Deceived

by James Scott Bell

“I can’t do that,” Moss said. “I have no probable cause. Your statement alone doesn’t provide that. And I’m afraid if that’s all you’ve got, we can’t move forward.”

  Mac grabbed his head.

  “Let’s call it,” Sanchez said. “We need to get — ”

  “Get me bailed out,” Mac said.

  Silence.

  Mac looked at Sanchez. “Well?”

  “This is a homicide,” Moss said. “A particularly bad one. There’s no guarantee bail will be granted.”

  “She’s right,” Sanchez said. “So let’s concentrate on the hearing.”

  “This is insane!” Mac said.

  A knock at the door. Moss went to the door, opened it. Mac heard somebody say something. The detective turned back to Mac and Sanchez and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Mac looked at his lawyer, who shrugged. “What’s that all about?”

  Sanchez said, “We’re being taped. Now is the time, if there ever was a time, for you to really and truly not say anything.”

  “I thought it was going all right,” Mac said. “I think I’m getting through to her.”

  “My friend, it is never good to talk to cops. All they want to do is hang you, and they will make the rope from your words.”

  Mac said, “I know all that, but I’m not playing a game.”

  “They’re not playing, either.”

  “I’ve got to tell the truth, that’s it. And not just because I’m innocent, which I am. I don’t even know if you believe me, but I am. No, because I made a covenant with God to play it straight, and I’m just gonna trust him on that.”

  “God made lawyers, too, my friend.”

  “Are you so sure about that?”

  For a brief moment, they smiled.

  Then Moss came back through the door of the interview room. She said nothing at first. She slowly sat down. She looked at Mac, then Sanchez, then Mac again.

  Finally she said, “I want you to listen very carefully. I am not going to seek a filing yet.”

  “You’re going to cut me loose?” Mac said.

  “No, not loose. You are, as the department likes to tell the public, a person of interest. You are not out of the woods.”

  “What about my violation?”

  “I am not reporting a violation. You’re going back on the street, and you and your PO can work out your differences together. But I am not satisfied that my questions have been answered, so I’m advising you to stay available and keep in good graces with Mr. Slezak.”

  “He’s not going to be happy about this,” Mac said.

  “That’s not my concern,” Moss said. “He brings violations to me, and I assess the evidence. Some new evidence has come to light. I want to follow it up before I make a decision about you.”

  “What new evidence?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Moss said. “But I think you’re going to find out.”

  Mac had no idea what she meant by that. But he did have a strange feeling that the detective was cutting him a break. Not one she normally would have. Because he’d been straight with her.

  “Okay,” Mac said to his lawyer. “Let’s go.”

  Tito Sanchez looked utterly relieved. He picked up his briefcase and hurried toward the door.

  Mac paused and said to Moss, “Thank you.”

  “Good luck,” she said.

  Outside the station door, Sanchez asked Mac where he’d like to be dropped off. Mac was about to tell him when he saw Rocky leaning on the hood of her car, arms folded.

  “I don’t think I’ll need a ride after all,” Mac said to the lawyer.

  Sanchez shook his hand and headed for his car. Mac headed for Rocky.

  “Need a lift?” she said.

  “You got me out?”

  She smiled.

  “How?” Mac said.

  “Liz lied to the detective about Arty’s phone. I found it in the canyon.”

  “You were there?”

  “I did a little sniffing around,” Rocky said.

  “How did you know it was Arty’s?”

  “I had someone examine it.”

  “Who?”

  “You don’t know him. He’s a colonics and computer expert.”

  “Huh?”

  “Haven’t you heard? It’s the latest thing. A real specialty. Anyway, he got the data. I called you but didn’t get an answer, so I called your pastor. Imagine my surprise when he told me where you were. So I came down and gave the stuff to the detective. And now, here you are. My question is how you got here.”

  “Slezak. My PO. He found the wallet of a dead man in my house. The guy who helped Liz the day Arty died, a guy named Gillespie. He’s apparently been murdered and his wallet showed up in my place right after Liz visited. Slezak found it.”

  “Liz put it there,” Rocky said.

  “Maybe. It could be Slezak put it there, but I wonder about that. He could have trumped something up before if he wanted to. But it’s that Gillespie connection that points to Liz. Slezak wouldn’t have any motive to kill him. But Liz might. Now what was it?”

  “We have to figure that out,” Rocky said.

  “We?”

  “That’s right,” Rocky said. “You and me. Two heads and all that. Like the song says, ‘Two heads are better than one.’ ”

  “I, uh, don’t know that song.”

  “Well you’re going to. Because we probably don’t have that much time. Now listen, you know about that other body they found in Pack Canyon?”

  “Right. A biker or something.”

  “What if there’s a connection?”

  “Between Arty and the biker?”

  “Or between Liz and the biker.”

  “But the body was already there.”

  “Maybe there was something the biker had that Liz and Arty found.”

  Mac rubbed his chin. “And then what? Arty died over it?”

  “Who knows?” Rocky said.

  “That’s a pretty wild theory.”

  “My job isn’t to judge how wild a theory is. I’ve seen some pretty crazy scams tried against insurance companies.”

