The Angel Maker - 2 (32 page)

A born fan. The ball flew toward the screen's projections, hit a net, and fell to the floor with a thud. Simultaneously, the image of a baseball in the same trajectory was picked up in the screen. it flew in an arc into shallow left field where it dropped and rolled. "Base hit," Shoswitz announced proudly. The roar of approval from fifty thousand electronic fans filled unseen speakers. A scoreboard far in the distance registered the hit, as a base-runner reached first base and removed his batting gloves. "Japs are incredible, aren't they? You ever seen the golf?"

"Saw it in a movie once."

"Fuckin' incredible. You can field, too. You know, play a position like shortstop. Genius. You don't catch any hits, but when you throw the ball, the screen registers how accurate you were. This time of year, the weather like it is, this thing keeps you polished-know what I mean?"

"Can we put it on pause or something?" Miles caught Boldt by the lip and tugged. "You kidding? You know what they hit me up for this-above and beyond my regular fees? A good chunk of change, kiddo. No way. I'll keep hitting. You talk if that's what you came for."

"Please?"

"No fucking way. Talk." He tripped the button on the floor and hit a foul ball. "You can change pitchers if you like. Stadiums too. But I love the old Yankee Stadium, don't you?" "No thanks," Boldt said, misunderstanding this as an invitation and not knowing the names of more than two or three pitchers, most of them hopelessly out of date. "The bones we dug up alongside the Tolt River have been positively identified as those of a woman named Anna Ferragot-"

"Old news, Lou. What's your point? I'm busy here." He turned and eyed Miles like an unwelcome guest. "Lamoia just got a peek at Anna Ferragot's state tax records." That caused Shoswitz to turn his head-such records were not easy to come by. Boldt continued, "For the two years prior to her disappearance, Anna Ferragot was employed by the Tender Care Animal Clinic."

Shoswitz swung and missed. The ball crashed loudly into the protective cage. Shoswitz gave Boldt an angry look. Boldt didn't like competing with a batting machine, but this couldn't wait until morning. Sharon Shaffer had less than forty-eight hours. Her chances of survival diminished with every passing hour.

Boldt reminded, "The suture? Dixie's pathology report? Did you happen to read that?" Miles leaned forward, groping for the cage. "Where are you going with this?"

"Going? Veterinarians!

Tender Care Animal Clinic. The suture used in the harvests points to a veterinarian; so does the use of Ketamine."

"This same suture is used in every hospital in this county.

Animal and human. Do you read your own reports?"

"But the size of the suture indicates a vet. And Ketamine is never used on adults." "The effects of Ketamine were broadcast into the homes of thirty-five million Americans. Listen, it's good police work, Lou. I'm not knocking that. I think we put a vet at the top of our list. But none of this proves anything.

You want to talk to the people at this Tender Care Animal Clinic about Anna Ferragot, I got no problem with that. But talk is all, until and unless you have something more. We're not going to get a search-and-seizure based on this." He swung and missed again. "You're fucking with my average here, damn it all. Are we through here? if not, get to the point!"

He couldn't get to the point. That was the point! He had to take it step-by-step, leading the lieutenant into his trap.

Shoswitz tripped the pitching switch. A ball flew at him. He fouled into the stands.

Boldt and his son waited him out. Some guy in the stands to the far left was wandering the aisles selling either hot dogs or popcorn. It made Boldt hungry. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten a real meal. He hadn't seen Liz-awake-since their encounter at The Big joke, although a mostly form letter about her meeting with the IRS, a meeting he had missed, had been left for him on the kitchen table. Between back taxes and penalties, they owed the IRS seventy-three hundred dollars. For them, in their present financial condition, it might as well have been a million. He intended to talk to the credit union as soon as possible.

Shoswitz struck out. He flashed Boldt an angry look and asked,

"How many vets in this Tender Care clinic?"

"Four years ago note that the date coincides exactly with the disappearance of Anna Ferragot there were three partners in the practice. They broke it up. Two of them went their separate ways. Three clinics now: Tender Care, Lakeview Animal Clinic and North Main Animal Center." /'So if you're right about this-and there's no saying you are-the cutter could be one of those three vets. So you and Lamoia nose around a little. You shake them up. I just told you: I have no problem with that."

