Body Double (32 page)

“And I’m sure you’d recognize one.”

“I’ve learned to. But then, so have you.” O’Donnell turned to the door. Stopped and glanced back with a bland smile. “Speaking of monsters, Detective, your old friend asks about you, you know. Every time I visit him.”

O’Donnell didn’t need to say his name; they both knew she was talking about Warren Hoyt. The man who continued to surface in Rizzoli’s nightmares, whose scalpel had carved the scars in her palms nearly two years ago.

“He still thinks about you,” said O’Donnell. Another smile, quiet and sly. “I just thought you’d like to know that you’re remembered.” She walked out the door.

Rizzoli felt Marquette’s gaze, watching for her reaction. Waiting to see if she’d lose it, right there and then. She was relieved when he too walked out of the room, leaving her alone to pack up the overhead projector. She gathered up the transparencies, unplugged the machine, and wound up the cord into tight coils, all her anger directed at that cord as she wrapped it around her hand. She wheeled the projector out into the hallway and almost collided with Frost, who was just snapping his cell phone shut.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Natick. They’ve got a missing woman.”

Rizzoli frowned at him. “Is she . . .”

He nodded. “She’s nine months pregnant.”

TWENTY-FIVE

“Y
OU ASK ME,”
said Natick Detective Sarmiento, “this is just another Laci Peterson case. Marriage off the rails, husband’s got a mistress in the wings.”

“He admits he’s got a girlfriend?” asked Rizzoli.

“Not yet, but I can smell it, you know?” Sarmiento tapped his nose and laughed. “Scent of the other woman.”

Yeah, he probably
could
smell it, thought Rizzoli as Sarmiento led her and Frost past desks with glowing computer screens. He looked like a man familiar with the scent of the ladies. He had the walk, the confident strut of the cool guy, right arm swinging out from years of wearing a gun on his hip, that telltale arc that shouted
cop.
Barry Frost had never picked up that swagger. Next to the strapping, dark-haired Sarmiento, Frost looked like a pale clerk with his trusty pen and notebook.

“Missing woman’s name is Matilda Purvis,” said Sarmiento, pausing at his desk to pick up a folder, which he handed to Rizzoli. “Thirty-one years old, Caucasian. Married seven months to Dwayne Purvis. He owns the BMW dealership here in town. Saw his wife last Friday, when she dropped in to see him at work. Apparently they had an argument, because witnesses said the wife left crying.”

“So when did he report her missing?” asked Frost.

“On Sunday.”

“It took him two days to get around to it?”

“After the fight, he said he wanted to let things cool down between them, so he stayed in a hotel. Didn’t return home till Sunday. Found the wife’s car in the garage, Saturday’s mail still in the box. Figured something was wrong. We took his report Sunday night. Then this morning, we saw that alert you sent out, about pregnant women going missing. I’m not sure this one fits your pattern. Looks more to me like your classic domestic blowup.”

“You checked out that hotel he stayed in?” asked Rizzoli.

Sarmiento responded with a smirk. “Last time I spoke to him, he was having trouble remembering which one it was.”

Rizzoli opened the folder and saw a photo of Matilda Purvis and her husband, taken on their wedding day. If they’d been married only seven months, then she was already two months pregnant when this photo had been taken. The bride was sweet-faced, with brown hair, brown eyes, and girlishly round cheeks. Her smile reflected pure happiness. It was the look of a woman who had just fulfilled her lifelong dream. Standing beside her, Dwayne Purvis looked weary, almost bored. The photo could have been captioned:
Trouble ahead.

Sarmiento led the way down a corridor, and into a darkened room. Through a one-way window, they could see into the adjoining interview room, unoccupied at the moment. It had stark white walls, a table and three chairs, a video camera mounted high in one corner. A room designed to sweat out the truth.

Through the window they saw the door swing open, and two men entered. One of them was a cop, barrel-chested and balding, a face with no expression, just a blank. The kind of face that made you anxious for a glimpse of emotion.

“Detective Ligett’s going to handle it this time,” murmured Sarmiento. “See if we get anything new out of him.”

