The First Victim (Lou Boldt/Daphne Matthews) - Softcover

Pearson, Ridley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140130818X ISBN 13: 9781401308186

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

Lieutenant Lou Boldt, the Seattle cop who stars in Ridley Pearson's deservedly popular series, is a sharp and touching figure--perhaps the most believable police officer in current fiction. Early in this ninth book about his public and private life, Lou has to put on a bullet-resistant vest to lead a raid against some dangerous criminals. "The vest was not physically heavy, but its presence was," Pearson tells us.

It meant battle; it meant risk. For Boldt, a vest was a symbol of youth. It had been well over a year since he had worn one. Ironically, as he approached the hangar's north door at a light run behind his own four heavily armored ERT personnel, he caught himself worrying about his hands, not his life. He didn't want to smash up his piano hands in some close quarters skirmish. . . . Boldt plays jazz piano one night a week in a local bar, and despite his concern for his hands, he takes every opportunity he can to get away from his desk and into the streets. But money pressures, caused by his wife's recent illness, also make him think about the possibility of a better-paying job in the private sector.

Meanwhile, some extremely ruthless people are murdering illegal Chinese immigrant women and leaving their bodies buried in newly dug graves. An ambitious local TV journalist named Stevie McNeal and the young Chinese woman she thinks of as her "Little Sister" risk their lives to investigate the killings, while Boldt and his team round up a most unusual array of suspects.

This combination of hard-edged realism and softer sentiment has become Pearson's trademark, and once again it works smoothly. --Dick Adler

About this title

About the Author

Ridley Pearson is the award-winning co-author, along with Dave Barry, of Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, Peter and the Sword of Mercy, Escape From the Carnivale, Cave of the Dark Wind, Blood Tide, and Science Fair. In addition to Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark, Kingdom Keepers: Disney at Dawn, Kingdom Keepers: Disney in Shadow, and Kingdom Keepers: Power Play, he is also the author of the young adult thrillers Steel Trapp: The Challenge and Steel Trapp: The Academy. He has written more than twenty best-selling crime novels including Killer View and Killer Weekend. He was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction at Oxford University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The First Victim

By Ridley Pearson

Hyperion Books

Copyright © 2005 Ridley Pearson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781401308186

Chapter One

PUGET SOUND, WASHINGTON

It came off the northern Pacific as if driven by a witch's broom: theremnants of typhoon Mary, which had killed 117 in Japan, left6,000 homeless in Siberia and flooded the western Aleutians for thefirst time in sixty-two years. In the ocean's open waters it drove seasto thirty feet with its eighty-five-mile-per-hour winds, dumping threeinches of rain an hour and barreling toward Victoria Island, the SanJuan Islands, and the largest estuary in North America, known oncharts as Puget Sound. It headed for the city of Seattle as if it hadpicked its course off a map, and it caused the biggest rush on plywoodand chipboard that King County had ever seen.

    In the partially protected waters west of Elliott Bay, one nauticalmile beyond the established shipping lanes that feed Seattle's EastWaterway docklands, the pitch-black night was punctured by theharsh illumination of shipboard spotlights that in clear weather mighthave reached a half mile or more but failed to stretch even a hundredyards in the dismal deluge that had once been Mary. The freighter,Visage, a container ship, rose and sank in fifteen-foot swells, raindrumming decks stacked forty feet high with freight cars. The Asiancrew followed the orders of the boatswain who commanded a battery-operatedmegaphone from an upper deck, instructing them to makeready.

    The huge ship pitched and yawed and rolled port to starboard,threatening to dump its top-heavy cargo. The crew had been capturedinside Mary's wrath for the last three hundred nautical miles?threeimpossibly long days and nights?rarely able to sleep, some unable toeat, at work all hours attempting to keep the hundreds of containerson deck secure. Early on in the blow a container had broken loose,sliding across the steel deck like a seven-ton brick and crushing theleg of an unsuspecting crewman to where the ship's medic could findno bones to set, only soft flesh where the shin and knee had oncebeen. Three of the crew had tied themselves to the port rail where theyvomited green bile with each and every rise and fall. Only four crewmenwere available for the transfer that was to come.

