Boldt And Matthews: No Witnesses Part 26

She hid herself against a cedar tree and muted her keys as she sought them from her pocket, interested solely in the penlight attached to them.

Below and to her right, her pursuer approached up the trail, not twenty yards back. She visualized the area through which she had just pa.s.sed, settling her nerves with deep breaths and planning her actions like a hunter in a blind.

The next thing she heard was ragged breathing and the rapid approach of footsteps. And then complete and total silence-the drumming of blood in her ears. Her hands shook, belying her self-confidence. Again, she trained her fear into the center of her chest, allowing it a physical presence in her like some kind of demon, and her hands steadied.

How close was he?

No sooner had this thought entered her mind than the looming shape of a man appeared within a few feet of her, stealthily moving up the trail. He, too, appeared on edge-he had lost track of her.

She sprang with incredible force and speed, driving her heel into the side of his knee, her right shoulder into his left, and propelled him to the trail's dirt floor. In this same steady motion she delivered her words loudly and with great authority: "Police! I am armed. Do not move!" The flashlight came on brightly under her direction and found him facedown. His hands were empty of any weapon, instead clutching that painful knee. He moved his arms slowly for her, like the wings of an awakening bird.

"Easy," he announced. "I'm on your side."

She knew the voice, though she could not place it. The light followed his motions. "Mackensie?" Formerly Detective Mackensie of Major Crimes. Recruited by-"Mac?" she asked again, though it was clearly he. She staggered back a step and made her weapon ready and returned it to her purse. "Why are you following me?"

"Following you?" Mackensie inquired, adding his own emphasis, working his knee carefully and sitting up. "Don't compliment yourself." Trying his knee again, he said, "Jesus, Matthews, you coulda broke it."

"What are you-"

"What am I? What are you doing here? I'm perimeter patrol. Kenny's got one of us on all four sides of the estate. You're lucky it wasn't Dumbo you tried that on-he'da broke your collarbone and then some."

"Patrol?"

"He is the boss, Matthews. The CEO. h.e.l.l, he doesn't even know we're out here. But here we are." He stood up and brushed himself off. "What's left of us," he said sarcastically. "In case you haven't been paying attention, there's a wacko out there drilling holes in his soup cans. It's our job to make sure he doesn't try to drill a hole in the boss. Comprendo?"

"Kill Owen?"

"It's one of his stated aims, right? Or are you going to try and throw some psychobabble s.h.i.t at me that says this boy is going to play by the rules? Don't do that, okay? Not with me. Play Dr. Ruth with someone else."

Mac Mackensie was so much the opposite of what she had expected that she felt momentarily speechless. Fowler had stolen him away from the department less than a year before for a huge salary, a company car, and six weeks' paid vacation. Mackensie was a good cop-or had been. He was a prime example of the brain drain being effected on SPD by the private firms.

"What exactly are you doing here?" he asked in a lower voice, touching her hand and convincing her to extinguish the flashlight. "I mean I know you two ... you know ... but I thought ... I was under the impression that ..."

"It's not that," she fired back at him, realizing that s.e.x was the only possibility in Mackensie's perverted mind. "It's an emergency," she explained. "He wouldn't say what. And if you make a crack about that, I'll snap your other knee."

"If you tell anyone about this," he warned, defending his manhood, testing his knee and finding it sound, "I'll make some serious trouble for you, Matthews. And that's no s.h.i.t."

"Go lift your leg on a tree, Mackensie. I'm terrified." She added, "Do not follow me any farther!" and broke off at a run.

As she approached the summit, she wondered why she had failed to consider the possibility of an attack on Owen, why this had not come up in her discussions with Clements. Had it been kept from her because of her personal connection to Adler? She moved faster, her imagination explaining the reason for Owen's call. Had there been an attack? She ran now. Was that why Mackensie was patrolling the woods? The thought of losing Owen terrified her. And this fear of losing him seemed to further define her feelings, to ill.u.s.trate to her just how committed to him she was. Since the start of their relationship, she had taken on more work, hiding. Afraid to get too close. Her volunteer work at the Shelter, her contact with her girlfriends had suffered as well. She thought about him all the time, and she ran from those thoughts. But now she ran toward him, terrified by the thought of a world without him.

