Angel of Darkness (24 page)

‘I'm going with you, man,' Michael told his friend. ‘You won't have to go through this alone.'

Adam Mullins was hauled to his feet and did not resist. He looked confused and frightened as the officers pulled him toward the door and still more members of the SWAT team surrounded him, creating a wall of authority. As Adam was marched down the hall, Maggie escorting Michael right behind him, students exchanged looks of shock and some of the girls began to cry. No one looked titillated, no one looked entertained. No one even pulled out a cell phone to begin recording. These kids were devastated.

Of all of the things that had happened so far that day, I thought this reaction by his classmates the most telling. Whatever was going on, there wasn't a kid in the school who thought it was possible that Adam Mullins would be involved.

I wondered if their confidence extended to Michael.

Maggie kept my son close by her side, twice signaling other officers to back off as she led Michael to her car. She wanted to put him at ease and waved him into the back seat as if it were entirely his decision to come along for a ride.

For the first time since I had known her, I felt myself on the other side of one of Maggie's battles. I did not know if she was trying to protect my son or was simply being a good detective. Michael would be no match for her.

Calvano did not look happy at the approach she was taking. He climbed into the front seat looking like he had just swallowed a fish hook. I wondered if I had misread the mild animosity between us when I was alive. Had he resented me more than I realized? Was he now going to take it out on Michael?

I was not about to let my son ride in the back seat of a police car for the first time alone. Although I would get no credit for it from him, I climbed in next to Michael, determined to give him what strength I could. He was close to tears and I could feel the panic welling in him. I prayed word would get to Connie soon, and that Michael would have the good sense to shut up until she arrived.

My prayers were answered. Michael knocked on the bulletproof partition that separated him from the detectives. ‘Am I going to get to call my mother and tell her where I am?' he asked. ‘She'll get worried if she hears about this from someone else.'

‘Call her now,' Maggie suggested. She handed Michael her cell phone. Michael looked confused at this show of trust, but took it and dialed Connie, reaching her on the department store sales floor where she worked each day.

I could hear her horrified squawking from where I sat. This was going to get interesting.

Up front, Calvano was arguing with Maggie. ‘What the hell?' he said, not bothering to whisper. ‘You ever hear of a kid going on a rampage alone? Isn't the whole point of it to be a badass with your buddies? Why the hell is one of them in handcuffs and the other sitting in our back seat, acting like we're on the way to Dairy Queen for a friggin' ice cream cone?'

Maggie looked surprised at Calvano's reaction. ‘Look, Adrian, he's the son of a fellow officer. He hasn't been directly implicated. On top of that, you met his mother. You really think we'll get anything from him if we go the formal “talk to my lawyer” route?'

Calvano sat back, accepting her judgment but unwilling to acknowledge it out loud.

Michael had overheard the last of their conversation. He passed the cell phone through the partition opening. Calvano grabbed it out of his hands like a petulant child.

‘My mother's going to meet us at the station,' Michael said timidly. ‘She wants to know what this is all about.'

It was his way of asking what was going on and Maggie understood this.

‘You know Adam better than anyone,' she explained to him. ‘We just want to ask you some questions about his other friends, what his habits are. That sort of thing.' She glanced at Michael in the rear-view mirror. I knew she saw the same thing that I saw: a frightened kid, torn between loyalty and honesty, sitting back against the seat, arms crossed, his mouth clamped shut as a sign of his determination to stand by his friend.

‘He's not going to talk,' Calvano predicted.

‘I'm definitely not talking to
you
,' Michael told Calvano angrily. ‘My mom's right. You're a complete asshole.'

‘See?' Calvano said to Maggie. ‘The kid's just like his mother.'

Maybe. But when it comes to you, he's just like his father.

THIRTY-TWO

I
knew Adam Mullins was on his way to processing and would be facing arraignment within hours. But for once in her life, Maggie drove slowly enough that, by the time she reached headquarters, most of the unfamiliar vehicles were pulling out of the parking lot as the borrowed manpower headed out to a less exciting part of their day. I liked to think she did that for Michael, to spare him the side of his friend being dragged inside like a dangerous animal, surrounded by dozens of armored men holding rifles on him. I had seen the drill before, and no matter how guilty the prisoner might be, the spectacle always left me feeling diminished. It would have scared Michael out of his wits.

