Pied Piper

It was also through this effort that Boldt finally connected with Kay Kalidja.

“I received your voice mail. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you,” she apologized in her creamy island singsong. “It has been a little crazy around here this morning.”

“Here too.”

She said, “Your people are pursuing recently issued birth certificates-a smart angle. We have gained access to state tax filings that we can sort by ZIP code, though with April fifteenth less than a month away and the targets under a year old, they will not show up as deductions. We also have access to applications for new social security numbers. We have asked for those as well.”

Boldt offered the information he was anxious to share with her, believing that the Bureau had the authority to make the requests and receive the information days, perhaps weeks, ahead of SPD-something unmentionable around the hallways of Public Safety. “Baby catalogs, parenting magazines. I know from experience that once you have a baby, you’re on every list there is. The offers they send you …”

The profound silence he encountered told him he had hit the mark. “This is good.”

“We should have been on this a long time ago,” he suggested.

“You mean we should have been. Point taken. This is very good, Lieutenant.”

“You, the Bureau, would have quicker access to those mailing lists. The publishers will be out-of-state.” He added, “You didn’t hear that from me.”

“Are you telling me this is ours?” the disbelief in her voice unmistakable.

“As far as I’m concerned, you thought of it, Ms. Kalidja, not me. It’s all yours.”

“I do not know what to say. This kind of cooperation … well, it has not been the norm.”

Boldt asked, “Quid pro quo?”

“Ah … so that’s it! You know, Lieutenant, I think you would get along well with my S-A-C. Perhaps you would like to bring this up with him.”

“I didn’t ask for Flemming, I asked for you.”

“Exactly,” she replied.

“That’s because Flemming has locked down all credit information on past victims. I can’t get access to any of it. I figure he put you up to that.”

Another prolonged silence. Boldt didn’t want a story from her; he hoped she wasn’t dreaming one up for him.

She said, “A precaution is all. Keep the media from disseminating information ahead of time.”

“Or to keep local investigators from looking at it?” he asked.

“Lieutenant …”

“I need the financial records-credit history, bank accounts, credit card activity-of every family the Pied Piper targeted. You can understand that, I’m sure. It’s where an investigation like this starts. I put that request in to you personally, long before there ever was a Shotz or a Weinstein. When it failed to arrive, after numerous subsequent requests, I attempted to obtain those records myself and discovered they are stonewalled. Blocked. Now, since you’re Flemming’s Intelligence officer, you must have done this. I’ve got to tell you that I didn’t even know such a thing could be done. It must have been one hell of a Herculean effort to pull this off. But now that you’ve done it-and so successfully-I respectfully request that all such information be delivered to me by this afternoon.”

“But-”

“Or,” he added quickly, “Flemming’s little end run will find its way to both local and national media, and all the efforts in the world won’t keep at least some of it from going public. It’s going to come apart on you.”

“You’re threatening me?”

“I’m an information gatherer, Ms. Kalidja. I leave the threatening to others. But if I were to threaten anyone, it would be Flemming, not you. From what I know about him, Flemming is a man who gets the job done. Nothing wrong with that. He’s known to like things his way. I’ve been there myself. But I wouldn’t threaten a man like Flemming; I’d just expose him and let him deal with it. No, what I’m offering is a trade. I’m trading you a damn good lead for information I should have had in my hands two weeks ago. Who’s getting the better end of this one?”

“I don’t have the information you request, Lieutenant.” Her voice held a note of apology.

“You’re the Intelligence officer. Any such information would have gone through your office.”

“It may have passed through,” she conceded, “but it did … not … stick.”

She was giving him something, revealing something. Boldt could hear the tentative reluctance in her silky voice.

At SPD such information would have been copied, filed and disseminated to those with a Need to Know. The Bureau couldn’t be much different, and yet what she was telling him was that she had either failed to make copies or had been ordered not to do so. Either explanation was insufficient and yet intriguing. What the hell was going on over there? Local FBI against the nationals? Perhaps the lockdown had little to do with keeping local police away from it and everything to do with preventing their own FBI field office investigators from running with it.

He asked, “What office received that information, Special Agent?”

“I cannot say.”

“We’re doing each other favors here.”

“And I am afraid mine have run out. If you are dissatisfied and would like to take back-”

“No,” he said, “it’s yours. I don’t go back on a trade, even when I get the short shrift.”

“I will see what I can do. That is the best I can offer.”

“That is as much as any of us can offer,” he said gratefully, “and I thank you for that.”

“Lieutenant, I am certain you did background checks on us coming into this, and of course we did the same- or rather, I did. Let me just say that from everything I have read, I have great respect for you, both as a person and your service record. Quite frankly, as Intelligence officer, it was my job to speculate on who would head SPD’s task force, and I suggested to my superiors it would be you. I am aware of your wife’s illness, and I offer my sympathies and those of this agency. I have to think that given other circumstances it would have been you running the show over there, and I think they could use you. I value greatly the information you have just given me, and I hope to earn your respect as well, as the investigation continues.”

“I’d be happier,” Boldt confided in her, “if it didn’t continue, if it stopped today.”

“Yes, of course.”

Boldt thanked her, hung up and spun around in his chair with the sounding of the beep that signaled his E- mail. On his computer screen, a menu appeared with a full list of the waiting mail. This most recent arrival was a reminder-a second message-from the mail room that Boldt had received a package marked “urgent.”

As Intelligence officer, with snitches and informants spread around the city like traffic lights, Boldt could ill afford to leave any urgent package gathering dust. Some informants used the phones, others-politicians and white collars mostly-abhorred them, preferring the written word, always “anonymous.”

By the time Boldt picked up his package, it had been X-rayed, electronically sniffed for explosives and run through a magnetometer for metal density-as safe as modern technology could make it for opening.

Ronnie Lyte ran mail room security. “It’s a CD maybe.”

Boldt realized he had hurried down to the basement mail room for nothing. The ME, Doc Dixon, and he exchanged favorite jazz works all the time. Along with SID’s Bernie Lofgrin, they had something of a jazz enthusiasts’ club. Boldt’s love leaned to keyboards and tenor. Until Liz’s illness, Boldt had occasionally held a happy hour piano gig at Bear Berenson’s comedy club. Doc Dixon leaned toward trumpet players, though he also had a keen ear for tenor sax. Lofgrin was drummers and bass players: He considered the rhythm section of any group the most important. Boldt immediately mistook this CD as a gift from Dixon, whose offices were a mile away in the basement of Harbor View Medical Center.

The padded envelope had been stapled three times at the fold. The package bore no stamps, no postage meter label, no stamp or sticker from one of the city’s many messenger services. This offered Boldt the first twinge of unease. His name and the address had been printed by computer on regular paper, and the paper taped to the package using two pieces of wide, clear packing tape. Boldt studied all this. “How’d we get it?”

“No clue,” Ronnie Lyte said.

The mail room was run by three Asian civilians, administered by Sue Lu. Boldt shouted across to Lu, “Someone sign for this?”