The Art of Deception b-8

by Ridley Pearson

  Of Bridges and Badges

  “Thank you for meeting me.”

  “You didn’t say anything about him being here.” Deputy Sheriff Nathan Prair pointed to LaMoia like a man ready to pick a fight. Prair lived coiled like a snake, ready to strike.

  “I’m the translator,” LaMoia explained. “You feed her the bullshit, and I’ll sort it out later.”

  “Real cute.”

  Prair’s round face and surfer-blond hair normally took ten years off his forty, but on this day fatigue painted his eyes a sickly gray. It wasn’t his workouts holding his shoulders square and high, but a steely determination not to appear intimidated in the company of a police sergeant and lieutenant bent on questioning him. He fought off that fatigue like a driver too long behind the wheel, blinking continually and overexposing his eyes so they looked, at times, wide with fear.

  The three stood outside the Nordstrom’s Rack store on Pine, an unattractive street corner only yards from a bus tunnel station entrance. Matthews had let Prair name the spot, and it intrigued her that he’d chosen this place. He was on duty, but taking a few minutes of lost time to meet with her. A warm wind ripped off Puget Sound and carried a seagull at blazing speeds overhead. LaMoia tracked it like a hunter. His eyes fell onto Prair, and the deputy stiffened.

  Against LaMoia’s wishes, Matthews handed Prair a photo-copy of the moving violation that Prair had written up on Mary-Ann Walker. She said, “We could probably give you a dozen false reasons why we’re here, Nathan. But the thing is, we’re all cops. We all know better. We could put you in the Box and talk around the edges of this and see if we couldn’t get something to spill out of you. But you’ve been through enough of that to know better. Don’t you think? I do. So I’m just going to put it to you straight: We’ve got the ticket that you wrote up for Mary-Ann Walker a week prior to her going off that bridge.

  We’re asking ourselves why in the world you would withhold that information from the investigating officer, seeing as how it could come back to bite you, as now it has.”

  Cars and trucks rumbled by. Some yahoo across the street had a blaster playing rap music at the decibel level of a jet taking off.

  “And here I was thinking you were going to thank me for getting you out of a jam yesterday.”

  “I guess I’m just lucky you showed up,” she said.

  “Life is just chock-full of happy coincidences.”

  “Like you knowing Mary-Ann,” LaMoia said.

  “Just like that,” Prair agreed. He radiated a smile. “What?

  You two think I actually had any way of knowing, standing up on that bridge, that the woman below was one of probably sixty or more violations I’d written up that week? Are you kidding me?” He addressed LaMoia, “You ever work traffic? You know what I’m talking about.”

  Three kids in clothes too big for them went by on skateboards timed perfectly to catch the pedestrian crossing light.

  “Never had the pleasure,” LaMoia said. “I came up gumming sidewalks.”

  “The night Mary-Ann was killed you took forty minutes of personal time-”

  “Killed? She was a jumper last I heard.”

  “No way,” LaMoia said. “You were on that bridge. You knew we’d found the blood trail, knew what we were thinking.

  You were there, Prair. We were all there together. Skip the theatrics. You’re ripping yourself a new one.”

  “McD’s,” he said. “I went off the clock-eleven, eleven-thirty-for a quarter-pounder and fries.” Right or wrong, she read his face as truthful.

  Whether Prair knew it or not, he’d just supplied the window of time suggested by the university’s oceanography department.

  Neal’s claim of seeing 2:22 A.M. on the clock had proved far too late to account for the physical sciences of the ocean. Mary-Ann Walker had gone off that bridge before midnight. Matthews caught LaMoia’s eye and knew he was thinking the same thing.

  LaMoia had his detective’s notebook out and in hand.

  “Which McDonald’s?”

  Prair buried his face in a large hand. “Shit.” He cleared his expression and supplied LaMoia with the address: Marginal Way at the turn for SEATAC.

  Matthews asked, “Are we going to find you had a history with Mary-Ann Walker beyond this moving violation?”