    The neighboring tug and barge, seventy feet and closing off Visage'sstarboard bow, were marked by dim red and green runninglights, a single white spot off the tug's bow, and a pair of bright halogensoff the tower of the telescoping yellow crane chained down to thecenter of the barge. The tug and barge disappeared into a trough,rising and reappearing a moment later, only to sink once again intothe foam, the crane as ominous and unnatural as an oil platform. Thestorm prevented any hope of docking the barge to the freighter, butboth captains had enough motivation in their wallets to attempt thetransfer nonetheless. Like two ends of a seesaw, the vessels rose andfell alternately, the crane's tower pointing like a broken finger into thetar black clouds. Radio communication was forbidden. Signal lightsflashed, the only contact between the two captains.

    Finally, in a dangerous and daring dance, the two vessels drewclose enough for the crane's slip harness to be snagged by the freighter'screw on an upward pendulum swing. Briefly, the barge and containership were connected by this dangling steel cable, but it brokeloose of their hold, the barge lost to another swell. It was twenty minutesbefore the crane's steel cable was finally captured for a secondtime.

    The vessels bobbed alongside one another, the slack in the crane'scable going dangerously tight with each alternating swell. The exhausteddeckhands of the Visage worked furiously to be rid of thiscontainer, to a member wondering if it was worth the bonus pay theyhad been promised.

    When the moment of exchange arrived, the crane made tight thecable and the deckhands cut loose the container's binding chainswhile lines secured to winches on both vessels attempted to steady thedangling container, for if it swung too violently it was likely to capsizethe barge. As the first of these four lines snapped, the container, danglingprecipitously over the void of open foam between barge and ship,shifted awkwardly, suddenly at a treacherous angle. Above the deafeningwhistle of wind and the lion's roar of the sea came the muted butunmistakable cry of human voices from within this container.

    A crewman crossed himself and looked toward heaven.

    A second line snapped. A third.

    The container swung and slipped out of the harness, splashinginto the water. It submerged and then bobbed back up like a whalesurfacing.

    The captain of the Visage barked his orders. The mighty twinscrews spun to life, the gigantic ship lumbering to port and away fromthe barge and crane in an effort to keep the container from beingcrushed between the vessels.

    The spotlights on the freighter were ordered extinguished as theship was consumed by the storm, lumbering back toward the shippinglane where it belonged.

    Behind it, in its wake, the abandoned container, singing of humanscreams and cries of terror, rode the mounting swells into darkness,lost to the wash of the waves and the whim of the wind.

Chapter Two

On the evening of Monday, August 10, when the coattails of typhoonMary had receded into little more than a torrential downpour,a rust orange container appeared bobbing in the churning greenwaters and whitecaps of Puget Sound. Spotted by a copilot of a testflight returning to Boeing Field, it was immediately reported to theCoast Guard. Loose containers were not an uncommon occurrence inthe Sound. The urgency behind the Coast Guard's efforts to recoverthe orphaned container began as a result of the threat to navigation,especially with night closing in. "Metal icebergs," they were called.This urgency was heightened, however, as the Coast Guard's patrolboat came alongside the partially sunken container and human crieswere heard from within. At that point, the call went out to the SeattlePolice Department.

* * *

The piano sounded better than ever. For an old beat-up baby grand ina smoke-filled comedy bar where no one paid the instrument any attentionexcept for the homicide cop who presently occupied its bench,his large hands and stubby fingers evoking a somber rendition of"Blue Monk," its tone was earthy and mellow, just the way jazz andblues were supposed to sound. The notes flowed out of Lou Boldt withoutconscious thought or preparation, sounding of the torments born offorty-odd years of life and a job involving all too much death.

    Boldt aimed his interpretation toward the table where his wife andfriends sat. If his five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter hadbeen there he would have had everything and everyone that matteredto him in this one room: Elizabeth, his sweetheart, wife and partner;Doc Dixon, the county medical examiner who'd been his friend formost of Boldt's twenty-plus years with Seattle Police; John LaMoia,who had taken Boldt's place as a Crimes Against Persons' squad sergeant;Bobbie Gaynes, the first woman cop to join that squad; DaphneMatthews, forensic psychologist and confidante; and the lab's BernieLofgrin, with his Coke-bottle glasses and leaking-balloon laugh.

    He didn't need to invent an emotion behind his playing. Liz'slymphoma had been in remission for one full year, and Boldt's happyhour performance that night at Bear Berenson's club The Joke's onYou had developed into an impromptu celebration of her progress, acelebration that only a cop's wife could tolerate, but one that Liz wouldactually appreciate. Morbid humor was a way of life with this group,and while Liz didn't totally fit in with the others, they were family toher, just as they were to her husband.