“Have a seat,” they heard Ligett say. Dwayne sat down, facing the window. From his point of view it was just a mirror. Did he realize there were eyes watching him through the glass? His gaze seemed to focus, for an instant, directly on Rizzoli. She suppressed the urge to step back, to recede deeper into the darkness. Not that Dwayne Purvis looked particularly threatening. He was in his early thirties, dressed casually in a button-down white shirt, no tie, and tan chinos. On his wrist was a Breitling watch—a bad move on his part, to walk in for police questioning flashing a piece of jewelry that a cop couldn’t afford. Dwayne had the bland good looks and cocky self-assurance that some women might find attractive—if they liked men who flaunted pricey watches.

“Must sell a lot of BMWs,” she said.

“Mortgaged up to his ears,” said Sarmiento. “Bank owns the house.”

“Policy on the wife?”

“Two hundred fifty thousand.”

“Not enough to make it worth killing her.”

“Still, it’s two hundred fifty G’s. But without a body, he’ll have a hard time collecting. So far, we don’t have one.”

In the next room, Detective Ligett said: “Okay, Dwayne, I just want to go back over a few details.” Ligett’s voice was as flat as his expression.

“I’ve already talked to that other policeman,” said Dwayne. “I forgot his name. The guy who looks like that actor. You know, Benjamin Bratt.”

“Detective Sarmiento?”

“Yeah.”

Rizzoli heard Sarmiento, standing beside her, give a pleased little grunt. Always nice to hear you look like Benjamin Bratt.

“I don’t know why you’re wasting your time here,” said Dwayne. “You should be out there, looking for my wife.”

“We are, Dwayne.”

“How is this helping?”

“You never know. You never know what little detail you might remember that will make a difference in the search.” Ligett paused. “For instance.”

“What?”

“That hotel you checked into. You remember the name of it yet?”

“It was just some hotel.”

“How’d you pay for it?”

“This is irrelevant!”

“You use a credit card?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?”

Dwayne huffed out a sound of exasperation. “Yeah, okay. It was my credit card.”

“So the name of the hotel should be on your statement. All we have to do is check.”

A silence. “Okay, I remember, now. It was the Crowne Plaza.”

“The one in Natick?”

“No. It was out in Wellesley.”

Sarmiento, standing beside Rizzoli, suddenly reached for the telephone on the wall. He murmured into it: “This is Detective Sarmiento. I need the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Wellesley . . .”

In the interrogation room, Ligett said, “Wellesley’s kind of far from home, isn’t it?”

Dwayne sighed. “I needed some breathing room, that’s all. A little time to myself. You know, Mattie’s been so clingy lately. Then I have to go to work, and everyone there wants a piece of me, too.”

“Rough life, huh?” Ligett said it straight, without a hint of the sarcasm he had to be feeling.

“Everyone wants a deal. I’ve gotta smile through my teeth at customers who’re asking me for the moon. I can’t give them the moon. A fine machine like a BMW, they have to expect to pay for it. And they all have the money, that’s what kills me. They have the money, and they still want to suck every last cent out of my hide.”

His wife is missing, possibly dead, thought Rizzoli. And he’s pissed off about Beemer bargain hunters?

“That’s why I lost my temper. That’s what the argument was all about.”

“With your wife?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t about
us.
It’s the business. Money’s been tight, you know? That’s all it was. Things are just tight.”

“The employees who saw that argument—”

“Which employees? Who did you talk to?”

“There was a salesman and a mechanic. They both said your wife looked pretty upset when she left.”

“Well, she’s pregnant. She gets upset at the craziest things. All those hormones, it sends ’em out of control. Pregnant women, you just can’t reason with them.”

Rizzoli felt her cheeks flush. Wondered if Frost thought the same thing about
her.

“Plus, she’s tired all the time,” Dwayne said. “Cries at the drop of a hat. Her back hurts, her feet hurt. Has to run to the bathroom every ten minutes.” He shrugged. “I think I deal with it pretty well. Considering.”

“Sympathetic guy,” said Frost.

Sarmiento suddenly hung up the phone and stepped out. Then, through the window, they saw him stick his head into the interrogation room and motion to Ligett. Both detectives left the room. Dwayne, now left alone at the table, looked at his watch, shifted in his chair. Gazed at the mirror and frowned. He pulled out a pocket comb and fussed with his hair until every strand was perfect. The grieving husband, getting camera-ready for the five o’clock news.

Sarmiento slipped back into the room with Rizzoli and Frost, and gave them a knowing wink. “Gotcha,” he whispered.

“What do you have?”

“Watch.”

