by Chaz McGee
The boys glanced at one another and the signal was given. They slurped down their pudding like starving wolves, racing to be the first to finish, horrifying their mother but amusing the man named Cal, who had joined them in the kitchen to be a part of their laughter.
“I guess they said yes,” he said good-naturedly as the boys tossed their empty bowls into the sink then raced to the back porch for their jackets.
“I guess so,” Connie agreed. “I’ll be right out.” She gave him a long kiss before he followed my boys out the door, though she’d see him in less than a minute.
I was happy for her.
But Connie lingered behind in the suddenly quiet kitchen, her eyes focused on a small photo taped to the refrigerator door. It was a snapshot of me, taken long ago, when my hair was full and my face still unlined. As I stared at the man I used to be, I noticed the calendar beneath my photo, with the day’s date circled. I realized why Connie needed to lose herself in a movie on this day of all days: today would have been our twenty-second wedding anniversary.
I was not completely forgotten after all.
Chapter 14
Maggie wasted no time after visiting the prison. I found her on the top floor of headquarters, presenting her case to Commander Gonzales while Danny seethed at her side. She explained that there were detailed similarities between the Alissa Hayes case and the murder of Vicky Meeks, and said she was there to ask that Bobby Daniels be released and the Hayes case reopened.
I could tell the commander was appalled at what he was hearing—and that my old partner was starting to get his back up in that self-righteous way of drunks. I prayed he would not go there, though I knew my hopes were futile. Danny always went there.
I had not seen the commander since my death. I was curious to know what sort of man he’d seem to be now that I could pick up on so much more than I had been able to while alive. Gonzales had always intrigued me. We’d been in the academy together, but by the end of our first decade on the force, he had lapped me several times since, by anyone’s reckoning, zooming up through the ranks like a god among mortals. He was a smooth operator, adept at the ass kissing required for a career in the administrative ranks. He was also a favorite of newscasters seeking sound bites since he was the picture of confident good looks—trim, with immaculate taste in clothing and a dignified demeanor. And he was Hispanic to boot, which was always good for one angle or another.
But was he as together inside, in the places where no one could see?
As I concentrated on him, Gonzales gave off absolutely nothing. No anger, no curiosity, not even concern. Of course: he was, above all, a politician, skilled at being what others wanted him to be. I expected nothing, so Gonzales gave me nothing back. He was a mirror reflecting blankness. It was fascinating.
The discussion soon deteriorated into an argument, thanks to Danny. “Fahey and I worked our asses off on that case,” he said, interrupting Maggie’s presentation. “We went by the book and I stand by our conclusions.”
Maggie was disgusted at Danny’s opposition. She had made the mistake of thinking his earlier acquiescence meant he would not oppose her attempt to reopen the Alissa Hayes case. Clearly, she was not experienced in the erratic ways of drunks. But I knew better. Danny was capable of overlooking the most monumental factors, then taking a stance on the most mundane of details once you were inches from the finish line.
“Give me the tie-ins,” Gonzales demanded, ignoring Danny completely. I knew that was a bad sign. But Danny was too far gone to notice.
“Me and Fahey did a damn good job on that case,” he insisted.
Gonzales stared at him coolly. “You and Fahey never did a damn good job on any case,” he said flatly.
Danny had the good sense to shut up.
Maggie was ready. She buried Danny under a mountain of irrefutable logic that tied the two cases together: the identical bruising, the ligature marks, the neat sets of parallel knife cuts ritualistically inflicted, their physical similarity, the lapidary dust found at both crime scenes, the fact that they’d been students at the same college, plus a dozen other similarities she had discovered since comparing the two cases more closely.
None of her information elicited an emotional response from Gonzales. It was not until the end that I felt a flicker of involvement from him, and when it came, it was based on pure self-interest.
“We have no leads in the Vicky Meeks murder,” Maggie explained. “None whatsoever. None of her friends can give us the slightest clue as to her private life. And there were no personal objects found at the dump site this time—”
“Which means the murders may not be related,” Danny interrupted.
