Desolate Angel (38 page)

Even the little dog had left me, his attention captured by something in the darkness, just beyond my reach. He was barking furiously.

“Oh, my god,” an officer cried out, her tone catching the attention of everyone who had gathered around Danny. “Oh, my god. Look over there.”

Her flashlight illuminated the little dog against a grotesque tableau, the little beast overcome by the smell of an open graveyard created by Alan Hayes—the heaped remains of bodies thrown from the cliff overhead, tossed over the edge to spiral down and smash against the rocks below, joining the victims who had preceded them in death, hidden by rocks from the eyes of the living to decay unnoticed, to dry and be stripped away to bone by the sun and the wind and the passing of time and the gnawings of the creatures that moved in the darkness around me.

As if in slow motion, the assembled response team moved as one toward the scattered heap of skeletons that had tumbled to the bottom of the quarry a few yards from where Danny lay, shining their flashlights on what was little more than piles of bones and scraps of flesh, now dried and desiccated.

“How many?” a deep voice demanded.

“At least four,” the first officer guessed, her voice quavering. “Maybe more. It’s hard to tell in this light.”

“Someone better call Gonzales,” a colleague mumbled. “And it’s not going to be me.”

I stared at the pile of human bones, discarded by Hayes, and thought of Vicky Meeks and what might have happened had she ended up with the others. No one would have known. No one would ever have suspected. Hayes would still be out there, still taking them, still torturing them, then throwing them out like garbage—if not for an old man and his dog taking a walk along the hill, surprising him one night before he could dump Vicky Meeks, forcing him to leave her in a meadow and run.

Life was like that, I realized, it could change direction in the touch of an instant. It could fail or succeed, meander or stay the course, all depending on the most mundane of consequences, the most casual of meetings, a shrug, a look, a misunderstood comment.

“Is that Bonaventura?” a newcomer asked the others, his flashlight playing over what was left of Danny.

“Yeah,” someone said. “He jumped.”

“Why?” the newcomer asked.

“Who knows?” someone answered. “Knowing him, the question is more like ‘why not?’ He was a mess. He checked out a long time ago.”

“Stop it,” the woman who had discovered the pile of broken bodies near Danny ordered. “Show him some respect. If not for him, we would never have found them.”

She played her flashlight over the grisly landscape, her face wet with tears. “Now they can rest in peace.”

Chapter 38

My new four-legged friend and I made our way back up to the top of the hill, where Maggie stood at the end of the path, shooing away hovering EMS technicians as she explained to Gonzales what had happened in the cave.

The little dog earned my everlasting love by lifting a leg and relieving himself not three inches from Gonzales’s loafers. The commander was too engrossed with Maggie’s story to notice but I gave the terrier a big thumbs-up.

“I guess he’d been following me, sir,” Maggie was saying. “He’d been MIA for a couple of days and I thought he was on a bender, but then he came through that door, gun drawn, and I don’t remember anything else. When I came to, Hayes was dead and Bonaventura was gone. He had to have shot him. It wasn’t me and no one else was there.”

Gonzales heard the doubt in her voice. “You sure?”

She shrugged. “All I saw was Hayes, Bonaventura, and the old man. Or at least, the old man’s body.”

“He’s going to be okay,” Gonzales told her. “The old man is going to be okay.”

“That’s a miracle in itself,” Maggie said.

“Lots of miracles tonight,” Gonzales agreed. It was an uncharacteristic thing for him to say. Maggie noticed.

“What’s that mean, sir?”

“Nothing, Gunn.” Gonzales hesitated. “Look, I’m just going to tell you straight up—Bonaventura is dead.”

Maggie was stunned. “What?”

“It looks like he threw himself off the bluff after shooting Hayes.”

She stared at Gonzales. “Sir, that makes no sense.”

“Not to you, it doesn’t,” Gonzales said gently. “But to Danny, it did.”

“And you know why,” Maggie guessed.