Maggie led Michael inside past the desk sergeant, who recognized him as my son and looked a little startled. His eyes darted from Michael to Maggie as he gauged how much he should say. ‘Your mother on her way?' he asked, trying to sound unconcerned.

‘I already let him call her,' Maggie assured him, understanding the code of loyalty. ‘When she gets here, send her up. We'll be in Conference Room B on the second floor.'

The desk sergeant looked relieved and I suddenly wished that I had been nicer – much nicer – to him when I was alive. I felt an overwhelming wave of gratitude toward him for looking after my son.

But Maggie did not wait for Connie to arrive to start the interrogation. The moment she seated him in the conference room, she sent Calvano to get Michael a soda and turned to my son. ‘Tell me what you know about your friend,' she asked.

Bitch. That boy is my son.

‘I don't know what you think he's done,' Michael said. ‘But Adam would never hurt anyone else. He takes care of people. He takes care of his grandmother and he's always looking after me. He knows what it's like to . . .' Michael stopped, not wanting to betray any confidences.

‘Sometimes people are much different than how they seem around you,' Maggie said.

Michael was having none of it. ‘Not Adam,' Michael answered firmly. ‘Adam hates all that stuff. He hates guns, he hates violence. He won't even play video games with shooting in them. His mother shot herself. That's why he hates guns so much.'

‘But we have his computer,' Maggie explained, her voice filled with what I could only hope was genuine sympathy. Calvano started to barge in the door and Maggie waved him out again. ‘There are some pretty hardcore sites listed on its browsing history. We're talking snuff films, soldiers of fortune type stuff. You must have known he was into all that stuff.'

‘You're wrong,' Michael said stubbornly. ‘Adam is not like that. He wants to be a writer one day. Just ask our teacher, Mr Phillips. He says Adam has a voice and the talent to share it. All Adam cares about is reading books and writing in his journal and getting out of that house one day. He's applied for a scholarship to a prep school and Mr Phillips thinks he can get in.' Michael's voice broke as he fought back tears.

‘Sometimes we don't know our friends as well as we think,' Maggie said gently.

‘I know Adam,' Michael insisted defiantly. ‘Adam would never do this.'

‘Why would his father lie?' Maggie asked. ‘He says Adam stays up all night playing violent games on the computer, that he's always writing in his notebook about his plans to blow up the school. And you saw what we found in his locker.'

‘I don't know why he'd lie,' Michael said, then added a flash of insight. ‘But he hates Adam because he knows he's not going to end up being a big loser like he is.'

‘Two people called in tips to our hotline,' Maggie explained. ‘They both said that Adam killed Darcy and was going to start shooting at school today because he didn't care what happened to him any more.'

‘That's crazy,' Michael said. ‘That doesn't make any sense at all. It's just not possible. Those people who called were lying. It's probably the people who really did kill Darcy.'

I thought my kid had made a good point. Maggie didn't act like she agreed.

‘One caller was a man and the other was a woman,' Maggie said. ‘Do you know who it might have been?'

Michael shook his head helplessly.

‘Some people think Adam was dealing drugs,' Maggie said. ‘That he was getting them from the orderly at Holloway who got killed, and that maybe the psychiatrist who was killed found out about it. You can see how it all connects, can't you?'

‘Adam does not do drugs,' Michael said fiercely. ‘He doesn't do drugs and he doesn't sell them. If you could hear what he says about the kids who do, you would know I was telling the truth.'

‘How do you explain the guns in Adam's locker?' Maggie asked.

‘I don't know. Maybe someone put them there.' Michael looked around the room frantically, as if the answer was waiting for him in a corner. A thought occurred to him. ‘Adam never goes to his locker until lunchtime. Everyone knows that. Anyone who knows his schedule could've put the guns in his locker during the night.'

