The Pied Piper by Ridley Pearson

Author:Ridley Pearson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hyperion

“So the doer, soon to become the Pied Piper, decides he wants to establish a little under-the-table adoption business.” LaMoia drove the curves effortlessly and at twice the speed, like water running through a pipe. “He needs product: white babies, good solid stock.”

“You have a real poetry about you,” Boldt sniped. He studied the man’s use of gas and brake, marveling the car could ride so smoothly. LaMoia was the same with women: It came naturally to him. Boldt studied the Spitting Image invoices. The backseat contained a cardboard filing box going back two years. Stonebeck had cooperated. Boldt thumbed his way through December a year earlier, starting at the beginning as a cop always did, looking for San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland—looking for a paper trail. Shotz and Weinstein had both been found.

“He needs clients too. Maybe word of mouth. Maybe he simply runs credit checks on names he finds on adoption waiting lists, IDs the high rollers and makes a phone solicitation: You pay, you play. Must be plenty of those types waiting out there. Some of those lists run five, six, seven years deep, and then your name comes up and you get offered a five-month-old with learning disabilities. Fuckin’ A, I’d buy from this guy.”

“You probably would,” Boldt said, but it stung his former detective.

“I’m just talking hypothetically,” LaMoia complained. “I’m brainstorming here.”

Boldt said, “He gets the bright idea to hack an Internet site devoted to children’s clothing—”

“He stumbles onto Spitting Image. It’s perfect for him. Some of the orders, like Daniel Weinstein’s, include digitized photos, and suddenly he knows that he’s getting a white kid with the right looks. What a sicko.”

“He’s got a shipping name and address, almost always the residence. If he’s a good hacker, or if he has access to credit histories, he can lift credit card records—”

“Which is how he knew the Shotzes would be on that train, that Trish Weinstein would be at the supermarket—”

The pieces clicked into place for Boldt: isolating his targets; establishing a schedule or routine to time his hits. His fatigue lifted like a fog burning off. “So he has computer skills,” he said.

“They teach computers in the Big House, Sarge. Could be one of the family.”

“If we had all the invoices, I’d feel a little better,” Boldt said. “The fact that she remembered a couple of shipments to Seattle doesn’t leave me with the best feeling.”

LaMoia said, “It’s her E-mail orders we want.”

“We’ll get them,” Boldt reminded. “She’s forwarding them.”

“Thank God they were backed up.”

Boldt checked the map. “Next exit. Then east.”

“You’re sure they’re there?”

“Trish Weinstein said he called. She got the name of the motel out of him and then told him to get his butt home before he ended up in jail. She said he sounded pretty convinced.”

LaMoia said, “So now we help convince the cousins Weinstein to turn the show around.”

“And maybe some day we thank them,” Boldt replied.

“How’s that?”

“If Weinstein and cousin Daniel hadn’t headed down here to pay a call on Ms.

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