Angel Among Us (19 page)

Maggie sighed and she sounded tired. ‘I don't know what day it is, so I can't tell you.'

They climbed from the car. The crowd of reporters gauged whether they were worth their attention. Skip Bostwick stood among them, a bandage covering his nose. Purple bruises bloomed around each eye. He glared at Maggie and Calvano but looked away without saying anything. He was going to keep it to himself.

‘Nice work,' Maggie told Calvano. They pushed their way through the crowd, refusing to answer any questions. Lindsey Stanford had been expecting the brush-off and she was ready. Giving her cameraman a signal, she snapped into on-camera mode and began her monologue. ‘Meanwhile, authorities are refusing to cooperate with the media and are stonewalling reporters on their progress. This has led more than one observer to remark that it is unlikely they have any leads in the case. Arcelia Gallagher has been missing for over forty-eight hours and chances are growing that the outcome of this story will not be a happy one. None of these developments appear to trouble her husband, Daniel Gallagher, who remains free – despite a growing consensus that he, and only he, knows what happened to his wife.'

If Lindsey Stanford thought it would rattle Maggie, she was wrong. Maggie just shook her head slightly and pushed through the double doors into the station house, past a line of uniformed men assigned to keep the media hordes outside.

Freddy, the desk sergeant who had ruled the front counter for decades, called out to Maggie as soon as he saw her. ‘There's some Mexican guy hanging around the lobby who says he'll only talk to the two of you. He went out for some coffee, but he'll be back. He says it's important. The guy seemed terrified.'

‘What do you mean some Mexican guy?' Maggie asked. ‘Can you be more specific?'

Freddy shrugged. ‘He looked like a Mexican guy.'

Maggie gave him a look of disgust and headed for the elevator as Calvano scurried after her. ‘What's your problem?' he asked as they stepped into in the car.

Maggie jabbed the floor button angrily. ‘Did you ever think we wouldn't be in this mess if this whole town didn't assume that all Mexicans looked alike?'

But Calvano's conscience was clear. ‘No, I don't think that. But I do think we wouldn't be in this mess if some massive scumbag hadn't taken Arcelia Gallagher.'

‘Point well taken,' Maggie conceded. She seemed reluctant to leave the elevator when they reached the fourth floor. The closer they got to Gonzales's office, the slower she walked. She was directing the investigation and she knew that his priorities did not coincide with hers. She wanted to find Arcelia Gallagher and the other missing woman. He wanted to make sure that he came off looking good in the press, that the case fueled his rise to the top, and that the local fat cats were pleased with how the town came off in the national press. None of them gave a crap about Arcelia Gallagher.

‘Have a seat,' Gonzales told them. He was reading an e-mail on his BlackBerry and barely gave them a glance. Abruptly, he shoved the device in a drawer and placed both hands on his desk, staring back and forth between Maggie and Calvano. The silence in the room lengthened.

‘Well?' he finally said.

‘Well,' Maggie answered, her voice holding more than a trace of impatience. ‘We've spent the morning out at the Delmonte House and I can tell you right now that Aldo Flores has nothing to do with the disappearance of Arcelia Gallagher or his wife. You have a man sitting in a jail cell who has done absolutely nothing, who is clearly a victim as well, and once the press gets wind he is there, he will be crucified.' I had never heard Maggie challenge Gonzales so directly. The case was getting to her.

‘It's been forty-eight hours,' Gonzales reminded her. ‘We're looking for a body at this point. It will be found and when it does, someone is going to have to pay.'

Calvano was in over his head and remained silent. He understood that Maggie and Gonzales had a complicated relationship, one that stretched back to her childhood when she had grown up wanting to be a cop, just like her father, and Gonzales had promised to hire her one day after she got some experience under her belt. He had done just that right before I died, hiring her away from the Wilmington force and bumping her up a rank.

‘Wouldn't it be better if the person who actually did it paid for it?' Maggie suggested.

Gonzales lost his temper. I had never seen that happen before, either. It rose in him and flared before he willed it back under control with monumental effort. I think that scared me more than anything. To know he had that kind of anger in him, and the control to use it for his own purposes was terrifying, even though he held no power over me.

