The Art of Deception b-8

by Ridley Pearson

  Matthews thought the story was getting away from him. The little pauses. The rapid eye movement. She excused herself and left the conference room, returning a few minutes later with autopsy photographs of two different women.

  She wasn’t hoping to win a confession, to cause some Perry Mason moment in which Langford Neal hung his head, weeping, and detailed the events of that night. She did, however, intend to run Neal through a litmus test. If she came away with anything, she hoped to at least identify his lies and to make sense of his motivations for telling them. Making a legal case was not her responsibility. All that she wanted was the truth. Until the attorneys were invited in-Neal had yet to request one-she could basically say anything she wanted, could match him lie for lie. She knew how to use her looks against guys like Neal.

  Just before reentering the conference room, she tucked in her blouse and squared her shoulders, emphasizing her chest. Let him look all he wanted to. Let him be distracted.

  She placed the photos in front of Neal. LaMoia knew they’d made the handoff-Neal now belonged to her. She said, “We had a similar fatality last year. Also a young, attractive woman.

  We’re investigating possible connections.”

  “The connections being bridges and water,” Neal said.

  “And/or the men these women dated.”

  “You’re looking at me for some head case that jumped off a bridge a year ago?”

  “No, we’re looking at you for Mary-Ann Walker, Mr. Neal.”

  She made a stage show of looking over at LaMoia. “Who said anything about Mary-Ann jumping?”

  “Not me,” LaMoia answered.

  “Nor did I,” Matthews said.

  “Try the papers, the television,” Neal protested.

  Matthews said, “Mary-Ann Walker did not jump, Mr. Neal.”

  “But you just said-”

  “She was beaten badly, possibly raped, and subsequently was discovered in water wearing a torn thong underwear and a cotton camisole top-just exactly as you’ve now described for us. How she arrived into that water remains under investigation.”

  Neal lost the shit-eating grin.

  “You’re clearly a smart man,” she lied. “A man who understands women. You don’t have to tell me that some women get themselves into difficult spots. Make promises and change their minds. Get a little too drunk and ask for it and then beg off the sex with the old headache excuse. They cocktease a guy and then refuse to put out.”

  LaMoia did a double take on Matthews.

  Neal looked uncertain.

  “Right?” Matthews said.

  “Yeah, sure. I’d buy that.”

  “And sometimes a guy’s got to tune her up a little, let her know who’s boss. Sober her up. There’s a way this works and there’s a way this doesn’t work, and it doesn’t work when she’s in some drunken, willing mood one minute, and then an ice maiden the next.”

  Neal saw the trap then. “I … ah … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “We’ve got a half dozen prior complaints against you, Lanny.

  All of them are for taking a heavy hand with your girlfriends.

  You logged a thirty-day stint at county. You put a girl named Eileen Rimbauer in the emergency room with a broken collarbone. Are you aware that Mary-Ann Walker had five such emergency room visits in the last six months? Did she happen to tell you about those? Her brother knows, I’ll tell you that. She claimed to have fallen down the stairs of the boat, said her hand got caught in a winch.” She read all this as if it were printed on the page, which it was not. “Pretty lame excuses, you ask me.

  She also had some woman problems that make a lot more sense if some guy is playing it a little kinky and rough. So what you need to look at, Mr. Neal, is not the door, not my chest, not the detective, as you have been, but what happened that night. You need to look at the underlying circumstances that started whatever argument resulted between you, the conditions that escalated that particular argument into violence. We’re cops, yes.

  But believe it or not we’re human. We’ve heard it all-there’s nothing you can tell us that will surprise us. This being your third strike, with the battered-woman law in effect you’re facing a serious uphill battle, if convicted. You want half a chance?

  Convince us that you and Mary-Ann had a disagreement that night, that things got a little out of hand. A disagreement takes two people, Mr. Neal. That’s a whole lot better than some guy pounding on his woman for no reason whatsoever. Can we start there?”