  “Excuse us a moment, would you?” Prair seized Matthews by the arm and led her out of earshot from LaMoia, who craned toward them as if hoping to hear. Seeing this, Prair moved her a little farther.

  A couple of big, hefty women came out of The Rack carrying too many bulging plastic bags-they looked like elephants with saddlebags. Both talked at once, going on about the deals they’d just made and all the money they’d saved. Matthews thought: You’ve got to spend it to save it, does anyone see the irony?

  He said, “Lieutenant, forgive me for saying so, but whatever was said in sessions with you was privileged and said in confidence, and is supposed to stay that way.”

  “You have fantasies about having sexual relations with the women you pull over, Deputy. On several occasions those fantasies have had a direct influence on your behavior. Was that the case with Mary-Ann Walker?” Is that the case with me?

  “That’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Prove it.” She was wondering if that was the case with her as well. Had Prair crimped her gas line in order to play the hero and save her? Had he hoped to win a roll in bed as her thank-you?

  “I don’t have to. There’s nothing to prove. You’re coloring your opinion based on privileged information, Lieutenant. Never mind that there’s nothing to it-it wouldn’t hold up if there was.”

  She broke his grip and stepped back. LaMoia moved in, ever the protector.

  She said to Prair, “You should have come forward when the body was identified last week.”

  “Would’a … should’a … could’a … let me ask you this: Would you have come forward if you’d been me? My history?”

  She probably wouldn’t have, but she didn’t say so.

  “That shooting colors every impression there ever is of me, never mind that it was ruled a good shooting. No one remembers that part. If I’d have come forward on Walker I’d have distracted the investigation-exactly what’s happening now-and that helps no one.”

  “Especially you,” LaMoia said.

  Matthews glanced over at the patrol car Prair was driving.

  Registration plate: KCSO-89. She’d looked down at the rooftop of that same patrol car from the parking garage across from the Shelter. There was no room for coincidence in such matters. She felt the blood drain from her face.

  “You just happened across me, broken down like that yesterday,” she said.

  “What if I did?”

  “I’m asking: Do you make a habit out of following women around in their cars?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then write it up the way it is, the way it was,” LaMoia ordered. “Do it voluntarily, do it by tonight, or we’ll pass an official request through channels that’ll have you hoisted up a flagpole by your short hairs. Every meeting with Mary-Ann-chance encounter or not-every phone call, the four-one-one on your whereabouts every waking second the night she died. If so much as one comma is out of place, this thing is going to rain down on you, Nathan. We’re going to want your time sheets for the past month, we want copies of every moving violation you issued. If there are holes in your time sheet, we’re going to want detailed explanations of every missing minute. Witnesses to your whereabouts, you name it. You carried the gold shield once-you fill in the blanks.”

  Prair’s eyes went icy. Knots formed like hard nuts at his jaw.

  “That’ll be it for me. You two know that. My record? Time sheets? Ticket carbons? Are you shitting me? That puts me square in the crosshairs.”

  “That’s where you are,” LaMoia informed the man. “Deal with it. Ten tonight, on my desk, or the shit starts raining down on you.”

  With that, the skies opened up, as if
on command, and dumped buckets. LaMoia and Matthews ran for the bus tunnel entrance. Prair headed for his patrol car. The seagull reappeared overhead, caught in the rain, barely able to fly. Matthews saw it struggling, and then it was gone, lost in the gray, along with hundreds of pedestrians scurrying for shelter from the storm.

  Buried History

  Boldt awoke to the sounds of Liz showering and the fish-eye distortion of his son’s peaceful sleeping face, nose to nose with him. He didn’t remember Miles having snuck into bed with them. For one blissful moment, he lay there staring at the little man, realizing this would likely be the best part of his day-then, like tiny sprouts ripping open the seed husk, thought began to penetrate that peace.

