The Art of Deception (16 page)

“Plain sight,” she said, noticing LaMoia’s attention on the handgun. “I didn’t want any surprises. Permit’s in my purse, if you want to see it.”

“Glock?”

“Glock seventeen,” she answered.

He’d heard of the model but never seen one. “Weight?”

“Light as a feather. Polymer grip. Magazine holds ten. Used to be seventeen but it was heavier, of course.”

“This is not a recent addition to your wardrobe,” he said.

“Did I panic when this Peeping Tom showed up and then run out and buy a gun? I don’t think so, Detective. I believe in a woman’s right to defend herself. In seven years, no shots fired, but it has served its purpose a couple times. It’s never more than a few feet away from me.”

“Lucky it,” he snapped.

“I’m at the firing range once a week. You both know what I’m talking about.”

“It’s sergeant, not detective. And it’s Lieutenant Matthews,” he corrected.

“My mistake.”

“No,” he corrected, his contempt for the executive set obvious, “your mistake was trying to cancel this harassment complaint you filed. Why the back-pedal?”

“You want a seat?” she asked.

“I’d like an answer,” he said. LaMoia turned to Matthews. “You want a seat?”

Matthews shook her head, declining.

He looked back at Oblitz. “No, we’ll stand.”

Tina Oblitz took a corner of the small couch, withdrew a cigarette from a fancy holder that lay on the glass table, lit up, and hogged down that smoke like an addict who’d been away
from it for years. Her body consumed it. When she exhaled, hardly anything came out. She looked satisfied, like a boozer after a stiff drink.

She said, “The other detective and I … we discussed this.”

“The complaint is still on file, Ms. Oblitz, and seeing as how we’ve got an active case that could use a lift, your cooperation would be appreciated.” He said, “I explained this over the phone. I believe you know that’s why we’re here.”

“I never agreed to two of you.”

Matthews said, “The department requires a woman officer be present in any interview or interrogation involving a female.” As she said this, as she looked at this woman, something nagged at her and then danced out of her thoughts as Oblitz spoke.

“You’re the chaperone?” Oblitz asked sarcastically. “Hope you don’t mind my saying so, but you don’t look the part.”

“I don’t mind,” Matthews said, unflinchingly. It took a lot to intimidate the gray-suit set. She asked, “Have we met before?”

“Are you sure you won’t sit down?” The ember of the cigarette went nearly white with the next inhale.

Whatever it was, it nagged at Matthews again, as elusive and annoying as a mosquito in the dark.

LaMoia said, “We believe your attempt to withdraw the complaint may have arisen out of your being compromised,” LaMoia said, “or that an attempt was made to compromise you.”

Oblitz wore a lot of makeup, but where her real skin showed, it turned paler. “Is that so?” she said.

Matthews said, “Voyeurism escalates to rape. Rape can escalate to homicide. We’ve lost two women already—they went missing from downtown. How many more until you decide to cooperate?”

“Shit.”

LaMoia reminded, “I mentioned that over the phone … that we had ourselves a situation.”

“We’re not the tabloids,” Matthews said. “Contrary to what you might believe, not every piece of information leaks from a police department.”

LaMoia said, “It’s only the big stuff, and believe it or not, your sex life doesn’t register anywhere on that Richter scale.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

LaMoia asked, “Do you remember anything about it? What he looked like? Where he was at the time? How he might have singled you out?”

“No, it completely slipped my mind.”

They both took the sarcasm as the first step toward open communication.

“You’re married.” Matthews had noticed the showy rings, but Oblitz apparently felt obliged to display them for her anyway. “You were with a partner other than your husband.”

“You know,” Oblitz snapped, “you’re going places, Lieutenant. Sharp as a tack, you are.”

Matthews contained her anger well. “Mr. George Ramirez paid the hotel incidentals, including three room-service charges and an all-day adult film pass.”