"Asking questions isn't going to do any good. I need to kick the place. I need to locate a pair of snippers that did both Anna Ferragot and Peter Blumenthal. That's our hard evidence, Phil. That's our way to lock this guy up, to stop him while Sharon Shaffer is still alive.@' Shoswitz stopped batting. He asked, "Were Ferragot's tax records obtained legally?"

"You know they weren't. A formal request to the IRS can take weeks. We don't have weeks." "They're your only link to this animal clinic, I take it. So in point of fact, you've got zilch." Shoswitz tripped the pitching switch again. High and inside. He swung and missed.

For no reason at all, Miles shrieked at the top of his lungs.

Shoswitz scowled. "Look at it this way," Boldt said amiably.

"You can blame all your strikes on Miles and me."

"Don't think I won't." Shoswitz hit a grounder past third and seemed pleased with it. Boldt played with his son's fingers attempting to distract him. Shoswitz wanted them out of there.

Good. He took his foot off the pitcher's switch, turned to Boldt, and said, "You've been away from this too long, Lou.

You've gone soft. What's the next step? Think about it." The lecture mode. Perfect. "You need warrants, right? Either that or you're talking about bringing these vets in and chatting them up, and we both agree that's no good. Am I right? So if you're going to -get paper on this, you've got to have probable cause, you've got to have a nice clean chain of evidence. And what have you got? You've got squat! Some suture? Some drug that's been on 60 Minutes! Come on! Four-year-old skeletal remains? What? Exactly which judge were you going to take this to? Or maybe you intended to run it by Bob Proctor, our broom-up-theass prosecuting attorney. You know what Bob would do? He'd laugh you right out of that office! Swear to God."

As Soswitz turned to face the plate, Boldt smiled behind his back. Daphne had coached him on how to handle the lieutenant:

"Let him be right. Let him tell you what you need." Boldt said,

"We have those tool markings linking the victims. If we could only raid all three vet clinics at the same time ... If we come up with the surgical shears responsible for those tool markings, we've got a conviction."

"You're ahead of yourself," Shoswitz advised. "It's a Catch-22, Lou. You need those shears in order to obtain the necessary warrants to find those shears.

Come on! You can't conduct search-and-seizures based on hunches.

I shouldn't have to be telling you this. We shouldn't be having this conversation. I'm saving you from eating a lot of crow.

You know that?"

He swung again. Cracked one way the hell out there. The automated crowd let -out a deafening cheer. "But you see how close we are?" Boldt encouraged. "What more do we need?"

"You're close, yes, but you're not there. You need a witness-an employee, maybe." Boldt heaved a sigh of relief. He was so close now. A little more ... "What about those numbers in the database?" Shoswitz; asked. "Were they flight numbers as you suggested? Maybeck and that database-now there is some good evidence. Fuckin' judges and juries just love anything to do with computers. Can you link that to any of these vets? You do that, you're one step closer."

This was the reason for Boldt's being here. Without knowing it, Shoswitz had stepped into the trap. "Each of the four-digit numbers that are unique to the laptop database corresponds to a Northwest Airlines international flight that originates in Vancouver, B.C. Over a dozen flights, but to only two countries: Argentina and Brazil. Both are known markets for donor kidneys. The fact that all the flights are with the same two carriers indicates ..."

"A courier," the lieutenant answered. "A flight attendant, a pilot. Someone hand-carrying the organs for them." Shoswitz lost interest in the baseball.

Boldt felt his skin prickle. So close now. "Exactly. They arranged and kept track of the flights well ahead of schedule because time is an issue with these organs."

"If we identify this courier, you've got your witness. We just might bust this thing."

Boldt could hear the door of his trap slamming shut. Shoswitz was starting to see front-page headlines. "Close, but no cigar," Boldt said.

Shoswitz considered this challenge. He said, "There may be two couriers. One transporting the organs between here and Vancouver and then passing the thing off to a second who carries it onto an international flight. The international courier would never know the harvester's identity."

"The harvester -remains insulated," Boldt agreed. "But more importantly, they get the organ to someone who is acceptable for bringing in an organ. Flight crew personnel courier UNOS

organs all the time. Passengers never do."

