Beyond Recognition (45 page)

Boldt's knees felt weak. He whispered, “My family was in there. Liz, the kids!”

Thirty minutes passed incredibly slowly. The bomb man confirmed the existence of a detonator. A wet-vac vacuum canister was sent to the roof. Tension filled the air as the top membrane was intentionally punctured and the vent stack's contents carefully removed.

One of Lofgrin's assistants approached him and spoke to him in private, out of earshot from Boldt. Lofgrin returned to Boldt's side and announced proudly, “Silver and blue cotton.”

“What?”

“We lifted some fibers from the windows we know he washed. You remember those fibers we found alongside the ladder impressions at Enwright? Muddy. We didn't get a very good look at color, they didn't wash well, but PLM—Polarized Light Microscopy—told us they were a synth/cotton blend. I ruled out window washing at the time because cotton sucks for windows, it leaves itself all over the glass. Newsprint is good, oddly enough, but not cotton. But this guy
was
washing windows—Liz saw that. And a synth/cotton blend is better than pure cotton, at least. But a silver and blue washrag or towel? Mean anything to you?”

“Silver and blue. The Seahawks,” Boldt replied. Seattle's failing football team.

“Bingo,” said Lofgrin. “And to my knowledge we don't sell Terrible Towels to our fans the way they do in a place like Pittsburgh, right? Do we?”

“I don't follow the Seahawks,” Boldt confessed, thinking: Charles Mingus, Scott Hamilton, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson, but not the Seahawks.

“What I'm saying is, This is unique evidence, Lou.”

“Silver and blue towels,” Boldt answered, his heart racing a little faster, his eyes trained intently on the operation being conducted on the roof of his house.

“That's right.” Lofgrin said, “Department stores? A uniform? How the fuck do I know? That's your job.”

Boldt said nothing, images of his house going up in flames occupying his thoughts. Towels were the farthest things from his mind.

“We have fiber samples now, Sergeant. We can compare these to any evidence you might provide us. Understood?”

“We'll search Nicholas Hall's trailer and vehicle again, this time for blue and silver towels or uniforms or T-shirts,” Boldt said, still watching the house.

“Those fibers can put this boy away, Lou. Are you hearing me?”

That comment, the way Lofgrin whispered it in a menacing tone, broke Boldt's attention away from his house. He looked down into those bulbous eyes, magnified to the point of grotesque. “Blue and silver fibers,” Boldt repeated. “I'm with you, Bernie.”

“Found on at least two crime scenes. Just so we understand each other.” Nothing infuriated Lofgrin more than providing a detective with key evidence, only to have it overlooked. Boldt knew this, and because of that exchange, because of Lofgrin's delivery, he took the information to heart: Lofgrin believed in those fibers.

“I'm at eight feet, six inches,” the man operating the vacuum reported.

Lofgrin called him off. A decision was made to drill through Boldt's kitchen wall and drain the Part B chemical from below. As this decision was being relayed, the night sky lit up with a thin column of purple flame that raced up through the clouds and disappeared. It was less than four miles away, in Ballard. Within minutes it was a five alarm fire. Lofgrin's attention remained on the delicate job before him. The distant sound resembled that of a jet taking off. That purple column lasted perhaps ten seconds. Sirens screamed in the distance.

Lofgrin said, “We're okay here, Lou. You go see if your boy's up a tree with a carving knife.”

Boldt didn't want to leave his own home, but he did. The crime scene work lasted until three in the morning, at which point he drove to his own home and found it standing.

Another woman was believed dead, another life lost. There was word that all three networks were sending New York crews to shoot the fire remains.

An exhausted Shoswitz reported that despite the cooperation at the field level, the FBI, military CID, ATF, and upper brass of SPD were fighting for control of the investigation. His final comment was, “It's coming apart on us, Lou. Talk about blowing up! Too many cooks, and this thing will die in bureaucratic backstabbing and name calling. We're looking at one giant cluster fuck. And it's you and me bending over, pal.”

Boldt did not remember drifting off to sleep but was awakened at his desk at 7
A.M.
by an alert and excited John LaMoia. Boldt's neck was stiff and his head dull. LaMoia waited a moment to make sure he had his sergeant's full attention. “You remember Garman telling us his truck was stolen, his Werner ladder in the back?” He continued, “The truck was for real. He owned it, all right. But he's got a little explaining to do. He never reported it stolen to us, Sarge. More incredible, he never claimed the insurance.”

Boldt focused on this a moment, allowed his head to clear. “Let's pick him up,” he ordered.

LaMoia nodded and beamed. “It's a beautiful morning, isn't it, Sarge?”

It was pouring rain outside.

On the way to Garman's house, LaMoia and Boldt, accompanied by a patrol car following at a close distance, listened not to KPLU, Boldt's jazz station of choice, but rather a random sampling of the AM radio talk shows and all-news stations. The latest victim was identified as Veronica DeLatario. She was the Scholar's fourth known murder victim, and Boldt could describe her before he ever saw her: dark hair, nice figure, mother of a boy between the ages of eight and ten. The radio shows blasted police for arresting the wrong man, in Nicholas Hall, and chastised all city services for the huge display of manpower at a police sergeant's home—“one of their own”—while Veronica De-Latario was “being stalked” and burned to death by a serial arsonist.

It came out that the police had received another poem earlier in the day, accompanied by a melted green piece of plastic, and “had done nothing about it.”

There were animated discussions on the talk shows of the “need for new leadership.” Federal agencies had made some well-placed leaks about their desire to run the show and take SPD out. Boldt resented this most of all, because he knew that on the officer level SPD and the agencies were cooperating just fine. It was only at the administrative level that the power plays were under way.

LaMoia, unable to bear it any longer, switched the radio back to Boldt's favorite, KPLU, and they listened to the horn of Wynton Marsalis.

