“Good,” Boldt said. “I got all that.” He thanked her and they said good night and he walked to his car. He would arrange the interview for ten the following morning. He would use Tommy Thompson, whose studios were on Vashon Island. And if anything came of the session, no one would hear about it but him.
Thompson was perfect: retired and reclusive. No one would ever know.
Boldt approached the Weinsteins’ front door alone, painfully aware that the Pied Piper had walked these same steps posing as a delivery man. The eerie sensation he experienced had to do with retracing the kidnapper’s steps, with picturing his two victims: Phyllis Weinstein, and her grandson, Hayes.
“It’s nine-thirty, Detective!” Sidney Weinstein objected. Dressed in a ratty cardigan, a wrinkled white button-down shirt and a pair of khakis that fit too loosely, Weinstein smelled of brandy.
“It’s Lieutenant,” Boldt corrected. “Crime waits for no man,” he said.
“My hearing has been delayed while I undergo ‘psychiatric treatment,’” he said, distastefully drawing the quotes. “Careful. I might shoot you. I suggest you leave.”
“I need to talk to you and your wife.”
“My attorney might have something to say about that. Are you part of my son’s investigation or mine?” He smirked. “Wonderful world, isn’t it?”
The question put Boldt in a difficult position that, if answered directly, required he misrepresent himself. His only association with the task force, other than as an adviser, was a covert assignment to flush out an informer. His visit to Weinstein was difficult if not impossible to justify if Weinstein made a production of it and brought in his attorney. Trish Weinstein appeared behind her husband. She looked dazed and exhausted.
Boldt spoke over Weinstein’s shoulder to the man’s wife as if absolutely certain of what he was saying. “Hayes had a blanket, a shirt, an outfit-I don’t know which-that carried a photo silk-screened image of him.” He spotted the hit of recognition in her eyes. “You know what I’m talking about.”
The husband stepped back and regarded his wife and then Boldt with suspicion and confusion. “Don’t listen to him,” he said. “They want to put me away, Trish.”
“No one is even thinking of putting you away, and you know it. Your attorney has certainly told you that much. You stole an officer’s sidearm. There is more paperwork involved in that one action, more internal reviews, than you can imagine. It will take us weeks, possibly months, to sort it all out. That is why your hearing has been delayed, that and because no one wants to see you face any charges, and that’s not an easy thing to swing when a person has stolen an officer’s sidearm and trained it onto half the fifth floor. You see a psychiatrist or a psychologist a couple times; we do our paperwork; a lenient judge gets assigned your case, and it’s all over. In your position, any of us might have done the same thing.” Smiling oddly, he emphasized, “
Having silenced Weinstein, Boldt returned to the woman. “You know the item I’m talking about.”
She allowed a faint nod.
“Is it here? Is it still here, or did it go missing the night of the kidnapping?”
She shook her head. She didn’t know.
“You can’t come barging in here!” the husband protested.
“No,” Boldt agreed. Looking at the wife, he said, “Without a warrant, I have to be invited.”
“Come in,” the woman said, her voice trancelike.
“What?” Weinstein shouted in protest.
To her husband she said, “He knows what clothes Hayes owns. How could he know such a thing unless it’s important? He’s here to help us get our child back, Sidney. Are you going to prevent that?”
Sidney Weinstein stepped clear of the door. “Come in,” he said to Boldt, motioning him inside.
“It might have been in the wash at the time,” Trish Weinstein explained minutes later, rummaging through drawers. “I can’t say for sure.”
“But to your knowledge, the drawers, the closets weren’t searched?”
“Your people were all over this place,” Sidney Weinstein reminded. “They went through everything. Everything was searched,” he emphasized. “How can we know who went through what? A drawer here, a closet there. What’s to see?”
“Here!” the wife said, hoisting a small outfit from the third drawer. She looked at it, drew away and dropped it to the floor, her open hands raised to cover her face and hide her tears.
“See?” Weinstein barked. “See what you do to her?”
Boldt picked up the garment. It was a baby’s onesie with three snaps at the crotch. On the chest was a square color photograph of the baby, slightly faded from washing; the mother had chosen this garment often for her child. The baby’s face was adorable, reminding Boldt once again of an infant’s profound innocence. Of Sarah.
Boldt checked for the label. There was none. It clearly had been cut out. He questioned Trish about this, and she nodded. “I snip all the labels. They’re so big these days with all the washing instructions. They’re horrible.”
“You cut it out yourself,” Boldt said, disappointed.
“I do it to everything. I hate those labels.”
“And the company’s name?” he asked, hoisting the garment.
She shook her head, reflecting. “Mirror Image … Double Image … something like that.”
“A gift?” Boldt asked.
“Yes,” Trish replied. “We sent out photos-that photo-to our close friends and all our family.”
“One of them gave us the outfit,” Weinstein said.
“Do you remember who?” Boldt asked.
“No chance,” Weinstein replied.
Boldt focused on Trish.
The wife said, “No. Neither do I.”
Boldt felt the failure weigh down his fatigue; he hadn’t slept in two days. Investigations could drag out forever and never be cleared. Perhaps in this case it was a good thing, he thought. It was one case he didn’t want solved. He just needed to make sure no one else could solve it either.
“But I don’t have to,” Trish Weinstein continued, coming more alive. “I kept a thank you book, a diary of all the gifts. It’s got to be in there.”
Moments later, she was busy flipping pages in a hand-bound diary with a Florentine cover. “Daniel!” she said, looking up at her husband.
“My cousin Danny,” the husband told Boldt. “Wouldn’t you know it! You get Danny on the phone, you never get off.”
Daniel Weinstein lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he managed a chain bookstore. He spoke to Boldt on the phone for over ten minutes, the upshot of which was a few bursts of hard information. He’d placed the order for the custom garment over the Internet. He remembered this distinctly, because he had scanned the baby’s photo and sent it electronically. He did not remember the company’s name, did not remember how he had found the company on the Internet, and promised to go back online and try to find it again. “It was over six months ago,” he complained. “I surf every night, two or three hours a night. I bookmark about one out of every hundred sites I visit. I did not bookmark a baby clothes retailer, I promise you that.”
“But you paid for the garment,” Boldt suggested.
After a pause the man agreed, saying, “I guess that’s why you’re the detective.” He laughed nervously.
“By credit card?”
“Of course. Would have to be. I buy all sorts of shit off the net. All by plastic.”
“Then it would be on a statement,” Boldt informed him. “And that statement would be a great deal of help to me and your nephew.”
“I’m all over that.”
Boldt gave him his direct fax number and reiterated the importance of the information. He added, “If you find it on the Internet, I’d appreciate that address.”
“Hey, give me a good excuse and I’ll spend all night on-line.”
“You want motivation?” Boldt asked. “A dozen children like Hayes, Mr. Weinstein. There’s your
