Howard Taplin took the stand for the third time in as many days. He had turned state’s witness, and the convictions were piling up in a case that drew both Court TV and CNN updates. The succession of trials was nearly as exhausting as the investigation for the lead detective. It was in that horrible time of year for Boldt—between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the sky was gray, the air cold, and there was canned Christmas music playing from fuzzy speakers on every street.
Kenny Fowler went down in flames, receiving three thirty-year sentences to be served consecutively. Amazingly to Boldt, Cornelia Uli was acquitted after the prosecution proved without a shadow of a doubt that she had served as Fowler’s accomplice, had opened the phony bank account, and had made over twelve thousand dollars in withdrawals. Television reporters called it a sympathy vote, for Uli had been arrested seven years earlier by Fowler during a gang raid and had been forced to serve as his sexual partner ever since. The jury apparently bought the defense’s position that she had been brainwashed. LaMoia had summed it up as far as Boldt was concerned: “That’s the law for you. Go figure.”
Boldt still owed his wife that champagne dinner, but he had not forgotten, despite what she thought. He was in fact saving up to make it dinner in Rome, though that required another few months of happy hour at the Big Joke. Miles was in the terrible twos, and this, Boldt thought, was the only redeeming value of the endless series of trials.
He sneaked out of the courtroom the minute he was handed the note by the guard, and he knew what to expect despite its vagueness. Reporters’ eyes followed him. These days, where Boldt went, the press followed. He was sick and tired of it. He wanted his life back. But they could not follow him down into County Detention where he was headed; the guards stopped them.
He walked and walked, down into the bowels of a system that failed at every turn. This was but one more example. He felt his gun at the first station, and he flinched when the bars shut behind him, because he always flinched when he heard that sound. His shoes squeaked on the clean cement floor, though he avoided the center drain.
The guard was making excuses, but Boldt hardly heard them. He had argued; he had warned. He had heard the words of Dr. Richard Clements as he had seen him off at the airport: “You keep your eye on him. He’s one determined fellow.”
This was no place for Caulfield. He had been inside before, and the five years he had served for a trumped-up drug charge had helped to buy him a life sentence rather than death row. That was when Boldt had pressed for a suicide watch and had lost. The arguments had centered around transporting him back and forth for the trial, overcrowding, and expense.
They stopped in front of the cell. He hoped the guard was finished making excuses, but the man added, “I guess if you’re crazy, you’re just crazy.”
Harry Caulfield had vomited, much as his victims had vomited. He was lying in the bed, his head cocked to one side, eyes shut. Perhaps it had been a peaceful death.
“You suppose he complained about the rats just so we’d put out the poison? I mean what kind of idiot would do such a thing? What the hell are we going to say?”
“That he got what he wanted.” The morning paper open on the floor meant nothing to the guard. But Boldt saw it was open to the business pages. He knew the article: ADLER FOODS FILES CHAPTER ELEVEN. Besieged by lawsuits, Adler had folded his shop, though according to Daphne he vowed to return. Adler was not one to stay down long.
“Crazy bastard,” the guard said.
Boldt turned and headed back for the entrance, passing cell after cell of human beings behind bars. They stood with their hands on the bars, staring out at him, envying his freedom to leave this place.
As he passed the front desk, the guard held out Boldt’s weapon. He stopped, stared at it. The man wiggled it. It grew heavy for him.
Boldt accepted it. Snapped it into the holster.
He flinched as the cell door closed loudly behind him.