He pulled out Uli’s file and started through it once again, reviewing her past arrests: gangs, drugs, a prostitution charge that had been dropped. He looked at her earlier arrest photos. Sixteen, seventeen years old. A real sultry beauty then. Now, at twenty-one, the street had robbed her of her looks. The gangs were hardest on the young women.
Each time through, he had been reviewing the contents of the files, quickly passing over the form headings, the departments, the officers involved: the overly familiar information that any cop encountered repeatedly and with little or no interest. But the next time through, a number jumped out at him. One little number typed innocently years before into one little box. So easy to miss. One small piece of information left on a form. Over six years old now. By a cop making an arrest, filling out a blank: Arresting Officer: 8165.
The ATM PIN number. Boldt picked up the phone, his hand trembling, dialed Daphne’s number again, and again she did not answer. He had to search his notebook to find Adler’s unlisted residence. His fingers punched out the number. He waited seven rings before Adler answered and passed Daphne the phone.
“I need you,” he said.
Chris Danielson was asleep when Boldt turned the light on in his room. Daphne and the male night nurse followed at a run. Boldt turned to this nurse, pointed to the other bed in Danielson’s room, and said, “He’s out of here-now.”
The nurse opened his mouth to complain, but Boldt had already been through hell with him at the nurses’ station, and he had had his fill. “Get that bed out of this room now!” The man mumbled something, but obeyed. Apologizing to Danielson’s roommate, the nurse took him for a ride into the hall, and Daphne closed the door.
“I need straight answers, Chris.”
He still appeared half-asleep. “Sarge?”
“And Matthews,” Daphne announced herself.
“They’re going to throw me out of here in a minute-we’re still not allowed to see you-and this can’t wait until morning. Are you with me?”
“Go ahead.” He rolled his head, blinked furiously, and reached for a paper cup of ice water with a straw. Boldt handed it to him and Danielson sucked in a mouthful.
“You took Caulfield’s file from the Boneyard without signing it out-a day before we identified him. When we did, you returned it. I need to know why.”
Any minute, that door would open.
The man had new lines in his face, and a combination of pain and exhaustion in his eyes. A tent frame held the covers off his abdomen, and two large weights held his legs in traction. His voice was dry. “I obtained a state tax record of Longview employees. Caulfield had a record. I pulled the file.”
“But why?” Boldt challenged. “For money?”
“Money?” he asked incredulously. “To clear the black hole, why else?” The man was too tired, too medicated for Boldt to read his face well.
“You were offered a job away from the force,” Boldt speculated.
“Not true.” He met eyes with Boldt. “I wanted your job.”
A flashing light passed below the window as a silent ambulance arrived. It pulsed light across all their faces.
“I wanted this one worse than you did. I’ve been going at this case night and day when I wasn’t handling your paperwork for you. ‘Nice little nigger, sit behind the desk and let the white boys do the big, tough jobs.’ Not this nigger, Sergeant. Bullshit.”
“It wasn’t like that, at all.”
“Wasn’t it?”
They both raised their voices simultaneously and began shouting. Daphne cut them off with a sharp reprimand and said to both of them, “Out of order!”
Unaccustomed to losing his temper, Boldt took a few seconds to pull himself together. He checked his watch-precious seconds.
Daphne said to the injured man, “Elaine Striker.”
Danielson looked over at her. “Just one of those things that happened. It’s nothing I’m proud of. She’s lonely and she doesn’t remember what love is.”
“And then this black hole comes along,” Daphne nudged.
“Like I said, it’s nothing I’m proud of. Turns out Michael Striker is a talker, that’s all. Turns out his wife knows everything there is to know about this case, and suddenly I’m a lot more interested in the romance-the pillow talk-and she isn’t complaining.”
“What a sweetheart you are,” Daphne said.
“I paid for it, Matthews. You want to switch places?” He jerked his head toward the corner of the room where a collapsed wheelchair leaned against the wall.
Daphne stuttered.
“Listen, Striker was all messed up about Lonnie-Elaine. He wasn’t thinking clearly. I came to him for a warrant to get the New Leaf bank records-the canceled checks-and it never occurred to him to clear it with you,” he said to Boldt.
“You found the payoffs,” she concluded.
“No, I didn’t. They were more careful than that. It was a long shot was alclass="underline" Hoping to find a paper trail to the bribe money. I had already guessed who had been paid off, but couldn’t prove it. So I changed tack.”
“We’re listening, Chris.”
“Check the transcript of Caulfield’s trial. It was not a good case. But public sentiment toward drugs was bad right then-you so much as said the word cocaine, and in a jury trial the suspect went down for the long count. And what did the case hinge on? Some tip that the arresting officer received. The whole thing turned on this snitch-an anonymous tip. One anonymous snitch, and Caulfield goes away for four and change. Granted, that’s how Drugs’ busts go down: Narcs never reveal their snitches. But if you read between the lines of that transcript, the arresting officer-a cop named Dunham-was nervous as hell up on the stand. Why? Because he didn’t have a legitimate snitch. It was a setup. Caulfield was framed.”
“And?”
“And before I got to this Dunham, Striker got to me. Must have followed Lonnie-Elaine-to the hotel.”
“But you suspected someone.”
“Wouldn’t be fair. I never did prove it.”
“Kenny Fowler,” Boldt said, supplying the name. He mumbled, “Badge number eight-one-six-five.”
Daphne stared at him, dumbfounded.
Danielson’s eyes flashed. He hesitated, barely nodded, and explained, “Dunham’s partner for five years on Major Crimes. Fowler goes private with a company called New Leaf. Dunham goes over to Drugs. He’s floundering, can’t get the hang of Drugs. Then he does this major bust: Harry Caulfield with a couple kilos of high-quality soda. Four months later, guess who he’s working for? Double the salary, double the vacation. Double the fun.”
Boldt sagged and leaned onto the frame of the bed. “Jesus.” In a soft, apologetic, guilt-ridden voice, he confessed, “I got you shot, Chris.” No one said a thing until Boldt spoke again. “I suspected you of stealing that file. I didn’t want an IA investigation in the middle of this black hole. I asked Fowler to place you under surveillance for me. Keep it out of uniform. He lied to me about what he found out about you. Obviously, what he found out was that you were a little too close for comfort and that you were sleeping with Elaine Striker.”
Another long silence as the sound of the circulating air and the hum of machinery seemed deafening to Boldt. He wanted this man’s forgiveness, and he knew that was impossible.
“Her PD is on his way,” prosecuting attorney Penny Smyth informed them.
“But do we wait?” Boldt asked her.
“No one is forcing her to speak to you,” Smyth pointed out. “You can push, but technically she doesn’t have to talk.”
“Understood.”