The Art of Deception

by Ridley Pearson

  “Where do you have in mind?” He met eyes with her. He was hitting on her, and he didn’t know why. He felt like an asshole. He didn’t have to sleep with her, he told himself. He didn’t have to fall into that pattern. Times like this he felt programmed. He thought about the pills again. They were part of the program. They helped him relax, to be himself.

  “I’ve got some pictures of Mary-Ann. That kind of thing. If they’d help?”

  “The father?” He was thinking of a trigger for Matthews to use. He was thinking of that sweater lying on the floor, and this woman along with it.

  “Might have. I’m not sure.”

  “I’ve got wheels,” he said.

  “I’m only a couple blocks,” she said.

  He nodded, knowing he shouldn’t. Some habits were hard to break.

  The wind drove the lines against the aluminum and steel down on the docks as LaMoia walked the three blocks with her. Twice he reached down into the coin pocket and touched the two capsules. He could dry-swallow them. A dozen thoughts churned inside him—images of a bloated old-man-Walker coming up with his net. The meds would slow down all thought, would kill the pain brought on by the wind.

  He knew if he took the pills he’d sleep with her. Two wrongs did make a right when meds were involved. If he wanted to sleep with a woman, he’d sleep with her—so why was Matthews at the forefront of his thoughts? An adolescent urge to prove himself independent of that thought arose inside him. If he drank enough on top of the pills, he might not remember much. Wouldn’t be the first time. He could have all the sex he wanted, he reminded himself. He wasn’t tied to anyone.

  Her place was the top floor of a former two-story saltbox. When she turned to unlock the door, at the top of a set of stairs added when the floors had been divided into apartments, LaMoia slipped the pills out of the pocket, glanced down at them in the palm of his hand, and then tossed them into the tall grass.

  He apologized to her, told her he couldn’t stay. Had to get back. He’d hurt her by accepting and then refusing. They both pretended otherwise. She said she hoped he hadn’t gotten the wrong idea. He kissed her—a good, solid kiss, one that she’d remember—and said how he wasn’t supposed to mix business with pleasure, and how he could lose his job over it. It was a lame excuse, but she allowed it to go unchallenged.

  “Talking about Ferrell,” she said, as LaMoia turned his back to leave. “He’s a fisherman, don’t forget.”

  “Meaning?” He found himself looking off the stairs, trying to see where he’d tossed the pills. He caught himself reconsidering a chance to lie down with this woman. God, how he needed it.

  “They’re patient,” she said. “They fish three, four, five days and may not catch a thing and then go right back out there and try again. He’s been doing that all his life. You’ve never met a guy as patient as a commercial fisherman. They’re used to waiting for what they want.”

  “What’s Walker want?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Other than having Mary-Ann back? I don’t know.”

  Not good news for Daphne Matthews. He and she had expected it, but hearing it out of this woman’s mouth made it all the more real for him. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “Could have helped more,” she said, trying one last time. “You’ve got someone, don’t you?”

  Did he have? He thought she might be trying to salvage her own pride, so he said, “Yeah.”

  “You have that look,” she said.

  That comment worried him the whole way home.

  41 Hatred of the Father

  Matthews came awake to the sound of the door’s dead bolts turning. She’d fallen asleep for a few minutes on LaMoia’s king bed, the wide-screen TV halfway through Pollock, a movie she’d been stunned to find in LaMoia’s DVD collection. To rent it was one thing. To own it?

  She hit the wrong button on the remote, sending the volume higher instead of turning off the TV. At least she was sitting up by the time LaMoia appeared in the doorway.

  “You didn’t happen to walk Rehab?” he asked.

  “How’d it go?” she asked. LaMoia shook his head, discouraged. She wanted to explain herself—her being found on his bed—felt she needed to explain, even though he’d invited her to treat the place as her own. “I thought a movie might help with sleep.” She stood up, tugged at her T-shirt self-consciously. Crossed her arms because she wasn’t wearing a bra and felt awkward about it. “And yes . . . to Blue. The walk.”

  “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 fo
r 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.”

  42 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. “ Gentlemen,” 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.

  43 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.