The Art of Deception (36 page)

“And he died how?”

“Fell overboard into his own net. Shit happens, what can I tell you?”

“And Ferrell gets the boat?”

“It damn near destroyed him, the old man’s death. Him and me … we were an item before that, but he pulled a Humpty Dumpty on me, and I had to bail just to keep my own head together.” She got a faraway look. “Tell you the truth, when I heard Mary-Ann had jumped, I believed it, except that she couldn’t drive over a bridge, much less jump from one. That family paid their dues. A lot was asked of her and Ferrell after their mom passed. The old man on the boat or in the bar wasn’t a damn bit of good to them. Them so young and all. I can see Ferrell flipping out over losing her, because they were this incredible team, the two of them. He flipped out, right? That’s what I’ve heard.”

LaMoia had read the newspaper articles on the case—all three of them. There’d been little mention of Walker beyond as surviving kin.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“That’s the word on the docks. Missed work. Got fired. Hell… he’s been living on the streets for the better part of the winter. Living like a pig from what I hear. It’s a shame.”

“Do you have any idea where I might find him?”

“Is that what this is about?”

“It’s part of it,” he said, looking across at her.

“What’s the other part?” she asked.

“Did he ever
bother
you? Anything kinky—looking in your windows, that kind of thing?”

“Ferrell?”

He registered her astonishment.

“You think he ever followed Mary-Ann and Neal around?”

“That’s another story.”

“Tell me that story.”

“I’m just saying … yeah, he hassled Mary-Ann about seeing Lanny. Sure he did. What brother wouldn’t?”

“Hassled how?”

“Listen, he got down and out, right? Busted. Dead broke. And he hit up Mary-Ann for money from time to time. I know that because she told me. And she helped him out when she could, sure she did. But he got to be a pain in the ass, coming around Lanny’s place at all hours, trying to get Mary-Ann back on the boat. But she just wasn’t cut out for it, you know? All those years she’d done it because if she didn’t her father would beat the crap out of her. Stupid drunk. First chance to blow it off, she took it, but it screwed Ferrell in the process, and he kept trying to get her to come back.”

“So he resented Neal?”

She leveled a look onto him that let him know what an understatement that was. “Hello?”

A different picture of Walker was emerging, and LaMoia wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. He knew that Matthews
needed to hear the bit about the father’s death and the repercussions on both his kids. Ferrell Walker had no doubt carried a lot of the weight of the family given the father’s alcoholism, and he’d cracked under the weight once the father was gone, which wasn’t the first time that story had been told. He thought the loss of the father was a button Matthews could push.

Cindy Martin fiddled with her hair, an awful color of yellow bought from a box.

LaMoia saw the change the discussion had brought on her.

“You all right?” LaMoia asked.

“Yeah … No. Not really. You think I messed him up, dumping him?”

“Sounds more like his family messed him up to me.”

“You don’t like the food?”

He’d picked at it but hadn’t eaten much. “Not that hungry is all. It’s good. Very good.” He stuffed a bite in. Too greasy.

She checked her watch. “My shift is over.”

“So it is.”

“You want to continue this someplace less smoky?”

“Where do you have in mind?” He met eyes with her. He was hitting on her, and he didn’t know why. He felt like an asshole. He didn’t have to sleep with her, he told himself. He didn’t have to fall into that pattern. Times like this he felt programmed. He thought about the pills again. They were part of the program. They helped him relax, to be himself.

“I’ve got some pictures of Mary-Ann. That kind of thing. If they’d help?”

“The father?” He was thinking of a trigger for Matthews to use. He was thinking of that sweater lying on the floor, and this woman along with it.

“Might have. I’m not sure.”

“I’ve got wheels,” he said.

“I’m only a couple blocks,” she said.

He nodded, knowing he shouldn’t. Some habits were hard to break.