‘Aldo Flores has a record in Mexico,' Gonzales informed them. ‘He spent two years in jail there for drug running. He is, in fact, a wanted man down there. It took me one phone call to uncover that fact.'

Calvano decided to take one for Maggie. ‘Sir, with all respect, we have no way of knowing if that is true or not. I would no more believe what an official of the Mexican police told me than if . . .' He failed at finding a metaphor and plowed onward. ‘People down there don't have much choice. It's either do what the drug gangs tell you or die. It's not like up here. You can't possibly know what it is like. He may simply have been trying to stay alive.'

‘And you do know what it's like?' Gonzales asked sarcastically.

The old Calvano would have taken the bait. He would have insulted the commander and been busted back down to his usual ignoble status. But he had learned a lot from Maggie and, this time, he kept his temper under control.

‘We would like permission to keep looking into the Delmonte House connection and to pursue Danny Gallagher as a suspect again,' he told Gonzales instead. ‘I also think Aldo Flores is a dead end. I think we should follow Danny around, it's been a few days now and he may tip his hand if he's involved.'

‘You really think that's worth our time?' Maggie asked Calvano.

‘Well, I'd rather talk to Enrique Romero again,' Calvano said. ‘But since he's in California, that's a little out of our range.'

‘He's not out of my range,' Gonzales said smugly.

‘What's that mean?' Maggie looked alarmed.

‘It means, leave Romero to me,' the commander told her. ‘Go on.'

‘For now, the Delmonte House is a dead end,' Calvano explained. ‘I don't think it's that poor bastard locked up downstairs, either. So if you take a look at everyone else, the only one who might have known both missing women is Danny Gallagher. He might have known her through his wife.'

‘Or Father Sojak,' Maggie pointed out.

A silence fell over the room.

‘Follow Danny Gallagher if it makes you happy,' Gonzales finally decided. ‘Keep an eye on the priest, too. Tread lightly there. I don't need a diocese on my ass. And remember, I'll take care of Enrique Romero.'

‘What's that mean?' Maggie asked again.

‘It means I'll take care of Enrique Romero.'

Maggie and Calvano rose to go. They were almost out the door when Maggie turned back to the commander and said, ‘Sir, it's pretty insane out there with the media.'

Gonzales would not meet her eyes. He knew that she knew he had been one of the people to bring the media to their town, no matter how much he tried to lay the blame off on others. But he wasn't about to take the heat for it, nor would he pretend he could control them. ‘The genie is out of the bottle, Gunn. You'll just have to deal with it.'

Downstairs in the lobby, waiting alone in a corner of the area where victims came to wait their turn to report a robbery or assault, Rodrigo Flores sat with his head in his hands as he contemplated the fate of his brother-in-law imprisoned a floor above him. The desk sergeant nodded toward Rodrigo when he saw Maggie and Calvano, and the two detectives joined him in the waiting room. They sat on either side of Rodrigo and, though they did not say it exactly, made it clear that their sympathies were with him.

‘My brother did not do anything,' Rodrigo said miserably. ‘He just wanted help finding his wife.'

‘We know,' Maggie said. ‘We talked to the butler this morning and he said that Aldo was a really great worker and that he would never have hurt his wife. But it turns out that your brother has a record.'

Rodrigo's eyes were dark and angry. ‘You don't know what it's like in my village. You don't have a choice. Either you help them or they slit your mother's throat or, worse, they kill your children and drop them on your doorstep.'

Maggie looked shocked. ‘We're doing everything we can,' she promised Rodrigo. ‘We'll get your brother out of here.'

‘But can you help us out with it?' Calvano asked the gardener. ‘That place where you work is one weird house. Do you think anyone out there had anything to do with the disappearance of the women? I don't mean the staff, but Mr Romero or his friends?'

Rodrigo considered the question. ‘I don't know. They all walk around and act like they're too important to bother with us. What would they want with a Mexican woman? But you never know. Mr Romero has a temper and he doesn't like it when he doesn't get his way. But that one man, the one who is Mr Romero's agent, he would do anything to keep his job and his status. And then you have the man who tells Ms Wylie what to do all the time.'

