Beyond Recognition

Fidler’s face screwed up into a knot and his lips pursed. “Hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“It bothers me,” Boldt said.

“Yeah, right. You’re right,” Fidler agreed, “he screwed up.”

“People screw up for two reasons, Sid. Either they make a mistake or you make a mistake in thinking that they made a mistake.”

“Accidentally or intentionally.”

“Exactly. And if it’s intentional, it isn’t their mistake at all, it’s only yours for reading it that way.”

“So if it wasn’t a mistake?” Fidler tested. “If he meant to send it to Garman?”

“Why Garman?” Boldt asked. “You see?” He could watch Fidler’s thought processes displayed across his face. “It may narrow down the search for us. Someone Garman put away? Someone he knows, works with?”

“Shit,” Fidler gasped. “That complicates things. It takes us away from the woman-”

“First things first,” Boldt replied, interrupting. “I start with getting to know Dorothy Enwright, post facto. Things are rarely as complicated as they appear at first glance.”

“And me?” Fidler asked.

“I’ll tell you what: Why don’t you get to know Steven Garman?” Boldt instructed, adding, as an afterthought, “Just in case.”

The two Enwright women, mother and sister, had refused Boldt’s efforts for a meeting in the mother’s home, a condominium in Redmond. Despite the drive, Boldt had wanted the mother on relaxed ground, a place she wouldn’t be afraid to cry, a place she might be more open and honest. But the victim’s sister worked downtown, and Boldt’s attempts to separate the two women into different interviews failed, and in the end he agreed to meet them at four o’clock in the Garden Court of the Four Seasons Olympic hotel. He asked them both to bring photographs.

Located on Seattle’s fashionable 5th Avenue, the Olympic was one of the country’s few remaining grand hotels, ornate, opulent, and spacious, restored lovingly and sparing no expense. The lobby was glorious, the service impeccable. Boldt was no stranger to the place. His love of a formal tea service brought him there several times a year, in spite of the fourteen-dollar price tag. It was one of the few treats he allowed himself. His colleagues spent their money on Scotch and ball games. When he could afford it, Boldt preferred tea at the Four Seasons or dinner and a show at Jazz Alley.

But he knew the hotel well and welcomed the soothing ambiance of the ficus trees, the gentle sound of the running water, the thirty-foot ceilings, and the classical piano. The room was open, in three tiers, and smelled of a flower garden. The women servers all wore shimmering gold dress uniforms, while the waiters wore white jackets. The hum of active conversation was muted by the plush carpet. Boldt gave the attractive receptionist, an Asian woman in her twenties, the name Magpeace, Dorothy Enwright’s maiden name. She seated him on the second level near the waterfall on a love seat in front of a table with starched linen and bone china.

Mrs. Harriet Magpeace and her thirty-year-old daughter, Claudia, entered ten minutes later, wearing grim faces to the table. They shook hands all around. Boldt held the chair for Harriet. His notebook lay open on the table. It seemed odd to order tea and scones and cucumber sandwiches on the edge of discussing a young woman’s brutal murder, but he knew from experience that people seek comfort in extremely individual ways at such times. He’d gone on a long walk once with the husband of one murder victim, the man claiming he had barely stopped walking since the death: all hours of day and night, any destination, it didn’t matter. Two weeks later, Boldt had arrested him for the murder.

Harriet Magpeace kept her graying hair short over her ears. She had Irish coloring and a long elegant neck, around which she had fastened a string of pearls. She was dressed in gabardine slacks and a black cotton sweater, nice but not showy. Her daughter, who had inherited her mother’s Irish green eyes, was wonderful to look at. She wore a modest gray suit, appropriate for her job in a downtown advertising firm. If Dorothy had looked anything like her sister, she had been a beauty.

The mother removed a small group of photos from a Coach purse and slid them disdainfully across the linen toward Boldt, as if not wanting to see them herself. “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the police station or my home,” she apologized, glancing around. “This is better.” She did not look comfortable.

