The Art of Deception

Running Below Graves

LaMoia had a cop’s eye, a cop’s nose, and a cop’s instincts, but he had the heart of a man, and when the faint voices he’d been following stopped abruptly-one now clearly a woman’s-he feared he’d lost her.

He abandoned his effort at stealth, charging up the tunnel at a reckless speed given his hunched posture. No witticism filled his head longing to escape his lips, no wisecrack; he was briefly all muscle, adrenaline, and determination.

Feelings for others often reveal themselves in strange ways.

It took a tunnel, the stench of death, and dying voices to illuminate his heart’s unwilling truth: Her life was precious. She was to be saved at all costs.

The tunnel looked ready to come down in places, the century-old railroad ties bulging under the weight and pressure of a city built atop them. He passed through sections of warmth and then cold, of foul odors followed by none at all. Graves were dug shallower than this. He was running below graves.

A wall of pipes up ahead briefly appeared to seal off passage, and he thought, to have come all this way only to find it blocked.

But as he approached, the light revealed the illusion-there was plenty of room to duck beneath the lowest.

Tucking himself through this space, LaMoia heard a scream-a man’s scream-a scream that was the result of physical pain, not anger.

And then, the wet slop of running. Not one person, but two, the detective ascertained. Not toward him, but away. From himself? he wondered. Had Walker seen the beam of his flashlight, heard his approach?

Or was it, more likely, Matthews running away from Walker, as that scream he’d just heard might suggest? He broke into a sprint, tempted to call out but afraid of giving himself away.

When his halogen bulb caught the blood-red rag and the jagged piece of glass it contained, he didn’t cringe but warmed with hope. Was Walker clever enough for that? He thought not. Had Walker severed a head with a piece of glass? He thought not.

She’d tricked him. Goddamn it-she’d tricked him!