    While few at the table were above teasing Liz about how she'dlooked when her hair had fallen out during treatment, or about smokingpot to bring on a taste for food, no one was really talking aboutanything, either. No one discussed that his new desk job was a problemfor Boldt, that he ached for the opportunity to slap on a pair oflatex gloves and get back out into the field. Similarly no one talkedabout the fact that for Liz's doctors her long remission was both unexpectedand still unexplained. They wouldn't recommend breaking outthe champagne for another three to five years. But Liz herself wassanguine: She credited God with her healing; and Boldt kept hismouth shut on that one. He felt that he and Liz had yet to recapturetheir comfort zone, but he wasn't about to talk about that, either. Sothat night no one discussed much of anything. They joked. Theydrank. They drank some more.

    When the pagers started sounding, it seemed like something orchestratedfor a comedy sketch, except that everyone knew immediatelythat it must be serious, since one call simultaneously summonedthe lab, the medical examiner and the Homicide squad.

    LaMoia flipped his cellphone closed and said, "It's a shippingcontainer. Sinking out in the sound. People screaming inside. Stillalive. Coast Guard's towing it ashore."

    "Still alive," Liz echoed, watching as all but Daphne Matthewsheaded for the exit. Those words meant more to her than anyone at thetable.

    Liz offered a look of surprise that Daphne stayed behind.

    Daphne explained, "They don't need me."

    "Well I do," Liz replied, though retreating into silence, both confusingDaphne and making her curious.

    When club owner Bear Berenson got the jukebox going a few minuteslater, the rock music clashed with the earlier mood set by Boldt'spiano.

    "He doesn't understand it," Liz told Daphne. She meant Boldt."The prayer. He can't accept that I was healed by something outsideof that hospital."

    "His background," Daphne said, uncomfortably attempting to explainthe woman's husband to her. "If he wasn't a detective, he'd bea lab guy. You know?"

    "Yeah, I know," Liz agreed. "But it's more that that. He won'tgive it a chance. It drives him crazy."

    "He's glad you're well, however you got there."

    "He doesn't trust it. Has he talked to you about it?"

    "No," Daphne lied. She and Boldt had once been more thanfriends, just briefly. She knew well enough to protect the deeperfriendship they had now.

    "He doesn't say anything," Liz continued, "not directly, but Iknow he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not that he wants it?I'mnot saying that! Of course not! It's just that he doesn't believe in it.It's inconceivable to him that prayer, that God, can have that kind ofpower, that kind of consequence." She organized the dirty glasses onthe table for the waitress.

    "He doesn't believe it," she repeated. Liz looked toward the dooras if he were still there.

    "What if I talked to him about it?" Daphne offered.

    "It's not something that can be sold."

    "He needs to hear that from all sides," Daphne suggested.

    "He needs to hear this from within, Daphne. That's the only wayit's going to make sense, to have any resonance. Especially to him."

    Liz reached for Daphne's hand and gave it a squeeze.

    Daphne felt this woman's cold fingers held in her own warm palm,and thought how quickly things change. There had been a time whenshe would have cheered for Liz to leave her husband. Now she wascheering for Liz's survival. "You're an amazing woman," she said, asa chill whispered through her.

* * *

Boldt marveled at the emptiness of the docklands at night, the widestreets and warehouses deserted. Huge shipping cranes towered alongthe shoreline, silhouetted against dull gray clouds that reflected backthe glow of city light, reminding Boldt of his son's Construction SiteLegos kit that currently occupied the far corner of the living room.

    The August air blew both warm and heavy, laden with salt spray,forcing all who awaited the raising of the container to squint and turna shoulder toward shore. Boldt wore his hair trimmed short, whichdidn't quite fit with his otherwise professorial look?the wrinkledkhakis and favorite tweed jacket worn threadbare at the elbows andsleeves. His tight jaw and erect posture belonged to a man who meantbusiness. Few people interrupted him when he was locked in thought,eyes distant and yet strangely focused. He deservedly owned the respectof all who worked with him, due to his attention to detail anddedication to procedure that many in law enforcement preached, butfew practiced. He occasionally spoke at law enforcement seminars andconferences and at graduate criminology courses on the role of homicidevictims as witnesses. "The Victim Speaks," his talk on the subject,had been transcribed and posted on the Internet.

