Rage

CHAPTER 37

Milo watched as the white Jeep drove away. “Wish there was a shower nearby.”

He took an evidence bag out of his attaché case, gloved up, sealed Daney’s coffee cup, and slipped it in. Into a second bag went the half-eaten pink doughnut.

I said, “He snarfed that right before he graced us with his reluctant insights on eye color. His appetite peaked because he was aroused by the game.”

“Letting us know the cowboy wasn’t Kristal’s daddy. Thinking he’s being subtle.”

“It was a dual thrill: He gets to be the hero of the story, granting you vital information. And he heightens the focus on Malley.”

“All that frighty-dighty about mean old Barnett, but right off he’s telling us Malley’s antisocial, covered his tracks.”

“That could’ve been more than a diversion strategy,” I said. “Attributing his own behavior to Malley, consciously or otherwise.”

“He’s covered some tracks of his own.”

“The lies didn’t start with his seminary application. The image he pushes is Fun Guy with a Sensitive, Spiritual Side. While you were ordering he told me he was a well-behaved kid, brought up in the church. Be interesting to know what his childhood was really like.”

He stashed the bags in the case. “Time for some serious digging. Be nice if it’s more productive than my research on Malley. Can’t find any insurance policies on Lara or Kristal, the cowboy seems to be using his real name and social security number, has no arrest record, no military record, no real estate ownership. I was able to trace his birth records to Alamogordo, New Mexico, but the local law doesn’t remember him and there are no Malleys living there now. Maybe I’m missing something, there are all these new computer tricks the department doesn’t have…”

He snatched his phone from the table, punched in a number, and asked for Sue Kramer.

Two seconds later: “Nancy Drew? It’s Joe Hardy. Listen, I don’t know what your schedule’s like but… did it? Excellent… listen, Sue, all those things you private hotshots can do that I can’t… the high-tech stuff… yeah, exactly, I need a couple guys looked into… him and also the spiritual adviser- Daney… let’s just say he’s become interesting… the usual and anything else you can think of… sooner’s better than later, I’ll pay you personally… no, no, send me a full bill… I mean it, Sue… okay, fine, but send something… thanks, have a nice day, hope the winds are good.”

Clicking off, he said, “Her B.H. surveillance just ended. She spotted the Korean widow going into the apartment, found the lady praying at some kind of shrine, crying how much she loved hubby, why’d he have to go kill himself. So the suicide stands and Sue’ll start digging tomorrow when she gets back from a little R and R.”

“The winds,” I said. “Sailing?” Thinking about his brief fling as a P.I., during a suspension from LAPD. The rise in income. The plague of tedium. When the department took him back, he had raced home like a trained pigeon.

“Sailing on her new boat,” he said. “Over the bounding main.”

“Ever miss private enterprise?”

“The lack of red tape and paramilitary rigidity? The chance to make serious money? Why the hell would I miss that?” He stared at his phone, clicked it shut. “That comment Daney made about my sounding pretty confident. What was that, a taunt?”

“Or fishing for information. Or both,” I said. “He was clearly fishing when he steered the conversation to the topic of pay booths. Your line about being able to trace pay calls made his eyes jump.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“Rand called me from a pay booth but Daney would have no way of knowing that unless he was there.”

His eyes compressed to surgical incisions. “Daney was with Rand the day he died.”

“Or nearby, watching Rand make the call,” I said. “Which got me thinking: What if he made up the story about the black truck to divert attention from the fact that it was him, not Barnett who followed Rand? Cherish told us he wasn’t home that afternoon.”

“Off at one of his nonprofit gigs.” He passed his phone from hand to hand. Tapped the table. Rubbed his face.

Finally, he said, “Daney did Rand, not Malley.”

“The only reason we focused on Malley is because Daney pointed us in that direction.”

“That and Malley’s mother-in-law said he was a scumbag dope dealer who was rough on Lara.”

“A scumbag dope dealer with no arrest record or known aliases who uses his own social security number,” I said. “Who registers his guns legally. In a sense, Nina Balquin was a character reference for Malley. She hates his guts but she’s never suspected him of murdering Lara.”

