The Art of Deception b-8 Page 5

  He signaled LaMoia and Matthews to step away, and the three shared a moment of privacy.

  “Anything?” Boldt asked.

  LaMoia looked across to Dunkin’s hotel room. The Japanese tech was waving at him. LaMoia felt stupid waving back but he did so. These lab guys would never be cops.

  “She’d done tourist stuff,” LaMoia answered. “Some shopping.”

  “Anything specific in the shopping? Lingerie, swimsuit, anything that would have had her outside of a changing room partially clothed or at least wearing less than her street clothes?”

  “I should’ve asked that,” LaMoia was ashamed to admit.

  Boldt had been a paper shuffler for a couple years now yet still had better instincts than any two street detectives combined.

  “Was it random?” Boldt asked.

  “The million-dollar question.”

  “Your gut check?” Boldt requested.

  Matthews shook her head no. LaMoia said, “Not random.

  Deliberate. But I got serious problems with that: Even if he trolls the tourist spots, even if he follows ’em to their hotels or their condos, how the flock does he know what room she’s in?”

  “Unless it’s the other way around,” Boldt suggested.

  They’d worked these angles raw back at the Public Safety Building. For the sake of hearing it aloud, LaMoia said, “He spots ’em from up here-wherever-then waits for them to leave the hotel, and knowing what they look like, he stalks them.

  For whatever reason, at least twice he grabbed them.”

  Matthews said, “Timing and location-those are your reasons. Nothing more complicated than that, which opens up the possibility-depending on why he took off-that our Ms. Dunkin just made his list.”

  LaMoia told Boldt, “She leaves town tomorrow. Taxi, straight to the airport. He won’t be following her.”

  “Lucky for her. Too bad for us,” Boldt said.

  “We could still bait him,” LaMoia suggested. “Install some babe on one of our squads to strip in front of windows.”

  Matthews said, “I wonder who’d be volunteering to oversee that operation.”

  LaMoia mugged at her.

  Boldt was not happy. “The problem is it’s not a specific hotel, a single building. Hebringer and Randolf both lived here. Ten blocks apart. You can’t bait every town house, every hotel.”

  They’d been around this track enough times back in the situation room. Weeks, even months of it now. Boldt was in rough shape, under fire from the press, the brass, the families of the missing women, and even his own wife.

  “So maybe Hebringer getting peeped was nothing but shitty coincidence,” LaMoia said, referring to what they knew about the missing woman. “Drawing a look from us when it doesn’t deserve it. Maybe it’s got us by a nose ring when it’s nothing but a black hole. Maybe I walked into that tonight.”

  “Maybe not, John,” Matthews said. “We don’t ignore this,”

  she told Boldt. “His sticking around-that counts for something.”

  “Keep it up,” Boldt told them. Pointing to the cordoned-off area, he said, “Make him talk to us, would you, please?” He added with a snarl, “A confession would be nice.”

  Room with a View

  Doc Dixon, a big bear of a man with hooded eyes and a wide face, signaled Matthews and won her attention before pointing toward his receptionist, who manned a sliding glass window looking out onto the medical examiner’s waiting room. His sign meant Langford “Lanny” Neal, the possible boyfriend of their Jane Doe, had just arrived and was being kept waiting.

  Matthews acknowledged, checked the wall clock, and debated calling LaMoia one more time, resigning herself to the fact that a phone call wouldn’t help the traffic situation. Nothing would help Seattle’s traffic, not even an act of God.

  Feeling obliged to do so, she’d left a message at the fish dock where she’d met with Ferrell Walker, providing the time and location of the identification at the medical examiner’s office, hoping the message might not reach the grief-stricken brother in time. But one eye continually tracked to the reception window, wondering if Walker might appear.

  Matthews had never liked the medical examiner’s office and avoided it whenever possible. Dixon ran the ME’s more as a doctor than a bureaucrat, displaying a keen interest in each and every body that passed through his doors and the legal system that claimed control of them in death. Matthews didn’t have the same kinship or friendship with Dixon that Boldt shared, but through Boldt she had acquired a profound respect for the man.