    Boldt grumbled to LaMoia about how long it was taking the CoastGuard to recover the container. The cries and screams continued. Patiencewas running thin.

    LaMoia had stood at Boldt's side for the last seven years, workingin his shadow, studying his every movement, then rising in rank totake not only the man's stripes but even his desk and office cubicle.LaMoia wore his jeans pressed, his shirts crisp, his hair perfect andhis cowboy boots gleaming. He was focused less on Boldt and moreon his boots?brand new boots that had cost him a month's salary.This salt spray was beginning to really piss him off. He kept rising ontiptoe to pull his boots out of the puddled water.

    "Piano sounded great tonight," LaMoia said.

    "Are you kissing my butt?" Boldt asked. "What are you after,John?"

    "I want to keep these new boots dry," LaMoia confessed.

    "So get out of here. I'll cover." As a lieutenant, Boldt was expectedto have no active field responsibilities. Technically, the casewas LaMoia's, he was lead detective, though under Boldt's direct supervision.Both men understood this. Boldt resented it. Despite histwo decades of experience he was expected in the conference room,not the street. Under a different captain, he might have been givenmore latitude, but Sheila Hill paid attention to rank and procedure. Aladder-climber and well connected in the department, Hill was notsomeone to cross. "Make it quick," Boldt said. "They're going to getthis thing up and open any minute now." LaMoia was famous withinthe department for his casual attitude and his willingness to stop andchat with any and every woman he encountered.

    "Okay, Sarge." LaMoia still referred to Boldt by his former rank.He jogged back toward his fire-engine red 1968 Camaro and the policeline established to hold back the press from where television newscrews were already shooting.

    The detective left. Briefly the field belonged to Boldt.

* * *

"Polly's broken down in traffic. She's not going to make it. We needyou."

    "Slow down, Jimmy," Stevie McNeal said into the phone.

    Jimmy Corwin was among the station's best producers, but heworked in a constant state of high anxiety. Stevie found his energyinfectious, even over the phone. He was proposing she take a livesegment for Polly. As an anchorwoman, Stevie picked her reportingwork carefully.

    "What are we looking at?" she asked.

    "We've got a shipping container found by the Coast Guard.Human cries coming from inside. Channel Seven is already on-air. Weneed you on-camera in the next ten minutes."

    "You'll post it up on the feed."

    "Sure we will."

    "I need a promise on that, Jimmy." The national feed could bringoffers from the larger market.

    "When we see the piece, we'll determine?"

    "Now! You commit now or I?"

    "Okay. Agreed."

    "And it's my follow-up, my story," Stevie negotiated.

    "It's going to mean original segments for us, not just the fiveo'clock leftovers."

    The phone crackled and the window flashed blue with the light ofan approaching thunder cell. She said, "Tell the crew I'm on my way."

* * *

The Coast Guard crew had attached inflatables to stabilize the containerwhile it was being towed to shore. Those same inflatables currentlykept the steel box afloat.

    As the cries from inside continued, swimmers climbed up andconnected the cables to all four corners. A supervisor signaled the allclear and the crane's mighty diesel growled loudly. The cable lurchedand snugged tight as the slack was removed, and a pillar of slate grayexhaust rose from the crane's rusted stack. The container's sunkenend lifted from the black water that spilled from every crack, and thecries grew sharper, splitting the air and running chills down Boldt'sspine. A cheer rang out from the workmen as the container cleared thewater altogether, suspended and dangling as the crane moved it to dryland. Boldt was not among those cheering, his nose working overtime.He pulled out his notebook and marked the time. Dead body, he wrotealongside the numbers.

    A man stepped through the police line, the officers clearing theway as he displayed his ID. Broad-shouldered, he exuded a confidencethat advertised the sports he'd played in college, while the inexpensivesuit clearly said "federal agent." Brian Coughlie introduced himselfas the INS investigator in charge. Shaking his hand was liketaking hold of a stick.

    Boldt didn't know many agents from the Immigration and NaturalizationService and said so. He added, "Glad to have your help on thisone."

    "What you're going to find in there, once they get the doors open,is anywhere from fifteen to seventy illegals. More than likely, all of theadults are Asian women in their teens and twenties: better for thesweatshops and whorehouses, which is where they all would haveended up. These container shipments have been a thorn in our sidefor over a year now. Glad to finally have one with something inside."

