The Art of Deception

by Ridley Pearson

  Thumbing aside the curtain on the narrow window to the left of the front door, she peered out toward Bob and Blair’s place. Their downstairs lights were off, the blue glow of a television emanated from the window of the loft. She saw that Robert and Lynn were still awake next door. Lynn’s nephew, Gin, visiting from Japan was currently prowling the refrigerator. She’d been pulling the blinds extra carefully on that side of the houseboat, as Gin had a teenager’s voyeuristic tendencies. With all the sounds, she knew she wouldn’t sleep well if she didn’t take a security lap around the house. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d lapped the house. More typically, such trips were made to ensure structural integrity in the middle of a raging storm. Heading out now, on a relatively calm night with only a slight drizzle, while pushing her chest into a knot, hardly compared with challenging a forty-knot wind and sideways rain.

  She grabbed the halogen penlight from her purse, pulled the Gore-Tex jacket over her pajamas, and let herself out while throwing the night latch to ensure no one sneaked in behind her. Precautions. Any practicing forensic psychologist learned to live with them—ex-cons who blamed you for their incarceration returned to pay their respects; ex-cops who’d been tossed from the force for drug abuse or continued spousal abuse decided you were the instigation behind their removal; prosecutors and detectives arrived at all hours believing they had every right to free advice.

  Barefoot on the redwood decking, she headed counterclockwise around the corner, increasingly cautious with each turn. Her toes curled from the cold, wet wood, she tiptoed in bare feet, moving in a trained, controlled fashion, and snagged a splinter in her foot. Hopping on one foot to avoid the shooting pain, she balanced against the house and lifted her foot to the light. The thing was the size of a toothpick and sunk in pretty deep. Her focus shifted beyond her foot to the deck, where a thin film of rainwater left a silvery patina. Offset from that sheen were two muddy boot prints that led in succession from where she stood to her mudroom window. The window was beneath an overhang, dark in shadow. Suddenly it felt much colder out. There had been boot prints found at the construction site overlooking the hotel and Melissa Dunkin’s room. She envisioned a man—hands cupped to that window, peeping her. Her orbit of the house completed, her nerves tingling, she hurried around to the back door and the hidden house key. LaMoia needed to hear about this. A moment later she was locked and bolted inside, the splinter and the pain it caused a forgotten footnote.

  She wanted to tell LaMoia immediately, given that he was currently working a similar case. His tour over, he’d likely be home by now.

  She hurried through the house, pulling blinds and double-checking locks, feeling both exposed and vulnerable. She shed the raincoat but wrapped herself tightly in a thick robe, poured herself another wine, and sat down by the phone, staring at it. What to do? A pair of possible boot prints? Was that any kind of evidence? A couple of noises heard outside? As it was, she walked a delicate line in the department, part professional headshrinker, part cop. This duality, a full lieutenant who had been through the academy, yet a card-carrying Ph.D. in psychology, left most of the department thinking of her as a shrink, not a cop. An outsider. To raise a red flag over a pair of boot prints would make her look green, to say the least.

  She picked up the phone and dialed. When LaMoia’s recorded voice spoke, she nearly talked over it. “You said it, I didn’t. So leave it, and don’t sweat it . . . I’ll get back to you.” Beep.

  She spoke his name, reconsidered, and hung up.

  A minute later her phone rang. The caller-ID returned: OUT OF AREA. Her hand hesitated over the cradle, and she caught herself terrified to answer. Then her brain engaged—she would not allow anyone to do this to her.

  She answered.

  “You rang?” LaMoia, cool, calm, collected. She resented that tone of his.

  “I got your machine,” she said.

  “I screen,” he said. “Caller-ID caught your name and number. You ought to be blocked, you know?”

  She scribbled out a note to herself. “Got that right.”

  “What’s up?”

  She hesitated, his calm making her not want to sound like a schoolgirl.

