked about it with anyone, never shared that part of me. Not even with Liz. My second thought is for the deceased-it’s not that I don’t care; but my first reaction is a huge sense of relief. I dodged another one-something along those lines.”

“I was there,” she said softly. “I heard someone in the woods. First to my left, then below me, then later to my right. I heard two people, not one. He was there. For all I know he was coming for me when Mackensie caught up to me. For all I know he was right there.” She looked over at him then with surprise in her eyes. “For all I know it’s been him following me all along.”

“Or Mackensie for that matter,” Boldt suggested.

“No,” she said, “Mackensie was just doing a job. After he left me, he didn’t make it far.”

“He probably heard something. Wandered into the woods. Caulfield jumps up and hits a home run into the side of his face. The hands were an afterthought, I think. Maybe Mackensie tried for his piece. Maybe he grabbed for a radio or something. I think Harry used the hands to buy himself time-no time to tie him up, so he cuts them off. Something that simple. The question I have to ask is what the hell kind of knife is he carrying around?”

“You’re trying to say there was nothing I could have done. You’re trying to make it right.”

“It wasn’t you who disobeyed the signs.” Boldt pointed through the windshield to where the headlights caught the parks department sign. It read: FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, PLEASE STAY ON THE TRAIL.

Daphne parked her car down the street and across from the houseboats in a space for which she paid seventy-five dollars a month. It was a well-lighted lot, which lately made her appreciate it all the more. She turned off the car, locked it, and made the trip to the houseboat at a brisk pace. It was after three-thirty in the morning and all of her neighbors were locked up and dark.

She reached the door, unlocked and opened it, and headed directly to the home security box that she found flashing its violation, indicating her entry. She rekeyed the device, locked the front door, and turned on more lights than necessary, keeping her purse at her side while she made a full trip around every room, checking coat closets, even under the bed, and confirming to herself that she now qualified fully as a paranoid.

She convinced herself that at this hour any sane person would head straight to bed, but on this night it was not for her. She considered a bath, but not tonight. Sleep would not come for another hour or so, and to try to force it would only delay it more.

She unbuttoned and unzipped her pants, slipped off her bra without taking off her shirt, washed her hands twice in a row, and poured herself a glass of Pine Ridge.

She set down the wine, pulled out the stool, climbed up onto it, and let out a long and meaningful sigh. She was in the middle of a second sip when her heart fluttered. She felt her eyes go wide, and acting on instinct, she was suddenly off the stool, pants still unfastened, over to her purse … her shoes … the alarm … out the door … lock it! Feet not fully in the shoes … running … shoes flapping … refusing to look behind her … running … up the gangway … past the mailboxes … down the street toward her car … A dog lunged from a shadow, and Daphne screamed at the top of her lungs and ran faster … faster. Into the parking lot … straight for the car … unlock it! Inside! Relock it! Start the engine … She pulled out of the lot, spinning gravel behind her tires, and fastened her seat belt on the fly. Ran a red light, horn sounding … Ran another …

She would take a hotel room. Charge it to the department, for that matter. She would not return to her own home until it was light again. She would not tell anyone if she did not find some other piece of evidence. And perhaps-she allowed herself to believe, now that she found herself in the safety of the vehicle-perhaps she remembered wrong.

But the image in her mind stung her with certainty: She had left the mechanical pencil pointing at a word. What was the word? What was it?

Intractable-she remembered!

And now that same pencil was sitting alongside her papers. Pointing nowhere. Which was not how she had left it.

And that was wrong.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Boldt stood before the bathroom mirror shaving when he heard Liz climb out of bed. Miles was still asleep. As he shaved, she slipped off her nightgown and pressed her warm, sleepy body against him.

“Honey?” he said cautiously.

“I have something for you.” She reached around him, grabbed a hair band, and put her hair back. She meant business. Elizabeth did not let her hair down before sex, but put it up instead. Reaching around him, she unfastened his pants.

“I’m going to cut myself,” he warned.

“Be careful,” she said, teasing his chest in a way she knew he liked.

“I have something for you,” she repeated. He dropped the plastic razor into the water and it splashed into the islands of shaving cream. She led him over to the counter, sat up on it, and wrapped her legs around him. “Come and get it,” she said.

Later, she leaned her head back against the wall, but refused to let him go. She was sweating and her eyes looked dreamy.

She allowed them to separate then, and her legs sank down, but she did not move until Boldt finished shaving-and then only once she had talked him into running the shower for her.

Drying her hair in the living room, a white terry-cloth robe cinched tightly around her waist, and watching her son, who was now awake, she said to Boldt, “They had a similar case in London,” which won his attention.

“Who did?”

“The London authorities. A kidnapping. Ransom by ATM machine. I told you I had something for you.”

“I thought you meant-”

“No,” she corrected. “That was for me.”

“Liz?”

“They paid out one hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds over a ten-month period. If your case goes on for ten months, I figured we would end up divorced, so it was in my best interest to get to the bottom of this.” He moved closer to her. She smelled good. “From what I can tell, it was incredibly similar to what you’re facing. The guy moved from one ATM to another, one town to another, making withdrawals, and no matter how fast the police responded, he was always long gone.”

“That’s us exactly,” Boldt replied, anxiously awaiting whatever else she had to tell him. Elizabeth could not be rushed. She had her own timing-in everything.

“At one point, if I’m right about this, they had over two thousand police watching ATMs. They still couldn’t catch him. But there was a reason, of course: the average ATM transaction is only a matter of seconds. It’s what makes it such a clever way to collect a ransom demand.”

“And they found a way around that obstacle,” Boldt speculated, seeing that sparkle in her eye.

“Yes, they did. A couple of brilliant computer hackers were called in. They devised something they called ‘time traps’-software that slowed down the entire system.”

“We talked to the switching station here about doing just that, slowing down the network, but starting from scratch they claimed it could take months.”