Desolate Angel

by Chaz McGee

  Maggie had put it together. Bobby Daniels. Danny. Alan Hayes. Their lives had all crossed paths at the Double Deuce. She didn’t know what they were trying to do, but she knew they had all been at the bar. Now she would question Daniels and maybe find out why.

  “Here,” she said, sliding another twenty across the picnic table. “For the babysitter. And you make sure you get two guys to walk you to your car tonight.” She handed her one of her business cards. “Will you promise to call me if you ever see that man again?”

  “Sure,” Jeanna said as she stared at the twenty in wonder. “You make a lot as a police officer?”

  Maggie laughed. “Not as much as you.” Her smile disappeared. “The future’s a lot brighter, though.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jeanna asked. “You could be shot dead at any time.”

  Maggie didn’t want to say it—but she said it anyway. “I’ve still got a better chance at having a future than you do, at least if you keep on working here.”

  Jeanna took her money and left.

  Chapter 25

  “Are you okay?” Maggie asked as she helped Bobby Daniels stand upright.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” he mumbled. “It’s too much.” He wasn’t talking about his injuries, he was talking about the world. “There’s just so much noise and so many people.”

  “You can do it,” Maggie told him. “And you’re going to. But it’s going to feel like that for a long time to come.”

  “It’s just so much,” Bobby said. “All coming at me. And I don’t have anything left. What am I going to do? Go back to school? Get a job? Who will hire me?”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Maggie promised him. “Let’s just go to my car and we’ll talk.” She led him to her car and I followed, scanning the parking lot as I went. Unease was infiltrating my consciousness with a growing urgency. It felt as if we were being watched and that something—or someone—was waiting for us in the shadows.

  While Maggie helped Daniels into the front seat of her car, I walked up and down the rows of vehicles in the lot, checking for anyone hiding nearby. I saw no one. And yet, I could feel a heart beating in the darkness, steady, controlled, and hungry. And I could sense wariness as well as cunning and anger. The feeling grew stronger when I reached the back row and saw a black SUV pull out onto the blacktop. It accelerated and sped back toward town.

  I stared after the taillights, fearing for Maggie. Alan Hayes was losing it. His anger was winning over his self-control. If he zeroed in on Maggie, if he started to blame her for events not going as he planned, he would focus all of his rapacious need to hurt on her. She would become the point person for his hatred and each time he was thwarted, his hatred would grow.

  Was there nothing I could do? I returned to her car, wanting only to be near her. She was sitting behind the wheel, gently questioning Bobby Daniels. “When did they release you?” she asked.

  “This afternoon. I thought it was going to be tomorrow. That’s the first time my parents could get a flight in, but a call came in late this afternoon. They said they wanted to avoid a lot of publicity and television cameras, so they brought me to court, and when the judge said I was free to go, I just . . .” His voice broke. “I couldn’t go back to that place, not even for a night.”

  “Of course not,” Maggie said.

  “I was going to get a motel room but there was a man in court, he runs a halfway house. He said I could stay there tonight. Off the books, as a favor. He said there was plenty of room and it felt right to me. It was a halfway house. The men there would know how I felt. And I thought maybe, if I got freaked, he could talk me down, or at least understand.”

  Maggie nodded. “How did you end up here?”

  “I was checking out my room when the guy running the house got a call and he gave me a message. He said the detective investigating the reopened case needed to talk to me and wanted to meet me here. I thought it was you, so I came.”

  “You didn’t think it odd that someone knew you were at the halfway house?”

  “Plenty of people saw me in court talking to the guy who runs it. If they knew who he was, they’d know where I was headed.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I called a cab. It cost me thirty bucks, but I figured I owed you at least that much.”

  “You don’t owe me anything, Bobby,” Maggie told him. “Don’t ever think that.”

  He looked down at his feet. He’d been living in a quid pro quo world for a long time. It would take some getting used to a world where people did the right thing just because it was right.

  “I didn’t even know you were getting out today,” Maggie explained. “I would have been there to meet you, if I’d known.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Daniels insisted, unconsciously running his fingers down his gash. “My parents will be here soon. They’re taking me back to Kansas City.”

  “Good,” said Maggie. “After tonight, you need to get as far away from here as you can. You know that, right?”

  Bobby nodded. “Listen, I’m going to tell them that I got this cut before I got released, okay? I don’t want them to worry. They’ve done enough of that.”

  “Sure,” Maggie agreed. “I’ll go along with that. But tell me what happened after you got here.”

  “As soon as I walked in the door, Detective Bonaventura came up to me. I knew then it wasn’t going to end well. I knew I was in trouble.”

  “What made you think you were in trouble?” Maggie asked.

  “For one thing, he wasn’t you. And when I asked where you were, he said you’d been taken off the case and he was back on it, in charge.”

  Maggie was silent. I knew what she was thinking: Danny would only have told Bobby that if he planned to kill him. It was too easily disproved as a lie.

  “What did he want from you?” she asked.

  “I don’t really know. That was the weird part. I wanted to leave right away. I mean, he was the bastard who put me away in the first place, and if he’d done even a halfway decent job, he’d have known it wasn’t me who killed Alissa.”

