The Art of Deception

by Ridley Pearson

  She fixed a weak cup of tea and sat alone in the corner trying to sort out options. The tea bag leaked onto the table once she removed it. She drew patterns with the discharge, stretching it like a river across the plastic veneer. She finished the tea still stuck on talking Margaret into getting herself arrested.

  The rain had started and stopped again by the time she left. She crossed the church’s fairly well lit parking lot, arrived at the Honda, key in hand, and climbed in. She couldn’t help reminding herself of her most recent visit, and her spotting the man up in the parking garage, and though she fought the urge to do so, she took a moment to check the garage again.

  Seeing no one up there, she told herself to forget about it, but found it easier said than done. Rush-hour traffic jammed the downtown streets, and understanding that at best it was the lesser of two evils, she elected to try Aurora, willing to suffer the five o’clock creep for the lack of lights and the ability to circumvent downtown.

  She left the church parking lot. Traffic flow was indeed like blood in a clogged artery. It took her ten minutes to make three lights. When she finally managed a left, she checked her side mirror for any cyclists or other yahoos trying to cut the corner on her, and she spotted a light rack that was at once both familiar and unfamiliar. It wasn’t an SPD patrol car; she knew that much. It might have been SFD, except the fire guys used red, not blue, lights in their rooftop racks. The blue lights indicated police or Sheriff’s Office.

  She blamed her reaction on the fact that they’d just been talking about Prair, less than an hour earlier, putting the man solidly in her thoughts. Sight of that light rack spiked both fear and anger in her. Was Nathan Prair following her around town? Following her home? Watching her from parking garages? Had it been Prair outside of her mudroom window, and if so, how much of her had he seen?

  It added up, now that it seemed so obvious to her: As a law enforcement officer, her home phone and address went unpublished, but it was well within the pale that a King County deputy sheriff could obtain that information. Walker was unlikely to know the location of her houseboat; Prair could get it with a phone call.

  She waited at the intersection behind a flurry of angry horns and, as the light turned yellow, quickly took the left turn, trapping those behind her with the red light.

  Asking LaMoia to come out into this mess of traffic at first seemed unthinkable, yet that’s just what she did. She would execute some evasive tactics and eventually find her way home—hopefully with LaMoia close behind, looking for anyone following her.

  “Yo,” he answered.

  “It’s me.”

  “Hey, you.”

  “Listen, it may be nothing, and I’m keeping my eyes peeled, but I have half a notion that Prair is with me in traffic, and I wondered if you could use your connections over there to see if he happens to be on duty at the moment, and if so, if they know his ten-twenty. Traffic’s bad. And it’s getting dark. I’m heading down toward Safeco. I thought I’d loop it once—give it four right turns in a row. You know.”

  “Do it, and then put yourself in a holding pattern—make it a couple laps—I can be there in a matter of minutes.”

  “Sweet of you, but it’s a mess out here. I’m going to go get some of my things at my place and then take Lou up on the offer of a hotel. He suggested the Paramount. If you want to meet me there, I wouldn’t complain.”

  “I’d rather catch up to you now, catch Prair in the act.”

  “There’s no law about driving around the city.”

  “Listen, I can make these calls from the car. Keep orbiting Safeco. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He hung up.

  She felt incredible relief. He’d done as she hoped, but not as she asked, proving that he was predictable in an unpredictable way.

  A half mile later, the relief gave way to panic as she reached Safeco Field and the Honda unexpectedly sputtered and died.

  22 Knock, Knock. Who’s There?

  As her car drifted to the side of the road, Matthews cursed herself for choosing such a remote part of town. In all of Seattle you couldn’t buy yourself an empty street at this time of day, except around a sports stadium that wasn’t in use.

  A curtain of rain fell all of a sudden, its impact deafening. She reached for the handle, but then locked her door, reminding herself to stay inside.

  “It’s me,” she said, when LaMoia answered her call less than a minute later.

  “What’s your ten-twenty? I’m jammed, traffic is a bitch, and just for your information, Mr. I-haven’t-got-a-Prair came on duty with the night shift. He’s believed to be on bus duty downtown. My guy’s checking all that. But here’s the humdinger—” He paused. “You ready for the humdinger?”

