The analogies kind of wear off on you.”
“It’s a great game. And your point is taken. I have no intention of fighting this battle alone.” He hesitated before saying, “I just like to make it clear where I stand.”
“And that is where? In the corner? At the head of the table? Where?”
“I had hoped that you would be lead. The Cross Killer, that product tampering thing-you know this kind of pressure. There’s a difference that you and I understand between being a good cop and doing good work under unusual circumstances. Between a real-time case and working a dead body.”
Boldt didn’t want to be grouped with Flemming. The man was far too sure of himself, far too in control for someone with ten kids on his mind. He said, “Maybe you’re good with that kind of pressure, but it crushes the life out of me. Makes me crazy. Honestly it does. I can’t sit around with that kind of pressure on me, so I act. That’s just the way it works with me.”
“And me.” Flemming said, “If you had connected a kidnapping here to one in a small town in the middle of the state, what would you have said at the four o’clock?”
Boldt nodded. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t stonewall reports. If the catcher isn’t sending the pitcher signals, he can’t expect to catch every pitch.”
Flemming smiled. Huge white teeth. Dark black skin with peach-colored lips. It was slightly too friendly for Boldt, an unwanted intimacy. “Stonewalling? You think?”
“I think. And I have to wonder why. We know about the penny flute now. The AFIDs. What’s to hide?”
He nodded. “Let me talk to Kay Kalidja.” He smiled again. “You see, you
Sarah arched her back and struggled for a new position. Boldt held her facing out. He leaned and kissed the top of her head. He loved the smell of the very top of her head. She kicked, enjoying the kiss. He gave her another.
“I understand you,” Boldt said, “perhaps better than the others. I understand that kind of pressure. And I don’t envy it.”
Flemming stared at him.
Boldt said, “You came for my advice, I think.”
Flemming grinned.
“And my advice is to avoid Mulwright, work with LaMoia and trust that we want this as badly as you do. Sheila Hill will be consumed with whose collar it is. Maybe you are too, for all I know, but I doubt it. And they don’t know that about you. They think that by trying to control it all, you want it all for yourself, rather than understanding you just want it done right.”
“Perhaps you could explain that to them,” Flemming said. This was what he had come for-Boldt’s support in the trenches.
“It wouldn’t do any good. You’ll have to convince them, not me. We don’t have to love each other; we just have to work together. What you may not know is that this is not some town in the middle of the state. This is a good team you’ve got to work with. What you do with it is your decision.”
Flemming pulled his substantial weight out of the couch. “They should have made you lead in spite of your transfer.”
“I’m okay with the way things are,” Boldt said, hugging Sarah a little tighter.
“Sorry about your wife,” Flemming said. “Hope she’s better.”
“She is,” Boldt said.
He watched the Town Car pull away from the curb and drive off. He wanted to see it for himself. Wanted to make sure Flemming was gone. He checked the kitchen for bugs. Checked the phone as well. He trusted Gary Flemming about as far as he could throw him.
CHAPTER 10
Trish Weinstein had been in the car only fifteen minutes when she felt the first cramps. With the initial nauseating wave, she knew the gym time was out. Some months hit her hard. She didn’t even feel like shopping. More than anything, she wanted a Midol and a hot-water bottle.
She drove faster than usual, eager to be home, the nausea worsening. A bath. Maybe Phyllis would stay and let her get a short nap in herself.
In an act impossible for her to later understand or explain, Trish Weinstein headed to the front door, not the back. The door immediately bumped against something and caught. Trish looked down to see a pair of hairy boots-Uggs. Phyllis wore Uggs, she thought, not making the connection at first. She pushed harder against the door, only then realizing she was sliding her mother-in-law across the carpet. Her cry of terror caught in her throat with sight of the woman’s foaming mouth and convulsions. A heart attack!
But a heart attack didn’t explain the large cardboard box torn open in the living room. Nor did it explain the door to the nursery being open. It was then that her vision collapsed, her ears rang and darkness swarmed her. She tingled with cold and reached out to steady herself, for she had lost her balance. She missed the doorknob for which she was aiming and sagged to her knees, crawling toward the nursery.
“H … a … y … e … s,” she bellowed.
CHAPTER 11
On Thursday, March 19, a hysterical call was received by the Emergency Communications Center at 1:07 P.M. announcing that a child was missing and that an older woman needed immediate medical attention. An ambulance, dispatched from a local fire company, arrived at 1:21 P.M., followed less than ten minutes later by Daphne Matthews and John LaMoia, who intercepted the EMT crew as they loaded the stricken woman into the ambulance.
“Convulsions,” the ambulance driver informed LaMoia as Daphne consoled the parents. “Seizure of some kind.”
“Stun gun?”
“Could be, I suppose, but epilepsy more like. Been lying there the better part of an hour, I’d guess. She’s lucky to be alive-
“If it’s epilepsy,” LaMoia mumbled to himself, not believing it was.
A minute later the ambulance charged off.
“I’m going to follow them,” Daphne announced. “What I got was that the wife was out for her regular aerobics class and grocery shop. Mother-in-law watching the kid. Wife started her period and felt lousy. Came home. Finds her baby boy, Hayes, gone, mother-in-law, down by the front door in convulsions.”
LaMoia scribbled it down.
“I’ll be in touch,” she said, turning toward her car.
“Later,” LaMoia called out after her. He pulled the front door shut behind him, only a few neighbors out on the sidewalk. He said to the first officer, the first uniform on the scene, “Nice job on keeping this low profile. Let’s see if we can’t keep it that way. Send the neighbors home nice and quiet-the woman had a medical problem. She’s being taken care of. No mention of any kidnapping.”
“Got it.” The man hurried off.
The ECC had gotten it right, using landline telephones instead of contacting SPD dispatch over the radio, keeping it away from the media and the curious. Boldt had written the suggestion up as a memo after the Shotz kidnapping. The result, not a single reporter outside and LaMoia had some breathing room.
He sketched a rough look of the front door area in his notebook, including a large, empty cardboard box. As he did so, the crime scene came alive for him. With a patrolman shadowing him, he walked through the motions and explained, “Man arrives with a package. Large, heavy, by the look of it. Nearly empty, in fact. Convinces the
