The Art of Deception b-8

by Ridley Pearson

  “You all right?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her hair and hanging her head. She felt so weak for having reacted the way she had. “I think someone got into the apartment, John.”

  “What?”

  “I left a window open, I think.”

  His face tightened, but he managed to say, “Okay.”

  “It’s not okay. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t mean-”

  “The floor was wet,” she said, stopping him.

  “Because the window was open,” he suggested.

  “No. Out here.” She pointed. “Prints. Maybe mine, maybe not. If not, they got there while I was out with Blue, I think.”

  She felt awful, in spite of his attempts to smooth this over. “I think you should check whatever valuables you have. I haven’t touched anything and the place wasn’t tossed. Nothing like that.”

  “Not much to take,” he said. But she could see him struggling with his frustration. He made light of checking a couple drawers. His underwear was there, he said. His socks. She wanted to hug him.

  “See why you want me back at my place?”

  “Not true.” He made a point of looking into the living space.

  “Walker?”

  “Would Nathan Prair know where you live?”

  The question rattled LaMoia. “You think?”

  “Could Neal or Walker know where you live?”

  “If either of them had followed us, sure, they could.”

  “But Prair. Your and my addresses are accessible to our fellow brothers in blue. Not to the public.”

  “And what’s his motive?” LaMoia asked. “He’s looking for your laundry or something?”

  “Cute,” she said.

  “Special Ops tied Prair up for a while after he blew the surveillance. The timing’s off. I don’t see him good for this.”

  “And what about Neal?” she asked. “It makes a little more sense in some ways. He might think we have files on the case.

  Might have seen me enter alone and wanted to teach me a lesson. Never underestimate the power of guilt, John.”

  He grimaced. “My using taught me all I need to know. Still working on it, for that matter. I don’t need the one-oh-one.”

  “It gets big enough, you lash out. Neal could be there about now.”

  “Wants to put this back onto us.”

  “Something like that, yeah. I’m fishing, John.”

  “Are you a mind reader, too?” he asked. He sat her down and together they shared toast and cream cheese while LaMoia explained most of his interview with Cindy Martin. He stuck to the highlights.

  She said, “So the kids shared a hatred of the father, and when the father died there wasn’t as much to share. Mary-Ann gets her act together, probably feeling free for the first time in her life. Little brother Ferrell doesn’t fare as well. Feels abandoned.

  Mary-Ann’s been mother and sister all in one. Pretty big void to fill, if that goes away all of a sudden.”

  “And he’s chosen you to fill it.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said.

  “Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.

  They ate another piece of toast each. She took hers with honey and a second cup of tea, after which she said, “Second night in a row. I’m whipped.” He wouldn’t let her clean up. She returned a moment later with the drop gun and Taser, returning them.

  “You can keep them,” he said.

  She left them on the counter. “It was incredibly good of you to do that for me, John.”

  “I’d do anything for you, Matthews. You know that.”

  The seriousness of his statement hung between them. She knew if she simply walked away to her room it would put him in a bad place, so instead she crossed, closing to within inches of him. She took another step, and reached around him and they hugged. His body was all lean muscle. Besides the physical warmth between them, there was a current that hummed. Her chest tingled, as did her pubis. Stepping away, she turned quickly and said good night, hoping he wouldn’t see that her nipples had gone rigid beneath the T. There were too many lines that could be crossed here. She needed to get back to the houseboat, despite her having no desire to do so.

  She asked, “What about IDing the latents from that lair Lou found? What about searching every known part of the Underground there is? Walker has to be hiding down there, right?”

  “Tomorrow’s another day,” he said. “If there was anything to know, we’d know it.” He smiled, “Good night.”

  “Sweet dreams,” she answered.

  He mumbled something to himself. She was glad she didn’t hear it.

  Ten minutes later she prepared for bed by shutting the office door and slipping off the sweatpants. She climbed under the duvet, the comfort of that bed about as welcome as anything she’d ever experienced. Blue scratched at the door, and she got up to crack it open so he could come and go. A moment later she was back under the covers thinking that life’s little pleasures were also often the biggest.