  She didn’t think she was. She wanted to explain her car had died and get some help on the way. But before she could tell him, he continued right on.

  “The citation, the speeding ticket Walker slipped you at the courthouse? His sister’s speeding ticket—Mary-Ann Walker? That citation was written up by none other than Deputy Sheriff Nathan Prair.”

  Her world folded in on her, like the legs of a card table collapsing. She felt trapped, pinned down. She blurted out, “The Honda died. I’m dead in the water over by Safeco Field.”

  “Died how?”

  “Sputtered and quit. I coasted to the side of the road.”

  “Gas,” he said. “I don’t like it.”

  “Well, it isn’t my dream vacation either,” she said, a little testy.

  “You could have been sandbagged, Matthews. You sit tight.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  The phone went silent and she dropped it into her lap. She had hoped he wouldn’t disconnect the call, the sound of his voice so reassuring, but she hadn’t been about to ask him to stay on the line. Prair had known Mary-Ann Walker ahead of her death. That made her feel terribly vulnerable.

  At that moment of realization, a car pulled up behind her, headlights shining in her rearview mirrors like spotlights. Her eyes burning, she strained to identify it as LaMoia, then quickly realized it wasn’t.

  Her purse lay on the floor to her right. It contained her defense arsenal. She stretched for it, and as she did, she turned the key, the engine grinding along with the rush of blood at her ears. She caught the strap and sat back up. In her outside mirror she saw a man’s dark silhouette approaching, and was reminded once again of the parking garage. She warned herself not to overreact, spotting her own sudden weaknesses.

  She dragged the purse across her lap and was reaching inside when she jerked her hand out with a start as bare knuckles rapped loudly on the window glass.

  “Help you?” Male. Deep voice. The rain obscured a decent view of him.

  Swish, swoosh, the rubber blades did the only dance they knew. Rain coming down hard now, like pebbles cast into a pond.

  Knock, knock. Again. “Can I give you a hand?”

  Strong—his voice told her that much. She didn’t want to look at him because she knew that eye contact empowered the attacker. She silently begged for John to hurry up. Her fingers crept back into the purse, though nervously this time, as if she might get caught.

  “No, thank you.” Too soft-spoken, she raised her voice. “NO, THANK YOU! ALL SET.” She thought to add: “SOMEONE’S ON THE WAY!”

  “I’m good with cars.”

  Fixing them, or breaking them? she wondered. “I’m all set.”

  “Put it in neutral,” the deep voice instructed. “Let me at least get you out of this lane.”

  It was, in fact, a lousy place to have come to a stop, halfway across two lanes. Small tendrils of terror began in her crotch and rushed up through her. “NO, THANK YOU.” How many times did she have to say that?

  His rapping on the window bothered her. She wanted him to go away. “Stop it!” she bellowed. She didn’t mean to say that, didn’t mean to sound scared. Predators fed on such fear.

  “I’m trying to help,” came the male voice. “You’re gonna get hit
sticking out like this!”

  She cracked the window less than an inch, just enough so there would be no mistaking her words or her tone. “I’d like you to leave now, please.”

  “Lady, I’m trying to help here.”

  “Go away now!” She used too urgent a tone, too frantic. She didn’t want to give him that. She rolled up the window and looked straight ahead.

  “Lady!” Shaking the car, he pulled on the driver’s door handle. “Put the damn car in neutral and let me get you out of the road.”

  Her right hand, now inside her purse, touched the butt end of the handgun. Her left hand joined her right and she chambered a round, still out of sight.

  He shouted, “You’re going to get yourself hit sticking out like this!”

  A huge sound erupted all at once, and she jumped. She thought she’d been rear-ended. The Good Samaritan’s belt buckle pressed up to the window glass, the fly to his pants at eye level. She briefly considered firing her weapon at that target.

  “Leave the lady alone, asshole.”

  Although she couldn’t see her rescuer, she recognized the voice as that of Nathan Prair, and a trickle of dread ran through her. Which was the spider and which was the fly?