  “She was out on the fire escape. Talking on the phone maybe.

  I’m not sure about that. Smoking a cigarette, ’cause otherwise no way would she have been out there. I’m telling you, she did not like heights.”

  “Not to get away from you?”

  “We had sex is all. Maybe I was rough. I don’t remember. I was pretty loaded that night. But I’ll tell you one thing: You never heard Mary-Ann complaining about the sex, believe me.

  She liked it rough. She asked for it rough. That night, out there on the fire escape, that’s the last I seen of her.”

  “Two twenty-two A.M.,” Matthews repeated.

  “The woman hardly slept.”

  “You understand that where there are mitigating circumstances in a case-an argument, for instance-the investigating officer is required to take them into consideration. These things come out in trial no matter what. There’s no sense for a detective to push for capital murder if there’s a domestic case where the girlfriend was complicit-say, acting like a drunken slut one minute and going for a carving knife the next. You need to think about that, because a guy beats up a woman, the sides get drawn long before the jury sits down for the first time. Believe it.”

  Neal wore shock in his eyes, which Matthews took as a small victory. “Am I getting through, Lanny?” she asked rhetorically.

  “She was all fucked up in the head. All bent out of shape over her asshole baby brother. Said she’d let him down, losing the fishing boat and everything. That she owed him big time.

  But shit, he was just working her. Mooching. Crying in his beer.

  I wanted her taking care of things around home. For us to get something going. But I’m telling you, she was all fucked up.”

  “Okay.” Matthews took a deep breath and savored the surprise that he’d begun to open up.

  “She’d been drinking a lot that night, got herself all dumb and loopy. We had the sex, you know, just like I said. Her on top, all angry like. Fast and furious and, I don’t know, mean-spirited, you know? Like she didn’t want to be doing it.”

  Matthews didn’t like the next images that filled her head-sweating through the camisole, sticky hair, the slapping of flesh.

  “Sometimes it was like that with her,” Neal said, quieter for the first time. “A little strange like that. Like she wasn’t really there, you know? Tripping out. The more I seen of her like that, the weirder it was, to tell the truth. She’d get herself off. It wasn’t about me. It was like I wasn’t there.”

  Matthews attempted to wipe those images from her mind, but they wouldn’t fade. She spoke over them. “Was there anything that night in particular that the two of you argued about?

  Anything said that maybe’d come up the other times you’d seen her like this?”

  “I’m telling you, she got the most pissed off when I brought up Ferrell, and how it was bugging me the way he never left her alone. Jesus, the guy was always showing up at the weirdest times. Sniveling about money and how she’d fucked everything up. And she didn’t like me talking about him. Bitching about him. She’d pretty much taken care of him since their old man bit it. Her mom-I don’t know nothing about her mom. Whether she bolted or croaked, or what. She could be dead, too, for all I know.”

  “So you argued about the brother,” Matthews said.

  “That night? Not that I remember. I’m telling you: We got back to my place and she went all horny on me. She’s
half undressed and going down on me practically before I got the tube on.”

  “According to you, she was out on your fire escape in her panties and a camisole top. Maybe a sweatshirt; you don’t know.

  Can’t remember. I’m assuming barefoot. And now, fast-forward, she’s in the water.” Matthews paused. “There are problems with your story, Mr. Neal. Are you aware of that? We started out with you and Mary-Ann pretty much in the same miserable condition. You watching your sports broadcast while she services you. Now you say she was oversexed and practically raping you.

  We started out with her getting up in the morning and heading out for coffee. But we know for a fact she ended up in the water the night before. How’d she get there?”

  “How’d she get to the water?” Neal asked, as if he was suddenly on their side. “I’m telling you, I saw her out on the fire escape. Heard her talking on the phone.”

  He appeared less confident now. If there was a part of his story to exploit, it was Mary-Ann out on the fire escape. Matthews tried again. “How about this? Maybe she’s still drunk out there on the fire escape. Maybe you’ve got the time wrong.

