“It fits Daney’s act,” I said. “Image is important to him. Outwardly, he’s a man of faith, a tireless youth worker, caretaker of downtrodden teens. While you were ordering, he spun off a bunch of psychobabble, told me he and Cherish chose adolescents to foster because no one else wanted them. If I didn’t know better, I’d have bought it. Meanwhile, he’s cheating the government, seducing minors, and impregnating them intentionally. Getting off on having the pregnancies terminated and trying to snag a share of the fees.”
“What a prince… at least when the DNA match comes through, we’ve got him for kiddie rape on Valerie Quezada.” He shook his head. “One reinterview and he’s our new Hitler. What does that say for Cherish’s guilt or innocence?”
“Don’t know. Their relationship’s a big question mark.”
“I can buy Daney as a scumbag,” he said. “But speaking of questions marks, what was his motive to have Kristal murdered?”
“Kristal survived,” I said.
“Survived what?”
“Survived period. Daney has a thing about his progeny living and breathing.”
“Daney was Kristal’s daddy? Where’d that come from?”
“More of the ugly in here.” I tapped my forehead. “Think about it: Daney’s kick is playing God. Generating life and terminating it. We know his sexual exploits went beyond teenage wards- Sydney Weider. Why not other married women? And why not play the pregnancy game with them, too? Your remark about a prenatal serial killer was on-target. And serials need increasing amounts of stimulation.”
“From fetus to full-term victim,” he said.
“There are mothers like that,” I said. “Get pregnant repeatedly but can’t tolerate parenthood. Fathers, too. How many cases have we heard where the boyfriend or daddy shook the baby too hard. We always assume it’s an impulsive thing, poor anger control. But maybe not. It sure happens with primates. Chimp moms defend their babies from aggressive daddies all the time.”
“I create, I destroy… except that seducing vulnerable teens is one thing, Alex. Getting a married woman pregnant means a whole lot of carelessness on all accounts.”
“Hole in the condom, or some other trick. Beth Scoggins thinks Daney drugged her. Maybe he did that routinely. And in a sense, married women would be easier targets than teenage girls. Because convincing them to terminate would be a cinch. Until Daney met up with a married woman who resisted. Because she’d been yearning to have a baby for a long time.”
“Lara,” he said.
“Daney’s got brown eyes. He’d like us to think he’s Mr. Observant, but he didn’t chance upon the genetic angle.”
“And now he’s throwing it in my face with all that phony reluctance. Oh, man.”
I reached over and tapped his attaché case. “Long as you’re at it, I’d suggest a few other DNA tests.”
We took the 101 to the 5 South, headed for the Mission Street exit. Milo drove way too fast, seemed distracted. “If Malley’s innocent, why wouldn’t he talk to me?”
“The system failed him, he’s a burnout… I don’t know. The same logic could be twisted in his favor: If he was hiding something would he want to get you suspicious?”
“I guess,” he said. “But I’m still not comfortable dropping him. Even if Daney does turn out to be Kristal’s daddy.”
“Hey,” I said, “an open mind’s a terrible thing to waste.”
He laughed. Gripped the wheel and fed more gas, glanced back at the case on the backseat. “All of a sudden there’re all these possibilities. I have a confession: If Daney did everything you think he did, I have encountered a level of bad that creeps me out.”
“So you’re human.”
“Only on alternate days.” He took another look back at the case. The unmarked stayed in lane. “Either way,” he said, “the motive for Rand’s the same, covering up the truth about Kristal. But there’s still the problem of how Rand found out. And the fact that Kristal was nearly two, talk about your late-term abortion. If Daney has this psycho lust to destroy his own sperm, why would he wait that long?”
“Maybe he kept working on Lara to terminate. She got angry, refused, broke off their relationship. Daney had to step aside but he couldn’t accept losing. He kept fantasizing. Plotting. Found a thirteen-year-old he could hire to kill.”
“Lara shopping at the mall, the boys hanging at the arcade.”
“Another possibility,” I said, “is that Lara’s relationship with Barnett grew progressively rockier and she decided to leave him. Because she had her own fantasies.”
“Hooking ol’ Drew.”
“The guy who’d come through biologically. But putting pressure on Drew would’ve been a fatal error.”
“He puts a hit on the kid. Does Lara, too.”
“Or she really was a suicide. She had an inkling of why Kristal had been killed, couldn’t come forward because it would have implicated her. Her depression deepened and she killed herself.”
“Head-shot in a car?” he said. “Same as Rand? To me that says they were both murdered by the same person.”
“Or whoever shot Rand imitated Lara’s suicide.”
He knuckled his temple, made an abrupt lane change, put on more speed. “Daney’s character notwithstanding, Malley’s the one with the guns and it was one of those that killed Lara. And he’s also got a thing for other guys’ wives.”
He slapped the dashboard. “How ‘bout this for a screenplay: The Malleys weren’t the only ones swinging. They met Drew and Cherish at a swap party. Drew and Lara parted ways but Malley and Cherish are still doing it.”
I considered that. “It might help explain Barnett accepting Lara’s pregnancy. If it was the product of a group scene, the threat would be depersonalized.”
“It takes a village,” he said. “Whatever the case, no way I’m scratching the cowboy off my list.”
We parked in the coroner’s lot and entered the north building. Milo talked to Dave O’Reilly, a thin, red-faced, white-haired man with a keen, searching intellect, and asked for Kristal Malley’s tissue samples and Valerie Quezada’s aborted fetus.
“You just dropped Quezada off,” said O’Reilly. “Something come up?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I’m sure I don’t. Okay, I’ll call down and have them put it in a refrigerator bag and a Styrofoam biohazard box.”
“All official,” said Milo. “I like that.”
“I like tall, skinny brunettes with big natural boobs.”
We returned to the car. Milo put the box in the trunk, along with the attaché case, and started up the engine. A white coroner’s van pulled around from the back of the building and cruised through the lot before turning toward Mission.
He said, “Wonder what police work was like in the rubber hose days.”
“You and Daney alone in a room?”
“Me and anyone I damn well want alone in a room.” He bared his teeth. “Think Daney was telling the truth about knowing Weider before the murder?”
“Why would he lie?”
“Puffing up his chest, more hero-of-the-story crap,” he said. “Making like he’s got big-time contacts at the P.D., masterminded the whole defense.”
“Easy enough to check out,” I said. “And if he was telling the truth about working with inner-city teens, I’d be interested in one particular delinquent other than Troy.”
“Nestor Almedeira.”
“And the dedicated lawyer who stood up for his rights.”
Not that easy to check out.
We sat in the coroner’s lot and Milo phoned the Public Defender’s Office. Several transfers later, he ended up with a supervisor. I watched as amiability morphed to wheedling, then deteriorated to veiled threats. He hung up growling.