  Maybe he’d bought Pollock because of the theme of alcoholism and depression-a part of his rehabilitation. Maybe just because of the performances. She wasn’t sure why this was where her mind focused on its way down toward sleep. She rolled over, slid her arm under the pillow, and she gasped, jumped away, and rolled out of bed in the process.

  “John!” she called out without thinking.

  He was there in about five steps. Shirtless, in a pair of gray athletic briefs, the legs of the underwear longer than tighty-whities. She remained on the floor, her T hiked up above her navel, her bikini-cut panties showing a lot more than she’d ever want seen. But neither of them was checking the other out, their attention was fixed instead on the guest bed. Her overreaction had tossed the pillow to the side. Lying on the bedsheet was the cause of all this.

  A key. A skeleton key. The sheet remained slightly damp where a hand had touched it.

  “What the hell?” LaMoia came closer.

  Matthews sat up, tugging the T lower, but it wouldn’t go low enough. “Looks like Walker kept his promise,” she said, her voice catching.

  “Hebringer and Randolf? You think?”

  “We’d better call Lou.”

  A Tight Leash

  “I can’t tell you absolutely it was him, no.” Matthews wore a blue fleece jacket of LaMoia’s zipped up tightly and the same pair of gray sweatpants. Her hair was back in a clip.

  “We’ve upgraded the BOL to an All Points,” Boldt said, watching Bernie Lofgrin’s SID team process LaMoia’s loft.

  LaMoia huffed at that. Boldt glared at him. “Sergeant, you have something to contribute?”

  “No, sir.”

  She’d never felt this kind of tension between the two. “Gen-tlemen,” she said, letting them both know how stupid they were being.

  LaMoia said, “Give me an ERT unit and the rest of the night, and I’ll have him in the Box by your second cup of tea, Sarge.”

  “It’s not how we play this,” she said, turning them both to face her. “He kept his end of the bargain.” She indicated the key, now labeled in a plastic evidence bag. “So we keep ours by putting Neal into a lineup.”

  “The truck driver?” LaMoia said. “You think? He’s worthless, Matthews.”

  “But we keep our end of it. If we treat him like an informant-”

  “Then we don’t lie to him,” Boldt completed for her, nodding.

  “But he’s not an informant,” LaMoia protested. “He’s a goddamned screwball with a bunch of nuts loose.”

  Matthews did not care for that evaluation and let him know with a harsh look.

  Boldt said, “We chase down this key; we set up the lineup; we keep you under close watch,” he told Matthews.

  “It’s not about me,” she said. “I’m the messenger, that’s all.

  Maybe an ear; maybe he thinks he can talk to me.”

  LaMoia snapped at her. “And maybe he thinks you’re the second coming of Mary-Ann
, and he wants to ride off into the sunset with you … or on you, for that matter.”

  “That’s uncalled for,” she said.

  “How do we know he wasn’t giving the sister a hump out on the boat after dear old dad croaked, and along comes Neal stealing all the fun?”

  “We don’t,” she answered honestly.

  “What’s with the father?” Boldt asked, effectively ignored by the pair.

  “How do we know those fishing ‘accidents’ weren’t the younger brother playing a little rough with sis?”

  “We don’t.” She felt right on the edge of yelling at him.

  “I rest my case,” LaMoia said.

  Boldt repeated, “We work the key. We run the lineup tomorrow, and we keep a tight leash on you. Anyone have a problem with that?”

  “He’ll be watching Public Safety,” she announced, “to see if we bring Neal in for the lineup. To see if I keep my end of this.

  It’s a means to an end, okay? If we bring Neal in for this lineup, and we play the surveillance right, Walker will come to us. We won’t have to go looking for him.” She added, “We chum the waters, and the fish will come to us.”

  LaMoia settled himself with a deep breath.

  “Okay with you?” Boldt asked his sergeant.

