The Art of Deception b-8

by Ridley Pearson

  “I’m disappointed in you, Daphne.”

  “I need your help, Ferrell. I want your help.”

  “Believe me, you don’t want to disappoint me. Life’s little lessons come so hard sometimes.” Like something his mother might have said to him.

  “No.” It was all she managed to say.

  “You lied to me … about helping each other.”

  “No. We can work this out, Ferrell. It’s not what you think.

  Let’s get together and discuss it.” She racked her mind for some carrot to hold out as an offering to him. “There’s a possible witness to Mary-Ann’s murder.” She let that sit there a moment.

  “A truck driver passing over the bridge at the time. We may be able to put Neal in a lineup. Let’s talk about that-you and I.”

  She continued to search every crack and cranny for sign of him.

  She didn’t believe he had a cell phone-to her knowledge he’d never used one in calling her-so where was the land line he was using? She heard the unmistakable sound of spitting steam, and she immediately spun in a circle. Through a window of a coffee shop on the next corner of the same block, she spotted a figure on a pay phone.

  “Hello,” he said. He’d seen her turn around.

  She lost her breath for a moment. “Hello,” she answered.

  One-handed, she worked her purse open, and her fingers frantically searched its contents for her wallet, wanting the thirty-five cents necessary to operate the pay phone. If she could call through to LaMoia, if she could allow him to overhear this conversation, he might make the connection and send a surveillance unit. She hoped in the next few minutes to trick Walker into sitting down with her to discuss Hebringer and Randolf. If suc-cessful, she wanted backup.

  She said, “My colleagues don’t think you could possibly have information about the two missing women.”

  “They’re wrong,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  She allowed that change in tone to get to her, and again reminded herself not to yield to him. She said, “You need to know that we’re still determined to build a case against Neal that will stick.”

  “Just because he lied about the time doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”

  “I understand that,” she said, “but our legal case was fashioned around that lie, and we lost ground in the hearing because of that. We haven’t given up, believe me.” In fact, she didn’t think anyone had done anything on the Mary-Ann Walker case since the probable cause hearing-although the lab work continued. “The forensics will be convincing. It takes awhile.”

  “You’re bullshitting me,” he said. “You’re waiting for me to give you what I’ve got before you actually do anything.”

  “That’s not how it works.” She placed a quarter onto the small stainless-steel shelf. She dug for a dime.

  “If you start lying to me, Daphne, then what’s left?”

  “We have a witness,” she repeated. “A truck driver who saw him on the bridge.”

  She heard only his excited breathing, and realized the seduc-tive role that hope played in his small existence.

  Walker said, “You would have used him already.”

  “No … It was night, don’t forget. That bridge is dark.” Her mind reeled with how to make this sound convincing. Her fingers pinched a dime. She adjusted her position so he couldn’t see her lift the receiver and let it hang. She placed her thumb over the cell phone’s tiny microphone hole and slipped the two coins into the guts of the pay phone. They rolled noisily inside.

  She punched out LaMoia’s direct line, brought the receiver to her ear, and heard him answer. “Don’t talk! Listen!” she said into the pay phone. She awkwardly joined the two phones, in-verting the pay phone’s receiver, wondering if LaMoia could hear any of this.

  She said, “Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, Ferrell.

  We always thought of this guy as a last resort, but we’re ready to play that hand now-we could arrange a lineup-and we just might do that if you agree to share what you know about these missing women.” God how she hoped LaMoia was getting this.

  “You’re going to suggest we meet, no doubt.”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Are you lying to me again, Daphne? Would you risk something as stupid as that? Playing your little games. Teasing me, like walking around that houseboat in that tight T-shirt and underwear, but never getting naked? What’s with that, anyway?”

  Her throat went dry. He could be making that up, she said, unable to recall walking around her place dressed like that. How could she turn this around back on to him? Why wouldn’t her mind get off that image of him looking in on her half-naked?

