No Witnesses

by Ridley Pearson

Genres: Suspense; General Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

Seattle police detective Lou Boldt and police psychologist Daphne Matthews return in No Witnesses to confront the most challenging case of their careers.

People are dying throughout Seattle - victims of a madman who is placing poisoned food in neighborhood supermarkets. But the criminal is intelligent: he writes the police chilling extortion letters - faxed directly from a laptop computer over public telephone lines - and retrieves his ransom electronically, through automatic teller machines in hundreds of locations around the city. And while he is a murderer, his crimes take place miles and often days away from his innocent victims' demise. How can you stop a criminal when there is no crime scene to study - and no witnesses?

Daphne knows that no killings take place in a vacuum: there must be psychological motivations that she should be able to determine if she digs deep enough. And Boldt knows that despite the seemingly impossible task, there must be some forensic trail that he can follow - even if it is only through the netherworld of computer networks. The two of them work their own ways, with their own agendas, to track a killer - only to find a truth darker than they ever imagined. No Witnesses is Pearson's most accomplished and complex crime novel - a book that brings the police thriller into fascinating new territory.

Release date: June 1, 2001

Publisher: Hachette Books

Print pages: 512

Sample

And now for the good part.

This was where Lou Boldt threw out all convention, where the textbooks took a backseat to experience, and where he found out who in the lecture hall was listening and who was asleep.

He raised his voice. Boldt was a big man and his words bellowed clear back to the make-out seats without the need of the mike clipped to his tie. “Everything I’ve told you in the past few weeks concerning evidence, investigative procedure, chain of custody, and chain of command is worthless.” A few heads snapped up—more than he had expected. “Worthless unless you learn to read the crime scene, to know the victim, to listen to and trust your own instincts. To feel with your heart as much as think with your head. To find a balance between the two. If it was all in the head, then we would not need detectives; the lab technicians could do it all. Conversely, if it was all in the heart—if we could simply empathize with the suspect and say, ‘Yup, you did it’—then who would need the lab nerds?” A few of the studious types busily flipped pages. Boldt informed them, “You won’t find any of this in your textbooks. That’s just the point. All the textbooks in the world are not going to clear a case—only the investigator can. Evidence and information is nothing without a human being to analyze, organize, and interpret it. That’s you. That’s me. There comes a time when all the information must be set aside; there comes a time when passion and instinct take over. It’s the stuff that can’t be taught; but it can be learned. Heart and mind—one’s worthless without the other.” He paused here, wondering if these peach-fuzz students could see beyond the forty-four-year-old, slightly paunchy homicide cop in the wrinkled khakis and the tattered sport coat that hid a pacifier in its side pocket.

At the same time, he listened to his own words reverberating through the lecture hall, wondering how much he dare tell them. Did he tell them about the nightmares, the divorces, the ulcers and the politics? The hours? The salary? The penetrating numbness with which the veterans approached a crime scene?

Light flooded an aisle as a door at the rear of the hall swung open and a lanky kid wearing oversize jeans and a rugby shirt hurried toward the podium, casting a stretched shadow. Reaching Boldt, he passed the sergeant a pink telephone memo. A sea of students looking on, Boldt unfolded and read it.

Volunteer Park, after class. I’ll wait fifteen minutes.

—D. M.

Volunteer Park? he wondered, his curiosity raised. Why not the offices? Daphne Matthews was anything but dramatic. As the department’s forensic psychologist, she was cool, controlled, studied, patient. Articulate, strong, intelligent. But not dramatic—not like this. The curious faces remained fixed on him. “A love letter,” he said, winning a few laughs. But not many: Cops weren’t expected to be funny—something else they would have to learn.

Volunteer Park is perched well above Seattle’s downtown cluster of towering high-rises and the gray-green curve of Elliott Bay that sweeps out into the island-riddled estuary of Puget Sound. A large reservoir, acting as a reflecting pond, is terraced below the parking lot and lookout that fronts the museum, a building under reconstruction for months on its way to housing the city’s Asian Collection. Boldt parked his aging department-issued four-door Chevy three spaces away from the red Prelude that Daphne Matthews maintained showroom clean. She was not to be found in her car.

The water tower’s stone facade rose several stories to his left. Well-kept beds of flowering shrubs and perennials surrounded its footing, like gems in a setting. The grass was a phenomenal emerald green—unique, he thought, to Seattle and Portland. Maybe Ireland, too; he had never been. Summer was just taking hold. Every living thing seemed poised for change. The sky was a patch quilt of azure blue and cotton white, the clouds moving in swiftly from the west, low and fast. A visitor might think rain, but a local knew better. Not tonight. Cold maybe, if it cleared.