  He had an appointment later in the day that might supply answers about both Chen’s death and possibly-he allowed himself to believe-the disappearance of Susan Hebringer. He had at least two administrative budget meetings on the schedule that he dreaded. Liz’s minivan needed to find its way from the bank’s underground parking to a body shop on Broadway. Sarah had after-school ballet, and if Liz’s car wasn’t out of the shop by then Boldt would need to arrange pickup by five.

  “What’s your day look like?” Liz stood naked in the doorway, toweling off. She’d added back some of the weight the lymphoma had claimed, finally covering her skeleton again in delicious womanly flesh.

  “Not too bad,” he said. “Looking up at the moment.”

  “You want to lock the door a minute?” she asked.

  “Yes, I do.” Along with her weight, some appetites had returned as well. Boldt slipped out of the covers so as not to wake Miles, crossed the room, and pulled the bathroom door shut behind himself. As he brushed his teeth, she undressed him, pulling down his pajama pants and helping his feet out the same way she did with the kids. He considered teasing her about this, but didn’t want to ruin the moment. He left the sink water running to cover their sounds.

  Liz dropped the towel, pulled herself up onto the countertop, and turned to face him. “This okay with you?” she asked.

  He stepped up to her, gently eased her legs apart, and they embraced. “Do you hear me complaining?”

  Responding to his kissing, she eased her head back against the mirror. Drops of water raced down its smooth surface. Her fingers wormed into what remained of Boldt’s hair as he dropped to one knee. “Good morning,” she said in a husky, appreciative voice.

  Starting out that way, Boldt was thinking.

  Dr. Sandra Babcock could have modeled in a blue jean ad, and proved to be much younger than what Boldt had expected of a tenured professor of archaeology. Mid-thirties at best, she had a clear complexion, soft green eyes, and a slurry, southern way of speaking. She had a playful sparkle to her eyes and the distracting habit of rolling a mechanical pencil between the fingers of her right hand like a majorette with a baton.

  If her office reflected her thought patterns, then they’d get along fine. Neat and tidy, not a paper clip out of place. Two discarded yogurt containers in the trash-nonfat strawberry. He noted that she’d saved the plastic spoon, as it stood out amid a group of pens and pencils in a Weekend Edition coffee mug. But for all the organization, the pretension that accompanied the director of any university department, Dr. Sandra Babcock churned inside, as her fingernails were gnawed to the quick. He appreciated knowing that in advance. Birds of a feather, he thought.

  They killed a few minutes in social discourse. Boldt lectured regularly for the criminology courses at the U and Babcock had done her homework. They got through the do-you-knows and have-you-mets without too many overlaps. After a few tentative silences between them, Boldt saw clear to open up the conversation to the purpose of his visit.

  He said, “Day before last I interviewed a pair of EMTs. Either they lied to me, or there’s an explanation for events that I’m missing. As I explained over the phone, Dr. Babcock, I need the Cliffs Notes on this city’s Underground and, if possible, access-I need to get under that section of Third Avenue, and the city won’t let me down in.”

  “EMTs?”

  “They claimed they had not attempted resuscitation on a man who I believe died later than what they put down in their report.

  It’s not them I’m after. I just want the right answers.”

  “Where exactly on Third?”

  “Between Cherry and Columbia.”

  She glanced up to a large wall map of downtown Seattle that was nothing like what he’d ever seen-instead of city blocks, a good deal of downtown was represented as excavated walls and floor plans.

  Boldt said, “I have only a vague notion of the city’s Underground. A couple of blocks around Pioneer Square. The fire in the late 1800s, the tidal floods, and the decision to elevate the shoreline of the city. But according to these EMTs, they encountered what they believe was Underground clear up on Cherry and Third.”