  “Is that how it was with Mary-Ann, Ferrell? You’ve got us confused, don’t you? Was it out on the boat? Did you watch her? You’ve got us confused, don’t you? Did you watch your own sister? By herself? With Lanny Neal? What?”

  “Shut … up.”

  His tone told her she had scored a hit, and this actually surprised her, for she’d brought it up only as a distraction, something to fill his head with a different image. But that tone of his …

  Children saw, or overheard, their parents making love and were never quite the same for the experience. With no parents left, had Ferrell Walker spied on his own sister, peeped his own sister? Even with someone else killing her, the guilt over having done that would torment him.

  “Where was it, Ferrell?”

  “You-”

  “At Lanny’s apartment? You saw her, didn’t you? Saw them, however that happened. Accident or not. Saw what he was doing to her.”

  He spoke, barely above a whisper, but just enough to be heard. “How could you know that?”

  Her arms prickled in gooseflesh. She had him going now-her dentist’s pick probing the cavity and striking the nerve. She thought of LaMoia and how he unexpectedly put the accelerator down in the turns in order to avoid skidding. She, too, put down the accelerator. “He was getting things you never got from her and she liked him in a way that she didn’t like you, and that hurt, didn’t it?”

  “You don’t know as much as you think.” Again, barely discernible, indicating she’d thrown him deep into thought or recollection. These were the moments she lived for-she’d cracked open his conscience and was climbing inside.

  The process allowed her to intentionally refocus Walker onto Neal and off of her-also a deliberate act on her part. They had Neal under surveillance as it was. At the very least, this effort of hers might provide them the opportunity to apprehend Walker as he made another attempt on Neal. She asked, “Is that where that anger at the medical examiner’s came from? It wasn’t just her death, was it, Ferrell? It was more than that. It was that she liked him, loved him, even. And you were left out in the cold in the process. Isn’t that right?” She thought of LaMoia listening in. “Here I am on one corner of Marion, and there you are in that coffee shop-how much sense does this make, Ferrell? We can sit down-the two of us, together-and discuss this, our case against Neal, what you know about the two missing women. Mary-Ann’s gone, but I’m here for you, Ferrell.”

  “Here for me? I don’t think so. Tell that to Dirty Harry. He’s bad for you, Daphne. I warned Anna, and she ignored me. Look where it got her.”

  Her brain froze, and she saw the events of the past few days in a whole different light, immediately regretting where she’d just now, so carefully, led him. Walker, or Prair, or whoever had driven her out of her houseboat in a state of panic, had also pushed her into LaMoia’s care. Walker somehow knew this, resented it, and drew parallels to the loss of his own sister. The massive psychological knot this would cause-first the transference on his part, then her own mimicking of Mary-Ann’s shacking up with Neal-might never come untangled, even in the most cooperative patient. Walker found himself watching instant replay, and she now began to see the complications of events that had changed his tone with her, had pushed him across the fine line between adoration and hate.

  “It’s complicated,” she
said, suddenly bone-tired, twinges of fear creeping back up her spine.

  “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours,” he said, suddenly childish again.

  His 180-degree reverse was both too quick and too convincing. He was suffering the psychological equivalent of the bends.

  He’d surfaced too quickly.

  “I won’t lie to you, Ferrell. I want whatever help you can give me with the missing women.” She imagined that by now at least one car was rolling toward their location. Perhaps, even, LaMoia had gotten the switchboard to forward the call to his cell phone, and he was currently listening in while on the way himself.

  “Why don’t you get us a table?” she said. “I’ll come over to the Seattle’s Best with you and we’ll sit down and discuss this.”

  How many more crumbs did she need to leave LaMoia? She’d both given him the address and named the establishment. At this point, she felt certain it was safe to leave the pay phone and approach Walker. “Ferrell?”

  “Ten o’clock tonight. You be at the door to the Shelter. If I see you’re alone, we’ll talk. If not …” Again, she heard his shallow, rapid breathing. She could picture him sweating yet cold, excited yet scared. “Don’t be stupid, Daphne.”