LaMoia answered her puzzled and pained expression. “You know what they say? The titles don’t show on your bill? Don’t believe it. An order number does:
Sweet Valley Thigh,
Ms. Oblitz. Your man-friend talked you into attempting to withdraw the complaint you filed with us. For all we know he talked you into all sorts of things, including the warm chocolate and the whipped cream—room-service order number three, at four-seventeen
P.M.
Your business. We could care less. But that peeper is our business and we’ll
ride
you, Ms. Oblitz, until we come away with whatever you can tell us about it.”

“Two peas in a pod.” Oblitz picked up her cigarette lighter and flicked it so that the flame burned. She held it out between her and LaMoia, peering through its yellow glare. She placed
the lighter back down. Somewhere in the process another cigarette lit. Smoked spiraled.

“We’re not looking to indict you for your sexual preferences or practices,” Matthews said. “We’re here because we believe you can aid our investigation, that your experience may be directly connected to at least one of the women who’ve gone missing.” Sometimes it took voicing the words, airing her thoughts. Her spine tingled and the hair on the nape of her neck stood on end. Change the hair color, and Tina Oblitz looked a lot like Susan Hebringer. Too much like her to be coincidence, Boldt would have said.

Matthews told the woman, “You wear a scarf on your head, or a hat, when you go out.” She clarified, “A dark scarf.”

A sideways glance of disbelief. “Now just how the hell would you know that?”

“May I see you with it on?”

LaMoia gave Matthews this leeway, though he clearly didn’t understand the request.

Oblitz grunted a complaint, retrieved the scarf, and tied it over her head. “My hair doesn’t hold up under your
constant
rain,” she complained. “Not without spray, and I hate that look.”

“Do you see it?” Matthews asked LaMoia, who continued to look confused. “The resemblance,” she completed.

“Hebringer,” he whispered. More of a gasp. “How could we have missed that?”

“We didn’t miss it,” Matthews said. “It just took us awhile to see it.”

Oblitz looked on, her head tracking them comically like a spectator at a tennis match. She stood by the couch, cigarette flaring, focused on Matthews. “What do I do?” she asked. “To help?”

“Tell us about your day,” LaMoia said. “The run-up to your spotting the peeper.”

“It’s been awhile,” Oblitz said.

“Whatever you remember,” Matthews suggested, a newfound kindness in her voice.

Oblitz settled back into the couch, still wearing the scarf. “I had a few extra hours,” she recalled. “I hit the museum. The Annie Leibovitz show. Some of your tourist stuff.”

LaMoia shot a glance toward Matthews. His normally dull, chocolate eyes were alive with excitement.

They hurried down the dimly lit hotel corridor toward the elevators, when Matthews steered them to the fire door and the stairs. LaMoia had just been notified that the preliminary lab report on Lanny Neal’s car had come through, and both were eager to learn the results.

“It doesn’t make our job any easier, nor does it make me feel adequate in predicting him.” She held the door for LaMoia.

“Our
job?” LaMoia said, stopping only inches from her. “I like the sound of that.”

“Don’t get all mushy about it.” She held her ground, not allowing him to intimidate her with this closeness, her back to the cold metal door, the two of them nearly chest to chest. She said, “Construction sites, tourist traps. I don’t see Hebringer and Randolf fitting into that, both being locals, both living downtown. But I suppose we start there, because it was handed to us.”

“We work well together,” he said.

“Leave it alone, would you?”

“No.”

He headed through the door then and down the first flight of stairs. Matthews hesitated for a second, regaining her composure, controlling herself.

His voice echoed up the concrete stairway. “Chocolate and whipped cream—ever tried it?”

“In your dreams.”

“You got that right,” he said, his shoes slapping faster and more loudly as he continued his hurried descent.