  He said, “Not to be rude, but I’m not exactly on your speed dialer. It’s going on one o’clock in the morning. The late late news is rolling around in a couple minutes. The weekend coming up or not, I picture you as an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of person, beauty sleep and all that, not that you need it; and so then I get to thinking that maybe you’re checking up on me, making sure I haven’t succumbed to the great temptation, and I want you to know—”

  “I wouldn’t do that, John,” she interrupted. “Not ever. You know that. What we did—Lou and I—we did out of . . . friendship. It started and stopped in your kitchen that night. I’m not the Percodan police. Don’t think like that.”

  “What am I supposed to think? Help me out here, Doc. Why’d you call, if not to check up on me?”

  She stuttered and said, “To . . . to . . . check up on the lab work of Neal’s.”

  “At twelve-thirty?”

  “At twelve-thirty, yes.”

  A skeptical hesitation on his part. “Okay.”

  “What do we know?” she asked.

  “Nothing yet,” he suggested, clearly intrigued. “It’s a little soon, don’t you think?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to sound like a whiner. She overheard detectives mocking such women all the time, women on and off the force. She told herself that if she’d actually seen someone out there with her own eyes, if she could have supplied a description, anything at all worth investigating, then yes, she would have included him.

  He asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be lonely, would you?” Back to his old self.

  “I beg your pardon?” If she told him now, this far into their conversation, he’d either overreact or laugh out loud. She couldn’t handle either reaction right now.

  “You sound . . . I don’t know . . . a little off,” he said.

  “I’m fine.” She wanted to keep him talking, to hear his voice.

  “You sure? I could rent a video, something like that. There’s a twenty-four-hour Blockbuster over on Denny. You got any popcorn?”

  LaMoia offering friendship? Maybe she was the one on drugs. “It wasn’t a social call.”

  “We could make it one.”

  “No thanks,” she said, though surprisingly reluctantly. The offer didn’t sound bad at all. “You’re right about my hours. How about a rain check?” She felt touched that the usually selfish LaMoia could be so giving of himself. Ulterior motives? How badly did he want her at the hotel interview?

  “Whatever,” he said.

  “Thanks, John.” She felt an obligation to hang up, but at the same time, didn’t want to. She left a pregnant pause on the line.

  “So, are we done here, or you got a minute?” LaMoia tested.

  She liked the sound of his voice. “I’ve got a minute,” she said casually, trying to sound nonchalant and wondering if she’d pulled it off.

  He said, “A businesswoman, name of Oblitz. The one that filed a complaint and then tried to withdraw it, the one I left a message about.”

  “Who tries to withdraw a complaint?”

  “Yeah, I know. I tried to explain that to her. Stenolovski before me. I thought you might tell me why a woman reports a peeper and then tries to back out of it.”

  “That’s a no-brainer: She had a guest.”

  “Or she’s being extorted.”

  “Maybe, but more likely her friend pressured her to withdraw the complaint or they got there together.”

  “Yeah? Well, it’s set up for four on Monday. The W— the suspender set, the new one across from the Olympic.” He said sarcastically, “She made an opening for me in her busy schedule.”

  “Good of her.”

  “We’ll crack Hebringer and Randolf wide open with this. You and me. I can feel it. Whadda you think Hill would make of that?” Sheila Hill,
their captain, Boldt’s immediate superior, had been LaMoia’s former lover, a fact that Matthews was not supposed to be aware of. But there wasn’t much she and Boldt hid from each other. They had once been lovers themselves— something no one was supposed to know, and no one did.

  “No one would believe it.” She and LaMoia were known to tangle.

  “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

  Hearing his voice brought her a long way out of herself. She wanted to thank him for that but held her tongue.

  He asked, “You sure you’re okay? Offer of the video still stands.”

  A LaMoia she didn’t know, and frankly didn’t trust. Had he run out of women in the department to conquer? Had someone in the locker room put him up to this, challenged him to go after her, because she had steadfastly refused to date anyone on the job? (She didn’t count Boldt as a date and never would.) Nearly one in the morning, and LaMoia making like it was early evening. Night tour did that to people.

  “I’ll do the interview with you,” she agreed.

