Ridley Pearson - The Art of Deception

Mr. Neal did see the clock flashing-flashing, as it is reported in the statement he signed for the police, the very same statement they are claiming condemns him by invalidating his reporting the correct time of night-flashing the numbers two-two-two. Two hours and twenty-two minutes after the reinstatement of power by PSE at nine-oh-four, or, eleven twenty-six P.M., Your Honor. The very discrepancy the state is attempting to use to suggest guilt on the part of my client is in fact the discrepancy that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Neal’s original statement to the police was factual, entirely factual, and does nothing whatsoever to suggest my client in any way lied at any time to authorities. Nor has he at any time contradicted the window of time for this crime put forth by the state’s very own expert witnesses.”

The judge took this all in and directed her attention to the prosecutor’s table. “Ms. Mahoney?”

“The state requests a continuance to review the material that has come to light.”

“Continuance nothing, Ms. Mahoney,” an annoyed judge declared. “You’ve insufficient evidence, Ms. Mahoney. If the state wishes to try Mr. Neal, you’ll need to start again.”

She lowered the gavel lightly and released Neal on his own recognizance.

Matthews heard a commotion at the back of the room. She looked up to see Ferrell Walker leaving as fast as he could.

With Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” running in her head, Matthews abandoned the idea of a hotel room for a second night and returned to her houseboat, angry over losing ground at the probable cause hearing, angry at LaMoia for not anticipating the contradictory evidence put into play with the flashing clock, angry at herself for allowing Seppamosa to manipulate her and the facts to his client’s advantage. She wanted a drink. She deserved the comfort of her own home-she was sick and tired of being told what to do.

She climbed the ladderlike stairs to her tiny bedroom, weary from a long afternoon of meetings.

Meetings begot meetings-a tried and true axiom of police work. She wasn’t looking forward to the following day. She poured herself an expensive glass of a near-perfect wine-again the Archery Summit Pinot-drew a hot bath, and settled into the idea of spending a mindless, somewhat inebriated night in front of the television. But as preparations for the bath continued, she thought about Margaret out on the streets and found it impossible to enjoy herself. She thought about Nathan Prair and the fact that he had yet to submit the report LaMoia had demanded be delivered-a report Matthews hoped would clear up whatever relationship had existed prior to the young woman’s murder.

As she undressed in her bedroom, paranoia crept in, despite the fact that she’d covered every inch of glass in the house, whether by window blind or thumbtacked towel. Down to her bra, she couldn’t bring herself to disrobe any further. Still partly clothed, she wrapped herself up in a robe and headed back down to the houseboat’s tiny bathroom, where, with the door locked, she undressed. She caught herself folding clothes she knew were headed for the laundry and recognized the action as a warning sign-hairline fractures in her sanity. To make matters worse, she overreacted, knocking the stack of dirty clothes into the sink and stirring them up into a tangled ball.

Having forgotten her glass of wine, she donned the robe again and headed out to retrieve it, but found herself walking extremely slowly, attentive to every errant sound. Part of the problem for her came from the look of the place, the fact that covering all the windows had shrunk the space to a claustrophobic size. She resented the intrusion, her feeling forced to defend herself this way, the depressing darkness of the room with the lights along the lake removed from view.

Wine in hand, she relocked the bathroom door, intent on soaking away both the day’s tensions and her increasing fear.

Some sounds, some dirt found outside a window, a few strange phone calls from a disturbed kid-when she quantified the events of the past week they seemed nothing to get worked up about. Had she been on the receiving end of this list as a psychologist, she’d have wondered at the fuss. But being on the receiving end as a potential victim heightened the urgency in a way she had never fully understood before.

The piping hot water helped the wine go to her head, but the wine failed to quiet her imagination as she’d hoped. What should have been a few luxurious moments of peace found her swap-ping places with Melissa Dunkin bathing in the hotel room. Despite her being locked in a windowless room, she could feel a stranger’s eyes feasting on her. Anything, anyone, could be out there at any time. There was no place that could be considered completely safe. She mentally reviewed locking both doors and all the windows, but she didn’t trust herself. The bath itself seemed like a failed idea-it would lull her into a stupor, she’d come out of the bathroom a half hour later, dazed and dull, the perfect victim. Catching herself slipping back into paranoia, she reached for her wineglass-her medication-and missed, knocking it to the tile floor where it smashed at a volume twice as loud as it should have. Shards of jagged glass wall-to-wall awaited her bare feet. The spilled red wine looked like a pool of blood.

“Goddamn it!” Her voice rang out equally loudly, bouncing off the mirror, the tile, and the tub.

She felt foolish. Idiotic. The bath was a bust. The whole evening felt like a bust.

Where a certain personality might have left the mess to enjoy the bath while the water remained hot, Matthews felt obligated to clean it up immediately, martyring herself in the process.

Using the toilet seat as a stepping-stone, she climbed out of the tub, forgoing a towel for the robe and the sense of privacy, and inched her bottom along the countertop and finally leapt out the door and into the hall. She slipped her feet into a pair of rubber boots at the back door, grabbed a broom and dustpan, and went about cleaning up.

As she accounted for the last of it, she felt another wave of anxiety steal into her chest. Stewing in self-pity, she saw her life as her stalker must see it: jam-packed and yet empty. She thought it too bad she couldn’t clean up the pieces of her recent past the way she had this shattered wineglass. Two broken engagements, still partly reserving herself for an unavailable married man who showed less interest now than ever before. She’d made a career of repairing other lives but had proved unable to mend her own.

She looked around to see a virtual cocoon, the windows covered, the doors locked and deadbolted. Afraid of her own shadow, she was the person to whom others turned to be rescued from their fears.

She decided against the wine-it was only making things worse-and tried some Mahler instead. Nice and loud, like sitting in the second row of Benaroya Hall. She sought refuge in a mindless television show but found it unsatisfying, unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Back to the wine, and another deep glass; she now felt warm to the core but still worried.

Feeling pathetic and childish, Matthews nonetheless took the commercial breaks to patrol the houseboat. On one such foray, she grabbed a pair of flannel pajamas and returned to the bathroom and changed into them, electing to continue to wear the robe. In the process she missed a crucial part of the television show and turned off the set on the verge of tears. Another glass of wine, and she was feeling drunk.

Unable to lose the feeling of being watched, a few too many glasses of wine in her, she determined that Walker or Prair or someone had hidden cameras in the house, and she made it her mission to find them. What was so unreasonable about that?