LaMoia took up position in the back coat closet.
Boldt stuffed himself into the front coat closet.
Bobbie Gaynes raced up the ladder and concealed herself on the small deck outside the bedroom.
Daphne heard the bathroom water running.
She rekeyed the security code and the light flashed red.
She glanced into the living room. Boldt’s jacket was caught in the closet door, cracking it open. He did not seem to notice.
No time. Watson had warned her that for the video to play correctly once the jamming was removed, she had to walk “on screen” from the same location where she had walked off. She could not suddenly appear in the middle of a room when the cameras went live.
Desperate to correct Boldt’s coat, she had no choice but to return to her screened position at the back door, while at the same time clicking her radio three times successively. Click, click, click.
On the cabin cruiser, sweat clinging to his brow, Watson stood alongside his assistant, Moulder, each with fingers from both hands occupied, awaiting the signal. The radio sparked three times. Watson said, “Ready?” Moulder nodded. “One, two, three!”
In a synchronized movement, the men depressed the buttons simultaneously. The video of the houseboat was once again live. But now, there were three police inside.
Watson spoke calmly into the radio, “You’re live.”
Uli came out of the bathroom at the same time Daphne heard Watson’s confirmation and crossed back onto a video screen somewhere in the city. The psychologist’s heart was pounding ferociously. She had not realized how tense this would make her.
On cue, the phone rang, and Daphne answered it in her same bored manner with which she always answered a phone, fully aware of the electronic device listening to her every word.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” said Lieutenant Phil Shoswitz. “We need you downtown. It’s urgent-the grand jury has advanced the schedule. They’ve decided to hear her testimony tomorrow morning. Smyth wants to talk to you.”
“But I-”
“Twenty minutes is all. I know you’ll be leaving her, but it’s better than us sending a replacement and making a scene. Lock it up tight and key in the security. You’ve done it before. She’ll be fine.”
“But I really don’t think-”
“If we don’t handle this tonight, we’ve got major problems in the morning. Get your butt down here.” He added, “No one can bust in there without us knowing. I’m putting an unmarked car up on Fairview. They’ll respond if needed, but I don’t want them any closer than that.”
“Yes, sir.”
She hung up and told Uli, “I have to go downtown.”
“Bullshit.”
“I have to go. You’ll be fine. I’ll lock up and you’ll rekey the security behind me. I won’t be more than a half hour.” She added, “I’ve gone out for food before.” She turned around, and there peering from the closet was Boldt’s eye, wide with urgency. Shocked, she quickly collected herself. Boldt could not spin around in the tiny space and free his coat without making noise. Nor could he pull the closet door shut without risking being heard.
“But not at night,” Uli complained.
“It’s orders. I have to go.”
“A half hour, that’s all,” Uli stated as a requirement.
“I thought you didn’t like cops,” Daphne reminded her. She edged toward the closet.
“I like your gun. I don’t suppose you would leave me that.”
“You’ll be fine.” She reminded her of the code, although Uli had used the system before. “Lock up behind me.”
“No,” the woman snapped sarcastically, “I think I’ll leave it open so Fowler can just walk right in.”
Daphne stepped up to the closet door and said, “Oh hell, I don’t need a coat,” and smacked the door firmly, pushing it shut. A small triangle of Boldt’s sport coat stuck out by the hinge like a tiny flag.
Boldt was not big on claustrophobic environments. He was large enough that even the front seat of a car seemed tight to him. The minutes ticked by interminably long. He monitored the time by pushing the button that lit the display on his Casio watch.
Four minutes after Daphne’s departure, Boldt heard softly in his ear, “Suspect is departing his domicile. Repeat: Suspect departing.” They had intentionally given Fowler only a few minutes in which to react, because they knew their operatives could not stand inside a coat closet remaining absolutely silent for more than thirty minutes, and because they hoped to force an urgency upon him that would require a quick, perhaps irrational, decision to act. This also accounted for Shoswitz’s announcing to Daphne an advanced trial date.
“Suspect headed east on Denny Way,” Boldt heard in his ear.
Boards creaked overhead-Uli was in the bedroom watching television, unaware of Bobbie Gaynes lurking in the shadows only several feet away.
The surveillance traffic crackled in Boldt’s ear. Fowler drew progressively closer, and when he eventually turned north toward the lake, Boldt knew he was headed here. Seven minutes.
“Suspect has arrived at destination,” came the dispatcher’s bland voice. Boldt could not stand the lack of air another minute. He tugged on the closet door and cracked it open again, delivering fresh air, and leaving him a tiny slit through which he could see.
Somewhere around three minutes later, the back door came open, Kenny Fowler using a master key for locks that his own people had installed. He punched in an override code that circumvented a customer’s PIN-supplied to alarm companies by the manufacturer in case a customer forgot his or her security PIN. Then he shut the door and reset the alarm.
Cornelia Uli’s ears were aided by the fact that she had muted a commercial, and because Fowler proceeded to step on the same noisy board that had gotten him into trouble with Daphne. Uli came charging down the ladder calling out, “Changed your mind?”
Boldt watched as Fowler came into view. He wore a dark-green oilskin jacket. Bold could not see Uli.
“Oh shit!” Uli barked out, seeing him.
“Relax! I’m not here to kill you.” He sounded emotionally drained.
“Bullshit.”
“No shit.” He produced a fan of cash-twenty-dollar bills. “We’re getting you out of here.”
“What are you talking about, out of here?”
“I’m giving you a choice,” he said calmly. “You can take a plane ticket and three thousand bucks right now, or you can get on that stand tomorrow morning-”
“It’s not tomorrow morn-”
“Shut up! There’s no time, Corny.” Fowler evidently cared for the woman. Boldt had not anticipated this. “You get on the stand and you lose your memory. No ATMs. No Kenny Fowler. No testimony. It was all your idea. I can tell you how to make it sound convincing. You do that, and I’ll give you thirty thousand when you get out.”
“I’ll never get out.”
“Four years, maybe six. And thirty thousand at the other end. I’ll deposit half in your name before you get on that stand.”
“I take the fall for you.”
“Something like that.”
“Jesus,” she said. Boldt realized she was actually considering it.
Boldt reached down and depressed the radio’s call button twice: Click, click. Overhead, he heard Gaynes move. He saw Fowler turn as he must have heard LaMoia. Boldt swung open the door, his weapon already drawn.
Cornelia Uli screamed.
Fowler scrambled for his weapon, completely caught off-guard.
“Three of us, Kenny! Drop it!” Boldt announced.
“Hands high!” LaMoia warned from behind.
Gaynes leapt down the ladder and tackled Uli, shielding her.
Fowler shook his head. He sat down slowly onto the floor, only inches from the post where Daphne had struck her head. “But how?” he said, glancing toward the wall and one of his hidden cameras.
“We’ve got all the latest shit,” Boldt said, quoting him.