Ridley Pearson - The Art of Deception

LaMoia got himself into more jams than a jar of peanut butter.

He had a penchant for it, and why they always, always, seemed to involve women-attractive women-was beyond him, except to say that some guys were just lucky.

Cindy Martin would have immediately won LaMoia’s attention even if she hadn’t been identified in phone company Local Usage Details, or LUDs, as the person Mary-Ann Walker had called at 11:03 P.M. on the night of her death, the last call placed that day from Lanny Neal’s apartment. LaMoia had read and reread the interview sheet on her. A CAP detective name Louis Gilgau had spent nearly an hour interviewing her, one of about ten such interviews. LaMoia now had the job to reinterview because Boldt had ordered him to do so-still convinced that Walker’s offer to “help” with Hebringer and Randolf made him of prime importance to that investigation as well as to his sister’s murder.

LaMoia would have noticed her not because of her chest, a substantial example of high breasts on a long waist, not because of the farm-girl innocence of her face, nor the faraway stare across the relatively empty barroom, but instead because of her fashion sense. Martin was one of those women who continues to dress the same and wear her hair the same as she had in high school. She still looked the same age as a result. If LaMoia were to pick a pinup girl from a catalog, he’d be hard pressed to do better than Cindy Martin-a buxom farm-girl blonde, with hands like a man and eyes with the intensity of an assassin.

“Hey there,” LaMoia said, pulling himself up onto a bar stool and checking out the deerskin jacket in the bar’s mirror to make sure it hung right.

“Hi.”

“You’re Cindy?”

“You’re the cop that called,” she said.

“About Ferrell Walker,” he reminded.

“Like I told the other guy, I only dated him a couple of times.”

“Dated?” LaMoia asked. He didn’t remember reading a thing about that. How could Gilgau leave that out? “I thought the connection was Mary-Ann.”

“Was, yeah, sure.”

“But you dated Ferrell.”

“Not for long. Nothing serious.”

“I’m trying to find him.”

“So you said.” She met eyes with him, hers a cool gray-blue that he was sure could look frightening if she were mad at you.

They could make you feel other things, too.

“You dated him recently?”

“Two years ago.”

He understood then why Gilgau would have discounted the importance. That was Ferrell Walker the fisherman, the Ferrell Walker before the fall brought on by his father’s death and his sister’s deserting the family business. He asked, “A week, a month, a couple months, or what?” He couldn’t see this girl with someone so unworthy. Sympathy fucks were one thing-he’d had a few himself-but sympathy relationships?

“Or what,” she answered.

“Cute,” he said, not meaning it.

She left him, tending to a bearded customer in need of another pilsner.

LaMoia thought about a drink, but it was seriously off-limits.

So were pills, though he’d transferred the two he’d stolen from Matthews into his clean pair of jeans, and there they remained, in a coin pocket, only the thickness of denim from his enjoy-ment.

When she returned, she said, “Off and on. He was fishing then, so it wasn’t exactly steady between us. It was fun because we did things with Mary-Ann, that’s all. But it kind of lacked chemistry, you know?” She leaned into him with that twin pair of headlights-her eyes and the ones in the sweater-and induced enough electricity to fry a pacemaker. He understood the sign behind the bar then that warned of the health risks associated with the use of microwaves. Probably guys dropping like flies around there before the sign went up.

“Well, if it was a lack of chemistry,” he heard himself say, “it wasn’t any fault of yours.” Mikey liked it. He wasn’t sure what drove him to say such things, but there you are. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things. He didn’t lose any sleep over it.

“That other cop called. You guys are better in person.”

“Off-duty we get even better.” Where the hell had that come from?

“Don’t doubt it for a minute.” She glanced over at the clock.

“I’m off at twelve.” Less than twenty minutes.

“I was on night duty for all of March. These past few days it has been pretty much twenty-four/seven. It’s hell on your social life.”

“I doubt you suffer too much,” she said, turning to the bottles after a signal for a vodka on the rocks and overexaggerating the effort as she stretched to reach it. She caught him looking at her assets in the bar’s mirror.

“Write me a ticket,” he called out to her, not missing a beat.

“You busted me on that one.”

She grinned. Bit her bottom lip. “Free country,” she said.

“And me,” he said, “I’m supposed to keep it that way.”

She poured the vodka, returned the bottle with a lot less effort, and delivered the drink. Looked like maybe a two-dollar tip for a four-dollar drink-maybe the gymnastics hadn’t been for his sake after all. Woman knew her trade.

“Walker claimed to a colleague that Lanny Neal had gotten Mary-Ann jammed up with drugs. That he did stuff to her a guy shouldn’t do. Not the good stuff,” he added.

“Sounds like Ferrell. Listen, Mary-Ann was a big girl. With Lanny Neal-you got the reputation, if you know what I’m saying. He could be hell on a woman, sure. But he was hell with the women, too.”

“Got it.”

“She knew what to expect. She could have walked.”

“You think?”

“ ’Course she could have. Except he got under her skin, I suppose.” She leaned forward on the bar again. “Some guys do that.”

“Women don’t tolerate abuse because they’re addicted to the sex,” he said. “It’s because they fear where it’ll go if they ditch out.”

“You believe that shit?”

“It’s in the manual that way,” he said, trying to win back some lost ground. He didn’t know if he wanted that ground for himself, or so he could continue to work her. That confusion disturbed him. Uncharted territory this, since his recovery. Dangerous ground even. Part of his distraction were the two pills in the coin pocket. The other part was looking him in the eye.

She laughed a good laugh, from the gut with her shoulders raked forward. “You’re a piece of work.”

“That’s what they say.”

She could hardly believe he’d said that. Neither could he.

Ten minutes to twelve. He had some decisions to make.

He said, “Bad luck, what happened to her.”

“Is it true Lanny did it?”

“We’re still working that out. What do you think?”

“Me?” That seemed to floor her. “Under different circumstances, no. From what I’ve read about it … if she’d been wearing more clothes … something like this … I’d say it was just plain bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time. It’s a different town than it was ten years ago, right? You’ve got to see more of that than the rest of us. Whole different place. But I don’t know-underwear and a T-shirt. That makes sense for her going to bed like that, and if she was going to bed, that’s Lanny, so I’d say you’ve got the right guy.”

“We don’t have him,” LaMoia said.

This confused her. “But I thought there was just a hearing.”

“There was.” He realized that people close to Mary-Ann like Cindy Martin had stayed up on events, once again amazed at the connection the media supplied.

“So? There’s gonna be another one, the paper said.”

“Maybe not.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” he said. “Depends on what we turn up.”