blow this off for the time being?”
Boldt told him to go ahead.
“Yeah, okay. Fine. Cars is next,” he said, changing papers. “I don’t have shit. Nothing worth your time. Some hassles getting access to the vehicles. The Mazda belonging to Heifitz was impounded-based on what, I have no idea. Enwright’s Ford, on the other hand, found its way over to her ex-husband’s place. You ask me, that borders on grand theft auto, but what the fuck. He’s going to let me take a look at the wheels, so what do we care? Stay tuned.”
“That’s it?”
“Best for last,” LaMoia explained. “This possible Air Force connection-Matthews and her snitch saying this guy was Air Force. I greased an ATF guy with a pair of Sonics tickets. Preseason. No great loss. Decent guy at that. Says this isn’t the first time they’ve investigated rocket fuel.”
“Texas,” Boldt said.
“Yeah, right, that video. Sure. But an arson in St. Louis as well. Another in the Raleigh-Durham area. One in Miami. Turns out a person can cook up some rocket fuel with a little bit of knowledge and a lot of balls. But the thing is, the homemade shit leaves crap behind-metals, shit like that. They can see it’s homemade. What’s bugging Casterstein, my friend says, is that if it’s rocket fuel, it’s clean stuff, and if it’s clean then it’s military quality. Well, you can be fucking sure that if it’s military, it’s Air Force, so I started kinda nibbling around at the edges, you understand, trying to get a fix on how a person scores Air Force quality rocket fuel. And the ATF guy is as baffled as I am. And I believe him, Sarge. I mention McChord,” he said, referring to a base south of Tacoma, “and I don’t get much of a rise out of him. But he says to me that if it’s rocket fuel it’s ICBM stuff, because the space shuttle fuel is produced privately in Utah, and their lab has the book on that shit. They can recognize it post facto.” He lowered his voice intentionally. “But McChord is a major airlift center, Sarge. Shit coming and going constantly. And I get to thinking, What if some of what they’re shipping is rocket fuel? I don’t know to whom, I don’t know why, but it’s possible, isn’t it? The Japs have a space program; maybe they’re buying our shit to lift their rockets. Maybe it’s bound for Korea for defense. Something hush-hush. But shit, it’s worth looking into, don’t you think? You know those military ordnance guys. They’ll freak out if they think someone has lifted some of their hooch. All we gotta do is tickle them a little bit.”
“Do it,” Boldt said, thinking back to Daphne’s comment and the need to pursue absolutely every speck of evidence, every lead.
LaMoia had a devilish look. He said, “Or I can cut to the chase without involving the fruit salad boys. I kiss a few butts and see what I can get for us. Press some flesh. You’d be surprised what a bottle of Stoli and a night of lap-dancing can get you. Most of these MPs guarding the bases are just kids in uniforms. I flash my badge, they think I’m straight off the tube. You get these kids lip-walking drunk with some topless nineteen-year-old coed doing the Watusi in nothing but a thong, about an inch over their woodies, and they don’t remember nothing about confidential.” He said sarcastically, “I hate this work, Sergeant, you know that. But as long as I’m helping out, I’m there for the betterment of this investigation.”
“Just exploratory,” Boldt suggested. “A factfinding mission.”
“If the facts play out,” LaMoia said, “then we obtain the necessary paperwork and we go through the front gate, nice and proper.” Similar techniques were used in every investigation. It saved the investigator from the paperwork of pursuing any dead leads.
LaMoia sat uncharacteristically quiet for a moment.
“What?” Boldt asked.
The detective said, “Sarge, if you need it, you can hang in my crib for a while. I can make myself scarce over to a friend’s.”
“Who said anything about that?”
“Just if you need it,” LaMoia offered.
Boldt saw that LaMoia meant it. A rare moment of outward compassion from the king of one-liners. Boldt thanked him and asked what they had on the movements of Enwright and Heifitz on the days of their murders.
LaMoia informed him they had credit card records and bank statements. He would check them out as well.
Boldt studied the detective. He looked exhausted and haggard. Boldt returned the concern: “What about you, John. Are you holding up?”
LaMoia didn’t answer directly. His voice cracking with emotion, he said, “Just so you know, Sarge. If anything should happen to you, I will personally whack this guy. This is a promise that I swear on. So help me God, I’ll kill him dead.”
Boldt had no words. He reached out and briefly took the other’s hand in his own. LaMoia had tears in his eyes. It was the first time Boldt had seen him cry.
33
Boldt had not stopped thinking about the runaway boy who had called in the homicide. He had been distracted, first by Bear’s discovery of the Monopoly piece, then by the arsonist’s targeting of his home, but each time he climbed into his car and drove the streets, he thought of the boy.
He was reminded of him again when Dixie’s preliminary report on the crime scene arrived on Boldt’s desk. A body discovered in a crawl space was not an everyday occurrence. The papers had run the story; a radio show had somehow gotten hold of the boy’s 911 call and played it. There was an outcry from a domestic abuse group that too many women disappeared and too few of the disappearances were investigated thoroughly. The group, jumping to conclusions ahead of the medical examiner’s report, pointed to the fact that the woman victim had been found in the crawl space of her own home.
The lead detective was typically present at an autopsy, but Dixie requested that Boldt attend as well since the investigation was being conducted by his squad. A press conference was anticipated; Dixie wanted a senior cop present.
When Tina Zyslanski showed up at the door to Homicide requesting Boldt, he agreed to an impromptu meeting despite his schedule, not because Zyslanski was a Community Service Officer but because the woman she was with, Susan Prescott, worked for Human Services and wanted to discuss the “crawl space murder,” as Zyslanski put it. The boy! Boldt thought.
He walked them down to the conference room, Zyslanski making small talk along the way. She was an anorexic-looking woman with thin, lifeless hair and a nervous disposition. She hadn’t seen the sun in too long; her skin was jaundiced and onionskin thin. Susan Prescott was a cream-color black, broad-shouldered and slight- chested, hourglass waist and legs to the ceiling. She wore large gold hoop earrings that nearly touched her shoulders and walked like a woman who had worked the fashion ramps. She held her chin high, her neck stretched. She carried an air of indifference and alarming self-confidence. Boldt kept his eye on her. He held a chair for her as she sat.
She thanked him and said, “It’s my job to do everything I can to find this boy, the one who called in the nine-eleven. It’s your job to sort out the evidence. My hope is that maybe that evidence will point to where we might find the boy. I understand that he’s a possible homicide witness and that’s fine. I want him because he’s likely to be traumatized, alone and scared. Every day he is outside of adult supervision is another chance he’ll be swallowed by this city. The homeless. The child pornography rings. Drugs.” She leaned on the word. “We would like to avoid that at all costs.”
“I have a son, Ms. Prescott. I’m as anxious about this as you are.”
“Then perhaps you will allow me into the home,” she said, in a tone that sounded like a complaint.
Zyslanski explained. “The home is sealed with police tape and warnings. Human Services is requesting access to your crime scene.”
“You are aware, are you not,” asked Prescott, “that your primary suspect required outpatient hospital attention prior to his detention?”
Boldt had not studied the case carefully. He had left the case to the lead detective, focusing his own concerns on the kid’s whereabouts. He didn’t dare explain that. It wouldn’t come out right.