    "Part of that something is dead," said Boldt, who was a little putoff by Coughlie's arrogance. Boldt touched his own nose, answeringCoughlie's quizzical expression.

    "You think?" Coughlie asked. "These things arrive pretty damnripe, I'll tell you what."

    "Dead," Boldt ventured. "And that makes the others in there witnesses."

    "You already jockeying for position, Lieutenant?" Coughlie askedcalmly. "A reminder, lest you forget: These are illegal immigrants, somy boss is calling this ours. I pick 'em up and I deliver them to federaldetention. You want to visit our house and have a chat with them, wegot no problem with that. But your boss will have to clear it with myboss. Okay? Meantime, these visitors?the live ones, anyway?take atrip on federal tires, not the local variety."

    "And the dead ones?"

    "Yours to keep," Coughlie said. "That okay with you?"

    "So long as you keep them apart from your general population. Idon't want them hearing stories, getting coached."

    "We'll clean 'em up, shave 'em, and give 'em their own customchain-link cage," Coughlie agreed. "No problemo. Barracks K. Ourdetention facility is part of what used to be Fort Nolan. You know Fo-No?"

    "I know of it."

    "You golf?"

    "No," Boldt answered.

    "Too bad. They've got a great eighteen out there. Maintained courtesyof the taxpayer. You and me?we'd a been smarter to be military.Can't beat that retirement package."

    LaMoia approached at a run. Boldt made the introductions. LaMoiashook hands with Coughlie but on his face was the expression ofsomeone who'd picked up a sticky bottle of honey by mistake.

    "We've got the turf problems all worked out," Boldt said, easingLaMoia's concerns.

    "Somebody's dead," LaMoia remarked.

    "Ahead of you on that," Boldt said.

    LaMoia reached into his coat pocket and brought out a pair ofplastic gloves and a tube of Vicks VaporRub.

    Boldt accepted the tube after LaMoia had smeared a line underhis nose. He passed it to Coughlie, who did the same. Some things aperson couldn't live without.

* * *

When the container was finally opened with a bolt cutter, a hush overcamethe crowd as one by one, nine Chinese women?partially naked,bone thin and weak?were helped into waiting ambulances. Some ontheir feet, some on stretchers.

    Three women came out in body bags.

    Coughlie suggested Boldt give it a few days before attempting interviews."I seen worse, Lieutenant. But I've also seen better, too."

    "Thing about our squad," LaMoia informed Coughlie, "the victimsdon't typically get up and walk away."

    "Three of them didn't," Boldt reminded somberly.

    "Whereas in mine," Coughlie explained, "we're not in the habitof sending them home in a pine box."

* * *

Stevie McNeal arrived by Yellow Cab and was met by two of the remotecrew, one who handed her an umbrella and a wireless microphone,another who explained camera position. Stevie headed straightfor the yellow police tape that she was prohibited to cross, and crossedit anyway.

    "Hey!" a black uniformed officer with a young, boyish faceshouted from beneath his police cap, "You can't?"

    Stevie stopped and faced the man, allowing him a moment to recognizeher.

    "Oh," he said.

    She looked him in the eye, putting just enough juice behind herdetermined expression and said, "Who's in charge?"

    "LaMoia's lead," he answered obediently. "But the lieutenant'shere too." He pointed out a group of silhouettes.

    She stood facing LaMoia, Boldt and Coughlie. There weren'tenough ambulances on hand. A few of the illegals, wrapped in EMTblankets, were being offered water to drink. Between the Coast Guardand the police, there were uniformed officers everywhere.

    LaMoia said, "This is a restricted area. Press has to stay on theother side of the tape."

    "The rumors are wild back there, Sergeant. Some say serial killer,some say illegals."

    "Illegals," Coughlie answered. Stevie locked eyes with him. Hewore an INS identification.

    "We'll have a statement shortly," Boldt interjected.

    Stevie tried to determine who to play to. She asked the INS guy,"Is this yours or SPD's?"

    Coughlie answered, "Believe it or not, we're working in concerton this."

    "So who's in charge of this love-in?"

    One of the body bags was carried past them by a team working forthe King County Medical Examiner.

    "Not ready for prime time," LaMoia quipped.

    "We'll have a statement shortly," Boldt repeated.

    Stevie nodded, suddenly unable to speak.

Continues...

Excerpted from The First Victimby Ridley Pearson Copyright © 2005 by Ridley Pearson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 140130818X
• ISBN 13: 9781401308186
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448