Gonzales patted her on the back and waved the waiting EMS techs over despite Maggie’s protests that she was fine. “Let it be,” he said to her. “Bonaventura died in the line of duty. That’s all the public needs to know.”

“I don’t get it,” Maggie said.

“You stopped a killer today, Gunn,” Gonzales explained. “They’ve found the remains of at least four more victims in the quarry. You made the department look good again. Bobby Daniels sees you as his new best friend. And who knows how many cases you’ve closed for other departments? You’ve done an outstanding job. Take the rewards and let the rest go. That’s my advice.”

“What rewards?” Maggie asked suspiciously. My heart swelled with pride: my girl was not big on payoffs.

“You tell me,” Gonzales offered. “What do you want? A promotion? New assignment? Want to head up a special squad?”

Maggie said nothing.

“Think about it,” Gonzales suggested smoothly. “Get back to me on it.”

The little terrier had been ignored long enough. He sat on Maggie’s foot and barked twice. The two cops stared down at him.

“It’s the old man’s dog,” Maggie said. “It led me to the cave.”

“Is that right?” Gonzales said in an unctuous voice as visions of press-friendly canine award ceremonies danced in his head. “I think someone deserves a medal.” He tried to pet the little terrier, but the dog growled and Gonzales snatched his hand away.

Maggie laughed. “I’ll take him, sir. I’ll make sure the old man gets his dog back. Something tells me this little fellow has been through enough. Let’s spare him animal control.” When she bent down, instead of growling, the little dog leapt into her arms, and Maggie took off down the hill, pursued by irritated medical personnel still trying to get a look at her.

Gonzales watched her go, clearly irked that she had one-upped him, even if it was with a lowly dog. The little dog’s tail wagged wildly back and forth as Maggie carried him down the path: the terrier was enjoying the royal treatment.

She met Morty halfway down the hill. The old beat cop was running up the incline, his face flushed deep red. “Maggie! Your father’s going to kill me. What have you done now?”

“It’s okay,” Maggie told him. “I’m fine. Hayes is dead.”

“Good. Come on,” Morty said firmly. “I told your father I’d bring you by in person so he could see for himself that you’re okay. He’s gotten calls from so many people giving him conflicting information that he’s not going to calm down until he sees you in person.”

“That’s cool.” Maggie lifted the little dog aloft. “I’ve got a little fellow for him to babysit for a few days. But you’re going to have to bring him to Dad for me. I need to stop off somewhere else first.”

Morty stared at the dog. They sized each other up. “He looks like trouble,” Morty said, but his voice was friendly and the terrier wagged his tail in reply.

“He is trouble.” Maggie laughed. “But you and I both know that Dad loves troublemakers.”

“That he does,” Morty agreed.

Morty drove off with the dog, who was happy to throw his lot in with his new friend. I threw my lot in with Maggie. I was pretty sure I knew where she was headed and within minutes my guess was confirmed—the facade of the hospital loomed skyward before us, as stark and forbidding as a monolith built to appease the gods. Most windows were dark, but the lights above the emergency room were shining bright in the night like a beacon.

They would not let her see the old man yet. They were still working on him in a treatment room. But Maggie had other people to visit as well. I followed her up three floors and down a deserted hallway. Sorrow filtered out of each room, clinging to me like wisps of cotton candy. The people here were sick, and more than a few were weighing whether it was worth staying alive when staying alive meant so much pain. But the sorrow did not come from them, it came from those who loved them and had visited earlier, leaving their fear behind.

Two night nurses were bent over their charts at a well-lit station. When they saw Maggie, one barely looked up, but the other clearly knew her well. “Hey, Maggie. How have you been?”

Maggie stopped to talk. “Same as always, Lexi. Working hard. Catching bad guys. Bad girls, too, these days.”

