The Art of Deception

Five Minutesfrom Prosperity

Mario-if there even was a Mario-had found some cheap real estate that still remained in striking distance for delivery downtown. The building looked older than God. The neighborhood, no stranger to police patrols, was a favorite for gang activity, a warehouse and light industrial region in decay over a decade, since software had overcome hardware in the bid for the local economy. Brick and broken asphalt played host to the rusted carcasses of stripped cars. Five minutes from prosperity.

Mario’s had a takeout counter, two cooks, four runners, a pair of enormous ovens, and alternative rock playing at dangerous decibels over shredded speakers. The Rastafarian currently engaged with a phone order lifted a finger indicating he’d be right with her. Hanging up, he barked across the small room to a skinny woman in her late teens. The girl wore too many earrings to count. The wanna-be-a-gangsta white boy next to her, his arms covered in the purple lace of spiderwebs and barbed-wire tattoos, his hands in disposable gloves-thank God! — seeded a pie with sliced mushrooms.

She let her shield wallet fall open, displaying her creds. “Is there a pregnant girl upstairs?”

“Could be,” the Rastafarian answered. He hadn’t had time to study her shield, so he impressed her when he said, “What’s a lieutenant doing on the street?”

“You the landlord?”

“Not hardly. Manager is all. You the Apartment Police?”

This was a game to him.

“Margaret.” Matthews said. “Her name is Margaret.”

“Is that right?”

“I’m here to give her a leg up.”

“I just bet you are.”

“When was the last time City Health stopped by for an inspection?”

“Room two,” he said. “It’s on the left.”

“What about the deputy sheriff?”

“Who?”

“His car’s around the block.”

“So he’s getting a hummer from one of the charmers in the hood. What’s new?”

She studied his face and found herself believing him. In her mind, Prair had to be hooked up with Margaret’s situation-either as a friend or the enemy. She wasn’t eager to run into him. He was good at staying hidden and out of the way, and she kept that in mind as well.

“Who’s in the other rooms up there?” she asked.

He eyed her suspiciously.

She said, “Who am I going to run into in the hall?”

“There’s no one going to throw shots at you, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean.”

She produced a twenty from her purse and placed it on the counter. She said, “Hold the anchovies,” and made the guy smile. Lousy teeth. She made it forty, total. “Anyone up there with Margaret?”

“I don’t even know that she’s up there, lady.”

“Within the realm of possibility,” she suggested.

“Listen, they think I don’t know, but there’re three of them sharing what’s barely big enough for one. Young girls.”

Matthews withdrew her gun from the purse and chambered a round. It all came down to a show of power on the streets.

You were either a player or not. She understood the psychology, though lacked some of the courage. She said, “I don’t need anyone crashing my party. Should I give you a minute to let anyone know, or what?”

“People are in and out of there all the time, Lieutenant.” The way he emphasized her rank, she knew he’d made her for the desk jockey she was. He said, “You do what you gotta do.”

The stairway entrance to the apartments was outside the takeout door and to the left. She glanced across the street to where Gaynes had parked the car. In theory, Gaynes was making every attempt to raise Prair. Matthews bootlegged her weapon on the way up the dingy and dirty stairwell, choking on the smell of urine. In situations like this-tenement busts-it was surprise that cost cops their lives. Reaction time proved longer than the thought process. Twelve-year-olds with water pistols took a bullet.

The upstairs hallway was empty and dimly lit. Either her man downstairs had cleared the area, or she’d gotten lucky. The gun felt an inappropriate way to greet Margaret, but it wouldn’t feel right in the handbag, either. She let it fall to her side and knocked. “Margaret, it’s me,” she announced. Either that registered or not, she wasn’t calling out any more details.

She heard footsteps approaching the door and found herself relieved that Margaret could walk, was not prone on the bed delivering the baby prematurely. For this had been her most recent thought: contractions. Margaret about to give birth.

“Just a minute.” The sound of the girl’s voice filled Matthews with gratitude. She resolved not to abandon her, to stay with her until whatever was the problem was fully resolved.

She heard a pair of locks come off the door. She felt herself grip the handgun more tightly and braced herself for bloodshot eyes, jaundiced skin, the girl’s water having broken-whatever terror she next confronted. The apartment door came open.

