The Art of Deception Read Online Free Page A

might have knowledge of her whereabouts?”
    “He’s jumping her, if that’s what you’re asking. And, yeah, she’s pretty much shacked up, since we don’t have the boat no more. Which is on account of Neal anyway. ‘Cause once they started hanging out, she bailed on me—thirty years of our family fishing these waters, down the drain—and that pretty much finished me off with the fucking bankers, thank you very much.”
    “Mr. Neal’s reaction to your call?”
    “Lame,” Walker answered. Dead fish were piling up, awaiting him. “You mind?” he asked, indicating the table.
    She did mind, but she told him she didn’t, and so they stepped up to the cleaning table where Walker, gloved once again, worked the curved blade of that knife in such an automatic and efficient way that it bordered on graceful. He tore loose the entrails and tossed them into a white plastic pail.
    “Take me through the call, please. You asked to speak with Mary-Ann.”
    “Listen, lady … lieutenant… whatever … Neal’s a scum-sucking piece of shit. I know it, and he knows I know it. He beats her up, and she goes back to him, and I just don’t fucking get that, you know? And me? I’m looking out for her, and she blows me off like I’m the pond scum, not that dirtbag she’s hanging with, so what I’m saying is, we didn’t exactly get into it, Neal and me. He essentially blew me off.”
    “His exact words were?”
    “Just tell me it isn’t her.” His fingers moved, the blade sliced and another fish was processed.
    She waited for his attention. He was sad-eyed by nature, a dog starved for affection. Her job biased her into such snap appraisals, and though loath to admit it, she went with first impressions. “I sincerely hope the Jane Doe is not your sister. The fact remains, your cooperation is essential if we’re to clear Mary-Ann’s name from our list, and that means answering my questions as they’re asked. Do you understand?”
    Walker’s gaze lifted off the fish he was cutting, the look he gave her so penetrating that she averted her eyes.
    “We haven’t identified the body.” She now wondered whether she had handled this correctly. She observed grief on a regular basis and tried to avoid labeling it. Some screamed, some cried, some went silent, some became violently sick. Some became violent, period.
    “Neal said she wasn’t there, that he hadn’t seen her, and that at this point if he did it would be for the last time.”
    Matthews scribbled down notes. “Okay …,” she said automatically.
    “It’s
not
okay,” he said. “The guy beats her, lady. He’s awful with her, and if he’s done anything to her …” He lifted the fillet knife. “I’ll turn him into chum and feed him to the crabs.” His eyes reminded her of killers she’d interviewed. Grief could do that—make us do things we never intended.
    “It’s important we all keep cool heads, Mr. Walker. We’re still just collecting the facts, the evidence. There has been no positive ID—identification—of the body we found. It would be a mistake to make assumptions about Mr. Neal’s involvement at this point.”
    “I’m not making an assumption,” he said. “I’m just telling you how it is.”
    “It isn’t anything until we know who, and what, we’ve got.” He was more kid than adult, she thought. A lovesick brother with a fishing knife sharp enough to split hairs—she reminded herself to thank LaMoia for this one.
    Rain fell, wetting her pad.
    “Did she take prescription drugs? Recreational drugs?”
    “If she was drinking and drugging, Lanny got her into it.”
    She wrote that down as affirmative. Booze, drugs, abuse—the father, son, and holy ghost of domestic disturbances.
    As the rain increased, she debated pulling up the hood on the jacket but decided she wanted him to know she could take the weather.
    “Do you have an address, a phone number for Mr. Neal?”
    Walker recited a Wallingford address and Matthews wrote it