The nurse smiled at her. “Your mother would be proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said, a catch in her voice. And then it was there: a flash of memory so brief I barely had time to catch on to it and understand what I had seen: a frail woman lying alone in a hospital bed, surrounded by darkness lit only by the electronic screens of the machines keeping her alive. Her face was emaciated and pulled tight against the bone, the skin as dry as parchment, the mouth hanging open as she waited for breath. Maggie stood by her, holding her hand, staring down at the body struggling to hold on to life in the bed before her. “It’s okay, Mom,” Maggie was whispering. “You can let go.”

In an instant, the memory was gone. Maggie would not allow it to linger any longer.

“What are you doing here tonight? I didn’t see you when I came on duty.” The nurse was staring at Maggie, waiting for an answer.

Maggie shook off her memory and managed a smile. “A friend was brought in earlier tonight. I’m here to see her. I know it isn’t visiting hours.”

The nurse looked down at her papers, amused. “It’s okay, Maggie. I wouldn’t let a little thing like visiting hours stop you now.”

Maggie was still smiling when she entered Peggy’s room. She was asleep, her body sprouting endless cables and tubes that connected her to a cluster of machines humming by her bedside. She did not wake when Maggie took her hand, but her vitals were strong and I could feel her fighting the injuries that threatened her body. Peggy would be fine. Peggy would live to once again explore the miniature landscapes of the lab she loved so much.

Maggie was at home in a hospital room. She pulled up a chair and sat for a few moments, doing nothing more than holding her friend’s hand, letting the darkness surround them, absorbing the calm and the quiet. Maggie pulled the safety of the room around her like a cloak, gaining strength from her surroundings.

I sat at the foot of Peggy’s bed, watching Maggie, wondering how she had managed to train herself to shut off her memories whenever they got in the way of the present. It would keep her a mystery to me.

After fifteen minutes, Maggie left her friend and, waving a quick good-bye to the nurses, returned to the first floor, where the fear and the jangled remnants of violence hung in the air, choking away the peace I had gained watching Maggie with Peggy. The emergency waiting room was dotted with people in various stages of drunkenness or shock. Maggie ignored them all as she made her way toward a group of people clustered together, looking frightened at the far end near the vending machines.

It was the old man’s family. They were sitting in two long rows, facing one another, finding the strength in each other to face what might be coming. They ranged in age from the frailest of old ladies down to a sleeping boy who could not have been more than a few years old. His face was slack with the blissful unconsciousness of childhood sleep and drool trickled out of his mouth onto his mother’s shoulder. He slept, secure in the knowledge that he was completely and utterly safe. There would be time enough for him to discover the truth about life. For now, I envied him his innocence.

I stared at the others, separating out the generations who had followed the kind old man: sons, daughters, their spouses, their children, their children’s children.

And then I saw her.

She was sitting next to a trim man who was deeply tanned, holding his hand. Her long legs were stretched out in front of her and her brown hair fell in silky curtains over her face. Her boyfriend sat awkwardly next to her, wanting to be a man and lend her comfort, but unsure of what to do.

It was the young girl Alan Hayes had stalked, the young girl from the school bus who had befriended Sarah Hayes and escaped death at the hand of Sarah’s father by seconds.

Maggie saw her at the same time I did, but her eyes slid away: she was going to let the girl recognize her first.

I don’t think the girl had told her father about what had happened when he had left her alone. She gave Maggie a quick smile, out of nervousness more than friendliness, and her eyes glanced quickly at the tall man sitting beside her. Maggie smiled and passed her by. She would not interfere.

She bent over the frail old lady, who was sitting huddled in a plastic hospital chair, a shawl arranged over her lap for warmth. As Maggie introduced herself to the old man’s wife and explained who she was, I stared at the beautiful young girl holding her father’s hand, waiting to hear news of her grandfather’s condition—and I thought back to what I had stumbled on earlier that day: that life was shaped by a series of the most minor of coincidences, the tiniest of actions, the barest touching of one life by another, the seemingly inconsequential decisions of others. This beautiful young girl, her heart pure, her mind still unblemished by what life would bring her, would live out her days because her grandfather had had the courage to stay by that cave. Her grandfather had surely saved her life. And yet she would never know.