No Witnesses

“One other element of interest to you,” he said, spinning to face his computer. “And this was sent via the proverbial new information superhighway-which we just happen to have been using for the past eight years, I might add … and there’s a hard copy to follow by express courier …” He clicked through some files, explaining, “The Bureau people got a beauty of a photograph of a sample in what I’m calling the heavy metal box. While inside the vacuum chamber, no less? I wish to hell we had this kind of gear …” The screen went completely blank, and lines slowly drew across the screen until what looked like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle appeared. Lofgrin stepped the computer through several moves, and the piece enlarged. He said, “This is a piece of what we believe to be one of the labels in the heavy metal box. It’s tiny, only a few centimeters square-a flake is all-but notice the colors.”

With the next enlargement, the colors became apparent: red, yellow, and blue. Strong, primary colors.

Boldt, leaning over Lofgrin’s shoulder, asked for the crime scene photographs from Longview Farms.

“Color or black-and-white?”

“Color.”

It took Lofgrin a few minutes to locate the photos. When he returned to the office, he rewound the Scott Hamilton tape to his favorite ballad.

While Boldt leafed through the dozens of eight-by-tens, he grabbed the phone and telephoned upstairs to LaMoia. “Find someone at Adler Foods who can tell us who does their label printing. Fowler was handling that for us, but I don’t want to involve him.”

“Don’t want to involve him, or don’t want him to know?” LaMoia asked.

“Both,” Boldt answered. He told him he could be reached in Lofgrin’s office, and hung up.

While it was on his mind, and while still leafing through the dozens of Longview crime scene photographs, Boldt said to the lab man, “I need an opinion.”

“That’s my middle name.”

“If I take a bobby pin and insert it into an electrical outlet, and I’m wearing gloves, would there be enough heat to burn through the glove and get my finger?”

“This is not something you want to experiment with,” Lofgrin teased, though serious. “If you’re lucky, all you’ll come away with is a burned finger. If they’re thin gloves, if the circuit is carrying a lot of amps, maybe your heart stops, too, and then you’re all Dixie’s.”

Kenny Fowler’s fingertip had been burned. He had made a joke about it to Boldt, but something he had said later in their conversation about Daphne’s head injury continued to trouble Boldt.

“Here it is!” Boldt passed the photograph to the lab man.

Lofgrin’s head rose slowly, his eyes suddenly the size of dinner plates. Little Orphan Lofgrin, Boldt thought. In a hushed voice, uncommon in the confident Lofgrin, the man said, “Same colors.”

He set the photograph down. It showed the cement floor of the slaughterhouse-a blend of spray paints in a rigidly straight line left by the removal of a drop cloth intended to catch the paints.

Boldt said, “Yellow, blue, and red.” He held the color photograph up to the computer screen, and the colors matched nearly perfectly.

The phone rang. Boldt snatched it up first and barked his name into the receiver. LaMoia’s voice said, “Grambling Printers, here in the city.”

Boldt’s stubby finger, with its dirty fingernail, ran down the customer list for Everest Forest Products and came to a quick stop at the end of the G’s: Grambling Printers.

“It’s here,” he said to LaMoia. “Get a car ready.” He hung up the phone. Boldt kissed Lofgrin on the forehead. “You’re a genius.”

“Lou?” Lofgrin asked, scrubbing his forehead vigorously.

Boldt’s voice cracked as he said, “Caulfield’s threat-to kill hundreds. It’s for real. The strychnine, another food company’s labels, spray painting a truck-maybe a delivery truck-he’s got everything in place.”

“So what’s the good news?” Lofgrin asked.

Boldt hoisted the photograph. “We’ve got these colors.”

LaMoia drove a white Pontiac with privacy glass. The vehicle had been confiscated by SPD in a porn video bust. It had custom, wire-spoke aluminum wheels and a red velour interior, the backseat of which folded down and converted into an impressive bed. It was said to be featured in several of the videos, though only Special Ops and some attorneys had ever viewed them. This was the car that LaMoia drove regularly and had since been dubbed the Pimpmobile by his colleagues. He called it Sweetheart, as in, “Let’s take Sweetheart,” or “I gave Sweetheart a bubble bath and a wax today.” He treated it better than he did some of his friends.

From behind the wheel, LaMoia queried Boldt. “Fowler already ran the mug shot by all the Adler printers, right?”

“In theory.”

“Meaning?”

“What a guy like Fowler tells you he does, what he does, and what he gets from whatever he does are all different animals. He’s got a company to protect. He’s working for people.”

“Kenny Fowler hosed us?”

“Kenny has some explaining to do. He’s been putting his nose where it doesn’t belong. My guess is that it’s just competitive bullshit-trying to keep a step ahead. But if I’m right, it’s ugly stuff. Dirty. The kind of stuff you can’t forgive him, whatever the motivation.”

LaMoia pulled the car to an abrupt stop, forcing Boldt to brace himself against the fringe-covered dash. “Nice driving,” Boldt said.

“Need the brakes adjusted.”

The office was all cheap furniture and bowling trophies. Boldt pushed the door shut. It rubbed against the floor, requiring an extra shove. There was a skim of oil on the vinyl seats from fast-food bags. He and LaMoia remained standing.

“Does this man look familiar?” Boldt asked, passing Caulfield’s mug shot to Raymond Fione.

“Never seen him before,” the man said bluntly. Fione made it clear that he did not like cops.

“Look again,” Boldt encouraged.

“My vision’s fine.”

“A minimum-wage job. Maybe you just haven’t seen him around.”

“Listen. It’s true, Sergeant …” He searched for the name. “Blot?”

Boldt corrected his name.

“Sure-I spend nearly every waking hour with my head buried in a damn computer screen. Who doesn’t these days? It’s like the lead in the Roman pipes, right? Machines this smart, they’re going to make us all dumb. But I sure as shit know who’s on my payroll, and this guy here is not one of them.”

“Do you run your own deliveries?”

“With the insurance what it is? Hell no.”

“So maybe he trucks your product.”

“Maybe he does,” Fione agreed, “so what the fuck do I care?”

“You care,” LaMoia said.

Fione glared.

Boldt asked, “Who delivers the Adler product for you?”

“They’re a good customer of ours, Adler is. Listen, Fowler and I already did this dance. Okay? What I’m supposed to say? You want I should lie to you? Tell me.”

“Who delivers the Adler product?”

Fione answered, “Pacer handles all our shipping.”

LaMoia wrote it down.

Taking a wild guess, Boldt handed the mug shot back to Fione and said, “This man applied for a job with you.” He paused. Fione’s face flushed and he would not look at either of them. “He had a prison record. He was fresh out of prison and you turned him down.”

The man spoke to the desk. “He was wired. All hyped up, you know? I didn’t like the guy.” He braved a look at Boldt. “Is that a crime?”