He spotted an unfamiliar male face behind the iron grate of one of the tower’s upper viewing windows and waited a minute for this person and his companion to descend and leave the structure. Once they were gone, he chose the stairway to his right, ascending a narrow chimney of steep steps wedged between the brick rotunda to his right and the riveted steel hull of the water tank to his left. The painted tank and the tower that surrounded it were enormous, perhaps forty or fifty feet high and half again as wide. With each step, Boldt’s heart pounded heavier. He was not in the best shape; or maybe it was because she had elected to step outside the system, and that could not help but intrigue him; or maybe it was personal and had nothing whatsoever to do with the shop. He and Daphne had been close once—too close for what was allowed of a married man. They still were close, but mention of that one night together never passed their lips. A month earlier she had surprised him by telling him about a new relationship. After Bill Gates, Owen Adler was the reigning bachelor prize of the Northwest, having gone from espresso cart to the fastest-growing beverage and food business in the western region. He leased his own plane, owned a multimillion-dollar estate overlooking Shilshole Marina, and now, quite possibly, owned the heart and affections of Daphne Matthews. Had her note been worded any other way, had she not chosen such an isolated location, Boldt would have been convinced that her request was nothing more than some lover butterflies.

In another two hours, Volunteer Park would be a drug and sex bazaar. Despite its view, the tower was not a place frequented by the pin-striped set. She had clearly chosen it carefully. Daphne was not given to acts of spontaneity. She desired a clandestine meeting—and he had to wonder why.

He reached the open-air lookout at the top of the tower. It had a cement floor and evenly spaced viewing windows crosshatched with heavy-gauge steel to prevent flyers from testing their wings, or projectiles from landing on passersby.

Daphne held her arms crossed tightly, accentuating an anxiety uncommon in her. Her brown hair spilled over her face hiding her eyes, and when she cleared it, he saw fear where there was usually the spark of excitement. Her square-shouldered, assertive posture collapsed in sagging defeat.

She wore the same blue slacks and cotton sweater he had seen her wearing at work. She had not been to her houseboat yet. “What is it?” he asked, worried by this look of hers.

Her chin cast a shadow hiding the scar on her neck. She did not answer immediately. “It’s a potential black hole,” she explained—a difficult if not impossible case to solve, and with political overtones. And then he understood: She had bypassed the proper procedures to give him a chance to sidestep this investigation before he formally inherited it at the cop shop. Why she would have a black hole in the first place confused him. The department’s psychologist did not lead investigations; she kept cops from swallowing barrels, and profiled the loonies that kept Boldt and the others chasing body bags. She assisted in interrogations. She could take any side of any discussion and make a convincing argument out of it. She was the best listener he knew.

She handed him a fax—the first of what appeared to be several that she removed from a briefcase.

SOUP IS MOTHER’S CHOICE.NOT ALWAYS.

She told him, “That was the first threat he received.”

“Adler,” Boldt said, filling in the blank.

She nodded, her hair trailing her movements. Daphne Matthews had grace, even when frightened. “It’s an ad slogan they use.”

“Innocuous enough,” he said.

She handed him the next saying, “Yes, but not for long.”

SUICIDE OR MURDER. TAKE YOUR PICK.NO COPS. NO PRESS. NO TRICKS,OR YOU WILL CARRY WITH YOUTHE LIVES OF THE INNOCENT.

“It could be nothing,” Boldt said, though his voice belied this.

“That’s exactly what he said,” she replied angrily, lumping them together.

Boldt did not want to be lumped in with Owen Adler. “I’ll give you one thing: When you say black hole, you mean black hole.” Faxed threats? he thought. In the top left of the page of thermal paper, he read a date and time in tiny typeface. To the right: “Page 1 of 1.” Good luck tracing this, he thought.

She handed him a third. He did not want it.

“Quite a collection,” he said. Boldt’s nerves unraveled from time to time, and when it happened, he defaulted to stupid one-liners that seldom won a laugh.

IF ADLER FOODS IS OUT OFBUSINESS WITHIN 30 DAYS, AND ALL OF THEMONEY IS GONE, AND YOU ARE DEAD ANDBURIED, THERE WILL BE NO SENSELESS KILLING.THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

“How many days has it been?” It was the first question that popped into his head, though it was answered by the date in the corner. He counted the weeks in his head. The thirty days had expired.

