Daney stared up at him.
Milo said, “Like you said, too speculative.”
Daney nodded. “Good luck.” He pivoted and began to walk away.
“I mean the only time it would ever be relevant,” said Milo, “is if we got solid, physical evidence on Malley and put him behind bars. Then we’d ask you to give a deposition.”
Daney stopped. Weak smile. “If that happened, Detective, I’d be happy to do my part.”
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 thrilclass="underline" 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.”