  “Well, that’s a start.”

  By the time she hung up, she had almost forgotten about the pair of boot prints.

  17 Two Peas in a Pod

  The W’s split-level lobby featured twin stairways that led around an island bearing a flower vase and up to the black lacquer reception desk where young people in black clothing and wearing wireless headsets greeted guests with white teeth and tones of way-too-cool-to-get-excited. The halogen lights were set so low that these receptionists seemed to emerge from the haze. Hip-hop pounded from speakers in the ceiling.

  LaMoia territory, to be sure. He had the appropriate sarcasm and cynicism down pat.

  “Yo, yuppie puppy,” he said to the male receptionist, flashing his badge against the request of his interviewee. “April Fools is tomorrow. This is the real thing.” He drew a blank expression from the kid with the wet-look hair and the silver stud in his left ear. The kid wanted him to think he saw such shields all the time. But clearly, he did not.

  “Hotel guest, Oblitz. She’s expecting us.”

  The black arm—40 percent cashmere—pointed. “There’s a house phone to your—”

  “Did I ask for a house phone? That headset must do something, right? Hotel guest, Oblitz.” He barely hesitated, “Now.” Crisp. His voice echoing off the stone. A few heads in the lobby lifted and turned.

  The kid moved his mouth like a beached fish.

  Matthews spoke into LaMoia’s ear. “Such bedside manner.”

  “Don’t criticize what you haven’t sampled.”

  “You really are shameless. Is the whole world a fire hydrant to you, John?”

  He flashed her a look that ended it. “A guy’s gotta make his mark.”

  From a distance, she saw the figure of a man enter the hotel, look up toward the registration desk, and then leave as quickly as he’d come. The wrong address, the wrong hotel? she wondered. Or had that been the man in the boots outside her mudroom window the night before? Had those boots even been outside her window the night before? She wore her paranoia tightly around the neck.

  “Room nine-eleven,” the rigid receptionist said in his best I-want-to-sound-older voice.

  Matthews returned to the job at hand.

  “Room nine-one-one,” LaMoia repeated. Cocking his head to Matthews, he said, “How perfect is that?”

  She said, “The word you’re looking for is ironic.”

  “Elevators to your right.” The man-child wanted them gone.

  “Chill,” LaMoia barked, keeping the kid attentive.

  Matthews explained, “First, we’d like a look at your registration log for the past three months.”

  LaMoia added, “And the corresponding billing charges.”

  Tina Oblitz had the gray power suit going, a shimmering metallic silver blouse, string of freshwater pearls, silver Tourneau, black pumps. Narrow dark eyes that preoccupied themselves with Matthews. To the left of the desk phone lay a sweet little 9mm semiautomatic clipped into a black leather holster designed to be worn in the small of the back. The holster was weathered and sweat-stained, indicating years of wear. The obligatory lap-top, mobile phone, and pocket PC sat atop the black enamel desk.

  “Plain sight,” she said, noticing LaMoia’s attention on the handgun. “I didn’t want any surprises. Permit’s in my purse, if you want to see it.”

  “Glock?”

  “Glock seventeen,” she answered.

  He’d heard of the model but never seen one. “Weight?”

  “Light as a feather. Polymer grip. Magazine holds ten. Used to be seventeen but it was heavier, of course.”

  “This is not a recent addition to your wardrobe,” he said.

  “Did I panic when this Peeping Tom showed up and then run out and buy a gun? I don’t think so, Detective. I believe in a woman’s right to defend herself. In seven years, no shots fired, but it has served its purpose a couple times. It’s never more than a few feet away from me.”

  “Lucky it,” he snapped.

  “I’m at the firing range once a week. You both know what I’m talking about.”

  “It’s sergeant, not detective. And it’s Lieutenant Matthews,” he corrected.

  “My mistake.”

  “No,” he corrected, his contempt for the executive set obvious, “your mistake was trying to cancel this harassment complaint you filed. Why the back-pedal?”

  “You want a seat?” she asked.