  “Why didn’t you just walk out?”

  “He said that the new theory was that Alissa’s father had killed her and he needed my help. He said he needed to know everything I’d told the police about her father, especially what I’d told you. I asked him why he didn’t just ask you and he said you’d left the files a mess and walked out on the department, because you wanted to get all the credit for solving it and were mad he’d been put in charge, so he was practically starting over.”

  Maggie’s jaw clenched at this, but she said nothing. That Danny. He always found a way to squander any goodwill directed toward him.

  Bobby Daniels looked apologetic. “I guess I believed him. Sort of. I didn’t know what else to think.”

  “So what did you tell him?”

  “That you hadn’t even asked me about Alissa’s father.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He wanted to know what you’d asked me about and . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “What?” she prodded him.

  “He wanted to know if you had talked about his old partner, the detective who died.”

  Startled at being made part of the story, I leaned forward so I could hear better.

  “Fahey?” Maggie asked. “Why would he ask you about Detective Fahey?”

  “I don’t know,” Daniels said. “But he wanted to know if you had said anything about him.”

  Maggie was shaking her head. “Did you tell him anything?”

  “I had nothing to tell. I don’t think he believed me when I said you’d only come to tell me that you were trying to get me released. But it was the truth, and I wasn’t going to lie, and when he didn’t believe me, I started to get pissed off. I mean, I’d come all the way out here, spent thirty bucks I didn’t have on a cab, and now this guy didn’t believe what I told him. I started to remember what a bully he’d been, how he hadn’t believed me
before and I’d ended up in prison because of it.” He closed his eyes. “So I told him to leave me alone. All I wanted to do was have a few drinks and head back to the halfway house and wait for my parents to get me the hell out of here. I wanted to be left alone.”

  “Was that when the fight started?”

  “Almost. I went to the bathroom first, and when I came back, he was in a really bad mood, like I had done something to piss him off. We got into it a little and the next thing you know someone knocked us over and I can’t even begin to tell you what happened next.”

  “Do you remember when you were cut?”

  Daniels nodded. “It was before we ended up outside.”

  “Before?” Maggie. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded again. “Positive. I went down and fists started flying and I sort of got shoved to the other side of the door into this recess. Just as two bikers slugging it out slammed into me, I felt a sting on the side of my face. It didn’t even hurt when it happened, but it sure as hell started to hurt afterward. Blood started pouring down my face and got in my eyes and all over my hands, but I got shoved out the doors with everyone else a second later and caught in the middle of a whole bunch of punching and shoving, and I didn’t have time to do much more than cover up and hope for the best before the guy with the baseball bat broke it up.”

  “So you never saw who cut you?” Maggie asked.

  Daniels shook his head. “All I know is that it wasn’t Detective Bonaventura. He was still back near the bar, and anyway, he’s not fast enough to have done it. He looks like he’s in pretty bad shape right now.” He paused, fighting the bitterness. “I hope his conscience is eating him alive.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Maggie said grimly.

  “You think someone was in on it with him? That the fight was started deliberately?”

  Maggie nodded. “When people get declared innocent and freed from prison, there are always a few kooks who disagree,” she said. “And you never know what they’re going to do. Detective Bonaventura is angry. He still thinks you did it. And he found someone who apparently agreed with him.” She did not tell him that Alan Hayes was probably the man who had tried to kill him. It would only be throwing fuel on a fire and throwing even more uncertainty into a perilous situation. Who knew how Daniels might react?

  “Did you see anyone else you recognized tonight?” she asked. It was as close as she would get to mentioning Hayes.

  Daniels leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “No. It was too crowded. I spaced out a lot. I don’t think I can make it out here. I’m just not used to it. It’s too much.”

  “You’ll make it,” Maggie said firmly. “We just have to get you through tonight. Let me take you back to the halfway house.” She hesitated. “Unless you’d rather stay somewhere else? My dad would put you up. He’s a retired police officer. I could ask him.”

  “No,” Daniels said, “The halfway house is fine. Nobody knows me and nobody cares who I am. It’s locked down at night and wait until you see the guy who runs it. I’ll be safe there.”

  “Okay,” Maggie agreed. “But I need to talk with that guy. Just to be sure. I want to know who called him and told him to send you out here.”

  Daniels suddenly looked stricken. “My bag,” he said, sounding panicked. “I left it at the bar.”

  “Your bag?”

  “It’s got everything I own in it. Everything that helped me make it through the last five years.” He put his head in his hands. “I know someone stole it. It was all I had.”

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” Maggie told him. “You stay here and I’ll check the bar. Lock the door behind me and don’t open it for anyone. I’ve got the key.”

  She climbed out of the car and Daniels spent the five minutes it took Maggie to return with his eyes closed, sleeping or pretending he was somewhere else. Or maybe he was praying. When a man owns little more than a bag full of possessions, I imagine it hurts to lose that bag.

  “Got it,” Maggie said triumphantly as she tossed a duffel bag into his lap. “It was shoved against the bar, near the front door. I don’t think anyone even saw it. Too busy looking at Jeanna, I guess.”