He slipped the phone in his pocket. Ungloved and grabbed a bear claw and chewed, spewing crumbs. “There’s still the eye color issue. Malley had to know he wasn’t Kristal’s daddy.”

“Maybe Daney’s right about him being too unsophisticated to figure it out. But even if he did know, unless we find something psychopathic in his background, it’s a long stretch to killing a toddler.”

“Unlike Daney, who we know to be an extremely bad boy.”

I nodded. “It’s also possible Malley knew about Kristal’s paternity and didn’t care.”

He put down the bear claw. “Guy has no problem raising someone else’s kid? That’s a stretch of another kind.”

“The Malleys had fertility problems for years. Lara eventually got pregnant but what if the fertility problem was Barnett’s and he came to accept the idea of a surrogate?”

“He let some other guy go to stud with Lara?”

“Or Lara slept with someone and got pregnant and Barnett accepted it. If Balquin’s dope suspicions are on-target, Lara and Barnett could’ve gotten into some alternative behaviors. Promiscuity, swinger parties. Or just plain old infidelity.”

“She gets knocked up at an orgy and Barnett says keep it? That’s pretty damn tolerant, Alex.”

“You’re probably right. But in any event, now that we know the truth about Daney’s character, we can’t ignore him for Rand. He hasn’t been directing us to Malley out of civic obligation.”

He gave the bear claw another try. Grimaced and put it aside.

I drank coffee. It sloshed in my stomach. Burned like drain cleaner when my thoughts uncoiled. “Daney fed us another tidbit he shouldn’t know about. Malley riding the rodeo. He claims Sydney Weider told him and maybe she did. But I read all the court documents and it never came up. In fact, my sense was Weider wasn’t paying any sort of attention to the Malleys. Daney’s playing us, Milo. And screwing up, in typical psychopath fashion, because he’s too clever for his own good.”

“Daney did Rand,” he said, looking off into the distance. “No reason why it doesn’t fit.”

“Something else: Whether or not the boys knew Lara or Barnett is an open question. But one of them sure knew Daney. Troy was a budding psychopath. Daney’s the fully-developed version. Put them together and there’s no question who’d pull the strings.”

“Daney got Troy to do Kristal?”

“And now he’ll help you ‘solve’ the case.”

“Man,” he said, “you are full of evil thoughts.”

“So I’ve been told.”

He said, “Guess it’s like those firebugs who return to the scene and rescue people. Or one of those Munchausen mommies racing to resuscitate their kids.”

“It fits Daney’s act,” I said. “Image is important to him. Outwardly, he’s a man of faith, a tireless youth worker, caretaker of downtrodden teens. While you were ordering, he spun off a bunch of psychobabble, told me he and Cherish chose adolescents to foster because no one else wanted them. If I didn’t know better, I’d have bought it. Meanwhile, he’s cheating the government, seducing minors, and impregnating them intentionally. Getting off on having the pregnancies terminated and trying to snag a share of the fees.”

“What a prince… at least when the DNA match comes through, we’ve got him for kiddie rape on Valerie Quezada.” He shook his head. “One reinterview and he’s our new Hitler. What does that say for Cherish’s guilt or innocence?”

“Don’t know. Their relationship’s a big question mark.”

“I can buy Daney as a scumbag,” he said. “But speaking of questions marks, what was his motive to have Kristal murdered?”

“Kristal survived,” I said.

“Survived what?”

“Survived period. Daney has a thing about his progeny living and breathing.”

“Daney was Kristal’s daddy? Where’d that come from?”

“More of the ugly in here.” I tapped my forehead. “Think about it: Daney’s kick is playing God. Generating life and terminating it. We know his sexual exploits went beyond teenage wards- Sydney Weider. Why not other married women? And why not play the pregnancy game with them, too? Your remark about a prenatal serial killer was on-target. And serials need increasing amounts of stimulation.”

“From fetus to full-term victim,” he said.