She’d been crying, her face blotchy, her nose running, her cheeks silver with tears. She wore torn leggings, a loose dress from Goodwill. She trembled head to toe with fever, her forehead beaded with perspiration. Or maybe it was toxic shock or a reaction to some drug she’d taken. The girl could not bring herself to look at Matthews, eyes downcast. Embarrassed, Matthews thought.

A combination of horror, sympathy, and righteous indigna-tion charged her system, and again she promised to see this through. Hebringer and Randolf were dead-they could wait awhile. This girl still had a chance.

“It’s okay,” Matthews said. The door fell fully open. She peeked through the crack before stepping inside. The room was empty. “You did the right thing in calling me.”

“I don’t know about that.”

The sad, cheerless room was barely bigger than a bathroom stall. Soiled sheets covered a thin mattress on a steel-framed bed.

If three women lived here, they shared that bed, nearly on top of each other. A corner sink housed a faucet that dripped, a teardrop of green patina below. The toilet had to be down the hall. A wooden closet bar sat across the corner diagonally holding a handful of empty wire hangers. The room’s only window looked barely big enough for egress. The room smelled of girls, of mildew, and of sweat, all overpowered by the nauseating aroma of tomato sauce and something burning.

Margaret sat down, paralyzed on the edge of the bed. She began crying again. “I’m so sorry,” she moaned, repeating it over and over.

Matthews secured the weapon and stored it in her purse. She eased down alongside of the girl. Matthews said, “Well … it’s good to see you’ve got a roof over your head.”

Matthews heard footsteps out in the hall draw closer. She experienced a jolt of heat like hormones gone bad. Margaret looked up, struggled to sober up, her eyes clearly fixing onto Matthews as she whispered hoarsely, “He said he’d kill the baby.”

“Who-?” But in that instance, Matthews felt her eyes refocus on a tiny hole freshly drilled through the room’s side wall.

The plaster’s white dust had settled on the floor like a tiny pile of snow. She rotated her head toward the door. Unlocked! She realized the oversight too late. She’d answered her own question: a fisherman. The department had hung her out as bait for Walker, but he’d baited her instead. Despite her earlier planning for this possibility, the minute or two with Margaret had pushed all that aside.

Ferrell Walker came through the door, catching Matthews flat-footed and a beat behind. She grabbed for her purse, but his knife severed the leather strap and it fell to the floor, where he kicked it away. The knife was familiar. The curved blade a deceptive dull gray from hours of hand sharpening.

Suddenly the door was shut and Margaret in his grip, the knife held below her bulging belly.

“Who’s the friend in the Ford?” he asked, the first words out of his mouth. He leaned forward, cheek to cheek with Margaret.

“She betrayed you,” he said. “Just like she betrayed me.” He met eyes with Matthews as he took Margaret in a choke hold, the knife suddenly at her belly. If he used it, she’d come open like a piece of ripe fruit.

“They have me under surveillance,” she said. Rule number one: Never lie in a hostage situation. For the sake of Bobbie Gaynes, monitoring her every word, she added hastily, “Put the knife down, Ferrell.”

He backed up to the window and glanced furtively outside.

“Shit! Call her off.” Below him, no doubt, Gaynes was already on the move.

“How do I do that, Ferrell?” Matthews asked, stalling. She pointed to the door. “Should I go out-”

“YOU CALL HER OFF!” He tightened his grip on Margaret, pulling the knife lower.

“My purse. My cell phone,” Matthews said.

Walker eyed the purse on the floor … back to Matthews …

the door to the room … out the window.

She was thinking that peepers don’t kill and that Walker was clearly a peeper from the Underground, a person satisfied with phone harassment, a grief-stricken lost soul who’d lost his way.

Only then did she notice what looked like fresh blood on the man’s sneakers and the bottoms of his pants. Only then did she realize she’d played this wrong.

He said, “So we give them something to keep them busy.”

With that, he dragged the knife across Margaret’s belly, muffling her cry with his left hand, and let her sag to the floor in a pool of the impossible.

Matthews screamed out and charged, but took the butt end of the knife in the forehead and her lights dimmed. As she struggled up to consciousness, she felt him pulling on her arms, dragging her across the floor. Margaret’s crimson cry huddled beneath the window, the fingers of her right hand dancing like a typist’s in an erratic, bloodless twitch.

“You son of a bitch,” she groaned as she threw up just outside the door. Walker pulled her to her feet and pushed her. She stumbled forward down the hall, leading the way. “She’ll bleed out,” she said, trusting Gaynes to hear. “Where’s this hallway lead?” Again, for the sake of the microphones.

