for the first time. Martinelli answered, sounding jumpy.
“Hello?” the patrolwoman answered tentatively.
“Boldt and Matthews on a conference call,” Boldt announced.
“Can you hear me, Marianne?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
It was Boldt, not Matthews who replied. “The suspect is still at the car wash. We expect him to remain there until five P.M. After that, he’ll be under constant surveillance, and you’ll be notified of his movement as it pertains to your location.”
“I copy that,” she said. “We’re sending you a UPS delivery,” Boldt reported. “UPS, Martinelli. You copy that?”
“UPS. Okay.”
“Some mace, a fire hood, and a bottle of oxygen.”
“And a battery pack,” Martinelli reminded him.
“Right,” confirmed Matthews.
“If he does watch your place,” Boldt informed her, “we’ll want you to leave the house, leaving it completely dark, no lights at all.”
“To let him know the boy isn’t in the house with me. Yes. I understand.”
Silence.
Boldt said, “On the off-chance he should follow you, you will need a destination, not just driving around. We’re thinking a movie or maybe food shopping.”
“He could rig the house while I’m gone.”
“We’re aware of what he could do,” Boldt informed her. “We’ll have the house well covered.”
“You did real well,” Daphne told her, wondering internally why Garman had failed to look for the address in the glove box. Wondering about his other victim.
The UPS truck pulled up in front of 114 Lakewood Avenue at 4:55 P.M., and John LaMoia, dressed in a brown uniform, walked up the steps and knocked on the door. He made Martinelli sign for the package. He whispered to her, “We’re all pulling for you, Marianne.”
The two of them went through a charade then, for the possible benefit of anyone unknown watching. Martinelli reached inside the door and held up a backpack for LaMoia, as if she wanted to send it. LaMoia returned to the truck and brought her back a collapsible paper box used for express shipments that he quickly built for her, taping it together. While he did this, she quickly filled out the label as well as the shipping air bill. The backpack went into the box, which was then sealed.
Inside Ben’s backpack was the video tape recorded directly from the Explorer’s hidden camera, a copy that promised a good clean look at Garman’s activities while inside the vehicle. Tech Services eagerly awaited this tape for review.
“You gonna be around, John?” Martinelli asked, suddenly appearing quite afraid.
“Right here. You’re the most popular girl in town tonight. No sweat.”
“He’s insane, isn’t he?” They both knew to whom she was referring. She said, “I touched his hand. I can’t describe it to you.”
“I gotta go,” LaMoia said. “Hang in there. It’s a no-brainer. He shows up; we nab him. Nothing to it.” He grabbed the express package and was off.
“Right,” she answered, and then thanked the brown back of the delivery man uniform walking away from her. But the cop in her knew differently. LaMoia was himself nervous; he had not spoken that warmly to her since their third date. Had someone coached him to be that way?
She wanted it over with.
Inside the house again, she ripped open the package. Included was a spare battery for her radio, which she replaced just in time for her to receive the surveillance team communication.
Jonny Garman had just left the car wash.
SURVEILLANCE 1:
BOLDT:
Daphne and Boldt were still inside the steam-cleaner van parked two blocks away. The dispatcher barked a series of orders, deploying various surveillance teams. But the mood was ugly; a bicycle would be nearly impossible to follow. Garman rode fast, passing cars on the right, crossing on red lights at the pedestrian crosswalks, all the tricks. Dispatch scrambled to keep up, barely able to do so. He rode hard and he rode long, south through the U- District and across Montlake Bridge. The road grew steep and difficult, and had he suspected surveillance he could have lost them. In fact, twice all visual contact was lost, only to have him ride past a surveillance point, legs flailing. At Madison, he turned west toward the city, wreaking havoc with the team that endeavored to keep up with him. The expectation was that he would continue south, and the shift in manpower required to follow spun the radios into a hum of confusion. With no apparent intention on his part, Jonny Garman was giving them hell.
When Boldt called for a helicopter, Daphne realized they were in trouble. The choppers went out at several hundred dollars an hour, and rather than instill confidence in her, the result was quite the opposite: panic seized her chest. The team was desperate.
The order for the chopper came too late. Again without warning, the suspect, heading south on Broadway, turned left at Columbia, entered a short cul-de-sac, and jumped the sidewalk that allowed him through a series of posts installed to stop vehicular traffic. He shot down the hill, crossed 12th Ave. E. and literally vanished.
An unmarked car jumped the grassy knoll at James Way, skidding and spraying mud, but never regained visual contact.
Jonny Garman had disappeared.
A bead of cool sweat trickled down Daphne’s rib cage, and she itched it away. Boldt’s body odor gave away his own tension. “Shit,” he mumbled, as the radio reports confirmed the disappearance.
“He was heading south, Lou. Lakewood is south,” she reminded him, naming the street where Martinelli waited as a possible target.
“Then why take Madison? Why that move on Broadway?” Boldt answered rhetorically, “I’ll tell you why: He spotted us. He made us.”
“I don’t think so,” Daphne said. “Not one surveillance report indicated any paranoid behavior on his part. He was riding a route, that’s all. To the truck? To his lab? Who knows? A route, is all. To a computer somewhere he can run Martinelli’s tags? A route, is all.”
Boldt ordered the tunnel park kept under surveillance. He was frantic, not at all himself. Despair paled his skin and glassed his eyes. Two teams were added to the surveillance on Lakewood Avenue. “He burned us!” Boldt said. And then, catching the irony of the statement, he began to laugh. A sick, pathetic laugh.
Daphne felt tempted to reach over and touch him, as much from her own need as his. He had tears in his eyes-again-and she thought he might break, but he recovered as he had a dozen times before, that same afternoon.
She recovered less well, as it turned out, torn by her failure to predict Garman’s behavior and her fears over the impending fire she felt certain was to come. But the final straw was neither of these. It was the dispatcher calmly turning around in his chair-the van bumping along the Seattle streets-and saying to Daphne, “Matthews, a message for you from headquarters: They want you to know that someone named Ben has escaped. I didn’t get a last name, and I don’t know from where he escaped, but they said you would want to hear about it.”
Daphne gasped, her body cold with fear. “Pull this thing over!” she shouted.
54
Ben waited across the street from the small purple house with its familiar neon sign, though each passing minute felt more like an hour. Home: There was no other way for him to describe it. There was a Chevrolet truck