She swung open the cottage door and spotted his distinctive silhouette against the blank pane of a darkened window, hurried across the room, and threw herself into his arms. "Thank G.o.d," she said.

He held to her tightly and said how nothing was worth their separation, how worried he was about losing her-and she laughed that they could be thinking the same thoughts. Perhaps, she thought, she finally knew love.

After several minutes of holding each other, they settled into a comforting stillness and a satisfying warmth. Later they untangled themselves, and she said selfconsciously, "You didn't call me for this."

"It's nice," he admitted.

"Then what?"

"He called me." He stated this so matter-of-factly that Daphne nearly missed the content. She studied his face in the ambient light from the main house that penetrated the large window. "I wasn't sure what to do."

"Called you?" Although she had clearly heard his words, the professional in her vied for time, attempting to fit this behavior into something she understood.

"I answered the phone and there was this silence on the other end. It's funny, because I normally would have hung right up-wrong number, prank call, one of Corky's friends too bashful to speak, a phone solicitation. But I didn't hang up. Somehow, I knew. Don't ask me how."

She studied his face to measure his state of mind. How far could she dig? He seemed rattled, but okay. This was her chance to hear the truth. His mind would betray him; his memory less clear. Embellishments, omissions. She faced these with all witnesses.

Adler said, "'It's me,' he said, 'the one you're after. The faxes.' And I couldn't speak. I froze. I've been in dozens, maybe hundreds, of complex negotiations and I've never frozen like that." His next words came out with difficulty. "He said that I took everything he loved away from him, that I had ruined everything, that I had lied and cheated long enough. He told me that I could stop it. And that if I failed to, he would take everything away from me. He said something like, 'How simple it is for you to stop it. And yet you won't, will you? And you know why, don't you? We both know why-'" Adler's voice caught and he looked away. In doing so, his face was blanketed in shadow and she could not make out his features, only the top of his head, which he hung in shame.

"Owen?"

"He called me a coward-which I am, of course-"

"That's absurd and you know it."

"He asked if I had heard the late news. He said, 'It can get much worse. It will get much worse. Time is running out-you know that, don't you? Tic, tic, tic, tic, tic.' He made noises like a clock. He said, 'It will be too late to stop it.' And he hung up. Strange thing is-I never said one word. He might have been talking to a baby-sitter, for all he knew."

A cold, penetrating chill started at the back of her scalp. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"Never a word."

She grabbed on to his shirt, slid off the couch, and pulled him to the floor with her. "Daffy!" he protested, but she quieted him with a "Shh!" and led him crawling across the floor and into the windowless bathroom. She pushed the door shut, locked it, and turned on a pale night-light that colored the white walls cream. Her clothes were damp from the exhausting climb up the trail.

"What are you doing?" he asked tenderly, grinning, amused with her, fingering a lock of her hair that hung in her eyes.

She glanced at him hotly, afraid, fumbled through her small purse, and pulled up the antenna on the cellular phone. She questioned, "How did he know it was you on the phone, Owen?" She keyed in the phone number too hastily and made a mistake, forcing her to cancel several digits and reenter them. Angrily she asked, "How did he know?"

Adler's mouth slacked open.

"Did you come by the tunnel?" she asked. Again, he failed to answer.

Adler had purchased two water-view estates on Loyal and had connected them into one. The former landowner, a product of the paranoia of the early sixties, had installed a bomb shelter in his backyard, at great expense, with an underground tunnel connecting it to the main house. Owen now used the bomb shelter as a wine cellar, and had also connected the guest house to it via a tunnel so that guests could share access to the fine wines and, more important, avoid the miserable rains when going back and forth between the two houses. It was a gimmick, and used rarely, because Owen Adler rarely entertained overnight guests with his busy schedule. Still he loved showing off both the tunnel and his extensive wine collection, and he used the tunnel whenever possible-even in nice weather. "Did you-"

"Yes, the tunnel," he managed to say.