  “Whatever.”

  “Is that a yes or a no?” Boldt asked.

  LaMoia nodded and met eyes with Matthews in something of a staring contest.

  Boldt asked her, “Are you okay here, or would you like to transfer to a hotel?” His tone of voice leaned heavily on the second option.

  She raised her eyebrows, passing the question along to LaMoia, who said, “I’ll hold off on the ERT until we see if this lineup baits him. When Bernie’s guys are out of here, she’ll get some sleep. We’re cool here.”

  She exchanged glances with Boldt. His eyes were distant and cold, and she felt she’d betrayed him in some unspoken way.

  He went home to a wife and kids, but if she wanted to sleep down the hall from a fellow police officer, that was somehow out of bounds. Resentment built up behind her eyes, and she stopped herself from saying anything.

  “Okay,” Boldt said, somewhat awkwardly. “She’s staying.”

  He took the key and paused at the apartment door. “Get a fresh battery in that wire pack, and make sure you’re wearing it in the morning.”

  She nodded, feeling oddly on the edge of tears that he’d think to make sure she was constantly being looked after. “Thanks, Lou,” she called after him.

  Either Boldt didn’t hear her or didn’t choose to answer. The difference between the two kept her up most of the rest of the night.

  The Lineup

  “You look awful,” Boldt said the next day.

  “And just think,” Matthews replied, saying sarcastically, “I’ve had such a stress-free night.”

  Neal’s public defender had agreed to, and arranged for, his client’s appearance in the lineup. The man looked properly surprised to see two police lieutenants awaiting them out on the Third Avenue sidewalk. It had been Matthews’s idea to intercept attorney and client outside the front door to Public Safety, buying time for Walker-if he was out there-to register that Matthews had followed through with her promise of the lineup. It also bought Special Ops the opportunity to locate Walker during his surveillance of the building. The radio clipped to Boldt’s belt was supposed to keep them informed of any progress in this endeavor.

  Instead it was Boldt’s cell phone that rang. As he answered it, Matthews attempted both to keep them all outside and to buy Boldt some privacy by asking Neal what he knew about Mary-Ann’s relationship with her brother following the father’s drowning.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” the attorney advised his client.

  Neal told her, “The old man was a bastard to both of them.

  The kid fell apart, granted. Fucked up everything. Lost everything. But hell if it made any sense. He should’a been out partying.”

  “He leaned on Mary-Ann,” she suggested.

  “Fucker fell apart, I’m telling you.”

  “You supported her helping out her brother, or you got in the way of that?”

  The attorney repeated his caution, this time more sternly, and Neal took his advice, electing to zip it.

  Boldt ended the call, saying to Matthews, “Lab’s got that thing for me.” The way he cocked his head, she knew he meant the report on the lair in the Underground-after years of their working together she could read him this way-but he’d said it so that Neal might think he meant the report on Neal’s car, a report they already had and weren’t terribly thrilled with. He said, “I’ll walk you up, then I’ve got to handle this other thing.”

  She looked down at his waist, to that radio, and the attorney caught this. “What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s with the radio?”

  “Just staying in touch,” Boldt said.

  The attorney made a point of looking at the cell phone cradled in Boldt’s left hand, clearly sensing there was more to this.

  “Yeah? Well let’s reach out and touch someone inside, shall we?

  We’ve all got places to be.”

  The police lineup-a few detectives, a janitor, and Lanny Neal, each holding a number and looking through bright lights at a pane of one-way glass-went about as expected, with the truck driver brought in by LaMoia picking out a Special Assaults detective as the man he saw throw Mary-Ann Walker off the Aurora Bridge. That it was about two weeks later now didn’t help his memory any, nor did the fact it had been raining that night and as dark as a cow’s stomach.

  With the lineup completed, the four surveillance personnel assigned to keep watch on the immediate area for Walker maintained their positions for a few minutes longer in hopes that Neal’s reemergence onto the street might trigger “an Elvis sighting,” as one of them put it.