  “I’d like an answer,” he said. LaMoia turned to Matthews. “You want a seat?”

  Matthews shook her head, declining.

  He looked back at Oblitz. “No, we’ll stand.”

  Tina Oblitz took a corner of the small couch, withdrew a cigarette from a fancy holder that lay on the glass table, lit up, and hogged down that smoke like an addict who’d been away from it for years. Her body consumed it. When she exhaled, hardly anything came out. She looked satisfied, like a boozer after a stiff drink.

  She said, “The other detective and I . . . we discussed this.”

  “The complaint is still on file, Ms. Oblitz, and seeing as how we’ve got an active case that could use a lift, your cooperation would be appreciated.” He said, “I explained this over the phone. I believe you know that’s why we’re here.”

  “I never agreed to two of you.”

  Matthews said, “The department requires a woman officer be present in any interview or interrogation involving a female.” As she said this, as she looked at this woman, something nagged at her and then danced out of her thoughts as Oblitz spoke.

  “You’re the chaperone?” Oblitz asked sarcastically. “Hope you don’t mind my saying so, but you don’t look the part.”

  “I don’t mind,” Matthews said, unflinchingly. It took a lot to intimidate the gray-suit set. She asked, “Have we met before?”

  “Are you sure you won’t sit down?” The ember of the cigarette went nearly white with the next inhale.

  Whatever it was, it nagged at Matthews again, as elusive and annoying as a mosquito in the dark.

  LaMoia said, “We believe your attempt to withdraw the complaint may have arisen out of your being compromised,” LaMoia said, “or that an attempt was made to compromise you.”

  Oblitz wore a lot of makeup, but where her real skin showed, it turned paler. “Is that so?” she said.

  Matthews said, “Voyeurism escalates to rape. Rape can escalate to homicide. We’ve lost two women already—they went missing from downtown. How many more until you decide to cooperate?”

  “Shit.”

  LaMoia reminded, “I mentioned that over the phone . . . that we had ourselves a situation.”

  “We’re not the tabloids,” Matthews said. “Contrary to what you might believe, not every piece of information leaks from a police department.”

  LaMoia said, “It’s only the big stuff, and believe it or not, your sex life doesn’t register anywhere on that Richter scale.”

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
r />   LaMoia asked, “Do you remember anything about it? What he looked like? Where he was at the time? How he might have singled you out?”

  “No, it completely slipped my mind.”

  They both took the sarcasm as the first step toward open communication.

  “You’re married.” Matthews had noticed the showy rings, but Oblitz apparently felt obliged to display them for her anyway. “You were with a partner other than your husband.”

  “You know,” Oblitz snapped, “you’re going places, Lieutenant. Sharp as a tack, you are.”

  Matthews contained her anger well. “Mr. George Ramirez paid the hotel incidentals, including three room-service charges and an all-day adult film pass.”

  LaMoia answered her puzzled and pained expression. “You know what they say? The titles don’t show on your bill? Don’t believe it. An order number does: Sweet Valley Thigh, Ms. Oblitz. Your man-friend talked you into attempting to withdraw the complaint you filed with us. For all we know he talked you into all sorts of things, including the warm chocolate and the whipped cream—room-service order number three, at four-seventeen P.M. Your business. We could care less. But that peeper is our business and we’ll ride you, Ms. Oblitz, until we come away with whatever you can tell us about it.”

  “Two peas in a pod.” Oblitz picked up her cigarette lighter and flicked it so that the flame burned. She held it out between her and LaMoia, peering through its yellow glare. She placed the lighter back down. Somewhere in the process another cigarette lit. Smoked spiraled.

  “We’re not looking to indict you for your sexual preferences or practices,” Matthews said. “We’re here because we believe you can aid our investigation, that your experience may be directly connected to at least one of the women who’ve gone missing.” Sometimes it took voicing the words, airing her thoughts. Her spine tingled and the hair on the nape of her neck stood on end. Change the hair color, and Tina Oblitz looked a lot like Susan Hebringer. Too much like her to be coincidence, Boldt would have said.