“You see the way he worded it?” Looking down at her feet, she spoke softly, dreamy and terrified. Her lover was the target of these threats, and despite her training, she clearly was not prepared for how to handle it. “The more common threat would be: ‘If Adler Foods is not out of business within thirty days …’ You see the difference?”

Her bailiwick, not his, he felt tempted to remind her. “Is that significant?” He played along because she had FRAGILE written all over her.

“To me it’s significant. So is the attempt in each fax to place the blame firmly with Owen: It’s his decision; his choice.” When she looked up at him, he saw that she held back tears.

“Daffy—” he offered, stepping closer.

“Owen and I are not going to see each other—socially—for a while. Me being police and all.” She wanted it to sound casual, but failed. “We have to take him seriously now.”

Boldt felt a chill. “Do we?”

She handed him another.

I AM WAITING. I SUGGEST YOU DO NOT.YOU WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITH YOUR CHOICE.OTHERS WILL NOT BE SO LUCKY.

“It’s the first time he’s mentioned himself,” Boldt noted.

She handed him the last of the group. “That one was sent four days ago. This one arrived this morning.”

YOUR INDECISION IS COSTLY. IT CAN, AND WILL, GET MUCH WORSE THAN THIS.

Below this on the fax was a copy of a newspaper article.

“Today’s paper,” she explained.

The headline read: INFECTIONS BAFFLE DOCTORS—Two Children Hospitalized.

He read the short article quickly.

“The girl is improving. The boy is not,” she told him. “‘It can, and will, get much worse than this,’” she quoted.

He looked up. “This is his offer of proof? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“He means to be taken seriously.”

“I don’t get it,” he complained, frustrated. “Why didn’t you bring this in sooner?”

“Owen didn’t want to believe it.” She took back the faxes possessively. Her hand trembled. “The second one warns against involving us.”

She meant cops. She meant that the reason for them meeting here, and not in the fifth-floor offices, was that she still was not sure how to handle this.

“An Adler employee,” Boldt said. “Past or present, an employee is the most likely.”

“Owen has Fowler working on it.”

She meant Kenny Fowler, formerly of Major Crimes, now Adler’s chief of security. Boldt liked Kenny Fowler, and said so. Better yet, he was good police—or had been at one time. She nodded and toyed with a silver ring fashioned into a porpoise that she wore on her right hand.

“I misjudged him,” she said so quietly that Boldt leaned in to hear as she repeated herself. Daphne was not one to mumble.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure,” she lied.

A black hole. Absorbing energy. Admitting no light—pure darkness. He realized that he had already accepted it, and he wanted to blame her for knowing him so well.

“Talk to me,” he said, nervous and irritated.

“You’re right about it being an employee. That’s the highest percentage bet. But typically it involves extortion, not suicide demands. Howard Taplin, Owen’s counsel, wants it handled internally, where there’s no chance of press leakage, no police involvement, nothing to violate the demands.” This sounded a little too much like the party line, and it bothered him. It was not like her to voice the opinions of others as her own, and he had to wonder what kind of man Howard Taplin was that he seemed to carry so much influence with her. “That’s why I have to be so careful in dealing with you. Taplin wants Fowler to handle this internally. Owen overruled this morning. He suggested this meeting—opening a dialogue. But it was not an easy decision.”

“We can’t be sure this newspaper story is his doing,” Boldt told her. “He may have just seized upon a convenient headline.”

“Maybe.” She clearly believed otherwise, and Boldt trusted Daphne’s instincts. Heart and mind; he was reminded of his lecture.

“What’s Fowler doing about it?” Boldt asked.

“He doesn’t know about this meeting. Not yet. He, like Taplin, advised against involving us. He’s looking to identify a disgruntled employee—but he’s been on it a month now. He’s had a few suspects, but none of them has panned out. His loyalty is to the company. Howard Taplin writes his paychecks, not Owen—if you follow me.”

Boldt’s irritation surfaced. “If this news story is his doing, I’d say we’re a little late.”

“I’m to blame. Owen asked me for my professional opinion. I classified the threats as low-risk. I thought whoever it was was blowing smoke. Proper use of the language. The faxes are sent by portable computer from pay phones. Fowler traced the last two to pay phones on Pill Hill. That’s a decent enough neighborhood. What that tells us is that in all probability we’re dealing with an educated, affluent, white male between the ages of twenty-five and forty. The demands seemed so unrealistic that I assumed this person was venting some anger—nothing more. Owen went along with that. He put Kenny on it and tried to forget it. I screwed this up, Lou.” She crossed her arms tightly again and her breasts rode high in the cradle. Again she quoted, “‘It can, and will, get much worse than this.’”

