Pied Piper

“Gail, wasn’t it?” the husband asked, returning to the table with his mug full of rum.

“Paul’s sister gave it to us.”

“A gift?” Daphne nudged. She needed the woman to stay focused.

Boldt withdrew his notepad, trying not to attract attention to it. Most people were intimidated by their words being written down.

“It was cute,” the woman explained. She scratched absent-mindedly at the table.

“We sent out a photo with our announcements,” the husband explained. “Gail found some place that silk- screened the photo onto the baby blanket. It was a really good job. Doro used it all the time.”

“Silk-screened,” Boldt repeated.

“Digitally enhanced,” said the computer repairman. “Nice color, good resolution.” He rocked the bottom edge of the mug in circles against the table.

The mother said mournfully, “It was adorable.”

“She was wrapped in it that night?” Boldt asked cautiously.

The woman lifted her eyes to meet Boldt’s, and he saw in there a building uncertainty. “It was missing. I assumed I had her in it.”

Trying to keep the excitement out of her voice, Daphne asked, “But now?”

“It’s definitely missing,” the drunken man replied.

Doris Shotz shook her head slowly side to side. She glanced back to Boldt. “This is important, isn’t it?”

“It’s all important to us.” He didn’t want to fuel her hope unfairly, but they needed her attention focused on the blanket.

She said, “A drawer was found open.” Adding, “It wasn’t us. Julie maybe-the sitter.”

Boldt nodded. He had read about the drawer in the report. It was what had focused him onto the possessions of the victims. He wrote into his notebook: the sitter?

Boldt said to the husband, “If you could provide a way for us to reach your sister?”

“Sure.” He motioned for Boldt’s pen and paper. His handwriting was more of a scrawl.

Boldt thanked him.

Doris Shotz said out of her silence, “It was a cute name. On the label. Mirror Image? I don’t remember. Something cute. Does that help?”

Boldt took this down.

Daphne reached over and touched Doris Shotz’s nervous hand. “Can you get a picture in your head of that label?”

She squinted. “No, not the label. The blanket, sure.”

“But not the label?”

“No.”

Boldt’s sense of time had been destroyed by Sarah’s abduction-everything took too long. His patience frayed. He spoke somewhat harshly to the husband. “Tell me about the dinner train again … who knew you’d be on that train?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he said, eyeing his wife. “We’ve been over this.”

“You booked it yourself,” Boldt stated.

“Yeah. There’s a number you call. All there is to it. Pick up the tickets when you get there.”

“You must have guaranteed them. What? A credit card?”

“Sure.” The man repeated, “All there is to it.”

“And you don’t remember telling anyone at all-at work, a neighbor, a best friend? Maybe a friend recommended the train and you mentioned to him that you had booked an evening?”

The man ran his hand through his oily hair. “No, that isn’t true. I didn’t tell nobody- anybody,” he corrected.

“Do you have the credit card statement?” Boldt asked.

The man looked a little fuzzy.

“Think, honey,” Doris Shotz pleaded.

He screwed his face into a knot. “I probably got it, yeah, I suppose. I booked it ahead of time, you know.” He reached out for his wife’s hand, but she pulled hers away.

“Get it for them,” the wife demanded.

“I can’t.”

“I’d appreciate the statements from the last three months for any credit cards you have,” Boldt clarified. The husband looked crestfallen.

The wife remembered something then. She said, “We turned all that over to the other people-the FBI.”

“All your finances,” Boldt said, perfectly calmly. Inside, he boiled.

“The girl,” her husband said, “the one with the accent. She took our bank statements, credit card stuff, everything.”

Kay Kalidja, Boldt realized.

Before they left, Daphne and Boldt visited the child’s nursery. He stepped into the room knowing full well what it was like to live with such emptiness. He had spent the night in Sarah’s room, rocking in the rocking chair, staring into darkness, hating himself. He absorbed as much of the environment as he could, a new eye to the crime scene. The carpet was marked in three places where chips of automobile glass had been found. The glass connected the crimes to a single assailant, reminding Boldt of its importance. The dresser and the windowsills were clouded with fingerprint dust. Stuffed animals; children’s books on a hand-painted bookshelf; a musical mobile of pandas with red and yellow feet; a changing table.

He visualized the Pied Piper entering the room and heading straight to the crib. Knowing what he was after. Boldt turned toward the dresser: The Pied Piper had taken time to search the dresser. Why? Did he need a change of outfits for the child? Or was he worried about leaving evidence behind? Had that silk-screened blanket been wrapped around the child, or had it been in the drawer that still remained open?

Blanket in hand, or not, he turns toward the crib. He needs to disguise or conceal the child before abducting her. He wraps her in a second blanket? He places her in a bag or toolbox?

The open drawer continued to tug at Boldt. The missing blanket had to be significant.

Daphne reminded, “He’s an organized personality. If he took that particular blanket there’s a reason.”

“Mrs. Shotz!” he called out. The woman stopped at the door to the room, unable to enter. Her eyes welled with tears and she crossed her arms tightly as if to ward off the cold.

“You do the laundry?”

“Paul doesn’t, I can tell you that.”

“How many receiving blankets do you own?” he asked. Boldt did the laundry in his house. He grilled the meat, washed dishes and was much better with an iron than Liz. She paid for the housecleaner and they split Marina’s check. Liz did their bookkeeping, cooked most of the meals-all of the vegetables-and answered the mail and phone calls. He wanted his life back.

Liz had nine bras, two that she wore more often than the others. He knew the outfits that Miles wore by heart. They had eleven burp rags and seven receiving blankets-enchiladas, Boldt called them, because that was how they looked as infants, swaddled tightly before sleep.

“Four,” she said, without the slightest hesitation. Boldt trusted the number.

“And how many are here?” he asked.

She looked at him, her face drained of expression. Fear stole into her eyes. “I never counted.”

“No reason to,” Daphne encouraged.

“Count them now, please,” Boldt said.

Doris Shotz headed for the drawer that had been left partially open. Exactly what Boldt had hoped for: That drawer held the blankets. She corrected herself immediately, “Four, other than the new one, the one with the picture.”

“I understand,” Boldt said. “Five total then.”

“I don’t machine wash the one with Ronnie’s picture. I hand wash it.”

“Fine.”

She rummaged through the drawer, glanced back sharply at Boldt and then started over, checking for a second time. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to count,” she said, distracted by her own guilty feelings. She went