  Bobby had unzipped the duffel bag and was pawing through it. “It looks like everything is here.” He took out a couple of pairs of pants, some shirts, a few biology textbooks, a Bible, and some photographs. “It seems untouched—” His voice froze. “What the—”

  “What is it?” Maggie asked, hearing the alarm in his voice.

  “This isn’t mine.” Bobby took out a ball of yellow fabric wadded up in one corner of his bag and began to unfold it. It was a yellow sundress. It looked familiar. I could not remember why.

  “What do you mean?” Maggie asked.

  “I’ve never seen this—” He stopped abruptly, as if the words had caught in his throat. “Oh, god. Oh, god.” He dropped the dress as if it were on fire.

  “What is it?” Maggie asked sharply. “Bobby, you have to tell me.”

  “This is Alissa’s dress,” he told Maggie. “The one she was wearing when she disappeared. I’m sure of it. She wore it the last time we went out together. This is Alissa’s dress. What is it doing in my bag?”

  Maggie stared at the yellow sundress, trying to piece it all together. “The file never says they found the dress.”

  “Why would anyone put it in here?” he asked her.

  “Are you sure it’s her dress?” Maggie asked.

  “How could I forget something like that?” He held the dress up to his face, inhaled its smell, and looked disappointed. “It’s been washed.” He looked ashamed, as if wanting to catch Alissa’s scent one more time, somehow, made him guilty of her murder after all.

  But Maggie did not even notice. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was: someone had planted the dress in Bobby’s duffel bag in a clumsy attempt to make it seem as if he was Alissa’s killer after all. It was ludicrous to think someone could have kept the dress all those years, in prison yet, without detection. So there would be other planted evidence, a locker key maybe, stuck in a pocket of his bag, that led to more planted evidence elsewhere, maybe in a bus station locker or storage unit. Some place where Bobby Daniels could have stored his trophies all these years until the day he got out.

  “Let me have the bag,” Maggie said. A thrill ran through me. Maggie had put it all together, too. She and I were starting to think as one.

  Daniels handed her the duffel bag, and she began running her fingers around the edge of the inside bottom and checking the zippered pockets. “Got it.” She produced a small brass key.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Bobby said, panicked.

  “It’s okay. I believe you. Just take a deep breath.”

  “How did you know it would be there?” Bobby asked.

  Maggie sounded surprised. “I don’t really know. I just thought of it.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “I don’t know that, either.” Maggie stared at the key. “Don’t tell anyone about this, Bobby. You got it? First I’m going to find out what it’s for.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked her.

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  She was thinking the same thing I was—that someone had tried to frame Bobby and they’d wanted the fake evidence to be found with his body after they had killed him.

  It was the kind of stupid, obvious plan that only a drunk like Danny could have dreamed up and thought he would get away with. But the only one who could have had access to Alissa’s yellow sundress was her real killer. Which meant Hayes had been in on it with Danny—and that he had killed Alissa and was probably planning to kill Danny, too.

  I wondered who really would have been implicated in Alissa’s death. Hayes could just as easily have been setting Danny up.

  Oh, Danny, I thought. You are in way over your head. How could you have agreed to help Alan Hayes? Didn’t you realize what that dress meant?

  “I don’t get it,” Daniels said quietly. “What
did I ever do to anyone?”

  Maggie started the car and pulled away from the Double Deuce. “You just got in someone’s way,” she explained quietly. “That’s all you ever did. And we need to make sure you stay out of their way from here on out.” She glanced at Bobby. “I’m going to take the dress. Tell no one about it. And I want you to lock yourself in your room tonight.”

  He evaded her eyes. “I’ll be okay. I’ve learned how to take care of myself pretty good. At least when I know someone is coming for me.”

  Chapter 26

  It was deep into the night by the time Maggie delivered Bobby Daniels back to the halfway house and decided for herself that the supervisor knew nothing about the plan to kill Bobby Daniels. She knew him from way back, it turned out, and he was appalled at the injury to Bobby, embarrassed at being tricked, and relieved when he learned Maggie intended to keep the whole thing quiet.

  All he could offer was that the caller had been a man. “I should have known better,” he said. “I’ve had people try all sorts of scams. Calling up pretending to be parole officers. You name it. But Daniels is a free man. Why would anyone pull a stunt like that?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Maggie told him. “Can you just check on him tonight, take a look at that cut in the morning, and make sure he’s delivered to his parents in one piece?”

  “You bet I can. He’ll be safe with me.”

  I believed him. The guy was close to six and a half feet tall and well muscled. Bobby would be safe under his care, especially now.

  Maggie made a phone call as soon as she returned to her car, despite the lateness of the hour. “It’s me. I’m only a few minutes away.” She paused. “Thanks. I’ll be right over.”

  So, I thought, she has a lover after all. And though sexual desire had disappeared, apparently the desire for possession had not. I felt a stab of jealousy and brooded all the way to a house on the edge of a middle-class neighborhood. I recognized the block. I had once been called out there to chronicle the death of a young boy who had been hit by an ice-cream truck.