‘What about your locker?' Maggie asked. ‘What are we going to find if we open up your locker? Because if you're involved in any way, now's the time to tell me, Michael. I can't help you unless you tell me the truth.'

‘What's going on in here?'

Connie's voice cut through their rapport like a buzz saw. She stood in the doorway and stared at Maggie with fire in her eyes. Even Maggie – my bulletproof, Teflon-coated, unbelievably confident and infinitely capable Maggie – shrank from that look.

What a warrior Connie was. She was magnificent.

Maggie took a moment to regain her composure. ‘Sit down, Connie,' she said, gesturing to the chair next to Michael.

‘Oh, you can call me
Mrs Fahey
,' Connie said. She sat next to Michael, drawing him close, needing to physically protect him.

Calvano had followed Connie sheepishly into the room, holding a can of soda. Maggie sent her own fiery glance his way. It had been his job to warn her Connie was near.

‘OK, then,' Maggie agreed. ‘Michael was just telling me what a good person Adam is.' She leaned toward Michael. ‘What if I were to tell you that I believe you about Adam?'

Connie looked suspicious and Calvano was visibly startled.

‘If I were to convince you that I believe you, that your friend Adam is innocent, would you talk to us a little bit more about his life? About back when Darcy Swan was his girlfriend?' Maggie asked.

Connie looked even more suspicious at this turn in the questioning, but before she could say anything, Michael spoke up. ‘Why does that matter now?' he asked. ‘It was like, I don't know, a whole year ago or something.'

‘I want to know why Darcy Swan broke up with Adam,' Maggie said, then immediately corrected herself. ‘I want to know why
you
think they broke up.'

Michael shifted uncomfortably, but Connie, who had never been a fool – with the sole exception of the day she married me – understood what Maggie was getting to. ‘Answer her,' she ordered our son.

Michael looked up at his mother, unwilling to speak.

‘Christopher Michael Fahey,' she warned him. ‘Tell the detective what you think happened. Because, at this point, I want to know myself.'

Michael looked miserable and ashamed, though none of this was his fault. ‘I think she was creeped out by Adam's father,' he mumbled. ‘Darcy tried to tell Adam that his dad made her uncomfortable, that he was always looking at her or making comments. But Adam doesn't think that way, you know? He didn't even know what she was talking about. He respected Darcy. I don't think he realized how other guys saw her. She was pretty hot, but I don't mean that in a disrespectful way.' He looked at his mother nervously. It had not been that long since she had stopped slapping him up side of the head as a way to correct his adolescent boy attitude.

‘It's OK,' Connie assured him. She exchanged a glance with Maggie. ‘Did she talk about anything specific happening?'

Michael shifted uncomfortably.

‘Tell her,' Connie ordered him.

‘There was this one time when she said something about Adam's dad grabbing her when she got there before Adam was home from school. She left and Adam got mad at her for not showing up. She was just trying to explain that she had been there but had to leave and why.'

‘Why didn't she tell her mother what was going on?' Maggie asked. ‘Or did she?'

Michael sounded angry when he answered. ‘Darcy's mother wouldn't have cared. She thought men making creepy comments was a good thing. I've even seen her flirt with Adam's father, which shows you how desperate she was for a boyfriend.'

Connie looked disgusted at the thought of anyone flirting with Eugene Mullins. So did Calvano.

‘Do you think her mother could have had anything to do with her death?' Maggie asked.

Michael looked confused. ‘No,' he stammered. ‘I mean, she was really selfish and she drank too much, but I don't think she'd ever have hurt Darcy.' He looked up at his mother, not wanting to believe that such a thing was even possible. ‘Besides, she depended on Darcy for money. She'd want that money to keep coming in, right?'

‘You can't really think that,' Connie said to Maggie. ‘Please tell me you're not serious.'

Calvano had said nothing so far, but he looked as if he agreed with Connie on this one.

‘I don't know what to think,' Maggie admitted. ‘I've been trying to get in touch with her for the past four days and she's not returning my phone calls.'