Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

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