  Where most of the homicide detectives had developed at least an uneasy comfort at the ME’s, Matthews, a rare visitor, found the basement setting, the medicinal smell, and the overpowering silence repulsive. Perhaps her feelings stemmed from the doctor-office look of the place: tube lighting, gray carpet, white lateral filing cabinets, the efficient young men and women spanning Seattle’s ethnic palate, all dressed in white lab coats, some carrying clipboards, some answering phones. It felt too normal. One expected something more dismal and final-sweating rock walls and bars on the window, a doctor with a speech impediment, a nurse with a limp. This felt more like her OB-GYN’s office.

  This setting didn’t work for her at all.

  LaMoia entered, his sergeant’s shield clipped to the pocket of the deerskin jacket. He winked at the receptionist, an African American woman who had to be in her sixties, low-fived one of the young docs who made a point of catching up to him, and took Matthews around the waist, steering her toward the double swinging doors that led into the “meat locker”-the primary receiving room that housed twenty-one refrigerated drawers and sported three stainless-steel autopsy tables with drains, lights, and video cameras. There was at least one other autopsy room that she knew of-more of a private surgery suite where Dixon or his chief assistant occasionally tackled a sensitive or particularly gruesome case. She abruptly put on the brakes, not allowing LaMoia to escort her through those doors before it was necessary, and her effort had the unintended effect of turning LaMoia toward her and briefly making contact with her. They bounced off each other, gently, and for a moment there was only that contact lingering in the nerve endings of her skin.

  “That our guy out there?” LaMoia stepped back from her, keeping it business.

  “Yes. Langford Neal,” she said, giving her jacket a small straightening tug. “Boyfriend, or former boyfriend, if it’s Mary-Ann Walker in there.”

  “And the doc thinks it is.”

  “The doc got hold of a better driver’s license photo than I did.

  One of her eyes, the left, I think, is still where it belongs, and it’s apparently a match for color: blue. Height’s about right. Weight could be right, discounting for saturation and bloat. I’ve got a call in to the brother to try to locate dental records for her.”

  LaMoia glanced in the direction of the reception area. “Let me tell you something about our little angel, Neal. Two convictions as well as a number of complaints from previous love interests. This guy plays rough. He served thirty days in county for one of the convictions. The second, he was in for six months, out in four.”

  The news moved Neal up the list in both their minds. She understood the added spring to LaMoia’s step now-he loved having the jump on information. “That certainly helps,” she said, “but we shouldn’t lose sight of the brother, either.”

  “Ten-to-one she was killed in or near the boyfriend’s pad, given the underwear, the bare feet, and the rest of it.”

  “The brother could have harbored jealousy and anger over his being deserted for Neal. That’s powerful stuff.”

  “Neal has two convictions for knocking women around. You kidding me? Not losing sight of the brother, that’s okay. But we focus on Neal. If he does, in fact, ID the body as her, then from what you were saying, your take is to run him straight up to the bull pen and have a go at him. Is that right?”

  “That, or use a conference room here.”

  “You’re thinking that
this viewing may put him off-balance-her being so ripe and all-and that we pounce while we have the opportunity.”

  “You’re a lot smarter than you look.”

  He took it in stride. LaMoia had his timing down to an art form. He kept it business-for the time being. This put her on edge, her defenses at the ready.

  “You want to sit this one out, I’m okay with that. You’re way too … sweet … for a floater. Especially one that’s been in the meat locker for a few extra days.”

  She knew she could handle it, she’d seen plenty of dead bodies, some in dreadful condition, but it didn’t mean she wanted to. “I’ll take that as a compliment. I think.”

  “You think too much,” he said, meeting her eyes to drive home his point. LaMoia had large brown eyes and knew how to use them to effect.

  “Meaning?”

  “You gotta teach yourself to feel, Matthews.” He leaned against one of the two swinging doors. He wasn’t going to make her follow inside. “You’re all engine. It’s the handling that counts.” Everything came down to cars for LaMoia. “You get that down, you’ll be just about perfect.”

