Tess Gerritsen - Body Double

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Natick. They’ve got a missing woman.”

Rizzoli frowned at him. “Is she…”

He nodded. “She’s nine months pregnant.”

“YOU ASK ME,” said Natick Detective Sarmiento, “this is just another Laci Peterson case. Marriage off the rails, husband’s got a mistress in the wings.”

“He admits he’s got a girlfriend?” asked Rizzoli.

“Not yet, but I can smell it, you know?” Sarmiento tapped his nose and laughed. “Scent of the other woman.”

Yeah, he probably could smell it, thought Rizzoli as Sarmiento led her and Frost past desks with glowing computer screens. He looked like a man familiar with the scent of the ladies. He had the walk, the confident strut of the cool guy, right arm swinging out from years of wearing a gun on his hip, that telltale arc that shouted cop. Barry Frost had never picked up that swagger. Next to the strapping, dark-haired Sarmiento, Frost looked like a pale clerk with his trusty pen and notebook.

“Missing woman’s name is Matilda Purvis,” said Sarmiento, pausing at his desk to pick up a folder, which he handed to Rizzoli. “Thirty-one years old, Caucasian. Married seven months to Dwayne Purvis. He owns the BMW dealership here in town. Saw his wife last Friday, when she dropped in to see him at work. Apparently they had an argument, because witnesses said the wife left crying.”

“So when did he report her missing?” asked Frost.

“On Sunday.”

“It took him two days to get around to it?”

“After the fight, he said he wanted to let things cool down between them, so he stayed in a hotel. Didn’t return home till Sunday. Found the wife’s car in the garage, Saturday’s mail still in the box. Figured something was wrong. We took his report Sunday night. Then this morning, we saw that alert you sent out, about pregnant women going missing. I’m not sure this one fits your pattern. Looks more to me like your classic domestic blowup.”

“You checked out that hotel he stayed in?” asked Rizzoli.

Sarmiento responded with a smirk. “Last time I spoke to him, he was having trouble remembering which one it was.”

Rizzoli opened the folder and saw a photo of Matilda Purvis and her husband, taken on their wedding day. If they’d been married only seven months, then she was already two months pregnant when this photo had been taken. The bride was sweet-faced, with brown hair, brown eyes, and girlishly round cheeks. Her smile reflected pure happiness. It was the look of a woman who had just fulfilled her lifelong dream. Standing beside her, Dwayne Purvis looked weary, almost bored. The photo could have been captioned: Trouble ahead.

Sarmiento led the way down a corridor, and into a darkened room. Through a one-way window, they could see into the adjoining interview room, unoccupied at the moment. It had stark white walls, a table and three chairs, a video camera mounted high in one corner. A room designed to sweat out the truth.

Through the window they saw the door swing open, and two men entered. One of them was a cop, barrel-chested and balding, a face with no expression, just a blank. The kind of face that made you anxious for a glimpse of emotion.

“Detective Ligett’s going to handle it this time,” murmured Sarmiento. “See if we get anything new out of him.”

“Have a seat,” they heard Ligett say. Dwayne sat down, facing the window. From his point of view it was just a mirror. Did he realize there were eyes watching him through the glass? His gaze seemed to focus, for an instant, directly on Rizzoli. She suppressed the urge to step back, to recede deeper into the darkness. Not that Dwayne Purvis looked particularly threatening. He was in his early thirties, dressed casually in a button-down white shirt, no tie, and tan chinos. On his wrist was a Breitling watch-a bad move on his part, to walk in for police questioning flashing a piece of jewelry that a cop couldn’t afford. Dwayne had the bland good looks and cocky self-assurance that some women might find attractive-if they liked men who flaunted pricey watches.

“Must sell a lot of BMWs,” she said.

“Mortgaged up to his ears,” said Sarmiento. “Bank owns the house.”

“Policy on the wife?”

“Two hundred fifty thousand.”

“Not enough to make it worth killing her.”

“Still, it’s two hundred fifty G’s. But without a body, he’ll have a hard time collecting. So far, we don’t have one.”

In the next room, Detective Ligett said: “Okay, Dwayne, I just want to go back over a few details.” Ligett’s voice was as flat as his expression.

“I’ve already talked to that other policeman,” said Dwayne. “I forgot his name. The guy who looks like that actor. You know, Benjamin Bratt.”

“Detective Sarmiento?”

“Yeah.”

Rizzoli heard Sarmiento, standing beside her, give a pleased little grunt. Always nice to hear you look like Benjamin Bratt.

“I don’t know why you’re wasting your time here,” said Dwayne. “You should be out there, looking for my wife.”

“We are, Dwayne.”

“How is this helping?”

“You never know. You never know what little detail you might remember that will make a difference in the search.” Ligett paused. “For instance.”

“What?”

“That hotel you checked into. You remember the name of it yet?”

“It was just some hotel.”

“How’d you pay for it?”

“This is irrelevant!”

“You use a credit card?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?”

Dwayne huffed out a sound of exasperation. “Yeah, okay. It was my credit card.”

“So the name of the hotel should be on your statement. All we have to do is check.”

A silence. “Okay, I remember, now. It was the Crowne Plaza.”

“The one in Natick?”

“No. It was out in Wellesley.”

Sarmiento, standing beside Rizzoli, suddenly reached for the telephone on the wall. He murmured into it: “This is Detective Sarmiento. I need the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Wellesley…”

In the interrogation room, Ligett said, “Wellesley’s kind of far from home, isn’t it?”

Dwayne sighed. “I needed some breathing room, that’s all. A little time to myself. You know, Mattie’s been so clingy lately. Then I have to go to work, and everyone there wants a piece of me, too.”

“Rough life, huh?” Ligett said it straight, without a hint of the sarcasm he had to be feeling.

“Everyone wants a deal. I’ve gotta smile through my teeth at customers who’re asking me for the moon. I can’t give them the moon. A fine machine like a BMW, they have to expect to pay for it. And they all have the money, that’s what kills me. They have the money, and they still want to suck every last cent out of my hide.”

His wife is missing, possibly dead, thought Rizzoli. And he’s pissed off about Beemer bargain hunters?

“That’s why I lost my temper. That’s what the argument was all about.”

“With your wife?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t about us. It’s the business. Money’s been tight, you know? That’s all it was. Things are just tight.”

“The employees who saw that argument-”

“Which employees? Who did you talk to?”

“There was a salesman and a mechanic. They both said your wife looked pretty upset when she left.”

“Well, she’s pregnant. She gets upset at the craziest things. All those hormones, it sends ’em out of control. Pregnant women, you just can’t reason with them.”

Rizzoli felt her cheeks flush. Wondered if Frost thought the same thing about her.

“Plus, she’s tired all the time,” Dwayne said. “Cries at the drop of a hat. Her back hurts, her feet hurt. Has to run to the bathroom every ten minutes.” He shrugged. “I think I deal with it pretty well. Considering.”