  “Do not pass Go! Do not collect two hundred dollars.” This time, it was LaMoia’s wisecracking voice she heard, unmistakable and welcome. It must have been to Prair he said, “You’re a long way from home, sailor. You wait over there.”

  In her lap, the mobile phone’s timer continued to count the seconds: 3:07, 3:08... She had never disconnected the call. LaMoia had heard the entire exchange with the man who’d stopped to help her. Words were traded out there. Tempers were flaring.

  A metal clicking of handcuffs so familiar to any police officer. LaMoia informed the stranger, “The woman asked you to back off and leave her alone. You refused, which means you’re under arrest for harassing a police officer.”

  The stranger’s astonished voice said, “A police officer?”

  “You have the right to remain . . .”

  Matthews threw her head back. The dull off-white of the ceiling fabric formed the sky above her. The gun’s knurled grip warmed in her hand. A throbbing pushed at her temples, a membrane ready to explode.

  Prair’s arriving on the scene had triggered a whole series of thoughts. She caught sight of his flashing roof lights in her rearview mirror, wondering when he’d turned them on and why she hadn’t seen them until then.

  The sound of the rain and the three men arguing filled her ringing ears. The rain shook the car. Prair had hidden that he’d known—or at least had met—Mary-Ann Walker prior to her murder. Why? And what impact did it have on the case? On Daphne Matthews?

  Unable to take the isolation, she climbed out into the rain and glanced toward the side of the road, from where Nathan Prair looked back at her, out the side window of his cruiser. The rivulets of rain cascaded down the gray glass, looking like rows and rows of tears on his face. Prair stared at her, as cold a look as she could recall. Had he read her thoughts? Her fear? Did he sense that they knew his dirty little secret? She wanted the truth—such a simple thing to ask, so difficult to attain.

  Prair rolled down the window. The tears disappeared. “I was trying to help,” he called out.

  She nodded. Some rain came off her hair, sparkling in the glare of LaMoia’s headlights. She said back to him, “I’ve been getting a lot of that lately.”

  23 If the Shoe Fits

  “Is this waiting really necessary?” an uncharacteristically impatient Daphne Matthews asked LaMoia, the two of them watching the detainee through the interrogation room’s one-way glass.

  LaMoia said, “You know the drill.”

  Yes she did: The waiting allowed the suspect time to comprehend the severity of the situation, and police the time to collect as much information on the individual as possible, but she’d never waited out that time as a victim before, and the resulting anxiety owned her.

  “What about Prair?” she asked.

  “What about him?”

  “You let him go.”

  “Let him go?” LaMoia asked. “He’s a cop who responded to a situation. Under normal circumstances, he’d be considered something of a hero for helping you.”

  “Hardly. Are we going to talk to him?”

  “Not formally,” he answered.

  “But the ticket . . . his having known Mary-Ann . . .” She felt exasperated, everything turned on its head.

  “We don’t show that card until we can back it up with something. It’ll send him so deeply underground we’ll need to dig through five layers of lawyers to know what clothes he’s wearing.”

  “He lied to us.”

  “Not on the record, he didn’t. He’s a cop, Matthews. However he’s involved in this, he knows exactly how we’re going to play it. We do the dance or we lose him—it’s as simple as that.”

  “I want to pressure him,” she said. “Tonight, tomorrow, as soon as we can. I know the way this one thinks, John. If we squeeze him we stand the most to gain.”

  “You going to pull rank on me?”

  “Is it going to come to that?” she asked.

  The two studied each other.

  LaMoia said, “Okay . . . But he’ll talk his way out of it, and we won’t have squat.”

  “I’m being impetuous?”

  “You’re reacting to a tough situation . . . that wasn’t easy out there. You’re lashing out at all available parties.”

  “Who’s the psychologist and who’s the detective?” she asked.

  He nodded okay. “You want the detective? Your fuel line was crimped, probably with a pair of pliers.”

  “And maybe it was a rock that one of the tires kicked up.” She’d overheard this preliminary report from the police garage; she didn’t want LaMoia making it worse than it was.

