LaMoia had never experienced such feelings of disgrace, humiliation and frustration as he did over the next few hours. His badge and gun were taken from him. He was escorted in handcuffs to a police van amid a flurry of activity and jeering from his peers and driven downtown. The sting had involved a minimum of eight cops, possibly twice that-all of which added up to something big. He knew the players: Narcotics. Drugs, as they were called within the ranks. They traveled in a clique within the department, the same way Homicide did. He had been to Sea-hawks games with a couple of them. Decent guys who took their jobs a little too seriously. Drugs was rough duty, and it made the players that way too.
He professed his innocence, demanded representation, and otherwise kept his mouth shut. He was booked, printed and humiliated by a full body search. LaMoia’s internal representative rescued him from an interrogation. No one seemed clear on the exact crime for which he was being accused. It involved the briefcase and crack cocaine. Sheila Hill had led him by his dick into a heap of trouble. For what? he wondered. Revenge?
Why get him arrested and suspended only a half hour before sending him to Siberia? Had she found out about Boldt’s Gang of Five and the work being done behind her back? Was this retribution? Or was it repayment for leaving her handcuffed and naked?
LaMoia left Public Safety without his badge or gun-suspended without pay pending review. “It won’t be review,” his representative warned. “They intend to prosecute.”
Boldt showed up as he was being released and offered a ride. LaMoia didn’t know their destination until under way. Daphne’s houseboat was a twenty-minute drive in good traffic. There was never good traffic.
LaMoia said, “Let me tell you something-you never want to be on the receiving end of our business. Never.”
Boldt said. “What happened?”
LaMoia’s hesitation caused Boldt to say, “The truth will work until you can think of something else.”
“I’ve been snaking the captain.”
Boldt released a pent-up sigh.
“I know … I know … okay?”
“Stupid, John. Very stupid.”
LaMoia chewed at his mustache out of nervous habit. “It’s usually lunch with us, but this time-today-it was afternoon. Next thing I know I’m in cuffs. What the hell?”
“Drugs made a good bust last night. This morning I’m told there’s an unidentified cop who plans to swap out evidence: street-grade crack for what’s currently in the evidence room.”
“What’s in there?” LaMoia asked.
“Bad formula. Freelance lab, just like McNee’s. Six deaths in the last three weeks. Prosecutor was going for the death penalty, and she would have gotten it. The switch knocks it down to dealing. It’s a first offense, a nonevent. Lab test will come back clean. No aggravated assault, no prosecutable deaths.”
“I walked into that? Oh, shit.”
“The bad cop is Kevin McCalister,” Boldt informed him. The car bounced through construction.
“We know this?” LaMoia asked.
“Some of us do,” Boldt answered. “It’ll sort itself out. Faster, if you explain why you were there in the first place. It doesn’t look so good, you know?”
“I can’t do that. Not now. She’ll deny it, of course. Besides, if I give up the captain, Flemming will take over the task force. You know that’s true. And where does that leave Sarah?”
“Hale was overheard saying Flemming could win control of the task force. I guess we now know how.”
“Where’d you get that?”
“Daphne, via Kalidja.”
LaMoia said, “Something else, Sarge. I think my desk was broken into.”
Boldt sidestepped the comment. “So you ride it out,” he told him. “A trip to New Orleans will keep your mind off it.”
LaMoia glanced over at Boldt.
Boldt explained, “Daphne got an emergency call from Kalidja, who is herself in Boise with Flemming. Dunkin Hale is AWOL. Flemming is furious.”
“New Orleans?”
“Has to be,” Boldt agreed. “The tattoos,” he reminded. He turned off Fairmont and pulled to a stop where Daphne stood at the end of the dock by a box of mailboxes. A moment later they were headed south on I-5 toward the airport.
LaMoia told his story to Daphne, who offered no sympathy.
From the backseat, Daphne suggested to Boldt, “You aren’t taking three of us to New Orleans based on an FBI agent’s curiosity.”
“No,” Boldt confirmed.
LaMoia said to Boldt, “You worked the credit cards.” He then told Daphne, “Six of the Spitting Image customers have contested charges on their cards in and around the dates of the earlier abductions.”
Boldt explained, “The rental car abandoned in Boise was paid for using a credit card belonging to Lena Robertson, a Spitting Image customer. The rental agreement called for a drop-off in San Francisco. With the car turning up in Boise, it’s fairly obvious San Francisco was never in the picture; she, or her accomplice, is smart enough to book the car for one destination and then drive it and deliver it to another. The rental company accepts the car and simply charges more. By using the rental car to get clear of the kidnap city-in this case Seattle-they avoid the law enforcement watching the airports.
“This morning,” Boldt continued, “less than half an hour after the Boise pileup, another Spitting Image customer’s card was used to book an Avis rental from Boise to Reno. She knew we would quickly have the Lena Robertson ID. The name on this second card is Julie DeChamps. The same card-DeChamps-was then used to book a plane flight from Salt Lake City to Cancun.”
Daphne complained, “Cancun doesn’t fit the profile. They are not taking these kids into Mexico. They know the FBI is involved. Immigration officers are alerted. They’re not going to risk that.”
Boldt nodded agreement and said, “The flight makes one stop.” He caught Daphne’s eyes in the rearview mirror, acknowledging her.
“In New Orleans,” LaMoia guessed. “She rented the car in Boise with no intention of heading to Reno. She’s headed for Salt Lake, for that flight.”
“For New Orleans,” Boldt confirmed. “That flight will be short passengers on the leg to Cancun.”
Daphne said, “She’s going down there to sell Trudy Kittridge into adoption.”
“She thinks she is,” Boldt corrected, driving well above the speed limit in the HOV lane, his dashboard flasher pulsing blue against the glass. He pushed the Chevy a little harder.
LaMoia said, “We can’t stop her without putting Sarah at risk.”
Daphne suggested, “Maybe we don’t stop her. You can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
An uncomfortable silence-the silence of frustration-filled the car. “The thing about blackened catfish,” LaMoia told them, breaking that silence, “you either love it or you don’t. But if you don’t, you got no business being in the Big Easy.”
CHAPTER 52
Boldt failed to see the romance of the French Quarter. For years he had heard stories about the mix of French and black cultures, of voodoo, umbrella drinks, of Creole bar girls with bodies like centerfolds, of blues and jazz drifting onto cobblestone streets at three in the morning and fresh oysters the size of golf balls. Instead, he saw only a giant tourist attraction, a Disneyland for alcoholics and unfaithful husbands masquerading as conventioneering businessmen. The locals provided color in street music, juggling and costuming, but to Boldt it felt contrived. The Quarter had been great once-it reeked of history-but the Chamber of Commerce and tourist board had cleaned it up for the McDonald’s crowd in a way that left it too slick, too polished, too Kodak, too little of the soul that had once fueled its engines.
The tattoo shop was called Samantha’s Body Art. Its wooden sign hanging out front depicted a large-
