Deception

Deception

  The woman had haunted eyes.

Pale, drooping at the outer edges, they stared into the unseen camera with an odd combination of defiance and defeat. She didn’t move. Neither did the camera. The wall behind her was brown-blue, the color of an old bruise. The couch on which she perched was gray. She was a pretty woman, made less so by fear. Her shoulders were bunched high, her neck tendons taut as bridge cables. A black, sleeveless dress showcased soft white arms. Too-blond hair fell limply to her shoulders.

Moments passed. Nothing happened. In another situation I might’ve cracked wise about it being one of Andy Warhol’s old anti-films: interminable, static studies of the Empire State Building, a man sleeping.

When a homicide lieutenant brings you something to watch, you keep your mouth shut.

Milo stood behind me. His black hair and raincoat were rumpled. The coat was cheap, green, wrinkled past the point of salvation. It gave off a not unpleasant vegetative odor. He’d placed a massive breakfast burrito in a take-out box on my desk, hadn’t touched it.

When he drops in, he usually beelines for the fridge, empties a

quart of something, raids the shelves for bad carbs. This morning,

he’d marched to my office, loaded the DVD with a flourish.

“For your consideration.”

Blanche, my little French bulldog, sat next to me, uncharacteristically serious. She’d tried her usual smile, had figured out something was different when Milo didn’t stoop to pet her.

I rubbed her knobby head. She looked up at me, returned her

attention to the monitor.

The woman’s lips moved.

Milo said, “Here we go.”

More silence on the screen.

“So I lied.”

The woman said, “My name is Elise Freeman. I’m a teacher

and tutor at Windsor Preparatory Academy in Brentwood.” Her

voice was throaty. She knotted her fingers, flopped them onto her

lap. “I’m making this recording to document sustained abuse I

have received at the hands of faculty members at Windsor Preparatory

Academy in Brentwood. Which I will hereon refer to as Prep.”

Deep breath. “For the past two years at Prep, I have been subjected to repeated, unwarranted, aggressive, and distressing sexual

harassment from three individuals. Their names are.” Her right

hand rose. A finger pointed upward. “Enrico Hauer. H- A- U- E- R.”

Two fingers: “James Winterthorn.” More slow, enunciated spelling,

then a trio of digits. “Pat Skaggs.”

From the Book DECEPTION: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman. Copyright © 2010 by Jonathan Kellerman. Reprinted by arrangement with Ballantine Books, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. New York. All rights reserved.