Her voice echoed slightly in the cavernous enclosure, circling inside his thoughts like horses on a carousel.

A black hole. His now.

“You want me to look into it, I’ll look into it,” he offered reluctantly.

“Unofficially.”

“You know I can’t do that, Daffy.”

“Please.”

“I’m not a rent-a-cop. Neither are you. We’re fifth-floor. You know the way it works.”

“Please!”

“I can’t do that for very long,” he qualified.

“Thank you.”

“If either of these kids dies, Daffy—” He left it dangling there, like one of the many broken cobwebs suspended from the cement ceiling.

“I know.” She avoided his gaze.

“You’ll share everything with me. No stonewalling.”

“Agreed.”

“Well … maybe not everything,” he corrected.

It won a genuine smile from her, and he was glad for that—though it deserted her as quickly as it had come. His frantic footfalls on the formed stairs sounded like the beating of bats’ wings as he descended at a run.

The newspaper article had listed one of the hospitals. For Lou Boldt, the victim was where every investigation began.

Boldt stood at the foot of the bed in the Harborview Medical Clinic’s ICU ward. Slater Lowry lay unconscious, the repository of a half-dozen tubes, the source for the weakened signals charted on a variety of green video monitors. KIRO’s morning news had picked up the story of a “mysterious infection.” There had been no mention of Owen Adler or the threatening faxes.

The boy was a towhead with a short, turned-up nose and monkey ears he would hopefully grow into. The hospital gown fit him awkwardly, riding up tightly against his neck; Boldt glanced toward the door, then to the large viewing window, and found himself alone with the boy. He reached out and tugged the white seam to a moonlike crescent at the boy’s collarbone. Better now. Despite the child’s beauty, he did not sleep peacefully. His was a tormented unconsciousness. This room was too bright, too clinical for a child: more an operating theater with a bed in it. Too many machines, too much tile and stainless steel—a place to die rather than to recover. No window to the outside, nothing human about it whatsoever. It had been created to be sterile, and had greatly succeeded.

“Hold on,” Boldt whispered encouragingly, willing him stronger, unable to fight off the thought that this might be his own son just as easily. That this condition had been inflicted on him by a complete stranger so repulsed Boldt that he, too, felt briefly nauseated and sought a chair where there was none to be found.

Miles. His two-year-old. All the clichés held true: the sun rose and set on the boy; the light of his life. And what if? What then? How does a parent stand idly by at a hospital bedside and watch a child shrink from this earth? Who deserves that? A sickening energy invaded him. He shuddered and pulled at the gauze mask that suffocated him.

There was no consideration of ducking this one, black hole or not. It qualified as “crimes against persons,” and as such, was to be handled by Homicide. It was his; he owned it. He wanted this case now—eager, like a boxer climbing into the ring.

Pressed into the wall, concentrating on the boy—the victim—a greenish haze clouded the room. Boldt had heard all the stories of cops who could place themselves into the head of the killer. Not him: He was no mind reader, but an observer. An evidence hound. His strength was not so much intuition as an uncanny ability to listen to the victim. Empathy. In this regard, he had what the others did not.

But for the moment he was stumped. The victim typically brought along a crime scene, a foundation of physical evidence from which Boldt built a case. Slater Lowry offered him nothing. Or did he? the detective wondered, stepping closer to the bed again. True, the crime scene was now well separated from the victim. But there was, in fact, an intended weapon: this bacteria or virus. Boldt called down to the basement of this same building and after a long hold connected with Dr. Ronald Dixon—“Dixie”—pathologist and chief medical examiner for all of King County. A man recruited by San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York at twice the salary, twice the vacation; a man who stayed at half the salary and half the vacation and ten times the friends. Boldt asked Dixie to join him, and without any questions Dixie agreed. There was, quite possibly, a crime scene somewhere. Somehow the food eaten by Slater Lowry had been contaminated, intentional or not.

Waiting, Boldt fell victim to his own active imagination. He pictured a man’s hands injecting a piece of fruit with a syringe; he saw a fast-food chef worker squeezing several drops of fluid onto a roll. He saw a cannery, a thousand cans an hour whirling down roller chutes and a single square inch of a stainless steel cutter somewhere in the maze holding a green fuzzy mold that the swing-shift cleaners had failed to notice. It was this last thought that caught him. What if Adler Foods was responsible? What if these faxes were merely a ruse to cover up a massive blunder, a contaminated product—their own product? What if Daphne had been used—manipulated. What if she were the real victim?

