‘‘She had him,’’ Boldt corrected. ‘‘The question that has to be asked: Did he have her?’’
‘‘You think he made her?’’
‘‘We know he made her, John,’’ Boldt reminded. ‘‘We just don’t know when.’’
‘‘This shit gets on my nerves.’’
‘‘I can tell.’’
‘‘Film, I’m talking about.’’
‘‘Yes,’’ Boldt said.
She stopped at a city map, turned and sat down, presumably on a bench. The camera turned ever so slightly and held the man’s back in frame.
‘‘She’s good at this, you know? A good aim.’’
The image jumped. In the lower right-hand corner, seven minutes had elapsed. The man’s back was still on the screen. He wore an old moth-holed sweatshirt with a hood, black jeans and waffle-soled boots. The man’s black wavy hair and build suggested ethnic blood—a big Hispanic or South Pacific man. It meant nothing without a better look.
‘‘Why this guy?’’ LaMoia spoke aloud.
‘‘That’s the relevant question,’’ Boldt agreed.
‘‘Klein? Did she connect the missing skirt with this Frito Bandito?’’
‘‘That’s a racial slur, John. You’re a sergeant now.’’
‘‘This rice and beans gentleman,’’ he said, correcting himself. ‘‘Tommy Taco?’’
‘‘Way to go.’’
‘‘Thank you.’’
A bus pulled to a stop. Passengers disembarked. The suspect boarded, followed a moment later by the camera and the woman carrying it. The image didn’t last long. She established the man’s location on the bus. Another cut. Elapsed time, seventeen minutes.
Boldt was thinking about timing specific bus routes. He wondered how many they would have to deal with.
‘‘Exit, Tommy, stage right,’’ LaMoia said, as if directing the film.
The broad-shouldered sweatshirt descended the steps. The camera moved toward the door, but then abruptly stopped. Only the sweatshirt disembarked. Melissa had apparently thought better than to join him out on a darkened stretch of sidewalk in the middle of nowhere.
‘‘Well, she’s not completely stupid,’’ LaMoia said, picking up on the obvious.
‘‘Recognize the area? The location?’’
‘‘You kidding? Those doors were open for maybe five seconds,’’ LaMoia complained.
‘‘Rewind,’’ Boldt instructed.
Imitating a sports announcer, LaMoia said, ‘‘Our bus-cam will now perform instant replay as the star of our show descends the rear steps.’’ He was as nervous outside as Boldt was on the inside. The missing woman had followed a man—a big man, a laborer perhaps, maybe not Caucasian. She had followed him for the better part of an hour, at night, on two different buses while carrying a briefcase concealing a camera.
They made three successive attempts to identify any landmark or piece of skyline when the bus doors opened, but to no avail.
The next cut was equally as abrupt as the others.
‘‘We’re a day later,’’ Boldt observed. ‘‘That last shot. Rewind . . . Yes. See?’’
The camera panned left to right. Small white lights glowed in the darkness. As the aperture adjusted, both men rocked forward at the same moment. Dozens of Chinese women—all with shaved heads, all wearing jeans and T-shirts—sat behind large industrial sewing machines, frantic with work. Others manned cutting tables, busy with razor knives and scissors chained to the tables. Melissa’s rapid breathing mixed with the roar of machinery and played loudly from the television’s stereo speakers.
‘‘Jesus,’’ LaMoia muttered.
The screen zoomed and the lighting improved as a few of the women seamstresses were captured in close- up. They appeared bruised and beaten. ‘‘Oh my God,’’ Melissa remarked in a dry whisper. The next shot was of a chained ankle, blood raw. She gasped as the camera focused. Then another shackled ankle, and another. ‘‘The graveyard,’’ the woman’s voice whispered hoarsely.
‘‘Hilltop?’’ LaMoia asked.
Boldt shot him a look. Had Melissa made a connection to their Jane Doe? How? When?
Another edit jump. The screen stole his attention.
The ominous groan of machinery continued throughout, grating and annoying. The camera closed in on a black surface, where there suddenly appeared a small hole the size of a silver dollar. The lens approached that hole and then focused automatically. It was a small room, poorly lit by a construction light. The sound of running water. Naked women—their heads and genitals shaved—hose water running down over them. They whispered amongst themselves. It sounded Chinese.
For once, LaMoia knew to keep his quick-witted adolescent comments to himself.
Another edit. A woman—Melissa?—stood in a dark bathroom working a razor on her scalp. The scene was only seconds long. She turned to face the camera and smiled. She said in a whisper, ‘‘This is Melissa Chow for KSTV News. I’m going undercover now. I will join the sweatshop’s general population. This is where I become one of them.’’
‘‘Oh, shit,’’ LaMoia said.
The woman reached out and turned off the camera. The screen flashed black.
‘‘The sound is so hollow,’’ Boldt remarked, his musician’s ears ever sensitive.
The sounds were of women’s voices speaking Chinese. The camera faded in from black to an extreme close- up of a woman’s face. She was bald. She spoke in whispered Chinese. The interview lasted close to a minute, the camera cropped at the crown of her head and the peak of her chin, the close-up dramatizing her words. Even without a translator, her message was of horrid conditions and fear; the tears told that much. Another fade to black, and then faded back in at yet another close-up of a different woman. There were three interviews in all. All done in whisper. All in Chinese, not a word of English spoken. The third was interrupted by a woman’s voice speaking harshly. A warning perhaps. The camera aimed down to show a dormitory of woven mats and polarfleece blankets. Several women slept. Most of the mats went empty. The screen went black and then fuzzy.
LaMoia and Boldt sat watching a gray sparkled screen. LaMoia turned down the sound. He fast-forwarded the tape, making sure they missed nothing. ‘‘You feel sick to your stomach?’’ he asked.
‘‘Did you ever play with Chinese handcuffs when you were a kid?’’ Boldt asked. ‘‘The woven tubes? You stuck your fingers inside?’’
‘‘Sure. I remember those. What about them?’’
‘‘The tube constricted. You could slip your fingers in, but you couldn’t pull them back out.’’
‘‘Those were chains on those ankles, Sarge.’’
‘‘It’s what happened to her,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘She got herself inside, but she couldn’t get back out.’’
‘‘Like Chinese handcuffs.’’
Boldt nodded. He felt better than he had in days. ‘‘The good news is, she can speak the language, and with her head shaved, she looks like everyone else.’’
‘‘You’re thinking she’s still alive,’’ LaMoia said, his troubled voice barely rising above a whisper. The tape had set a mood, had captured them.
‘‘I think she is, yes,’’ Boldt said, equally softly. ‘‘The camera surfacing challenges that, I know. But the reason we haven’t found her?’’ he asked rhetorically. ‘‘Is because they haven’t found her, either.’’ He turned to LaMoia in the dark, his silhouette captured by the light from the sparkling gray screen, making him look sickly and pallid. ‘‘Who knows?’’ Boldt said. ‘‘They may not even know she’s in there.’’
CHAPTER 35