“We do want to thank Detective Matthews for telling us about the arson before the press got hold of it,” the daughter said meekly. Matthews was not a detective; she was the departmental psychologist, a lieutenant, but Boldt did not correct the woman.

“Obviously it’s a shock,” the mother said. She tensed, and Boldt worried that she wouldn’t hold up.

A violent death was more than a shock; he understood this well. It was an invasive event that pried open the victim’s life in a sterile, analytical way that was like shining too much light onto a face or into a room. It bared all. It left the victim defenseless to explain the hidden bottles of vodka, the nude videos, the love letters, the stash of crisp hundred-dollar bills. It rolled the rock off the dark places of a private life. He hated to do this to Dorothy Enwright.

Boldt explained, “This is a lousy job at times. This is one of those times. I have to ask questions that imply I don’t trust the quality of Dorothy’s character. I want you to know right off that that is not the case. I would love to approach this a different way, but I’m afraid the truth is often more elusive than any of us would believe. What my experience has taught me is that none of us want to be here, and that by getting to the point we get it over more quickly, which is what we all want. Again, I do this only for the sake of getting to the truth, not because I’ve formed any advance opinions of Dorothy.”

“I think we understand,” the dark beauty said. Her mother nodded.

Boldt said, “If she was murdered”-at which point Harriet Magpeace twitched violently-“then we start first with looking at people close to her: a husband, a lover, a co-worker. Since the house may or may not be involved, itself a victim, we might want to look at repairmen, contractors, service providers. What I need from you is a snapshot of Dorothy’s life, including, but not limited to, the events that led up to the day of the fire.”

The older woman stared at Boldt sadly. “Yours is a morbid life, isn’t it, Sergeant?”

Boldt winced. He didn’t appreciate his work-his life-being reduced to such a statement, hated it all the more for the truth of it. Death was a way of life for him, it was true; but for Boldt it was seen as a means to an end, the only acceptable end being justice and the imprisonment of the party responsible. An investigator who relied upon the victim to tell the story-a man who even lectured on the subject-Boldt understood the intricacy of the relationship between victim and killer. That he exploited this relationship was nothing he tried to hide or make light of. That it often bordered on the grotesque was inescapable.

“I’m sure my mother means that sympathetically,” Claudia interjected, attempting to lessen the blow and come to her mother’s aid. “We certainly appreciate all you’re doing to find Doro’s killer-if that’s actually what happened. I have to tell you, the whole thing is a little fantastic. Arson? Murder? Doro? I mean, come on!”

Boldt was prepared for disbelief. He hesitated to tell them that no one-no one! — ever anticipated murder, except on television. Even the parents of known drug dealers were stunned with surprise to learn of their child’s death. Boldt said the few words he would rather have not said. “Can you tell me a little bit about Dorothy?”

The mother blinked rapidly. This was where business and the nature of that business collided. Claudia filled in quickly. “Doro was divorced two years ago. Bob’s an architect. Doro writes-wrote-for garden magazines and a few of the food magazines as well. She … it was Doro’s fault-the divorce.”

“It wasn’t her fault!” the mother snapped.

“She fell in love with another man, Mother. It certainly was her fault.” To Boldt, Claudia said, “The boyfriend died of cancer a few months after the separation; she lost him. It was awful. For everyone,” she added. “Dorothy lost the child in the divorce. She only got visitation rights. It was miserable.”

“She was miserable,” corrected the mother.

“But there was no hostility on her part. She understood the judge’s ruling, as much as she hated it. We talked about it. It’s not like she threatened Bob or anything.”

“She was a lovely girl,” the mother mumbled.

“You spend all those years with someone,” the sister said, “and you just expect them to be around. And then they’re not. There are so many things I want to tell her.”

Boldt nodded. This, too, he had heard a hundred different times.

Claudia said, “I know what you’re looking for, Sergeant. At least I think I do. But I just don’t see it. Bob would never, ever, do such a thing. Not a chance.” She hesitated, studied Boldt, and then rattled off Bob Enwright’s office