Desolate Angel (13 page)

“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 twitched, 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.

“No, I’m sorry.” Hayes gazed at her with his mournful eyes. “I wish I could help.”

He suddenly seemed so alone and helpless sitting there, an oversized man in an undersized chair, vulnerable and exposed, overcome by the memories of what had happened to his daughter. But as he sat there, I realized how curious it was that he was facing Maggie alone. Where was his wife? His other daughter? Why had they disappeared at this difficult time for him? Why were they not there to lend him emotional support?

For the first time, I wondered: was the fear I felt lingering in this house somehow fear of him?

Surely not. He was perfect in both appearance and manners, hardly the stuff of nightmares.

And yet, something about him and his home was off-kilter. I could feel it closing in on me, despite the gracious facade, a jumble of conflicting emotions so strong they swirled through the house like winds that might coalesce and turn into a hurricane at any moment. The longer we were there, the more I felt it. Something in this house was off. And much was hidden.

Could Maggie feel it, too?

If she did, she did not show it. She began to question Hayes about his daughter’s death almost four years before, leading him through the events up to her disappearance a week before her body was found. She followed up on details and asked questions that neither Danny nor I had even considered.

Alan Hayes had a remarkable memory and he shared what he remembered with her in precise, almost finicky detail. But not once, I realized, did he seem to be emotionally involved in what had happened to his daughter. He had pulled a force field of detachment around him, masking what he felt inside.