Boldt was not home. She apologized to Liz for calling late, hung up, and called Boldt's pager number, keying in her cellular phone number when the recording asked for it. For two minutes she and Owen Adler sat shoulder to shoulder in an awkward silence on the bathroom's tile floor.

Her cellular phone chirped, and she answered it instantly. "It's me," she told Boldt. "I'm at Owen's. He was here, Lou-Caulfield-he may still be here."

"What?" Adler exclaimed.

"Right!" she said into the phone. "We're in the guest house. We'll wait."

"Corky!" Adler said, thinking of his daughter. He came to his feet, but Daphne caught hold of his shirt.

She disconnected the call. Still holding him back, she told her lover, "I'll go."

Adler's face contorted. "Here?"

She spoke rapidly. "He knew it was you on the phone, Owen. You said so yourself." She waited briefly for this to register, but Adler was a ma.s.s of confusion. She said impatiently, "He knew because he was looking-he was watching you."

Adler sprang for the door, but Daphne blocked him with a straight arm and ordered him to lock the doors behind her. "It's you he wants. I'm going for Corky."

"To h.e.l.l with that," he said, shoving her aside abruptly. He threw open the door and ran for the tunnel.

Daphne followed, but failed to catch him. The concrete tunnel consisted of two long subterranean pa.s.sages that met outside the wine cellar's vaultlike steel door. The pa.s.sage to the main house was noticeably older, its lights more widely s.p.a.ced and therefore darker.

When she did catch up to him, he was in Corky's room, his arms wrapped around his eleven-year-old, who was caught halfway between waking and dreaming.

Corky wrestled loose of her father's constraints, jumped out of bed, and a.s.saulted Daphne, leaping into her arms, "Daffy!" she exclaimed, using Boldt's nickname for her that followed her everywhere.

Carrying the heavy child, who hung from her neck awkwardly, Daphne edged to the windows and pulled the drapes. Seeing this, Adler helped her, and the darkened room became darker still.

"What now?" he asked her, helping Corky off her.

"You stay right here," Daphne said defiantly. "I'll get the lights and lock up."

This time Adler nodded.

"Are you cooking breakfast?" Corky asked her. This was the euphemism they used when Daphne spent the night.

"No, not tonight," Daphne answered. She met eyes with Owen. His eyes were filled with tears.

Boldt understood immediately the difficulty he faced. If he descended on Adler's estate with ten patrol cars and the entire late-shift ID unit, and if the estate were being watched, the involvement of the police would be rather obvious. On the other hand, if the Tin Man were somewhere on the property and Boldt pa.s.sed up an opportunity to contain him and apprehend him, then he was throwing away innocent lives.

He checked his watch: His squad's shift had ended at midnight, forty-five minutes ago.

He reached LaMoia at home, and ten minutes later, Bobbie Gaynes at her apartment. He tried Danielson's apartment, failed to reach the man, and had the dispatcher page the detective, hoping for a call back on the cellular. He called in five patrol cars, each with two uniforms, and deployed them roughly around the perimeter of Adler's estate-not an easy task given the terrain and layout of the Loyal area. One officer from each team was to stay with the car, the other to make ready to work his or her way toward the main house, if requested.

He roused Shoswitz and prosecuting attorney Michael Striker and informed them of the developments. It was during his conversation with Shoswitz that he learned that two different ATMs had been hit that night and yet another three thousand dollars withdrawn.

Boldt arrived at Adler's nine-thousand-square-foot home ahead of either of his detectives. He pulled Daphne aside and the two talked over Boldt's plan for several minutes. "It's pretty low-profile at the moment," Boldt explained. "In case things change and we need it, Shoswitz is arranging for KOMO's traffic chopper for air surveillance." The news radio chopper-its services often lent to SPD-would also carry a SWAT sharpshooter, but Boldt left that part out. Daphne abhorred the entire approach of SWAT-shoot first, talk later.