  She heard the steamer again, but a large truck rounded the corner and double-parked, and the sunshine bouncing off it blinded the coffee shop’s window.

  “Ferrell?” she said, already dropping the pay phone and moving up the sidewalk toward the coffee shop. At first she walked, but then, as the hum of the room grew louder in her cell phone, she began to jog, and finally to run. The blind spot on the window shrank with her angle as she approached, from a blinding silver, to black, and finally to transparent again.

  The pay phone’s receiver dangled on the end of its cord.

  LaMoia’s Jetta turned and rounded the corner, swerving out of the way of the double-parked truck. He’d been careful not to show himself on foot-was trying to let her know that he was nearby and available as backup.

  But it was too late. Ferrell Walker was gone.

  Allie-Allie-in-Come-Free

  At 9:48 P.M., a matter of hours after Matthews had spoken to Ferrell Walker, she calmly drove her repaired Honda south on First Avenue, the black leather wallet containing her lieutenant’s police shield sticking out of the top of her Coach purse. Boldt had obviously pressured Captain Sheila Hill into reinstating her, because there had been no review board or formal review. She’d gotten the call that the meet with Walker had been approved, and that meant reinstatement.

  The last few hours at SPD and Public Safety had been the mobilization of a surveillance team that included several plainclothes detectives from Narco and CAP as well as a three-man, black-clad ERT unit from Special Ops and even a rooftop sharpshooter. Boldt had suspended the search of the Third Avenue Underground while SID combed the lair, and the surveillance of construction sites continued, meaning his manpower was stretched.

  As she’d prepared for the meet, Matthews had asked LaMoia to wire her up, an invitation usually assigned a fellow member of the same sex. The idea was for him to clip and tape the transmitter to her pants to avoid ripping hairs off her skin.

  Although not exactly an intimate moment, it felt that way to both of them, what with him running his fingers inside the waistband of her pants, brushing the elastic of her underwear.

  True, she wore less clothing, showed far more skin, at a pool or the gym, but men didn’t run their hands down your pants at either. He couldn’t manage to get the tape to stick very well, so he ran his fingers even deeper. He stepped back suddenly, as if she’d bitten him.

  “Listen, I’m not doing such a great job. Maybe we should get a skirt in here.”

  “Finish it,” she said, unbuttoning her blouse at the navel. She fished for the wire he was attempting to pass her.

  She asked, “Would it help if I unbuttoned my pants?”

  “Not unless you have twenty minutes to spare,” he teased.

  “Ha, ha,” she said, trying to sound like that hadn’t fazed her.

  He tested the tape, and it held. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine,” she said.

  “Mind your own business.”

  “When a man has his hand down my pants, it most certainly is my business.”

  “You’re playing with me.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Absolutely. I love to see you squirm.”

  “I’m not squirming.”

  “Of course you are.”

  He grunted.

  Again she teased him. “Finish the job and get your hands out of my underwear.”

  “You’re nervous. That’s what this is about, right? Your nerves?”

  “You really know how to woo a girl.”

  “Woo?”

  The tape finally held. Her fingers caught the wire he passed and she drew the small mike up inside her blouse. She unbuttoned yet another button of her blouse and clipped the lavaliere to the elastic bridge connecting the cups, turning to face him as she buttoned herself. For a moment she allowed herself to believe he blushed with the sight of her.

  “You have a real way with the women,” she said.

  “That’s what they say.”

  She brushed herself off, smoothing the blouse.

  He looked a little too closely and pursed his lips, bunching his mustache. She’d never liked mustaches much.

  “A cry for help,” he said, repeating a possible explanation of Walker’s behavior that she had raised at an earlier meeting.