Suspicion. He lived with it, always casting as wide a net as possible, encompassing every possibility, distasteful or not. He worked systematically, methodically following up each thought, each suspicion. He processed, considered, weighed, tested, and then compared with whatever evidence was available.

“It’s a strain of cholera.” It was Dixie’s voice. He was reading the boy’s chart. A youthful face for a fifty-year-old. Somewhat oriental eyes. Dixie was a big man like Boldt. Thinning brown hair juxtaposed by bushy eyebrows. He wore a gold wedding ring and a black rubber watch. Wide shoulders that hunched forward from years of leaning over a stainless steel slab.

“I’ve gotten a couple of calls about this,” he informed Boldt. They had worked maybe two hundred crime scenes together. “The girl, Lori Chin, is much improved. She’s going to pull through.”

“Who’s on this?”

“State Health investigates infectious diseases. CDC, if it’s a real bastard.”

“It’s a real bastard,” Boldt said, staring at the boy. “It’s unofficial.”

“No, it’s cholera. Cholera is quite official.”

“How did he get it?” Boldt asked.

Dixie referenced the boy’s chart. “They have names, you know? Numbers really: the strains. They can be followed that way—tracked.” Boldt felt his eye twitch. Dixie continued: “It’s a particularly virulent strain, this one, whatever it is. Normally, cholera responds to rehydration. Antibiotics can speed the recovery but this strain is resistant to the usual antibiotics. Theoretically,” he said, sounding suddenly detached, “antibiotics are not necessary for recovery. This boy is dying from shock, Lou. His dehydration progressed too far, and when rehydrated he showed a temporary recovery and then went into severe shock that has resulted in organ failure. Acute tubular necrosis of the kidneys, which will result in renal failure and fluid overload. And something called ARDS—adult respiratory distress syndrome, which can occur in children—also the result of rehydration shock. ARDS causes pulmonary failure.”

“He’s going to pull through,” Boldt stated emphatically.

Dixie shifted uneasily, returning the chart to a plastic file holder on the wall. “No,” Dixie corrected. “He’s not going to pull out of this, Lou.”

Boldt heard the words, but would not allow them to register. His eyes flashed darkly at his friend. “How’d he get it?” Boldt repeated, teeth clenched.

“Listen, there are bacterial outbreaks like this all the time. Maybe not cholera, but plenty just the same. You don’t hear about most of them, only the sensational ones. Typically, it doesn’t take State Health very long to identify the source: a restaurant, a fish stand. It goes down pretty quickly. But this one’s a bastard. An uncommon strain of an uncommon bacteria. They’re unlikely to track down the source before IDing the strain.”

“What if I knew the source?” Boldt asked. “What if I think I knew the source?” Boldt modified.

Dixie bore down on him intensely. “Then we’ve got to move on this, Lou.”

“I’ll need some techs. I’ll need a cover—something to fool the neighbors.”

“I can help with that.” Dixie pointed urgently to the door. He said, “After you.”

Boldt glanced back at Slater Lowry. The nausea had grown into a knot.

Less than ninety minutes later, at 11:30 A.M., a RID-ALL Pest Control van turned left past a pair of green recycling bins into the driveway of 1821 Cascadia. Dixie had arranged it; State Health used the van for low-profile inquiries exactly like this.

Boldt parked his Chevy on the street. He wore a RID-ALL windbreaker and carried a brushed aluminum clipboard clasped in his big fist. The neighbors were certain to have heard of Slater Lowry’s illness. This small effort to disguise police involvement—an involvement that remained unofficial and went strictly against the blackmailer’s demands—seemed well worth the short delay it had caused. Inside the van four State Health field technicians, outfitted in what amounted to environmental space suits, awaited a go-ahead from Boldt.

He introduced himself to a strikingly handsome woman and displayed his police identification. Pointing to the logo silk-screened onto the jacket he explained, “Just a precaution against curious neighbors.”

“A precaution against what?” she asked, immediately suspicious.

“If you have a minute?”

She apologized and showed him inside.

She gave her name as Betty, closing the door behind him. Germanic ancestry, in her late thirties, she had boyish blond hair, bright blue eyes, and wore fashion jeans and a T-shirt bearing Van Gogh’s Irises. She had small, high breasts, square shoulders, and a straight spine. A brave intensity flashed in her eyes. She wasn’t one to be pushed around, he noted. She showed him into a baby boomer’s living room: hardwood floor, cream canvas couches, a brick fireplace, surround-sound speakers.