  Maybe she’s drunk, tired, a little shaky still from the sex, and she smokes a cigarette and goes a little dizzy and goes right off that fire escape.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m with you,” LaMoia said.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Neal objected.

  “She’s trying to help you out here,” LaMoia said.

  “She goes off the fire escape and she isn’t getting up, and you, Mr. Neal, realize with your history this is not going to look right. Not good at all. Your half-naked girlfriend, carrying your sperm, at the bottom of your fire escape? How you gonna explain that one?”

  LaMoia said, “But the condition of the body-that fits: going off the fire escape. That’s good thinking, Lieutenant.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Neal repeated.

  “But to a jury? What you’ve got to ask yourself is how it’ll look to a jury. ’Cause I’ve got to tell you-it’s pretty damn convincing to me.”

  “To me too,” LaMoia chimed in.

  Neal wore a full face of sweat now, his eyes jumping between his two interrogators.

  Matthews leaned into the suspect where he could smell her, where he couldn’t avoid her. “But sadly for you, the truth always plays better. You know what I think? I think you hit Mary-Ann.

  I think you got angry with her and you struck her, and things went badly for you. You thought she was passed out like the other times, but she never got up. Sometime that night, or the next morning, you discovered she was dead. You’d killed her.

  And now what? Maybe for whatever reasons, it turned you on.

  Maybe you’re like that. Maybe you did things to her after she was dead.” She lowered her voice. This was her ground now.

  “There’s nothing quite like that anger of yours, is there? It gets away from you, that kind of anger. It turns back on you, doesn’t it? Bites back. Then comes the moment you don’t understand.

  You’re riding a rocket while your little sweetheart’s gone all limp. You’re all over her with your stuff, because that’s how the arguments always end-right? — the two of you in the sack, clawing at each other and starting out all ugly before the sex starts to heal things. Only this time it doesn’t heal, does it? This time she isn’t coming awake.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” he asked, his eyes dilated.

  “I’m your way out of this mess. We are-the sergeant and I. You want out of this, don’t you, Lanny?”

  LaMoia dragged his palms across his pants. The jangle was in the air like the smell before a thunderstorm.

  She said, “I want you thinking about the lab tests. When that nasty bruising occurred. When she broke those bones-before or after she died. What? You didn’t think we knew that yet?

  Seventeen broken bones, Lanny. What? You thought we’d think her hitting the water did that? And speaking of water, what about when the water went into her lungs? Before or after death?

  You’ve got to consider the jury and how this could turn out for you, because this meeting, right here, right now, this is a good chance for you to help yourself. We don’t deal in stories. We process the facts and let them tell the story. And that’s the story the jury believes. The one and only story. The more you bend it around, the worse your chances of cutting a deal with us.”

  Matthews stood up and made a point of smoothing the wrinkles in her shirt, as if she’d picked up some of his filth by sitting a little too closely. Lanny Neal remained fairly composed, maintaining an air of self-importance that he wore on his face along with the good looks he didn’t deserve.

  Interrogations were as much about timing as the questions asked. She and LaMoia exchanged looks and LaMoia cut Neal loose, asking that he “stay close to home.” No travel outside the city without notifying the police.

  “Impressive,” LaMoia said after Neal was gone, “if a little unorthodox.”

  “What’d you think of him?” Matthews asked.

  “Mixed review,” LaMoia said.

  She felt disappointment seep through her. She wanted so badly for this to be over, to wrap it up and put Mary-Ann Walker to rest. But her review was mixed as well-Neal seemed something of a contradiction. “We wait for the lab results. Both SID’s and Dixon’s. Maybe that’ll clear it up for us.”

  Wishful thinking, and they both knew it.

  A Drowning Is a Drowning, a Fall, a Fall

  The signature combination of antibacterials and preservatives never failed to remind Boldt of death, images of bruised and bloated corpses indelibly stamped in his consciousness from the 134 autopsies he had attended. He never lost count.

