Ridley Pearson - The Art of Deception

“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.

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.