The wind drove the lines against the aluminum and steel down on the docks as LaMoia walked the three blocks with her. Twice he reached down into the coin pocket and touched the two capsules. He could dry-swallow them. A dozen thoughts churned inside him—images of a bloated old-man-Walker coming up with his net. The meds would slow down all thought, would kill the pain brought on by the wind.

He knew if he took the pills he’d sleep with her. Two wrongs did make a right when meds were involved. If he wanted to sleep with a woman, he’d sleep with her—so why was Matthews at the forefront of his thoughts? An adolescent urge to prove himself independent of that thought arose inside him. If he drank enough on top of the pills, he might not remember much. Wouldn’t be the first time. He could have all the sex he wanted, he reminded himself. He wasn’t tied to anyone.

Her place was the top floor of a former two-story saltbox. When she turned to unlock the door, at the top of a set of stairs added when the floors had been divided into apartments, La-Moia slipped the pills out of the pocket, glanced down at them in the palm of his hand, and then tossed them into the tall grass.

He apologized to her, told her he couldn’t stay. Had to get back. He’d hurt her by accepting and then refusing. They both pretended otherwise. She said she hoped he hadn’t gotten the wrong idea. He kissed her—a good, solid kiss, one that she’d remember—and said how he wasn’t supposed to mix business with pleasure, and how he could lose his job over it. It was a lame excuse, but she allowed it to go unchallenged.

“Talking about Ferrell,” she said, as LaMoia turned his back to leave. “He’s a fisherman, don’t forget.”

“Meaning?” He found himself looking off the stairs, trying to see where he’d tossed the pills. He caught himself reconsidering a chance to lie down with this woman. God, how he needed it.

“They’re patient,” she said. “They fish three, four, five days and may not catch a thing and then go right back out there and try again. He’s been doing that all his life. You’ve never met a guy as patient as a commercial fisherman. They’re used to waiting for what they want.”

“What’s Walker want?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Other than having Mary-Ann back? I don’t know.”

Not good news for Daphne Matthews. He and she had expected it, but hearing it out of this woman’s mouth made it all the more real for him. “You’ve been a big help.”

“Could have helped more,” she said, trying one last time. “You’ve got someone, don’t you?”

Did he have? He thought she might be trying to salvage her own pride, so he said, “Yeah.”

“You have that look,” she said.

That comment worried him the whole way home.

Matthews came awake to the sound of the door’s dead bolts turning. She’d fallen asleep for a few minutes on LaMoia’s king bed, the wide-screen TV halfway through
Pollock,
a movie she’d been stunned to find in LaMoia’s DVD collection. To rent it was one thing. To own it?

She hit the wrong button on the remote, sending the volume higher instead of turning off the TV. At least she was sitting up by the time LaMoia appeared in the doorway.

“You didn’t happen to walk Rehab?” he asked.

“How’d it go?” she asked. LaMoia shook his head, discouraged. She wanted to explain herself—her being found on his bed—felt she needed to explain, even though he’d invited her to treat the place as her own. “I thought a movie might help with sleep.” She stood up, tugged at her T-shirt self-consciously. Crossed her arms because she wasn’t wearing a bra and felt awkward about it. “And yes … to Blue. The walk.”

“You all right?”

“No,” she said, shaking her hair and hanging her head. She felt so
weak
for having reacted the way she had. “I think someone got into the apartment, John.”

“What?”

“I left a window open, I think.”

His face tightened, but he managed to say, “Okay.”

“It’s not okay. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t mean—”

“The floor was wet,” she said, stopping him.

“Because the window was open,” he suggested.

“No. Out here.” She pointed. “Prints. Maybe mine, maybe not. If not, they got there while I was out with Blue, I think.” She felt awful, in spite of his attempts to smooth this over. “I think you should check whatever valuables you have. I haven’t touched anything and the place wasn’t tossed. Nothing like that.”

“Not much to take,” he said. But she could see him struggling with his frustration. He made light of checking a couple drawers. His underwear was there, he said. His socks. She wanted to hug him.

