Pied Piper

house.

Boldt left the place at a sprint, found himself inside the Chevy, foot to the floor.

Some cops attracted trouble, the way a good-looking girl incited catcalls. Paroled cons stalked them, threatened them, assaulted them; attorneys filed lawsuits against them. Boldt had only once been such a target. The thought that his children, not him, might be the true target hurried him blindly through intersections, through traffic and down quiet residential streets.

He skidded to a stop in his own driveway, the left door open, the engine running, and ran to the back door, charging inside and startling his housekeeper so that she dropped an armful of clean laundry onto the kitchen floor and ran screaming from the room.

“Marina!” he called out. “The kids?”

She returned sheepishly. “Day care,” she answered in her thick Mexican accent, her face flushed.

“You took them yourself?”

“Who else?”

Marina had a temper. He had to watch himself. He settled down: The kids were not going to be kidnapped from day care. Nonetheless, he called Millie Wiggins and confirmed. Could coincidence explain his seeing his own house from that window? He hated the word. There was no case history to support his fears. Cops’ children had not been targeted in any of the previous cities.

Nonetheless, coincidence was not in his detective’s vocabulary. In police work, things happened for reasons.

The Pied Piper hunted white children under ten months old. Sarah was two, Miles, four.

“I take the children. I always take the children. What you mean coming in here like that? You scar-ed me half to death like that. Look at this laundry! On the floor. A mess. I have to wash it over.”

“It’s fine.”

“It is not fine. You scar-ed me half to death like that … coming in that way like that. Shouting! Of course I take them to day care. What do you think? Mother of Jesus-you scar-ed me half to death!”

“Have you seen anyone around the house, Marina? Think! An extermina-… a man spraying for the bugs?”

“No such man.”

“You’re sure?”

Her nostrils flared. Trouble. He asked, “Am I picking them up, or you?” His heart rate settled back down. Without Liz around, Boldt deferred to the woman’s decisions. Convinced that when it came to raising the children, any woman knew better than any man, Boldt kept his mouth shut. If he made Marina mad, Liz would have his head.

“You picking them up,” she informed him. She shook her head in disgust, her rich brown eyes trained on him in disapproval. “After work. What are you doing here, anyway? It is too early.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” he confessed.

“Yes? Well, I am not through the cleaning. And you know how I am about people being in this house when I am to do the cleaning.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Yes, and you are picking up the children.”

“I’m picking them up.”

“Mother of Jesus, the t’ings I put up with around here!”

Boldt returned to the vacant house and relocked the door. Back at the office he avoided making a report to LaMoia ahead of the four o’clock, so that LaMoia would not have to share the information. SPD would keep the vacant houses under surveillance through the night, Boldt’s discovery at the top of their list. To this end he chased down Gaynes, who was noisily eating biscotti in the coffee lounge.

“Any luck?” she asked, her mouth full.

“A home west of Green Lake. Neighbor saw an exterminator casing the place.”

She stopped chewing and stared at him. Then, through the biscotti, she said, “Better than what I got.” She formed her fingers into a zero. “You check it out?”

“Promising. Chair aimed at a window on the second floor. I want to get back over there.”

“You mean you want me to get back over there,” she corrected, understanding him. “You? You’ve got kids and a wife to worry about.” She said quickly, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

He asked her, “What about Anderson’s security tape?”

“I’m through about half of it. It’s my late-night viewing-finger on the fast forward button. Not the best plot. I tend to fall asleep pretty quickly. And if you’re sending me out tonight …”

“I’m not sending anybody anywhere. I work upstairs.”

“I’m volunteering then,” she said. “The point is, I won’t be watching much tape. I’ll take the first shift. Eight to two. That okay?”

“It’s LaMoia’s call,” he reminded.

“You could always barge in on the four o’clock and see if Flemming’s boys would like to help out.”

He grinned. “What about-”

“Dixie did Anderson today,” she said, interrupting, referring to the medical examiner. Gaynes had a way of anticipating Boldt’s thoughts. It endeared her to him.

“All done?”

She nodded and said, “All but the pen and ink,” and continued to chew. “Guy did the rubber ducky all right. Hit his throat on the tub. But the tub didn’t do him. It was a twist to cervical vertebra number three. And that came before the rubber ducky by the Doc’s account.”

“Before.”

“Doc says the twist and shout came before the fall. It won’t get any better than theory. But he does have lividity and a hematoma to suggest blockage of the carotid artery-although the rubber ducky was a little too on target to be absolutely sure.”

“The doer knows his anatomy?”

“That rubber ducky was either done by someone hoping to intentionally muddle an autopsy or simply in a hurry trying to cover his crime, and he got lucky.”

“Carotid artery,” Boldt repeated. “Strangled? From behind?”

“Cervical vertebra three is what iced him,” she reminded. It was her turn to test him.

“From behind?” he guessed. The contact between the two might have explained the pollen being found on Anderson’s clothing, although he doubted it: The knees of Anderson’s pants had been covered with the yellow pollen.

“Snap, crackle, pop.”

“Anderson turned his back on his visitor-and good night. So it’s a person tall enough and strong enough to work Anderson from behind. A man as paranoid as Anderson. The two must have known each other. At the very least Anderson trusted him enough to invite him in.”

She asked, “One of his snitches? Someone like that? You start talking about the guy’s head and you sound more like Matthews than yourself, you know that?”

The comment stung him; he didn’t want anyone connecting them too closely. The ghost of their one night together, years earlier, still lingered. He had put it behind him, as had she.

Gaynes consumed the rest of the biscotti greedily and wiped ashen crumbs from her pouty lips. She carried a tomboy look, much of it from her man-tailored clothing. She said, “Doc has some more tests to run before it’s welded.”

“When it’s official, I want to know. Anderson’s important to us … to LaMoia,” he corrected.

She eyed him amusedly, but then her expression changed gravely. “A victim,” she whispered knowingly.

“Yes,” he conceded. If pieced together correctly, Andy Anderson could talk to him from the grave and lead him and the investigation to the Pied Piper. A victim. He prayed silently there would be no more.