"Which means we need this other courier the one making the trips between Seattle and Vancouver. "It would be a courier, wouldn't it? if they shipped the organs, they'd leave a paper trail."

"Agreed."

Abandoning the bat, Shoswitz tripped some buttons. The screen died, and the lights came on. Compared to Yankee Stadium, this room was tiny. Shoswitz looked foolish in his batting helmet and scuffed wing tips.

Boldt explained quickly, "We need to identify any passenger who is making roundtrips to Vancouver on the dates of the harvests.

We're lucky there because the dates are in the database."

Shoswitz was catching on. He said, "You've already done this, haven't you?"

"We ran Maybeck's name first-I was all but positive that he was the courier. He was the one with the laptop, with the database, but I was wrong. We came up blank. It's not Maybeck. We ran the names of the three vets-also blank. I want to run the names of the employees at all three clinics next past and present-through the air carrier manifest lists, but it's an enormous job. Dozens of carriers dozens of dates. It's a logistical nightmare."

"Is it even possible?

The courier would travel under a different name each time, wouldn't he? Pay cash. Travel light."

"Not different names we're lucky there. SEATAC to Vancouver is international---@you have to show legal identification. That helps." Massaging his elbow, Shoswitz asked, "What about driving?"

"It takes too long. Every hour counts with these organs."

You're warm, Boldt wanted to say. "Checking flight manifests for a name common between them? How many carriers between here and Vancouver? A dozen? More? How many flights a day? Fifty?

Sixty? How long to cross-check them all? Jesus! A week? A month? I'd say Anna Ferragot died for nothing. We're no fucking closer." Shoswitz; displayed the same frustrations that Boldt had felt. Daphne had anticipated this. According to her, this was the turning point. "Impossible," Shoswitz mumbled.

"But if we were to narrow the field," Boldt suggested. He actually crossed his fingers. He couldn't remember the last time he had done that. Miles started kicking.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Shoswitz asked, sensing he was missing something. "Give me a second. just give me a fucking second."

"Seattle to Vancouver!" Boldt hinted.

Shoswitz didn't want any hints; he glared at Boldt then snapped his fingers in realization. "Immigration! We can search the fed's Immigration computers-it's a single database. We can search by date, by the names of the clinic employees. We don't have to deal with a dozen different carriers. How hard can that be? How long could that take?"

"A matter of minutes, if we go in the back door." This was Boldt's moment of glory: Shoswitz had arrived. Boldt said,

"It's the federal government. It's red tape a mile long. If we go after it legally, it could take weeks. Months, even."

"Why not an end run?" Shoswitz asked.

Boldt thought: Why not! Such tactics were fairly common practice: You asked a contact at a credit agency or the phone company-or Immigration-to do a search for you; if something useful was discovered, you were told to make it a formal request, knowing in advance that the formal request would net what you were after. It saved you from jumping through all the legal hoops only to come up dry. Shoswitz finally understood, finally saw his role in all of this. "You want me to make the call, is that it?"

For Boldt, it was like fireworks going off. A home run. "You're the only one with the necessary contacts at Immigration. I don't have them. Lamoia doesn't. But you do. I know you don't like this kind of thing, Phil, but we need some help here."

Boldt had Daphne to thank for this; this technique had been all her doing.

Shoswitz said, "You could have just asked, you know."

Boldt offered an inquisitive expression.

The lieutenant considered this a moment. "No," he conceded, "I suppose not." Miles squirmed. He clapped his hands against Boldt's chest.

Boldt said, "Lamoia's working on getting the employee lists.

Three clinics in all: Tender Care, North Main, and Lakeview.

With any luck, we should have those names by morning."

THURSDAY February 9 7 A.M.

With one day in which to find Sharon alive, Daphne, having slept for only three hours, marched into Boldt's office at seven o'clock Thursday morning and announced, "We overlooked something."

Wearing the same clothes as the day before, Boldt looked up from his desk with glassy eyes and replied, "I wouldn't doubt it." "I know how to identify the harvester."

He sat up, suddenly more alert, and watched as she passed by him, heading directly to one of several large stacks of paperwork. "Didn't you pull the drivers licenses on the three Tender Care vets?"