Matthews stood in the parking lot by her Honda, awaiting Walker as he punched out at a small shack at the foot of one of the fishing docks. The air pungent with saltwater, the wind heavy with a cold mist, she squinted against the blow, taking in the damp and the beauty of the shipping canal and the greenish gray hill rising toward the blinking radio towers. American flags hung everywhere, even in the rain. A boy rode his bike, a mangy dog running to keep up. The sound of rubber tires running on wet roadway had become so familiar to her that the scenery did not exist without it, the same way downtown demanded the low cry of the ferry horns bellowing out into Elliott Bay. This great city was fungal smells and mystical sounds, dreary skies and paper cups of steaming coffee. It was rubber boots and rain slickers, a place pedestrians waited at cross lights. The trawlers had serviced these same docks for more than a hundred years. Matthews could hear the clip-clop of horses’ hooves on cobblestone. She could hear the fishmongers shouting out prices as little blond-haired boys carried fillets wrapped in newsprint over to well-dressed house servants and cooks.

“You need my help again, don’t you?” Walker called out to her across the blacktop.

“Some questions is all,” she said loudly, as he was still some distance away.

He wore an old pair of running shoes, not waffle-soled boots
as she’d expected. This discovery bothered her, for it still left the person responsible for the prints outside her mudroom window in doubt.

“How ‘bout that drink?” he said, catching up to her. He wore the same clothes she’d seen him in before. Wet at the knees, caked with mud on the lower leg, they did not appear to have been washed.

“I don’t want you calling me anymore, Mr. Walker.” She added, “Any further attempts to make contact on your part will be considered harassment. Do you understand?”

“That’s the thanks I get?” He cocked his head, “What? You’re teasing, right? You want more stuff, is that it? Something you need done?”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. She saw confusion register on his face. “If you find it difficult to get over the grief, there are programs, counselors I can—”

“What the fuck? Counselors? You want me off your case, then you—”

“We’re closer to an arrest in this case,” she said, cutting him off.

This hit him like a slap in the face. Some spittle bubbled at the corner of his lips. “You need me,” he whispered. “I can help you.”

“I need you … to stay out of this. Your involvement could compromise our efforts, Mr. Walker.”

“That sweatshirt? That
compromised
your efforts, I suppose?”

He’d caught her, and the slight hesitation on her part cost her, though she salvaged the moment by turning it to her advantage. “Okay, I’ll admit it, there is something you can do to help us out.”

“I knew it,” he said deliberately, a quiz show contestant confident his answer had been right all along.

“I need to see your driver’s license, and I need to confirm your residence. Next-of-kin paperwork,” she explained, although this wasn’t the real reason behind her query.

“I don’t own a car, and I don’t have a license because I let it expire. But you probably know that already, right? I mean, what’s the point?” He indicated the docks behind him. “I bus up here. I bus back into the city. Home’s a hole in the ground, a place out of the rain. I’ve got a tarp, a box of some stuff. That’s home. That’s what fucking Lanny Neal left me with when he took Mary-Ann off the boat.” He stepped toward her, another wave of anger gripping his eyes, another pulse of nausea seeping into her. “Why ask questions you already know the answer to? Are you toying with me?”

“I was under the impression you’d driven Lanny Neal’s Toyota Corolla,” she lied. She went fishing with the fisherman. It wasn’t an impression, but a suspicion that resulted from the lab work on the car. “Your sister’s birthday dinner a couple months back.”

“That’s bullshit. Neal drove.” This was her first confirmation that Neal had been telling the truth about that particular night. It was also the first she’d learned that Walker had been along for the celebration—his sister’s idea, no doubt. She couldn’t see Neal inviting him.

“He got locked out of the car. Is that correct?”

“The guy’s a numb nuts. I’ve been telling you that.”

“Did Mary-Ann hurt herself that night?”

“Hurt herself how?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“He beat on her all the time, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking if you witnessed any violence between the two in Neal’s car that night.”

Again, Walker cocked his head. “I get it,” he said, nodding slowly. “Sure he did. Damn right he did.”