“See why you want me back at my place?”

“Not true.” He made a point of looking into the living space. “Walker?”

“Would Nathan Prair know where you live?”

The question rattled LaMoia. “You think?”

“Could Neal or Walker know where you live?”

“If either of them had followed us, sure, they could.”

“But Prair. Your and my addresses are accessible to our fellow brothers in blue. Not to the public.”

“And what’s his motive?” LaMoia asked. “He’s looking for your laundry or something?”

“Cute,” she said.

“Special Ops tied Prair up for a while after he blew the surveillance. The timing’s off. I don’t see him good for this.”

“And what about Neal?” she asked. “It makes a little more sense in some ways. He might think we have files on the case. Might have seen me enter alone and wanted to teach me a lesson. Never underestimate the power of guilt, John.”

He grimaced. “My using taught me all I need to know. Still working on it, for that matter. I don’t need the one-oh-one.”

“It gets big enough, you lash out. Neal could be there about now.”

“Wants to put this back onto us.”

“Something like that, yeah. I’m fishing, John.”

“Are you a mind reader, too?” he asked. He sat her down and together they shared toast and cream cheese while LaMoia explained most of his interview with Cindy Martin. He stuck to the highlights.

She said, “So the kids shared a hatred of the father, and when the father died there wasn’t as much to share. Mary-Ann gets her act together, probably feeling free for the first time in her life. Little brother Ferrell doesn’t fare as well. Feels abandoned. Mary-Ann’s been mother and sister all in one. Pretty big void to fill, if that goes away all of a sudden.”

“And he’s chosen you to fill it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.

They ate another piece of toast each. She took hers with honey and a second cup of tea, after which she said, “Second night in a row. I’m whipped.” He wouldn’t let her clean up. She returned a moment later with the drop gun and Taser, returning them.

“You can keep them,” he said.

She left them on the counter. “It was incredibly good of you to do that for me, John.”

“I’d do anything for you, Matthews. You know that.”

The seriousness of his statement hung between them. She knew if she simply walked away to her room it would put him in a bad place, so instead she crossed, closing to within inches of him. She took another step, and reached around him and they hugged. His body was all lean muscle. Besides the physical warmth between them, there was a current that hummed. Her
chest tingled, as did her pubis. Stepping away, she turned quickly and said good night, hoping he wouldn’t see that her nipples had gone rigid beneath the T. There were too many lines that could be crossed here. She needed to get back to the houseboat, despite her having no desire to do so.

She asked, “What about IDing the latents from that lair Lou found? What about searching every known part of the Underground there is? Walker has to be hiding down there, right?”

“Tomorrow’s another day,” he said. “If there was anything to know, we’d know it.” He smiled, “Good night.”

“Sweet dreams,” she answered.

He mumbled something to himself. She was glad she didn’t hear it.

Ten minutes later she prepared for bed by shutting the office door and slipping off the sweatpants. She climbed under the duvet, the comfort of that bed about as welcome as anything she’d ever experienced. Blue scratched at the door, and she got up to crack it open so he could come and go. A moment later she was back under the covers thinking that life’s little pleasures were also often the biggest.

Maybe he’d bought
Pollock
because of the theme of alcoholism and depression—a part of his rehabilitation. Maybe just because of the performances. She wasn’t sure why this was where her mind focused on its way down toward sleep. She rolled over, slid her arm under the pillow, and she gasped, jumped away, and rolled out of bed in the process.

“John!” she called out without thinking.

He was there in about five steps. Shirtless, in a pair of gray athletic briefs, the legs of the underwear longer than tightywhities. She remained on the floor, her T hiked up above her navel, her bikini-cut panties showing a lot more than she’d ever want seen. But neither of them was checking the other out, their
attention was fixed instead on the guest bed. Her overreaction had tossed the pillow to the side. Lying on the bedsheet was the cause of all this.