  “Who said I wanted to be perfect?” But he didn’t answer her.

  He left her there to think about it. The door flapped shut behind him. Timing was everything.

  Decades earlier, in municipalities across the country, medical examiner and coroner offices had learned to separate the individual making an identification from the room containing the body, as the smell tended to cause fainting and vomiting. Some used video, some a window-most used both, as did the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, where a color TV was mounted to the left of a narrow window that housed a venetian blind controllable from the inside.

  Lanny Neal was handsome in a ski bum kind of way, cocksure of himself judging by the rigid shoulders, the smug expression, and his willingness to blatantly check out Matthews, leveling his gaze and drinking her in, head to foot.

  She knew she should wait to question him, but he’d fired the first salvo with that rude survey of her topography, and she fell victim to the challenge.

  “When did you last see Mary-Ann?” she asked.

  The question didn’t rattle Neal in the least-although LaMoia looked a little uncomfortable. Neal remained calm and collected, as if he were there applying for a job. This further irritated Matthews.

  “Couple nights ago.”

  “How many nights ago?”

  “Saturday, I guess.”

  “You guess, or you know?” Matthews pressed.

  “Saturday night. Late.”

  “You weren’t worried about her?”

  “Pissed was more like it.”

  “You didn’t report her missing. Why’s that?”

  “Why should I? She blew me off. Her tough luck.”

  Mary-Ann was gone. On to the next. Matthews knew the attitude. She asked him about the last time he’d seen Mary-Ann.

  Where they were at the time, what Mary-Ann had been wearing, her mood.

  LaMoia interrupted. “I think they’re ready for us.”

  A plain white sheet on a stainless-steel gurney filled the video screen. LaMoia knocked on the glass and the blinds came up like a curtain being raised. A hand appeared, on both the video and through the glass, drawing back the sheet and revealing the remains of a woman’s head, at once both pathetic and terrifying. The lips were grotesquely distended, as if pumped full of air. An eyelid had been stitched shut, apparently to spare Neal the sight of an empty socket.

  Matthews heard herself catch her breath. LaMoia remained intractable. Neal stared at her for a long time, exhaled slowly, shook his head slightly, and looked away with glassy eyes. It was not the reaction she would have expected of a murderer-she and LaMoia met eyes and she knew he felt much the same-leaving her to wonder just how good an actor Lanny Neal might be. This, in turn, prepared her for the Q amp;A she was already planning in her head.

  “Yeah,” Neal said, still looking away from the window.

  “Mary-Ann Walker?” LaMoia asked.

  Neal looked a little green, his skin carrying a light sheen that hadn’t been there moments before. “You got a men’s room around here?”

  LaMoia directed him down the hall, meeting eyes once more with Matthews and communicating his own surprise at Neal’s reaction.

  The commotion came from the front of the office, where the receptionist stood out of her chair too late to prevent the entrance of a man wearing a torn sweatshirt and filthy blue jeans.

  It took Matthews a moment to identify the late arrival as Ferrell Walker.

  Walker paused in the middle of the medical examiner’s central office looking lost yet determined. Matthews immediately picked up on the kid’s frenetic energy. It jumped around the room like sparking electricity. He held the attention of everyone in the office as heads lifted and a silence of apprehension descended. These people had no idea he was a grieving brother.

  This was the wild man on the subway, the lunatic in the hotel lobby. Of the employees in the room, only the receptionist made any attempt to intervene, and she reconsidered after taking a few steps toward the kid. Lanny Neal didn’t yet see him.

  Matthews left the small hallway that offered the viewing window and moved across the central room toward Walker, who avoided her by closing in on Neal. The fingers of his right hand danced like a gunslinger’s.

  “Don’t!” Matthews shouted, but her reprimand had the unintended effect of stopping not Walker, but Neal, allowing Walker to close the distance even faster. Matthews knew, without knowing, what Walker had in mind; knew, without knowing, that for a few precious seconds Walker remained impressionable; knew, without knowing, that she was going to have to talk Walker down.