Both Gonzales and Maggie ignored him.
“The Meeks investigation is a closed door,” Maggie told Gonzales. “All we really have to go on is what happened to Alissa Hayes. Her file has a dozen unexamined leads that might bring us to the killer of them both.”
Gonzales, still thinking it over, gazed at Maggie.
“Sir, if we don’t catch this guy soon,” Maggie said, “he’ll kill again. Vicky Meeks had wounds that indicated a sense of urgency missing in the Alissa Hayes case. I think he’s killed in between these two and his compulsion is getting worse. We just haven’t found all of his victims.”
“According to you, Clarice,” Danny mumbled.
“Shut up, Bonaventura,” Gonzales snapped. “If you didn’t have less than a year to go before retirement, I’d have kicked you to the curb long ago.”
Maggie pretended not to hear. I felt a flash of gratitude toward her on behalf of my old partner.
“Reopen the Hayes case,” Gonzales instructed Maggie. “You’ll be the lead. I’ll call the DA and let him know what we’re doing.”
“That scumbag Daniels will be out in three days,” Danny complained.
“He’ll be out by tonight if I have anything to do with it,” Gonzales said. I knew then that he’d been convinced the second Maggie opened her mouth that Danny and I had screwed up royally. He’d been working out a recovery plan the entire time Maggie talked: Danny and I would take the fall, Maggie would be positioned as the heroine in the press—and he would be able to cover his ass.
“You’re out, too, by the way,” Gonzales added, glancing at Danny.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny asked.
“It means you’re on desk duty indefinitely. And let me have your firearms while you’re at it.”
“What?” Danny reached reflexively for his piece.
Maggie’s hand inched toward her Glock.
“Give me both your firearms, Bonaventura,” Gonzales said more loudly.
“Why?” Danny asked. “Nothing’s been proven. I want my union rep.”
“I’m asking for your firearms because, for the fifth day in a row, you reek of alcohol,” Gonzales explained. “And I don’t want you screwing up any more cases. If you want to argue, fine. But I can have a Breathalyzer administered to you in three minutes flat.” He reached for the phone.
Maggie had melted from the room the instant she sensed what direction the conversation was going in. But I could feel her presence lingering outside in the hallway as she listened quietly.
“So this is what it’s come to,” Danny grumbled as he handed his regulation piece and backup to Gonzales.
Gonzales took the guns without comment and put them in a bottom drawer.
“I guess we’re a long way out of the academy,” Danny said. “So much for the brotherhood.” He never had known when to quit.
Gonzales shoved the drawer shut so hard his entire desk rattled. He looked up at Danny with a loathing even I shrank from. His tone was deadly. “I’m going to tell you this once, Bonaventura, and once only. I swore I would never say this to you, but here it goes: you’re done. You’re finished. You’re over. You will sit out the rest of your career behind a desk. You will be grateful to me for it.”
“For screwing up one case?” Danny asked bitterly.
The commander leaned over the desk until his face was only inches away from Danny’s. “I read the file on your partner’s murder four times,” Gonzales whispered. “I read every paragraph on every page. And I don’t ever want to hear another word from you about ‘the brotherhood’ or, so help me god, I will bring you down for dereliction of duty and gross negligence contributing to your partner’s death. At the very least.”
Danny turned white as Gonzales picked up paperwork and began to read. So far as he was concerned, Danny was as dead as I was.
After a moment, Danny walked silently from the room, leaving me to wonder what in god’s name Gonzales had meant.
Chapter 15
Maggie wasted no time once she got the go-ahead to reopen the Alissa Hayes murder case. She started by trying to find the family. But the Hayes family had moved from their listed address, perhaps hoping to escape the publicity that had surrounded Alissa’s death four years ago. After an hour of fruitless searching on her own, Maggie contacted a vice provost of the college and asked for the faculty records to be opened. Alissa’s father had been a fairly recent hire at the time of his daughter’s death. He was now head of the Geology Department and, it turned out, living in a campus-owned home normally reserved for visiting professors. It was a good ten miles from campus.