  “Liz said she’s heading up north to see family. In Oregon.”

  “I didn’t know she had family in Oregon,” Rocky said.

  “I don’t think she does,” Mac said. “It’s another lie. She could be heading anywhere.”

  “Then we have to figure out where anywhere might be.”

  “You have any ideas?”

  “Oh yeah,” Rocky said. “Hop in.”

  1:15 p.m.

  The pawnbroker was a heavyset man with thinning black hair. He sat behind an old-fashioned cage. Plexiglas has apparently not made its debut in this town, Liz thought. So behind the times.

  She felt right at home in the shop. It had the feel of what she’d grown up with, charged with crosscurrents of legality and illegality. Not like in California, where the pawn industry was regulated heavily.

  Here, business was a little looser. A little more Wild West.

  Just what she needed.

  The fat man was sitting on a stool, eating a sandwich. He had glasses perched on top of his forehead.

  No one else was in this store. Shelves and wall mounts held everything from musical instruments to laptop computers to coats and VCRs. Televisions, cameras, and living room furniture. A glass case held watches, rings, and other jewelry.

  “How we doing today?” the man said.

  “Nice little shop you got here,” Liz said

  “I call it home. I live up above, which makes me very much a down-home business. That’s why people come to me. Do a good exchange, but I don’t recall seeing you in here before.”

  Liz went to the cage and fingered one of the bars, as if she were in jail.

  “I’m just passing through,” Liz said. “And I mean passing through. I will never come back to this town again, on purpose at least.”

  “Tourist? We don’t get many of those.”

  “Not a tourist,” Liz
said. “I’m making a straight line back home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Florida,” Liz said.

  “Ah. God’s waiting room.” And the man laughed. His stomach jiggled under his wrinkled white shirt. A spot of mustard sat on the precipice of his ample belly. It bounced like a little yellow ball.

  He put his sandwich down on a napkin on the counter and stood, not without effort. The stool under him squeaked with relief when his girth was fully removed. He brushed his hands, put his glasses down on his nose and said, “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to exchange something.”

  “Well, that’s what I do. Let’s see the merchandise and I’ll value it for you.”

  “May I count on your discretion?” Liz used the code that pawnbrokers have heard in various languages and settings for nearly three thousand years. Mama had told her all about the history, about it going back to ancient China. Not as old as prostitution, Mama used to say, but it makes a good run for second place.

  Liz watched the fat man’s eyes.

  “You not only can count on it,” the fat man said, “you can wrap it up for Christmas and stick it under the tree.”

  “Because I would hate to have anything hinder what could be a very beneficial relationship between us.”

  “I am reading you. And now I’m asking you, are you a cop? Or maybe a federal?”

  Liz shook her head.

  “Because,” the fat man said, “you don’t survive in this business if you take a dim view of the law. I have been audited and investigated and looked upon, and I could name this place Smells Like a Rose. And I just don’t want to take any chances.”

  “You really don’t think I’m the law, do you?”

  His eyes lingered on her for a moment. Then he cracked a smile, “No, I guess I don’t. But that leaves you as someone who has been doing things you probably ought not to have done.”

  “Do you want to see what I’ve got or not? Do you want to do business or eat a sandwich?”

  “You can always show, and then you can do.”

  “Then take a look at this.” She handed him the diamond. One of the smaller ones from the sack. He took it in his sausage-like hands and raised his eyebrows. He rolled it around, feeling it. He lingered over it. He squinted, adjusted the lens, and looked at it some more. Then he put the diamond down on the counter and removed the eyepiece.

  “I know I should not ask where you came by this stone,” he said. “But sound business practice compels me to ask at least one question. Is this a hot rock? It will help me to put a proper value on it.”

  “We both know it’s hot.”

  “I am prepared to offer you four hundred for this.”

  “And we both know that’s a rip-off.”

  He smiled. “You know the business?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you know the expression Take it or leave it?”

  “Do you know the expression Untraceable handgun?”

  He smiled. “Where were you forty years ago when I got married?”

  “Yes or no?”

  “You may hold the merchandise,” he said and handed her the diamond. He came out from behind his cage and went to the front door. He flipped the sign around so “Closed” was showing outside. Then he bolted the door and went back to his spot behind the bars.

  “If you’ll wait here,” he said, “I think I may have something that will meet your need.”

  He went through a curtained door behind him.

  Liz waited, chewing her bottom lip.

  Do you really want to do this?

  Yes.

  Stop now.

  “Shut up,” she said aloud.

  The fat pawnbroker reappeared, holding a handgun in his open left palm.

  “This here is a .45 caliber, Spanish made,” he said. “On the streets of Detroit or LA, they’d call it a pocket rocket. Serial number’s obliterated. You think you can handle that?”

  He handed her the pistol through the cage.

  It felt heavy, but good heavy, in her hand.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think I can handle that.”

  “Got a kick to it.”

  “I’ve handled guns before.”

  “Then you’re going to need something to go inside it. It doesn’t do much good without ammo.”

  “You have any?”

  “I might.”

