Boldt 03 - No Witnesses Read Online Free PDF Page B

Slater Lowry to Adler’s chicken soup.
    He climbed out of the Chevy and locked it and walked toward the supermarket’s automatic doors, passing abandoned shopping carts that carried two-color ads in their kiddie baskets announcing this week’s specials. Eggplant was nearly a dime cheaper per pound than where Boldt shopped. The sixteen-ounce spaghetti sauce was a bargain. Boldt did most of the marketing and all of the laundry; he split the child care with Liz, who handled finances, some ironing, housecleaning, and their social calendar.
    He suspected this was a crime scene. Daphne had reached him on the cell phone only minutes earlier, confirming that the product-run number stamped on the lid of the Adler soup can found in Betty Lowry’s recycle crate was indeed a valid lot number and one that would have recently been on sale in the greater Seattle area. The investigation was beginning to take shape in his mind, which was a little bit like the morning rush hour on I-5: too many ideas entering all at once and not enough lanes to accommodate them. But the basic structure seemed clear enough: either the blackmailer was working from within Adler Foods, or from without. Both concepts would have to be pursued—each differently, and both quite delicately.
    More important to the moment was that the blackmailer had managed—in person or indirectly—to place a contaminated can of soup on a shelf in this store. That much was fact. Boldt traveled the aisles of this store now, first as the victim: the unknowing patron on an afternoon shop, Betty Lowry, busily hunting down provisions. And then again as the criminal: alert for security cameras, store personnel, lines of sight, and placement of product. It was not so much an investigative technique as it was a result of his dedication to the evidence. He broke out in a sweat as he threw himself fully into this identity, even going so far as to carry a can of Hormel Chili that he intended to place among the shelved cans of Adler Soup just to see how difficult it might be to do so without being seen by human or camera.
    He stalked the aisles, aware of his own rapid breathing, the sound of his synthetic soles on the vinyl flooring, the slight chill from the store’s vigorous air-conditioning that conflicted with his own perspiration. He was aware of each and every person, immediately visible or not. Patrons. Employees. Checkers. He passed the morning cereals, where dozens of faces stared out at him: sports legends, cartoon characters, the All-American Mom, dinosaurs, astronauts. He, the center of attention, the focus of their combined sales efforts. “Take me.” “Buy this one!” “Twenty-five percent more! ” Loud, despite the insipid Muzak.
    The security cameras appeared tricky if not impossible to avoid. There was a multicamera device over aisle 5 with three lenses that rotated and then stopped every ten seconds like an inverted gun turret. Each lens slightly larger than the last, and only one was recording at any one time, made apparent by a red light beneath the lens. The three combined to afford a manager or security personnel everything from a wide-angle to a close-up on the various aisles. Two more such turrets oversaw the butcher counter, meat display, the wines, and wall coolers, respectively. These units had clearly been installed with an eye toward the most expensive items, which suggested to Boldt that the soup aisle might possibly have less security. Boldt timed each of these other two camera turrets. They were also on fixed rotations, ten seconds apart, but were not synchronized in their start-and-stop times: difficult, but not impossible, for a fast hand to beat. The trick was to find that moment in the pattern when view of the soup aisle, number 4, would be lost briefly to a blind spot. After eight minutes of wandering the store—his attention split among all three, like a juggler—Boldt identified just such a moment. Eight minutes later the blind spot repeated.