  Trying to reach Boldt in his office, but missing him, Matthews took twenty minutes of lost time to walk a letter of appeal addressed to Social Services the block and a half over to the King County Courthouse, in hopes that Mahoney could read it and advise her on its legality. Her request to Social Services was for that agency to approve her personally assuming a temporary guardianship of Margaret (“last name to be determined”). If suc-cessful, she hoped to shepherd the girl through the birth of the baby, attempting to eventually place her in a state-sponsored program for teen mothers. A long shot, she went through with it anyway, explaining her situation and leaving the letter with Mahoney. She was determined to help this girl, come hell or high water. News that Margaret had taken a room south of the Safe did little to make Matthews feel better-that room had to be paid for; the neighborhood was lousy; the employment opportunities for near-delivery-date pregnant teens seemed slim.

  Intervention seemed the best way to protect the mother and child.

  Returning from the courthouse, Matthews tried her best not to think about Walker out there watching for her, or the surveillance team assigned to look for him-all of this focus on her-but instead to remain focused on Margaret, and someone else’s needs.

  Eradicating Walker from her thoughts proved a little like trying to talk oneself into falling asleep. Only the idea of rescuing Margaret provided the necessary distraction.

  It surprised her to spot Boldt’s back as he entered a Seattle’s Best Coffee just north of Public Safety. She’d been under the impression he’d been down with Bernie Lofgrin looking at the prelim on the underground lair. That meeting was either over, or yet to come, and she decided to go ask which, in case she could join him for it.

  She paused, alone at the corner, waiting for the pedestrian light.

  “You … ruined … my … life.” The deep male voice came from behind her, and the sound of it nearly dropped her to her knees. She saw herself stabbed and bleeding out on the street corner, traffic passing by, oblivious.

  She thought of the lavaliere microphone she’d clipped to her bra that same morning, the fact that somewhere, someone had just listened to
her appeal to Mahoney for Margaret’s rescue.

  She tried to speak, to raise the alarm, but as he took her shoulders and spun her around, no words came out. She raised her arms defensively, expecting a blow, a wound. She saw the man’s face, recognized it even, but it wasn’t whom she’d expected, and her brain malfunctioned because of this.

  It was the guy who’d stopped to “help” her outside Safeco Field. They’d brought him in for questioning.

  “Mr. Hollie,” she sputtered. “Take your hands off me!”

  But he grabbed her wrist as she reached for her purse, and he bruised her in his grip.

  My John Lennon moment, she thought, wondering if a handgun was next, marveling at the irony that her focus for the past several days had been incorrectly on Ferrell Walker.

  “What did I ever do to you?”

  She heard the emotion in his voice, strangely on the edge of tears, and welcomed it-self-pity was easier to work with than anger-believing she had a decent chance at salvaging the situation. In the back of her brain a little voice reminded her that Boldt would by now be hearing over his radio that she was “in need of backup,” that he’d be coming out of that coffee shop any moment. Another part of her realized that she’d wanted to be rescued for years, that this was part of the attraction to LaMoia. And then the next thought that rattled through her brain at that moment was that she was in fact attracted to LaMoia, and this dumbfounded her. Her mouth went dry. Her head throbbed. She looked around for help. “This isn’t the place,” she said dryly. If she could keep him talking, if she could buy time, she might diffuse his purpose, whatever it was. The terror she felt at that moment was the culmination of all the pent-up fear associated with Walker.

  “I stopped to help you, you ungrateful bitch!” The change in tone alarmed her.

  “You’re angry.” The absolute wrong thing to say. She knew it the moment it left her lips.

  “Angry? Is that what I am? It made the evening news, the morning paper. My name! I lost my job. My neighbors dumped their trash at my door.” He stepped back, arms dangling limply at his side. “Angry?”

  She tracked his right hand as it moved slowly into the pocket of the trench coat. Then, movement to her right. Boldt, oblivious to traffic, his weapon drawn. A car braked, narrowly avoiding hitting him.