Ridley Pearson - The Art of Deception

A gust of wind tossed her hair. Prair’s face tightened, and for the first time he glanced around, as if sensing the surveillance. The wind blew again, a mixture of rain and cold air this time, and as he reached out and moved her hair off her neck, a move that briefly terrified her, she realized he hadn’t sensed anything: He’d spotted the wire from the earpiece.

“What the hell’s going on here? You got a thing going here?”

“You stepped into that thing,” she said. “You squirreled it.”

“I was told to meet you here.”

“What is it with you, Deputy?

“I … got … a … message, said you wanted to see me.”

“A written message?” she asked.

“Central took it while I was on patrol.”

“I bet they did.”

“Listen, Lieutenant-”

“Save it,” Matthews said. “We’ll have a chat over at Public Safety, sort this all out.” Such were the instructions she received from dispatch through the earpiece.

“I’m on ten minutes lost time,” he complained.

“Well, we’ll make it an hour,” Matthews said.

“I got a message. Check it out. Central will have a record of it coming in.”

She stepped up to him, her anger rising. “You’ve got all the bases covered, don’t you?”

He held up his hands like he wanted no part of it. “I don’t know what’s going down here, Lieutenant. But if I squirreled things, I was set up.”

“Blue!” Boldt’s voice hollered over her earpiece. “Blue: Crash the nest. On my authority, you crash the nest right now!”

Her houseboat.

She understood then that Boldt believed Walker had used the meet as a distraction, had used Prair to cement that distraction, and that the ultimate goal of that distraction had been to penetrate the houseboat.

Prair backed up, out into the rain.

“Don’t go anywhere, Deputy.”

“You got this wrong, Lieutenant.”

He appeared intent on breaking into a run.

“Stay where you are, Deputy.”

“This is not my thing, Matthews. You got that wrong. I’m going back to my car, my route. I don’t need no trouble.”

“Too late,” she informed him. “You stepped into it. Now we’ve got to clean it up.”

“To apologize,” he barked out, winning her full attention.

She tugged the noisy earpiece from her ear. He was beginning to get wet in the rain. “I was there … at your place … the dock, to apologize. Swear to God. For the way I’ve been, the stuff I’ve done. I fucked up not telling you about ticketing the Walker woman. That was wrong. I wanted to come clean for that. Try to set things straight.”

“My car,” she said, stepping closer and driving him back a like amount. “This parking lot. That parking garage,” she said, pointing to where she knew LaMoia was watching. “That was you.”

“I should have told you about the moving violation. That was stupid.” He wouldn’t admit to any role in the sabotage of her Honda.

“All of it, Nathan, or none of it. You can’t put filters on this.”

He moved another step back, wearing frightened eyes. “I was there to apologize,” he repeated. “Nothing more.”

A pair of plainclothes detectives entered the parking lot at a jog. “You’re off-Com, Lieutenant,” one of them called out.

“We’re all done here, thanks to Roy Rogers,” he said, addressing Prair. “You won yourself a backstage pass to the fifth floor, and we’re your personal escorts, sir.” They stood to either side of the deputy.

“You got this wrong,” he said to Matthews.

“We’ll see about that,” she said back to him. But she felt half-convinced that he was right, and that left her all the more confused.

Nathan Prair invoked his right to a guild representative, a lawyer, ahead of his interview, effectively nullifying that any such interview would take place and, through the process, casting additional suspicion onto himself. He was released, pending a board hearing, though it seemed unclear any such hearing would ever take place, as SPD had little authority to remand a deputy sheriff. It would take the attorneys some time to sort this all out.

Boldt threw a fit in the Situation Room, angry at his team for the failed surveillance operation, the bungled intelligence, furious with Walker for having stung them. He ordered LaMoia to orchestrate a sweep of all known locations for Walker in a bid to bring him in for questioning. LaMoia broke a key off his key ring and handed it to Matthews, asking if she’d mind feeding Rehab when she returned to his loft.

“There’s no reason to go back to your loft, John, although I appreciate the offer.”

“The hell there isn’t.”

“We’ve had the houseboat under surveillance all night long.

Twice it has been searched and swept top to bottom. It’s probably the safest place in the city right now.”

“It’s on our hot-spot list, Matthews. Don’t give me shit about this. We’re going to roust every homeless haunt in this city in the next couple hours. I need all hands on deck for that. We will not be watching your crib. We will not be sweeping your crib.

You’ll stay at my place at least one more night, maybe longer.

It’s that or a hotel. You know the Sarge. You know the drill.

This is not me, darlin’. You want to complain, you go over my head.”

“I will.”

“Be my guest.”

Her bluff having failed, she winced and tried to charm her way out of this requirement. “How ’bout I feed Blue and then go over to my place?” She wasn’t sure why she’d attached so fiercely to the idea of independence-she didn’t actually relish the idea of being alone in the houseboat. Yet something com-pelled her not to accept his offer. She felt it showed weakness to accept. “Leave just one guy to watch my dock.”

“Walker’s a fisherman, Matthews. He’s probably just as likely to try a water approach. I don’t have the manpower. Even if I did, I couldn’t justify it to a lieutenant who doesn’t want you staying there. Do me a favor, don’t make me take another meeting with the Sarge. He’s in a stink. I don’t need it, not tonight. If we turn up Walker, I’ll promise to call and let you in on it, okay?” It hadn’t occurred to her that they might not include her in on this interrogation, but with her as the “victim,”

it suddenly made sense. “The number I’m going to call is my own loft, not your cell. You copy that?” He added, “In the meantime, I’m going to advise dispatch that you’ll continue to wear the wire, right up until you undress for bed. Okay?” She gave him a look. He said, “Don’t give me that. This is not kinky. It’s just on the off chance this guy’s holding another ace.” He wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise. “Don’t forget, Matthews, it was you who put this notion into my head that this bozo might be cozying up to nabbing you, not the other way around. You got any peeves, you take it up with the lady in the mirror, not me, okay?”

She resolved herself to the notion that attending Walker’s interrogation was far more important to her than where she laid her head for a night. Besides, secretly, with all his gab, LaMoia had convinced her she didn’t want to spend the night alone anyway. Having a dog and a cop down the hall was just fine with her.

The wind gusted as if someone had switched on a fan. Elliott Bay whipped up into a white-capped froth that rocked the lumbering ferries side to side. Upon reaching LaMoia’s loft, Matthews had initially misunderstood Blue’s incessant whining, believing the dog missed its master, as did she, only to realize he needed a trip around the block to relieve himself. Donning one of LaMoia’s slickers and an old felt hat, Matthews set out for a quick trip around the block, bringing the Beretta along in the right-hand pocket as a security blanket. The formerly indus-trialized neighborhood was a hubbub of commerce by day-a coffee shop, a rug store, a gourmet market, a magazine and newspaper specialist, a smoke shop-but by night little more than a rolled-up sidewalk in a loft neighborhood, the curb lined with Range Rovers and Troopers, the black-leather-jacket set strolling in pairs during good weather, renting DVDs and staying home when it rained.