He was shown to Adler's sumptuous office, which was hidden behind a moving bookshelf. The decor reminded Boldt of an English manor home. The office window faced out to the water and the precipitous terrain leading down to Daphne's unseen car parked far below in Golden Gardens Park. "The only point of view into this office," Boldt observed, "would be from the lawn or one of those trees."

They looked out at the broken teeth of the jagged horizon. In private, Daphne told Boldt about her encounter with Mackensie in those very woods, and Boldt weighed what to do about it. As Gaynes and LaMoia arrived separately, but nearly at the same moment, Boldt was on the phone to Fowler. The security man dodged any direct answer about the estate's surveillance and said he would look into it. Boldt, furious, advised that he look into it quickly. "We're going into those woods with our safeties off," Boldt explained. "You had better get your people out of there."

By the time a nervous and perspiring Boldt had quickly briefed his two detectives, Kenny Fowler called back. "There's no one currently deployed," Fowler told him. "But we have a slight problem on this end-might be technical. Might not be. We can't seem to raise Mackensie."

With Daphne's help, they searched the house thoroughly, checking every possible hiding place, and then locked it up tightly and armed the security system. Outside, LaMoia took the high ground, a.s.signed to check the gardens and shrubs and landscape. The three of them used secured police-frequency radios that connected them to one another and with the perimeter patrol personnel, who were put on an armed-and-dangerous alert. Boldt and Bobbie Gaynes took the hillside, while Daphne patrolled the home's interior.

They started down the steep hillside trail together, but quickly separated, because it became obvious that the only trees offering a view of Adler's office were perched near the very top of the incline. Boldt went left, Gaynes right.

He checked behind him frequently, watching for the beam of her flashlight as it swept the trees and ground cover. From training, he mentally divided the area into a number of grids and approached his search as he would a homicide crime scene. Methodically, he moved from grid to grid, patiently alert for some sign of recent activity.

He found just such a sign about twenty yards into the thicket-deep enough that when he turned, he could no longer see the light from the efforts of Bobbie Gaynes. The stems of a large plant were crushed, and a few feet farther along he noticed a skid mark where a boot or shoe had recently kicked a rut into the fallen brown pine needles. Beyond this, he encountered yet another swath of broken twigs through a thicket. It smelled moldy deep in the woods; it smelled of decomposition and too much moisture and not enough sunlight. Boldt used the radio to softly announce that he had picked up signs to follow. He advised Gaynes to return to the main trail and descend slowly, alert for indications of where the man may have departed from it. LaMoia was to stand guard at the top of the trail in case they flushed the suspect.

Boldt moved slowly now, painfully aware of the easy target he offered by carrying a lit flashlight. Within a few yards his trail ended at the trunk of an extremely climbable tree. The bark was scarred pale where a clambering shoe had sc.r.a.ped it clean. Boldt shined the light up the tightly s.p.a.ced branches. Considering himself too big and too clumsy for such acrobatics, Boldt nonetheless snapped his weapon in tightly, stuffed the light into his coat pocket so that it aimed up, illuminating his ascent route, and began to climb.

He did not have to climb far. Fifteen feet up, he got his first look at the house. He could see LaMoia pacing impatiently at the top of the trail steps near the guest house. He climbed up higher and discovered a large, heavy branch that ran nearly level and probably offered a fairly comfortable perch. The flashlight revealed that here the dark tree bark was excessively shredded yellow. Someone had spent some time here. He did not climb up onto the branch, for he wanted to leave it for ID, who were waiting for a call while parked only a few blocks away. But there seemed to him little question as to the quality of the un.o.bstructed view this offered of Adler's home office.

He aimed the light back down to the ground, with a little voice calling to him never to look down, and experienced a brief sensation of vertigo. But it was as he was planning his descent through the branches that his eye caught the flash of something bright. Suddenly his planned route meant nothing to him. He descended out of the tree as effortlessly as would a chimpanzee.

From above they had looked like yellow pine needles, and yet unnatural and misplaced. Boldt counted three of them-not pine needles at all. Each chewed to a pulp on both ends-discarded as the Tin Man had sat patiently up in this tree biding his time, waiting to place his call. Toothpicks. Three of them. Freshly chewed-damp to the touch at one end, dry on the other.