“There are mothers like that,” I said. “Get pregnant repeatedly but can’t tolerate parenthood. Fathers, too. How many cases have we heard where the boyfriend or daddy shook the baby too hard. We always assume it’s an impulsive thing, poor anger control. But maybe not. It sure happens with primates. Chimp moms defend their babies from aggressive daddies all the time.”

“I create, I destroy… except that seducing vulnerable teens is one thing, Alex. Getting a married woman pregnant means a whole lot of carelessness on all accounts.”

“Hole in the condom, or some other trick. Beth Scoggins thinks Daney drugged her. Maybe he did that routinely. And in a sense, married women would be easier targets than teenage girls. Because convincing them to terminate would be a cinch. Until Daney met up with a married woman who resisted. Because she’d been yearning to have a baby for a long time.”

“Lara,” he said.

“Daney’s got brown eyes. He’d like us to think he’s Mr. Observant, but he didn’t chance upon the genetic angle.”

“And now he’s throwing it in my face with all that phony reluctance. Oh, man.”

I reached over and tapped his attaché case. “Long as you’re at it, I’d suggest a few other DNA tests.”

We took the 101 to the 5 South, headed for the Mission Street exit. Milo drove way too fast, seemed distracted. “If Malley’s innocent, why wouldn’t he talk to me?”

“The system failed him, he’s a burnout… I don’t know. The same logic could be twisted in his favor: If he was hiding something would he want to get you suspicious?”

“I guess,” he said. “But I’m still not comfortable dropping him. Even if Daney does turn out to be Kristal’s daddy.”

“Hey,” I said, “an open mind’s a terrible thing to waste.”

He laughed. Gripped the wheel and fed more gas, glanced back at the case on the backseat. “All of a sudden there’re all these possibilities. I have a confession: If Daney did everything you think he did, I have encountered a level of bad that creeps me out.”

“So you’re human.”

“Only on alternate days.” He took another look back at the case. The unmarked stayed in lane. “Either way,” he said, “the motive for Rand’s the same, covering up the truth about Kristal. But there’s still the problem of how Rand found out. And the fact that Kristal was nearly two, talk about your late-term abortion. If Daney has this psycho lust to destroy his own sperm, why would he wait that long?”

“Maybe he kept working on Lara to terminate. She got angry, refused, broke off their relationship. Daney had to step aside but he couldn’t accept losing. He kept fantasizing. Plotting. Found a thirteen-year-old he could hire to kill.”

“Lara shopping at the mall, the boys hanging at the arcade.”

“Another possibility,” I said, “is that Lara’s relationship with Barnett grew progressively rockier and she decided to leave him. Because she had her own fantasies.”

“Hooking ol’ Drew.”

“The guy who’d come through biologically. But putting pressure on Drew would’ve been a fatal error.”

“He puts a hit on the kid. Does Lara, too.”

“Or she really was a suicide. She had an inkling of why Kristal had been killed, couldn’t come forward because it would have implicated her. Her depression deepened and she killed herself.”

“Head-shot in a car?” he said. “Same as Rand? To me that says they were both murdered by the same person.”

“Or whoever shot Rand imitated Lara’s suicide.”

He knuckled his temple, made an abrupt lane change, put on more speed. “Daney’s character notwithstanding, Malley’s the one with the guns and it was one of those that killed Lara. And he’s also got a thing for other guys’ wives.”

He slapped the dashboard. “How ‘bout this for a screenplay: The Malleys weren’t the only ones swinging. They met Drew and Cherish at a swap party. Drew and Lara parted ways but Malley and Cherish are still doing it.”

I considered that. “It might help explain Barnett accepting Lara’s pregnancy. If it was the product of a group scene, the threat would be depersonalized.”

“It takes a village,” he said. “Whatever the case, no way I’m scratching the cowboy off my list.”

We parked in the coroner’s lot and entered the north building. Milo talked to Dave O’Reilly, a thin, red-faced, white-haired man with a keen, searching intellect, and asked for Kristal Malley’s tissue samples and Valerie Quezada’s aborted fetus.