I-5 traffic was unbearably slow in both directions. Even with police lights and sirens, they crawled along.

When Boldt's pager and telephone rang within seconds of each other, he knew there was trouble. Perhaps Shoswitz intended to pull him from the investigation, now that Boldt felt within a few miles of its resolution. Garman's role had nagged at him from the beginning: his being the target of the notes and, later, his Air Force service with its direct connection to missile bases. Their one interrogation had gone poorly, and even now, as they drove to bring him down for another round of questioning, no hard evidence existed against him.

Perhaps the call and page were from Liz, who had told her husband in no uncertain terms that she intended to return to Seattle on that very day, Tuesday. Perhaps Marina was unavailable and he was expected to be father for the day, while his wife did God-knows-what with God-knows-whom. He bristled with anger, even before he connected the call by flipping open the cellular phone. “Boldt,” he said sternly, drawing LaMoia's attention.

“Are you near a radio?” It was Daphne.

“In the car.”

“Well fasten your seat belt and tune into KOMO AM.”

“We were just there.”

“Then you heard Garman?” she said heatedly.

“What about Garman?” Boldt asked, at which point LaMoia was nearly leaning onto Boldt trying to hear. Boldt elbowed him away.

“You ready for this?” she asked rhetorically. “Steven Garman, Marshal Five fire inspector, is currently in the process of confessing publicly to being the Scholar, our killer.”

Boldt nearly drove the car into a sideswipe. LaMoia snagged the wheel and saved them in a brilliantly timed reaction.

Boldt told his detective, “Garman just confessed.” With LaMoia still steering the car, Boldt punched the radio and located the station. It was Garman, all right. And he was well along in describing every last detail of his crimes.

It was fifteen minutes later before they pulled up in front of Garman's residence, and the man was still live on the radio, by that point answering a string of questions offered up by the jock that seemed more an attempt to stall the man. Two local television remotes had beaten Boldt to the scene, and both stations went live with the arrival of the police.

“He's locked in his apartment,” a reporter shouted at Boldt, sticking a microphone into his face. “What's the position of the Seattle Police?”

Boldt wanted to issue a “no comment,” always the safest decision. But he feared a backlash if he came off as soft or undecided. “We're here to arrest Mr. Garman on a variety of charges stemming from a string of fatal arsons within King County.”

A helicopter roared onto the scene and landed incredibly quickly in a vacant lot. Boldt recognized Special Agent Sanders hurrying through the swirling dust and debris.

LaMoia pushed away the reporter's microphone, leaned into Boldt, and said, “We better be first to take him.”

They ran up the steps, Sanders shouting from behind. Boldt nodded to his detective, who tried the door, called out a warning, and then reared back and kicked the door twice. It remained locked but broke away from the splintered doorjamb and banged open.

Steven Garman sat peacefully in a recliner, telephone in hand. He spoke into the receiver. “Looks like my ride has arrived.”

LaMoia began calling out the Miranda above the roar and chaos and shouts coming up the steps behind them.

Lou Boldt, charged with anger and rage, nonetheless walked calmly up to Garman, took the phone out of his hand, and cradled the receiver. Under no conditions could he reveal his emotions to the suspect, give himself away. Garman had proven himself cool to the point of cold; Boldt needed all his wits about him.

Meeting Boldt's eyes, Garman said venomously, “If you had caught me sooner, fewer would have died. You have to live with that, Sergeant, not me.”

Boldt answered, “I may have to live with it, but you're going to die with it. Given the options, I'd say I got the better deal.”

“You think so?” answered Steven Garman. “We'll see.”

Within the hour, the Chief of Police held a packed press conference declaring that Garman was in custody and had been among a very small list of suspects all along. He informed his audience that Garman had been interviewed not long before his arrest and that he, the Chief, attributed the man's breakdown and confession in part to that interview. All this was done without ever consulting Boldt, though the sergeant's name was used liberally throughout the briefing.

There was a celebration on the fifth floor, typically reserved for only the most difficult cases—the red balls, the black holes; there were a dozen nicknames. Supermarket carrot cake, fresh milk, a collection of espressos and
lattes
from SBC rather than from the vendor in the lobby.

Boldt did his best to hide his exhaustion and appear cheerful for the sake of the troops, but when he spotted LaMoia and Matthews at different moments during the levity, their eyes showed the same reservations that he felt inside. Garman had invoked the Miranda, turned immediately to silence, and called in one of the city's most notorious defense attorneys. There would be no interrogation. They had the radio confession on tape, but when listened to it was vague and lacked the kind of detail that would make prosecution a no-brainer.

Bernie Lofgrin and his small team of identification technicians missed the festivities because they were combing Garman's home for evidence. They willingly shared that job with an elite team of ATF forensic experts flown up from the Chestnut Grove lab in Sacramento and headed by Dr. Howard Casterstein.

A uniformed officer caught up to Boldt, who was standing off by himself, deep in thought. The officer seemed reluctant to interrupt but finally did so, informing Boldt of a phone call.

The call was from Lofgrin. Boldt took it in his office cubicle.

“I've got bad news, and then I've got bad news,” Lofgrin began. “Which do you want first?”

“It's clean,” Boldt said, guessing.

“I'm supposed to tell you that,” Lofgrin complained. “If we're looking for this guy's lab, we had better start looking somewhere else. Casterstein agrees. This place is not what we're looking for. No hypergolics, no Werner ladder, no blue and silver fibers.”

“Is that possible?” Boldt asked, looking up to see Daphne standing nearby. A group of photos in her hand raised Boldt's curiosity, but he couldn't get a good look at them. She caught his eyes and motioned down the hall toward the conference room; she wanted to see him alone. He nodded and she walked off. Boldt watched her backside a little too long for a married man.