"You're a pushy son of a bitch. You know that? Phenolphthalein test was positive. And check out the Luminol." He handed Boldt a color photo that showed blobs of blue where the Luminol had reacted with any residual blood in the converted storage room. A special fluorescent light was used to highlight the Luminol. The pattern suggested footprints.
"These were developed by the doorway?" Boldt asked.
"We fluoresced the whole room, but yes, this photo was shot near the door. The blood had been washed with soap and water or maybe something a little stronger." He presented another photo, also revealing Luminol stains on the lip of a container. "Again, this is the same wastewater plastic tub."
Boldt said, "He washed his hands of the blood and some hair came off in the process."
Lofgrin nodded.
"If you were a woman, I'd kiss you."
"I'd file for harassment." Lofgrin handed Boldt yet another photo, this time showing a pair of workman's coveralls, also photographed in the dark under the illumination of fluorescent black light. The discoloring indicated blood splatter, like a volley of cascading tears.
"Oh, God," Boldt muttered.
"Yes. Exactly. Jackson Pollock this isn't." Before Boldt could ask, Lofgrin answered. "This was also washed, but in a heavy detergent. No way to type it, no chance for DNA. Could be the guy butchered an elk."
"Or a couple missing women," Boldt said.
Lofgrin said, "He wears size ten-and-a-half shoes. About six feet tall. Hair color brown, but it's dyed-from a sandy blond. He's on a strong dose of doxycycline."
Lofgrin was probably not describing Ferrell Walker, Boldt realized. Dyed hair? Nathan Prair, perhaps-although that also felt like a stretch.
"Are you telling me we found a 'script bottle down there? Are you holding out on me, Bernie? Do you happen to have a name from that prescription?"
"No prescription, no bottle, either. His hair, the dyed hair, the predominant hair sample found down there in that room," Lofgrin answered, "revealed the doxycycline. You are what you ingest. Most of it goes into your hair."
"He's fighting an infection," Boldt said. The use of hair coloring bothered the detective in him. Women, sure. But a man using hair coloring suggested more than vanity to a cop-if the occupant of that room had changed his looks, the possibility existed that he'd done so in an effort to outrun a criminal record. Boldt's pen wrote down: Ex-con? Escapee?
"Are we done here?" Boldt asked, anxious to work the evidence.
"What do you think?" It was Lofgrin's way to hold some cherry for the end of such prelims. The hair coloring and doxycycline had seemed the punctuation mark to Boldt-the exclamation point-but the lack of Lofgrin's proud-as-a-peacock, I'm-smarter-than-you superior attitude had left him thinking there might be more.
"Out in the hallways as we were looking for his escape route we came across some recent bus ticket stubs."
"I entered through the bus tunnel emergency route, Bernie. We already know he had access." Boldt added, "And you knew that, too, because it's how your guys got in there, so what's going on?" Lofgrin appreciated being challenged, or Boldt wouldn't have been so aggressive. Friendships within the department were both a curse and a blessing.
Lofgrin dug around on the lab bench and produced an evidence bag that contained a rectangular piece of paper-a receipt, or stub. "ATM receipt. SeaT el Boldt knew that SeaT el was the bank on the corner, the basement of which he'd toured with the maintenance man. "You're interested in the date."
Boldt snatched the bag from Lofgrin, his chest tight. He pressed the plastic of the bag against the receipt, trying to read the date. He fumbled and dropped the bag. Lofgrin spoke as Boldt collected the bag off the floor. "One of my guys-Michael Yei-his sister's a teller at SeaT el over in Capitol Hill. The account comes back a sixty-year-old woman named Veronica Shepherd. I doubt seriously Ms. Shepherd is living below Third Avenue."
Boldt had the bag in hand again. He pressed, and the date printed on the receipt came into focus. It was a date emblazoned in Boldt's memory, the date Susan Hebringer had gone missing. Boldt experienced both a pang of hurt and one of exhilaration simultaneously.
"Cash machines," Boldt said hoarsely, his voice choked with emotion. He'd found the connection between the tourists who'd been peeped and the two missing women. "The common denominator is cash machines."
He was out the door before he had a chance to witness Lofgrin's self-satisfied grin.
Boldt double-parked the department-issue Crown Vie, its emergency flashers going, on the steep incline outside SeaT el He approached the corner entrance to the bank at a run, but stopped abruptly at sight of the small lighted sign: ATM. Any investigator worth his salt questioned himself when the facts became known. You wondered why and how something so obvious now had seemed so insignificant then, how the brain could overlook something so important, so glaring.
It was a small glassed-in room-a glorified booth-that fronted Columbia Street and contained two ATM machines side by side, a wall clock, and a small blue shelf with pens attached to chains. Mounted to the doorjamb, an electronic credit card reader provided restricted access for the sake of security, admitting only legitimate cardholders.
Boldt pressed his face to the glass, cupping his eyes. Littered across the floor at the foot of both machines he saw several paper receipts, their size and shape now familiar to him.
Of all things, he didn't own an ATM card-he still cashed checks at the teller window-and therefore couldn't gain access.
He caused a brief moment of alarm inside the bank as he pushed to the front of a small line, polite but determined to gain admittance to that room. Now that he'd seen the room, he could also picture Susan Hebringer inside it, her purse slung over her arm, her bank card slipping into a slot on one of the two machines.
Already planning his next move, Boldt intended to pull whatever favors necessary to gain immediate access to Hebringer's and Randolf s bank records. It seemed inconceivable to him that both women might have used their ATM cards on the dates they disappeared without him knowing about it. He felt like a burst dam, unable to contain himself, spilling out a flood of anger and confusion. His people had run the financials on both victim she knew this absolutely. So where had the mistake been? How could they have missed this?
A nervous bank officer swiped a card through the outdoor reader. Boldt entered a warm room that smelled bitter. Initially he dismissed the bank officer but then quickly changed his mind and asked him to stand outside and prevent anyone from coming in and disturbing him.
Boldt then studied the room, including the two wall-mounted cash machines, their small screens glowing with a welcome message.
He noted the alarmed exit door in the corner, leading into the building-a fire code requirement. He collected himself, slowing his breathing, trying to get beyond the emotion of the moment. He focused on those two machines and tried to put Susan Hebringer into this room. The imagined scene then played before his eyes, black-and-white and jittery. He saw her from the back, dressed in the clothes that she'd been described wearing by both her husband and coworkers on the day of her disappearance.
He saw her remove her ATM card from her purse, look up as she heard a man come through that door through which she herself had just entered. Would she have said hello? He thought not. She'd gone about her business.
But who? A street punk wanting the cash? A well-dressed man in a suit-someone she'd never suspect of the foul play that was to come? A bank officer? A deputy sheriff?
He took a step closer to the machines but stopped as he felt something stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He picked the receipt off his shoe sole, knowing then how one could find its way into the Underground, and immediately lifted his eyes to the alarmed exit door.