  This was a place where the soles of feet bore identification codes in black marker, where nakedness reigned and was never attractive. Floor-to-ceiling stainless-steel refrigerated drawers with sliding trays capable of supporting four hundred pounds and six-foot-two frames. He hoped beyond measure that it was a place Susan Hebringer would never visit. But he had his doubts.

  Although state law required investigators to attend autopsies of any death of questionable or suspicious causes, it was not any such requirement that brought Boldt here. That requirement had already been fulfilled by Detective Chas Milner. Instead, it was because it was here, at the ME’s, that the dead whispered their last words through their translator, Doc Dixon. He of the large head, wide eyes, and soft smile.

  Boldt said, “I hear things got a little western earlier.”

  “We all handle grief differently. That kid is wound pretty tight.”

  “Daphne’s not convinced she should have let him go.”

  “She cooled him off. I think he’ll be all right.”

  “It’s the other guy I’m worried about,” Boldt said, “this Langford Neal.”

  Dixon nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  None of this was Dixie’s problem. Boldt and Dixon discussed a re-release of a Chet Baker compilation on CD, Boldt describing the man’s singing voice as “cream and honey.” Dixon leaned toward Baker’s horn playing, being a trumpet fan himself.

  “Since when are you into vocalists?” Dixon asked.

  “Liz is trying to convert me to opera.”

  “Sounds like she’s trying to cure your insomnia.”

  “Same thing.”

  The cadaver in question was that of Mama Lu’s “cousin,”

  Billy Chen. Dixon double-checked the address, swung open the square stainless-steel refrigerator door, and slid out the tray containing Chen on silent rollers.

  “Let me ask you this,” Dixon said. “Since when do you show interest in what went down in the books as an accidental drowning?”

  “It’s a favor to a friend.”

  Dixon answered by lowering his head and giving Boldt a look over the top of his reading glasses.

  Boldt explained, hoping Dixon would see the connection.

  “This guy was found within a block of where Hebringer was last seen.
”

  “There was a water main break.”

  “Caused by what?” Boldt asked.

  “In other words, you’re letting Hebringer get to you.”

  “Is that from Liz or Matthews?”

  “I can understand how a disappearance is harder than a homicide. The lack of closure.”

  “Two disappearances.”

  “Even harder.”

  “Susan Hebringer’s husband calls Liz about every other day.

  She’s stopped telling me about it, but I know it’s continuing.

  Their daughter and Sarah are in the same ballet class.”

  “You’re a lieutenant. What the hell are you doing in the field?”

  Boldt answered, “The captain cut me some slack. She smelled a task force coming and wanted to avoid that. She untied my leash on this one. So what?”

  “It should be your sergeant’s case, not yours.”

  “You’ve never taken an autopsy away from one of your assistants?” Boldt asked. That seemed to sting Dixon, but Boldt wasn’t sorry. He enjoyed the freedom of the past weeks and didn’t want it ending just yet. An exception had been made for him and he wasn’t about to challenge it.

  “ ‘You lose perspective, you lose focus.’ Isn’t that a Boldtism?”

  “There are no Boldtisms,” Boldt said. “There are two missing women and an experienced street worker who drowned in a couple feet of water. Add to that an area of unexplored Underground.”

  “That part of town?”

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  “So that makes things more interesting.”

  “Sure does. But tell me Chen was an accident, and I’m out of here.”

  “I wish I could.” Dixon unzipped the body bag to the neck.

  Chen’s face was the color of an athletic sock that gets washed with the wrong load of laundry, a faint purplish yellow. His lips were circled in a brown blue.

  Boldt’s chest tightened. Oddly, he needed complications, he needed unexplainables, he needed Billy Chen to point him somewhere. And yet he didn’t want it. If Susan Hebringer walked into Sarah’s ballet class tomorrow, Billy Chen went back into cold storage. Boldt was feeding off the dead, using Chen’s death as a possible stepping-stone, and the thought of this repulsed him.