  A few strands of hair broke loose from behind her ear and cascaded into her eyes. She brushed them aside. “Twenty-two city blocks were buried when they filled in the flats a hundred years ago. Retaining walls were built surrounding the old ground level, and then the streets backfilled to elevate them some twenty feet higher. It took over a decade to complete. The Underground tour accounts for only three city blocks. Plenty of other sections of the Underground still exist, most sealed off and awaiting us like time capsules. For the most part, they’re on private property, they’re dangerous, and though we’re constantly trying to gain access in order to inventory and photograph, fears of lawsuits and insurance coverage discourage cooperation. From the early 1920s on, city utilities were run along the old underground sidewalks, the perimeter area between these retaining walls and the brick walls of the old buildings down there. When I read about the sinkhole, I’d hoped the city engineers would allow us access.

  But the needs of archaeology took a backseat to getting traffic running again and the complication of much of this being private property. On the other hand, if you could get me-this department-access, you’d be doing the history books a favor. I’d be happy to tell you what you’re looking at.”

  “I was hoping this might work out the other way around.”

  “I’m afraid not. The city flat-out turned down my request.

  But a police lieutenant? Can’t you gain access, even to private property, if you want?”

  She’d clearly granted him the interview because she saw Boldt as her ticket into the Underground.

  “It doesn’t work like that.” He said this, but his mind ground through the possibilities. Dixon’s confused autopsy might provide enough unknowns to win Boldt the necessary paperwork.

  Babcock teased him into wanting this with her explanation.

  “As the city streets were filled in, to lift them above the flood levels, people moved block to block by climbing ladders, crossing the new streets still under construction, and then back down a ladder to another block. It went on this way for years.

  Eventually, the retail stores moved up to the new street level, but the old storefronts still existed.

  “They’re still down there,” she continued. “What used to be Main Street is now underground. I imagine that’s what your EMTs found themselves in: stores and shops and sidewalks that haven’t been touched for over a hundred years. You’re the one with the ruby slippers, Lieutenant.”

  Giving in to her urging, he said, “I’ll need the name of the owners.”

  “I can get that for you. No problem.”

  “It’s to be treated as a crime scene first, an archaeology dig second, if at all.”

  “I can live with that.” She extended her hand for him to shake. “I’ll leave the decision to you.”

  Boldt accepted her handshake, though somewhat reluctantly.

  He had the feeling he’d walked into a trap.

  Babcock had the callused hands of a farmer or field-worker.

  She said, “Okay, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  The Hearing

  Matthews considered the evidentiary hearin
g-a probable cause, or preliminary hearing-a formality. She’d attended only two such hearings in her decade of service, and then solely because she’d been called as a witness. When LaMoia informed her that he’d included “some of her paperwork” in his report to the prosecuting attorney’s office, and that because of this she was advised to attend the hearing, she lost her temper, admonishing him for submitting a report that was little more than “notes on a napkin.”

  She arrived at courtroom 3D like a plane coming in too fast for a landing, tires smoking and wing lights flashing.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” she said to LaMoia, where they sat three rows behind the prosecutor’s table.

  LaMoia held his finger to his lips, requesting she lower her voice. The hearing was not yet in session, but the prosecutor, a stump-faced woman named Mahoney, sat within earshot.

  He said, “We do what we do.” His only explanation.

  “I scribbled out a memo to you, John. That was not a psych evaluation.”

  “It is now.”

  “No, it isn’t. That’s just the point.”

  “We both want Neal for this, Matthews. I included the memo because it supports his frame of mind at the time of his statement, which was when he lied about the window of time. It’s that false statement that Mahoney’s hanging our case on for the time being. Let’s not forget that. The blood on the sweatshirt came back Mary-Ann Walker’s, yes. But hell if Mahoney is going to put Ferrell Walker up on the stand to tell us all where he got that sweatshirt-”

  “From behind a Dumpster in the back alley,” she said.

  “Within a few yards of the same vehicle we know ran her over.

  That works, John.”

  “But it brings Walker onto the stand for possible questioning.

  It opens up the threat on Neal’s life at Dixie’s and a personal thing between them. That’ll not only invalidate the sweatshirt but confuse the judge and leave room for reasonable doubt. We gotta trust Mahoney on this. She knows what she’s doing. She wanted the psych report.”