The Art of Deception

Knock, Knock. Who’s There?

As her car drifted to the side of the road, Matthews cursed herself for choosing such a remote part of town. In all of Seattle you couldn’t buy yourself an empty street at this time of day, except around a sports stadium that wasn’t in use.

A curtain of rain fell all of a sudden, its impact deafening.

She reached for the handle, but then locked her door, reminding herself to stay inside.

“It’s me,” she said, when LaMoia answered her call less than a minute later.

“What’s your ten-twenty? I’m jammed, traffic is a bitch, and just for your information, Mr. I-haven’t-got-a-Prair came on duty with the night shift. He’s believed to be on bus duty downtown.

My guy’s checking all that. But here’s the humdinger-” He paused. “You ready for the humdinger?”

She didn’t think she was. She wanted to explain her car had died and get some help on the way. But before she could tell him, he continued right on.

“The citation, the speeding ticket Walker slipped you at the courthouse? His sister’s speeding ticket-Mary-Ann Walker?

That citation was written up by none other than Deputy Sheriff Nathan Prair.”

Her world folded in on her, like the legs of a card table collapsing. She felt trapped, pinned down. She blurted out, “The Honda died. I’m dead in the water over by Safeco Field.”

“Died how?”

“Sputtered and quit. I coasted to the side of the road.”

“Gas,” he said. “I don’t like it.”

“Well, it isn’t my dream vacation either,” she said, a little testy.

“You could have been sandbagged, Matthews. You sit tight.”

“Do I have a choice?”

The phone went silent and she dropped it into her lap. She had hoped he wouldn’t disconnect the call, the sound of his voice so reassuring, but she hadn’t been about to ask him to stay on the line. Prair had known Mary-Ann Walker ahead of her death. That made her feel terribly vulnerable.

At that moment of realization, a car pulled up behind her, headlights shining in her rearview mirrors like spotlights. Her eyes burning, she strained to identify it as LaMoia, then quickly realized it wasn’t.

Her purse lay on the floor to her right. It contained her defense arsenal. She stretched for it, and as she did, she turned the key, the engine grinding along with the rush of blood at her ears. She caught the strap and sat back up. In her outside mirror she saw a man’s dark silhouette approaching, and was reminded once again of the parking garage. She warned herself not to overreact, spotting her own sudden weaknesses.

She dragged the purse across her lap and was reaching inside when she jerked her hand out with a start as bare knuckles rapped loudly on the window glass.

“Help you?” Male. Deep voice. The rain obscured a decent view of him.

Swish, swoosh, the rubber blades did the only dance they knew. Rain coming down hard now, like pebbles cast into a pond.

Knock, knock. Again. “Can I give you a hand?”

Strong-his voice told her that much. She didn’t want to look at him because she knew that eye contact empowered the attacker. She silently begged for John to hurry up. Her fingers crept back into the purse, though nervously this time, as if she might get caught.

“No, thank you.” Too soft-spoken, she raised her voice. “NO, THANK YOU! ALL SET.” She thought to add: “SOMEONE’S ON THE WAY!”

“I’m good with cars.”

Fixing them, or breaking them? she wondered. “I’m all set.”

“Put it in neutral,” the deep voice instructed. “Let me at least get you out of this lane.”

It was, in fact, a lousy place to have come to a stop, halfway across two lanes. Small tendrils of terror began in her crotch and rushed up through her. “NO, THANK YOU.” How many times did she have to say that?

His rapping on the window bothered her. She wanted him to go away. “Stop it!” she bellowed. She didn’t mean to say that, didn’t mean to sound scared. Predators fed on such fear.

“I’m trying to help,” came the male voice. “You’re gonna get hit sticking out like this!”

She cracked the window less than an inch, just enough so there would be no mistaking her words or her tone. “I’d like you to leave now, please.”

“Lady, I’m trying to help here.”

“Go away now!” She used too urgent a tone, too frantic. She didn’t want to give him that. She rolled up the window and looked straight ahead.

“Lady!” Shaking the car, he pulled on the driver’s door handle. “Put the damn car in neutral and let me get you out of the road.”

Her right hand, now inside her purse, touched the butt end of the handgun. Her left hand joined her right and she chambered a round, still out of sight.

He shouted, “You’re going to get yourself hit sticking out like this!”

A huge sound erupted all at once, and she jumped. She thought she’d been rear-ended. The Good Samaritan’s belt buck-le pressed up to the window glass, the fly to his pants at eye level. She briefly considered firing her weapon at that target.

“Leave the lady alone, asshole.”

Although she couldn’t see her rescuer, she recognized the voice as that of Nathan Prair, and a trickle of dread ran through her. Which was the spider and which was the fly?

“Do not pass Go! Do not collect two hundred dollars.” This time, it was LaMoia’s wisecracking voice she heard, unmistakable and welcome. It must have been to Prair he said, “You’re a long way from home, sailor. You wait over there.”

In her lap, the mobile phone’s timer continued to count the seconds: 3:07, 3:08 … She had never disconnected the call.

LaMoia had heard the entire exchange with the man who’d stopped to help her. Words were traded out there. Tempers were flaring.

A metal clicking of handcuffs so familiar to any police officer. LaMoia informed the stranger, “The woman asked you to back off and leave her alone. You refused, which means you’re under arrest for harassing a police officer.”

The stranger’s astonished voice said, “A police officer?”

“You have the right to remain …”

Matthews threw her head back. The dull off-white of the ceiling fabric formed the sky above her. The gun’s knurled grip warmed in her hand. A throbbing pushed at her temples, a membrane ready to explode.

Prair’s arriving on the scene had triggered a whole series of thoughts. She caught sight of his flashing roof lights in her rearview mirror, wondering when he’d turned them on and why she hadn’t seen them until then.

The sound of the rain and the three men arguing filled her ringing ears. The rain shook the car. Prair had hidden that he’d known-or at least had met-Mary-Ann Walker prior to her murder. Why? And what impact did it have on the case? On Daphne Matthews?

Unable to take the isolation, she climbed out into the rain and glanced toward the side of the road, from where Nathan Prair looked back at her, out the side window of his cruiser. The rivulets of rain cascaded down the gray glass, looking like rows and rows of tears on his face. Prair stared at her, as cold a look as she could recall. Had he read her thoughts? Her fear? Did he sense that they knew his dirty little secret? She wanted the truth-such a simple thing to ask, so difficult to attain.

Prair rolled down the window. The tears disappeared. “I was trying to help,” he called out.

She nodded. Some rain came off her hair, sparkling in the glare of LaMoia’s headlights. She said back to him, “I’ve been getting a lot of that lately.”