Ridley Pearson - The Art of Deception

She heard the inquiry through the receiver. Then Pete said he was going to put the guy on the line.

“Hey, Lieutenant.”

She knew the voice, but it took her a moment to identify it.

“Mr. Walker?”

“I told you I could help.”

She suffered a chill like a small shudder rippling through her. The image that filled her imagination was that of the family dog leaving a dead squirrel on the doorstep. “We discussed this.”

“You had to say those things. I understand that … I understand the way things work.”

“I’m not sure you do. What’s in the package, Mr. Walker?”

She took a wild guess. What would the adoring student bring the teacher? “Some fish? Fresh fish?”

“Fish? It’s hers,” he said sadly. “Proof that sack of shit is lying if he says he didn’t do anything to Mary-Ann.”

“Mr. Walker … Ferrell, it’s illegal to involve yourself in an active investigation. We went over all this.” Another chill swept through her. This wasn’t the first time a bereaved relative had attached him-or herself to a case, but she’d never personally experienced it. Instead of celebrating the cooperation, she felt boxed in.

“You’ve got snitches, right? So, I’m a snitch. Don’t knock it ’til you check it out.”

“If you leave the package for me, Mr. Walker, I’ll pick it up later.”

“No way. I get to see you, or I take it with me. What’s wrong with you? You want to get this guy or not?”

“You have to leave the package, Mr. Walker. There’s nothing I can do about it. They X-ray them, electronically sniff them-there’s all sorts of security now that I can’t do anything about.

It takes a couple of hours. I’ll look at it and I’ll call you.”

“No way. I’m waiting.”

“What happened to your double shift?”

“New arrangements.”

“Mr. Walker-”

“I’m waiting, like it or not.”

She could hear the phone being passed back to Pete.

“Lieutenant?” the gruff voice inquired.

“Tell him I’m on my way down. Go ahead and start it through security, okay, Pete?” In fact, such security took only a matter of minutes. She wondered if it was stupid to show Walker she’d exaggerated the situation. To hell with it: She’d accept the package, get Walker out of there, and warn him not to try it again.

A few minutes later she passed the lobby coffee stand and approached the busy security checkpoint at the building’s main entrance on Third Avenue. Ferrell Walker stood waiting-there were no chairs-just on the other side of the twin metal detectors, to the left of the lumbering X-ray machine. He wore the same sweatshirt and blue jeans that she’d seen him in earlier the same day. She could imagine that smell even at a distance.

Pete, a burly patrolman in his early fifties who’d worked the front entrance for years, indicated a somewhat soggy brown cor-rugated cardboard box that waited on a folding table. The noise generated at the entrance by all the security questioning and the signing in and the beeping of the metal detectors and the grinding of the X-ray machine’s conveyor belt created a jagged tension in the air that Matthews always felt in the center of her chest as a threat of violence. She used the garage entrance on most days, appreciating the calmer approach taken there as a result of an officers-only policy. But here, in the coffee-scented foyer with its high ceiling, standing under the faint light of overhead fixtures with dull bulbs chosen for their low consumption of energy, she felt more like a tourist at the security check of an airport in a foreign country.

The cardboard box seemed to grow in size and significance.

She lost sight of Walker, due to the security installation, but could feel him standing over there staring at her.

“Bring him through, please, Pete.”

The officer on duty signaled for Walker to step through the metal detector, but Walker refused.

Matthews stepped around to where she could see the kid and said to him, “You can leave it with him. In the plastic tray.

They’ll give it back to you when you leave.”

Walker looked skeptical.

“They’ll give it back to you,” she repeated.

Walker removed the long fishing knife from a hand-sewn leather sheath tucked inside the waist of his pants and hidden by his sweatshirt. He seemed impressed that she should have anticipated this. He placed it in the dirty plastic tray, and Pete, making a face of open curiosity, moved it aside and out of reach.

Walker passed through the metal detector and Pete fanned his hand in front of his face, making light of the man’s fish odors.

Matthews and Walker stood in front of the cardboard box and she asked that he open it. Pete drew closer, protective of his lieutenant.

“You open it,” Walker said somewhat childishly. But there was a menace to his voice as well.

“It’s policy that as long as you’re here, you open it yourself, Mr. Walker. I gave you the chance to drop it off.” She checked her watch, merely to drive home her next point. “We either do this now, or not, but I haven’t the time to stand here discussing it.” She wanted to show him a firm hand, dispel any notions that he might have that they had formed a personal friendship. She knew all too well that if she didn’t watch it, Walker could attach to her, letting her fill the void left by his dead sister. She didn’t want any part of that.

“It was behind the Dumpster, in the alley behind his place,”

Walker said, digging into the box. He pulled out a navy blue Michigan sweatshirt, with yellow block letters. Matthews tried her best not to react. Neal had mentioned the possible existence of a sweatshirt. This fit with that part of his statement, and she felt elated with the discovery. He tried to pass it to her, but Matthews refused and then called to the security officers, “Gloves!” She directed Walker to hold it at the shoulders, pinched between his fingers, attempting to initiate as little contact with him as possible. She fired off questions at him: “How much contact have you had with this?” “Can you identify it as your sister’s?” “Exactly where and when did you find this garment?” He answered her crisply that he’d boxed it for her, that it was his sister’s, and that he’d found it behind the Dumpster in a search he’d done that same morning following their encounter at the ME’s. Once protected by the gloves, Matthews took possession of the sweatshirt, turning it around to inspect the random pattern of dark brown orbs that speckled its fabric and a similar, but larger stain on the neck of the sweatshirt.

Dried blood.

“I’m going to need an evidence bag here,” Matthews instructed one of the gate personnel. This person took off at a jog toward the bank of elevators.

“I done good, right?” Ferrell Walker asked, testing her.

“You may have contaminated a vital piece of evidence.” Matthews would not acknowledge that Walker had accomplished what she had not, could not, without a court order to search Neal’s residence. Without probable cause-hard evidence against Neal-they still lacked that court order. Ironically, the sweatshirt, if found in a public area as Walker claimed, might present the necessary probable cause.

“I’m telling you: He did this.”

“You have to leave this to me. Your participation has to stop here. Are we clear on that?”

“You helped me, I helped you,” he said, looking a little wounded. “We’re helping each other.” Only his tentative tone of voice gave away that he was testing the situation, the relationship. “I help you just like you help those girls.”

Her breath caught: He knew about her volunteer work at the Shelter. Had he followed her? “We’ll take it from here,” she said strongly. “I’ll be in touch.”