“You just dropped Quezada off,” said O’Reilly. “Something come up?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I’m sure I don’t. Okay, I’ll call down and have them put it in a refrigerator bag and a Styrofoam biohazard box.”

“All official,” said Milo. “I like that.”

“I like tall, skinny brunettes with big natural boobs.”

We returned to the car. Milo put the box in the trunk, along with the attaché case, and started up the engine. A white coroner’s van pulled around from the back of the building and cruised through the lot before turning toward Mission.

He said, “Wonder what police work was like in the rubber hose days.”

“You and Daney alone in a room?”

“Me and anyone I damn well want alone in a room.” He bared his teeth. “Think Daney was telling the truth about knowing Weider before the murder?”

“Why would he lie?”

“Puffing up his chest, more hero-of-the-story crap,” he said. “Making like he’s got big-time contacts at the P.D., masterminded the whole defense.”

“Easy enough to check out,” I said. “And if he was telling the truth about working with inner-city teens, I’d be interested in one particular delinquent other than Troy.”

“Nestor Almedeira.”

“And the dedicated lawyer who stood up for his rights.”

Not that easy to check out.

We sat in the coroner’s lot and Milo phoned the Public Defender’s Office. Several transfers later, he ended up with a supervisor. I watched as amiability morphed to wheedling, then deteriorated to veiled threats. He hung up growling.

“All I want is what would be in a normal court record if Nestor wasn’t a juvenile and the file wasn’t sealed. I can get it eventually if I fool around long enough at the Hall of Records, but it’s gonna take time. Stonewalling bastards. They hate cops and everything else that’s good and true.”

“Try Lauritz Montez,” I said.

“He likes cops?”

“He’s vulnerable and weak-willed.”

The call to Montez’s Beverly Hills office was answered by a tape.

I took the phone, punched 411, and asked for the number of Dr. Chang’s dental office on Alvarado. There’s nothing more effective with a doctor’s staff than having a doctorate. I had Anita Moss on the line within seconds.

“How may I help you, Doctor?”

“Ms. Moss, I was with Detective Sturgis the other day- ”

“With him? You’re not a cop?”

“I’m a psychologist. I consult to the police- ”

“I’m sorry, I’m busy- ”

“Just one question and I’ll be out of your way: Which attorney represented Nestor on the manslaughter charge?”

“Why?”

“It could be important. We’ll find out anyway, but you could make things easier.”

“Okay, okay. A blond lady,” she said. “With a funny name- Sydney something.”

“Sydney Weider.”

“She put a lot of pressure on my mom to attend every hearing, even though my mom wasn’t in good health. She ordered her to sit where the judge could see her, and cry a lot. Told my mom she’d have to take the stand when it came time for Nestor to be sentenced and lie about what a good son Nestor was and then cry a whole bunch more. Coaching her as if Mom was stupid. As if Mom wasn’t crying all the time, anyway.”

“She put on an aggressive defense.”

“I guess,” she said. “I always felt she was doing it more for herself- to win, you know? If she cared about my mother, she wouldn’t have bossed her around like that. It didn’t matter anyway. Nestor was guilty, they did this plea-bargain thing. Which was okay with me. I didn’t want my mom to have to cry for strangers.”

“Was a man named Drew Daney involved with Nestor’s case?”

“It sounds familiar, but…”

“A divinity student and youth worker- ”

“Oh, yeah, him. The church guy,” she said. “A few months before Nestor killed that dealer he got sent to some drug rehab program and the church guy worked there. Did he do something wrong? ’Cause that would surprise me.”

“Why?”

“Him I liked. He seemed real sincere about wanting to help Nestor. Wrote a letter to the judge for Nestor.”

“Puts everything in place, doesn’t it?” said Milo, driving out of the lot.

“Daney visits Troy in Stockton,” I said. “Uses the opportunity to drop in on Nestor and set Troy up.”

“Meanwhile, Rand’s over in Chino. Think that’s the reason Daney left him alone? No juvey hit man planted there?”

“More likely Rand wasn’t a threat. Until he was.”

He got back on the freeway. “You in the mood to ply your trade?”

“With who?”

“A crazy woman.”