  “If I have it right-and remember, I may not-then there’s a psychological progression Walker’s going through, a decline that has everything to do with what is more than likely confusion over his relationship with his sister; Neal’s stealing Mary-Ann from him; Neal’s abuse of Mary-Ann; the subsequent murder; and then Walker’s transference of his need to protect Mary-Ann over to me. Transference comes in all flavors, John, from lite to extra-strength. He latches on to me. He follows me. For reasons known only to him, he has chosen me to represent Mary-Ann in his life. Maybe he’s just trying to gather the courage to tell me something. I don’t know. Maybe he saw more of the murder than he’s shared with us. That wouldn’t surprise me-his guilt over watching them in the first place preventing him from telling us exactly what went down. It would also explain his conviction to see Neal put away for this crime.”

  “But Hebringer and Randolf?”

  “I’m not pretending I have the answers,” she said, unbuttoning her pants and tucking in her shirt, the act itself implying an immodesty that clearly surprised him. “I could be way off base with any of this. My original thinking was that he didn’t know anything more about Hebringer and Randolf than what he’d read in the papers, but that he recognized a way to bait me into meeting him.”

  “I’m still camping on that side of the river,” LaMoia said.

  “But the way he made this meet-preempting what was to be an attempt on my part to arrange something inside, something contained, something that worked better for us … and the fact that Lou likes Walker being positively IDed for having been in the Underground, and then this guy getting away from Lou and Bobbie down there … and Lou never liking coincidences and suddenly thinking Walker could either have something on Hebringer and Randolf, or might even be a part of it himself …

  and here we are.”

  “Here we are,” LaMoia echoed.

  She felt his objection to her playing this role and appreciated his restraint in not verbalizing it. Doing her damnedest to appear collected and composed, she said calmly, “Listen, John … I think we pushed him over the edge with Neal walking away from the probable cause hearing and with my subsequent attempt to distance myself from him. It was a bad judgment call on my part. If he misses Mary-Ann as much as I think he does, then at some point he will come after me. This level of obsession leads to abduction. It’s my turf. I know what I’m talking about,”

  she said, answering his head shaking no. “It could be for som
ething as innocent as a confession-confiding his guilt about knowing more than he’s told us-or something … more serious.

  And if he should get me-”

  “He will not get you.”

  “-you need to think unconventionally, something you’re good at. Neal’s apartment is a possibility. The family home-this place he lost when the business went bad. A trawler is entirely possible.” She met eyes with LaMoia and lowered her voice. “These places hold significance for him. He’ll take me to someplace that holds significance.”

  “He will not-”

  “If you guys lose me,” she interrupted, “I’d check those places I just mentioned first. The Aurora Bridge after that.”

  “Jesus … you’re as sick as he is.”

  She continued in her businesslike tone, “If I go missing, John, don’t do it by the book. Promise me that. Time’s the enemy, okay? He’s an organized personality. He knows what he’s doing. He lives to control the situation. When he senses he’s lost control, as he did earlier, he takes action. That alone separates him from what you guys think of as ‘loonies.’ Trust me, if he should get me and then lose control of the situation …” She couldn’t complete that thought, even in her own head. “Just find me, John. And fast. However you have to do it, just find me.”

  “Cross my heart,” said the all-time rule breaker.

  LaMoia opened his arms, an improbable invitation from a guy like him. She stepped forward cautiously, afraid he might make a joke of it. But he didn’t, and so she held herself close to his chest, the thumping of his heart like timpani. She tried to think of something amusing to say, to cushion the moment for them both, but the feeling of his arms around her, of that absolute sense of safety, lodged a walnut in her throat and she couldn’t get a word out. She squeezed, and he squeezed her back, and for a fleeting moment there was absolute peace in her world.

  Driving now past the ALL NUDE storefronts, a wino walking unsteadily behind a grocery cart filled to overflowing, the tourists intermingled with the city’s subculture, neither acknowledging the other, she marveled at the tolerance, at the coexistence of two such diverse cultural strata. She felt herself being injected into this, like a vaccine into tainted blood, down through Pioneer Square where groups clustered around street musicians, where gray-haired hippies sold trinket jewelry from the tops of cardboard boxes and college kids waited in lines outside the music clubs.