I wondered if one reason Alissa Hayes roamed the realm of the living was simply because she was trying to find out where her loved ones had gone.
But I was wrong: as Maggie rang the front doorbell of the Hayes home that evening, I spotted Alissa waiting behind a tree in the front yard, staring at her family’s new house. I moved closer, hoping to communicate with her, but her attention was focused on the front door. I understood why when a young girl of eleven or twelve opened the door at Maggie’s knock. Her beauty stunned me. She was tall and gangly, yet somehow graceful in that coltish way of young girls whose bodies have gotten away from them. Her skin was as pale as paper, almost translucent, her gray eyes luminous, and her honey-colored hair fell in liquid waves to her shoulders. Yet, an immense sadness radiated from her.
Why would such a child have cause to be sad, even accounting for her sister’s death four years before? She was the epitome of all that is glorious about the human species, at an age still unsullied by experience, still protected by the boundless optimism of childhood.
“You must be Sarah,” Maggie said. I searched my memories for the child who had been about eight years old when her older sister died. I barely remembered her, only that she had been chubby back then. And frightened. I had not paid her much attention. She had turned into a swan.
But why did Alissa stay in the side yard, peering at the front door? When Maggie stepped inside, I followed her, curious to know what kept Alissa at bay.
The house was as brightly lit as a laboratory and sterile in its orderliness. Bare white walls stretched bare for yards, unbroken by paintings or other decorations. The furniture was minimalist and almost uniformly covered with unobtrusive gray cloth. The floors were bare wood. Only the windows had been adorned, the outside world banished by heavy curtains the color of blood.
Alissa’s sister led Maggie into the living room and left her there. Maggie sat on the edge of the couch and waited for the parents to arrive. The mother came first, rounding the corner with a vibrant presence that belied the strange aura she gave out. She was a plump woman, with pale blonde hair worn high on her head in an elaborate twist. She wore layers of loose, colorful clothing. Brightly hued rocks glittered at the base of her throat and around each wrist, stones that she touched reverently, but unconsciously, as if they were talismans. She stood out against the austerity of the living room like a gaudily plumed bird, and yet, she carried a thick cloak of dark memories about her, a past that exuded suffering of a magnitude I had only glimpsed during my lifetime. There had been deep hunger in her life, great fear, even abject terror, the loss of love, desperation, intense hatred, and so much more. Whoever she was now, however safe her current life, she had experienced great deprivation in the past and could not leave the bleak memories behind. Though she surely was trying to forget. Perhaps that was why everything about her seemed to be too much: excessive makeup, mounds of hair, flashy clothing, even overeating.
“Mrs. Hayes?” Maggie asked, rising to greet her.
“Yes,” the woman said briskly, ignoring Maggie’s outstretched hand. “I am Elena Hayes.” She had a Russian accent. I examined her more closely and realized that she had been quite beautiful at one time, though layers of fat now obscured her once-delicate features.
“I’ve come to ask you some questions about your daughter Alissa,” Maggie explained, displaying her badge.
“She was not my daughter,” Elena Hayes said quickly. I felt fear flicker in her as she examined Maggie’s badge, a residual fear of authority rising unbidden to the surface, a reflex from the past she could not control. “I was Alissa’s stepmother. Her real mother died almost a decade ago.”
“Of course,” Maggie said. “My apologies. I knew that. Is your husband here?”
“My husband does not like visitors,” the woman answered. “And especially about a tragedy like this. Why do you come now? We have tried hard to put this behind us and it has not been easy.”
“I understand,” Maggie said. “But I do need to speak to your husband.” She sat back down on the couch with such finality that Elena Hayes did not argue.