  Walker, now to her left, lunged with reptilian speed, pinning Neal, who was a good deal larger than him. Down the small hallway, LaMoia drew his weapon instinctively, but Matthews waved LaMoia off as the curved blade of Walker’s fillet knife flashed through the air and came to rest against Neal’s throat.

  “The question you have to ask yourself,” Matthews began, addressing Walker as if she’d rehearsed for the role, “is not whether you believe Mr. Neal harmed your sister, or whether you think yourself capable of doing harm to him; it’s not even about the prison time you will serve-you’ll get a life sentence for something like this, Ferrell, meaning Mr. Neal will have destroyed both you and Mary-Ann-the question is what Mary-Ann would say to you, were she here at this moment, whether or not she would approve of you destroying your own life in an effort to save hers, a life already beyond saving.” She inched closer, now fifteen feet away.

  She won his attention, though with no immediate results. The blade remained against Neal’s throat.

  She said, “Mr. Neal identified Mary-Ann just now. She’s here, and you can see her for yourself if you want.” She pounced on what she believed would be his greatest desire-to see his sister again-never taking her eyes off Walker as she pointed toward the hallway where LaMoia waited. She had to steer him back into his grief and away from anger and blame. “Do you want to see Mary-Ann again, Ferrell? That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Believe me-you keep up like this, you’ll never see her again. You’ll be in prison when it comes time to bury her, and your actions here, right now, will have delayed any possible prosecution of Mr. Neal, for whatever role he may or may not have had in your sister’s death.”

  Lanny Neal strained through clenched teeth, “This … is …

  bullshit.”

  Walker’s eyes danced.

  Matthews moved yet another step closer. Twelve feet now.

  “You’re lying to yourself, Ferrell, if you think you’re doing Mary-Ann a favor. You think murdering a man in cold blood is going to help her? How? Do you think it’s going to help your situation in any way? You’re making a lot of trouble here.” She nodded at LaMoia. She wanted Walker’s attention divided.

  “John! Is this going to save you trouble?”

  “Me? I’m looking at writing up repo
rts for the next week if this guy makes the wrong choice. Not doing me any favors.”

  “No,” Matthews agreed. She extended her open hand toward Walker. “Once you pass me that knife, this incident is closed.

  Do you hear me, Ferrell? Closed. There’s only Mr. Neal’s word against your own. The sergeant and I, the people in this office: No one saw anything. A grieving brother got a little out of control. Big deal.”

  LaMoia said, “Where’s the foul?”

  “He did this to her!” Walker said, his voice raw.

  “Bullshit I did,” Neal groaned.

  “We don’t know what happened,” Matthews said. “That’s still being determined. If you’re right, then you’re right. But it’s a risky assumption on your part. And what if you’re wrong, Ferrell? What then? What if you kill an innocent man here today? Where’s that leave you? Mary-Ann’s killer at large, and you, in jail, behind bars, where you can’t do anything to help us. We need your help here, Ferrell. You’re her only surviving kin-that’s hugely important to our investigation.”

  Walker tensed instead of handing over the knife.

  A man’s thunderous voice boomed from the far side of the room. “Put down the knife, young man!” Doc Dixon, sounding like God himself. Behind Matthews, and to her right.

  Walker glanced over in that direction, increasing the pressure on Neal’s throat as he did so.

  Dixon said, “You don’t use a knife as a weapon in the basement of a hospital.” It sounded so convincing. “There are a few hundred trained doctors in the floors immediately above us.

  Emergency rooms. Surgical suites. I’m a doctor. Several of my assistants in this room are also doctors. We’re not going to let him die. No matter what you try, we’re going to save him. The moment you try anything, Sergeant LaMoia over there will either put a bullet in you or break every bone in your body. And another thing to think about: No one here is going to be in any great hurry to help you, believe you me.”

  LaMoia was maybe ten feet behind her now. “This is one way, do not enter.”

  Matthews said, “There’s a legal process that’s meant to handle this. It’s a process that works, Ferrell. Knives don’t work.