Ridley Pearson - The Art of Deception

She wanted to tell LaMoia immediately, given that he was currently working a similar case. His tour over, he’d likely be home by now.

She hurried through the house, pulling blinds and double-checking locks, feeling both exposed and vulnerable. She shed the raincoat but wrapped herself tightly in a thick robe, poured herself another wine, and sat down by the phone, staring at it.

What to do? A pair of possible boot prints? Was that any kind of evidence? A couple of noises heard outside? As it was, she walked a delicate line in the department, part professional head-shrinker, part cop. This duality, a full lieutenant who had been through the academy, yet a card-carrying Ph.D. in psychology, left most of the department thinking of her as a shrink, not a cop. An outsider. To raise a red flag over a pair of boot prints would make her look green, to say the least.

She picked up the phone and dialed. When LaMoia’s recorded voice spoke, she nearly talked over it. “You said it, I didn’t. So leave it, and don’t sweat it … I’ll get back to you.”

Beep.

She spoke his name, reconsidered, and hung up.

A minute later her phone rang. The caller-ID returned: OUT OF AREA. Her hand hesitated over the cradle, and she caught herself terrified to answer. Then her brain engaged-she would not allow anyone to do this to her.

She answered.

“You rang?” LaMoia, cool, calm, collected. She resented that tone of his.

“I got your machine,” she said.

“I screen,” he said. “Caller-ID caught your name and number.

You ought to be blocked, you know?”

She scribbled out a note to herself. “Got that right.”

“What’s up?”

She hesitated, his calm making her not want to sound like a schoolgirl.

He said, “Not to be rude, but I’m not exactly on your speed dialer. It’s going on one o’clock in the morning. The late late news is rolling around in a couple minutes. The weekend coming up or not, I picture you as an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of person, beauty sleep and all that, not that you need it; and so then I get to thinking that maybe you’re checking up on me, making sure I haven’t succumbed to the great temptation, and I want you to know-”

“I wouldn’t do that, John,” she interrupted. “Not ever. You know that. What we did-Lou and I-we did out of … friendship. It started and stopped in your kitchen that night. I’m not the Percodan police. Don’t think like that.”

“What am I supposed to think? Help me out here, Doc.

Why’d you call, if not to check up on me?”

She stuttered and said, “To … to … check up on the lab work of Neal’s.”

“At twelve-thirty?”

“At twelve-thirty, yes.”

A skeptical hesitation on his part. “Okay.”

“What do we know?” she asked.

“Nothing yet,” he suggested, clearly intrigued. “It’s a little soon, don’t you think?”

She couldn’t bring herself to sound like a whiner. She overheard detectives mocking such women all the time, women on and off the force. She told herself that if she’d actually seen someone out there with her own eyes, if she could have supplied a description, anything at all worth investigating, then yes, she would have included him.

He asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be lonely, would you?”

Back to his old self.

“I beg your pardon?” If she told him now, this far into their conversation, he’d either overreact or laugh out loud. She couldn’t handle either reaction right now.

“You sound … I don’t know … a little off,” he said.

“I’m fine.” She wanted to keep him talking, to hear his voice.

“You sure? I could rent a video, something like that. There’s a twenty-four-hour Blockbuster over on Denny. You got any popcorn?”

LaMoia offering friendship? Maybe she was the one on drugs. “It wasn’t a social call.”

“We could make it one.”

“No thanks,” she said, though surprisingly reluctantly. The offer didn’t sound bad at all. “You’re right about my hours. How about a rain check?” She felt touched that the usually selfish LaMoia could be so giving of himself. Ulterior motives? How badly did he want her at the hotel interview?

“Whatever,” he said.

“Thanks, John.” She felt an obligation to hang up, but at the same time, didn’t want to. She left a pregnant pause on the line.

“So, are we done here, or you got a minute?” LaMoia tested.

She liked the sound of his voice. “I’ve got a minute,” she said casually, trying to sound nonchalant and wondering if she’d pulled it off.

He said, “A businesswoman, name of Oblitz. The one that filed a complaint and then tried to withdraw it, the one I left a message about.”

“Who tries to withdraw a complaint?”

“Yeah, I know. I tried to explain that to her. Stenolovski before me. I thought you might tell me why a woman reports a peeper and then tries to back out of it.”

“That’s a no-brainer: She had a guest.”

“Or she’s being extorted.”

“Maybe, but more likely her friend pressured her to withdraw the complaint or they got there together.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s set up for four on Monday. The W-the suspender set, the new one across from the Olympic.” He said sarcastically, “She made an opening for me in her busy schedule.”

“Good of her.”

“We’ll crack Hebringer and Randolf wide open with this.

You and me. I can feel it. Whadda you think Hill would make of that?” Sheila Hill, their captain, Boldt’s immediate superior, had been LaMoia’s former lover, a fact that Matthews was not supposed to be aware of. But there wasn’t much she and Boldt hid from each other. They had once been lovers themselves-something no one was supposed to know, and no one did.

“No one would believe it.” She and LaMoia were known to tangle.

“Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

Hearing his voice brought her a long way out of herself. She wanted to thank him for that but held her tongue.

He asked, “You sure you’re okay? Offer of the video still stands.”

A LaMoia she didn’t know, and frankly didn’t trust. Had he run out of women in the department to conquer? Had someone in the locker room put him up to this, challenged him to go after her, because she had steadfastly refused to date anyone on the job? (She didn’t count Boldt as a date and never would.) Nearly one in the morning, and LaMoia making like it was early evening. Night tour did that to people.

“I’ll do the interview with you,” she agreed.

“Well, that’s a start.”

By the time she hung up, she had almost forgotten about the pair of boot prints.

The W’s split-level lobby featured twin stairways that led around an island bearing a flower vase and up to the black lacquer reception desk where young people in black clothing and wearing wireless headsets greeted guests with white teeth and tones of way-too-cool-to-get-excited. The halogen lights were set so low that these receptionists seemed to emerge from the haze.

Hip-hop pounded from speakers in the ceiling.

LaMoia territory, to be sure. He had the appropriate sarcasm and cynicism down pat.

“Yo, yuppie puppy,” he said to the male receptionist, flashing his badge against the request of his interviewee. “April Fools is tomorrow. This is the real thing.” He drew a blank expression from the kid with the wet-look hair and the silver stud in his left ear. The kid wanted him to think he saw such shields all the time. But clearly, he did not.

“Hotel guest, Oblitz. She’s expecting us.”

The black arm-40 percent cashmere-pointed. “There’s a house phone to your-”

“Did I ask for a house phone? That headset must do something, right? Hotel guest, Oblitz.” He barely hesitated, “Now.”