She offered him tea and he accepted. He wanted her comfortable. He wanted her calm.

A few minutes later she returned with the tea and explained, “A man from the State Health Department called me late yesterday. He asked a lot of questions. Which restaurants we frequented, markets. That sort of thing. I can understand State Health. But what’s the interest of the police?”

“The van in the drive,” he said, “it’s State Health.”

“But you are not,” she fired back. She looked up as she poured. “You visited Slater this morning.” He nodded. “I keep track. I don’t want the press bothering him.”

“I have a two-year-old,” he said, though it sounded stupid once he heard it.

“Why?” she asked sternly. “Why the visit? What are you doing here?”

“It’s unofficial, my interest—” he explained. This wasn’t easy for him. He wanted to break it to her gently, but she was all business. Her boy was critical. A cop was sitting on her couch. How would Liz have reacted? Her jaw muscles tightened and the teapot danced slightly under her direction. He was relieved to see this. The exterior was hard, but the inside was human.

“What department are you with, Sergeant?”

There it was, he thought. She’d gone and done it. He could dodge it—answer a question with a question—he knew the tricks. Most of them. But he owed her.

“Homicide.” It came out more like a confession.

She blinked furiously, placed the tea down, and excused herself. After several excruciating minutes she returned with reddened eyes. “Okay, what’s going on?” she asked heatedly. Angry. Her eyes a hard blue ice.

“We don’t know.”

“Bullshit! He’s my boy. You tell me, damn it! You tell me everything.” She hesitated. “Homicide?” she asked.

“We investigate all crimes against persons. That may—only may—be what we have here.”

She crossed her arms tightly. “Meaning?”

“We can’t confirm any of this.”

“Any of what?” she fumed.

He explained it in general terms: A company had received threats; those threats included a reference to Slater’s illness; there may or may not be a connection; State Health field technicians were on call in the van outside hoping for her permission to look for any such connection.

“It’s entirely up to you, but I’ll tell you honestly: We need your cooperation and we need your candor. We don’t want anyone else joining Slater in the hospital.”

“May I call my husband?”

“You may call your husband. You may throw me out.” She rose and headed toward the kitchen door. He hurried, “Or you can give me a go-ahead.”

It stopped her. She looked exhausted all of a sudden. “You don’t want me to call him.”

“I want to control this, to keep it controlled. If he’s upset, if he has to leave the office, he’ll say something. You see? That’s out of my control. That worries me.”

“What’s his name?” she asked. “Your boy?” She moved back toward the couch. She was distant. Dazed.

“Miles,” he answered. “I love jazz. My wife and I like jazz.”

“Yes,” she said. “They’re wonderful, aren’t they? Children.” She looked up and they met eyes. Hers were pooled. “It’s a beautiful name: Miles.”

The search was its own kind of terror. The van disgorged the four technicians—two women and two men—wearing green jumpsuits, Plexiglass goggles, and elbow-length orange rubber gloves with a space-age silver material covering the palms and fingers to protect against sharpies. They wore high rubber boots. Paper filters covered their mouths. Technomonsters.

Lou Boldt and Betty Lowry looked on as these aliens methodically searched and stripped the kitchen from the deep freeze to the dustpan. The contents of every food cabinet, the pantry, and the home’s two refrigerators were removed, examined, sorted, inventoried, or returned. The occasional item was confiscated to a thick, glassine bag that was then sealed, labeled, and placed inside a bright red plastic bag that read Contaminated Waste in a winding chain of bold, black lettering. The crew’s leader kept a careful inventory. At a future date the great state of Washington would replace or return these items. What Betty Lowry was to do in the interim was not discussed. A narrow bottle of horseradish. A can of chocolate syrup. Two yogurts long past their sale date.

Every toilet bowl in the house was wiped down with paper tissues bearing stenciled numbers. Each was bagged separately.

Betty Lowry cradled herself in tightly crossed arms as she watched the desecration of her home. The crew worked silently and efficiently, the effect disarming. Boldt experienced her sense of violation and wondered which side he was on. The technicians spoke to each other using a clipped, highly specialized verbiage that further isolated them.

The last kitchen item to be bagged and labeled was the electric can opener. As they moved outside to work the trash, they left behind a kitchen stripped of its character. The teapot was gone from the stove. The entire disposal unit had been rem