He pressed the point of the knife into her back, and she felt it cut through her skin. “What’s that blood on your clothes?”

she asked. “Did you harm Lanny Neal?” She hoped to hell Gaynes was getting this. Her vision blurred, but she tried to keep watch for the detective, tried to prepare to make a move that would allow a shot. With his next shove, Walker encountered the bulge of metal hardware taped to her back. His arm suddenly came around her throat as he tore the device loose, wires and all, and smashed it under his right heel. The shirt of LaMoia’s that she wore ripped from her armpit to her waist.

This was not the Ferrell Walker she had ever expected. The psychologist in her looked for the telltales she’d missed, the source of the violence he displayed. Twice now he’d mentioned her betrayal of him. He’d made that connection between Mary-Ann and her-both “leaving him” for someone else. LaMoia, in her case. A spark of dread filled her as she realized she’d warned LaMoia and Boldt of this very event-her abduction. So here it was, nothing like she’d imagined it.

He pushed her again, and she wobbled forward on unsteady legs.

They were two steps down the slanting staircase when a winded Gaynes rounded the landing. Without hesitation, as if he’d practiced this a hundred times, he let go of Matthews, shov-ing her off balance so that she tumbled down the stairs, knocking into Gaynes like a bowling ball chasing a pin. Gaynes, two-handing her weapon during her ascent, aimed the gun low and swiveled to avoid Matthews, but went down hard. Walker, showing no interest in the gun, kicked it away and then smashed his foot down on the detective’s wrists, first the right, then the left. He dropped a knee squarely onto her chest, seized her by the hair, and smashed her skull down onto the flooring, rendering her unconscious. This was a man who could pin a squirming four-hundred-pound halibut.

He dragged Matthews by the arms until she scrambled to walk under her own power, her legs riddled with splinters. He led her to and through a door that opened up on the back side of the building, where a kid in a white apron smeared with tomato sauce leaned against the brick smoking a joint. That apron reminded Matthews of the first time she’d met Ferrell Walker. It seemed like a year ago now. Hopefully, she thought, not a lifetime ago.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Walker said, making no attempt to disguise his holding Matthews captive.

The kid mumbled “Fuck off ” as he snubbed the joint and rolled to his right, turning his back on them. A street assault was nothing new to him.

Walker stopped her at the corner, peering out into the mostly deserted street. A pair of delivery trucks lumbered past. He slipped the bloodied knife away with the expertise of a swords-man, held her firmly by the arm, and said, “You stay close, or I feed you to the crabs.” He fought with her as he led her across the street. In regaining her feet, in being set into motion, she awoke from the stupor brought on by Margaret’s evisceration.

It was one thing to respond to crime, quite another to witness it, this act of his catching her squarely in the crosshairs. She understood in those few hurried moments of crossing the street, of heading down yet another litter-strewn alley, that her very survival depended on her ability to quickly and accurately pin-point Walker’s mind-set, the motivations and factors that had turned him from a benign mourner into an unpredictable, homicidal killer. Some trigger had been thrown, and she believed her continued existence turned on her ability to identify it, expose it, and manipulate it to her advantage.

As if hearing her internal thoughts, he turned to her halfway down the alley and said with wild eyes, “Don’t worry, you’re going to like this.”

That made her worry all the more.

They stopped in front of a steel-plate manhole marked SWD-Seattle Water Department. Walker retrieved a crude tool fashioned from bent rebar that he’d hidden behind a pile of soggy cardboard boxes. The reinforcing rod was bent like a giant meat hook. He instructed Matthews to sit down on the pavement, and she obeyed, ill prepared to try to outrun the man. He slipped the hook end of the bent rod through a ventilation hole in the manhole cover and hoisted the heavy lid. It came off the exposed hole with a rattle of metal. As he did so, she used the cover of the noise to reach behind her, grope down her backside, and tear loose the small tag inside her panties. She let it fall onto the pavement. Leave them crumbs, she thought, her cop’s mind beginning to separate from her personal emotions.

A flicker of light swept through the looming darkness that seemed to overwhelm her at that moment. She was letting him win without intending it. She said to him, “We found the room, Ferrell. The bodies. We know all about it.” She saw disappointment crease his face-she’d guessed the contents of the gift before allowing him to unwrap it for her.

He told her to get to her feet. He pointed down the black hole in the pavement. “Ladies first,” he said.