Through the window, they saw Ligett reenter the interrogation room. He closed the door and just stood gazing at Dwayne. Dwayne went very still, but the pulse in his neck was visibly bounding above his shirt collar.

“So,” said Ligett. “You wanna tell me the truth now?”

“About what?”

“Those two nights in the Crowne Plaza Hotel?”

Dwayne gave a laugh—an inappropriate response, under the circumstances. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Detective Sarmiento just spoke to the Crowne Plaza. They confirm you were a guest those two nights.”

“Well, you see? I told you—”

“Who was the woman who checked in with you, Dwayne? Blond, pretty. Had breakfast with you both mornings in the dining room?”

Dwayne fell silent. He swallowed.

“Your wife know about the blonde? Is that what you and Mattie were arguing about?”

“No—”

“So she didn’t know about her?”

“No! I mean, that’s not why we argued.”

“Sure it is.”

“You’re trying to put the worst possible spin on this!”

“What, the girlfriend doesn’t exist?” Ligett moved closer, getting right up in Dwayne’s face. “She’s not going to be hard to find. She’ll probably call
us.
She’ll see your face on the news and realize she’s better off stepping right up to the plate with the truth.”

“This has got nothing to do with—I mean, I know it looks bad, but—”

“Sure does.”

“Okay.” Dwayne sighed. “Okay, I kind of strayed, all right? Lot of guys do, in my position. It’s hard when your wife’s so huge you can’t do it with her anymore. There’s that big belly sticking out. And she’s just not interested.”

Rizzoli stared rigidly ahead, wondering if Frost and Sarmiento were glancing her way. Yeah, here I am. Another one with a big belly. And a husband who’s out of town. She stared at Dwayne and imagined Gabriel sitting in that chair, saying those words. Jesus, don’t do this to yourself, she thought, don’t screw around with your own head. It’s not Gabriel, but a loser named Dwayne Purvis who got caught with a girlfriend and couldn’t deal with the consequences.
Your wife finds out about the chickie on the side, and you’re thinking: bye bye to Breitling watches and half the house and eighteen years of child support. This asshole is definitely guilty.

She looked at Frost. He shook his head. Both of them could see this was just a replay of an old tragedy they’d seen a dozen times before.

“So did she threaten divorce?” asked Ligett.

“No. Mattie didn’t know anything about her.”

“She just shows up at work and picks a fight?”

“It was stupid. I told Sarmiento all about it.”

“Why did you get mad, Dwayne?”

“Because she drives around with a goddamn flat tire and doesn’t even notice it! I mean, how dense can you be not to notice that you’re scraping your rim? The other salesman saw it. Brand-new tire, and it’s shredded, just ripped to hell. I see that and I guess I yelled at her. And she gets all teary-eyed, and that just irritates me more, because it makes me feel like a jerk.”

You
are
a jerk, thought Rizzoli. She looked at Sarmiento. “I think we’ve heard enough.”

“What’d I tell you?”

“You’ll let us know if anything new develops?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sarmiento’s gaze was back on Dwayne. “It’s easy when they’re this dumb.”

Rizzoli and Frost turned to leave.

“Who knows how many miles she was driving around with it like that?” Dwayne was saying. “Hell, it might already have been flat when she got to the doctor’s office.”

Rizzoli suddenly halted. Turning back to the window, she frowned at Dwayne. Felt her pulse suddenly pounding in her temple.
Jesus. I almost missed it.

“Which doctor is he talking about?” she asked Sarmiento.

“A Dr. Fishman. I spoke to her yesterday.”

“Why did Mrs. Purvis see her?”

“Just a routine OB appointment, nothing unusual about it.”

Rizzoli looked at Sarmiento. “Dr. Fishman is an obstetrician?”

He nodded. “She has an office in the Women’s Clinic. Over on Bacon Street.”

Dr. Susan Fishman had been up most of the night at the hospital, and her face was a map of exhaustion. Her unwashed brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and the white lab coat she wore over the rumpled scrub suit had pockets so loaded down with various examination tools that the fabric seemed to be dragging her shoulders toward the floor.

“Larry from security brought over the surveillance tapes,” she said as she escorted Rizzoli and Frost from the clinic reception desk into a rear hallway. Her tennis shoes squeaked across the linoleum. “He’s getting the video equipment set up in the back room. Thank god no one expects me to do it. I don’t even have a VCR at home.”