“Wait here,” she said and swept from the room in a flurry of flowing fabric and vibrant colors.
I stayed with Maggie, trying to understand the emotions that the Hayes home brought out in me. The forces in the house confused me. There was such sadness, but acute fear, too. Was it the remnants of Alissa’s violent death, clinging to those she had loved, or were her stepmother’s painful memories so powerful they infused the entire house?
Her father perplexed me even more. I had not interviewed him when Alissa died. The family had been Danny’s responsibility. This was my first glimpse of Alan Hayes up close. I was surprised at how polished he seemed. He was in his early fifties, in perfect shape, with black hair that was meticulously cut and peppered with just enough gray to make him seem dignified. He was handsome by anyone’s standards, with graceful, almost feminine, features. But his expression was mournful and his dark eyes distrusting.
I could tell he was fiercely guarding his emotions, that Maggie’s presence made him uncomfortable, and that he disliked the disruption of the relentless order of his home. He was tall with long hands that he waved languidly in the air when he talked—the hands of a pianist more than a geologist. His fingernails looked manicured. His clothing surprised me, too. Though he had worn a suit to court, sitting far from me, among Alissa’s family and friends, I had expected him to be wearing blue jeans and a flannel shirt at home. Instead, he looked like a banker. It was early evening, a time when I would have long since changed into sweatpants and had a beer in my hand, but he wore neatly pressed gray slacks, a light blue shirt, and a tie.
Perhaps that was why he had risen so quickly through his department’s ranks to become its head. He looked the part. Or perhaps sympathy for his great loss had played a role in his rapid ascension. Certainly, he carried his tragedy with him. It radiated from him almost proudly, defiantly.
All I could really tell was that Alan Hayes was not a happy man. He had a clipped way of talking that made it difficult to determine inflection. His words were bitten off so quickly it was difficult to follow his speech and I suddenly wondered if he had been promoted in part to spare his students the effort of absorbing his lectures.
Maggie picked up on my thoughts. “Do you still teach?” she asked him abruptly, though she had yet to explain why she was there.
“One class,” he answered, just as abruptly, sitting as far from Maggie as he could. He placed his hands precisely on his knees. “What’s this about?”
When Maggie explained that his daughter’s murder case had been reopened, little about him reacted. A muscle below his right eye twi
tched, fluttering briefly before it grew still. Then I picked up on his rapid heartbeat—it raced violently for a few seconds until it slowed abruptly to a more even pace again.
Was he that much in control of himself? I wondered. Had he done that? Who had that much power over their body?
“I don’t understand,” he said stiffly. “Why has it been reopened?”
“Another student has been murdered,” Maggie explained. “And there are irrefutable similarities between the two cases.”
“I see.” His fingers fluttered against his knees then grew still.
“Don’t you want to know who she was?” Maggie asked, staring at him impassively. I knew better: she was absorbing his every movement, every sound he made, even picking up on many of the unseen forces I could feel radiating from him. She did not like him, and I wasn’t sure why, but I could understand her feelings. Alan Hayes was a cold man, despite his surface perfection.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“The new girl who was murdered. Don’t you want to know who she was?”
“Oh.” He looked perplexed. “She was a student at our college?”
“Yes,” Maggie held up a photo of Vicky Meeks that her mother had provided. It had been taken a few months before her death. She looked radiant in a flowered summer dress, delicate and filled with life.
Alan Hayes stared at the photo. I wondered if he was thinking of his own lost daughter.
“Did you know her?” Maggie asked.
“She doesn’t look like a geology student,” Hayes said. “She seems so delicate. Like . . .” His voice faltered.
“Like Alissa was,” Maggie said quietly. “Like your other daughter is now.”
He nodded.
“Her name was Vicky Meeks. She was a sophomore.”
He nodded again. “That would be why I did not know her. I only accept seniors in my class. It’s honors level.”
“Can you tell me anything about her?” Maggie asked.