‘Her manager?' Maggie asked.

Rodrigo nodded. ‘He is an angry man who wants power but does not really have it. He is always coming outside and telling me and Aldo what to do, even though he has no power over us. Who knows what he would do? And there is bad blood between the short man and Mr Romero and his agent. They hate the little man and tell him to go away all the time. I have heard them make fun of him when he is not around. But I would expect them to hurt one another, not those women.' He looked up at Maggie and Calvano, disgusted. ‘They have all the money in the world and still they are unhappy people. Mr Jarvis, the old butler, he says it is the house. He says the house gives you unhappiness.'

‘Mr Jarvis needs help with the house,' Maggie told Rodrigo. ‘You know that he is trying to take care of his wife and is hiding her condition?'

Rodrigo nodded. ‘I know. She has been very bad for more than a year now.'

‘Can you find someone to help him out?' Maggie asked. ‘Someone to replace the maid?'

Calvano made a strange sound, something that was halfway between a grunt and a victory cry. ‘I know someone,' he said, his voice rising in excitement. ‘Rodrigo, I am going to send a woman out to you who will help Mr Jarvis until you can find someone permanent. Will you see that she gets hired?'

Rodrigo shrugged. ‘I will try. No one wants to work out there. All my people say the house is cursed. If you send me someone, and they can speak English and take care of Ms Wylie, I am sure she will be hired. At least for a little while.'

Calvano nodded, looking satisfied. He patted the gardener on the back. ‘Tell your brother to hang in there, man. We won't forget about him.'

Rodrigo nodded miserably and stared after them as Maggie and Calvano left the station, taking a side door to avoid the crush of reporters.

‘What was that all about?' Maggie asked as they circled around to their car.

‘Alice Hernandez,' Calvano said. ‘The hot Hispanic chick in vice.'

‘What about Alice Hernandez?' Maggie asked, irritated at his comment in too many ways to count.

‘We can put her in the house undercover,' Calvano explained. ‘They'll see her as just another Mexican maid, and she's fluent in both Spanish and English, so she can keep an eye on everyone there while we look into the husband and the priest.'

‘How do you know so much about Alice Hernandez?' Maggie asked. ‘Which is not to say that this isn't a good idea.'

Calvano smiled. ‘A gentleman never tells.'

‘I know that, but you are not a gentleman.' Maggie studied him for a moment. ‘Wait a minute. You really like her, don't you?'

Calvano acted like he had not heard her.

‘Seriously, Adrian?' Maggie said. ‘You do know that Alice Hernandez could kick your ass in the dark, right? And that she really has it together? You would not be able to just go out with her and then move on, like you do with everyone else.'

Calvano looked miserable. ‘It doesn't matter. She won't go out with me.'

Maggie laughed. ‘Of course she won't go out with you. Who wants to be just like the four thousand other women you've gone out with?'

‘It's not that many,' Calvano protested.

‘But it's enough for Alice to steer clear,' Maggie pointed out. When she saw her partner's expression, she softened. ‘Really, Adrian – I'll back you in whatever you want to do. But I'm just saying, Alice Hernandez is not someone you mess around with lightly. Don't start something with her that you are not prepared to finish.'

‘Maybe I finally want to finish something?' Calvano said. He sounded more than a little defensive.

Maggie patted him on the back. ‘Good for you, my friend. Good for you.'

I
had never given much thought to the families of victims I'd had to deal with when I was alive. God help me, I think I looked at them as an annoyance, secretly irritated at their panic and steeling myself for the inevitable criticisms that would come when I failed to find out who had killed their loved one. It is painful now to think what it must have been like for them to look at the disheveled, reeking cop that I had been and know that I was their only hope. Staring at Danny Gallagher now, huddled on the edge of a rocking chair in the nursery he and his missing wife had decorated for their child, I could not help but wonder how many people like him I had let down in the past. How had I overlooked their misery? How had I been able to ignore it? Most of all, I wondered what I could do to atone for it.