The radio spit static and the urgent voice of Bobbie Gaynes said, "Sergeant, I need you down here. I'm about thirty yards lower than where we split up. I'm waving my light."

Boldt covered his own flashlight and saw the beam from hers reflected in limbs of the trees. "I've got you." He took note of his surroundings so he could find this same spot again. He contacted Bernie Lofgrin's ID crew and told them to come onto the property and to wait with LaMoia at the top of the trail. LaMoia copied.

Boldt contacted Daphne and asked her to relay to prosecuting attorney Michael Striker that they needed an immediate access to the calling logs of all the area cellular phone companies. If it had been Caulfield in that tree, and if he had made the phone call from up there, then it had to be from a cellular phone. If Caulfield had a cell phone, then he had an account; if he had an account, he had a mailing address. Striker was to contact Boldt the moment he located a record of any such call.

The park trail was rough going at a run. Boldt punched through a railroad tie, crashed, and recovered himself, but not without winning some bruises to show for it.

Gaynes was fifteen yards off the trail into the woods, in an area that seemed to Boldt nearly directly beneath the observation tree. As Boldt approached, she asked, "Did you have dinner?"

"No."

"Well, you're lucky. I just left mine in a bush over there."

Boldt did not think of Gaynes as having a tender stomach. He reached her. He could smell the metallic bite of fresh blood in the air well before he saw the body. She lowered her light onto Mackensie's corpse. The branch that had been used to cave in his face was lying a few yards from the twisted wreck of a body, and Boldt thought that the man might have survived that blow had his hands not been cleaved from his arms at the wrist with something incredibly sharp. But there they lay-at the ends of his arms looking like a pair of deerskin gloves. Mac Mackensie, knocked unconscious by that branch, had bled to death, his face now the color of a bedsheet.

A few minutes later when LaMoia arrived, he said to Gaynes, "Come on, help me. I think we should give him a hand."

At three in the morning, Boldt drove Daphne down to where she had parked her car in the picnic area.

"You're awfully quiet," he said.

Daphne nodded.

"You're just tired," he tried. "It's late."

"I'm wide awake," she answered. She could not think how to explain what she felt to another person; she barely understood it herself. As a psychologist, she wanted to be strong and able to quickly overcome such pain-to adapt. But as a woman, a human being, she ached not for Mac Mackensie, but selfishly, for herself. Then she thought that Lou Boldt, of all people, would understand. "Five minutes either way," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely, her voice giving her away.

Boldt pulled the car next to her Honda and left it running. "And it would have been you," he said.

She nodded, and she felt the choking sensation in her throat, she felt the tears, and she hated herself for this reaction. She leaned forward and Boldt put his big hand on her back and rubbed her there, and it comforted her. "That was too d.a.m.n close for me," she said, sobbing now. "And it's me I care about, not Mac Mackensie-can you believe that? And you know how he went out? He went out being a jerk. A real G.o.dd.a.m.n p.r.i.c.k. And that's the last thing he ever was-a jerk. A real jerk. Listen to me!"

He continued to rub her back, and when his hand reached her neck, she felt the tension spill out of her and she found her self-control again. "Sorry," she said.

"Whenever a cop-someone I know-goes down, my first sensation is grat.i.tude. Glad it wasn't me. My turn. I always felt guilty about that-until now. I've never talked about it with anyone, never shared that part of me. Not even with Liz. My second thought is for the deceased-it's not that I don't care; but my first reaction is a huge sense of relief. I dodged another one-something along those lines."

"I was there," she said softly. "I heard someone in the woods. First to my left, then below me, then later to my right. I heard two people, not one. He was there. For all I know he was coming for me when Mackensie caught up to me. For all I know he was right there." She looked over at him then with surprise in her eyes. "For all I know it's been him following me all along."

"Or Mackensie for that matter," Boldt suggested.

"No," she said, "Mackensie was just doing a job. After he left me, he didn't make it far."