  She waited for him to move. He didn’t. He raised his eyebrows instead. “You have more where this came from,” he said, tapping the diamond.

  “And?”

  “One more will do. After that, I ask no questions and tell no lies. Except to the authorities.”

  She had no time to haggle. “Done,” she said. She had one more little diamond in her pocket, a ring. She took it out and passed it to him.

  He waddled back through the curtain.

  Liz looked at the gun. Semiauto. She had handled guns in the shop. All sorts of them.

  He came back with a red-and-black box. He passed it to her. As he did, he reached under the counter and came up with a shotgun.

  “My security system,” he said. “Just in case.”

  “It’s almost like you don’t trust me,” Liz said.

  “You could be my own daughter, if I had a daughter. And so I don’t trust you at all. But I will say it’s been a real pleasure doing business with you. My name’s Casper, in case you ever have something you’d like to move along.”

  “There is one more thing you can do,” Liz said.

  “Name it.”

  “I need a little referral,” Liz said.

  1:24 p.m.

  Mac’s hands had the jail shakes. What you get when you’ve been in, just got out, and are doing something that might get you back in again.

  He and Rocky were at the back of Arty’s house, the locked back door. Though the terrain made them virtually invisible to prying eyes, Mac couldn’t control the popping nerves.

  Rocky had her bag with her, the one she said carried her implements of the trade. Which, he knew, were for advanced professional snooping.

  “You’re figuring you can break in?” Mac said.

  “Not break. I’ve picked harder locks than this.”

  “What I mean is that we don’t have a right to enter.”

  “And who is going to protest? Liz?”

  “It’s still breaking and entering.”

  “I’m Arty’s sister.”

  “Arty’s dead. The house belongs to Liz. I don’t like the risk.”

  “Can I remind you that you’re the prime suspect in a murder?”

  “Work fast.”

  Rocky took a pick out of her bag. Mac was not entirely unfamiliar with the task. In prison he’d had a cell mate for a couple of months who was a safe cracker. His father had been a legendary lock picker in the forties, and Junior was trying to keep the family business going. He did pretty well until he ran into a sophisticated alarm system that sent him packing at state expense.

  Junior gave Mac a short course in all things pick — wardeds, tumblers, mortises. Mac had never put any of it to use, but watching Rocky, he had no doubt she’d learned well. The door was open in about thirty seconds.

  Mac followed her in.

  She reached into her bag and came out with a box of rubber gloves. “Put these on.”

  “You think of everything.”

  “Compliments later. Now let’s think about this. The only thing I know about Liz is that she was from the south, Alabama or Mississippi.”

  “Mississippi,” Mac said.

  “When I first met Liz, her last name was Summerville. I don’t know if that was fake or not, but look around for papers that might have that name on it. I’m going to see if I can crack the computer.”

  “Right, chief,” Mac said. “Can I call you chief?”

  “Start looking.” She headed toward the small study where Arty had his computer.

  Mac put the rubber gloves on and made for the bedroom.

  It
looked like a room rushed out of. Clothes were tossed on the bed. The chest of drawers had various items, including a small teddy bear, scattered on top. The closet doors were open

  He pulled out the top drawer of the bureau, revealing underwear of various colors. He gave a quick look for something else in the drawer. Found nothing.

  This went for the rest of the drawers, which had brassieres, a couple of sweaters, nylons, nighties, and a few other items. No papers. No smoking gun.

  He went to the closet. Arty’s clothes on the right side, Liz’s on the left. Shoes down below. On the shelf, more clothes and some baseball hats. Two LA Dodgers caps, a Cardinals cap, and two or three others without any logo.

  An open shoebox on the shelf held shoe polish and a buffing rag.

  That was not going to do them much good.

  Mac started to feel the static of desperation. This was needle-in-the-haystack time. He began to repeat Please, please, please in his head.

  Please for everything. For now, for tomorrow, for Aurora and justice, and to stop Liz wherever she is. Stop her from doing something crazy, and bring her to her knees.

  Please, please, please.

  2:15 p.m.

  The cycle shop Casper told her about was at the far end of town. Liz lingered over a line of Yamahas just outside the store’s plate-glass window. Waiting. Let them come to me. That’s how you played these things.

  The way she learned to play back in Jackson. Liz had done the outlaw thing, when she was running with some of the bands in the underground music scene.

  Temptation Beaters, London Radio, Square Root of Yes.

  Then with the guys at the motorcycle shop.

  If you wanted to know how to get something on the down-low, Sonny’s Cycles was the place to go.

  By that time, Liz had learned that the way to get something from a guy, any guy, was to give him a little something in return. Which she did, always in control.

  All that served her well. She held the lure, the baited hook that would get her what she wanted from the males of the species.

  The first one out of the shop was a kid with a shaved head. Looked like a student in a high-school play about street cred. His skinny, tattooed arms hung out of his T-shirt sleeves like rope.

  He said, “You in the market for a fine bike?”

  “I might be,” she said. “But I came to see Chris. He around?”

  The kid looked through the window. “Yeah. He’s with somebody. I’ll tell him you’re out here.”