“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
“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
“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
“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.
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
“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.