  His annoyance manifested itself as flaring nostrils and a worried brow. LaMoia’s level temper was one of his most valuable qualities—she’d heard that when he lost that temper things could “get a little wild,” as a patrolman had once put it. She had no desire to be the object of that display.

  “The guy we arrested wears clodhoppers with monster soles. It’s entirely within the realm of possibility that this asshole frequents empty construction sites. I can detain him on harassment charges at least until the T1 is back on-line and we know for sure whether he has a record or not.”

  “Where are we?” Boldt asked from behind them. She could read Boldt by his tone of voice; she heard concern. They met eyes, tenderly and with feeling. She wanted to hug him. Studying her face he said, “Knowing you, you already think we’re wasting our time.”

  LaMoia quipped, “Andy Sipowicz’s got nothing on you, Sarge.”

  “He was offering help,” she said. “Now he’s cooling off in the Box like a street thug. I wonder if that’s the right way to handle it.”

  LaMoia told Boldt about the gas line.

  Boldt said to Matthews, “Well, there you go.” Adding, “ Listen, you’re not the first stalking victim to think we’ve got the wrong guy. That’s victim response one-oh-one.” He asked LaMoia, “What’s his pedigree?”

  “Gary Hollie. West Seattle. An accountant with something called Cross Ship LLC.” LaMoia held himself back a moment before saying, “I hate accountants.”

  A young patrolwoman approached at a brisk walk and delivered a coy grin to LaMoia as well as the awaited computer printout. Matthews tried to ignore the woman’s open flirting.

  “Never met her.” LaMoia defended himself without looking up from the printout. It was his prescience that disturbed her the most. She didn’t want him reading her thoughts.

  LaMoia said, “Seems our Mr. Hollie went down for illegal trespass in Maryland less than two years ago.”

  “That could be anything,” Matthews said.

  “Including a peeping charge dealt down,” LaMoia said.

  “He’s yours,” Boldt told LaMoia, strategizing a game plan. “I’m a presenc
e, that’s all. You take the chair. I want to pace.”

  “Got it,” LaMoia said. Already at the interrogation room door, he looked back at Matthews. “You see something you don’t like, give us a knock or a buzz.” A gracious offer, but also a little patronizing.

  “What if I don’t like any of it?” she called out.

  LaMoia motioned Boldt through first. “Age before beauty,” he said.

  Gary Hollie’s oversized head was reminiscent of a jack-o’-lantern, and had nearly as much hair. He wore a neatly trimmed black mustache above pursed lips that struggled to contain a simmering anger. Forest green chinos, a white button-down shirt, and the thick-soled office shoes completed the look. If they ended up pressing charges they would have a good look at the waffle pattern of those shoes.

  LaMoia introduced Boldt as “the guy who runs the show around here.” He then took a seat in an uncomfortable chair across the war-pocked table from the suspect. Everything about the Box was austere and drab, from the vinyl flooring to the acoustic-tiled ceiling punctuated with randomly lanced pencil holes. Boldt wandered the perimeter, studying the familiar walls like a building inspector. A mirror of one-way glass occupied most of the west wall, a window through which Daphne Matthews would observe the interview.

  Hollie complained in a tight nasal whine of a man held hostage by stress and tension. “This is what I get for trying to help the lady? Who are you people?”

  LaMoia played the game, allowing a drawn-out silence to settle into the room beneath the steady presence of forced air. “We appreciate your taking a few minutes to help us sort this out.”

  “I have a right to an attorney.”

  “Yes, you do, and you may exercise that right at any time. No one here has denied you that right. You’ll recall that I offered you the chance to place that call if you so desired.”

  “You also threatened to charge me.”

  “I informed you that the involvement of attorneys would necessitate I book you. Those are the facts, Mr. Hollie. Currently, I can still change my mind. Right now, we’re just two guys talking about an incident that’s as likely to go away as it is to stick. If you want to walk out of here, then I’ve got to make your arrest go away. That’s what we’re doing here, me and you: We’re making like magicians. We’re working out the disappearing act.”